Speaker 1: Carola. She's the queen of talking. He was sown your man.
Speaker 1: She's only is side. You got the snoop on on
Speaker 1: the ones side. No one can do with clid my
Speaker 1: Carala Carola, No one can do within Cli Carali Carola. Hey, y'all,
Speaker 1: welcome to Hyper Caroline Hobby. I am your host, Caroline Hobby.
Speaker 1: I know music, I know people, and I know the
Speaker 1: questions do you want to ask? So let's get hyper
Speaker 1: heads up. These are adults having adult conversations, so there
Speaker 1: could be adult content. I am super pumped that Marcus
Speaker 1: Hammond is joining me today. He grew up as a
Speaker 1: citizen of the World, living in the Philippines, Italy. After
Speaker 1: he has written huge hits for Alabama Tim mcgrawl. He
Speaker 1: wrote Born to Fly for Sarah Evans, her breakout hit,
Speaker 1: as well as Dixie Chicks, Cowboy take Me Away, My
Speaker 1: Favorite Song Ever, and Ready to Run. He won a
Speaker 1: Grammy for Best Country Song when he wrote God Bless
Speaker 1: a Broken Road and Roscoe Flats recorded it in two
Speaker 1: thousand five. He's also married to an incredible woman named
Speaker 1: Becca and she started Thistle Farms and their mission is
Speaker 1: to be a sanctuary for healing for women, survivors of abuse, addiction, trafficking,
Speaker 1: and prostitution. I'm telling you, Marcus is one of the
Speaker 1: most interesting people I know. I'm so excited forgot to
Speaker 1: hear this interview. His inside on life is just incredible.
Speaker 1: So y'all get excited. Here is Marcus Hummond. Hello, Marcus
Speaker 1: Hummond friend. Oh yes, oh lookie there, hellove it. You
Speaker 1: and song are just hand in hand. Okay, we gotta
Speaker 1: put this on your mouth, yes, right there, to your lips. Okay,
Speaker 1: I know a lot of lips have touched that. William
Speaker 1: Michael Morgan touched it yesterday. I'm gonna stay away from it.
Speaker 1: Did he did he? Really? I bet that was fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because he was celebrating his number one It was awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they got a lot to celebrate. They do engagements,
Speaker 1: engagement how about that? Which also, let's get right into
Speaker 1: it because I have a few questions. I gonna start
Speaker 1: off rapid fire. But speaking of William Michael Morgan being
Speaker 1: engaged to Jennifer Wayne, she's a part of Runaway June.
Speaker 1: She's also they're gonna be featured on this podcast soon. Wonderful.
Speaker 1: You and I actually had a little bit of a
Speaker 1: time had a hand in it too, but it was
Speaker 1: mainly your genius wrote one of their songs. They just
Speaker 1: cut Blue Roses. Yeah, we're both of us are really
Speaker 1: excited because because you were part of the genesis of
Speaker 1: that group. Really you were there at the time and
Speaker 1: we did a demo together, and you're killing it on
Speaker 1: the demo. I gotta tell you, I love I love Hannah,
Speaker 1: I love Hannah so much, but that demo you really
Speaker 1: did a great chow. It was fun to get to
Speaker 1: see that. Even though I can't sing low harmonies. Well
Speaker 1: you say that that's the thing. You're a great when
Speaker 1: you have a great teacher, you can sing what they
Speaker 1: did it at the They did it at the Opry
Speaker 1: and it was particularly beautiful that one night, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: packed and they got up there, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: such a that particular songs so country, um and kind
Speaker 1: of blue grassy and leaning towards what they do, what
Speaker 1: they're you know, they're like, I guess I was reading
Speaker 1: maybe something you said that it's the first female trio
Speaker 1: correct to ten years since the Dixie Chicks, which is unbelievable,
Speaker 1: and oh my gosh, talk about the Dixie Chicks. You
Speaker 1: obviously have a thing for female trios who have some
Speaker 1: folk root soul, because you wrote a ton of the
Speaker 1: Dixie Chick songs. Two of my favorites, Ready to Run,
Speaker 1: a bunch of them, but they only cut two, but
Speaker 1: they cut well. They cut two great ones, but ready
Speaker 1: to Run and my favorite song of all times, yeah,
Speaker 1: Cowboy take Me Away? You know that song like imprinted me.
Speaker 1: I didn't, but it's you're like a little bird and
Speaker 1: you take it from its mom imprints you, I guess, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, it literally like imprinted my life. Cowboy
Speaker 1: Take Me Away was my jam when I was in
Speaker 1: high school. It was my favorite song. Dixie Chicks were everywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah they were special, you know, they were. Um they
Speaker 1: were probably as good a group um as I have known.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've been in the business now for
Speaker 1: thirty years. Thirty years, but you're only forty. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: I'm only forty five. I just like the sound of
Speaker 1: forty five now. That just sounds it's funny because that
Speaker 1: sounds so so young. Now, I know you're looking at
Speaker 1: like forty five, were like, oh man, that'd be like
Speaker 1: I'd be dead. No time flies. I really I can't
Speaker 1: believe in marty three. I remember when I moved to
Speaker 1: town at nineteen. It feels like yesterday, so young. It's
Speaker 1: so wonderful and it I'm enjoying it. But forties forties
Speaker 1: are good though. I'll tell you I'm in my fifties now,
Speaker 1: but I will say I think the forties were We're
Speaker 1: really great. It's kind of an interesting time in a
Speaker 1: person's life. Here, what is that time? Like I think
Speaker 1: you know you just I think you it's cliche a
Speaker 1: little bit, but like you know, you know yourself better. Um,
Speaker 1: you're aimed at what you're aimed at in life. I
Speaker 1: think if you're not like trying out a million things,
Speaker 1: I don't think you're usually you're not. And if you've
Speaker 1: found your partner in life, um, usually you know, all
Speaker 1: of that has settled and you kind of I think
Speaker 1: you're looking more for sort of the richness of that
Speaker 1: experience as opposed to you know, your eyeballs are swinging
Speaker 1: around in your head. You know that's all gone, you know, really,
Speaker 1: I mean that's kind of past and um, and by
Speaker 1: that time, if you if you're in a marriage, um,
Speaker 1: if you you know, if you're fortunate enough to have
Speaker 1: a good marriage or whatever. You then you've got kids,
Speaker 1: and then everything takes a different shape anyway, because that's
Speaker 1: a time that the kids are growing up. And it's
Speaker 1: kind of a wonderful period, you know. It's it's you just, um,
Speaker 1: every day is pretty exciting. And the fifties aren't bad.
Speaker 1: It's just that you get in the fifties and the
Speaker 1: kids that you loved so much starting to go to
Speaker 1: school and leave home, and then you're turning into adults.
Speaker 1: They're adults. And if your folks are alive, you know,
Speaker 1: they're um, you know, they're really old and in some
Speaker 1: cases struggling. And that's what that's what I'm going through.
Speaker 1: And I know, but a lot of us in our fifties,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what it happens for the most part.
Speaker 1: That's like my wife lost her tragically, really lost her parents,
Speaker 1: um many years ago, how tragically well an illness and
Speaker 1: was prepared. Yeah, and her dad died in a car
Speaker 1: accent I was killed by drunk drivers. So she uh yeah,
Speaker 1: so she didn't. Um, she hasn't grown older, you know,
Speaker 1: with parents, you know. But anyway, but I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: very thankful that my folks are still alive. But yeah,
Speaker 1: fifties is fifties different, you know, just kind of settle
Speaker 1: in for it. So really enjoy the forties, enjoy everything,
Speaker 1: but just enjoy it all, but enjoy the forties and
Speaker 1: don't be afraid, I guess more to the point, don't
Speaker 1: be afraid of the forties. Forties will be good. I'm
Speaker 1: excited about that. Yeah, okay, so you're talking I want
Speaker 1: to of course go back. But since you mentioned this,
Speaker 1: you're talking about having a spouse that you really have
Speaker 1: a beautiful relationship with. You and Becca are amazing. And
Speaker 1: your wife is a preacher is what we call it
Speaker 1: a preacher. She's a she's a priest. She's a episcopal priest,
Speaker 1: but she does preach um. But that she actually that's
Speaker 1: her job. She's the episcopal chaplain at Vanderbilt. That's one
Speaker 1: of her jobs. And then the thing that she's kind
Speaker 1: of in some ways most well known for as she
Speaker 1: started a residential program for women who suffered lives of
Speaker 1: trafficking um through the prison system. Initially, and that program,
Speaker 1: called Magdalen, was different because it was the two years
Speaker 1: was different in this sort the idea of radical hospitality
Speaker 1: was different. And and now there's many many cities in
Speaker 1: America that are trying to actually bring her in to
Speaker 1: consult and figure out why did that? Why has that worked? Well,
Speaker 1: a lot of it has to do with it. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: she created a social entrepreneurial company UM called Thistle Farms
Speaker 1: and is amazing and the reason and now that's the
Speaker 1: largest social entrepreneurial in the country for women with a
Speaker 1: history of traffic event traffics products, beautiful product tapsticks and
Speaker 1: all sorts of incredible thing candles, and it gives women
Speaker 1: jobs who have some jobs and a living wage. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not just about a wage. It's about a roof
Speaker 1: and a car and reconciling with families and and I
Speaker 1: think it it's part of that happened because she was
Speaker 1: building this two year residential program, was had some different
Speaker 1: ideas about, UM, how community can help women be released
Speaker 1: from the cycle of sexual abuse as kids. All of
Speaker 1: you know, this is hundred percent the community that that
Speaker 1: she works with. And and then the cycle of being
Speaker 1: in prison and being out of the street in the back,
Speaker 1: you know, averaging seventy five arrests, you know, really chronic.
Speaker 1: Each person is averaging arrest and she helps with because
Speaker 1: I guess once you get in the cycle, it's just
Speaker 1: hard to break it. That's right. You know, these are kids,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is you know what it looks like.
