Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Part one of the Top Eight
Speaker 1: Bobby Cast. I am your host for this episode. I
Speaker 1: am Mike d producer of the Bobby Cast, and we
Speaker 1: have selected the best interviews that we did this year.
Speaker 1: Bobby and I came up with a list of our favorites.
Speaker 1: We took a look at the most downloaded episodes of
Speaker 1: the year, and we also asked you on Twitter and
Speaker 1: Instagram what you thought were the best episodes. Took all
Speaker 1: that and made two special episodes that we're going to
Speaker 1: share with you this week and next week. If we
Speaker 1: don't follow us online, we are at the Bobby Cast
Speaker 1: on Twitter and Instagram, So I'll be your host this
Speaker 1: week and next week. We took clips of the best
Speaker 1: eight interviews from the entire year, and I'll give you
Speaker 1: some behind the scenes from some of these interviews. As producer,
Speaker 1: my job is to book the guests, research the guests,
Speaker 1: pull up all the audio clips you here within these episodes,
Speaker 1: and then I'm in the room with Bobby while we
Speaker 1: do these interviews. So I'll give you a look into
Speaker 1: that process behind each of these interviews. And if you're
Speaker 1: not subscribed to the Bobby Cast, wherever you're listening to
Speaker 1: this right now, hit that followed button, hit that. Subscribe
Speaker 1: to be sure you get brand new episodes starting in
Speaker 1: two And if you're looking for something completely different to
Speaker 1: listen to, I also do a podcast on my own
Speaker 1: called Movie Mix Movie Podcast. If you're looking for movie recommendations.
Speaker 1: I do spoiler free movie reviews, and I also interview
Speaker 1: actors and directors and talk all things movies every single week.
Speaker 1: So that's another podcast I hope you check out. But
Speaker 1: here we go. Let's get into the top eight Bobby
Speaker 1: Cast interviews. We'll start right now with number eight with
Speaker 1: Actuley McBride. Now, this was the first time Bobby and
Speaker 1: I had ever met Ashley McBride, and you actually here
Speaker 1: in this full interview, the moment she walks into the
Speaker 1: room is the first time we ever met her. So
Speaker 1: I thought that was kind of a cool moment to capture.
Speaker 1: And another part of my job is to produce her
Speaker 1: on this show. I coordinate with them getting over to
Speaker 1: Bobby's house and then I go meet them out front.
Speaker 1: And this is only hard for me because I am
Speaker 1: terrible at small talk. So I kind of have this
Speaker 1: routine in my head that I go through with each guest,
Speaker 1: so I have things to say as we walk all
Speaker 1: the way back to the studio. So here we go
Speaker 1: with number eight. Come on, guys, I'm gonna put this
Speaker 1: monster in some airplane mode. Mom loves to call when
Speaker 1: I'm doing something. It's like a an innate sense that
Speaker 1: she should call you right when something. I wonder what
Speaker 1: actually is doing. How often do you talk to your mom? Um?
Speaker 1: Not quite as often right now, but it's usually I
Speaker 1: don't know, every couple of days, yeah, or anytime I
Speaker 1: try to cook something. And is that often? If I
Speaker 1: are you a good cook? I'm not bad. I think
Speaker 1: what I'm really interested is people who do something really wonderfully,
Speaker 1: like you as an artist songwriter, but also are you
Speaker 1: what else are you good at? And does that translate
Speaker 1: like your drive for being an artist and to anything
Speaker 1: else in your life that that that same drive that
Speaker 1: I think then drive pops up in um handywork. Really Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would like to fix stuff myself, and when it's
Speaker 1: too much for me to tackle, I'm I'm not afraid
Speaker 1: at all to call in for for the rescue party. Um.
Speaker 1: But like I had a problem with my air duct,
Speaker 1: my my brand new house. It just kept flooding, the
Speaker 1: downstairs kept flooding, and then that finally results in an
Speaker 1: air duct getting full of water. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I can fix that. So did you go? Because what
Speaker 1: we have now is the ability to go to YouTube
Speaker 1: for anything, which changes. Before I went to YouTube, though,
Speaker 1: I called so my drummer is also a mechanic and
Speaker 1: an eagle scout and he's awesome. I did not call him.
Speaker 1: I called his father, who taught that that boy had
Speaker 1: to be all of those things. So I called um
Speaker 1: George Hill and I was like, here's what I want
Speaker 1: to do, and he was like, okay, here are the
Speaker 1: steps you need to make sure you take. So I
Speaker 1: did it. It's also funny too that when you're in
Speaker 1: an artistic business um like you are UM in in
Speaker 1: my different worlds that I'm in, your broke a long
Speaker 1: time and you have to figure out how to do
Speaker 1: other things because since you're so broke, you have to
Speaker 1: learn or you just die as you can't do music
Speaker 1: or I can't you know, try to do radio or
Speaker 1: be a comedian because there's no money in it for
Speaker 1: the first forever forever, so you have to fix your
Speaker 1: own crap and cook your own meals and learn to survive,
Speaker 1: and you become a good cook because you get tired
Speaker 1: of eating crappy food, and you kind of acquire all
Speaker 1: of these skills. And then then you get it kind
Speaker 1: of all figured out at once and you think you
Speaker 1: can have a figured out. Then you realize you have
Speaker 1: no idea and you kind of start over again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think it just has to do with your
Speaker 1: ability to be miserable and your tolerance for it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know you're kind of joking, but but it was
Speaker 1: about going, well, this is uncomfortable. But I've all it's
Speaker 1: always been uncomfortable for me, you know, growing up, you know,
Speaker 1: a poverty kid. And I was like, what's the worst
Speaker 1: that can happen? I stay the same, Like, right, so
Speaker 1: let's go. My vacuum broke two days ago, just like
Speaker 1: the little spinny thing stopped being a spinny thing, and
Speaker 1: I thought, I can probably get someone to fix it.
Speaker 1: I can probably just buy another one. But what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do now is take it apart entirely. You really
Speaker 1: did that fix it myself? Because um, you know, before
Speaker 1: I live back here, back back in Nashville, I was
Speaker 1: over in Watertown. There was nobody around to help, and
Speaker 1: growing up we didn't have a lot of money, and
Speaker 1: when something broke, my mother would fix it. My father
Speaker 1: would fix and he can fix anything. But my mom
Speaker 1: is not afraid to take something apart and see how
Speaker 1: it works either. So do you feel like a little
Speaker 1: bit of you does that because you feel like that's
Speaker 1: where you come from? Because I mean, at this point,
Speaker 1: you have plenty of money. I can get another vacuum, right,
Speaker 1: And I struggle with this too sometimes, Like you could
Speaker 1: get a vacuum, You could hire somebody to get a vacuum,
Speaker 1: bring it to you in vacuum your floor. You can do,
Speaker 1: you could you I didn't think about having someone else
Speaker 1: clean my house. And that's but a bit of that.
Speaker 1: I wonder if that is that instilled in you and
Speaker 1: that's what you just do because of where you come
Speaker 1: from and the people that raised you. Yeah. Absolutely, I
Speaker 1: think our first instinct for for people like you and
Speaker 1: I is to roll up our sleeves and figure it
Speaker 1: out for ourselves. And that's cooking or fixing a vacuum cleaner,
Speaker 1: or how do I make a career making stuff up
Speaker 1: and expect to be paid for it? And that's where
Speaker 1: it comes back over to I mean, that's it. You
Speaker 1: had to go. I mean, listen, you you played what
Speaker 1: these small biker bars. You know you've been to Cabin,
Speaker 1: Arkansas many times. I mean I know every everywhere that
Speaker 1: your story has gone from Jonesboro, Arkansas stage like that's
Speaker 1: that's my path as well, you know, one way or
Speaker 1: the other. And so you know, when I would know
Speaker 1: your story, but then I would kind of reread your
Speaker 1: story to make sure that I was still kind of
Speaker 1: clued in before I do this, I kind of go
Speaker 1: back over things, and it's just like dang, Like that's
Speaker 1: a that's a different way to go about it as
Speaker 1: someone who wants to be um known as a great
Speaker 1: songwriter and country music artist and a female to go
Speaker 1: into these bars. But there's no other way. That's no
Speaker 1: one told me. Just like you know, I'm left handed,
Speaker 1: but I played guitar right handed and um and but
Speaker 1: no one ever told me that was an option to
Speaker 1: restring it or turn it upside down or learn it
Speaker 1: another way. I just thought this was how things were done.
Speaker 1: So I, you know, would would play some shows and
Speaker 1: like borrow people's equipment to do that and then save
Speaker 1: up and buy those pieces of equipment and run my
Speaker 1: own sound and um, you know, I didn't need like
Speaker 1: a fog machine or anything, but you know how to
Speaker 1: run monitors and how to how to ring out a
Speaker 1: room and all of that. I'm still not a great
Speaker 1: sound engineer, but I had to figure out how to
Speaker 1: do it all and how to fund it all. Talk
Speaker 1: to me about when you first started playing shows live,
Speaker 1: like before you learn how to play guitar. I want
Speaker 1: we'll get to all that early early stuff, but I
Speaker 1: want to know about your live kind of your live
Speaker 1: show experience, like was it out of our or a church,
Speaker 1: or like where do you for the first time go
Speaker 1: and ask for the affection of others? You don't know.
Speaker 1: I didn't play like a lot of talent shows and stuff.
Speaker 1: In fact, I was pretty shy, it terrified. Maybe maybe
Speaker 1: just to make me cry for people to so, you mean,
Speaker 1: like in high school, to pay me any attention, like
Speaker 1: middle school. Um, but I lived in We lived really
Speaker 1: close to Hardy, you know, Mammoth Spring is really close
Speaker 1: to Hardy, Arkansas. And they have like it's like a
Speaker 1: um canoe rentals and antique shops and they had a
Speaker 1: little place in the gazebo where people would play music,
Speaker 1: and I did that and they gave me a hundred
Speaker 1: dollars to stand there and play. Who who gave it?
Speaker 1: The city? Yeah, we're just like go catterwaller out, but
Speaker 1: this gazebo for a couple of hours and just played
Speaker 1: you know, bluegrass songs and stuff and that. So that's
Speaker 1: probably the first time. And when you first started playing,
Speaker 1: do you feel like I'm pretty good at this or
Speaker 1: do you feel like this is something I can do
Speaker 1: while I figure out what I'm good at. I knew
Speaker 1: I just I just wanted to do it, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know yet at that young age if I was
Speaker 1: good enough to do it. Oh man, I was probably
Speaker 1: twelve or thirteen when that happened. I started playing guitar
Speaker 1: when I was nine. But when I was like a
Speaker 1: little little squirt, not any taller than you know, what
Speaker 1: do they say kneehi to a grasshopper? We read a
Speaker 1: blue grass festival and I had a plastic telecaster. Got
Speaker 1: a photo of it and it had like Mickey Mouse
Speaker 1: or Kermit the Frog or something on it, and um,
Speaker 1: this this band called the Tennessee Gentleman was on stage
Speaker 1: and they asked my mom, because I'm glued watching these guys, Um,
Speaker 1: would she like to come and sit on the edge
Speaker 1: of the stage. So I did, and I didn't take
Speaker 1: my little plastic guitar at first. UM. And I sat
Speaker 1: there on the edge of the stage and I watched
Speaker 1: them play, and then the audience erupted, of course, into applause,
Speaker 1: and my mom looked at me and she said, I knew,
Speaker 1: I knew you had it. Then you wanted to be
Speaker 1: on a stage and you wanted people to applaud you.
Speaker 1: Okay of music was played around you as a kid.
Speaker 1: Luckily all kinds um, I mean, like the carpenters love
Speaker 1: and spoonful um. And then also my mom she didn't
Speaker 1: try to shove classical music down our throats at all,
Speaker 1: but she would just kind of have it playing in
Speaker 1: the house. It's sort of so I'm that we would
Speaker 1: ask questions, what is this song, and she was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's on a planet knockm music, Vibe Mozart. There's a
Speaker 1: movie about him, if you'd like to watch it. And
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, yeah, I want to watch a movie
Speaker 1: about the school guy. So luckily all of that was included.
Speaker 1: And then my dad, Um was more like Christofferson that area.
Speaker 1: He really liked those tormented h which version of christoffers, Yeah,
Speaker 1: why me Lord? That version um To this day my favorite,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite songs of all time. My favorite
Speaker 1: Christofferson song is to Beat the Devil? Is that because
Speaker 1: of your dad? Is there a song that was played
Speaker 1: in your house so much that let's eliminate that one?
