Speaker 1: Carola. She's the queen of talking. He was sown, you man.
Speaker 1: She's only is side. She got the snoop on the
Speaker 1: on the ones to side. No one can do with clide, Carola, Carola.
Speaker 1: No one can do with clid like Carola Tile. Caroline. Hey, y'all,
Speaker 1: welcome to Hyper Caroline Hobby. I am your host, Caroline Hobby.
Speaker 1: I know music, I know people, and I know the
Speaker 1: questions do you want to ask? So let's get hyper
Speaker 1: heads up. These are adults having adult conversations, so there
Speaker 1: could be adult content. Today. We have bobbed up Hero.
Speaker 1: He is one of the most amazing songwriters in Nashville.
Speaker 1: He's written over fift number one hits, He's written over
Speaker 1: ten top ten hits, and then over a thousand songs
Speaker 1: he has written have been cut for other artists. He
Speaker 1: also happens to be one of the funniest, most endearing,
Speaker 1: charming men ever, and he talks all about his journey
Speaker 1: to Nashville from Ohio. So interesting. Here he is welcome
Speaker 1: Bob to Bureau. Hello Bob ro Hello Caroline Hobby. You
Speaker 1: got it right because you knew he was Caroline cut Berth.
Speaker 1: I did know he was Caroline cut Berth and now
Speaker 1: I know he was Caroline cut birth Hobbies, correct, Demondo.
Speaker 1: So this is a fun day and a fun way
Speaker 1: to start this interview because I got to hear this
Speaker 1: song you just wrote with Fancy, with Fancy and Ian Keggy,
Speaker 1: and it's called dirty Love, Dirty Love, and it lives
Speaker 1: up to that time. Actually it's just called dirty. It's
Speaker 1: basically like, don't love me unless it's dirty, don't watch
Speaker 1: your love unless it's dirty. Hook up song. Well, yeah
Speaker 1: it is, but it's also I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a very sexual song, but it's also about I
Speaker 1: just want it all right? Where do you get your inspiration?
Speaker 1: Like where does the song like that come up? Do
Speaker 1: you do you walk in and be like, okay, I
Speaker 1: want to walk up. I want to write about hooking up,
Speaker 1: but you don't have a stick around, you know, it
Speaker 1: would it would surprise you where that came from. It
Speaker 1: came from some deep conversation that I was having. You
Speaker 1: know that happens with Leslie, when my wife Leslie, and
Speaker 1: it was a very serious conversation. And what was it about. Well,
Speaker 1: it was about being honest with each other and uh
Speaker 1: being just letting it out, like sexually everything. Hi, Leslie?
Speaker 1: Oh sorry, Leslie? Comes, say how we're talking about you?
Speaker 1: Come on, we're talking about on this podcast. We're talking
Speaker 1: about how dirty was inspired by you guys. Well, I
Speaker 1: was telling her it was inspired by a conversation we
Speaker 1: had that was not It was serious. It was a
Speaker 1: serious conversation. Yes, I'm not a dirty girl, adventurous girl,
Speaker 1: but listen, to keep a marriage spicy, you have to
Speaker 1: stay at venturous. Well, I get out, by the way,
Speaker 1: anyone listening Leslie Thomasina. Her name is Leslie Thomasina. Dapiro
Speaker 1: no is smoking hot. Bob has a rocking hot wife.
Speaker 1: And she was just in the Vagina Monologues in Nashville.
Speaker 1: You were there, and you were in the vagina audience,
Speaker 1: and I was laughing. I was, I was, I was
Speaker 1: in the vagina. I never knew how much I loved
Speaker 1: vaginas until I saw you in it. All vaginas. We
Speaker 1: have vagina crushes on each other. There you go. Do
Speaker 1: you need to tell Bob something? Well I was going
Speaker 1: to tell him. I gotta go running over the other clients. Well,
Speaker 1: see you get home. Look how cute you guys are?
Speaker 1: We okay, get that dirty love ready for when he's home. Okay,
Speaker 1: So it's inspired by a conversation. Yeah, And songs are
Speaker 1: usually to come about you have to get really deep.
Speaker 1: But that's I mean, what's interesting about co writing is
Speaker 1: that the subject matter might mean something to me that's
Speaker 1: totally different from what it means to my co writer.
Speaker 1: You know, where maybe Fancy was just thinking about some
Speaker 1: dirty love, but I was thinking about this other thing.
Speaker 1: But you know, you put the minds together and something
Speaker 1: bigger shows up, you know. So we're sitting here in
Speaker 1: this room we're calling it the Bunker, which is your studio,
Speaker 1: and literally wall to wall of songs that you have written,
Speaker 1: like huge freaking hits. You've had fifteen number one, fifteen
Speaker 1: number one songs. Let me throw some of those out there.
Speaker 1: American made by oak Ridge Boys. That was your first
Speaker 1: number one song, first number one song in nine three.
Speaker 1: I was wow you were born, then I'm sold. Okay.
Speaker 1: You're from a steel manufacturing center of Youngstown, Youngstown, Ohio, Youngstown, Ohio,
Speaker 1: which used to be Did your family work in steel? No,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, there were. We were one of
Speaker 1: the very few families who didn't. My my dad actually
Speaker 1: was a foot doctor, a pediatrist. Yes, he was a
Speaker 1: foot doctor. And my mom was a housewife. She was
Speaker 1: a stay at home housewife. Okay, so how did you
Speaker 1: discover this love of music because you also went to
Speaker 1: music college, I did you know, and you were in
Speaker 1: hard rock bands, yes, or bands that I mean. I
Speaker 1: went through a series of bands, you know. But it
Speaker 1: started out, you know, like so many people of my age,
Speaker 1: my vintage, Uh, seeing the Beatles on TV for the
Speaker 1: first time, that was it. I was blinded by the light.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just like, okay, I want to
Speaker 1: do that. What about that excited you? Well, the music
Speaker 1: was more like magic to me at the time. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just how do they do that? And they were
Speaker 1: smiling and girls were screaming at them of course of
Speaker 1: course blooded American male, Yes, and uh, it was it
Speaker 1: was that. And so, like everybody else, I bought a
Speaker 1: guitar and went into the garage with my brother and
Speaker 1: some of his friends, and we had this not really
Speaker 1: good band, you know, and we played Beatles songs and
Speaker 1: and I it just never stopped for me. Yeah, I sang.
Speaker 1: I started out I'm going to tell you something you
Speaker 1: don't know. I started out as a ROADI. I think
Speaker 1: I was the first official ROADI really for your for
Speaker 1: your brother's bandy my brother's band. Uh. They had gotten
Speaker 1: a New Year's Eve gig. I wasn't playing in that band,
Speaker 1: but I so wanted and and we were so young
Speaker 1: that none of us drove. So the drummer's dad came
Speaker 1: over to pick my brother up, and while we were
Speaker 1: waiting for him to show up, my brother was like,
Speaker 1: you can't go. He's really like, that's so it got
Speaker 1: You can't You're not gonna go. You're not gonna go.
Speaker 1: And and Ralph Desimon was the drummer's name. His dad
Speaker 1: showed up and he opened the door, came in the
Speaker 1: house and goes ready to do. Yeah, how about you, Bobby?