Speaker 1: It looks like abused probably before the age of eight,
Speaker 1: usually by someone close to you. It means you're on
Speaker 1: the street between fourteen and sixteen years old, and then
Speaker 1: you're then you're trafficked, and then you're and and it's
Speaker 1: traffic meaning like you're sold for sex, prostitution. But it
Speaker 1: also there's a there's a wonder one relationship between that
Speaker 1: and addiction, you know, because of course once you get
Speaker 1: in there, I'm sure addictions following right behind or leading
Speaker 1: you there. Sometimes it comes the other way that you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's how you that's how the pan is going
Speaker 1: to give you, you know, your crack or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's an awful it's just unbelievable. But it's everywhere.
Speaker 1: It's all over the world, but it's also every and
Speaker 1: every city in a mar Arca and a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't know that, you know, but it is. And
Speaker 1: so she she leaned into that. How did she decide
Speaker 1: to lean into that? Because that's a big lean you know,
Speaker 1: She's written several books on the subject, and excuse been
Speaker 1: very public about it, so I you know, I would
Speaker 1: not ordinarily say this, but um, she uh suffered abuse
Speaker 1: when her dad died a someone in the church when
Speaker 1: she was very young, and this went on for a while.
Speaker 1: But instead of sexual abuse and instead of it kind
Speaker 1: of breaking her or sending her the way of the
Speaker 1: very people that she works with, the Sisterhood, that is Magdalen,
Speaker 1: that is Thistle Farms, um, And it could have And
Speaker 1: I think she's always been real, real clear about that.
Speaker 1: You know that there's not a lot of difference. There
Speaker 1: really is no difference. You know, it's just it's just people.
Speaker 1: What was that song, drugs or Jesus? Like Tim McGraw
Speaker 1: said it, kind of there's two roads sometimes when you
Speaker 1: have a hard decision, not drugs. But obviously I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's a comparison. Well, but your point of
Speaker 1: you know that we're all it's on a you know,
Speaker 1: it's um, it's fragile. People's lives are fragile, and it
Speaker 1: were easily broken. UM, but you know you can be
Speaker 1: it can come back together, you know. She I think
Speaker 1: for her, it led her. UM two be really focused
Speaker 1: on healing herself and others. And as long as I've
Speaker 1: known her, I mean I I you know, I met
Speaker 1: her and I'm moonlighted at Divinity School years ago, and
Speaker 1: that's how I met Becca. Um, and she was that way.
Speaker 1: I mean she was that way at twenty five years old.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you what. Yeah, I mean the first date
Speaker 1: we had. I remember where I met this girl. Right.
Speaker 1: So I'm in Nashville and I'm trying to get a
Speaker 1: record deal and I have a publishing deal, and I
Speaker 1: I was thinking, you know, I gotta just I need
Speaker 1: to meet I need to be with some people that
Speaker 1: kind of come from a little more similar cultural background.
Speaker 1: Because you grew up as a citizen of the world. Well,
Speaker 1: I grew up overseas and my focus million different places,
Speaker 1: the Philippines. Where else would you live, Well, I lived
Speaker 1: in Tanzania. Uh So I should backtrack. My dad his
Speaker 1: work was in international economic development. So you know, the
Speaker 1: United States has embassies all over the world and in
Speaker 1: what we used to call the third world, now you call,
Speaker 1: I think the developing world. But UM, part of our
Speaker 1: national interest in relationships with other countries is that we
Speaker 1: want to help and UM to pass back and forth
Speaker 1: economic um UM know how and you know we want
Speaker 1: to be involved in development. Uh and and you know
Speaker 1: in other cases there are places where America's seems univery
Speaker 1: concerned to have for example military UM and all of
Speaker 1: all of the places that we UM. You know that
Speaker 1: we're in relationship with diplomatic relations. We have an ambassador.
Speaker 1: So Dad's interest, my dad's interest was economics and economic development.
Speaker 1: You know you wanted to So we lived in Tanzania,
Speaker 1: and then we lived in Nigeria, UM, and then the
Speaker 1: Philippines right when the Marquesses came in M. Marcos Ferdinand
Speaker 1: and mL de Marcos. Yeah, and then uh we actually
Speaker 1: Dad worked was in a political appointment during the Carter administration,
Speaker 1: the Jimmy car administration. That's that's when actually we moved
Speaker 1: to Saudi Arabia. So we lived in Saudi Arabia in
Speaker 1: seventies six and seventy seven and part of seventy eight.
Speaker 1: And I UM I couldn't go to school in the
Speaker 1: kingdom because they didn't allow after ninth grade. Expatriate kids
Speaker 1: were not allowed to go to school in Saudi Arabia
Speaker 1: unless you went to a um a school in Islamic
Speaker 1: school and so I had a choice to either take
Speaker 1: correspondence courses at home, which I tried for a little bit,
Speaker 1: but that was kind of goofy. And then the only
Speaker 1: other choice was I had to leave home, so I went.
Speaker 1: I was sixteen, I turned seventeen in Italy UM and
Speaker 1: you got to remember those of the days. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like it was no cell phone or I remember when
Speaker 1: I got to Rome, I went to I did I
Speaker 1: went to I actually went to Notre Dame International, which
Speaker 1: is a high school UM that is run by the
Speaker 1: same brothers, the Holy Cross that run Notre Dame University,
Speaker 1: even though I happened to not be Roman Catholic. But
Speaker 1: I uh, that was a fantastic school. And it's one
Speaker 1: of these schools, international schools that of course, I grew
Speaker 1: up in international schools where you'll have American curriculum and
Speaker 1: you'll have like half the kids at the school will
Speaker 1: be whatever the the country is, so they're half the
Speaker 1: kids are Retalian and the other half our kids from
Speaker 1: all literally all over the world. You know, who are
Speaker 1: looking for a great school. Many Americans, folks with Exxon
Speaker 1: and you know, it might be with Lockheed, might be
Speaker 1: State Department people, all kinds of people. But um, it's
Speaker 1: really it's kind of a crazy thing. It's when I
Speaker 1: went there for a year. Uh, and then my dad
Speaker 1: was restationed back to the United States and so we
Speaker 1: went back and I actually never I never lived abroad again.
Speaker 1: My parents lived in Botswana for many years so that
Speaker 1: they love Africa. They love Africa, and I traveled to
Speaker 1: Botswana a fair amount. And I'm still through our church.
Speaker 1: I am still in relationship with a um an organization
Speaker 1: actually a hospice in Botswana that um and we raise
Speaker 1: money for them. We have a thing called the Greatest
Speaker 1: Show Ever we do every year, which is a night
Speaker 1: of impersonations I hosted. It's for dead artists and dead careers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we have Sadly, we have a lot of new,
Speaker 1: new new folks who got it to the lineup. I
Speaker 1: know I'm going to do Leonard Cohen though, Yeah, I gotta,
Speaker 1: I gotta do Leonard. I just need to like backtrack,
Speaker 1: just what did you gather from living in all of
Speaker 1: these different countries, with all of these different cultures and
Speaker 1: such a pivotal point of your life when you're developing,
Speaker 1: like obviously you're preteen, teen and teen and you're living
Speaker 1: in all of these different cultures. What is that and
Speaker 1: what did that do to your thought process? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean that's big. Those are big. Those are good questions,
Speaker 1: are big questions. I mean, um, probably uh well, probably
Speaker 1: an appreciation of diversity. You know, um, when you have
Speaker 1: a lot of friends who are you have friends who
Speaker 1: are Muslims, and you have friends who are you know, Buddhists,
Speaker 1: you have friends who are you know, can it can
Speaker 1: break along nationalities, it can break along race. You know,
Speaker 1: you have friends of your Italian you have friends are Africans,
Speaker 1: you have friends you know, you just sort of that's
Speaker 1: the world that actually is there and so you live
Speaker 1: in that and you and you're proud of your country.
Speaker 1: You're proud to represent your country, because my folks used
Speaker 1: to say that, used to say, you know, remember you're
Speaker 1: representing your country. But like to give you an example,
Speaker 1: like when we lived in Saudi Arabia. I mean, my
Speaker 1: mom's just like from a small town in Michigan, and
Speaker 1: you know she was studying Arabic you know, in a
Speaker 1: country that uh in the seventies and now that has
Speaker 1: by Western standards. You know, they there are laws towards women.
Speaker 1: You know, we're not That wasn't a pretty sot. You know.
Speaker 1: She wasn't allowed to drive, she couldn't know, she couldn't
Speaker 1: wear she had her skirts, had to have long, her
Speaker 1: dresses had to be long sleeved, had to be down
Speaker 1: to her ankles. Did she wear something of her head? Um?
Speaker 1: I did. She had scarfs, but you know she didn't
Speaker 1: have to do like heyja or whatever. By Yeah, basically
Speaker 1: just Westerners, you know. Um. But what that tells you
Speaker 1: is that, you know, um, my folks really gave me
Speaker 1: a sense that you know, we were guests in host
Speaker 1: countries and that we should be respectful as we could,
Speaker 1: you know, of other people's traditions and their cultures. And
Speaker 1: so I guess that, I mean, that's certainly one thing,
Speaker 1: and that, you know, affected me. I think musically, I
Speaker 1: already had parents who are kind of um, you know,
Speaker 1: I grew up My parents listened to oh god, I
Speaker 1: mean they had so much folk music. I mean it
Speaker 1: was all like, you know, Bob Dylan and I don't know,
Speaker 1: Pete Seeger and Joan Bias and all this stuff. And
Speaker 1: then they listened to classical music. They were way you know,
Speaker 1: they had met in choir, so they listened a lot
Speaker 1: to choral music and then they were they were bonkers
Speaker 1: over Broadway music. So you've also written six Broadway musicals,
Speaker 1: which is I haven't been on Broadway, but I've been.
Speaker 1: I've done off Broadway six musicals I've written three have
Speaker 1: been on off Broadway, right, Yeah, And I've written an opera,
Speaker 1: an opera for Nashville Opera Company. And you also wrote
Speaker 1: a children's book, and you've also done a documentary. I mean,
Speaker 1: your creativity is overflowing from you. Yeah, well, you know,
Speaker 1: you having fun. You know, it's you're just a very
Speaker 1: creative person. And you're very smart too. Like that's the
Speaker 1: thing about you. I've gotten a chance to write songs
Speaker 1: with you and like be around you're not for years.
