Speaker 1: All right, welcome to episode one. Here the house is
Speaker 1: Brett Eldridge. It's good to see a man lucky number,
Speaker 1: Yeah is it? Yeah? I was looking at your Instagram
Speaker 1: and I it was a shot of you leaning into
Speaker 1: the crowd this weekend, and and what was cool about
Speaker 1: it was and we listen, we all post pictures of crowds.
Speaker 1: Exciting to us that people that care, Like that's listening.
Speaker 1: When I post a picture and there are people like
Speaker 1: at a show of mine, it's exciting to me because
Speaker 1: people care, and I'm like, check it out, people actually care.
Speaker 1: It's to me a bit it's a bit self serving
Speaker 1: because I want to I'm just like, wow, I can't
Speaker 1: believe people care. But there's this picture you and you're
Speaker 1: kind of singing into the crowd and everybody has their phone.
Speaker 1: Everybody has their phone up. Yeah. It had a little
Speaker 1: bit of a double meaning, honestly, because it is amazing.
Speaker 1: But then I'm sitting there also looking at like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, there's so many phones. I mean so many,
Speaker 1: I mean, and you can see how happy everybody is.
Speaker 1: But also I mean I was just I was looking
Speaker 1: at like old pictures in the crowd of like when
Speaker 1: people didn't used to have phones, and then I mean
Speaker 1: you just maybe somebody had like a little camera. But
Speaker 1: now it's just like that picture blew me away. What
Speaker 1: do you think about the phone thing? Some artists fighting
Speaker 1: like they really hate it. I'm I'm in the middle.
Speaker 1: You know, it just depends if they're watching and filming.
Speaker 1: Are there film you know what I mean? Like some
Speaker 1: people literally watched through their screen and they're not even
Speaker 1: really watching the show. But to be Devil's advocate on that,
Speaker 1: if that's how they watch a show, isn't that how
Speaker 1: they watch a show? Yeah? Now, now I'm gonna totally
Speaker 1: contradict myself because we do two different things. You go
Speaker 1: out and you play music and you play songs that
Speaker 1: people knew. Now I go out and I'll give you
Speaker 1: an example. I did two stand up shows this weekend.
Speaker 1: I don't let people record my show for the first
Speaker 1: of it because if my material gets out, it's dead dead.
Speaker 1: So there are no phones. And it's so hypocritical because
Speaker 1: I go, if you're a concert, record the whole show up,
Speaker 1: But for me, then I go, no bones. So I'm trying.
Speaker 1: I literally I'm kind of the same way. I see
Speaker 1: both sides like part of me is like, I think
Speaker 1: it's awesome because then there's they're showing they're having a
Speaker 1: good time, and then their friends might want to come
Speaker 1: and have a good time and see it too. The
Speaker 1: other side is are they actually watching the show? Are
Speaker 1: just mad? Or if they're really watching this show? But
Speaker 1: do they even have to watch? Can they not watch
Speaker 1: with their ears experience? I'm like I said, I'm both
Speaker 1: agree on both sides. I'm like, part of me they
Speaker 1: are there at least, you know, I think it's it's
Speaker 1: it is what it is at this point. Um, some
Speaker 1: artists will be like, you can't fight it. They're like,
Speaker 1: Kip hates it. Oh he hates it, he'll tell you
Speaker 1: right he But it's almost like when artists would fight
Speaker 1: downloads like you no, you know, or fighting streaming. Then
Speaker 1: it was fighting you can either get with it or
Speaker 1: have it leave you. And we have a picture of
Speaker 1: this up now. I mean, look at this every but
Speaker 1: that's just the culture. What you're seeing in this picture
Speaker 1: is the culture right now. This one girl by the way,
Speaker 1: and we'll have a video up, but this one girl
Speaker 1: has a phone up but she has the cash in
Speaker 1: the back of her phone, like Oh yeah. I called
Speaker 1: her out on this balling with the cash right there.
Speaker 1: I told her that, I said, you don't drop that cash.
Speaker 1: She had like three twenties in the back of there.
Speaker 1: If I had three twenties, she's pretty young at that age,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, I'll be living big right there. But
Speaker 1: look at again, something else and noticed in this picture.
Speaker 1: Look at all the females, Like, if I were a dude,
Speaker 1: let me just speak to the dudes that are watching this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: go to a Brett Eldredge show because there are a
Speaker 1: lot of females and Brett Eldredge show. Yeah. Look, you
Speaker 1: see there's some dudes with their way in the back.
Speaker 1: There's like we see the dudes are all three of them.
Speaker 1: They stick out like short dolls. The guy's mouth wide
Speaker 1: open like and I was like, there's so many beautiful
Speaker 1: girls here. Look at that. That's it's wild though, I mean,
Speaker 1: like I said, it's it's it's I posted it because
Speaker 1: I love the photo. But also it's like this is
Speaker 1: literally where we are. You're right, this is this is
Speaker 1: the culture of it just is what it is. And
Speaker 1: and uh, I mean you can't really you could. I
Speaker 1: guess you can fight it. You can fight it, but
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a punching the water. Eventually, the water
Speaker 1: always wins. You can be a mountain. Okay, good for you, mountain,
Speaker 1: but the water is eventually going to wear you down.
Speaker 1: And that's what fighting technology as an artist is. Like,
Speaker 1: you're just fighting the water. Can you hold it back
Speaker 1: a bit with a damn? Sure? But okay, see what
Speaker 1: a water does over ten tho years. But yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a pretty cool pictures. So what what is that picture from?
Speaker 1: That's uh, that's an iowa uh at at a at
Speaker 1: a festival. I remember sending you a note and I
Speaker 1: don't you were somewhere in the Midwest, I believe, and
Speaker 1: you were playing a like an amphitheater and you were
Speaker 1: you were headlining, and I was watching you and I said,
Speaker 1: you know what I was like, man, And I would say,
Speaker 1: you and I are friendly. We don't not know each other,
Speaker 1: but we don't hang out. I don't hang out with anybody,
Speaker 1: but but but I feel like I was proud for
Speaker 1: you because you were headlining a real life venue. And
Speaker 1: I said, you know what I was like, dude, I
Speaker 1: know any boys or anything, but a little bit of
Speaker 1: me like my heart's warm for you right now because
Speaker 1: I felt good for you. Well, uh, it is. It's
Speaker 1: it's a journey. I mean, you know, just like you're
Speaker 1: not just like me. You you you fight so long
Speaker 1: to go, you know, speak or play in these little
Speaker 1: places for so long, and then and you're a lot
Speaker 1: of the time, I've been opening for somebody for so long,
Speaker 1: and and you play forty five minutes and don't getting
Speaker 1: wrong at those forty five minutes have been huge for me.
Speaker 1: But I waited a long time to get to the headline.
Speaker 1: Or people are gonna show up, I don't know, hopefully,
Speaker 1: and I know some are gonna show that a thing though,
Speaker 1: because I go through it too. If I announced a tour, yeah,
Speaker 1: I go, I don't know if anybody's gonna come. And
Speaker 1: you're kind of embarrassed, and you're wondering if everybody else
Speaker 1: is gonna be embarrassed if you don't sell to oh,
Speaker 1: I know, it's like an insecurity and yourself. You should
Speaker 1: probably yourself credit that knowing that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people that love you, but at that point, you feel
Speaker 1: like no one knows the hell you are at that point, So, uh,
Speaker 1: it is a scary feeling and then you know, then
Speaker 1: you end up showing up in these people know every
Speaker 1: song and they're so passionate and and it's not just
Speaker 1: forty five minutes, it's an hour and twenty or hour
Speaker 1: and thirty of even the even the album cuts, even
Speaker 1: the ones that you know no one ever hears live,
Speaker 1: and you get to play and you can tell those stories,
Speaker 1: and that's that's pretty special. You know, talk to me
Speaker 1: for a second, because a lot of artists, especially when
Speaker 1: you play a big place and you have the middle
Speaker 1: to late slot, you'll put these things in your ears
Speaker 1: whatever you're called monitor mirrors, you know, so you know
Speaker 1: when I use them too, But I'm not real. You know,
Speaker 1: when when my band plays, we're not real. You're real.
Speaker 1: You're entertaining though, okay, but listen, we're not real. You're real.
Speaker 1: You're a real band. Really, But so that pretty much
Speaker 1: seals off the sound, right. So when you have when
Speaker 1: you have them both in what can you hear? Actually,
Speaker 1: it is one of my least favorite things about playing
Speaker 1: live and great things because you you you don't blow
Speaker 1: your voice out as much because you're not pushing as hard.
Speaker 1: Well I mean, but there's also artists Blake still sings
Speaker 1: with just with wedges. Blake doesn't use yours, Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I didn't know that he's still uses wedges, and I
Speaker 1: was like, how do you do that? I kind of
Speaker 1: love those days because you cranked it the wedges and everything,
Speaker 1: and he hasn't like side fills and as he walks
Speaker 1: in the thrust, he's got to remember where Sometimes. I
Speaker 1: think that's awesome because you can hear the crowd. And
Speaker 1: he says that, Man, I just tried the years before
Speaker 1: and I took him out because I just couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: I used to do the one year and that's terrible
Speaker 1: for your in. And what I started to do is
Speaker 1: I had him. I haven't put a crowd mics in
Speaker 1: as long as you have no fans singing into the
Speaker 1: crowd mics. I've been I'll be like singing a note
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden. Man, Also, I just totally
Speaker 1: lost the key that I was in because some fans
Speaker 1: slinging away up or something into the mic and then
Speaker 1: don't even really realize it. So that's the way you
Speaker 1: you can compat and you can also put little holes
Speaker 1: in them. Um, I can't win with what they're called,
Speaker 1: and that will bring in some of it, but it
Speaker 1: is it is a tough battle because you can be
Speaker 1: in a really crazy loud crowd and not even realize
Speaker 1: how loud there because you got those ears in. I'm
Speaker 1: playing a little ignorant because I like to hear your
Speaker 1: perspective of it. But for me, it run my ears
Speaker 1: a bit to wear one ear because we were playing,
Speaker 1: you know, three nights a week sometimes and there'll be
Speaker 1: two three thousand people in our show, so I wanted
Speaker 1: to hear the crowd. So I, okay, I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: one year, and well then I started to have some
Speaker 1: sort of odd balance issue where one year was really
Speaker 1: feeling it, one wasn't. And that's where all your balance
Speaker 1: is was vertigo comes from. So I'll get on the
Speaker 1: bus and I would be like, I feel like I
Speaker 1: was csick at times. So I go, okay, I'm done
Speaker 1: with this. So I put both ears in and we
Speaker 1: put mikes in the crowd. But here's the problem, because I, again,
Speaker 1: I don't have the skill set that you have where
Speaker 1: I'm seeing, I can seeing in a rhythm that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Um, the crowd is about probably a quarter
Speaker 1: of a second delay coming through, so I would start
Speaker 1: to hear them and it would totally bess me. And
Speaker 1: my point with this question is sometimes because I would
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, I don't know if the crowd is
Speaker 1: yelling back her eyes, I just have to assume they are.
