Speaker 1: Hey, guys, welcome to the Granger Smith Podcast. I'm glad
Speaker 1: you're with me today. I'm glad you're watching. I'm grateful
Speaker 1: that you're listening. I'm grateful that I have this platform
Speaker 1: to talk about the way that I feel in life
Speaker 1: and talk to some of my great friends and tell
Speaker 1: you where I came from and where I want to
Speaker 1: go and what's going on with ye ye. This is
Speaker 1: one of my favorite things that I do content wise,
Speaker 1: and we do a lot. We do the Smiths every
Speaker 1: Tuesday and Thursday. We do restoring Earl Dubbles Junior's old truck.
Speaker 1: We do live at the EEE Farm, live stream shows
Speaker 1: with the full band. We do a Rise with Amber
Speaker 1: every Sunday morning on the Smith's YouTube channel, and that's
Speaker 1: just that's just the stuff we do every single week.
Speaker 1: So I do this podcast on Mondays early Mondays. And
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for this because I get to sit here
Speaker 1: and really dig deep into some stuff that I that
Speaker 1: I can't I don't have the time to do on
Speaker 1: a radio interview, and I don't have the time to
Speaker 1: do I'm the Smiths, and so you know, I want
Speaker 1: to thank you guys for even it indulging in something
Speaker 1: long form like this, like a podcast. Maybe some of
Speaker 1: you are driving, maybe some of you spend time with
Speaker 1: this watching it on YouTube. Either way, thank you for that.
Speaker 1: I actually met a guy at the gym today and
Speaker 1: we were walking out and he said, hey, man, and
Speaker 1: you stopped me and I've never met him before, and
Speaker 1: he said, I just want to tell you I listened
Speaker 1: to your podcast. I'm on episode eleven, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to turn my wife onto it. I'm going to show her,
Speaker 1: and man, that just means it means so much to me.
Speaker 1: It's one thing for someone to say I love her music,
Speaker 1: and I hope that it starts with that, and it
Speaker 1: has evolved now into different things like I love watching
Speaker 1: the Smiths, or I love listening to your podcast, and
Speaker 1: that just makes me feel so good. It makes me
Speaker 1: feel good because here I am at the EG Farm,
Speaker 1: in my in my office, in my studio, all by
Speaker 1: myself here right now and talking to a camera and
Speaker 1: a dead microphone. And it's nice to know that there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people that actually follow this and
Speaker 1: follow the journey along. And if you haven't gone back
Speaker 1: and heard some of the earlier podcasts, maybe you're a
Speaker 1: brand new listener. I encourage you to start all the
Speaker 1: way back at episode one, and the reason it started
Speaker 1: was when we were touring like crazy. I was on
Speaker 1: the back of my bus Wildflower, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: tell everybody in long form the story of where I
Speaker 1: came from. And that started with so many times doing
Speaker 1: interviews and media and TV and radio where they said,
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about yourself. Where'd you come from,
Speaker 1: how'd you get your start? Where are you from? And
Speaker 1: that then answering that question kind of gets exhausting because
Speaker 1: I have to answer it in short form, right I
Speaker 1: have to say, well, you know, from Texas and I
Speaker 1: started a band, and you know, I have to speed
Speaker 1: my way through it. But if you go back to
Speaker 1: podcast episode one, you could actually feel the whole journey
Speaker 1: throughout and now here we are every episode thirty eight
Speaker 1: and this episode, like so many others, is brought to
Speaker 1: you by EE Apparel, and I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you just for a second about YE Apparel and my
Speaker 1: favorite thing about this company that my brothers and I
Speaker 1: run together, and that is our Shirt of the Month club.
Speaker 1: This is something we started this year. It's become a
Speaker 1: huge passion project. For me and my brothers alike. It
Speaker 1: is a new shirt that we put out once a month,
Speaker 1: exclusive to this club. Right, so, if you sign up
Speaker 1: for this club, you're going to get shipped out automatically
Speaker 1: in your size a new shirt the first of every month,
Speaker 1: and that shirt cannot be found anywhere else. We're not
Speaker 1: going to sell it. We're not going to sell it
Speaker 1: on the road on tour. And we handpick these. We
Speaker 1: design these and put a lot of work into these
Speaker 1: designs so that they are all a little bit different
Speaker 1: and are all very exclusive, and I love them. I
Speaker 1: wear EE Apparel every single day. It's pretty much all
Speaker 1: I have in my closet. And some people have asked
Speaker 1: me if I wear it just because it's my company.