Speaker 1: You ready? I'm not going? Well why not? Well, Don
Speaker 1: said I couldn't go. Of course you can go, come on,
Speaker 1: and my brother's like dash. I just Thenity took the
Speaker 1: open opportunity and I just jumped in there and she
Speaker 1: started being the ROADI eventually got asked to be in
Speaker 1: the man No I. Eventually, while I was a roady,
Speaker 1: I eventually picked up a tambourine and I would kind
Speaker 1: of play it off to the side, you know, and
Speaker 1: I'd inch up a little bit more. I totally it's
Speaker 1: my way in the story of my life. Hey, but
Speaker 1: I mean, Bob, it's not like there's a whole lot
Speaker 1: of options in the steel town of Ohio, right. No,
Speaker 1: there wasn't. But I was just in this. You're the
Speaker 1: I'm the younger brother, and I just I just had
Speaker 1: to be involved. I just had to be involved. So
Speaker 1: I was practicing guitar and doing all this stuff, and
Speaker 1: I just had to be involved. And that was so
Speaker 1: I got into a band. I got into that band,
Speaker 1: and and then he went to the music college. Did
Speaker 1: the band ever getting success? Or was that just like
Speaker 1: the gateway drug into the world? It was. It was
Speaker 1: kind of a gateway drug. But that band went through
Speaker 1: several incarnations, and my brother and I were playing together,
Speaker 1: and then we started yet another band with the same
Speaker 1: Ralph I was telling you about, and another Ralph. We
Speaker 1: had Ralph and Ralph. Did you we should have? Oh
Speaker 1: we weren't smarter? That so much smarter? So you go
Speaker 1: to college, go to college after this band, and do
Speaker 1: you start really studying music? Yes, I mean the band.
Speaker 1: You asked me if we had any success? We got
Speaker 1: hooked up with a lead singer who was also from
Speaker 1: the next time, but he was older than us, and
Speaker 1: somehow he had gotten some kind of for cocta record
Speaker 1: deal from from this very unknown label called Paula Records
Speaker 1: in Shreveport, Louisiana, and so somehow they didn't want a
Speaker 1: solo singer. They wanted a band. So he said, you're
Speaker 1: my band, and so we flew down to Shreveport, Louisiana
Speaker 1: and started recording, and nothing really came of it, excepted
Speaker 1: I started to see a scratch. Oh man, I got
Speaker 1: a big old dose of it, and I loved every
Speaker 1: minute of it. So came back and and Youngstown State University,
Speaker 1: which is where I went and where I graduated from,
Speaker 1: had a small part of that school called the Danas
Speaker 1: School of Music and it and I was, I was just,
Speaker 1: to be honest, I was just trying to stay out
Speaker 1: of the army because they had the draft back then,
Speaker 1: and I was I was not into what was happening,
Speaker 1: you know. So I just hung onto my draft deferment
Speaker 1: by going to school and I'm going, well, I'm here.
Speaker 1: I love music, and so I started taking music courses
Speaker 1: and I I was like so many musicians. I couldn't
Speaker 1: really read music hardly at all, but I had a
Speaker 1: really good I had developed an ear so that I
Speaker 1: could hear something, I could play it back, so I
Speaker 1: would fake a lot of but I just heard it,
Speaker 1: you know, and I could get pretty close to it.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I went there and I started taking
Speaker 1: really traditional theory and harmony. It's not like what we
Speaker 1: know today like Belmont offers here, just very contemporary music business,
Speaker 1: recording arts, all that stuff. It was just a real
Speaker 1: bag that traditional theory and harmony course. And I played
Speaker 1: in the jazz Man there, and I studied classical guitar,
Speaker 1: and I sucked at classical guitar because I'd sit there
Speaker 1: and start practicing these studies, and about twenty minutes in
Speaker 1: I'd be writing a song. So that's when you discovered songwriting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean songwriting came from for me being in a band.
Speaker 1: Everything sprung from being in a band because my heroes
Speaker 1: at the time were the Beatles and the Rolling Stones,
Speaker 1: and I'd read all their their album covers and I'd
Speaker 1: look and it was Lenna McCartney, Lenna McCartney, Jagger Richards,
Speaker 1: Jagger Richards, and these guys write their own songs. So, well,
Speaker 1: if you're in a band, you write your own songs. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna write my songs. Were you good at writing
Speaker 1: songs in the beginning, I don't know. I know, I
Speaker 1: mean I was. I guess I could see that, I knew,
Speaker 1: I knew how it went, I knew how how the
Speaker 1: structure went, and I was I was really good at
Speaker 1: seeing images in my head, well just stories in your
Speaker 1: head kind of sort of or or to me, I
Speaker 1: always described as like a piece of d N A,
Speaker 1: you know, like what they do now they can clone
Speaker 1: as sheep from one little piece of d N as
Speaker 1: Like if I just got a title, that's somewhere that
Speaker 1: I can grow the song from. Or if I just
Speaker 1: got a little guitar part, well that's another part I
Speaker 1: can grow the song from. Or we're talking about something
Speaker 1: and I get a feeling, well that's another piece of
Speaker 1: DNA that can grow a song. Imagination. I have a
Speaker 1: wild amagage very well, But you can grow a whole
Speaker 1: song from a tiny little nugget. I guess that's the
Speaker 1: best way to describe it. Yeah, I guess it is
Speaker 1: inspiration that you can grow it. Yes, I always say
Speaker 1: I I pray. When I pray, I don't pray for
Speaker 1: a hit song. I pray for inspiration. Ohays, say, God,
Speaker 1: just give me the inspiration. I'll do all the heavy lifting.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. It's it's what I've done all this time.
Speaker 1: And I have friends and and they've got like the
Speaker 1: they've got like the secret recipe to coke that they
Speaker 1: just keep churning an app But for me, it's always
Speaker 1: I'm looking around. I think you have that sec your recipe.
Speaker 1: I guess. I don't know. It doesn't feel like that.
Speaker 1: It's always a new new feeling. I think that's the
Speaker 1: sign of a true person who's not You're not. You're
Speaker 1: not satisfied as all you've accomplished, like you're still hungry
Speaker 1: for it. Like even though you are in the Songwriters
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame, which is huge, you've had fifteen number ones. Like,
Speaker 1: how many top tens did you have? I don't know,
Speaker 1: Honest to god, I don't know. You've written over a
Speaker 1: thousand songs that have been cut by Yeah, that's crazy,
Speaker 1: that's stupid. I've written too many songs. No, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: You have your you have a star on the Songwriters
Speaker 1: Walk of Fame, Nashville's Walk of Fame in between Jimi
Speaker 1: Hendrix and Barbara Mandrell, which I always said pretty much
Speaker 1: is exactly where I'm at, somewhere between Jimmy Andricks and Barbara.
Speaker 1: I love that. Well, So, Okay, you're in this band,
Speaker 1: you start writing songs, you go to school, you keep
Speaker 1: continuing your craft. What is a moment where you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm moving to Nashville to be a songwriter. I was
Speaker 1: in college, I was playing in bands at night. I
Speaker 1: was given guitar lessons in the late afternoon to pay
Speaker 1: the rent. And uh. I had some neighbors who lived
Speaker 1: in an apartment where I was living, and they were
Speaker 1: also songwriters, and but they were really and then they
Speaker 1: were really songwriters. And they started talking about going to Nashville.
Speaker 1: So I heard this week, why would you go to Nashville?
Speaker 1: Not at all? I mean I knew zero minus zero
Speaker 1: about country music, honest honestly, there were I don't remember
Speaker 1: any country radio stations up there, or maybe I just
Speaker 1: didn't want to hear. I only listen to Top forty
Speaker 1: radio and rock and roll. You know, That's that's what
Speaker 1: I listened to, you know. And and so to make
Speaker 1: a living. I would sometimes I go to the only
Speaker 1: recording studio in Youngstown, which was this Polkas Studio. Youngstown
Speaker 1: is very well known for their polka bands, if I
Speaker 1: had to, I mean, I'm not saying that I don't
Speaker 1: like polka, but actually there's many Grammy winners come from Youngstound,
Speaker 1: Ohio because it's doing polka. So fact, there's a fun
Speaker 1: fact right there, Like rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's like trickling down in the Ohio area.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely absolutely trickled down. And during all this time,
Speaker 1: I would go out to the bars at night and
Speaker 1: listen to the rock and roll bands, and I saw
Speaker 1: Bob Seger playing in clubs, and I would see the
Speaker 1: James Gang with Joe Walsh playing in clubs. And I'd
Speaker 1: come home and I go, I'm so screwed. If every
Speaker 1: little talent Youngstown has got guys like that, I got
Speaker 1: no chance. But it really informed me what excellent really was.
