Speaker 1: This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you.
Speaker 2: Shirtless, severely, bug bitten.
Speaker 1: And in my case, underwear.
Speaker 3: Listening the podcast, you can't predict anything.
Speaker 1: The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 1: Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting
Speaker 1: for ELK. First Light has performance apparel to support every
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Speaker 1: dot com. F I R S T L I t
Speaker 1: E dot com. Joined today by Luke holmbs down in Wey,
Speaker 1: South Texas. Also here is Seth Morris Chili's here and
Speaker 1: Uh in a very own Chester, the divester who hasn't
Speaker 1: been on the show as much lately since since relocation.
Speaker 4: Yep, Ben in Wisconsin bought a home, fixed it up,
Speaker 4: had a kid, another one.
Speaker 1: Damn Chester, busy d double dipping. What we were talking
Speaker 1: about before we began was we're talking about the problem
Speaker 1: of Luke was saying that he's not there yet on
Speaker 1: losing on his old man, losing his I don't even
Speaker 1: have the vocabulary for this. Readers needing readers, needing cheaters,
Speaker 1: needing readers. Yeah, and I was I wanted to share
Speaker 1: it this, I wanted to share it for the audience
Speaker 1: in general.
Speaker 5: So I told Luke, appreciate that.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that, But you know, it's the thing you're
Speaker 1: not there yet, not there yet, but you were talking
Speaker 1: about but you now. And then I find myself doing
Speaker 1: the squinty thing where you're like or like it looks
Speaker 1: like you're like almost kind of trying to smell something.
Speaker 5: Do you head, bob, do you do a little in out?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 3: I don't do any No, I haven't done that yet
Speaker 3: unless I haven't picked up.
Speaker 1: On it when I first realized it was happened to me.
Speaker 1: I found that over your whole life. Okay, if you
Speaker 1: go to like pick a sliver out of your kid's foot,
Speaker 1: or read something that someone's showing you, like a pamphlet,
Speaker 1: I don't know what the hell someone hands you something
Speaker 1: to read, your body knows.
Speaker 5: Right where to put that son of a bitch.
Speaker 3: Interesting because it's.
Speaker 1: The same decade after decade, right, So your kid gets
Speaker 1: a sliver, you know, right where you.
Speaker 3: Want their foot right to see it. All of a.
Speaker 5: Sudden, For me, it wound up being that I would
Speaker 5: go to my normal.
Speaker 3: Spot and that wasn't what you couldn't see.
Speaker 1: It, right, like you're you're sort of your brain hasn't
Speaker 1: even adjusted to the fact that it happened.
Speaker 3: Yet.
Speaker 1: You'd go to your normal spot and it wasn't right,
Speaker 1: and then you had to search for the right spot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's interesting. I could consider that.
Speaker 7: Does your body know now the spot it's better?
Speaker 1: It's better, but it changed it for a while there,
Speaker 1: like forty four years old. Whatever the hell it was
Speaker 1: changing so fast my brain couldn't a us quick enough.
Speaker 3: It makes sense like if I got to look at
Speaker 3: my watch, there's a.
Speaker 1: Certain like, you know, where you want to that I go.
Speaker 3: But then you know, if there's you know, there's different
Speaker 3: stuff on this on the dial that you can look at,
Speaker 3: and there's somewhere I'm like, what is it like if
Speaker 3: I want to, like I gotta kind of get it
Speaker 3: at a certain like spot, if I want to check
Speaker 3: out the little tiny words on their or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, there's nothing you can do about it. Man,
Speaker 1: this is going to be like, Luke, you gotta bear
Speaker 1: with us here. This is gonna be probably this is
Speaker 1: going to be a test case in uh, how to
Speaker 1: lose listeners. Okay, okay, you know they tell you don't
Speaker 1: talk about religion yep. Politics, Well you're you're going to
Speaker 1: all those places, no religion, politics, and then the finer
Speaker 1: details of wild Turkey management.
Speaker 7: I don't agree.
Speaker 3: I don't with that. I think there's I think there's
Speaker 3: I think there's a very uh you think, very interested population.
Speaker 3: I think it's I think it's niche. I think it's
Speaker 3: a subculture. But I do think they're the people that
Speaker 3: are interested are gonna be super interested. I do. I
Speaker 3: do think that. Uh. Oh, you know what.
Speaker 1: I was gonna do what I want to do to
Speaker 1: Luke Later when we turned the show over to our
Speaker 1: intense focus on you, Luke Is, I wanted to bring
Speaker 1: up with you their day. I was telling you yesterday,
Speaker 1: I was telling you I have to do it. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna do it secret, but I was telling you
Speaker 1: at some point I need to do the worst thing
Speaker 1: that could happen to a musician mm hmm is to
Speaker 1: come to you and say, hey, I got a song idea.
Speaker 5: Yes, we did discuss this, yeah, and I didn't do it.
Speaker 1: And I can't do it now because in the whole
Speaker 1: world is going to write this song and it's not that's.
Speaker 3: True, But now the now people are gonna wonder though.
Speaker 5: Let me throw you a different tidbit right here.
Speaker 3: You ready for this?
Speaker 1: My buddy Pat dirk and was telling me how My
Speaker 1: buddy Pat Dirkin was telling me how at his age,
Speaker 1: when he takes not like he starts to think about
Speaker 1: if he's taken on a big writing project. He's like,
Speaker 1: he enters the back of your head. It's like, am
Speaker 1: I really going to be doing this?
Speaker 3: What do you mean?
Speaker 5: What you career wise? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like at a certain point, like if someone says, like, hey,
Speaker 1: do you want to take on a like a large project,
Speaker 1: you'd be like, shoot.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I'm pretty old.
Speaker 1: I won't take that on how it's pretty old though,
Speaker 1: h are.
Speaker 3: We talking here?
Speaker 7: I don't think he's six. I think he's pretty old.
Speaker 1: He just made a comment. This is all build up
Speaker 1: to the song idea. Okay, it was a different song,
Speaker 1: different song, multiple He was telling this friend, Well, I
Speaker 1: can't tell you the ones. It's most I got it.
Speaker 1: I ran it by Chili Chili.
Speaker 6: I mean my first when he said, I'm Mo has
Speaker 6: an idea for Luke about a song?
Speaker 5: No, no, just like an idea.
Speaker 6: Yeah, when you first said that, like that's how you started.
Speaker 6: I was like, I'm not a you know, country music star,
Speaker 6: but I don't. I wasn't a skeptical about, you know.
Speaker 1: Because there was no words or music.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but massive challenge and in the world of music
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 6: And then he told told me the idea, and I
Speaker 6: was like, I've heard a lot worse ideas.
Speaker 7: It's a great idea, and but I'll obviously let him.
Speaker 2: Usually if someone said usually if you tell you run
Speaker 2: an idea past someone and they say I've heard worse,
Speaker 2: that's good.
Speaker 7: That means it ain't good.
Speaker 1: No good, I've heard worse. I think it's how you
Speaker 1: say it. I was telling my kids, I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: to this, but I'll tell him. Recently, we're talking about
Speaker 1: you know, he's getting of the age, you know where
Speaker 1: there's like boyfriends and girlfriends. I'm like, dude, when I
Speaker 1: was your when I was a kid in high school,
Speaker 1: the worst thing they could say, like the worst thing
Speaker 1: girls could say, he's nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Now they said, if they said he's funny, that was
Speaker 5: a good sign.
Speaker 1: Yeah he's nice. He got nice, brutal like, don't take
Speaker 1: me wrong.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Like at a time, it was like if someone says
Speaker 5: like oh, I think you're nice.
Speaker 3: You're like, yeah, friend zone.
Speaker 5: I feel the same way when someone calls me cute.
Speaker 6: At thirty, when a girl calls me cute, No.
Speaker 1: That's a good sign.
Speaker 3: I'm not. I don't know. I just feel like I
Speaker 3: could see that. I could see how that could be
Speaker 3: a mixed bag. Yeah, I could see how you like
Speaker 3: could go either way.
Speaker 1: So here's this hit, this hit, and listen, man, it's
Speaker 1: not like I haven't thought it through as much. In fact,
Speaker 1: I had it in my notes something I thought was
Speaker 1: funny and I don't even think about it it being
Speaker 1: a great song.
Speaker 3: Till et hit, so great song.
Speaker 1: Pat Dirgen's talking about bringing up to a friend. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you want to take a big project
Speaker 1: on of my age, you know, And his friend said,
Speaker 1: some weeks I wonder if I should be starting a
Speaker 1: new trash bag, starting a new trash bag, meaning is
Speaker 1: he even gonna be alive long enough to fill a
Speaker 1: trash bag?
Speaker 3: Oh god, that's that's real sad. That's not a lot
Speaker 3: of time. That's like half a day.
Speaker 5: I scraped that song. Yeah, I don't want you to.
Speaker 5: I don't want that song that color the other song I.
Speaker 1: Was but who in a pitch meeting, Who in a
Speaker 1: pitch meeting comes in and starts with the loser?
Speaker 3: You came you kind of came to It's like real excited,
Speaker 3: Like you got into that, Like I knew that when
Speaker 3: the idea was coming, because your voice got like real
Speaker 3: pumped about it. You were like, yeah, so he was
Speaker 3: talking about this, you know, I don't want to do this,
Speaker 3: and then at my age, we want to start a
Speaker 3: trash bag yet.
Speaker 1: And it's like, oh my god, it broke pitch meaning
Speaker 1: rule number one, man, you always come in with the
Speaker 1: hot one. You come in with the You're like, if
Speaker 1: you find the audience is losing, you're losing the audience,
Speaker 1: then you start throwing wild ship out there, you know.
Speaker 5: But you come in with the refined one.
Speaker 4: Luke saying you started a song with a title, so
Speaker 4: and then you know, I do that trash bag.
Speaker 5: No, that's the other song, Yeah, trash bags. All the
Speaker 5: other songs has Yeah, that's all that one.
Speaker 3: That one doesn't even have a title, dude. The other
Speaker 3: one's at least farther down the line than that, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, now we're gonna we're gonna talk about Turkey regulations
Speaker 1: and Luke, you've had some observations about turkey regulation.
Speaker 3: We're gonna get serious here for a minute.
Speaker 1: Because the reason these turkey regulation things are of interest
Speaker 1: is because I think that we're seeing anyone in the
Speaker 1: country is interested in turkey hunting. I think this is
Speaker 1: all relevant to your life. I think we're there's a
Speaker 1: trend emerging and we've we've touched on this before on
Speaker 1: the show. There's a trend emerging that that that turkey
Speaker 1: numbers in America, like when you get into the future,
Speaker 1: We're gonna look at turkey numbers in America just in
Speaker 1: a general America sense as being like this precipitous. No,
Speaker 1: precipitus always means down or can it be a precipitous incline?
Speaker 3: Oh dude, you're that's that's author stuff.
Speaker 7: Dude, You're wrong, crowd.
Speaker 3: Dude, wrong, crowd A.
Speaker 1: If you look at like turkey trends, you're gonna see
Speaker 1: the nineties come in. We're gonna get to the nineteen ninety,
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, and you're gonna see just like turkey numbers
Speaker 1: just we're talking in one hundred years when they make
Speaker 1: a chart showing turkey numbers in this country. They're gonna
Speaker 1: be like in the nineties with all the reintroductions and
Speaker 1: introductions early two thousands, Right, it's just gonna be like
Speaker 1: boom boom, that's of climbing boom boom boom, the roller coaster,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna hit like the the heyday of turkey hunting.
Speaker 5: And I have I don't know Clay Nukelem.
Speaker 1: Maybe he'd be able to tell you where he like
Speaker 1: in Arkansas where he's at. I think doctor Mike Chamberlain
Speaker 1: would be able to tell you the official like peak
Speaker 1: moment and then it's down and it'll go down, and
Speaker 1: I don't know that anyone knows where it's gonna end.
Speaker 3: Level. Yeah, I mean we were talking about that yesterday.
Speaker 3: It's like you like, we feel like it was like man,
Speaker 3: a couple I don't know, is it set like six
Speaker 3: or seven years ago? It was like smashing dude. I
Speaker 3: mean Tennessee you could you could kill four birds?
Speaker 7: Yep, No, are you talking this is nationwide?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because there's always outlier things. But I'm just saying like,
Speaker 1: if you like, if you go to some of those
Speaker 1: areas that became if you go to some of those
Speaker 1: states that became just like early famous turkey states, you know,
Speaker 1: like places that always had pretty good turkey hunting but
Speaker 1: just blew up, like Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, right where
Speaker 1: turkey numbers just went crazy. Yeah, and then this whole
Speaker 1: it's kind of appearing to be like death, a death
Speaker 1: by a thousand cuts kind of thing, and it's gonna
Speaker 1: like lower turkey numbers. But there's actually terms for this,
Speaker 1: and there's terms for this in biology. There's terms for
Speaker 1: this phenomenon. There's one thing called one guy calls it
Speaker 1: Founder of Fact. There's other names. But when you bring
Speaker 1: in a new population of animals and introduce them, they explode.
Speaker 1: They explode because they're they're coming in and like they're
Speaker 1: occupying a niche that wasn't occupied on the landscape that's
Speaker 1: really good for him. Predators aren't tuned.
Speaker 5: Into him yet.
Speaker 1: You might be moving in a group of animals that
Speaker 1: is disease free and they might contract local diseases or
Speaker 1: become impact about their eases over time. So when you
Speaker 1: bring something in that it's just like the general truth
Speaker 1: of it is, if they take, they take dramatically and
Speaker 1: shoot up, and then predators over time are like, oh,
Speaker 1: I figured out how to kill these things.
Speaker 5: What you do right in.
Speaker 1: April, I know, to go look in that brushy shit
Speaker 1: and it's full eggs, right, And it takes them a
Speaker 1: while to figure out how to do that, and then
Speaker 1: all this stuff happens and you lose. So what you're
Speaker 1: seeing right now is and again, this is just generally
Speaker 1: what you're seeing right now across the country is like
Speaker 1: generally game management agencies, generally speaking, tightening way up, way
Speaker 1: up on Turrey Harvest. So we talked about I gotta
Speaker 1: put on my spectacles.
Speaker 4: Doesn't seem like it down here, thought.
Speaker 5: I got a thing on my phone of song ideas.
Speaker 3: I gotta pull it up.
Speaker 7: It's gonna find that right spot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, let me let me find this thing here.
Speaker 1: We talked about South Carolina on a recent podcast episode
Speaker 1: during our Turkey Week and uh, let me see here,
Speaker 1: and got a guy real mad at us.
Speaker 3: Here it is.
Speaker 1: We're talking about South Carolina, how they have done and
Speaker 1: this is an nothing that happens in South Carolina. They
Speaker 1: you used spill to shoot Jakes.
Speaker 3: Okay, yep, no you can't.
