Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftsets podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is Kenny Chesney, who's got a new word
Speaker 1: of biography, part life Music. Kenny, Why this book? Why now?
Speaker 2: Well, Bob, I have been really running pretty hard for
Speaker 2: a while, and there was always, uh, I've always been driven.
Speaker 2: I've always been insanely creative, which hasn't left a lot
Speaker 2: of time for reflecting. And when Holly and I first
Speaker 2: started thinking about this.
Speaker 1: Holly Gleison, your co writer, Holly Lison.
Speaker 2: My co writer, and we thought about all the roads
Speaker 2: have gone down, We thought about, you know, all the
Speaker 2: people that did it with me, and I just decided
Speaker 2: that I'd better write it down now because there was
Speaker 2: some hazy years. You know, we had a lot of
Speaker 2: fun out there. But I also, you know, I wanted
Speaker 2: to champion pay tribute to a lot of people that
Speaker 2: championed me along the way also, And that's why now
Speaker 2: I felt like now that was the best time, because
Speaker 2: I still feel very creative and and want to move forward,
Speaker 2: and but I just haven't. I just have not let
Speaker 2: myself reflect that much. And until I sat down with
Speaker 2: Holly Gleeson, and that's been like a year and something experience.
Speaker 2: So but I'm really glad we did it. You know,
Speaker 2: it's like almost like therapy. Every time, you know, in therapy,
Speaker 2: they had you tell the story over and over again,
Speaker 2: and every time you tell it, you remember something else.
Speaker 2: And that's that's a lot about what writing this book
Speaker 2: was Likeve.
Speaker 1: So what did you learn writing the book yourself?
Speaker 2: That's a great question. I have learned that how powerful
Speaker 2: dreams can be. I was a kid, like we say
Speaker 2: in the book, I literally I lived with my grandmother.
Speaker 2: My mom and my real father divorced when I was one,
Speaker 2: and so my mom married my stepfather after that, and
Speaker 2: he was a Vietnam So we lived with my grandmother
Speaker 2: and I would lay out in her backyard at night
Speaker 2: and stare up at the sky because there was really
Speaker 2: no we were so far out outside of Knoxville. We
Speaker 2: we didn't get any light pollution, you know. So when
Speaker 2: it was when it was dark and clear, it was beautiful.
Speaker 2: And I was dreaming, Bob, But I didn't know what
Speaker 2: the dream was. I was just dreaming to dream, like
Speaker 2: I said in the book. But I was just so
Speaker 2: curious about what was past my county line, what was
Speaker 2: past the only roads I knew to go down with
Speaker 2: the roads to school, the roads to church with my grandmother,
Speaker 2: the rose to the ballpark, and that was about it.
Speaker 2: And every Christmas, my grandfather would be the guy that goes, Hey,
Speaker 2: we're all going to get in the car. We're going
Speaker 2: to go to Knoxville to see the lights, right, And
Speaker 2: he was also the person that would sit there and go, Wow,
Speaker 2: I wonder what that lot bills costing them. So I
Speaker 2: don't know. I think about that kid, and I think
Speaker 2: about the person that I am now, and I just
Speaker 2: think about how powerful my journey has been, about how
Speaker 2: many and how my life has changed, and how many
Speaker 2: how it changed the lives of people that have come
Speaker 2: along with me. And that's a very powerful, profound thing
Speaker 2: because we all came from different places, we all have
Speaker 2: different religious beliefs, we all have different political beliefs, but
Speaker 2: somehow we all play the same notes. And I think
Speaker 2: that's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Okay, are you talking the book about burnout? You don't
Speaker 1: use that actual term, but you say one thing. You're
Speaker 1: on stage and again you can barely finish the gieg.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had, And I hesitate saying this because my
Speaker 2: heroes have been on the road their whole life, right
Speaker 2: they have. And now I've been on I have been
Speaker 2: doing this for over thirty two years now, believe it
Speaker 2: or not. But there was a moment in two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine where I went on the road in November
Speaker 2: of ninety three, and I did not stop mentally, emotionally, physically,
Speaker 2: creatively at all until that night in Indianapolis. And that
Speaker 2: was two thousand and nine. So with that sixteen years.
Speaker 2: So it was a constant, constant, and I felt numb.
Speaker 2: I didn't feel like I was listening to music the
Speaker 2: same way. I didn't feel like I was creating the
Speaker 2: same way. I didn't feel like that I was. I
Speaker 2: just felt I didn't felt good or bad. I just
Speaker 2: felt numb. And that's not the way to make music.
Speaker 2: That's not the way to create. And I wasn't a
Speaker 2: great friend. I wasn't a great son. I wasn't I
Speaker 2: just was just lost, you know, And I didn't I
Speaker 2: was really scared because I really loved what I do,
Speaker 2: but I could and I could just tell that I
Speaker 2: wasn't the same up there, and I wasn't giving like
Speaker 2: I used to, and I got really scared, and that's
Speaker 2: why I took all of twenty ten off. I just
Speaker 2: needed a break, and that's when I had already had
Speaker 2: Boys of Fall recorded, and we went when I had
Speaker 2: some time off that fall to start shooting. It was
Speaker 2: a long form video for that song. And then when
Speaker 2: we got done with it, I went and played it.
Speaker 2: I met the guy who was ahead of things at
Speaker 2: ESPN at the time. His name was John Walsh. I
Speaker 2: met him with Jimmy Buffett at the super Bowl party
Speaker 2: a couple of years at a super Bowl party a
Speaker 2: couple of years prior, and he said, if you ever
Speaker 2: you know, told me if I ever wanted anything him
Speaker 2: to look at anything, to call him. So when I
Speaker 2: had that long form video, I sent it to him
Speaker 2: and that was the beginning of a whole other chapter
Speaker 2: for me. That's when we all of a sudden, I
Speaker 2: am in the living rooms of Bobby Balden, Nick Saban,
Speaker 2: Bill Parcells. I flew to San Francisco and was in
Speaker 2: John Madden's. It wasn't his house. He had this big
Speaker 2: warehouse and he had big screen TVs all over it
Speaker 2: in a big kitchen, and all of a sudden, I'm
Speaker 2: in places like that interviewing these people that were very
Speaker 2: that were giants in football. My dad was a coach.
Speaker 2: Sports was always very important to me. So walking into
Speaker 2: those rooms, I was like, Wow, this is this is
Speaker 2: really different. But it was feeding me creatively in ways
Speaker 2: that music wasn't at that time. And I spent all
Speaker 2: of twenty ten making that documentary and it was on
Speaker 2: ESPN for a good while about it took something different
Speaker 2: like that to feed me in ways that I never
Speaker 2: saw coming. I mean, I was in Joe NAMA's house
Speaker 2: in Florida and we weren't talking about football. We were
Speaker 2: talking about life. We were talking about how life is
Speaker 2: not just to get you know, how football is at
Speaker 2: a game, and how life is a game egle. But
Speaker 2: life is the big game and you can't do it alone.
Speaker 2: You've got to have people around you. I didn't expect
Speaker 2: that stuff to come out of Joe Namas mouth. I
Speaker 2: was like wow, I mean, I was so inspired, and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, there was a moment where I felt, Wow,
Speaker 2: I'm back, I'm really back. And then I started listening.
Speaker 2: I started listening differently. I mean, my manager, Dell Morris,
Speaker 2: some of the best advice he gave me was there's
Speaker 2: a fine line between a groove and a rut. And
Speaker 2: you know what's really bad is when you think you're
Speaker 2: in a groove, but you're really in a rut. And
Speaker 2: I was in a rut for a minute. I mean
Speaker 2: you may not, you know, I see it all the time,
Speaker 2: and we all see it. You know, everybody keeps making
Speaker 2: the same music. Well, they're in a rut. And I
Speaker 2: could have stayed and kept doing what I was doing,
Speaker 2: but the boys that year I took off and getting
Speaker 2: out of the rut Boys Will Fall helped me find
Speaker 2: my groove again. And had I not done that, I
Speaker 2: would have been off in an exhaustion oblivion.
Speaker 1: How do you avoid falling into a rut and getting
Speaker 1: burned out going forward?
Speaker 2: Well, I think that just creatively, I feel right now
Speaker 2: I'm taking better care of myself more than ever, I think, physically, mentally, everything.
Speaker 2: I think that for me, I try to write with
Speaker 2: different people, and I try to I think when you've
Speaker 2: been doing this as long as I have now, it's
Speaker 2: very easy to get caught in the same if you
Speaker 2: will rut melodically, especially as a writer, and so I
Speaker 2: try to write with new people. I try to write
Speaker 2: with younger writers that have fresh brains and doesn't have
Speaker 2: this same neural pathway as I do. I think that's
Speaker 2: that's the thing, is creating different roads to go down
Speaker 2: in different neural pathways. And that's what I that I've
Speaker 2: been trying to do, you know, for a while now.
Speaker 2: But moving forward is I just always try to keep it,
Speaker 2: try to keep it fresh and write and be around.
Speaker 2: It's not doesn't always work out, but I mean there's
Speaker 2: there's some great new riters in town, you know, and
Speaker 2: that has a different They just have a different way
Speaker 2: of thinking. And for me that's been writing the same
Speaker 2: way for a while. That's really good to create those
Speaker 2: neural pathways.
Speaker 1: Okay, but what's driving you? You know, you're living in
Speaker 1: the booney you have a dream, you take yourself to
Speaker 1: Nashville after college, and let's just go to the end.
Speaker 1: You achieve your dream. Yes, you're in the Country Music
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. You can't be any bigger in country music.
Speaker 1: So what gets you up in the morning? What makes
Speaker 1: you say, well, I want fact that I don't have that,
Speaker 1: or I want to achieve this.
Speaker 2: I would I would sincerely hope that I haven't written
Speaker 2: my best song yet, And I sincerely hope that I
Speaker 2: haven't made my best record yet. The idea of being better.
Speaker 2: I try to be better. I you know, I don't
Speaker 2: act like I used to out there on the road.
Speaker 2: It's pretty boring out there. I remember you being in
Speaker 2: LA when we played the Staples Center. It was called
Speaker 2: then you know so, and we had a big party afterwards.
Speaker 2: I mean it was We used to do that every
Speaker 2: night and it was great. But I hadn't make a
Speaker 2: decision right around I don't know, about fifteen years about ten,
Speaker 2: fifteen years ago, if I was going to do that,
Speaker 2: or if I was going to do this, you know,
Speaker 2: if I was going to act like that all the
Speaker 2: time and do that. Because I realized that I couldn't
Speaker 2: do both. I couldn't live that lifestyle and give the
Speaker 2: audience exactly what they deserved. And I didn't go down
Speaker 2: all these roads to mail it in, you know, And
Speaker 2: I just had a I don't know, I had to
Speaker 2: come into Jesus meeting with myself in a way you
Speaker 2: know where I said, no, you're you're going to give
Speaker 2: these people care about your music, they care about you,
Speaker 2: they care about the experience, and not only are they
Speaker 2: going to get all of you, they're going to get
Speaker 2: the best of you.
