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Speaker 1: guaranteed to be a hit. All Right, Welcome to episode
Speaker 1: the Bobby Cat all Right in Today with songwriter Lee
Speaker 1: Thomas Miller known to his friends as Lemiller. But I
Speaker 1: guess Lee Miller was too generic. Put Thomas. They would know.
Speaker 1: My mother never ever called me Lee. She called me
Speaker 1: Lee Thomas one word. So should I call you Lee Thomas?
Speaker 1: If you had ever met my mother, you would call
Speaker 1: me Lee Thomas without realizing it because she always does. Oh,
Speaker 1: I have to see. When I would google Lee Miller,
Speaker 1: it was always like ancient Civil War heroes or some
Speaker 1: guy that was in three episodes of Jurassic Park the cartoon.
Speaker 1: You know it's some famous British photographer. Lady too. I
Speaker 1: want to play a few just before we get started
Speaker 1: so we can have an idea. Here are some of
Speaker 1: the songs and we'll get to them during the conversation
Speaker 1: that Lee has written do you know before I say,
Speaker 1: do you know any number one? You've written? Seven? Okay?
Speaker 1: Is that true? Mike? Is that the fact check? Seven? Alright? Seven? Okay?
Speaker 1: So for example, it's gonna be fact checking. Oh yeaeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have lots of fact checks, like a couple of gears,
Speaker 1: Juice in Color by Jamie Johnson, Mother, you should have
Speaker 1: seen it in color, Southern Girl, Timo Graan, Sweet than
Speaker 1: to Blue Honey, a little bit crazy like Newly Lifts
Speaker 1: Blue and Day Jon Sunday, You're gonna miss this, You're
Speaker 1: gonna missing You're gonna want this fact, You're gonna days
Speaker 1: had so Fat just a few of the songs that
Speaker 1: Lee has written. Also The World by Got Brad Paisleys
Speaker 1: to Perfect Storm, She It's joys Me and and I'm
Speaker 1: still a guy but then I'm still alright. So you
Speaker 1: have quite the library of songs there. I like to
Speaker 1: start by letting people know the big picture first. So
Speaker 1: when you first came to Nashville, you came to Nashville,
Speaker 1: true or Falster because your goal was to play in Alabama. No.
Speaker 1: I tell this story and they always retail it wrong.
Speaker 1: I always say I wanted to be in whatever the
Speaker 1: next Alabama type thing was, because they were my heroes.
Speaker 1: What was the Alabama TI thinking made a band? The
Speaker 1: band and you know they were cool and there was
Speaker 1: a guy on the end that played a bunch of instruments.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be the guy in the modern version
Speaker 1: of Alabama, whatever it was that had all the instruments
Speaker 1: set up and played a little bit of this and
Speaker 1: played a little bit of that, and that was that
Speaker 1: was the goal. So your goal is never to be
Speaker 1: the front man of the even the new Alabama, you
Speaker 1: want to be the utility player. I always want to
Speaker 1: be the utility player. But I wanted to be in
Speaker 1: in a you know, in in a traveling signed band
Speaker 1: like the Eagles or something like that. Whatever. But what
Speaker 1: you know, whatever it was, I mean in the eighties,
Speaker 1: the early eighties, you know, I'm I'm just Alabama made
Speaker 1: me want to be in the business. And so that's
Speaker 1: why the Alabama reference keeps pop up. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: did not want to be in Alabama, but you wanted
Speaker 1: to be in something like Alabama. Exactly did you try?
Speaker 1: Did you have a band like Alabama? I mean, did
Speaker 1: you have a band called? From high school? High school?
Speaker 1: From the time I was in middle school, there was
Speaker 1: some incarnation of dudes that could or couldn't play in
Speaker 1: my parents living room, trying to learn how to be
Speaker 1: So you moved to Nashville wanting to be the person
Speaker 1: on stage? Were you not good enough? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: back home in Kentucky, I was pretty good, you know.
Speaker 1: And you grow up in these these bars and and
Speaker 1: especially when you're young, and you can kind of play
Speaker 1: different instruments. People say, oh, you're fantastic, and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm fantastic. But you know, I think in high school,
Speaker 1: I mean, my first visits in Nashville and uh, and
Speaker 1: Nashville was a lot different than there weren't near as
Speaker 1: many hockey talks as there are now. But there would
Speaker 1: be kind of local clubs where, you know, the people
Speaker 1: that have moved to town trying to trying to get
Speaker 1: heard would go play. And I remember I would go
Speaker 1: and I would At the time, you know, I went
Speaker 1: on to music school. I was classically trained, but through
Speaker 1: these years while I'm trying to figure out how to
Speaker 1: be a better musician, I would come here and I
Speaker 1: would go in these clubs and I would sit there
Speaker 1: and I would listen to these guys that weren't working,
Speaker 1: they were trying to get gigs, and I would sit
Speaker 1: there and go. You know, they were so good. They
Speaker 1: were so freakishly good on every instrument, whatever it was,
Speaker 1: whatever they said and it did. It was just like,
Speaker 1: h and and this guy is unemployed here back where
Speaker 1: I'm um, this guy would be you know, the a legend,
Speaker 1: you know, um. But so you know, I didn't come
Speaker 1: here with any you know, false hopes. I knew, I
Speaker 1: knew what I was getting myself into. So you moved
Speaker 1: to town and you get into kind of a band
Speaker 1: playing fiddle and they fired you, Is that true? Well?
Speaker 1: So I look at whatever I played at the time,
Speaker 1: and I said, okay, certainly guitar players or adama dozen't
Speaker 1: in this town. And at that point, piano was my
Speaker 1: first instrument. But I really felt like, as far as
Speaker 1: you know, I probably wasn't ever going to be up
Speaker 1: to par with these guys. So I said, okay, I'll
Speaker 1: be a fuddle player. So that became my all my
Speaker 1: focus and uh, and so I moved here, and I
Speaker 1: moved around June one, and two weeks later, I've already
Speaker 1: met somebody that got me an audition for Tom Tehall,
Speaker 1: and so I walked into the audition. Um, Tom wasn't there.
Speaker 1: It was a band leader and auditioned for Tom Tehall,
Speaker 1: and the guy hired me, and uh, there were two
Speaker 1: fiddle players, and so I get the job. Blame one.
Speaker 1: He asked me to come back and run through the
Speaker 1: whole set with the second guy, and so I went
Speaker 1: back and the other guy have been there for a while,
Speaker 1: So I in my second audition. I'm now playing all
Speaker 1: of the music with the second to chair and okay, good,
Speaker 1: your good, your heart. We leave Saturday. So July three,
Speaker 1: I get on the bus as Tom ty hospital player
Speaker 1: and we did two dates and on July fifth, he
Speaker 1: fired me. So why did he fire you? What did
Speaker 1: they say to you? Because that's it. He didn't give
Speaker 1: you a chance. Like well, so so we get on
Speaker 1: the bus and we drived a Homestead, Florida. Well, i've
Speaker 1: never been on the bus, you know, something twenty one,
Speaker 1: I guess, and might get on the bus and it's
Speaker 1: like season musicians. Tom's not there. And Tom was from
Speaker 1: about seventy miles in Kentucky for a where I'm from.
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking, first of all, I've got the Kentucky
Speaker 1: thing in my back pocket. I'm gonna will him. He's
Speaker 1: gonna love me, you know. So we get on the
Speaker 1: bus to go to Florida and there's no Tom. It's
Speaker 1: just the band. And so I meet the band and well,
Speaker 1: these guys were seasoned road guys and they really weren't
Speaker 1: all into the new guy, right, So I didn't really
Speaker 1: have a friend. And so we drive to the other
Speaker 1: side of the world and we get there and there's
Speaker 1: no tim. We do sound check and there's no time,
Speaker 1: and when I come back, Tom has arrived. And so
Speaker 1: I introduced myself to Tom. Well, Tom's kind of Tom
Speaker 1: isn't a real people person. Tom isn't a chatter and
Speaker 1: I told him I was. I told him where I
Speaker 1: was from, and he just kind of looked through me,
Speaker 1: said nothing, and that was that. And okay, So now
Speaker 1: I'm nervous. And so the band leader started getting anxious
Speaker 1: because he realized he had hired me. Nobody else had
Speaker 1: heard me. What if I mess up? And the Tom
Speaker 1: to hollagig was pretty fiddle heavy, and so he starts saying,
Speaker 1: hey man, it's kind of my gig here, you know
Speaker 1: my butt. Don't don't mess this up. Okay, okay. So
Speaker 1: this went on kind of for six hours. We do
Speaker 1: the first gig and I rushed over to him and
Speaker 1: I'm like, howd to do? And he says, I monitors
Speaker 1: weren't very good. I couldn't hear you. I'll just listen
Speaker 1: to Morrow. So we go from there to North Carolina
Speaker 1: and and he just wanted to my man. He says,
Speaker 1: I just you know, you gotta do that man. He
Speaker 1: could be great man, you gotta be and he just
Speaker 1: got in my head and we get ready to kick
Speaker 1: off the show and I'm trembly and I'm nervous. Ladies, gentlemen,
Speaker 1: Tompty Hall and the worst fiddle player in America shows up.
Speaker 1: I mean I absolutely and in of fact this thing.
Speaker 1: The guy that was playing with me is going, what's wrong?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, shut up, you know? And uh, and
Speaker 1: it just it was like a can't fight and it
Speaker 1: just kept getting worse, and I'm I'm like a little
Speaker 1: anxiety attack, a little panic attack. And the more I played,
Speaker 1: the worst I got. Was it? They didn't see enough
Speaker 1: in you though to try again? Fired me? Fired me.
Speaker 1: I mean, I had some people come worry for me
Speaker 1: that I'm like, you know what, You're not that good now,
Speaker 1: but I see a lot in you did a lot
Speaker 1: of potential. Fired me. And it was about five or
Speaker 1: six years ago before I ever saw Tom T. Hall again.
Speaker 1: And we were at some function and I went up
Speaker 1: to him and I said, Mr Hall, I'm Lee Miller.
Speaker 1: I played fiddle for you for three days in nine
Speaker 1: and you fired me. And he says, what happened? And
Speaker 1: I said, I wasn't ready, and he was kind of like,
Speaker 1: he was kind of like, are you are you mad
Speaker 1: at me? And I'm like, no, no, No, was the
Speaker 1: greatest thing that ever happened to change my path. Can
Speaker 1: I have a picture? So that's where that was my
Speaker 1: welcome to Nashville kid. So your path has changed because
Speaker 1: your confidence is broken. You're now the broken stallion. Sure,
Speaker 1: and so do you put it in your head? Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna write I'm staying in town, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna write no, no. I I beared down. I was like,
Speaker 1: let's let's let's get on with it. So you know,
Speaker 1: I'm the guy that rehearsed or practiced fifteen hours a day.
Speaker 1: I mean I just I played and practiced and practiced
Speaker 1: and took lessons and practiced and did more auditions and
Speaker 1: you know, did local gigs, road gigs with touring bands
Speaker 1: and did whatever. He you stayed on the road and
Speaker 1: played instruments, not with anybody you would know, just with
Speaker 1: bar bands but whoever. I mean, I had to pay bills,
Speaker 1: so so I would do And again I was the
Speaker 1: utility guys, so I would I would play everything, you know,
Speaker 1: and I had tons of gear and I would do whatever.
