Speaker 1: What's up. It's Granger Smith. This is the Granger Smith Podcast,
Speaker 1: Episode ten. I love making these and I'm glad that
Speaker 1: you care enough to listen. In a world of crazy
Speaker 1: fast social media post sometimes we all just need to
Speaker 1: hear the whole story. I'm in North Carolina today, Charlotte,
Speaker 1: and it has been crazy as it always is. But
Speaker 1: we came from yesterday. We came from let me think
Speaker 1: about it, San Jose, California, all the way across the US,
Speaker 1: and we have been all over Canada. We've been all
Speaker 1: over California and Oregon and that's only been in the
Speaker 1: last twenty days. So if I haven't done a podcast
Speaker 1: in a little bit, I have a pretty good excuse.
Speaker 1: And I promise I need to do them more because
Speaker 1: it's like therapy for me. And like I said, it's
Speaker 1: sometimes you need to hear the whole story. And I
Speaker 1: have a lot of stories. Hopefully there's a lot of
Speaker 1: you that want to hear them now. Last episode, I
Speaker 1: was talking about the year two thousand and seven. I
Speaker 1: have just written a song called we Bleed Maroon that
Speaker 1: changed everything for me because it gave me this regional
Speaker 1: hit that gave me kind of a Catapult and I
Speaker 1: didn't know it yet, but two thousand and seven was
Speaker 1: about to go out with a huge bang. If you
Speaker 1: want to talk about this podcast on social media, just
Speaker 1: hashtag Granger Smith podcast. That way I could search it
Speaker 1: and answer any questions you have, kind of keep a
Speaker 1: pulse on what you're digging. So I've got Twitter up
Speaker 1: right here, and I searched hashtag Granger Smith podcast and
Speaker 1: I found a question from Jesse and Kara, and this
Speaker 1: is an interesting question. I want to read it because
Speaker 1: it says who determines and or how does your next
Speaker 1: number one song get chosen? Do you, as the artist
Speaker 1: get to pick hashtag gyee nation? So obviously this process
Speaker 1: is different for every artist. Every musician has a different situation,
Speaker 1: different people that they work with. So I can only
Speaker 1: speak for myself, but the short answer is yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: it is me that decides the next single. Now, the
Speaker 1: deeper question is you might be wondering what is a
Speaker 1: single like you see it. You see a song on
Speaker 1: iTunes and it goes up the chart on iTunes, you
Speaker 1: see it on CMT Countdown, and you hear it on
Speaker 1: your local radio station. So that is a song that
Speaker 1: the artist and the people around him have chosen. They
Speaker 1: pick one, and the reason they pick one is because
Speaker 1: you could put all your strength into one song typically right,
Speaker 1: Because if Portland, Maine was playing their favorite song off
Speaker 1: your album, and Albuquerque, New Mexico was playing their favorite
Speaker 1: song and so on and so on, you would you
Speaker 1: wouldn't get a collective force going anywhere on any of
Speaker 1: your songs. So the way we saw that is we
Speaker 1: pick the song and then we'd send it to radio
Speaker 1: and we go, this is our single. I hope you
Speaker 1: love it. I hope you play it. Then it's up
Speaker 1: to them if they actually do play it. Does that
Speaker 1: make sense? That's the short answer. And to be clear,
Speaker 1: I decide the single, but I put trust in the
Speaker 1: people around me, and so we have big discussions and
Speaker 1: we talk about it, and I take all the input
Speaker 1: from all the people that know a lot about this,
Speaker 1: that have done this for a long time, and I
Speaker 1: put trust in them. I've built a team around me
Speaker 1: of people that I trust. But ultimately it's my gut feeling.