Speaker 1: But you hear it and it just puts you back,
Speaker 1: like you feel of that, like dang, I remember being Amanda,
Speaker 1: Amanda because we had this UM. I think it was
Speaker 1: supposed to be like a family room, but it's where
Speaker 1: my dad kept There was like a gun safe in there,
Speaker 1: and like guitars and the kids weren't really supposed to
Speaker 1: be in there a whole bunch unless you were going
Speaker 1: to go there and use an instrument. And so that
Speaker 1: is just about half a hallway away from the kitchen
Speaker 1: where my mom is doing dishes, and my dad was
Speaker 1: playing Amanda on the guitar and singing and that high
Speaker 1: part that happens on the end of Uh. My mom
Speaker 1: was singing it in the kitchen and here I am
Speaker 1: kind of walking down the hallway and catching both they're
Speaker 1: singing together. They don't know, he doesn't know that she's
Speaker 1: singing with him, and I'm hearing it and just that song,
Speaker 1: you see what it does. I'm like when I think
Speaker 1: about why not me from the Judd's because my mom
Speaker 1: used to sing that and moms you know that's since
Speaker 1: passed away. But it's that you. I mean, you kind
Speaker 1: of feel how you felt then just for a split second.
Speaker 1: It's like there's also the intro to an Alison Krause record.
Speaker 1: It was Alison Krausing Union Station. It's the one I
Speaker 1: had it on vinyl. She seated like a staircase or
Speaker 1: something with her fiddle in her hand. And I am
Speaker 1: seven ish or nine years old. As soon as I
Speaker 1: hear that guitar riff startup and I get giddy. My
Speaker 1: therapist at one point gave me a book, and I've
Speaker 1: been through a decent amount of therapy UM at this
Speaker 1: point in my life. And that's a superpower. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a tool. It's like Batman's superpower, right, Like Batman had
Speaker 1: much cool stuff and so he was a superhero and
Speaker 1: so I feel like, again, I've accumulated coold tools and
Speaker 1: traits and UM. And she gave me a book that
Speaker 1: talked about music, and you know, the book talked about
Speaker 1: how when you hear something, even when you smell something
Speaker 1: very specific for a split second, in your brain, it
Speaker 1: reacts the exact same way it did when you were
Speaker 1: what at whatever point. So just for a brief moment,
Speaker 1: you get that feeling again, like in your chest of like,
Speaker 1: oh man, that's that that reminds me of being seven
Speaker 1: or nine or thirteen. Yeah, because our brains really don't
Speaker 1: know the difference between an actual experience and the thought
Speaker 1: of that expins I suppose, right, And you know what
Speaker 1: do they call that? It's like our our dumb lizard brain,
Speaker 1: our caveman brain. They just know that that experience is real,
Speaker 1: So that would make sense. It was actually studying the
Speaker 1: three parts of the brain yesterday, which is wild, and
Speaker 1: you know, the bottom part of the brain is like
Speaker 1: the lizard brain. It's they have two modes. They are attacking,
Speaker 1: running or relaxing, you know what those two or they're
Speaker 1: just like there's nothing else right. And I try not
Speaker 1: to live like that, and I really work on trying.
Speaker 1: As I've gotten older, I try not to react as
Speaker 1: much and I try to respond more. I'm trying I'm
Speaker 1: learning because I love my therapist, and I know it
Speaker 1: was like probably trying to put overalls on a cat,
Speaker 1: trying to get me to go to therapy, and finally
Speaker 1: it did, and I was like, this is awesome. I
Speaker 1: was talking yesterday with my therapist not to go down
Speaker 1: a whole therapy train, but I was. He was like,
Speaker 1: when did you know about therapy? I was like, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I'm from the population seven seventy to Arkansas, right that
Speaker 1: we were trying to afford, you know, Hamburger helper for dinner.
Speaker 1: Not you didn't know about mental health. It wasn't It
Speaker 1: wasn't really an option. And everything under the rug is
Speaker 1: an option. Pray about it is an option in which
Speaker 1: that it does work, you know, for for a lot
Speaker 1: of people that simply simply praying about it, but let going,
Speaker 1: like god, um, but also let go and let therapist,
Speaker 1: let go and let yeah. And for me it was insurance.
Speaker 1: I was like, once I even discover what insurance and
Speaker 1: they were like, he was like, oh, that's house. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like, twenty six, I did insurance for the
Speaker 1: first time. So I started going to therapy and talking
Speaker 1: to somebody who and I mean, this is the best
Speaker 1: way possible, didn't give a crap about me. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was so freeing because I know that you know, you
Speaker 1: don't have to hang out with me for three days
Speaker 1: and deal with me. You're just gonna give me your
Speaker 1: unbiased advice based on what I'm saying and your education.
Speaker 1: That's how I feel with them and so but yeah,
Speaker 1: that's been a big tool for me. Um, did you
Speaker 1: do you feel like you've had a whole different set
Speaker 1: of Like I wouldn't. I don't want to sort obstacle.
Speaker 1: But since you've become so popular and famous, like, are
Speaker 1: you finding new struggles with fame with notoriety because I
Speaker 1: would assume someone that comes from where you come from again,
Speaker 1: like with experience, like that's just an eye opening world
Speaker 1: where you're like sometimes I love it, but sometimes I
Speaker 1: really hate it. Well, yeah, when you all you know
Speaker 1: is struggle and I have something to prove. I have
Speaker 1: something to prove. I have something to prove. But I
Speaker 1: still feel that way. So, like you know, when you
Speaker 1: rescue a dog that's spent it's young life really hungry,
Speaker 1: that dog is always in hunger mode, and so I'm
Speaker 1: kind of that way. There's some things that I'm struggling with. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean I live over in East Nashville,
Speaker 1: where nobody cares, right, Um, it's a very cool part
Speaker 1: of it, very cool part of town. Everybody's super cool
Speaker 1: about stuff. And just just recently, as yesterday, I got
Speaker 1: stopped a few times, which I think is great. I've
Speaker 1: worked my whole life for someone to ask for a
Speaker 1: photo with me. But then I thought, oh wow, I'm
Speaker 1: not used to that happening. I don't think um my
Speaker 1: address got leaked on the internet that was super cool
Speaker 1: because I don't live behind a gate, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's like, as as things get better and you
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of your problem, what I have
Speaker 1: learned is that problem is just pivot, and it's all
Speaker 1: and how, and it's all and how you you you
Speaker 1: accept them and realize that everybody's got them and they've
Speaker 1: Like my life has gotten better in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: But also I've had to take on a lot more
Speaker 1: responsibilities and challenges, and I'm very proud of how I worked.
Speaker 1: And the same thing. Sometimes I'm so tired, but I
Speaker 1: have to remind myself, I'm so grateful that I get
Speaker 1: to be tired doing something I love. Right, I don't
Speaker 1: know how you have time to be sitting across from
Speaker 1: me right now. Well everything, I don't have a talent,
Speaker 1: and now you say that, I'm no. I'm gonna swear
Speaker 1: to you. I'd have to hustle as my talent like
Speaker 1: I have nothing. Hut is a talent. I will agree
Speaker 1: with you there. But if you weren't talented, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: live behind the gate, I promise, true. But they're just crazy.
Speaker 1: You're right, I'll let you have that one. I'm not
Speaker 1: even gonna argue that I'll let you have that one.
Speaker 1: Um your talent? When did you start to be told
Speaker 1: that you might be great at singing? I think it
Speaker 1: started with not being told to not sing when I
Speaker 1: wasn't great at singing. I was a little kid. Were
Speaker 1: you a good little kid singing? Orre you a passionate
Speaker 1: little kid singing? I both. I was singing, UM somewhere
Speaker 1: out there from an American tale, and oh yeah, where up?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah? And um somewhere over the Rainbow. And then
Speaker 1: there was a record. Um, there was a Ricky Skaggs
Speaker 1: record that I loved, was like live in London, and
Speaker 1: um a record by the whites. I'm hanging it around,
Speaker 1: just a little kid. Hope then you'll get lonely. Um,
Speaker 1: and mom never told me not to sing. There's six
Speaker 1: of us kids. So there's three boys, and then a girl,
Speaker 1: and then another boy and then me. The boy right
Speaker 1: before me. Daniel used to throw like shoes and stuff
Speaker 1: at me and try to get me to shut up
Speaker 1: when I'm trying to learn to play mandolin, I'm learning
Speaker 1: to play guitar and learning to play bass, and I'm
Speaker 1: singing all the time. And he was the one that
Speaker 1: was like, but he's also he lives really he doesn't
Speaker 1: live far from me at all. And um, he's one
Speaker 1: of my biggest champions, my biggest cheerleaders. Um. My mom
Speaker 1: was on a bowling league, and like I said, I
Speaker 1: was a really shy kid, but I didn't mind singing
Speaker 1: as my way of communicating. Uh, So I would sing.
Speaker 1: I would go to her friends at the bowling alley
Speaker 1: and said, you want to hear me sing something from
Speaker 1: um an American tale? And they were like sure, you know,
Speaker 1: And I'd sing a few things and I'd go get
Speaker 1: back in my chair and color in my coloring book.
Speaker 1: So I think not being necessarily told that I was great,
Speaker 1: but just not being um, not being shamed about it.
Speaker 1: From a really young age. Your dad played music, your
Speaker 1: mom loved music. Did that rub off on any of
Speaker 1: the other kids to where they everybody can sing? Everybody
Speaker 1: can sing. My sister has a beautiful voice. My mother
Speaker 1: has a beautiful voice. And in church, you know, we
Speaker 1: were required to know all of the parts. Alto Tender's
Speaker 1: a brand obays everything. My grandmother used to um, take
Speaker 1: my finger and move it along the page of the
Speaker 1: hymnal to show me what notes we were going to
Speaker 1: be singing, even if it was the base we would
Speaker 1: everybody on on mom's side and Dad's side, everybody can sing. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm the only one that just kind of took off
Speaker 1: with it. I even had one of my brother's skin
Speaker 1: was played guitar in our younger years, and I don't
Speaker 1: know why he stopped. Had a brother that played trumpet.
Speaker 1: My sister played flute. Um, So we are a musical family.
Speaker 1: I'm just the only one that I guess it kind
Speaker 1: of stuck. It's interesting because I'm left handed and I
Speaker 1: played guitar left handed. When I first I went to
Speaker 1: a pawn shop and I was doing comedy, and I thought, okay,
Speaker 1: I don't want to have to steal other people's music
Speaker 1: to do parodies. I want to actually write original comedy stuff.
Speaker 1: So I went to pawn shop for fifty bucks a
Speaker 1: bought a guitar was right handed, and I just switched
Speaker 1: the strings around. But what happened when there's a nut
Speaker 1: in it and it holds different? So I kept busting.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, busting nut. I kept breaking these nuts. Yea,
Speaker 1: these nuts. The strings kept breaking the nuts at the
Speaker 1: bottom of the guitarist. It like fracture, fracturing it. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, yes, I got your back so overpe So
Speaker 1: So it took a long time until I actually got
Speaker 1: a left handed guitar. But I did not take to
Speaker 1: it well. I I music for me has been very difficult.
Speaker 1: I've put a lot of work into, you know, learning
Speaker 1: chords and bar cole words, and for me, very difficult.
Speaker 1: And I can't sing. I can sing just well enough
Speaker 1: to do comedy that people aren't distracted by my bad singing. Boys,
Speaker 1: now I'm pretty funny. You gotta give yourself for credit
Speaker 1: that I don't trust me. Okay, I get enough credit,
Speaker 1: don't with you? Growing up with a family full of music.
Speaker 1: Did you feel like it was kind of intrinsic? I
Speaker 1: love the way it sounded when we all sang in
Speaker 1: church together, but yeah, it just kind of just is
Speaker 1: playing guitar. Love it when you started still assuming you
Speaker 1: got bloody fingers and like everything, but like, do you
Speaker 1: feel like you got it? Well? They wouldn't let me
Speaker 1: play guitar at first because I was too small to
Speaker 1: hold it safely, so they let me bang on a mandolin.
Speaker 1: I remember I was probably in kindergartener first, right, going
Speaker 1: outside of the driveway and rubbing my fingers on the
Speaker 1: concrete because I thought that would help me get Callice's.
Speaker 1: I was tired of my fingers being sore. And then
Speaker 1: when I'm nine years old, my dad takes me to
Speaker 1: a music store and there Missouri, which is just right
Speaker 1: across the line from Mammoth Spring, So up until now,
Speaker 1: I've been playing band then and then I was big
Speaker 1: enough that I could sort of play with my mom's
Speaker 1: Alvarez um but kind of under supervision. But they were
Speaker 1: going to get me a three quarter sized guitar and
Speaker 1: I didn't know, So we went into this music store
Speaker 1: called Fayer Music cleverly named. And Dad hands me this
Speaker 1: little three quarter sized k guitar and he says, see
Speaker 1: if you can play something on that, and then he
Speaker 1: goes and talks to the guy you know. And I
Speaker 1: was sitting there playing like go talent Roadie or something,
Speaker 1: and he walked back into where I was he said,
Speaker 1: can you play it? I showed him when I figured out.
Speaker 1: He said it's time to leave. So I handed the
Speaker 1: guitar back to the guy behind the counter and Dad said, nope,
Speaker 1: that's yours. Take it home. And so I wasn't great.
Speaker 1: Mom tells the story that it was like three days.
Speaker 1: My dad shows me like three chords when we get home,
Speaker 1: and about three days later, I'm bawling in the kitchen
Speaker 1: because I can't play and sing at the same time.