Speaker 1: Not really, I mean kind of, but I really wear
Speaker 1: it because I love the stuff. I'm biased, but it
Speaker 1: fits really good, it feels really good. And so my
Speaker 1: brother Parker sent me a little promo for you guys
Speaker 1: today on this podcast for the member's only Shirt of
Speaker 1: the Month club. You could sign up between the first
Speaker 1: and the twentieth of every month, use for this podcast,
Speaker 1: use the promo code Shirt of the Month, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna get your first shirt for just ten bucks with
Speaker 1: free shipping. You can cancel it anytime, and that sounds
Speaker 1: like a really good deal. Sounds like a really good deal.
Speaker 1: We are still plowing through the state of the world
Speaker 1: right now. And if you're listening to this podcast years
Speaker 1: from now and you look on the ticker and it
Speaker 1: says that this was two years ago or three years ago, Man,
Speaker 1: I wish I could talk to you, the person in
Speaker 1: the future. I wish you could tell me how this
Speaker 1: all pans out, because it's still crazy. The world started
Speaker 1: getting so much better and then it started getting worse
Speaker 1: all at the same time. So we started getting these
Speaker 1: tour dates coming in and then now everything is kind
Speaker 1: of unknown again. We still have several dates in July,
Speaker 1: including July fourth, and that's in Round Rock, Texas, and
Speaker 1: then we have like Nebraska in Iowa and South Dakota
Speaker 1: something like that. We have a run up that direction
Speaker 1: in July, and in August there's more. In September there's more,
Speaker 1: and God, I hope they stay. I really do. It's
Speaker 1: my whole livelihood. Touring is my livelihood, and it's more
Speaker 1: than a paycheck. And I've said this many times, but
Speaker 1: I'm okay. I could pay the bills. I have multiple
Speaker 1: ways of paying the bills, whether whether it's cameos, which
Speaker 1: I do these cameos where you could sign up and
Speaker 1: get me to give you a shout out at birthday
Speaker 1: or anniversary or send someone a personal video message. I
Speaker 1: do that every day on cameo dot Com. I have
Speaker 1: this podcast, I have Dismiss, I have my songwriting company,
Speaker 1: I have Ye Apparel. But what really messes this whole
Speaker 1: thing up is my band. You know, you know, you
Speaker 1: look at my guys, and just the way that this
Speaker 1: is set up and this is with anything, is like
Speaker 1: I can't constantly support them and all their families and
Speaker 1: their health insurance and their entire livelihood. And we're talking
Speaker 1: fourteen people here, and so this whole shutdown has really
Speaker 1: affected the band members more than anybody. And I know,
Speaker 1: I say more than anybody. I know that there's bar owners,
Speaker 1: and there's venues, and there's theaters, and it's just it's
Speaker 1: got a lot of things messed up, and we could
Speaker 1: just the best thing we could do is I could
Speaker 1: keep making content, and we can keep trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: do live stream shows and getting tips. But the most
Speaker 1: importantly we just be patient, and this is a little bit.
Speaker 1: We're in a little bit of suffering right now, and
Speaker 1: suffering suffering, as Paul says in the Book of Romans,
Speaker 1: Paul says that suffering leads to perseverance. Perseverance leads to character.
Speaker 1: Character leads to hope. So that's where we are. And
Speaker 1: I don't mean to get that deep with something like this,
Speaker 1: but it really is. This is something that keeps us
Speaker 1: up at night. And it's been months and months of this.
Speaker 1: So that's that's the state of the world, and that
Speaker 1: kind of ties me into my guest today. This is
Speaker 1: a I would say, a dear friend, and that is honestly,
Speaker 1: that's saying it lightly. I'm going to bring on Mitch
Speaker 1: Connell uncle Mitch. For some reason a long time ago,
Speaker 1: I started calling him uncle Mitch, even though he's not
Speaker 1: family relation. But he's as good as family. Family is not.