Speaker 1: So I'll collect that data, but I'm gonna go with
Speaker 1: my gut. The reason I'm talking about this and the
Speaker 1: reason I think this is an interesting question for me
Speaker 1: right now is because I'm currently in the process of
Speaker 1: launching a brand new single. Here's a front door swing
Speaker 1: at Jamma's house and a little stream up in the mountains,
Speaker 1: a shot gun set and an ocean breeze. There's a
Speaker 1: fairest wheel just spending around midnight moon I shining down,
Speaker 1: a red sunset and a cotton dress. You read it
Speaker 1: every single good time. We're in a press rey ride
Speaker 1: in my mind, jamp you read it every thought of
Speaker 1: what could be. All I see is you in me
Speaker 1: not reading everything. I don't know what the future holds.
Speaker 1: All I know is girl, You're You're in. It is
Speaker 1: the next single. And this is exciting for me because
Speaker 1: one of the one reasons I pick this song is
Speaker 1: it feels so good on stage. It translates so well
Speaker 1: in our live show, and that's a big deal. And
Speaker 1: that's not always the reason you pick a single, but
Speaker 1: anytime you're going into summertime and you have something that's
Speaker 1: just a good country story in my opinion, that has
Speaker 1: a really good beat, and it translates no matter if
Speaker 1: you know the song or not. If you're in the
Speaker 1: audience and we play that song, it just feels good.
Speaker 1: At least I think so. At least that's my opinion.
Speaker 1: So going into the summer twenty eighteen, will be planning
Speaker 1: music videos and different promotions to go along with it,
Speaker 1: and I think it's it's gonna be really exciting. I
Speaker 1: can't wait to see what this does at country radio.
Speaker 1: It's always exciting. It's always the challenge. And isn't that
Speaker 1: what life is all about? You know, not knowing, not
Speaker 1: knowing the result. You could set out with your aspirations
Speaker 1: and you could make your goals and you could have
Speaker 1: a plan, but the fact that you don't know what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen. You don't know everything's going to completely flop,
Speaker 1: or if everything is going to line up and you're
Speaker 1: going to have another number one song. You just don't know.
Speaker 1: And because of that, I think that's so much of
Speaker 1: what drives me, the risk of failure. Can I recite
Speaker 1: to you one of my favorite quotes Theodore Roosevelt. He said,
Speaker 1: far better is it to dare mighty things, to win
Speaker 1: glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank
Speaker 1: with those poor spirits who neither enjoyed nor suffer much
Speaker 1: because they live in a gray twilight that knows not
Speaker 1: victory nor defeat. That means so much to me. I
Speaker 1: have a tattooed on my left arm says dear Mighty Things.
Speaker 1: So with launching the brand new single You're in It,
Speaker 1: I think it's only appropriate on this podcast to kind
Speaker 1: of look back at my singles that I've had, and
Speaker 1: most of you probably couldn't guess if I told you
Speaker 1: right now that You're in It is my eighteenth radio single.