Speaker 1: So I'm learning Snowbird and by n Murray and I'm
Speaker 1: learning Steel Rails by Alison Krausse in Union Station and
Speaker 1: I'm super upset, and Mom said, give it a we
Speaker 1: just just give it a week and see if if
Speaker 1: you feel better about it. So I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think I think there wasn't There weren't a lot of
Speaker 1: distractions growing up on a farm and with access to instruments.
Speaker 1: I think that helps everything kind of click. There's nothing
Speaker 1: else to do. That whole situation. If you upset you
Speaker 1: can't sing and play. That happened me last week the
Speaker 1: same thing. I was like, Okay, I can't sing a play.
Speaker 1: Why can't I do it? There are still certain things
Speaker 1: I can't sing and play. I can't do it. Do
Speaker 1: you ever get um? It's just wild that you started
Speaker 1: on the mandolin. I don't hear of many people that,
Speaker 1: because of their size, just start on the mandolin. Mostly
Speaker 1: people learn a string instrument and they go to the mandolin,
Speaker 1: but not because you're literally hands are so My hands
Speaker 1: were so tiny. Yeah. Do you feel like that was
Speaker 1: a good lead into the guitar? This is really really
Speaker 1: different because it is so I feel like it's a
Speaker 1: bit more advanced. It is more advanced, and I think
Speaker 1: what it did for me is even though it wasn't
Speaker 1: great at mandolin, I'm still terrible UM, but it did
Speaker 1: teach my right hand a lot about rhythm and making
Speaker 1: it hit the strings of wanted to hit. So I
Speaker 1: didn't have to struggle when it came to guitar with
Speaker 1: how do I strum? And what are the patterns. So
Speaker 1: I think that that was probably beneficial, but I was
Speaker 1: just terrible. You guys follow Ashley. She's got her own name,
Speaker 1: which sometimes it is weird. People like, Hi, it's me.
Speaker 1: I'm Clint Black, but only Clint black one on Twitter,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, you couldn't get just get Clint Black.
Speaker 1: Not that that's the exact case, but at Ashley McBride,
Speaker 1: you guys go follow her, um, you know, go check
Speaker 1: out never will maybe if for some reason you've been
Speaker 1: in a cave and you don't know who she is
Speaker 1: and you're like, Okay, this is interesting, go go go
Speaker 1: listen to the music. I think you're one of and
Speaker 1: I mean this is in a complimentary way. You're one
Speaker 1: of the few album artists that that I will invest
Speaker 1: I'm so I need a couple of songs. I'm done,
Speaker 1: But there were there were a few you Casey Old Dominion,
Speaker 1: Brandy's that way. And you know, it's all songwriting. Now
Speaker 1: that I start to say this out loud, it's all.
Speaker 1: It's songwriting more than it is anything else. But you're
Speaker 1: definitely an album artist. And I don't know if that
Speaker 1: means anything that's comment, but but thank you for coming
Speaker 1: and I think we'll wrap it up there. All right,
Speaker 1: There she is Ashley McBride. Moving on to number seven,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get into our conversation with singer songwriter Luke Dick. Now,
Speaker 1: I booked this one personally, and I keep this running
Speaker 1: list of guests in my phone, just people I find
Speaker 1: interesting when it comes to like sometimes in the radio studio,
Speaker 1: people will come in and talk about different songwriters on
Speaker 1: their number one songs, and I'll always keep a list
Speaker 1: of those. And Luke Dick had been on my list
Speaker 1: for quite a while because he's written so many songs
Speaker 1: that I feel like are always a little bit outside
Speaker 1: of the box. I follow him on Instagram. Seemed like
Speaker 1: a very peculiar dude, so I thought getting him in
Speaker 1: a room with Bobby would be a great conversation. I
Speaker 1: actually deemed him on Instagram. He was like, I'm totally down.
Speaker 1: Showed up the next week and we did this episode,
Speaker 1: and I can always tell it's a really good Bobby
Speaker 1: Cast episode. Whenever we get into like twenty minutes and
Speaker 1: haven't addressed any music whatsoever. Bobby and the guests have
Speaker 1: just been kind of talking about things outside of music.
Speaker 1: Those are always the best one. So it happened on
Speaker 1: this episode at number seven. Here's Luke Dick and with
Speaker 1: Luke Dick. You know, I've seen many, uh photos of
Speaker 1: you have friends who have worked with you. It's just
Speaker 1: random for me to have not have met someone until
Speaker 1: this point because you're very established, you know, super well
Speaker 1: thought of guy. And our pets have a crossed have they? Um?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I'm pretty forgettable, though you are
Speaker 1: not a forgettable guy. I'm pretty forgettable. I hide out,
Speaker 1: you know. I just got my little studio and come
Speaker 1: out when I get eat. I eat now and again,
Speaker 1: and then I pick up my kids and then I
Speaker 1: get back to doing whatever it is I'm doing. What
Speaker 1: is your studio like? Um, you know, I bought this
Speaker 1: house right when I moved to Nashville, um, six or
Speaker 1: seven years seven years ago, and there was a garage
Speaker 1: in the back, and uh, it was unfinished, and I
Speaker 1: thought that'd be a great place for just have something
Speaker 1: close to the house away from the house. And so
Speaker 1: then I put these opaque glass doors so I could
Speaker 1: have some light, and put as much of skylights in
Speaker 1: and really dressed it up and made it into a thing.
Speaker 1: And so that's where I am all the time. I'm
Speaker 1: currently looking for another spot. I have too many kids.
Speaker 1: They're beating on the door all the time. So are
Speaker 1: you when you are riding in the shore? I assume
Speaker 1: you do a lot of writing. Yeah, yeah, and you're producing.
Speaker 1: Are you doing more than just demos? Like, will you
Speaker 1: do any like anything for a record in your spot? Yeah? Um,
Speaker 1: I I'm working on the next Miranda Laveryt record right now.
Speaker 1: We're almost done. And um, a lot of this stuff
Speaker 1: were was Um. When I do demos, I don't think
Speaker 1: of them as demos. I just I'm trying to make
Speaker 1: something that I love, and so I put more time
Speaker 1: and effort into it. And so maybe some of that
Speaker 1: stuff makes it onto the record. It may be the
Speaker 1: pre production, um that we just drummed to. Um. There
Speaker 1: was a single for Kip More called the Bowl a
Speaker 1: few years ago that was just straight up out of
Speaker 1: my studio. So I'll do whatever. How did there? I
Speaker 1: was doing a little more research on because my my
Speaker 1: vision and version of you has been the last ten
Speaker 1: years or so. Um. But it seemed like for a
Speaker 1: while you weren't writing country music for a while. Now
Speaker 1: you're back, Like, why why why did you quit? I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say quit. Why did you take a break? And
Speaker 1: what brought you back? Yeah? Um? And um, I'm I
Speaker 1: came to Nashville for a minute and I just didn't
Speaker 1: have any luck. You know, I was trying, I was
Speaker 1: made a record, I was trying to get a deal.
Speaker 1: There are things stacked against me, just logistically in terms
Speaker 1: of being a single dad and stuff like this, and
Speaker 1: so I didn't And also people weren't responding in a way.
Speaker 1: There were outliers you know that had some clouds or
Speaker 1: something that I really love what you do blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. But I was like, this never amounted to anything,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't like people were picking up my songs.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I clear either don't know how to
Speaker 1: do this, I'm not savvy enough or or it's just
Speaker 1: not good enough or something like that. Did you never
Speaker 1: think you're ahead of your time? Uh? That's um, I
Speaker 1: think that like looking back and listening to the record
Speaker 1: that I made, that's what it sounds like to me.
Speaker 1: But I also don't want to be um, um have
Speaker 1: delusions of grandeur or something like that. It's just like
Speaker 1: music is important to me. But it's also just a
Speaker 1: snippet of life and reality, and it's a big part,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a big part. It gives me a
Speaker 1: lot of joy. Um, But I also don't want to
Speaker 1: think in terms like I have a hard time think
Speaker 1: thinking in terms of that that you're ahead of your
Speaker 1: time and that's why it didn't work or whatever. And
Speaker 1: but then whatever whatever is and it didn't work, and
Speaker 1: so I left. And then my current publisher called me
Speaker 1: when I was in New York and um, he said, hey,
Speaker 1: do you have any songs for Dirk Spentley And I'm
Speaker 1: and I just said no, Um. I I mean literally
Speaker 1: everything that I've written has been in falsetto and also
Speaker 1: about the afterlife for some sort of afterlife adventure. I
Speaker 1: mean it's too fantastical and whimsical for Derek's I just
Speaker 1: don't thank you for calling me. Um, but he will
Speaker 1: just look me up if you've ever in town. And
Speaker 1: then one thing led to another in a few years
Speaker 1: went by and we met and um for coffee and
Speaker 1: he's like, you need to come right with me and
Speaker 1: at this company, and um, you need to be writing
Speaker 1: with Eric and you don't need to be doing what
Speaker 1: you think you should be doing. You should be doing
Speaker 1: what you want to do, and hits will fall out
Speaker 1: of that, I promise you, And and he was he
Speaker 1: was right. Um. And so between him and getting in
Speaker 1: the right rooms and having just the opportunity to show
Speaker 1: somebody like Eric Church song or an idea for a song, um,
Speaker 1: that led to a lot of things. And Kip was
Speaker 1: a big proponent early on too. It was like I
Speaker 1: didn't have any hits and he was coming over because
Speaker 1: he liked the sounds coming out of my studio and
Speaker 1: I would we would work on stuff, and I think
Speaker 1: it was the Wild Ones record. I got a couple
Speaker 1: of songs on there, and we just worked. Um. But
Speaker 1: then Eric and then Natalie him Be and I started
Speaker 1: riding together and it was like almost like we fed
Speaker 1: off of each other's creativity, and so we were like
Speaker 1: trying to not one up each other. It was like
Speaker 1: us like pushing each other, like trying to make each
Speaker 1: other like smile or get excited about a song. And
Speaker 1: so we'd bring in an idea or a sound or
Speaker 1: something like that, and that was a real joy. And
Speaker 1: then she would also sing my praises. It was like
Speaker 1: I probably owere a hundred grand and pr fees you
Speaker 1: know around town. Brought Miranda into the room, and that
Speaker 1: became a relationship, UM and it's meant a lot of
Speaker 1: joy and a lot of songs with her, But it
Speaker 1: was that was kind of the beginning of it. It
Speaker 1: was running into a publisher, UM who believed in what
Speaker 1: I did naturally, instead of trying to curb it um
Speaker 1: to meet a market demand or something like that. And
Speaker 1: that's not really where I shine anyway. And I find
Speaker 1: that if I feel like my cat in a corner
Speaker 1: when I'm writing a song, then it's usually not gonna
Speaker 1: be awesome. It's going to be an average kind of
Speaker 1: thing day or whatever. I've talked to Miranda and Cassie Ashton,
Speaker 1: Natalie him Be, those that you mentioned there, and they
Speaker 1: all say the same thing about you is that you know,
Speaker 1: you're very out of the box and with ideas. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's the easy way to describe you to people
Speaker 1: who don't have to write songs. When you started writing
Speaker 1: with Eric, was he already having success or was it
Speaker 1: early on m It was the Mr MS Mr Misunderstood record,
Speaker 1: so he'd had a serious amount of success by the
Speaker 1: time I was writing with him. So you you start
Speaker 1: writing with him, I mean to you as a creative,
Speaker 1: is that intimidating to write with him or is it
Speaker 1: kind of refreshing because he also you know, win a
Speaker 1: different angle at his success. Yeah. I was in New
Speaker 1: York and when I was living there, they somebody showed me,
Speaker 1: UM smoke a little smoke and they said, have you
Speaker 1: heard this? And I listened to him like like, is
Speaker 1: this what they're doing in Nashville now? And UM, it
Speaker 1: gave me how you know that that there could be, um,
Speaker 1: something creatively interesting, sonically interesting. Um, And I feel like people,
Speaker 1: I feel like Jay Joey's kind of paved the way
Speaker 1: sonically for somebody like me to be here. UM. I really,
Speaker 1: UM have a lot of gratitude for what they with
Speaker 1: those two have done together. Um it's no small feat
Speaker 1: to break in with a different sound. And but but
Speaker 1: more point at your question a little bit better. UM,
Speaker 1: there's always a bit of intimidation. It doesn't matter how
Speaker 1: how successful or not commercially successful the artist is coming in.
Speaker 1: So but that was you know, the first chance at
Speaker 1: and at an a list situation, UM, for me to
Speaker 1: prove myself for whatever. Um, But I had sent him
Speaker 1: this idea through my publisher that he loved, and you know,
Speaker 1: there was it was already it was killed a word,
Speaker 1: and there was already an idea happening there. And the
Speaker 1: in the first stands and refrained, and he's like, I
Speaker 1: love this, Let's finish it. And so he came in
Speaker 1: and we finished that, and then it was like it
Speaker 1: took us like an hour to finish the song. And
Speaker 1: then he it was me and him and Jeff Hyde
Speaker 1: who plays in his band too, who's a great writer.