Speaker 1: Okay, you reference therapy earlier. You reference a therapist in
Speaker 1: the book. When did you start going? Do you still go?
Speaker 1: Did it help?
Speaker 2: Oh? Well that was only went once they made me
Speaker 2: do that, or yes they helped? I think we should all,
Speaker 2: you know, I try really hard to be in shape physically,
Speaker 2: to go do what I do. My show is I
Speaker 2: don't sit there and tap my toe. I have video
Speaker 2: footage of me as a child in my grandmother's kitchen
Speaker 2: listening to music, and I almost stand the same way
Speaker 2: and move the same way. That being said, I think
Speaker 2: it's also important for you to work out your brain too.
Speaker 1: And yes, hell, you know you're talking the book about
Speaker 1: eating the same meal and eating clean and you're eating
Speaker 1: one day and people are eating the other way? What
Speaker 1: is driving you there? I'm sure you know you want
Speaker 1: to be in shape, but is it also a physicality?
Speaker 1: And don't you feel deprived that you can't have, you know,
Speaker 1: the junk that other people haven't.
Speaker 2: Well, look, I come from a family of emotional eaters, right,
Speaker 2: and I grew up loving to eat. I loved to eat.
Speaker 2: But I don't necessarily feel deprived, I would say I
Speaker 2: when I made this life choice and change. I was
Speaker 2: still on one bus, so it was it was me
Speaker 2: and the band, and we were pulling a trailer with
Speaker 2: all the merch right, and they would get pizza after
Speaker 2: the show and it would be the most excruciating thing ever.
Speaker 2: So I would just open the box and smell it
Speaker 2: and go to bed. But yeah, I mean sometimes I
Speaker 2: feel deprived. But look, I will tell you when I'm
Speaker 2: off the road, when I'm done. For the last how
Speaker 2: many years, we've ended our shows. Ended our tour with
Speaker 2: two nights in Foxboro and at Gillette Stadium, and I
Speaker 2: trust me, I make up for it as soon as
Speaker 2: that the next day for a while. And so but
Speaker 2: I don't know, just being I'm so driven, and so
Speaker 2: when I'm up there on stage, I don't it's I've
Speaker 2: just built this. I don't know if it's a persona
Speaker 2: or whatever it is, and it's I don't even know
Speaker 2: how sustainable it is, to be honest with you, but
Speaker 2: that's the way I've done it. And but I wouldn't
Speaker 2: say deprived, but I I know I'm missing out, but
Speaker 2: I'd rather do what I do. I'll eat later.
Speaker 1: Well, any other vices, so to speak.
Speaker 2: None no, not really. I'm I'm I'm as pretty boring
Speaker 2: to be honest with you. I mean, I'm one of
Speaker 2: the reasons that I you know, one of one of
Speaker 2: the reasons I got tired while we were talking earlier,
Speaker 2: and is doing what I do the way I do
Speaker 2: it is sometimes feels I wouldn't say like I sacrificed,
Speaker 2: but I will tell you it. Sometimes it feels very robotic.
Speaker 2: So I have to go. I have to go jump
Speaker 2: in the ocean. I have to go feel sunlight. I
Speaker 2: have to I have to get out of my head
Speaker 2: a little bit, you know. So, But that's the way
Speaker 2: it's been for me, and it is every year. Around
Speaker 2: the second week of January, I flipped I flipped the
Speaker 2: switch off, and I go, Okay, now I start living
Speaker 2: my life almost like it's like it's through a straw,
Speaker 2: like this is all you see. And I work out,
Speaker 2: I eat clean, I create, and I'm like, when we're
Speaker 2: we already know right now that in June when we
Speaker 2: go play the Spear again, that we're going to have
Speaker 2: to change half that show. It took us a long
Speaker 2: time to create that content. Well here we are almost,
Speaker 2: you know, almost the end of the year. And we're
Speaker 2: already working forward on that. So it's just a constant cycle.
Speaker 2: But you know, look, I love it, I really do,
Speaker 2: and I love being able to see what we can
Speaker 2: create up there. But but that being said, I have
Speaker 2: to sit there and go, Okay, now you're gonna eat
Speaker 2: at Christmas, you're gonna eat it Thanksgiving, you're gonna go
Speaker 2: to the Islands, you're gonna you're gonna get on a boat,
Speaker 2: you're gonna, you know, do whatever. But it's second week
Speaker 2: of January. You've got to prepare to start being that person.
Speaker 2: And that has been the cycle I've been on for
Speaker 2: a lot of years.
Speaker 1: Okay, you go on the road, you finish in Foxborough.
Speaker 1: How long does it take you to decompress from being
Speaker 1: on the road.
Speaker 2: Well, in twenty twenty four was like, we didn't do
Speaker 2: stadium shows last year. In twenty twenty four was the
Speaker 2: last one, and it took a minute. To be honest
Speaker 2: with you, there is and I don't know why, but
Speaker 2: that year specifically, I felt a real emotional and mental
Speaker 2: release from it all because you and I wasn't prepared
Speaker 2: for it. It was really hard, and there was such
Speaker 2: a calm down from all of it. And you know,
Speaker 2: for years I've I took my band and crew, probably
Speaker 2: one hundred people all down more than that to the
Speaker 2: Virgin Islands after after every tour and let them jump
Speaker 2: in the ocean and just let us celebrate the life
Speaker 2: we get to live. Well, that specific year, I was
Speaker 2: just emotionally so tired, and it was the first time
Speaker 2: that I felt that emotional and mental release that hard.
Speaker 2: And I don't know why, but it messed with me
Speaker 2: a little bit, you know, and it was it took
Speaker 2: it took about a month for me to go, oh, wait,
Speaker 2: where did everybody go? You know, because we're just all
Speaker 2: together for so long, and you live every day out there,
Speaker 2: and these people that have been with me have been
Speaker 2: with me for years. I mean, we're a family out there.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's it's hard to say goodbye to that.
Speaker 2: To me, it's a lot like our last show of
Speaker 2: the year. Is a lot like when we were kids.
Speaker 2: It was a lot like the last day of school, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're ready for a break, but you don't
Speaker 2: want to let go of it either because it's so great.
Speaker 2: And that's how it is for me, you know, I
Speaker 2: look forward to my summer vacation but I start to
Speaker 2: get antsy if I say it still too long.
Speaker 1: Okay, On a more a granular level, you're out there
Speaker 1: playing maybe to fifty thousand people. You leave the stage,
Speaker 1: you have the same people you might have known for decades.
Speaker 1: How long did it take you to wind down and
Speaker 1: go to sleep after a show?
Speaker 2: Well, I haven't slept in years. I don't feel like
Speaker 2: you know. I've my brain. The one side of my
Speaker 2: brain is turning one way or the other side terms
Speaker 2: the other, and I got to find the happy medium
Speaker 2: in there. It takes a couple hours, you know. But
Speaker 2: my after show, what after shows look like now, is
Speaker 2: much different than when I met you originally, and when
Speaker 2: I when all this, than when my life really changed.
Speaker 2: Like I look forward to after the show, I don't don't.
Speaker 2: I don't drink like I used to. I don't I
Speaker 2: don't live that lifestyle. I truly like now. I have
Speaker 2: an ice tub out outside my bus that my friend
Speaker 2: Lard Hamilton.
Speaker 1: Let me start, How the fuck do you know Lard Hamilton?
Speaker 2: I know Lard Hamilton for years.
Speaker 1: I mean no, wait, in the book, you are constantly
Speaker 1: talking about different people, but you have relationships with these people.
Speaker 1: It's not here one. It's not like you said, Nolly,
Speaker 1: I met that person, we had a conversation. No, we continue,
Speaker 1: you know, etcetera.
Speaker 2: Here's how I met Lard Hamilton is the girl that
Speaker 2: I was dating at the time, Mary. She and I
Speaker 2: were in Maui and there was a lady that was
Speaker 2: cooking us breakfast every morning, and she goes, well, where
Speaker 2: are you guys going next? I said, well, I've never
Speaker 2: been to Kawhi. We're going to go to Kawai. She goes, well,
Speaker 2: you should call Laird Hamilton. I said, well, he don't
Speaker 2: know me. I don't know him, you know, why should
Speaker 2: I call him? But I did, and him and his
Speaker 2: wife Gabby met us down at their barn right on
Speaker 2: the river in Kawai, and they let us go out
Speaker 2: on their paddle boards and when we got back, they
Speaker 2: had two open coconuts in our jeep and that was
Speaker 2: the beginning of our friendship. And I've been they have
Speaker 2: really been a positive impact on my life, you know,
Speaker 2: mentally and physically. I go up there and train with
Speaker 2: Laird and it's a grueling thing, but yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: I this goes to show you how powerful the universe is.
Speaker 2: I mean, the kid from me Tennessee is not supposed
Speaker 2: to be friends with Larr at Hamilton, right, That's just
Speaker 2: the way it is, or even met all these people
Speaker 2: that I that I reference in the book. So but Laird,
Speaker 2: I spent countless days up at Laird's house, setting in
Speaker 2: asauna and getting an ice tub. I went, wow, this
Speaker 2: is what I need out on the road, you know,
Speaker 2: because I beat my body up so much during a
Speaker 2: show that I went, well, I need to get an
Speaker 2: ice instead of acting like I used to, I need
Speaker 2: to set an ice tub and let my body heal
Speaker 2: and then go to bed. So that's basically what after
Speaker 2: shows look like now. And it's become a thing out
Speaker 2: there like now. Like I told you earlier, I take
Speaker 2: a lot of Bandon crew down to the Islands after
Speaker 2: our tour. Well, one of the caveats is is they
Speaker 2: have to at least participate onints in the Cold Plunge,
Speaker 2: and if they don't get in the Cold Plunge, then
Speaker 2: they don't get to go. So it'll be okay. We
Speaker 2: got two weeks left in the tour, and there's I
Speaker 2: know exactly how many people haven't hadn't done it yet,
Speaker 2: and so so and I know who they are, and
Speaker 2: so if they want to go, they got to get
Speaker 2: in that ice tub. And last day of the tour
Speaker 2: is always really fun because everybody has to pay the
Speaker 2: piper and they got to get that ice And it's
Speaker 2: taught me a lot about I know, I'm off the
Speaker 2: subject now, but it's taught me a lot about human
Speaker 2: behavior because you never know how people are going to
Speaker 2: react under pressure. Some react favorably, some react unfavorably, and
Speaker 2: it teaches you a lot about that person, you know.