Speaker 1: Something about the way that you were raised, Like like
Speaker 1: maybe what you said, like you understand diversity and you
Speaker 1: appreciate it, mixed with how smart you are, mixed with
Speaker 1: your love of folk and very good lyric lyrical music
Speaker 1: with great melodies. The way you write songs is literally
Speaker 1: unlike anything I've ever experienced. Really sweet of you to
Speaker 1: say that. And we've and you and I we've we've
Speaker 1: had some we've done some music together too, That's one
Speaker 1: I love. I'm not you know, I don't know your
Speaker 1: how your fans, you know, but I'm sure they know
Speaker 1: this about you're a very very good musician. That's not true.
Speaker 1: That is true. You have a beautiful voice, and you
Speaker 1: have a great sense of music. Well, when I'm with
Speaker 1: a great teacher, you said you struggle with you know,
Speaker 1: harmony is a funny thing, you know, because I'm kind
Speaker 1: of a I'm a harmony I'm just nutso about harmonies.
Speaker 1: But you can hear like seventeen different harmony parts. I
Speaker 1: don't know I hear, you know. I started writing choral
Speaker 1: stuff um one of the latest projects. Uh. I was
Speaker 1: commissioned a couple of years ago to write a cantata,
Speaker 1: so a passion cantata for the church. So the Episcopal
Speaker 1: Cathedral said, you know, we'll give you a few some bucks.
Speaker 1: And I started working over at Belmont with this group
Speaker 1: called the Chamber Singers and Dr Dean and Sminger and
Speaker 1: and I don't really read music except Nashville style numbers
Speaker 1: and and I'm an ear player on piano and different instruments.
Speaker 1: You play a lot of instruments, A few instruments. But
Speaker 1: I also got into this process because I was writing
Speaker 1: theater through the years. I started to get this idea
Speaker 1: that I wanted to do my own harmonies, my own
Speaker 1: and then begin to think of it in terms of
Speaker 1: choral music. And so got into this process and built
Speaker 1: some relationships at a couple of conservatories where I could
Speaker 1: send files where I would duplicate. I might sing four
Speaker 1: part you know s a TV, and then I would
Speaker 1: send I would triple or quadruple. You know I should
Speaker 1: say this. And I know this because right now I've
Speaker 1: been working with a hundred person choir at Belmont, and
Speaker 1: I work people at one time. Last week we recorded
Speaker 1: something and then Friday we're gonna finish. We're putting the
Speaker 1: other fifty kids in the room because we couldn't get
Speaker 1: all hundred in. And I'm working with the the the
Speaker 1: conductor arranger, Professor Dr Jane Warren on this one, and
Speaker 1: she she's actually taken my uh choral arrangement which was
Speaker 1: transcribed at the Heart Conservatory that's how I do it, um.
Speaker 1: And then she has actually added some parts so that
Speaker 1: we could have true you know, um, true soprano parts.
Speaker 1: So for example, I mean yeah, I can do sa
Speaker 1: TV falsetto and then early in the morning I sing
Speaker 1: bass and I'm a natural tenor. And uh but that actually,
Speaker 1: you know, there is a range of singing that is
Speaker 1: I can't do it. And because my my painting, you know,
Speaker 1: my color is my paint brush is just my voice.
Speaker 1: That's how I write, you know, I write by singing everything.
Speaker 1: And I spent a lot of time on it, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's a it's a super fun thing. And this
Speaker 1: just now this year we published the National Church. Episcopal
Speaker 1: Church has just released a book actually called The Passion.
Speaker 1: I called it The Passion and Beck and I, my
Speaker 1: wife and I wrote um a little book about each
Speaker 1: of the six movements within the cantata, and then it
Speaker 1: attached to it is the the the CD itself called
Speaker 1: The Passion and CTM I ex publisher. They put it
Speaker 1: out as an album and then you can buy, like
Speaker 1: the Score, you can buy each you know. So it's
Speaker 1: going to churches. And sometimes a passion narrative or a
Speaker 1: passion is really something that is done at pom Palm Sunday,
Speaker 1: because on Palm Sunday in the church, you know, you
Speaker 1: don't you don't have an Easter song, although I added
Speaker 1: one anyway, you know, what the heck? Can you get
Speaker 1: the guy out of the grave? Right? But I you know,
Speaker 1: I uh in Palm at Palm Sunday. It's it ends
Speaker 1: on the cross, that's it. Right. So when we think
Speaker 1: of Lent, we think of the season of Jesus coming
Speaker 1: to Jerusalem, which of course ends in his in his
Speaker 1: death in those famous stories the Last Supper. Uh, get
Speaker 1: so many? You know so much? Do you know so much? Now?
Speaker 1: You know? You know what it really was, Carolina. It
Speaker 1: was really fun because when they asked me to do it.
Speaker 1: Of course, whenever I get offered something like that, I
Speaker 1: always just say yes, and then I kind of figure
Speaker 1: out how to do it as well. I mean, how
Speaker 1: otherwise how are you gonna have any fun? But I
Speaker 1: thought it was fun to go back. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: not a big, big Bible reader. I'm not a but
Speaker 1: you must have like a photographic memory, because you pretty
Speaker 1: much know all the stories just in this little conversation.
Speaker 1: I can say, this little conversation is because that was
Speaker 1: two years ago. And to do the piece, you know,
Speaker 1: I went back and to learn I went back to
Speaker 1: the four Gospels and said well, um, it's like a libretto, right,
Speaker 1: it's like a script or a a lyric if you like,
Speaker 1: for a cantata. That cantada is just an extended work
Speaker 1: for voices and instruments. And so it's a forty five
Speaker 1: minute piece, you know. So I had to go back
Speaker 1: and kind of go, well, wait a minute, okay, you
Speaker 1: know what both what what does each gospel say about
Speaker 1: this occurrence? I make it into music exactly, I mean,
Speaker 1: And and who are the characters? Now, let's think of
Speaker 1: them as characters. Do you read it like you were studying?
Speaker 1: That's correct? Yeah? I love that. Well, it made for
Speaker 1: and that was part of what I wanted to write
Speaker 1: about in that little book, is that I realized because
Speaker 1: I'd come out of theater now and because I was
Speaker 1: a roots writer. I mean, I write if I'm writing
Speaker 1: country folk, bluesy stuff, because that's where your heart is,
Speaker 1: and that's your like, that's being like a populace like
Speaker 1: folk meaning voke like of the people. So you think, okay,
Speaker 1: so then you take that lens and you point that
Speaker 1: at Lent and Jesus. And for me, you know, it's
Speaker 1: really really hard to write for some transcendent creature whose
Speaker 1: mind you can't fathom, like God, like looking at Jesus
Speaker 1: in those terms as you write music. But if you
Speaker 1: look at things like um, if you look at Jesus
Speaker 1: and you say um, something like um, that you know,
Speaker 1: if you think of Jesus as standing against semony and
Speaker 1: saying and somebody I guess hearing it right in theory
Speaker 1: because that's why they wrote it down. Uh. He knows
Speaker 1: what's coming, and he says, let this cut pass for me,
Speaker 1: and goes through kind of some thought process which we
Speaker 1: have written down for us in the Gospels. But then
Speaker 1: at the end of that says his process. He removes
Speaker 1: through his prayer, and he says, but not your will,
Speaker 1: but not my will, but yours. So as a as
Speaker 1: a writer of theater and as a person you know
Speaker 1: who looks for emotion in a situation, I understand the
Speaker 1: emotion of what I think is being afraid. I think
Speaker 1: I don't think you say let this cut pass me
Speaker 1: unless you or maybe pretty clear that you know the
Speaker 1: one of the most brutal oppressive nations ever row is
Speaker 1: going to you know you're you're in for some serious persecution.
Speaker 1: And so that to me is very that you can
Speaker 1: write to that, I can write to that. So you
Speaker 1: need a story. So how important is faith in your
Speaker 1: music or in your life? I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess about as important as anything. I guess. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think about the term faith. Um, you know what,
Speaker 1: do I have faith in what you have? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Sort of probably, I think fundamentally, I I would say
Speaker 1: I have faith that there's a loving God. I think
Speaker 1: that's probably kind of number even in the world with
Speaker 1: all the chaos. How do you know there's a loving God?
Speaker 1: I do not. You just have decided to believe, yes.
Speaker 1: And I also have you seen truth and signs of it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh sure all the time, the and the courage of people,
Speaker 1: and the love that of one another, and and also
Speaker 1: in the beauty of the you know, for like the
Speaker 1: like the Great Hand, for the beauty of the earth. Um.
Speaker 1: I see signs all the time. I see other things too, um.
Speaker 1: And I also have, like a lot of people, like
Speaker 1: probably all of us, I have a lot of times
Speaker 1: where um, that faith is shaken, or people refer to
Speaker 1: dark knights of the soul, or that you're kind of
Speaker 1: in dialogue with it. Um, it's almost to me it's
Speaker 1: a little more. The way I interpret faith might be
Speaker 1: more like a choice. I choose to think of a
Speaker 1: loving God, and for the most part, I believe. I
Speaker 1: choose to believe that. You know that, uh, that there
Speaker 1: is a as Martin Luther King said, you know the
Speaker 1: arc of history spending towards justice. I I choose to
Speaker 1: believe that even when sometimes evidence would appear to the contrary.
Speaker 1: And um, that's I don't know how to put it. Differently,
Speaker 1: I'm afraid it's a little no. I love that like
Speaker 1: kind of oddly existential position without a lot of proof.
Speaker 1: I think faith doesn't have a whole lot of proofs sometimes. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so you I want to get back to your music
Speaker 1: a little bit, because so you grew up in all
Speaker 1: these amazing countries, your citizen of the world. You understand diversity,
Speaker 1: You under appreciate it, appreciate it. Your parents have this
Speaker 1: great musical catalog that they listen to. You grew up
Speaker 1: playing instruments, writing songs. When did you start writing songs?
