Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is the one and only why Noona Judd,
Speaker 1: which thanks the first question. I always thought it was Winona?
Speaker 1: Is it Winona or why Nona? Seriously, it's what okay?
Speaker 1: I I heard that the inspiration was the song Rude
Speaker 1: sixty six. Is that true? It is true that it's
Speaker 1: the Root sixties six. I was named after Whynny Harris Um,
Speaker 1: a black blues man, and Ray Benson gave me my
Speaker 1: name back when I was twelve or thirteen. Okay, how
Speaker 1: did you encounter Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel
Speaker 1: at aged twelve or thirteen? Interesting story. I ended up
Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas with my mother and she was dating
Speaker 1: one of the band members, and we would go every
Speaker 1: night and sit and watch Asleep at the Wheel and
Speaker 1: the fabulous Thunderbirds. And I grew to love Ray Um
Speaker 1: as an elder, and he just took me under his wing,
Speaker 1: and he loved me, and he had no idea I
Speaker 1: sang by the way. I was very shy, and I
Speaker 1: think he was just such a loving person that he
Speaker 1: took me under his wing. And he and my mom
Speaker 1: both decided that I wanted to change my name anyway
Speaker 1: because Christina was just a little too boring. Okay, you
Speaker 1: know there are a lot of famous musicians like Elton
Speaker 1: John although we legally changed his name Roles Cooper, and
Speaker 1: their regular life they go with their given name, in
Speaker 1: his case Red or Vince. Do your friends call you
Speaker 1: why no? No? Or do they call you Christina? They
Speaker 1: call me why um? Christina? Uh is long past. That
Speaker 1: was my go to school years high school. I think
Speaker 1: I ended in tenth grade Christina and became Winona and
Speaker 1: officially when I got my first check, Bob, I um
Speaker 1: changed it legally to Winona. And when I got my
Speaker 1: first check for twenty dollars singing here in Nashville, and
Speaker 1: so I decided, okay, it's time here we go. Okay,
Speaker 1: if we looked at your passport, what is the last name,
Speaker 1: uh Judd? At this point, you know what, that's an
Speaker 1: interesting question. I'm gonna have to go back. Is my
Speaker 1: passport Christina Claire Simonela? No, it's why Nona Ellen Judd
Speaker 1: because I changed it legally. That's right. I am a Gemini.
Speaker 1: So I have two names for two people. Here. Are
Speaker 1: you into astrology? I mean I I believe God created everything.
Speaker 1: So hey, I'm I can go where you lead me.
Speaker 1: I can go where you leave me. I'm not quite
Speaker 1: sure where I'm going, but you're going when you better.
Speaker 1: You're going to Mexico to the Girls Just Wanna Concert.
Speaker 1: How did you get involved in that? That's a great question.
Speaker 1: While I have a huge following and people just love music,
Speaker 1: and Brandy Carlyle and I are joined forever. She's very,
Speaker 1: very dear to me. When Mom died, I went on
Speaker 1: tour and Brandy became my right hand and uh literally
Speaker 1: my left lung. She became so immersed in the tour,
Speaker 1: knew every song, knew every breath, knew everything, and I
Speaker 1: just we got really close and I just love her,
Speaker 1: and she invited me because she knows I'm really fun.
Speaker 1: And I've pretty much done it all at this point, Bob,
Speaker 1: at least at least twice. You know, I've done cruises,
Speaker 1: I've done Hell's Angels, rallies, I've done the presidential six times,
Speaker 1: president singing to and this is going to look good
Speaker 1: on the resume because I'm going down to Mexico and
Speaker 1: sing my Alma. She's crazy instead of Mama. He's crazy.
Speaker 1: So here we go. Okay, so there a couple of questions.
Speaker 1: How did you literally meet Brandy Carlisle. Oh, I met her.
Speaker 1: Let's see, when was the first time. I'm trying to think, huh, Brandy,
Speaker 1: When I met Brandy? What year? I think it was
Speaker 1: two years ago. I met Brandy and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I don't know how to explain it other than two
Speaker 1: spirits collide and she's the closest thing to a sister
Speaker 1: I've ever had. Okay, occasionally you talk to another person.
Speaker 1: This is audio only, just for the people playing the
Speaker 1: home game. Who are you talking to? I'm talking to
Speaker 1: my right hand Lindsay. Because I don't do well with dates.
Speaker 1: I could tell you what you were wearing, and I
Speaker 1: could tell you what we were doing, eating and playing
Speaker 1: what game. But I have a hard time remembering because
Speaker 1: of my history or my my history. I have so
Speaker 1: much that happened so fast, and so my brain has
Speaker 1: a hard time remembering specific scheduled dates. So let's stay
Speaker 1: with Randy for a second. How did you literally get
Speaker 1: connected with her? Well? Through music and I she came
Speaker 1: to Nashville. Um, I met her with Tanya Tucker as well,
Speaker 1: and we just became fast friends. And when Mom died,
Speaker 1: she literally stopped what she was doing and flew in
Speaker 1: to sing at the memorial, and um, you always remember
Speaker 1: who your people are there at moments like that, your
Speaker 1: wedding or a funeral. Um. And Brandy became literally the
Speaker 1: person that I sat in the um dressing room and
Speaker 1: just wept openly because she and I trust her. I
Speaker 1: trust her with my life really professionally and personally. She's
Speaker 1: been to the farm, We've been on a side by
Speaker 1: side together talking about Joni Mitchell and just loving music
Speaker 1: and UM, I want I'm working on a song with
Speaker 1: her right now. You say you're fun. Can you expand that? Well?
Speaker 1: I think I have a little bit of a reputation
Speaker 1: for being really serious, and I think it comes from
Speaker 1: being stuck on a bus with my mom for ten years. Um,
Speaker 1: and I I will say I lost a little bit
Speaker 1: of my joy because everything was really strict and specific.
Speaker 1: And I was raised She's a tough sum bitch and
Speaker 1: I was raised with her, you know, being the boss lady.
Speaker 1: And when I became solo, I went out and got
Speaker 1: a tattoo and Bota Harley if that tells you anything.
Speaker 1: And since then I've been trying to get away with
Speaker 1: as much as I can legally, and I just really try,
Speaker 1: I try really hard to not take all this so
Speaker 1: stinking seriously because it gets really old, really fast. Okay,
Speaker 1: so by time this year's because the event and the
Speaker 1: plia is literally just a couple of days away. Are
Speaker 1: you going to be the type person who's hanging in
Speaker 1: your hotel room? Are you gonna be available? You're gonna
Speaker 1: be drinking, You're gonna be smoking, and what's why? No,
Speaker 1: They're gonna be like down in Mexico. You tell me,
Speaker 1: I'm so ready to I bought a wig for eighties night.
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna wear Spandex because you know it's
Speaker 1: coming back, and I'm gonna they want me to do
Speaker 1: stuff like show up and do bingo and shoot, I'm available.
Speaker 1: Let's put it that way. Brand If Brandy were to
Speaker 1: call me up and say we're doing um, you know,
Speaker 1: a congo line, I would run down and do it
Speaker 1: because I'm I think it's really important in this day
Speaker 1: and age to connect with people and more intimately, especially
Speaker 1: because I think the business is so wacky that I'm
Speaker 1: looking to literally meet the girl who says I have
Speaker 1: no idea who you are. She's probably twenty something thirty something,
Speaker 1: and she has no idea. And the only reason she
Speaker 1: knows me is because of Brandy. That's the person I'm
Speaker 1: seeking out. So if she calls me and says, hey,
Speaker 1: come to the bar, bring it okay. So where do
Speaker 1: you live right now? I don't want the address, but
Speaker 1: you know, generally you can go on YouTube and find it. Um.
Speaker 1: So I live on a farm. I bought land in
Speaker 1: ninet for dollars an acre, and I live on a
Speaker 1: five acre farm that's next to my mom's farm, and
Speaker 1: we have a compound. Ashley lives on the land. I
Speaker 1: gave her a house and she lives on the property,
Speaker 1: and my mom's right next door her house. I talk
Speaker 1: about her still like she's here, which is interesting. Um.
Speaker 1: And then I live on the other side. It's sort
Speaker 1: of like a v if you were to make a triangle.
Speaker 1: That's the strongest force in the universe. And we live
Speaker 1: in a triangle and we have a lake that separates us.
Speaker 1: And how far is this from so called civilization? Let's
Speaker 1: see here. I think the smallest town is about three
Speaker 1: or four miles away, and it's tiny. No stoplight, people
Speaker 1: walk right, horses, and it's just it's like genteel. It's
Speaker 1: just a really cool little town. It's like what Aspen
Speaker 1: probably doably was when it first started. And then you
Speaker 1: go into town, probably ten miles into Franklin, and that's
Speaker 1: our big city. And for those who were not tennessee, uh, connoisseurs,
Speaker 1: Franklin is how far from Nashville. Let's see, I would
Speaker 1: say Franklin is about forty five minutes to an hour
Speaker 1: from downtown Nashville and then music Row. I would say
Speaker 1: I could make it there in about forty two minutes.
Speaker 1: Sure not it's forty three. But okay. You talk about
Speaker 1: having a very strict mother, one would think you wouldn't
Speaker 1: live on the same piece of property. Well, there's a fence.
Speaker 1: There's a really good fence. Um. You know, that's an
Speaker 1: interesting thing because the more I see the story from
Speaker 1: where I'm at right now, now that she's gone, as
Speaker 1: much as I did to get away from the strict um,
Speaker 1: she was really all I had. You know, some people
Speaker 1: would say, you know, Stockholm syndrome, you're gonna go crazy
Speaker 1: there for a minute. And then some people would say, well,
Speaker 1: they just didn't know any better. I think I think
Speaker 1: it was the way it was in my life. She
Speaker 1: was so centerpiece. In other words, I worked for her. Um.
Speaker 1: Everything was about yes ma'am and no ma'am. Okay, you're
Speaker 1: on the farm. How social are you, whether seeing people
Speaker 1: in person, staying in contact with eye, message or however
Speaker 1: you might or you more of a home body doing
Speaker 1: your own thing. I'm an I'm an omnivert, which is
Speaker 1: both omnivert. Uh. It depends on the day. It depends
Speaker 1: on whether or not I have on makeup. I'm a loner.
Speaker 1: I walk in the wilderness. I have eleven dogs and
Speaker 1: close to forty animals, and so I have my farm life.
Speaker 1: We grow a garden. We are home bodies. Yet I'm very,
Speaker 1: very used to going into town and how having a
Speaker 1: burger at the local diner there and people know me
Speaker 1: first name. You know, how's it going? When? When does
Speaker 1: your tour start? Would you like a hot dog or
Speaker 1: a hamburger? And here's a coke? And it's just small town.
Speaker 1: It's awesome because people don't really care because a lot
Speaker 1: of us live out there. Just so you know, Bob,
Speaker 1: we live in It's sort of an area where next
Speaker 1: to me, is Carrie Underwood down the streets Riba. There's
Speaker 1: a bunch of people out there that have decided they
Speaker 1: want to live out on the land and not be
Speaker 1: you know, downtown Nashville. And you see you have a farm.
Speaker 1: We talk about a garden. Uh. You know, are you
Speaker 1: a gentle person farmer? Do you have horses? You go
Speaker 1: out on your a t V? Or you just have
Speaker 1: enough land so you don't have to be right up
Speaker 1: next to the HOI POI I'm in it to win it.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm in the mud. Um. The garden is my life.
Speaker 1: When it's planted. I completely cook. I put in a
Speaker 1: pro kitchen. I cooked for forty over Thanksgiving, and um, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can come to my house and I'll cook for you.
Speaker 1: I'm known as why Hop. I make a mean breakfast
Speaker 1: a brunch. If you will be uh at the table
Speaker 1: that seats twelve, and we will sit there and we
Speaker 1: will talk about life um on the farm. And then
Speaker 1: I'll turn around and put on my sparkles and my
Speaker 1: undergarments and go out. And I'm, you know, the queen
Speaker 1: of the night. Uh. It's an interesting life. I love
Speaker 1: the farm. I love to get dirty. I lived two lives.
Speaker 1: In other words, who are the forty people who came
Speaker 1: for Thanksgiving? People that I really like. I decided to
Speaker 1: go with people that I really like this time. It
Speaker 1: was really, really fair and wonderful. These people were as
Speaker 1: close to normal as I've ever had in my life.
Speaker 1: Normal is just in our family, a cycle on the
Speaker 1: washing machine. So I ordered, um, let's see a eat tenderloins,
Speaker 1: and I suvied, and I cooked everything from scratch, including
Speaker 1: the cornbread for the dressing. And I invited my son
Speaker 1: and his wife. My son has been with his girlfriend
Speaker 1: since they were fifteen years old. Elijah is my assault
Speaker 1: of the earth, and um, he's been married now for
Speaker 1: a couple of years. And I invited his whole family,
Speaker 1: her whole family. So that was like fifteen right there.