Speaker 1: And and South Carolina says, no more Jakes. And on
Speaker 1: the show we kind of laughed about uh. I observed
Speaker 1: on the show. I was like, if you really want
Speaker 1: to save like breeding age birds, you'd make it illegal
Speaker 1: to shoot longbeards. But of course you can't do that
Speaker 1: because that that's not what anybody pissed everybody off.
Speaker 5: No one wants that.
Speaker 1: So you're like being like, yeah, no one's you know,
Speaker 1: that excited about shooting jakes. Maybe we'll make it that
Speaker 1: you can't shoot Jakes and it'll help when we handled well.
Speaker 5: A guy wrote in who is livid.
Speaker 1: About our handling of this, okay, says the media podcast
Speaker 1: came out, they brought up our new Turkey laws and
Speaker 1: completely fucked up the explanation. They harp on the Jake
Speaker 1: ban and say our purpose of the Jake ban is
Speaker 1: to increase breeding, and beat on us that that makes
Speaker 1: no sense. But here's here's some other things that's happened
Speaker 1: to South Carolina. They already did change the season dates.
Speaker 1: They made the season start later, and they made it shorter.
Speaker 1: They lowered the bag limit. Okay.
Speaker 5: In addition to.
Speaker 3: This, Tennessee's done this as well.
Speaker 1: So South Carolina first one, and so the state wide
Speaker 1: season now starts April third, previously half the state started
Speaker 1: March twenty second, and half started April one, so in
Speaker 1: part of the state and half the state, they moved
Speaker 1: the season to twelve days later because the thinking is
Speaker 1: states are killing turkeys too early and it's impacting breeding,
Speaker 1: and it's like the kind of that we mentioned, there's
Speaker 1: this kind of emerging idea in turkey management.
Speaker 5: It'd be like.
Speaker 1: Hunt them as long as you want on the other
Speaker 1: end of the season, or huntum longer on the other
Speaker 1: end of the season, and stop hitting them right at
Speaker 1: the beginning, early, right at the beginning. So he said,
Speaker 1: they not only did that, there was a recommendation that
Speaker 1: the entire state should be April ten, but the legislature
Speaker 1: didn't go for it. Before April ten. Where it is
Speaker 1: opened early, you're only allowed one bird. They used to
Speaker 1: run two staggered forty day seasons so that these have
Speaker 1: fifty total days of turkey hunting season. Because they managed
Speaker 1: a state in two chunks, so they used to have
Speaker 1: a fifty total days of season. They dropped it to
Speaker 1: thirty one days of season, lowered the lowered the overall
Speaker 1: bag limit from three turkeys to two turkeys. So point being,
Speaker 1: I'm still dying you know I was dying when we
Speaker 1: talked about this, originally from a cough point being they've
Speaker 1: done a ton in South Carolina to like suppressed turkey harvest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's I think that's happening in a lot
Speaker 3: of places. You know.
Speaker 1: Another one we talked about that we didn't get right.
Speaker 1: This is like the correction section we were talking about
Speaker 1: in Florida. You know, every state, every no matter where
Speaker 1: you're from, in every state, you always hate not.
Speaker 3: Out of stators. It's generally true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they know no one wants you know, no one
Speaker 1: driving around hunt wants to an out of state plate.
Speaker 5: You hate them, true, you just hate them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe that's more of a Montana think. Sounds more Montana.
Speaker 1: Well it's Florida big time. I'll explain. Really, Florida they
Speaker 1: hate him. So Richard Martinez, who I've hunted with in Florida,
Speaker 1: wrote into correction they were Florida was considering a Florida
Speaker 1: was considering this new thing where on certain wildlife management areas,
Speaker 1: so certain public land areas, residents get first cracks. So
Speaker 1: you wind up having two seasons resident turkey season, non
Speaker 1: resident turkey season, which again.
Speaker 5: That's their call.
Speaker 1: Man like I don't even think a non resident has
Speaker 1: a place to complain about it, because wildlife's manage at
Speaker 1: the state level. Right, So he says he here's what
Speaker 1: he says. He says, I want to clarify that the
Speaker 1: rule banning non residents actually landed at nine days, because
Speaker 1: public feedback said boning non residence by three days isn't
Speaker 1: boning them enough. They want to bone them more, three
Speaker 1: times worse. However, it only applies to five management areas.
Speaker 1: Those management areas being over the counter management areas.
Speaker 3: That makes sense, yep. If it's a.
Speaker 5: Draw management area, that's not saying where you really start losing.
Speaker 3: Listen, this is public.
Speaker 5: Public management areas.
Speaker 1: You can see some dude driving along with his with
Speaker 1: his wife, right, and he's like, ah, I check out
Speaker 1: your podcast, you know, and it's getting and now he's
Speaker 1: like hoping something good happens, and his wife's gonna like
Speaker 1: settle in, you know. And then she's sitting there, you know,
Speaker 1: and now we're like, well it was gonna be nine days,
Speaker 1: you know, it's three days, and it's actually nine days.
Speaker 5: And she's like, oh man.
Speaker 3: He's like, well, now hold on, that's only over the counter.
Speaker 3: W M a right.
Speaker 1: Now, He's like, two just changed down something.
Speaker 3: The limited draw w as are a totally different story.
Speaker 3: We're gonna get into that in the next half hour.
Speaker 4: Like no, no, no, we'll keep we'll keep listening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, He's like, just just hang in a minute, you know,
Speaker 1: because then it's gonna get good. They're gonna start talking. Lou,
Speaker 1: It's gonna be like, I'd like to offer a few
Speaker 1: finer points. So he goes on, it's not over yet.
Speaker 1: This this new staggered turkey hunting season thing. And again,
Speaker 1: I'm only bringing this up because this is stuff. This
Speaker 1: is like wildlife management stuff that will wherever you live,
Speaker 1: will wind up impacting you because states learn from each other,
Speaker 1: right Like states try stuff and it's effective and other
Speaker 1: states pick it up like they don't live in little vacuums,
Speaker 1: And so in figuring out how do you allocate resources
Speaker 1: and how do you do things, these are all like
Speaker 1: little playbooks and this idea of having everyone's familiar with
Speaker 1: looking at it rags and being like, oh, I'm a
Speaker 1: non resident, I got to buy extra shit that's extra expensive,
Speaker 1: or I'm a non resident, I can you know, have
Speaker 1: a lower bag limit than a resident, Like I'm only
Speaker 1: allowed one turkey, but a resident can kill five.
Speaker 5: What's up with that?
Speaker 1: But to enter it, this new thing, if it's emerging,
Speaker 1: is oh, I'm a resident. I start hunting on this day.
Speaker 1: My dear opening date, right is this day? And I
Speaker 1: got ten days and then the non residents show up.
Speaker 1: It's like a this will become you know, if it's effective,
Speaker 1: it'll become.
Speaker 7: Where's in Montana. I'd rather have it go the other way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that they got to quit that, Like non residents
Speaker 2: get like the first two weeks of the season.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I he here for just for turkeys or forever everything. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: for turkeys.
Speaker 5: I'd want the top end.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I would want top of turkeys.
Speaker 3: But mostly we're picking it now, we're picking and choosing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well here's here. I'll tell you those something this.
Speaker 1: This will give you a little insight into my inner psychology.
Speaker 1: Is uh, whenever another state bones non residents, I get
Speaker 1: a little agitated.
Speaker 3: But when you're state excited, do you think do you
Speaker 3: know this's all speculative stuff, But like, do you think
Speaker 3: there's ever a point where states are just like no man, no, no,
Speaker 3: no turkey wise or any any species wise that they'll
Speaker 3: do what to where they could they could potentially just
Speaker 3: go we don't. We don't want any non resident hunters
Speaker 3: at all. The but what unless you're unless you maybe
Speaker 3: worked own your own land or something. Yeah, if you
Speaker 3: win for a non resident.
Speaker 1: If you went to the if you went to the hunters,
Speaker 1: that'd be widespread. But from the agency's perspective, they can't
Speaker 1: because the money, yeah right all there because they they
Speaker 1: most most states, like this is something that isn't as widely.
Speaker 1: It's it's definitely not widely known in the public right
Speaker 1: at all. Like hunters know this, but in the public
Speaker 1: it's not widely known. Is state game agencies in most states, Uh,
Speaker 1: the handle everything like like law enforcement, disease prevention, habitat improvement,
Speaker 1: all this stuff. Like their money comes from that licenses
Speaker 1: and stamps. So when they can when they can go
Speaker 1: and and like you get your turkey license for thirty
Speaker 1: bucks or something, but then you get all these dudes
Speaker 1: that are paying hundreds to hunt turkeys, and then hunters
Speaker 1: like no more non residents. The agency is like easy, dude.
Speaker 1: You're like, well, we kind of want those guys, like
Speaker 1: we lose, like we'll lose the you know, we have
Speaker 1: no funding if we can't sell non resident tags. So
Speaker 1: what he's saying here that goes on is there's this
Speaker 1: place called Big Cypress National National Preserve. I've been down there,
Speaker 1: not hunt. I was down there with a turkey hunter
Speaker 1: by didn't hunt Turkey's there. Excuse me, fellows. Uh opening
Speaker 1: weekend twice as many non residents as residents, partly because
Speaker 1: it's because you hunt. Osciola's so damn early. I think
Speaker 1: dudes are like, I can go hunt Florida exeft did this,
Speaker 1: son of a bitch? Yep, he's part of the problem,
Speaker 1: part of the problem. I can Florida and still get
Speaker 1: home for my own opening day.
Speaker 7: Yeah, why wouldn't you.
Speaker 3: Why wouldn't you go to take someone else's resources.
Speaker 7: Dude, Florida, Texas, Montanza, I open it.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: So in that one, in that unit where they got
Speaker 1: twice as many non residents. This is a little hot
Speaker 1: tip alert. If you live in Florida, don't let seth
Speaker 1: come on, No, that's not odd. If you live in
Speaker 1: South Florida, next spring, when you go down to Big
Speaker 1: Cypress on opening day, you can expect to see a two.
Speaker 5: Thirds reduction in pressure.
Speaker 7: Wow.
Speaker 5: Two thirds reduction in pressure.
Speaker 7: I'd be excited if I was a resident.
Speaker 1: Now here's another one. I think this is it for
Speaker 1: Turkey rules. Is there one more Turkey rule?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 5: No, there's one more turk. There's turk. This is Turkey dark.
Speaker 1: We're covering Turkey dark spots like bad turkey stuff or
Speaker 1: you know, and then we're gonna get positive in light.
Speaker 5: It's like a it's like a U gospel sermon.
Speaker 3: You you you break them down to build them up.
Speaker 1: You go down, you know, you get in the dark,
Speaker 1: and then you come out out of the darkness.
Speaker 3: Where was I?
Speaker 5: Oh, this is we're coming out of the darkness now.
Speaker 3: Sorry.
Speaker 1: Do you guys remember when Florida had their bear hunt
Speaker 1: and just got beat up.
Speaker 4: By people now wanting a bear season.
Speaker 1: Well what happened in Florida is this is it's a
Speaker 1: great story. Uh we talked about in the past, but
Speaker 1: like Florida had no bear hunting for a long time,
Speaker 1: their numbers got real low, and of a sudden it
Speaker 1: got like many places going to this kind of general
Speaker 1: trend right now, and I'll talk about turkeys down, black bears.
Speaker 3: Up, yeah, up up up up up yep up.
Speaker 7: Everywhere so.
Speaker 5: Florida does does this quota hunt?
Speaker 1: Except you mnd pulling up real quick what you're Florida
Speaker 1: did their bear hunt. It was some years ago now,
Speaker 1: very contentious. All the animal rights people just just bent
Speaker 1: out of shape about Florida doing this bear hunt. They
Speaker 1: decide to do a quota hunt, not a limited draw hunt,
Speaker 1: not a not a limited tag draw. Right, it's just
Speaker 1: like a cap.
Speaker 3: Everybody go out and once this many are have been tagged,
Speaker 3: it's over right.
Speaker 1: They and because they hadn't had a bear season in
Speaker 1: so long, they had no idea about what efficacy rates
Speaker 1: would be like, and they put in it as they
Speaker 1: approached the cap. There's a twenty four hour leg, meaning
Speaker 1: it's like let's say you're like drawing down on a
Speaker 1: bear at at you know, let's say the cap gets
Speaker 1: hit at seven fifty am on the second day and
Speaker 1: had seven fifty two, a bear walks out and you
Speaker 1: shoot the bear?
Speaker 3: Is it like, did you just break the wall? Because
Speaker 3: there's no way you could have known, right.
Speaker 2: So it was opened from nineteen thirty nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 2: It closed until twenty fifteen for one season, and then
Speaker 2: it closed again.
Speaker 1: And can you pull up what the quota was the
Speaker 1: story is they way overshot the quota. I like, how much,
Speaker 1: Like he'll pull it up. The quota got hit and
Speaker 1: then people had like twenty four or forty eight hours
Speaker 1: or whatever, and by the time it was done, so half,
Speaker 1: like I shouldn't say half, people that know a lot
Speaker 1: about wildlife management looked at this and they're like, man,
Speaker 1: a lot more bears than we thought.
Speaker 5: It must be a lot of bears.
Speaker 1: Everybody else looked at it like they killed all the
Speaker 1: bears right, and it was just done. Public sentiment was
Speaker 1: like that they blew it, they ruined it. They had
Speaker 1: no idea what they're doing. They killed way more bears
Speaker 1: than the quota, and they haven't hundred bears since twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3: What are you finding?
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure that happened with wolves and Wasisconsin yees.
Speaker 3: So it's we were talking about that last night.
Speaker 2: It's broken into four different management units East panhandled, North, Central,
Speaker 2: and South, and then there's harvest objectives, which is East
Speaker 2: Panhandle forty North, one hundred, Central, one hundred, South eighty.
Speaker 5: And what they wind up with six something or so.
Speaker 2: East Panhandle was forty actual was one fourteen, but North
Speaker 2: North was one hundred actual twenty five oh, Central one
Speaker 2: hundred actual one forty three, and then South eighty actual
Speaker 2: twenty two oh.
Speaker 3: So they didn't really go over.
Speaker 5: Then wasn't even that bad?
Speaker 1: Well in some spot they went over to piss everybody
Speaker 1: off anyhow. You know, I was sitting there one time
Speaker 1: with a guy I don't want to name his name,
Speaker 1: but I'm sitting there in Florida, and I wound up
Speaker 1: in a house of a commissioner who grew up all kinds,
Speaker 1: did all kinds of hunting, and the commissioners telling me
Speaker 1: he voted against that bear hunt. I'm like, why, just
Speaker 1: worried about public opinion?
Speaker 3: Right exactly?
Speaker 1: That was he like laid it out, sitting talking to
Speaker 1: me face to face, that he voted against it because
Speaker 1: he's worried about public backlash. Not nothing to do with bears,
Speaker 1: worry about public opinion on him. Right now, Florida's getting
Speaker 1: ready to take another shot. Florida's getting ready for another
Speaker 1: shot at a bear hunt. This is from Richard Martinez.