Speaker 1: Family is not exclusively blood to me. I don't feel
Speaker 1: that way. I feel like I have a bond with
Speaker 1: many people that I consider family, and Uncle Mitch is
Speaker 1: one of them. I've never known anyone on this planet
Speaker 1: that's ever met Mitch that didn't love him right away,
Speaker 1: that didn't become friends with him. He has more friends
Speaker 1: than anyone I've ever met, and you'll know exactly why.
Speaker 1: He's just salt of the earth, one of the nicest
Speaker 1: guys on the planet. He's a really good businessman. He's
Speaker 1: had car dealerships in Colleen, Texas his whole life and
Speaker 1: it will continue to pass down through his kids. And
Speaker 1: he's an incredible musician. And that's how I originally met him,
Speaker 1: because he's a keyboard player. And I met him through
Speaker 1: the band I was in and they brought him in
Speaker 1: and he started playing keyboards just I mean, the most
Speaker 1: beautiful stuff you've ever heard. I started recording all of
Speaker 1: my studio albums from two thousand and four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
Speaker 1: all of those is Mitch Connell on keyboards twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen. It keeps going after that and assaulted the
Speaker 1: Earth guy, amazing musician. I can't even come up with
Speaker 1: better words for this guy. You're just gonna have to
Speaker 1: hear it from him yourself. It's an honor, guys, to
Speaker 1: have Mitch Knell on this podcast. Sit back, relax, Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. Welcome to the Greater Smith Podcast. Did
Speaker 1: time and longline fo up and down, going back, rangey colation.
Speaker 1: A lot of times on this podcast, I've talked about
Speaker 1: old band stories. Oh god, a lot of them have
Speaker 1: been off the top of my head, and I have
Speaker 1: forgotten a lot of them too, and you Mitch seem
Speaker 1: to remember them all. Oh gosh. You guys ever have
Speaker 1: that friend that when you get back with him and
Speaker 1: he starts reciting some old stories and you think God
Speaker 1: forgot all about that. You don't forget those stories. No,
Speaker 1: They're fun stories though, And I wanted to bring you
Speaker 1: on here partly because of that. We could tell some
Speaker 1: of these old stories that possibly I've even forgotten, and
Speaker 1: then also talk about how you've been in since the
Speaker 1: very beginning of the Texas version of my band and
Speaker 1: not only touring and being part of my first intrastate touring,
Speaker 1: but also part of those early albums that I was
Speaker 1: recording at my house. Yeah, those are That was a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. So if you heard any keyboard at
Speaker 1: all on any of those early albums, four or five
Speaker 1: of them, that was all you and singing harmony. So
Speaker 1: something I thought about when I was coming in here today,
Speaker 1: Bug Eye and Trick Gosh, I wasn't in a real
Speaker 1: good mood when that deal started, anyways, because little Asa
Speaker 1: and I had ridden our motorcycles all the way down
Speaker 1: there in the rain. It was a rainy I was
Speaker 1: wetter than I've ever been. It was Asia's first motorcycle ride.
Speaker 1: And and by the way, you might not remember, but
Speaker 1: he had just gotten his black belt in karate. I
Speaker 1: did not know that. And bug Eye and Shrek had decided.
Speaker 1: So if you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: let me back you up a little bit. Two thousand
Speaker 1: and four, I moved from Nashville back to Texas. I
Speaker 1: moved to College Station. I formed a little band based
Speaker 1: on my uncle knew a drummer. This sounds like a
Speaker 1: bad story already. My uncle knew a drummer that had
Speaker 1: a band. The singer had just moved to Florida working
Speaker 1: for the DEA, right, right, something like that. Now, what's
Speaker 1: awesome is if you could put a if you could
Speaker 1: have a band that's already used to playing with each other,
Speaker 1: that's half the battle. Then all they have to do
Speaker 1: is learn the new songs. Now, the huge advantage I
Speaker 1: had was you guys were also older than me. You're
Speaker 1: what fifteen twenty years older than me, all of you were,
Speaker 1: so that also brings fifteen twenty year years of extra experience, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, you were as old as I am now, Ben,
Speaker 1: which is funny, right, right, So you bring ten years,
Speaker 1: fifteen years, twenty years of experience on the road and
Speaker 1: in the studio and playing music in what walks. Mitch
Speaker 1: Connell a car salesman. You own several dealerships in Central Texas.
Speaker 1: That has allowed you and you've done that your whole life.