Speaker 1: Started off seeing great right away, yeah I did, and
Speaker 1: it really was well and and me and me thinks
Speaker 1: you're really good, you know, but and that makes you
Speaker 1: feel good, But what is good? You know? And even
Speaker 1: going to school and learning the true theory of harmony
Speaker 1: inform me what was really exceptional. So I got that
Speaker 1: in my head. Okay, that's that's what exceptional is. Joe
Speaker 1: Walsh is exceptional. You know. Bob Seeger is really really good.
Speaker 1: You know, did you from the beginning put pressure on
Speaker 1: yourself to be one of the greats? Like? Is that
Speaker 1: the category that you were striving for? Is that the
Speaker 1: company that you like? Nothing below that great status would work?
Speaker 1: Is that where you set your bar? You know? I
Speaker 1: wish I would say yes, but I was just floating
Speaker 1: in the music I didn't have. I'm going to be
Speaker 1: Elvis Presley. It really wasn't like that. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to play music, and I wanted to be in a band,
Speaker 1: and I saw those guys and and all I would
Speaker 1: think was, Man, wouldn't it be great to be like that?
Speaker 1: You know what? It would be so great? And I
Speaker 1: would just get this in my mind and think about
Speaker 1: it and dream it. So I guess I dreamed it.
Speaker 1: And my my dad always said and I had delusions
Speaker 1: of grandear. He would he you know, I'd say, Dad,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna go down. I'm gonna write these songs,
Speaker 1: and and he's going you have delusions of grandear. You know,
Speaker 1: this is gonna burn out and you're gonna finally get
Speaker 1: a job. What are you talking about? You know? And
Speaker 1: as time went on, these delusions of grand ear became reality. So, okay,
Speaker 1: speaking of that, you your friends are in college. They're saying,
Speaker 1: we're going to Nashville. You're like, what the heck is Nashville?
Speaker 1: What's country music? You start hearing about it, You're like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm coming with you. I didn't they moved, Okay, they
Speaker 1: said we're going. They weren't college guys, they were just
Speaker 1: street guys, and they said, we're moving to Nashville to
Speaker 1: the songwriters and artists. They wanted if there were two guys,
Speaker 1: and they wanted to be a duo. They wanted to
Speaker 1: be the Everly Brothers or something. And so I kept
Speaker 1: in contact with him, and I decided, and I honestly
Speaker 1: say this, I knew my car would not make it
Speaker 1: to l A, but I knew it could make NATS. Phil,
Speaker 1: you should write that song, I know. Actually that's a
Speaker 1: great visual. You need inspirations. I mean, I had gone
Speaker 1: to New York City to try and peddle this album
Speaker 1: we made, and it just I'm not being honest. It
Speaker 1: just totally overwhelmed me and NWY it was just like
Speaker 1: whoa I was. I wasn't ready for it. But uh,
Speaker 1: and then in the meantime, I had started writing songs,
Speaker 1: you know, and Uh, I would trade out time with
Speaker 1: the only studio in Youngstown. I would. I would say,
Speaker 1: you have a bread commercial, Okay, I'll write your bread commercial,
Speaker 1: and you give me the studio from ten o'clock at
Speaker 1: night till six o'clock in the morning. And that's what
Speaker 1: I would do. I'd go in there and record these
Speaker 1: record as bread commercial and then I'd record these songs
Speaker 1: I was writing. And those were the songs that I
Speaker 1: brought to Nashville. Was American made in that batch? It
Speaker 1: was not in that batch. No, none of those songs,
Speaker 1: none of the songs you're describing, was in that batch.
Speaker 1: Let me give you a little rundown really fastest. Some
Speaker 1: of the number one songs that Bob Papiro has written
Speaker 1: American made. Oakridge Boys, Wink, Neil McCoy, I love that song,
Speaker 1: Blue Clear Sky, George Straight, Oh my God, love it,
Speaker 1: Daddy's Money, Ricochet, World's Apart, Vince Gill, that rock Won't Roll,
Speaker 1: Restless Heart, Little Rock by Reba, Do You Love Me
Speaker 1: Just Say Yes? Highway one oh one, Church on Cumberland Road,
Speaker 1: Shannon Doah, Money in the Bank, John Anderson, Take Me
Speaker 1: As I Am, Faith Hill, Oh my gosh, I love
Speaker 1: that song Till You Love Me Reba, their Planner Song,
Speaker 1: Neil McCoy, If you ever stopped loving me, begun, re
Speaker 1: Gentry Southern Voice, timor Gal. I mean number one songs.
Speaker 1: You've had fifteen number one songs. That's not even your
Speaker 1: top ten songs, which I won't even go through all those,
Speaker 1: because I think you have over like how many top
Speaker 1: tens do you have? How many Top Caroline? I couldn't
Speaker 1: tell you. I'm not that kind of guy that goes, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, I have thirty Top twenties, i have
Speaker 1: twenty two Top eight teams, I've got seven Top five.
Speaker 1: I know how many number ones I have and after that,
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm not counting. It's it's like, yes, I
Speaker 1: like number one songs. Number one songs are great. I
Speaker 1: love to get more of them, you know, But I'm
Speaker 1: just just inspiration for inspiration every day. Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not about counting the number ones or what and it's
Speaker 1: not about what happened. It's to me, it's always about
Speaker 1: what's going to happen. So you do not live in
Speaker 1: the past. No, And it really pains me when I
Speaker 1: see a lot of my contemporaries who do living off
Speaker 1: their past achievements. Well yeah, not that that they shouldn't
Speaker 1: be saluted. No, they should be saluted. But I mean, well,
Speaker 1: back when I was having my big success, music was
Speaker 1: so much better. This music sucks now, you know. It's like,
Speaker 1: come on, man, you know there's good. You know, there's
Speaker 1: good everywhere, and there's bad everywhere, you know, and and
Speaker 1: they kind of get caught in that space, you know.
Speaker 1: But I've always wanted to just move forward. And I
Speaker 1: saw that you said you always want to stay relevant,
Speaker 1: And what how do you do that? Because you have,
Speaker 1: how have you done that? And what is your secret
Speaker 1: for staying relevant? I just try to keep a student's heart.
Speaker 1: You know, A student is always learning and just when
Speaker 1: I when, if I ever think I know it, then
Speaker 1: I'm screwed. Because to me, to be relevant, you have
Speaker 1: to always be learning. Everything is, everything's always changing. The
Speaker 1: language changes, you know, how we speak today. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and sixteen, is not how we spoke in nineteen
Speaker 1: three or nineties or two thousands career since well, actually,
Speaker 1: my first song I ever had entered the charts was
Speaker 1: Reba McIntyre song called I Can See Forever in Your
Speaker 1: Eyes that I wrote by myself, and it was like
Speaker 1: en eighty two or and yeah, it surprises me, but
Speaker 1: you know, you you learn the language of music. In music,
Speaker 1: there's only so many chords, especially in country music. It's
Speaker 1: like primary colors as far as the harmony and the melodies.