Speaker 1: You know he does for a living. Take a guess.
Speaker 3: I'll take it to throw something out there, and I'm guessing.
Speaker 3: I'm guessing that I'm not going to guess it probably
Speaker 3: just musician.
Speaker 5: No, No, it's an art mover.
Speaker 3: So close that I thought, really.
Speaker 1: Like if you buy a really expensive piece of art
Speaker 1: and you need it ship from the from the where
Speaker 1: you bought it from to you.
Speaker 5: Richard Martinez, so.
Speaker 3: He's like like he's runs in a niche shipping business
Speaker 3: another way to put it. I like that, that's cool. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's interesting business, you know.
Speaker 5: It is you get to see art, get to handle it.
Speaker 3: I think about that a lot. I'm like, there's so
Speaker 3: many niche jobs that exist that you don't even you
Speaker 3: wouldn't even think of, Like as a drive into places
Speaker 3: sometimes I feeling like, look at all the people that
Speaker 3: live here, Like what all these people are doing some
Speaker 3: kind of job, Like there's it's not like you think
Speaker 3: of like think of all the jobs you know in
Speaker 3: your head, off the top of your head, my kids,
Speaker 3: there's so many more than you're like astronaut, detective, firefighter,
Speaker 3: police officer, restaurant person, and then that's like done. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's it, dude. I don't think about like the guy
Speaker 3: that's like manufacturing like the insulated foam inside of an
Speaker 3: airplane liner, but like that that's happening.
Speaker 1: And then he's got the kind of people that have
Speaker 1: jobs that they didn't know that was a job until
Speaker 1: they applied for it. Yeah, they're like, oh shit, that's
Speaker 1: the thing I'll do that. They're like, yeah, I could
Speaker 1: pull that off. You know I did meet it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right.
Speaker 3: Chilling. Uh.
Speaker 1: At the December Commission meeting, the Commission requested, I'm back
Speaker 1: to Florida. Okay, this is Richard Martinez telling me about
Speaker 1: what's going on in Florida. He's a very Richard Martinez
Speaker 1: is the is the kind of uh, the kind of
Speaker 1: guy that if every hunter or angler in every state
Speaker 1: was like Richard Martinez.
Speaker 5: We would have any problems.
Speaker 3: Mm hm.
Speaker 1: Extremely dedicated, very successful, but also very involved in all
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff, right, and very involved in policy
Speaker 1: and like making his statements and having his voice be
Speaker 1: heard and talking to other hunters and like, what are
Speaker 1: people's concerns, how do we address the concerns, what's how
Speaker 1: do we prove the resource. He's got a job, he's
Speaker 1: got a family, wife, whatever. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: he like he is, demonstrates like an exceptional level of
Speaker 1: curiosity and involvement with his area, and he's not one
Speaker 1: of those they, you know, blaming everybody for everything all
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 4: They took our jobs.
Speaker 1: Sitting Yeah, he's not sitting all bitter, you know, like
Speaker 1: he's not sitting all bitter.
Speaker 3: Right, they took our toms, dude, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So at the December Florida Game Commission meeting, the Commission
Speaker 1: requested staff to put together proposal for a hunt next season.
Speaker 1: Staff will present their proposal at the May twenty first
Speaker 1: meeting in Okalla.
Speaker 3: Is that a place.
Speaker 1: We're encouraging everyone in support of the hunt to attend.
Speaker 3: That's a good way to like make the protesters kind
Speaker 3: of like you kind of swell the numbers. You know,
Speaker 3: like the people that come to protest, You're like, well,
Speaker 3: these guys shut up. They must love they must want
Speaker 3: the bear hunt to go on. Oh you know everyone
Speaker 3: that's in support, Yeah the thing is going to attend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like like, look, how many people showed up for this,
Speaker 1: for this bear hunt?
Speaker 3: Due.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're there, there's no signs. But if you're
Speaker 1: there for the bear, stand right next to and act
Speaker 1: like you're with someone that's there against it and.
Speaker 5: Yell real loud.
Speaker 1: Yeah'd be like those two fellows, right, there excited.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, look at those guys. Those guys are pumped
Speaker 3: about it. Yeah. Everyone there supports Bears in one way
Speaker 3: or another. If you're in supportive Bears, doesn't matter which
Speaker 3: side you stand on, show up to the event. Yeah,
Speaker 3: come support the Bears.
Speaker 1: Last thing I mentioned doctor Michael Chamberlain. He's he's a
Speaker 1: wild Turkey expert the Wild Turkey Dog. I met him
Speaker 1: as Wild Turkey Dogs Show.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's awesome, fantastic guy.
Speaker 1: He if you go way back in the archives, Chamberlain
Speaker 1: has been on the show once or twice. He did
Speaker 1: one of my favorite episodes ever, and he explained when
Speaker 1: they were doing a turkey predation study in this area
Speaker 1: where they went in and they wanted to see the
Speaker 1: whole inner workings of the complex of wildlife, right, so
Speaker 1: they would put collars on everything they went into this
Speaker 1: area to do. Like they had all these collar turkeys
Speaker 1: or some kind of track. I think they glue a
Speaker 1: tracking mechanism on a turkey. They glew it to its
Speaker 1: back feathers and then went in and a collars on
Speaker 1: like raccoons, coyotes, whatever. They wanted everybody in town to
Speaker 1: be wearing a thing to see how they're all interacting.
Speaker 1: And then when a turkey gets killed, when you get
Speaker 1: a mortality signal from your turkey, you can go in
Speaker 1: and try to figure out what happened to the turkey,
Speaker 1: but also you also know where your other collared stuff
Speaker 1: has been hanging around.
Speaker 5: One of the favorite while they've.
Speaker 1: Studies that I'd like to cite, and I've brought it
Speaker 1: up a thousand times, I'll bring it up again now.
Speaker 1: They did one of these in Alaska one time where
Speaker 1: they tried to come into town and basically collar everybody.
Speaker 1: They had a collared moose fall into a crevasse in
Speaker 1: a glacier. One of the grizzlies that was wearing one
Speaker 1: of their collars climbed in there to eat on it,
Speaker 1: got stuck and died in there with the moose. One
Speaker 1: of their wolverines that had a collar on it got
Speaker 1: in there and ate on the carcass and lived. So
Speaker 1: had this whole collar interaction that you can watch well.
Speaker 1: Chamberan was talking about when they did. If you go
Speaker 1: back and listen to this episode, he tells it in
Speaker 1: great detail. They did one of these and they had
Speaker 1: a breeding pair of great horned owls come into their area,
Speaker 1: and he said you couldn't keep a collar alive on anything.
Speaker 5: When those owls showed.
Speaker 1: Up, they killed everybody, really, you know, they killed everybody,
Speaker 1: and they'd smoke those turkeys like when spring gobblers. When
Speaker 1: a gobbler gets up in the kind of half light
Speaker 1: goblin up in his roost tree, he's got a bull's
Speaker 1: eye on himrned owl.
Speaker 4: I wonder why though, because they're not like eating the turkeys,
Speaker 4: are they are?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah no. He said, they'll blast
Speaker 1: them so hard.
Speaker 4: The only reason I say that is because my parents
Speaker 4: had a bunch of chickens killed by the owls and
Speaker 4: they weren't even eating them.
Speaker 5: Oh, just kill him for the hell of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyways, well she didn't like, you know what, maybe they
Speaker 1: if I remember, I could be screwing it up. I
Speaker 1: could be screwed up. But what he talked about, the
Speaker 1: thing that tickled me about it is he said that
Speaker 1: great horned owl smokes that turkey so hard out of
Speaker 1: a tree. When you go out there, the turkey's laying
Speaker 1: way off from the tree, but its feathers running from
Speaker 1: the tree because he hits.
Speaker 3: Him by full speed, like knocks him.
Speaker 1: Out blast him out of that tree, Mike Chamberlain. They
Speaker 1: are doing a so they're getting ready to work on
Speaker 1: this project, a DNA.
Speaker 5: Project with wild turkeys.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: We had a research around the podcast one time. Who's
Speaker 1: working on a duck DNA program and the duck DNA
Speaker 1: program to refesh people's memories. The duck DNA program is
Speaker 1: looking at these kind of like fake ducks that game
Speaker 1: farms put out in certain areas. I didn't really know
Speaker 1: this was a thing, but like in the East and
Speaker 1: certain it's a thing like guys that wanted to have
Speaker 1: like these little duck hunting spots and they take clients
Speaker 1: out they're just raising mallards. I had heard of this,
Speaker 1: you know, like doing that with pheasants.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. I mean that's pretty common.
Speaker 5: It's the thing with ducks.
Speaker 3: I had.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know this was a thing. Someone told
Speaker 1: me once, but I didn't really Where is it.
Speaker 3: Where's it happening?
Speaker 5: Like, I know it happens a lot in Chestpeake Bay.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 1: I think they're doing it a bunch of Ontario. You
Speaker 1: raise ducks in a pen, right, and then you just
Speaker 1: kind of get them set up in your little area
Speaker 1: and then guys come out and like pretend to hunt
Speaker 1: the ducks.
Speaker 3: We pretend the hunt, well they hunt them, but they're yeah,
Speaker 3: it's just like they're just kind of like they're just
Speaker 3: a round pet ducks.
Speaker 1: What happened was one time I was down hunting uh
Speaker 1: sika deer in Maryland. They were going over a bridge
Speaker 1: bucket list for me. Oh really, Oh yeah, Well I.
Speaker 3: Had plans to do it. I had, so I had
Speaker 3: we were going, I had a trip plan to go
Speaker 3: do it. And this was probably in twenty It's probably
Speaker 3: right at the end of twenty twenty going into I
Speaker 3: think it was gonna be in January of twenty one, yep,
Speaker 3: and ended up. I think I ended up like getting
Speaker 3: COVID or something.
Speaker 1: You should take this up with me in a little while.
Speaker 1: And we have had just a fantastic time doing that.
Speaker 1: And I have someone I would like to introduce you to.
Speaker 3: We got I. We got hooked up through my bus driver.
Speaker 3: Grew up grew up there, Oh yeah, in Maryland.
Speaker 5: So I think it was actually you still got the
Speaker 5: same bus driver.
Speaker 3: Yeah, still gone. Yep. Larry Larry, Yeah, Larry Kuh. He's man, dude,
Speaker 3: He's a great guy. And uh yeah, so he he
Speaker 3: knew some he knew some folks that had access from
Speaker 3: from where he grew up and stuff. So, but I
Speaker 3: think I think it would have been when you guys
Speaker 3: went and did that hunt on Meat Eater. It was
Speaker 3: the first time that I had seen that. Oh okay,
Speaker 3: and I was like, I got it this before. We
Speaker 3: had before I had been on the show and we
Speaker 3: knew each other, and uh. I reached out. I asked Larry.
Speaker 3: I was like, hey, man, you know anything about these
Speaker 3: and he was like, oh yeah, man, he said, we
Speaker 3: got those things all over the place. Yeah. I was like,
Speaker 3: do so fair? How do I do that? He's like,
Speaker 3: just I just called my buddies from high school and
Speaker 3: you go up there and do it. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: cool it is.
Speaker 5: It is one of the easiest eating deer in the world.
Speaker 1: Man, really, Oh my god, they're good. You just take
Speaker 1: the front legs, like you can't do this in any
Speaker 1: kind of thing. You take the front legs and put
Speaker 1: it in a smoker and pick it apart. Really, you know,
Speaker 1: it was we're down there hunting, We're down there hunting
Speaker 1: seeking deer, and it was the fall, right.
Speaker 5: I remember going over a bridge on.
Speaker 1: This little slew or whatever, and there's just mallards everywhere
Speaker 1: under the bridge, and they weren't like laid out, like
Speaker 1: how mad. It just something was weird about it. And
Speaker 1: I even said to my buddy, I'm like, I can't
Speaker 1: believe all these mallards and he goes, oh, no.
Speaker 3: Those are.
Speaker 1: Release birds because they were just like arranged in the
Speaker 1: like odd under the bridge and like arranged in the
Speaker 1: way that just didn't look like what ducks would do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So this duck DNA program is these ducks that these
Speaker 1: guys are putting out are breeding with wild mallards, and
Speaker 1: their offspring act weird. Their offspring don't know when to migrate,
Speaker 1: don't know where to migrate, they don't behave right, they
Speaker 1: get predated on at a way high rate.
Speaker 5: They're stupid. And so they're doing this.
Speaker 1: DNA project to find out, well, these guys that are
Speaker 1: dumping these birds out that they're then breeding with wild
Speaker 1: mallards and impacting all kinds of things about mallard biology.
Speaker 4: It doesn't seem like that would be legal.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is surprised the hell out of me.
Speaker 1: It's a big thing for these guys. They big thing
Speaker 1: for them to be able to want to do it.
Speaker 1: So they did this this DNA project. Well they're doing
Speaker 1: they're launching a new new DNA project on turkeys where
Speaker 1: they're gonna be nationwide. Hunters are going to have a
Speaker 1: chance to submit. We'll keep you informed of how this works.
Speaker 1: They're gonna have a chance to submit turkey DNA and
Speaker 1: here's what here's what is of interest to them. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're looking on social media whatever during turkey season,
Speaker 1: everybody's got all their crazy turkeys and you're seeing dudes
Speaker 1: that got like wild colored turkeys or this has happened
Speaker 1: to me. You're like, there's a flock of turkey's going
Speaker 1: by and there's a white one in it.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Or people that will say, uh oh, I like hunting
Speaker 1: in Kansas because you can kill an Eastern anario mh together.
Speaker 5: And you're kind of what the hell does that mean?
Speaker 1: Well, doing a big uh, doing a big turkey DNA
Speaker 1: project where hunters all over can send in a sample
Speaker 1: and then they can map out because one of the
Speaker 1: things they're looking at is like all these weird color phases,
Speaker 1: where are they coming from? And probably like hair like
Speaker 1: not probably is it like heritage breeds of turkeys? Is
Speaker 1: it farm turkeys? But the thing you gotta that makes
Speaker 1: this interesting to think about is a like if you're
Speaker 1: sitting there picturing, what is the original? Like you take
Speaker 1: a cow, okay, like cattle, What did cattle come from?
Speaker 1: Cattle came from a thing called a wild animal called
Speaker 1: the orrix or sheep. Domestic sheep came from I think
Speaker 1: they came from Mouflon's horses came from a Siberian step horse.
Speaker 1: So now when you see like a horse standing in
Speaker 1: someone's pasture, you're watching like the Indianapolis.
Speaker 5: Know what do they call that thing?
Speaker 3: Big horse race Derby, Kentucky Derby, you know.
Speaker 1: Kentucky Derby, And you're like, what is this animal? Like
Speaker 1: I've looked at that horses my whole lifef you ever
Speaker 1: ask yourself, well, what did it come from? Sure, it's
Speaker 1: an animal like the Eurasian step was like that animal.