Speaker 1: So I I literally ordered enough food for the people
Speaker 1: that are the closest to me. We're hillbillies, I'll be
Speaker 1: honest with you. We don't do fancy. We do paper plates,
Speaker 1: and um, we just hang out, you know. We do
Speaker 1: a bonfire and we sit around and some drink whiskey
Speaker 1: and some drink you know, kool aid, and the kids
Speaker 1: come and the dogs bark, and we're we're dysfunctional, okay,
Speaker 1: and it works. Would you cook suvied the tenderloin? It
Speaker 1: was to another method. That's a really good question. I
Speaker 1: think I did it because I wanted to try something fancy.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be like, you know, the chef of
Speaker 1: the of the deal. And Thanksgiving for me this year
Speaker 1: was really painful. Um My mama has a cookbook, and
Speaker 1: I went and got some of the recipes from the cookbook,
Speaker 1: and my grandmother and my nana she cooked for about
Speaker 1: forty people on a riverboat every night. So we're known
Speaker 1: for our Southern cooking. And I just wanted it to
Speaker 1: be a little fancier. And I didn't want to do
Speaker 1: it Turkey necessarily because we had it on an alternative day.
Speaker 1: I'm the alternative parent, just so you know, I'm the
Speaker 1: one that says, Okay, Christmas is gonna come on the
Speaker 1: twenty one this year, because everybody's got divorced parents, you
Speaker 1: know how it is. Families are um split in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, and Thanksgiving as stressful. So I did
Speaker 1: it on a day where people just wanted to come
Speaker 1: over and hang out, and it was beautiful because it
Speaker 1: was an alternative to the stress and the pressure of commercialization.
Speaker 1: So how did you learn how to cook suvied which
Speaker 1: is cook in water for those who don't know. It's French. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I learned it from I had a chef for ten
Speaker 1: years and she taught me an awful lot about different things,
Speaker 1: and I just thought, you know, it's something that I
Speaker 1: want to do because you can put it in the bath,
Speaker 1: the hot bath, the water bath, and you can leave
Speaker 1: it for four hours in the tech and the tenderloin
Speaker 1: stays at the same temperature for all that time, and
Speaker 1: then you take it out. It's a reverse seer, and
Speaker 1: you take it out and you see her the crap
Speaker 1: out of it on your cast iron skillet. I don't
Speaker 1: do much without a cast iron skillet, by the way.
Speaker 1: And then you just are like, wow, this is exciting.
Speaker 1: I can taste it right now. I love good tenderloind
Speaker 1: You know you've gone on in your history about your
Speaker 1: relationship with food and body image. Where are you at
Speaker 1: on that now? Well, I'll be fifty nine in May.
Speaker 1: Where am I with body image? That's a really good question.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to answer that. I will tell
Speaker 1: you I work really hard at acceptance. There's so much
Speaker 1: I would change change, And without going into too much detail,
Speaker 1: I will tell you this, I don't weigh and I
Speaker 1: don't worry as much as I used to. I used
Speaker 1: to worry so much about it. I used to fret
Speaker 1: and just stay on myself, and I just don't do
Speaker 1: that anymore. I have a husband who loves me, who's
Speaker 1: been in my life since I was twenty six, and um,
Speaker 1: I think I'm okay today, Ask me tomorrow. It may
Speaker 1: be different. Okay. And in terms of health and exercise,
Speaker 1: you're just doing what feels good or do you have
Speaker 1: a regiment or a trainer? Yes, it depends on the tour,
Speaker 1: depends on I'm getting ready to go on tour and
Speaker 1: do three back to back shows a week, twenty six
Speaker 1: songs a night, so I've got to, you know, increase
Speaker 1: my cardio. I kind of do it as I need to. Um.
Speaker 1: As you know, as you grow older, you lose muscle.
Speaker 1: So I'm having to work with a trainer on the
Speaker 1: waits part because I'm not really that savvy when it
Speaker 1: comes to working out in a gym. So I do
Speaker 1: have a trainer and I have somebody who helps me
Speaker 1: with that. And then I walk out on the farm,
Speaker 1: I do what's called meditative walking. You know, when you
Speaker 1: walk out in the wilderness, you whether you cry or
Speaker 1: cuss or pray, it's a time to just be in
Speaker 1: the woods. And that's my favorite. That's actually my favorite
Speaker 1: because I don't realize that I'm exercising. I walk because
Speaker 1: it just feels good and I'm going somewhere where I
Speaker 1: love the farm. And is the ground relatively flat or hilly?
Speaker 1: It's both. It depends on where you go on the farm. Um,
Speaker 1: when you get to the lake, it goes up the
Speaker 1: hill and it's an amazing piece of land. I can
Speaker 1: honestly say that it's in the heart of one of
Speaker 1: the most beautiful pieces of land in Tennessee, and so
Speaker 1: many people want to live there. It's again like very
Speaker 1: much like Aspen. It started out. It's a small town
Speaker 1: that turned into an incredible, incredibly popular and everybody wants
Speaker 1: to be there. You know, the busses are coming with
Speaker 1: the or addresses of all. Yeah, the tourists are coming,
Speaker 1: the buses are coming, and people are wanting to come
Speaker 1: out there and be a part of our society because
Speaker 1: it's just so different. The sun goes down, then what
Speaker 1: do you do. Gosh, it depends. Um, I'm making supper tonight.
Speaker 1: I make supper pretty much every night. I cook for
Speaker 1: my husband. I have a thing about that, and I
Speaker 1: think being married to your manager husband, drummer, band member,
Speaker 1: we're together all the time, and I try to pick
Speaker 1: things to do for him during the daytime that don't
Speaker 1: involve business. So we turn off our phones, we sit down,
Speaker 1: we have dinner. We've been watching you know, Yellowstone and
Speaker 1: all the shows that are on Netflix. I don't watch
Speaker 1: a lot of TV unless it's something, and of course
Speaker 1: I always say it I tape it because I come
Speaker 1: from cassettes. But we record stuff and we watch it. Um,
Speaker 1: if it's nice outside, we go sit outside and we
Speaker 1: do a lot of fire. I'm a fire maniac. I
Speaker 1: love fire. Can't have enough fire places. I do would
Speaker 1: fires as many times as I can per week. So
Speaker 1: it's it's outside. We live outside as much as we can.
Speaker 1: And where does the wood come from the farm? Do
Speaker 1: you cut it yourself? And your husband cuts it yourself.
Speaker 1: We have a farm manager that cuts it and we
Speaker 1: do log on the farm. That's what kept me going
Speaker 1: during the pandemic was logging, and we cut down very
Speaker 1: few trees, and because we've had tornadoes. We live where
Speaker 1: the tornadoes hit us, and so we had three thousand
Speaker 1: trees that we took down out of the farm that
Speaker 1: we're blown down by the tornadoes. We're a hearty bunch
Speaker 1: and we get it done okay. And when you're off,
Speaker 1: when you're not on the road and forgetting, as you
Speaker 1: put it, the pandemic. Do you travel for sport, whether
Speaker 1: it be in America, Europe, whatever, or if you're not
Speaker 1: working your home. Absolutely again, I'm a loner. I like
Speaker 1: to be on myself. Um. I love to be with
Speaker 1: the animals. We have miniature donkeys and pigs and chickens,
Speaker 1: and I love to cook and be around people that
Speaker 1: I love. My son and his wife are still living
Speaker 1: with us until next week when they close on their house,
Speaker 1: their very first house, and I like to be at home.
Speaker 1: I've designed the house to where I don't have to
Speaker 1: leave if I don't want to. We have the studio
Speaker 1: there on the property, so Robert Ware came out to
Speaker 1: the farm and walked into the studio right there right
Speaker 1: behind our house. I have a golf cart and I
Speaker 1: go back and forth and we live on the farm.
Speaker 1: We live and work on the farm. I had to
Speaker 1: come into town today because our WIFEI is out, so
Speaker 1: we still live in the country where we have to
Speaker 1: deal with the realities. Okay, if you're a loner, how
Speaker 1: does that work in relationships? Mm hmm, that's a really
Speaker 1: great question. I have what I call the dream team
Speaker 1: of people around me, and I'm not really very social.
Speaker 1: I don't go out to parties and I don't really
Speaker 1: go to events anymore. I used to back when I
Speaker 1: was in my twenties. And you know, I think it's
Speaker 1: because I'm working on a record right now. I'll talk seasonally.
Speaker 1: We're working on a record right now, we're working on
Speaker 1: the tour. I'm working on writing a book and doing
Speaker 1: a cookbook, and I'm always working on projects. Like you
Speaker 1: you know, we're always working. We're always doing something. So
Speaker 1: I like to spend time doing that, and then when
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that, I like to get away with
Speaker 1: us with doing as little as possible because my life
Speaker 1: is so um. I just met with my doctor yesterday
Speaker 1: and she said, you know, let's talk about your adrenal
Speaker 1: glands started laughing and I said, I don't know how
Speaker 1: I do it because I have so much energy. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm just always doing stuff, man, I'm always looking for
Speaker 1: something to do. Okay, So let's just say it's you
Speaker 1: and your husband in the house. Does he know to
Speaker 1: leave you alone at certain times? You're in your own head,
Speaker 1: you're doing your own thing. He's a cowboy, he's a maverick.
Speaker 1: He's my king. He's always doing something. And I have
Speaker 1: to actually either text him down at the studio and
Speaker 1: say supper is ready, or I have to walk where
Speaker 1: he is and say, hey, let's go take a walk
Speaker 1: or do something. And he Tomorrow night is date night,
Speaker 1: so we have date night. And he's really good about
Speaker 1: He's very maternal. Yet he is a cowboy and so
Speaker 1: he's always eas either riding horses, working on a song,
Speaker 1: smoking a cigar and drinking his whiskey, or shooting his gun.
Speaker 1: So he's a pretty busy guy. And so we get
Speaker 1: together usually after six thirty seven o'clock at night. We
Speaker 1: sort of have a date every night for supper. And
Speaker 1: he tragically lost his leg, uh in a motorcycle accident.
Speaker 1: But you showed me a picture before we started of
Speaker 1: him skiing, So how have he and you coped with
Speaker 1: the loss of his leg? Well, if you know cactus
Speaker 1: mosure um, it's really hard to tell that he doesn't
Speaker 1: have a leg. He is the most honestly. I heard
Speaker 1: him complain one time when he lost the leg back
Speaker 1: three months after we got married, and he said, honey,
Speaker 1: I'm different, and I said, I know that, and I
Speaker 1: took care of him and that We have a documentary
Speaker 1: called The Road Back, and we talked about the entire experience,
Speaker 1: which was tragic because he's a drummer, and he's one
Speaker 1: of the great drummers um in our industry. How do
Speaker 1: we deal with it? He he deals with it like
Speaker 1: it didn't happen. Almost, It's like it's the it's the craziest,
Speaker 1: most wonderful thing, because he just doesn't talk about it.
Speaker 1: And the only time I notice it is when he
Speaker 1: comes rolling in the kitchen for breakfast without his leg.
Speaker 1: Otherwise he puts on that leg and it's like, let's go,
Speaker 1: let's kick some ass. And he just doesn't let it
Speaker 1: get him down. He just doesn't. And you know, he'll
Speaker 1: cuss if it gets you know, if it moves the
Speaker 1: wrong way or something every now and then. But I've
Speaker 1: never known anybody as positive and as joy filled his
Speaker 1: Cactus Mosure. He's um the love of my life. I've
Speaker 1: I've loved him since I was twenty six years old,
Speaker 1: when I met him on tour with Highway one oh
Speaker 1: one opening for the juds. And where does this leave you?
Speaker 1: On motorcycles, I haven't sitting in my driveway. I mean
Speaker 1: in my driveway in the the garage. I haven't sold
Speaker 1: it yet. I haven't ridden since the accident, and I
Speaker 1: probably never will. We're sticking to horses. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: met Cactus when you were twenty six, but you were
Speaker 1: married before, you had relationships before. What you learn about
Speaker 1: relationships now, I'm not really good at them. Um. I'm
Speaker 1: such a an emotional, impath kind of girl that I
Speaker 1: didn't have any boundaries and I didn't have any way of,
Speaker 1: um saying no. And I'm such a chronic people pleaser
Speaker 1: that I had a really rough time. That's why I
Speaker 1: didn't date very much. I think I had one boyfriend
Speaker 1: at eighteen, and then I got really really famous, which
Speaker 1: is kind of hard to get a date when your
Speaker 1: mom's standing right there. And uh, I just didn't date
Speaker 1: very often, and when I did, it was usually I
Speaker 1: just took a date to the Award show of somebody
Speaker 1: that I knew, like Dwight Yoakum. You know, I was
Speaker 1: always hanging out with the guys, and yet I was
Speaker 1: so very very shy, very painfully shy. And what happened
Speaker 1: to me when I wrote about it in my book,
Speaker 1: I just didn't trust men, and I didn't hang out
Speaker 1: with them romantically. I hung out with them as my
Speaker 1: brothers on the road. The crew is always my my brothers.
Speaker 1: Those were the people that I grew up with the most.