Speaker 2: So it been it's so fun to watch them, to
Speaker 2: watch that game in the ice it's great. But Lair
Speaker 2: taught me all that.
Speaker 1: Okay, once again, a little more granular. You have the
Speaker 1: people they don't you know, there's some people who die
Speaker 1: that jump in the water. That's what the other people
Speaker 1: they would do anything. So what did you learn about
Speaker 1: people observing this?
Speaker 2: Well, it gets everybody out of their comfort zone. I
Speaker 2: mean everybody. They'll participate, but I don't know. Here's what
Speaker 2: it does. As terrible as it is for some of them,
Speaker 2: it does it's a bonding moment for all of us.
Speaker 2: That's what I learned. I mean, next thing, you know,
Speaker 2: there's fifty people around that coplonde watching everybody do it,
Speaker 2: and it just brought us all together in ways that
Speaker 2: you don't you don't see. You don't see that coming, right,
Speaker 2: But it's just human behavior is a tricky thing, and
Speaker 2: some people that you think would flourish in that moment,
Speaker 2: they don't do well. And then some people that you
Speaker 2: think wouldn't do well do great. So I don't know,
Speaker 2: but it's for me. I like doing it because it's
Speaker 2: such a bonding moment for everybody out there on the road.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're obviously the boss, but are you a person
Speaker 1: in the cabin at summer camp or you the camp counselor.
Speaker 2: Well, I have a camp counselor I like to be
Speaker 2: in the cabin. I mean, I'm paying for it.
Speaker 1: Who's in charge?
Speaker 2: Well, David, David Farmer is you know, my road manager,
Speaker 2: and he's him, and uh my production manager, Ed Wannabo.
Speaker 2: But David's the boss of everybody. I'm the boss, but
Speaker 2: David's the the underboss, right so, and he's done a
Speaker 2: great job over the years, you know. But yes, Look,
Speaker 2: one one day I was looking out my bus window.
Speaker 2: We were It was one of the first few years
Speaker 2: that I was playing stadiums. I was outside of the
Speaker 2: Pittsburgh Steed there was football stadium and I was looking
Speaker 2: at all this stuff, and I went, you know, who's
Speaker 2: paying for this? And I was like, God, I am
Speaker 2: And it really hit me, you know, so I tried
Speaker 2: not to think about. I don't like to be the boss.
Speaker 2: I really don't. I like to I like to be
Speaker 2: the kid the cabin I really do. But I know
Speaker 2: I'm the boss, but I let I delegate a lot
Speaker 2: of that stuff to Dave.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, you got a lot of people on the
Speaker 1: road with you interact with a lot of people. There
Speaker 1: are band members don't even hang with each other. Okay,
Speaker 1: a person, you know, it's a well oiled machine. So
Speaker 1: are you the type of person you know, don't bug Kenny.
Speaker 1: He's doing this thing, He'll show up. Well, are you
Speaker 1: the type person knows what everybody's doing, giving everybody shit?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: Connected all the time? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I try to stay connected. I don't disappear. I mean, look,
Speaker 2: I'm isolated enough in my life. You know. That's the
Speaker 2: one place where I don't have to be isolated. I
Speaker 2: got my family around me, So no, I mean I
Speaker 2: have seen that what you're saying happen. I really have
Speaker 2: my really big acts and people that some of my heroes,
Speaker 2: and they don't really communicate with anybody, And I think,
Speaker 2: I think, wow, what a You know, our life is
Speaker 2: isolating enough. We're doing enough a good enough job on
Speaker 2: our own doing that, you know, or I do anyway,
Speaker 2: especially when I'm off the road. But when I'm out there,
Speaker 2: that's where one of the places that I feel actually
Speaker 2: comfortable in my skin and is communicating with everybody and
Speaker 2: having fun. Look, I've been doing this a while now,
Speaker 2: and I'm telling you, we have the fund meter out
Speaker 2: there for a lot of years has been all the
Speaker 2: way over. I mean, we have had a lot of
Speaker 2: fun doing this, and I couldn't think of just isolating
Speaker 2: myself and I don't know, having some sort of this
Speaker 2: unapproachable persona. I just never understood that. I never understood
Speaker 2: people with you know, I'd go to friends shows and
Speaker 2: they would have all this this this over the top
Speaker 2: security with the microphones in their face, and you know
Speaker 2: that I just it's just I just don't do it
Speaker 2: that way. I refuse to because it just it's I
Speaker 2: would go to shows that would make me uncomfortable, and
Speaker 2: I do this for a living, So you'd imagine what
Speaker 2: somebody that that's just back there for how they feel.
Speaker 2: So I've tried not to be that person.
Speaker 1: Well tell me you did say I'm isolated enough. Tell
Speaker 1: me more about that.
Speaker 2: Well, I think over the years I have. I think
Speaker 2: over the years I wouldn't always I was. I was
Speaker 2: always a very people person. Now I can be up
Speaker 2: there on stage and communicate and be intimate, I mean
Speaker 2: so intimate, and I can take my finger and I
Speaker 2: can move fifty thousand people to the left if I want,
Speaker 2: and to the right if I want, and I know
Speaker 2: how to do that. That's one thing. But over the
Speaker 2: years I've developed I would say, some sort of social anxiety,
Speaker 2: especially with the new technologies and all the devices that
Speaker 2: we have, and with all and how quickly an awkward
Speaker 2: interaction can go viral, right, and when you don't even
Speaker 2: mean it for it to like somebody, Oh, Kenny didn't
Speaker 2: say hi to me, he's an asshole, And maybe I'm
Speaker 2: maybe I didn't hear them, maybe I'm having a bad day.
Speaker 2: Maybe I was, you know what I mean. And so
Speaker 2: it's that way. So I have developed social anxiety to
Speaker 2: a point. I'm not saying that I don't I do
Speaker 2: get out of the house. I I'm not painting myself
Speaker 2: into a room or anything. But it has changed out there.
Speaker 1: Okay, but you have, as I say, it was very
Speaker 1: notable reading the book. You have a number of people
Speaker 1: who are celebrities, let's call them, in different walks of life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you maintain contact with is the type of thing where
Speaker 1: you say, hey, I haven't heard from the guy in
Speaker 1: a while. I'm in the text or are you in
Speaker 1: constant communication? Are you the recipient or you the person
Speaker 1: who does the outreach? What does it look like?
Speaker 2: It's different for everybody, you know? Got I got a
Speaker 2: video this morning from Joe Walsh. It was this funny
Speaker 2: video of this guy playing guitar and it just I
Speaker 2: forgot what was but it was just burning his hands off,
Speaker 2: you know. And it was just Joe's a very Joe's
Speaker 2: got a very unique sense of humor and I love
Speaker 2: him and Joe's one of those guys that just showed
Speaker 2: up in my life. Know it was. It was great
Speaker 2: because me and the guy was talking about earlier David Farmer.
Speaker 2: David Farmer had had a pool table in his garage
Speaker 2: and we were those kids. You know that that would
Speaker 2: take the pool sticks and play the guitar licks, you know,
Speaker 2: to Uh to the James Gang, or to Montrose with
Speaker 2: Sammy Hagar or I mean every Van Halen record that
Speaker 2: was ever made, we were we were doing that. So
Speaker 2: to think that you would be later on in your
Speaker 2: life and get being this place and you would be
Speaker 2: friends with those people on any level. The fact that
Speaker 2: they know who you are at all is one of
Speaker 2: the most amazing things. That's That's about what's happened to
Speaker 2: me in my journey that I did become friends that
Speaker 2: one day out of the blue, Irving asof called me
Speaker 2: and he goes, hey, Adie van Halen's gonna call you.
Speaker 2: I went, yeah, okay, right, And next thing you know,
Speaker 2: I answered the phone and it was Eddie. I could
Speaker 2: tell it was Eddie. I I saw interviews I had,
Speaker 2: you know, and so the fact and then you fast forward.
Speaker 2: Then Eddie and Eddie and Alice come to our show.
Speaker 2: I think we played the soccer stadium outside of LA
Speaker 2: and they came and showed up and got there early.
Speaker 2: And Eddie had his long hair and he had his
Speaker 2: shirt off and he was ripped and then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden here are It was like a it was
Speaker 2: such a Wayne's World moment or a Beavis and butt
Speaker 2: Head moment, you know what I mean. It was like
Speaker 2: we couldn't believe it. And everybody that was on the
Speaker 2: road with me loved that music so much, not just
Speaker 2: my crew, but every band that was on the show,
Speaker 2: their crew and everybody. You could just see hundreds of
Speaker 2: people stage right and stage left seeing this moment. And
Speaker 2: my guitar player at the time, Clayton Mitchell, was one
Speaker 2: of those guys that sat in his that sat in
Speaker 2: his closet and learned every single lick of Eddie's. He
Speaker 2: tried to to copy everything. So to see that moment,
Speaker 2: it was, it was it was insane. So our communication,
Speaker 2: my communication with Eddie was back and forth a lot.
Speaker 2: Now with Sammy, it's it's that on steroids, you know.
Speaker 2: I I love being around Sammy because he feels like
Speaker 2: sunshine to me. I just I love him. And the
Speaker 2: first time I went to play Sammy's birthday party in Cabo,
Speaker 2: I was thirty six years old, and I talk about
Speaker 2: this in the book, but it was a life changing
Speaker 2: moment for me, you know, in a way, because I
Speaker 2: was thirty six, and I felt like I had to.
Speaker 2: I didn't know where this this journey was taking me.
Speaker 2: I had just broken up with a girl at the time,
Speaker 2: and I was going, wow, like where is my life going?
Speaker 2: You know? And that night I was like, we played
Speaker 2: almost three hours at Cabo Wabo and at Sammy's bar,
Speaker 2: and then I went back to the house the Samy
Speaker 2: god for me and I'm the guitar out and I thought, well,
Speaker 2: I don't have to figure out what's next. I just
Speaker 2: got to go and just just live it. And that's
Speaker 2: the night that I I wrote very in Mexico, all
Speaker 2: of it that night, and that taught me a lesson too,
Speaker 2: about you know, creating and and just writing what you
Speaker 2: live and how you feel and not just some something
Speaker 2: that's made up in a a in a room with
Speaker 2: three or four co writers on a writing trip, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, that was a real that was a real
Speaker 2: soulful there was a glimpse into my soul. Really, people
Speaker 2: that listen to the people that I always saw that
Speaker 2: title thought it was a drinking song, but it wasn't.
Speaker 2: It was it was a it was a glimpse into
Speaker 2: my soul, like I said, and it was a turning
Speaker 2: of the page for me.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to John Madden. You rest him. John
Speaker 1: Madden one said, you play one game in the NFL
Speaker 1: and your body will never be the same. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: played high school football. How's your body?