Speaker 1: How old are you you know it was? It was sporadic.
Speaker 1: Um I can remember writing. Um, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think I was eleven in Nigeria, is the first time
Speaker 1: I ever did anything musical. Like a friend. I had
Speaker 1: a friend who was Pakistani guy, well half Pakistani's mom
Speaker 1: was English novid Bernie. And remember he's a very good
Speaker 1: guitar player and he's a good singer, and he wanted
Speaker 1: to form a band. So I like to play drums.
Speaker 1: So we had all these But when I say drums,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a drum kid. I had a bunch of
Speaker 1: African drums. Well, they're bigger than bongos. There were some
Speaker 1: about that, says, but some are kind of large, but
Speaker 1: they're just you know, they're they're wooden carcasses with a
Speaker 1: you know, stretched skin over it and and then um.
Speaker 1: And Nigeria they had things called talking drums to re
Speaker 1: that are with the the skin draped over the wood
Speaker 1: is actually um held together on both ends by um
Speaker 1: string or hide that you know, rolled into string. And
Speaker 1: what you do is as you play the drum with
Speaker 1: a stick, you actually press the strings around it and
Speaker 1: it makes the go. And actually they're talking drums because
Speaker 1: you can actually make them, can create language out of it.
Speaker 1: That's that's crazy. You started a band when you're when
Speaker 1: we were actually had tv um. I had one little
Speaker 1: moment on TV, and yeah, I was drum so my
Speaker 1: first that was the start. That was my start was actually,
Speaker 1: and I never It's funny because I I never really
Speaker 1: have been asked that actually, and that's I'd forgotten that
Speaker 1: that's the case. You say, your age ten or eleven
Speaker 1: music and your family were your parents musical or very
Speaker 1: very musical, but that wasn't their career. But they met
Speaker 1: and they met in choir, and my mom was to
Speaker 1: this day, she's very good pianist. My dad's a good
Speaker 1: piano player. My mom reads music really well. She can
Speaker 1: play a pipe organ two with pedals. Dang organ is
Speaker 1: hard to play. And then she grew up playing I
Speaker 1: think clarinet, and dad also grew up playing trumpet. You're
Speaker 1: from a family of savants. No, you really might be.
Speaker 1: You met him? No, No, no, you might be. You
Speaker 1: are definitely from a family of savants. I don't think
Speaker 1: savants know their savants though. I think that's the key here.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, the the what do they say?
Speaker 1: Sometimes she doesn't know she's that's not she don't know.
Speaker 1: She's beautiful. You don't know you I don't know. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. We just know so much stuff. You know, really,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know, Caroline. That's very sweet of you.
Speaker 1: I just I think that the thing that might be
Speaker 1: different is, you know, if you grew up in a
Speaker 1: lot of different places, you end up having sort of, um,
Speaker 1: a variety pack of ideas about Are you so glad
Speaker 1: that you got to grow up all over the world?
Speaker 1: I am, yeah, I mean I know that When I
Speaker 1: was a kid, sometimes we used to fantasize. I used
Speaker 1: to fantasize about the kind of small town America life
Speaker 1: that my parents had. You know, who grew up My
Speaker 1: mom grew up in her dad was had a dairy store.
Speaker 1: My father's folks, my grandfather was a farmer. And I
Speaker 1: think even when I first got to Nashville, some of
Speaker 1: the first recordings I ever did that sounded real country
Speaker 1: or that leaned into kind of really an upbringing I
Speaker 1: didn't have was about fantasizing about out an Americana existence
Speaker 1: that interesting. You know, there was a song that very
Speaker 1: first I had a lot of record deals that didn't happen.
Speaker 1: So how old were you when you moved to Nashville.
Speaker 1: So I went to college and I finished college, Um,
Speaker 1: and I was a year older than everybody because I
Speaker 1: had been held back in Italy, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: I didn't when I was inside. I was held back
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia when I so I was you know, I
Speaker 1: graduated at nineteen and then went to cost it was
Speaker 1: a little bit older. Um so I really the whole
Speaker 1: thing happened later for him, and I didn't even get
Speaker 1: into I didn't get serious about music until college. Really,
Speaker 1: so you just run bands enjoying it, but you didn't
Speaker 1: know that was in the band. And you know, your
Speaker 1: first band with your Pakistani friend, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. And then you're also in a band with
Speaker 1: your sisters. You also had a little bit out with
Speaker 1: your sisters called uh you had Wing Harmony and then
Speaker 1: red Wing. Well these are all stretched over a very
Speaker 1: very long period of time. So the band with yeah,
Speaker 1: I played music with this kid Navida. Um. But then
Speaker 1: music throughout up into high school and into college for
Speaker 1: me was periodically. I um got really interested in guitar
Speaker 1: and and then I studied guitar a little bit again,
Speaker 1: kind of intermittently. And whenever I took up the guitar
Speaker 1: and developed was developing my own style of playing for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, I always wrote songs. It's just like that
Speaker 1: became those two things were completely playing guitar and then um.
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't say I took it particularly seriously, never
Speaker 1: thought of it like professionally. I just I remember when
Speaker 1: I was in the Philippines at fifteen, I was lucky enough.
Speaker 1: I I took lessons from a guy named Sammy Kleimaco,
Speaker 1: who was a big rock star in the Philippines at
Speaker 1: the time, and he was great. And then when he
Speaker 1: kind of uh and then briefly I went to a
Speaker 1: guitar institute when I was in the Philippines, which is
Speaker 1: really wacky because it was a guitar institute in the Philippines.
Speaker 1: My teacher was Japanese and he was teaching them Have
Speaker 1: you written a musical about your movement life? That's your
Speaker 1: next one. But he taught American finger four finger role
Speaker 1: kind of technique. And it's a particular technique that I,
Speaker 1: you know, used to this day. And so you have
Speaker 1: a lot of influences in your guitar playing. I do,
Speaker 1: actually I think I have. Um. You know, Paul Simon's
Speaker 1: guitar playing. He was the guy that played that uh
Speaker 1: fingerstyle he was probably I mean he and James Taylor
Speaker 1: is probably my favorite fingerstyle players. But um, I also
Speaker 1: love rhythmic groove guitar and so um that would you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know where it got, you know, Um maybe
Speaker 1: Richie Haven's that kind of real, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: just groove and um and I love Bob Marley and
Speaker 1: I loved you know, a lot of afropop to where
Speaker 1: rhythmic ideas are are used, um in a different way.
Speaker 1: Then you bring all that to country music. So you
Speaker 1: get serious about it in college and then you go, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm moving. I know. You go to l A for
Speaker 1: a minute, and then you decide to relocate to Nashville,
Speaker 1: and you're like, I'm going to do this at Nashville.
Speaker 1: You get to Nashville, you get a publishing deal right away,
Speaker 1: and you get a song cut by win No No
Speaker 1: only lot takes. That takes a little while, so because
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a big song. Yeah, so that's a
Speaker 1: few years away. But yeah, I get I get signed.
Speaker 1: I'm only twenty five. I get here in eighties, but
Speaker 1: I get here in eighties six, so I don't get
Speaker 1: that cut until ninety I think, Okay, So you're here
Speaker 1: like four years. Yeah, and then before then I actually
Speaker 1: have um I actually have a record deal on Columbia. No.
Speaker 1: So well, here's the thing that you wouldn't necessarily know
Speaker 1: because um I had um several record deals. How many
Speaker 1: record I think Columbia was honestly, I have to go
Speaker 1: through them, but I think it was the fifth mtm
Speaker 1: uh there was an art these are now these are
Speaker 1: development deals, Okay, so this is a different time. Development
Speaker 1: deals mean they signed you and they're going and just
Speaker 1: watch you. Developed help you. They put money into you.
Speaker 1: And the old, the classical development deals that we don't
Speaker 1: see much of anymore, was that they would you would
Speaker 1: sign a deal, and the deal with sort of also
Speaker 1: you'd be required to sign something that you're going to
Speaker 1: sign the larger deal. Okay, so you're already kind of
Speaker 1: chained to it. And then they're going to give you
Speaker 1: like twelve grand or fifteen brand and you're gonna coke
Speaker 1: cut like three to four sides. And this period is
Speaker 1: gonna it's gonna happen over six to nine months period
Speaker 1: of time. Then they're going to have the first option.
Speaker 1: They're gonna have the right they no one else can
Speaker 1: make it a take you or they can decide to
Speaker 1: let you go. That's correct. And if they take you,
Speaker 1: then the other thing clicks in that the basic deal
Speaker 1: that you've already you've already agreed to, so to the
Speaker 1: development deal and a contract to deal in theory or not.
Speaker 1: And so I had a series of or not. So
Speaker 1: actually the first or not is not fully my fault.
Speaker 1: The first or not and the first real record deal
Speaker 1: was Mary Tyler Moore Records. You knew Mary Tyler, I
Speaker 1: never ever met her. I was signed by Tommy West
Speaker 1: who was Jim Crow cheese producer, and he was at
Speaker 1: this label and the label had Julie, Judy Rodman and
Speaker 1: the Forester sisters. Tricia year was was was the actually
Speaker 1: she was the gal at the front desk, that was
Speaker 1: the front she worked out and they had Paul over Street.
Speaker 1: Did you see Tricia? Of course absolutely, she was like
Speaker 1: answering yes. And I remember I remember somebody saying, you
Speaker 1: know she by the way, she can really she really
Speaker 1: sing a demo if you need anyone for a demos,
Speaker 1: if you gotta if you gotta chick song, or you know,
Speaker 1: you get Tricia. No. I remember, in fact, in that
Speaker 1: part of I tell you, I saw I met Garth
Speaker 1: for the first time. I'm like, I'm the last person
Speaker 1: in Nashville who's been around this long to meet Garth.
Speaker 1: But I because I working on a movie that that
Speaker 1: we needed to interview, and he was gracious enough to
Speaker 1: give an interview, and um we met at the Bluebird
Speaker 1: for this uh, for the filming of this thing. Just
Speaker 1: it was just a few weeks ago, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I remember Tricia when she was front and desk, and
Speaker 1: you know, I just it was It's wild to have
Speaker 1: the you know, when you're around a long time, you
Speaker 1: just you've seen a lot of different people. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I know I was on that label and they had
Speaker 1: the reigning UM Female Focus of the Year was Judy Rodmans.