Speaker 1: And then he had the idea for a round here
Speaker 1: buzz and so he kind of had all around here
Speaker 1: buz buzz and so then we just sort of took
Speaker 1: off on that and it just felt natural. Once you
Speaker 1: get into everybody's a human, you know, it's like, there's
Speaker 1: no I don't know, there's no there's different kinds of magic,
Speaker 1: two different human beings, you know, um and different and
Speaker 1: and Eric is definitely somebody with um a special kind
Speaker 1: of charisma and a special kind of UM creative UM
Speaker 1: capacity and and uh intellect to me UM. But as
Speaker 1: a human being or trying to impress another human or
Speaker 1: something like that, it's like, look, you know, we all
Speaker 1: woke up today, we all needed breakfast and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So let's just you try to put stardom or something
Speaker 1: like that out of your head. UM. I tried to
Speaker 1: um and not be UM. I guess motivated or or
Speaker 1: dissuaded or felt feel insecure around UM that kind of
Speaker 1: a status. I'm trying to think if there's somebody that
Speaker 1: would be so star struck that it would be difficult
Speaker 1: to write with. UM. Uh, you know Tom Waits. I
Speaker 1: don't know. UM kind of sound like Tom Waits right
Speaker 1: now when you're talking. I'm Bob Dylan. I guess you know,
Speaker 1: if you had to go write a song with Bob Dylan,
Speaker 1: that would probably be one of the most intimidating things situation. UM.
Speaker 1: I remember this is not an intimidating person. But this
Speaker 1: guy came over and he was an Englishman and he
Speaker 1: had these hits in the eightieses pop rockets, and they
Speaker 1: were really good, good ones. And I kept playing like
Speaker 1: guitar stuff and he's like, uh, he'd look at me
Speaker 1: and go and that's not very inspiring, is it. What
Speaker 1: do you do to that? You know? I'm just like,
Speaker 1: what do you got? And he's like here's a list
Speaker 1: of I'm more of a lyrics guy. Here's a here's
Speaker 1: a list of titles. And the titles were like all
Speaker 1: night long, all night, all of everything, And I'm just
Speaker 1: like kidding me, what is this? Are you? Are you
Speaker 1: a lyric or melody guy at heart? When you start
Speaker 1: to write, I can't separate them really, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: when Natalie, it's different for different rooms. When I get
Speaker 1: around Natalie and I have a medal melody already with
Speaker 1: something and with the phrasing, and she wants to change
Speaker 1: the melody, I usually defer to her because I really
Speaker 1: believe in her abilities to make a melody. Um. There
Speaker 1: are a few other people like that that I When
Speaker 1: they say, man, I think this melody could be better,
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, let's check it, let's scrap it,
Speaker 1: let's see what's up. Um. But it all, I really
Speaker 1: want to marry it all because you can't just send
Speaker 1: somebody the lyrics to a song and expect it to
Speaker 1: speak to them off of a page. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a whole thing happening there. It's like, that's the beauty
Speaker 1: of um music or songs in general, is that there's
Speaker 1: a sound, there's a you know, there's a chord progression,
Speaker 1: there's a lyric, and there's a melody on top of it.
Speaker 1: So it's hard for me to say that I'd be
Speaker 1: one thing. Um, when you write, are you writing based
Speaker 1: on will you just chase lyrics or will you sometimes
Speaker 1: just create a melody and then certain lyrics into it later?
Speaker 1: Both um? Both um. Laura Els does this to me.
Speaker 1: I hope she's listening right now, because when we write,
Speaker 1: I'll be I'll turn around and I'll start try to
Speaker 1: get the track going. You know, it's like, okay, we
Speaker 1: got the first first, let me just put a little
Speaker 1: bass part in here. I'll turn around. The Laura is
Speaker 1: such a prolific lyricist that she'll be done with the
Speaker 1: second first. I'm like, wait a minute, I like this song.
Speaker 1: Can I participate please? He was hold on to you know,
Speaker 1: have a have a story, eat some chips or something,
Speaker 1: and let me do this bass part and contribute. Um.
Speaker 1: But there have been times, um that the melody has
Speaker 1: come first. You know it's like you know, you start
Speaker 1: playing um and something will just spill out of you
Speaker 1: and then you just work around the vowels. The vowels
Speaker 1: might lead you to a phrase or something like that.
Speaker 1: You know. Um, I read the Keith Richard's book and
Speaker 1: he talked about the way that they did that, and
Speaker 1: it's I don't think it's uncommon to do that, um life.
Speaker 1: That's the book from Keith Richards, And he said, I
Speaker 1: think I can't He had a name for it, you know,
Speaker 1: the way that they do it. But it's you know,
Speaker 1: you're just playing a chord and you're owow had and
Speaker 1: so then whatever value sing that feels the most natural,
Speaker 1: you might lean toward a word with that vowel sound
Speaker 1: um and then it and then you have to work
Speaker 1: the concept around the vowel sound or something like that.
Speaker 1: You know. It's a really songwriting is really weird. But um,
Speaker 1: I do find that when I listened to songs and
Speaker 1: I feel like that's a good melody, those are the
Speaker 1: wrong vowel sounds or something. You know, I'm like, I
Speaker 1: can't understand the lyric. It's not the lyrics not sticking
Speaker 1: out to me because the it's all mushed in there
Speaker 1: in a way, and the vowels aren't popping in the
Speaker 1: there's too many words or too many, too not enough words,
Speaker 1: so there's like an economy, and that's all subjective to right.
Speaker 1: It's just like, does that sounds too many? Like too
Speaker 1: many words to me? Um? It doesn't sound like too
Speaker 1: many words to that artist or that person singing it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna compare you as a lyrictist and a songwriter
Speaker 1: to Eminem, which you may have never been compared to.
Speaker 1: But WHOA. When I listened to Eminem, he bends rhymes.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he doesn't rhyme, but still rhymes. And a lot
Speaker 1: of or at least some of your writing. You don't
Speaker 1: even chase a rhyme. There just aren't rhymes where there
Speaker 1: should be where traditionally rhymes are. I shouldn't say should
Speaker 1: be right, Yeah, there aren't rhymes were traditionally rhymes are.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. Is that purposeful on your part to not
Speaker 1: put rhymes there? Or is it just purposeful to put
Speaker 1: those words there and they just don't happen to rhyme?
Speaker 1: I feel like, Um, when you get down to it,
Speaker 1: it's like, especially if you're chasing a lyric, and it's
Speaker 1: like is this lyric working? Is this idea working? You
Speaker 1: just run with it? Um, And then I don't want
Speaker 1: to say it's not intentional. Um, Like the way to say.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not my intention to say every song
Speaker 1: needs to rhyme like this, or let's try some rhymes
Speaker 1: in the middle of this of this phrase is rather
Speaker 1: than at the end of the phrases, which is typical. UM.
Speaker 1: I feel like you just all you're left with in
Speaker 1: any creative endeavor is your own esthetic intuition, and you
Speaker 1: have to go with what moves you. And when any time,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's been a countless artist that come in
Speaker 1: and we end up with a song that I don't
Speaker 1: care about. Um, and that's okay because they were saying, no,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do this because I want to
Speaker 1: do that, and I'm like, well, that does nothing in
Speaker 1: my head, you know, or heart or whatever. I'm like,
Speaker 1: that doesn't do anything for me. But it's your career,
Speaker 1: you know, it's your artistic impulse that you're chasing, So
Speaker 1: chase it then, UM, and I hope that. I hope
Speaker 1: it works if I like you and the demo to
Speaker 1: kill a word yeah, which is you singing, which we
Speaker 1: have it right here, well, like play a little bit
Speaker 1: out of here, I sit down in its place as
Speaker 1: we used to laugh out of disgrace, lay over under
Speaker 1: six cold dirt. Yeah yeah, yeah killer, So that you
Speaker 1: steal that we were at your house last night, so
Speaker 1: much about your studio broken last night? So change the code?
Speaker 1: Is it a How prevalent is it that if you're
Speaker 1: writing with or for, like an Eric, that that person
Speaker 1: doesn't sing the demo? And is that purposeful? So the
Speaker 1: demo doesn't get out with his voice on it. It
Speaker 1: wasn't purposeful. He just said, put your put your vocal on.
Speaker 1: I like what you're doing. I'm out, um, do do
Speaker 1: your thing. I want to hear what you do. Um.
Speaker 1: And then there's sometimes where, especially if it's a female artist,
Speaker 1: where where I'm less inclined to go do a vocal
Speaker 1: on it. Um. And for a couple of reasons. One
Speaker 1: is is shrewd. You know. It's like if they just
Speaker 1: hear a dude on there, then it sounds like a
Speaker 1: dude song, you know. But if you write it with
Speaker 1: the artist whose female, and then another female artist the
Speaker 1: other the other excuse me, the other female writer. If
Speaker 1: the other female writer sings it, it makes more sense
Speaker 1: to me. But I don't like, really if I feel
Speaker 1: like it shoots you in the foot a little bit,
Speaker 1: unless it's somebody like Miranda that we know each other
Speaker 1: well enough to where it's like not like she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this sounds like she can hear through that stuff. I
Speaker 1: trust her to hear through that stuff. But generally, if
Speaker 1: an artist is there, um and especially if it's an
Speaker 1: artist that I don't work with that often I'm gonna
Speaker 1: try to get them to sing it because I want
Speaker 1: to hear what they sound like on it too. If
Speaker 1: I and also see if you face if you did
Speaker 1: okay or you didn't. What I mean by that is
Speaker 1: sometimes you write all these melodies, You write the song
Speaker 1: and somebody sings on it just doesn't sound good, you know.
Speaker 1: And so if you're off the mark in terms of
Speaker 1: a lot of structure or something like that, you'll be
Speaker 1: able to hear it. When they get on the microphone
Speaker 1: it's like they're not really capable of singing that, or
Speaker 1: they were really great at it, or it's kind of
Speaker 1: in the middle. Maybe we shouldn't have gone that high
Speaker 1: and you change the key, those kind of technical decisions
Speaker 1: like that. So it's if it's a if there, if
Speaker 1: we're the only writers in the room, often times I
Speaker 1: get tasked with singing the singing the demo on it,
Speaker 1: and I'm generally I'm happy to do that. It's fun
Speaker 1: to me. It's a creative endeavor, especially if I love
Speaker 1: the song. When Bluebird comes out and it's a massive
Speaker 1: radio success, and I think it was the first massive
Speaker 1: radio song from Randon a long time. I remember saying that, like,
Speaker 1: you know, she'd just had a record, that that double
Speaker 1: album I had done so wonderful, but it didn't translate
Speaker 1: into singles. But Bluebird comes and just crushes. It's the
Speaker 1: number one and was one two Grammys. Um no, we
Speaker 1: nominated for two Grammys? Did you go? That was when
Speaker 1: the COVID was happening. So I bought a suit and
Speaker 1: in my closet it sits so you didn't even put
Speaker 1: it on for the night of it on the internet
Speaker 1: on no. So is that cool to you to be
Speaker 1: nominated for a Grammy? Or is it to you? Is
Speaker 1: that just a piece of metal that represents and what
Speaker 1: does representation? Even me? I would I would really be
Speaker 1: lying if I didn't say that I would not want
Speaker 1: to win a Grammy. I mean I would love to
Speaker 1: say that I want a Grammy. Um. Sometimes I catch myself,
Speaker 1: you know, when you win something and it's like, I'm
Speaker 1: always thankful to win something. Um, there is a truth
Speaker 1: for me to the the fact that when you write
Speaker 1: a song like that that was really meaningful to you,
Speaker 1: that nothing compares to the day that you wrote it
Speaker 1: with your friends and then you heard the and then
Speaker 1: you played it back and you heard and you sang
Speaker 1: on it, you listen to demo and you get excited
Speaker 1: about it. Nothing compares to that joy. Winning awards is um,
Speaker 1: it's another like just kind of hurrah at the end.
Speaker 1: You know that you're the hard work in the view
Speaker 1: to the beautiful work is already done. And Amy Taylor
Speaker 1: calls it the pudding. You know, you've already eaten the
Speaker 1: meat and all that stuff, and pudding is nice, you know,
Speaker 1: but you don't need it. You're already full. Kind of
Speaker 1: um of everything that said. If the Grammy, any Grammy
Speaker 1: voters are out there, if I have for anything next year,
Speaker 1: please vote for me. At Luke Dick Luke, thanks man,
Speaker 1: Thank you. At number six is Parker McCullum, who is
Speaker 1: one of Bobby's favorite new artists, and we recorded this
Speaker 1: episode earlier in the year when he was really starting
Speaker 1: to blow up, had just moved to Nashville. He's such
Speaker 1: a nice guy. He pulled up in his really big truck,
Speaker 1: and the thing I found interesting is that he called
Speaker 1: Bobby sir. It seemed like one of the most genuine
Speaker 1: dudes and country music and really cool to see him
Speaker 1: blow up this year even after we did this episode.
Speaker 1: So at number six, here is Parker McCullum. Here with
Speaker 1: Parker McCallum. Talk to me about the beginning of music
Speaker 1: for you. When did you aren't playing I won't say bars,
Speaker 1: but maybe that's where he started. How old were you
Speaker 1: a teenager trying to play places? And what were those places? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I grew up in a town just north the
Speaker 1: Houston called Conrow. I went to high school in a
Speaker 1: town called the Woodlands, which is like five miles from it.