Speaker 1: You know, you get to other types of music and
Speaker 1: there's pale blue, there's smoky, dusty roads, youngstound, I mean
Speaker 1: youngstanding country music. They're very primary. But within those primary
Speaker 1: colors are so many alternatives. And that's what keeps it
Speaker 1: fresh for me. And also love working with the new
Speaker 1: kids in town. I love it. It's it informs my
Speaker 1: mind and informs my brain and informs my musicianship, it
Speaker 1: informs my tech brain. You know, it's just Okay, that's
Speaker 1: what these guys are thinking about, and okay, that's how
Speaker 1: that's how we're speaking now, and oh, this is a
Speaker 1: gear that's really working. You know. Although I still if
Speaker 1: I followed everybody, I would wouldn't be here. You know,
Speaker 1: I follow myself. Yeah, I learned, you know, I write
Speaker 1: with Craig Wiseman, I'm learning, you know, if I write
Speaker 1: with Fancy, I'm learning, you know, if I write with
Speaker 1: someone of that stature, I'm learning what I'm right? How
Speaker 1: amazing because a lot of people with your kind of success,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm the big wig. I'm the alpha
Speaker 1: of this co write and as you are. And it
Speaker 1: works for that for those people, and that's cool. But
Speaker 1: I've always tried to offer writers who might look upon
Speaker 1: me as the big kna a welcoming space. Look, we're
Speaker 1: both staring at the same blank page here, you know,
Speaker 1: we're both starting nowhere. Let's go somewhere together. So you
Speaker 1: come in with just no ego, and I try not to.
Speaker 1: You know, if someone starts egoing out on me, and
Speaker 1: it really rarely happens. I can be a big ego
Speaker 1: to jerk if I need to be, I can, But
Speaker 1: I don't like me as that, and I don't choose
Speaker 1: to be that. Okay, so you got to Nashville because
Speaker 1: your car wouldn't make it to California. How long when
Speaker 1: did you show up in Nashville? I started making trips.
Speaker 1: I started making trips to Nashville. Like two years before
Speaker 1: I moved to Nashville, I came down to visit my buddies.
Speaker 1: Then I came down again, and I brought some songs
Speaker 1: with me, and I started just what everybody else who
Speaker 1: has ever made it or who's ever gotten the music
Speaker 1: business does, knocked on doors. You knocked on doors literally
Speaker 1: embarrassed or scared I was going to be in the
Speaker 1: music bus. You had no like nervousness about that. No, Honestly,
Speaker 1: after after getting through music school, which I had no
Speaker 1: business being in, and actually graduating, and being under that
Speaker 1: much pressure and that much scrutiny, and after seeing all
Speaker 1: these great artists who went on to become icons, I
Speaker 1: was isn't afraid. I was like, I want this, you
Speaker 1: gotta go. I just I was thrilled just to be here.
Speaker 1: But I had to get somewhere. So, you know, nobody
Speaker 1: sent for me. You know, people say, you know, Jed
Speaker 1: Atkins didn't call me up and say, Bob, we really
Speaker 1: need an Italian hillbilly down here. You know, I just
Speaker 1: I just showed up. And I was a rock and
Speaker 1: roll guitar player, and I literally had zero knowledge of
Speaker 1: country music. You know, so many people say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: look at all these guys today moving here from l
Speaker 1: A and other pop guys. They're just track guys, and
Speaker 1: I wonder if they're gonna have a track guy hall
Speaker 1: of fame, you know. And they're just these young guys
Speaker 1: and they think they know everything. Well, I was that
Speaker 1: young guy who thought I knew everything, and I was
Speaker 1: I was a rock guy, and they needed some rock.
Speaker 1: They needed some life in country music, and I was
Speaker 1: the guy to bring it, you know. So so I
Speaker 1: just I did. I would literally walk up and down
Speaker 1: the street. Do you think you dazzle people with your confidence?
Speaker 1: Do you think they gave you a shot because you
Speaker 1: were so confident? I don't know. I wasn't like get
Speaker 1: a lot of this. You know. It's like, wow, am
Speaker 1: I glad to be here? And man, I am I
Speaker 1: glad you're talking to me? And here are some songs
Speaker 1: I really like? And I was being honest. So how
Speaker 1: did you get your first big break before the cut,
Speaker 1: first big number one? How did you get your break
Speaker 1: into the country music industry? Well, I had moved here
Speaker 1: and I was making my living in Nashville, being a
Speaker 1: guitar teacher, teaching guitar two kids after school, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, they show up, I want to
Speaker 1: learn back in black, and I teach it back in
Speaker 1: black or I want to learn. So that's what I
Speaker 1: was doing to make a living. But then I got
Speaker 1: hold of a billboard magazine that said Combine Music looking
Speaker 1: to expand its pop arm and I went, oh, I'm pop.
Speaker 1: You know. So I was not affiliate with bm I,
Speaker 1: but I had met someone from bm I, Jerry Smith,
Speaker 1: and so I called him up and I said, hey, Jerry,
Speaker 1: I'd really like to talk to somebody at Combine Music
Speaker 1: because it says right here in the magazine that they're
Speaker 1: they're looking to expand their their industry bigger than country.
Speaker 1: And so Jerry made an introduction to Al Cooley, who
Speaker 1: was the song plugger, the general manager at Combine Music,
Speaker 1: home of Chris Christofferson at the time and Larry Gatlin
Speaker 1: and blah blah, Dolly part and blah blah blah. Very
Speaker 1: small independent company, was not a corporation, And so he
Speaker 1: made me this this appointment, and I showed up with
Speaker 1: my tape and I gave it to Al Cooley and
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there and he plays it and he goes,
Speaker 1: hold on hold of state right here, and he runs upstairs.
Speaker 1: I don't know where he's going, comes back downstairs and
Speaker 1: he says, all right, come upstairs with me, and he
Speaker 1: takes me upstairs and he takes me in this big office.
Speaker 1: And there is this guy named Bob Beckham who was
Speaker 1: the publisher, the main guy of this publishing and Combine music.
Speaker 1: And he kind of had his own language. You know.
Speaker 1: He was from Oklahoma. I never met anybody from Oklahoma
Speaker 1: from Ohio, you know. And he's, ah'm I shtaying the
Speaker 1: sun fire are all I could all I could make
Speaker 1: out that what he was saying was and and we're
Speaker 1: gonna make a lot of money. And he dismissed. He
Speaker 1: heard it, and so he thought you had something. He
Speaker 1: thought I had something, And so did he sign you
Speaker 1: to publishing. He said, you're welcome to come here. You're
Speaker 1: welcome to come here. Any time you want to drink
Speaker 1: the coffee, hang out, You're welcome to come here. So
Speaker 1: I was the quintessential hair and a biscuit man. I
Speaker 1: was there and I was hanging and I was drinking
Speaker 1: the coffee, and yeah, I was you couldn't get me
Speaker 1: out of it, man, he said, you said, yes, sir, yeah,
Speaker 1: You're welcome to hang out. And and luckily at the
Speaker 1: time there were guys like me, guys who had come
Speaker 1: from different parts of the country who were trying to
Speaker 1: do a similar thing. They were trying to write. They
Speaker 1: were trying to figure out my artist and my writer.
Speaker 1: What am I? All I know is that I love music,
Speaker 1: and I met like minded guys. You know. I met
Speaker 1: Steve Earle there, who has just come to Texas, and
Speaker 1: he played me Devil's right hand right after he wrote it.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh, it's screwed I write that, you know,
Speaker 1: but it once again, it informed me about that's what
Speaker 1: is excellent. I know that I feel that you can
Speaker 1: tell an excellent song because I feel like I've been
Speaker 1: a song pucker and listening to hear what hits are.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I cannot tell what I Honestly, I can't tell
Speaker 1: all the time. When I wrote Blue Clear Sky, I
Speaker 1: liked it, I didn't think, yeah, I didn't think it
Speaker 1: would ever go to somebody like George Strait, and I
Speaker 1: never thought it would be be the title track of
Speaker 1: the c M A album of the year. I liked it,
Speaker 1: you know, and I remember pulling the faders. I'm going, wow,
Speaker 1: this is a good song. But it never occurred to
Speaker 1: me this is the number one smash, you know, because
Speaker 1: I had other songs I thought were much better and
Speaker 1: no one even responded to. But there were certain songs
Speaker 1: that would just oh man, that is such a hit
Speaker 1: that it's once again, it's hard. It's hard for me
Speaker 1: to say. Uh. I thought Southern Voice that I wrote
Speaker 1: with Tom Douglas was crazy good, not good. I thought
Speaker 1: it was as good a song as I could humanly
Speaker 1: right at that point. And I thought it said something
Speaker 1: that meant something but had been said differently in a
Speaker 1: way that had not been said before. And I thought
Speaker 1: that's really unique and different and I think it's excellent
Speaker 1: and I and then we can translate that into music.