Speaker 1: I'm like, let me, Harry, they certainly have to be screaming,
Speaker 1: and they could all just be doing this with their
Speaker 1: mouth and actually making no noise, and I would feel
Speaker 1: like they were cheering because I really can't hear them
Speaker 1: because the seal them all. It's a it is a
Speaker 1: real it's a real thing that I think. I guess,
Speaker 1: I guess what I always have to think of the
Speaker 1: fans out there have no idea that that's going on here.
Speaker 1: So you just, I mean, definitely the most insecure times
Speaker 1: when were you're on stage and you're hoping that everybody's
Speaker 1: gonna be going crazy and you don't you don't know what.
Speaker 1: Every crowd is different. Every crowd might be a little
Speaker 1: harder to work. Even you know, the biggest stars in
Speaker 1: the world, they're they're gonna notice some crowds that aren't
Speaker 1: as crazy as others, but you know that they're that
Speaker 1: you know you're up there for a reason, and you
Speaker 1: gotta scream it out, but it is. It is a
Speaker 1: weird feeling. Sometimes you're like and and and it's It's
Speaker 1: been one of my biggest struggles as an artist with
Speaker 1: with the ears and I and as you know, you
Speaker 1: watch every award show, you watch every TV thing, you
Speaker 1: see somebody pulling ear out, you put one back there
Speaker 1: and pull the other one out because it is you
Speaker 1: want to be there, and that's what that is. When,
Speaker 1: which is my point of this, whenever you see someone
Speaker 1: pulling ear out, it's because they want to feel and
Speaker 1: hear what's actually happening in the room. Maddie Poppy, who
Speaker 1: won American Idol this season, because I was on that
Speaker 1: show a bit and so we became friends that she wanted.
Speaker 1: I was talking to her about wearing ears for the
Speaker 1: first time because a lot of brand new to them,
Speaker 1: and I said, hey, you're gonna put these ears and
Speaker 1: it's gonna seal you off and it's gonna feel so
Speaker 1: weird at first. And she's like, yeah, what's so what happened?
Speaker 1: And said, Well, you're gonna hear everything perfectly, all all
Speaker 1: the instruments, and you're gonna get to mix it how
Speaker 1: you want, you want more bass when we're drums. All
Speaker 1: of that, I said, but you're also gonna hear all
Speaker 1: the flaws and you're gonna think something's really going wrong
Speaker 1: whenever the crowd has no idea because they're getting really
Speaker 1: the macro they're getting from Afar and they're taking it
Speaker 1: all in all together. You're gonna hear all the little
Speaker 1: bit puzzle pieces together your if your voice is a
Speaker 1: little tired, you're gonna hear that, and you're gonna you're
Speaker 1: gonna start thinking about that more. They're not gonna hear
Speaker 1: that near as much, and then you start I used
Speaker 1: to have a large problem with that. Have you do
Speaker 1: you feel like as you've gotten more success and we'll
Speaker 1: use success relative term, but you have six six, seven
Speaker 1: and one six months like that? Do you feel like
Speaker 1: the more successful that you've become, the better you're getting
Speaker 1: just simply because of confidence? Oh? Yeah, yes and no.
Speaker 1: Here's a couple of reasons. Um. I think one. I
Speaker 1: think that that the headline tour is big for me
Speaker 1: because you know, when you don't feel like you're you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, I'll never put down my
Speaker 1: opening slots, but when you never when you always feel
Speaker 1: like it's not your fans, or at least all your fans.
Speaker 1: You want to win them all over, but you have
Speaker 1: a little bit of I gotta always prove something. I
Speaker 1: always prove something. When you get your fans out there,
Speaker 1: you feel like you can really a hundred percent be
Speaker 1: you even more and you get more in a comfort spot,
Speaker 1: and so that feels awesome. Um. I've definitely gained more confidence.
Speaker 1: I've I've I've you know, to the years. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm kind of introverted, a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: know that, but in ways I am. Um, but when
Speaker 1: I go up on stage, I've if I can get
Speaker 1: that energy, it' it's it's it's, it's it's fuel for me.
Speaker 1: I've had times where I have no voice, um, and
Speaker 1: I think there's no I'm gonna make it, and I
Speaker 1: the whole time before the show, I'm warming up and
Speaker 1: it's cracking. It's you know, when you start thinking about
Speaker 1: that more and more, and then you hear the crowd
Speaker 1: and there's something about it. If you got your crowd
Speaker 1: out there that can pull you through. Every time you
Speaker 1: make it. Somehow it might not always sound the best,
Speaker 1: but you make it. I think that uh, well, the
Speaker 1: times I've ever ever struggled with the most or when
Speaker 1: I can't reach out and touch the crowd, like with
Speaker 1: the white chairs at festivals or whatever, which is sometimes tough. Um.
Speaker 1: And what that means is it's some festivals to p
Speaker 1: there'll be some white chairs, but the vps are so
Speaker 1: cool they don't want get there till late in the night,
Speaker 1: so they're not always there. So they're not always there.
Speaker 1: So you're the first fifty yards, it's splitter, splatter people
Speaker 1: sitting in chairs or just white chairs because there might
Speaker 1: be twenty people behind those chairs. But then and so
Speaker 1: I used to really struggle with that, and it's still
Speaker 1: gonna be weird. I mean, even even if you're the headliners,
Speaker 1: sometimes they're not all there or whatever, and so that's
Speaker 1: that's still a little strange. But I think definitely confidence
Speaker 1: is key, even in your voice, because if you feel
Speaker 1: a little bit uncomfident before you hit that stage, yo,
Speaker 1: you might you might put over comments sate on your
Speaker 1: voice and push harder in your worn out before you
Speaker 1: even get there. It's funny we were talking about kid
Speaker 1: with the phones and I've kip and I have a
Speaker 1: friendship that has grown over first fighting spot and then like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're both weird, introverted people, let's probably be on the
Speaker 1: same team. We had. We had the same team talk
Speaker 1: at a coffee shop one morning. Our relationship has gotten
Speaker 1: actually really good since then. So I say this as
Speaker 1: a friend. But Kip and I were sitting and I
Speaker 1: think I do Kip does, I don't know. Probably you
Speaker 1: because you're an artist at heart. We have huge insecurity issues,
Speaker 1: like we may be these larger than life characters on
Speaker 1: stage behind the microphone, but really it all comes down
Speaker 1: to we're searching for some kind of love. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: in some place searching for some kind of love. And
Speaker 1: Kept and I were talking about watching a crowd and
Speaker 1: for me, if I'm doing stand up, I can't look
Speaker 1: at faces because if I see someone's face and they're
Speaker 1: not laughing, yeah, I go oh, I must be bombing.
Speaker 1: So I just look at four heads. I can't look
Speaker 1: at face, and kipt will go oh, I'll see someone
Speaker 1: not having a good time, and it'll throw me. It
Speaker 1: will completely throw me from doing a show. Do you
Speaker 1: will you look down and see people not feeling it,
Speaker 1: and do you let that affect you. Oh yeah, I've
Speaker 1: had times where I really affected me. That my my
Speaker 1: thing that I've you know, you have certain fans that
Speaker 1: are almost always have fans that I know we're gonna
Speaker 1: be repeat fans, like for different shows, and if I
Speaker 1: know they're there, and if I'm feeling like if I
Speaker 1: see some people that I don't know if they're really
Speaker 1: totally into it kind of messes me up. I I
Speaker 1: because I struggle with that for a while. Then I
Speaker 1: would start looking at my fans that are my die
Speaker 1: hard fans that are always there for me, and I
Speaker 1: see them singing the words and like, oh man, they
Speaker 1: care the care and so I tried it. That's how
Speaker 1: I've tried to figure out how to shift it, and
Speaker 1: that's helped me. But yeah, that's that is a that's
Speaker 1: a weird feeling because you're giving everything of yourself and
Speaker 1: you know and somebody you want every single person to
Speaker 1: feel as passionate about it as you are. And the
Speaker 1: truth is this, it is never gonna be No, there's
Speaker 1: never been an artist I can do that. And I
Speaker 1: do feel it's a bit unfair for us as people.
Speaker 1: If I want a stage performing to judge people based
Speaker 1: on just their outward reactions. Because if I'm comparing myself
Speaker 1: or yourself, we're watching a movie, and let's they were
Speaker 1: watching the same movie. We may react absolutely different to
Speaker 1: watch an old school I may be laughing out loud,
Speaker 1: you may be enjoying it the same amount, but laughing
Speaker 1: in a different way inside. But that doesn't mean somebody's
Speaker 1: not enjoying it as much as the other person. But
Speaker 1: when we step away were it's so easy for us.
Speaker 1: You can't disconnect from that in a show. But we
Speaker 1: just feel like, oh, I haven't thought about that, and
Speaker 1: that's that's really good to talk about that because it's
Speaker 1: a it's the hardest thing to explain to anybody, and
Speaker 1: there's so many people that get And I mean, I've
Speaker 1: I've never really talked about this, but I used to
Speaker 1: get nervous about I used to be I'm a I've
Speaker 1: born a warrior, like worried anxiety all that and I
Speaker 1: and so I used to I was never afraid to
Speaker 1: go on stage. I'm not like I'd love to perform.
Speaker 1: I'm actually the most comfortable during that a lot of time.
Speaker 1: But before it, I was like if I was worn out,
Speaker 1: I'm a terrible sleep. I would used to be a
Speaker 1: real bad sleeping and all this stuff, and so I
Speaker 1: had this little period where I was not sleeping much,
Speaker 1: and then I would I'll get to the point where
Speaker 1: I's about to go on stage and I would get
Speaker 1: short of breath. I thought I was gonna pass out.
