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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sense Podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today songweather musician Hey. He's called Hey. He's

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Speaker 1: good to have you on the podcast. Hey, Bob, it's

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Speaker 1: great to be here. So to what degree has COVID

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Speaker 1: nine team affected your career? Touring and Saturday Boy? Way

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Speaker 1: more than I could have imagined. I mean it initially,

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Speaker 1: it ended it. You know, I was I was in Seattle,

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Speaker 1: just about to start a tour and we did one

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Speaker 1: show at half capacity and and we just canceled it

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Speaker 1: and flew home. And UM, I was fortunate to be

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Speaker 1: had I'd been on the road for a couple of months,

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Speaker 1: so I was in decent shape financially and um, and

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Speaker 1: you know, nobody knew how long this was gonna go on.

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Speaker 1: So we thought we were okay and just try to

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Speaker 1: do some fundraising and help people out. UM. But then

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Speaker 1: as it continued, you know, it started to hit me.

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Speaker 1: The way I make my living, or had made my

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Speaker 1: living for the most part for twenty years, was gone,

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Speaker 1: and we didn't know when it was gonna come back.

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Speaker 1: So we started doing a lot of people did and

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Speaker 1: doing live streams. I had done that years before on Facebook.

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Speaker 1: I used to do a showdown in Austin at a

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Speaker 1: place called the Saxon Pub and I would we would

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Speaker 1: stream it on Facebook. We just never thought to monetize it.

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Speaker 1: I thought, how cool is this The people in Ireland

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Speaker 1: or Ireland are watching my show, or people in Idaho

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Speaker 1: or wherever. I was reaching all these people, and that

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Speaker 1: was significant to me. And I knew there was something there,

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Speaker 1: but I just never thought to put a tip jar up.

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Speaker 1: And um so when the pandemic came, I had some

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Speaker 1: experience with that and and and so now with the

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Speaker 1: ability to for people to support you, um we were

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Speaker 1: up and running. And uh so I started doing them

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Speaker 1: and and uh I was afraid that, you know, every week,

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Speaker 1: I just thought this isn't sustainable because it was people

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Speaker 1: were being very generous and and but at a certain point,

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Speaker 1: I thought the bottom was gonna fall out. So I

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Speaker 1: started working two. Um. I made it a priority to

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Speaker 1: show my appreciation and decided that I wanted my show

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Speaker 1: and then supporting my show to be the last thing

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Speaker 1: that they took out of the budget, you know, the

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Speaker 1: sort of discretionary income. So my wife's a musician as well,

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Speaker 1: and she was doing shows and she was sending postcards

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Speaker 1: to people, um who had supported her, and so I

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Speaker 1: started doing the same. And then I started making a

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Speaker 1: new postcard every week. And then I started um uh

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Speaker 1: adding set lists and and um and doing two three

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Speaker 1: four hour shows, and I started taking requests and asking

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Speaker 1: people to tell me stories about their life and what

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Speaker 1: was going on or about my music. And over a

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Speaker 1: period of about a year and a half, I did

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Speaker 1: uh sixty five shows or something and built up a

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Speaker 1: community um and uh it felt like a family. I

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Speaker 1: just got much closer to my audience in a way

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Speaker 1: that than I ever had before. And that was really

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Speaker 1: uh significant for me, not just emotionally, uh not just

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Speaker 1: financially during that time to keep us alive, but but

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Speaker 1: and like everybody else, we were isolated and kind of

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Speaker 1: quarantined and and too even if I couldn't see people,

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Speaker 1: to know, there was five thousand people every Tuesday at

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Speaker 1: six pm tuning in and I was sending on postcards

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Speaker 1: and they were sending me request and there was there

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Speaker 1: was a relationship there in a connection and it was

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Speaker 1: really incredible and kind of made me rethink my my career,

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Speaker 1: which had always just been about touring, touring, touring, grinding

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Speaker 1: on the road, and uh so, um it gave me

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Speaker 1: a really good chance to reset and an opportunity to

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Speaker 1: connect with my fans and kind of re prioritized and

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Speaker 1: figure out what was important to me. Okay, let's start

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Speaker 1: with the actual live stream. The first time you did it,

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Speaker 1: How did you make people aware that you were doing it? Well,

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Speaker 1: I did a couple of things that prepared me for

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Speaker 1: the pandemic. I had a Patreon page going. This is

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Speaker 1: probably five years ago, and I had I had sort

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Speaker 1: of hit a a point in life where I was

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Speaker 1: struggling creatively and and it had been four or five

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Speaker 1: years in between records, and so I got Patreon really

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Speaker 1: just to have an outlet for music because I was

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Speaker 1: starting to feel pressure on myself too. Um, my creative

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Speaker 1: flow was blocked and and so I just wanted a way,

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Speaker 1: a a pressure way to release music and songs that

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Speaker 1: I thought were cool and working producers that I thought

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Speaker 1: were interesting. Um, that didn't affect my career in my life,

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Speaker 1: And so I started Patreon and then I started doing

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Speaker 1: the live stream, and I combined the two. Well, well, well,

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Speaker 1: let's stay with Patreon then, since you started there. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so when you first started Patreon. How did you drive

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Speaker 1: people to Patreon? Just social media? Basically, I I just

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Speaker 1: went on. I made the banners of all my pages,

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Speaker 1: you know, an image, and only most people didn't know

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Speaker 1: what it was at the time. I didn't know what

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Speaker 1: it was. My my manager at the time, uh, Mike Crowley.

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Speaker 1: I brought this idea to me, and um, it seemed interesting,

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Speaker 1: so we we set it up and I just tried

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Speaker 1: to figure out what I was gonna do, which was okay.

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Speaker 1: We got a lot of things going on here. You

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Speaker 1: say Mike Crowley was your manager, which would imply he's

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Speaker 1: not your manager anymore. Correct. What happened there? We just

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Speaker 1: we had a really good run, um uh for close

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Speaker 1: to fifteen years, and you know, I just reached a

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Speaker 1: time where it was it was time for us to

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Speaker 1: move on, and so we did. We're still friends and

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Speaker 1: uh no ill will of any kind. Just uh. I

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Speaker 1: have a lot of gratitude for him. And do you

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Speaker 1: have a manager now? I do? I do? UM, I

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Speaker 1: had I got a second manager after Mike, and then

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Speaker 1: um we split up during the pandemic and uh now

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Speaker 1: I work with Holly Lohman with Red Light Management. How

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Speaker 1: did you get hooked up there. Uh, she works with

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Speaker 1: some people I know, and UM, a lot of folks,

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Speaker 1: my my wife, my attorney, UM, and just a lot

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Speaker 1: of people in the business who knew I was looking

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Speaker 1: and needed help. UM recommended her. Her name just kept

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Speaker 1: coming up. So I I just cold called her and said, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, let's meet for lunch and and talk it over.

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Speaker 1: And so we we hit it off and she had

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Speaker 1: room for me, and and so we've been at it

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Speaker 1: for uh, you know, almost a year now. Okay, Now,

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Speaker 1: red Light is a unique business model. I won't go

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Speaker 1: into all the depth at this point in time, but

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Speaker 1: they're managers to have individual acts, but they all work together.

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Speaker 1: Do you find any benefit having your manager part of

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Speaker 1: a larger organization in this case red Light. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean I think there's still things I'm waiting to see,

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Speaker 1: you know, how much they pay off. But I know

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Speaker 1: that she can see what's happening with with a lot

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Speaker 1: of other acts, and she's in close contact with a

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Speaker 1: lot of other managers. UM. And and I think some

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Speaker 1: things as basic as they send out a memo saying

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Speaker 1: you know this, these people are looking for a song

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Speaker 1: for a commercial, or here's a here's an opening opportunity

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Speaker 1: or you know supports lot or that might be good

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Speaker 1: or um. So it's it's similar to you know, if

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Speaker 1: you're with a booking agency, some things are going to

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Speaker 1: come across the table that may not have been aimed

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Speaker 1: at you, but but you and benefit from them. So

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Speaker 1: you made people aware of Patreon. On social media? What

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Speaker 1: platforms are you on? Which ones work? And how active

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Speaker 1: are you? I am on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and

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Speaker 1: I guess I'm on Twitch, although I don't know how

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Speaker 1: I'm smile. But if you're on Twitch, begs a question

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Speaker 1: are you a gamer? And I'm not? No, okay, but

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Speaker 1: you're on Twitch, so yeah, go into those three platforms

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Speaker 1: and how you're using, etcetera. I have gone back and

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Speaker 1: forth over the years from being very involved to uh

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Speaker 1: not touching them from a month and it's it's it's

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Speaker 1: a struggle. I think a lot of musicians and a

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Speaker 1: lot of people period, but I seem to have this

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Speaker 1: conversation all the time with folks. Uh, it's this love

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Speaker 1: hate relationship like where we know it's essential or we

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Speaker 1: feel like it's essential. We feel like we're missing out

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Speaker 1: if we're not posting everything. We do all the time

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Speaker 1: and building this rapport and forming people I don't even know.

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Speaker 1: I struggle with how essential it really is. Um. But

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Speaker 1: but most of the time I think it's incredibly important

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Speaker 1: and something that I need to do. But I also

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Speaker 1: don't like doing it and I'm really uncomfortable doing it.

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Speaker 1: Um it's all my insecurities come out with it. Here's

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Speaker 1: here's what I'm thinking. Do you like me? Here's the

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Speaker 1: thing I'm gonna do. Are you gonna respond to it?

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Speaker 1: And and then I'm looking at other people's reactions and

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Speaker 1: it's hard not to compare and say, well this this

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Speaker 1: person has way more followers, or this person is funnier

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Speaker 1: than I am, and I find that it can lead

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Speaker 1: to uh kind of unhealthy um thing for me. And

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Speaker 1: and um it's also time consuming. So um I my

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Speaker 1: my wife the last couple of months has been helping

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Speaker 1: me out um with it, and it's been a godsend

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Speaker 1: because I now I just pick it up if I

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Speaker 1: want to look at the new is or something. But

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Speaker 1: I don't have to. It's a full time job, you know.

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Speaker 1: It's it's it's I want to be writing songs, you know,

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Speaker 1: are living life. So you mentioned your insecurities said, those

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Speaker 1: may feed your creativity, but what are your insecurity since

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Speaker 1: you mentioned them, well, my insecurities point, um, yeah, I've

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Speaker 1: got them all. It's uh, it's a constant work. I

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Speaker 1: mean insecurities about my my talents, my my my voice,

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Speaker 1: my looks, my physique, my career, my um, you know,

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Speaker 1: the job as a parent. Um Uh, there's there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of a lot of self doubt and uncertainty and

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Speaker 1: healthy amount is healthy. Um. But well, I guess the

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Speaker 1: question would be, you know, we live in an era

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Speaker 1: where people boast, and especially on social media institum am

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Speaker 1: being the prime example of that. To what degree does

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Speaker 1: that self confidence and people do you think help them

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Speaker 1: or hurt them? Musicians? I'm speaking of the self confidence

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Speaker 1: people we you know, we all know we forget the

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Speaker 1: raw level who someone really is in terms of evidencing

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Speaker 1: themselves in public. A lot of people demonstrate an incredible

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Speaker 1: self confidence. And if you have insecurities, you know, I

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Speaker 1: find this myself. I have insecurities and then all these

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Speaker 1: people got they're all telling me I have the great

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Speaker 1: and they're beating me down. And then every once while,

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Speaker 1: I can you know detach and said, well, I've met

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Speaker 1: a lot of people. This has got more to do

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Speaker 1: with that person than me, and it's just bluster. But

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Speaker 1: should I evidence more self confidence? So to become a

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Speaker 1: public figure and musician, that requires a certain amount of

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Speaker 1: belief in yourself and self confidence. So did you feel that, Hey, man,

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Speaker 1: I've got something to deliver, I'm entitled or is it?

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Speaker 1: Have you been tentative along? I've been pretty tentative. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there there are times, just like in life with my

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Speaker 1: my personality in real life, there are times where I'm

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Speaker 1: incredibly confident and um, and there are times where I'm crippling, crippling,

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Speaker 1: lee insecure, and there's times where I have a pretty

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Speaker 1: good balance. Um. And you know that's probably been reflected

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Speaker 1: in my social media. UM. I just I find the

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Speaker 1: I am expected to be or I feel like I'm

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Speaker 1: expected to be confident or I need to be confident

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Speaker 1: to put stuff out there, and that feels like a

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Speaker 1: disconnect sometimes because I want to. Um, I work really

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Speaker 1: hard at being connected with myself and not getting disconnected,

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Speaker 1: and there feels like a major disconnect sometimes when I say, hey,

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Speaker 1: here's this great thing going on, and I may not

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Speaker 1: be in a great place that day. It's not reflective

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Speaker 1: of my actual life. It's reflective of one part of

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Speaker 1: my career or or one moment in my life. And

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Speaker 1: and so that's a that's just a thing that I've

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Speaker 1: battle with is is uh. It does not feel seamless

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Speaker 1: like here, here's where I am in life, and then

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Speaker 1: here's why I'm on social media. Um. That that bothers me. That, Um,

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Speaker 1: I feel like I have to to put out some

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Speaker 1: sort of something. I don't know, maybe I take it

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Speaker 1: all too seriously, but it's this is great. No, you're

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Speaker 1: you're being honest like you are in your music. And

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Speaker 1: that's why it resonates, which begs the question using that

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Speaker 1: term again, what works on social media? What gets a reaction? Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, I find that when I am honest, that

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Speaker 1: tends to work when I tell uh some part of

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Speaker 1: my story in a real way, because I can post, hey,

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Speaker 1: I here's something cool I did and crickets and I

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Speaker 1: can say here's a struggle I had, and I get

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Speaker 1: a response. And so that's been informative to me. Doesn't

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Speaker 1: make it necessarily easier to put that out there, but

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Speaker 1: I have I have learned that I think people want

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Speaker 1: connection and and that you know, asked about the pandemic

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Speaker 1: that that was. That was my big takeaway was people

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Speaker 1: wanted connection, They wanted something authentic and and I think

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Speaker 1: I spent many years feeling like I needed to be

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Speaker 1: something that I wasn't because there I needed to be

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Speaker 1: a front man, I needed to be a rock singer,

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Speaker 1: I needed to be a drunk and whatever. And and

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Speaker 1: it's really hard to just be what you are, whatever

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Speaker 1: it is in that moment, to be vulnerable and and

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Speaker 1: when you're in the public eye. And so yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: that's I guess the struggle. Okay, so which of these

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Speaker 1: platforms you mentioned Twitter? You mentioned Facebook and Instagram for

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Speaker 1: your audience, which one has the largest audience in terms

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Speaker 1: of when you actually say something as opposed to the

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Speaker 1: number of followers, It says probably Facebook still um, with

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Speaker 1: Instagram being second and Twitter as a distant third for me. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so let's go back. You decide to go on Patreon.

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Speaker 1: There's a way to spur your creativity. You put out

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Speaker 1: the message. Two things, one how many people actually bite

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Speaker 1: and the nature of Patreon is their different tiers. What

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Speaker 1: were the different tiers you established? I think my initial

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Speaker 1: so I've had two sort of runs with Patreon, and

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Speaker 1: the first time I did it for a couple of

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Speaker 1: years and I had three four folks on there, and

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Speaker 1: my tears went from a dollar to a hundred dollars

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Speaker 1: And essentially I just told them you're going to get

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Speaker 1: a song a month and then here's a few extra things.

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Speaker 1: I wasn't all that creative with it, but I just

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Speaker 1: tried to figure out some way to make it worth

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Speaker 1: their while financially. But the money. I wasn't looking at

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Speaker 1: it to live off the money. I was looking at

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Speaker 1: it to get money to pay producers so that I

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Speaker 1: could go. I worked. My first one was with John

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Speaker 1: Levinthal and then I went work to Charlie Sexton or

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Speaker 1: just different people um um uh that I just really

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Speaker 1: wanted to play music with. And and so that's what

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Speaker 1: it was. I wasn't really profiting off of it. It

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Speaker 1: was just giving me the opportunity to to pay people

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Speaker 1: that I wanted to work with. Okay, so if someone

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Speaker 1: signed up for a hundred dollars, what they get, you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't even remember what I was offering back then.

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Speaker 1: I'll just skip real quick to where it is now. Well, well,

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Speaker 1: let's let's hold that for a second. Okay, So you start,

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Speaker 1: you're doing it for creative purposes. People are paying monthly

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Speaker 1: to what degree? And I think it's inherent. You're seeing

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Speaker 1: whether the numbers are staying steady, going up, going down?