Speaker 1: And somebody heard me and put me with a a
Speaker 1: producer was had this duo and made it a trio
Speaker 1: and they wanted to try to get a record deal
Speaker 1: and that was Sugarland, and well it wasn't no they
Speaker 1: it never got to Sugarland level. But what it is,
Speaker 1: we started writing songs every day, and uh, and writing
Speaker 1: the project and then auditioning for labels and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, and and uh, they got me writing
Speaker 1: a music row and I met more people. And music
Speaker 1: in the nineties was huge. Music row was amazing. There
Speaker 1: was so many record companies and so many records being made,
Speaker 1: and so many publishers and right, you know, signing lots
Speaker 1: of writers and and the key was I started writing
Speaker 1: with music road guys and people were giving me a chance.
Speaker 1: And in ninety six, guy named Jeff Carlton ran this
Speaker 1: big independent company and uh, buddy mind, it got me
Speaker 1: in there righting with some of their guys and he said,
Speaker 1: he said, I don't think I don't think you can
Speaker 1: do any of this other stuff he's about. I think
Speaker 1: you could be a full time songwriter. That's okay done,
Speaker 1: And he signed me. So he signed to be a
Speaker 1: full time song writer. How long from that day until
Speaker 1: you got your first cut? Um, the first cut was probably,
Speaker 1: I don't know, within a couple of years. I mean
Speaker 1: that this company was really great. The people that were
Speaker 1: mentoring me were really great, and we we the whole
Speaker 1: key was, first of all, I have to be riding
Speaker 1: in the ballpark of what's working. You know, this is
Speaker 1: what's legitimately commercial music. Then you gotta have somebody that
Speaker 1: can legitimately get it listened to. And that's where they
Speaker 1: came in, and they could so so you would get
Speaker 1: good listens immediately. And you know, there were several cuts
Speaker 1: that came pretty quick. It took a while to have
Speaker 1: a hit, but uh, you know, you gotta have the
Speaker 1: cut before you can have a hit. First hit was
Speaker 1: first bona fide hit was The Impossible with Joe Nichols
Speaker 1: Unsinkable Ship, Unbreakable, Watch Break Sometimes the thing thing never
Speaker 1: happened happened, just like that unbendable steep. So you write
Speaker 1: the song, who'd you write it? With? Kelly Lovelace? So
Speaker 1: you guys, right, this is this one of those where
Speaker 1: they say, oh, you knew the magic was there as
Speaker 1: soon as he wrote the song, so Kelly Lovelace. It
Speaker 1: was a blind date. I didn't know him, he didn't
Speaker 1: know me. Publishers put us in the room together and uh,
Speaker 1: we wrote this song. And I did demo on the
Speaker 1: song and turned it in, which you sing it, and
Speaker 1: that the dem no no I heard. I heard. I
Speaker 1: got to sing it, and uh, we turn it in
Speaker 1: and everybody just kind of said us nice. And I
Speaker 1: don't know how much it was pitched. It wasn't pitched much.
Speaker 1: And so I'd even gone to R. C A because
Speaker 1: I had a friend that was an A and R
Speaker 1: and I took it to him. And the only person
Speaker 1: I ever knew that loved it was this an Arga
Speaker 1: and he he held it in for a few weeks
Speaker 1: and played it for people at the label. And then
Speaker 1: when day he called me and said, uh, I've played
Speaker 1: it for everybody here, everybody we have on the roster,
Speaker 1: everyone's past. So I'm gonna have to let it go.
Speaker 1: And this song was never mentioned for maybe eight or
Speaker 1: nine more months, so it is disappears and a song
Speaker 1: in purgatory. Well, you know, here's the thing. There's everyone's
Speaker 1: excited about the new songs, so they love it and
Speaker 1: they go, you pitched everybody that's looking today, And in
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks it's a new batch of songs,
Speaker 1: and the publishers are pitching those songs, and uh, it
Speaker 1: just kind of got buried. And I mean, honestly, I
Speaker 1: don't think that the publishers were not excited about it,
Speaker 1: so that how do they get refound and reused again. Well,
Speaker 1: this one got lucky because Kelly's publisher was a big
Speaker 1: publisher at the time. And uh, people, this this song
Speaker 1: is meant a lot to a lot of people. And
Speaker 1: people will say this must have been undeniable, and I say, oh,
Speaker 1: are you kidding me? It was quite deniable. Um. It
Speaker 1: was kind of over in this b drawer at their
Speaker 1: publishing company. Um to the point that there was a
Speaker 1: guy named Brent Rowan that was cutting sides on this
Speaker 1: young guy who had already lost one record deal named
Speaker 1: Joe Nichols, and he asked somebody at E M I
Speaker 1: for some songs just so they could maybe do some demos.
Speaker 1: And this is one of the songs that they let
Speaker 1: him have, just to cut side IDs on somebody that
Speaker 1: had already lost one record deal. This was way down
Speaker 1: the food chain, right and so they went and did
Speaker 1: a real low budget uh demo and then called hess.
Speaker 1: They really liked the song and uh and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: who is it? And so they tell me and it
Speaker 1: was so far removed from, you know, actually even a
Speaker 1: record deal. I'm like, okay, well thanks, and then they said, okay,
Speaker 1: we think there's gonna be a new record label. The
Speaker 1: guy that that had made Arista Records famous and signed
Speaker 1: tons of people's tempted boys, responsible for all these major acts,
Speaker 1: is doing. We think is going to have a new
Speaker 1: record label with Tony Brown, who's one of the biggest
Speaker 1: producers in Nashville history. They're going to be partners. We
Speaker 1: think they're going to have a label, and if they do,
Speaker 1: we think they're gonna sign Joe Nichols. And we think
Speaker 1: they like your song. A lot of things to have
Speaker 1: to fall. No, you don't even you don't even you know,
Speaker 1: as somebody said, you know, it's it's a single for
Speaker 1: an artist that hasn't been signed to a record label
Speaker 1: that does it exists, So so no, we thought nothing
Speaker 1: about this. And then honestly it comes out and you're like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: right before it comes out, Mark Chestnut cuts it and
Speaker 1: he was on Sony and it was still Mark Chestnut,
Speaker 1: you know. And I'm like, whoa this is? This is
Speaker 1: a big cut. And my publisher said, well, we promised
Speaker 1: it to Joe Nichols. And I said, Joe Nichols didn't
Speaker 1: even have a record deal. And it's what's a relationship
Speaker 1: town and and and and Tim Dubois, who's one of
Speaker 1: all of our heroes. He had actually come to a
Speaker 1: publisher and said, you can't take this song away from me.
Speaker 1: You promised it to me. And and I'm sitting there
Speaker 1: going you all have all lost your mind. I said,
Speaker 1: we don't even know if this this guy has a
Speaker 1: record deal, you know. And they said, well we we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to honor it. So then okay, and so
Speaker 1: we just waited to see, okay, well the word came
Speaker 1: there is a record label, there is a record deal.
Speaker 1: He actually they're going to try to put this out
Speaker 1: and uh and and there was it was that day
Speaker 1: that I'm like, you know what, I don't know anything
Speaker 1: about the music business. And and I remember I had
Speaker 1: a song on a black Hawk that I really loved
Speaker 1: called Days of America. I need it gone to thirty three?
Speaker 1: How do you have that queue up there that good.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about what we gotta here. That's unbelieving. So
Speaker 1: as you were saying black Hawk Days of America and
Speaker 1: and we were so pumped because this was kind of
Speaker 1: my tribute to nine eleven. That's what we that's what
Speaker 1: we wrote after nine eleven. And I love this record.
Speaker 1: And remember they did it at halftime of the Titans
Speaker 1: Steelers game in Pittsburgh and uh, and I'd actually gone
Speaker 1: up there to see this happened. It was a big deal.
Speaker 1: And then it stopped at thirty three and I'm like,
Speaker 1: it was disappointing, but it was the biggest record I've
Speaker 1: ever had, and so impossible comes out and as always
Speaker 1: new artists, you know, they climbed slow. And uh. I
Speaker 1: was sitting in my office and my publisher opened the door.
Speaker 1: Um and like every Monday, you kind of know what
Speaker 1: the charts have done for the week. You kind of
Speaker 1: get through the weekend. The Monday morning they say this
Speaker 1: is the official New charts and I'll never get She
Speaker 1: opened the door and she says, you went to nineteen
Speaker 1: and that was the first time that I went that's
Speaker 1: a hit because of the top I don't I guess
Speaker 1: there was no rule. Just to me, I was like, oh, nineteen,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh, and it kept climbing and it
Speaker 1: kept climbing, and it was at five and uh it
Speaker 1: was the anniversary of nine eleven, whatever anniversary that was,
Speaker 1: whatever the year it was, nine eleven. It was like
Speaker 1: one or two two two, I guess, um, and we
Speaker 1: probably were out of juice. We weren't going to make
Speaker 1: it to number one, but we've gone to five. And
Speaker 1: on the anniversary of nine eleven, his radio does um,
Speaker 1: they're playing things that are appropriate for the emotion for
Speaker 1: nine eleven. And the song that was willing to keep
Speaker 1: us out was ten more Rounds of Jose Quervo, which
Speaker 1: is the opposite of what radio it was teed up
Speaker 1: to go number one, and we jumped from five to
Speaker 1: one because we got enough emotional spins because of the
Speaker 1: day to put us over the thing. Now, in all fairness,
Speaker 1: ten Rounds Quervo went number one the next week. We
Speaker 1: didn't keep them out, but it allowed us to get
Speaker 1: number one, a non science artist on a label that
Speaker 1: didn't exist. It wasn't even gonna be number one. There
Speaker 1: you go, So that changed it all for you. When
Speaker 1: you have a number one? Do you have a lot more? Cloud?
Speaker 1: Is it like everybody wants right with you? Now? Well,
Speaker 1: I think it makes people take notice, like we all
Speaker 1: are aware of what what's number one? And if it's
Speaker 1: somebody that's never had one before, everybody's like, oh, it's cool.
Speaker 1: It's like I think everybody loves to see somebody knew when. Um.
Speaker 1: I think that it makes people pay attention. Um. The
Speaker 1: most beautiful thing is because as we all do our
Speaker 1: own self doubting and I'm a one hit wonder, one
Speaker 1: hit wonder them. A few months later I had a
Speaker 1: number one one Terry Clark called I just want to
Speaker 1: be mad. Never changed continue And what was fun is
Speaker 1: because for me it was emotional and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: even for me, I'm like, okay, I did it again.
Speaker 1: You're not chumbawamba at this point. Yeah, well, I it was.
Speaker 1: It was some confidence, you know, and uh and there
Speaker 1: was a lot of things going on then. I mean
Speaker 1: it's like we had, you know, several things that we
Speaker 1: thought were gonna happen and then didn't. But those two
Speaker 1: things that did kind of back to back, and uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that changed everything. It's certainly it got me
Speaker 1: in riding rooms that I couldn't get in before. So
Speaker 1: Joe Nichols, the impossible, the number one, Terry Clark. I
Speaker 1: just want to be mad now I number one, your
Speaker 1: fingers through my hair and your listen number one? What's next? Chronological?
Speaker 1: I think the world would have been next. So the
Speaker 1: world with Brad, which is a whole sidebar subject. But
Speaker 1: to you maybe just another girl girl but me baby.
Speaker 1: So you and Brad have a relationship where you have
Speaker 1: written a lot of songs together, and so because and
Speaker 1: knowing both, to you, guys, I see how you get
Speaker 1: along because you guys have the same sense of humor.
Speaker 1: Is that good? Well? I think you and I have
Speaker 1: the same sense of humor too, and I think that's good. No,
Speaker 1: it's not. It's not good for anybody except for us.