Speaker 1: I have because I was thought, Okay, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna fail in front all these people. I'm gonna pass
Speaker 1: out or something, which you know, you're not gonna dive
Speaker 1: from passing out in front everybody, and I'm probably not
Speaker 1: gonna pass out, but I was telling my off that.
Speaker 1: So it's learned that. So I had all these these
Speaker 1: things and all these things because you're about to go
Speaker 1: give all yourself and you don't want to see yourself fail.
Speaker 1: And I don't have that anymore. Really, I mean, you
Speaker 1: still have some days you're like, God, I'm so tired
Speaker 1: of because you know, sometimes you're headlining at festival or
Speaker 1: show at eleven o'clock at night, or wake up at
Speaker 1: seven o'clock, so you have the whole day to think
Speaker 1: about a show, and I've had to try to figure
Speaker 1: out ways to keep your mind busy. You're here for
Speaker 1: a reason, You're you're playing this show because people are
Speaker 1: coming here to love you. But it is it's a
Speaker 1: complete mind game as performer, he gives. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a major sacrifice throughout that all day to be up
Speaker 1: there for an hour and a half and you and
Speaker 1: you have to get your mind right to that that
Speaker 1: point of the show. You know, athlete even you know,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of downtime ninety minutes to perform, and
Speaker 1: it all is inside that ninety minutes. And then if
Speaker 1: you don't, you got a lot of game tape to
Speaker 1: watch the next time, and you're gonna think about it.
Speaker 1: You can't not think about it, you know. Let me
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Speaker 1: you talk about sleeping. I have. I've had real bad
Speaker 1: issues with sleeping, and a lot of mine comes from
Speaker 1: a mild PTSD stuff. I got jumped and robbed a
Speaker 1: gunpoint stuff like that. You know, Uh, anxiety issues from
Speaker 1: that work. What's your issue with sleeping? What was it? Anxiety?
Speaker 1: Just just worrying about what? Do you know? Dumb stuff?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I thought, honestly, I so, I mean,
Speaker 1: I I tried everything. I mean, I would try a medication,
Speaker 1: I would try whatever it was um to try to
Speaker 1: get sleep. Never like a problem with it. I would
Speaker 1: just you know, I try to figure it out. Just
Speaker 1: stay sick. I stayed sick, constantly run down. It wasn't
Speaker 1: getting and if if you feel like you're never going
Speaker 1: to get out of it. And it's not like I
Speaker 1: still don't have bad nights sleep and I sleep great
Speaker 1: last night, but it doesn't mean like you know, if
Speaker 1: you tell yourself you're not gonna you're not a good sleeper,
Speaker 1: You're not gonna be a good sleeper, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Like a lot of the time I think
Speaker 1: where you close your eyes and you go fall asleep.
Speaker 1: Right now, I get five yeah, and then then then
Speaker 1: another hour goes by, and then I got this seconds.
Speaker 1: So I tried the I tried and under presents for
Speaker 1: a while. I tried um u xan X, the pras
Speaker 1: Lin for a while. I've tried. I've tried everything but
Speaker 1: smoking weed. And I I was talking to a friend
Speaker 1: even today because I've I've never drink our cahol or
Speaker 1: smoke weed. But I want to do both. But I
Speaker 1: just know I would do all the both, Like if
Speaker 1: I started, I would just do it and I wouldn't
Speaker 1: stablished me, Like I'll take that and I'll have all
Speaker 1: of that and go ahead and give me the rest
Speaker 1: of all of that. That's just how I lived my
Speaker 1: life and everything. But I went to the dentist today
Speaker 1: just to get a fix. They put a temporary on
Speaker 1: and they gave me the laughing gas. I got so high,
Speaker 1: and that I don't. I don't relax that have a
Speaker 1: troll of trouble relaxing in general. I got so high.
Speaker 1: I became so relaxed. I started to have these really
Speaker 1: deep emotional sharing within myself thoughts, and I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: if this is what it's like to get high, I
Speaker 1: gotta do this. And and I felt like I could
Speaker 1: go to sleep or I could stay awake. I just
Speaker 1: felt great. So I'm talking to her friend and she
Speaker 1: was like, you should try the gummies. But I hear
Speaker 1: a Snoop dogg to talk about this stuff and he's like,
Speaker 1: don't eat it. He's like, you can't control it if
Speaker 1: you If you eat, you can't control it. Man. I
Speaker 1: just don't like. There's too many there's too many bad eating.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't like this. Smoking anything seems like
Speaker 1: it would just be pain on the lawn. I don't
Speaker 1: a cigarette. I've actually never spared a cigarette. That's that
Speaker 1: that heat going into them. I don't like I don't
Speaker 1: drin coffee, yeah, because I mean I've tasted coffee once.
Speaker 1: I'm not against coffee. It's not a moral thing. Church
Speaker 1: of coffee you have is she's with sleeping. But it
Speaker 1: also sounds like when you talk that have you been
Speaker 1: a therapy because you sound like, okay, I can because
Speaker 1: again I'm just looking at I'm not. I'm very and
Speaker 1: I'm I've just recently started becoming very open with it
Speaker 1: because I mean, I feel like everybody should go to therapy, honestly.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's for me too. And it's not
Speaker 1: like you're not crazy, you're not whatever. We all have anxieties,
Speaker 1: we all have worries, we all have I mean, it's human,
Speaker 1: the most human thing we were. This is how we're built.
Speaker 1: And for me, it got to a place where I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not I'm really good at covering that up.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't like depressed or like major, and I
Speaker 1: was just always worried about stuff and it totally throws
Speaker 1: your body out of whack, and so I was I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm I'm tired of in this. So I
Speaker 1: actually got into mindfulness. So meditating really helped me a
Speaker 1: lot be able to do that. I have trouble. It's hard.
Speaker 1: I have trouble. It's hard. I mean I've been doing
Speaker 1: for like a year and a half transidental like what
Speaker 1: kind of meditation, just like mostly just sided Like so
Speaker 1: I did the apps, So I did I started with
Speaker 1: headspace about that. I've done the sleep app. I haven't
Speaker 1: done any meditation. Head Space is great. It just kind
Speaker 1: of walks you through. It's not like one of those
Speaker 1: things you're feeling very sleepy or you know whatever. It's
Speaker 1: very much like all right, um not take your now
Speaker 1: now you might feel yourself your mind wandering and having
Speaker 1: all these thoughts throughout the day or whatever. I'll take
Speaker 1: it back to the breath and so you you switch
Speaker 1: your focus back to the breath and you and you
Speaker 1: just focus on your breath. It's pretty much just training
Speaker 1: your brain to see thoughts is just thoughts, because we
Speaker 1: have thousands of thoughts every day, all of them, almost
Speaker 1: all of them are crap. They're just worthless, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And you can tell have studied a
Speaker 1: lot of this, but it is the truth. We have
Speaker 1: so many thoughts. So I think the most of that
Speaker 1: it's taught me is to not sweat that stup as much.
Speaker 1: Not that I don't still, I mean you still. You
Speaker 1: never get rid of things out. You just have a
Speaker 1: different relationship with and I think through a lot of
Speaker 1: different things, I've I've got a different relationship with it.
Speaker 1: And I used to not be able to enjoy tour
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff in here as much
Speaker 1: because you'd always be worrying about worrying about feeling this way.
Speaker 1: Then you're feeling more that way, and it's like it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be that way. And so I think
Speaker 1: now to more I've got uh And I mean this
Speaker 1: is really of most of the when I've ever really
Speaker 1: talked about it, but I've got way more. I want
Speaker 1: to help other people realize that happens to everybody. It's
Speaker 1: not a big deal. It sucks, but it's real and
Speaker 1: you can you can get through that. So you know
Speaker 1: why it sucks? Is it not enough people talk about it?
Speaker 1: I know I grew up like you in a really
Speaker 1: small town. Therapy wasn't a thing. It was more like
Speaker 1: you gotta pay the bills, so therapy doesn't matter. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're trying to buy man, which there's not money
Speaker 1: for therapy or even to know that mental illness is
Speaker 1: like a real life thing. And I'm not even my
Speaker 1: mental illness. I'm just talking about any sort of therapy
Speaker 1: like it. Just so I remember going and I was like,
Speaker 1: this is not my insurance. I can actually go talk
Speaker 1: to someone, And it was talking to someone who did
Speaker 1: not have a bias that would call call you not
Speaker 1: only on your crap, but also tell you when things
Speaker 1: were good, so you could trust both. And we're both
Speaker 1: in a position to where we're in a creative space
Speaker 1: where if we're doing well, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people tell us how cool we are, and it's it
Speaker 1: gets harder and harder to separate. I wrote my new
Speaker 1: book that came out this week. I have a whole
Speaker 1: thing about trusting a certain few people that will tell
Speaker 1: you suck. But everybody will tell you suck. But if
Speaker 1: you find the people that you trust to tell you suck,
Speaker 1: whenever they tell you that you do really good, you
Speaker 1: can believe them. And that's the hardest thing. It's not
Speaker 1: hard to find somebody to tell you suck. Trust me. All.
Speaker 1: I gotta go to Facebook right now, and I got
Speaker 1: a thousand people telling me and we naturally search for
Speaker 1: that stuff too. It falls right in our lap and
Speaker 1: we can stare at it and people are loving us
Speaker 1: all around us, but we're looking at this little angry monster.
Speaker 1: Were like, what's up? You can glad you came to
Speaker 1: see me. But if you find someone that can say, hey,
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. But then when they do say, oh,
Speaker 1: I do know about this, you trust that good because
Speaker 1: they're able to tell you whenever they feel it's not good.
Speaker 1: I found that with therapy. Then I've started to be
Speaker 1: able to find it with friends. But I had to
Speaker 1: find it with me first before it was anything else.
Speaker 1: I had to go in and trust the process of
Speaker 1: bit a little, only a little, trust that it was
Speaker 1: the process. But therapy changed me. And listen, I'm still
Speaker 1: in my thirties, I'm single, i'n't married, I've got no kids.
Speaker 1: Like I'm I struggle with relationships and trust I do, yeah,
Speaker 1: and bridges raise his hand too. But for me, it
Speaker 1: showed me that I'm struggling. Before I just didn't know.
Speaker 1: I can like, what's the problem, Why why am I?