Speaker 1: Your daddy did that, right, That's always supported my music
Speaker 1: habit exactly. So that allowed you to own these dealerships
Speaker 1: and free up a little time and to drive from
Speaker 1: Colleen to college station or wherever we were digging. All
Speaker 1: of these things were incredible for me as a young
Speaker 1: musician because young musicians are used to dealing with bands
Speaker 1: that can't get off from working at the fast food shop,
Speaker 1: they can't get off from delivering pizzas, or they're in school,
Speaker 1: are there going through a divorce or something. But you
Speaker 1: guys all we were okay to say Friday, leave at
Speaker 1: two pm. I'm down, yep, and even better, not not
Speaker 1: as good as you're playing but a little bit close
Speaker 1: to it, which you had an RV. You had an
Speaker 1: r V, yes, And we got to ride around an
Speaker 1: RV uh and pretend like it was a big old
Speaker 1: tour bus, and to us it was. It was pretty big.
Speaker 1: We had a coffee maker in the morning that was
Speaker 1: replaced by Margarita blender Friday afternoon. And I you remember
Speaker 1: the smell, yes, the stink bush. Yeah, oh yeah, that's
Speaker 1: It's not a true RV unless it has some kind
Speaker 1: of strange sewage smell. But but needless to say, I
Speaker 1: was having so much fun. And I like to talk
Speaker 1: about this a lot because it's fun in the music
Speaker 1: business and gratification, and it's all relative to where you
Speaker 1: are at the time. Right. What I mean is, I'm
Speaker 1: not having any more fun now than I was then.
Speaker 1: It's all relative. We had a good time, so good,
Speaker 1: so going to bug Eye and Shrek. Okay, Well, we
Speaker 1: played a gig and somewhere on the coast, and I'd
Speaker 1: ridden there in the rain all the way there, and
Speaker 1: then we got to the venue and we set up
Speaker 1: and did our sound check and everything was fine. It
Speaker 1: was a pretty good It was awful terrible, but I
Speaker 1: was in a good mood. We're about to play some
Speaker 1: music and that always makes me happy. And uh so
Speaker 1: we start playing and there's a guy in the audience
Speaker 1: it's not amenable to the choices of songs that we're playing,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, a nice mix of George Strait
Speaker 1: and my originals right right. And finally, and I've never
Speaker 1: seen you get upset with anybody. And finally that guy listen,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you my website and you go there
Speaker 1: and find out where I'm playing, so you'll know where
Speaker 1: not to go. Well that upside. Yeah, he was the
Speaker 1: brother in law of the club owner. That was bug Guy.
Speaker 1: I said, my website is graterspit dot com. Go there
Speaker 1: and find my tour dates, so that I could make
Speaker 1: sure I'd never see you again, right ri the microphone,
Speaker 1: yes to all fifteen people that were there. Well, the
Speaker 1: guy got mad and he his brother in law was Shrek,
Speaker 1: the owner of the club, and Bug Eye and Shrek
Speaker 1: decided they were going to team up on us, and
Speaker 1: they quickly got nicknames from us. And that's what they
Speaker 1: look like, bug Eye and Shrek. Yes, yes, anyways, so
Speaker 1: at the end of the night, when we were done playing, Uh,
Speaker 1: Granger comes up to says, hey, owcle man, they're not
Speaker 1: trying to pay me. I'm going what So I just
Speaker 1: walk over next to him, next to Shrek, and I
Speaker 1: crossed my arms trying to look like mister clean. My
Speaker 1: son is about this tall, but he can kick your
Speaker 1: button nine way from Sunday and nobody ever even suspected
Speaker 1: that from him. So uh, I sit there and cross
Speaker 1: my arms, and the bug guy decided to go ahead
Speaker 1: and give us our money, and we got out of
Speaker 1: there with the quickness. I believe it was five hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: Might have been found right, might have five or six,
Speaker 1: five or six hundred dollars and I and that was
Speaker 1: average for me. It was. There was five of us
Speaker 1: in the band, or six of us in the band,
Speaker 1: maybe those five of us five total, and we typically
Speaker 1: got about five hundred bucks. Now you can do the
Speaker 1: math quickly that that doesn't hardly pay for lunch and
Speaker 1: dinner and fuel on the way there. I got to
Speaker 1: hand it to you, though. You you made sure that
Speaker 1: we got at least one hundred bucks. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: left you was nothing. That That's the way it was.