Speaker 1: Those are my memories of having the crew, being with
Speaker 1: the crew and there my family. So um. I didn't
Speaker 1: have a boyfriend at the time I met Cactus, and
Speaker 1: when I did meet him, I was so in love
Speaker 1: and my mom knew it, and she and I fought
Speaker 1: a lot because she was like, no, hell no, you're
Speaker 1: not going to date a musician. Of course, I would say,
Speaker 1: he's not a musician, he's a drummer, and then we
Speaker 1: would fight until dawn. Okay, you met him at twenty six.
Speaker 1: She didn't marry him for a number of years. So
Speaker 1: you fought with your mother. Then what happened? Then? Then
Speaker 1: I met a guy and I had two children and
Speaker 1: I got married The second time, because I got pregnant
Speaker 1: without being married, and back then it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that doesn't work. And so I got married and then
Speaker 1: I got divorced and spent three years walking in the
Speaker 1: wilderness by myself, raising two kids. And then I met
Speaker 1: my then husband, who was my bodyguard at the time,
Speaker 1: and then uh, yeah, that went to hell. So here
Speaker 1: I am. Was it a matter of meeting Cactus? He
Speaker 1: was the one your mother wouldn't let you be with him,
Speaker 1: and you had to go on this circuitous route to
Speaker 1: get back to him. Yes, my mom got sick, just
Speaker 1: so you know. We were on tour together for a
Speaker 1: year and he kissed me and that was it. I
Speaker 1: would have married him, you know then. But Mom got
Speaker 1: really sick and she went to the Mayo clinic and
Speaker 1: I went with her, and Cactus called me up and
Speaker 1: said I'll go with you, and I said, no, I
Speaker 1: need to take care of my mom. And so her
Speaker 1: illness sort of became, you know, front and center. And
Speaker 1: then we went on tour and everything got really chaotic
Speaker 1: and crazy, crazy crazy. So he went on to l
Speaker 1: A became one of the great session players out there,
Speaker 1: and met his wife and got married and they had
Speaker 1: three kids, and so I have two and so together
Speaker 1: we have five. So how do you reconnect well as
Speaker 1: life would have it? Um, I walked into a bar, uh,
Speaker 1: sort of one of those speakeasies here in our little
Speaker 1: town of Franklin, and he was playing drums and I
Speaker 1: saw him and it was like, oh my god. And
Speaker 1: it was thirty years after you know, we went on
Speaker 1: tour together and my mom was right over there with
Speaker 1: me and I told Rus, said, don't you even my fingers?
Speaker 1: And we reconnected? He said, um, call me and I
Speaker 1: called his cell and he had separated from his wife
Speaker 1: and I had separated from my husband, and we went
Speaker 1: on a date. And that was it, like thank you
Speaker 1: very much. Wow. And then you know, it's very difficult
Speaker 1: to raise kids when you're a famous working person. M hm.
Speaker 1: And how was that for you? You know, I I
Speaker 1: have to say that this is interesting you're asking me
Speaker 1: this because I haven't talked to out this a lot.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a mom ever since I was
Speaker 1: a teenager, and I knew. I even said I will
Speaker 1: have a baby at thirty and I did. Elijah Jed
Speaker 1: saved my life and I wrote a book called titled
Speaker 1: Coming Home to myself, because when I got pregnant and
Speaker 1: I was this you know, super duper working girl out
Speaker 1: there on the road and headlining and the pressures of
Speaker 1: being yeah and the public eye and touring and all
Speaker 1: the stuff that comes with it. When I got pregnant,
Speaker 1: it took everything and put it aside because being pregnant
Speaker 1: was all I cared about. I traveled with a doppler,
Speaker 1: I listened to the heartbeat every day, and I was
Speaker 1: in love. And I think it's the first time in
Speaker 1: my life, Bob, that I just felt like I was
Speaker 1: with myself and I was not just a working person
Speaker 1: that I really, you know, had something to look forward
Speaker 1: to that was my own that I didn't have to
Speaker 1: you know, necessarily put out like product and get you know,
Speaker 1: judged for it if you will. Having a baby is
Speaker 1: such an intimate process that I became infatuated with the
Speaker 1: whole process. And I took a year off. I went
Speaker 1: and paid everybody for the year. I had a hundred
Speaker 1: date tour and um, I paid everybody and went home
Speaker 1: for a year and just had a baby and sat
Speaker 1: home and made homemade baby food and sat by the
Speaker 1: fire and just had a baby. And it was one
Speaker 1: of the most glorious experiences of my life. So you
Speaker 1: talked about Elijah has this storybook relationship with a girl
Speaker 1: that he met at a young age. To what degree
Speaker 1: is he independent? Now? To what degree is he on
Speaker 1: the payroll? Oh, he's not in the payroll. As a
Speaker 1: matter of fact. He won't let me pay for stuff.
Speaker 1: He's very, very independent as a matter of fact. Um,
Speaker 1: we argue sometimes about, you know what, let me do it.
Speaker 1: Because he's a canine officer, he's a first responder, so
Speaker 1: he has three job abs. He met his girlfriend at
Speaker 1: a football game when they were fifteen. They're now married.
Speaker 1: They just bought their first house. They closed next week,
Speaker 1: and I offered to help him with something and he said, nope, Mom,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it myself and he'll come out on
Speaker 1: the road with me and I'll have him work a
Speaker 1: few dates as security and I'll pay him through Wine
Speaker 1: on It Incorporated. But he will not let me pay
Speaker 1: for stuff. And he's adamant about it. Wow, that's a rare.
Speaker 1: It's very rare, and I know it, and yet I
Speaker 1: continue to try to push and give and give and give,
Speaker 1: and he's just like, Mom, you know what, last year, Bob,
Speaker 1: I gave him some land on the farm, and that
Speaker 1: to him is everything, and that's enough, and he won't
Speaker 1: let me do more. So that's sort of like the
Speaker 1: creme de la creme. That's pretty amazing. Um, let's talk
Speaker 1: about your mother. You know, not only did your mother die,
Speaker 1: she took her own life. My best friend of the
Speaker 1: same thing. It's a very strange experience of mental health
Speaker 1: issues once again, but it's a very public thing for you.
Speaker 1: And she's your mother. My mother died two years ago
Speaker 1: like that a Rolling Stone song, and my mother certainly
Speaker 1: was not famous. I have mixed emotions, and there's a
Speaker 1: famous book out right now someone wrote about that they're
Speaker 1: glad their mother died. So you know, what's it like
Speaker 1: coping with all this. Well, I just wrote a line
Speaker 1: in a song with my husband that said, I'm somewhere
Speaker 1: between hell and Hallelujah. Yeah, I I thought of it
Speaker 1: just because of my experience. Um, the pain has stopped, hallelujah.
Speaker 1: The pain has stopped. The hell is going over to
Speaker 1: her house and seeing all her stuff and she's gone,
Speaker 1: And that's just not something you can talk about without crying.
Speaker 1: Or I have three people that I call um that
Speaker 1: I literally did work this morning on why is it
Speaker 1: that I'm still so angry? Why can't I seem to
Speaker 1: get past the anger piece? And it's because grieving is
Speaker 1: a crazy mother trucker. There's no way you can say, well,
Speaker 1: in five months, I'll do this and tomorrow I'll do that. Um.
Speaker 1: My mother struggled and I knew it, and I always
Speaker 1: kept I felt like I was keeping a secret. So
Speaker 1: I'm grateful that the secret is no longer because secrets
Speaker 1: keep you sick. And we all know about that one
Speaker 1: who we've had experiences with, and my mother took her
Speaker 1: own life is devastating because that's not how the story
Speaker 1: is supposed to end. And so I'm really really frustrated
Speaker 1: with the whole thing of having to talk about it
Speaker 1: in interviews and explain it to people where I'm at,
Speaker 1: because I know people are curious and I understand that,
Speaker 1: and as we all know, online lots of buttholes and opinions,
Speaker 1: and um, I just try to live as honestly as
Speaker 1: I can. I struggle a lot at night. That's when
Speaker 1: the noise is really really really loud, and so I
Speaker 1: walk the halls and I pray, and sometimes I cry
Speaker 1: and sometimes I write, and UM, I have a granddaughter
Speaker 1: who gives me an incredible amount of hope. You know,
Speaker 1: both of my parents are dead at this point, which
Speaker 1: is kind of weird to say, but as I say,
Speaker 1: it's very sad when they passed. But there's also a
Speaker 1: certain freedom involved. Remember when my father died, and died
Speaker 1: at a relatively young age by today's standards, at seventy
Speaker 1: of cancer, and my mother had a car accident. If
Speaker 1: you had a dent in the car with my father,
Speaker 1: he would go berserk, and she realized, well, she could
Speaker 1: just take the car and get it fit. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like the biggest crisis. And my mother was both my
Speaker 1: inspiration and my nemesis. So has there been any relief
Speaker 1: amongst the tragedy? That is a really interesting word. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say relief. I think I feel a sense of
Speaker 1: a new season starting of independence. So I don't know
Speaker 1: if the word relief fits me. I know that I feel. Um,
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example of a story, because I
Speaker 1: love telling stories, because I think that's how people learn
Speaker 1: the best. Um. I was on stage. I was at
Speaker 1: sound check and they were playing the video behind me
Speaker 1: of mom and I don't know, it just it caught
Speaker 1: me really out of nowhere. It just caught me, and
Speaker 1: I turned right around and looked at the at the
Speaker 1: screen and I said, um, I've lost ten pounds mom,
Speaker 1: and ever I started laughing, and I just kind of
Speaker 1: caught myself, like I'm still doing it. You know. I
Speaker 1: still feel the the tug of war sometimes with her,
Speaker 1: the love and the not so much, and I still
Speaker 1: feel it. I still feel so mad at her because
Speaker 1: I wanted to come back so I can argue with her.
Speaker 1: And the last fight we ever had, I told her
Speaker 1: that if she didn't stop talking that I was going
Speaker 1: to pull her wig off and hit her with it.
Speaker 1: And she looked at me, like, you are crazy, And
Speaker 1: I started laughing because I have to. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just sometimes too intense. But I don't know if the
Speaker 1: word is relief. I think I just feel a little
Speaker 1: bit more independent because you're right, we were or orphans.
Speaker 1: We don't have our parents here anymore. We're not defined
Speaker 1: or we're not waiting for approval or a comment. It's
Speaker 1: just us. So there is that independence to you and me, God,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of where I'm at. And what about
Speaker 1: your father. I never knew my father. It's a matter
Speaker 1: of fact. I found out about him in a tabloid. Um,
Speaker 1: And by the time I got it together to go
Speaker 1: meet him, he died very tragically and suddenly, and um,
Speaker 1: I never got to know him. And I just met
Speaker 1: my brother two years ago. So that's been a whole
Speaker 1: chapter of Wow. That's all I can say about it.
Speaker 1: It's just wow. It's like, oh my god, all these
Speaker 1: years since finding out in the tablet a tabloid, why
Speaker 1: did you just meet him? And was there an instinct connection?
Speaker 1: How did you ultimately meet No? I didn't. I didn't
Speaker 1: meet him, That's what I was saying. Two weeks I
Speaker 1: had planned to go meet him in two weeks before
Speaker 1: the date that I had chosen, he died. So I
Speaker 1: never did. I meant, I meant you you met my brother. Um.
Speaker 1: He drove down to the farm, he walked in the door,
Speaker 1: and it's as if and I'm not exaggerating because I'm
Speaker 1: not that way, God forbid. Um, he and I picked
Speaker 1: up right where we we're supposed to. I guess it
Speaker 1: was like, Oh my god, we're so alike. He's just
Speaker 1: like Elijah, and Elijah is just like him, and we're
Speaker 1: just so connected. It's crazy, it's crazy good, and it's
Speaker 1: the most delightful piece of information I have to give personally,
Speaker 1: is that I finally, finally now know more about who
Speaker 1: I am because I never knew my father, and there's
Speaker 1: a question mark there for anybody who doesn't know their parents.
Speaker 1: So your mother was a babe, living a babe life
Speaker 1: seemingly always. What was that like as a little kid
Speaker 1: with her being your mother? Horrible men would follow her home.
Speaker 1: She was quite the baby, right. If you look at pictures,
Speaker 1: it's like, to me, she's as gorgeous as any any
Speaker 1: Hollywood actress I've ever seen. And it was a problem.
Speaker 1: It was a real problem. And some of my trauma
Speaker 1: comes from all of the experiences that I witnessed of
Speaker 1: her living in Holly Weird, her being such a gypsy
Speaker 1: spirit and having so many different boyfriends, and yeah, she
Speaker 1: was quite quite the babe. You're right, so you're growing up.
Speaker 1: She's your mother. To what degree is she hands on
Speaker 1: or to what we you're a free range child, boy,
Speaker 1: that's a well. I walked to school by myself. I
Speaker 1: was a latchkey kid, so it was very lonely and
Speaker 1: we always lived for the most part besides Hollyward. We
Speaker 1: lived in the country, so I was always by myself.