Speaker 1: But now I see there's a struggle in the first
Speaker 1: and best way to talk about this. And as you
Speaker 1: were saying these words, the words that I hear all
Speaker 1: the time because I read about it and I go
Speaker 1: to therapy, I'm like, oh, he's had some sort of
Speaker 1: self reflection in some way, and I like that, and
Speaker 1: I commend you for that. Yeah, well, the same here.
Speaker 1: And I think I think it's it's up to you know,
Speaker 1: each of us to try to get everybody to look
Speaker 1: at that and just say you're not crazy for going
Speaker 1: to get help from orders, telling or even going to
Speaker 1: a friend or whatever. I mean, does it happen to normal?
Speaker 1: You're normal to have this stuff, totally normal, I mean,
Speaker 1: but nobody talks about it, so then you feel isolated
Speaker 1: and alone when you're feeling these well, I'm the only
Speaker 1: person that hasn't feel like No, try hun of millions
Speaker 1: of people nobody's post on Instagram, so I can't be real.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's because they know that. Yeah exactly. And I
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's easy to focus on all
Speaker 1: those things and and so I got into the gratitude stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you get into that at all,
Speaker 1: but that's also helped me of, you know, instead of
Speaker 1: focusing on the things, all the the bad things that
Speaker 1: you see or whatever. I've got into the gratitude journals
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, so I would Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: went trying to share that a lot, because not only
Speaker 1: that also has I also hold myself accountable to try
Speaker 1: to keep up with that. But so I got this.
Speaker 1: I got this journal called the five Minute Journal. Um.
Speaker 1: I've done it in different ways, but I like this one,
Speaker 1: and it's I've got tons of people to get it.
Speaker 1: Just just said this is a good one to try out.
Speaker 1: It's not like I'm sponsored by five minute Journal thing,
Speaker 1: but I just I like it. You you start your day.
Speaker 1: I read a lot of self help books. I try
Speaker 1: a lot of different things, but this one. You start
Speaker 1: your day, you name three things that would be um,
Speaker 1: there would be uh, well we'll make to get today great.
Speaker 1: So I'll be like, Okay, um, I want to I
Speaker 1: want to help a stranger today or whatever, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Or I want to I want to
Speaker 1: have a great talk about Bobby today at at the
Speaker 1: on the podcast. Whatever it is. Certain things that set
Speaker 1: your day where you might be worried or something that
Speaker 1: you're gonna put yourself out there or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: or you might go outside your comfort zone or whatever
Speaker 1: it is, push yourself to go and doing certain things.
Speaker 1: And and and also say, okay, what great happened today?
Speaker 1: And you say, you know, I got I talked to
Speaker 1: my brother for an hour on the phone, or I
Speaker 1: called to a friend and tad to him or or someone, Uh,
Speaker 1: send me a message, is said. This really helped me through.
Speaker 1: This song really helped me through my life. Whatever it is,
Speaker 1: the simple things that you don't always focus on. You
Speaker 1: focus on the things that are bad. And that's really
Speaker 1: started to help me too. So a lot of these
Speaker 1: things altogether, I guess, Yeah, therapy, all those different things.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's a battle. You're gained like little per cents,
Speaker 1: you know, over weeks the stock market. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: it's funny talk about that. And listen, I can talk
Speaker 1: about this all day because you're in my zone. Like
Speaker 1: I felt like this is the spot I can just go.
Speaker 1: But we only have so much real estate up here time.
Speaker 1: First of all, in the day and then in just
Speaker 1: our thoughts. We have so much real estate. And if
Speaker 1: we're investing that real estate into a positive X, that
Speaker 1: means there's less time for a negative Why to get
Speaker 1: in there. That doesn't mean why it's not knocking on
Speaker 1: the door. It doesn't mean why he's not gonna come
Speaker 1: in and have dinner occasionally. But the more and you
Speaker 1: talk about your journal, the more you can focus on
Speaker 1: those positive X is that just mathematically is the less
Speaker 1: times the negative why can get in there? And so, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe did you post that today, the five minute journal
Speaker 1: in your institution. I've been posting almost every day. I
Speaker 1: just story, Yeah, that's when you said five minute journalist.
Speaker 1: I just saw that. I felt like from watching your
Speaker 1: in'st a story though, that I know you better than
Speaker 1: I do, which is weird, and I think we probably
Speaker 1: all have someone like that that we follow, and I
Speaker 1: think that's why I was compelled to reach out to
Speaker 1: you and go, hey, dude, I'm really proud for you.
Speaker 1: I know we probably hung out like an hour and
Speaker 1: a half in our life, but like, I was really
Speaker 1: happy to see that show and I could tell in
Speaker 1: your eyeballs that you appreciated that use your headlining show.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't like Iowa, Michigan or wherever that show.
Speaker 1: But I watched these as of stories and you're one
Speaker 1: of them. Where I go Mike I gotta know him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do I really maybe more than I did, But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you do a good job at effectively putting
Speaker 1: across your message. So I trying to do honestly, Like
Speaker 1: I mean, even like I said, I'm sharing more now
Speaker 1: than I probably ever have even right now. But for me,
Speaker 1: it's just uh, yeah, I think I think if you really,
Speaker 1: I want to show more in social media and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. And I've always kind of been my you know,
Speaker 1: goofing off self and stuff, but I also got the
Speaker 1: serious side too, and and and I'm trying to show
Speaker 1: just how you know, ridiculously fawt I am, and and
Speaker 1: trying not to just show all the great stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: And I think that's what we do as a culture.
Speaker 1: We show a lot of the great stuff, and you
Speaker 1: still want to show some of the great stuff because
Speaker 1: it really is great, you know. But also you know,
Speaker 1: I think that it's helped. It's helping me to definitely
Speaker 1: even right now, to talk about it more and to
Speaker 1: and and knowing that we you know, hopefully this conversation
Speaker 1: we're having right now people can someone who can be like,
Speaker 1: oh well, I thought I was only one and there
Speaker 1: is because I feel like with us. Here there's an empathy,
Speaker 1: not a sympathy. There's an empathy and there's a difference
Speaker 1: and and you're absolutely right here. So here's something that
Speaker 1: happened to me. So I go and not to harp
Speaker 1: on this thing. But I write this first book like
Speaker 1: two and a half years ago, and I think to myself,
Speaker 1: no one's gonna understand because my stories that come from
Speaker 1: a town of seven hundred. Um, my mom was a
Speaker 1: drug addic and alcoholic. She had me when she was sixteen.
Speaker 1: She died in her forties from drugs and alcohol. I
Speaker 1: never knew my dad. But I'm talking about my mom
Speaker 1: and I'm writing about these stories. And I'm not embarrassed
Speaker 1: in my story because I'm proud of where I come from.
Speaker 1: And I think I'm stronger because of the struggle that
Speaker 1: I I've been through and I think now I'm at
Speaker 1: the point where I can help people because of that.
Speaker 1: But I'm writing these stories and I'm talking about some
Speaker 1: of the real dark times when I was dealing with
Speaker 1: addiction with my mom, and and I'm going people are
Speaker 1: a gonna not care or be just I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: the big sympathy bear. And I don't want to be that,
Speaker 1: but I would. I'll tell you, but I would go
Speaker 1: and I would because I meet everybody at my shows.
Speaker 1: There'll be to tell people that three I'll meet everyone
Speaker 1: of them if they want to hang around, and they
Speaker 1: would come up. And it wasn't the crazy stories or
Speaker 1: getting fine a million dollars or the It was it
Speaker 1: was the hey, do you know what I actually related to?
Speaker 1: And it was the most personal, deep stuff about that
Speaker 1: I thought no one would understand. They weren't feeling sorry
Speaker 1: for me. They were actually empathizing with me. And that's
Speaker 1: for me when I shifted a bit of my narrative
Speaker 1: of oh, I'm telling people this not so they feel
Speaker 1: towards me, but with me, and they can fill with
Speaker 1: other people. So if you talk about this, and I
Speaker 1: can tell it's new for you to talk about, take
Speaker 1: it from me because I've been at after about five years,
Speaker 1: like really getting down it really does help people. And
Speaker 1: you'll think at times you're yelling in a cave. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if hebody's hearing this, But then you'll
Speaker 1: be somewhere in Modesto, California, and someone will come up
Speaker 1: to you and go, I just went to this with
Speaker 1: my my brother or my mom. And because of your story,
Speaker 1: it helped me and you go, that's why I did
Speaker 1: it well. And everybody sees yeah, everybody sees that person
Speaker 1: on the screen. They see you, and I mean and
Speaker 1: not that that isn't you where there's so much more that.
Speaker 1: But you gotta try to live up to being yeah,
Speaker 1: the stoic guy in this photo or whatever, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And I like to be
Speaker 1: that guy, but I like to be the guy that
Speaker 1: was goofing off on the side over there or you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it was you know, freaking out moments before that was.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't on that photo shop, but there probably
Speaker 1: was on you know whatever. I'm easily pretty laid back,
Speaker 1: did anything professional. I'm always but you know, you bought
Speaker 1: all those things up. You get worried about things that
Speaker 1: you don't tell anybody, then you're just gonna get worse.
Speaker 1: And then it's it's really kind of hitting it head on.
Speaker 1: It's really helped helped me with that at transparency to
Speaker 1: also connects so hard. Even when we use the word flaws,
Speaker 1: but it's more so instead of a flaw, it's more
Speaker 1: of a normalcy you know, I think we have to
Speaker 1: say it as a flaw because I do it to
Speaker 1: it like I'm super flawed. But you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: just super normal. And I think if we start and
Speaker 1: I'm going to I just I just fish your self
Speaker 1: help book are writing one, So I'm like, I'm totally
Speaker 1: in the head zone right now, and I've been studying
Speaker 1: it for such a long time. I think it's even
Speaker 1: how we address these things and just talking about them
Speaker 1: and in places where you go, oh man, I'm really
Speaker 1: putting myself. You're actually just being normal. That's the being
Speaker 1: vulnerable is actually being freaking normal, which is crazy. Anyway.