Speaker 1: Row language was that's a hit, you know. So I
Speaker 1: was pretty certain that was a hit song. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: and there have been others. I mean, I really loved
Speaker 1: the song you mentioned really early in my career that
Speaker 1: rock Won't Roll. It was just like, oh man, this
Speaker 1: is so cool. What a good idea. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: a great idea, and it's a perfect example of Keith
Speaker 1: Digging because I wrote that with John Scott Cheryl and
Speaker 1: we had written this song called that Rock Won't Roll.
Speaker 1: The whole song finished done, and we went back and
Speaker 1: listen to it and said, man, there's nothing good about
Speaker 1: this song except the title. So we just scrapped that
Speaker 1: whole song. And because once you built this little creature
Speaker 1: that is a song, well it is scary, but I
Speaker 1: think it's it's prageous. You have to know when to
Speaker 1: hold them. Yeah, there's a difference between stupidity and fearlessness.
Speaker 1: I don't know what we're that like, truly, truly, but
Speaker 1: I mean I think we both felt as such a
Speaker 1: cool idea that we just scrapped that whole song and
Speaker 1: started over, and thank god we did. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: we once again, I wrote a song about love but
Speaker 1: wrote it in a way that may not have exactly
Speaker 1: been said like that before. And you you make me
Speaker 1: think of something interesting. I feel like sometimes on music
Speaker 1: Row people can get into the habit of just showing
Speaker 1: up with their co write, working for four or five hours,
Speaker 1: calling it a day, and just like, oh, that's okay,
Speaker 1: that's that's good, that's a fine song. But really, sometimes
Speaker 1: you do have to put in the extra effort and
Speaker 1: really like work harder because you can't get into an
Speaker 1: easy routine. I felt, not you a particular but songwriter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and there's a lot to be said for that.
Speaker 1: I mean, writers that hit that sweet spot in their career,
Speaker 1: it's like they can do no wrong. Everything they're writing
Speaker 1: is getting recorded or getting listened to, and it's like, oh, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: it's five o'clock, I'm leaving now and fully expecting the
Speaker 1: song to be recorded or looked at, you know. And
Speaker 1: that's a portion of a career right there. But I
Speaker 1: know what you're saying, but I think some songs don't
Speaker 1: need to be reworked or rewritten. They're just blue Curt
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, blue clear Sky. We never changed the word,
Speaker 1: never changed the note of melody. It was as it
Speaker 1: was written. Oh shoot, yeah, absolutely. I think I think
Speaker 1: in the creative process there's there's talent that's involved, and
Speaker 1: there's when you become you know. I always said that
Speaker 1: a trained seal can write one number one song, but
Speaker 1: to write three, four, five and beyond, something's going on,
Speaker 1: and I think that is talent. I think it's just perseverance,
Speaker 1: you know. I think it's expecting a miracle, you know,
Speaker 1: and luck is involved. Cannot say that that's not part
Speaker 1: of it, or some people might call it my better
Speaker 1: angels or it's my luck. But something helps. Do you
Speaker 1: feel like you have to be open to receiving that
Speaker 1: extra help? Oh? Yeah, I think so. I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm I'm a I'm a very I'm a
Speaker 1: spiritual person of a problem with organized religion, but I
Speaker 1: feel it. I believe, and songs are magical. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it really I think Keith Richards in his book really
Speaker 1: described at least to me, it made sense where he
Speaker 1: said that he feels like an antenna and he's just
Speaker 1: got it up there and he's just waiting to receive
Speaker 1: and it's like a radio and sometimes you can't get
Speaker 1: the station, and sometimes you can hear parts of it,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's loud and clear, you know, and just
Speaker 1: I just try to be open, you know. Oh, it's
Speaker 1: a great book on for creative people too. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's his version. There's no one way, there is no
Speaker 1: one that is the truth. And actually, like talking to
Speaker 1: people like I've gotten to do with the podcast, you
Speaker 1: hear their stories and it's all over all over the map,
Speaker 1: and that's good. It is because there is no one way.
Speaker 1: Perseverance I think. Yeah, I think somebody said, you know,
Speaker 1: if you want to get to California, you can walk
Speaker 1: and take a bus, you take a jet, you take
Speaker 1: a private jet. You could back, you could you could drive,
Speaker 1: and you'll get there. But there are just so many
Speaker 1: different ways to get there as long as you get
Speaker 1: to California. About your car breaking down in Nashville, I mean,
Speaker 1: you got that's your next infiration, Bob. I just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're the hair in the biscuit. That's where we stopped.
Speaker 1: I kind of your hair in a biscuits. So I'm
Speaker 1: hanging out this and I'm I'm running into guys like me.
Speaker 1: But when you're much younger and hadn't started, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: twentysomething guys that come from all different parts of the country.
Speaker 1: And it's the first time I really met guys from
Speaker 1: the South. Like, I'm from Mississippi, I'm from Atlanta, I'm
Speaker 1: from I'm from Oklahoma, I'm from Texas. I'm from Florida. Well,
Speaker 1: I thought Florida was Miami Beach. No, Florida is deep country,
Speaker 1: you know. And but they all had the same passion
Speaker 1: I had, and so it was easy to connect with
Speaker 1: them and we both we all wanted to write something,
Speaker 1: whether it was for our solo projects or we wanted
Speaker 1: to have songs to be recorded by the artists of
Speaker 1: the day. And so I fell in with these people
Speaker 1: and started writing with them, and I guess I turned
Speaker 1: in and those songs that finally this Bob Beckham said,
Speaker 1: I want to sign you to a deal, son, And
Speaker 1: I love that you're turning in songs that you don't
Speaker 1: even have a publishing deal. Oh no, that your heart,
Speaker 1: the eager heart. You wanted it. Well. I wanted to
Speaker 1: show them. I wanted to show them how serious I
Speaker 1: was and and that I'm going to do this and
Speaker 1: if you're with me, cool, and if you're not with me,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it somewhere else. But it was in
Speaker 1: my heart to write these songs, you know. And so
Speaker 1: finally said I'm gonna give you a deal, son. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you a seventy five dollars a week
Speaker 1: every week. I'm like to me, it was because someone
Speaker 1: was actually gonna pay me to write songs. That's a yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm this guy from Young side Ohio. It was getting paid,
Speaker 1: you know, five dollars a night and all the beer
Speaker 1: I could drink in a bar band playing brown Sugar
Speaker 1: or whatever, the songs of the day word, you know,
Speaker 1: and this guy's paying me to write songs. So it
Speaker 1: was huge. And and and that's what I That's what
Speaker 1: I did. And I told you I was teaching guitar
Speaker 1: when I first moved to Nashville. So I would show
Speaker 1: up there on o'clock and I just hang out and
Speaker 1: and then i'd start making writer appointments and i'd write
Speaker 1: with my writer friends until about three o'clock. And then
Speaker 1: i'd have to go all the way up to Rivergate Mall,
Speaker 1: which is where I taught guitar in this real little
Speaker 1: music store, and I would teach guitar to all the
Speaker 1: kids from like three thirty two whenever they stopped coming,
Speaker 1: you know. And then I'd come home and I right
Speaker 1: by Combine to see if anybody was there, and if
Speaker 1: they were there, I was there, you know, And I
Speaker 1: just I just did that. But you have such an
Speaker 1: infectious personality to that that must have really shown how
Speaker 1: badly you wanted this. You know, he's got to love
Speaker 1: your perseverance. Well, I'm you know, Bob Beckham was an
Speaker 1: old school publisher, but a publisher nonetheless, just like I
Speaker 1: don't know Detroit Thomlinson is today a great publisher in
Speaker 1: our town right now? Or Mark Brown? You know, Uh,
Speaker 1: they recognize, they recognized talent and drive. They recognized the package.