Speaker 1: And that's why I became so infatuated and enamored by animals,
Speaker 1: because they were my neighbors and my friends. And I
Speaker 1: wasn't popular in school. I was the moody musician, dreamer,
Speaker 1: you know, that just didn't fit in anywhere. But people
Speaker 1: liked me because I was polite and I was a
Speaker 1: good kid. I didn't get into trouble, and I was
Speaker 1: always um wanting love and affection, and um my mom
Speaker 1: was always working. So I kind of raised Ashley. We
Speaker 1: kind of raised each other really, and we still talk
Speaker 1: about that because mom was always gone working And what
Speaker 1: do you say when you talk about that, how painful
Speaker 1: it was. Um, I did not have a hands on parent,
Speaker 1: and I parented myself as well as Ashley, and and
Speaker 1: we grew up together. We were four years apart, so
Speaker 1: I was the ten year old making dinner and I
Speaker 1: was driving on the road at twelve thirteen. I was
Speaker 1: driving on the road at thirteen, and my mom let
Speaker 1: me because I guess she was always you know, working
Speaker 1: as a nurse, and I I did all the chores
Speaker 1: and so I was the kid who was responsible for
Speaker 1: just about everything. I never remember doing a spring break.
Speaker 1: I never remember going anywhere and having fun with friends,
Speaker 1: not really. So it was a weird. It was a
Speaker 1: weird life, I have to say. And where did music
Speaker 1: come in? Oh, thank you Lord. It came in around
Speaker 1: eight years of age. I discovered the piano, and I
Speaker 1: discovered my voice before that, but I discovered an instrument
Speaker 1: with my voice, and I just thought that was the
Speaker 1: greatest thing in my life. And um it was third
Speaker 1: grade and Joni Mitchell was it because there was a
Speaker 1: woman in my life, a young woman who just worshiped
Speaker 1: Joni Mitchell and played me every song Joanie ever recorded.
Speaker 1: And I learned every nuance of every song and still
Speaker 1: to this day, I can do the best harmony in
Speaker 1: the world besides Brandy Um. And I learned Joni mitchell
Speaker 1: songs and I became Joni Mitchell's absolute, you know, backup singer.
Speaker 1: I could have gone on the road with her at
Speaker 1: any given time, and it saved my life. Honestly, if
Speaker 1: it hadn't been for Joanie, I probably would have tried
Speaker 1: suicide before I did at eighteen. But the music kept
Speaker 1: me alive early. Okay, you dropped that I gotta go
Speaker 1: there attempting suicide at eight team, I sure did. I
Speaker 1: got kicked out of the house and I went to
Speaker 1: live with Ashley's biological father, and he was going to
Speaker 1: send me to college and I was going to get
Speaker 1: a job, and he cut off all my hair and
Speaker 1: I was no longer who I was supposed to be
Speaker 1: in my book, So why stick around? Because I was
Speaker 1: no longer going to do music and be able to
Speaker 1: be you know, Winona, which I had big plans, by
Speaker 1: the way, big plans, and I was going to go
Speaker 1: to college, and I just I couldn't take it. I
Speaker 1: was just it was like somebody cut my wings off
Speaker 1: and I attempted suicide at eighteen, and then what six
Speaker 1: months later, I got a record deal. Okay, let's go back.
Speaker 1: So the interest in music was yours independently, not your mother's.
Speaker 1: It seems your mother was a driven woman men, and
Speaker 1: if you look from outside, she needed more. She needed
Speaker 1: to make it. Was it music or it just needed
Speaker 1: to be something. Yes, I think she really was born
Speaker 1: to be. My grandmother said to me when I was little,
Speaker 1: your mother should have been a soap opera star. Now.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that tells anybody else, but to me,
Speaker 1: that tells me everything. And my mother has always been
Speaker 1: the parade waiver. I mean, she's she's the Barbie doll,
Speaker 1: She's all the cliches, you know. She was always up
Speaker 1: for a good time. And I was so shy and
Speaker 1: so backwards that I felt like Nell in the movie. Um.
Speaker 1: I felt like this little hillbilly girl that I literally
Speaker 1: wore overalls and hiking boots to to school. Bob. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's weird. It's like, who are We live in
Speaker 1: apple Hia. We go to a third world country pretty much,
Speaker 1: and we live on this little acre of land, and
Speaker 1: I'm by myself and I discovered Joni Mitchell, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I'm learning all the open tunings and
Speaker 1: I'm playing all the songs, and I'm ready to just
Speaker 1: evolved into the greatest um poet singer. You know, I
Speaker 1: was ready, and my mom saw it. And I think
Speaker 1: my mom saw that I was so immersed in music
Speaker 1: and such a dreamer that I think she just naturally
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, this is it, and she started harmonizing
Speaker 1: with me. And I didn't like it at first. At all,
Speaker 1: And for a summer we learned a couple of songs
Speaker 1: together and the next thing I know, we're singing to
Speaker 1: people and here we are. Who wah, let's start. Let's
Speaker 1: start from the reading. You talked about open tunings. How
Speaker 1: did you learn? I don't know. I don't know. To
Speaker 1: this day, I have one person in my life who
Speaker 1: was teaching me E, A and D. And the next
Speaker 1: thing I know, I'm just doing it note by note
Speaker 1: and I'm figuring it out. And nobody really taught me.
Speaker 1: My self taught, And to this day I think about it.
Speaker 1: Sonia bird Yancy was a woman in my life who
Speaker 1: played guitar and I would sit and listen to her
Speaker 1: play and just try to figure it out. And I
Speaker 1: spent my life learning every Joni song. Where did the
Speaker 1: guitar come from? Someone gave it to my mom when
Speaker 1: we moved from California back to Kentucky. Someone gave her
Speaker 1: a guitar. And it's one of those stories that it
Speaker 1: was not a good guitar and I learned to play
Speaker 1: on it and it was my very first guitar, which, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think about that. If someone hadn't given my mom
Speaker 1: that guitar I don't know where i'd be today. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're you know, you're independent. You're playing the guitar. Your
Speaker 1: mother starts to harmonize. Then how does it turn into
Speaker 1: a gig? That's a really good question. We just started
Speaker 1: playing for all the things we could play for, Like, um,
Speaker 1: what is it when you like get some kind of
Speaker 1: an award for civil you know, like those those places
Speaker 1: where people gather together and you win the award for
Speaker 1: the community, were like the Rotary Club exactly exactly. We
Speaker 1: started doing stuff like that, and next thing I know,
Speaker 1: we're doing this little show here in Nashville, Tennessee. The
Speaker 1: Ralph Emory Show comes on at like three four o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning and they have the farm Report and
Speaker 1: they do commercials and there's a guy on there that
Speaker 1: sings with the band. And somehow Mom and I showed
Speaker 1: up there and sang on that show so that I
Speaker 1: could sing and then go to school. Pretty wild. Actually, okay,
Speaker 1: what how was it presented to you? Let's go back
Speaker 1: to Kentucky. You know, you're really good at this. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try to make it something more. You come home
Speaker 1: from school one day and your mother says, oh, we're
Speaker 1: playing at the Rotary Club. That's kind of how it was.
Speaker 1: I can tell you right now. I had no ambition.
Speaker 1: I was not the one to say, Hey, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go down and join a band and I'm gonna start
Speaker 1: doing gigs. That was not how it happened. As a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, it's the opposite. I was, if anything,
Speaker 1: I was too shy to do it. And it was
Speaker 1: Mom who said we are going to do this. And
Speaker 1: that's the way it is. Man. It's like she had
Speaker 1: all the ambition and I had all the you know,
Speaker 1: the talent in terms of guitar and vocal, and she
Speaker 1: was the harmony singer, and together it was this magical,
Speaker 1: little weird thing like are they mother and daughter or sisters?
Speaker 1: You know? And just everywhere we went we got more
Speaker 1: and more attention, and next thing I know, we're here
Speaker 1: in Nashville, Tennessee. Are you kidding me? So she was determined, Bob,
Speaker 1: she was on her She was on a mission to
Speaker 1: make it. Okay, needless to say, you became uber successful.
Speaker 1: Do you think she was ever fulfilled or she was
Speaker 1: still looking for more. I think she was so fulfilled
Speaker 1: being the queen of the parade. I think she was
Speaker 1: more fulfilled than she could ever be. I mean, come on,
Speaker 1: we did the Super Bowl, for God's sake, you know,
Speaker 1: we got to go to the White House. We uh.
Speaker 1: We have a street named after us in Ashland, Kentucky. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we were the parade waivers of all times. Just bizarre.
Speaker 1: It's it's such a weird story still to me today,
Speaker 1: and when I tell it, I'm just like, how in
Speaker 1: the world are these two Kentucky girls managed to make
Speaker 1: it in country music? I still I can't quite wrap
Speaker 1: my head around it because I was so backwards in
Speaker 1: so many ways, and yet I would go out on stage.
Speaker 1: If you look at the videos, I seem so sure
Speaker 1: of myself and I just can't even believe it. When
Speaker 1: I look at it, I'm like, that's me. And then
Speaker 1: there's my mom, who's, you know, shimmying and swaying, and
Speaker 1: she's doing the harmony, and she's the beautiful mother who
Speaker 1: looks young enough to be my sister. I mean, come on,
Speaker 1: I don't think it gets any better than that. So
Speaker 1: how hard for her was it when she became ill
Speaker 1: and couldn't do it. I think that's where the end began,
Speaker 1: I really do. I think it. I think the depression
Speaker 1: was so debilitating. I think it was. I think it's
Speaker 1: where it started. I think that the end was when
Speaker 1: she had to give up the road because I took
Speaker 1: her home on the bus. I helped her get all
Speaker 1: her stuff off the bus, and she stood on the
Speaker 1: porch waving to me as I pulled the bus out
Speaker 1: of the driveway, and I remember thinking, this is it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like separating Siamese twins. I just, uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know any other way to
Speaker 1: say it. She fell into a deep depression and from there,
Speaker 1: you know, it started. And she's written a lot of
Speaker 1: books and done a lot of speak engagements around it.
Speaker 1: But I think it. I think it cut off her life. Supply,
Speaker 1: her lifeline was absolutely you know that was it. Well,
Speaker 1: let's go back before she had to retire. My friend
Speaker 1: who ended his life took his own life in retrospect,
Speaker 1: he was bipolar. I mean, it really hits every note
Speaker 1: on the scale prior to retiring. I hate to use
Speaker 1: this word, but I will anyway. Would you call your
Speaker 1: mother normal or was there evidence of other mental health
Speaker 1: issues in retrospect? Wow, that's quite a packed question. I
Speaker 1: don't know the answer to that question. But I can
Speaker 1: tell you what I know, which is my mother was
Speaker 1: incredibly charismatic, incredibly determined, one of the most determined. She
Speaker 1: was as determined to die as she was determined to live.
Speaker 1: That's my mother. That's one of the quotes that I
Speaker 1: have used a couple of times when I'm not sure
Speaker 1: quite what to say. Uh, my mother was incredibly um willful,
Speaker 1: and you did not argue with her. I was not
Speaker 1: allowed to really have a voice. Ironically, I'm the lead singer,
Speaker 1: but I did not have a voice. I still think
Speaker 1: about having to share a bus with her, and I
Speaker 1: look back on that and I go, God, if I
Speaker 1: had known then what I know now, I would have
Speaker 1: gotten my own bus. What the heck? You know? Why
Speaker 1: did I have to share a hotel room with her?
Speaker 1: Why did I have to share a dressing room with her?
Speaker 1: I'm the lead singer. Why couldn't I have my own stuff?
Speaker 1: And there's part of me that thinks it was God's
Speaker 1: way of saying, you're going to be accountable to something
Speaker 1: bigger than yourself. Well, it was her, and I think
Speaker 1: she took full advantage of it. Many times. Um, we
Speaker 1: would be in Vegas and we would be sold out
Speaker 1: and she would come down to my room and tell me,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're late tonight, I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: everybody you know in front of you and embarrass me.
Speaker 1: She was tough, and um I think she was incredibly
Speaker 1: driven to the point of it separated us an awful lot. Emotionally,
Speaker 1: it separated us an awful lot. I think that's pretty clear.
Speaker 1: But in retrospect, would you say that was just her
Speaker 1: personality or was she really crazy on some level? I
Speaker 1: don't know the word crazy. I know, well, I do
Speaker 1: know the word crazy. That's not true. I don't know
Speaker 1: crazy like some people have their identity there, you know,
Speaker 1: understanding of what crazy is. I think my mother was
Speaker 1: so colorful, and this is the only way I know
Speaker 1: to describe it, because I don't know enough about the
Speaker 1: mental health part. I just know that she was colorful.
Speaker 1: She taught my children. One of the first things she's
Speaker 1: proud of doing as a grandmother was teaching my kids
Speaker 1: how to poop in the woods. Okay, that's crazy, that's
Speaker 1: not normal. That's crazy. But you live on a farm
Speaker 1: and it seems really practical, doesn't it. So you tell me,
Speaker 1: is it practical or is it crazy? Well, I guess
Speaker 1: you know. I'll leave it at this. Um, what you
Speaker 1: know was this? You know? Was her tragic death preordained
Speaker 1: because of certain organic elements or was it based on
Speaker 1: events like leaving the road. But let's forget all that.