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Speaker 1: And to what degree did you feel you had to

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Speaker 1: service people to a degree in order to make sure

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Speaker 1: they stayed on? Yeah? I, Uh, the numbers were pretty

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Speaker 1: consistent as long as I was consistent. But then I

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Speaker 1: stopped being consistent, and then people express frustration and say,

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Speaker 1: you know, what are we paying for? You're not really delivering.

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Speaker 1: And so I felt like I was taking my best

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Speaker 1: fans and and rather than making them closer to me,

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Speaker 1: that I was making them regret trusting me. And I

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Speaker 1: didn't like that. So, and I had just made a

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Speaker 1: new record using a lot of the songs, you know,

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Speaker 1: different recordings, but a lot of the songs that I

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Speaker 1: had written and recorded initially on Patreon um and so

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Speaker 1: I decided to shut it down and so I could

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Speaker 1: pay attention and focus on the on the record, and uh,

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Speaker 1: that's what so I gave it. It was about two

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Speaker 1: years that I went with it, and it was it

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Speaker 1: was wonderful to get to make music. But then it

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Speaker 1: felt like a job, started to feel like a full

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Speaker 1: time job, and I was I had a pretty busy

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Speaker 1: life at that point. Decided to put it away for

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Speaker 1: a minute, but you restarted it. What was the motivation

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Speaker 1: of restarting? What's different or the same about it now? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So that was another another result of the pandemic UM

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Speaker 1: and I was fortunate that even though I had shut

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Speaker 1: it down, I still had I don't know, three hundred

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Speaker 1: or so of my the followers were still there. And

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Speaker 1: so I just put it back out and said, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna start charging uh per month again, and I

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Speaker 1: reworked the tears and UM and then I got like

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Speaker 1: around seven hundred patrons, and I think people were feeling,

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Speaker 1: you know, like they wanted to help out. They knew

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Speaker 1: musicians were in a tight spot. So so I got

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Speaker 1: more significantly more than I had the first time around,

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Speaker 1: and I expanded it all the way up to a

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Speaker 1: thousand dollar level UM. And so you'd asked, what the

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Speaker 1: what you get? I think at like a five dollar level,

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Speaker 1: I send you a signed set list from a show

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Speaker 1: of your choice, or UM, you can get a v

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Speaker 1: I P meet and greet at a show. Um, at

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Speaker 1: the hundred dollar level, I'll do a cameo, I'll sing

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Speaker 1: you know, a personalized song for you or something, all

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Speaker 1: the way up to a thousand, which after a year,

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Speaker 1: i'll do a I'll do a concert at your house

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Speaker 1: like a you know, acoustic show or um, I'll send

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Speaker 1: people guitars and signed lyrics and and uh, all my

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Speaker 1: vinyl and basically anything I can think of. I just

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Speaker 1: try and make it worth people's while to to support me.

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Speaker 1: So if you've done any live shows, of course, the

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Speaker 1: pandemic has continued, and how many people will pay a

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars on long Well, I currently have two people

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Speaker 1: who who do that, and UM, I'm very grateful for them.

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Speaker 1: So if you've done the live shows yet, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: did one. I did one of them. What was that experience? Like?

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Speaker 1: I was cool? It's um Uh, it's just a very

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Speaker 1: generous guy who, um, who loves music and is financially

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Speaker 1: in a position to to support stuff that he loves.

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Speaker 1: So it's um, he supports me through through Patreon and

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Speaker 1: then every single live stream I would do, he would

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Speaker 1: support me through that and and so uh and you

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Speaker 1: know sometimes it's uh, I spent a long time kind

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Speaker 1: of being too close to my fans and then sometimes

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Speaker 1: you know, keep really keeping a distance because it it

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Speaker 1: didn't feel um, I was just trying to establish some boundaries. Um.

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Speaker 1: And but Patreon has has been good for me and

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Speaker 1: that um uh. You know, the people that are on

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Speaker 1: there or in my experience of been solid folks who

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Speaker 1: just want to support something that they appreciate, and so

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Speaker 1: I keep the guidelines. There. You have the two people

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Speaker 1: paying a thousand dollars. You know, you mentioned your insecurities past.

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Speaker 1: You know, if you put up a date and you

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Speaker 1: go to a club that's an established business, you play,

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Speaker 1: you get paid, assuming people come. When someone sends you

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Speaker 1: a thousand dollars a month, do you have any guilt?

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Speaker 1: But you just say, this is a business. Obviously they

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Speaker 1: can afford it, and I'm giving something back. It's transactions. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: If I have any guilt, it's maybe maybe sometimes I

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Speaker 1: just feel like I'm not doing enough, But I also

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Speaker 1: have to realize that I do. I have a lot

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Speaker 1: going on in my life and uh, and if they're

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Speaker 1: not happy, they can, you know, they can let me know,

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Speaker 1: and I try to. I try to reach out and

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Speaker 1: stay in contact and just make sure folks are doing

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Speaker 1: doing well. Um, I lucked out and I found a

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Speaker 1: woman to help me out with this stuff. Before I

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Speaker 1: had a manager. Um finding my last manager and and

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Speaker 1: help me keep it all together. They're organized, Otherwise I'd

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Speaker 1: be lost, um fulfilling all this stuff. So UM, No,

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Speaker 1: I don't feel guilty. It's ah. Um. I do a thing,

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Speaker 1: they appreciate it and and they support me, and I

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Speaker 1: appreciate them for that. So the people, let's you know,

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Speaker 1: the steady three people on Patreon, that's the result of

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Speaker 1: them being so close to you online and limited in

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Speaker 1: numbers supposed to a big like a big act. Do

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Speaker 1: you actually know them and interact with them? Uh? Some

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Speaker 1: of them? I mean, and I know a few of

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Speaker 1: them just because they're friends, are supported and then I

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Speaker 1: know a few of them, Um, through meet and greets

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Speaker 1: and stuff. They'll come to the show and you start

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Speaker 1: to recognize names. You know, there's some people who are active.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of people who sign up and I

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Speaker 1: think don't ever read my emails because they just want

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Speaker 1: to support me. They don't actually want to listen to

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Speaker 1: everything I have to say. Um. And I know that

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Speaker 1: to be true because I support a lot of people

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Speaker 1: on Patreon and and I. You know, there's a certain

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Speaker 1: percentage that I just delete because I don't have the

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Speaker 1: time to to go through it all. But um, um,

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Speaker 1: and that's fine. I appreciate them just wanting to support it. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So how many people do you support on Patreon? I

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Speaker 1: currently have six people that I, uh support and with

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Speaker 1: those big names that the average person recognizes or they're

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Speaker 1: more personal friends. Yeah, I'm not sure who. I mean,

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Speaker 1: what one is Amanda Palmer, who's the biggest act on there,

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Speaker 1: and and I And that's more educational for me, um,

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Speaker 1: just trying to study, you know, how she got to

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Speaker 1: where she's at and and um, and how she engages

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Speaker 1: with her audience, which is I don't know how many

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Speaker 1: thousands of people, but it's it's pretty impressive. Uh. And

401
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Speaker 1: then the other ones Joe Pug who's a great songwriter

402
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Speaker 1: and has a great podcast called The Working Songwriter, Will

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Speaker 1: kimbro It's a great fantastic musician, guitar player places and

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Speaker 1: the Harris and Binding crowd a bunch of people. Um.

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Speaker 1: And then Travis Lynnville who is also in my band

406
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Speaker 1: sometimes but he's a fantastic singer songwriter and um so

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Speaker 1: maybe not a lot of household names, but if you're

408
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Speaker 1: in the music business, names folks might know. Okay, So

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Speaker 1: let's go to the live show. So you start these

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Speaker 1: live shows, You've done sixty during the pandemic. Let's start

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Speaker 1: with the beginning, because I'm sure there's an arc to

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Speaker 1: you know, you put the word out. How many people

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Speaker 1: show up and they're free I assume correct, But you're

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Speaker 1: encouraged to tip. So how do you sell the tips?

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Speaker 1: Into what degree does that work? You generate tips? At first,

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Speaker 1: I didn't try and sell it at all. I just

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Speaker 1: put it up there and people were again, everybody just

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Speaker 1: really wanted to help out, and that was amazing and overwhelming.

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Speaker 1: Really just it felt like all of the work that

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Speaker 1: I had done in the past twenty years to try

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Speaker 1: and be you know, to not only make the art

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Speaker 1: and do a good job, but but just try and

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Speaker 1: be decent and and somewhat connected with my fans. Uh

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Speaker 1: it felt like it was I was, you know, reaping

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Speaker 1: the rewards of that and and that harvest. Um uh

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Speaker 1: So initially people just gave very generously and um but

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Speaker 1: again I just thought the bottom was gonna gonna fall

428
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:32,639
Speaker 1: out at some point, So, UM, I started finding ways

429
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:36,679
Speaker 1: to encourage folks. Um, it's like I said, the postcard

430
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:39,000
Speaker 1: I would I would, just to be clear, that's virtual

431
00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:42,760
Speaker 1: or physical postcards. These are physical postcards. So every week

432
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:46,479
Speaker 1: I would design a postcard through Vista print, print off

433
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:49,680
Speaker 1: two fifty or five hundred of them, um, and it

434
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:51,240
Speaker 1: would be just you know, my wife would take a

435
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:53,840
Speaker 1: picture of me in the living room, right, take a

436
00:24:53,840 --> 00:24:57,879
Speaker 1: picture of my dog, or or just just some of

437
00:24:57,920 --> 00:25:01,359
Speaker 1: them were funny something, you know, someones Matthew McConaughey's body

438
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:04,480
Speaker 1: with my face on it. Um, you know, just whatever

439
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 1: I could do to um to change it up. And

440
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:13,280
Speaker 1: and so I'll give that out. And then I how

441
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:16,199
Speaker 1: did you get everybody's addressed? And who actually addressed the envelopes?

442
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:19,480
Speaker 1: Was at all computerized? No? It was, Um, I got

443
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:23,719
Speaker 1: the addresses on PayPal. If you tip using PayPal, your

444
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:27,239
Speaker 1: are address automatically shows up and on Venmo. I just

445
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 1: I made a point of letting people know if you

446
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:32,080
Speaker 1: use Vinmo and you want a postcard, type your address

447
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 1: in the comments and I'm after you tip. So, just

448
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:37,080
Speaker 1: just to be very clear, if someone were to tip

449
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:42,680
Speaker 1: you via PayPal, you have instant access to their address. Yeah, okay,

450
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,000
Speaker 1: so you have all those addressed. Now you're telling me

451
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:49,520
Speaker 1: about addressing the postcard. Yeah, so then I would I

452
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 1: would my show the last two hours, but it would

453
00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:54,760
Speaker 1: take all week because I would I would, you know,

454
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:58,399
Speaker 1: find a postcard, do the show, get it all set up,

455
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:02,840
Speaker 1: and uh and again this is on my laptop or

456
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:06,439
Speaker 1: my iPad. It's not high quality tech at this point.

457
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 1: And uh. Then I would go through and and address everyone,

458
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:13,159
Speaker 1: and I would try and write them. You know, I

459
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:14,959
Speaker 1: look back now, and it was like I was. I

460
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:16,840
Speaker 1: was trying really hard to let him know I cared.

461
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:19,879
Speaker 1: So I would write a paragraph of thank you, thank you,

462
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:24,159
Speaker 1: but it took it would take weeks and and and

463
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:27,239
Speaker 1: there were times uhum where there's a lot going on

464
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:30,119
Speaker 1: and would back up. So, um, I told you that

465
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:35,840
Speaker 1: I um uh found this uh woman, there's a there's

466
00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:39,200
Speaker 1: a manager here in town. I'm Tracy Thomas um. And

467
00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:43,479
Speaker 1: Tracy had hired a woman to work for right as

468
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:45,719
Speaker 1: the pandemic hit, and so she moved here and all

469
00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:47,879
Speaker 1: of a sudden didn't have work much work to do,

470
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:51,159
Speaker 1: and so Tracy let me hire let's let's just go

471
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:54,720
Speaker 1: back where is here. Where are you now? I'm sorry, Nashville.

472
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:57,840
Speaker 1: I'm in Nashville, Tennessee. Yeah, so she hired this person

473
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 1: and uh so then let me um higher as well.

474
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 1: And so then things really got a lot better because

475
00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:09,400
Speaker 1: because um she would address all the stuff and and

476
00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:13,440
Speaker 1: moderate the shows and let people know what was what Okay,

477
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 1: So generally speaking, how many people would come to a show,

478
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:21,000
Speaker 1: and how much money could you make in tips my

479
00:27:21,119 --> 00:27:24,600
Speaker 1: first show, there's probably people, maybe two thousand. It was.

480
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 1: It was it started off really well, and I was

481
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:36,719
Speaker 1: probably averaging a show something like that. Um. And then

482
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:41,399
Speaker 1: I started doing the postcards and then uh, and that

483
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:43,640
Speaker 1: went on for a while, and I think I've maybe

484
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:48,520
Speaker 1: got as high as for grand or something, um, which

485
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:51,880
Speaker 1: was incredible. I mean against sitting here at my computer

486
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:54,880
Speaker 1: and I was having dinner at my own table by

487
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:59,200
Speaker 1: eight pm, uh, you know, and and just watching money

488
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 1: come in. UM. And so the thing that really made

489
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 1: a shift was or give it a boost was I

490
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 1: started including the set list. I would hand draw a

491
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:13,840
Speaker 1: set list and print copies off and sign it and

492
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:15,880
Speaker 1: I said, if you, if you contribute thirty dollars and more,

493
00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: I will I'll send you this as well. And then

494
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:25,680
Speaker 1: so then people started contributing in greater amounts and um

495
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:29,480
Speaker 1: uh and then I do lyrics each week I do lyrics.

496
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:32,040
Speaker 1: So I started trying to get a package of nice

497
00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:35,080
Speaker 1: things to make it worth your while and uh and

498
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 1: it just increased and grew, and we gave a lot

499
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:40,040
Speaker 1: of money a charity. Um uh. So every week we

500
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 1: would connect with the charity. My son's is a magician,

501
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 1: among other things, and he started sending them videos of

502
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:49,280
Speaker 1: himself doing magic, and that became part of the show.

503
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 1: My wife would comes thing with us, um um, the

504
00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:55,840
Speaker 1: dogs would be here, and it just became very personal.

505
00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:57,440
Speaker 1: And all these people felt like they were in our

506
00:28:57,440 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 1: house and they knew my family and they knew what

507
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 1: I uh did. And then, like I said, I started

508
00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 1: taking requests and and just people would come and tell

509
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:10,760
Speaker 1: me their stories of loss or of struggle or of

510
00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:12,760
Speaker 1: joy or how they met at my show and got

511
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 1: married or how their father loved me. And it passed

512
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:18,720
Speaker 1: away and and it just was it felt like this

513
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 1: place for people to come and connect. And the more

514
00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 1: that happens, the money went up. And um, I mean

515
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 1: by the end, if I went back and average that

516
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 1: it probably came out to four or five grand the

517
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:38,160
Speaker 1: show on average. Wow, that's great. And since you did

518
00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: sixty five, did you consistently get the same number of viewers? No?

519
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 1: It uh, it fluctuated a bit, um and sometime around

520
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: after I've been at it about a year, things were

521
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 1: starting to drop off, and finally I put it away

522
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 1: for a while because I didn't want to be the

523
00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:59,200
Speaker 1: last one at the party. It was it was uh,

524
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:02,720
Speaker 1: consistently around seven or eight hundred, and then it got

525
00:30:02,800 --> 00:30:05,760
Speaker 1: it was like five hundred, six hundred, and then by

526
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: the end it was starting to get to round three

527
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 1: or four hundred and and um, which is still incredible,

528
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:12,520
Speaker 1: But live work was starting to come back as well,

529
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 1: and so I thought, um, it might be time to

530
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:17,880
Speaker 1: get out there and start tourning in. But I see

531
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 1: you did one with your wife on Valentine's today. Yeah,

532
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:24,240
Speaker 1: what was the motivation there? Into what degreer? Are you

533
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 1: still doing these live streams? I've done two this year.

534
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 1: I did one on my birthday. Um. I got COVID

535
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:32,320
Speaker 1: on New Year's Day and I was supposed to go

536
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 1: to Colorado for a festival and I couldn't, so I, um,

537
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:38,400
Speaker 1: I just thought I'll celebrate here at my house and

538
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 1: that ended up being my best one ever. So I

539
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:43,560
Speaker 1: got paid more for that than I would have to

540
00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 1: fly to Colorado and do the festival. So it's it's

541
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 1: been a real eye opening, kind of game changing thing.