Speaker 1: I know we didn't come in and talk about this,
Speaker 1: but um, I like it that. I like where you're
Speaker 1: going because you're gonna help people and it's gonna feel
Speaker 1: weird sometimes, but you're really going to help people because
Speaker 1: I've been able to the most important the whole reason
Speaker 1: for my existence is for me to build a platform
Speaker 1: to help people. Like That's what I feel now at
Speaker 1: this point in my career. That's it. Like I have
Speaker 1: swimpool now, that's cool, but you know what, I get
Speaker 1: to help people. Yeah, Yeah, it's way freaking cooler. Let
Speaker 1: me talk about sleep number for one second. So if
Speaker 1: you've spend any time listening to me jibber jabber, you
Speaker 1: probably have heard me talk about sleep number and how
Speaker 1: my sleep number bed has improved my sleep quality. Yes, so, yes,
Speaker 1: it's true. My sleep number setting is a thirty. That's right.
Speaker 1: Maybe you've considered a sleep number bed and thought to yourself,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can afford this, but can
Speaker 1: you really afford another restless night's sleep? Before you do anything,
Speaker 1: go to a sleep number store and experience the adjustable
Speaker 1: comfort for a limited time only. Queen mattresses started only five.
Speaker 1: The sleep number bed let you adjust your mattress for
Speaker 1: umnus or softness on each side whenever you like. It's
Speaker 1: the perfect for couples. You can actually feel how contours
Speaker 1: to your neck, your shoulders, your back, your hips, and
Speaker 1: all the more proper spinal alignment. At a sleep number store,
Speaker 1: you can see the science behind your sleep number setting,
Speaker 1: and they have the individual fit pressure mapping technology. Nothing
Speaker 1: compares with finding your just right comfort and pressure relieving support.
Speaker 1: My sleep number setting is thirty, going now the lowest
Speaker 1: price of the season. The final closes out of sleep
Speaker 1: number Queen C two mattress with adjustable comfort on both sides.
Speaker 1: Visits sleep number dot com slash bones to find store
Speaker 1: near you. Okay, so you go out. Let's shift to
Speaker 1: the music for a second. You go out, what song
Speaker 1: is it? When you hit it early, like first couple
Speaker 1: of notes, the crowds like jam like immediately, Um, I go, uh.
Speaker 1: I think people I play you don't ship pretty early,
Speaker 1: and I think that's that. Probably it is. Probably it's
Speaker 1: probably that was in two thousand thirteen as my first
Speaker 1: number one and it but I feel like it's almost
Speaker 1: has a bit of It's not like it's a class
Speaker 1: older or anything, but there's a little bit of nostalgia,
Speaker 1: like the kids that were listening to that in high
Speaker 1: school now in the crowd, and that they were in
Speaker 1: high school then and now they're a little bit older,
Speaker 1: and that it kind of takes them back to that
Speaker 1: summer when they were listening to song. Whatever it is,
Speaker 1: that song always puts people in a great mood for
Speaker 1: a show. So I played early and uh, but they
Speaker 1: go oh yeah yeah and it You know, I wrote
Speaker 1: this song Christa Stefano and actually Gorlean we sang the vote.
Speaker 1: I wrote it in this little building on on music road,
Speaker 1: and it's I think it's been flattened now it's total um.
Speaker 1: But just Stephano just got to town. I think he
Speaker 1: just moved here. And and uh Gorlian I've been singing
Speaker 1: demos for him for years and of course he was
Speaker 1: having hits then, always had eight hundred number ones or whatever.
Speaker 1: But I did the vocal in the room. But that
Speaker 1: day the first time I've ever done that. But it
Speaker 1: was so real and it was and we just nailed it,
Speaker 1: like right there. We had that track, we had that song, um,
Speaker 1: and we just knew that this was something that could
Speaker 1: kind of get me out there because I had Raymond
Speaker 1: was my first one. Um, it was about my grandmother
Speaker 1: had Alzheimer's. That went to number twenty three, which isn't terrible,
Speaker 1: but it's not gonna get you to a crazy place. Um.
Speaker 1: Then I had my second song it's called it Ain't
Speaker 1: Gotta Be Love and never even charted. I don't think.
Speaker 1: So you put out Raymond then and it gotta be love.
Speaker 1: I don't know it ain't gotta be loved. No one does.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's even online. Oh really yep, Um,
Speaker 1: so that's gotta be a downer though, right, Like, you
Speaker 1: put out a song, it doesn't go number one, but
Speaker 1: it's your first song and it does make the top thirty.
Speaker 1: So you're feeling yeah, and you're feeling like, okay, like
Speaker 1: I'm in the game. Okay, I might not have one
Speaker 1: that round, but I'm in the but I'm in the game.
Speaker 1: But then you put out a second one and it
Speaker 1: can't takes you back to earth. Huh. Yeah. When I
Speaker 1: was spo Josh Zito, it just moved to Nashville. I
Speaker 1: was his first signing it and uh, I think it
Speaker 1: was Oh Night. He runs the Warner Brothers record, by
Speaker 1: the way, Yes, so I think everybody. Uh he he
Speaker 1: runs the Winner, and he just got the town. He had.
Speaker 1: He came from New York, you know, totally no natural experience,
Speaker 1: but a great music guy and a very smart music
Speaker 1: business guy. It shows up to town and and uh
Speaker 1: we hit it off right away, and he just I
Speaker 1: was his first signing. So we've always had this kind
Speaker 1: of family, um, you know, like we've been in this
Speaker 1: battle together from the beginning. And so he stuck with me.
Speaker 1: Somewhartists get two singles and they're gone. You know, he
Speaker 1: stuck with me. And then then I got I got
Speaker 1: almost pissed, not at anybody, but mad that I was
Speaker 1: doing something wrong or something, because you know, my if
Speaker 1: you sign a record and you're like, oh, I want
Speaker 1: my first song to be number one, and then it's
Speaker 1: gonna take off and I'm gonna be huge right away overnight.
Speaker 1: You know, that's what you think when because you're green
Speaker 1: at that point, you're just a new artist. No one
Speaker 1: has any reason to know you yet, but you think
Speaker 1: everybody should know or do you want everyone to know
Speaker 1: that theyre think that you're great or whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: because that's what you've been striving for. So I put
Speaker 1: those two songs out. He sticks with me. Then I
Speaker 1: get kind of man, I was back then, I was
Speaker 1: out of shape. I mean, I look more like a
Speaker 1: like a like a bigger tight end or something. You know.
Speaker 1: I was a little bit athletic, but there was a
Speaker 1: little yeah, I was. I was. I was chubbier and
Speaker 1: and and I was I would just was. I didn't
Speaker 1: look like I cared as much, you know, And so
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, I'm gonna take all the
Speaker 1: nose um And I was having fun and everything. I
Speaker 1: just you know, I could have been healthier, and I
Speaker 1: could have been I could have been working harder or something.
Speaker 1: I'm always a perfectionist. That's part of my reason why,
Speaker 1: you know, I've always worked about stuff because I'm always
Speaker 1: wanting to be the best of myself. Not really, it's
Speaker 1: more like an inner competition with myself. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna turn all the nose into yeses.
Speaker 1: So if somebody says uh, and no one really said, hey,
Speaker 1: you're you could be in better shape and your style
Speaker 1: could be better, but that's that could be it. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go getting I got. I went and got
Speaker 1: in good shape, and I and I try to no
Speaker 1: no one said that, really no one did, but I.
Speaker 1: But I just gott so driven. It's like I don't
Speaker 1: want to get this close to making it and never
Speaker 1: know what it's like to So the main thing, but
Speaker 1: even beyond all that, it probably could have worked without that.
Speaker 1: The main thing that worked for me was I just
Speaker 1: I got so driven to right as many songs that
Speaker 1: I could really connect with. And that's when I just
Speaker 1: got I started writing like two songs a day. And
Speaker 1: that doesn't always work because then you're just writing songs.
Speaker 1: But I was so driven in a way that is,
Speaker 1: I want to be heard. I want to I want
Speaker 1: to get some songs of connect with people. So I
Speaker 1: started writing with people that I didn't usually write with,
Speaker 1: and uh, kind of outside my comfort group of writing.
Speaker 1: And I started making these connections with people, and I
Speaker 1: started writing really special songs, like I wrote, uh, be
Speaker 1: the music, don't you mean to meet? Several of those
Speaker 1: songs within a pretty like a six month period once.
Speaker 1: I really just kind of drove, and then I just
Speaker 1: started going and going and and uh yeah, this kind
Speaker 1: of started hitting. I was playing a songwriters round and
Speaker 1: they bring me into kind of be you know. I
Speaker 1: played some DOPEI songs and do some jokes. You know.
Speaker 1: It's and I get to play, luckily some pretty heavy
Speaker 1: songwriter rounds because you were like, oh it's b um,
Speaker 1: but I know my place too, and I tell some jokes.
Speaker 1: Bay a minute a half. But I was playing with
Speaker 1: Heather Morgan and she and you guys have written and
Speaker 1: so what have you guys done together? Piece of the music.
Speaker 1: Lose my mind? Uh, he's the music, there's my mind
Speaker 1: and my single right now? I loves them? Is that right?
Speaker 1: She played bet to the music. Yeah, and she was
Speaker 1: talking about you. That's three songs. So is she and
Speaker 1: that Brett Elders camp? We have camps. Here is she
Speaker 1: in the camp? Like if it's like we have some
Speaker 1: of new project, we're gonna start writing for it? Do
Speaker 1: you call Heather? Heather Morgan has more songs on my
Speaker 1: record than any other writer on my new record, she
Speaker 1: had five songs. So how did you guys get to
Speaker 1: be you? Two? Though? Like this this team that writes you? Um?
Speaker 1: Ross and Heather and I we couser songwriter. We who
Speaker 1: I wrote. We wrote all the songs that we wrote
Speaker 1: with Heather. I've been singles together, Mum is she? She
Speaker 1: and Heather Ross and I. We were all kind of
Speaker 1: coming up together, uh A songwriters. I remember we're there's
Speaker 1: an ask Cap Awards. One night. We didn't get to
Speaker 1: go to ask Cap Awards. We thought we'd get to
Speaker 1: go to the Atro party. We were all I don't know,
Speaker 1: we all had publishing deals or not. I think I
Speaker 1: just got it, maybe a publishing deal. I was working
Speaker 1: on it and they were working on it, um and
Speaker 1: we we didn't. We got kicked out of the after
Speaker 1: party because we weren't were on a list or you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we went over and we threw up. We didn't
Speaker 1: throw a party. We just went into the publisher that
Speaker 1: I was just signing with. They had this old, kind
Speaker 1: of dated kitchen which is now shock to Yoga. Yeah
Speaker 1: it was. It was old Famous Publishing and then it
Speaker 1: became a couple other companies. But anyways, we went in
Speaker 1: there and they had like a old bottle of tequila.