Speaker 1: But a lot of times it left me with nothing.
Speaker 1: And then occasionally we would play like a wedding and
Speaker 1: I'd get fifteen hundred dollars or something, and I'd get
Speaker 1: to burn a little bit of that myself. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: but that that night with bug Eye and Trek, that's
Speaker 1: that's a typical night. And those were we never knew
Speaker 1: what we're getting into. Tyler was booking these shows, these
Speaker 1: dead end bar gigs with no one there, but we
Speaker 1: were grateful to play and we had fun even though
Speaker 1: no one was there. We had fun within ourselves on
Speaker 1: the stage. We had a good time. We had a
Speaker 1: good band. We did. It was it was. I was
Speaker 1: very lucky to have a band that was far above
Speaker 1: my musical knowledge, and so I had to quickly learn
Speaker 1: to keep up. You did. That was the story of
Speaker 1: my life back then. And I could let you guys
Speaker 1: vamp around or play take solos. I can go to
Speaker 1: the bathroom and you could sing and uh. Because a
Speaker 1: lot of times we were playing long sets and and
Speaker 1: the nights like that, when we found out the guy
Speaker 1: I was chewing out on the microphone was the owner's cousin,
Speaker 1: they could easily just decide, you know, I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna pay these rug rats I'm not gonna pay
Speaker 1: them anything, get out of my bar. And and that
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars was there's a lot of money. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: even if you had stay in a hotel that night,
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. That reminds me of another time b Beeville,
Speaker 1: Texas well, that was was that the worst hotel you've
Speaker 1: ever even heard of? It was either that one or
Speaker 1: the one in Oklahoma. I forgot the name of the
Speaker 1: lot of bad ones in Oklahoma. Anyways, we wouldn't stay
Speaker 1: at the one in Oklahoma. We went on to Oklahoma City. Rather.
Speaker 1: Have you ever decided to I'm speaking to the listeners here,
Speaker 1: have you ever decided that sleep is not worth the
Speaker 1: bites and the bugs that you're going to get in
Speaker 1: the bed sheets, so you might as well just skip
Speaker 1: asleep that night. Yeah, But we stayed in Beeville, in
Speaker 1: or Belleville or Bville or whatever that place was when
Speaker 1: that was awful place that was awful? It was it
Speaker 1: was there was I I attribute so many of my
Speaker 1: my I guess the fortitude that we have now as
Speaker 1: a band when we run into problems now, sometimes the
Speaker 1: guys will come to me and go, well that they're
Speaker 1: asking for this, and they're saying we can't do this,
Speaker 1: And I kind of go back to those old days
Speaker 1: in my mind when we thought we thought we had problems,
Speaker 1: and we think we have problems now, and how relative
Speaker 1: it is, and how really in the end, we're all
Speaker 1: just out trying to play some music. That's all it is.
Speaker 1: That's all it boils down to. That's what we love
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, And the cool thing about you mentioned
Speaker 1: is that, besides you have sold pretty much everybody in
Speaker 1: my band a truck or including my brown truck I
Speaker 1: still drive. And You've had a thing about ten years
Speaker 1: or so. I've lifted it twice. You've lifted it twice,
Speaker 1: You've put tires and wheels on it. You have, You've
Speaker 1: tried to get me out from under it many times.
Speaker 1: Get me in a better truck. Yeah, he won't go truck.
Speaker 1: One time you said a man of your status needs
Speaker 1: to drive at a better vehicle. Remember when you tell
Speaker 1: me that I was referring to a Ram instead of
Speaker 1: that other off brand model that you choose to drive. Well, well,
Speaker 1: I want to get to your dealerships at a second.
Speaker 1: And and how you have you pretty much made a
Speaker 1: living with with veterans at Fort Hood. Yeah, I live near.
Speaker 1: There have been. They've been your lifeblood and you have
Speaker 1: been theirs. I think it's a mutual feeling there. It is,
Speaker 1: it is. But what I wanted to say too, is said,
Speaker 1: how you saw the You saw our rise from absolute nothingness,
Speaker 1: from a literal open mic night at Bourber Street Bar
Speaker 1: and College Station two to sold out crazy shows. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I remember playing for twelve thousand people one time. And
Speaker 1: I remember playing for the bartender at the San Antonio Rodeo.