542
00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:55,120
Speaker 1: And the Valentine's Day one, Um, we just hadn't done

543
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:56,680
Speaker 1: a show in a while, and we we do a

544
00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 1: lot of songs together and and and I've got a

545
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: lot of love songs and and uh, and we have

546
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 1: fun doing it. So we we just thought why not.

547
00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: We're here. I'm not working much right now on the road. Okay,

548
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:10,479
Speaker 1: So you said when we started to discuss all this

549
00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 1: that having had this experience, your eyes were opened and

550
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:17,760
Speaker 1: you've reevaluated a little bit going forward. So do you

551
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 1: think you'll just go back into your ole routine primarily

552
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:23,760
Speaker 1: working on the road, or will be different now? Well,

553
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:25,800
Speaker 1: I'm trying, like a lot of people, I think, to

554
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 1: figure out what lesson I've learned here and then to

555
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:32,360
Speaker 1: apply it and not just fall back into what I

556
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 1: was doing, because what I was doing wasn't ultimately fulfilling me. Um,

557
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:41,320
Speaker 1: And so I'm trying to find a balance, Like I

558
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:44,520
Speaker 1: still enjoy performing for people, and and sometimes I enjoy

559
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 1: the travel and and um uh, but the grind of it,

560
00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 1: that being away from home. You know, I have a

561
00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 1: home I like, and and and um I live in

562
00:31:57,080 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 1: a town and I enjoy and and uh uh. It's

563
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:02,720
Speaker 1: it's hard. It's harder and harder as I get older

564
00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:05,200
Speaker 1: to to just go out there and you know, stay

565
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 1: at the holiday and express with a bunch of guys,

566
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:10,120
Speaker 1: no matter how much I like them. And so I'm

567
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 1: just trying to find a balance. And and that's that's

568
00:32:12,360 --> 00:32:14,400
Speaker 1: a bunch of things. That's maybe a little less touring,

569
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:17,880
Speaker 1: but but I still enjoy getting out there, but mixing

570
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 1: in live streams, making songwriting and publishing and recording a

571
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: bigger part of my income and and work well work

572
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:30,520
Speaker 1: and then hopefully income. Um And I'm just more interested

573
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:34,120
Speaker 1: in in the working on my craft and being an

574
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:39,400
Speaker 1: artist than I am being a road dog. And um

575
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:41,920
Speaker 1: that that feels like a more balanced life for me

576
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 1: right now. And that's what I'm looking for. Okay. Prior

577
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 1: to the pandemic, how many days a year were you doing? Well?

578
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 1: My early days, I I would do over two hundred annually. Um.

579
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 1: And in the last five years, it was you know,

580
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:59,480
Speaker 1: it was down to probably a hundred or so. Okay,

581
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:01,720
Speaker 1: let's go back to the beginning. Where did you grow up?

582
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 1: I was born in Houston, Texas in nineteen seventy six,

583
00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:08,280
Speaker 1: and I grew up about twenty miles north in a

584
00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:11,680
Speaker 1: suburb planning community called the Woodlands, Texas. And what was

585
00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 1: that like being in that planning community. Well, when I

586
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:16,720
Speaker 1: moved there, there was twelve people. I think now there's

587
00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty thousand, So it was it was

588
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 1: just a pine forest at first. And he literally watched

589
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:25,800
Speaker 1: it get built out and the neighborhoods get built out,

590
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 1: and the schools get bigger, and it was great in

591
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. Um, but it was also, you know,

592
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:36,360
Speaker 1: mostly white, conservative spot. And and you know, there was

593
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 1: there was a lot of golf courses in golf course crossings.

594
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 1: And as a teenager, I mean, like a lot of people,

595
00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:47,239
Speaker 1: you feel sort of constricted by your hometown. And and

596
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 1: I was into Carolac and Dylan and Willie Nelson and

597
00:33:50,960 --> 00:33:54,440
Speaker 1: and and so I was like, I don't know where

598
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 1: those guys live, but it's it's clearly not here. So

599
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:02,520
Speaker 1: I had a really strong desire to to go find

600
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:04,200
Speaker 1: that out. And so I spent a lot of my

601
00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:08,279
Speaker 1: years just really excited or anxious to to to go

602
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 1: travel and and uh get a little more life experience. Okay,

603
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:15,920
Speaker 1: So what did your parents do for a living? My

604
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 1: parents were both attorneys. And how many kids in the family. Uh,

605
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:21,719
Speaker 1: there's two. I'm the oldest. I have a brother's nine

606
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:24,960
Speaker 1: years younger than I am, who's also an attorney. And

607
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:27,880
Speaker 1: how good were you in school? And were you popular

608
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:31,040
Speaker 1: not popular? What kind of kids were you? I was

609
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:34,920
Speaker 1: somebody who wanted to be popular and wasn't, which is

610
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:39,319
Speaker 1: being unpopular spine if you're okay with it, and I wasn't.

611
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 1: I struggled. Uh. Um, so I guess I was on

612
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 1: the cusp. I I played sports, not not great, but

613
00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:51,440
Speaker 1: enough to to be around on the team for as

614
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:55,760
Speaker 1: long as I could. Um. Uh. I didn't date until

615
00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:58,040
Speaker 1: my senior year in high school. And I got my

616
00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 1: first kiss when I was eighteen. Um and UM, I

617
00:35:04,719 --> 00:35:07,319
Speaker 1: don't know. Just struggled to find my identity and who

618
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:12,720
Speaker 1: I was. UM. And I got into theater, which became

619
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:14,759
Speaker 1: a really important thing for me that that opened me

620
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:18,080
Speaker 1: up to a lot of different Uh. You know, I

621
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 1: went from being in a locker room with fifty guys

622
00:35:20,080 --> 00:35:22,400
Speaker 1: talking about a certain same thing to being in a

623
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:28,760
Speaker 1: room with with a much more diverse and uh interesting

624
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:31,320
Speaker 1: to me crowd. And how well did you do in school?

625
00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:34,719
Speaker 1: I started off okay, I barely, I barely got out

626
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:37,200
Speaker 1: and I greet I went to college and graduated last

627
00:35:37,200 --> 00:35:39,560
Speaker 1: in my class in college. So I ended up being

628
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:41,879
Speaker 1: about as bad as well. Let's go a little bit slower.

629
00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:46,920
Speaker 1: So you're in school, when do you get infected by music?

630
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:48,920
Speaker 1: And when do you pick up an instrument? And to

631
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:51,320
Speaker 1: what degree your parents push you or to what degree

632
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:54,840
Speaker 1: is that just spontaneous generation from your friends? Yeah? I

633
00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 1: know my parents didn't push me at all. Um and uh,

634
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:02,160
Speaker 1: I I just grew up listening to country music. I

635
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:05,400
Speaker 1: knew that was Some of my earliest memories are listening

636
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:06,759
Speaker 1: to the Blue Eyes Crying in the rain in the

637
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:10,560
Speaker 1: back seat of the car. And and um, so I

638
00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:16,799
Speaker 1: loved country, I loved fifties rock and roll, sixties rock

639
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 1: and roll, and a real I had a couple of

640
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:25,680
Speaker 1: moments that I absolutely remember that were life changing for me. Uh.

641
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:29,160
Speaker 1: One was we would we would occasionally attend the Unitarian Church.

642
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:33,000
Speaker 1: My parents weren't big churchgoers, but we would occasionally go

643
00:36:33,040 --> 00:36:36,720
Speaker 1: to the Interian church, and they weren't known for their choir. Uh,

644
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:40,440
Speaker 1: So rather than have a choir, they would have acts

645
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:42,759
Speaker 1: come by and one day it would be somebody reading

646
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:46,720
Speaker 1: Dante's Inferno. And one day it was a folk trio

647
00:36:47,160 --> 00:36:50,440
Speaker 1: and they came in and sang Dylan songs. And I

648
00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:53,759
Speaker 1: was fourteen and they sang A hard rain is Gonna

649
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:58,440
Speaker 1: fall blowing in the wind. And I went home that

650
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:01,360
Speaker 1: day and I told my parents don't wanted guitar. Um.

651
00:37:02,239 --> 00:37:05,760
Speaker 1: You know, like probably thousands of other people who discovered Dylan,

652
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:09,360
Speaker 1: and uh, because it was I knew I loved music,

653
00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:12,760
Speaker 1: but I didn't know that something about that, the power.

654
00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:16,560
Speaker 1: It just opened me up to the power of song.

655
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 1: Um and changed my life. So we're the type of

656
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:25,719
Speaker 1: person playing in your bedroom or seeking other out, other

657
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 1: people out to play. Did you play live when you

658
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 1: were in high school? What was going on there? Yeah?

659
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:34,600
Speaker 1: I did not play live when I was in high school. Um.

660
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:36,600
Speaker 1: I played in my bedroom mostly, and then you know,

661
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:42,040
Speaker 1: with my friends around at parties and stuff. You know,

662
00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: the one thing I had going I couldn't really sing.

663
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:47,600
Speaker 1: I didn't think, and I barely new guitar. But I

664
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:50,239
Speaker 1: could remember all the lyrics to all the songs. And

665
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:52,280
Speaker 1: there are there are all these guys who could play

666
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:55,440
Speaker 1: Stairway to Heaven our love song on the guitar, but

667
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 1: that's all they could do, and nobody, you know, at

668
00:37:57,640 --> 00:38:00,040
Speaker 1: a party, people want to be a part of the

669
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:01,560
Speaker 1: don't want just sit there and watch you play the

670
00:38:01,600 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 1: same guitar nerds stuff over and over. So that was

671
00:38:06,239 --> 00:38:08,840
Speaker 1: my secret weapon was I can see you every country

672
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:12,359
Speaker 1: song that you want to hear, and so that's kind

673
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 1: of what I did. Um, but it was just it

674
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:18,440
Speaker 1: was just for fun of people's houses or you know,

675
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: sitting around drinking beer. Okay, so you talked about where

676
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:23,920
Speaker 1: you grew up being conservative, but if your parents were

677
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:25,840
Speaker 1: going to the Unitarian Church, I don't think there's a

678
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:29,319
Speaker 1: conservative goes to the Unitarian. So that would seem to

679
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 1: indicate that your parents themselves were liberal. Yeah, yeah, that's

680
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 1: that's safe to say. Okay, So you graduate from high

681
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:38,439
Speaker 1: school and you go to college, where and what your experience?

682
00:38:38,640 --> 00:38:41,839
Speaker 1: What do you do before you graduate? Last I went

683
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:45,080
Speaker 1: to college, I was looking for a small liberal arts school,

684
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:49,759
Speaker 1: uh that didn't have a Greek then. Um, that was

685
00:38:49,880 --> 00:38:52,759
Speaker 1: that was my criteria and I ended up going to

686
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:58,279
Speaker 1: Hendricks College in Conway, Arkansas. UM claim to fame being

687
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 1: that Roger wenton, Bill's brother went there for a year,

688
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:05,040
Speaker 1: and Mary Steam Virgin went there for a year. Um

689
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:12,200
Speaker 1: both of them left for different reasons. Uh and um uh.

690
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 1: So I went there. I didn't know, you know, it

691
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:17,400
Speaker 1: was just sort of expected, you're gonna go to college.

692
00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 1: Just just one stop for a second. Yeah, he's is

693
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:22,640
Speaker 1: your middle name? We always haze. When you started to

694
00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:25,560
Speaker 1: play music, you were Haz. Yeah, No, I was. My

695
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:28,359
Speaker 1: name is Joshua Hayes Carl. And in high school I

696
00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:32,200
Speaker 1: was josh And I never liked that name and I

697
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:38,439
Speaker 1: never liked who I was in a way are Every

698
00:39:38,520 --> 00:39:40,440
Speaker 1: year I would come back to school saying, this is

699
00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:42,359
Speaker 1: the year that I'm gonna be cool and I'm gonna

700
00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:46,280
Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna be different somehow. And then I realized

701
00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:48,880
Speaker 1: is you can't reset these people who have known you

702
00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:52,480
Speaker 1: in their whole lives. And so that never worked out

703
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:55,239
Speaker 1: like I hoped it would. And then with college, I

704
00:39:55,280 --> 00:40:02,719
Speaker 1: had this opportunity to to really reset, and so I went.

705
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:06,319
Speaker 1: I told people my name was Hayes. Um, my dad's

706
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:08,799
Speaker 1: Lloyd Hayes Carl the third, so it's a family name

707
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:14,080
Speaker 1: and I didn't feel like that big of a a thing, um,

708
00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:19,720
Speaker 1: and I I just took that chance to start fresh.

709
00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:21,640
Speaker 1: So how many people were going to the college, and

710
00:40:21,680 --> 00:40:25,000
Speaker 1: what was your experience in college? And it was hundred folks,

711
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:27,800
Speaker 1: it was. It was a very small liberal arts school,

712
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 1: and um, my experience was that I was a terrible

713
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:36,640
Speaker 1: student who didn't know how to manage this time, and

714
00:40:36,719 --> 00:40:42,400
Speaker 1: it made college not great. There was I remember my

715
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:44,799
Speaker 1: first day there was this British politics professor and he

716
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:46,759
Speaker 1: gave me some advice that I wish I had listened to.

717
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:49,239
Speaker 1: He said, he said, I was drunk every day in

718
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:51,279
Speaker 1: college and I got a four point oh. And the

719
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:53,840
Speaker 1: way I did it was I came straight home and

720
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:55,960
Speaker 1: I did my work and then I went out and

721
00:40:55,960 --> 00:40:59,360
Speaker 1: I had a hell of a time and I flipped

722
00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:03,359
Speaker 1: that and to poor results. You know, I just put

723
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:05,640
Speaker 1: off everything until last minute and tried to have a

724
00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:08,520
Speaker 1: hell of a time. But it's hard to relax and

725
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:11,040
Speaker 1: enjoy yourself when you know you've got an exam that

726
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:15,440
Speaker 1: you're not prepared for. So it was I don't know,

727
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:18,360
Speaker 1: it was a great experience, and I probably found myself

728
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:23,000
Speaker 1: in college, but I I regret not being as present

729
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:26,840
Speaker 1: for it and and uh not being a better student.

730
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 1: You obviously weren't focusing on academics, were you, you know,

731
00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:35,799
Speaker 1: playing music where you're hanging with the girls, You're getting drunk.

732
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:41,360
Speaker 1: What was going on? Yeah, all the above, Um, uh,

733
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:45,480
Speaker 1: it was it was, Um, I try to take advantage

734
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 1: of all that. Um and uh, you know, being away

735
00:41:49,239 --> 00:41:55,799
Speaker 1: from home. I failed health my first semester because you know,

736
00:41:55,960 --> 00:41:58,440
Speaker 1: I just it was the classes at eight in the morning,

737
00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:04,000
Speaker 1: and I just wouldn't no intention I'm going that early. Um. Yeah,

738
00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:07,000
Speaker 1: I just tried to make friends and and uh and

739
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 1: kind of find my new identity and and I kept

740
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 1: playing music and started to write some songs and earnest

741
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:17,319
Speaker 1: and and um figure out how I could play them

742
00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 1: perfect folks. Okay, so what point does this trip start

743
00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:23,800
Speaker 1: to become You want to be a professional musician somewhere

744
00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:26,719
Speaker 1: somewhere in college? I mean there. I live in a

745
00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:31,359
Speaker 1: dry county, so there was nowhere to play music, um,

746
00:42:31,560 --> 00:42:35,120
Speaker 1: except for these kind of coffeehouse things that we would do,

747
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 1: these little shows. Uh. But I I think I had

748
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:42,759
Speaker 1: known for a long time it's what I wanted to

749
00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:45,239
Speaker 1: do another idea that I could, that I could that

750
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:48,360
Speaker 1: there was you know, I thought you either have to

751
00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:52,600
Speaker 1: be on MTV. UM. I didn't know how. I didn't

752
00:42:52,600 --> 00:42:55,200
Speaker 1: know how you go about being a singer songwriter, but

753
00:42:56,239 --> 00:42:58,520
Speaker 1: I knew that I loved it and I had a

754
00:42:58,520 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 1: passion for it and that I would always regret if

755
00:43:00,520 --> 00:43:03,279
Speaker 1: I didn't try to do it. So I just kind

756
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:06,279
Speaker 1: of floated through college with the idea that I was

757
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:16,040
Speaker 1: going to get out and then go try it somewhere. Okay,

758
00:43:16,040 --> 00:43:17,879
Speaker 1: a couple of questions for those of us who grew

759
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:20,800
Speaker 1: up on the coasts. You know, though Bill Clinton was

760
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:23,719
Speaker 1: from Arkansas, since you've traveled the country, if not the

761
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:29,040
Speaker 1: world at this point and seeing everything is Arkansas state

762
00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 1: of mind like everywhere else are completely different. Uh, I

763
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:37,320
Speaker 1: think it's uh. I remember coming in, you know, I

764
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:40,279
Speaker 1: always used to say Texas is the one place, like

765
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 1: the place where people are the most proud of themselves

766
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:49,480
Speaker 1: of anywhere in the world, regardless of you know, they

767
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 1: haven't necessarily done anything to earn it, but there's just

768
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:56,520
Speaker 1: this pride and and being from Texas and and uh

769
00:43:57,960 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 1: I remember getting to Arkansas and kind of wagging around

770
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:04,200
Speaker 1: I'm meeting some folks from Texas, and hey, we're we're Texans,

771
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:06,480
Speaker 1: and I thought we were connecting and and they stopped

772
00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:08,719
Speaker 1: me real quickly said, we don't do that around here.