Speaker 1: And back then, you know, I was just like twenty
Speaker 1: early twenties, um, and so we had like there was
Speaker 1: a bottle, old bottle of quila and had the worm
Speaker 1: in the bottom, you know, we were, And so we
Speaker 1: went there and had a couple of drinks of that
Speaker 1: really cheap, crappy tequila, talked about how we wish we
Speaker 1: were at that party, but at least we're doing this,
Speaker 1: and then we just kind of bonded and the next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, we started writing eventually, and it at we
Speaker 1: just kind of had that connection of knowing somebody when
Speaker 1: they were at the very not very bottom, but at
Speaker 1: the early stages when they didn't have anything, and known
Speaker 1: and sharing that same thing with that person is is
Speaker 1: the most powerful thing to make you inspired to get
Speaker 1: success with that person and and celebrate together like the
Speaker 1: freshman class going together and you made not you listen,
Speaker 1: you're not in kindergarten. I mean, you're in a freaking
Speaker 1: ninth grade or you're a freshman in college. But then
Speaker 1: you're about to go to this whole new world together.
Speaker 1: And now, just for reference for people listening to this,
Speaker 1: Heather's got multiple Number one's great singer too. By the way,
Speaker 1: Ross Copperman went Songwriter of the Year last year, maybe
Speaker 1: two years. Yeah, So I mean, and here you are
Speaker 1: with all these number ones. I mean, so you're talking
Speaker 1: about in this five year period or so, you go
Speaker 1: from you can't even get in the afterparty much less
Speaker 1: than the awards get the afterparty to all three of
Speaker 1: you guys actually come into some sort of ascension there.
Speaker 1: And that's pretty cool when you can do it together
Speaker 1: and you can actually at times ride each other up
Speaker 1: and help each other. Because what I realized through working
Speaker 1: with my friends, because I've hired all my friends, my
Speaker 1: whole show and just my friends, and they're all fantastic people,
Speaker 1: which is why they're so good at what they do.
Speaker 1: But there are times when I'm struggling and I can
Speaker 1: grab Amy and she'll just take me right up with her,
Speaker 1: or if or if you know Eddie struggling, we take
Speaker 1: each other up. And it's cool to have those people.
Speaker 1: And that's what it's about. You started to think for
Speaker 1: a minutes about trophies and about number one, but then
Speaker 1: once you go, huh, like what is this really? It's
Speaker 1: like when the circus leaves town and it's all gone
Speaker 1: and all it's slept is you know, streamers and trash everything,
Speaker 1: who's still there standing next gen? You know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 1: that's that's the most powerful the So you have this
Speaker 1: second song and it bombs out, and that was then
Speaker 1: when I got the warner. Are you done in your mind? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: you know I was. I was far from done, you
Speaker 1: know at that point. Some would say yeah, but I
Speaker 1: I just felt, you know, And I will say that
Speaker 1: I had a lot of great you know, like my manager,
Speaker 1: he was my attorney. He left his management gig too
Speaker 1: two uh to manage me. He left his attorney gig
Speaker 1: to manage me and just dropped all of that and
Speaker 1: just take a bet on me. My day day manager
Speaker 1: came from Atlantic the Record decided to come work with me.
Speaker 1: My parents and my brother moved to town. Um, my
Speaker 1: brother's my business manager. Back then, he wasn't my business manager.
Speaker 1: He was just helping you, my business manager with me,
Speaker 1: and like all these different things, all these people came
Speaker 1: around and we're supporting me. Um and and so I was.
Speaker 1: I was just like, I just need some time to
Speaker 1: get this right. And like I said, you know, some
Speaker 1: artists don't get that much time. And it's like it
Speaker 1: was a really long time, but I needed a minute
Speaker 1: of like, hey, don't don't give up on me. Just
Speaker 1: just watch what I'm gonna do kind of thing, you know,
Speaker 1: and people that that know I've got more in And
Speaker 1: you still need those people, you know, a hundred number
Speaker 1: ones or whatever it is, or or all the success
Speaker 1: and all these things, you still need those people pushing
Speaker 1: you and and being there for you when you reach
Speaker 1: certain accolades. Otherwise you know you're gonna stop. What do
Speaker 1: you think about Nashville? What do I think about it? Um,
Speaker 1: it's different from what I mean, I've been here for
Speaker 1: I was here, oh six. So I got here. I
Speaker 1: was going to empty. I transferred from Elmhurst College UM
Speaker 1: in Chicago, and I got and I went to Mt
Speaker 1: s U and then I would drive back and worth
Speaker 1: to Nashville every single day from Murphy's borro every day.
Speaker 1: That's like a depending on traffic depends, would be an
Speaker 1: hour forty minutes to an hour, just depends on the day.
Speaker 1: So what I would do is I go to class
Speaker 1: um and I would go. I was like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna finish. When I started, I'm moving to Nashville
Speaker 1: to be a musician, to be a singer. Even before
Speaker 1: a songwriter, I was gonna be a singer. I didn't
Speaker 1: even know how to write songs, right, So I moved.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna move to Nashville. I'm gonna be a singer,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna finish school, got two years left. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do all this. So I go. I drive to
Speaker 1: Nashville to sleep on her friends couch. I would take
Speaker 1: guitar lessons or I would write with random people um,
Speaker 1: and then I drive back. I go to class and
Speaker 1: I would I started getting this relationship with the teachers
Speaker 1: that they were I'd be like, I really want to
Speaker 1: do well in class, but up my what my dream
Speaker 1: is to be a singer. So I would literally bring
Speaker 1: in demos and playing like almost all my teachers were
Speaker 1: very supportive of my music to the point where, like
Speaker 1: they knew, they would stay after class and help me
Speaker 1: if I wasn't getting something, because I knew I was
Speaker 1: putting a lot of time on that, but I really
Speaker 1: cared about getting the class, getting through the class, and
Speaker 1: I went and sang it like one of my teachers,
Speaker 1: what was it like morning, I don't know what it
Speaker 1: was like, almost like a church group or I don't
Speaker 1: remember what you call kawanas whatever, one of those things
Speaker 1: I developed with the relations to these people because they
Speaker 1: really cared, which is great. You don't have teachers like that,
Speaker 1: and I'm such a supporter of education and teachers. But
Speaker 1: they stuck with me, and so I when I was
Speaker 1: supposed So eventually I got a publishing deal before right
Speaker 1: before I graduated to write songs. I learned kind of
Speaker 1: about songwriting within a couple of years, and then I
Speaker 1: signed a publishing deal right before I was supposed to
Speaker 1: walk in graduation. I was playing at q West that
Speaker 1: songwriter festival when I was supposed to be walking, So
Speaker 1: it kind of just from that moment I was in it.
Speaker 1: I've never I still have those dreams all the time.
Speaker 1: That I didn't finish college because I didn't have closure
Speaker 1: on the fact that I didn't. You know, you know
Speaker 1: that I feel like like even with high school or
Speaker 1: whatever it is, I get those dreams all the time
Speaker 1: that I that I didn't study for this chiantest, I'm
Speaker 1: about to fail or whatever. Well I got my I
Speaker 1: got my di poema somewhere. I still have no idea
Speaker 1: what it is. You should probably hang it up next
Speaker 1: to my awards because that's just as important. But even
Speaker 1: if I don't ever use it, at least I finished it.
Speaker 1: But then I that's not a publishing deal. Grinded around
Speaker 1: and yeah that like I love I still love Nashville.
Speaker 1: It's just so different from what it was then. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you learn, for one, the music business side. You
Speaker 1: learned so much more about the music business. But then
Speaker 1: it's like seeing Disney World, and do be wrong. I
Speaker 1: still love the music business. I love. There's certain things
Speaker 1: I don't love about it. Obviously, there's all of us
Speaker 1: don't love all the aspects about it. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's like seeing Disney World. And then then when you
Speaker 1: really dive into the music business, you see all the
Speaker 1: all the things behind the curtains and all that. You
Speaker 1: know that you with that his head. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: this is what so you grow up pretty quick in that.
Speaker 1: And uh then I and this town has been amazing
Speaker 1: for me. It's just it's just it's for one, it's
Speaker 1: grown that crazy. It's different, but I think it's still
Speaker 1: it's still got, you know, some of the still it's
Speaker 1: still got the community that it's it's different. You know,
Speaker 1: we don't we don't go in and record demo sessions
Speaker 1: the same way we used to. Everything is always going
Speaker 1: to change, no matter what line of business, the way
Speaker 1: things are done, it has changed. As long as you're
Speaker 1: good with adapting with from that. They might take a
Speaker 1: minute to get used to that change, but you're used.
Speaker 1: Yeah that was not that. I mean, it's it sounds
Speaker 1: like I was two hundred years ago. But when I
Speaker 1: first started, you didn't see that many phones back when
Speaker 1: I was first record two thousand and ten the Pony Express. Ye.
Speaker 1: So but I still there's still a magic in in
Speaker 1: in Nashville. And uh, I still you know, look at
Speaker 1: the the city skyline and thing, this is a this
Speaker 1: is a magic place. And I and I still see
Speaker 1: myself as a kid driving through here, going to Destin,
Speaker 1: Florida on vacation, seeing do you know the Batman Tower
Speaker 1: and thinking how cool? And that's music city. That's that's
Speaker 1: what I'm you know, I'm a I'm a music kid.