Speaker 1: Now that's only my fourth national radio single. So if
Speaker 1: you go back too far, you have to be from
Speaker 1: Texas and Oklahoma to hear it on regional radio. But
Speaker 1: I can name them. I can go backwards. You're in
Speaker 1: It happens like that if the boot fits backroad song,
Speaker 1: bury me in blue jeans, if money didn't matter, silver oda,
Speaker 1: bench seat, miles and mud tires, we do it in
Speaker 1: a field. I'm wearing black, sleeping on the interstate letters
Speaker 1: to London five more minutes. I almost am superstitious. Seventeen
Speaker 1: Gypsy Rain, don't listen to the radio. And my very
Speaker 1: first single, exactly ten years ago summer two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: was Colorblind. I want to be color blind, and I
Speaker 1: would never think about your soft green eyes, sweedln here
Speaker 1: would never cross my mind. The beano black gown you
Speaker 1: slillp into and night. Maybe I'd forget about your round
Speaker 1: skin and stop dreaming about the taste to sounding I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be heard now and listen you. I would know
Speaker 1: a single thing bound you. The Colorblind peaked at number
Speaker 1: nine on the Texas Music Chart, and that was a
Speaker 1: really big deal for a nobody guy like me. Now,
Speaker 1: that time period in my music career, that short period
Speaker 1: right there was critical in my music development. So besides
Speaker 1: releasing my very first radio single, learning about how a
Speaker 1: single works, and how a radio tour works, and how
Speaker 1: I could get my pick up and travel around and
Speaker 1: meet different radio personalities and get to know them so
Speaker 1: that we had a personal relationship, so that if they
Speaker 1: were thinking about playing my song, if they knew me,
Speaker 1: it would be a little bit easier to say, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna play my Buddy Granger as opposed to some kid
Speaker 1: that I have no idea who he is. Now. The
Speaker 1: major thing that happened in two thousand and eight for
Speaker 1: me had to do with my manager. You see, that
Speaker 1: year I left a huge music management firm called Red
Speaker 1: Light Management, and that was difficult because I left what
Speaker 1: was a pretty good thing. You know, they had huge
Speaker 1: power and I was a nobody artist and I was
Speaker 1: lucky to be on that roster. But I left them
Speaker 1: for something much more risky. And it kind of goes
Speaker 1: back to that Teddy Roosevelt quote, dare mighty things, And
Speaker 1: at this time in two thousand and eight, I was
Speaker 1: definitely daring mighty things. If you're new to this podcast,
Speaker 1: I got to tell you that my sponsor is EEE Energy.
Speaker 1: Now that's not some big corporate sponsor. That's actually my
Speaker 1: energy drink that me and my brother's made. Now I'm
Speaker 1: very biased because we chose the recipe and we were
Speaker 1: hands on and making the cans and the boxes and
Speaker 1: all the way that it's marketed. It's all done right
Speaker 1: out of our farm in Central Texas. Now you can
Speaker 1: get it on Amazon Prime, grangersmith dot com. You could
Speaker 1: also get it on tour, which is the coolest place
Speaker 1: to get it because you could watch my show and
Speaker 1: drink ee Energy In most places we play sell it
Speaker 1: right there at the bar. It's perfect. Now to find
Speaker 1: me on tour, go to Grangersmith dot com, Forward Slash
Speaker 1: Tour We're going everywhere this year, fifty States, Canada, Australia,
Speaker 1: and through all of those shows you could actually get
Speaker 1: a vat pass where you could meet me. Now, that's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite things about touring is getting to
Speaker 1: know the fans that are coming to the show. So
Speaker 1: go to grangersmith dot com. Grab you some merch, grab
Speaker 1: you some tickets, grab you some EEE energy, and I'll
Speaker 1: see you down the road. I want to call my
Speaker 1: brother Tyler on the phone here. Please enjoy this Verizon
Speaker 1: ringback Joon while your party is reached. Hey, what's up?
Speaker 1: What's going on? Govin? What's up with you? You busy?
Speaker 1: Right now? All right now? I'm looking at what chicken
Speaker 1: rest I'm going to get at the grocery store. I'm
Speaker 1: making a podcast. Yeah, you're actually on it right now
Speaker 1: or I'm recording. I'm talking about two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: and the biggest thing that happened in two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight was when you became my manager. I mean that's
Speaker 1: when everything happened right pretty much for whatever the reason,
Speaker 1: but you were behind it and so color Blind, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, it's been ten years since we released
Speaker 1: color Blind. The summer of two thousand and eight. It's
Speaker 1: cool to be talking about a new single and you're
Speaker 1: in it as number eighteen since Colorblind. But this all
Speaker 1: started when you became my manager and I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about eighteen. Sorry, that's hilarious, like George Strait over there,
Speaker 1: eighteen singles. Yeah, I mean I could tell the story,
Speaker 1: but it's better if you tell it. What were you
Speaker 1: doing and why did you decide to manage me when
Speaker 1: there was really no money to be made at all?