773
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:11,920
Speaker 1: And and I realized. I started to realize, not only

774
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:15,560
Speaker 1: is it obnoxious, but uh, um, you know, our Kansans

775
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:17,879
Speaker 1: had a lot of pride about where they were from.

776
00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:23,080
Speaker 1: And uh and and just like I found that everywhere

777
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:27,840
Speaker 1: in the country has something to offer and um uh

778
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:31,120
Speaker 1: you know most folks appreciate that and and and um.

779
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:35,480
Speaker 1: So so okay, so you graduate from college, you're going

780
00:44:35,560 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 1: to be a singer songwriter. What are your parents the

781
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 1: attorneys to have to say to what degree did they

782
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:44,239
Speaker 1: support you? And what are your initial moves? Well, they

783
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:50,160
Speaker 1: supported me by uh, just emotionally encouraging me. Like I

784
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 1: got very lucky in that. You know, they never they

785
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:58,160
Speaker 1: were not the type of folks who were super concerned

786
00:44:58,280 --> 00:45:00,840
Speaker 1: or at least outwardly with you know, how are you

787
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:03,200
Speaker 1: going to make a living? They just let me do

788
00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:08,160
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do, and so that that was

789
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:10,839
Speaker 1: a blessing. So I got out of college, I went

790
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:15,840
Speaker 1: in detasseled corn in Iowa for the summer um with

791
00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:21,600
Speaker 1: some friends uh. And then moved down to Crystal Beach, Texas.

792
00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:25,279
Speaker 1: UM on the ball of a peninsula, which is this

793
00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:29,040
Speaker 1: very remote beach. It used to be the cheapest beach

794
00:45:29,040 --> 00:45:36,200
Speaker 1: in America. It probably still is. And um and so uh,

795
00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:40,080
Speaker 1: I'm I started hanging out in bars down there and

796
00:45:40,320 --> 00:45:42,839
Speaker 1: um with the idea that I was just gonna live

797
00:45:42,920 --> 00:45:45,680
Speaker 1: by the water and write songs. And uh that's how

798
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 1: I got to start. But my parents, I remember telling

799
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:49,640
Speaker 1: him I wanted to be a singer songwriter and my

800
00:45:49,680 --> 00:45:53,520
Speaker 1: mom said, can you sing? Uh? You know, it was

801
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:57,440
Speaker 1: very surprising to them. Um. And she also said, you know,

802
00:45:57,480 --> 00:46:00,799
Speaker 1: I grew up in this planning community and and I said,

803
00:46:00,960 --> 00:46:03,359
Speaker 1: I want to be a country singer. And she said, well,

804
00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:05,680
Speaker 1: you can't be a country singer, like what are you

805
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 1: gonna sing about? How they ran out of towels at

806
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:11,600
Speaker 1: the country club and uh, you know, so she told

807
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 1: me I had to be a folk singer, um sitting

808
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:18,880
Speaker 1: down and play. But um. Anyway, so they were they

809
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:21,279
Speaker 1: were supportive, and they're good natured about it. And and

810
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 1: I think they were probably very skeptical that anything was

811
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:27,000
Speaker 1: gonna happen, but they gave me room to to find

812
00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:28,760
Speaker 1: out what I wanted to do. And to what degree

813
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:32,200
Speaker 1: did they financially support you? And while you were down

814
00:46:32,200 --> 00:46:33,800
Speaker 1: there at the beach plane in bars, what are you

815
00:46:33,880 --> 00:46:39,160
Speaker 1: living on? Uh, let's see, financially supporting? Well, the they

816
00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:43,279
Speaker 1: didn't give me money but uh um um, but they

817
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 1: were there if I needed them, which you know is reassuring.

818
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:52,040
Speaker 1: And I didn't need them. Um. I was fortunate to

819
00:46:52,239 --> 00:46:57,320
Speaker 1: get by. I lived pretty cheaply and and um uh

820
00:46:57,400 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 1: and I had jobs. I was doing landscaping or or uh.

821
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:04,279
Speaker 1: I was a bartending and waiting tables and it was

822
00:47:04,320 --> 00:47:07,120
Speaker 1: a medical test patients and I man did anything I

823
00:47:07,160 --> 00:47:11,720
Speaker 1: could to scrape together some money and then I would Uh.

824
00:47:11,960 --> 00:47:14,600
Speaker 1: There was a bar used to hang out at uh

825
00:47:14,680 --> 00:47:20,640
Speaker 1: called Bob's Sports Bar and world famous grill, and uh.

826
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:22,359
Speaker 1: I went up to the owner one day and I said,

827
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 1: can I set up in the corner and uh play music?

828
00:47:28,760 --> 00:47:30,759
Speaker 1: You don't have to pay me, I just you know,

829
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:32,479
Speaker 1: I'll put a tip jar out and he said sure.

830
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 1: So I got a four hour gig and uh that

831
00:47:36,719 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 1: started working for me. I started getting other shows up

832
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:43,680
Speaker 1: and down to this remote beach, planned for two people,

833
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 1: ten people or whatever, and um um but I started

834
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:49,839
Speaker 1: making fifty bucks a night, you know, a hundred bucks

835
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:53,960
Speaker 1: a night, um on a good night. And and back then,

836
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:56,640
Speaker 1: I mean I didn't have a bank account. It's all cash,

837
00:47:56,760 --> 00:48:00,719
Speaker 1: so you know, I wouldn't paying taxes and and and uh,

838
00:48:00,800 --> 00:48:02,919
Speaker 1: I wasn't making much money, but I didn't have much

839
00:48:02,960 --> 00:48:06,040
Speaker 1: to spend it on. And we're playing covers or originals.

840
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:10,360
Speaker 1: It was all covers. So that's where my my memory

841
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:13,759
Speaker 1: of lyrics came in handy because I could whether I

842
00:48:13,840 --> 00:48:17,640
Speaker 1: knew the song or not. Uh, musically, I mean I could.

843
00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:20,520
Speaker 1: I usually figured out with a capeo and my limited

844
00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:24,080
Speaker 1: knowledge of chords. Um, but I could always remember the lyrics.

845
00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:25,960
Speaker 1: And so people would come in and they would request

846
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:29,920
Speaker 1: Jimmy Buffett or Paul Simon or Steve Miller or John

847
00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:33,840
Speaker 1: Prine or Chris Christopperson or Willie Nelson, whatever it was

848
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:36,200
Speaker 1: I could. I could usually pull something out that would

849
00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:38,920
Speaker 1: satisfy them. Okay, so what's the next step? How do

850
00:48:38,960 --> 00:48:41,719
Speaker 1: you start writing songs? And how do you move up

851
00:48:41,719 --> 00:48:45,120
Speaker 1: the ladder? So to speak? So I really got lucky

852
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:47,560
Speaker 1: in I mean I was writing songs through college and

853
00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:50,440
Speaker 1: then and then continue to at the beach, and I

854
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:53,200
Speaker 1: was waiting tables in Galveston Island, which is uh, you

855
00:48:53,280 --> 00:48:57,200
Speaker 1: take a ferry across the bay to the island. And

856
00:48:57,200 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 1: and one night after work, I was ah going out

857
00:49:03,600 --> 00:49:05,399
Speaker 1: with some co workers to a bar and the bar

858
00:49:05,520 --> 00:49:07,399
Speaker 1: was closed, and so I'm walking back to my car

859
00:49:07,520 --> 00:49:10,640
Speaker 1: and I hear music coming down an alley and I

860
00:49:10,680 --> 00:49:13,719
Speaker 1: take a left down this alley with another one of

861
00:49:13,719 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 1: those moments that completely changed the course of my life. Um,

862
00:49:17,680 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 1: and I followed the music and walk into this bar

863
00:49:21,600 --> 00:49:27,200
Speaker 1: and there's somebody on stage playing guitar and singing. And

864
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:30,240
Speaker 1: there's a shrine to Towns van Zant on one wall

865
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:35,120
Speaker 1: and another shrine to Lightning Hopkins on another wall. And

866
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:38,239
Speaker 1: it's a place called the Old Quarter Acoustic Cafe. And

867
00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:41,239
Speaker 1: the original Old Quarter was in Houston and it was

868
00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:46,640
Speaker 1: a bar um that Town's VanZant recorded an iconic live

869
00:49:46,719 --> 00:49:52,440
Speaker 1: record at. And this offshoot was owned by his former

870
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:57,319
Speaker 1: bass player again named Rex Bell. And uh, it was

871
00:49:57,360 --> 00:50:00,400
Speaker 1: an open mic night. So I asked the rec like,

872
00:50:00,760 --> 00:50:02,439
Speaker 1: can you can I get up there? And he said sure.

873
00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:05,560
Speaker 1: So when out grabbed my car, my to my car

874
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:08,480
Speaker 1: and got my guitar, came back in and got on stage,

875
00:50:08,960 --> 00:50:12,080
Speaker 1: played a loud love It song and that became my

876
00:50:12,160 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 1: second home. UM. I started at tending bar there, hanging

877
00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:20,600
Speaker 1: out doing open mics and um and so I've been

878
00:50:20,600 --> 00:50:23,880
Speaker 1: playing covers six nights a week down on the Peninsula,

879
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:26,480
Speaker 1: but this was a place where I could play my

880
00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:31,640
Speaker 1: own songs and and Rex started letting me open for people. UM.

881
00:50:31,680 --> 00:50:34,040
Speaker 1: And there was a touring circuit, which I didn't know

882
00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:39,160
Speaker 1: was a thing, and all these singer songwriters, uh Willis,

883
00:50:39,160 --> 00:50:43,319
Speaker 1: Allen Ramsey and Steve Fromholtz and Shake Russell and Dana

884
00:50:43,360 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 1: Cooper and sisters Morales and Ray Wiley Hubbard and all

885
00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:48,560
Speaker 1: these folks will come through and they had careers like

886
00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:51,240
Speaker 1: they did this for a living, but playing their own music,

887
00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:54,160
Speaker 1: and people would buy ticket stuff to see it, which

888
00:50:54,200 --> 00:50:58,520
Speaker 1: was just uh incredible to me. And I started to

889
00:50:58,520 --> 00:51:01,640
Speaker 1: get into open for the open for these people. UM

890
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:04,239
Speaker 1: and a few of them started taking me on the

891
00:51:04,320 --> 00:51:08,120
Speaker 1: road two open shows in Houston or San Antonio or

892
00:51:08,200 --> 00:51:11,800
Speaker 1: Dallas or Austin. And so that's when things really started

893
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:16,480
Speaker 1: kicking into gear. Was was other musicians kind of showing

894
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:18,600
Speaker 1: me the ropes and taking me out, get me started.

895
00:51:18,680 --> 00:51:20,359
Speaker 1: And how do you end up making a record. Well,

896
00:51:20,400 --> 00:51:22,600
Speaker 1: one of those musicians was Lisa Morales. She had a

897
00:51:22,600 --> 00:51:26,600
Speaker 1: band called Sisters Morales, and UH, I had some songs

898
00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:31,759
Speaker 1: together and and I was going to just make a

899
00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:33,359
Speaker 1: a record. I had no idea how I was going

900
00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:35,480
Speaker 1: to do in somebody's garage probably and it would have

901
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:38,240
Speaker 1: been a disaster and I probably wouldn't be here today. UM.

902
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:41,400
Speaker 1: But Lisa stepped in and offered to produce the record,

903
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:44,760
Speaker 1: and I said yes, And so we went to Willie

904
00:51:44,760 --> 00:51:49,680
Speaker 1: Nelson's studio and put Analysis, Texas, and she got a

905
00:51:49,719 --> 00:51:53,640
Speaker 1: great crew of players and we made a made a record,

906
00:51:54,520 --> 00:51:57,920
Speaker 1: and UM, I sent it to a guy named Brad

907
00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:03,480
Speaker 1: Turcott who had a upstart label called UH Compadre Records,

908
00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:05,799
Speaker 1: and he didn't he had done a couple of compilations,

909
00:52:05,800 --> 00:52:11,600
Speaker 1: but he didn't have any actual acts artists, and UM

910
00:52:11,719 --> 00:52:13,920
Speaker 1: I sent it to him and he he signed me

911
00:52:13,960 --> 00:52:18,400
Speaker 1: to a licensing deal. So UM, another really good stroke

912
00:52:18,440 --> 00:52:20,239
Speaker 1: of luck, because I had no idea how to get

913
00:52:20,239 --> 00:52:22,080
Speaker 1: a record out there, and so all of a sudden,

914
00:52:22,080 --> 00:52:24,640
Speaker 1: now I had a record that was professionally produced, and

915
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:27,319
Speaker 1: I had a record label UM that didn't have any

916
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:30,319
Speaker 1: other artists but UM, and the guy was younger than

917
00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:32,040
Speaker 1: Brad was probably younger than I was. I think he

918
00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:33,520
Speaker 1: was twenty three and he was in law school and

919
00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:38,640
Speaker 1: running a record label. Um but uh, but he did

920
00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:40,759
Speaker 1: a great job of it, and and it showed me

921
00:52:41,320 --> 00:52:45,200
Speaker 1: here's what a publicist is, here's uh, here's your first tour.

922
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:48,719
Speaker 1: He got me an agent and and um uh, here's

923
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:50,680
Speaker 1: a radio promoter and all these things that I had

924
00:52:50,719 --> 00:52:52,920
Speaker 1: no idea about any of this. I was just you know,

925
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:56,400
Speaker 1: a cover singer in a bar and then but you

926
00:52:56,440 --> 00:52:59,640
Speaker 1: know who was writing songs on the side. So, um,

927
00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:03,080
Speaker 1: this really opened up my world. Okay, so you paid

928
00:53:03,080 --> 00:53:05,319
Speaker 1: for all that yourself or he paid. I paid for

929
00:53:05,360 --> 00:53:07,960
Speaker 1: the record. I took out a loan, a line of credit.

930
00:53:08,880 --> 00:53:11,440
Speaker 1: So I made the record and then I licensed it

931
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:13,480
Speaker 1: to him, and then he paid for everything after that.

932
00:53:13,719 --> 00:53:16,120
Speaker 1: So we had a seven year licensing deal and which

933
00:53:16,160 --> 00:53:19,520
Speaker 1: was also he paid for the publicity, etcetera. Yeah. Yeah,

934
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:22,200
Speaker 1: So what was the ultimate reception of that record? We

935
00:53:22,239 --> 00:53:25,600
Speaker 1: sold fifty six copies the first week. I still remember

936
00:53:25,640 --> 00:53:31,040
Speaker 1: that number. Um, and uh, you know, it didn't do

937
00:53:31,080 --> 00:53:34,640
Speaker 1: a ton, but it got me all those elements. The

938
00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:37,560
Speaker 1: radio and the publicity, got me on the radar a

939
00:53:37,600 --> 00:53:41,920
Speaker 1: little bit, got me out of state touring UM and

940
00:53:42,200 --> 00:53:43,880
Speaker 1: helped me start to build up a little bit of

941
00:53:43,920 --> 00:53:48,680
Speaker 1: an audience around Texas. UM. UM, there were certain clubs

942
00:53:48,680 --> 00:53:50,400
Speaker 1: where I could go and make money now doing my

943
00:53:50,440 --> 00:53:54,120
Speaker 1: own songs, which before that had not been a reality.