Speaker 1: It was real serious company and they they're publishing side
Speaker 1: because they took up part of my publishing. That's the
Speaker 1: way those deals were. Those days you had to give up,
Speaker 1: you know, but they had Remember they had Foster and
Speaker 1: Lloyd's Faster and Louder album, uh, which you know became
Speaker 1: a seminal kind of country uh rockabilly. I mean the
Speaker 1: if you're not familiar that record, Faster, I mean that
Speaker 1: period of time the late eighties. I mean that's when
Speaker 1: everything went exploded, you know, because well I was, you know,
Speaker 1: but just just you know, dumb as a stone about it.
Speaker 1: I mean in a way. I mean, well I didn't
Speaker 1: know anything, you know. And I even remember I had
Speaker 1: a guy once I won't say what his name is,
Speaker 1: but in my first publishing deal Nashville, I had one
Speaker 1: of the head guys called me into his office and said,
Speaker 1: you know you should leave. You should leave. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: said you should leave. And he's like, you know, you're
Speaker 1: not hill billy and what we do here is make
Speaker 1: hill billy music. And you know, he says you should
Speaker 1: you should go. And I remember he said to me, goes,
Speaker 1: you know, you know who you remind me of? And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh god, you know and I said,
Speaker 1: oh who, And he goes, well, you remind me of
Speaker 1: Dan Fogelberg. And I was like, wow, well, you know,
Speaker 1: thanks for that. And he goes, that's not a compliment
Speaker 1: because he was saying, that's not going to make an attention.
Speaker 1: He goes, I hate Dan Fogelberg. What does this guy
Speaker 1: get to be the authority? Well, he just was at
Speaker 1: the time, without telling you who he was. I mean,
Speaker 1: he had a he had a lot going from. Now
Speaker 1: tell you this about this guy. Years later after sticking
Speaker 1: it out as I did for a long time, and
Speaker 1: then and then beginning to have hits and let's not
Speaker 1: forget you did ultimately one song in the year with
Speaker 1: God Bust the Broken Road of Rascal Flats Win a Grammy.
Speaker 1: We gotta get into your song resume here after this
Speaker 1: because it's a huge and amazing He actually I remember
Speaker 1: seeing him on the street, um walking around music crow,
Speaker 1: and he did. He came up to me said, by
Speaker 1: the way he goes, I just want you to know
Speaker 1: I was wrong about you. Oh well, thanks, Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, the little victories in life, you know. But
Speaker 1: on the other hand, he was like, after you wont
Speaker 1: a grahammy gotten all these Dixie chick songs? Everyone wasn't
Speaker 1: He partly right in one sense, um in the in
Speaker 1: the you know, it didn't come. I didn't grow up
Speaker 1: in country music. But you know, I had a couple
Speaker 1: of things that I could hold onto. One is that
Speaker 1: folk blues are not very different, not really, not to me.
Speaker 1: And if you're a lyricist and you're a piano player
Speaker 1: and you like guitars, and you play mandolin and later
Speaker 1: you like to pick up the banjo. You're gonna be
Speaker 1: all right. You know, you play all those instruments. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but not doesn't mean I play them all well. But
Speaker 1: I played a couple of them pretty well. But you know,
Speaker 1: it was the right place to be. I think it
Speaker 1: was not the right place. Maybe you were ahead of
Speaker 1: your time because now country music is pretty wide over
Speaker 1: or solidly backwards. You know. I think that a friend
Speaker 1: of mine, my my dearest co writing buddy, is Darryl
Speaker 1: Scott and the most long time compatriot in this business.
Speaker 1: And he has said to me many times, said, you're
Speaker 1: just you know, you grew up in the seventies and
Speaker 1: really everything you do just sounds like the seventies and
Speaker 1: it's awesome. That's kind of that's kind of with Midland
Speaker 1: the new band out, Their whole band feels like throwback seventies. Yes,
Speaker 1: try to hook that up. Really a good combo. I think.
Speaker 1: You know they say every thirty years trends repeat. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you so maybe I'm going to come back in
Speaker 1: a vogue. It's about it's about to be. Marcus Heyday
Speaker 1: Part two, Marcus Ad Part two. Well, you know, you
Speaker 1: never you nevers continue, you know, you get you know,
Speaker 1: it's been a it's been a while since I've had
Speaker 1: a number one. Well, you're probably about to have one
Speaker 1: with Blue Roses with a totally give it right here.
Speaker 1: Wait yeah, folks, this is us booming, just putting it
Speaker 1: out there in the universe. Tell me why that first
Speaker 1: development deal Wasn't your fault that you lost it? You
Speaker 1: never said why, that's right, yeah, because it was. There
Speaker 1: was a series of them. There was our c A
Speaker 1: and and uh and I was with the original Arista label,
Speaker 1: Major labels, they're all majors. Yeah, they were Liberty. Uh literally,
Speaker 1: the fifth one was Colombia and then and they and
Speaker 1: that was Paul Whorley and Scott Simon, your friends of mine.
Speaker 1: There's an old saying that, you know, if you stick
Speaker 1: around long enough, your friends become record presidents, then you
Speaker 1: get deals. But that's kind of what happened to me.
Speaker 1: And then and then unfortunately, right in the middle of
Speaker 1: the development of my album, they actually they left and
Speaker 1: so I, as you know, I stayed very close to
Speaker 1: both of them, but I spent you know, Paul Whirley
Speaker 1: cut more, which actually probably led to a great relationship
Speaker 1: with him when he started producing The Dixie Chick. Now
Speaker 1: that a number of things that Sarah Evans and produced.
Speaker 1: Sarah Evans produced Sarah which you had a huge hit
Speaker 1: with Sarah Evans Born to Fly, Born to Fly. That
Speaker 1: was her first single, right, No. One of the first
Speaker 1: big song was three Chords in the Truth and that
Speaker 1: was her first solo album, but it was but Born
Speaker 1: to Fly was the first one. I mean that was nominated.
Speaker 1: Never forget that song of the Year. I mean it
Speaker 1: was a serious That's why I like to me, that's
Speaker 1: sin Sarah Evans got put on the map. That was
Speaker 1: so beautiful. That was a groovy record too, Yes, and
Speaker 1: that song was amazing. Yeah, and Paul. See the other
Speaker 1: thing about Paul is that Paul always let me play
Speaker 1: guitar um on on the record. So you know when
Speaker 1: we did Ready to Run or we did Born to Fly,
Speaker 1: you know that I got to play acoustic guitar do
Speaker 1: to do that little groove thing, you know, and I
Speaker 1: remember it changes the whole song because no one can
Speaker 1: play a guitar like you, really they can't. Well, thank you,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess, I mean, I think there is
Speaker 1: something there is something about it. You know that some songwriters,
Speaker 1: and I'm not at all the only one there's I mean,
Speaker 1: there's many who they're really tied to the instrument that
Speaker 1: they composed with. And and yeah, it's a part of
Speaker 1: this is true that sometimes to get that actual feel,
Speaker 1: you know, you you do go to the kind of
Speaker 1: the source of whatever that the central groove is the
Speaker 1: same way like a vocalist. Certain vocalists, you know, have
Speaker 1: such a distinct sound that only that person can see.
Speaker 1: It's the way you play guitar. Well, I tell you,
Speaker 1: I know that. Like again, a guy was even he's
Speaker 1: got more instruments and and I think he's farther along
Speaker 1: than I am. I think is Darryl Scott. And I
Speaker 1: know that through the years that often when people would
Speaker 1: cut his song as they like they cut. I think
Speaker 1: when Travis Tritt cut A Great Day to Be Alive,
Speaker 1: he was smart enough to bring Daryl into that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's on his albow Aloha from Nashville and um,
Speaker 1: but he also was the other writer on Born to
Speaker 1: Fly so and actually we gotta cut yesterday. Uh it's
Speaker 1: called I Neita River and I wrote it with Darryl
Speaker 1: and it's very it's very and and Sonya Isaacs actually
Speaker 1: and Sarah had called me and she's got she's cutting
Speaker 1: a new record this week yesterday yesterday. But it's one
Speaker 1: of my favorites. And I keep a running list of
Speaker 1: like I got like songs, like a list of your favorites. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that haven't been cut. That's smart because sometimes you might
Speaker 1: forget if you don't keep of your head. That's right,
Speaker 1: and then you go back and I've realize that, I mean, periodically,
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're you're long enough in the business,
Speaker 1: people will occasionally. I mean, I would love it if
Speaker 1: Blake Shelton and some of these other the more broke
Speaker 1: country guys if I knew them and they wanted my
Speaker 1: to hear my songs. I don't know them and they
Speaker 1: don't ask me for them. But you know, but as
Speaker 1: Sarah Evans will, and there are different artists that's will
Speaker 1: come my way and they'll say, you know, and I
Speaker 1: can pitch and I'll look, but I keep them. And
Speaker 1: and she actually wrote me a note and she said,
Speaker 1: you know, I need another song that's sort of like
Speaker 1: it lives in the Land of Born to Fly. And
Speaker 1: I was, like, got it, and I went back and
Speaker 1: I was like it was on an album. The last
Speaker 1: album I did. Darrell actually produced an album on me
Speaker 1: called Rosanna, and I picked. I cut a few hits,
Speaker 1: but then I cut a bunch of stuff that that
Speaker 1: I that I just do that are new songs that
Speaker 1: I did love that I love and that I've always
Speaker 1: loved that song and and I've always scratched kind of
Speaker 1: head scratch her because I would try to pitch it.