Speaker 1: So your mother is driven, she's booking you these gigs.
Speaker 1: Are you all in from the beginning or do you
Speaker 1: ever at times say hey, well tell me how you felt. Nope.
Speaker 1: The very first thing I ever said to her before
Speaker 1: we went out in front of ten thousand people was
Speaker 1: the first time I was ever on stage. I looked
Speaker 1: at her and I said, I want to go home,
Speaker 1: and she looked at me. She was a snapper. That
Speaker 1: sound right there will send me into an absolute tantrum. Um,
Speaker 1: it's I could feel it. It's just one of those things.
Speaker 1: My mother was a snapper, and she would snap at
Speaker 1: me and say do it girl, you know. And I
Speaker 1: looked at her and I was like, uh, next thing
Speaker 1: I know, we're in front of ten thousand people and
Speaker 1: we have a hit song and we're running awards and
Speaker 1: the rest is history. I was so mortified at being
Speaker 1: with my mother on so many levels. It just didn't
Speaker 1: make sense to me, why would somebody do this to me?
Speaker 1: Why would somebody put me on a bus at eighteen
Speaker 1: years of age? Why would they do that to me?
Speaker 1: And by the way, and I talked about this a lot,
Speaker 1: but I can't get over it. I did her hair,
Speaker 1: for God's sake. Oh, I did her hair like I
Speaker 1: literally was responsible for zipping up the back of her
Speaker 1: dress and doing her hair. And that's just those you know,
Speaker 1: people say you didn't really pay your dues and by
Speaker 1: playing clubs. I'm like, okay, you share a bus with
Speaker 1: your mother for ten years and we'll talk because it
Speaker 1: was the strictest, most unbelievable thing that I did in
Speaker 1: my life. And I don't know else to say other
Speaker 1: than why why would somebody do that? Because we were
Speaker 1: so freaking famous, she did all the talking. By the way,
Speaker 1: they had to send me to media school, Bob. They
Speaker 1: had to sit me down and say, okay, so when
Speaker 1: your mom tells that story and you're really not happy
Speaker 1: with her and you roll your eyes, you look like
Speaker 1: a little brat. And they had to walk me through
Speaker 1: how to do interviews because I was so not interested
Speaker 1: in all the fame stuff. She loved every minute of
Speaker 1: it okay, breaking a few things down. Do you think
Speaker 1: she was so strict because she didn't want her success
Speaker 1: fucked up or because she didn't want you to follow
Speaker 1: in her footsteps? What was driving this strictness. I am
Speaker 1: known that there's three of us, Ashley, Mom and me,
Speaker 1: and if you put us in a room, the two
Speaker 1: of them are so alike in so many ways. I
Speaker 1: was always the odd ball, odd man out, whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call it, and I'm so free in spirit.
Speaker 1: I drove my mother in saying I think that I
Speaker 1: was single handedly one of the most challenging parts of
Speaker 1: her success because I was so you know, I think
Speaker 1: I'll go and get a Harley. No, you won't. And
Speaker 1: she wouldn't talk to me for two weeks after I
Speaker 1: got the tattoo and I was on my own. I
Speaker 1: was like selling records and stuff and she wouldn't speak
Speaker 1: to me. So I had to get one of them
Speaker 1: raised because it had Mom on it. It was traumatic.
Speaker 1: So my mom was pretty darn instrumental in making sure
Speaker 1: that everything was a certain way, and I would just
Speaker 1: come into the fold and sing and get the heck
Speaker 1: out of Dodge. So it wasn't like, oh, everything is great.
Speaker 1: We didn't fight a lot, but it was just very
Speaker 1: like business because she ran it. It should have been
Speaker 1: Naomi Judd and her daughter Winona, because it was definitely
Speaker 1: she ran things. Her and the manager ran things. I
Speaker 1: was just the chick singer and I would get a
Speaker 1: memo member back when we facted. I would. I would
Speaker 1: get a memo and it would say, Monday, you're doing this. Tuesday,
Speaker 1: you're doing this. And I didn't have a say so
Speaker 1: we would go down to our c A and do
Speaker 1: two days worth of interviews because everybody wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to us. I didn't have a say so about all that.
Speaker 1: Zero was she as strict with Ashley? No, because Ashley
Speaker 1: behaved well, or she just wasn't. Ashley got the good
Speaker 1: end of the deal an awful lot. Ashley didn't get
Speaker 1: what I got because I was the oldest. I think
Speaker 1: my mom really was nervous that I would get pregnant
Speaker 1: and meet a boy and go get married and then
Speaker 1: it would be ruined. You know, I still do this day. Um.
Speaker 1: Ashley was the one that finally told me about my
Speaker 1: real father. Mom never did, and I always always really
Speaker 1: angry about that because it was almost like maybe she
Speaker 1: thought maybe I would go running off into the wild
Speaker 1: blue yonder and not get on the bus and go
Speaker 1: do shows. I was just really convinced that she had
Speaker 1: to keep everything going um, and I think she felt
Speaker 1: responsible for me, keeping me in line because I had
Speaker 1: so much talent, that I was so free willed that
Speaker 1: it terrified her. Literally, like I would go, hey, Mom,
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna go build a house, and she'd go,
Speaker 1: what No. And then I ended up getting a condo
Speaker 1: near her because you know, I just can't be near
Speaker 1: her enough. Ah, bless my heart. So you too go
Speaker 1: on the road. What happens to Ashley? She gets left behind?
Speaker 1: So how does she go from being left behind becoming
Speaker 1: a movie star? Good question. She went out to Hollywood
Speaker 1: and the only job I ever remember her having out
Speaker 1: there was she worked as a hostess at the Ivy
Speaker 1: on Robertson. And next thing, she's in an independent movie
Speaker 1: called be in Paradise and the rest is history, a
Speaker 1: great movie, and she's great in it. She's awesome. She's awesome.
Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite movies she's ever done. And
Speaker 1: I remember literally walking three ft behind her because she
Speaker 1: was quite the star. And I thought, well, she's arrived,
Speaker 1: here we go. So did she had that seem driven
Speaker 1: element in her that your mother had? Yes, very much.
Speaker 1: So do you think she just learned it from your
Speaker 1: mother or she was left behind so much that she
Speaker 1: wanted to do Hey, I gotta find my own way
Speaker 1: to my own thing. I believe with everything in me
Speaker 1: that it's nature and nurture. I think there's a nature there.
Speaker 1: And I think because she was nurtured to be so
Speaker 1: independent and make it on her own that she literally
Speaker 1: packed up an U haul it trailer to her car
Speaker 1: in Tennessee and drove out to l A by herself.
Speaker 1: That's actually okay. Going back to the beginning of the story,
Speaker 1: before you're on stage with ten thousand people blocking, before
Speaker 1: you hit the stage along the way, were you always
Speaker 1: in or something? Were you saying I don't want to
Speaker 1: show up or I want to have a normal life
Speaker 1: for Were you saying, wow, this is great, Wow, this
Speaker 1: is great. I would do anything to be in a band.
Speaker 1: I have a band now, why not in the big noise?
Speaker 1: And everything is about the big noise. I don't want
Speaker 1: to be by myself. I love love, love love team.
Speaker 1: I do better with team. I don't want to be
Speaker 1: a solo artist anymore, and uh so I absolutely would
Speaker 1: do anything to jam with my guys. That was when
Speaker 1: my magical time began. When I hit the stage, not
Speaker 1: because of performance, but because of art. Did I love
Speaker 1: every single minute. Robert Ware and I have talked about
Speaker 1: this an awful lot, because for me, it's about the
Speaker 1: musical experience of running. What is it when they go
Speaker 1: to the edge of the stage and you jump off.
Speaker 1: That's me stage diving. Yes, I just I mean not literally,
Speaker 1: but I would go to the edge of the stage
Speaker 1: and want to just free fall into the fans because
Speaker 1: I love music that much that I would. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've I've flown to Australia just to do one show
Speaker 1: because that's how determined I am to have the live
Speaker 1: musical experience with the fans. Um So, yeah, I walk
Speaker 1: into the stage. You got let me add it. I'll
Speaker 1: do anything and I'll wait, you know, twenty hours if
Speaker 1: I have to. I was very patient because all I
Speaker 1: ever wanted to do was being a band. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's what drove me. Okay, you talk about Rob Weir,
Speaker 1: who is Bob We're of the Grateful Dead. How do
Speaker 1: you meet Bob Weir. That's a really good question. UM.
Speaker 1: More importantly, UM, when I met him, I did not
Speaker 1: know a lot about Robert were and I called him
Speaker 1: Robert because I could not bring myself to call him Bobby.
Speaker 1: I just thought, that's like call and your teacher by
Speaker 1: her first name. And I fell in love with this character.
Speaker 1: He's like the Civil War general, you know, He's just
Speaker 1: such a character. And when I met him, I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I have nothing in common with this person. And next
Speaker 1: thing I know, we're sitting in the studio. He came
Speaker 1: to the farm, he drove to the farm, got out
Speaker 1: of the car, walked into the studio and we did
Speaker 1: Ramble on Rose. And we have been so connected ever since.
Speaker 1: He came and performed at my mother's memorial. That's pretty crazy, right,
Speaker 1: And so he's been there for me, both personally and professionally.
Speaker 1: We played of course, we've played the film more and
Speaker 1: there's all the good stuff, you know, and the fans
Speaker 1: love it and Deadhead judd Head were mingling. Everybody's getting along.
Speaker 1: But it's just one of those wacky stories where you go,
Speaker 1: how in the world did I end up being friends
Speaker 1: with him and his wife? What's the what's the connection.
Speaker 1: How did you meet him? That's you know what the
Speaker 1: connection is the music. I was invited to do stuff,
Speaker 1: and it's like he did one of my songs and
Speaker 1: I did one of his songs. Kind of thing at
Speaker 1: the film More. That was actually after we my husband,
Speaker 1: thank you, my husband, Cactus Moser said I want you
Speaker 1: to learn some grateful Dead songs and I said, why
Speaker 1: why would I do that? I don't understand the history
Speaker 1: of all the you know stuff that you know. And
Speaker 1: I ended up calling him. I think I got his
Speaker 1: number from Dwight Yoakum or somebody. I'm trying to remember
Speaker 1: the details, and I just called him and next thing
Speaker 1: I know, he's at the farm. I think it was
Speaker 1: just us connecting on the level of, Hey, it's nice
Speaker 1: to meet you. Hey, nice to meet you too. But
Speaker 1: I called him on the phone and I said, I
Speaker 1: really want you to come and be on my record. Okay,
Speaker 1: going back to the original origin of the story, Um,
Speaker 1: you make a deal with Curb Record. Mike Curb, Republican
Speaker 1: who had made it in the music business then was
Speaker 1: Lieutenant governor of California, ultimately had a lot of success
Speaker 1: in Nashville. UM his company and relationships been fraught with
Speaker 1: the negative history. People signed a deal and they can't
Speaker 1: get out of it, and what was your experience? Well,
Speaker 1: I know more now than I did, and I didn't
Speaker 1: know all that crap, and nobody ever really sat me
Speaker 1: down and said, hey, by the way, this is this
Speaker 1: or this is that, and what do you want to
Speaker 1: do about it? And it wasn't until I had a
Speaker 1: few experiences with managers who said this is nuts, we
Speaker 1: gotta do this, we gotta make this move. I really
Speaker 1: didn't understand and I was so trusting. I'm one of
Speaker 1: those stories honestly that you go, oh, bless her heart,
Speaker 1: she just doesn't know any better because I was too
Speaker 1: busy working, too busy doing, and too busy recording and
Speaker 1: traveling and doing tours. And it wasn't until probably the
Speaker 1: last I would say, five to seven years, do I
Speaker 1: really know what the heck is going on. And that's
Speaker 1: not something I'm proud of. It's just sort of the
Speaker 1: way it worked out for me because I'm so trusting
Speaker 1: and I tend to not micromanage, and I think it's
Speaker 1: gotten me in a lot of trouble. But I still
Speaker 1: get a Christmas present from him every year, and I
Speaker 1: haven't seen him in years. And how about the money,
Speaker 1: good question, I'll let you know. So you're still working
Speaker 1: on the money. Yep. It's one of those things where
Speaker 1: maybe when I'm sixty, it's not that far away. One
Speaker 1: can dream. Okay, you did not write the songs you're saying,
Speaker 1: which in many cases are the generator of profits. So
Speaker 1: how are you doing financially? I'm land rich in cash poor.
Speaker 1: I owe some of the greatest land in the history
Speaker 1: of mankind. And uh, you know, of course, a lot
Speaker 1: of people take out loans to do business. That's kind
Speaker 1: of the way it works in America, right, And so, um,
Speaker 1: I'm good, I'm good, I'm settled, I have what I need.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what's really exciting about me and my
Speaker 1: husband is during the pandemic, we were able to keep
Speaker 1: payroll because of logging. So thank you for that opportunity
Speaker 1: because it kept everybody afloat. And I'm grateful for that
Speaker 1: because it was a devastating blow to the music industry
Speaker 1: and a lot of my guys in the band, you know,
Speaker 1: went on unemployment. So I'm really grateful that the land
Speaker 1: provided and that's why we have land. Um, it's been
Speaker 1: a blessing. Did you get any loans from the government?