944
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:56,560
Speaker 1: So what's the next step with the next album. Well,

945
00:53:56,600 --> 00:54:00,160
Speaker 1: I met Mike Crowley, who I told you about UM

946
00:54:00,360 --> 00:54:03,239
Speaker 1: and be my first manager. I Well, I went and

947
00:54:03,320 --> 00:54:05,400
Speaker 1: made a second record, paid for the second record on

948
00:54:05,440 --> 00:54:10,560
Speaker 1: my own as well, UM, and took it to Brad

949
00:54:10,600 --> 00:54:13,759
Speaker 1: and asked if you wanted to to put it out

950
00:54:13,760 --> 00:54:16,600
Speaker 1: and he passed. And so I was a free agent

951
00:54:16,680 --> 00:54:19,080
Speaker 1: and I was looking around it at different labels that

952
00:54:19,160 --> 00:54:21,600
Speaker 1: there were a couple of labels who were offering me deals.

953
00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:24,000
Speaker 1: But I grew up reading all the books about how

954
00:54:24,080 --> 00:54:27,040
Speaker 1: musicians get screwed and how you can sell a million

955
00:54:27,080 --> 00:54:30,839
Speaker 1: records and end up owing your label money and all

956
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:35,000
Speaker 1: these kind of things. Uh. And I always was determined,

957
00:54:35,120 --> 00:54:37,120
Speaker 1: like I never thought I would actually have a shot.

958
00:54:37,160 --> 00:54:38,760
Speaker 1: But I told myself, if I do have a shot,

959
00:54:39,560 --> 00:54:44,480
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sink or swim on my own. Like I

960
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:48,000
Speaker 1: didn't want to be dependent on somebody else too too,

961
00:54:48,560 --> 00:54:50,360
Speaker 1: or let them have control of my career or be

962
00:54:50,400 --> 00:54:52,520
Speaker 1: able to sink my career. If I wasn't gonna succeed,

963
00:54:52,560 --> 00:54:54,399
Speaker 1: it was gonna because I wasn't very good, or because

964
00:54:54,440 --> 00:54:57,200
Speaker 1: I didn't work hard enough, not because somebody else put

965
00:54:57,200 --> 00:54:59,600
Speaker 1: me on the shelf or didn't promote in the way

966
00:54:59,600 --> 00:55:03,560
Speaker 1: that you know need to be done. So I met

967
00:55:03,640 --> 00:55:05,800
Speaker 1: up with Mike Crowley and we formed our own label,

968
00:55:06,120 --> 00:55:08,439
Speaker 1: and I put out my second records called Little Rock,

969
00:55:09,520 --> 00:55:13,680
Speaker 1: and it got on the radio. There's a radio station

970
00:55:13,719 --> 00:55:16,040
Speaker 1: in Dallas called h y I, and one of the

971
00:55:16,080 --> 00:55:19,880
Speaker 1: songs on there became kind of a hit, uh for

972
00:55:19,960 --> 00:55:24,239
Speaker 1: you know, a regional hit, and overnight my crowds went

973
00:55:24,280 --> 00:55:28,800
Speaker 1: from twenty people too. And it was the power of

974
00:55:28,840 --> 00:55:34,399
Speaker 1: the radio. H was in full effect. And we ended

975
00:55:34,440 --> 00:55:40,160
Speaker 1: up selling copies of that record, um, which for you know,

976
00:55:40,360 --> 00:55:46,640
Speaker 1: independent artists run as the label was, was a success. Okay,

977
00:55:46,640 --> 00:55:48,200
Speaker 1: how did it get on the radio if you were

978
00:55:48,200 --> 00:55:51,160
Speaker 1: an independent artist? Oh? We hired a radio promoter, same deal,

979
00:55:51,280 --> 00:55:54,560
Speaker 1: just kind of Americana radio promoter. And okay, so this

980
00:55:54,600 --> 00:55:58,040
Speaker 1: record forts quite a lot as an independent. Then how

981
00:55:58,040 --> 00:56:00,239
Speaker 1: do you make a deal with Lost Highway? A woman

982
00:56:00,280 --> 00:56:03,640
Speaker 1: named Kim Boie did an r for Lost Highway, and

983
00:56:03,760 --> 00:56:05,880
Speaker 1: she she came out to his show. I don't remember

984
00:56:06,320 --> 00:56:09,720
Speaker 1: where when, but I think it was in Nashville, and

985
00:56:09,719 --> 00:56:11,960
Speaker 1: and we met and and at some point she just

986
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:15,440
Speaker 1: reached out and said that they were interested in and

987
00:56:15,520 --> 00:56:22,640
Speaker 1: signing me. And I remember looking at the roster and

988
00:56:23,120 --> 00:56:29,680
Speaker 1: seeing Willie Nelson and uh Elvis Costello and Ryan Adams

989
00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:33,600
Speaker 1: and Lucinda Williams and Van Morrison. It was this fantastic

990
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:40,600
Speaker 1: roster um and a part of me thought, this is

991
00:56:40,600 --> 00:56:42,719
Speaker 1: a no brainer. But then there was the other part

992
00:56:42,719 --> 00:56:46,000
Speaker 1: of me that had just created a successful record label,

993
00:56:46,000 --> 00:56:49,080
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, relatively successful record label. And I

994
00:56:49,120 --> 00:56:53,560
Speaker 1: always remember this quote from John Prine. He's he said

995
00:56:53,600 --> 00:56:58,000
Speaker 1: with when he started Old Boy Records. He said, I

996
00:56:58,080 --> 00:57:00,480
Speaker 1: sell a third of the records that I used to sell,

997
00:57:00,640 --> 00:57:04,080
Speaker 1: and I make three times the money. And that always

998
00:57:04,120 --> 00:57:08,279
Speaker 1: stuck with me. And I was hesitant to let go

999
00:57:08,360 --> 00:57:10,600
Speaker 1: of this thing and be with somebody else. But the

1000
00:57:10,719 --> 00:57:14,360
Speaker 1: roster was incredible, and the people that worked for the company,

1001
00:57:15,200 --> 00:57:17,880
Speaker 1: we're all incredible, and so I just took a leap

1002
00:57:17,920 --> 00:57:20,400
Speaker 1: of faith and and I thought this, this is I think,

1003
00:57:20,400 --> 00:57:23,200
Speaker 1: a really great opportunity, and they'll either drop me after

1004
00:57:23,240 --> 00:57:25,280
Speaker 1: a couple of records and hopefully my career will be

1005
00:57:25,320 --> 00:57:27,120
Speaker 1: bigger and I can go back to doing on my own,

1006
00:57:28,040 --> 00:57:31,320
Speaker 1: or it will be a success and everybody will be happy,

1007
00:57:32,520 --> 00:57:35,960
Speaker 1: kind of a mix of both. Actually, uh Um. I

1008
00:57:36,040 --> 00:57:38,960
Speaker 1: put out my the first record with him is called

1009
00:57:39,000 --> 00:57:44,200
Speaker 1: Trouble in Mind and its I don't know what the

1010
00:57:44,240 --> 00:57:46,360
Speaker 1: numbers are now, it's probably it's over a hundred thousand

1011
00:57:46,640 --> 00:57:51,240
Speaker 1: copies and that's my most successful record, um to date,

1012
00:57:51,320 --> 00:57:54,280
Speaker 1: and and uh it did pretty well. And then I

1013
00:57:54,320 --> 00:57:56,920
Speaker 1: put out a second one called Came a Yo Yo,

1014
00:57:57,040 --> 00:58:00,720
Speaker 1: and it probably did eighty or ninety um and it

1015
00:58:00,800 --> 00:58:03,760
Speaker 1: was fine. I've I've I've since recouped, which my wife

1016
00:58:03,760 --> 00:58:07,360
Speaker 1: tells me is unusual to recoup from a major label.

1017
00:58:07,880 --> 00:58:12,560
Speaker 1: Um uh. But the things started slowing down there and

1018
00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:16,320
Speaker 1: I uh uh, they weren't signing new acts, and I

1019
00:58:16,320 --> 00:58:21,920
Speaker 1: think Luke Lewis was um Um, who had been really supportive,

1020
00:58:22,680 --> 00:58:26,960
Speaker 1: was was moving on and and so they had the

1021
00:58:27,040 --> 00:58:29,360
Speaker 1: rights to another record. But he told me it's like,

1022
00:58:29,680 --> 00:58:31,080
Speaker 1: if you want to get out of here, you can,

1023
00:58:31,320 --> 00:58:35,360
Speaker 1: and and uh you probably it might be a good

1024
00:58:35,360 --> 00:58:39,760
Speaker 1: idea because uh, it just seemed like things weren't going

1025
00:58:39,840 --> 00:58:42,760
Speaker 1: to be there very long. So uh so I jumped

1026
00:58:42,760 --> 00:58:45,560
Speaker 1: out and that was the end of it. But it

1027
00:58:45,600 --> 00:58:49,360
Speaker 1: was a really really positive experience. They never asked me

1028
00:58:49,440 --> 00:58:51,040
Speaker 1: do anything I didn't want to do, and they were

1029
00:58:51,440 --> 00:58:54,360
Speaker 1: They spent a bunch of money promoting my stuff and

1030
00:58:54,360 --> 00:58:57,320
Speaker 1: and and raised my visibility to a point that it

1031
00:58:57,560 --> 00:58:59,880
Speaker 1: would not have gotten to without him. Okay, you meeting

1032
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:03,080
Speaker 1: of the record independently, and then you made another one.

1033
00:59:03,160 --> 00:59:05,800
Speaker 1: The last one was for Dual Tone. How did you

1034
00:59:05,880 --> 00:59:08,560
Speaker 1: decide to go with the company again? Well, I did,

1035
00:59:08,680 --> 00:59:11,600
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I did a record with thirty Tigers UM

1036
00:59:12,280 --> 00:59:17,880
Speaker 1: called Lovers and Levers, and then UM Mike and I

1037
00:59:18,320 --> 00:59:22,320
Speaker 1: parted ways and I worked with another manager named Griff Morris,

1038
00:59:23,120 --> 00:59:27,320
Speaker 1: and uh, my career was kind of it had taken

1039
00:59:27,360 --> 00:59:31,240
Speaker 1: a dip. You know, It's been five years in between records,

1040
00:59:32,040 --> 00:59:36,160
Speaker 1: and I wasn't touring as much, and my the that

1041
00:59:36,240 --> 00:59:40,000
Speaker 1: Lovers and Levers record was a pretty somber affair. I

1042
00:59:40,080 --> 00:59:42,080
Speaker 1: love it. I made it with Joe Henry and I'm

1043
00:59:42,080 --> 00:59:44,360
Speaker 1: really proud of that record, but it was very different

1044
00:59:44,360 --> 00:59:45,800
Speaker 1: than what I put up before. And I think a

1045
00:59:45,800 --> 00:59:49,240
Speaker 1: lot of my fans between the laps or between the

1046
00:59:49,280 --> 00:59:55,400
Speaker 1: time that had had had happened between records and the

1047
00:59:56,760 --> 00:59:59,960
Speaker 1: tone of that record, A lot of people who had

1048
01:00:00,120 --> 01:00:04,120
Speaker 1: come out to drink and shout and dance and fight

1049
01:00:04,200 --> 01:00:08,360
Speaker 1: and make out and holler and sing along, it wasn't

1050
01:00:08,400 --> 01:00:10,320
Speaker 1: really the thing for them, and so I lost a

1051
01:00:10,360 --> 01:00:14,480
Speaker 1: lot of fans. And uh so I think, uh, the

1052
01:00:14,520 --> 01:00:17,760
Speaker 1: idea of when I was working with Griff was, we

1053
01:00:17,800 --> 01:00:20,480
Speaker 1: need we need some energy here, we need to kick

1054
01:00:20,520 --> 01:00:24,200
Speaker 1: start things again, and so trying to build up a

1055
01:00:24,200 --> 01:00:28,040
Speaker 1: team with a good record, label, publisher, things like that

1056
01:00:28,320 --> 01:00:31,880
Speaker 1: became the priority. And and so we met with dualtone

1057
01:00:31,880 --> 01:00:33,680
Speaker 1: and I really liked what they had to say and

1058
01:00:34,080 --> 01:00:36,840
Speaker 1: ended up working together. Okay, so at this late date,

1059
01:00:36,920 --> 01:00:41,600
Speaker 1: you've been in the game twenty years, do you feel

1060
01:00:42,200 --> 01:00:45,760
Speaker 1: you're inside or outside? I mean, the business is completely

1061
01:00:45,880 --> 01:00:50,040
Speaker 1: change starting the turn of the century, and you know

1062
01:00:50,160 --> 01:00:54,520
Speaker 1: there are these acts that you know, dominate Spotify, and

1063
01:00:54,560 --> 01:00:56,520
Speaker 1: then there are all these acts that either used to

1064
01:00:56,600 --> 01:01:00,360
Speaker 1: have success or independent from the start. Who were about me?

1065
01:01:00,720 --> 01:01:03,240
Speaker 1: Is there a scene or you just one guy who's

1066
01:01:03,280 --> 01:01:05,880
Speaker 1: grinding it out? Is there a scene? You know? Early

1067
01:01:05,920 --> 01:01:10,280
Speaker 1: on it was it was there was a scene in Texas. Uh,

1068
01:01:10,960 --> 01:01:15,960
Speaker 1: just an incredible audience down there that just music is

1069
01:01:16,320 --> 01:01:18,720
Speaker 1: part of the culture and life in a way like

1070
01:01:18,840 --> 01:01:23,840
Speaker 1: unlike I've seen anywhere else. Um And so that that

1071
01:01:23,920 --> 01:01:26,560
Speaker 1: was a big boost for me. And then the Americana

1072
01:01:27,120 --> 01:01:29,520
Speaker 1: scene really if if there, I mean, I don't even

1073
01:01:29,520 --> 01:01:32,320
Speaker 1: know what the scene is, but the UM I met

1074
01:01:32,360 --> 01:01:34,720
Speaker 1: a lot of kind of like minded artists and and

1075
01:01:35,320 --> 01:01:39,760
Speaker 1: everything from Canadian songwriters like fred Eagle Smith or Cory

1076
01:01:39,800 --> 01:01:45,320
Speaker 1: Blonde to um uh you know folks in the States

1077
01:01:45,720 --> 01:01:48,960
Speaker 1: Shovels and Rope or Jason Nesbo or um. You know,

1078
01:01:48,960 --> 01:01:52,040
Speaker 1: there were there were there were people that I toured

1079
01:01:52,080 --> 01:01:55,840
Speaker 1: with and all ninety seven's and just different bands that

1080
01:01:55,840 --> 01:02:00,840
Speaker 1: that uh I connected with and and um I felt

1081
01:02:00,840 --> 01:02:02,280
Speaker 1: it was similar to what I was trying to do.

