Speaker 1: I Heart Radio presents Inside the Studio and I'm your
Speaker 1: host Joe. Leaving this episode, I caught up with Sam
Speaker 1: Hunt and we talked about how he went from a
Speaker 1: college football quarterback to one of Nashville's best songwriters, about
Speaker 1: the work he did to get his life together between
Speaker 1: the success of his first studio album and his new
Speaker 1: ones Southside, and also I kid you not about why
Speaker 1: he packs some Nietzsche in his suitcase when he heads
Speaker 1: to Mexico. Now, given the current quarantine conditions, we connected
Speaker 1: from New York to Nashville, so it was part inside
Speaker 1: the studio and part inside my living room. Did we
Speaker 1: get zoom bombed? We got zoom bombed, though it actually
Speaker 1: came from inside my apartment. Get any of you gotta
Speaker 1: you gotta excuse my cat. He just decided to join us,
Speaker 1: one of the two. And that's how Sam Hunt got
Speaker 1: to meet one of my two cats, Kit as in
Speaker 1: kit Cat and Bow as in Bo Diddley. Guess which
Speaker 1: one my wife named and which one I got to name?
Speaker 1: And actually this is kind of a trick question because
Speaker 1: my wife got to name both of them. Sam Hunt, though,
Speaker 1: is more of a dog person. On the cover of
Speaker 1: South Side, which debuted at number one when it was
Speaker 1: released in April. Hunt is standing with Kai, his husky,
Speaker 1: one of his three dogs, in front of a white
Speaker 1: clapboard house, and if you haven't seen it, it's pretty
Speaker 1: close to a snapshot. It's a six ft three guy
Speaker 1: in khaki's with a dog on a leash, and there's
Speaker 1: a truck. Nothing fancy, but the house he's in front
Speaker 1: of is the one where he was living when he
Speaker 1: wrote the songs on histeen breakthrough album, Madavello. And since
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, south Side is about the
Speaker 1: distance Hunt has traveled since Madavello came out, it makes sense.
Speaker 1: And the story behind the picture is apparently that Hunt
Speaker 1: was on his way home from church one Sunday and
Speaker 1: he stopped by there. He sold that place to his
Speaker 1: brothers since he lived there, and he had the idea
Speaker 1: that it might work for the album cover. So he
Speaker 1: got out. The photographer he was with snapped that shot
Speaker 1: and they were done. I mean, he brought along some
Speaker 1: clothes that he thought he might change into. They never
Speaker 1: even made it out of the back of his truck.
Speaker 1: He did not want to overthink it, and that maybe
Speaker 1: the only thing about South Side that he didn't overthink.
Speaker 1: This album was a long time coming six years, during
Speaker 1: which time Modavello became massive. Singles like leave the Night On,
Speaker 1: Take Your Time, House Party, break Up in a Small
Speaker 1: Town absolutely dominated the country charts and also became top
Speaker 1: forty pop hits thanks to their careful blend of country pop,
Speaker 1: R and B hip hop Maybe a Little Rock, gutar
Speaker 1: kind of whatever You've Got. In February of Hunt followed
Speaker 1: up all that success with a single that became, up
Speaker 1: until that moment, the biggest hit in country history. Body
Speaker 1: Like a Back Road, spent an astounding thirty four consecutive
Speaker 1: weeks on the top of the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.
Speaker 1: Now you don't need to be a master marketing guru
Speaker 1: at a record label to know that that was probably
Speaker 1: a good time to put out another album. But time
Speaker 1: went behind it a little more time almost a year,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't until January that Hunt even released another song,
Speaker 1: and that wasn't really a song for the radio. The
Speaker 1: somber Drinking too Much is more like reading someone else's
Speaker 1: late night I'm sorry texts. It's Hunt apologizing to his
Speaker 1: ex girl friend Hannah Lee Fowler, the woman who's now
Speaker 1: his wife. She comes from Montevello, Alabama, and he begins
Speaker 1: the song saying he's sorry for naming his album after
Speaker 1: her hometown, for robbing her of her privacy. Drinking too
Speaker 1: Much is a pretty extraordinary song, and it's full of
Speaker 1: the concrete details that makes Sam Hunt a truly extraordinary songwriter.