Speaker 1: You know that That like and capsulates who I am
Speaker 1: in some way. I don't even know what. I've never
Speaker 1: even gone down Broadway, but I see that and I
Speaker 1: think there's something magic about it. Then you get and
Speaker 1: you eventually get to see it and and uh, it's
Speaker 1: gone pretty well. Yeah, it has gone pretty well. Let's
Speaker 1: run through a list of these songs real quick. So
Speaker 1: let's see. Let's up first, Why don't we hit a
Speaker 1: little Raymond that we mentioned earlier. Here's the first thing
Speaker 1: here is don't you? Because I can see you a
Speaker 1: little closer closer, girl, I gotta get to get to
Speaker 1: know you, know you everything a batch it makes me,
Speaker 1: won't you? Won't you know what you're doing? Baby? Don't sit,
Speaker 1: don't ship be to the music right here? That song
Speaker 1: you know that you mean to me? And then he
Speaker 1: jam after jam you like you know this song? Dam
Speaker 1: I remember when you came in by this song. He
Speaker 1: came into the studio and it was a first, I
Speaker 1: think we've premared on the show, and I was like, man,
Speaker 1: that song is a freaking jam. I remember coming in
Speaker 1: and playing part you. I remember you saying that you
Speaker 1: were I won't compliment something if I don't really feel
Speaker 1: great about I'll go, hey, how about that? Like look
Speaker 1: at you? How about that you made a new song,
Speaker 1: But I won't. Yeah, look that music thing you do
Speaker 1: put this song to me was such a jam when
Speaker 1: you brought it in that it's this one's really fun
Speaker 1: to play live. People literally lose their mind just because
Speaker 1: it's kind of a really bottled up energy that it's
Speaker 1: so fun to play live, drunk on your love drunk.
Speaker 1: I'm good at singing this one. This long Yeah, I
Speaker 1: want to be that song. I want to song. 're
Speaker 1: talking about this The Long Way Here. Of all of
Speaker 1: your songs, this was my favorite, just pure song like
Speaker 1: it made me feel something. And this wasn't number one song,
Speaker 1: but it's funny how this happens, and this is my
Speaker 1: this one is my favorite, The long Way right here me?
Speaker 1: Did you write this one? Okay? You're you're saying these
Speaker 1: words and I'm going, good, God, Like, this is how
Speaker 1: I feel. This is how I feel that I want
Speaker 1: to feel one day. That's that's the first pective I write.
Speaker 1: It's how I feel that I want to feel. And
Speaker 1: you're singing this and I'm going, oh, I understand the
Speaker 1: words he's singing. That doesn't happen to me with a
Speaker 1: lot of songs. But when I heard this song, I go, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to feel like that's exactly how I feel
Speaker 1: I want to feel. And I know it didn't hit
Speaker 1: number one, but at this point, who cares, right, But
Speaker 1: I'm just letting you know. As a songwriter, it's hard
Speaker 1: to really touch. There's only been in a couple of
Speaker 1: songs in my life where I go, oh, I get
Speaker 1: I get that, not not just sing along, but I
Speaker 1: kind of feel it like in your your ribs. This
Speaker 1: was one of them, man Like, it really was. And
Speaker 1: you know where you'll end up hearing all the songs
Speaker 1: all the time, so yeah, you know. And I think
Speaker 1: that you hit it on the head of yet even
Speaker 1: if you're not feeling that, you want to feel that.
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody has that longing for a connection. Love that.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm a single guy too, and and and
Speaker 1: that's how I write loves. I Think I'm Home was
Speaker 1: kind of scared when I actually do fall in love,
Speaker 1: Like will my love songs be is good because I
Speaker 1: write from a standpoint of this is how I feel love,
Speaker 1: how I picture and how magic it can be. And
Speaker 1: I know it can be magic. I mean I know
Speaker 1: it's I know it's a real thing. But how when
Speaker 1: I'm writing a love song, I'm I'm describing, you know
Speaker 1: what I what I feel like. I would love to
Speaker 1: have much with the long way. It's you know, I
Speaker 1: want to get to note, yeah, the heart of a
Speaker 1: person and in a more depth way of of seeing
Speaker 1: all the stuff that you know somebody might not ask
Speaker 1: him about and you want to want to get to know.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? Like there's a to me I
Speaker 1: out here and I go, oh that it's not what
Speaker 1: I it's what I want to want. But that song, like,
Speaker 1: that's one of the few over the last five or
Speaker 1: six years in my little run here where I go, oh,
Speaker 1: man like that kind but I feel that one. So
Speaker 1: if there was a b c M, like a Bobby
Speaker 1: Country Music award you that that that was a good one.
Speaker 1: The love someone here's this song right here's doing? I think,
Speaker 1: yeah bad? Just put it out O what's that tell
Speaker 1: me about this one. Yeah, you know I wrote this
Speaker 1: with Ross and Heather, which we have a way of writing.
Speaker 1: I think are kind of our wheelhouse is writing these
Speaker 1: feel good kind of songs like this to be the
Speaker 1: music you know, Uh, there's my mind, but this kind
Speaker 1: of d be the music, kind of van kind of
Speaker 1: song where it's it just feels good. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: I came off I want to be that song into
Speaker 1: the long way, and I felt like I want to
Speaker 1: the right song for the moment. It was this, you know,
Speaker 1: when I when we were cutting this album, I knew
Speaker 1: I wanted to get this song out, um because I,
Speaker 1: for one, I love to I love certain songs that
Speaker 1: just feel great when you sing him live. And I
Speaker 1: love songs what you turn it on you don't have
Speaker 1: to think about too much. You just know that's gonna
Speaker 1: make your smile, it's gonna make you feel good. And
Speaker 1: and I think feel good connects with a lot of people,
Speaker 1: especially when it has some when it has heart to it.
Speaker 1: I feel like this one has heart to it. You
Speaker 1: don't have to think about a lot. And I just
Speaker 1: I just I woke up one morning. I literally, um,
Speaker 1: I woke up and it's like, hey, Alexa, play Love Someone.
Speaker 1: I was trying to pick pick a single, which is
Speaker 1: the worst experience sometimes when you're trying to decide between songs, um,
Speaker 1: because you're so in the middle of all of that.
Speaker 1: It's hard. Yeah, and you're picking a song that you're
Speaker 1: hopefully going to be singing for decades or whatever. You know,
Speaker 1: so if you want to love it. So I told Alexa,
Speaker 1: I said, play love Someone. And I just laid there
Speaker 1: in bed for a minute. I just felt good, and
Speaker 1: you get you gotta you gotta feel in your heart
Speaker 1: like you gotta feel really good in your heart that
Speaker 1: that with the song you're releasing, like you don't have
Speaker 1: any regret. And I remember playing telling Alexa to play it,
Speaker 1: and I heard it and it was between that another
Speaker 1: song and uh, and I just it was it was
Speaker 1: a one simple is that? And people love it live
Speaker 1: and the crowd. That's uh, one of the probably the
Speaker 1: most favorite live songs. That's not a single. It's definitely
Speaker 1: a smiley faced song. Yeah, those songs I feel like
Speaker 1: when you hear let's go, oh, I feel good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't have to really think about it. I look
Speaker 1: at you with all the songs and the beard, and yeah,
Speaker 1: so do I'm never only one time. I've never had
Speaker 1: my beard in my career. Um, since I mean I
Speaker 1: like a really short beard when I first started, but
Speaker 1: was I want to be That song video was the
Speaker 1: first time I didn't have a beard in years. I
Speaker 1: shot all the stuff of playing my original self in
Speaker 1: the music video with my beard and everything, and then
Speaker 1: we shaved my beard completely, and I mean we people
Speaker 1: were so freaked out. It's so only because I only
Speaker 1: know you as a beard. Yeah, so if everybody only
Speaker 1: knows you, it's like if your friends completely chase their
Speaker 1: head or something like, I don't know who that person is.
Speaker 1: I mean you can literally a person can literally change
Speaker 1: in your mind. Their personas can probably change if they
Speaker 1: change there then eventually get used to that and it
Speaker 1: becomes normal. Of course, I wasn't gonna stay with that
Speaker 1: because I liked the beard because there was weird. I
Speaker 1: looked like I was twelve. But um, I've always had
Speaker 1: the beard other than that video, and I scared a
Speaker 1: lot of people and uh, but it was fun. At
Speaker 1: you What do you tall? Are you six almost six
Speaker 1: five six four and a half. When did you stop growing? Uh?
Speaker 1: I started growing like uh into sophomore in the junior
Speaker 1: year high school. So like I was, I was playing basketball, baseball, football,
Speaker 1: and then I quit football and basketball. I think through
Speaker 1: the sophomore year I quit basketball. I think football out
Speaker 1: refreshment because I didn't get big yet. Then I got big,
Speaker 1: and that was that was a pretty good athlete. But
Speaker 1: I got big, and so I already quit those I
Speaker 1: still played baseball for four years and uh, it's like
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna stick with the music thing. I still
Speaker 1: love to play sports and everything that. You know, I
Speaker 1: didn't have the high until later. I'm throwing out the
Speaker 1: first pitch at the Cubs game in a few weeks.
Speaker 1: So I'm a diary Cubs fan too, Like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: saw you wearing the Cubs hat like maybe yesterday or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm so done yet I haven't because I haven't been
Speaker 1: cool enough. And not that I'm cool now, but people
Speaker 1: think I'm cooler now. I'm no cooler. I just now
Speaker 1: have more active so people will go so it must
Speaker 1: be cool, right, So They've invited me to come and
Speaker 1: throw out the first pitch and so I'm gonna go up.
Speaker 1: But but like I'm a fan from like my favorite
Speaker 1: player ever was Mark Grace. Yeah, uh so Mark gret
Speaker 1: But I mean for me, it was like Mark Grace,
Speaker 1: Ryan Sandburg, Shawn Dunston advanced, Damon Barry Hill. You know,
Speaker 1: Joe Girardi was catching. I mean, I can run through
Speaker 1: all the lineups, even Leon Durham before. I'm hard at
Speaker 1: core Chicago Cubs fan, and so it was kind of
Speaker 1: cool watching another Chicago Cubs fan that I know get
Speaker 1: to experience it because that's your hometown, that's your home team.
Speaker 1: And when they won the World Series, like I skipped
Speaker 1: them as you went. I skipped and watched it at home,
Speaker 1: but you went and skipped them as to go to
Speaker 1: the game. That was a big It wasn't that at
Speaker 1: best decision of my life? I would say I went
Speaker 1: to Game five and they lost Game four, Game five,
Speaker 1: whatever is it regularly? Game five and they lost. Um
Speaker 1: still the greatest experience Wrigleyville. You couldn't even walk in
Speaker 1: the stadium. You couldn't walk, and everyone was bumping in
Speaker 1: each other, but it was the happiest bump in. It
Speaker 1: was like it's been nine we've even been here. It
Speaker 1: wasn't it awesome? It was magic man? And I I'll
Speaker 1: send you a clip of it. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I ever puts it or not, but my so, I
Speaker 1: got to bring my dad. I literally, um, I was
Speaker 1: supposed to do something for the words. I can't remember,
Speaker 1: but I had this really nice like tom Ford tux
Speaker 1: or whatever, like something really nice for the show, all
Speaker 1: this stuff picked out. Uh, we win game six whatever,
Speaker 1: and there's like, I call my management everybody like there's
Speaker 1: no way I'm not going to this game. I don't
Speaker 1: care whatever. You know, my whole, my grandfather, all those
Speaker 1: people be rolling the graves right now thinking that I'm
Speaker 1: not going to this game. My whole. It's part of
Speaker 1: you know, who I am. And so I got to
Speaker 1: call my dad and say, I don't know what you
Speaker 1: got going on, but you're going to the Cubs game.