1082
01:02:02,400 --> 01:02:06,520
Speaker 1: They were songwriters who had a roots sensibility of country

1083
01:02:06,520 --> 01:02:08,560
Speaker 1: and rock, and so that all kind of fell into

1084
01:02:08,560 --> 01:02:10,960
Speaker 1: the umbrella of Americana. I guess, well, what would you

1085
01:02:11,000 --> 01:02:13,880
Speaker 1: say the state of Americana is today, because certainly it

1086
01:02:13,920 --> 01:02:15,440
Speaker 1: was a new thing, you know, at the turn of

1087
01:02:15,440 --> 01:02:18,520
Speaker 1: the century, and everybody's talking about it and now everyone

1088
01:02:18,560 --> 01:02:21,440
Speaker 1: thinks it's is genre. But other than Jason is Bill,

1089
01:02:21,520 --> 01:02:23,640
Speaker 1: you don't hear that much about the act and I'm

1090
01:02:23,680 --> 01:02:26,440
Speaker 1: not talking that's not happening, but it doesn't float to

1091
01:02:26,480 --> 01:02:31,040
Speaker 1: the general as we say mainstream media. Yeah, I think

1092
01:02:31,080 --> 01:02:32,600
Speaker 1: the state is pretty good. I mean, first of all,

1093
01:02:32,600 --> 01:02:35,360
Speaker 1: I have no idea, like, no one has ever come

1094
01:02:35,440 --> 01:02:38,520
Speaker 1: up with a definition of Americana that I can remember

1095
01:02:38,600 --> 01:02:42,120
Speaker 1: or feel like, you know, it makes any sense. So

1096
01:02:42,200 --> 01:02:47,480
Speaker 1: it's a pretty catch all thing. But you know, lately

1097
01:02:47,600 --> 01:02:54,160
Speaker 1: I feel like whether it's Jason or the Turnpike, Troubadours

1098
01:02:54,320 --> 01:03:02,320
Speaker 1: or um Sturgill Simpson or um, I don't know, there's

1099
01:03:02,400 --> 01:03:06,160
Speaker 1: there's a long list of folks that are m Yeah,

1100
01:03:06,360 --> 01:03:08,840
Speaker 1: I don't know if they would label themselves as any

1101
01:03:08,840 --> 01:03:12,200
Speaker 1: of these things. But American or or the the the

1102
01:03:12,400 --> 01:03:18,360
Speaker 1: off the beaten path, non mainstream music world certainly embraced

1103
01:03:18,360 --> 01:03:20,880
Speaker 1: them and call them their own. And and those people

1104
01:03:20,920 --> 01:03:24,920
Speaker 1: are doing big business and and it may not be

1105
01:03:25,000 --> 01:03:29,480
Speaker 1: something that uh, I mean, I guess all relative, but um,

1106
01:03:29,520 --> 01:03:36,280
Speaker 1: you know, people are playing arenas and and and um,

1107
01:03:36,520 --> 01:03:39,200
Speaker 1: selling out stuff left and right, and and uh it

1108
01:03:39,280 --> 01:03:43,640
Speaker 1: may not be mains like totally mainstream popular culture, but

1109
01:03:43,920 --> 01:03:47,280
Speaker 1: there is absolutely an audience out there, uh, in the

1110
01:03:47,360 --> 01:03:50,920
Speaker 1: tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands for or millions

1111
01:03:50,960 --> 01:03:53,360
Speaker 1: for some of these folks, and and uh and yeah,

1112
01:03:53,680 --> 01:03:56,120
Speaker 1: Brandy Carlisle would be one of those people. And again

1113
01:03:56,160 --> 01:03:58,400
Speaker 1: like where I don't want to label people that they

1114
01:03:58,440 --> 01:04:01,280
Speaker 1: may not want to be labeled with that, but but

1115
01:04:01,360 --> 01:04:05,600
Speaker 1: these are like non traditional A lot of these people

1116
01:04:05,640 --> 01:04:07,360
Speaker 1: are doing this without major labels. A lot of them

1117
01:04:07,360 --> 01:04:14,280
Speaker 1: are doing it um independently and and uh just completely

1118
01:04:14,280 --> 01:04:25,800
Speaker 1: in their own style. So we are you in that hierarchy?

1119
01:04:26,040 --> 01:04:28,160
Speaker 1: And what do you want? I mean back in the

1120
01:04:28,200 --> 01:04:32,000
Speaker 1: major label era, there are all these songwriters like you mentioned,

1121
01:04:32,040 --> 01:04:36,760
Speaker 1: you know Towns, Vian Sand and other people, uh who

1122
01:04:36,800 --> 01:04:39,880
Speaker 1: had were icons in Texas, but once you got outside

1123
01:04:39,880 --> 01:04:42,000
Speaker 1: the borders of Texas, you have to be paying attention

1124
01:04:42,040 --> 01:04:45,280
Speaker 1: to know who they are. Are you someone and says

1125
01:04:45,280 --> 01:04:47,680
Speaker 1: well this is what I do or I want more?

1126
01:04:48,480 --> 01:04:52,320
Speaker 1: Or are you somewhat depressed because you feel like you

1127
01:04:52,440 --> 01:04:54,720
Speaker 1: missed the target? Where are you at on your career

1128
01:04:54,800 --> 01:04:59,120
Speaker 1: right now? Yeah, it's trying to figure that out. Um.

1129
01:05:00,080 --> 01:05:02,400
Speaker 1: I'm kind of at a point where I'm trying to

1130
01:05:02,520 --> 01:05:05,200
Speaker 1: do the work the best I can and and sort

1131
01:05:05,200 --> 01:05:08,120
Speaker 1: of accept where the chips fall. And that doesn't mean

1132
01:05:08,160 --> 01:05:15,000
Speaker 1: I'm not working hard. Um Uh, my goal is to

1133
01:05:15,000 --> 01:05:17,400
Speaker 1: to take care of my family and to do work

1134
01:05:17,440 --> 01:05:22,800
Speaker 1: that I'm proud of. Um, I can't worry too much

1135
01:05:22,800 --> 01:05:25,120
Speaker 1: about the numbers or where my careers are comparing its

1136
01:05:25,120 --> 01:05:28,440
Speaker 1: somebody else's career. It's that's uh, that is not a

1137
01:05:28,480 --> 01:05:31,120
Speaker 1: good head space for me, and it's not what makes

1138
01:05:31,120 --> 01:05:34,120
Speaker 1: me happy. I finally realized, like if if I sold

1139
01:05:34,160 --> 01:05:39,960
Speaker 1: another uh, you know, twenty thousand tickets this year on

1140
01:05:40,000 --> 01:05:43,919
Speaker 1: the road, uh, you know, there would there would be

1141
01:05:44,320 --> 01:05:45,960
Speaker 1: it would be great to be able to afford the

1142
01:05:46,000 --> 01:05:48,959
Speaker 1: buses or or or you know, travel a little better,

1143
01:05:49,120 --> 01:05:53,640
Speaker 1: but the overhead goes up and and like with each stage, UM,

1144
01:05:53,680 --> 01:05:56,600
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm realizing is there's no finish line.

1145
01:05:56,600 --> 01:05:59,720
Speaker 1: There's no oh now now everything is good and they're

1146
01:05:59,760 --> 01:06:02,320
Speaker 1: never will be. You know. Garth Brooks is you know,

1147
01:06:02,640 --> 01:06:05,640
Speaker 1: he's he's sold more records than Elvis, and he's still

1148
01:06:05,640 --> 01:06:09,600
Speaker 1: trying to figure out, uh like at a certain point,

1149
01:06:09,680 --> 01:06:12,120
Speaker 1: who who can you compete with? And and so I

1150
01:06:13,560 --> 01:06:18,880
Speaker 1: just it sounds try it, I guess, but I'm really

1151
01:06:18,920 --> 01:06:21,480
Speaker 1: interested in doing work that will last, and work that

1152
01:06:21,520 --> 01:06:25,880
Speaker 1: I can be proud of. And um, and I have

1153
01:06:26,080 --> 01:06:29,320
Speaker 1: faith and again come out of the pandemic. It's something

1154
01:06:29,360 --> 01:06:31,600
Speaker 1: that I know there's an audience out there. It may

1155
01:06:31,600 --> 01:06:33,680
Speaker 1: not be as big as I once had hoped it

1156
01:06:33,720 --> 01:06:37,640
Speaker 1: would be, but I also realized I don't need it

1157
01:06:37,680 --> 01:06:40,640
Speaker 1: to be um hard. I'm a singer songwriter. I don't

1158
01:06:40,640 --> 01:06:42,280
Speaker 1: need to be rocking in front of ten thousand people.

1159
01:06:42,320 --> 01:06:46,040
Speaker 1: I'm actually quite uncomfortable doing that. UM. I like to

1160
01:06:46,080 --> 01:06:52,120
Speaker 1: be able to to connect with my audience and and UM,

1161
01:06:53,400 --> 01:06:58,200
Speaker 1: for me, that's a more intimate way. So I mean,

1162
01:06:58,200 --> 01:07:01,200
Speaker 1: I can still tear about hoky talk and and rock out,

1163
01:07:01,320 --> 01:07:05,400
Speaker 1: but uh um, at the end of the day of

1164
01:07:05,480 --> 01:07:07,480
Speaker 1: what I think I do best is write songs and

1165
01:07:07,560 --> 01:07:10,640
Speaker 1: connect to people in a in au from the stage

1166
01:07:10,640 --> 01:07:13,840
Speaker 1: in an intimate way. Okay, let's use the classic example

1167
01:07:13,920 --> 01:07:18,080
Speaker 1: Bruce Springsteen. He's been around for a while, different era. Okay,

1168
01:07:18,480 --> 01:07:22,200
Speaker 1: delivers a record and the manager says not done. He

1169
01:07:22,280 --> 01:07:25,080
Speaker 1: goes right dancing in the dark. Now, that album Born

1170
01:07:25,080 --> 01:07:27,880
Speaker 1: in the USA was more upbeat, certainly Nebraska that came

1171
01:07:27,920 --> 01:07:30,160
Speaker 1: before it, but some of the other work. But you know,

1172
01:07:30,200 --> 01:07:33,720
Speaker 1: across the catalog he had, he had uppers and downers.

1173
01:07:34,120 --> 01:07:36,680
Speaker 1: You ever sit there and say, I've been doing this

1174
01:07:36,760 --> 01:07:39,560
Speaker 1: a long time. I know what the market is. Let

1175
01:07:39,600 --> 01:07:42,920
Speaker 1: me write something that I believe will resonate with the market. Yeah,

1176
01:07:42,960 --> 01:07:46,480
Speaker 1: I don't know how to do that. Just let's go

1177
01:07:46,560 --> 01:07:48,959
Speaker 1: back in chapter. How do you do it? In terms

1178
01:07:48,960 --> 01:07:54,680
Speaker 1: of songwriting? Well, I used to just be observation and inspiration.

1179
01:07:55,520 --> 01:08:00,480
Speaker 1: And you know, I thought I mentioned Carolac and Dylan.

1180
01:08:01,520 --> 01:08:03,480
Speaker 1: You know, I thought the key to me a songwriters

1181
01:08:03,480 --> 01:08:05,440
Speaker 1: you just take a bunch of pills and drink heavily

1182
01:08:05,520 --> 01:08:08,360
Speaker 1: and and live a wildlife and and every once in

1183
01:08:08,360 --> 01:08:10,439
Speaker 1: a while lightning strikes and you just write it down

1184
01:08:10,560 --> 01:08:14,040
Speaker 1: and and you're just in a channel for it. And

1185
01:08:14,040 --> 01:08:15,960
Speaker 1: then that's it. And you either have that ability or

1186
01:08:16,000 --> 01:08:22,879
Speaker 1: you don't. And um, I mean they're there's there's something

1187
01:08:22,920 --> 01:08:27,639
Speaker 1: to that, but uh, it's not sustainable. It's not a craft.

1188
01:08:28,560 --> 01:08:31,800
Speaker 1: And um So for years I sort of did did

1189
01:08:31,840 --> 01:08:36,639
Speaker 1: things that way, um, and then it sort of dried

1190
01:08:36,760 --> 01:08:39,280
Speaker 1: up and I didn't know what I was doing. I

1191
01:08:39,280 --> 01:08:41,439
Speaker 1: didn't know what I was writing about. I didn't know myself.

1192
01:08:42,280 --> 01:08:45,519
Speaker 1: And so these days I'm much more interested in the

1193
01:08:45,520 --> 01:08:48,639
Speaker 1: craft of it and annoying myself and working through something.

1194
01:08:48,760 --> 01:08:53,240
Speaker 1: And um, I'll tell you a quick ancdote if I can't. Uh, well,

1195
01:08:53,320 --> 01:08:55,360
Speaker 1: nothing to do is quick, but I'll try to make

1196
01:08:55,400 --> 01:08:58,880
Speaker 1: it so. Um. There's a There was a legendary songwriter

1197
01:08:59,000 --> 01:09:02,920
Speaker 1: named Guy Clark, who, when I was twenty four, let

1198
01:09:03,000 --> 01:09:04,439
Speaker 1: me come over to his house and write a song

1199
01:09:04,479 --> 01:09:07,479
Speaker 1: with him. And this is to me. It was an

1200
01:09:07,640 --> 01:09:10,120
Speaker 1: icon and somebody I really looked up to. And he

1201
01:09:10,200 --> 01:09:12,439
Speaker 1: was very deliberate. He had a basement downstairs where he

1202
01:09:12,439 --> 01:09:15,240
Speaker 1: built guitars, and he wrote these songs on graph paper

1203
01:09:15,640 --> 01:09:18,360
Speaker 1: and every letter, every square had a letter in it

1204
01:09:18,600 --> 01:09:23,679
Speaker 1: for the song. And we worked on something and got

1205
01:09:23,720 --> 01:09:26,360
Speaker 1: it started, and I went home and finished it up,

1206
01:09:26,360 --> 01:09:28,439
Speaker 1: and I sent him a tape or something with it,

1207
01:09:28,880 --> 01:09:30,840
Speaker 1: and he called me up and said, you need to

1208
01:09:30,880 --> 01:09:34,599
Speaker 1: change this to that and this here that there these

1209
01:09:34,720 --> 01:09:40,760
Speaker 1: very minute details, and I remember thinking, uh, this is unnecessary,

1210
01:09:40,840 --> 01:09:45,800
Speaker 1: this is not this, it doesn't matter, um, And it

1211
01:09:45,880 --> 01:09:47,439
Speaker 1: was not at all the way that I wrote. I

1212
01:09:47,479 --> 01:09:51,760
Speaker 1: did not revise and edit and draft and spend time

1213
01:09:51,760 --> 01:09:53,679
Speaker 1: with it. I tried to catch lightning in a bottle

1214
01:09:53,720 --> 01:09:55,280
Speaker 1: and if it didn't work, there was nothing there, and

1215
01:09:55,280 --> 01:09:57,880
Speaker 1: if it did, that's what it was. Now. I look

1216
01:09:57,920 --> 01:10:01,280
Speaker 1: back at that guy, and it's really trying to beat

1217
01:10:01,320 --> 01:10:06,160
Speaker 1: myself up. But I'm embarrassed by that, um, because now

1218
01:10:06,200 --> 01:10:09,760
Speaker 1: I am I'm not saying I'm a guy Clark's level

1219
01:10:09,800 --> 01:10:13,080
Speaker 1: as a writer, but that is much more high. Right now.

1220
01:10:13,160 --> 01:10:17,160
Speaker 1: I'm intentional and I deliberate, and songs every one, small

1221
01:10:17,240 --> 01:10:20,640
Speaker 1: sometime will come out in a day. I wrote one today, um,

1222
01:10:20,720 --> 01:10:23,080
Speaker 1: which was nice and rare to finish a song in

1223
01:10:23,120 --> 01:10:26,880
Speaker 1: a day. But these days I'll put weeks and months

1224
01:10:26,880 --> 01:10:28,720
Speaker 1: of time into something to make sure it's right. I

1225
01:10:28,760 --> 01:10:30,800
Speaker 1: can't let it go anymore. I used to just throw

1226
01:10:30,840 --> 01:10:33,360
Speaker 1: it out and go it's good enough, and now there's

1227
01:10:33,360 --> 01:10:37,320
Speaker 1: something that's changed where I can't. That doesn't work for me.

1228
01:10:38,120 --> 01:10:43,720
Speaker 1: It has to be able to stand up and and um.

1229
01:10:43,840 --> 01:10:46,880
Speaker 1: So that's that's the process for me now. Okay, but

1230
01:10:46,960 --> 01:10:49,960
Speaker 1: let's go back to the real beginning. Do you say, hey,

1231
01:10:49,960 --> 01:10:52,559
Speaker 1: I want to make a record, therefore I'm gonna write songs,

1232
01:10:53,240 --> 01:10:55,000
Speaker 1: or you're writing songs and all of a sudden you

1233
01:10:55,000 --> 01:10:57,960
Speaker 1: realize you have an album, or or do you say

1234
01:10:58,000 --> 01:11:00,840
Speaker 1: I need life, more life experience, I'm gonna wait until

1235
01:11:00,960 --> 01:11:03,400
Speaker 1: I got more to write about. We're gonna work every

1236
01:11:03,439 --> 01:11:05,920
Speaker 1: day and write a song. What's the process? Well, the

1237
01:11:05,960 --> 01:11:10,400
Speaker 1: inspiration was just first of all songwriters, they articulated what

1238
01:11:10,640 --> 01:11:13,320
Speaker 1: I felt, and to me, it was the most magical

1239
01:11:13,360 --> 01:11:16,680
Speaker 1: thing and the coolest job I could imagine. It was

1240
01:11:16,760 --> 01:11:21,160
Speaker 1: it was it was it was magic, um to be

1241
01:11:21,200 --> 01:11:26,200
Speaker 1: able to articulate the human experience and describe it and

1242
01:11:26,200 --> 01:11:29,280
Speaker 1: and make you feel these things. And so I just

1243
01:11:30,160 --> 01:11:32,120
Speaker 1: I was drawn to it, and I wanted to be

1244
01:11:32,160 --> 01:11:36,719
Speaker 1: able to do that um uh and and in any

1245
01:11:36,760 --> 01:11:39,320
Speaker 1: creative form really, but I have attention issues, So I

1246
01:11:39,320 --> 01:11:41,400
Speaker 1: figured I'll never be a novelist because I can't focus

1247
01:11:41,520 --> 01:11:44,439
Speaker 1: that long. But a song three minutes, maybe I could.