Speaker 1: I made a bunch of shows at the Yeah, we
Speaker 1: were headlined for I graduate high school on the stage
Speaker 1: and we're headlined in October. I'm like, that's pretty cool, um,
Speaker 1: But there wasn't much of a music scene down there,
Speaker 1: especially for there wasn't any countrym Every kid in my
Speaker 1: high school wanted to be a rapper, like I was
Speaker 1: listening to Old Crow and Robert O'Keene and Randy Rogers
Speaker 1: Band and nobody at my nobody. I grew up with
Speaker 1: listening that stuff my older brother and stuff. But so
Speaker 1: that's what kind of made me go to Austin. I
Speaker 1: wanted to go find a bunch of people who are
Speaker 1: kind of like minded, into the same stuff. But I
Speaker 1: think I had my first paying gig played on a
Speaker 1: flatbed trailer in Gettings, Texas the hay Seed Festival. Maybe,
Speaker 1: um how old I was? Sixteen? My mom let me
Speaker 1: drive myself and then she showed up to make sure
Speaker 1: I got there safely. That's pretty cool. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess now school, But at the time, I was like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? That's it's cool that she Here's
Speaker 1: what was cool. She'd let you drive by yourself and
Speaker 1: then trailed you. She didn't go, I'll drive you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, she's it was. Looking back, it's super cool
Speaker 1: that she was there. Because that guy ended up paying
Speaker 1: me like nine months later, I think like seventy bucks.
Speaker 1: He waited that he probably trying to get away with
Speaker 1: not pacing me a check. So you you play this
Speaker 1: at sixteen? Where you going? This would be fun because
Speaker 1: I like to play a little guitar or were you going, heck,
Speaker 1: I'm sixteen. I think I'm gonna do this for my career.
Speaker 1: I knew when I was like a junior in high
Speaker 1: school is when I really started. My brother and say
Speaker 1: she were older. They were both in college at the time,
Speaker 1: so I was like the baby. I was last one.
Speaker 1: Kind of the reins were kind of looser on me.
Speaker 1: My mom was not near at strict on me my
Speaker 1: last years of high school. She was my siblings. So
Speaker 1: I was sneaking out on my bedroom window on the roof,
Speaker 1: you know, every night, coming back in and waging out,
Speaker 1: trying to write songs. And that's really when and I
Speaker 1: was like, all right, I know, like I don't stand
Speaker 1: out at sports. That was okay, wasn't anything special, But
Speaker 1: I could play guitar and write songs and sing lay
Speaker 1: better than any of my friends. And that's when I
Speaker 1: was kind of like, alright, this is it for me.
Speaker 1: Were you the music kid? Maybe not the band kid,
Speaker 1: but were you the kid who played music and they
Speaker 1: know you as that? If there was a party, would
Speaker 1: you have you ever have your guitar to play every
Speaker 1: now and then they'd get me to do it. But
Speaker 1: I mean again I was playing like, you know, Randy
Speaker 1: Rogers songs and Pat Green songs and stuff like they
Speaker 1: weren't Those kids were like who so? And did you
Speaker 1: decide were gonna wait till you guys got a high
Speaker 1: school to move off? Um? Well I had to. You know.
Speaker 1: It's not that I didn't get the into college. I
Speaker 1: didn't exactly apply. Um. I felt up my name for
Speaker 1: a couple of schools on the forum, and then once
Speaker 1: they sent back insufficient application letters, UM, I was like, Mom,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go to Oscar Community College. And just
Speaker 1: like I moved to Austin and really I knew I
Speaker 1: wasn't going there to go to school, so I enrolled.
Speaker 1: I was enrolled for a year. Did you go to
Speaker 1: class at all? A couple of times I actually ended
Speaker 1: up not going to class. But my business professor I
Speaker 1: had met on like the first day ended up becoming
Speaker 1: good buddies and we would hang out outside of class
Speaker 1: all the time. But I never went to his class. Um,
Speaker 1: he's super cool guy, and uh, but I was just
Speaker 1: it was really just a means to get to Austin.
Speaker 1: And man, I'm at Corby Shaw at the Saxon Pub
Speaker 1: on South Lamar who had just quit Ryan being him
Speaker 1: and the Dead Horses, who are my favorite band in
Speaker 1: the world at the time, I thought they walked on water.
Speaker 1: When you say met him though, were you both hanging out?
Speaker 1: Were you trying to play? Were you asking if you
Speaker 1: could play? I was not playing there yet. Um. In fact,
Speaker 1: it might have been the exact next day that David Cotton,
Speaker 1: who used to book those clubs down there, called me
Speaker 1: and was like, can you play tomorrow night at the
Speaker 1: Saccent And I was like, dude, I only got like
Speaker 1: five songs and he's like, we'll play them all three times?
Speaker 1: And um, how did he know you played? Um? A
Speaker 1: girl named Ashley Monicle was there that night, who had
Speaker 1: I had kind of she was she thought I was
Speaker 1: good and was trying to get me to meet some
Speaker 1: people and she was like, you need to hear this kid.
Speaker 1: And he didn't even listen. He was just like, all right, cool,
Speaker 1: you can play here tomorrow night. So you met the
Speaker 1: guy before you even played there, and what did that
Speaker 1: relationship turn into? He ended up producing The Limestone Kid,
Speaker 1: my first record, because he had he was an original
Speaker 1: Day Horses. Ryan Bingham like through mess leader on Roadhouse
Speaker 1: son to my favorite records of all time. Um. And
Speaker 1: so when I was in the bar that night, and
Speaker 1: I was only twenty at the time, I was in
Speaker 1: there with a fake idea. They ended up finding out
Speaker 1: I'd played there a couple of times, and then they
Speaker 1: made me stop playing there until I was twenty one
Speaker 1: and I was allowed to come back. Um. But I
Speaker 1: met him, and I just remember that night. I was like, dude,
Speaker 1: you do you play guitar for Ryan Bingham? And he
Speaker 1: was like no, I did play guys like I just
Speaker 1: quit the band like the week before, and I was
Speaker 1: just crushed. And then, uh, like two weeks later, that
Speaker 1: same girl was like, Hey, come over to my house.
Speaker 1: Corby's over here doing some demos for me. And I
Speaker 1: had just written two of those songs on that first
Speaker 1: record like the day before and played him for him
Speaker 1: and he was like, man, let me produce your record.
Speaker 1: So I don't think he had ever produced a record before.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean? Do you let me produce
Speaker 1: your record? How many songs did you have or did
Speaker 1: you go out? I'm not there yet. Let me write
Speaker 1: some more of what was that? I actually the songs
Speaker 1: I had there was the money problem that and I
Speaker 1: had my and my dad's very successful guy. He had
Speaker 1: offered to pay for all of that, and I just
Speaker 1: respectfully declined because I wanted to do it on my own.
Speaker 1: So I actually went and took out a loan and uh,
Speaker 1: that took. That was quite a process to not I
Speaker 1: had no credit or anything, had my granddad co sign
Speaker 1: on it. Once I got the money, it was like okay.
Speaker 1: And then I didn't take out enough. He was like, right, well,
Speaker 1: we have enough for four songs. So we did a
Speaker 1: four song EP, which was called a Redtown View. Um,
Speaker 1: and he's like, when you get some more money, we're
Speaker 1: going to do the full album. And so I went
Speaker 1: and took out another loan and those four songs kind
Speaker 1: of compiled with the other six to make or seven
Speaker 1: to make an eleven song album. Were you playing a
Speaker 1: bunch as you're making this record, because it sounds like
Speaker 1: when you met him you weren't playing. You were not
Speaker 1: playing it often a little bit, but that was Um.
Speaker 1: I was living my brother, my older cousin, in his
Speaker 1: house in South Austin, man check and Slaughter. If you
Speaker 1: know I live right there, I still live Brodian Slaughter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're talking about one road difference. Yes, and I was.
Speaker 1: I was living there, I was enrolled in school, and man,
Speaker 1: I just I was unmotivated. I didn't know what I
Speaker 1: was doing. I had no idea how to go get
Speaker 1: a gig um that someone hadn't just handed me. And
Speaker 1: so my brother actually one day was like I think
Speaker 1: he was. He's six years older than I am, so
Speaker 1: I think he kind of saw me just sort of
Speaker 1: not doing anything. But if I think he thought I
Speaker 1: was talented, and he's my brother's a phenomenal songwriter, so
Speaker 1: he's he's a very good judge of that and UM,
Speaker 1: and he remember him saying to me one night, He's like, dude,
Speaker 1: just go book thirty shows and thirty days and see
Speaker 1: if you can ever quit. He's like, play those and
Speaker 1: see if you ever stop. I didn't get thirty and
Speaker 1: thirty days, but I ended up playing like twelve shows
Speaker 1: that month, and I've been playing every since. So, as
Speaker 1: you're performing and you have this record, are you selling
Speaker 1: it at the table? How are you? How are you?
Speaker 1: What are you doing with that record? I had? UM,
Speaker 1: I had paid a guy to print I want to
Speaker 1: say like two and fifty copies, maybe three copies and
Speaker 1: I just always kept with me and I would just
Speaker 1: hand him out every where I went, Like, do you
Speaker 1: know Steamboat Music Festival. I used to go up there
Speaker 1: and and as a fan, and my buddy's parents would
Speaker 1: actually take him and eye. They're big music fans, and
Speaker 1: they paid for me to go when year and I
Speaker 1: walked around the lobby handing out that even so you're
Speaker 1: just handing them out, you're selling them. You were like,
Speaker 1: anybody listening to this, just take a listen and uh.
Speaker 1: And then right before COVID we headlined the whole festival
Speaker 1: closed it out. So it's kind of a cool little story,
Speaker 1: but it was very I was I'm the luckiest human
Speaker 1: in my mind to ever live. Like I mean, it's
Speaker 1: exactly how I thought and dreamed about it happening when
Speaker 1: I was seventeen. Is besides COVID clearly, which is probably
Speaker 1: for everybody. Exactly how I dreamed about it and thought
Speaker 1: it and hoped it would happened and wanted it to
Speaker 1: happen when I was seventeen is exactly how it's gone.
Speaker 1: So who I saw you and said, dang, I would
Speaker 1: like to invest my brain power, where my money, my
Speaker 1: time into making this person a better artist like it
Speaker 1: was the first person to take a chance on you.
Speaker 1: Corby Shaw was really the first person to take a
Speaker 1: chance saw me. But I mean I went and took
Speaker 1: out the money. He just thought I was good, want
Speaker 1: to produce my record, thought it was worth his time.
Speaker 1: The first person to really go you got it, I
Speaker 1: can help you was Randy Rogers from the Randy Rogers
Speaker 1: Man And where did you meet Randy? I was first
Speaker 1: of four open in for him and two other bands.
Speaker 1: Uh in Corpus Christie. One day. We had a van.
Speaker 1: We didna have a trailer. Then we took out the
Speaker 1: backseat and all the gear was in the back of
Speaker 1: the van. Um and I listened. I had been obsessed
Speaker 1: with them a whole life, you know. He was like
Speaker 1: royalty down there to me, and uh, we're opening for him.
Speaker 1: We just pulled up. I really we pulled up in
Speaker 1: the van and look at my tour manager at the time,
Speaker 1: Jake Murphy, and I was like, all right, let's getut
Speaker 1: and go talk. We've been playing quite a few shows
Speaker 1: at that point, just nothing, I mean nothing, no GHO shows,
Speaker 1: terrible stuff and um. But we were touring a lot.
Speaker 1: I remember looking at him, and I was like, let's
Speaker 1: go talk to a bunch of people who don't want
Speaker 1: to talk to us. We opened the van, Randy Rogers
Speaker 1: comes walking up. He's got on Gucci shades hat um,
Speaker 1: you know, van shoes, Jeorge's gold chain rolling on his wrist.
Speaker 1: Like not what you think Randy Rogers is gonna walk
Speaker 1: up and he looks so g um. I remember he
Speaker 1: walked up and he was like, do you guys have anything?
Speaker 1: Let me know. I was like, that's cool. He's a
Speaker 1: headliner to come in, you know, at least holler at us,
Speaker 1: and then he said I So we went and played
Speaker 1: our show like three thirty in the afternoon. I looked
Speaker 1: over on the side of the stage and he was
Speaker 1: he watched our whole set. Um. And then five hours
Speaker 1: later he plays his show at ten o'clock at night,
Speaker 1: and I was staying inside stage for his show and
Speaker 1: he walked off and I've never been on the tour bus,
Speaker 1: and he's like, let's go to bus. But as he
Speaker 1: walked off stage, um, and we went to the bus
Speaker 1: and went to the back lound and he just lounge
Speaker 1: and he sat down and he was like, look, I've
Speaker 1: been doing some research on you. I'd only had that
Speaker 1: one record, the Limestone Kid out and he's like, this
Speaker 1: record is phenomenal. Um, He's like, you can be a star.