Speaker 1: It was so close, it was so cold, and it
Speaker 1: was it was an a tent and it was so
Speaker 1: cold my hands wouldn't move, and the bartender was in there.
Speaker 1: It was just him and us, nobody else in the
Speaker 1: entire bar, no or tent, tent, but one bartender. It
Speaker 1: wasn't even a bartender. It was a beer tub tender.
Speaker 1: Beer tub tender, that's what he was, right, So did
Speaker 1: you see it? Did you know that we would be
Speaker 1: playing pack shows in those beer tub tender days? I
Speaker 1: always knew that you would get there. Someday. It might
Speaker 1: you might outlive me before you did it, But by god,
Speaker 1: I knew you were going to get there. I knew
Speaker 1: you had the talent, you wrote a good song. I
Speaker 1: knew you. I always knew you were going to get there.
Speaker 1: You just saying that because this is my podcast. Oh no,
Speaker 1: I said that to my mom way back then, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, thought it was we wi instead of
Speaker 1: ye yee. I'm much happy with ye than we Wei.
Speaker 1: I don't. He goes, what are you laughing for? And
Speaker 1: I said, hold on, when I get done laughing, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you yee yee, not we we. So you saw,
Speaker 1: you saw the part. Because you played with a lot
Speaker 1: of bands and a lot of people, you still do. Yes, Yes,
Speaker 1: I've played for people who been nominated for Grammys. And
Speaker 1: is it just because I've I've I've always been real
Speaker 1: nice to you. Well, you've been nice. It was a
Speaker 1: nice guy. But I remember, uh you may not remember this,
Speaker 1: but we had found a hearing test, a relativity test, yes, online,
Speaker 1: and you and I both took it, and Manny took it,
Speaker 1: and I think Mike took it as well. And you
Speaker 1: know I pride myself in having the best ear in
Speaker 1: the band. Yeah, well, I mean I scored way up there,
Speaker 1: and then you took the thing. And you've tied me.
Speaker 1: Was that a rhythm test though it was a it
Speaker 1: was a hearing test because you was a rhythm test later,
Speaker 1: and you tied Mike in the rhythm test. I'm going, well,
Speaker 1: it's not fair. It's not fair at all. I know
Speaker 1: I did good. I remember taking that test. I know
Speaker 1: it did good on it. But you still have uh
Speaker 1: you call it perfect pitch. I call mine relative pitch,
Speaker 1: relative pitch. That's right, that's right, And they're you know,
Speaker 1: I was hearing some guy talk the other day. There
Speaker 1: is no such thing as tone deaf. We we tend
Speaker 1: to throw that around with humans. But if you're actually
Speaker 1: tone deaf, if you think you are, you wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to recognize your mother's voice on the other end
Speaker 1: of the telephone. That's out. That's what true tone deaf means.
Speaker 1: There are people that are tone deaf, but you are.
Speaker 1: You have relative pitch, meaning you could hear a note
Speaker 1: or a song and you can say that is in
Speaker 1: the key of F. Yes, I can do that. I
Speaker 1: know you can. I've seen you many times. Remember that
Speaker 1: time at the astronm Yes, yeah, but we had six
Speaker 1: so there we had. That was one of the biggest
Speaker 1: gigs we had ever played. It was at the old
Speaker 1: Astrodome and we weren't playing there because we were selling
Speaker 1: a show at the Astrodome. We were playing it's called
Speaker 1: the Hideout. It's part of the Houston Rodeo, and we
Speaker 1: somehow got lucky enough to get into this lineup and
Speaker 1: be one of the bands that was like a dance
Speaker 1: hall band that played. But it was still it was
Speaker 1: our first arena no matter how you look at it.