Speaker 1: I wasn't really getting paid and you know, even to
Speaker 1: this day, I'm blessed to be able to pay the bills.
Speaker 1: But it's this you make more than me right now. No,
Speaker 1: that's not what I'm saying. Is it's great, it's fun,
Speaker 1: but it's not about the money. Yeah, I know, I
Speaker 1: know never has anything you do. You know, it's never
Speaker 1: been things obviously have changed. I don't know if I
Speaker 1: should be talking like to you, obviously to them since
Speaker 1: you know all this, right, how does that work? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Just talk to me, but just like you're doing, tell
Speaker 1: the story. I was working at Compass Bank, uh, doing
Speaker 1: underwriting loans for commercial real estate, so that's what I
Speaker 1: thought I was gonna do. You kind of had your
Speaker 1: own music thing going, and I was trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what I wanted to do. I just got done
Speaker 1: playing football, wanted to go to the NFL. That didn't happen,
Speaker 1: So I was trying to figure everything out. And pretty
Speaker 1: much from day one at the bank, I absolutely hated it.
Speaker 1: And so I literally talk to Dad and I said,
Speaker 1: WI should I do? And he said, basically, give them
Speaker 1: a year. You committed to it. You got to be loyal.
Speaker 1: So during that time, you know, I have my little cubicle.
Speaker 1: You know, each time my boss would walk by, I
Speaker 1: would change screens real quick because for the most part,
Speaker 1: I was on MySpace working on your stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: getting it together, and I think I was. I was
Speaker 1: booking you know when I could. But basically it got
Speaker 1: to the point, you know, when I realized what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do, when I realized that you were with
Speaker 1: a huge management company. You you know, you had good
Speaker 1: people on your team, but nobody was doing anything for you.
Speaker 1: And you know, I basically said, screw this. I'm going
Speaker 1: to jump in full time with music. I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: sell your merch, I'm going to book you. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tour manage you. I'll drive the van and
Speaker 1: they basically manage everything from top to bottom. And so
Speaker 1: that's what I did. When I turned to my two weeks,
Speaker 1: it was like I never sent music business and has
Speaker 1: been ever since then. So the thing that happened around
Speaker 1: that time that changed everything besides booking, because you were
Speaker 1: booking shows and you're booking a lot of shows for
Speaker 1: the first time ever. I was playing Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturdays. Dude,
Speaker 1: speaking of I found the Holy Grail. I was moving yesterday,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, and I've been looking for years from
Speaker 1: my booking bible that I had. It was a little
Speaker 1: spiral notebook that had all my notes. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I found it, dude, and it has like this guy answered,
Speaker 1: This guy didn't. He told him to call back at
Speaker 1: five pm on Tuesday. This guy doesn't want to give
Speaker 1: us any money, but he said, if we can come
Speaker 1: play for free and so merch and then like all
Speaker 1: the guarantees were like five hundred bucks. Anyway, it's awesome. Wow,
Speaker 1: you should frame some of the best ones in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you were booking a lot of those shows. But we
Speaker 1: were going to those shows and no one, there was
Speaker 1: no crowd. Yeah, so we were playing a ton but
Speaker 1: no one was coming. So that's when I think we
Speaker 1: kind of had this idea that we could either work
Speaker 1: our asses off touring like this and it would take
Speaker 1: twenty years to build any any or we could start
Speaker 1: working on videos and trying to get some viral videos
Speaker 1: on social media that people could share. And we realized
Speaker 1: we could reach thousands and thousands of people compared to
Speaker 1: forty five people on a Saturday night in a dance hall.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of where the video ideas started. You know,
Speaker 1: you're right, and we did realize that we're spinning our wheels.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, we were forming relationships, and
Speaker 1: you know, I would go talk to the owner and
Speaker 1: nobody would show up, but I'd go become best buddies
Speaker 1: with him and he'd be like, you know, you didn't
Speaker 1: when I call back, you know, he'd be like, I
Speaker 1: know you don't bring anybody, but I like Tyler, you know,
Speaker 1: and you know, the guarantee might be three hundred bucks
Speaker 1: instead of six hundred, but he'd give me a Saturday
Speaker 1: night and we'd go hustle and so merch and yeah,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't trade those days for anything. It was. It
Speaker 1: was a huge part of my learning for sure. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know there was before that I hadn't really done
Speaker 1: consecutive tour dates where you actually go out of town
Speaker 1: and stay in a hotel and get up, you know,
Speaker 1: like there's rats in the hotel room and you go
Speaker 1: out and your trailer tire's blown and you got to
Speaker 1: find a new tire and some no no man's land town.