Speaker 1: Because nobody else thinks we're funny. And we've seen that
Speaker 1: in rooms where were the only two in the rooms
Speaker 1: think we're funny? But you and Brad? Is that what
Speaker 1: makes you guys take it first? Because you both have
Speaker 1: that dry, sarcastic with the plus you're good songwriters. I
Speaker 1: don't know. You'd have to ask him. I've known him
Speaker 1: so long um. And then before his first record came out,
Speaker 1: we wrote the first time back then, and uh, and
Speaker 1: I didn't that a matter of fact, The World was
Speaker 1: the first cut that I had on him. UM and
Speaker 1: I had a couple on that same album. And again,
Speaker 1: you know, it's about relationships. I mean, from there we
Speaker 1: end up spending more time together, and we ended up
Speaker 1: we've been writing ever since then. But you like each
Speaker 1: other and you don't know, you don't we spend time
Speaker 1: together unless you like each other. Um. And again I
Speaker 1: can't speak for him. I know that there's something familiar
Speaker 1: about knowing somebody for so long. And you know, I
Speaker 1: always say the music community is tight. So the people
Speaker 1: that you're close to, we all do life together, and
Speaker 1: we all you know, probably the goods, the bads. You know,
Speaker 1: he's one of those people that. I mean, Brad's interesting
Speaker 1: in that Brad. Brad's a talker. Brad likes to sit
Speaker 1: and talk stuff out and and just hang. More so
Speaker 1: than anybody any guy in my life. Ad is all
Speaker 1: about if he's gonna relax, if he's just gonna blow
Speaker 1: off steam. We're just going somewhere, we're gonna hang. We'll
Speaker 1: say we're gonna chat, we're gonna laugh, we're gonna listen
Speaker 1: to music, we're gonna drive around, you know, and just
Speaker 1: just hang you know. So yeah, it's like you spend
Speaker 1: enough time with somebody, you know somebody pretty well. And
Speaker 1: then he's incredibly loyal to his everyone in his world,
Speaker 1: I mean, his his crew, you know, the bus drivers,
Speaker 1: everyone in Brad Paisley Land has been there. Sometimes we say,
Speaker 1: what do you gotta do to get fired by Brad Paisley.
Speaker 1: I mean he truly he loves his people and he
Speaker 1: wants you there. And uh so he doesn't write unless
Speaker 1: he's working on an album. So we're just hanging unless
Speaker 1: it's time to do an album. And its time to
Speaker 1: do an album, and then we write and it's intense.
Speaker 1: It's it's all day and all night and all week
Speaker 1: and all month and and you just slam it out
Speaker 1: and you spend a lot of time together. And you're right.
Speaker 1: The world was at the first time track off the record. No,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It wasn't that. There were several singles in.
Speaker 1: I mean again, can you pressure a friend to put
Speaker 1: your track out first? No? No, As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: you kinda I think you have to be careful and
Speaker 1: there's an art to that. It's like, I'm really bad
Speaker 1: at self promotion anyway. But if I'm sitting here and
Speaker 1: there's a conversation about the next single is going to
Speaker 1: be my song or somebody else's song, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be thinking, I love you so much, please put mine note.
Speaker 1: But I'm never, ever, ever, ever probably going to bring
Speaker 1: it up or ask what he's thinking, because I feel
Speaker 1: like it puts him in an uncomfortable position. So the
Speaker 1: world has a number one song at your number three?
Speaker 1: What's number four? Um? I guess, I guess still a guy.
Speaker 1: See this is how you know you're a great writer
Speaker 1: when you can't remember the order of your number one
Speaker 1: of the time kind of gets funky and hazy and
Speaker 1: problems man, Bloomber, I'm still When I hear this song,
Speaker 1: I think of both of you guys personalities and this
Speaker 1: song like I hear it and no by knowing you
Speaker 1: guys like this is the quite essential song where both
Speaker 1: of you guys, you got to get together and make
Speaker 1: a bunch of jokes and the song comes out of it. Well.
Speaker 1: The common phenomenator, but all all of your first four
Speaker 1: is Kelly Lovelace. I wrote the first two that you
Speaker 1: played with just me and him, and then these two
Speaker 1: brad things are me Brad and Kelly, And uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think again, it's it's also knowing somebody.
Speaker 1: You know, we were in this conversation Kelly now about
Speaker 1: Brad and Kilm and you know, it's it's this perfect,
Speaker 1: amazing relationship, these two beautiful people with these beautiful lives
Speaker 1: and he's a country superstar and she's a movie star
Speaker 1: and they're so happy, and uh and we you start
Speaker 1: to say and like I said to Kelly, I said,
Speaker 1: do you think when nobody's around, they just have redneck
Speaker 1: bites just like everybody else, just ugly, nasty, married fights.
Speaker 1: And Kelly said, I don't know, they seem pretty stable.
Speaker 1: He probably annoys or he's still a guy. And that's
Speaker 1: where the I did came from. How would you write that?
Speaker 1: And so we kind of roughed in some thoughts on
Speaker 1: it and took it to him and he liked it,
Speaker 1: but it took took a long time to get it.
Speaker 1: He's kind of gotta finally find an emotional connection to it.
Speaker 1: And when he finally did, when he finally thought it
Speaker 1: was funny, he got it to where he thought it
Speaker 1: was funny. Then the question was how far do we go?
Speaker 1: And so then we took it further than we probably
Speaker 1: should have, and then that's when he decided it was perfect.
Speaker 1: And we felt like it was uncommercial. We felt like
Speaker 1: it would scare the label, and and the label felt
Speaker 1: like it would absolutely reach people. And and they were right,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad they were. Does that song surprise you most?
Speaker 1: That's twenty of your number ones? Um, you know, only maybe,
Speaker 1: But budd, you know, your opinion is kind of influenced
Speaker 1: by what your peers say. And I felt like that.
Speaker 1: Oddly enough, this this song probably from from my friends,
Speaker 1: my writer friends. They probably gave this song more love
Speaker 1: than the others because they felt like it was written
Speaker 1: so well, which is strictly based on a well written song.
Speaker 1: The thing that is interesting is it's been a while
Speaker 1: since anything this quote funny was a hit. It's like
Speaker 1: radio doesn't really do funny lately. So sometimes it shocks
Speaker 1: me that something this light and is silly in this.
Speaker 1: You know, he was a superstar then though, right at
Speaker 1: this point, so it's it's easier to be a little
Speaker 1: funny love when you're a superstar and he had been
Speaker 1: funny enough alcohol was funny celebrity he had he had
Speaker 1: done this before. It was kind of his thing, you know,
Speaker 1: and it was it had been a little while, so
Speaker 1: it was kind of ready for it, um, but like
Speaker 1: he would test it. It shows of course, I said,
Speaker 1: he's been an arena act for a long time and
Speaker 1: so before anybody had heard it, he would sit on
Speaker 1: a stool with an acoustic and he would sing it
Speaker 1: to the minut an arena, which is gutsy and and
Speaker 1: he was blown away because he said, he said, the
Speaker 1: entire place just roared and laughed, which he says, that's
Speaker 1: fantastic because they don't know the song. You're selling it
Speaker 1: like that. And then we remember that he started getting
Speaker 1: nervous right before it came out as a single because
Speaker 1: the album have been out for a while. This wasn't
Speaker 1: the first single of several singles in so people his
Speaker 1: fans had had the album and they knew the music.
Speaker 1: And I remember one day he had said, they're not
Speaker 1: really laughing anymore, and then Kelly pointed out, he says, no,
Speaker 1: because they're singing. You know, everybody's singing now because they
Speaker 1: know it, you know, and then he still he still
Speaker 1: does it, and it's it's fun to watch him do
Speaker 1: it in concert because the entire place sings it back in.
Speaker 1: That's break brought to you by a Sleep number. I
Speaker 1: gotta paid the bill, obviously. Did you see my room?
Speaker 1: By the way, I get a new place, Persial, I've
Speaker 1: been to the new place, I haven't seen the sleep
Speaker 1: Did you give them a tour it all? Michael, you're
Speaker 1: walking out. We just came up. Well, so I have
Speaker 1: a sleep in bed. If you like to take a
Speaker 1: spin and and take a nap afterward, feel free. It's
Speaker 1: a very comfortable bed. How long is the buck cast
Speaker 1: going to be? Well? Am I going home tonight? Well,
Speaker 1: so listen sleep number. I have one. My sleep number
Speaker 1: setting is thirty. And they have a comfort fit pillow,
Speaker 1: which is awesome now. And you don't realize how awesome
Speaker 1: pillows are until you actually either have a really bad
Speaker 1: one a really good one, and you have a bad
Speaker 1: when you're like, oh that's terrible. If they have a
Speaker 1: good when you're like, I never even knew I needed
Speaker 1: a good one. But sleep number has the comfort fit pillow,
Speaker 1: and it remembers even now your head is shaped and
Speaker 1: so the comfort fit pillow is comfortable. It's a holiday
Speaker 1: season time. If you're hearing this right recently, and it's
Speaker 1: there for you. My Sleep number setting is thirty. My
Speaker 1: sleep i Q score last night was in the nineties.
Speaker 1: And there's only one place you'll find the comfort fit
Speaker 1: pillow at a Sleep Number store. And right now you
Speaker 1: can buy only get one and off, and you can
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Speaker 1: can tell them that charted here on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 1: That's how you know you start to make it. Whenever
Speaker 1: people want to advertise during a show. I'm big Sleep
Speaker 1: number guy anyway, but whenever we started get people going
Speaker 1: how and advertise them like dang, people are listening to
Speaker 1: this thing now, so you you know I'm still a
Speaker 1: guy that's your fourth number one. At this point, you're
Speaker 1: rolling the dough. I mean you're walking around fur coats,
Speaker 1: fur coats, fur coats come early though, I mean you
Speaker 1: gotta jump on that immediately, gold chains, You're the whole thing.
Speaker 1: At this time, they really after four number ones? Are again?
Speaker 1: Are you a big dog on music? Girl? I don't
Speaker 1: know you know, here's the problem. Um, you may not
Speaker 1: know this because there is no bigger dog than you.
Speaker 1: But in music, it's like, no matter how good you're doing,
Speaker 1: you've got somebody that's just killing you. You know. So
Speaker 1: by the time I had four, it's like a couple
Speaker 1: of my best friends had twelve or something. That's kind
Speaker 1: of gone, Uh, this is exhausting because here's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's it's a numbers game. It's a no game. So
Speaker 1: so I mean, I'm very blessed, so I can't complain
Speaker 1: about my success, but understand, but the time you get
Speaker 1: to the fourth number one, I mean, it's thousands of songs,
Speaker 1: and and we write every day, and and then inevitably
Speaker 1: the things that you think are your great stuff nobody
Speaker 1: cares about. You know, they've passed on them. Or you
Speaker 1: get things on the record and you okay, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be the next single, and then the last minute they
Speaker 1: changed their mind and you don't get it, or the
Speaker 1: thing comes out and and this is unbelievable. This is huge,
Speaker 1: This is gonna be huge, this is gonna be huge.
Speaker 1: And then the guy loses his record deal. I literally
Speaker 1: had a single coming out Monday. This is a few
Speaker 1: years ago. Um, and it was a song that had
Speaker 1: been cut twice before and had never been a single,
Speaker 1: and this guy cuts that. He's on a major label.
Speaker 1: It was the new single that was in all the trades.
Speaker 1: They're going for ads on Monday and on Friday, the
Speaker 1: guy calls me and he's crying and he says, I
Speaker 1: just got dropped it. You know. So we do lots
Speaker 1: of heartbreak, you know, along the way. Um and you know,
Speaker 1: so you're you're You're constantly Uh, is this is this
Speaker 1: the last one? I drive my wife crazy and all
Speaker 1: songwriters have just like it's big hit, number one record.
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's the last one. You know, it
Speaker 1: wasn't take me to number five. I guess that was.