Speaker 2: Well, my body is a lot better than the guys
Speaker 2: that play in the NFL. I was. I loved high
Speaker 2: school football, but I was absolutely terrible at it. I
Speaker 2: mean that was five six and one hundred and forty pounds,
Speaker 2: soak and web and we were just an okay team.
Speaker 2: I mean we lived out in the country. We lived
Speaker 2: you know, we had what we had. We didn't have
Speaker 2: a lot of great athletes. We had one guy on
Speaker 2: our team that played a Division one football. His name
Speaker 2: was Donnie Collins and he went to the University of Georgia.
Speaker 2: So we were just we knew that we weren't going
Speaker 2: to play past foot class high school. But Bob, I
Speaker 2: got to tell you, man, it taught me so much
Speaker 2: about the way that I do business today, and especially
Speaker 2: when you try to achieve something wonderful with a lot
Speaker 2: of people, and football taught me that lesson. You know,
Speaker 2: you can't everybody has to be on the same page,
Speaker 2: you know, whether whether you're on the road or you're
Speaker 2: in corporate America or whatever. If not, ever, if everybody
Speaker 2: is not aligned, and what's the same thing, it's not
Speaker 2: it's not gonna it's gonna be really hard to achieve
Speaker 2: anything great. But I've also learned through sports that mediocre
Speaker 2: people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like
Speaker 2: mediocre people that they want because their thought processes aren't aligned.
Speaker 2: They're not because the mediocre people think they're working hard,
Speaker 2: but the high achievers know they're not, and so it's
Speaker 2: never going to be aligned. Ever. So that's what football
Speaker 2: taught me, and that's what thirty years of being on
Speaker 2: the road has taught me.
Speaker 1: Can you lift a mediocre person who's not working enough
Speaker 1: for efficiently up into the upper realm.
Speaker 2: If they're willing, Yes, if they're willing. It depends on
Speaker 2: what work ethic I think that you know, especially if
Speaker 2: they have if they have some sort of talent. But
Speaker 2: you can have things without talent and still and still
Speaker 2: you know, because you don't need talent to have work ethic.
Speaker 2: You don't need you don't have to have talent to
Speaker 2: be coachable. You don't have to have talent to show up,
Speaker 2: you don't have you see what I'm saying, Like, they
Speaker 2: have to. They have to have all those things if
Speaker 2: they're mediocre, and then they can overachieve. For sure they can,
Speaker 2: you could, but they got to want to be there.
Speaker 2: And so that's what that's I've tried over my career.
Speaker 2: I've tried really hard to look at that through a
Speaker 2: fish eye lens and just see how people react. It
Speaker 2: goes back to the ice cub in a way. It
Speaker 2: goes back to how they act and react and under
Speaker 2: pressure or when they're uncomfortable. That says a lot because
Speaker 2: it's it's it's it's it's really. Football also taught me this.
Speaker 2: It's really people. Really, everybody reacts favorably when things are good.
Speaker 2: It's how when things are bad, when they see it,
Speaker 2: you start to see you start to measure human behavior.
Speaker 2: It's it's how people react under pressure is one of
Speaker 2: the biggest barometers of human behavior that I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: How do you react under pressure?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just I turn it up and just go.
Speaker 2: You know, I have the most pressure I have ever
Speaker 2: I mean, this was the scaredest I've ever been and
Speaker 2: the most nervous I've ever been, and the most pressure
Speaker 2: I've ever been. Music Cares honor Bruce Springsteen in La
Speaker 2: You're in Gramy Week and I was asked to come
Speaker 2: sing One Step Up and Two Steps Back for him
Speaker 2: that night, and I'd sing that song forever. I mean,
Speaker 2: I could play it backwards. I played it in college.
Speaker 2: It was on my No Shoes record. I did a
Speaker 2: cover of it. But this was different. I mean here
Speaker 2: I am me, my guitar on a stool, my piano player,
Speaker 2: and there's Bruce ten feet away from me, and Sting
Speaker 2: and Jackson Brown and Bruce's wife and this all these
Speaker 2: people in front of me, and I went, oh wow.
Speaker 2: I mean I really felt the gravity of that moment.
Speaker 2: I mean I was like, I don't know, I could
Speaker 2: feel sweat going down my nose. But I just took
Speaker 2: a deep breath and I just went, hey, just go
Speaker 2: be your authentic self. Do it just like you did
Speaker 2: at Chucky's Trading Post in Johnson City, Tennessee. That's a
Speaker 2: Mexican restaurant I played at in college. And I would
Speaker 2: play One Step Up because I love that song so much. Well,
Speaker 2: I love the whole Tunnel of Love record a lot,
Speaker 2: and because I think it had a country soul to it,
Speaker 2: but especially one step up. All of a sudden, there
Speaker 2: I was, in my life in front of the man
Speaker 2: that wrote that song, and he's watching me say it,
Speaker 2: and I don't know. It was just one of those
Speaker 2: really surreal moments, But that was that. That is the
Speaker 2: scariest and the most pressure I've ever felt as an
Speaker 2: entertainer in my life. If I look, I don't get nervous.
Speaker 2: I know this probably sounds cocky, but I don't get
Speaker 2: nervous doing the stadium shows because I have forgotten the words.
Speaker 2: I have fell off stage. I have, I've had fans
Speaker 2: come on stage, so those don't Those kinds of things
Speaker 2: don't make me nervous. But playing a really great song
Speaker 2: for one of your heroes right in front of you
Speaker 2: is really difficult.
Speaker 1: It was for me. You ever get the sensation or
Speaker 1: feeling like I don't want to do it, I mean
Speaker 1: ultimately not doing it, but the reaction going, you know,
Speaker 1: reacting to the pressure that you know is going to
Speaker 1: be there.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I I never I never thought that
Speaker 2: I didn't want to do it, but trust me, on
Speaker 2: the flight out there, it hit me. I went, oh wow,
Speaker 2: I mean, this is this is going to be different.
Speaker 2: This is going to be different than in college. And
Speaker 2: but what made me so happy. You know, a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks later, they send you the audio and the
Speaker 2: video because they do some sort of thing they show
Speaker 2: it the next year or whatever, and they wanted me
Speaker 2: to approve the cut of my performance. And when I'm done,
Speaker 2: they cut to Bruce and you can read his lips
Speaker 2: and he's whispering to his wife Patty. He goes, I
Speaker 2: loved it, and that made that validated my whole dream
Speaker 2: as good as it gets. I mean, that's as good
Speaker 2: and validated my whole dream. And so I'm glad I
Speaker 2: did it, even though I was I was under a
Speaker 2: lot of pressure.
Speaker 1: What's the best show you've ever seen that you weren't
Speaker 1: on the stage.
Speaker 3: My first rock show I saw was was def Leppard
Speaker 3: in Knoxville.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's the best. I mean, I
Speaker 2: saw Bruce when they got back. It was when it
Speaker 2: was this because him and the EA street Man hadn't
Speaker 2: played in a while, and then they got back together,
Speaker 2: right and it was that year. So me and Holly
Speaker 2: went to Baltimore to see them, and I was just
Speaker 2: stunned to see someone give every sale of their body
Speaker 2: and to I I just couldn't believe it, you know,
Speaker 2: and just how the how the the momentum kept going.
Speaker 2: You thought for a minute that it was going on,
Speaker 2: you know, because a concert is a lot like sex.
Speaker 2: You know, it has its ups and downs. It's kind
Speaker 2: of you know, it's it's flow. But I mean, it
Speaker 2: was a freight train. It was a freight train. I
Speaker 2: watched the drummer, and I watched how they played and
Speaker 2: how they interacted with each other, and it was just
Speaker 2: that's the best. That's the best. I walked away from
Speaker 2: there and I was on my way home going that's
Speaker 2: the best thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Ever jumping around. Let's go back to college football. What
Speaker 1: was your best play?
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't play college football. I played I met
Speaker 2: high school. Yeah no, I was too small to play
Speaker 2: college football. My best play I don't know. I mean
Speaker 2: I called four passes in one game.
Speaker 1: Well that's pretty good.
Speaker 2: That's my high school highlight. Because we weren't that talented,
Speaker 2: and uh, we ran the ball a lot. We ran
Speaker 2: what is called in football the power eye, which is
Speaker 2: a running formation, and we ran the power out because
Speaker 2: we didn't because we weren't that athletic, and we got
Speaker 2: the ship kicked down of us a lot, you know, so,
Speaker 2: but we had fun. And like I said, that, playing
Speaker 2: playing football changed my life. I still love it to
Speaker 2: this day. But I was just I mean, I was little.
Speaker 2: I was I got to ship kicked down on.
Speaker 1: Me, all okay, So no one was forcing me to play.
Speaker 1: Why did you play?
Speaker 2: I love competition.
Speaker 1: I've played because across the board.
Speaker 2: I love competition. I mean, you can ask my band,
Speaker 2: my band, my crew. There was a moment where I
Speaker 2: get that competition from my father and all of his friends.
Speaker 2: I still to this day. Then I'll go back to
Speaker 2: the band thing, but I still to this day. My
Speaker 2: dad has two friends in Knoxville, Tennessee. One Jim cogged
Speaker 2: on John Stay, and to this day, for the last
Speaker 2: fifteen years, I talk to them every Saturday morning and
Speaker 2: every Sunday morning, and we met every game on the line,
Speaker 2: the Vegas line and the over and under on each game. Now,
Speaker 2: we've never paid each other. I'm not a gambler really,
Speaker 2: but I am with them and we've never paid each other.
Speaker 2: And it's all in fifty dollars bets, and so it's
Speaker 2: been a rolling amount for the last fifteen years. And
Speaker 2: I say it in the book and I'm right around
Speaker 2: the same thing. I'm about almost eight thousand dollars in
Speaker 2: the hole in fifty dollars bets right now to Jim Cogging, Knoxville, Tennessee.
Speaker 2: It's crazy, but it's all about competition. There was a
Speaker 2: time where, you know, when college PlayStation came out and
Speaker 2: we had that football game in there and we played.
Speaker 2: I've held shows for fifteen to twenty minutes because we
Speaker 2: weren't done with the game. And I can do that
Speaker 2: because I can get ready to go on stage in
Speaker 2: less than five minutes. I got a T shirt, I
Speaker 2: got jeans, boots, straw cowboy had. Okay, I'm ready to go,
Speaker 2: and so I can hold it. But that's how that's
Speaker 2: how competitive I am. And rolling down the highway were
Speaker 2: we were somewhere in Alabama and I had a terrible game,
Speaker 2: and I got so pissed off that I pulled the
Speaker 2: whole game out of the console, like the whole game,
Speaker 2: and threw it out the side, out the window, and
Speaker 2: the band just looked at me like I was crazy.
Speaker 2: I was that pissed off. I think I threw like
Speaker 2: five interceptions in the game. But that's how competitive I am.