Speaker 1: I've I've pitched it before. I think I've actually pitched
Speaker 1: it to Sarah before. The difference was the right time,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the right time. Plus it wasn't direct. I
Speaker 1: think I probably went through a gate keeper. And in
Speaker 1: this one, she just you know, as she does periodically,
Speaker 1: she'll just come right. So much better to be able
Speaker 1: to pitch directly to the artists. Yeah, and you get
Speaker 1: an immediate answer, you know, or immediate silence, and if
Speaker 1: nobody says anything, you know what that means that that'd
Speaker 1: be your country West. I want to run through some
Speaker 1: of your songs you've written. Okay, so you wrote Alabama
Speaker 1: Cheap Cheap Seats, which I freaking love that song. You've
Speaker 1: written songs for how catch on Patty Lovelace? Was you
Speaker 1: write for Patty Lovelace? I wrote Over My Shoulder is
Speaker 1: a song wrote for Patty and uh and Roger Murrow
Speaker 1: I think, was the other writer, and you wrote you
Speaker 1: wrote for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. And then you've
Speaker 1: also so you broke onto the songwriting scene with only
Speaker 1: Love for why I notice amazing. You've also written wrote
Speaker 1: one of These Days for timmer Girl, which which nuver
Speaker 1: two One of These Days You're Gonna Love Me? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's song. But you Gotta go Our and Art went
Speaker 1: to number one and R and are. The reason you
Speaker 1: have to count that is that I count those things
Speaker 1: because B and I gives you a cup. And I
Speaker 1: was reading the thing recently somebody I was somebody I was.
Speaker 1: I was doing some show and it said, like I
Speaker 1: don't know, it said like three number ones, and I
Speaker 1: was like, hey, come on, now, come on, now, give it.
Speaker 1: Did that song come from? Because that is one of
Speaker 1: the sweetest, sensitive, most sensitive and like it's kind of
Speaker 1: like almost not like anti bullying song, but it is
Speaker 1: like it. I remember when that song came out, I
Speaker 1: bought the whole album for that song. I don't know
Speaker 1: that's well, you know that, and that was the center,
Speaker 1: that was the the hub on the you know, with
Speaker 1: the spokes around it for my album, the album All
Speaker 1: in Good Time. I remember, you know, when we first
Speaker 1: started to build that record, I was like, one of
Speaker 1: these days, every song has to relate to this song.
Speaker 1: Did you know that song was important? Yeah? I knew,
Speaker 1: I mean I I did. I tell you The one
Speaker 1: I didn't know it was going to be big was
Speaker 1: on that same album, the original the first piano version
Speaker 1: of Blessed Road and when that has an interesting story
Speaker 1: because and when Jeff and I wrote it, you know
Speaker 1: what Jeff Hannah, I was on piano, and when he
Speaker 1: he had gotten back from his honeymoon, and so that
Speaker 1: whole rolling, the very specific piano part that's on it
Speaker 1: and is central to the song when the Dirt Band
Speaker 1: did it, and the point of that of that writing
Speaker 1: that song was to get on Jeff Hannah's record. So
Speaker 1: I had sung at his wedding. I sung only Love
Speaker 1: at Matresa Berg Jeff Hannah their wedding, they went on honeymoon,
Speaker 1: and I knew that I was going to get to
Speaker 1: write with him on um when when he got back
Speaker 1: and I had this conversation at a bar with this guy, Bobby,
Speaker 1: Bobby boy Um who just had you know, my recollection
Speaker 1: is just with such an inspirational, kind of interesting thing
Speaker 1: that he said about his life that I wanted to
Speaker 1: make that God was the broken road. No, it wasn't
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. It was it was really talking
Speaker 1: about UM knew he was. It's you know, it's one
Speaker 1: of those stories you almost don't want to tell it,
Speaker 1: but he was. He was talking. He was in the
Speaker 1: middle of, um a hard time in his marriage, but
Speaker 1: he found this other person who subsequently be you know,
Speaker 1: it's been hadn't been married and you know, for for years.
Speaker 1: And what he really said to me at the time
Speaker 1: was he was kind of talking about things he would
Speaker 1: do differently and feeling being honest about feeling bad about
Speaker 1: some things that had happened. But then he kind of
Speaker 1: what I recollected it is, he kind of stopped right
Speaker 1: in the middle of it and and he just said,
Speaker 1: you know, I, when I think about it, though I
Speaker 1: know this person is this another this new person is
Speaker 1: the person I love and I was meant to love.
Speaker 1: This is my soul mate. And so because I I
Speaker 1: don't know I guess I wouldn't change anything. And that's
Speaker 1: what struck me about. That's what I remember. It's not
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not a huge it's not like some
Speaker 1: cataclysmic thing, but but it inspired this whole song which
Speaker 1: that song then this is what I love about. Now
Speaker 1: you wrote that song and not until like seven years
Speaker 1: later or was it longer the song was written? The
Speaker 1: song was first recorded in ninety three, and when did
Speaker 1: it make its way to Rascal Flats two five or six?
Speaker 1: Somewhere in there was the release. So you wrote the
Speaker 1: song in nine and then not in til years. I
Speaker 1: can't do so like fifteen years later about it made
Speaker 1: whoever is listening to this, y'all do the math a
Speaker 1: lot of years, twelve twelve tomatoes years, two years ago,
Speaker 1: it makes its way so twelve years after you write
Speaker 1: four years ago, I'm just doing math as we say. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's a long time, makes its way to Rascal
Speaker 1: Flat and then it goes on to become Song of
Speaker 1: the Year, and then it goes on to win a Grammy.
Speaker 1: How crazy is that? A song that you wrote twelve
Speaker 1: years all the way now making it to the top
Speaker 1: of the top. You can't get bigger than the Song
Speaker 1: of the Year and winning a Grammy. No, I mean,
Speaker 1: all I remember is, uh, it was great. I mean
Speaker 1: I I lost a Grammy once before, I lost for
Speaker 1: Ready to Run for Song of the Year, and it
Speaker 1: was Ready to Run for the Dixie Chicks was also
Speaker 1: in a huge movie. Yeah, it was. The funny thing
Speaker 1: is now there is a song that actually sat at
Speaker 1: number two and both of those charts are in Our
Speaker 1: and Billboard and the old in those days they used
Speaker 1: to before they combined. It used to be that you
Speaker 1: had to get one or the other and then that's
Speaker 1: when they give you the little silver cup from BM
Speaker 1: and you then you'd get a party and all that.
Speaker 1: And Ready to Run was you know, it was tough
Speaker 1: because it was massive, you know it what movie was
Speaker 1: run Away, bro? But that record, you know, there was
Speaker 1: all this attention to like, what's going to happen with
Speaker 1: Flaw because the first one, you know, went diamond, Diamond, Diamond,
Speaker 1: and no one does that anymore, barely, no one has.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're still the biggest selling female group in
Speaker 1: the history of country music, for sure, but they you know,
Speaker 1: we're we're talking about a group that when Fly went out,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, now it's like fifteen million or
Speaker 1: something like that for a country group that really, you know,
Speaker 1: whose career and country kind of ended because they piste
Speaker 1: off the most powerful man in the world. I mean,
Speaker 1: you have to you have to realize, you know, how
Speaker 1: big it was. And I didn't see but I didn't
Speaker 1: see it coming at all. I mean, I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about the President Bush stuff, but like the I knew
Speaker 1: that they were good and all. But you know, I
Speaker 1: mean I knew that they were really good, and you
Speaker 1: just never know what's going to happen, you don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean I did never got on the inside of
Speaker 1: the Garth thing or the inside of any of the
Speaker 1: or the Shanaia thing. I didn't catch a wave. But
Speaker 1: with the with the chicks, I caught the way, caught
Speaker 1: the wave hard, you know, and we had the you know,
Speaker 1: let me back to back. It was like it was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: What was that time of your life? Like, well, it
Speaker 1: was crazy, you know. And I remember I flew down
Speaker 1: to Dallas and my uncle I used to spend time
Speaker 1: with my real uncle I was really close to, and
Speaker 1: um I saw them perform. You know, I don't have
Speaker 1: thirty thousand people and and um, I'd never really experienced
Speaker 1: a concert where you know, people look like they're having
Speaker 1: are they're falling out, like they're having a religious experience,
Speaker 1: you know, and to your songs and um, it's it's heavy.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's it's trippy to see it. I
Speaker 1: it puts into perspective some bad stuff too. I like,
Speaker 1: what well, the last record deal I did was, um,
Speaker 1: I did the Columbia record, and then afterwards I started
Speaker 1: a little record company, a digital company with Scott Simon
Speaker 1: called I started put out records, and I was starting
Speaker 1: to write theater and and I'd make records of that.
Speaker 1: And so consequently there's you know, there's all kinds of records.
Speaker 1: I mean, I still think, um, the sound of one
Speaker 1: fan clapping is probably probably the Latin Rosanna. The best
Speaker 1: records I've ever made. The first one ever made was
Speaker 1: a sound of one fan clapping, which was almost picked
Speaker 1: up by E m im it was not going to
Speaker 1: be a country record. Um. And then I met this guy,
Speaker 1: Stewart Adamson, and he was a and this this relates
Speaker 1: to my what I'm saying about people screaming at you,
Speaker 1: you know, Stuart Adamson was the lead guitarist and singer
Speaker 1: and the soul writer for the group Big Country Scottish
Speaker 1: rock group in a Big Country Dream Stay with You
Speaker 1: Like a Lover's Boys. It's a huge, massive worldwide hit.
Speaker 1: Came out about the same time as um Bano. Prior
Speaker 1: to that, he's been a guitar player for a group
Speaker 1: called The Skids, kind of a seminal punk band. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this guy, working class Scottish guy, right, tall, handsome dude,
Speaker 1: brilliant guitar player, like crazy right, and he moves to
Speaker 1: Nashville's in the middle of a divorce and he's had
Speaker 1: there's a lot of story, but he's had many, many
Speaker 1: hits in England. But he's also been in and out
Speaker 1: of rehabs and he's just a real character. And I
Speaker 1: meet him Sony actually as I'm leaving introduces me to him,
Speaker 1: and about a year later we became buddies and we
Speaker 1: he liked to fly fish. I like to fly fish,
Speaker 1: and he used to come hear me play with my band,
Speaker 1: the Pretty Red One, because I have an on going
Speaker 1: just sort of relationship with a bunch of musicians which
Speaker 1: sometimes we call the Pretty Red Wing Band. Through the years,
Speaker 1: and he loved our band, and he finally you know,
Speaker 1: he's one of the great guitar players, like ever you know,
Speaker 1: rock guitar players, and he started bringing his strat and
Speaker 1: then he would get on stage and we'd play, and
Speaker 1: then he finally said, let's let's make a record together.