Speaker 1: When you look at cow's and all the breeze of college,
Speaker 1: you're like, what the hell they come from? It came
Speaker 1: from a wild animal called orcs. All pigs like all pigs,
Speaker 1: a big pink farm pig. They're all called SEUs scraffa
Speaker 1: s u s s c r o f A sus
Speaker 1: scraffa is like the like the the why the ancestral
Speaker 1: wild pig. All pigs came from the ancestral wild pig.
Speaker 1: They're all still called sous scrafa. It's all one species.
Speaker 1: What's cool about turkeys is Turkey's is a rare thing,
Speaker 1: is a rare domestic that if you went to poland
Speaker 1: just pulling that out of thin air. If you went
Speaker 1: to Pole and then there's some white turkey standing there,
Speaker 1: that turkey is a descendant of our wild turkey. Like
Speaker 1: when the Spanish came and you know, quote discovered America,
Speaker 1: they got wild turkeys which had been domesticated by indigenous people,
Speaker 1: brought wild turkeys back to Europe, turned them into all
Speaker 1: these crazy turkey breeds, and then brought them back here again,
Speaker 1: right right, So like all turkeys on the whole planet
Speaker 1: come from here turkeys. So they're trying to you know,
Speaker 1: maybe puts together some map of how this all went down.
Speaker 7: That'd be cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that'd be neat.
Speaker 5: So we'll keep people, keep people focused.
Speaker 4: He might be on the Meat Eater Live soon, right,
Speaker 4: the Turkey doc.
Speaker 5: I think what's coming on maybe he's gonna talk about this, Luke.
Speaker 5: You know how in.
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, certain disciplines we're talking about having
Speaker 1: all kinds of jobs for certain disciplines. Uh, work will
Speaker 1: interfere with one's ability to do their hunting and fishing. Yes,
Speaker 1: Like a friend of mine, Uh, he's a MLB baseball player, right,
Speaker 1: and there's a thing that happens, like if they don't
Speaker 1: make the playoffs, it's a game on and if you
Speaker 1: make the playoffs, you're screwed. But I hope you don't
Speaker 1: make the playoffs so.
Speaker 5: You can deer hunt.
Speaker 1: And he says, no, that's not a thing that I hope, Like,
Speaker 1: you don't, You don't. It's like a it's sort of
Speaker 1: a it's not what you want to happen. But if
Speaker 1: when your season ends, you do start deer hunting, But
Speaker 1: you never hope your season ends to go deer hunting,
Speaker 1: because that would mean you weren't right, probably an MLB.
Speaker 5: Player, right, right, right?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: You were something different? How uh in your in your world?
Speaker 1: How do you do you do you try to line
Speaker 1: up tour? Like are you aware? Are you like man,
Speaker 1: I can't tour during deer season or do you just
Speaker 1: do work first and then pick up where you pick up.
Speaker 3: This This this current calendar year is the first year
Speaker 3: I've done that. I was supposed to do a set
Speaker 3: of shows I won't say which, a set of shows
Speaker 3: in November that have now already been completed, because I
Speaker 3: was like, I don't want to do that in November.
Speaker 5: Really, Yeah, did you tell people what you were thinking?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, I mean I just literally told him. I
Speaker 3: was like, No, that's the middle of deer season. I'm
Speaker 3: not I'm not going to do that because I haven't
Speaker 3: had a really great deer season, and I mean six
Speaker 3: or seven years, because we're because we're always because we're
Speaker 3: always touring heavily. So it hasn't it hasn't been as
Speaker 3: bad the last couple of years because you know, we've
Speaker 3: been playing in the NFL stadiums. Obviously you can only
Speaker 3: really do that during the off season, and obviously NFL
Speaker 3: is really kicked up in the fall, so you can't
Speaker 3: play those venues in the fall because they're not they
Speaker 3: don't do anything other than their stuff in the fall,
Speaker 3: usually barring some weird scenario or something. But so, yeah,
Speaker 3: we hadn't had to worry about it, and this year
Speaker 3: it was like, hey, do you want to go do
Speaker 3: this international stuff? So it's not only it would be
Speaker 3: different if it was like, hey, man, do you want
Speaker 3: to go do like, you know, three weekends in November
Speaker 3: and do shows on Friday Saturday. It'd be like, sure,
Speaker 3: that'd be fine because you know I could go you know,
Speaker 3: I can hunt at home, or I could go hunt
Speaker 3: somewhere for a few days and then go back on
Speaker 3: the road or something. But it was going to be,
Speaker 3: you know, it was gonna be overseas. So it just
Speaker 3: like miss the whole deal. And I was like, at
Speaker 3: this point, I'm just not willing to do that. Now
Speaker 3: the shows have already been done. We did the shows,
Speaker 3: we just moved them to a different time, and so
Speaker 3: it was it's not really like I've never canceled any
Speaker 3: shows to hunt, No, and I never would.
Speaker 1: So do you look at it if you if you
Speaker 1: start to if you if you start to manipulate your
Speaker 1: if you start to like manage your music career around
Speaker 1: your desire to be outside, is that a sign that like,
Speaker 1: is that a sign where you're like, man, I've like
Speaker 1: arrived that I can actually start to manipulate my thing,
Speaker 1: or is it that. Man, I'm just getting of the
Speaker 1: age where I'm starting to recognize what my limits are
Speaker 1: and what's important.
Speaker 3: I think there's a I think there's a bit of
Speaker 3: both in there. I mean, I think obviously it's a
Speaker 3: super luxury to be able to do stuff like that,
Speaker 3: and it's not. It's not something that I have ever.
Speaker 3: It's never even been in the conversation until a year
Speaker 3: or two ago. It's like, well, how do we you know,
Speaker 3: because it felt like every year we get the season
Speaker 3: and it was like, oh boy, like we're not gonna
Speaker 3: get you know, we're not gonna get to get to
Speaker 3: do the thing. I think the difference was, you know,
Speaker 3: before it's like now I kind of have some of
Speaker 3: my own spots too to go do some of these
Speaker 3: hunts that I want. I want to do, you know,
Speaker 3: because I that's something that's been in my my grander
Speaker 3: plan for you know, spending time with my kids too,
Speaker 3: right as to hopefully, you know, hopefully they fall in
Speaker 3: love with it as well. So I wanted to have
Speaker 3: spots where I could take them and not have to
Speaker 3: be dependent upon somebody else to invite me somewhere or
Speaker 3: you know, let me go somewhere have access to their
Speaker 3: you know, resources or whatever it may be. So I
Speaker 3: have my own places now. So I wanted to work
Speaker 3: that into my plan of like, Okay, well eventually, you know,
Speaker 3: this is something that I want to prioritize because it's
Speaker 3: something that I enjoy and it's an activity that I
Speaker 3: want to you know, do with with my kids. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's just it's just part of
Speaker 3: of of growing right and evolving as a person in
Speaker 3: a phase that I'm in at life now is completely
Speaker 3: different than it was five or six years ago. Years ago,
Speaker 3: you know, my career was you know, really really on
Speaker 3: the insane roller coaster to the absolute top, and just
Speaker 3: now it's more like now you're kind of at cruising altitude, right,
Speaker 3: and all your and all your work is to like
Speaker 3: maintain where you are. But it's the same amount of work,
Speaker 3: but there's not really much like there's not really anywhere
Speaker 3: else to go. There is no more like it's like
Speaker 3: an airplane can only go so far, you know, it's
Speaker 3: like kind of reach the max altitude and then it's
Speaker 3: like you can't really you can't really climb anymore. You
Speaker 3: just have to maintain, right, So it takes the same
Speaker 3: amount of work that it did to get there as
Speaker 3: it does to just stay where you're at now, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. And so you have to kind
Speaker 3: of evaluate. We were talking about this last night sitting
Speaker 3: in the chairs. It's like, you know, when you when
Speaker 3: you have kids, right, like, you only have so much
Speaker 3: bandwidth to deal with things in your life with everything
Speaker 3: that's on your plate that you want to achieve or
Speaker 3: things that you want to do, hobbies, career, and then
Speaker 3: you you know, you throw your kid once you have kids,
Speaker 3: you throw that in the mix. You know that that
Speaker 3: to me, occupies a ton of space in a good way.
Speaker 3: Right It's like, you want, I want to be there
Speaker 3: for my kids. I want to be involved parent, I
Speaker 3: want to be around and help take care of them
Speaker 3: and be their dad, and so that eliminates a lot
Speaker 3: of other stuff from that. You don't have the bandwidth
Speaker 3: for now because all the space that you had before
Speaker 3: is now almost cutting half man, you know, so now
Speaker 3: everything else has to fit into the half slot, you know,
Speaker 3: and that's your job, and that's hobbies and things that
Speaker 3: you want to do, priorities that you have, Like you
Speaker 3: have to kind of reprioritize where everything else sits because
Speaker 3: the kids and the family come first. They have to
Speaker 3: come first, you know, and then job for me it
Speaker 3: has to come second, you know. So I have to
Speaker 3: just and that might be forty to fifty forty forty
Speaker 3: five percent of the of the one hundred percent, and
Speaker 3: family's fifty, so you're left with five percent, you know,
Speaker 3: and you're like, man, what do I you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, like.
Speaker 5: I had my pie out quite so carefully. That's a
Speaker 5: good that's a good way to look at it.
Speaker 3: But you're going like, well, so then I begin to think,
Speaker 3: you know, with the hunting stuff as well, how you
Speaker 3: know something that I love and you know, something I
Speaker 3: hope that my kids love and the hope to get
Speaker 3: them involved into. But we talked about it last night, like,
Speaker 3: is it this inherently like selfish practice to want to
Speaker 3: get your kids involved into the things that you love?
Speaker 5: Yes, it is, but it's but it's it's done.
Speaker 1: But it's good though, Yeah, for sure, it's great.
Speaker 5: It's it's dual purpose.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's dual purpose. Right. It gives you then then
Speaker 3: some of your bandwidth for family time and time spent
Speaker 3: with your kids can also be you know, it doesn't
Speaker 3: have to necessarily come out of the five percent that's
Speaker 3: left for you.
Speaker 6: Hm.
Speaker 3: It goes into the you're kind of you're getting two
Speaker 3: birds stoned at once, as I like to.
Speaker 1: Say, And uh, do you remember what PETA PETA like
Speaker 1: people for the ethical treating of animals. They're trying to
Speaker 1: like get people to stop using expressions like kill two
Speaker 1: birds and one stone. No, it was, and it was
Speaker 1: like they're offering up alternatives, but they would have loved
Speaker 1: that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, get two birds stone and want birds stoned at once.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like trying to put a instead of like, oh,
Speaker 1: you got your cart ahead of your horse. You know,
Speaker 1: well that implies the horse has to pull a cart,
Speaker 1: which is mean, so you should change it to like whatever. Yeah, hell,
Speaker 1: you did a better job they did just sitting there
Speaker 1: right now. I just take that one. Uh you know
Speaker 1: you know what, you know what I when you thought
Speaker 1: about is it selfish to yeah, you know, like, is
Speaker 1: it selfish to want to get your kids into hunting
Speaker 1: and fishing if that's what you like to do? And
Speaker 1: I've thought about that a great deal. And I don't
Speaker 1: think that I don't think I'm like overdoing it, right,
Speaker 1: I'm having a hard time talking right now, Like picture
Speaker 1: that you're trying to rationalize buying some stupid vehicle.
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't have to picture that.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, And you're like, come up with crazy, crazy shit, right,
Speaker 1: you come up with crazy shit. You're like, wow, and
Speaker 1: you know, really what I needed for is picture that
Speaker 1: there was a lava flow, you know, and and and
Speaker 1: like we got blocked in by a terrible lava flow. Well,
Speaker 1: now you know this vehicle would write and you come
Speaker 1: up with insane shit to try to justify impulses you have.
Speaker 1: I don't think that when you go like, well, I
Speaker 1: want to get my kids in the hunting and fishing,
Speaker 1: is that selfish?
Speaker 5: Because that's what I want to do.
Speaker 4: It's also super like healthy thing.
Speaker 1: It's like sing it.
Speaker 4: Is so there's so many things. Is that in this
Speaker 4: world that people are into themselves at getting your kids
Speaker 4: into it probably wouldn't be as healthy as getting your
Speaker 4: kids outside, no doubt away from screens.
Speaker 3: Yeahn't necessarily bad, Like there's some there's really it's really
Speaker 3: like self serving, Like if all your kids got way
Speaker 3: into the hunting, if it's like all of them in
Speaker 3: the world, exactly.
Speaker 4: You're being a good would accomplished.
Speaker 3: It doesn't mean you're not being a good parent. You're
Speaker 3: still being a good parent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're doing all that. And like there's even another one.
Speaker 1: I try to make the list of all things like
Speaker 1: physical activity outside all this right, like learning about your environment,
Speaker 1: learning about seasons, like being exposed to you know, life
Speaker 1: and death on the farm, right, all these positives. I
Speaker 1: also thought of this where I was thinking, whatever is
Speaker 1: your whatever your passion is, I think it's productive to
Speaker 1: expose your kids to like intense and the asm. That's
Speaker 1: a good way to look at it, Like to expose
Speaker 1: your kids to like what is it like demonstrate to
Speaker 1: them what it's like to just like love something well
Speaker 1: and not just have it be the world is just
Speaker 1: this sort of.
Speaker 3: Well me and my me and my wife are discussing
Speaker 3: this one night, you know. You know, being a musician
Speaker 3: is such a like fickle business, you know, and you
Speaker 3: know eventually everything that goes up comes down in the
Speaker 3: music business, right, whether it's just the constraints of time
Speaker 3: where it's like, you know, a new generation of listeners
Speaker 3: is coming in and they're like, oh that guy's old er, whatever,
Speaker 3: we don't listen to that guy anymore, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, Like you eventually, you know, you become like
Speaker 3: kind of a like like legacy act. That's kind of
Speaker 3: the term that's used, right sure, So me and me
Speaker 3: and my wife always discussed and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 3: sometimes if I'm having a tough day, I'll be coming
Speaker 3: through the house. I'm like, oh, I'm just I'll just
Speaker 3: be done, you know, like I'm stomping around like you know,
Speaker 3: like I've burned my egg and the skillet and I'm like, wow,
Speaker 3: I just quit music. And she's like, what are you
Speaker 3: talking about? You know, and it's like joking about it,
Speaker 3: you know, and we're sitting down talking kind of about
Speaker 3: it in a more serious way. One night after we
Speaker 3: had put the kids a bed and had dinner, and
Speaker 3: you know, as I was almost like she was almost
Speaker 3: just kind of letting me vent, you know, and I
Speaker 3: was talking to her and I realized, I'm like, man, like,
Speaker 3: you know, like one like, what would I do if
Speaker 3: I didn't you know, what would I be doing anyways?