Speaker 2: And I remember why I'm my piano player. I mean,
Speaker 2: he kicked my ass like it was almost like the
Speaker 2: whole week. We played every day and he beat me
Speaker 2: by over twenty points. And we were playing rupp Arena
Speaker 2: in Lesington, Kentucky one night. We had these big screen
Speaker 2: TVs behind us, and why it had taken a picture
Speaker 2: without me knowing it of the screen of the score.
Speaker 2: And while I was introducing the band, they put that
Speaker 2: picture up there on the on the screen, and yeah,
Speaker 2: it really pissed me off. But I was like, that's
Speaker 2: how competitive I am. So that answered to you. That's
Speaker 2: a long answer to your question. But I just loved
Speaker 2: I just loved being competitive, and I liked playing football
Speaker 2: because it it got me out of my comfort zone.
Speaker 2: That's what that goes back to Laird. Laird taught me
Speaker 2: a lot about, especially with pool training and being out
Speaker 2: in the ocean. Is you grow a lot as a
Speaker 2: as a human, and you get better when you're out
Speaker 2: of your comfort zone.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know that's not a good story. In the
Speaker 1: bus throw you know, throwing stuff out the ego. Did
Speaker 1: you say you're at it's great to win. But would
Speaker 1: you say sometimes you're a sore loser.
Speaker 2: No, well they all tell me that I'm a sore loser.
Speaker 2: But I'm a worst winner, you know, because when I win,
Speaker 2: I just you know, I like to I like to
Speaker 2: run my mouth and so yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 2: a lot of my band and a lot of people
Speaker 2: have been around me. I'm so competitive that I am
Speaker 2: a bad loser, but I'm a worst winner.
Speaker 1: And are you someone like you know, in today's online world,
Speaker 1: you can be you know, playing scrabble with somebody. You
Speaker 1: can be you know, an online multiplayer game, you involved
Speaker 1: in any of that shit.
Speaker 2: No, I don't know. No, that's I don't do that. Uh.
Speaker 2: I try to stay off the devices in the computer
Speaker 2: as much as possible, honestly. But I mean, if you're
Speaker 2: we got a basketball, go out by the bus. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm you know, you can always get a game of
Speaker 2: horse with somebody, you know.
Speaker 1: So wait, wait there's a basketball there, it's sitting by
Speaker 1: the hoop. No one is there. Yeah? Are you going
Speaker 1: to be the person say hey, who's playing ones?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, no, no question, Yeah, I really am. Look,
Speaker 2: there's only so many, Like I said, I've been on
Speaker 2: a bus now for thirty two years. It's crazy to
Speaker 2: think about, but I have. And there's only so many
Speaker 2: times that you can walk from the back of the
Speaker 2: bus to the front of the bus and then walk
Speaker 2: from the front of the bus back to the bus,
Speaker 2: thinking you're going to see something different. So I've got
Speaker 2: to get I've got to get out of there. That's
Speaker 2: why I don't iscolate myself like you were talking about.
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't tell you how many times I
Speaker 2: walked into the production office and just to say hi, people,
Speaker 2: you know, just say what's up.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're off the road. When you're off the road, listen,
Speaker 1: there are things you do. You answer emails, talk on
Speaker 1: the phone. There's a little but that doesn't take twenty
Speaker 1: four hours. You write a few songs. What do you
Speaker 1: do with the rest of the time.
Speaker 2: Well, this year has been different. I was with Holly
Speaker 2: Gleason Rydne's book. That's what I did this year, and
Speaker 2: we haven't stopped. I mean once I let.
Speaker 1: Me let me be very clear, there's work. You're not
Speaker 1: writing a book all day long.
Speaker 2: No, No, you're right.
Speaker 1: Let's you assume it's seven o'clock. Are you calling somebody up.
Speaker 1: What are you up to?
Speaker 4: Are you watching soon television? Are Yeah, I'll binge watch.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'll probably binge watch. And if it's football season,
Speaker 4: I'll watch football, you know. Or I'll go hang with
Speaker 4: my dad, or I'll you know, do whatever.
Speaker 2: I mean. It's it's I will tell you it is
Speaker 2: when when you're really busy and you've in your brain tired.
Speaker 2: I look forward to sitting still, I really do. But
Speaker 2: I got to tell you, I'm I'm I'm a little
Speaker 2: tangled in the vine. When it comes is the time
Speaker 2: off because I crave time off. I do, But when
Speaker 2: I get it, I start to freak out. I start
Speaker 2: to I start to wonder if I'm missing something, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. So it's so, I I work
Speaker 2: out a lot. I love the ocean. I love it,
Speaker 2: get on the paddle board, I I I don't know,
Speaker 2: I visit family. I it's just whatever, you know.
Speaker 1: So, how much time are you in the islands?
Speaker 2: Now that's gotten, that's that's decreased in the last couple
Speaker 2: of years, But a lot once I get done with
Speaker 2: with the launch, and once I get I think I'm done.
Speaker 2: On the seventeenth or eighteenth something like that. I'll probably
Speaker 2: go down for a little bit. You know, it takes
Speaker 2: me a minute because I it's it's uh, sooner or later,
Speaker 2: I will pull the guitar out of the case. Sooner
Speaker 2: or later. It takes it takes a minute, but it
Speaker 2: may not take as long this year because I've been
Speaker 2: actually done playing music since since July. And once I
Speaker 2: got out, once I got done at the sphere this year,
Speaker 2: I went straight into the audiobook. And theo book is
Speaker 2: another animal. I don't know, but I'm telling you that's
Speaker 2: one of the most unpleasant things I've ever done in
Speaker 2: my life. It's the audiobook. But I'm glad I did it.
Speaker 2: It was business. And you know, if I'm a fan,
Speaker 2: like we were talking about my friends and heroes, you know,
Speaker 2: if Sammy Hagar wrote, if he wrote a new book
Speaker 2: and put it out, I'm going to want to hear
Speaker 2: Sammy do the audiobook. You're not going to want to
Speaker 2: hear me do it. You want him to do it.
Speaker 2: And so I understand that it took me a month
Speaker 2: to read this book in the studio. It was just
Speaker 2: it was I was like I was like a week
Speaker 2: in and I was only like on chapter four and
Speaker 2: there's forty nine chapters in this book. I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: this is going to take a minute, but yeah, this
Speaker 2: But now I think when I get done with the
Speaker 2: book launches because the guitar is going to come out
Speaker 2: of the case a little sooner than usual because I've
Speaker 2: been done playing music for a minute and I miss it.
Speaker 1: When you go down, do you ever go down alone?
Speaker 2: I yeah, because I'm not alone down there. I've got
Speaker 2: I've got a lot of still a really close group
Speaker 2: of Island friends that really in ways knew me before
Speaker 2: they even knew what I did. That that was the
Speaker 2: beauty of it. You know, when I first went down,
Speaker 2: I was spending time there. There was you know, it
Speaker 2: was way before social media. It was way before you know,
Speaker 2: everything was so instant, and I don't know that I
Speaker 2: could insulate myself in a way. I mean I was,
Speaker 2: I was playing arenas. I was wow. I mean I
Speaker 2: was on the climb right. But these people didn't care.
Speaker 2: They didn't know, so they really got to know the
Speaker 2: real meat. And then they would come to shows and
Speaker 2: they would see what I do on stage and they
Speaker 2: would scratch their head and go, They're going, wow, we
Speaker 2: had no idea that this person that was down here
Speaker 2: constantly with us on boats and in bars does this
Speaker 2: for a living. They truly, I mean, they knew what
Speaker 2: I did eventually, but they didn't know that that was
Speaker 2: our life at all. So it was really interesting, you know,
Speaker 2: to see them see that. But yeah, I'll either take
Speaker 2: my girlfriend down, or I'll go with my family, or sometimes,
Speaker 2: I mean we usually do it once a year, I'll
Speaker 2: take some writing friends down and we'll just go hang
Speaker 2: for a week and see what we can come up
Speaker 2: with and see if we can find something inspired in
Speaker 2: a different way. And I think as a creative person,
Speaker 2: that's really that's really good to do, you know, because
Speaker 2: earlier we were speaking about neural pathways. As a songwriter,
Speaker 2: for me, I'm always feel like that I need to
Speaker 2: get out of my comfort zone and create somewhere else,
Speaker 2: because you can go down the same neural pathway that
Speaker 2: a room can make you create the same thing. And
Speaker 2: so it's always good to do that, especially after you
Speaker 2: make a record, you know, or while you're making a record.
Speaker 2: More importantly, I get asked for advice all the time about,
Speaker 2: you know, how I made my records and what I've
Speaker 2: done over the years. And the one thing that I
Speaker 2: still do is in the process of making my record,
Speaker 2: especially when I think it's almost done, I'll take that
Speaker 2: in the sequence of the songs and I'll go listen
Speaker 2: to that in different environments, like I'll go to the Islands,
Speaker 2: or I'll go to easton a see because those are
Speaker 2: my people. Or I'll go to New England, or I'll
Speaker 2: drive across Mulholland in la or I'll just see how
Speaker 2: it sits in every environment. And if it doesn't sit
Speaker 2: great in every environment, then I'll try to, Okay, well,
Speaker 2: what will make it sit? And that's exactly how you
Speaker 2: and Tequila came about that whole story right there, because
Speaker 2: I was I didn't have I did. There was this
Speaker 2: missing piece of the Hemming Ways Whiskey record, and I
Speaker 2: had no idea what it was. And Materesa Berg sent
Speaker 2: me you in Tequila. I was driving north at that time.
Speaker 2: I was renting a house. There's this market in Malibu
Speaker 2: culture it used to be called Trapas Market, and I
Speaker 2: was reading a house north of there, and so I
Speaker 2: was just driving home one night and she sent me
Speaker 2: a song and I listened to it on the way
Speaker 2: home and it was just magic, the sun was setting,
Speaker 2: it was it was just a perfect, perfect scenario to
Speaker 2: hear to hear that song. And once I heard that,
Speaker 2: I went, wow, Okay, this is the missing piece because
Speaker 2: I had listened to that what was supposed to be
Speaker 2: the heming Ways Whiskey record, and there was a few
Speaker 2: things missing and that was one of them.
Speaker 1: So what degree do you feel pressure to be part
Speaker 1: of the game and to continue to have charge success
Speaker 1: because you know, country is a little bit different country.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not like pop radio where you can
Speaker 1: have a hit and your audience moves on. If you've
Speaker 1: got a good audience and country, they stay with you.
Speaker 1: There are people who that hit for a long time,
Speaker 1: but most people, even Garth Brooks, you have your time
Speaker 1: and you're done. You're not going to have another hit.
Speaker 1: How do you mentally deal with all that? Well?