Speaker 1: Talent is no good about d They recognize it's the package.
Speaker 1: He's got, the talent, he's got the drive. Doesn't look
Speaker 1: like he's taken over Nancy. And I think he's got
Speaker 1: delusions of great You know, when I first moved to town,
Speaker 1: I always felt like, how will people know that I
Speaker 1: want to be here? You know? And I do agree
Speaker 1: with what you're saying. Now that I've been here for
Speaker 1: almost twelve years, you can tell when someone wants it.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not it's not a regular thing. Not
Speaker 1: everyone has the drive. I think that's a key ingredient. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it is too. And I think it's it's
Speaker 1: how you present yourself, you know. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: I'm a pretty good guitar player, but I never showed
Speaker 1: up with the attitude. Is I'm really hot shot? Elect
Speaker 1: a guitar player? Get ready for this? You know or
Speaker 1: someone I mean and honestly I'm not this is what
Speaker 1: I think, or someone like you. You're very beautiful woman,
Speaker 1: but you do not lead with that. You don't lead
Speaker 1: with it, whereas a lot of women lead with that,
Speaker 1: they lead with the sexual that last five seconds last. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you lead with your heart. I feel, you know,
Speaker 1: and I think that's why you're here and where you
Speaker 1: are right now, you know, and and all the other
Speaker 1: stuff kition whenever you not just all this extra stuff
Speaker 1: you got to use, you know. But I think you
Speaker 1: lead with your heart, and I think I lead with
Speaker 1: my art, and you can, and you can get hurt,
Speaker 1: you can, But why why why not put yourself out
Speaker 1: there so you can also get grandiose, grandiose life visions
Speaker 1: of grandiose. Yeah, that's that. And yeah, so I just
Speaker 1: kept working so you got the publishing. How did it
Speaker 1: feel when you got inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame?
Speaker 1: Starting from this whole journey. Now you've had your all,
Speaker 1: your number ones, all your success, and now you're getting
Speaker 1: inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. I mean,
Speaker 1: are you like freaking out? Yes? It really was like otherworldly.
Speaker 1: It was like a dream. It's like you dream of
Speaker 1: since you were a kid. Yeah, it's like I'm watching
Speaker 1: it happen from somewhere up here or something. Wow. Look
Speaker 1: there's Bob and they're walking up and people are standing
Speaker 1: up and clapping. And I wasn't necessarily in the moment
Speaker 1: of Okay, I'm feeling this, I'm seeing this. It's just
Speaker 1: like it was almost an out of body experience, you know.
Speaker 1: And to see my peers and to see people like
Speaker 1: whoever was in the audience, Vince gil Garth Brooks acknowledging
Speaker 1: my work and a lot of them have both of
Speaker 1: them have both of those guys, and and so it
Speaker 1: felt they felt otherworldly. But I didn't feel like I
Speaker 1: shouldn't be there. You felt like you deserved it. I
Speaker 1: had worked, I know, the the time I put in there,
Speaker 1: and I I always tried to do my best work,
Speaker 1: and they were honoring me for my best work. What's
Speaker 1: your motto a song writing? What's my motto? Yeah? Like
Speaker 1: what you're like, go to what gets you up to
Speaker 1: do it? Every day? Get up and put your pants on?
Speaker 1: Show up, show up? Show up? Does somebody wants to
Speaker 1: know the secret? That's the secret? Show up? Are you, okay,
Speaker 1: if you have a day where you write a song
Speaker 1: that you don't feel like it's great or does that
Speaker 1: bump you out? Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm I'm a
Speaker 1: competitive creature, just like praying, but everybody else on music grow.
Speaker 1: I want to write a great song. But as time
Speaker 1: has gone on, I've learned to accept that. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like an athlete. Athletes don't have old metal performances
Speaker 1: every day, you know. Football players don't kill it. Cam
Speaker 1: Newton kind of sucked in Super Bowl, you know, but
Speaker 1: I'm sure he's gonna show up and play again and
Speaker 1: make great plays. But it's just part of the deal,
Speaker 1: you know. I hate it when that happens, but I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: just show up and just do that be. I really
Speaker 1: have never felt that I've competed with. I want to
Speaker 1: be just like whoever Rodney Clawson. I want to be
Speaker 1: just like Mark Sanders. You know. I've always tried to
Speaker 1: just be the best Bob Depiro and mostly I compete
Speaker 1: with myself. Yeah, and while being aware of what's around me.
Speaker 1: And I think songwriters are like reporters, you know, we're
Speaker 1: just reporting on on what we've seen and what we've
Speaker 1: you and what we hear and what we think. You know,
Speaker 1: we're this is the daily news. Okay. So in the
Speaker 1: middle of all this, you had there was a moment
Speaker 1: where you were the songwriter of the Year multiple times.
Speaker 1: What songs were a songwriter of the Year for which
Speaker 1: is a huge procetious honor for Nashville to be honored
Speaker 1: by the entire community of songwriters, all of like the artists,
Speaker 1: it's the whole the whole town. And you were the
Speaker 1: songwriter of the Year. I can't be honest, I can't
Speaker 1: even tell you what those songs were. I knew. I
Speaker 1: know during that period of time there were songs like
Speaker 1: Blue Clear Sky and Daddy's Money and World's a Park
Speaker 1: I had written with Vince. And you also got the
Speaker 1: Triple Play Award for a couple of times during this
Speaker 1: which is where you have three number ones within one year,
Speaker 1: And I think, did you have a double triple play?
Speaker 1: I had two, had earned to Triple Play awards. So
Speaker 1: in two separate years, you've had three number one. That's
Speaker 1: a big freaking deal. It was a big freaking deal
Speaker 1: for me, for anyone. Yeah, I mean yeah, And you
Speaker 1: know these days guys are getting multiple number multiple triple
Speaker 1: plays a lot. But I think that's a that's the
Speaker 1: result of the fact that our whole life is sped up.
Speaker 1: You know that that our whole media wheel, our whole
Speaker 1: radio wheel has just sped up, and they're just spitting
Speaker 1: them out as soon as they get to number one, next, next, next, next, next,
Speaker 1: and the guys that are in the golden circle, or
Speaker 1: it's time for me to get them, you know. But
Speaker 1: I was, I mean I never I never had it
Speaker 1: in my mind that I was gonna get three number
Speaker 1: one records in a year, or do it twice. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's insane. Okay, So I'm looking at Cleopatrick Lean Denial.
Speaker 1: I love that song from Pam tell us you guys
Speaker 1: were married from we were married for it was seven years.
Speaker 1: Were did you just write songs all the time when
Speaker 1: we were around? I mean, when we were in songwriting mode.
Speaker 1: Was that harving marriage an artist who's traveling all the time. Well,
Speaker 1: I can only speak to my experience, and my experience
Speaker 1: was that when Pam's career as an artist started, I mean,
Speaker 1: she had really been at it trying to become an artist,
Speaker 1: and she got out to l A for a rock
Speaker 1: pop Madonna type deal at the time that didn't work,
Speaker 1: and so she had been at it. She'd been knocking
Speaker 1: at it. But when but when she started dating, she
Speaker 1: was not quote unquote famous. She was mel Tillius's daughter.