Speaker 1: And it was a huge part of learning for both
Speaker 1: of us. Yeah, And that's where contracts came from, remember,
Speaker 1: because we would show up sometimes and if we didn't
Speaker 1: have a signed contract, then they wouldn't even know we're
Speaker 1: playing sometimes and so we had to learn how to
Speaker 1: advance shows and get get signatures or if there was
Speaker 1: a problem in the contract that say we need to
Speaker 1: go talk to this person. I'm be like, dude, I
Speaker 1: wrote the contract. You're talking to him. It's changing right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: remember Arizona, you and me were having that argument with
Speaker 1: him but changing something on the contract, and he's like,
Speaker 1: I got to take this back to Tyler, And I
Speaker 1: was like, I am Tyler. I wrote the contract. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, yep, all right, I guess that's all I
Speaker 1: got for this podcast. Okay, cool, sounds good, all right,
Speaker 1: all right? So I took a huge risk and I
Speaker 1: left a big management company and I went with my brother,
Speaker 1: And there was a stigma that went with that, where,
Speaker 1: you know, it was like people looked at me like
Speaker 1: I was failing, like oh, you're got your brother, or
Speaker 1: people would say who's your management and I would say,
Speaker 1: you know, TS management and they would say I've never
Speaker 1: heard of it, and I'll say, well, it's my brother.
Speaker 1: And then instantly they would feel like I was a
Speaker 1: nobody because I had my brother as a manager. But
Speaker 1: then over years people realized the dude's actually one of
Speaker 1: the best in the business. And uh, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: better because of it, because who better can you trust
Speaker 1: as an artist than your brother When he's out there
Speaker 1: fighting for you and he's out there trying to do
Speaker 1: the best things for your career and your name. Who
Speaker 1: better to trust than your brother. Now we've had our
Speaker 1: fights over the years, no doubt we've had We've had
Speaker 1: some brawls on the road, but it has been so
Speaker 1: worth it, and it was the best career move I've
Speaker 1: ever made. I just got a text from my wife
Speaker 1: and she just opened up a fan letter of mine
Speaker 1: at home, and I should read it to you. It says,
Speaker 1: dear Granger Smith. Hi, my name is Emily and I'm
Speaker 1: in the fourth grade. I love your music so much.
Speaker 1: My dad and my mom have been divorced since I
Speaker 1: was one years old. I usually listen to your music
Speaker 1: just to clear my head. I almost know all the
Speaker 1: words to all of your songs on the Remington album.
Speaker 1: Every day I listen to your music, and I go
Speaker 1: to sleep listening to your songs. I love you and
Speaker 1: keep on writing awesome, amazing and spectacular music. Love Emily,
Speaker 1: your biggest fan. Man. That's something. Those are Those are
Speaker 1: the things I need to hear. Those are the things
Speaker 1: that remind me that we're doing something right, that people
Speaker 1: are listening, and that it matters. So thank you, Emily.