Speaker 2: I think for me that we have built something a
Speaker 2: little unique and different. I mean, I have built an
Speaker 2: audience that I hope that you know, I don't feel
Speaker 2: anywhere close to being out the tank, you know, I
Speaker 2: just still feel creative. I still want to go to
Speaker 2: do great shows, and I think that we've built an
Speaker 2: audience over the years that will that will go down
Speaker 2: that road with us, no matter what the success is. Look,
Speaker 2: the business has changed from when I started making records
Speaker 2: with Mary Beckett. The business is not even recogniz as
Speaker 2: you know. You know, Barry taught me so much. But
Speaker 2: that's a whole other podcast.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's just it's just it's just changed a lot,
Speaker 2: you know. But for me, I mean, I think that
Speaker 2: we have built such a unique audience and people that
Speaker 2: not only have just listened to these songs on the radio,
Speaker 2: they've lived their life with them and they come to
Speaker 2: the show to experience it live, and they've given They
Speaker 2: realize how much of myself that I've given, and I
Speaker 2: realize how much of themselves that they give to come
Speaker 2: and experience that experience. And I think as long as
Speaker 2: because I've seen artists get complacent, I've seen artists dollar
Speaker 2: in and they get to this weird point where they
Speaker 2: just don't care, and I've never understood it, I still care.
Speaker 2: And I think as long as my audience knows I
Speaker 2: care about them, and they care about the experience and
Speaker 2: still care about the music, then a lot of the
Speaker 2: other stuff I don't have to worry about as much,
Speaker 2: you know, well, you have a.
Speaker 1: Large audience, and you know, let's use Jimmy Buffett. You know,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Buffett had his hits at the end of the seventies.
Speaker 1: He continued to put out records until he did a
Speaker 1: Nashville record. Long and deep into his career he had
Speaker 1: no more chart success, but he had his audience who
Speaker 1: consumed that to what is that okay for you? Or
Speaker 1: do you need to have something that's on the chart,
Speaker 1: something that's hot in Nashville that people are talking about
Speaker 1: that might spread to different people.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, yeah, of course, I mean everybody would
Speaker 2: want to have chart success, and I still feel like
Speaker 2: that we're going to have some. But moving forward, I
Speaker 2: mean I do. I feel very fortunate to have had
Speaker 2: the chart success that I've had, and I still feel
Speaker 2: very creative and I try really hard to and I
Speaker 2: added myself to a phone. I really do, because when
Speaker 2: I'm listening to songs and even creating, I'm like, Okay, well,
Speaker 2: how is this to your point? How is this going
Speaker 2: to fit now? Because sonically a lot of the things
Speaker 2: are different. They are and I've changed mixers and I've
Speaker 2: done a lot of stuff, but I can't sing what
Speaker 2: some of these people are singing about because I've already
Speaker 2: done it right, And so it's it's tricky. If if
Speaker 2: a brand new guy can go sing the next version
Speaker 2: of no shoes, no shirt, no problems, and he'd be
Speaker 2: and he'll be a genius, I can go sing the
Speaker 2: exact same song, and I'm repeating myself. So it's it's
Speaker 2: I got a thin target to hit and I know that.
Speaker 2: And God, I mean, I am so blessed to say this,
Speaker 2: because not every act in the world gets to say this.
Speaker 2: But I've reached a point in my life and in
Speaker 2: my career where I'm competing with myself and I'm thankful
Speaker 2: for that. But it's hard. It's hard creatively, it really is.
Speaker 2: So that's why it takes me longer to get there,
Speaker 2: because I just can't throw anything against a blank page
Speaker 2: and it be accepted because I'm competing with myself and
Speaker 2: I know that I can't go do when the sun
Speaker 2: goes down again, I can't. I don't even know if
Speaker 2: I can go do I go back again? So so yeah,
Speaker 2: it's harder, you know. So, But if I to answer
Speaker 2: your question, yeah, I still want radio success, but am
Speaker 2: I fine with it not having it. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I haven't thought about it yet, to be honest, But
Speaker 2: if you really want the honest answer, I haven't thought
Speaker 2: about that yet. But yeah, I mean, look, I'm not
Speaker 2: immune to what happens to every act in the world.
Speaker 2: It happened to Bruce Springsteak, for God's sake.
Speaker 1: Okay, you barely touch on romance in the book, and
Speaker 1: you say you want to respect the privacy of this
Speaker 1: one specific to Todd Lloyd romance whatever. But you're a
Speaker 1: fifty seven year old guy, hasn't been married, doesn't have children.
Speaker 1: What my average person has no idea. They have no
Speaker 1: idea how hard it is to make it. You have
Speaker 1: to literally work all day every that's right. They just
Speaker 1: literally have no idea.
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you that. Look, my mother has asked me,
Speaker 2: she goes, when am I going to have grand babies?
Speaker 2: I said, I better hurry. I won't be deald to
Speaker 2: play with them. You know. But Bob, I think you
Speaker 2: know this, and especially everybody on my team known this.
Speaker 2: I had somebody say to me recently, we think it's
Speaker 2: great that you give so much of your life to
Speaker 2: what you do. And I stopped them. I said, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I said, I've given everything I have, I've given all
Speaker 2: of me to do what I do because I felt like.
Speaker 4: That.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I guess maybe it's the way I
Speaker 2: grew up because we didn't we poor Bob, but we
Speaker 2: but it was right down the street from us, if
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. And so I've always had
Speaker 2: this this thing. If I didn't give all of myself
Speaker 2: to everything that I'm doing, that it wouldn't happen. And
Speaker 2: maybe that's how I was brought up, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Or being competitive from my father, I don't know. But yeah,
Speaker 2: in ways, my look, my personal life has has I've
Speaker 2: sacrificed son, we're talking about sacrifice earlier. I never fell
Speaker 2: a personal sacrifice, but it was really hard on a
Speaker 2: lot of people, honestly. But I don't think now though.
Speaker 2: I think now though, Yeah, look I think for me
Speaker 2: now in my life now, I'm not the same. And
Speaker 2: I I realized at one point about three years ago,
Speaker 2: three or four years ago actually, that I had given
Speaker 2: every decision and every choice I ever made, I had
Speaker 2: given to the persona not the person, and whether that
Speaker 2: be good or bad, it got me here, right. And
Speaker 2: if I did make a personal choice. I had to
Speaker 2: check with a persona to see how it was going
Speaker 2: to affect all of it before I made that choice,
Speaker 2: and which is really hard, you know, But I didn't
Speaker 2: realize that until about three or four years ago because
Speaker 2: I was still so in the zone. You know, it
Speaker 2: was just so just grinding and creative and driven, and
Speaker 2: you're right to do it like we've done it, and
Speaker 2: to get to this place, it takes all of you,
Speaker 2: it really has. And I'm not been great at balance,
Speaker 2: I'll admit I haven't.
Speaker 1: Can you give me an example of the separation between
Speaker 1: personal and persona choice?
Speaker 2: No, I don't know. It was just whether I was
Speaker 2: going to I mean, it got so even the where
Speaker 2: I was going to live, right because when I met
Speaker 2: Lard and Gabby, I said, oh man, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 2: going to move to Malibu full time. I'm going to
Speaker 2: train with them every day. And I do have a
Speaker 2: great circle of friends out there. That's at the time,
Speaker 2: you know, it still is a lot healthier lifestyle for me.
Speaker 2: But I was going to do that, and I went
Speaker 2: my creative community in there. Your persona is not there,
Speaker 2: You're what you've created is here. Your creative community is here,
Speaker 2: so and now. But that was before you know, we've
Speaker 2: realized we could get on a call a lot like
Speaker 2: this one in FaceTime. But still it's not the same.
Speaker 2: But that's not how you write songs. And so that
Speaker 2: was just one example, you know. Or I could go, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm going to live in the version iss I love
Speaker 2: getting on the boat every day. I'm going to but
Speaker 2: that's not I can't do that either. So because you
Speaker 2: have to be present, you have to be available to
Speaker 2: what I felt like I had to be available to
Speaker 2: what I built and everybody around me. And it goes
Speaker 2: back to this. I mean, I truly do Bob feel
Speaker 2: a And I don't know the answer because I can
Speaker 2: just see you that's ask me why on this? But
Speaker 2: I don't know the answer to it. But We've been
Speaker 2: able to achieve so much success, and I've had so
Speaker 2: many people around me to do this with me, that
Speaker 2: there is when you do it with all these people
Speaker 2: all these years, you feel some sort of sense of
Speaker 2: responsibility to them and to what you created. And yeah,
Speaker 2: so every decision you make you kind of go, oh, wow, okay,
Speaker 2: how is how is this decision you might want to
Speaker 2: make for the person going to affect the hope, and
Speaker 2: I deal with that a lot in my life.
Speaker 1: So when did you realize you were smarter than the
Speaker 1: average beer?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. I think it was I learned
Speaker 2: how to do the quadratic formula pretty quickly in high school.
Speaker 2: I still know it. You can thank my math teacher,
Speaker 2: Joe Hollander for that, because he would give us a
Speaker 2: pop quiz on it and if we got it right,
Speaker 2: we would get the equivalent to an A on a test.
Speaker 2: So I knew the quadratic formula just it's X equals
Speaker 2: negative B plus or minus the square root of A
Speaker 2: squared minus four a C all over two A. That's
Speaker 2: the quadratic formula. And I knew the protagon. Riam there,
Speaker 2: but I can't say it right now. I didn't know,
Speaker 2: but it was a round. I don't know, but I
Speaker 2: didn't know that I was smarter than the average Joe,
Speaker 2: I don't know that I am now or not, but
Speaker 2: you definitely are, yeah, but I am. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think that when I went on the road and
Speaker 2: I started to really dive into because there was a
Speaker 2: moment where when I first got started. There was years. Honestly,
Speaker 2: when I first got started that I was just trying
Speaker 2: to do whatever made sense. I was. I just wanted
Speaker 2: my songs on the radio. Everybody was trying to be
Speaker 2: a B and C version of George Strait, and I
Speaker 2: was right in there with them. But I still felt
Speaker 2: like it was when I would go up there on
Speaker 2: stage and I don't know, I was wearing a belt
Speaker 2: buckle and I had these jeans, these certain genes on,
Speaker 2: you know, and I'm going it felt so disingenuous, right,
Speaker 2: and I was, I don't know. And then there was
Speaker 2: ways that I wanted to create around us the the
Speaker 2: I don't know if this is the answer to me
Speaker 2: being smarter than the average Joe, but I felt very creative.
Speaker 2: And I saw everybody was doing their show, and it's
Speaker 2: a lot like I guess having kids and being a parent,
Speaker 2: Like you don't I don't know how to be a parent,
Speaker 2: but I know what not to do, I think. And
Speaker 2: so when I was trying to create my show, I'd
Speaker 2: watched how everybody did it that I didn't like, and
Speaker 2: I was making mental notes. I was going, Okay, I
Speaker 2: don't want that, And then I would see things that
Speaker 2: I loved. One, Oh wow, if I ever get to
Speaker 2: do this. I'm gonna remember just a version of that
Speaker 2: and make it my own. And that's it was. I
Speaker 2: guess around then when I started to go, yeah, maybe
Speaker 2: I think differently than some people.