Speaker 1: In this song, he talks about wishing she'd let him
Speaker 1: pay off her student loans in return for all those
Speaker 1: songs that she gave him. About how she overpacked when
Speaker 1: she came to see him in Nashville and they went
Speaker 1: to the c m AS together, About being drunk two
Speaker 1: years later on stage at the c m AS, now
Speaker 1: that he'd become a star, About being in a hotel
Speaker 1: room in Phoenix thinking about telling her a lie, and
Speaker 1: about imagining her lying in a bathtub with her face
Speaker 1: under the water, crying. I've sat through two hour Netflix
Speaker 1: movies with less narrative and character development. Then Hunt puts
Speaker 1: into the three minute in fifty two seconds of this song.
Speaker 1: So one of the reasons that South Side took so
Speaker 1: long is that Hunt was getting his life together and
Speaker 1: putting their relationship back together. Race in the first few
Speaker 1: praises for shoe case of small town repression. The body
Speaker 1: was baptized, so disfriendious I was your favorite conversion. My
Speaker 1: past was checkered, your spotless records, brobo being jet boody.
Speaker 1: Your place in my place is grace, and your grace
Speaker 1: feel like the same thing I never felt like I
Speaker 1: was saying. He explained some of that in the first
Speaker 1: track on south Side. It's called and It's about wanting
Speaker 1: to put the whiskey back in the bottle, Stop chasing
Speaker 1: dreams and lonely women. Drive a thousand miles to see
Speaker 1: the woman he left so he can walk in he
Speaker 1: walked out. I mean, just about every line of could
Speaker 1: be its own song. And when people like me write
Speaker 1: about Hunt's music, they tend to write about his mix
Speaker 1: of country tradition and hip hop flow, which is, for real,
Speaker 1: pretty remarkable, though it's also something that's been going on
Speaker 1: for a long time. I mean to choose one of
Speaker 1: many examples Nelly recorded over and over with Tim McGraw
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine, and it sure sounds pretty
Speaker 1: similar to the way Hunt deployed an acoustic guitar and
Speaker 1: a drum machine on the mix tape that he uploaded
Speaker 1: the SoundCloud before he got signed Between the Pintes. But
Speaker 1: what really makes Hunt's songs stand out for me is
Speaker 1: those details raised on it. The first song on Between
Speaker 1: the Pines paints a picture of how he grew up
Speaker 1: in Cedar Town, Georgia. Here's a few details, snapbacks and
Speaker 1: Levi jeans, pbr and and c D S three guard
Speaker 1: at the barber shop, ducking from your ex at the
Speaker 1: four way stop. And you've got to admire that last bit,
Speaker 1: not just the part about exactly how he gets his
Speaker 1: hair cut, but ducking from your ex at the four
Speaker 1: way stop is a perfect summation of just how small
Speaker 1: that town is. And it's also a scene so sharp
Speaker 1: you feel it, you can see it even if you
Speaker 1: haven't lived it. The other thing that took so long
Speaker 1: with south Side is that Hunt has a perfectionist streak.