Speaker 1: You're gonna miss this, You're gonna miss this. Trace Atkins,
Speaker 1: did you write this with Trace? No? I wrote this
Speaker 1: with Ashley Gorley. So did you write in color with Trace?
Speaker 1: Did you ever write with Trace? No? You know, I
Speaker 1: wonder because that would be a weird dynamic. That's why
Speaker 1: I asked, because I got a chance on the Trace.
Speaker 1: He's a little difficult to have a conversation with a
Speaker 1: man a very few words. He's quiet. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: he's uh, he writes, I don't Tracey never. I don't
Speaker 1: think Tracy ever loved writing you know, I've never written
Speaker 1: with written with Trace about if you cuts on Trace? Um.
Speaker 1: Race is such a cartoon character because he's so big
Speaker 1: and his voice is so deep, and he's he's kind
Speaker 1: of scary, you know. Yeah, and his stories too, once
Speaker 1: you learn them, it's scary. Yeah, like he's a bad man. Yeah, yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: you never stopped thinking about that. You know what's funny
Speaker 1: is Trace cut in color? That I think that's where
Speaker 1: it was. I think in Trace cut in color on
Speaker 1: the same session as you're going to miss this and uh.
Speaker 1: And then Jamie got a record deal that we didn't
Speaker 1: even know that he was trying to get, and we
Speaker 1: had to call Trace and tell him he couldn't have
Speaker 1: an and color him. I didn't call him. I made
Speaker 1: somebody else call him. Both those guys with one of
Speaker 1: those guys. So you're gonna miss this Coast number one.
Speaker 1: But this is a monster song. Of all of these
Speaker 1: songs so far, in my mind, this is the biggest
Speaker 1: so far as far as just all encompassing. Everybody knows it.
Speaker 1: Do you feel that way because he's just my personal
Speaker 1: feeling him a hard I think so, Um, this this
Speaker 1: one song of the heard a couple of things. It
Speaker 1: was nominated for all the big awards and didn't win
Speaker 1: any of them. We lost to other things. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that it's certainly for impact. This one is
Speaker 1: what is used for graduations, and you know, it's done
Speaker 1: a lot of things until In Color comes along. It's
Speaker 1: is interesting thing. But in Color and Color only went
Speaker 1: to seven. This wasn't a number one song. It was
Speaker 1: not you know that's it's not that and I am
Speaker 1: shocked by it, but I'm not because Girl Crush wasn't
Speaker 1: a number one song. And there are a lot of
Speaker 1: huge songs that don't hit number one for whatever political reasons.
Speaker 1: Radio has and labels. You know, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: labels going, okay, we'll trade you this for this, and
Speaker 1: for some reason it doesn't happen well. And In Color
Speaker 1: sounded for all of the things that made people loving Color,
Speaker 1: it hurt it commercially. I can't blame what I ever
Speaker 1: one song and it took forever to get and you stuck.
Speaker 1: You can't even get this song number one. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: have done this if you haven't known, this didn't go
Speaker 1: number one. That's the only way that I brought it
Speaker 1: at this listen, This song, though now is the biggest
Speaker 1: song of all of them. I would say this one
Speaker 1: changed my life more than anything else, because you know,
Speaker 1: the music business is almost is an interesting animal. So
Speaker 1: you can have you can have a big hit on
Speaker 1: a big commercial, cool sounding record that people the business
Speaker 1: just struggles their shoulders say you congratulations, it's a hit.
Speaker 1: It's another one, another one, this one. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm not the one to speak on it. I just
Speaker 1: know that the things that people said to me respect
Speaker 1: wise craft wise, um, it got a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of love. And I had a lot of people
Speaker 1: say wonderful, a lot of nice things to me about this.
Speaker 1: This is a song that's people's favorite song. And all
Speaker 1: the other songs but in the trade song could probably
Speaker 1: be a favorite song too. And the other songs that
Speaker 1: you had Nuver once with those are really fun, good songs,
Speaker 1: but very few songs and lifetimes our favorite songs of people,
Speaker 1: because like I have two or their favorite songs in
Speaker 1: my life, Like that's it, Like what favorite song? I
Speaker 1: got a couple of favorite songs like I love stop
Speaker 1: this Train from John Mayer, like I would say I
Speaker 1: have a couple of favorite songs if tomorrow never comes,
Speaker 1: like I have a couple of favorite songs. I know.
Speaker 1: For example, my manager Mary Forest, this is our favorite
Speaker 1: song in her life. This is main Grandma. Listen to
Speaker 1: this summer song Christa. The day we said off, you
Speaker 1: can't tell it was hot that Jane and roads was red,
Speaker 1: were blue? Just look at that. I was so from
Speaker 1: that's the story. And you're telling me Tray Scott this first,
Speaker 1: and you had to call Trace and go, hey, gota
Speaker 1: take it back. We did, and nobody was really talking
Speaker 1: about you're gonna miss this. I don't It wouldn't have
Speaker 1: made the record. However, everybody was freaking out about in Color.
Speaker 1: And I had one of the studio musicians actually called
Speaker 1: me the day they tracked it, and they tracked both
Speaker 1: of them and and he says, man, he says, why
Speaker 1: do you hear in color? It is unbelievable. And and
Speaker 1: so the producer called me into to play me the
Speaker 1: cuts and uh, and he played me You're gonna miss this,
Speaker 1: but I already knew the Trace really didn't like it,
Speaker 1: like he wasn't really into it, and then he played
Speaker 1: me in Color Tracey's cut and it killed me. It
Speaker 1: was it was big, and it was it sounded expensive.
Speaker 1: I mean, it would just wow, is this a big record?
Speaker 1: And and there's rumblings that might be the title track
Speaker 1: of the album was gonna be a career record for
Speaker 1: Trace and and you know, and then he wanted to
Speaker 1: go do the Celebrity Apprentice, which put the entire album
Speaker 1: on hold and they're gonna do something else, and that
Speaker 1: gave them just enough hiccup that Jamie the whole time
Speaker 1: knew he was going to do another record, and so
Speaker 1: he turned a group of songs into uh the label,
Speaker 1: another label, and uh they offered him a record deal
Speaker 1: on the spot. And then they turned around and says,
Speaker 1: but the the easiest thing, we think we can get
Speaker 1: radio to places in Color and uh so okay. And
Speaker 1: so then I walked into Publish one day and they
Speaker 1: said we got a problem and they said their shipping
Speaker 1: and Color the radio for Jamie and Uh, I said,
Speaker 1: Jamie has a deal and they said yeah, and I said,
Speaker 1: but we've already promised Trace and they said, somebody sat
Speaker 1: called Trace and I said, called Jamie. Jamie called Trace
Speaker 1: really and he did, and how I Trace about that?
Speaker 1: Do you know? So I hadn't talked to Trace, and
Speaker 1: uh it was at the number one party for You're
Speaker 1: Gonna Miss This and we're standing on the platform. We
Speaker 1: we we've all done our little speech and our thank
Speaker 1: you and and we're having a picture taken and I'm
Speaker 1: standing next to Trace, and of course he's nine ft tall,
Speaker 1: and I said, um, I'm sorry about it in Color,
Speaker 1: and he goes, yeah, he says, well, he says, if
Speaker 1: Jamie wouldn't a writer on it, it would have been
Speaker 1: a different story. But Jamie was a writer. What am
Speaker 1: I supposed to do? You wrote it with Jamie did.
Speaker 1: And so we went to Vegas for the a c
Speaker 1: M and When in Color was nominated for Song of
Speaker 1: the Year and we won. And uh so after we
Speaker 1: go up and we accept our award, we go on
Speaker 1: the back and we come back out to go back
Speaker 1: to our seats and commercial break and I come walking
Speaker 1: out through the crowd and it's fun because it's all music.
Speaker 1: Rows out there. Anybody's high five and youn, you know,
Speaker 1: and somebody screams Miller and everybody stops and turns around
Speaker 1: and Trace is standing up this much taller than everybody else, right,
Speaker 1: and says, come here. And so I walk over the
Speaker 1: to him and I kid you not there. I'm in
Speaker 1: my suit. We're all looking and he puts me in
Speaker 1: a headlock and he screams with for garrityes, that's my
Speaker 1: blanking song. And I remember I'm staying ahead, like looking
Speaker 1: at kid Rock, who's watching me be beat up by
Speaker 1: Trace Atkins? And and then he laughed and he hit
Speaker 1: me and he said, oh blank blank blank congratulations. So
Speaker 1: that song also, like you go to the Grammys for
Speaker 1: that song? Right, he did have I've had three Grammy nominations,
Speaker 1: which is beautiful. It just gets you so close to
Speaker 1: make you make you want one. UM was interesting is
Speaker 1: in Color was up against You're gonna miss this for
Speaker 1: the Grammy. You had two songs utter the same Grammy
Speaker 1: and by the time but the time I got there,
Speaker 1: because uh, impossible is up for a Grammy. But we
Speaker 1: knew where were you in the Royal stop starning. We
Speaker 1: knew that was gonna win, and it did. Um and
Speaker 1: then we go for miss this and and in Color
Speaker 1: and it's like, okay, well there's five there's five choices.
Speaker 1: I have two of them, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: thought In Color was gonna win. So but the time
Speaker 1: you get down to the and the winter is I'm
Speaker 1: pretty pumped, I'm pretty and I'm dying. So I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: what are we really going to win a Grammy? And
Speaker 1: we didn't? Stay sugar Land. Speaking of sugar Land, they
Speaker 1: won and uh and I'm I'm sitting there with Trace,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking I'm going to win for it in
Speaker 1: Color and then we didn't win anything. So stay good.
Speaker 1: I'm not gone to these days. A good song, dude,
Speaker 1: that's a favorite song for people, do I know? But
Speaker 1: you're my friends and we you shouldn't say that out loud.
Speaker 1: I would have voted Frank Color though that's a life song.
Speaker 1: They're both great though, that Stay song. I We're watching
Speaker 1: a video for that one and being like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this get Jennifer was crying during the song. I don't
Speaker 1: know if she's acting. Probably she's a good actor. But
Speaker 1: you know what, Actually, at the a c M, s
Speaker 1: in Color was up against You're gonna miss the Song
Speaker 1: of the Year at the a c M, and in
Speaker 1: Color one song of the year, and you're gonna miss
Speaker 1: this one single of the year, so you want both
Speaker 1: with both. The single is for the producer and the artist,
Speaker 1: but he's still a youth song. And you wrote the
Speaker 1: song and they didn't get they want to produce it
Speaker 1: or sing it if you didn't reach pretty fantastic it was.
Speaker 1: That was a lot of fun. It's like all my
Speaker 1: worlds are colliding because like, what do I don't know
Speaker 1: anything of music, right, I mean, I do whatever I do.
Speaker 1: But we do our little musical thing and write some songs.
Speaker 1: But really the only two people that I feel compable
Speaker 1: writing with that are you and Christian Bush. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's and you guys are up against well. I don't
Speaker 1: let people you know me. I'm a very private guy.
Speaker 1: When I'm not public, I'm not that fun and I'm
Speaker 1: not that confident. I can remember the first time because
Speaker 1: we were like, hey, I didn't know how to do
Speaker 1: a record. I don't think about a record, and it was, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna a comedy record because we had we'd say goals,
Speaker 1: and we said, hey, if we make a million buck
Speaker 1: for charity, we're gonna do a record. And before we
Speaker 1: could do a record, we had raised two million and
Speaker 1: we're like, holy crap, we kind of owe it to
Speaker 1: ourselves to at least try. I don't any songwriters. I
Speaker 1: don't anything, right. I know like five chords. Now I
Speaker 1: know like nine, so it's not even that much that different.