Speaker 1: So we made a record right now, the duo called
Speaker 1: the Raphaels. Yes. So the thing about it is, though,
Speaker 1: is that in the relationship to the Chicks is that
Speaker 1: you know, Stewart was kind of starting up again. He
Speaker 1: was still opening in the summers for the Rolling Stones. Okay,
Speaker 1: then we put out we make this album and he
Speaker 1: fell off the wagon. So, you know, without without dragging
Speaker 1: this way too far down, Um, just things got the
Speaker 1: best of them. He died. We released the album and
Speaker 1: he uh. We went on our tour in Scotland, England
Speaker 1: and Ireland, and um, did you love this album? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a beautiful it's called Supernatural. It's a fantastic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a duel. But it has a couple of members.
Speaker 1: There were some some instruments. There are some guys from
Speaker 1: his band, I mean there mostly it's it's John Mock,
Speaker 1: John Gardner Gardener who played on the fly tour uh,
Speaker 1: and a longtime buddy of mine, Mark Prentiss on bass
Speaker 1: and Darrell Scott played a bunch of things. And then
Speaker 1: and then well we started to and uh and then
Speaker 1: he um yeah, and he actually um went into d
Speaker 1: t s uh uh like alcohol shock kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and we couldn't finish the tour. And then I waited
Speaker 1: in Ireland for him, and he was hospitalized, he went
Speaker 1: into a coma and it was very, very sad anyway,
Speaker 1: and and again I don't even talk about too much,
Speaker 1: but the um I got back to the United States,
Speaker 1: I saw him one more time, and then he took
Speaker 1: his own life. Yeah, so so terrible, and and I
Speaker 1: think for me that was so of the that was
Speaker 1: the end of trying to get record deals. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you that. But then I was thirty nine, I might
Speaker 1: have been thirty nine forty two, and it was like
Speaker 1: I didn't even I wasn't even that crazy about being
Speaker 1: on the road. But this was like some weird dark
Speaker 1: Fellini film or something, you know what. I think it
Speaker 1: was awful because the music was amazing, but then the
Speaker 1: rest of it was kind of well, it's dark dark.
Speaker 1: It doesn't get any darker, you know, a guy that
Speaker 1: you're close to, you know, and it occurred to me
Speaker 1: that you know, he grew up. Of course, a lot
Speaker 1: of people suffer from addiction, and you know, um, I
Speaker 1: grew up in a family where that was part of
Speaker 1: our lives. And then of course my wife's work is
Speaker 1: entirely in addiction. But you know, he lost that battle
Speaker 1: and um, but he's also a kid that you know,
Speaker 1: by the time he was in his early twenties, he
Speaker 1: was playing at Wembley. So while I was playing down
Speaker 1: at Douglas Corner, no I'm not I'm not dog in
Speaker 1: Douglas Corner. I cut my teeth on Douglas. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I love that place is like the biggest, playing for
Speaker 1: many five thousand people. And you know, when he played too,
Speaker 1: he was kind of a Scottish nationalist kind of vibe.
Speaker 1: I mean, in terms of the way people interpreted him.
Speaker 1: It's very Scottish. He could play a guitar and make
Speaker 1: it sound like a bagpipe. It's really a remarkable musician.
Speaker 1: But I've seen that band play and people wave flags
Speaker 1: like there and me it's literally like they're going to
Speaker 1: war or something. It's like a revival people like huge deal,
Speaker 1: you know, like he was a cult figure for a generation.
Speaker 1: And and I think the you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: that is I mean a lot of that's really hard
Speaker 1: to How do you process? I mean, how do you
Speaker 1: just go home like, oh great, I'll take the trash
Speaker 1: out kind of the same like you were saying with
Speaker 1: the Dixie Chicks, they blew up so big. It's so big,
Speaker 1: you know that that's the thing that so you're asking,
Speaker 1: you know, like what, um, what was that? Like? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was heavy, but it was a wave that wasn't
Speaker 1: my wave. You know. It was like I was riding it,
Speaker 1: but they were on the surfboard and they were going
Speaker 1: somewhere and I was just kind of there. It's part
Speaker 1: of my journey, you know, and I love that I
Speaker 1: have to this day. You know, they they came of course,
Speaker 1: as we all know, they finally have done a national
Speaker 1: tour now they're and around the world. And when they
Speaker 1: came through town. You know, I've remained really good friends
Speaker 1: with Marty who I wrote those two songs with, and
Speaker 1: U and I mean, you know, I've remained friends with
Speaker 1: the group. Um and they got tickets for my kids
Speaker 1: and my wife and we went and it was crazy,
Speaker 1: you know, it was I don't know, if you're there
Speaker 1: the love for the Dixie Chicks out of this intense yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're and they're up. They're up to it, you
Speaker 1: know in the sense that like they go out on
Speaker 1: stage and you like you go, all right, I remember,
Speaker 1: you know, particularly there's this moment in the in the
Speaker 1: show where they send the band away. Not that I
Speaker 1: don't love the band. I love the band, but they
Speaker 1: and then they bring the band back but in a
Speaker 1: you know, a completely acoustic place, and so Emily and
Speaker 1: and Marty are playing there. You know, they're very good
Speaker 1: musicians and everyone around them and they're kind of the
Speaker 1: way that the sound and the you know, it's not
Speaker 1: just so massive you can't discern it. You can hear
Speaker 1: the you could really hear them and their voices stuff,
Speaker 1: and you go, holy crap, these guys are really This
Speaker 1: is what roots country songs are great. This is what
Speaker 1: you know what this is the sleeping giant. You know,
Speaker 1: this can sell. This is the kind of thing that
Speaker 1: takes over and and it's the kind of thing that
Speaker 1: brought I mean, I got so many friends from where
Speaker 1: I went to school, like in New England enough. Everybody
Speaker 1: loved him. They didn't care a lick, you know, whether
Speaker 1: or not it was country or I mean, they didn't
Speaker 1: and they brought. It's funny too because it brought a
Speaker 1: lot of people into country music who are like, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 1: whoa whoa whoa whoa. Who's what you know, Sarah Evans records?
Speaker 1: What Patty Loveless? You know like music? Yeah, and that's what.
Speaker 1: But you when you look at that music now, if
Speaker 1: you think about records now, if you listen to Fly,
Speaker 1: you have a Patty Griffin song, you have rock things,
Speaker 1: you have, soul things, you have you know, it's very
Speaker 1: they were very There was an eclectic quality. Lyrics were
Speaker 1: talking about Cowboy taking away. It's kind of a turn
Speaker 1: to simplicity. Goodbye Earl is a great, you know, an
Speaker 1: amazingly funny piece of country writing. You know, Um, come mind,
Speaker 1: if some dames you want to dance, it's just pure
Speaker 1: groove fun. I mean it goes on and on and
Speaker 1: uh that you know to some extent. I mean not
Speaker 1: to be um Mr Critical, because I don't I don't
Speaker 1: really I don't really want to, you know, I think
Speaker 1: at times today I think and I'm not at all
Speaker 1: the only person who said that, but there there is
Speaker 1: a tendency towards, you know, things being a bit similar,
Speaker 1: uh a little less diverse. And I don't think that particularly.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes things in the radio, people think, oh,
Speaker 1: let's just try to get match the hits that are
Speaker 1: out there instead of making a whole work of art
Speaker 1: that is actually authentic to the artists. Yeah. Well, when
Speaker 1: you go to writing sessions and I and you know,
Speaker 1: I see young kids who are coming up in the
Speaker 1: business saying, well, I've been studying beats per minute, you know, assessing,
Speaker 1: you know, taking the top ten hits the last year,
Speaker 1: and then you know, looking at it like, you know,
Speaker 1: like you're gonna analyze this. Well, to me, it is
Speaker 1: and I get you know, I get it, like I
Speaker 1: know that that's one way to do. I mean, the
Speaker 1: one of almost day one when I got to music
Speaker 1: out of college, I was at a studio in Carmel, California,
Speaker 1: and um, not Carmel, I'm sorry, um in the but
Speaker 1: it was somewhere in the valley anyway. And I won't
Speaker 1: name the guy's name because this is not a happy reflection,
Speaker 1: but I remember him pulling me into the office, and
Speaker 1: he said, what what you need to do is just
Speaker 1: take the top ten songs on the chart and this
Speaker 1: isn't pop and he said, you should, you know, write
Speaker 1: down the chord progressions and then the lyric and make
Speaker 1: and then get a little get a rhythm track that's
Speaker 1: exactly the same rhythm, switch around the cords and take
Speaker 1: the basic subject matter and just make it your own.
Speaker 1: And he says, that's how you're right. Yeah, so, you know,
Speaker 1: and a listen as a way of analyzing music that's
Speaker 1: popular at the time. Of course that's you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's probably relevant. But it was exactly, you know,
Speaker 1: an athema to what I wanted to do with my life.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't care about any of that stuff.
Speaker 1: You yeah, I mean you can sit around your kid,
Speaker 1: you growing up listen to Kat Stevens and Joni Mitchell
Speaker 1: and and uh, you know, Jimmy Webb songs or you know,
Speaker 1: Paul Simon. I mean, those guys they're like, you know, recreate.
Speaker 1: I mean, they created a language, you know, where they
Speaker 1: affected by things. Of course they were absolutely we always are,
Speaker 1: but you know they were laying it out there. Neil
Speaker 1: Young Records, Oh my God, sit around in front of
Speaker 1: a speaker and listen. Oh man, take a look at
Speaker 1: my life. He's like twenty four years old when he
Speaker 1: wrote that, but who cares? It was great. I love
Speaker 1: that and I love that. That is where you come from,
Speaker 1: and I think that is what makes so many people
Speaker 1: drawn to your music, because it is so it keeps
Speaker 1: me not entirely successful to know. Oh my gosh, you're
Speaker 1: kidding me, speaking of success. So we've had okay, one
Speaker 1: of these days to mcgrawl, why not a Jude only Love,
Speaker 1: Alabama Cheat Seats, Brian White Love is the right person.