Speaker 1: He followed up the huge success Amountabella with the even
Speaker 1: bigger success A Body Like a Back Road, and he
Speaker 1: was still wondering, more than a year after that song
Speaker 1: came out if there might have been a better way
Speaker 1: of recording it. So as he was trying to figure
Speaker 1: all this stuff out his life and his music, he
Speaker 1: recorded some tracks with Diplo and Charlie Handsome. The producer
Speaker 1: has worked with Post Malone, Collide and Chance the Rapper,
Speaker 1: and those tracks haven't come out. But on South Side
Speaker 1: Hunt manages to go in two directions at once. Some
Speaker 1: songs like hard to Forget, which is hooked to a
Speaker 1: sample of the country classic Web Pier song there Stands
Speaker 1: the Glass from are more a clear blend of country
Speaker 1: and hip hop than Hunt has ever made, and others
Speaker 1: like The Weepy s or Sinning with You are more
Speaker 1: clearly throwbacks to country music tradition, even if they push
Speaker 1: that tradition along in a new direction. Hunt told me
Speaker 1: about how he wrote Sinning with You Late at Night
Speaker 1: by himself, the way he first wrote songs before he
Speaker 1: ever got to Nashville, So in a way, it's a
Speaker 1: throwback to himself. Here's what else he had to say,
Speaker 1: Sam Hunt, thank you for being with us, Welcome to
Speaker 1: inside the studio. Yeah, man, thanks for having me. So,
Speaker 1: how is how's Quarantine treating you? I I've read you
Speaker 1: have a new puppy. I do, yeah, he um, he's
Speaker 1: been around since Christmas, so um, I've had him for
Speaker 1: a few months now, but he uh, I've gotten to
Speaker 1: spend a lot more time with him since being quarantined,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna get the wrong impression of what being
Speaker 1: a dog in the hunting. He gets lots of play
Speaker 1: time right now. I get to run every day and uh,
Speaker 1: he's he and the other dogs are have been my
Speaker 1: uh closest buddies here the last two months. How many
Speaker 1: dogs are it for? All three? Three? And all three overall?
Speaker 1: Yeah too, two of the same breed and one h husky.
Speaker 1: Some dogs in a husky okay, And uh, what's the
Speaker 1: name of the dog on the cover of the south
Speaker 1: Side album? That's the husky. His name is Kai, my
Speaker 1: wife name. I'm glad I've gotten into the menagerie with you.
Speaker 1: But of course I want to ask you about south Side, uh,
Speaker 1: what it's all about, where it comes from. But I
Speaker 1: want to go a little further back than that, and
Speaker 1: and ask you a little bit about where you come from.
Speaker 1: And I want to ask you a bit about your
Speaker 1: time in college. So you played football at the University
Speaker 1: of Alabama, Birmingham. You were quarterback. Yeah, but this is
Speaker 1: also where you started learning to play guitar. Yeah it is. Um,
Speaker 1: I got a guitar the summer before leaving for college.
Speaker 1: It was a slow summer between you between high school
Speaker 1: and college and just waiting on school to start. Really,
Speaker 1: I guess camp to start football camp to start, which
Speaker 1: starts in August, and U I, uh, I didn't know
Speaker 1: for sure how I would progress because I didn't know
Speaker 1: whether or not I had any potential or to excel
Speaker 1: in music. And I was not too optimistic about, you know,
Speaker 1: how how good I might get on the guitar. But um,
Speaker 1: a buddy of mine got a guitar, bought a guitar
Speaker 1: to pun shop. And I think I got got a
Speaker 1: little money from my parents, my mom, my parents, you know,
Speaker 1: like you graduate as a singer, and they gave me
Speaker 1: a little a little spending money and I just enough
Speaker 1: to get a guitar. And yeah, I was just but
Speaker 1: I just fell in love with it. I never could
Speaker 1: get into video games, and never anything that's card games,
Speaker 1: board games. I can't. It's hard for me to just
Speaker 1: sit still in one place in the house and do anything.
Speaker 1: But the guitar was the first thing that kept me
Speaker 1: still for hours at a time. And I was just
Speaker 1: just so intrigued with with the guitar and and just
Speaker 1: learning to play so when you were learning to play,
Speaker 1: how did you go about that? And and what were
Speaker 1: the first songs that you learned to play? Yeah, that
Speaker 1: we had a little music store in my hometown, which
Speaker 1: was you know, it's one of those stores down on
Speaker 1: main Street where all the shops are have big glass
Speaker 1: front windows, and everything in the store was like thirty
Speaker 1: years old. You know, there's like, uh, the song books
Speaker 1: with dust on them, and there's like these old instruments
Speaker 1: in the front front window display. Um. So I found
Speaker 1: a guitar there and it looked like I've been hanging
Speaker 1: on the wall for the teen years. And uh, and
Speaker 1: a in a song book that covered the most ground
Speaker 1: in terms of learning to play an instrument, and it
Speaker 1: was it had I think some songs. I think it
Speaker 1: may be simple Man by Leonard Skinner was one of
Speaker 1: the songs that it broke down in there. And when
Speaker 1: you first learned to play, you know, you you you
Speaker 1: haven't learned even learned to play chords yet. Chords are
Speaker 1: kind of boring. But if you can pick out a
Speaker 1: little introducted like a song intro of of a song
Speaker 1: like simple Man, it has that little it's a c
Speaker 1: cord that you just do do Do Do Do Do
Speaker 1: Do Do Do do do, And you could play those
Speaker 1: bass notes and that was pretty easy to figure out.