Speaker 1: Even though we were driving a suburban. I had my
Speaker 1: motorcycle and they lined me up a path to get
Speaker 1: right up to the stage. I rode my motorcycle to
Speaker 1: the stage and parked it and walked up the stairs
Speaker 1: on gun on the step. I felt like Mick Jagger
Speaker 1: that night. So the biggest night of our career, you
Speaker 1: felt like Mick Jagger. And I go out there to
Speaker 1: one of our songs is called Mockingbird. Road played it
Speaker 1: in a long time, by the way, but I had
Speaker 1: my capo one frat too low, two fret too low,
Speaker 1: one fret too low, to one fret too low on
Speaker 1: the guitar, and I started the song that is devastating
Speaker 1: to any of you that might understand what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: this is an absolute train wreck waiting to happen in
Speaker 1: front of a lot of people. But Mitch instantly heard
Speaker 1: the He that I was playing it in, which is
Speaker 1: damn near impossible to do. You have to have step off.
Speaker 1: You have to be really good to catch a half
Speaker 1: step off. Our bass player didn't shout out to Manny,
Speaker 1: but he didn't catch it. But he has relative. He
Speaker 1: caught you when you brought your organ in a lot
Speaker 1: of people that might be confused. But luckily they sum
Speaker 1: it up for you. It would have been really terrible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I had run. I ran to the the talkback Mike.
Speaker 1: I said, he's playing it NAF sharp. You gotta have
Speaker 1: to play it half sharp, G sharp or whatever. I
Speaker 1: can't remember the key we actually did it in. But everybody, Uh, well,
Speaker 1: you stopped and just moved your KPO. You stopped and
Speaker 1: moved your before the train wreck happened. We'd have to
Speaker 1: we'd have to find that little tape. Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: caught You caught it before I saw it, before the
Speaker 1: bass player saw it. All's well, that ends well. Show.
Speaker 1: The show went well. There was a trace Atkins was
Speaker 1: playing next door Reliant and how we got six thousand
Speaker 1: people with him playing next door I'll never know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then later on Tracey and I became record label mates. Yes,
Speaker 1: he's got that nice due voice. I could do a
Speaker 1: whole podcast on that guy. He's he's a very interesting fella.
Speaker 1: So what are you doing these days? You're you're selling cars? Still,
Speaker 1: you're still playing in bands. He's still playing with my
Speaker 1: old band we have. We had a cover band. We retired,
Speaker 1: but we still the three of us get together and play.
Speaker 1: We did a jazz gig. We played with a Caribbean
Speaker 1: pan drummer, you know the steel drums. Yep. We played
Speaker 1: a show with him one time and we had set
Speaker 1: to go to the Caribbean to go play with him again,
Speaker 1: but the poor guy crashed his car and got killed
Speaker 1: in the crash. Well we got a chance to do it.
Speaker 1: But man, that dude could play. He was the Mick
Speaker 1: Jagger of the Caribbean. He was the man to go
Speaker 1: to on the steel drum. How much time do you
Speaker 1: get to go get off and from cars and go
Speaker 1: play keyboards? Well, since we've all been shut down, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's been no live music until recently, and I haven't
Speaker 1: played a gig in Yeah, three or four months. I
Speaker 1: was supposed to play on this Friday, but I put
Speaker 1: it off. There was ninety six days in between my
Speaker 1: last gig to the one we just played. Ninety six.
Speaker 1: That's that's the longest I've ever gone without playing on
Speaker 1: a stage since I started when I was a teenager, right,
Speaker 1: But I never went that long. When when when I
Speaker 1: was with y'all for five years, we hardly ever went
Speaker 1: I don't think we ever went two weeks without playing
Speaker 1: a show. No, no, So tell us tell me about
Speaker 1: your where your dealerships are? Which ones I lose track? Well,
Speaker 1: I just combined the Dodge Country with the Freedom Jeep
Speaker 1: and now it's called Freedom Country. And I built a
Speaker 1: new Jeep store in Colleen. It's on the main drag
Speaker 1: Highway one ninety or Interstate fourteen. Stop wanted Cameron, Texas,
Speaker 1: I do. I had one out there. Matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I just bought my truck from out there. They had
Speaker 1: the right color and everything, So I just bought me
Speaker 1: a new truck, all right. And those are the only three.
Speaker 1: That's it. I can't keep track of you. So maybe
Speaker 1: the most interesting thing that we have in common, it's not.
Speaker 1: Maybe it is I met my wife at a music
Speaker 1: video shoot at your house. We all met your wife
Speaker 1: at a music all that was. That was the song
Speaker 1: Don't Listen to the Radio. If you watch that music video,
Speaker 1: that's where I met Amber, And that is at Mitch's
Speaker 1: house in Harker Heights, Texas, right, Belton, Belton, Texas. And
Speaker 1: it was it was just finished. It wasn't even finished yet.