Speaker 1: I love that something Number ones, Cowboy, Take Me Away,
Speaker 1: Ready to Run, Dixie Chicks, Born to Fly, Sarah Evans,
Speaker 1: and then Song of the Year, God Bless the Broken Road.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm missing some. I mean, you are absolutely
Speaker 1: out of the sort. You look at all this stuff
Speaker 1: I haven't written, like winning a Grammy for Rascal Flat.
Speaker 1: You've written six musicals and opera. You have three off
Speaker 1: Broadway shows, The Warrior, The Piper, tut Off Broadway. You're
Speaker 1: sort of children's book Anytime Anywhere, documentary, Lost Boy Home.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so much with you, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to wrap you up because you could literally I
Speaker 1: could talk to you for seven hours because your life
Speaker 1: ex well, I'm just excited that I get to interview you,
Speaker 1: that my job allows me to talk to someone like you,
Speaker 1: because you're so interesting. But I like to wrap up
Speaker 1: with with all of your life, all of these experiences,
Speaker 1: all of these countries, all of these artists you've worked with,
Speaker 1: all these record deals, all of these highs, all these loads,
Speaker 1: like even your wife, her ministries, the church, you have children,
Speaker 1: your sons. LEVI I know he's getting into music. He's awesome.
Speaker 1: Y'all wrote a great song together called make It Love,
Speaker 1: which made a documentary, sang It last night. I Love
Speaker 1: that was that documentary. Oh it's a it's a documentary
Speaker 1: called two Yeah, Desmond Child and Curtish Shaws two sons.
Speaker 1: So that was love that. So I mean, I'm just
Speaker 1: even still scratching the surface. Your life is so deep
Speaker 1: and eclectic. I like to wrap up with leave your LIGHTE.
Speaker 1: Give me some inspiration on how how you've been inspired
Speaker 1: and how you would like to inspire others, Like what
Speaker 1: is that questions You've got good answers though, Uh listen
Speaker 1: if you're writing. You know, it's uh, you know, find yourself.
Speaker 1: I mean, be connected to your work. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think the thing that I tell younger writers if I
Speaker 1: I'm old enough now that occasionally I get asked to,
Speaker 1: you know, talk to groups and stuff, and I talk
Speaker 1: a lot about for me, you know, I think it's
Speaker 1: exciting to be passionate. I think it's exciting to um
Speaker 1: even consider that. Um, if things aren't very good economically
Speaker 1: in the songwritting business, I'm co producing and scoring a
Speaker 1: movie right now called The Last Songwriter about the terrible
Speaker 1: attrition we've had in our business and over the last
Speaker 1: ten years we loved of our writers. UM, and that'll
Speaker 1: be out of that's that's gonna be a very interesting work,
Speaker 1: I think. UM. But it's there's always you know, one
Speaker 1: should always be heartened because UM, writing is it's a gift,
Speaker 1: it's a joy, and it's it's really to me, it's
Speaker 1: more of a calling. And I think that if you
Speaker 1: feel that way, you know, a little poverty, frankly, is
Speaker 1: not gonna hurt you either. I mean something to be
Speaker 1: said about if you if you can simplify your life
Speaker 1: and focus your passion on the work you do and Um,
Speaker 1: make sure that it's honest. And what I mean by
Speaker 1: that is that you know that you're connected to it.
Speaker 1: You know, every song doesn't have to be about your autobiography.
Speaker 1: You know, like I can't write about a woman. I'm
Speaker 1: not a I'm not a woman. I can't write about
Speaker 1: African Americans. I'm not African American. Nell. If you feel connected,
Speaker 1: just make sure you're connected. Um, that would be my thing.
Speaker 1: You know. There are a lot of ways to make
Speaker 1: a living in this business, all of which is great.
Speaker 1: I have, I have no I wish no ill upon anyone.
Speaker 1: But um, if you've got the love for this art form,
Speaker 1: and it is an art form, then I say, you know,
Speaker 1: hold onto that passion and uh, you know, just don't
Speaker 1: don't let that go, you know, because the world needs
Speaker 1: songwriters and it needs I think a songwriters are kind
Speaker 1: of like professional dreamers, and we are. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: our job. I mean, our job is to go out
Speaker 1: and write to be Leonard Cohen and right Susanne or
Speaker 1: hallelujah R. That's that's what we need, you know, um.
Speaker 1: And not everything has to be a ballot or novella too.
Speaker 1: We need um, you need you know, we need those
Speaker 1: rockers too, you know, don't you feel like those songs
Speaker 1: that really touch people are the ones that come from
Speaker 1: that true place? Yeah? Absolutely, I mean they and the
Speaker 1: and the contrary is true as well. If something seems
Speaker 1: kind of thrown together like a you know, like a
Speaker 1: demographic study or whatever, that I just a question whether
Speaker 1: or not it's going to have much impact, whether we're
Speaker 1: really going to sing those songs, you know, years from now,
Speaker 1: or if we're gonna bring them into our lives, whether
Speaker 1: we'll you know, laugh or cry or get married to
Speaker 1: them or sing them at funerals or you know, these
Speaker 1: are these are the songs you want to be a
Speaker 1: part of. This is what this is, what it is about.
Speaker 1: You know, this is because what you're doing is you're
Speaker 1: creating actual poetry for our time. You know. And it
Speaker 1: may sound that may sound like wow, you you sure
Speaker 1: you know you know this is actually it's just do
Speaker 1: do do doo, data do all. I want to say
Speaker 1: to you, Yeah, that's true. But I mean you might
Speaker 1: as well, um, accept the fact that our kids today
Speaker 1: they grow up and they are um, you know, they
Speaker 1: may not know Shakespeare, you know, they may not read uh,
Speaker 1: classical literature. They may, but they may not. But I
Speaker 1: promise you this. They're all listening to records and some
Speaker 1: of the best writers are really probably today are you
Speaker 1: know rap artists, I think, uh just who are much
Speaker 1: freer unless you have a Jason Isabel or something like that,
Speaker 1: and that is their literature. I mean, they may they
Speaker 1: may get they may read a My angela book. They
Speaker 1: may pick up you know, um, they may pick up
Speaker 1: some some famous literature, some deep literature. But they are
Speaker 1: constantly uh literally inhaling music and so um, I think
Speaker 1: it's it's real important that you kind of take it
Speaker 1: seriously and and accepted as an unbelievably exciting profession. You know,
Speaker 1: I sat there last night, I just in it with this.
Speaker 1: I A good friend of all of ours, Andrew Dorff
Speaker 1: died recently, and you know he was want of really
Speaker 1: wonderful song and really unique, really quirky guy. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: he'd been a published poet, um, a real character, you
Speaker 1: know and kind of you know, he had his stuff
Speaker 1: like we all do. But I and I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: every time I wrote with him, you know I was
Speaker 1: I was struck by his authenticity and his intensity. And
Speaker 1: so last night the community and there is a community here.
Speaker 1: That's what's so beautiful. They gathered and a bunch of
Speaker 1: us who wrote songs of them. We just spent two
Speaker 1: hours playing his songs. Now some of these are you know,
Speaker 1: big songs, and and then but there were others who
Speaker 1: came up and played songs. And Levin I had written
Speaker 1: this song make It Love, which was part of this
Speaker 1: movie and helped Leave I get his deal. That's my son,
Speaker 1: and and it's a beautiful song. I mean, I you know,
Speaker 1: and so much of it was Andrew. And I remember
Speaker 1: I was sitting there last night, you know, pretty late
Speaker 1: for me, and I'm listening to everything, and you can
Speaker 1: feel the flow of the poet like there are every
Speaker 1: all the songs were co written, and yet you can
Speaker 1: feel Andrew was literally in the room, I mean spiritually figured,
Speaker 1: but his presence was there, and that presence was beautiful,
Speaker 1: and you know, and that's a real testimony, you know,
Speaker 1: when you feel it in a room. And I was
Speaker 1: looking out, I'm the place was packed and all these
Speaker 1: faces and the lyrics are delicated, but they're also broken
Speaker 1: and there you know, his life was it was kind
Speaker 1: of busted stuff, you know, and it's it's hard to
Speaker 1: listen to sort of in a way. But then he's
Speaker 1: always there's always sort of a a weird screwed up
Speaker 1: light at the end of the tunnel. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just a really interesting cat, you know, And and it's
Speaker 1: just it's flowing out over the audience and the faces
Speaker 1: where they were like wide open, like they were a church,
Speaker 1: like it's coming in. And I'll tell you what if
Speaker 1: that's not something, you know, if that's not important, I
Speaker 1: don't you know, I don't know what it is. And
Speaker 1: if you don't think that's important, then you know, maybe
Speaker 1: songwriting's not for you. That that could be my final
Speaker 1: state that Marcus, you are one in a million. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining me. I hope you loved
Speaker 1: hearing from Marcus Hooven. Next week I have Jimmy Harnin
Speaker 1: joining me. This guy is a record label guru. He
Speaker 1: is so fantastic. He runs Big Machine Records, which is
Speaker 1: what my husband, Michael Hobby and a thousand horses are
Speaker 1: signed to. And then he is e v P, which
Speaker 1: means executive vice president of all of the labels at
Speaker 1: Big Machine Label Group, which there are five, so he
Speaker 1: is running so much stuff he is so talented. He
Speaker 1: also had a huge hit called where Are You Now
Speaker 1: back in the day. He's one of the only record
Speaker 1: label executives who have ever had a hit on the
Speaker 1: charts himself, so he has so much insight to share.
Speaker 1: He's so interesting. We talked about everything, and I cannot
Speaker 1: wait for you all to hear Jimmy Harna next week.
Speaker 1: See you next week, and don't forget to subscribe.