1248
01:11:44,520 --> 01:11:48,760
Speaker 1: Maybe there's hope there. Um. And I just did it

1249
01:11:48,880 --> 01:11:52,040
Speaker 1: from my own self. Again, I never had any I

1250
01:11:52,080 --> 01:11:56,439
Speaker 1: didn't know how you become a professional anything to do

1251
01:11:56,479 --> 01:11:59,080
Speaker 1: with the music business. So it was it was not

1252
01:11:59,240 --> 01:12:02,800
Speaker 1: my world growing up, It was not my world in college. UM.

1253
01:12:03,280 --> 01:12:05,760
Speaker 1: So I was just doing it because I had a

1254
01:12:05,880 --> 01:12:10,160
Speaker 1: dream for it, passion for it, and and so I

1255
01:12:10,240 --> 01:12:15,080
Speaker 1: just wrote to wrote to write and um. And then

1256
01:12:15,200 --> 01:12:18,240
Speaker 1: I started getting gigs. Then I really kind of kicked

1257
01:12:18,240 --> 01:12:20,400
Speaker 1: it up a gear because it was I started getting

1258
01:12:20,439 --> 01:12:23,920
Speaker 1: open for people in front of real audiences, and I thought,

1259
01:12:24,120 --> 01:12:28,200
Speaker 1: I gotta have something to say here, um, or I

1260
01:12:28,200 --> 01:12:30,120
Speaker 1: can just play covers or if I want to have

1261
01:12:30,120 --> 01:12:32,160
Speaker 1: any kind of career in my own. Okay, so you

1262
01:12:32,200 --> 01:12:35,680
Speaker 1: wrote a song this morning. Was it because you said, Okay,

1263
01:12:35,760 --> 01:12:37,679
Speaker 1: I'm gonna write a song, I went to my room

1264
01:12:37,680 --> 01:12:39,320
Speaker 1: and worked on it, or you all of a sudden

1265
01:12:39,320 --> 01:12:41,880
Speaker 1: had an inspiration? Do you do this every day? Try

1266
01:12:41,920 --> 01:12:44,320
Speaker 1: to write a song? Well, I try to put some

1267
01:12:44,360 --> 01:12:47,280
Speaker 1: time in every day. I don't succeed, um usually, but

1268
01:12:47,680 --> 01:12:51,400
Speaker 1: you know today I had a co write. Uh. Guy

1269
01:12:51,439 --> 01:12:54,479
Speaker 1: named Driver Williams plays guitar with Eric Church. He has

1270
01:12:54,520 --> 01:12:58,120
Speaker 1: a uh he lives here in town. And and um,

1271
01:12:58,439 --> 01:13:02,799
Speaker 1: we've had pretty successful run the last year or two

1272
01:13:02,880 --> 01:13:07,880
Speaker 1: of writing songs. So um we got together and and

1273
01:13:07,000 --> 01:13:11,600
Speaker 1: uh I wrote one that I quite like. So it

1274
01:13:11,640 --> 01:13:14,200
Speaker 1: was it was a prearranged deal. To what degree do

1275
01:13:14,240 --> 01:13:17,439
Speaker 1: you like working with others supposed to doing it alone? Well,

1276
01:13:17,479 --> 01:13:19,759
Speaker 1: it's I used to write everything by myself. And then

1277
01:13:19,880 --> 01:13:23,200
Speaker 1: I had a couple uh folks like Guy Clark and

1278
01:13:23,280 --> 01:13:28,920
Speaker 1: right Wiley Hubbard who who who showed me about co

1279
01:13:29,080 --> 01:13:35,680
Speaker 1: writing and um uh and then I started relying on

1280
01:13:35,720 --> 01:13:37,880
Speaker 1: it more and more as I sort of lost my

1281
01:13:37,960 --> 01:13:42,360
Speaker 1: own inspiration, I started relying on other people for theirs,

1282
01:13:42,439 --> 01:13:44,960
Speaker 1: and then I became kind of an editor of songs

1283
01:13:45,040 --> 01:13:49,240
Speaker 1: rather than a creator of songs. And uh now it's

1284
01:13:49,280 --> 01:13:52,240
Speaker 1: kind of come to where I I feel like I

1285
01:13:52,280 --> 01:13:54,599
Speaker 1: can write on my own. I'm doing a lot more

1286
01:13:54,640 --> 01:13:59,160
Speaker 1: of that these days, UM, but also enjoying writing with

1287
01:13:59,200 --> 01:14:01,280
Speaker 1: other people. They're times where it's a drag, but there's

1288
01:14:01,320 --> 01:14:06,000
Speaker 1: a there's a real magic that happens when you you know,

1289
01:14:06,080 --> 01:14:08,080
Speaker 1: you get into a flow and you each have a

1290
01:14:08,160 --> 01:14:11,120
Speaker 1: kind of role that you're playing. And sometimes I'm just

1291
01:14:11,160 --> 01:14:14,360
Speaker 1: helping them edit, and sometimes they're helping they're just editing me,

1292
01:14:14,439 --> 01:14:18,639
Speaker 1: and and or sometimes it's completely even, but it's it's

1293
01:14:18,720 --> 01:14:21,960
Speaker 1: it's uh, that chemistry when it works is really cool.

1294
01:14:22,040 --> 01:14:24,720
Speaker 1: And and I end up both songs that I never

1295
01:14:24,760 --> 01:14:26,760
Speaker 1: would have come up with my own, and and and

1296
01:14:26,800 --> 01:14:29,000
Speaker 1: can use other people's talents. And I learned a lot

1297
01:14:29,200 --> 01:14:32,679
Speaker 1: too from that. UM. You know, there's no songwriting school.

1298
01:14:33,040 --> 01:14:36,639
Speaker 1: I didn't go to one. UM, So to to get

1299
01:14:36,640 --> 01:14:39,240
Speaker 1: to sit with with really creative, talented people and watch

1300
01:14:39,280 --> 01:14:43,400
Speaker 1: their process, always learn something. And what happens to these songs?

1301
01:14:43,400 --> 01:14:45,400
Speaker 1: Are they for you or you try to get them covered?

1302
01:14:45,680 --> 01:14:48,840
Speaker 1: They used to all be for me, um, because I

1303
01:14:48,920 --> 01:14:52,240
Speaker 1: was the most important thing to me was being the

1304
01:14:52,320 --> 01:14:56,559
Speaker 1: artist and and now I'm I'm just as happy for

1305
01:14:56,600 --> 01:14:59,800
Speaker 1: other people to go out and do the work and

1306
01:15:00,040 --> 01:15:03,920
Speaker 1: make the money so for me. So um, it's a

1307
01:15:03,960 --> 01:15:06,800
Speaker 1: bit of both. I'm always writing for myself, but uh,

1308
01:15:06,840 --> 01:15:09,800
Speaker 1: I mean that's always in my mind. Um. But in

1309
01:15:09,800 --> 01:15:14,160
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, I've really uh leaned into

1310
01:15:14,200 --> 01:15:17,080
Speaker 1: just writing to write and and doing these co writes

1311
01:15:17,120 --> 01:15:19,080
Speaker 1: and living here. I moved to Nashville. Was in Austin

1312
01:15:19,160 --> 01:15:22,680
Speaker 1: for twelve years, and I've been in Nashville for a

1313
01:15:22,720 --> 01:15:27,439
Speaker 1: few years now, and and um there's you know, the

1314
01:15:27,479 --> 01:15:33,320
Speaker 1: whole uh ecosystem and the music industry's country music is here,

1315
01:15:33,360 --> 01:15:37,040
Speaker 1: and and um, so you can write a song and

1316
01:15:37,040 --> 01:15:40,240
Speaker 1: it can be and somebody's you know, some of you

1317
01:15:40,320 --> 01:15:43,160
Speaker 1: me listening to it that day, and and it can

1318
01:15:43,200 --> 01:15:45,920
Speaker 1: be get cut that week, and which is it doesn't

1319
01:15:45,920 --> 01:15:49,679
Speaker 1: happen often to me, but but the possibility is there.

1320
01:15:49,720 --> 01:15:53,640
Speaker 1: And so that that's that's a fun muscle I've been

1321
01:15:55,120 --> 01:15:58,360
Speaker 1: working out lately, is is just to write the best

1322
01:15:58,400 --> 01:16:01,760
Speaker 1: song I can and not think about, uh, you know,

1323
01:16:01,840 --> 01:16:04,760
Speaker 1: can I do it? And it's something too about my

1324
01:16:04,760 --> 01:16:08,320
Speaker 1: my stuff. I relied on my personality and my delivery

1325
01:16:08,400 --> 01:16:11,840
Speaker 1: to get a song across and rather than crafting the

1326
01:16:11,920 --> 01:16:14,599
Speaker 1: song to be something that anybody could sing. And so

1327
01:16:14,760 --> 01:16:17,320
Speaker 1: that's that's something that's important to me too, is I

1328
01:16:17,320 --> 01:16:18,840
Speaker 1: want to write a song and not have to be

1329
01:16:18,920 --> 01:16:21,200
Speaker 1: able to wink at the audience or deliver it a

1330
01:16:21,200 --> 01:16:23,880
Speaker 1: certain way. I want to write it towards bulletproof, so

1331
01:16:23,960 --> 01:16:25,960
Speaker 1: anybody can pick it up and sing it and people

1332
01:16:25,960 --> 01:16:28,080
Speaker 1: can go, that's a hell of a song. It doesn't

1333
01:16:28,120 --> 01:16:32,720
Speaker 1: have to be my unique delivery, uh to to to

1334
01:16:32,920 --> 01:16:35,839
Speaker 1: land it that that it could be a standard. Everything

1335
01:16:35,880 --> 01:16:38,599
Speaker 1: could give it up. No, do you have the same

1336
01:16:38,640 --> 01:16:42,000
Speaker 1: motivation you have now then you did at the beginning? Uh? Yeah, yeah,

1337
01:16:42,040 --> 01:16:44,280
Speaker 1: in a way. I mean, I'm I'm probably a little

1338
01:16:44,280 --> 01:16:49,040
Speaker 1: more sorted and I don't have the same fire. I mean,

1339
01:16:49,160 --> 01:16:51,840
Speaker 1: when you're in your twenties and you're just trying to

1340
01:16:51,880 --> 01:16:55,479
Speaker 1: make a mark and and do something and find yourself,

1341
01:16:55,520 --> 01:16:59,160
Speaker 1: that was that was an energy that I will never

1342
01:16:59,200 --> 01:17:04,120
Speaker 1: be able to recap. Sure, But uh but yeah, I'm

1343
01:17:04,160 --> 01:17:05,880
Speaker 1: I have a lot of work to do and a

1344
01:17:05,960 --> 01:17:08,919
Speaker 1: lot of things that I'm excited about still, and I've

1345
01:17:09,560 --> 01:17:14,960
Speaker 1: i am still in love with the act of creating

1346
01:17:15,000 --> 01:17:18,519
Speaker 1: a song, where they're creating something out of nothing. So

1347
01:17:18,640 --> 01:17:21,519
Speaker 1: you have a son. How many times have you been married?

1348
01:17:22,400 --> 01:17:25,360
Speaker 1: And now you're married to Alison? Give me the run there.

1349
01:17:26,160 --> 01:17:28,640
Speaker 1: I had my son in two thousand three. His name

1350
01:17:28,680 --> 01:17:35,320
Speaker 1: is Eli. Uh and um, I'm married. I've been married twice.

1351
01:17:35,360 --> 01:17:39,439
Speaker 1: So my first wife is Eli's mom and we were

1352
01:17:39,439 --> 01:17:45,000
Speaker 1: married for nine years I think, um, and we got

1353
01:17:45,000 --> 01:17:50,760
Speaker 1: divorced h seven years ago. And uh Alison and I

1354
01:17:50,800 --> 01:17:54,880
Speaker 1: got married, uh three and a half, it'll be three

1355
01:17:54,960 --> 01:17:58,040
Speaker 1: years in May. Where's your son today? My son is

1356
01:17:58,040 --> 01:18:02,080
Speaker 1: in Austin. Uh. Uh he's just graduated high school and

1357
01:18:02,080 --> 01:18:05,680
Speaker 1: in his uh about to go to college. So how

1358
01:18:05,720 --> 01:18:08,640
Speaker 1: did you meet Allison? How do you end up marrying it?

1359
01:18:08,760 --> 01:18:13,639
Speaker 1: She has an autistic son with her previous husband, Steve Earle,

1360
01:18:14,320 --> 01:18:17,519
Speaker 1: And what how often is the child with you? And

1361
01:18:17,560 --> 01:18:20,200
Speaker 1: how does that affect your everyday life? I met Allison

1362
01:18:20,240 --> 01:18:25,920
Speaker 1: in two thousand three, I think, uh. We had some

1363
01:18:26,000 --> 01:18:28,280
Speaker 1: mutual friends. I was just starting to come to town

1364
01:18:29,280 --> 01:18:32,960
Speaker 1: and she um actually sang on my second record in

1365
01:18:33,040 --> 01:18:41,800
Speaker 1: two thousand four and uh and we were friendly um

1366
01:18:41,880 --> 01:18:49,080
Speaker 1: for years, but I didn't see much of her and UM,

1367
01:18:49,200 --> 01:18:53,680
Speaker 1: and we just I invited her to a show. I

1368
01:18:53,720 --> 01:18:56,720
Speaker 1: was up in New York, um and invited her to

1369
01:18:56,760 --> 01:18:59,240
Speaker 1: a show and and she couldn't make the show, but

1370
01:18:59,320 --> 01:19:04,000
Speaker 1: we met up for uh a drink and and UM

1371
01:19:04,080 --> 01:19:09,040
Speaker 1: you know, much to our surprise, uh connected UM and yes,

1372
01:19:09,120 --> 01:19:13,400
Speaker 1: she has a son named John Henry who UM is

1373
01:19:13,439 --> 01:19:21,440
Speaker 1: eleven and is level three autism. He's nonverbal and UM

1374
01:19:21,439 --> 01:19:25,080
Speaker 1: her she just released her second book, which is titled

1375
01:19:25,160 --> 01:19:28,880
Speaker 1: A Dreamy Talks to Me and it's uh it's about

1376
01:19:30,000 --> 01:19:35,360
Speaker 1: about John Henry in life with him and UM. Right now,

1377
01:19:35,439 --> 01:19:39,680
Speaker 1: John Henry is in New York with his dad UM

1378
01:19:39,760 --> 01:19:41,759
Speaker 1: for the school year, and then he spends the summers

1379
01:19:41,800 --> 01:19:47,360
Speaker 1: with us and Alison. Uh. When John hery was diagnosed,

1380
01:19:47,920 --> 01:19:53,720
Speaker 1: sort of quit touring so that she could be there

1381
01:19:53,760 --> 01:19:59,639
Speaker 1: full time with him and and uh Steve UM continue

1382
01:19:59,680 --> 01:20:04,000
Speaker 1: to tour R and um. Uh they split up shortly

1383
01:20:04,040 --> 01:20:11,719
Speaker 1: after the diagnosis and so now we we split time essentially. UM.

1384
01:20:11,720 --> 01:20:13,439
Speaker 1: And is she going back on the road with the

1385
01:20:13,520 --> 01:20:16,040
Speaker 1: status of her career, She's gonna go out her her

1386
01:20:16,080 --> 01:20:22,040
Speaker 1: sister's uh wonderful artists and Shelby Lynn and UM they're

1387
01:20:22,040 --> 01:20:24,920
Speaker 1: gonna go and do a few dates in April, Um,

1388
01:20:24,960 --> 01:20:28,120
Speaker 1: just a week, I think. Um, but that's that's it.

1389
01:20:28,360 --> 01:20:31,479
Speaker 1: She's trying to slow down. You know, she's put she's

1390
01:20:31,520 --> 01:20:38,320
Speaker 1: put out eleven records and two books, and um, is

1391
01:20:38,320 --> 01:20:44,439
Speaker 1: is um trying to to slow down? UM. I don't

1392
01:20:44,439 --> 01:20:48,280
Speaker 1: know how much luck she's having with it, but UM,

1393
01:20:48,320 --> 01:20:49,920
Speaker 1: so there won't be a lot of touring this year,

1394
01:20:49,920 --> 01:20:52,000
Speaker 1: but they do have some dates, which the two of

1395
01:20:52,000 --> 01:20:54,720
Speaker 1: them together is really something special. So what is it

1396
01:20:54,800 --> 01:20:57,599
Speaker 1: you're trying to say in your songs? What is it

1397
01:20:57,720 --> 01:21:00,760
Speaker 1: you want to get across that would make it that

1398
01:21:00,960 --> 01:21:03,679
Speaker 1: someone needs to listen to your music? Well, I don't.