Speaker 1: And so I'm just writing with a couple of people
Speaker 1: that I know and by myself and my comedy friend
Speaker 1: writers where I'm the musical lead, which is not a
Speaker 1: good place for me to be. So Nick Autrey, who's
Speaker 1: a produce who was produced in the record who worked
Speaker 1: at Black River, was like, listen, I've been trying to
Speaker 1: get this guy for all right. He will not write
Speaker 1: with me. He didn't, I swear to God, but I promise,
Speaker 1: he said, he will not write with me. I can't
Speaker 1: get on for a right. He said, Can I use
Speaker 1: and say you're writing and try to get him to
Speaker 1: come and do a right? And I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't care what you do. I don't know anybody, Like sure,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to do, and he goes okay. And
Speaker 1: I don't even know what the guy's name was. He
Speaker 1: told me it was anyway. I get there and it's late,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know. I know you're from Jim
Speaker 1: you know. I was like, because I didn't know, I
Speaker 1: don't want anybody like I really, people think, oh, you
Speaker 1: must not, I don't know anybody. When it comes to
Speaker 1: like the minutia of what's happening underneath the music, I
Speaker 1: don't know anybody. I'm starting to meet people now through
Speaker 1: different processes of touring and riding and not so much radio,
Speaker 1: but the different parts of it. Like you, now, I
Speaker 1: have songwriter friends and I have a girlfriend who's so
Speaker 1: it's but then I knew nothing. So all I know
Speaker 1: is it's a guy named Lee that the producer of
Speaker 1: the record is like just giddy that he gets to
Speaker 1: write with them, And I'm like, well, let's see what happens.
Speaker 1: I don't even know we wrote the first time we
Speaker 1: were together. I like you, I love this. I love
Speaker 1: fool House about my inner millity to say I love you.
Speaker 1: It's just concerning that you have them queued up that easily.
Speaker 1: People think this is like studio tricks where you're doing
Speaker 1: this later, but you're literally just hitting the button as
Speaker 1: we talk. Oh yeah, there's no editing. We don't edit
Speaker 1: this at all. We don't if there's a role, right
Speaker 1: Mike me, Yeah, he wrote I liked you for the
Speaker 1: raging Idiots, and then I was like, oh, that lead
Speaker 1: was pretty nice. I had no idea what you're listen.
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything. It wasn't disrespecting at all. It
Speaker 1: was clueless. And so Lee leaves and he was like
Speaker 1: he was like freaking out. It's like we just wrote
Speaker 1: with Lee Miller around like that's amazing. Like I was like,
Speaker 1: that's cool. You know it's cool. And we look make
Speaker 1: a Wikipedia and I was like, I can't find a
Speaker 1: Lee Miller anywhere because I know it's Lee Thomas Miller, right,
Speaker 1: And I was like, this guy, probably why you want
Speaker 1: to write with him? Many have many songs Lee Miller,
Speaker 1: like Lee is that Arthur Miller's brother from back in
Speaker 1: the fifties. And I didn't know what the deal was, right,
Speaker 1: So he was like, no, no, no, I thought you
Speaker 1: had done the Google before we wrote. Now, I just
Speaker 1: feel weird why I didn't know anything. It was just ignorance.
Speaker 1: So the second time I was ready. Though second time
Speaker 1: he said I'm athlete to write again. I'm like, cool,
Speaker 1: athlete right again. We I thought we were we were friendly.
Speaker 1: We hit it off, which I don't hear it off
Speaker 1: a lot of people because I'm very reserved and shy
Speaker 1: to a point where sometimes people think it's I'm rude,
Speaker 1: but I just I'm very introverted when I'm not extroverted.
Speaker 1: So I was like, I like leak. I felt like
Speaker 1: I could make jokes and I thought you were funny,
Speaker 1: and so I said, yeah, bring it back in, and
Speaker 1: so we went. We went. We started playing this song
Speaker 1: and we're like, hey, let's write a song about Starbucks, right,
Speaker 1: and so stop. This isn't how it started. It started
Speaker 1: with two guitars. Oh, it didn't sound anything like this,
Speaker 1: and it was it was like really it was a
Speaker 1: country song where we were, you know, singing it and
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, Ley, play a little faster. Let
Speaker 1: me try to wrap this thing, and he's like you wrap.
Speaker 1: I was like, let's just see what happens here, solely
Speaker 1: like did the boss starts popping it? Like this was
Speaker 1: not popping it. Yeah, you're popping it pretty hard. He
Speaker 1: was hitting was And so it was written on two
Speaker 1: acoustics and the next thing, you know, we have this
Speaker 1: ridiculous song that, by the way, it's so weird you
Speaker 1: have people singing this song back but our band, the
Speaker 1: Raging Idiots to the song Starbucks and does leave stop
Speaker 1: buy filling up my cup store, buy jacking me up
Speaker 1: Stars ten thousand degrees and ye'all take it down the
Speaker 1: shiny something to eat. I'm always holding enough to like
Speaker 1: because I might be a little choosy, and I do
Speaker 1: appreciate the fact you use a paper CUZI, how's that
Speaker 1: notin for Graham? That's that's great production. Oh yeah, the
Speaker 1: one of the most fantastic pieces of writing I've ever heard.
Speaker 1: And production and vocals. I mean, it's all right there
Speaker 1: now you shouldn't be. But here's a funny story. So, uh,
Speaker 1: we're playing the Rheman last year for the million dollars show,
Speaker 1: and that this is a show for St. Jude, and
Speaker 1: I invite a ton of people out there play with us,
Speaker 1: and so it's our band, the Raging Idiots, but all
Speaker 1: show long, it's a little big talent, it's Kelsey, It's
Speaker 1: it's people that I'm friends with that are coming on
Speaker 1: to also raise money for St. Jude. But they were
Speaker 1: easy calls for me because I don't asked people to
Speaker 1: do stuff, and but when it comes to charity, I'll
Speaker 1: ask my friends to do stuff. And I'll be like, so,
Speaker 1: you know, I called a little big town, and I
Speaker 1: called Kelsey, and I called Carry Carrie who. All these
Speaker 1: people were just fantastic to show up. And at the
Speaker 1: end of it we played during this raging idiot show,
Speaker 1: we play Starbucks and I like you, and and Lee
Speaker 1: and his wife came and I was like, hey, Lee stay,
Speaker 1: you know there's like want but I want to. I
Speaker 1: want to hang out because I like Lee. I don't
Speaker 1: know enough, like genuinely, I like like that's it was
Speaker 1: for the first time. And so I was like, I
Speaker 1: was being funny. I made a joke. I said, hey, dude, congratulations,
Speaker 1: you've got two songs played at the rhyme of tonight.
Speaker 1: He goes, no, no, no, okay, I got three, and
Speaker 1: I was like, dude, we play something else that you wrote.
Speaker 1: He's like, no, no, no. Chris Stainpleton had showed up
Speaker 1: and we invited them. He was a secret guest and
Speaker 1: Chris again, I just made a call because with the
Speaker 1: Chris think like we we had Christ and before that
Speaker 1: his Traveler came out. I was just a big fan
Speaker 1: of Chris as a songwriter and as a vocalist. So
Speaker 1: Chris was just grateful and it's still it's very loyal
Speaker 1: to this day. And I don't do anything because he's like,
Speaker 1: I just appreciate you, like being there for me when
Speaker 1: it wasn't Chris Stapleton. And so Chris comes and at
Speaker 1: this time he had blown up. Then he shows up
Speaker 1: and the crowd is going crazy and he plays whiskey
Speaker 1: in you right, that's the difference. And then I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I wrote whiskey in here. And I was like, God
Speaker 1: got me. It was supposed for me to say that one. No,
Speaker 1: I set myself up. I didn't know. I set myself
Speaker 1: up and got plans right in the NAT. It's like
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, you gotta feel good, dude. He's like, No. No.
Speaker 1: Three and the good one. I wrote the good one whiskey.
Speaker 1: I didn't say that in my heart. You did, So
Speaker 1: you're right, this Chris one long gone to him. Um
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, I said, because this has
Speaker 1: been cut several times before. Chris put Traveler out and
Speaker 1: McGraw cut it, and uh for one, and I think
Speaker 1: Aaron Lewis has cut it, and and um, I said,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what is this line? And this is
Speaker 1: a drink be goes I'm Lonely and I'm Lonely goes
Speaker 1: a drink and I said, if it's ever a hit,
Speaker 1: I will get that tattooed somewhere. And he says, okay,
Speaker 1: he says, how about this. The higher the hit on
Speaker 1: the charts, the more visible the tattoo. So it hasn't
Speaker 1: it hasn't been on the chart yet. So it's one
Speaker 1: of those songs that's an album cut. And again you
Speaker 1: always want the single because that's how a songwriter makes
Speaker 1: the money. Because but that's that's that's one of the
Speaker 1: album cuts on records that people know, because most time
Speaker 1: you don't know album cuts. It's a lot of people
Speaker 1: know this. Yeah, it's really it's uh, but that whole
Speaker 1: album is so good from front to back that a
Speaker 1: lot of those songs are so well known. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right that with Chris and those other people. Kind
Speaker 1: of first I had no idea he uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Chris is incredibly successful as a songwriter and and the
Speaker 1: whole time, I mean it wasn't like he just all
Speaker 1: of a sudden become incredible. I mean we've all known
Speaker 1: it forever. Um, we wrote at the same company for
Speaker 1: a long time, and I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: with Chris, and I wrote every other Wednesday with Chris
Speaker 1: for years. And uh so once he got his record
Speaker 1: deal and you know, immediately and he's had a record
Speaker 1: deal for a while, it takes a while for things
Speaker 1: to happen. And uh, you know, I've been telling him
Speaker 1: now for years, you know, at least three years or something,
Speaker 1: says he's been out, you know, being an artist and traveling,
Speaker 1: and about ever two months, I'll just text him and
Speaker 1: say I miss my every other Wednesday. Because it was
Speaker 1: like you just knew. I mean, sometimes we wrote just
Speaker 1: commercial ditty and sometimes we wrote dark and sad, but
Speaker 1: whatever it was, it was always so good, like we
Speaker 1: had me and Chris wrote Thomas Rhet's first single with him,
Speaker 1: and Thomas was still in the which is something to
Speaker 1: do with my n sticks, So you would Stapleton righte
Speaker 1: this for Thomas and he was still in college. It's
Speaker 1: funny because the other day I saw Thomas and I said,
Speaker 1: I need to update my contact because I want to
Speaker 1: email you something the other day and it's still your
Speaker 1: college dot ed it whatever it is address. So he
Speaker 1: would like, you know, come right with us in the
Speaker 1: morning and then go do afternoon classes. Good dude, like,
Speaker 1: good dude. Yeah. I like Thomas a lot. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: good dude. He's I mean, he's the next superstar, serious
Speaker 1: and has earned it, not been thrown up there, like
Speaker 1: he's taken all the right steps, and I like him
Speaker 1: a lot. Wonderful thing. So you inn Stableton wrote that
Speaker 1: for Thomas. Good. Let me ask you about with more
Speaker 1: Number one you had here, Uh Tim McGraw's Southern Girl,
Speaker 1: So you're right, this was here Rodney Clawson and Jared
Speaker 1: Johnstone Jared by the way, catle like three and also
Speaker 1: kind of like three, but a very prominent songwright absolutely
Speaker 1: like maybe even bigger songwriter, but it's kind of like
Speaker 1: three as good as they are, they ever really cut
Speaker 1: through commercially yet songwriter like one of the real elite guys.