Speaker 3: If I didn't do music, you know, I'd still be
Speaker 3: just I'd be doing music. I should be doing it
Speaker 3: at home, okay, instead of you know, I would still
Speaker 3: be doing it in some ways. One but two it's
Speaker 3: like true, I do have a song about that, and
Speaker 3: my kids are like, you know, my son's are two
Speaker 3: and a half and one and a half, you know,
Speaker 3: as at the date of this recording, you know, and
Speaker 3: it's like they've never seen me do my thing ever,
Speaker 3: Like they don't know. They don't even know, dude, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, Like they don't even.
Speaker 7: So I like.
Speaker 3: Because like I don't want that. I don't want, you know,
Speaker 3: their dad, which is me, right, Like I don't want
Speaker 3: their dad. Like for them to know me is like
Speaker 3: essentially like a retired guy that's like what does your
Speaker 3: dad do going up? Oh, he didn't do anything, And
Speaker 3: like what do you mean, well, like I don't know
Speaker 3: he had a job like before we can like remember
Speaker 3: and stuff, but he doesn't it doesn't work now does
Speaker 3: not even really that you know, he can't even really
Speaker 3: do that very well. You know, Yeah, he gets it
Speaker 3: stuck on the cast iron. And when he doesn't when
Speaker 3: he gets too impatient to preheat it right, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, he doesn't let it heat up slow enough.
Speaker 3: But it's I And so that ultimately was my conclusion,
Speaker 3: you know, to my own kind of mental conflict was like, well,
Speaker 3: I don't want to, like, I don't want my kids
Speaker 3: to know like me as like a lazy guy who
Speaker 3: doesn't do anything. Like I want my kids to see
Speaker 3: me do things at a really high level and pursue
Speaker 3: the things that I set out to achieve. And I
Speaker 3: want them to see me enjoying doing that. I want
Speaker 3: them to see me struggle doing that, you know, Like
Speaker 3: I want to expose them to all the gambit of emotions,
Speaker 3: you know, And because you know, I watch I watched
Speaker 3: my parents go through that stuff. My parents just weren't
Speaker 3: successful musicians. You know. My dad was a maintenance man
Speaker 3: and my men and my mom worked at the bank,
Speaker 3: and so it was like they you know, they worked
Speaker 3: so hard at a at a job that they didn't
Speaker 3: even love, you know, And that taught me so much
Speaker 3: about you know, that led me to where I am.
Speaker 3: You know, my parents always pushed me to have a job,
Speaker 3: that have a job that you love, because we did it,
Speaker 3: you know, and like you can. It's such a such
Speaker 3: a life hack to have a job that you love,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, It's one of the biggest
Speaker 3: life acts out there. Man. You don't have to hate
Speaker 3: your job. And I think, as a kid a little bit,
Speaker 3: I thought that a little bit because my parents didn't
Speaker 3: love their job. You know, they did't hate it, but
Speaker 3: it wasn't like, you know, Mom didn't wake up and go.
Speaker 1: God, I can't wait to, you know, get down to
Speaker 1: the bank.
Speaker 3: Get down to the bank today and sit at the
Speaker 3: desk all day and deal with people's mortgage paperwork. You know,
Speaker 3: that just wasn't something she was excited about. And so
Speaker 3: I remember thinking, even when I went in to go
Speaker 3: into college, I'm like, well, I better get into business
Speaker 3: because I hate that, you know what I mean. It's like,
Speaker 3: you know, it's like I just think there's kind of
Speaker 3: this like little falsehood where no one really tells you, like, hey, hey,
Speaker 3: you don't have to like hate work. It's not something
Speaker 3: they tell you in school, or at least from my perspective,
Speaker 3: it was just like, yeah, man, like parents just you know,
Speaker 3: parents come home and they bitch about work and work sucks,
Speaker 3: and you're gonna have to work one day, so get ready.
Speaker 3: Enjoy your time while you haven't, but throw your freedom
Speaker 3: before you get in the suck of like having a
Speaker 3: job every day, Like you don't have to have a
Speaker 3: job you hate, you know. I wish people would have
Speaker 3: told me that earlier on, But I learned that by
Speaker 3: by watching my parents.
Speaker 6: I wonder if that was like a sort of like
Speaker 6: a generational thing too. Like I feel like a lot
Speaker 6: of my parents' friends have all these jobs that you know,
Speaker 6: they don't necessarily love doing, but they just did it
Speaker 6: because they had a family, and like maybe it wasn't
Speaker 6: as easy to go do something you love back in
Speaker 6: the day.
Speaker 3: No, So I mean I think a lot of the
Speaker 3: a lot of the reason that people do just because
Speaker 3: they have to. Yeah, they do it for their kids,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. Like my dad didn't want
Speaker 3: to strap up or my mom didn't want to strap
Speaker 3: up and go in like, but they had to because
Speaker 3: like you know, they got to like buy groceries, and
Speaker 3: you know they're doing it. I mean, it's a it's
Speaker 3: a thing. I think a lot of times, you know,
Speaker 3: at least if you're if you're trying to trying to
Speaker 3: be a good parent or raise your kids, right, you
Speaker 3: do it out of love? Right?
Speaker 5: Did your parents have a lot for you?
Speaker 1: Did your parents have a lot of uh, did they
Speaker 1: like explicitly express love for you a lot when you
Speaker 1: were little.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, my mom did, for sure. You know,
Speaker 3: I mean my dad was a little more tough exterior guy.
Speaker 3: Like he wasn't like big cuddly like. He wasn't like
Speaker 3: it wasn't like best friend vibes. You know. My dad
Speaker 3: wasn't like, come on, little buddy, let's go down to
Speaker 3: the fishing hole and you know, throw baseball. He was like,
Speaker 3: I work and on the weekends, I work at home
Speaker 3: because we you know, we got to mow the grass
Speaker 3: and we got to weeded, and we got to keep
Speaker 3: the house nice. And like he was like you know
Speaker 3: my mom, I mean he was. He always told me
Speaker 3: he you know, loved me and was proud of me
Speaker 3: and stuff he did, so there was never any question
Speaker 3: about that. But it was very like it was just
Speaker 3: kind of stern, like, you know, you need to do
Speaker 3: your stuff. You need to you know, make sure your
Speaker 3: room's clean and make sure it help your mom with
Speaker 3: whatever she needs in the house. And then you know,
Speaker 3: mow the front. I'll do the ride and mower and
Speaker 3: you know there's stuff to be done there, things to
Speaker 3: be a pomplished, yeah what I mean. But yeah, dude,
Speaker 3: it was very It was very kind of like healthy
Speaker 3: and normal in that sense.
Speaker 1: Of do you have a thing where well, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you that I do, and I'd be curious to get
Speaker 1: your thoughts on it, just because on parenting, I've tried
Speaker 1: hard to.
Speaker 5: Like it's kind of hard to explain.
Speaker 1: I've tried hard to demonstrate like a level of humility
Speaker 1: to my kids and a level of presence to my
Speaker 1: kids by by making sure that they see me all
Speaker 1: the time doing like the mundane shit that needs to
Speaker 1: happen and running.
Speaker 3: A household.
Speaker 1: Right that like no one's above it, no, do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? And so I want them to
Speaker 1: like especially when they're little. Man, I was like, I
Speaker 1: it needs like someone need to do what it needed
Speaker 1: to happen. But I was like, I want them to
Speaker 1: see that that you come in with a plan at
Speaker 1: a time and like you prepare dinner yep, and like
Speaker 1: they sat at the table, they helped clean up. It's
Speaker 1: like no one is above any of this shit.
Speaker 3: No, definitely, and we have I mean, we're even doing it.
Speaker 3: You know obviously you know two and a half and
Speaker 3: one and a half, you're limited with what you can do.
Speaker 3: But I mean we even now, like the kids. You know,
Speaker 3: we we live in a two thousand square foot house. Man,
Speaker 3: it's me. It was two bedrooms. Me and my wife
Speaker 3: have a room and then the kids at the boys
Speaker 3: share a room. So it's not like you're never we're
Speaker 3: always close together. We're always tight in there, you know.
Speaker 3: With the living room is the playroom, so all the
Speaker 3: kids toys are in there and so and you know,
Speaker 3: they got all kinds of stuff that grandma and Grandpa's
Speaker 3: bottom and you know, aunts and uncles and friends and
Speaker 3: stuff like that, and they play in there and destroy
Speaker 3: I mean, we let them just i mean destroy it.
Speaker 3: But it's like every night, it's like, all right, we're
Speaker 3: all cleaning up now, and mom and dad are cleaning up.
Speaker 3: But y'all, but y'all are like to the extent that
Speaker 3: a one and a half year old, you know, he'll
Speaker 3: he'll get a block and bring it over and you
Speaker 3: know he might only pick up two things. But my
Speaker 3: two and a half year old now, like he can
Speaker 3: actually make he can make a five percent dent in
Speaker 3: the cleanup. And he understood. But he understands, dude, Like
Speaker 3: that's what we make it a point to go, hey, man,
Speaker 3: like you need to help us with this stuff. This
Speaker 3: is this is your You make a mess, you got
Speaker 3: to clean it up. You know, if he spills his milk,
Speaker 3: we give him a paper towel. He can't really do anything.
Speaker 3: He just smears it around, and you know, we go
Speaker 3: back behind him and actually clean it up. But you know,
Speaker 3: we make him go and you know, he dabs the
Speaker 3: paper towel and it soaks a little bit of milk
Speaker 3: up and he throws it in the garbage.
Speaker 4: And that age, they don't even realize it's a chore
Speaker 4: kind of right, They're.
Speaker 3: Just like, oh, yeah, I get the help. That's that's
Speaker 3: pretty cool. But like, yeah, reinforcing those things all the time,
Speaker 3: you know what, I think. We we're also discussing this
Speaker 3: at some point yesterday, the three of us. But my
Speaker 3: life is so like it's so normal outside of like
Speaker 3: when I'm playing shows, Like I really don't do a
Speaker 3: whole lot of anything other than I go play my shows,
Speaker 3: and I come home and I spend time with my
Speaker 3: wife and my kids, and I do whatever work stuff
Speaker 3: I have to do when I'm home, whether that's writing songs,
Speaker 3: which most of the time I'm doing at my house.
Speaker 3: You know, with my friends and stuff, and I'm just there, dude,
Speaker 3: Like I'm just I'm basically like in some ways, like
Speaker 3: at like another form of a stay at home parent,
Speaker 3: when I'm when I'm not when I'm not on the road,
Speaker 3: and even at you know, when we're touring the stadiums.
Speaker 3: I'm only gone three days a week, so I'm home
Speaker 3: four days a week every week, like full time, like
Speaker 3: sun up sundown most days, like getting the kids up,
Speaker 3: changing diapers, doing baths, cooking dinners, cooking lunches, cooking breakfasts.
Speaker 3: It's like, but I want and that's that occupies a
Speaker 3: lot of my time. But that's what I want. I
Speaker 3: want my kids childhood to feel as normal as it
Speaker 3: can given the very strange circumstances that it will ultimately become.
Speaker 4: That's pretty cool that you can, you know, get where
Speaker 4: you've been at and are at and can still do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you have to you know, that's a that's
Speaker 3: a choice you have to make, and you lose a
Speaker 3: lot of things with that, in the sense of like,
Speaker 3: there's so many cool opportunities that I have that may be,
Speaker 3: you know, would be really not really beneficial, but cool
Speaker 3: experiences are beneficial. In my career that I pass on
Speaker 3: to do that for my kids and my kids stuff
Speaker 3: that my kids will probably really never even know outside
Speaker 3: of maybe if they see this one day. It's not
Speaker 3: something I'm bragg like I'm such a good dad, you know,
Speaker 3: Like it's not that it's just that I say this
Speaker 3: all the time. But like, my kids didn't ask to
Speaker 3: be born. I made the choice to, Like it was
Speaker 3: my choice to bring them into the world.
Speaker 1: Right, So a lot of dudes, a lot of dudes
Speaker 1: don't put that together like I would want it, Like
Speaker 1: I want to sit here at My impulse here is
Speaker 1: to sit here and like talk about how commendable it
Speaker 1: is that you have the philosophy you have. And one
Speaker 1: time I was my brother Danny. We were talking about
Speaker 1: someone saying him saying, how weird it was that people
Speaker 1: would routinely express, almost in a surprising way, he's such
Speaker 1: a good dad. He's like this exception where it's like
Speaker 1: worth pointing out that people are like are pointing out
Speaker 1: good dads. He's like, wait, you mean like you mean
Speaker 1: I'm not sociopathic.
Speaker 3: That's great, You're saying, we're having a dad crisis right now.
Speaker 3: We're in the midst of a dad Christ That's what
Speaker 3: he was.
Speaker 1: He was like, he just was kind of just in
Speaker 1: this moment of like somewhat levity. He was kind of
Speaker 1: saying that it's funny that the bars seems to be
Speaker 1: rather lower to become celebrated as just a dad.
Speaker 3: That's what he's supposed to guess.
Speaker 4: People aren't getting married early enough.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Before we began the show, we're talking about a dear
Speaker 1: friend of mine who sends me articles all the time
Speaker 1: pointing out that people are waiting till later, putting off
Speaker 1: getting married. You know, like it's distressing to him. He
Speaker 1: has four kids, it's distressing. Yeah, yeah, like the sons
Speaker 1: of bitches they're getting away with somebody. I had him
Speaker 1: young by God, and yeah, you know that's the way
Speaker 1: it auto. But it is, man, It's like, uh, it is.
Speaker 1: It is cool they do that. And I think that
Speaker 1: it'll be an interesting trip for your kids too. It'll
Speaker 1: be an interesting trip when your kids start putting together
Speaker 1: this other world. Did they think of you as like
Speaker 1: some dude like now and then he's gone, he's always
Speaker 1: always here, he's just whatever. And I remember with my
Speaker 1: own kids. I remember with my own kids they were
Speaker 1: not that old man. It used to really bother them,
Speaker 1: maybe like at five, six seven years of age when
Speaker 1: they started putting together that we'd be in the airport
Speaker 1: or something and someone had come up to me, right
Speaker 1: and and uh, they didn't like it really. They were
Speaker 1: like defensive. They're like they were territorial. Now they're don't
Speaker 1: you know when it happens. You know, when when it
Speaker 1: does happen, and if we go somewhere as a family,
Speaker 1: you know, we're like to have a layover toever they're
Speaker 1: used to it, it'll be a little bit and it doesn't.
Speaker 1: They just state that it doesn't even register with them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're just like it's part of the thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But at a time I remember they were like, there's
Speaker 1: like a like as this was coming clear to them
Speaker 1: that there would be people that would like like the
Speaker 1: like that their dad made something or wrote something and
Speaker 1: people liked it and would come up unannounced, they brought
Speaker 1: out in them like a territorial in stan that's interesting, Yeah,
Speaker 1: to be like, don't their kind of tendency was like
Speaker 1: like like yeah.