Speaker 1: And my brother and we all got on a plane.
Speaker 1: I hung up the tucks in the in the closet
Speaker 1: and I put on a one of those old like
Speaker 1: uh I eat white blue Cubs jackets and and went
Speaker 1: up to Cleveland and you got to do it with
Speaker 1: your family. Yeah, And that was crazy. My so, my
Speaker 1: Cubs history comes from my stepdad and his dad. And
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't have a dad until I got
Speaker 1: you know, sixth seventh grade or so. But you know,
Speaker 1: in my family, like, I've never told another human that
Speaker 1: I loved him. I had these issues, therapy issues, but
Speaker 1: my mom we didn't have a communication, we didn't talk.
Speaker 1: But my stepdad came into my life. It was a
Speaker 1: big influence on me and was the first real stable
Speaker 1: thing that I had in seventh six seventh grade, right,
Speaker 1: And so he was a huge Cubs fan too, and
Speaker 1: I said, hey, the first thing, the first time when
Speaker 1: I started making any money at all, I said, hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go. He'd never been regularly filled. So I
Speaker 1: went to regular film and it was the coolest first
Speaker 1: of it was the coolest thing for me to get
Speaker 1: to take him. It was the coolest thing for him.
Speaker 1: And it was the only time we've ever hugged each
Speaker 1: other really, and it's yeah, and you still that's always
Speaker 1: absolutely and the reason and you can go back layers,
Speaker 1: but the reason that we hugged is because of the Cubs,
Speaker 1: which is because of sports, which is because of the
Speaker 1: bond I mean, and that is really one of the
Speaker 1: things that I so after the Cubs game, and you'll
Speaker 1: never forget that, never forget it talking about you when
Speaker 1: you say, you know you get your day, Like I'm going,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, well yeah, Like I totally get it. That's so.
Speaker 1: And I mean Wrigley Field has that certain magic about
Speaker 1: it and just but yeah, I think baseball. You know,
Speaker 1: if you break sports down, you don't you don't want
Speaker 1: to overthink it. But you know, with sports, like with
Speaker 1: baseball especially, I think the fact that it has so
Speaker 1: much history to it, in the in the classic nostalgia
Speaker 1: of it, there's some kind of magic to it. I
Speaker 1: feel like you tie all that in, you tie in
Speaker 1: passionate somebody something that they're really passionate about like that,
Speaker 1: and you can share that with somebody that's that's there's
Speaker 1: something really special about that. And also losing with people
Speaker 1: for a long time. Yeah, hit on the head of that,
Speaker 1: Like like they're only a couple of years in our
Speaker 1: lives as Cup fans where we got to experience any
Speaker 1: sort of winning at all, not even a championship like
Speaker 1: for those of our sports fans. Nineteen o eight was
Speaker 1: the last year when Brett talks about his grandfather's grandpa
Speaker 1: to watch a Cubs victor. Whole life, there was Cubs
Speaker 1: World Series they were the longest professional American team to
Speaker 1: not win a championship in any sport ever. And so
Speaker 1: you know who your people are when you can lose
Speaker 1: with them like that, you can win with anybody. And
Speaker 1: I'm talking about this is a metaphor for life too.
Speaker 1: You can have number ones with anybody. That's the easy part.
Speaker 1: Who are you gonna be with when the song is
Speaker 1: taken out when it doesn't even chart. That's being a
Speaker 1: Cubs fan. That's going through all the Tank songs, through
Speaker 1: all the years, and then finally you got that number one.
Speaker 1: That's that much? Is that much sweeter? And now people
Speaker 1: are like, Joe Man sucks, shut up, get shut up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let me look at this. We've been how long we've
Speaker 1: been talking? An hour in six minutes? Look at that.
Speaker 1: We just might as well date. How long do we
Speaker 1: have now with Infinity? I? Um, I got on Bumble
Speaker 1: today terrible. Well, Mike met his girlfriend bumble birthday we're
Speaker 1: talking about on the show this morning? Is your birthday too? Yeah,
Speaker 1: d have a birthday? And then yeah, I got do
Speaker 1: you get on this stuff? I'm not on bumble. I
Speaker 1: got on to Yeah, I've been on that. It's even worse.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's a similar, it's like a it's like
Speaker 1: video game or something weird. I don't know. The weirdest
Speaker 1: thing for me is I get on Ray and people
Speaker 1: are I see people from here in town, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: this is awkward because now if we don't match, if
Speaker 1: we do match, if you have to pick them. But
Speaker 1: I think I'm about to get off. I don't think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stay on this thing. I feel like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, then there's great stories where now they're a
Speaker 1: happy couple and everything, and then you know a lot
Speaker 1: of people meet on there, and then there's also the
Speaker 1: fact that you just sit there and you stare to
Speaker 1: screaming and start believe in all these false you know,
Speaker 1: certain things or whatever. It's it's it's weird. I don't
Speaker 1: you don't have to say who it is. I want
Speaker 1: to show you one of these person I saw today
Speaker 1: and I was like, and then you see him in public?
Speaker 1: And do you bring it up here? Me find it?
Speaker 1: So this is you're probably I'm sure you'll know who
Speaker 1: this is. For sure, you'll know that. Ye. So I
Speaker 1: see her and I'm like, well, what if she sees
Speaker 1: me on this thing, and then we see each other,
Speaker 1: do you bring it up, like, Hey, I saw you
Speaker 1: on the date dating a half. I mean, I feel
Speaker 1: like anybody that singles on because I've never been on
Speaker 1: one until now. I just got it and I don't
Speaker 1: do anything. So I got all of them. It was like,
Speaker 1: let me sign up. I mean, I don't know what
Speaker 1: I feel like at some certain I mean nowadays, which
Speaker 1: is so strange. I mean, can you imagine like or
Speaker 1: even our parents or ain't any duration about ten years
Speaker 1: ago because it didn't exist, you know, seeing this stuff,
Speaker 1: like what in the world? This just but um, I
Speaker 1: mean maybe it's a maybe it's a good thing. It is.
Speaker 1: Get busy living or get busy dying after we're talking
Speaker 1: about the whole time. I get with it, or you
Speaker 1: might as well as go however you find it, you
Speaker 1: find it, that's right. But listen, listen. We've we've said
Speaker 1: a lot here. It's been good, really good. I've enjoyed that.
Speaker 1: We we've always talked about playing racketball against each other,
Speaker 1: and I feel like we're we both isolate ourselves in
Speaker 1: our tiny circles and we don't out of our circles.
Speaker 1: Both of us still let's make the pack now. Then
Speaker 1: we're going out. We're going outside of our zones. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we probably should. I haven't played in a
Speaker 1: long time, haven't. I mean you can pick it different sport, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I think that's the one that we both have probably
Speaker 1: equally away from and suffing. So um, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that we we probably could be friendish. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: we're both kind of odd, probably a little odder, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they'll listen. It's a good talk for like
Speaker 1: about So anyway, Brett, you probably if you hear this,
Speaker 1: it's June when this is going up and when we're
Speaker 1: cutting this. But these things last three years and years.
Speaker 1: But I'll say this his latest current song, it's called
Speaker 1: love Someone. He probably has ten number one since then.
Speaker 1: You probably listen to this and get on your jet
Speaker 1: pack and just play it. You know, it's in the
Speaker 1: Eldridge Museum right now and they're playing this back over
Speaker 1: the speakers. But congratulations on your success. May Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: how about that. I wonder I asked for sales Nomber
Speaker 1: you boy, you look at record sales like, oh, of
Speaker 1: course you can't notot. I mean it's it's hard. I
Speaker 1: think you look and then you try to not look,
Speaker 1: but you're always gonna you'd be lyve no one. But
Speaker 1: I just got the numbers. And here's the thing. So
Speaker 1: I don't know how books, you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: how books work. So so um, i'll I'll just compare
Speaker 1: to So nowadays, if you sell, I mean a big
Speaker 1: record week would be in your mind what now? Uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, used to be like listen in two
Speaker 1: thousand two is a million? You know, if somebody does
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand, that's a huge week if you do,
Speaker 1: like I'd say, Like, so I had mind compared to
Speaker 1: album sales because my first book did well. It was
Speaker 1: the best off for four weeks. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: they say sequels never, it's not my second book, self
Speaker 1: help book. It's not a it's not a story book,
Speaker 1: but it's not the same. But it's still me, you know,
Speaker 1: it's pretty idiotic. Um So my second book actually better
Speaker 1: than my first book. So if it were comparable to
Speaker 1: record sales, they broke it down. It'd be if I
Speaker 1: were to sell a hundred and thirty thousand records week one,
Speaker 1: which is really freaking good, especially for someone like me
Speaker 1: who's not I don't. I'm not a good writer, but
Speaker 1: I think I write much like you do with your song.
Speaker 1: I think I write to and for my people. I
Speaker 1: don't try to write above them because I'm not above them.
Speaker 1: And if I try to write above them, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to take something. See you right, Yeah, yeah, they'll call
Speaker 1: you out on it, right absolutely. So yeah. Just I
Speaker 1: mean as we were talking, I just saw a text.
Speaker 1: I was like, so, what you so it was equivalent,
Speaker 1: it was it was bigger than the first week. Yeah. Thanks,
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Um, I love someone Red Elder relatest song.
Speaker 1: If you're in Mars. Thank you for listening. Until next time,
Speaker 1: my friend. And this has been episode. Let me thank
Speaker 1: our sponsors Live Flock and let me thank our sponsor
Speaker 1: also sleep in number and thank you very much. Bred
Speaker 1: elderde episode one twenty seven. Until next time, everybody, m