Speaker 1: So let's assume you know, you're at depth's door, hopefully
Speaker 1: you know, forty odd years from now, and it turns
Speaker 1: out you never got married, you never had children. When
Speaker 1: you say, well, listen, I can't have it all. I
Speaker 1: dedicated myself to my career, really worked out. Or are
Speaker 1: you going to say, fuck, I miss something.
Speaker 2: I don't think I'll say I miss something. I think
Speaker 2: everybody's on a different journey. I think everybody is. I
Speaker 2: sincerely hope I get married and have kid one day.
Speaker 2: I really do, because it would be really strange to
Speaker 2: build this and not share it with someone and let
Speaker 2: you know, give it to someone, you know, just I
Speaker 2: don't have them give it to you know. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I really hope that happens. I am more available now
Speaker 2: for that to happen. I wasn't available until four or
Speaker 2: five years ago. And I look, I have not been
Speaker 2: my mother And I say, I think I say this
Speaker 2: in the book. I'm not sure if I do or not.
Speaker 2: But my mother This was when I was first starting.
Speaker 2: It was around two thousand and two, right when the
Speaker 2: Nose Shoes album came out, and things were different. They
Speaker 2: were just different. I've been on the road since, you know,
Speaker 2: ten years earlier, with my band and crew, but I
Speaker 2: was still available because I hadn't felt that that change yet.
Speaker 2: So I was available to my mother, I was I
Speaker 2: was available to my friends. But when all that changed,
Speaker 2: I was like, oh wow, this is unbelievable, and that
Speaker 2: that dream that I was dream and that I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's this horniness to go and do all that and
Speaker 2: do experience that what we've experienced, and meet our heroes
Speaker 2: and collaborate with them. And the rush of the audience
Speaker 2: and building your audience was all a part of it.
Speaker 2: So it was all a part of this train that
Speaker 2: was taking me away, right And my own mother came
Speaker 2: up to me and she goes, I can't seem to
Speaker 2: reach you. And you know what I did. I dismissed her.
Speaker 2: And if you can do that to your own mother,
Speaker 2: you could do it to anybody, anybody. I just wasn't available,
Speaker 2: you know, because I I dismissed her because I couldn't
Speaker 2: change it, because I was gone. I was gone on
Speaker 2: this I was gone on this journey, and there was
Speaker 2: nothing gonna there was nothing gonna pull me back. Nothing.
Speaker 1: Before you started to really click, did you ever have
Speaker 1: doubts say, well, maybe I should do something else.
Speaker 2: No, but no, because I loved I truly believe that
Speaker 2: I was born to do this. I get asked a lot.
Speaker 2: I would like to go back and say, now, me
Speaker 2: and my mother have ironed all that out. Shit. I mean,
Speaker 2: my mother, as you can read in the book, is
Speaker 2: the lot of my life. But that was hard, you know,
Speaker 2: But that just shows you how unavailable I have been
Speaker 2: to certain things in my life at the you know,
Speaker 2: for the greater good of just being this person. And
Speaker 2: the answer to your question at forty years from now,
Speaker 2: whenever I'm at death's door, I mean, I'm going to say, wow,
Speaker 2: that was fun. That was a lot of fun. And
Speaker 2: I got to make music and I got to give
Speaker 2: it to people, and I got to give that to
Speaker 2: the world, and I got to create with my heroes.
Speaker 2: I got to know them. But I think everybody has that.
Speaker 2: I think everybody has their own. I'm a big believer
Speaker 2: in the universe big and I think everybody's got their
Speaker 2: own path. Everybody's on different paths. You know. I talk
Speaker 2: about that specific thing in the book when I the
Speaker 2: night I wrote beer in Mexico. Okay, well, I'm thirty six.
Speaker 2: Most thirty six year olds have maybe have two kids. Here.
Speaker 2: I am a little buzzed at Sammy Hagar's pool he
Speaker 2: got for us writing a song. It just played, So
Speaker 2: my life was different. I just played Sammy Hagar's birthday party.
Speaker 2: I don't have two kids, but I have this amazing experience,
Speaker 2: and so no, I don't think i'll have that. I
Speaker 2: hope I don't have that. Oh I wish I hadn't
Speaker 2: done this because I really got to do this and
Speaker 2: that is special. And but yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 2: what's great for me now is I'm learning how to
Speaker 2: be more available now in my life, and that's a
Speaker 2: good thing.
Speaker 1: So you're a smart guy. I didn't realize how smart
Speaker 1: you were till today. You have a Southern accent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: every Southern accent a little bit different. A lot of
Speaker 1: people in the North look down on people with accents.
Speaker 1: By the same token, you're very successful in the Boston
Speaker 1: area and other places in the Northeast. What the people
Speaker 1: in the North. Not get about the South.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I can't speak
Speaker 2: to that really because I swear to God. I mean
Speaker 2: maybe it was because of my Virgin Islands connection, but
Speaker 2: the Six States of New England has always been an
Speaker 2: unbelievable place for us to play music. And the audience
Speaker 2: is just insane there. I think there's the only difference
Speaker 2: between me and the audience there and a lot of
Speaker 2: people that live in New England is the accent. I
Speaker 2: say that in the book. I mean the people, their
Speaker 2: work ethic is insane. They love sports, they love food,
Speaker 2: they love family, and that's a lot. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: everything I grew up on and for I don't know.
Speaker 2: I can't speak to everybody else, but for us it's
Speaker 2: just been it's been such a strong connection, and I
Speaker 2: don't think they look at it north or South. For me.
Speaker 2: They made for some. I mean, look, if you got
Speaker 2: a bunch of corny songs, maybe you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I think speaking of corny songs, like the only station
Speaker 2: in America when it was out that didn't play she
Speaker 2: thinks my Tractor Sexy was the Boston Country radio statements.
Speaker 2: It's not for us it's not for us. You fast
Speaker 2: forward two years after the song had peaked. I think
Speaker 2: it peaked at twelve something like that. It wasn't even
Speaker 2: a top ten record. Two years later, I'm playing the
Speaker 2: big beautiful theater in downtown Boston. We hadn't we hadn't
Speaker 2: graduated to arenas yet, but we're playing a big theater
Speaker 2: in downtown Boston. It's packed, and I go into Tractor
Speaker 2: and the place comes unglued right well. Jenny Brofy and
Speaker 2: Mike Brophy, who ran the Boston radio station at the time,
Speaker 2: were in the audience and they went, well, how are
Speaker 2: they hearing this? Because this is before streaming, This is
Speaker 2: before you could you could listen to anything by anybody
Speaker 2: at any moment that you wanted to. So back then,
Speaker 2: the only way you heard it is if you were
Speaker 2: if you heard it on the radio, or heard it
Speaker 2: on an album cut, if you bought the record. And
Speaker 2: the next Monday and one of the one of the
Speaker 2: one of the surfaces where it was bill Boarder or
Speaker 2: you know, when R and R put out their magazine
Speaker 2: or whatever they called in the add and she thinks
Speaker 2: my tractor sexty two years after and they said in
Speaker 2: big letters, you probably find it. They said, the panel
Speaker 2: is finally closed. And that's our joke. I mean, for years,
Speaker 2: you know so so, but but I get what you're saying, like,
Speaker 2: if you come with songs like that over and over again,
Speaker 2: there will be some sort of a disconnect regionally. But
Speaker 2: but thank god, there was more to me than that. Uh.
Speaker 2: Anderson Cooper. Anderson Cooper's first segment that he ever did
Speaker 2: on Sixty Minutes was on me and he brought that up.
Speaker 2: He goes, well, tell me tell me about she thinks
Speaker 2: my tractor sex. And I told Anderson, I said, well,
Speaker 2: I was smart enough to record it, and I was
Speaker 2: smart enough to not record it again. So because for him,
Speaker 2: you know, his mom being Gloria Vanderbilt and his whole
Speaker 2: you know, New York lifestyle, he did not understand.
Speaker 5: So, so, who is the coolest, most pinch me moment
Speaker 5: person you've met?
Speaker 2: Oh? Wow, that's a hard one. Hmm. One of the
Speaker 2: coolest people that I met, only because and look, I
Speaker 2: didn't realize the genius. There's two people I'm going to
Speaker 2: tell you. I didn't realize the genius of Bob Marley
Speaker 2: and the Whalers until I got into college. Like going
Speaker 2: back to that point on tractor, you heard what you
Speaker 2: were given, right. So we didn't hear Bob Marley and
Speaker 2: the Way There's in East Tennessee. I didn't hear that
Speaker 2: music until I went to college at East Tennessee State,
Speaker 2: and so I was. I just loved it. It was
Speaker 2: the most universe. I felt like, Wow, this is really
Speaker 2: aspiring and it's all about love and positive energy. And
Speaker 2: I don't know. Years later, I got to collaborate with
Speaker 2: Junior Marvin and family Man bear Ashton, family man Beartt.
Speaker 2: I sat on the beach with the family man Barrett
Speaker 2: we were doing the video. I talked those guys, Junior
Speaker 2: Marvin and family Man and some of the other guys
Speaker 2: that were in the whalers to do the video for
Speaker 2: me on the north to do the video with me
Speaker 2: on the North shore in Jamaica. One night. It was
Speaker 2: for the song Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but
Speaker 2: nobody wants to go now. And we were done with
Speaker 2: the video and me and family Man said right there
Speaker 2: on the beach and talked about Bob's life, how they
Speaker 2: met each other, and family Man said something that I
Speaker 2: take with me to this day. He goes, Reggae and
Speaker 2: country are cousins. He goes, they tell it like it
Speaker 2: is and uncut and that's I went, Wow, what a
Speaker 2: great what a great thing to share with me. But Bob,
Speaker 2: we sat there on the beach and I have it recorded.
Speaker 2: I'll send it to you. That I asked him if
Speaker 2: I could record it. He said yeah, And that was
Speaker 2: one of the coolest things that's ever happened to me,
Speaker 2: and one of the coolest people that I ever met.
Speaker 2: And just to sit there and talk to him about
Speaker 2: his life and about what it was like, you know,
Speaker 2: with him and Bob when they were just getting started
Speaker 2: and everything they went through, and it just goes to
Speaker 2: show you, like we all come from different places. We all,
Speaker 2: like I said earlier, have different political beliefs, different religious beliefs.