Speaker 1: Let me think here, I did, I did? Okay, you
Speaker 1: bought the land for fifteen hundred dollars an acre in
Speaker 1: what year? How much land? And what did your mother
Speaker 1: say about that? Oh? She thought it was awesome as
Speaker 1: one of the things we agreed on because I was
Speaker 1: right next to her. Together we had a thousand acres,
Speaker 1: so it was like a compound. Um, I bought it
Speaker 1: in acre it goes for two d thousand an acre, now,
Speaker 1: so that was a really good investment. Oh yeah, my
Speaker 1: father would be proud of you. Yes, and that's my
Speaker 1: great my great great grandfather would be too. That was
Speaker 1: what it was all about, Ogden Judd was all about
Speaker 1: buying land. My family. I come from a family of farmers,
Speaker 1: so they would all be very proud. Like the song
Speaker 1: Guardian Angels, Um, they're so proud of me. Fanny and
Speaker 1: Elijah and all my ancestors are looking down going. You
Speaker 1: know what you go, girl? The logging kept you alive.
Speaker 1: Going more detail. You hire a company that cuts up
Speaker 1: the trees. How do you generate the money? We hired
Speaker 1: two guys, best friends. One's a preacher, one is a
Speaker 1: good old boy who wears overalls and no t shirt
Speaker 1: even if it's winter. It's awesome actually, And they come
Speaker 1: and it's just the two of them because I don't
Speaker 1: want them to mess up the land. And they did
Speaker 1: it old fashioned and uh, I mean compared to what's
Speaker 1: done today. And we only did trees that were down,
Speaker 1: and we had when you have five acres, you know
Speaker 1: how it works. And they just went where the trees
Speaker 1: were down and it worked, and I'm so grateful to them.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, it saved us. Actually, So
Speaker 1: how many people are on the payroll personally or professionally?
Speaker 1: Professionally well, personally too, well the last the last tour
Speaker 1: we did, it was what how many people on the
Speaker 1: road last tour? I don't know, eight nine something like that.
Speaker 1: And then I'd say personally five. Okay. When you say
Speaker 1: the logging kept your who were the people you were paying?
Speaker 1: What do you mean people I was paying? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: you said the general the money from the logging allowed
Speaker 1: you to pay your people. How many people was that?
Speaker 1: I would say about five people, five to seven? Okay.
Speaker 1: So going back to the story, you go on on stage,
Speaker 1: you have ten thousand people, and once you're pushed. I
Speaker 1: assumed you actually loved performing, because you say you love
Speaker 1: performing now. And what was it like suddenly becoming the
Speaker 1: biggest star in country music? What was it like? Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, that's a really good question. I think I
Speaker 1: looked like a deer in the headlights, an awful lot
Speaker 1: because I was still so so young, and Mom did
Speaker 1: all the talking, so I would sit there and kind
Speaker 1: of look around, like when are we going to be
Speaker 1: done so I can go hang out with my friends.
Speaker 1: So but I also loved, loved, love the the love
Speaker 1: from the fans. I still have fans that were there
Speaker 1: the very first concert in night march Um concert that
Speaker 1: we did, and they're still there and there they're still
Speaker 1: around and it's like they remember me and I remember
Speaker 1: them and we grew up together. So I love the
Speaker 1: one on one. I'm not really good at the fame
Speaker 1: stuff unless it's a good seat in a restaurant. I
Speaker 1: don't really thrive on that actually, And um, I mean
Speaker 1: if you kind of look at me, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't do the whole makeup and hair thing all the time.
Speaker 1: I'm not a TikTok sensation at I don't really care
Speaker 1: about all that. I care about the human experience. I
Speaker 1: care about the music. I care about going out on
Speaker 1: stage and making a connection with somebody who has no
Speaker 1: idea what they've gotten themselves into. And that is what
Speaker 1: grews me more than anything in this world. Well, you're
Speaker 1: a very recognizable person, so uh, you know, it's one
Speaker 1: thing if you're sitting at home. I would think almost
Speaker 1: anywhere you go, people immediately know who you are. Yes,
Speaker 1: they do. I've become a little bit more and more
Speaker 1: like Dolly in terms of the hair and the you know,
Speaker 1: the the tada I call it the tada um. Brandy
Speaker 1: Carlile said, I'm a queer icon and I said, can
Speaker 1: you explain to me what that means? She said, it's
Speaker 1: really really good and I said okay. I said, okay, awesome.
Speaker 1: I love people. I love love love people. A person
Speaker 1: walks up to me and says, I'm an atheist, and
Speaker 1: I said, okay, I mean that's the way I am.
Speaker 1: I just um, I'm a judge, not a judge. I
Speaker 1: mean that's my absolute go to. When people come up
Speaker 1: to me and say, well, you need to lose weight,
Speaker 1: and I go, yeah, and you need to get a haircut,
Speaker 1: and uh, I I just you know what I'm I'm
Speaker 1: I'm real because I grew up in such a weird world,
Speaker 1: you know, being eighteen and being on the cover of
Speaker 1: all the magazines and doing Johnny Carson, I'm dating myself
Speaker 1: and opening for all the greats of country music, Merle Haggard,
Speaker 1: George Jones. I mean, I've worked with a highwayman. I
Speaker 1: knew Johnny Cash. He was a mentor. When you grow
Speaker 1: up with all these people in your life and Tammy
Speaker 1: Wynette takes you on her bus to cook breakfast for you,
Speaker 1: that's just not normal, that's you know. And so I
Speaker 1: grew up with all these characters around me in my movie,
Speaker 1: and I went over to George Jones's house at Christmas
Speaker 1: time and played his kids, played his grandkids, played with
Speaker 1: my kids. And it's just so crazy, but yet it
Speaker 1: was my life and I'm still living it, and it's
Speaker 1: so bizarre at times. But I can't get away from
Speaker 1: the music part of it. I just can't. As broken
Speaker 1: hearted as my heart is an awful lot, I can't
Speaker 1: stop myself from being on stage having that moment with
Speaker 1: the fan when they sing into the microphone the words
Speaker 1: to my song. There's just something about that that just
Speaker 1: heals me every single day. Because I almost gave up
Speaker 1: on doing the tour. You know, when mom died. I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can I don't know if
Speaker 1: I can do this. I really don't physically know if
Speaker 1: I can do this. And the people spoke and they said,
Speaker 1: yes you can, and I showed up. How much live
Speaker 1: is the music and how much is the adoration and
Speaker 1: love from the fans. I do not sing, and I
Speaker 1: will not sing. The only time I've ever lip SYNCD
Speaker 1: is at the super Bowl. I'm adamant about that. Um,
Speaker 1: there are no tracks. There's one loop that Cactus hits
Speaker 1: for a loop on a rhythm thing. But everything is live.
Speaker 1: I'm adamant about that. If there's one thing that I
Speaker 1: will say that, I'm gonna be like you. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you have your opinion about things I can imagine. Um,
Speaker 1: it will be live and it will be imperfect or
Speaker 1: it won't be real and I just have to have
Speaker 1: that or else the rest of his bs. So everything
Speaker 1: is live to the point where I can do a
Speaker 1: song on a dime. You watch me, okay, so you're
Speaker 1: you're alive, But how much of the satisfaction is the
Speaker 1: love from the audience? It's so live? What do you mean?
Speaker 1: Can you explain a little bit better what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to I'll give you a different example. A friend of
Speaker 1: mine used to book Oprah open played arenas for a while,
Speaker 1: and the obvious question here is why does Oprah need
Speaker 1: to play arenas? She's got all the money in the
Speaker 1: world whereas is David Letterman said, you know, she literally
Speaker 1: has all the money, but he said, where else is
Speaker 1: she going to get that? Yes? Yes, the adrenaline is
Speaker 1: part of my my fix every single night when I
Speaker 1: go and I get off the bus and I'm walking
Speaker 1: to the stage and I hear the roar of the crowd,
Speaker 1: my energy gets up and I get the adrenaline and
Speaker 1: it's like the quarterback of the Super Bowl. I get very,
Speaker 1: very activated. And that is better than any drug in life.
Speaker 1: And that's probably why so many people do drugs, because
Speaker 1: it is the greatest It is the greatest thing on
Speaker 1: this light, in this life, on this planet. To stand
Speaker 1: there and watch fourteen thousand people with their phones and
Speaker 1: their lights on. We don't do the big lighter anymore.
Speaker 1: Saying love is alive back to me. It is the
Speaker 1: greatest thing. I feel suspended. I'm writing a song with
Speaker 1: Brandy Carlile right now called from Here to Heaven, and
Speaker 1: that's where I am. I'm literally suspended off the ground
Speaker 1: and I can feel myself levitate. It is the greatest
Speaker 1: drip of love, life and support and healing that there
Speaker 1: is in this life. Wow, did you do drugs and
Speaker 1: drink or what was your experience with substances? No, my
Speaker 1: mom did. She was the party or I was the
Speaker 1: stay in the room. And wonder if she's coming back. Um,
Speaker 1: she's talked about it. When she got to be seventies something.
Speaker 1: She just let it go and said, yeah, I smoked
Speaker 1: weed on the day we did our live audition at
Speaker 1: r c A. And I'm like, wow, okay, here we go.
Speaker 1: Uh No, I wasn't and I didn't. I didn't have
Speaker 1: my my trip with alcohol until I was twenty seven
Speaker 1: to twenty nine, and then I got pregnant at thirty
Speaker 1: and that changed my entire world. So I had my
Speaker 1: experience with alcohol and that's it. I never did drugs.
Speaker 1: Tried it when I was little. A couple of times
Speaker 1: I'd try my mom's blunt. Is that the word blunt? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's one of them. Is that one of them? Okay?
Speaker 1: And I tried her blunt and I was like thirteen
Speaker 1: years old, and I don't know how anybody does it.
Speaker 1: I didn't didn't work for me because it made me
Speaker 1: even more dreamy and not want to go get a job.
Speaker 1: And that's not probably the best idea for me. So
Speaker 1: your mother becomes ill, she retires from the road, she
Speaker 1: becomes depressed. What's going through your mind? What the hell?
Speaker 1: I don't understand it. It's the mystery of life for me.
Speaker 1: I'm doing a lot of trauma work right now around
Speaker 1: that because I don't have any answers, and I don't
Speaker 1: understand because she had so much. She's the kind of
Speaker 1: person that would literally get out of the car, go
Speaker 1: into Walgreens, speak to every single person in there, call
Speaker 1: somebody's mother on the phone, and literally walk out of there,
Speaker 1: getting the car, and go home and lay on the
Speaker 1: couch for the next That's why it's so so hard
Speaker 1: to understand. And I'm still in the moment of what
Speaker 1: the hell am I supposed to do with this information.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to file it away neatly, but it's not
Speaker 1: that simple, and it's going to take a lifetime for
Speaker 1: me to get there. But she was the most charismatic,
Speaker 1: colorful character out in public. And then she would go
Speaker 1: lay on the couch for weeks at a time and
Speaker 1: I would call her and she would cry, and I
Speaker 1: would think, Wow, this is not the way it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be. And was she getting professional Hell? Yes. I
Speaker 1: will be honest with you, and I've never spoken about
Speaker 1: this before. I will tell you that I feel like
Speaker 1: the mental health community let her down because, um, there
Speaker 1: was a lot of medication and I don't know that.
Speaker 1: I just don't think she got the help she needed.
Speaker 1: I really don't. And that's my two cents worth. Um,
Speaker 1: Ashley certainly has hers and I'll let her speak for herself.
Speaker 1: For me, watching mom um, you know she's an r N.
Speaker 1: She tended to look at doctors and other people as peers,
Speaker 1: and I wish someone had gone in and said no, Naomi, no,
Speaker 1: So what's your relationship with Ashley these days? We are
Speaker 1: so different, and yet I have such a tenderness for
Speaker 1: her from raising her that I feel very motherly towards her.