Speaker 5: Get away, you know what I mean? They just like
Speaker 5: that shit.
Speaker 1: Sure, they wouldn't even have been able to articulate it,
Speaker 1: but just how they physically responded to you, right, I.
Speaker 3: Often wonder, like, you know, I've discussed with some other
Speaker 3: artists buddies that have kids, you know, and that some
Speaker 3: that's whose kids are a bit older than mine, you know,
Speaker 3: And I'm like, when do you When do you like,
Speaker 3: is there a definitive moment where you have to like
Speaker 3: have the conversation with them, like, hey, let me explain
Speaker 3: this to you and so, but like, let me explain
Speaker 3: to you what's going on. And the reason I say
Speaker 3: that is because I've had a few artist budies. It's like, well,
Speaker 3: you got to tell them as soon as they're able
Speaker 3: to understand or someone else is going to Oh, they're
Speaker 3: going to learn it from someone else, and you want
Speaker 3: to learn it from you. You want them to learn
Speaker 3: it from you, kind of like you don't. You don't
Speaker 3: want them showing up at home one day and going, well,
Speaker 3: what is why do all my my friends I think
Speaker 3: it's cool that you're my dad? Why are you different
Speaker 3: than everyone else's dad? You know what I mean? It's
Speaker 3: like it's an interesting I mean, it's obviously a niche problem, right, Like,
Speaker 3: there's not there's not any books written on you know,
Speaker 3: how to how to tell your kids that you're a
Speaker 3: famous musician or whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: You know, there might there may be should be one,
Speaker 1: but I don't the audience would be small. But I
Speaker 1: think that it's what winds up being what winds up
Speaker 1: being hard on them.
Speaker 3: And and and.
Speaker 1: This is like for me to be talking about this issue.
Speaker 1: We're talking about like a like a like a like
Speaker 1: a D list whatever, like whatever. The lowest level of
Speaker 1: celebrity a person can have is like where I'm at right,
Speaker 1: and then you're like way like you're like way up
Speaker 1: the ladder. But there's a thing that that even no
Speaker 1: matter what what winds up having to the kids, is
Speaker 1: there there's a thing where it's like among peers or
Speaker 1: people around there's this kind of like a little bit
Speaker 1: of like you ain't all that, meaning that they'll encounter.
Speaker 3: Right resistance from other people.
Speaker 1: They'll encounter like you ain't you know you think you're
Speaker 1: all that, or like you ain't just because your dad right,
Speaker 1: And they may not think that at all, but to
Speaker 1: other people it'll be there. And the point I'm making
Speaker 1: about if you sit down and talk to them, they're
Speaker 1: seeing things in forming impressions such a fast from like
Speaker 1: ambient things, ambient clues and cues. That is way faster
Speaker 1: than would be their ability that that that that happens,
Speaker 1: that influx of inputs about what's going on in the
Speaker 1: world happens earlier than it then would be the ability
Speaker 1: for them to understand what you were trying to explain
Speaker 1: to them, Meaning if you waited till they were Let's
Speaker 1: say something happened you in the past and you were
Speaker 1: able to like and you lived a reality that was
Speaker 1: totally outside of your past, and at some point you
Speaker 1: need to say, hey, there's something I need to tell
Speaker 1: you about a thing that happened to me a long
Speaker 1: time ago. Right, like a long time ago, this crazy
Speaker 1: thing happened. At some point you might become aware of
Speaker 1: this and I want to explain it to you. In
Speaker 1: that case, you might be able to wait until you
Speaker 1: could have a rational conversation with your kids. Right but
Speaker 1: if something's actively ongoing now, they're already on it before
Speaker 1: you'd be able to explain it to them, Meaning all
Speaker 1: their buddies like travel a certain way, and it'd be like, well,
Speaker 1: I get the feeling, we can't really travel that way,
Speaker 1: like it's kind of risky, and so we traveled this
Speaker 1: very different way.
Speaker 5: You know, they're on it, man.
Speaker 1: Like, no, for sure, they're on it way ahead of
Speaker 1: their ability to for you to sit down and talk
Speaker 1: to him about it. They've already like put together in
Speaker 1: their head that like there's something different when we.
Speaker 3: Go somewhere, Oh for sure, And I think that, but
Speaker 3: why don't we go to Chuck E Cheeses.
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Well, there's also like this inherent like innocence though, or
Speaker 3: like the situation that they're in is like they're normal,
Speaker 3: and they almost think that everyone's situation is is that
Speaker 3: too in some ways? Like I've I had an artist
Speaker 3: buddy who I'm pretty close with, and he was telling
Speaker 3: me about one of his kids being at school and
Speaker 3: they're younger, you know, like you were talking like kindergarten ee,
Speaker 3: like first grade or whatever, you know, and someone was
Speaker 3: they were talking to another kid, and this is like
Speaker 3: a conversation that the teacher had I guess with him
Speaker 3: or something. And I don't remember those exact specifics of
Speaker 3: how he heard about it, but it's like someone was
Speaker 3: talking one of the kids was talking to his kid
Speaker 3: about something, and his kid was like, oh, well, what
Speaker 3: song does your daddy have on the radio? You know?
Speaker 3: And it was like and the teacher kind of thought
Speaker 3: that maybe the child was like trying to slight the
Speaker 3: other child or something, but like it was really just
Speaker 3: like this. She just thought that everyone's dad was like
Speaker 3: sung on the radio because like her dad does. And
Speaker 3: my kids like they'll see me on or they'll see
Speaker 3: me and my wife, you know, like on an award
Speaker 3: show or something like. You know, like because when we
Speaker 3: go like to the CMA Awards or to the Grammys
Speaker 3: or something like, you know, my parents or whoever will
Speaker 3: let the kids stay up and like watch because they know,
Speaker 3: you know, dad is going to be singing on TV.
Speaker 4: You know, awards does your dad have? We got of
Speaker 4: the Month And.
Speaker 3: I had another buddy who's a songwriter and and he
Speaker 3: was like he said, you know, I had been over
Speaker 3: and like met his kids and stuff. We ate or
Speaker 3: whatever at their house. And remember him telling me this.
Speaker 3: We were on a writing trip and he was like, dude,
Speaker 3: my kids like they know that like me and you
Speaker 3: were like, are friends that I that I know you
Speaker 3: and stuff? And I was like, yeah, it's like and
Speaker 3: he said, so the other night we're having dinner and
Speaker 3: like it's like his daughters and it's like, well, dead,
Speaker 3: can we have Justin Bieber over for dinner? And he
Speaker 3: was like she just thought I knew every famous musician
Speaker 3: that I could just call any of them and just
Speaker 3: have them over at any time because I know you. Like,
Speaker 3: so it's it's such an interesting So they also like
Speaker 3: they only understand the world in kind of this like
Speaker 3: tunnel visiony, like whatever their surroundings are is how they
Speaker 3: kind of perceive everything at that at that age. So
Speaker 3: it's interesting too, like how that factors into the way
Speaker 3: things will become. And I'm worries. I was like, you
Speaker 3: really got to steer you really, it's like it's my
Speaker 3: job to kind of open the that worldview up to like, hey,
Speaker 3: this this thing isn't normal, you know, but it doesn't
Speaker 3: it doesn't make you better than anyone else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're doing a way better job of explaining what
Speaker 1: I was trying to get at when I said that
Speaker 1: there's there's no aha moment. No, there's no moment when
Speaker 1: you come in and go like, hey, you know before
Speaker 1: you find out I want to explain that I'm kind
Speaker 1: of like a music like a famous usang, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: they're they're already doing a thing, and they're already doing
Speaker 1: like there's gonna be no note. There's not like a
Speaker 1: no ship moment for them, because they're they're just assembling
Speaker 1: it all. And I think that what I was trying
Speaker 1: to get at when I mentioned exposure your kids to
Speaker 1: just doing all the mundane stuff is later, if they'd
Speaker 1: be like later, if they'd come to some realization that
Speaker 1: there is something weird, you know, that their dad like
Speaker 1: makes TV shows, or that their dad you know, writes
Speaker 1: books and other people read the books, or whatever it does,
Speaker 1: does these kind of like seemingly unusual things. I just
Speaker 1: kind of want them to be to think like the
Speaker 1: guy that like unplugs the toilets in the house and
Speaker 1: like no one else will do it, but he has
Speaker 1: like the like the guy like Mom's not going to
Speaker 1: do that, and she'll wait, and Dad's gonna.
Speaker 5: Do that like that guy.
Speaker 1: Like that's the feeling I want them to have later,
Speaker 1: is to be like the guy crawling around under the
Speaker 1: sink trying to figure out what's going on with something.
Speaker 3: Yeah that dude, Yeah you guys want a picture of
Speaker 3: that guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah that it's just like that's a thing I'm and
Speaker 1: maybe it's just only a problem I've created only in
Speaker 1: my head, but I just don't want there to be
Speaker 1: any sense of I don't want it, Like I hate
Speaker 1: to have to think that your kids would develop a
Speaker 1: sense of exceptionalism.
Speaker 5: Yes, that that.
Speaker 3: Worries That worries me and my wife a lot too.
Speaker 3: You know, we want to make sure like it's really like,
Speaker 3: you know, we don't want we don't want them to
Speaker 3: be a product of their circumstances in a negative way. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. Worry about you see that
Speaker 3: all the time.
Speaker 5: You know, we'll make it when we eat out.
Speaker 1: We'll make our kids, I'm not kidding you, man, We'll
Speaker 1: make them get down under the table and pick up
Speaker 1: if they'd like dropped a bunch of French fries and stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or like they police the area and like getting off
Speaker 1: a plane, they police the area and be like you,
Speaker 1: this is not someone's responsibility, dude, Like they're gonna they'll
Speaker 1: come and pick off the plates and stuff. You are
Speaker 1: not leaving that ship on that booth.
Speaker 4: All the things you guys are talking about too, though,
Speaker 4: Like even for just Joe Schmoe, Dad, you know, it's
Speaker 4: like everyone's responsibility, any anybody, no matter who you are,
Speaker 4: Like it's I'm trying to articulate, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like why it's like everyone should be doing Why
Speaker 3: wouldn't you do all that?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 3: But exactly, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It becomes it's like a I guess it takes on
Speaker 1: like a sub I guess it's.
Speaker 3: Probably we like someone in in our particular situation would
Speaker 3: worry that it would be easier for them to fall
Speaker 3: into just being a complete dirt bag. Yes, if left
Speaker 3: on check, I guess that would be easier for them
Speaker 3: to be like, oh well this is someone will come
Speaker 3: and get my coffee. When I'm done, someone will pick
Speaker 3: that up. You know, that would be easier for them
Speaker 3: to end up at than it would be for like
Speaker 3: if your dad worked at a factory. You know, you're
Speaker 3: you're closer to that finish line of being you know,
Speaker 3: us going back pretty much like you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you start off was a way you could
Speaker 1: maybe there's a way. You know what it is, And dude,
Speaker 1: you're trust You're making a great point, Like why would
Speaker 1: what we're talking about like that should apply to everybody.
Speaker 1: It should apply to every kid and every kid in
Speaker 1: America should like tighten up their spot when they leave
Speaker 1: a restaurant and not be like, well, they'll get it.
Speaker 5: No kid in America should do it.
Speaker 1: I guess what I worry about is what I would
Speaker 1: worry about, is there's probably a way it would for
Speaker 1: people of like people in a certain level of like
Speaker 1: financial stability, a certain level of connections, a certain level
Speaker 1: of a really good role of decks, a certain level
Speaker 1: of like parental support, like, oh, you want to do
Speaker 1: an internship at such and such place, let me make
Speaker 1: some calls, right, nepotism, Yeah, nepotism that you'd be like,
Speaker 1: there's a pathway for your kids to think to realize
Speaker 1: one day that they probably could get away with that ship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, cheat code.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like, you know what, I cannot clean up
Speaker 1: my area. I cannot show up to work at seven am.
Speaker 1: I cannot mow lawns, and I can skip all that junk,
Speaker 1: and I'll probably be able to pull it together because
Speaker 1: my old man knows a lot of people. M he's
Speaker 1: gonna he'll he'll he'll figure that. My parents will figure
Speaker 1: it out.
Speaker 3: He'll they'll bail me out.
Speaker 5: Ye, they'll figure it out. The college shit like I'll
Speaker 5: get I'll get letters of.
Speaker 3: Recommendation, right, or or Dad could donate enough money to
Speaker 3: the scholarship fund or whatever it is. You know, so
Speaker 3: you have a sure they're going to be like they're
Speaker 3: going to expect those things, expect you to do things
Speaker 3: for them, cleaning up my boot. Yeah, but yeah, that
Speaker 3: is where it starts, though. You know that stuff leads
Speaker 3: into you know, like privilege, right, like you're you know
Speaker 3: you you think that you're you know, you're almost entitled
Speaker 3: to Well I should Dad should just call and figure
Speaker 3: this out for me, you know, I expect that to happen.
Speaker 6: Is it like kind of like a constant battle though,
Speaker 6: like cause, like obviously with guys like in your position,
Speaker 6: like you guys are exposed to some things that are
Speaker 6: not normal whatsoever.
Speaker 1: So like is there like a.
Speaker 6: Like a inkling to like expose your kids in a
Speaker 6: way like this is really cool, but like you don't
Speaker 6: want to like overdo it kind of thing. Does that
Speaker 6: make sense? This is like do you guys think about that? Like, yeah,
Speaker 6: like you guys are have some like really cool opportunities.
Speaker 3: I think there's I think there's unavoidably some of the
Speaker 3: stuff some of that stuff you have to do, Like
Speaker 3: I think about it every time, Like, you know, my
Speaker 3: kids haven't you know, they haven't been through like the
Speaker 3: regular airport, m you know what I mean. And obviously
Speaker 3: they wouldn't even remember it if they did anyways, but like,
Speaker 3: and they haven't flown a bunch, you know, but we've
Speaker 3: gone down you know, we've you know, chartered a plane
Speaker 3: to go down to Florida or something, you know, And
Speaker 3: it's like that that to them is normal, and so
Speaker 3: it's my job to explain to them that, hey man,
Speaker 3: this is not a normal thing, and it's a it's
Speaker 3: super privileged to get to do this, but it's not
Speaker 3: something that you are necessarily entitled to. It's not something
Speaker 3: that you should feel like this is the standard, and
Speaker 3: it's you know, it's beneath me to go to the
Speaker 3: airport or you know, so you have to like inherently
Speaker 3: your kids would be exposed to those things, sometimes not
Speaker 3: by choice, right, but the cool opportunities too. It's like
Speaker 3: I do ride the line. And I was thinking about
Speaker 3: this before you sedatives, like when when you were talking
Speaker 3: about Dad's got this cool Rolldex and you know he
Speaker 3: can call this guy or that guy, you get to
Speaker 3: the you get to the line too, where like you
Speaker 3: try everything you can to make sure that your kids
Speaker 3: turn out to be decent, you know, humble people. That's
Speaker 3: the goal for me and my wife with our boys,
Speaker 3: you know, just to make them respectful and and we
Speaker 3: want them to just ultimately be good people. Right. But
Speaker 3: as the dad, your dad instinct comes into and you're like, well,
Speaker 3: you know, I really I want to give him every
Speaker 3: advantage that I can, because that's also a fatherly instinct
Speaker 3: as well. So I think there's a trap built in
Speaker 3: a little bit too where you could go, well, I've
Speaker 3: got to you know, I've got to call that school
Speaker 3: and see if I can pull some strings to get
Speaker 3: my kid in, because I really, because I'm their dad.