Speaker 1: Your letter means more to me than you know. We've
Speaker 1: been lost in streets and me on and concrete creep
Speaker 1: then and somewhere up there is a sky full of stars,
Speaker 1: but we can't see how easy enough, let's pack up
Speaker 1: in point this truck. So around this time, I have
Speaker 1: a new manager. We're making videos like crazy, putting out
Speaker 1: all kinds of content, and something else really happened, though,
Speaker 1: that changed me and changed the course of what I
Speaker 1: would be doing in music forever. See. I went to Texas,
Speaker 1: A and M and I was in the Core Cadet stre.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of buddies that went into the military,
Speaker 1: and they went overseas, and I felt guilty that they're
Speaker 1: overseas on deployment, ensuring the freedom that guys like me
Speaker 1: get to enjoy and pick a dream like music for
Speaker 1: a living. And I'm not going to lie, it bothered me.
Speaker 1: I felt very blessed. I'm very lucky to have fun
Speaker 1: and go to bars and play music. And my buddies
Speaker 1: were in the desert going through hell, and so I
Speaker 1: made it a mission to do everything I could to
Speaker 1: go over there and to play music and to bring
Speaker 1: a little piece of home to them, to my buddies,
Speaker 1: but ultimately to everyone deployed. And people ask me, how
Speaker 1: did you get those entertainment tours in Iraq? I don't know, really.
Speaker 1: The honest answer is I emailed every single person I
Speaker 1: knew in the military and I said, my name is
Speaker 1: Granger Smith. I'm a musician. I want to go to
Speaker 1: ira I want to play music for the troops. Do
Speaker 1: you know anybody, and most of the time nobody replied,
Speaker 1: and I think sometimes people forward it to a commanding officer,
Speaker 1: And eventually one day I got a call from a
Speaker 1: military entertainment company and they said, do you want to
Speaker 1: go to Iraq? And I said, my bags are freaking packed.
Speaker 1: There's a flag that I fly in my yard. I
Speaker 1: know the price paid for those stars. It's a flag
Speaker 1: made a fly high and the wig. Yes, the that's
Speaker 1: what I do with it. I've been along and afraid,
Speaker 1: I've seen the dog. I've made it through. Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: better for my scars last the wheel at it fall.
Speaker 1: I want to know how to supply for a chance
Speaker 1: to swing for the fence. So when the fitch jumps
Speaker 1: going in, that's what I do with it. I ended
Speaker 1: up taking three tours to Iraq, and all three times
Speaker 1: I was just I could not believe that music got
Speaker 1: me there, first of all, but my intention was to
Speaker 1: go bring a little piece of home to these men
Speaker 1: and women, and I had no idea how much I
Speaker 1: was going to get in return. It gave me such perspective,
Speaker 1: not only that music is a gift that I'm responsible
Speaker 1: for sharing, but how precious life is and how valuable
Speaker 1: freedom is and how blessed we really are to have it.
Speaker 1: Each tour was about two weeks long, and every day
Speaker 1: we would travel to a new location, a new forward
Speaker 1: operating base. We would play two of these a day,
Speaker 1: traveling by helicopter. And it was my choice to play
Speaker 1: the smaller fops, the places that are farther out there,
Speaker 1: the places that don't see the Dallas Cavloy cheerleaders you know,
Speaker 1: every six months, The places that have never seen entertainment,
Speaker 1: the places that don't have running water, have toilets, you know.