Speaker 1: She calls me sister, mommy, and we're working more on
Speaker 1: the sister part, which is very painful because we were
Speaker 1: apart so much of the time. We were geographically in
Speaker 1: different worlds, and Um, I missed her prom and I
Speaker 1: missed her first experience with a boy, and there's just
Speaker 1: so much loss there that we're still trying to mend.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I was supposed to call
Speaker 1: her after this interview, and UM, she wants me to
Speaker 1: come over to the house. We're are both just so
Speaker 1: in different worlds, and yet we're trying to figure out
Speaker 1: a language that we can both speak well. How much
Speaker 1: contact do you have with her? A lot more than
Speaker 1: since mother died, A lot more, as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: almost on a daily basis. We text, we face time
Speaker 1: a lot, and I've been going over to her house. Um,
Speaker 1: last time I went over, ear candled her ears because
Speaker 1: she had a cold, and I just I try to
Speaker 1: go over and I take her soup. I'm the I'm
Speaker 1: the big sister. You know. That's kind of the way
Speaker 1: it's always gonna be. She's always going to be my
Speaker 1: little sister. I don't care how smart she is or
Speaker 1: how fabulous she looks in her Valentino dress. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: still her sister, and I do things to her that
Speaker 1: make her really uncomfortable. And that's my job. Give me
Speaker 1: an example of one thing. Well, I like to say
Speaker 1: things that are inappropriate because she's so good with words,
Speaker 1: and she'll say a word and I don't know what
Speaker 1: the word is, and I'm like, what the hell does
Speaker 1: that word mean? I don't understand a word? Oh is
Speaker 1: that like? And then I'll use a word that's really
Speaker 1: not okay with her because she's such an activist. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, Ashley, snap out of it. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm your sister. I'm not I'm not here to challenge
Speaker 1: you in any capacity other than the fact that I'm
Speaker 1: bigger than you and I can sit on you until
Speaker 1: you p So you're just gonna have to deal with
Speaker 1: the fact that I'm here. And sometimes I apologize. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I don't, but I do it just keep her alive
Speaker 1: in the conversation because she's so smart, that she's so
Speaker 1: intellectual that sometimes I just have to say, let's not
Speaker 1: be so individually over here, separately smart. Let's be together
Speaker 1: and be silly and dumb, and let's try to find
Speaker 1: a place that we can maneuver naturally and authentically. If
Speaker 1: that makes any sense. Yeah, sure it does. When your
Speaker 1: mother gets hepatitis C and retires from the road. So
Speaker 1: this is decades back. What do you think about going
Speaker 1: forward in your career? Ye, I'm both um devastated and
Speaker 1: inspired to see what's next. I think I'm always looking
Speaker 1: forward to I've always been that way, and I think
Speaker 1: that's a thing that you're born with. Um, I try
Speaker 1: not to. Mom was a lot more of the rear
Speaker 1: view mirror, and I'm more of the looking out the windshield.
Speaker 1: I could not wait until I saw a cactus mosure
Speaker 1: that night with Mom behind me and looking at her, like,
Speaker 1: see that guy right there, I'm going to marry him,
Speaker 1: and we're going to, you know, right off into the
Speaker 1: sunset together. And that's what we're doing right now with
Speaker 1: the band. We're making a record, we're writing most of it,
Speaker 1: and we are determined to go to the next chapter.
Speaker 1: I'm on a label which I love the name Anti Records,
Speaker 1: but there's just something about that that just thrills me.
Speaker 1: Um Andy is interested in the musical experience as well.
Speaker 1: So I found finally a home where I feel like
Speaker 1: I can be as authentic and strange as I want
Speaker 1: to be without feeling the tug towards being popular, um,
Speaker 1: which we all want to be to a certain degree,
Speaker 1: but I also want the music to speak for itself.
Speaker 1: So Cactus and I are always talking about what's next,
Speaker 1: if that makes any sense, Like I'm already on the
Speaker 1: Judge tour talking about what we're gonna do after that.
Speaker 1: If that makes sense. Yeah, I'd end up on Anti
Speaker 1: Records because Andy gets me, and it's a it's a
Speaker 1: record label where you've got Um May have his Staples.
Speaker 1: You've got these characters that are just at the in
Speaker 1: the in the twilight, some of them and then others.
Speaker 1: You know, there's just this you know, Tom Waite. You
Speaker 1: have people that are on there that are able to
Speaker 1: be themselves and there's no pressure to try to be
Speaker 1: younger and faster and fit in with all the you know,
Speaker 1: Tik Talker's. It's just this great place to belong where
Speaker 1: you feel like you can just be yourself and yeah,
Speaker 1: if you get paid for it, that's really cool. And
Speaker 1: yet I did a show with May of the Staples
Speaker 1: here at the Rhyman Auditorium and I just looked around like,
Speaker 1: is this really happening, like this is really my life.
Speaker 1: I don't know how I got here, but boy am
Speaker 1: I really grateful that I don't have to worry about Well,
Speaker 1: let's try to be the comeback kid, you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: staying there, you have this unbelievable run with your mother,
Speaker 1: then you have a run solo and the number one
Speaker 1: hit stopped coming. What's that like? Emotionally? Mm hmm. I
Speaker 1: loved the songs so much and it's gonna sound really
Speaker 1: corny and maybe even a little cliche, but they're like
Speaker 1: my children. I love them so much. I just was
Speaker 1: sad that other people didn't respond to them. And the label,
Speaker 1: of course, certainly has their responsibility part of it. I
Speaker 1: love the song so much I continued, like every night
Speaker 1: to sing them regardless of whether they were number ten
Speaker 1: or number one. D I didn't care about that part
Speaker 1: of it. The emotional part came because I wanted the
Speaker 1: fans to hear the music, and that was the frustration
Speaker 1: part for me, was the numbers um more so than anything,
Speaker 1: because I wanted people to hear only Love, which I
Speaker 1: still sing to this day as if it's you know,
Speaker 1: the most important, top five important songs of my career
Speaker 1: and my life because my music, to me is more
Speaker 1: than just a career. Now, I've been doing it almost
Speaker 1: forty years and it's just so part of me. Um.
Speaker 1: It was difficult because I want to I really want
Speaker 1: to please my producer. When I go in the studio.
Speaker 1: I'm known for singing it twenty times, even though we
Speaker 1: can fly vocals in, because I want it to be different,
Speaker 1: each verse to be different. If you listen to my records,
Speaker 1: I'm really proud of the fact that we didn't fix
Speaker 1: a lot of vocals because I wanted people to love
Speaker 1: me live. I wanted to be able to copy it live.
Speaker 1: And I come from the era of when you have
Speaker 1: singers like Ann Wilson singing the way she does live,
Speaker 1: You're like, well, hell yeah, that's the way it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be. You know, it's supposed to sound like the record,
Speaker 1: but it's also supposed to sound real. So I had
Speaker 1: my moments of being feeling tearful because I wanted the
Speaker 1: producer to be successful and be successful myself. Absolutely, but
Speaker 1: I'm still tied to the music today that I was
Speaker 1: even back in the eighties and nineties, talking about the
Speaker 1: number and not the music. Itself. You talk about being
Speaker 1: on Johnny Carson, being on the super Bowl, those opportunities
Speaker 1: are not as frequent. Not to mention the fact other
Speaker 1: than the super Bowl, does none of those things mean
Speaker 1: what they once did? Um, but are you looking out
Speaker 1: of the front window enough to say, well, I did that,
Speaker 1: then other peaks will commode. Is it bother you a
Speaker 1: little bit that the opportunities or peaks are not as
Speaker 1: plentiful as they once were. It depends on if I
Speaker 1: go on social media. If and when I go on
Speaker 1: social media and I see what's going on out there,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm missing prom. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: have a date for the prom. Oh and then if
Speaker 1: you take that away from me, which I try to
Speaker 1: stay away from it as much as possible in terms
Speaker 1: of just staying in the music, staying authentic, staying authentic.
Speaker 1: I think about Susan Tadeshi and I think about all
Speaker 1: these great musicians, and um, you know, she and Derek
Speaker 1: Trucks are important to me. They're very important to me.
Speaker 1: They're on my record, and I'm like, yes, this is
Speaker 1: what I want to do for a living. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: getting ready to a show. Uh that I'm really proud
Speaker 1: of that. I just feel like the music matters more
Speaker 1: than the TikTok numbers. So it depends on the day. Um,
Speaker 1: there are days when I'm not worried about it at
Speaker 1: all because i have such a great fan base, Bob.
Speaker 1: I have such tremendously loyal fans that come to every
Speaker 1: stinking show, whether it's Green Hall or it's Bridgestone here
Speaker 1: in Nashville, Tennessee. I literally have those fans, and I've
Speaker 1: earned them. I've worked really hard gaining their loyalty. And
Speaker 1: then there are other days when I realize I'm getting
Speaker 1: ready to sing with Kelsey Ballerini and she's the next,
Speaker 1: you know, big thing, and I'm passing the torch to her. Well,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm supposed to do, because that's what Lauretta
Speaker 1: ll ended to me for me, and that's what women
Speaker 1: in country music do for one another. Ashley McBride really
Speaker 1: good example of the next generation of greatness. She comes
Speaker 1: on stage and sings rock Bottom, and I look at
Speaker 1: her like, well, you go on with your bad self,
Speaker 1: because I'm fifty eight years old and I can still
Speaker 1: get it if I have to, But you know what,
Speaker 1: you go on ahead, girl, and They get it. They
Speaker 1: know that I mean well, but yeah, I have my
Speaker 1: moments of looking on and seeing what everybody else is doing,
Speaker 1: and that's just not good for any of us. Do
Speaker 1: you feel confident in your talent and success or were
Speaker 1: you in the past, even now haunted by impostor syndrome? Oh?
Speaker 1: I I told Oprah this. I did her show by
Speaker 1: the Way, eighteen times more than anybody else because I
Speaker 1: was telling my story and giving my testimony. I told
Speaker 1: her that it took me years to feel like I
Speaker 1: earned my success because I felt like I won the
Speaker 1: freaking lottery in nineteen eight four when I got a
Speaker 1: record deal. Next thing I know, we're on tour, and
Speaker 1: I felt like I hadn't played bars, I hadn't gone
Speaker 1: through the stuff that we hear about with all the
Speaker 1: other legendary performers and artists so that I have struggled
Speaker 1: with in the past. Now I don't at all. I
Speaker 1: just don't. I just don't think that way. I think
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm missing out on things like when the Grammys
Speaker 1: come and go. I think, oh man, I should have
Speaker 1: gone to the Grammys this year. But I'm okay because
Speaker 1: I live on the farm. I sing when I need to,
Speaker 1: and I go home when I can. And what about
Speaker 1: therapy for you? If you had therapy? I do it
Speaker 1: every day almost I've been in recovery and out for
Speaker 1: since two thousand and three. Healing and recovery my middle name,
Speaker 1: and I'm known for it. But I don't flaunt it
Speaker 1: and I don't talk about it a lot because it's
Speaker 1: not nobody's business. I just think it's important to continue
Speaker 1: to tell people I'm in a process. I was in
Speaker 1: one today, yesterday and two days before, because I think
Speaker 1: if you don't reach out, that's the problem. I think
Speaker 1: too many people like me think they have the answers,
Speaker 1: and I know better. So this morning, when I called
Speaker 1: my life coach, who has walked through a lot of
Speaker 1: crap in my life, he was the one that called
Speaker 1: me and said come to your mom's right away. He
Speaker 1: was there when it happened. Ted was there and he's
Speaker 1: our life coach since two thousand three, so we're all
Speaker 1: very connected. And yet I'm in a process all the time.
Speaker 1: I'm working with David Kessler, a wonderful grief counselor, who
Speaker 1: is helping me understand that suicide is a mystery and
Speaker 1: there's no way to neatly wrap it up, so you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to just walk through it, not around it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, heck yeah, I'm part yeah. And going back
Speaker 1: to the music, where do you get the songs from? Well,
Speaker 1: right now, Cactus Mosier and I are writing them because
Speaker 1: when I say I'm somewhere between hell and the Halloween,
Speaker 1: it's so intimate and so personal. A lot of hit
Speaker 1: makers hit me up for Hey, let's check out this song.
Speaker 1: Check out this song like only Love came to me
Speaker 1: directly from the writer who had just finished writing it.
Speaker 1: I recorded it that very same day that he brought
Speaker 1: it to the studio. He knew I was recording, and
Speaker 1: he brought it to the studio. And that's that cheeseus
Speaker 1: only need same thing. Songwriter shows up at the studio,
Speaker 1: says I want to play this for Wynona, sings it
Speaker 1: to me live and re recorded within the next twenty
Speaker 1: four hours. Right now, it's coming from my guts. I
Speaker 1: just finished the song I'm Broken and Blessed in this um,
Speaker 1: I can attest that I'm at the end of my rope,
Speaker 1: but I keep hold and all this is me. I'm
Speaker 1: broken and blessed and this um it's coming from the gut.
Speaker 1: It's coming from the deepest part of my being. So
Speaker 1: look forward to sharing that. Well, this is a transition,
Speaker 1: because certainly in the Judge you're known for cover songs.
Speaker 1: How did you make the transition to writing yourself. I
Speaker 1: started to trust myself more. I think after you have
Speaker 1: grown children and you've had as much failure as I've had.
Speaker 1: I thought, literally, when I started songwriting, what is the
Speaker 1: absolute worst that can happen? They can suck and I
Speaker 1: can just keep on trying um And I trust other songwriters,
Speaker 1: Brandy other people who have talked to me, Robert were
Speaker 1: and I talked an awful lot about being in a
Speaker 1: band at a very young age and not knowing any better.