Speaker 1: That night he was like you could you have star power,
Speaker 1: you could be a star. I just want to help
Speaker 1: you avoid some of the mistakes I made. I would
Speaker 1: love to help you get there. I don't want anything
Speaker 1: from you. I just want to help. Um, So I'll
Speaker 1: go home and think about it. That's something you want
Speaker 1: to do. And uh, I actually ended up. I was
Speaker 1: trying to call my mom, trying to call my dad,
Speaker 1: trying to call my brother. Everybody was asleep, and I
Speaker 1: was freaking out, and I was like ready Rogers once
Speaker 1: he had just started management company and um, he didn't
Speaker 1: really have any but I think he had. He was
Speaker 1: running doing some stuff with Bruce Robinson at the time,
Speaker 1: and maybe someone else. UM what they needed like a
Speaker 1: kind of a main focus and right place, right time
Speaker 1: kind of thing. I guess what he uh man, he
Speaker 1: took time out of his life to come to Nashville
Speaker 1: and go into Universal Records and Big Machine and so
Speaker 1: he came and did with you, and he had a
Speaker 1: condo up here still and he let me come up
Speaker 1: here and stay in his condo for free and write
Speaker 1: and got me a publishing deal, walked into every major
Speaker 1: label in town and said, if you pass on this kid,
Speaker 1: you're passing on the next George Strait, which over hyping it,
Speaker 1: I would say, quite quite a bit. He's setting me
Speaker 1: up to fail. But um, just for he's a family man.
Speaker 1: He has a wife and kids, and he's got a
Speaker 1: whole life outside of touring, and he plays a hundred
Speaker 1: fifty shows a year and he would take time to
Speaker 1: fly up here on a weekly basis with me and
Speaker 1: write and get me in rooms and go in there
Speaker 1: and say crazy outlandish things like that to major labels,
Speaker 1: and um, got me a record deal, publishing deal. Um,
Speaker 1: and they just I call him Dad for a reason.
Speaker 1: People always ask why I call him Dad. So when
Speaker 1: you started to do the tour of Aam Parker and
Speaker 1: then you have a record, you're a big fancy record label,
Speaker 1: how did that go for you? Was the first one
Speaker 1: easy or was it weird? How many did you go
Speaker 1: through until you settled on where you are now? Um,
Speaker 1: we met with all the majors and then I think
Speaker 1: we met with Big Big Loud as well. UM and
Speaker 1: kind of Before that, a lot of smaller labels had
Speaker 1: been kind of coming to Austin wine and dine and
Speaker 1: doing that kind of thing where they take you out
Speaker 1: and they do the whole thing, which was really cool,
Speaker 1: and it's on I read. I had never had any
Speaker 1: record label, you know, kind of holler at at any capacity. Um.
Speaker 1: And so once the majors really came out and we're
Speaker 1: like and once one of them does, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like they all come calling. It's kind of like a
Speaker 1: bidding war. Even if they like you or not. I
Speaker 1: think they just don't want to miss out more and
Speaker 1: they don't want to be told no, which I completely
Speaker 1: understand that. UM. But I remember sitting there in Zo
Speaker 1: members of it too. I mean, I just, you know,
Speaker 1: you have every major label and country music sitting there
Speaker 1: going you know what. And we already had a huge
Speaker 1: touring base and and generated quite a bit of a
Speaker 1: new touring so I kind of had all the leverage
Speaker 1: was on our side. We kind of had were in
Speaker 1: the driver's seat. Um. And they offered a bunch of
Speaker 1: money up front and all this stuff, and I said, look,
Speaker 1: I don't want your money. I said, I want creative
Speaker 1: control and I was like, I just want to be able.
Speaker 1: My whole dream was to be on a major label
Speaker 1: with creative control and be able to do what I
Speaker 1: want to do. If it doesn't work, cool, that's it.
Speaker 1: You know. I don't think you'll ever lose money. We
Speaker 1: already make you enough money as we tour. Um. But
Speaker 1: I mean I bet on me because I'll bet on
Speaker 1: myself for sure, and you know it probably I don't
Speaker 1: know how it came off at the time, but I
Speaker 1: guess it worked because they all made great offers and
Speaker 1: and I was able to counter and get the deal
Speaker 1: that I wanted. So you get to the side. So
Speaker 1: at what point do you start preparing your major we'll
Speaker 1: call it major label debut? Like do you start immediately?
Speaker 1: Did you already have that the song that you led with?
Speaker 1: Like I did not? I had, Um, Well, I guess
Speaker 1: Randy Randy Montana was like my first co write in town,
Speaker 1: first real co righte and um, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: go in. I'd never really co written before besides with
Speaker 1: my older brother, and so I wanted to come in
Speaker 1: and have like a good idea. So I had found
Speaker 1: this video of me like singing this song. It is
Speaker 1: what does that say about me? I could love somebody
Speaker 1: like you was the original line, and it was the
Speaker 1: melody that pretty Hard is. And I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I don't forget about that. I'm gonna take that in tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And so we ended up wrighting that song and I
Speaker 1: think I signed my deal not just a few months
Speaker 1: after that. Um, I think that's the right timeline and um,
Speaker 1: and so I signed a deal and I was like,
Speaker 1: these are the songs I have and they were like,
Speaker 1: that's the one. So it was immediate they knew you
Speaker 1: knew all good, but it didn't. We were cut it
Speaker 1: and then it didn't. I don't know if it can
Speaker 1: probably didn't come out for close to a year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were just kind of sitting. Did that process feel
Speaker 1: like I was taking forever? Yeah? I was really um,
Speaker 1: which I mean I told myself from the beginning. I
Speaker 1: was like, don't go in here, and and it's really
Speaker 1: easy to Yeah, you know, anything that's worth working really
Speaker 1: hard for, I mean, you know it probably just as
Speaker 1: well as anybody, like as soon as it's it starts,
Speaker 1: something's gonna go wrong, something aren't gonna be what someone promised. Whatever.
Speaker 1: So I just kind of kept that in mind, and
Speaker 1: I was like, man, just you signed a deal. I
Speaker 1: was like, just trust the process. It was like, these
Speaker 1: people have done it. You know, you're the one millionth
Speaker 1: artists that they've promoted him put on the big stage.
Speaker 1: And I was like, and he was. He talked me
Speaker 1: through a lot of that. You know, he's done. He's
Speaker 1: been through it a hundred times. What you do during
Speaker 1: the whole time that we're waiting, we're just writing, writing,
Speaker 1: And I was coming up here and writing. I'd have
Speaker 1: my publishing deal for a year at that point, so
Speaker 1: I was writing a lot um. But I was torn.
Speaker 1: We're still playing a hundred fifty shows a year, um.
Speaker 1: So I was as busy as I could be. I
Speaker 1: mean when I say I wasn't home more than two
Speaker 1: days at a time for four years, that's has no exaggeration.
Speaker 1: I would literally would get off the bus and Austin
Speaker 1: on Sunday, take the last Southwest flight out on Sunday
Speaker 1: evening to Austin. I mean to Nashville right and go
Speaker 1: to meetings Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and fly right back Wednesday
Speaker 1: night for like years. Any of your music friends in
Speaker 1: Texas for moving to Nashville everybody loves it. Is that
Speaker 1: because I feel like that stage is kind of over
Speaker 1: as well. I mean, Dodd I said, I made it
Speaker 1: very clear from the start, and I was like, I
Speaker 1: grew up idolizing George straight. You know, he has sixteen
Speaker 1: number one, probably I think two or three more than that,
Speaker 1: maybe six two, six three something like that. Now he's
Speaker 1: the epitome of of what I think anybody should aspire
Speaker 1: to be in country music. Um. And he sold out
Speaker 1: a T and T Stadium back to back nights residency
Speaker 1: in Vegas, Madison Square, Go, you name it, you're not.
Speaker 1: He's just there's nothing he hasn't done in the business. Um,
Speaker 1: he's a king. And so that was always I was like, man,
Speaker 1: just you're never gonna get I'll never get to that level,
Speaker 1: but try to, you know, and maybe you get halfway there.
Speaker 1: That's pretty damn good. Um. And so I always made
Speaker 1: it really clear that was my goal. Um, But it
Speaker 1: was always my goal to do it on really I
Speaker 1: was raised on songwriters, um, really really talented, you know,
Speaker 1: honest songwriting, and so the goal was always to go
Speaker 1: to that level and beyond country radio without sounding like
Speaker 1: you know, everything else that is coming out on country radio,
Speaker 1: and there's a dude. I say that all the time,
Speaker 1: people are like, WHOA, we'll be careful. Majority of that
Speaker 1: stuff I really enjoy. I really like it do no
Speaker 1: matter what genre is their songs. I don't like um,
Speaker 1: but I like the majority of stuff on country radio.
Speaker 1: I just think that there's like a there's a there's
Speaker 1: a gap in a space for someone that's younger, like
Speaker 1: Chris Stapleton's phenomenal. He's an anomaly, right, like as talented
Speaker 1: as a human being could be, but he's a little older.
Speaker 1: There's no like young kids younger generation that are super
Speaker 1: like hung up on songwriting that are on commercial radio
Speaker 1: country radio. And I just was like, maybe I could
Speaker 1: do that. I want to play a little bit of
Speaker 1: to Be Loved by You? Is that the current single?
Speaker 1: It's quiet, What Sleep Long? When you maybe you're mad
Speaker 1: at me? The kid tell me the truth? What there's
Speaker 1: a man? So he wrote that with Red red Akins.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. Thank you, man. I mean, I love Ratt.
Speaker 1: Oh dude, he's a g just as a kid. You're
Speaker 1: you know, obviously younger than I am. But as a kid,
Speaker 1: WT was on the radio all the time when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, like I was a fan of him
Speaker 1: as an artist, and now you know, getting to know
Speaker 1: him personally, and I just htt I think he was playing.
Speaker 1: We're playing the operat together and I was doing comedy
Speaker 1: after he was playing. But right before he went out there,
Speaker 1: he pulled the biggest dip out of his mouth, through
Speaker 1: it in the cup and walked right on stage. I
Speaker 1: was like, that's disgusting. It awesome, and that's the most
Speaker 1: red Akins thing I've ever seen in my life. Red
Speaker 1: Man Silver Label. Yeah, every time we write together, we
Speaker 1: didn't mind me saying this. Sorry, if you do, he
Speaker 1: will choot and entire I've seen him go through more
Speaker 1: than one an entire bag of red Man Silver Label
Speaker 1: and we're there for three hours. You seem how big
Speaker 1: a bat it's. It's disgusting And I was like, that's disgusting,
Speaker 1: but I'm glad I got to see it. Like I
Speaker 1: would expect nothing less from rhet when you write this
Speaker 1: song with him, who, by the way, as an artist, fantastic,
Speaker 1: but as a songwriter even better, like throughout his career,
Speaker 1: who he gets both sides of it whenever you write
Speaker 1: this song. Was this one of those who you're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is special, or what did it become special after
Speaker 1: you know you cut it? Or like what process was
Speaker 1: this song special? Man? None of them are really special
Speaker 1: to me when I write them. And I think it's
Speaker 1: because I get so like when I come up with
Speaker 1: this melody that I'm obsessed with or this idea or whatever. Um,
Speaker 1: I get so excited then and then I write it
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, it's super cool, and then I
Speaker 1: just forget about it, like I don't even think twice
Speaker 1: about it. Um. But this I retually written the first
Speaker 1: verse in a chorus on the back of the bus. Um,
Speaker 1: at like eleven o'clock in the morning. We were going
Speaker 1: on the road. We've just gotten on the bus, excuse me,
Speaker 1: and that we just got on the bus and I
Speaker 1: was in the back lounge and and uh, I wrote
Speaker 1: it down. I had actually sat out loud. Me and
Speaker 1: Hallie Ray were arguing at the time, having a little
Speaker 1: whatever and um, and I set out loud. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: what does it mean have to do to be loved
Speaker 1: by that girl? And he kind of perked up. He's like, hey,
Speaker 1: you might want to write that down, And so I
Speaker 1: just I mean in fifteen minutes. I went back and
Speaker 1: I wrote the first first in the chorus, and then
Speaker 1: the same thing. I just forgot about it. I didn't
Speaker 1: even think about it. And then I had to write
Speaker 1: with Rhet and when me and when when Rehet and
Speaker 1: I write, it's not like any other code, right, Like
Speaker 1: we'll go sit for the first hour. You know, he's
Speaker 1: having a chew. I'll probably bump some off him a
Speaker 1: lot of the time, and we just talked about like
Speaker 1: turkey hunting or deer hunting for an hour, or like
Speaker 1: he's so many pictures all the deery shot or out
Speaker 1: is one of his farms here in Nashville. And then
Speaker 1: he'll be like, hey, so do you have anything. And
Speaker 1: that day I had it was like a few days
Speaker 1: after I had written that, and uh, or maybe a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks and and I was like, dude, I
Speaker 1: have this. And he was just like all right, we'll
Speaker 1: finish it. And I was like, okay, whatever. And he
Speaker 1: was on his phone and I could be like what
Speaker 1: do you think about this? And he was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how about this? All right? What about this? How
Speaker 1: about this? For the second verse? And uh? And it
Speaker 1: was really slow. It was not like this big rock
Speaker 1: and roll kind of rolling Stones feel thing that it
Speaker 1: is now um, and we did a little work tape
Speaker 1: and I left and then we went going to the
Speaker 1: studio like three months later, and I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I remember talking to my producer John Randall. I was like,
Speaker 1: this song could be this and most of the time
Speaker 1: I'm wrong in the studio, I've learned that. I learned
Speaker 1: that very early on. Most of the time I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: and but every now and then I'm like, dude, just
Speaker 1: give this a shot. And uh. We recorded it and
Speaker 1: then Rhet called me like probably two months after that.