Speaker 1: That band is so good too, they haven't had the
Speaker 1: right song, right, So you guys write this and so
Speaker 1: do you pitch to my girl first or does it
Speaker 1: go around? I think he was the first person that
Speaker 1: heard it. I think that he was looking, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, Tim has been good to all
Speaker 1: of us, and we sent it over and they loved
Speaker 1: it and they cut it, and there you go to lady.
Speaker 1: See that's the that's the opposite of the impossible, Like
Speaker 1: that story is the polar opposite of the impositive is
Speaker 1: And you know what's funny that people love this song.
Speaker 1: It's like you can kind of gauge at Writer's Nights
Speaker 1: when I do them, you know the popularity of things
Speaker 1: and how much how much people love them. I'm just
Speaker 1: the sing and you're so good at Writer's Nights. It
Speaker 1: it's it's really bad. I played Mike, I played one
Speaker 1: with the Lee want. It was awful. It wasn't really
Speaker 1: a lot of the worst performing experience in my life.
Speaker 1: And I've had a couple of really bad ones. But
Speaker 1: Lee says, hey, will you play tin Pan South right?
Speaker 1: Maybe the first time I got it right? And and
Speaker 1: I not that I don't, I just I'm not in
Speaker 1: the writer world. You had no idea, No, I know
Speaker 1: it was I was like Tampan's out, Sure, what is that? Like?
Speaker 1: Everybody brings bands understand playing the kitchen. Bobby famously says,
Speaker 1: I don't know people. I don't know people I don't
Speaker 1: know you know, and and somebody it's the Nashville song
Speaker 1: or Association who puts on Tin Pans South is their
Speaker 1: big fundraisers said do you think Bobby would play Tin
Speaker 1: Pans South with you? And I said, so they came
Speaker 1: to you, which it was just kind of a candid thing.
Speaker 1: Do you think Bobby would do it? And I said no,
Speaker 1: and okay, wells let ask And so then I stood
Speaker 1: there and I was like wow, I said that would
Speaker 1: be a really good one because people people would like
Speaker 1: to seem I said, okay, oh, ask, but there's no way.
Speaker 1: And so I just text him and I just said, hey,
Speaker 1: would you do? Would you do? Tim been South? And
Speaker 1: I gave him a date or the dates the week
Speaker 1: and he writes right back, sure, And I said, wait,
Speaker 1: I didn't know what it was. All I do was
Speaker 1: my friend. And again, maybe three people could have asked
Speaker 1: me that question, and two of them might have said
Speaker 1: maybe two and one of them I would have said
Speaker 1: yes too. And he asked, was leave I know what
Speaker 1: it was? I thought it was like a but you
Speaker 1: said yes immediately, so I knew you didn't know what
Speaker 1: what it was. I no idea, But you were asking
Speaker 1: me the same way that I will make the call
Speaker 1: to close friends and they say yes before I can
Speaker 1: really explain what it is. Like, I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: but ye sure what. Well, immediately there was pressure because
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, wait is he just doing this? Because
Speaker 1: I asked, because I don't know that we're close enough
Speaker 1: that heat would he do that? Because so I said, wait,
Speaker 1: I don't think you know what this is. And he says,
Speaker 1: I'll do it if you want me to. And I said, okay,
Speaker 1: it's going to be me and you and two other
Speaker 1: guys were gonna sit on stools, we're gonna take turns
Speaker 1: and for two hours, we're gonna lay songs and tell
Speaker 1: the story behind the song. And it's light and it's loose,
Speaker 1: but there'll be a big crowd and it's a songwriter's night.
Speaker 1: And his quote was, I literally bring nothing to the table,
Speaker 1: but I will if you want me to. And so
Speaker 1: now I'm like, I'm flattered, and I'm terrified because that's
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure in case he hates this. Right
Speaker 1: on the opposite, I'm terrified, and then I'm flattered in
Speaker 1: the opposite order. Well, you did it, and it was amazing.
Speaker 1: This this is the awful thing. So Lee's first, and
Speaker 1: usually I'm the funny guy, and then I do the
Speaker 1: bad music stuff. Lee's also the funny guy, and he
Speaker 1: does a great he is nail and all these number
Speaker 1: one songs, and then I have to go and I'm
Speaker 1: not even the funny guy, nor am I the music guy,
Speaker 1: and so I'm like, oh great, I have to follow
Speaker 1: freakingly again, and so all night long, I'm falling Lee.
Speaker 1: But the two guys that he mentioned are two of
Speaker 1: the bigger songwriters in all the country music right now,
Speaker 1: Ashley Gorley and Christa Stephano, who have numb one number
Speaker 1: one number one like crazy. And so it's me and
Speaker 1: three humongous songwriters and they're up there just blasting out
Speaker 1: their hits and I'm like, star but spilling up my
Speaker 1: cup it really, I was just like what And this
Speaker 1: is what I was told to He was like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, play four or five songs, that's it. I
Speaker 1: was like, great, So I prepared four or five songs
Speaker 1: and it we ended up going sevn D. We went
Speaker 1: way deep, and I was like at one point, I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know, I don't have more, I
Speaker 1: don't know what I was gonna play, Like, I don't
Speaker 1: know that any songs, Like I know parts of the songs.
Speaker 1: I know how to sing songs, but you're I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to do them all? But yes, I that was just
Speaker 1: you're asking, yes, I will do it, and I figured
Speaker 1: it out and I'm much better. I learned a lot
Speaker 1: from that experience, really, like what how to handle that
Speaker 1: situation and how to get to that level where I
Speaker 1: can do it again and not feel so foolish. I'm
Speaker 1: never going to be good. I know my limitations in life,
Speaker 1: but it's where can you find things that take those
Speaker 1: limitations and kind of rise above. And first of all,
Speaker 1: I'll know more songs. Secondly, I know my role. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna playing with you. First of all, I'm not playing
Speaker 1: beside you. I'm gonna play in front of you, or
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play like three people down. I'm not playing
Speaker 1: beside you. So I also learned how to do a writer.
Speaker 1: I've never done a writer drown before before that. So
Speaker 1: you want to do them again? So just and if
Speaker 1: I want to, but if you need me, I would
Speaker 1: do it in a second. But to go from not
Speaker 1: doing one to doing that one would be comparable to
Speaker 1: moving to Nashville just learning how to play the guitar
Speaker 1: and me going hey, come play on our radio show
Speaker 1: for for five million people, Like that was kind of
Speaker 1: and it was really weird and it's fool I felt
Speaker 1: foolish after it was over. But everybody was happy, right,
Speaker 1: I think all the people came to see they did
Speaker 1: not Christina Stephano sings as good as any artists out there,
Speaker 1: just about and he's just like nailing. He was doing
Speaker 1: Carrie something in the water, which he wrote, and it's
Speaker 1: just like he's singing it as loud and as pure
Speaker 1: as it can possibly be, saying and I'm just like
Speaker 1: and to Stefano finishes stepping in the water and the
Speaker 1: people go crazy, and then the crowd notes down. Bobby says,
Speaker 1: how much money do you have in your wallet right now?
Speaker 1: That's but that's what they wanted to know, Like people
Speaker 1: always want to know that stuff. And so I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna be me and I'm gonna ask questions
Speaker 1: that are coming to my head because I got a
Speaker 1: note you wrote that song. How much as your wallet
Speaker 1: right this second? Like how much cash you holding? And
Speaker 1: he kind of dnanswered on the question. He didn't answer.
Speaker 1: That's okay, and you don't always have to answer, but
Speaker 1: I have to ask. So, yeah, that was the fun night.
Speaker 1: You are writing and you haven't writing with some of
Speaker 1: my friends. Brother's Osborne. Those are my dudes. They're they're
Speaker 1: so they're so far my dudes. That John's wife is
Speaker 1: like Lucy Sella's is like one of my favorite artists
Speaker 1: in the world. Who, So your brother's Osborne. I haven't
Speaker 1: ain't my fault up here. So you guys wrote this together? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love had a little fall wrong. Wait you think
Speaker 1: of those guys, well, in my head, I thing like him.
Speaker 1: They're wonderful, They're so fun to work with, They're so
Speaker 1: fun to write with. I mean, I can't I think that.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the next big things that was
Speaker 1: so exciting, Um, they want Song of the Year at ASCAP,
Speaker 1: which I knew it was gonna happen, and I've been
Speaker 1: sworn to secrecy and uh and they announced it and
Speaker 1: they just lost their minds in this beautiful emotional maybe
Speaker 1: it hippened, look no, and they were very emotional about
Speaker 1: it because they really were, like they were moved very many.
Speaker 1: Everything they said was so pure. And then at the
Speaker 1: c m as they won duo and and I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, we're sitting where we were there, me and
Speaker 1: my wife and and you know, you're all dressed up
Speaker 1: and you're sitting at bridge Stone, you're watching it, and
Speaker 1: you know it's we we you know, probably not gonna
Speaker 1: be shocked by a whole lot, so you're just gonna
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden they win. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm throwing popcorn and I'm screaming and I'm dancing and
Speaker 1: I'm flailing, and and everybody was It's one of those names.
Speaker 1: Was like these such good guys. It was such a
Speaker 1: great moment. Everyone expected Florida Georgia Linea went again and
Speaker 1: they didn't. And it was a double shock. One that
Speaker 1: Florida George line didn't win to that Brother's Osborne and
Speaker 1: one and not the Brothers Aldborne to deserve it, but
Speaker 1: nobody was predicting that well. And yeah, and and understand
Speaker 1: that this wasn't anything against Florida Georgia Lyne's just it.
Speaker 1: You know, they're at their peak. I mean clearly, you
Speaker 1: know they're they're they're killing it and and any anyone
Speaker 1: else would have been an underdog. And for Brother's Osborne
Speaker 1: to win, um, it was exciting. But but also because
Speaker 1: everyone that has experienced these guys just loved them. They're
Speaker 1: they're they're wonderful musicians and they're just sweethearts. Yeah, John
Speaker 1: plays the guitar like I'm uh, it's amazing, maniac and
Speaker 1: I see great guitar players, and he played like a maniac.
Speaker 1: I'll disagree with you a bit. I think they're very deserving.
Speaker 1: I think a part of it was anti Florida Georgia Line.
Speaker 1: I do um not that they're not. And I say
Speaker 1: that as like I know brothers, other one's parents, Like
Speaker 1: that's how like I these are. They're like, I was
Speaker 1: so happy for them. I think a little bit of
Speaker 1: that sentiment wasn't even about Floria Georgia Line. It was
Speaker 1: that type of music. It was like, we want there
Speaker 1: to be a slight change, and they've also wanted X
Speaker 1: not of years in a row, who is awesome, and
Speaker 1: we want to kind of make a slight change. And
Speaker 1: I think that was a part of it. I don't
Speaker 1: think it was the majority of it. But if I
Speaker 1: didn't say that some of that was anti Florida Georgia Line,
Speaker 1: I would be lying. But that's my just my opinion.
Speaker 1: So I was pumped for him, like I was going
Speaker 1: crazy and I was watching the Cubs play. I didn't go.
Speaker 1: I didn't even go to the c m A. Like,
Speaker 1: screwed c m AS. First of all, screwed to CIMA anyway,
Speaker 1: but then that's that's me saying that, not you. But
Speaker 1: then that's yeah, it's for sure. Yeah, screwed the c
Speaker 1: m A. But I didn't go to the c m AS.
Speaker 1: I went. I came home to watch the Cubs play,
Speaker 1: and I flipped over for that, because when your friends play,
Speaker 1: you want to watch. And because Lindsay played too. She
Speaker 1: played with Carey that night, um, and so there were
Speaker 1: things I was flipping over for to catch. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that was cool. I wasn't like all of those guys.