Speaker 1: And I just listened to people. You know, I meet
Speaker 1: all these young cats that come through and I just
Speaker 1: trust them because they're doing it. And I'm like, you
Speaker 1: know what, if Taylor Swift can do it. You know,
Speaker 1: she was such a young girl when I met her,
Speaker 1: and I thought I had no idea that she would
Speaker 1: become you know this since station, and I just think
Speaker 1: I trust myself now because I'm like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk to these people in the front
Speaker 1: row like they're my next door neighbor. And that's what
Speaker 1: we do in country music especially, we tell stories. And
Speaker 1: I can tell a story just like anybody else. Um.
Speaker 1: I want to write a song about sisters, and I
Speaker 1: want to write a song about my mother. I'm working
Speaker 1: on that, and I'm writing a song about my granddaughter
Speaker 1: because she's eight months old. In her name is Khalia,
Speaker 1: and she's the light of my life. You mentioned you
Speaker 1: had a lot of failures. Which failures are you talking about? Well, relationships, UM,
Speaker 1: songs that have not worked obviously, UM, tours, you name it.
Speaker 1: I've had good days and not great days, and the
Speaker 1: ones that were the toughest are the ones that taught
Speaker 1: me the most. UM. When my biological father died, I
Speaker 1: felt devastated and I felt like a part of my
Speaker 1: life I would never get back. Stuff like that, you know,
Speaker 1: where you just make really bad decisions financially the wrong people.
Speaker 1: I've been so severely to portrayed. Anytime you have that
Speaker 1: many people in your life, you're going to have issues
Speaker 1: with that. And I've just learned from every single person
Speaker 1: I've ever met. It's been a gift, not exactly what
Speaker 1: I would want, but it was necessary for me to
Speaker 1: finally say no, I'm going to listen to my gut more,
Speaker 1: I'm going to say that doesn't work for me. By
Speaker 1: the way, it's changed my business model to say that
Speaker 1: doesn't work for me. Be a little more specific, how
Speaker 1: did it change your business model? Well, I'm I'm a
Speaker 1: people pleaser, and I tend to come to meetings wanting
Speaker 1: to be clever, cute, and adorable and want people to
Speaker 1: work with me. And I had to learn to say
Speaker 1: no in a way that people would say, well, tell
Speaker 1: me more about that. And I learned that when you
Speaker 1: walk into a situation, whether it's you know, with a
Speaker 1: friend or someone in the White House, you have to say,
Speaker 1: you know what, I would love to do that and
Speaker 1: I can't, and they would say, well, what can you do?
Speaker 1: It's that way they're is a relationship there. It's not
Speaker 1: a dictatorship. It's a democracy. So that doesn't work for me.
Speaker 1: Helps me with democracy because I'm definitely a team player.
Speaker 1: I'm not one of these it's why not it incorporated,
Speaker 1: But there's a lot incorporated into me and a lot
Speaker 1: of people running it. So when I say that doesn't
Speaker 1: work for me, Bob, that doesn't work for me talking
Speaker 1: about that or so far, I've been willing to talk
Speaker 1: about everything we've talked about. But there are times when
Speaker 1: an interviews, for instance, I'll say, well, you know what,
Speaker 1: that doesn't really work for me to talk about that,
Speaker 1: and then they'll say, well, let's talk about this, and
Speaker 1: then we'll move on. Well, I think that's pretty clear.
Speaker 1: How much do you listen to music at home? And
Speaker 1: what music do you listen to all the time. My
Speaker 1: husband is one of those characters you would love him.
Speaker 1: By the way, is next time we talk, I want
Speaker 1: him to be a part because he is. He goes
Speaker 1: back to the sixties. He's got a record collection unlike
Speaker 1: anyone I know, and he loves every single thing. And
Speaker 1: he knows more about music from the Easty Boys to
Speaker 1: the Birds. I mean, he is all in and he'll
Speaker 1: play something for me and I'll be like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I had no idea. He played Blackbird for me and
Speaker 1: I went, huh, what the heck. He's a rock and
Speaker 1: roll genius when it comes to history, and he is
Speaker 1: a maverick when it comes to music. So he's always
Speaker 1: playing stuff in the car and I'm always going who
Speaker 1: is that? Who is that? Who is that? And he
Speaker 1: lets me know that who's the character on Yellowstone that
Speaker 1: we just discovered the young the young kid who's playing
Speaker 1: and selling out everywhere. Zach Zach. Yeah he turned me on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he just turned me on to Zach Brian. So he's
Speaker 1: always at the forefront and he's always bringing me behind
Speaker 1: him with grabbing my hands saying, here, we're gonna go
Speaker 1: see this person. We're gonna go see this person. It
Speaker 1: was his idea of too for me to meet Robert
Speaker 1: were so here we are, you know, and now we're besties. Um.
Speaker 1: And he the way he texted me back within ten minutes,
Speaker 1: he most most people don't do that. Um. So I'm
Speaker 1: I listen to music so much. I'm more immersed in
Speaker 1: it than I've ever been. I will tell you straight up.
Speaker 1: I am an artist, not a celebrity. Some people are
Speaker 1: famous for being famous. I am not. I am in
Speaker 1: it because I want to play these small We're playing
Speaker 1: small places as well as the big places this year.
Speaker 1: I'm not just one of those that I won't play
Speaker 1: it if it doesn't have three thousand seats. I will
Speaker 1: play green Hall every single time they invite me. In Austin, Texas. Okay,
Speaker 1: other than your property, are there any other luxuries, whether
Speaker 1: it be cars, flying, private clothes, jewelry, any other way?
Speaker 1: You say, Yeah, I got money, I'd like to do
Speaker 1: it this way. You are so funny. You know what.
Speaker 1: I like to buy tractors. I'm working on a deal
Speaker 1: with t SC. So let me just tell you straight up.
Speaker 1: I don't do I don't fly privately and less it's
Speaker 1: offered to me or I go in with somebody. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't buy a lot of cars. I haven't driven
Speaker 1: in a while because of the pandemic. I now am
Speaker 1: driven because I don't know. I just like to sit
Speaker 1: in the back and call people and talk on the phone.
Speaker 1: Um luxuries. No, I don't wear jewelry because I'm a
Speaker 1: guitar player. I've been playing since I was eight years old,
Speaker 1: so that's fifty years. I've been playing guitar and getting
Speaker 1: away with it. And I don't really buy a lot
Speaker 1: of clothes. If you look at most of my videos,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, she's wearing the same thing over and
Speaker 1: over and over and over and over. I won't say
Speaker 1: that I don't care, but I think I probably should
Speaker 1: more now when it comes to hair, I think if
Speaker 1: I spend anything, I spend lots of money on extensions
Speaker 1: and sparkles. That's the first time. It's the first time
Speaker 1: I've ever said the word extensions. I'm gonna let that
Speaker 1: lie good for you. Tell me about two tingle moments
Speaker 1: meeting people. Oh my gosh. Well, the first one was
Speaker 1: for me President Reagan, because he was my very first
Speaker 1: president that I met, and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is like a movie. And I was just enamored
Speaker 1: with the whole way that things were done back then.
Speaker 1: You know, everything was such a big deal, and the
Speaker 1: Secret Service and performing for him and going through the
Speaker 1: the whole thing that I had to go through to perform.
Speaker 1: That was number one, uh President's stuff. And then Super
Speaker 1: Bowl when they whisk you out and you have thirty
Speaker 1: seconds to get out there, do your thing and get
Speaker 1: the heck out of dodge. That's pretty tingly, you know,
Speaker 1: because you have only a certain amount of time to
Speaker 1: get your stuff done. Um, let's see, I bungee jumped.
Speaker 1: That was exciting about that. Well, when I went solo,
Speaker 1: I took my whole band and we've bungee jumped at
Speaker 1: one of those what do you call those things sa Flags.
Speaker 1: I think it was at a six Flags. We had
Speaker 1: just done a show and I was like, we're in
Speaker 1: between Remember when we used to do two shows a night.
Speaker 1: By the way, hello, we were doing two shows that
Speaker 1: night and I had time in between shows, and so
Speaker 1: I took everybody and said, whoever will bungee jump gets
Speaker 1: a hundred bucks, and I just I just remember that
Speaker 1: being a real moment for me because it was listen,
Speaker 1: I was single, I was rich, I was young, and
Speaker 1: I was in control, or so I thought, ha ha ha,
Speaker 1: big joke. But I remember thinking I am free, and
Speaker 1: so bungee jumping represented being free to me. It was
Speaker 1: one of the most terrifying things I've ever done, and
Speaker 1: I'll never do it again. But are you that much
Speaker 1: of a risk taker? Definitely? So I think that's why
Speaker 1: I drove mother so crazy. Give me a couple of
Speaker 1: other examples. Oh, you know, buying houses with cash, um,
Speaker 1: picking the wrong guy to marry and ending up almost broke. Um. Oh,
Speaker 1: you name it. I think I've done it, dude. I
Speaker 1: think I've done some really stupid stuff and live to
Speaker 1: write about it. It's in my book. I talk about
Speaker 1: it very openly because I know that in our failures,
Speaker 1: that's how we learn to set boundaries. And I have
Speaker 1: really good boundaries now, better than I did anyway. But
Speaker 1: generally speaking, are you impulsive? Yes, I'm so impulsive that
Speaker 1: my assistant locks the doors because she knows I'll jump
Speaker 1: out and run up and and knock on somebody's door.
Speaker 1: And you think I'm kidding, I will do it. I
Speaker 1: think that's because everybody's so freaking serious. I'm so tired
Speaker 1: of everybody being so unhappy. I just want people to
Speaker 1: have some joy, you know, And if I can bring
Speaker 1: joy to somebody, I will, I will walk over to somebody.
Speaker 1: I did this the other day. Somebody was singing karaoke
Speaker 1: in a bar and somebody called me and said, they're
Speaker 1: doing your song and they really suck. And I said,
Speaker 1: give me give her the phone and I face timed
Speaker 1: her and she looked at me like I was an alien.
Speaker 1: And I loved it so much. I was like, let's
Speaker 1: do that again. Now. I love doing stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And you obviously have this new record on the anti
Speaker 1: you're working on, but anything looking out the front window
Speaker 1: of the of life that you would like to accomplish
Speaker 1: in the time you have left. I want to, like
Speaker 1: John Lennon said, I just want to be remembered for
Speaker 1: being a good person, because I think this business is
Speaker 1: really hard and sometimes it takes the joy out of us.
Speaker 1: And you know what I want to do. I want
Speaker 1: to be self sufficient on the farm. I love, love,
Speaker 1: love the idea of growing my own food, and who
Speaker 1: knows what will come of it. I'd like to have
Speaker 1: concerts on the farm. I'd love to invite the fans
Speaker 1: out for a fish fry and do their own fishing.
Speaker 1: I would like to get back down to re reel.
Speaker 1: I want real more than anything in this life. I
Speaker 1: want real. I think the business is incredibly fake sometimes
Speaker 1: with all the filters and the eyebrows are perfect and
Speaker 1: everything's in place, it's hard to believe anymore what's real.
Speaker 1: So whatever I can do to be real. If I
Speaker 1: can start opening up the farm and doing concerts around
Speaker 1: the lake, come on, let's do it. I might even
Speaker 1: invite you. Well, it certainly sounds great. Shy of that,
Speaker 1: as we're in the middle of winter. Anything we didn't
Speaker 1: talk about that, you feel your fans need to know
Speaker 1: where you want to get off your chest or want
Speaker 1: to illuminate m hmm. Interesting timing that question is very interesting.
Speaker 1: I had to cancel um a performance the other night
Speaker 1: because my body just said, you know what, no is
Speaker 1: a complete sentence. And of course, you know, things go
Speaker 1: viral and people talk and they wonder and they worry,
Speaker 1: and people are saying, oh, she just doesn't look well
Speaker 1: and is she okay? And I will tell you straight up,
Speaker 1: not only am I okay, I'm doing better than I
Speaker 1: actually thought I would be doing at this point in
Speaker 1: this process. I've got an incredibly strong will and an
Speaker 1: incredible faith. Now I get hopeless, and I do have
Speaker 1: days where I just feel like, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: don't have the answer, and that's just part of it.
Speaker 1: But I would tell my fans that I'm in a process,
Speaker 1: and that process can be trusted, whether it's a doctor
Speaker 1: or a lawyer. Uh send lawyer, guns and money. UM.
Speaker 1: I want to be honest with fans and tell them
Speaker 1: that I struggle some days with feeling like it's too much.
Speaker 1: You know, this tour is a big tour, and I
Speaker 1: have to show up and kind of act like I
Speaker 1: know what I'm doing. By the way, and I'm also
Speaker 1: the hostess for Ashley McBride and Brandy and Little Big
Speaker 1: Town and it's gonna be a lot. But I'm telling
Speaker 1: the fans everywhere I go, don't worry about me. You
Speaker 1: can pray for me. Um oh, you can see yourself
Speaker 1: and me. I'm struggling at times, I'm broken and I'm blessed.
Speaker 1: On that note, I think we've come to the end
Speaker 1: of the feeling. We've known, we've covered it. Why I
Speaker 1: want to thank you so much for taking the time
Speaker 1: and being so honest and open and real. As you said, well,
Speaker 1: my life depends on it, so you're welcome until next time.
Speaker 1: This is Bob left sets h