Speaker 1: The best food that they have is cold ham sandwiches
Speaker 1: out of a cooler. Those are the places we wanted
Speaker 1: to play. And those are the places where a little
Speaker 1: strip of concrete was the stage and the bleachers were
Speaker 1: a tank, and they would climb up on the tank
Speaker 1: to get a good vantage point. No one knew my songs,
Speaker 1: no one knew who I was. It didn't matter. They
Speaker 1: just wanted to hear some American music. And I learned
Speaker 1: then that music can transport you three minutes at a
Speaker 1: time to another place. You could forget everything, and that
Speaker 1: was a valuable lesson for me. Now, for the record,
Speaker 1: I did see some of my buddies from college, and
Speaker 1: we still joke to this day that I'm the best
Speaker 1: friends they have because I was the only friend that
Speaker 1: actually traveled to go say hi to them. When people
Speaker 1: ask me, what's the craziest show you've ever played, it's
Speaker 1: always those shows. Before the shows, we would have to
Speaker 1: find out the bomb shelter was, which is usually some
Speaker 1: concrete blocks because you never know what's gonna happen. You
Speaker 1: can get incoming fire on the small base and we
Speaker 1: would have to go and hit the ground and take cover,
Speaker 1: and then the quick response team would have to take
Speaker 1: off and go do their job. We had helicopter rides
Speaker 1: that we got engaged by the enemy and we had
Speaker 1: to take evasive maneuvers to get away from that. It
Speaker 1: was a constant adrenaline rush. It's something I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: I count the days so I get to return to
Speaker 1: Iraq or Afghanistan because those have been the most meaningful
Speaker 1: times for me in music, hands down period. When I
Speaker 1: got back, I felt like there was more to be done.
Speaker 1: I felt like I had seen and learned so much
Speaker 1: of it there, but I wanted to share that with
Speaker 1: civilians back home, and so that's when I started my
Speaker 1: one hundred mile walk, and I would walk one hundred
Speaker 1: miles from South Austin to Fort Hood over the course
Speaker 1: of five days in combat boots to raise money and
Speaker 1: morale and patriotism for those soldiers turning home, because we
Speaker 1: can never forget that we're still a country at war
Speaker 1: to this day, and most of us are so busy
Speaker 1: with our lives that we forget that the freedom we're using,
Speaker 1: that we get the privilege of using, is being currently
Speaker 1: paid for by men and women who volunteer for that right.
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. So if you're wondering right now what happened
Speaker 1: to the one hundred mile walk, I did it four
Speaker 1: years in a row. But I've got a big surprise
Speaker 1: something that I'm so proud of that I've been working on,
Speaker 1: that we've been working on for over a year and
Speaker 1: a half. Now. I can't say it yet, I can't
Speaker 1: tell you what it is, but there's something coming soon
Speaker 1: that I'm very proud of, and I can't wait to
Speaker 1: share that passion with everyone. It's almost time for me
Speaker 1: to go into soundcheck here in Charlotte, and that's almost
Speaker 1: the entire year of two thousand and eight, which was crazy.
Speaker 1: It was a very important year for me. My brother
Speaker 1: Tyler and I. We found on eBay a van, a
Speaker 1: fifteen passion or van that we desperately needed to replace
Speaker 1: my suburban, and so we flew up to New Jersey
Speaker 1: from this shady, shady dealer and we bought this van
Speaker 1: for ten thousand dollars and we drove it back and
Speaker 1: everything was great. I actually named it Blackhawk because naturally
Speaker 1: I was obsessed with the Army Blackhawk helicopters we had
Speaker 1: been writing in, and to me, that was the ultimate transportation.
Speaker 1: You know. The one thing I didn't mention is while
Speaker 1: all this is going on, I was currently writing and
Speaker 1: recording a brand new album, the album that would become
Speaker 1: Don't Listen to the Radio, arguably the most important album
Speaker 1: of my career ever, because it was that first single,
Speaker 1: that first song that I met my wife Amber in
Speaker 1: the music video. And that's a crazy story and it's
Speaker 1: probably going to need its own podcast. There's many more
Speaker 1: stories to count. Thank y'all so much for listening out
Speaker 1: of the scat you last. Yeah, when it happens like that,
Speaker 1: nothing to youse turns right into you. Julie or you
Speaker 1: can do just to keep her around until the moon
Speaker 1: goes down in her back into your house. One thing
Speaker 1: we do another you love at each other. When looking,
Speaker 1: you never look back. It happens like that. This podcast
Speaker 1: is brought to you by EE Energy. Come find us
Speaker 1: on tour grangersmith dot com, Forward Slash Tour, See you
Speaker 1: down the road.