Speaker 1: That's that was the extent of her fame. And I
Speaker 1: was already in my role as a songwriter of note,
Speaker 1: you know. But Pam has always been a great songwriter,
Speaker 1: you know. So as soon as we got married. The
Speaker 1: day we got married, her first single, Uh, Don't tell
Speaker 1: Me what to Do went number one. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: too wish I had written it. And and immediately we
Speaker 1: she was shot out of a kid. She's on a
Speaker 1: rocket and she's starting out. So her hubby, Bobby is
Speaker 1: playing in the band. I played guitar in the band.
Speaker 1: We travel on the road. Melt Tillis for his wedding,
Speaker 1: President Us gave us, gave us one of his old
Speaker 1: tour bus, and it's a it was a old tour
Speaker 1: of us and its still had bus seats in it,
Speaker 1: you know. But we have a bus, you know. So
Speaker 1: we just took off and and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: we were on the road more than we were home.
Speaker 1: It was fun until it wasn't fun, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there was a time when we were really
Speaker 1: killing it as a couple, but there was always this
Speaker 1: competition thing going on that I was always I'm not
Speaker 1: saying anything bad, but I was always like, hey, we're
Speaker 1: a team. Isn't it a great gay for us? You know?
Speaker 1: And the h and we were killing it, you know.
Speaker 1: I think at one time two of us had half
Speaker 1: of the top ten with her stuff with my stuff,
Speaker 1: with our stuff together. Uh and uh, like I said,
Speaker 1: it was a lot of fun until it wasn't fun anymore.
Speaker 1: And and just what happens, you know, there's it's not
Speaker 1: a cliche that people break up that are in show business.
Speaker 1: I mean there's sometimes there's it's just impossible situations you
Speaker 1: find yourself in. Why is that that so many people
Speaker 1: break up and show business? But I think that's just
Speaker 1: the same because people just break up in general. People
Speaker 1: do break up in general. And I think you're right,
Speaker 1: and I think it's just because they're famous and people
Speaker 1: love to follow people who work not even famous, but celebrities,
Speaker 1: and they get invited in their relationship like the Kardashians
Speaker 1: and celebrities. You know, they they don't do anything but
Speaker 1: they're they're celebrities people though they are, you know, and
Speaker 1: I think that kind of spotlight on you personally in
Speaker 1: your life. I mean, being married is hard enough without
Speaker 1: somebody looking through your windows while you're being married, truly,
Speaker 1: you know, and that at least this is my experience.
Speaker 1: I'm not Dr Phil or anything, just my experience that
Speaker 1: added to the insanity and the success we were having
Speaker 1: was just just beyond beyond, you know, and all that
Speaker 1: rolled into one and all the all the little devils
Speaker 1: that come out from that, you know, envy and oh
Speaker 1: look at that pretty women, look at that pretty guy,
Speaker 1: all that stuff. Yeah, when you're on top, everyone wants
Speaker 1: everyone watch every and everybody is in your ear, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, sometimes the voices start screaming. I guess, well,
Speaker 1: sometimes you start listening to them more than you listen
Speaker 1: to your wife, or you start listening to your husband.
Speaker 1: You're listening outside of the marriage, and you're putting more
Speaker 1: weight on those voices rather than your own voices as
Speaker 1: a couple. In a married couple, you know, well, I
Speaker 1: guess it's easy to get lost in that big fog
Speaker 1: because so many people are involved with you as a
Speaker 1: brand and a product, and yeah, you're invested in your life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's such a it's it's it throws you off.
Speaker 1: It threw me off balance, you know, because all these
Speaker 1: people are invested in your life and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's just overwhelming, you know. And you know, drugs and
Speaker 1: alcohol didn't help. So was that happening? Oh yeah. Do
Speaker 1: you think there's a way to be moderate or is it? Oh? Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: it's hard to be moderate sometimes because it's don't you
Speaker 1: feel like, in a way in this industry it's okay
Speaker 1: to like And I'm not talking about Pam, I'm talking
Speaker 1: about me, right, right, right. Don't you think it's sort
Speaker 1: of like okay to drink every day? And well that's
Speaker 1: the deal. I mean, that's you are right, you know.
Speaker 1: You know in corporate America you have to take piss
Speaker 1: tests and and they check you to see if you're high.
Speaker 1: And here it's almost like you gotta mark against you
Speaker 1: if you don't drink. You know. I remember going to
Speaker 1: my later later publisher and telling her, listen, I've got it.
Speaker 1: I've got to check out. I'm I've got to go
Speaker 1: to rehab. I'm really in trouble and I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: to rehab to deal with this. And and she was
Speaker 1: like on the phone and hang her phone up, putting
Speaker 1: her leash on her dog, and she goes, oh, that's great. Uh. Tommy,
Speaker 1: someone who's the head of a record label in New York,
Speaker 1: he just went to one and he said he had
Speaker 1: a great time. I'll see when you get back. And
Speaker 1: she just walk out and tell her I'm I'm spiraling
Speaker 1: out to get and she goes, okay, bye. Or I've
Speaker 1: heard people say I love to sign a writer if
Speaker 1: they're going through a divorce because the inspiration is the
Speaker 1: chance the pain. So yeah, and I haven't you had
Speaker 1: another old publisher just had this this slogan of pain
Speaker 1: and beauty. It's pain and beauty. Be upset? Yeah? Yeah
Speaker 1: are you? Are you really upset? Book yourself today? Yeah.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I'm not blaming anybody but me, you know,
Speaker 1: but that's that's involved. So, so you decided to cut
Speaker 1: drugs and anocohol out of your life at some point,
Speaker 1: that's right. When did you decide? When did you decide
Speaker 1: it was time to like xanay that when I felt
Speaker 1: that I was dying. Yeah, I had gotten that bad.
Speaker 1: It's not like I woke up from a hangover one
Speaker 1: day and said, I don't want to feel like this anymore. No,
Speaker 1: it was bad. It was bad, bad. You know, all
Speaker 1: of the major food groups. I loved them all, Like marijuana.
Speaker 1: I was awakened, bake kind of guy. Did that help
Speaker 1: you write songs? No? I thought I did. And and
Speaker 1: to me, cocaine was this was this exotic, taboo drug.
Speaker 1: But that Dwayne Almand did a lot of cocaine, and
Speaker 1: I loved Dwayne Almand, Keith Richards feel a lot of cocaine,
Speaker 1: and so I want to be like them. So I
Speaker 1: guess I'm gonna do cocaine, you know. And I did it,
Speaker 1: and I liked it and everything else that was there,
Speaker 1: and of course alcohol was always there. And so at
Speaker 1: the end of my marriage to Pam Uh, as soon
Speaker 1: as we got divorced, all of a sudden, I was
Speaker 1: partners in an independent publishing company called Little Big Town,
Speaker 1: which is where a Little Big Town got their name
Speaker 1: from our publishing company because it came and asked us, well,
Speaker 1: you're not using your name and where can we use it?
Speaker 1: Which I came up was I came on, and so
Speaker 1: we had sold this company to Sony a TV, like
Speaker 1: so many corporations gobble up companies. And I just got
Speaker 1: dumped on this gigantic mountain of money. And I'd just
Speaker 1: gone through a divorce, and I was nuts, and I
Speaker 1: had nobody to be accountable to. I was living here,
Speaker 1: my family was in Ohio, and I just went down
Speaker 1: the rabbit hole and I, you know, I had a
Speaker 1: housekeeper tell me that. You know, I was always afraid
Speaker 1: I was going to come to clean your house and
Speaker 1: find you in your bed dead. Yes, and and so
Speaker 1: thank god I recognized that. And and so I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to do about it. And so I called
Speaker 1: my old friend Steve Earle full Circle, who I knew
Speaker 1: it had gone through this and more. But I called
Speaker 1: him up and I said, Steve, Man, I'm I think
Speaker 1: I'm in really deep trouble. I think I said something
Speaker 1: funny like I'm surrounded by the Prudian Army or something
Speaker 1: like that. You know, I can always make fun of anything.