Speaker 1: Someone had sent him a rough mix and he was like,
Speaker 1: did we write that together? And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: even we finished it that day at your management or
Speaker 1: his thing is his publishing office that he has, and
Speaker 1: he was like, dude, that's insane. And I was like, dude,
Speaker 1: the songs, I was like, and I'm never hyped on
Speaker 1: my own stuff. I never think very much of it.
Speaker 1: I get over it very quickly. I'm onto the next
Speaker 1: thing very quickly. And that was like probably one of
Speaker 1: two ever that I've been like, Yeah, this is dope
Speaker 1: for sure, and probably more so because he thought so.
Speaker 1: Your EP six songs. It's out now, six songs, right,
Speaker 1: Hollywood Gold, and five of them you wrote. One of
Speaker 1: them is a Stapleton cut. Um, how did you get
Speaker 1: that song? Man? I that was my first outside cut
Speaker 1: on Universal. Um, that's the only song I've ever cut
Speaker 1: that I didn't write on Universal. And Uh. I was
Speaker 1: driving to the ranch one day. I was in my truck, UM,
Speaker 1: and I got a text message from Brian Wright at
Speaker 1: the label and it was just a UM, you know,
Speaker 1: like an audio clip on a text and uh, they
Speaker 1: just said Stapleton slash Anderson. And I'm like, he's on
Speaker 1: He's on Universal as well, Stapleton. So I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe this is one of the perks of like being
Speaker 1: on the same label. You get to listen to his
Speaker 1: record before it comes out. Well, listen to the song.
Speaker 1: And I called Brian. I'm like, Yo, that's insane, Like
Speaker 1: what an incredible song. And he's like, yeah, it's able
Speaker 1: to never cut it. I was like, what do he means? Like, hey,
Speaker 1: he wrote it was like two thousand six or something
Speaker 1: or whenever he wrote a long time ago, and and
Speaker 1: I was like, he's like, do you think you would
Speaker 1: want to cut it? And I was like, dude, I
Speaker 1: sent it to my dad and he was like, that's
Speaker 1: the best song you've ever written. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I didn't write that. I was like, I was like,
Speaker 1: but I am going to sing it, and uh, I
Speaker 1: just I was like instantly, I just connected. They sent
Speaker 1: me out. They send me outside songs all the time,
Speaker 1: and that's the only one I've ever been like, I'm
Speaker 1: cutting that song all right. There is Parker McCallum at
Speaker 1: number five. We're going with Matthew Ramsey of Old Dominion
Speaker 1: and I really love the episodes when we just get
Speaker 1: a member of a group because I think that's when
Speaker 1: you get the best stories. And Old Dominion is always
Speaker 1: one of the hardest interviews we have to prepare for
Speaker 1: when they come on the Bobby Bones Show because there
Speaker 1: is so many members of the group, it's hard to
Speaker 1: focus your time on every single member. So I love
Speaker 1: it when we're able to do these Bobby casts and
Speaker 1: get just one of the members of the group to
Speaker 1: talk about their path, get their side of how the
Speaker 1: group started. And when it comes to Matthew Ramsey's case,
Speaker 1: all the number one songs he's written outside of Old
Speaker 1: Dominion and we had had Trevor rosen On from the
Speaker 1: group before, so I always wanted to get Matthew Ramsey
Speaker 1: into do an episode and it happened this year. We
Speaker 1: learned so much about him that we didn't know. So
Speaker 1: at number five, here's Matthew Ramsey of Old Dominion. Alright
Speaker 1: with with Matthew Ramsey from Old Dominion in your band
Speaker 1: because everybody kind of has roles in Old Dominion, Like,
Speaker 1: what is your role creatively in that group? Creatively, I
Speaker 1: mean it's tough because we are That's what makes it
Speaker 1: really hard to be in this band sometimes, is is
Speaker 1: everyone is extremely creative. So um, you know anymore, I
Speaker 1: would say that it's kind of evolved. And I've I've
Speaker 1: recently learned, especially in this last album in the process
Speaker 1: of making it, that my role is not necessarily in
Speaker 1: the tracking room while we're recording. It's it's in the
Speaker 1: control room with our producer Shane. And I'm I'm a
Speaker 1: better guide in that way. And uh and and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm a strong writer, I think too. So I think
Speaker 1: I have a strong voice in the writing of our songs,
Speaker 1: but everyone does. Everyone is so talented. Do you have
Speaker 1: to submit it? Isn't you use or frustrating. You have
Speaker 1: to submit yourself a bit when you go to record
Speaker 1: an album, because when you write it and you make
Speaker 1: you know your work tape or your demo and you
Speaker 1: have you can get demo itis and wanted to sound
Speaker 1: like there. But then Shane comes in, Um, Shane mcinally,
Speaker 1: who obviously is is the best at what he does.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't I don't think you would have
Speaker 1: a problem with saying he's better at being a producer
Speaker 1: than you are. Yeah, oh yeah, for sure. It's gonna
Speaker 1: make sure we're cool there. And if he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is how I see it, Like I really am
Speaker 1: passionate about this. Do you ever have to submit and
Speaker 1: go like you know what you know what you're doing
Speaker 1: and I only kind of know what I do much
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do that. Yeah, definitely. But we have a
Speaker 1: close enough of relationship that, um, if if we still
Speaker 1: will go down that road, if we if we're not
Speaker 1: fully believing in it, and I'm not fully believing in it,
Speaker 1: but he strongly is, we'll go down that road for
Speaker 1: however long it takes until it until we see it
Speaker 1: or we go you're wrong. And and he's great at
Speaker 1: going Okay, thanks for trying, and we do the same thing.
Speaker 1: He'll he'll listen to us and our ideas, and you know,
Speaker 1: if we are feeling it one way, he'll say, I
Speaker 1: trust you guys, let's let's go down that road. Until
Speaker 1: he either sees it or doesn't. It seems this is
Speaker 1: just my memory years later that he was involved really
Speaker 1: early with you guys. Yeah he was. You know, we
Speaker 1: were writing music with him, songs um before he had
Speaker 1: any success. So I think when I met him he
Speaker 1: had one he had just gotten um Leanne Walmack song
Speaker 1: recorded this first one, and you know we were all
Speaker 1: just broke, you know. He I think he had just
Speaker 1: like moved out of his car into a house, you know. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's been around for us for since the beginning. I
Speaker 1: want to go back to in Virginia. The first instrument
Speaker 1: you pick up, is it the drums? It was the drums?
Speaker 1: Why the drums? Uh? You know when I was I
Speaker 1: had an older brother and um, he's he's four years
Speaker 1: older than me, and he had a friend who was
Speaker 1: a drummer, and it just enamored me just to that
Speaker 1: he would come over to our house and set his
Speaker 1: drum kid up and I would sneak down there and
Speaker 1: look at it. And then he played like a drum
Speaker 1: solo at the middle school talent show or whatever, blew
Speaker 1: the whole place is mind. And I just saw how
Speaker 1: that affected everyone, and um so I just was drawn
Speaker 1: to banging on stuff for their bands that you listen
Speaker 1: to and drummed along with, and you liked the most
Speaker 1: as a fourteen fifteen year old kid, where you thought,
Speaker 1: all right, if I'm gonna do this, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: at that point it was starting to get into um
Speaker 1: is starting to get into a lot of grunge. I mean,
Speaker 1: for me, when I learned to play guitar with Chili Peppers,
Speaker 1: it was metallic because it's some really easy intros. Totally. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I had at that point, once I started really
Speaker 1: digging in and playing along to music, UM I had.
Speaker 1: I was my parents had a basement and I had
Speaker 1: a drum kit down there, and I had guitar amps
Speaker 1: and guitars, and I just and it was kind of
Speaker 1: like split even then. I had half of the basement
Speaker 1: was art supplies and canvases and things, and half of
Speaker 1: it was musical instruments. So I would just kind of
Speaker 1: live down in the basement and play along too, mostly
Speaker 1: things like Pearl Jam and Nirvana and smashing pumpkins and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And I asked this question, and I'm
Speaker 1: being as respectful and I possibly can with this question
Speaker 1: because what happened to me may have happened to you.
Speaker 1: But being an art kid and a music kid, did
Speaker 1: you get beat up a lot? I never got beat up,
Speaker 1: but I definitely, um, I mean I got tugged on
Speaker 1: a little bit, you know, um actually ended up. I've
Speaker 1: never really talked about this ever, but uh, I actually
Speaker 1: ended up getting plastic surgery on my ears because is
Speaker 1: uh they were yanked on quite a bit, and they
Speaker 1: kind of they were like, you know, I always think
Speaker 1: about this. It must have been really bad because I
Speaker 1: kind of don't think about it that much, but it
Speaker 1: must have been really bad for me to beg my
Speaker 1: parents to fix this problem and for them to go
Speaker 1: through with it, because you know, I have kids, and
Speaker 1: I know if if they if a kid and my
Speaker 1: kid in the sixth grade was begging, you know, me
Speaker 1: to physically change them because of what people were doing,
Speaker 1: it must have been heartbreaking for my parents, and I
Speaker 1: know what stuff for me. So they did so for
Speaker 1: a while there, Yes, I went through some you know,
Speaker 1: some harder you know punishments there. I suffered similar you know,
Speaker 1: consequences for not being a you know, finger quotes normal kid.
Speaker 1: But you're a like cooler than I am. That's why
Speaker 1: I asked. I mean, you're like cooler and talented, something
Speaker 1: like did you like break the mold or you're They're like,
Speaker 1: he's so dowented, let's just celebrate him. I mean I
Speaker 1: did wind up once I got into high school. I
Speaker 1: was kind of friends with everybody, you know, I was
Speaker 1: friends with the athletes, and I was also in the
Speaker 1: marching band, so you know, I kind of made peace
Speaker 1: with with everyone. So when did you transition from being
Speaker 1: the percussion guy to kind of go on, all I
Speaker 1: don't even really want to do that much anymore, Like
Speaker 1: I want to play guitar. I want to what My
Speaker 1: first band was born out of the marching band because
Speaker 1: the whole drum line we were such good friends, uh,
Speaker 1: and we all wanted to be in a band, but
Speaker 1: we were all drummers, and so it was, you know,
Speaker 1: one guy going, well I have I have a guitar,
Speaker 1: and another guy saying, well, i'll have the drum kit,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, I can find a basse.
Speaker 1: I'll borrow a base. I borrowed a basse from somebody.
Speaker 1: So it was just we wanted to play music, but
Speaker 1: we only thing we knew how to play with drums,
Speaker 1: So we just kind of learned together and you know,
Speaker 1: just my ear figuring out that. So then once I
Speaker 1: started figuring out things on the base, and I had
Speaker 1: a piano that I would, you know, kind of mess
Speaker 1: around with, and and and a guitar that my uncle
Speaker 1: had given me. My dad was like, you're really good
Speaker 1: at figuring things out. You should pick up the guitar
Speaker 1: and try that. So so then once I picked that up,
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to play it. So that's when
Speaker 1: I immediately started writing stuff so that I could play
Speaker 1: what I was writing that it was music natural to you,
Speaker 1: even though it was hard. It was, yes, it was
Speaker 1: natural to me. It was wild for you to be
Speaker 1: able to play a E. G C. E minor, you know,
Speaker 1: all the ones that you can let me be, all
Speaker 1: the ones I play for you to play, Like, how
Speaker 1: quickly were we able to adapt and actually play you
Speaker 1: know those main chords with your guys? I mean, pretty
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. You know, it didn't take very long before
Speaker 1: we were all writing songs together as a band. You know,
Speaker 1: they all sounded like Pearl Jam ripoffs, but you know,
Speaker 1: but didn't everyone. But yeah, it wasn't at that point. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so you you you go to school, You're gonna do
Speaker 1: graphic art illustration. I'm messing that episode. You're also playing music.
Speaker 1: I again, I would understand that nine, nine people out
Speaker 1: of a hundred are going to make more money doing
Speaker 1: that graphic art job because they could probably get work. Maybe,
Speaker 1: I think it depends on not not necessarily in the
Speaker 1: in the field that I was headed towards. It was
Speaker 1: kind of equal to music, I think, because I wasn't
Speaker 1: interested in sitting at a computer and coming up with
Speaker 1: like graphic design. I wasn't. I was more tactile and
Speaker 1: would rather get my hands in paint or sculpt or,
Speaker 1: you know. So, and at that point, I have a
Speaker 1: couple of friends that are classmates that are successful artists
Speaker 1: now and it's been the same road. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just been grinding it out and keeping you know, keeping
Speaker 1: their head down and painting and painting and painting and
Speaker 1: painting until they finally we all at the same age.