Speaker 2: And that's no more evident evident than being on the
Speaker 2: road with over one hundred people. Right, they all didn't
Speaker 2: go to Cedar four Baptist Church and electoral Tennessee, Right,
Speaker 2: they have. So when you go out there on the road,
Speaker 2: you you get you get to see a lot of things,
Speaker 2: and you get to meet a lot of people who
Speaker 2: are just so so their heart is unbelievable and what
Speaker 2: that tell What that told me? And in collaborating with
Speaker 2: them and with you, look into the audience and all
Speaker 2: of it. We all come from different places, but we
Speaker 2: play the same notes. We really do. And that's what
Speaker 2: I learned from family man Bearrack. But we couldn't be
Speaker 2: more different. But we loved each other. And I felt
Speaker 2: the same way with Bruce. The first time I met Bruce,
Speaker 2: I thought he was the coolest person ever. We played
Speaker 2: in Holmedewe, New Jersey at the Amphitheater there and I
Speaker 2: get a call from Louis Messina and Louis goes, Bruce
Speaker 2: Springsteen's want to come to your show tonight. I went, yeah, whatever, Louie,
Speaker 2: and he drove to the show on his motorcycle and we,
Speaker 2: I mean literally, somebody's knocking on the bus door and
Speaker 2: I'm looking out and it's really Bruce, you know. And
Speaker 2: he comes up and we get we say our pleasantries,
Speaker 2: we say hello, and and it was time for me
Speaker 2: to go on stage. And my rod manager David, walked
Speaker 2: Bruce to the front of house sound mix and he,
Speaker 2: I mean it was he felt very comfortable there. And
Speaker 2: he walked out to the front of house board and
Speaker 2: watched our show and at the time we had I
Speaker 2: had a horn section. I thought I felt like I
Speaker 2: was wanting to be different and I had a horn section.
Speaker 2: So I had Jim Horn, the famous saxophone player, and
Speaker 2: I had the trumpet. I had the whole thing. And
Speaker 2: Bruce came back on the bus after the show and
Speaker 2: he was he just loved that we had Jim Horn
Speaker 2: in the band. He couldn't believe it. But we sat
Speaker 2: there and talked for almost two hours, and that was
Speaker 2: one of the coolest experiences ever. And he was so
Speaker 2: humble and real and I and you hope, you really
Speaker 2: hope that when and I felt this way about Jimmy
Speaker 2: Buffett too, Like you you build up in your head
Speaker 2: before you meet your heroes who you think they are.
Speaker 2: And when I met Jimmy. I met Jimmy at the
Speaker 2: Four Seasons in a cabana in Vegas. He was out
Speaker 2: hanging out by the pool with a guy named Mick Ramos,
Speaker 2: and he was reading the Wall Street Journal and he
Speaker 2: was just he was so cool and wonderful to me.
Speaker 2: But he exceeded what I had built up in my head.
Speaker 2: Bruce was the same way. I mean, he he sat
Speaker 2: on the bus and we talked about songwriting and you know,
Speaker 2: and it was just amazing to hear it this come
Speaker 2: out out of his mouth. But he said, songwriting, you know,
Speaker 2: you can write a song on a half a piece
Speaker 2: of paper, and you can put that song in a
Speaker 2: drawer and you can come back to it two or
Speaker 2: three years later and pull that song out of the
Speaker 2: drawer and it'll still be there. He goes, Your life
Speaker 2: isn't like that. Your life is way more fluid, So
Speaker 2: pay attention to things that matter, is what What was
Speaker 2: his point? But to get a life lesson like that
Speaker 2: from the boss, it was like, wow, I mean this
Speaker 2: is that was one one one of the coolest persons
Speaker 2: and one of the coolest experiences that I had because honestly,
Speaker 2: he didn't have to be there and he didn't have
Speaker 2: to care enough to give me that advice.
Speaker 1: Okay, you gotta go to dinner, I do.
Speaker 4: I gotta go to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you've you've gotta go. Yeah right, Sorry, I
Speaker 2: long winded.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, No, we could talk for you talk. I
Speaker 1: love it. I love that you're so forthcoming and honest.
Speaker 2: No, that's true. I love talking to you. Man, you
Speaker 2: know that, like I've learned in my life that you're
Speaker 2: an average of the five people you hang around the most, right,
Speaker 2: So you don't get to have these conversations every day.
Speaker 2: So I'm really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, listen, I'll just talk from myself. It's
Speaker 1: not easy to find people on your wavelength, and when
Speaker 1: you do, you can't shut up because it's so exciting
Speaker 1: that someone's tuned into what you're saying.
Speaker 2: No, I get it, I get it. I appreciate it, man,
Speaker 2: I really do. And it was great met I have
Speaker 2: seen I don't think I've seen you at all since
Speaker 2: since it up that.
Speaker 1: La Now I haven't rock.
Speaker 2: Was there? We had a bunch of people, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I remember. I remember I walked off the bus and
Speaker 2: walked through the hallway and there you were. You stuck
Speaker 2: your hand out.
Speaker 1: Absolutely listen, Kenny, it's been wonderful the book. Certainly, once
Speaker 1: you get continue to Rule, you find its rhythm and
Speaker 1: it's really honest because at first, taken out, it seems simple,
Speaker 1: but that's because you're getting the essence and the essences
Speaker 1: to go through. And you know, a lot of these
Speaker 1: rock biographies if you read it okay, now, I know.
Speaker 1: I read it and I was thinking about the messages,
Speaker 1: and I was saying, yeah, you know what am I doing?
Speaker 1: And you know, as they say, it's not only for
Speaker 1: Kenny Chesney fans.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it was more about you know, for me. Yes,
Speaker 2: we talk about certain vignettes and snapshots of my journey
Speaker 2: in my life, but if you pull back from all
Speaker 2: of it, Bob, it truly is about the dream of
Speaker 2: it all. And that's why in the beginning we have
Speaker 2: to set the simple stuff up to see how far
Speaker 2: this journey has taken me, you know, because yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean I didn't know if I was ever going to
Speaker 2: go past my county line. But these stories I'm telling
Speaker 2: you about Ashton family, man, Barrett and Bruce, and I
Speaker 2: mean I never saw that coming. I never would. You
Speaker 2: don't know, the dream of stuff. So the book is
Speaker 2: more about the dream of it all than it is
Speaker 2: about the actual experiences. I'm proud of the experiences, but
Speaker 2: this book, I mean, no matter what your dream is,
Speaker 2: if it's music, if it's whatever it is, the lessons
Speaker 2: are kind of the same. Just just just go do it.
Speaker 2: You know. People ask me all the time for advice
Speaker 2: and I'll leave you with this. But I get people
Speaker 2: asking me for advice these new kids and whether they're
Speaker 2: in the genre or whatever, and they ask me how
Speaker 2: you know how to make it? And I'm going that
Speaker 2: eternal voice in my head right there. I don't want
Speaker 2: to tell them this because I'm thinking this to myself.
Speaker 2: And I would never I would never deflate them at all.
Speaker 2: But I'm thinking these guests, guys are never going to
Speaker 2: make it because you don't do it to make it
Speaker 2: in this world of celebrity, you know, these talent shows
Speaker 2: on TV and people calling it is to a drives
Speaker 2: me crazy. But you don't do it to make it.
Speaker 2: You do it because it's what you do. And that's
Speaker 2: why forty years from now or whenever the Good Lord
Speaker 2: calls me home, I won't be that disappointed, you know,
Speaker 2: because I got to do what I loved and I
Speaker 2: got to I did it because it's what I do.
Speaker 1: And well, just one point on that. Bob Dylan, who's
Speaker 1: famous for obsic skating but drops truth here and there.
Speaker 1: He was interviewed on it could have been sixty minutes
Speaker 1: and he said, I don't tell my people my hopes
Speaker 1: and dreams because they would laugh and they deride because
Speaker 1: they have no idea how big and powerful they are.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's right, Yeah, yeah, but it is. I don't
Speaker 2: know when people ask me for advice like that, but
Speaker 2: when they especially when they say that they make it
Speaker 2: and yeah, look, I was the same kid, and I
Speaker 2: wanted to make it. But at some point you go, wow,
Speaker 2: I would be doing this on some level if I
Speaker 2: didn't make it. If I wasn't this version of Kenny Chesney, right,
Speaker 2: I would be doing it somewhere, maybe a holiday in
Speaker 2: on a Thursday night.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but talking to you now, that's all fine.
Speaker 1: In dandy Obviously, there was something deep inside you that
Speaker 1: had to make whether it be in music or whatever,
Speaker 1: whether it be you know, growing up with parents who
Speaker 1: weren't together, growing up off the grid, you know, some
Speaker 1: personal experience somewhere inside you had to say I'm special.
Speaker 1: I have to leave my mark.
Speaker 2: No, that's right. There was there was, and whatever that is,
Speaker 2: it was fuel. I'm still figuring out what that was.
Speaker 2: I said. If you ask me right now what that is,
Speaker 2: I can't tell you. But it was fuel for sure.
Speaker 2: Whatever that is, whether it was I wrote a song
Speaker 2: about a girl in my persuasion class, ironically enough, at
Speaker 2: East Tennessee State University. It was a Tuesday Thursday class
Speaker 2: and there was a girl that sat beside me and
Speaker 2: I was trying to persuade her to go out with me.
Speaker 2: And it was the first song I ever wrote in
Speaker 2: my life, and I went, I want to write her
Speaker 2: a song, you know. So I did that and I
Speaker 2: gave it to her on a Thursday and it split
Speaker 2: it across the table. So I had to wait all weekend, okay, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday,
Speaker 2: and then to go back into class on Tuesday to
Speaker 2: see how she felt about it. Well, when I walked in,
Speaker 2: she was sitting in the furthest corner she could possibly
Speaker 2: sit for me, and I went, hmmm, I got my
Speaker 2: songwriter has got to get a little bit better, you know. So,
Speaker 2: whether it's that, that was my first taste of rejection
Speaker 2: in the music business ever. And so whether it was
Speaker 2: that or who whatever, it was, my humble upbringings, whatever
Speaker 2: it was, it was fuel to do whatever, to keep
Speaker 2: the drive, you know, keep going.
Speaker 1: Okay, just one final philipathy. Did you ever talk to
Speaker 1: the bull again?
Speaker 2: No? I never did.
Speaker 1: I never talked to.
Speaker 2: The girl again, and I just decided, you know, I've
Speaker 2: got it before I talked to her, Before I send
Speaker 2: another girl a song, I've got to get a little
Speaker 2: bit better.
Speaker 1: Well, you certainly got a whole tone better. We've been talking,
Speaker 1: Tony chesh. We're leaving a lot on the table, but
Speaker 1: we got a lot there.
Speaker 2: We'll go around to you one day, Bob, I love it.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, Kenny, you gotta go.
Speaker 2: I gotta go, all right, man, until next time. I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Oh man, it was great. Till next time. This is
Speaker 1: Bob left sets