1399
01:21:03,720 --> 01:21:05,800
Speaker 1: I don't look at it that way anymore. I mean,

1400
01:21:06,040 --> 01:21:08,519
Speaker 1: when I was younger, it was what I was trying

1401
01:21:08,560 --> 01:21:11,000
Speaker 1: to say, was I was trying to put words to

1402
01:21:11,080 --> 01:21:19,559
Speaker 1: whatever I was feeling. Um, And I'm not sure, UM,

1403
01:21:19,960 --> 01:21:22,920
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how important that was. You know, felt

1404
01:21:22,960 --> 01:21:33,200
Speaker 1: incredibly important. But uh, these days I don't. I UM,

1405
01:21:33,240 --> 01:21:37,120
Speaker 1: I sit down with a song and try to or

1406
01:21:37,160 --> 01:21:39,320
Speaker 1: an idea and try to find what it has to

1407
01:21:39,360 --> 01:21:42,479
Speaker 1: tell me and then flesh it out and coax it

1408
01:21:42,640 --> 01:21:50,320
Speaker 1: in and into the uh, polished it as best I

1409
01:21:50,400 --> 01:21:55,600
Speaker 1: can to to where it says something. So uh, you know,

1410
01:21:55,680 --> 01:21:59,160
Speaker 1: today we wrote a song about addiction, about somebody who

1411
01:22:00,840 --> 01:22:05,320
Speaker 1: dies and and the person that's left behind, how angry

1412
01:22:05,360 --> 01:22:08,640
Speaker 1: they are, and and all the emotions, the sadness and

1413
01:22:08,680 --> 01:22:12,519
Speaker 1: the anger and then ultimately the forgiveness. And that's interesting

1414
01:22:12,560 --> 01:22:16,720
Speaker 1: to me. And I didn't think about it. I wasn't

1415
01:22:16,720 --> 01:22:20,120
Speaker 1: thinking about it two days ago. It wasn't I didn't

1416
01:22:20,439 --> 01:22:23,680
Speaker 1: think I need to write a song about addiction. But

1417
01:22:23,920 --> 01:22:26,400
Speaker 1: there's a lot of addiction in my life surrounding me

1418
01:22:26,479 --> 01:22:30,800
Speaker 1: these days, and and and um it's been on my mind.

1419
01:22:31,080 --> 01:22:35,599
Speaker 1: And so then it just came up, um in in

1420
01:22:35,640 --> 01:22:37,720
Speaker 1: the in the room, we started writing about it. So

1421
01:22:38,080 --> 01:22:40,880
Speaker 1: I'm interested in finding those ideas and then and then

1422
01:22:40,920 --> 01:22:43,280
Speaker 1: fleshing them out. But I don't walk around thinking I

1423
01:22:43,320 --> 01:22:48,599
Speaker 1: need to tell the world this or that. Um. I

1424
01:22:48,600 --> 01:22:52,639
Speaker 1: I have some ideas from my own stuff that I'm

1425
01:22:52,720 --> 01:22:56,720
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm scratching the the surface of kind

1426
01:22:56,720 --> 01:22:58,920
Speaker 1: of finding my voice in a in a new way

1427
01:22:59,080 --> 01:23:04,600
Speaker 1: or a point of view. Um, But right now it's it's, uh,

1428
01:23:04,840 --> 01:23:07,240
Speaker 1: I'm not there yet, and and those those things kind

1429
01:23:07,240 --> 01:23:09,840
Speaker 1: of change and take time. So I'm just trying to

1430
01:23:09,880 --> 01:23:12,599
Speaker 1: be patient until I find something I really am passionate

1431
01:23:12,600 --> 01:23:15,160
Speaker 1: about saying. So you talk about going out with your band,

1432
01:23:15,320 --> 01:23:19,440
Speaker 1: that inherently adds costs. So it's just the same guys,

1433
01:23:19,800 --> 01:23:22,560
Speaker 1: what have they been doing? And you could save a

1434
01:23:22,640 --> 01:23:25,400
Speaker 1: lot of money going out alone. But would that just

1435
01:23:25,520 --> 01:23:29,000
Speaker 1: be a different thing? Well, I do both. Um. I

1436
01:23:29,040 --> 01:23:34,360
Speaker 1: started out solo and UM and this year I'll next

1437
01:23:34,360 --> 01:23:36,760
Speaker 1: month I'll do probably seven shows solo and then I'll

1438
01:23:36,760 --> 01:23:42,360
Speaker 1: go out and do thirty in a row with the band. Uh. Yeah,

1439
01:23:42,400 --> 01:23:45,840
Speaker 1: it's I mean, that's the That's one of the things

1440
01:23:45,840 --> 01:23:49,519
Speaker 1: about doing this is is figuring out how can you

1441
01:23:49,600 --> 01:23:52,960
Speaker 1: how do you best deliver it? First of all, UM,

1442
01:23:53,000 --> 01:23:55,360
Speaker 1: And I'm still not sure if I'm better as solo

1443
01:23:55,479 --> 01:23:59,160
Speaker 1: artist or with a band or with a sideman. UM.

1444
01:23:59,200 --> 01:24:04,040
Speaker 1: But there are some um career opportunities that that I

1445
01:24:04,080 --> 01:24:07,080
Speaker 1: don't get as a solo artist that I would with

1446
01:24:07,120 --> 01:24:09,920
Speaker 1: a band. So I can go play two nights at

1447
01:24:09,920 --> 01:24:14,200
Speaker 1: Green Hall in Texas and do you know fift people

1448
01:24:14,439 --> 01:24:22,240
Speaker 1: and and um uh you know, I have a really

1449
01:24:22,240 --> 01:24:26,680
Speaker 1: successful weekend at a dance hall. But if I have

1450
01:24:26,760 --> 01:24:33,040
Speaker 1: the band, but I can't do the same thing solo. UM.

1451
01:24:33,640 --> 01:24:35,760
Speaker 1: But then you know, like you said, A lot of that,

1452
01:24:35,840 --> 01:24:39,240
Speaker 1: A lot of that profit is eaten up by salaries

1453
01:24:39,240 --> 01:24:42,439
Speaker 1: and hotel rooms and per deems and all that stuff.

1454
01:24:42,479 --> 01:24:46,320
Speaker 1: And um, so I'm always trying to trying to find

1455
01:24:46,320 --> 01:24:48,720
Speaker 1: a line of where I can do what I need

1456
01:24:48,920 --> 01:24:52,880
Speaker 1: financially and um, but keep the band. I like having

1457
01:24:52,880 --> 01:24:55,080
Speaker 1: that element. I like being a solo artist, like like

1458
01:24:55,160 --> 01:24:58,080
Speaker 1: going out by myself and playing a listing room, and

1459
01:24:58,120 --> 01:25:00,400
Speaker 1: I like getting the band together and tearing but a

1460
01:25:00,479 --> 01:25:04,719
Speaker 1: dance hall. It's uh, I enjoy being able to do both. Um.

1461
01:25:04,760 --> 01:25:06,400
Speaker 1: I think I would get bored if I can only

1462
01:25:06,439 --> 01:25:08,840
Speaker 1: do one thing and it's just the same guys each time.

1463
01:25:09,040 --> 01:25:11,160
Speaker 1: Oh it's changed over the years, but right now I've

1464
01:25:11,160 --> 01:25:15,599
Speaker 1: got a pretty uh consistent abandoned career. And what they

1465
01:25:15,640 --> 01:25:19,519
Speaker 1: do to get through the pandemic, well, um, everything from

1466
01:25:19,680 --> 01:25:25,320
Speaker 1: Patreon to teaching online music lessons to um, you know,

1467
01:25:25,360 --> 01:25:28,800
Speaker 1: government assistance too. I helped out in the beginning where

1468
01:25:28,840 --> 01:25:32,599
Speaker 1: I could, Um, one of them became a substitute teacher.

1469
01:25:32,920 --> 01:25:36,120
Speaker 1: That's uh, you know, everybody's hustling. Okay, So let's say

1470
01:25:36,120 --> 01:25:39,559
Speaker 1: someone is unfamiliar with your work, what are the two

1471
01:25:39,600 --> 01:25:44,040
Speaker 1: songs they should listen to that you think would really

1472
01:25:44,520 --> 01:25:47,760
Speaker 1: depict where you're coming from that they need to hear.

1473
01:25:50,800 --> 01:25:55,639
Speaker 1: Oh boy, Um, Well, I'm gonna go with my most

1474
01:25:56,439 --> 01:25:58,599
Speaker 1: recent record. I've got two songs on there that I think,

1475
01:25:59,439 --> 01:26:02,439
Speaker 1: UH show at least part of the range. And their

1476
01:26:02,439 --> 01:26:05,080
Speaker 1: two songs I'm really proud of I've got the title

1477
01:26:05,120 --> 01:26:09,400
Speaker 1: track is called you Get It All and um, which

1478
01:26:09,479 --> 01:26:15,240
Speaker 1: is just uh sort of introspective love song. But but

1479
01:26:15,280 --> 01:26:18,120
Speaker 1: I feel like it's got all the elements that that

1480
01:26:19,479 --> 01:26:22,839
Speaker 1: I'm drawn too in songs, the word play and and

1481
01:26:22,840 --> 01:26:27,880
Speaker 1: and a little bit of levity and um uh and

1482
01:26:28,240 --> 01:26:33,799
Speaker 1: a country feel. Um. It's it's I think it's well written,

1483
01:26:33,840 --> 01:26:37,600
Speaker 1: if I do say so myself. And then um, the

1484
01:26:37,640 --> 01:26:39,880
Speaker 1: other one off this record that I think it's it's

1485
01:26:39,880 --> 01:26:41,599
Speaker 1: one of the things I'm most proud of that I've

1486
01:26:41,600 --> 01:26:44,280
Speaker 1: ever done. Uh is a song I sent to you

1487
01:26:44,960 --> 01:26:53,200
Speaker 1: called help Me Remember, and that uh is just one

1488
01:26:53,240 --> 01:26:58,120
Speaker 1: of my Uh It's just one of the things I'm

1489
01:26:58,160 --> 01:27:01,040
Speaker 1: most proud of. I worked really hard on it with

1490
01:27:01,040 --> 01:27:05,679
Speaker 1: with the Josh Morning Star, UM great songwriter, and and

1491
01:27:05,840 --> 01:27:08,040
Speaker 1: we really brought it home. I think, yeah, I know

1492
01:27:08,080 --> 01:27:09,760
Speaker 1: what it's about. Could you tell if those people were

1493
01:27:09,840 --> 01:27:13,400
Speaker 1: unfamiliar with what it's about well, help me remembers about dementia,

1494
01:27:13,520 --> 01:27:19,240
Speaker 1: Alzheimer's people struggling with that, and and U and about

1495
01:27:19,280 --> 01:27:27,320
Speaker 1: the having a witness to your life um, which is ah,

1496
01:27:27,520 --> 01:27:30,640
Speaker 1: sometimes I think about a lot um. So it's uh,

1497
01:27:31,160 --> 01:27:34,400
Speaker 1: it's it's a song written from the perspective of someone

1498
01:27:34,800 --> 01:27:37,640
Speaker 1: suffering dementia and and sort of losing the thread to

1499
01:27:37,680 --> 01:27:42,920
Speaker 1: their own story and asking their spouse to help fill

1500
01:27:42,960 --> 01:27:44,920
Speaker 1: in the blanks about who they were and what their

1501
01:27:44,960 --> 01:27:48,599
Speaker 1: life was, what they were about, what their life was like.

1502
01:27:49,200 --> 01:27:52,439
Speaker 1: So what do you mean about having a witness? Well,

1503
01:27:53,040 --> 01:27:57,080
Speaker 1: I mean I was thinking about the idea of not

1504
01:27:57,320 --> 01:28:02,679
Speaker 1: remembering who you were. You know, your partner, your friends,

1505
01:28:02,720 --> 01:28:05,200
Speaker 1: your children, those are people who saw you through your life.

1506
01:28:05,360 --> 01:28:08,320
Speaker 1: They knew what you were about. They knew your actions,

1507
01:28:10,080 --> 01:28:14,519
Speaker 1: they knew whether you were where you were good and

1508
01:28:14,520 --> 01:28:21,000
Speaker 1: where you struggled. They knew, um, what you aspired to.

1509
01:28:22,560 --> 01:28:28,959
Speaker 1: And it's heartbreaking to think about losing that self knowledge,

1510
01:28:30,360 --> 01:28:34,960
Speaker 1: but people do. And so the idea of having a

1511
01:28:34,960 --> 01:28:38,800
Speaker 1: witness to your life is is exactly that somebody who

1512
01:28:38,960 --> 01:28:42,120
Speaker 1: was there for your life and can tell you this

1513
01:28:42,160 --> 01:28:44,559
Speaker 1: is what you were about, this is the kind of

1514
01:28:44,600 --> 01:28:47,519
Speaker 1: person you were. You were. This is the kind of

1515
01:28:47,560 --> 01:28:50,120
Speaker 1: parent you were, it's kind of spouse, it's the kind

1516
01:28:50,120 --> 01:28:58,439
Speaker 1: of citizen. Um that that just really struck me. My

1517
01:28:58,479 --> 01:29:01,599
Speaker 1: grandfather suffered from dementia just a little bit before he passed,

1518
01:29:03,800 --> 01:29:08,719
Speaker 1: and he had too things that happened that really stood

1519
01:29:08,760 --> 01:29:11,920
Speaker 1: out to me. One I was riding in his pickup

1520
01:29:11,920 --> 01:29:15,240
Speaker 1: truck in Waco, Texas, and he pulled up to the

1521
01:29:15,280 --> 01:29:17,960
Speaker 1: stoplight and he turned around to me and asked me

1522
01:29:18,040 --> 01:29:20,720
Speaker 1: where we were and I had no idea, and that

1523
01:29:20,840 --> 01:29:23,959
Speaker 1: was his hometown. I didn't live there, and I was fourteen,

1524
01:29:24,800 --> 01:29:29,640
Speaker 1: and he looked scared, and you know, this was a

1525
01:29:29,720 --> 01:29:34,600
Speaker 1: drive he had made ten thousand times he and he

1526
01:29:34,680 --> 01:29:38,120
Speaker 1: was lost. And then there was another time. My grandfather

1527
01:29:38,160 --> 01:29:42,120
Speaker 1: was a really loving, sweet man, and there was one

1528
01:29:42,200 --> 01:29:44,559
Speaker 1: day where he was not being either of those things.

1529
01:29:45,400 --> 01:29:50,200
Speaker 1: And I remember my my dad pulled me aside. He said,

1530
01:29:50,280 --> 01:29:54,280
Speaker 1: don't remember your grandfather this way. Yeah, this is not

1531
01:29:54,400 --> 01:29:59,639
Speaker 1: who he is. And I guess that's what I mean

1532
01:29:59,800 --> 01:30:05,720
Speaker 1: is m My dad was a witness, you know, my

1533
01:30:05,760 --> 01:30:09,240
Speaker 1: grandmother was a witness. And as my grandfather was starting

1534
01:30:09,240 --> 01:30:13,360
Speaker 1: to struggle with knowing who he was and where he was,

1535
01:30:13,920 --> 01:30:16,400
Speaker 1: the idea of having people who did know that and

1536
01:30:16,439 --> 01:30:20,160
Speaker 1: could remind you. Uh. It seemed like a very powerful

1537
01:30:20,200 --> 01:30:23,760
Speaker 1: one and an important thing to have. Well, Hayes, I

1538
01:30:23,760 --> 01:30:25,960
Speaker 1: think we've come to the end of the feeling we've known.

1539
01:30:26,400 --> 01:30:30,480
Speaker 1: Thanks for being so honest and open. You're a real thinker,

1540
01:30:30,520 --> 01:30:33,280
Speaker 1: and you're giving very insightful the answer. So thanks so

1541
01:30:33,360 --> 01:30:36,960
Speaker 1: much for doing this well. Thank you, Bob. I'm i'm

1542
01:30:37,320 --> 01:30:41,280
Speaker 1: I really appreciate your newsletter and and you give me

1543
01:30:41,320 --> 01:30:43,880
Speaker 1: and I can think about every years. Thank you til

1544
01:30:43,960 --> 01:30:46,040
Speaker 1: next time. This is Bob Left Sense