Speaker 1: They're they're having success as artists and I'm having success
Speaker 1: in music. What was the first writer I won't even
Speaker 1: we'll say break that you earned. What what was your
Speaker 1: first break there? Where you go, Okay, I'm not just
Speaker 1: now treading water like I might be able to have
Speaker 1: some real success at this Yeah. Um, the first sign
Speaker 1: of hope was a guy named Steve Holly recorded a
Speaker 1: song that Trevor and I wrote with our friend Matt Jenkins,
Speaker 1: and then, um, really was watching my friends have some
Speaker 1: success was really what gave you the real hope was
Speaker 1: is that because you knew that you could do what
Speaker 1: they do well, I was doing what they were doing.
Speaker 1: I mean we were doing it all together. So it
Speaker 1: was like it's like Shane, for instance, he came in
Speaker 1: and played um I remember he played us the demo
Speaker 1: for Somewhere with You and U NYA, and we were
Speaker 1: just like, damn, like that's different, that whatever that is
Speaker 1: is the next step. And we even though we weren't
Speaker 1: writers on it, we knew that that was going to
Speaker 1: change the game for all for all of us. And
Speaker 1: even now when we watched Kenny play it, like we
Speaker 1: sit there and go we none of us would be
Speaker 1: here without that song because he wrote that, Kenny cut it.
Speaker 1: It changed Kenny's career and because of that, me and
Speaker 1: Josh Osborne and Trevor Rosen, Matt Jenkins, Brandy Clark and
Speaker 1: you know, we're all in that rider circle and we
Speaker 1: get we get to reap the benefits really of of
Speaker 1: that exposure. So watching our our each other succeed was
Speaker 1: really what kept us going. We were like, it's not
Speaker 1: like I'm doing it, but it's weird doing it. You
Speaker 1: know what about first success for you were a song
Speaker 1: actually good, a single like a real life it's got
Speaker 1: a chance single. That was wake Up Loving You by
Speaker 1: Craig Morgan. So that was the first one. I can't remember.
Speaker 1: I can't remember hot went on the chart if it
Speaker 1: was top ten or not, but um, but it was close,
Speaker 1: which was you know that's back then that's all you want,
Speaker 1: is like you want top twenty and then you get
Speaker 1: that and you're like, can you watch that? It was
Speaker 1: your first you are you watching the charts everything back then?
Speaker 1: For sure? Watching it all the time. I don't watch anymore.
Speaker 1: But when you hear that at the beginning, the first
Speaker 1: time you hear it actually cut. Are you like I
Speaker 1: like what they did with that production? Or that was
Speaker 1: my alarm clock? Actually it really was, Yeah, yeah I did.
Speaker 1: I did that on the demo. I made a little
Speaker 1: home demo of it with that alarm clock, and and
Speaker 1: they Meredith and then everyone who cut it after that,
Speaker 1: A couple of artists cut it. Everyone used that alarm oclock.
Speaker 1: Then it's just my alarm o'clock. A couple cut it,
Speaker 1: but they didn't put on a record. Um, I think
Speaker 1: Keith Keith Anderson cut it, and I think it made
Speaker 1: a record for him, but it wasn't a single, So
Speaker 1: then what's the rule there? Because Eric passed who embuddies with?
Speaker 1: He wrote Friday Night? I think Friday Nights sung. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of lady A cut it but on record. He
Speaker 1: then said, well he didn't use this single. I want
Speaker 1: to use this single one number one for him. I
Speaker 1: want to be Oh friend, is there a rule that
Speaker 1: if it doesn't go as a single, you can still
Speaker 1: probably cut it somewhere else? Sure? I mean it, you know,
Speaker 1: once it is out, once somebody cuts it, anybody can
Speaker 1: cut it. So so you can put it out as
Speaker 1: a single anytime? Do you have to ask for single
Speaker 1: rites though, no, only one. I don't think so. No.
Speaker 1: I mean you do that one time, you give you
Speaker 1: give the license out one time, and once you approve it,
Speaker 1: it's it's a fair game. So you're telling me I
Speaker 1: could cut I was on a boat, Yeah, put it
Speaker 1: out as a single, and then once it beat you guys,
Speaker 1: is the best streaming song. That's just life. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: we reaped the benefits of that. So why good? Good
Speaker 1: for us? All? Like we all one? Okay? Nice first
Speaker 1: number one song he wrote, say You Do for Dirk Spanley,
Speaker 1: And was that a rocket ship number one or was
Speaker 1: that a we don't know if he's gonna cut it.
Speaker 1: He did cut it, We don't know if it's gonna
Speaker 1: be on the record. We don't know it. All of
Speaker 1: them are like that. I feel like, um, that one
Speaker 1: was you know, talking about breakthroughs and stuff that as
Speaker 1: far as writing that song, that was one that I
Speaker 1: was sure it was something special. Really you knew when
Speaker 1: you wrote it. Yeah, So was there any chance you
Speaker 1: were keeping these songs? Because old dominion was maybe if
Speaker 1: we were a band at that point he signed no.
Speaker 1: So even like wake Up Loving You was our like
Speaker 1: show closer man like to let Craig Morgan have that
Speaker 1: song was a really tough decision because at that point
Speaker 1: it started to feel like maybe we were gonna We
Speaker 1: were so far away from getting signed, but it felt
Speaker 1: like maybe we were going to. Um So it was
Speaker 1: tough to kind of let that one go. Say you
Speaker 1: do wasn't tough for for us, because we we did
Speaker 1: play that song and every show and um but at
Speaker 1: that point, man, you know, we're just trying to pay
Speaker 1: the bills and and we moved here to be songwriters anyway,
Speaker 1: that's what we wanted, so um So it was awesome
Speaker 1: and and he did an incredible job. There was a
Speaker 1: moment where I was going to sing background vocals on it,
Speaker 1: but it didn't pan out. Um Man, it was just
Speaker 1: an exhilarating feeling to hear that song and watch that
Speaker 1: song climb to get your first number one. Amazing. This
Speaker 1: chainsaw from the Bam Perry wrote this one. Here's the
Speaker 1: was it written as aggressive. It's way more aggressive. Our
Speaker 1: version is way more aggressive. This one is the light
Speaker 1: version of it. So my dad, actually, my dad actually
Speaker 1: made a comment one time about he was like, man,
Speaker 1: your version is like, you know, I can kind of
Speaker 1: picture you out in the woods like with like frozen
Speaker 1: snot in your beard, cutting Downvagory. It's definitely a lot
Speaker 1: more aggressive our version before we get over to the
Speaker 1: old dominion stuff. Ecstasy from Sam Hunt is probably, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, his biggest non single song. It wasn't a single,
Speaker 1: but everybody knows it. Um, I wish that was a single.
Speaker 1: To me, I kind of had to be reminded it
Speaker 1: wasn't a single. I'm a big Sam guy. I like
Speaker 1: Sam away from work, you know, yeah, I love Sam
Speaker 1: at work, you know so, But I love this song.
Speaker 1: When he cuts it again, he kind of sol if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken this was on the pre Yeah I
Speaker 1: think so. Yeah. Um, and Sam wasn't Sam Hunt. But
Speaker 1: did you when you guys wrote it wasn't written like Wow,
Speaker 1: this is different, Like this is something like New Territory
Speaker 1: type stuff. I mean, we knew before everyone knew that
Speaker 1: it was you know, Sam Hunt. Like writing with that guy,
Speaker 1: you're like, damn, this guy is something entirely different, friend.
Speaker 1: And what means like just his creative mind is he
Speaker 1: attacks things that different angles. So the things that come
Speaker 1: out of his mouth, You're like, I don't know how
Speaker 1: you thought of that. But you know, even like with
Speaker 1: make You Missed Me, he throws out a line like
Speaker 1: to keep a slip knot and the strings you attached
Speaker 1: like something some obscure thought like that. He can make
Speaker 1: seem very palatable. So just writing with him, that was
Speaker 1: a moment where you knew something was big was gonna happen.
Speaker 1: So that song, it's funny like he he overthinks a
Speaker 1: lot of things and to you know, to his credit,
Speaker 1: it works, you know, but he, like most people, you
Speaker 1: sit in the room and you write, and at the
Speaker 1: end of the day you got the song. You can
Speaker 1: write for weeks and weeks and weeks on the same
Speaker 1: song with Sam. So that's what happened. I never really
Speaker 1: knew the final version of Ecstasy until it came out,
Speaker 1: Like I knew what I thought it was gonna the
Speaker 1: other little changes that you heard in it that you're like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't remember that at all. Oh yeah, that all
Speaker 1: like talking part at the end that there's like a
Speaker 1: whole like kind of down bridge where he's kind of
Speaker 1: talking and you look kind of cute and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: I didn't remember any of that stuff, But I mean,
Speaker 1: it's amazing were you surprised to see the explosion of him. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm excited. I mean I I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: be an explosion of anybody, right because it's always so
Speaker 1: unpredictable of who it's gonna be, when it's gonna be, on,
Speaker 1: why it's gonna be yea, And with Sam, it hits
Speaker 1: so hard, so fast, and I feel like Sam is
Speaker 1: the most reluctant superstar that I know, And when people
Speaker 1: are kind of bagging on him, I'm like, well, first
Speaker 1: of all, he's way smarter, way more talented than you,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't because he loves to be an artist,
Speaker 1: but he didn't want to be the guy out and
Speaker 1: people forget because everything now sounds like Sam Hunt, so
Speaker 1: it didn't. Then he changed it and everything on country
Speaker 1: radio half of it is just watered down Sam Hunts
Speaker 1: Kenny save it for Rainy Day. I have this hook
Speaker 1: up here. When you write a song like this, how
Speaker 1: quickly do you send it to Kenney? This one you never, like,
Speaker 1: I didn't know Kenny at that point point, and you
Speaker 1: never ever right aiming at a certain artist. But this
Speaker 1: song has the like quickest journey ever but a huge journey.
Speaker 1: But we used to write. Brad and I and our
Speaker 1: late friend Andrew Dorff used to write every morning at
Speaker 1: nine in the not every morning every week at nine
Speaker 1: in the morning, so we would have double booked ourselves.
Speaker 1: We would write from nine to eleven and then we
Speaker 1: would go to our normal right, So that morning I
Speaker 1: didn't have any ideas, but in the shower on the
Speaker 1: way or getting ready to go there, that kind of
Speaker 1: course popped into my head. So I showed up and
Speaker 1: I was like, Hey, what about this? And they were
Speaker 1: like yeah, And we wrote that song in forty five minutes.
Speaker 1: And at that time, Brad was making little home demos
Speaker 1: and I kept kind of egging him on, like dude,
Speaker 1: you gotta make a demo, and I was joking. I
Speaker 1: was like, man, you want to Kenny Tesney Cutter, not
Speaker 1: like make the demo. So he's like, okay, okay, and
Speaker 1: he made the demo and um, sure enough, like we
Speaker 1: got it right to him and he picked it up
Speaker 1: like it was it never happens like that, but that's
Speaker 1: the only time that's ever happened is And then he
Speaker 1: went and recorded it and the studio musicians told us
Speaker 1: they only did one take of it. They played it
Speaker 1: and they were moved on. So they thought, no way
Speaker 1: that's ever making it. So we wrote it in forty
Speaker 1: five minutes. They did one take of the recording session
Speaker 1: and then it becomes a three week number one songs.
Speaker 1: Pretty crazy. Thank you very much. I appreciated coming vibe.
Speaker 1: I know, Um you're doing a lot so to spend
Speaker 1: a little time here, We appreciate it. You guys can
Speaker 1: follow Old Dominion Music on Instagram or empt Ramsey. Um.
Speaker 1: That's that's that's Matt's private account, all right, I guess
Speaker 1: not private public but solo. Yeah yeah, which every one?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, the private private account the only I have.
Speaker 1: That's the other matter, all right, Thanks Matt. So that
Speaker 1: was part one of the Top eight Bobby Cast interviews
Speaker 1: of back next week to find out who makes the
Speaker 1: top four. And you can go back and check out
Speaker 1: those full episodes on the same feed. Just scroll back
Speaker 1: through there and you'll see all the episodes from this year.
Speaker 1: And if you're looking for something else to listen to
Speaker 1: this holiday break, you can check out my podcast, Movie
Speaker 1: Mix Movie Podcast. If you love movies, just need some recommendations,
Speaker 1: or you want to hear some interviews with actors and directors.
Speaker 1: I also do spoiler free movie reviews, so you don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about anything getting ruined. Just search movie Mix,
Speaker 1: movie podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, and my name
Speaker 1: is Mike d. You can follow me on Instagram, Twitter,
Speaker 1: TikTok at Mike de Stro That's Mike D. E E
Speaker 1: S t r oh and I'll talk to you next
Speaker 1: week on Part two.