Speaker 1: And I thought that was so cool that, um that
Speaker 1: I could almost sound like the introduction to Simple Man
Speaker 1: without you know, within two days. And how did songwritings
Speaker 1: start for you? I think I got bored with playing
Speaker 1: other songs and um, you know, having a hard time
Speaker 1: making my guitar sounded like the song I was hearing,
Speaker 1: uh that I was trying to learn to play. So
Speaker 1: I just would get off on my own thing and
Speaker 1: start playing, um, making up chords or combining chords, and um,
Speaker 1: I used to I used to write quite a bit
Speaker 1: during that time. Um, not songs, but just and I
Speaker 1: wouldn't even call it a diary either. Just I wouldn't
Speaker 1: call it poetry. I don't know what it was. It's
Speaker 1: just kind of stream of consciousness, free verse stuff. I
Speaker 1: would just write my thoughts and and try to create
Speaker 1: rhymes and and tell stories that and I guess it
Speaker 1: and I was, you know that they were song esque,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them would be If I were
Speaker 1: to pick up a guitar and sing, it would be
Speaker 1: a ten minute verse, you know. But just write a
Speaker 1: lot of just writing stuff down, so and I tried
Speaker 1: to start just giving it some form. And I think
Speaker 1: the first two or three songs I wrote were we're
Speaker 1: songs that were an attempt to make my buddies laugh.
Speaker 1: I was trying to be funny. Something would have happened
Speaker 1: to a buddy of ours in some situation that we
Speaker 1: thought was a funny story, and I would take that
Speaker 1: story and turn it into a song. And just you know,
Speaker 1: that was my first I guess attempts because I didn't
Speaker 1: want to. I was a little you know, I felt
Speaker 1: a little vulnerable. You know, I was an athlete growing up,
Speaker 1: and those two worlds didn't really overlap. In a small
Speaker 1: town like where I'm from. You either get into the
Speaker 1: arts or you play sports, and um and so uh.
Speaker 1: I think I was a little insecure about picking up
Speaker 1: a guitar and learning to play. So I just would
Speaker 1: try to be funny with my songwriting those first the
Speaker 1: first couple of years. You've got a cold and truth
Speaker 1: and got him, but I got no truth that you
Speaker 1: showed up to just my head. So you're looking so
Speaker 1: good rating me out of mind or you're breaking You
Speaker 1: had a try out with the Kansas City Chiefs. Right,
Speaker 1: you were thinking sports was a lane for you, But
Speaker 1: then shortly after that you moved to Nashville. After college,
Speaker 1: I had an opportunity to go to the trial with
Speaker 1: the Kansas City Chiefs, but a career in the league
Speaker 1: in the NFL was still a long shot. And at
Speaker 1: that point I, UM I had pretty well decided I
Speaker 1: wanted to live in Nashville and pursue music. UM I
Speaker 1: had been playing for four years on the guitar, and
Speaker 1: at that point I had written a few songs and
Speaker 1: I had gone out and started playing. We all hung
Speaker 1: out at the same two or three little bars music venues,
Speaker 1: and UM I would get up and maybe do two
Speaker 1: or three original songs every couple of weeks, and that
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun. And then I started UH.
Speaker 1: I connected with a buddy down in jackson Jacksonville State,
Speaker 1: and he had a he was in a he he
Speaker 1: managed some fraternities and book bands for fraternity So I'd
Speaker 1: go down there like on a Saturday and play for
Speaker 1: an hour and a half before the football game came on,
Speaker 1: and did that. I went up to UT and did that.
Speaker 1: Did that Exmable State, UM I think Auburn. We went
Speaker 1: down to Auburn one afternoon and now that was a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. But that, um, that really piqued my interest.