Speaker 1: It wasn't were you living there yet? I moved in.
Speaker 1: The pool area was not finished. It still had still
Speaker 1: didn't have any time for sticking up out of there.
Speaker 1: There was no landscaping. I don't know why you chose
Speaker 1: to do it there. Yeah, I'll link that video at
Speaker 1: the top of descriptions. So go watch Don't Listen to
Speaker 1: the Radio. You will see an unfinished landscape job in
Speaker 1: the backyard. But that is Mitch's house and unbelievable grand
Speaker 1: piano so cool that that I'm playing in that video, right,
Speaker 1: And it's actually Mitch that that played that actual part
Speaker 1: on the album, right. So there's this weird connection with
Speaker 1: us that if you had to come over join the band,
Speaker 1: if you hadn't have played that part on Don't Listen
Speaker 1: to the Radio, if you hadn't built that house, all
Speaker 1: those things. I might not have ever met Amber, and
Speaker 1: I'd just be miserable. Pilo Junk. We all would be,
Speaker 1: I think, because she is a light. She is a
Speaker 1: bright light that shines on us all. But can you
Speaker 1: imagine my teenage son coming home from school, going into
Speaker 1: his bedroom to find it Amber in there with nothing
Speaker 1: but a t and he's going, oh my god, have
Speaker 1: I died? Is this seven? I didn't know that story? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was thrilled, say the least. Okay, I'll have to
Speaker 1: tell ever, I'm sure she knows. I'm sure that seems
Speaker 1: like a lifetime ago, now, doesn't It was? It was
Speaker 1: eleven years ago, two thousand and nine, I believe, or eight?
Speaker 1: Was it eight? I don't remember when we filmed it.
Speaker 1: I know it came it was eight because I moved
Speaker 1: into the house in October of two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: and it was just I just read in awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that was a fun time and I had to
Speaker 1: work late that night and I didn't get there until
Speaker 1: just about y'all are just about finished. Yeah, but it
Speaker 1: was cool and I'm going to look, there's my house.
Speaker 1: We'll forever have that connection. And then if you guys,
Speaker 1: if you're ever digging through some some of my music,
Speaker 1: songs like five more Minutes iconic because of you. Yes,
Speaker 1: don't listen to the radio if money didn't matter. This
Speaker 1: just off the top of my head. So iconic piano
Speaker 1: stuff that you that you made really me and you
Speaker 1: in one of my bedrooms in some point right that
Speaker 1: it was the first time I'd ever actually been given
Speaker 1: that kind of a platform. And boy, I tell you
Speaker 1: what those are? You know, some simple riffs. Okay, Uncle,
Speaker 1: noodle and D and I'll just turn the mic on
Speaker 1: and I started noodling and D and that happened. That
Speaker 1: became the intro to five more Minutes. That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: And uh that also reminds me that that we're not
Speaker 1: related as far as we know. But for some reason
Speaker 1: along the line, I started calling you uncle Mitch, and
Speaker 1: then I cut down to unk yep, So I started
Speaker 1: calling you unk so and now I think you're kind
Speaker 1: of open to anyone calling you uncle Mitch. I got
Speaker 1: a lot of nieces and nephews out there. So what's
Speaker 1: your uh, what's your social media platform? Uh, it's Uncle
Speaker 1: underscore Mitch on Twitter and Insta, and it's Mitchelle at Facebook.
Speaker 1: Fascinating guy. I've never met anyone that didn't like you
Speaker 1: or had anything negative to say about you. You're the
Speaker 1: nicest guy. The only time I've ever seen you even
Speaker 1: mildly flustered, and it wasn't really was when the whole
Speaker 1: virus thing hit and and you were you were so
Speaker 1: frustrated because your whole livelihood, whether it was music or
Speaker 1: cars or anything, was being taken away from you. But
Speaker 1: other than that, yeah, I didn't want music to become
Speaker 1: a have to. I wanted to always be a want
Speaker 1: to anyway, you guys look him up, Uncle Mitch, thank
Speaker 1: you for being on here. You too, man. We'll do
Speaker 1: it again sometime. I'm buy