Speaker 1: She was part of the whole wild girl rock band
Speaker 1: part of the evening Your girlfriend was yeah, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: proud of her. I've tried to get you to come
Speaker 1: to a cocktail party during Awards week two and you
Speaker 1: you wouldn't come clause of the cups. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: was a cocktail party more because it was the Cubs.
Speaker 1: And I don't do week nights at all, like zero
Speaker 1: week nights. Altho. The last time I's got a Crackerbowl
Speaker 1: commercial till probably eleven o'clock. You have dinner at my
Speaker 1: house on a week I did, and it was really late,
Speaker 1: and I was not like you wanted I felt like
Speaker 1: you wanted us to leave because you're your unbutton, your
Speaker 1: top button, and you started to look a little disheveled.
Speaker 1: See you keep telling that, and and at some point
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be like slumped over in a chair. The
Speaker 1: farther the story goes, I have had zero dinners with people.
Speaker 1: They think I really can think of none. That's just
Speaker 1: not my thing. Zero dinners. And Lee was like, come
Speaker 1: down for day and I was like, I'm coming down
Speaker 1: for dinner. He invited me first I have. I was
Speaker 1: by myself. I was like, hey, come down because my
Speaker 1: wife asked you. My wife at Tin Pan South says,
Speaker 1: I want you to come to my house for dinner
Speaker 1: like normal people. And I said I'm not a normal person.
Speaker 1: But you said yes. We just had never scheduled it.
Speaker 1: You had never committed, and I didn't want to be
Speaker 1: the third will husband, wife and me. When I got
Speaker 1: a girlfriend, I was like, I'm in for dinner early.
Speaker 1: And so then we couldn't find a day and I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, we'll just figure it out some other time,
Speaker 1: and I was like, no, no, no. So we negotiated
Speaker 1: for about twenty minutes on dates and then went down
Speaker 1: and we had dinner until like ten o'clock. It was
Speaker 1: really a wonderful time, and my my girlfriend really liked
Speaker 1: you guys. So I did not get tired, I said,
Speaker 1: I said, okay, we stood up, we walked down the house,
Speaker 1: and we come back and the girls sat back down
Speaker 1: and continue talking. So I sit down, and you took
Speaker 1: that to me, and I was tired. I never remember
Speaker 1: touching my button. Yeah, okay, listen, in my mind things happen,
Speaker 1: but that we have the only dinner I think I've
Speaker 1: ever my gear thing me go to dinner on a
Speaker 1: weeknight ever. Yeah, I mean either man, he said, at
Speaker 1: a table with children and we all just we talked
Speaker 1: about live and part of that A girlfriend too, Like
Speaker 1: she's a great girlfriend too. She's she's a good hang.
Speaker 1: She makes me a normal human a little more than
Speaker 1: I am, because she's oddly she feels in your awkward silences,
Speaker 1: which is all it's all one big awkward violence, which
Speaker 1: means she talks and you're just kind of sitting Hey, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so that was that was good. Frankie Baalodro al Camino.
Speaker 1: Who so you're a crestword Alchemino too. This is the
Speaker 1: title track to write of that record. In that record
Speaker 1: Comino or it's called like You'll pass over. No, it's
Speaker 1: called No, it's not the title is. It's something we're
Speaker 1: shorting out over here, dude. Yeah, there's like whatever the
Speaker 1: name of it is. It's something. It's it's like a
Speaker 1: name of a Texas town. It's okay, that maybe why
Speaker 1: I think it's ALcom Rio or something. So you guys
Speaker 1: write the alchemyo it just you two? Hey, I think
Speaker 1: you don't. And I don't want to say any names.
Speaker 1: But what I want to get into once, I'm just
Speaker 1: asking his favorite. We ask favorites of each other. Whenever
Speaker 1: you get like a really powerful right, I want to
Speaker 1: send in the room and that like a couple of
Speaker 1: words and let me get a third of that, right
Speaker 1: you do? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, it'll legitimate if nobody's ever
Speaker 1: thought about that before that happens. Right, does that happen? Um?
Speaker 1: I hear that it does. See, I would be so
Speaker 1: upset like that. I wouldn't be able to handle that.
Speaker 1: It's funny. I remember when I started, it was kind
Speaker 1: of a three way was kind of taboo. You needed
Speaker 1: it to be no more than two. Really, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: remember that. I remember there were people that wouldn't do
Speaker 1: a three way. That's crazy now because I know most
Speaker 1: rights are three people, or at least a lot of
Speaker 1: them are now. But that's all. That's also less money
Speaker 1: if it hits. That's dividing in three simple maths. So
Speaker 1: you're christ right every other Wednesday and in these you
Speaker 1: wrote those, all these songs like whiskey and you on
Speaker 1: these every other Wednesday. I probably had more cuts with
Speaker 1: Chris than I have had with anybody. And he's a
Speaker 1: good dude. Huh, wonderful I what I know of him,
Speaker 1: and I and I feel like I know him relatively
Speaker 1: well for how that time we sat together, just because
Speaker 1: he's been great to me and I was such a
Speaker 1: as a robber, just a fan of him as a writer.
Speaker 1: And I've been lucky enough to do on the radio.
Speaker 1: Should be fans of writers and talk about writers and
Speaker 1: bring writers in. And Chris was one of those guys. Um,
Speaker 1: Chris is quiet, and I think that before we get married,
Speaker 1: I felt like he. I think he's kind of got
Speaker 1: a dark side. I feel like that when he married Morgan,
Speaker 1: I think that that rounded him out and I think
Speaker 1: that I think that took the I think that took
Speaker 1: the dark way. I think he's I think he's a
Speaker 1: happy person. Um, he's a wonderful father. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: as I've very said, I've been in this town a
Speaker 1: long time and know a lot of musicians. Chris Stapleton
Speaker 1: is the most talented person I've ever worked with and
Speaker 1: always and that was before the world ever knew about it.
Speaker 1: He's the second next to Bobby Bones. He's the most
Speaker 1: on my throat. And I was just I am so
Speaker 1: embarrassed as a writer that you wrote today right before
Speaker 1: you came over here. I did, okay? Is that every idea?
Speaker 1: Do you drive someone right every day? Every day? Drive downtown?
Speaker 1: Because I love Music Row. I love driving into Music
Speaker 1: Row and drives my wife crazy. She says, you have
Speaker 1: a great space at home. Why don't you right here?
Speaker 1: And I was because I like to go to Music
Speaker 1: Row and work every day every sec it would be exhausting.
Speaker 1: Who do you like now? And not who do you
Speaker 1: not like it? But give me a couple people that
Speaker 1: you hear now that you're you're on the radio, maybe
Speaker 1: you have any relationship with them at all, and you're like,
Speaker 1: that's cool. I like that, Like uh like that. You
Speaker 1: don't have a personal relationship with Like you can't say
Speaker 1: about this Osborne. We both enjoyed them as humans, can't
Speaker 1: mention them. But you hear something on the radio and
Speaker 1: you're like, that's pretty cool. We know what. I have
Speaker 1: never had a Kidney Jesney cut, and I am a
Speaker 1: Kidney Jesney fan. I love sitting the world. As I
Speaker 1: was talking to Kenny, we were man, I didn't know.
Speaker 1: He didn't tell me. See here's thinking about if he's
Speaker 1: every make you say you never make Kenny. I've met him,
Speaker 1: but you haven't. I don't know him. I've never hung I'
Speaker 1: gonna give you a couple of Kenny stories. So I
Speaker 1: have hung with him a few times. My work. It
Speaker 1: creates that atmosphere, and then if you actually get along
Speaker 1: with someone, you can still sit in the same room,
Speaker 1: and if you don't go back to your own rooms,
Speaker 1: and sometimes there artist and we just go back your
Speaker 1: own rooms. It's like humans not all humans mesh right.
Speaker 1: Kenny and I, for some reason get along. But Kenny
Speaker 1: has no filter, and I wouldn't have no filter around
Speaker 1: someone that had a big microphone. But I keep a
Speaker 1: lot of secrets too. I'm good like I know the difference.
Speaker 1: Why I can. I can't say it just I wouldn't
Speaker 1: trust me until I was able to trust me. He's
Speaker 1: always trusting me for some reason. So Kenny and I
Speaker 1: just the last time we were together. We're up, we're
Speaker 1: on stage, and we've had three or four instance where
Speaker 1: we've been together for over an hour and a half
Speaker 1: or so, so we're comfortable with each other, and we're
Speaker 1: playing songs from his record, and there's a crowd watching
Speaker 1: and he that song that you like, and then I
Speaker 1: like to is it's an amazing song with Pink, and
Speaker 1: what a great person to pick for that song Set
Speaker 1: in the World on Fire. Healans over and he goes,
Speaker 1: this was never gonna be a single ever. And I
Speaker 1: was like, why would you know, why would you cut
Speaker 1: up with a pop artist? You know why? He's like,
Speaker 1: I wanted it to be, but had she not gotten pregnant,
Speaker 1: this would never been a single because she was doing
Speaker 1: her own thing. And then we're gonna let us put
Speaker 1: it out because she had her songs out. You can't
Speaker 1: put a song out. I didn't know she had an
Speaker 1: announced that she was pregnant. He told me this O
Speaker 1: this like a month before. She hadn't she because she
Speaker 1: just announced was pregnant like a week or so ago.
Speaker 1: As we're taping this right now. She just said she's pregnant,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh my god. He never said,
Speaker 1: don't say anything about it. I never did, but it
Speaker 1: could have been a mess because he just threw it
Speaker 1: out there, like, oh, yeah, she was pregnant, and had
Speaker 1: she not gotten pregnant, we'd never got to cut this song.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh, that's cool. Had it come up
Speaker 1: in conversation and may have said something about it, because
Speaker 1: he didn't say, hey, don't off the record, hey don't
Speaker 1: say this, so that song would have never been on
Speaker 1: the radio. It was never when they cut it, it
Speaker 1: was never going to be on the radio. But because
Speaker 1: she got pregnant, was like, I'm gonna pull myself off.
Speaker 1: They got to put it out as a single, So
Speaker 1: I thought that was pretty cool. There was another one
Speaker 1: because he just says stuff and you're like, did you
Speaker 1: say that? And like that I have another good game.
Speaker 1: What's my other trusting? But why, man, I don't know,
Speaker 1: why would trust me though of all people? Because I'm
Speaker 1: known because I don't have a big mouth, but I
Speaker 1: say my feelings and those two things kind of get
Speaker 1: mixed up. Yeah, I mean, I think that was dice.
Speaker 1: So you could have messed up because you could have
Speaker 1: just assumed that everybody knew. I did assume that. It
Speaker 1: just didn't come up in a conversation because I would
Speaker 1: have got lucky on that. I would have said something.
Speaker 1: Um Man had another good kidney story too from that night. Better.
Speaker 1: I don't know, forgot who knows. I've been talking on
Speaker 1: today for like eleven hours. I dig Aaron Morris. Yeah
Speaker 1: it's awesome. Huh Yeah, I think she's very real. I
Speaker 1: met her again before before Chris blew up. I was
Speaker 1: on the road riding with him and she opened a
Speaker 1: show for him with this little this little bar in
Speaker 1: Atlanta and for some of my for seen her and
Speaker 1: she just was so amazing. She was so sweet. And then, uh,
Speaker 1: it's funny, last summer vacation, family vacation. Um, I'd taken
Speaker 1: my oldest just meet him to the rock and roll
Speaker 1: Museum in Cleveland and we're sitting in the in the
Speaker 1: cafe eating a sandwich in the at the Rock and
Speaker 1: Roll Hall of Fame, random and Marion Morris walks in
Speaker 1: the system and eats a salad and I said, what
Speaker 1: are you doing? And she was in town with the
Speaker 1: Keith Urban Concert and she was just going through the
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. And it's funny now, she probably couldn't
Speaker 1: have walked through the Everybody go crazy. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think the weird thing about Marion, and I know
Speaker 1: I've the same way. You know, Marion and I were
Speaker 1: cool before Marion blew up and I had her on
Speaker 1: the show before she hadn't be download. I thought, man,
Speaker 1: she's really good. And so she still goes to Walmart
Speaker 1: and stuff like she that's part Nashville too. I think
Speaker 1: you can get away with stuff in Nashville that maybe
Speaker 1: you can't some places. And I think if people go
Speaker 1: this is Mary Morris, everybody freaks out. But yeah, she's
Speaker 1: and Marin's real deal. Yah, she's gonna be pretty recognizable though.