Speaker 1: I mean, um in terms of pursuing a career in
Speaker 1: music in some capacity. And that was before I even
Speaker 1: knew about the songwriting world. So I just packed up
Speaker 1: and moved to Nashville kind of with im just hoping
Speaker 1: to figure it out. So what do you tell your
Speaker 1: mom and dad? It's like, well, I'm I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: play football, which might be a bit of a relief
Speaker 1: because you know, um, I'm not gonna get injured doing that,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna go to Nashville and make music. And
Speaker 1: was there any sense of like, well you could think
Speaker 1: about earning a living. Yeah, there definitely was, especially for
Speaker 1: my dad. Yeah, And I think they thought, you know,
Speaker 1: I've had buddies who went out and went out west
Speaker 1: and worked at ski lodges, or or they guided fly
Speaker 1: fish and trips, or um, they went to Europe, you
Speaker 1: know other things like that. Some people went straight to work.
Speaker 1: But um, that's that's sort of a phase an era
Speaker 1: in life that you get the sense from the adults
Speaker 1: in your life said Okay, they're gonna do this. For
Speaker 1: a couple of years, and they're gonna realize it's hard
Speaker 1: out there in the real world. They're gonna get a
Speaker 1: real job, and they'll wake up, and we're gonna even
Speaker 1: kind of passive aggressively push them towards that so that
Speaker 1: they do it sooner than later. Let you get this
Speaker 1: out of your system. Yeah that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. Even coming back home from Nashville, it's like
Speaker 1: you get that, oh, you're still doing the music thing,
Speaker 1: you know, and um, you kind of feel a little
Speaker 1: offended by that because you get the impression that they
Speaker 1: don't think that's gonna work out. What was Nashville like
Speaker 1: for you when you first got there. I mean it
Speaker 1: was exciting for somebody who had not really lived anywhere,
Speaker 1: had other than my hometown Cedar Sound and gone to
Speaker 1: school in Birmingham, which really consisted of going to class
Speaker 1: and football practice. So I wasn't really experienced in the
Speaker 1: city necessarily. Um, but uh, it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: just having free reign in a new place where there
Speaker 1: was lots of live music. Um. I was really really
Speaker 1: really obsessed with live music at that point because I
Speaker 1: was learning to play guitar and there was one place
Speaker 1: in Birmingham where I could go listen to live music,
Speaker 1: and it was a little bluegrass jam joint that UM
Speaker 1: every other other Tuesday they would have blue grass jams
Speaker 1: and I'd go there every Tuesday, kind of sitting the
Speaker 1: back and just listen and UM. When I got to Nashville,
Speaker 1: of course, you know there are a hundred places like
Speaker 1: that where you can go listen to live music. So
Speaker 1: that was exciting for me getting to Nashville, UM and
Speaker 1: getting out and realizing that there were there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people out here around my age who are UM
Speaker 1: and and all levels of talent and and and ability
Speaker 1: out here pursuing this thing. So it's inspiring to see
Speaker 1: that and to being that kind of community. Tell me
Speaker 1: a little about that community and how you found your
Speaker 1: own sound, because that crowds such a key collaborator for you.
Speaker 1: And you've talked a little about how when you first
Speaker 1: came to know him, he was really making beats for
Speaker 1: for hip hop, and I know we worked with Lacra
Speaker 1: and others, and he wasn't really versed in country music.