Speaker 3: So that's like it's like you ride that razor's edge too,
Speaker 3: of like you don't want to, you don't want it
Speaker 3: to turn into a nepotism thing, but just your fin
Speaker 3: botherly instinct is just to do everything you can for
Speaker 3: your kids. And would everyone else not do that as well?
Speaker 3: Would everyone else not go well if I had, if
Speaker 3: I thought my kid was right on the line and
Speaker 3: getting into Stanford or wherever it is, some ivy league school.
Speaker 3: Obviously they're you know, they're not gonna get if they
Speaker 3: got a two point zero grade point average, they're not
Speaker 3: gonna get in. Or but if they're right on the
Speaker 3: line anyways due to their own achievements, do you, as
Speaker 3: a dad call and go, hey, what can I do
Speaker 3: to help my child? Is there something I can do?
Speaker 5: Which your chance?
Speaker 1: I could pardon them for federal tax of asion and
Speaker 1: weapons charges, But then I.
Speaker 3: Was as a dad, right, But then, but then I
Speaker 3: wonder too, like what if you what if your kid
Speaker 3: found out later on down the line, Like let's say
Speaker 3: you you decide as a parent, I'm not gonna help
Speaker 3: them at all with this, which I can on understand.
Speaker 3: I can understand you going, no, dude, it needs to
Speaker 3: be a merit based thing. And I get that, and
Speaker 3: it should be, I think. And then they don't get
Speaker 3: it and they're crush dude, and that like that's the
Speaker 3: that's the meteorite that like knocks the ship off course.
Speaker 3: And then they go, my dad could have called and
Speaker 3: done something for me, and he didn't do that. But
Speaker 3: then we're getting back to do they expect things that
Speaker 3: they shouldn't expect? So It's like, it's kind of like that,
Speaker 3: but that's just being a parent, dude. Being a parent
Speaker 3: is just you're making the best decisions that you think
Speaker 3: you are making for your kids, and that's all you
Speaker 3: can do. You know.
Speaker 4: It's really easy to worry about all that stuff, just
Speaker 4: like just try to do the best you can.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're now into the Turkey regulations of parenting.
Speaker 5: We die very deep, Chilie. I want to.
Speaker 1: Answer the question you asked about, like presenting with opportunities,
Speaker 1: and I catch myself doing a h.
Speaker 5: A combo deal, Like a definite combo deal.
Speaker 1: Means you keep track, no no meaning this Like, just
Speaker 1: let me give you a snare that hasn't happened. Let's
Speaker 1: say I met someone and they're like, hey, man, you know,
Speaker 1: my cousin owns an island in the say Shells, and
Speaker 1: no one's ever there. You guys should go spring break
Speaker 1: on this private island and say Shells, And in fact,
Speaker 1: his cousin has a little charter business and they'll fly
Speaker 1: y'all out there. Okay, h uh do you go like,
Speaker 1: damn it, I'm not taking my kids that island and
Speaker 1: the same shells because I don't I don't want them
Speaker 1: to like, you know, that's not available to anyone, right,
Speaker 1: so I'm not gonna. I wouldn't do that. I would
Speaker 1: have that in my mind. I'd be like, man, you
Speaker 1: know what we should do. I'd go say to my
Speaker 1: wife like it's gonna sound crazy, but we can go
Speaker 1: to this like island and say shells. But this dude
Speaker 1: has his place and no one's there, and he said
Speaker 1: we can go hang out there, so we would go.
Speaker 1: But when we're there, I would be we'd be like
Speaker 1: eating shit that we caught out of the rocks, do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Or if there was like
Speaker 1: a lime tree or you know what I mean, we'd
Speaker 1: be like, man, we're gonna go out. We're gonna get
Speaker 1: those limes. We're gonna squeeze all the lime juice out
Speaker 1: of them. We're gonna catch some crabs down there, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna do you know what I mean. We're gonna
Speaker 1: like make stuff and do hands on stuff, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna see the process of going from nothing just like
Speaker 1: what's here.
Speaker 5: So we're gonna have.
Speaker 1: Like a little meal and so it doesn't meaning there's
Speaker 1: like practical skill and element to it and like getting
Speaker 1: a little bit uncomfortable. But I wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: turn down totally the thing. And so when I say
Speaker 1: like a combo deal, it would be that like we
Speaker 1: every spring break, you know, we go down to the
Speaker 1: beach and Baja every spring break for when we make lunch,
Speaker 1: we're making fish that we shot because we climb in
Speaker 1: the water and go spearfishing. It's it's very luxurious, but
Speaker 1: it's like there is a little bit of element of scrappiness.
Speaker 1: We build a little scrappiness into.
Speaker 3: It, built in adversity, build in a little like a
Speaker 3: little something that kind of needs to be paid attention to.
Speaker 5: And it's a little dicey, right, and you know whatever.
Speaker 1: It's so, but I can't I can't say that I
Speaker 1: turned down I can't say that I turned down sort
Speaker 1: of opportunities that would show them whole parts of the
Speaker 1: world or parts of global experience. I don't go, like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to show that to you. I don't
Speaker 1: want you to feel like you got a leg up,
Speaker 1: you know. But I'll take them there. And when I
Speaker 1: take them there, I try to, I don't know, man like,
Speaker 1: like I try to keep the experience grounded and respectful
Speaker 1: and real and also try to point out that this
Speaker 1: is exceptional.
Speaker 4: And hopefully they realize though, how they got on that
Speaker 4: vacation in the first place, because you guys got you
Speaker 4: guys worked hard, very hard to get into the positions
Speaker 4: you're at. And I think kids might realize that, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, Like.
Speaker 1: I would never ever like I would that they got
Speaker 1: to pick up on I would never say that.
Speaker 4: Right, but I think they do pick up on that.
Speaker 1: Yea that I think to say it, to articulate it.
Speaker 1: You know, I worked hard for this, right, Like to
Speaker 1: articulated I think it is too there's too much chance
Speaker 1: of backfire. It's like they I kind of trust they
Speaker 1: have to just see it. I hope that they notice.
Speaker 1: You know, I can't picture how you bring it up,
Speaker 1: but you're.
Speaker 3: Also trying to, like, you know, we talked about this
Speaker 3: touchdown a little bit earlier. It's like you want them
Speaker 3: to see you working hard, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: Like I want, you know, like I want my kids
Speaker 3: to you know, come to the studio and see It's like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: the records don't just it doesn't take five minutes to
Speaker 3: make the records, you know. It takes a year to
Speaker 3: make them, and there's a lot of other people that
Speaker 3: do a lot of hard work too. It's not just
Speaker 3: it's not me, me, me, like my face is on
Speaker 3: the CD, but there's an army of people that make
Speaker 3: this possible. You know. There's a lot of people with
Speaker 3: a lot of skills that are a part of everything
Speaker 3: that I do, whether it's on the road or in
Speaker 3: the writing room or in the studio. Like I am
Speaker 3: just a small part of the thing. There are so
Speaker 3: many more incredibly talented people involved in what I do
Speaker 3: other than just me. I want my kids to see
Speaker 3: that too, you know what I mean, because you know
Speaker 3: that you hear the whole. It takes a village thing.
Speaker 3: I think life takes a village too, right, Like your
Speaker 3: own life, not just raising your kids, but your own
Speaker 3: life too. Like appreciating the people that you have in
Speaker 3: the journey with you and how much they contribute to
Speaker 3: your success as well. And you have a great team
Speaker 3: around you. Man. I think that's what I love about
Speaker 3: being out here. It's like it's always the same guys,
Speaker 3: and that says a lot about what it is. There's
Speaker 3: not a lot of turnover. M I've been out and
Speaker 3: done a lot of stuff with you guys, man, and
Speaker 3: it's like it's always the same guys. And that's the
Speaker 3: way my thing is, you know, for the most part.
Speaker 3: I mean I say, there's very very low turnover in
Speaker 3: in my world, and that's very rare in the music business. Remember.
Speaker 1: One of the earliest things that struck me when I
Speaker 1: met you is a that you. I was like, Man,
Speaker 1: this guy has a lot of loyalty to his bus driver.
Speaker 1: Love love, like it's like your best friend.
Speaker 3: He's the man, dude. Yeah, but I mean he drives.
Speaker 3: My life is in his hands while I'm asleep. Dude,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: You respect, Yeah, I can tell it you appreciated.
Speaker 3: Appreciate what he does. And you know, I think that's
Speaker 3: the cool thing about you know, being in you know,
Speaker 3: the position that that I'm lucky to be in is
Speaker 3: you know, you can impact so many people in a
Speaker 3: positive way, man, you know, like you can bring everybody
Speaker 3: along for the ride. You know, like you can improve
Speaker 3: improve so many people's lives if you give a shit
Speaker 3: enough to do that, you can easily do that, you know,
Speaker 3: And I mean, you know a lot of my friends, man,
Speaker 3: like we're along we're in this thing together, man, And
Speaker 3: now a lot of my buddies are really successful, not
Speaker 3: just with my thing, but with other things now because
Speaker 3: we all we all went through the door together, man,
Speaker 3: like the success door open for all of us. Yeah.
Speaker 3: When I got you know, when I got my deal
Speaker 3: and my thing took off, like I wanted to help
Speaker 3: my buddies, like, let's all get in here and do
Speaker 3: the thing man, you know what I mean, Like, I
Speaker 3: don't want to just go through myself. Like, imagine having
Speaker 3: all the success and nobody to share it with. You know,
Speaker 3: what fun would there be in that. I can't imagine
Speaker 3: going on the road and not caring about the guys
Speaker 3: in my band. But that happens. There's guys that they're like, oh, well, yes,
Speaker 3: this guy, yeah whatever, he played the guitar. Great. I
Speaker 3: don't hang out with him. I don't I don't know him,
Speaker 3: don't really care too that much. Yeah, But that that's
Speaker 3: the thing that happens, which is baffling to me. You know,
Speaker 3: I can't image because I'm such a I'm such a
Speaker 3: people person. I'm such a friends guy. I love being
Speaker 3: around people, interacting with him, and you know, obviously I
Speaker 3: want it to be, you know, people that I like,
Speaker 3: genuine folks, you know, I would say, but that's so
Speaker 3: much fun, dude. I mean, you guys have fun on
Speaker 3: these trips. Man. There are work trips, and there's times
Speaker 3: to you that I'm sure it feels like work coming
Speaker 3: out here and doing these things. But ultimately, you go,
Speaker 3: if this is the worst day, if you had the
Speaker 3: worst day you could have on a meat eater trip,
Speaker 3: it's better than the best day for a lot of people.
Speaker 3: Oh and that's and it's mostly because of the people.
Speaker 3: Imagine if you were stuck here all day it's raining
Speaker 3: all day on the turkey hunt like it is today,
Speaker 3: and you couldn't do anything and you hated everyone that
Speaker 3: was out out here too. At Least here you could
Speaker 3: sit around and joke and laugh and you know, eat
Speaker 3: food together and tell stories and just enjoy each other's company.
Speaker 3: But there's guys on the road who maybe they have
Speaker 3: a bad day on the road and they don't even
Speaker 3: have any friends out there at all, dude. They just
Speaker 3: have people that work for them that are around, and
Speaker 3: they're just out there by they're lonesome, just being miserable.
Speaker 3: I couldn't imagine what that's like, because when I have
Speaker 3: tough days, I at least have people that I can
Speaker 3: turn to, you know, and and talk to about it,
Speaker 3: that understand and that actually care to listen to, and
Speaker 3: they care about how I'm feeling or I care about
Speaker 3: how they're feeling. You know that that atmosphere I think
Speaker 3: is so important, you know, and you guys have that.
Speaker 3: So that's why I like, That's why I like being
Speaker 3: around you guys. You guys have that too, at least
Speaker 3: from the outside perspective, it seems.
Speaker 1: Like you do, you know, which is neat Thanks man, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're ready to wrap up? Oh go ahead.
Speaker 4: You got any new records or anything that you can
Speaker 4: talk about that I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 5: I really don't.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: Where are you at in the cycle? Where are you
Speaker 1: at in the cycle?
Speaker 3: I'm at the I'm at the point now like we're
Speaker 3: I'm about to go in the studio for the first
Speaker 3: first session on cutting my next record. So we're trying
Speaker 3: to cut probably anywhere from like in a worst case
Speaker 3: scenario for best case.
Speaker 1: Six and how many do you have how many do
Speaker 1: you have the seed for? Like you know, like some
Speaker 1: weeks I wonder if I should start a new trash bag,
Speaker 1: like at least that far along.
Speaker 3: Oh like how like how like how many how fools
Speaker 3: the trash bag? Right, I would say, right now, I
Speaker 3: mean songs that are in serious contention to make the record.
Speaker 3: I mean forty to fifty.
Speaker 7: That are like, really, you gotta whittle let down.
Speaker 3: You gotta whittle it down. And then you're getting and
Speaker 3: then you're making a calendar and then you're getting in
Speaker 3: like heavyweight like you're getting it. It's like heavyweight fights
Speaker 3: because all the songs like you really like all of them.
Speaker 5: When you're sitting on a pile of forty to fifty.
Speaker 3: Oh damn it.
Speaker 1: Listen, I thought you'd say fifteen.
Speaker 3: Twenty fifteen would be finished. We're done.
Speaker 1: I thought you like, you got to get rid of
Speaker 1: a few maybe you know.
Speaker 3: Well, I think you know. I think now people are
Speaker 3: putting out bigger and bigger records. That's been a trend,
Speaker 3: you know, as as streaming economy has taken off, all
Speaker 3: that's bigger. It's oh for sure, that drives more to well,
Speaker 3: it's driving you know now because you're instead of selling
Speaker 3: a physical CD right like back in the day, you
Speaker 3: were limited by how many songs could be on a CD.
Speaker 3: And so then you know, you're if you start putting
Speaker 3: out a double CD back, then you got to start
Speaker 3: charging people double because now there's two discs in there
Speaker 3: that you've purchased in packaging and special cases and all
Speaker 3: that stuff. So you don't want you feel like that
Speaker 3: will impact sales because the consumer goes, well, I don't
Speaker 3: want to pay twice as much for this album. So
Speaker 3: that limited people from putting too many songs on their
Speaker 3: record because they didn't want to risk not selling as
Speaker 3: many by having too many songs, because then people had
Speaker 3: to pay twice as more for it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like now you can use your illusion one and
Speaker 5: two right.