Speaker 1: And I said, but I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: And he said, well, man, I wasn't just you go
Speaker 1: to rehab. And there's this place in Minnesota called a
Speaker 1: Handley Hazelton and that's a great place. And I went there,
Speaker 1: but still in my brain at the time, I was going,
Speaker 1: I'm not calling to Minnesota in February hitting me. So
Speaker 1: I started looking around, you know what. I found a
Speaker 1: branch of Amiston in West Palm Beach, Florida. So I
Speaker 1: think I'll go there. You know, I had nothing to
Speaker 1: do and help. I'm in trouble. But where's yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: where's the sun? I want to go there. You know.
Speaker 1: If I would have known about Eric Clapton's rehab place
Speaker 1: in the Caribbean Islands, I would have gone there, you know,
Speaker 1: But I didn't. I showed up there and and did
Speaker 1: you get it right the first time? I got it
Speaker 1: right the first time. I have no idea why. Well,
Speaker 1: I think they isn't it part of the saying that
Speaker 1: you have to want it yourself? Yeah? I think they
Speaker 1: say you have to be willing. Is only the dying
Speaker 1: can be to want it, you know. And I was willing,
Speaker 1: and I was willing to do anything. Are you just
Speaker 1: so ready? I was just so ready? I was. I
Speaker 1: had scared myself sober, and I knew I couldn't do
Speaker 1: it myself. And so I went there and I was
Speaker 1: still an asshole. When I first got there, a bunch
Speaker 1: of bullshit Psycho Babbo. I think this is a cult.
Speaker 1: It sucks, you know. And then one day while I
Speaker 1: was there, I just woke up and I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I think this can help me, you know. And I
Speaker 1: just and I have no idea why I've been sober
Speaker 1: this long? How many years have you been sober? A
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago was fourteen years. Knowing that I
Speaker 1: could leave this interview and go jump off, that's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's a daily every day. Some days it's so easy,
Speaker 1: I never think about it. And some days it's not
Speaker 1: so easy. But that's part of the deal. But I
Speaker 1: know this. I know that had I continued on h
Speaker 1: I would have probably died and I would never have
Speaker 1: met Leslie. Who's your wife? Now? Who's my wife? Now?
Speaker 1: It's probably my first sober relationship, it's probably since high school.
Speaker 1: And she's like beyond, I don't deserve her, you know,
Speaker 1: But I was. I was clear headed, and I was sober.
Speaker 1: I'd been sober for a couple of years before I
Speaker 1: had ever met her. And that's when I found that.
Speaker 1: I always thought that I wrote all these songs because
Speaker 1: I did drugs. But what I came to find out
Speaker 1: was I wrote all these songs in spite of doing
Speaker 1: all these drugs, because after I got clean and sober,
Speaker 1: I went on having kept having hits, kept having the
Speaker 1: you know if you ever stopped loving me? And and
Speaker 1: Southern voice and on and on and on. So it's
Speaker 1: got a huge moment of like relief in a way,
Speaker 1: and then also like freedom. It's it's a feeling of
Speaker 1: awakening and knowing something I didn't know. You didn't have
Speaker 1: to depend on anything anymore. Yeah, and just I had
Speaker 1: this all wrong? Really, what did you have wrong? I
Speaker 1: thought that if I got high that it was cool
Speaker 1: and and it helped me be here. And all my
Speaker 1: friends drink until they fall over, and I want to
Speaker 1: hang out with them, and so I'm going to drink
Speaker 1: until I fall over. Well, some of my friends can
Speaker 1: do that and then go home and they're over it.
Speaker 1: But me, I keep going, you know. So I figured
Speaker 1: that out about myself and uh to do something about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm not strong enough that I can pull this
Speaker 1: off myself, you know. So I do all to do.
Speaker 1: I go to the meetings, and thankfully my wife has
Speaker 1: been a great help. You know, she gets it. She said,
Speaker 1: what I call a civilian she doesn't have this is
Speaker 1: um and uh, you know, and most of my friends
Speaker 1: get it. They all get it, and I'm don't and
Speaker 1: I'm not that good of friends with them anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. I mean, that's almost probably it's big of
Speaker 1: accomplishment as these songs on your wall. It is to
Speaker 1: me knowing what I know now. I mean, I get this,
Speaker 1: I get this. I know it's amazing. Literally has like
Speaker 1: fifty number one time. I really I get this, and
Speaker 1: I'm now able to take in or before I didn't
Speaker 1: know what I was taking it. You're just in it.
Speaker 1: I was just high. I was high and I was
Speaker 1: in it, you know. So here we are, sixteen and
Speaker 1: I just got done writing a really good song today
Speaker 1: called dirty Love. Okay, so we gotta wrap up, even
Speaker 1: though it's been an hour. I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you forever because you probably are one of the most
Speaker 1: interesting humans on earth. Your story is so colorful. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm a colorful guy. You are a colorful guy. Look
Speaker 1: at my phone. It's colorful. So I like to end
Speaker 1: all of my interviews with something I call leave your Light.
Speaker 1: So leave me some inspiration, like inspire us with something
Speaker 1: that means something to you or has inspired you, or
Speaker 1: that you want to inspire on others. I think if
Speaker 1: you want a life in the creative arts, especially in
Speaker 1: the entertainment business, whether you're a songwriter or or an entertainer,
Speaker 1: always have the heart of a student. Be willing to learn,
Speaker 1: be willing to try stuff that you've never tried, you know,
Speaker 1: be open to it. And have fun while you're doing it,
Speaker 1: because sometimes that fun is all you're going to get
Speaker 1: out of it. So have you know, have a good
Speaker 1: time while you're doing this. Have fun. I love that,
Speaker 1: even if funds all that it is, yeah, because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of times, you know, write a great song, man,
Speaker 1: we had a great time and nothing ever comes to
Speaker 1: the song, but we had a good time while we're
Speaker 1: doing it, you know. But go after what you want,
Speaker 1: go after your dreams. Don't be afraid to ask for
Speaker 1: what you want, and be the hair and somebody's biscuit.
Speaker 1: Be the hair and somebody's biscuit. Just show up. And
Speaker 1: I will say that there's a fine line between stalking
Speaker 1: and networking, and you need to find out where your
Speaker 1: line is. That line between being a pest and pestering
Speaker 1: and networking, or how to speak to somebody or how
Speaker 1: to show up just enough or at the right time.
Speaker 1: That is an art. It's it's very much part of
Speaker 1: being in the music business and you can figure it out,
Speaker 1: but you have to know who you are, so if
Speaker 1: you don't find out. Thank you so much for interview.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Caroline. I enjoyed every month. Carol Love. She's
Speaker 1: a queen of talking. No one can Carol Love. Carola.
Speaker 1: Thank you all so much for tuning into hyper Caroline Hobby,
Speaker 1: I hope you loved hearing from Bob to Piro. He
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite humans on Earth, and I
Speaker 1: just loved having him as a guest. Next week, I
Speaker 1: am freaking thrilled because I have the o G, the original,
Speaker 1: the one and only Cody Allen. He host on CMT
Speaker 1: and I have loved him and looked up to him forever,
Speaker 1: and he gives me lessons on how to host and
Speaker 1: it's so fun. And then we hear his whole story
Speaker 1: on how he got into hosting and how he became
Speaker 1: the household name that he is in the CMT sensation,
Speaker 1: So y'all get excited for Cody Allen and please tune
Speaker 1: in every week and subscribe on iTunes and leave some comments.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much, See you next week. Bye
Speaker 1: mm hmm