Speaker 1: I mean, she she's gonna be hard. You know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're a fan, you're gonna, oh that's her. She's also
Speaker 1: going to be the new and she already kind of
Speaker 1: is because our record was so critically acclaimed because it
Speaker 1: was so good. Sometimes records get big because they're just big.
Speaker 1: They're big on the radio. But her record was critically
Speaker 1: acclaimed because it was so good. And like my Church
Speaker 1: wasn't a number one song, and AI's Mercedes probably thinking
Speaker 1: be number one song, but the record is so good,
Speaker 1: like it doesn't matter. It's like when we go back
Speaker 1: to you know, talking about in color, like you don't
Speaker 1: even know remember what was number one? My daughter is
Speaker 1: no ever song on that record, ever word of ever song. Yeah,
Speaker 1: me too, And I don't listen records. I'm they I
Speaker 1: just don't know what I mean. Really, nobody does anymore
Speaker 1: unless it's your favorite artist. Yeah. But it's also that
Speaker 1: it's a generational thing because we're able to get music
Speaker 1: one at a time. When I was young, young, you
Speaker 1: didn't get music one of a time when you went
Speaker 1: to the storm and bought the single on tape and
Speaker 1: there was another side of it too, and that was
Speaker 1: when I was young. But if you give someone the
Speaker 1: option to not buy thirteen songs, we're not We're gonna
Speaker 1: buy them one at a time. Of what we like
Speaker 1: that would we like the next one? It would we
Speaker 1: like the next one? Oh, we like the next one?
Speaker 1: And so you end up not buying every song unless
Speaker 1: it's your favorite artist. But Marin's record, yeah, I know
Speaker 1: all the songs too. It's fantastic. She also is one
Speaker 1: of those artists too. We have a pretty good text relationships.
Speaker 1: I just have textual That's what I talked I talked
Speaker 1: to about the text. I don't like talking on the phone, don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, I an't talked about Lindsay on the phone.
Speaker 1: It's spacetime or it's I'll see you you know, wherever.
Speaker 1: But Marin's so cool, like a appreciate you're not coddling
Speaker 1: me ever, appreciate you like because she's real, Like it's
Speaker 1: real as she's seems. That's her. Did I see there's
Speaker 1: anything else up here? How about a little with his
Speaker 1: hands Ken Melon's build man, Well you know about that, right, definitely.
Speaker 1: That's one of my first cuts up or that's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he'll never be a lawyer college. I think that might
Speaker 1: have been my first cut. Ever, he'll never be a lawyer.
Speaker 1: Be star, but he'll never be a lawyer. College game
Speaker 1: passive bar, Come on, is that coming back? That sound
Speaker 1: coming back? That's funny for some. My theory is, and
Speaker 1: what's happening with the format musically is country, first of all,
Speaker 1: is getting so big that it's going to turn into
Speaker 1: what Top forty is. Not not a style because Top
Speaker 1: forty is always evolving, but what it's going to happen
Speaker 1: is country. As Top forty has done, Top forty has
Speaker 1: a couple of best pop songs, while the couple best
Speaker 1: hip hop song is a couple of best rock songs.
Speaker 1: And that's the the mesh that is Top forty. Country
Speaker 1: is gonna be the same way. You're gonna have a
Speaker 1: couple of the best guys that sound classic, the classic
Speaker 1: country sound. You can have a couple of the guys
Speaker 1: that sound way progressive like the Sam's of the world.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have a couple of the females and it's
Speaker 1: they're gonna be all these little lanes and it's gonna
Speaker 1: be the top couple to three of each lane is
Speaker 1: gonna be what makes it onto the country radio. No, no,
Speaker 1: but it's happening. Well, they're not gonna split it right
Speaker 1: now that they've split it into two in the last
Speaker 1: few years of older. With the Legends and Icon brand,
Speaker 1: they have older stations, and what's funny is older tations
Speaker 1: are awesome, Like it's like the good stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: the nineties stuff. It's not even like the fifties stuff
Speaker 1: because they had classic country stations. But now these older
Speaker 1: stations are nineties and some eighties and a little early
Speaker 1: two thousands, and those are like my favorite of the thing.
Speaker 1: You have a Randy Travis cutt on that Yeah, here
Speaker 1: is hold on, here's leaves, Randy Travis cut you want
Speaker 1: to set it up. It's just it's one of the
Speaker 1: only ones that ever heard that. When they called me
Speaker 1: into the label to play it for me, stop but
Speaker 1: I was gonna say it made me cry. You know what,
Speaker 1: you stomped spy Family Bible and the Farmer's alving that
Speaker 1: I don't have that one, only Randy Travis Cut, but
Speaker 1: I got one. My was my grandma's favorite artist, Randy
Speaker 1: Travis Johnny Cash because it was from Arkansas. So this
Speaker 1: is what rubbed alph on me. You know what your
Speaker 1: parents listened to. And I have a strong parental system,
Speaker 1: so my grandma did a lot of the raising of me.
Speaker 1: And so my grandma with my mom basically even adopt
Speaker 1: me for a while as a kid. But she it
Speaker 1: was Johnny Cash. Here is from Arkansas, and if you're
Speaker 1: from Arkansas, people from marketsall that make it, they're your heroes.
Speaker 1: So it was Johnny and she would tell me stories
Speaker 1: about how people would protest Johnny Cash because that's not country,
Speaker 1: that's rock and roll, and people would be out just furious.
Speaker 1: It just reminds me of what people are doing on
Speaker 1: blogs now about what's happening at country music, everything sexical,
Speaker 1: every constantly that Randy Travis, Ray Charles and Andy Griffith
Speaker 1: gospel albums. I mean as I wasn't to do all.
Speaker 1: I mean all that, I hear it and it makes
Speaker 1: me a lot of my grandma so much. But then
Speaker 1: I remember being so just annoyed, like can we place
Speaker 1: us into something else on records? But yet now I
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Then I was like, is this all we got?
Speaker 1: You know? I was a teenager through all the great
Speaker 1: eighties music, all the great eighties pop music, and uh
Speaker 1: I was listening to Gene Watson and Alabama and even
Speaker 1: now we'll be somewhere and some you know, amazing song
Speaker 1: from five will come on somewhere and some print song
Speaker 1: or some band that I've never even heard of. There
Speaker 1: was a huge hit. My wife on aever word and
Speaker 1: she'll say, do you seriously not know this song? It's
Speaker 1: just it's just this was probably the theme to your
Speaker 1: prom and I'm like, I was listening to Gene Watson, babe.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. So just to recap, we have lots of
Speaker 1: good songs, and you're pretty funny. You did a lot
Speaker 1: of show prep too. I'm impressed. Yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: this is the thing I do. This is like my profession.
Speaker 1: You know how you write songs today? That's what you do.
Speaker 1: That's what I do. You look tired when I came out.
Speaker 1: I'm tired, all done? What if I ever not looked tired?
Speaker 1: Are you tired all the time? But you never sleep?
Speaker 1: Is there any way? That's why I'm always tired. You'll
Speaker 1: text me at ten o'clock and I'm like, You've got
Speaker 1: to get up like now. But if I didn't do
Speaker 1: I loved, I wouldn't be able to do it like this.
Speaker 1: I love what I do because like you love what
Speaker 1: you do. Why were you dressed like an elf? Last week?
Speaker 1: I wasn't Was that what it like Elf. Last week
Speaker 1: for something you were somewhere doing it was like a
Speaker 1: brad Pitt. I was weekly cover or something. It was
Speaker 1: either you're Brad Pitt dressed like an ELF doing something
Speaker 1: in somewhere because you're gone all the time. You were
Speaker 1: because you sent me back something funny about being and Elf.
Speaker 1: I don't know. There's a lot of days ago. Well,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you coming in and sharing your stories. Are
Speaker 1: good ones? Are They're good? Yeah, they're good. My favorite
Speaker 1: one you didn't tell. I want to tell this one
Speaker 1: and if a normal story, tell this that ad because
Speaker 1: running out of time, you go up, let me tell
Speaker 1: it fast. Now it's I don't even want to give
Speaker 1: any sort of spoiler here, but tell the story about
Speaker 1: how the soup. I'll just say the soup and let
Speaker 1: you tell the story the soup. Yeah, the TV show
Speaker 1: the soup. That'd be fun of you. Oh. So, I
Speaker 1: we get to our seats at the a c M Awards.
Speaker 1: I was still thinking we might win for uh because
Speaker 1: again I had two two songs up the Song of
Speaker 1: the Year they c MS in Vegas. And I get
Speaker 1: to my seat and we're on the twentie row in
Speaker 1: the middle right and talk soup. That's what you're saying.
Speaker 1: And um oh yeah, to not call the sup you
Speaker 1: should be all talking. So m I'm like, we're not
Speaker 1: gonna win. There's what we're gonna win because there's no
Speaker 1: way they would put the winner here because terrible seats right.
Speaker 1: And I'm bommed, and I'm like, this is so depressing
Speaker 1: and and and uh. I kind of worked through my
Speaker 1: mind because I always like to be prepared if I
Speaker 1: if I don't want to, I'm not afraid to do
Speaker 1: public speaking, but I need to know what I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say and just in case I win. So so then
Speaker 1: Jennifer Lovewett is giving the award away and she calls
Speaker 1: her name and we want in color one song or
Speaker 1: the year, and she calls my name and I run,
Speaker 1: you know. I go down there and I'm so pumped.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited, and I'm so nervous, and I'm on stage.
Speaker 1: I'm standing next to Jennifer love You and Jamie Johnson
Speaker 1: does this little spiel and usually they don't give you
Speaker 1: much time, but they let Jamie speak, and then they
Speaker 1: let James speak, and so then I step up and
Speaker 1: in front of all the world, and National Television. I said,
Speaker 1: I want to thank my wife. I want to thank
Speaker 1: my kids. Levi Noah, Levi, No that's not right. Everybody laughs.
Speaker 1: So then I continued my speech. I walk off stage.
Speaker 1: I'm nervous, I'm freaking out. In the next morning, um,
Speaker 1: the soup people were doing the the Yahoo Entertainment clip
Speaker 1: of the week and it was like eight thirty the
Speaker 1: next morning, gets everywhere right. Country Music Awards were held
Speaker 1: last night in Las Vegas, Nevada. Check this guy out.
Speaker 1: It's me. I wanna I want to thank my wife.
Speaker 1: I want to thank my kids. Levi no, Levi, No,
Speaker 1: that's not right. This guy is so country. He has
Speaker 1: not one but two kids named Levi. Hey, here my
Speaker 1: gay question before we jump. You're good. All of it
Speaker 1: squeezed out. Lee Thomas Miller, that's his name, I just
Speaker 1: call him. Hey, dude. Well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Thanks man, I appreciate it. Thanks for the stories. All right.
Speaker 1: So that's episode twenty five. Thanks for hanging out here
Speaker 1: on the Bobby Cast. I hope you'll learn a little
Speaker 1: something and we'll see you guys next night. Thanks guys,