Speaker 3: Now you've got And I think country is the first
Speaker 3: genre that has really started putting out these big hit
Speaker 3: records where there's a bunch of songs on them, you.
Speaker 7: Know, like Morgan's records have been.
Speaker 3: Yeah, his next record was thirty seven, I think thirty
Speaker 3: seven songs, thirty seven, and then Zach Bryan, I think
Speaker 3: did thirty six, you know, and those guys are that
Speaker 3: they and it's I mean, it's a brilliant strategy, right
Speaker 3: because your album sales are you know, it's based off
Speaker 3: of its stream equivalent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a great point that I never thought about.
Speaker 1: Man, as you're talking about like, uh, because you strip
Speaker 1: away the physical component, you.
Speaker 3: Strip away the physical components another stream equivalency. Right. So
Speaker 3: I think someone's probably gonna crush me for the statistic,
Speaker 3: but I believe it's one hundred thousand streams to count
Speaker 3: for one physical sale of the album. So the songs
Speaker 3: over the aggregate of the entire album, every one hundred
Speaker 3: thousand streams equates for you paying twelve ninety nine for
Speaker 3: the CD.
Speaker 1: So if you went from twelve listens used to wreck
Speaker 1: up a sale, now it's all right.
Speaker 4: So I got a long way to go.
Speaker 3: But I think the wild thing is soon here's record yet,
Speaker 3: here's where you get Here's here's where you get to
Speaker 3: you know. The question of okay, so now is when
Speaker 3: you think about it that way, if every one hundred
Speaker 3: thousand spinds is a record sale, right, Well, if I
Speaker 3: put out a record that has twelve songs on it
Speaker 3: and it still takes one hundred thousand spins to get
Speaker 3: a sale, or if I put a record out with
Speaker 3: thirty nine or forty songs on it. I'm gonna get
Speaker 3: a lot more I'm gonna get a lot more listens. Yeah,
Speaker 3: don't understand.
Speaker 7: Yeah that makes sense.
Speaker 3: And I'm going to sell more more albums. You know.
Speaker 3: There may be the same amount of hits on the
Speaker 3: forty song record as there is the twelve song record,
Speaker 3: but the forty song record is going to sell more
Speaker 3: just because more streams are people are consuming all forty
Speaker 3: songs as opposed to twelve. Cast casting a wider net, right,
Speaker 3: So it's a it's a brilliant strategy, you know, but
Speaker 3: it's a strategy. Dude.
Speaker 1: Like, I'm like oblivious to this man, And it's like
Speaker 1: it kind of demonstrates my age because I remember, like
Speaker 1: you said, like I just like came of age during
Speaker 1: the time when you came of age during the time
Speaker 1: when you just bought like when people like operated that way.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I always tell people so funny, man, I remember being
Speaker 1: in speech and debate in college, like my third year
Speaker 1: of college, I was in his speech and debate class.
Speaker 1: And I'm not shitting me. This is like I remember
Speaker 1: a kid doing this. He had to do a persuasive speech.
Speaker 1: You know what his persuasive speech was what that you
Speaker 1: should give up on cassette tapes and switch to CDs.
Speaker 1: He was right for me to be like, how many
Speaker 1: songs around an album? You can kind of tell like
Speaker 1: you got to date me, because like, yeah, I just
Speaker 1: think of it as being, you know, like an album's
Speaker 1: like ten twelve songs.
Speaker 3: Well, I wondered too, like and I'm again, I'll probably
Speaker 3: get roasted on this one too, but I'm not certain
Speaker 3: at least that there wasn't previously to my knowledge, really
Speaker 3: a cap on it. Like there isn't a cap on it.
Speaker 3: And to some extent that will become an issue because
Speaker 3: what if I put out a song with a record
Speaker 3: with one hundred songs on it? Is that still one album?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Like where does it end? Like there has to be.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, because you'll hit the most streamed album and
Speaker 1: someone like dude, cause there's two hundred songs on the
Speaker 1: some bitch.
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly right. But and it's like you can't slide
Speaker 3: anyone that's doing it because it's you're You're just you
Speaker 3: figured out how to play the game the best, right.
Speaker 3: It's no different with than like the wildlife regulations. To
Speaker 3: some extent, it's like you're talking about the bear hunt, right,
Speaker 3: it's like everybody did the well, we just did the thing,
Speaker 3: and we did it really good and we did it
Speaker 3: too good and oops. But like right now we're just
Speaker 3: kind of in such a like it's such like international
Speaker 3: waters with like the streaming thing, because all the litigation
Speaker 3: and policies are like super outdated, from payouts to streams
Speaker 3: to converting those to sales, Like they just haven't figured
Speaker 3: out how to like quite make it line up yet
Speaker 3: because it's all still so new to everyone, you know,
Speaker 3: and so now people are doing you know, are doing
Speaker 3: their playing the version of the game that's best suited
Speaker 3: for where we stand right now, because nobody's like, hey,
Speaker 3: you shouldn't do that. No one said you can only
Speaker 3: have twenty four songs on an album, So why not
Speaker 3: put forty or why not put forty five? Or why
Speaker 3: not put fifty or why not put seventy five? I
Speaker 3: don't know. I mean, I don't know. That's the thing
Speaker 3: is like will there ever be an end to it?
Speaker 3: Or won't there be? I don't know if we'll ever
Speaker 3: know the answer to that, but I would think at
Speaker 3: some point there kind of would have to be you know,
Speaker 3: there's a point where you're going to burn out the
Speaker 3: consumer too. By if you put out one hundred song record,
Speaker 3: people are gonna be like, how do I even listen
Speaker 3: to this?
Speaker 7: Who makes that decision?
Speaker 3: I mean the artists usually.
Speaker 7: Like, no, like it if there was put on it.
Speaker 3: I mean, sometimes it's the government. I mean, sometimes it's
Speaker 3: the streaming services. Sometimes it's the labels. I mean there's
Speaker 3: all sorts of you know, there's lobbyists like there is
Speaker 3: for anything else, right, you know, people getting together and
Speaker 3: going well, I think there should only be you know,
Speaker 3: showing me twelve songs on the record. That should be it,
Speaker 3: you know, And I don't know. You know, I'm not
Speaker 3: I'm not smart enough to know that stuff. I don't
Speaker 3: I don't claim to.
Speaker 1: But you know what winds up being a governing function.
Speaker 1: Now we're losing another extreme of the listeners. Now we're
Speaker 1: going back the guys, the guys that are way into turkey, right,
Speaker 1: you know, the publishing and record business is not interested
Speaker 1: in me. But remember I was you were talking about
Speaker 1: the you were talking about the like what Grammy's mean, right,
Speaker 1: how that system works? And I was telling you another
Speaker 1: system that's just not the way people think it is
Speaker 1: is the New York Times bestseller list, and I've like
Speaker 1: benefited from it, I've been screwed by it. But it's
Speaker 1: it is not a count up of what sold. It
Speaker 1: is not a representation of what sold best right, correct,
Speaker 1: There's all these value judgments based.
Speaker 3: In weighted like weighted scoring and stuff.
Speaker 1: Weighted scoring, directional value judgment, vengeance on the part of
Speaker 1: like traditional media vengeance against new media right like levels
Speaker 1: of hate, levels of animosity between you know, one world
Speaker 1: and then and then like online booksellers.
Speaker 3: Right, it's like pseudo politics. It is like really like
Speaker 3: it's its own political thing. It's very intricate, you know.
Speaker 3: But unless you're in that business, you know, from the
Speaker 3: outside looking in, you just have no clue, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And when you talk about a governing like who
Speaker 1: would govern it or seth asking like, well, who would
Speaker 1: ever say what's okay or not okay? The list still
Speaker 1: matt like the New York Times Bestseller List still matters,
Speaker 1: and you can have it be like, well, why why
Speaker 1: not just do whatever you want? When it comes to publishing,
Speaker 1: you need to approach certain projects. If you want to
Speaker 1: make that list and benefit from being on that list,
Speaker 1: you need to approach projects in a certain way to
Speaker 1: hit like, so is a is a book? Is an
Speaker 1: audio book? What they regard to be an audiobook? Or
Speaker 1: is it something different? Right, So you go like, well,
Speaker 1: why would you ever need to conform to a certain protocol?
Speaker 1: Is you can get too far outside of the lines.
Speaker 3: And then and then.
Speaker 1: These these independent parties that legally obviously they can do
Speaker 1: whatever they want. Is they invented the list, you can
Speaker 1: do things that put you not able to be captured
Speaker 1: by the list. And it's good to be on the
Speaker 1: list because if you get on the list, people.
Speaker 5: Other bookstores order the book. Yeah, right, it gets traction.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 1: And so you could go too far out there in
Speaker 1: some direction like format wise, or how you sell it,
Speaker 1: how you distribute it, and you get it where you're
Speaker 1: no longer relevant to that thing and that thing matters.
Speaker 1: So it winds up being like a little bit of
Speaker 1: a gravitational pull, right to be like to conform to
Speaker 1: some set, you know, industry standard. And you're saying that,
Speaker 1: like if you made an album that has two hundred
Speaker 1: songs on it, somebody like that might say that's not
Speaker 1: an album.
Speaker 5: I don't know what that is. But that's not an album.
Speaker 1: Right, and you're not that's not eligible to win Album
Speaker 1: of the Year because it's not.
Speaker 3: I guess what I'm saying is that set of rules
Speaker 3: doesn't exist currently. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. There is
Speaker 3: no right now. So you've got people like kind of
Speaker 3: forming the rules and you know, and I mean ultimately
Speaker 3: it's up to the fans, dude. I mean ultimately whatever
Speaker 3: resonates with them is what people are going to listen to,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. So it's really it's really interesting,
Speaker 3: you know, It's like it's it's interesting how all that
Speaker 3: stuff works, you know, and the record business is wild,
Speaker 3: you know, music businesses wild. There's so many intricacy's sure,
Speaker 3: Like the publishing world is just there's so many things
Speaker 3: that you would never think of, you know from outside perspectives.
Speaker 3: You write a good book and then put it out
Speaker 3: and that's the Then it's a good book and people
Speaker 3: like it. But it's not that it's not that a
Speaker 3: symblem and record businesses like that as well, you know
Speaker 3: what i mean.
Speaker 1: Like then I think the found that you can get
Speaker 1: around that, but there's just a lot of other stuff
Speaker 1: late on top of it, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. Record business is the same way. You know,
Speaker 3: great records will you know, ultimately people will discover and
Speaker 3: listen to them, you know what I mean. A great
Speaker 3: record is a great record, and you know that's it's all.
Speaker 3: It's all subjective too, right, Like, what what do people like? Right?
Speaker 3: A great record, great country records, some people are gonna
Speaker 3: hate it because they just don't like country music. You know,
Speaker 3: a great record is a great record, and you can
Speaker 3: just tell, you know, and I'm sure books are are
Speaker 3: no different.
Speaker 1: Would be an interesting number set of numbers. Two numbers
Speaker 1: would be like what percent of great records aren't recognized
Speaker 1: and what percent of shitty records are overrecognized?
Speaker 3: Sure there's some of them. I'm sure there's some of
Speaker 3: that for sure.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But then it's like those if those if those quote
Speaker 3: unquote shitty records are huge, are they just shitty records
Speaker 3: to you? Yeah? Exactly? Someone else their records highly subjective.
Speaker 3: Same with books, right, Like I'm sure there's all these
Speaker 3: incredibly underappreciated books out there that you know, if you're
Speaker 3: you know, if you're a literary guy, that you're like,
Speaker 3: well you have to how do you not know that book?
Speaker 3: You know? I'm sure there's those.
Speaker 1: Right, you know, there was some of we gotta, we
Speaker 1: gotta wrap this up and get see this buget outside.
Speaker 1: But do you remember do you remember the musician He's
Speaker 1: from a while ago, but do you remember the musician
Speaker 1: Elvis Costello?
Speaker 5: Yep, okay, I remember.
Speaker 1: I think it was I fear as like David Lee
Speaker 1: Roth or someone that said this, but he was like,
Speaker 1: like Elvis Costello was always like a critical favorite.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: The critics always loved his albums, and davidly Roth was
Speaker 1: observing that. But rock critics all look like Elvis Costello.
Speaker 1: It's like the level of bias. Yeah, they got the
Speaker 1: same style, you know, like Elvis Costello like had those
Speaker 1: big like glasses and stuff. He's like yeah, but they
Speaker 1: like him because they look at him like that's some
Speaker 1: bitch looks like me.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's like, uh, it's like it's an album
Speaker 3: like made for those kind of guys, right, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: He made for the dudes that write articles about albums. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of us just listened to them.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 5: Well, Luke, thanks for coming on the show as usual.
Speaker 3: Man, absolutely thanks.
Speaker 1: For having I appreciate all that but I especially appreciate
Speaker 1: what you what you shared about what you shared about
Speaker 1: raising kids. Yeah, I'll tell you this thing. This dude
Speaker 1: I know in New York.
Speaker 3: He's a.
Speaker 1: He had spent his career working in family law, like
Speaker 1: the kind of family law of family's breaking up.
Speaker 3: Sure, that's tough business.
Speaker 1: And he probably doesn't even remember telling me this. It
Speaker 1: was so long ago. And when he told me this,
Speaker 1: I didn't even have kids, but it stuck in my head.
Speaker 1: He was just talking about all the awful things that
Speaker 1: he's encountered in his career, you know, of like dissolving families, sure,
Speaker 1: custody battles and stuff, and were somehow talking about things
Speaker 1: that screwed kids up. And he said so, speaking from
Speaker 1: a level of expertise, he said, I'll tell you the
Speaker 1: one thing that screws him up is the day they
Speaker 1: figure out that no one gives a shit about them.
Speaker 1: And he's like, that is the thing, oh man, more
Speaker 1: than any other thing. Yeah, you know, and what better
Speaker 1: to bring that out than splitting up parents who are
Speaker 1: not trying to suck them in, but splitting up parents
Speaker 1: who are trying to get.
Speaker 5: The other get clear them. It's like, yeah, get like parent.
Speaker 1: Imagine that when you put together like talking about how
Speaker 1: perceptive kids are, when you put together like, oh man,
Speaker 1: wait a minute.
Speaker 3: They're both trying to get to pull.
Speaker 5: Away right and not come in.
Speaker 1: You know you picture you'd want to be in there,
Speaker 1: your parents throwing punches, trying to get you.
Speaker 3: It's probably not greaty, probably not yeah, probably not healthy,
Speaker 3: but legal throwing legal.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thanks, coming on man again.
Speaker 3: Absolutely h