Speaker 1: Howd that community come together for you? How do you
Speaker 1: begin to find your sound? I signed my first publishing
Speaker 1: deal with a producer named Jimmy Ritchie, and he was
Speaker 1: producing records like he produced a Mark Chestnut record. He
Speaker 1: grew up on the bluegrass circuits a really good player
Speaker 1: and a songwriter producer, and Uh, Jimmy Bowen was like
Speaker 1: his guy that he aspired to be, and he produced
Speaker 1: a lot a lot of Merl Haggard records. And my
Speaker 1: interests were I didn't know what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: I loved old country music and I loved a lot
Speaker 1: of UH music outside the genre. But being plugged into
Speaker 1: that little community of writers who were bone country, like
Speaker 1: that's all they wanted to write, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: that's good with me, and so I wrote. We wrote
Speaker 1: those songs for two or three years, and for for
Speaker 1: some reason, it never felt authentic. You know. I if
Speaker 1: we'd write the songs, we go demo him UM and UH,
Speaker 1: I just never quite felt like UM didn't feel very
Speaker 1: authentic when I would hear the demo. So it just
Speaker 1: didn't feel like me. So then UM, I started to
Speaker 1: experiment with some other writers, and UH learned a lot
Speaker 1: from those writers I wrote with in that camp during
Speaker 1: that time. But it started to experiment with other writers
Speaker 1: and I was walking to the study in a in
Speaker 1: a published office one day and I heard a demo
Speaker 1: playing in the other room and I knew the guy
Speaker 1: who worked in front desk that was listening to the music.
Speaker 1: And I walked up to him and asked him who
Speaker 1: who produced that music he was listening to and he said, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's a guy Za crowd He Um he worked with
Speaker 1: Ashley Gourley. Sum. He's a mostly worked in the pop world,
Speaker 1: but he's made some hip hop music for some local
Speaker 1: rappers over the years. UM, and I said, can you
Speaker 1: set me up with a co write with him? And
Speaker 1: he said, well, he hadn't really written a lot of
Speaker 1: country music. And I was like, I don't care. I
Speaker 1: just just set us up and if if, if he's
Speaker 1: cool with it, and UM he did. He set us
Speaker 1: up and we just hit it off that first day.
Speaker 1: We both it was like I only found another like
Speaker 1: minded individual who saw the world the way I saw
Speaker 1: it and UM and we uh wrote a song that
Speaker 1: day and started working together. And UM at that point
Speaker 1: I decided, Okay, this is the guy that Uh I'd
Speaker 1: really like to be a big part of this this
Speaker 1: production on this music. Also UM Shane McNally and Josh
Speaker 1: Osborne were good buddies. Connected with those guys about about
Speaker 1: two years before. That was a big part of my
Speaker 1: of making progress towards the um, you know, making the
Speaker 1: first record as well. But we were just missing we
Speaker 1: were missing just a little bit of urban influence that
Speaker 1: those Pops instabilities, whatever that was, and Zach brought that
Speaker 1: at the table, so it it really rounded the whole
Speaker 1: thing out, and finally the thing that I saw and
Speaker 1: heard and my head started to come together and make sense.
Speaker 1: You've also talked about how when you first started playing
Speaker 1: out you didn't have money for bass player or a drummer,
Speaker 1: so you were using a drum machine. And so how
Speaker 1: did that all come into the sound of those first
Speaker 1: records on Between the Pines, like things like raised on
Speaker 1: it that feels like a manifesto, Like the lyrics are
Speaker 1: about a very specific place in world, but the music
Speaker 1: is pointing to almost a new place. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't a great guitar player when I came came
Speaker 1: to town. I got better over time, and writing was
Speaker 1: a little more difficult to write on just a guitar.
Speaker 1: I wrote songs on just a guitar and we write.
Speaker 1: For the first two or three four years, all we
Speaker 1: did was right with guitars. But when I got in
Speaker 1: a room where somebody could pull up a drum sound
Speaker 1: and we could throw music down and I don't have
Speaker 1: to every time I want to, like um, so, hey,
Speaker 1: what about this line, I don't have to pick up
Speaker 1: the guitar and sing it. And you might in a
Speaker 1: moment of inspiration, you might sing a melody if nobody's
Speaker 1: recording it. I mean, it's gone out of my brain,
Speaker 1: and I might forget it ten seconds later. So the
Speaker 1: good thing about working with Zach and since then the
Speaker 1: town has gone that direction with with producers in in
Speaker 1: the room during co writes, because you can capture, you
Speaker 1: can have a microphone recording, and you can go into
Speaker 1: the booth and put down put down the lines as
Speaker 1: placeholders as you're writing the song. So that was really
Speaker 1: helpful for me because I my my it's hard for
Speaker 1: me that my brain is not quite as organized and
Speaker 1: some of the other writers in town. So I need
Speaker 1: to get it down as soon as it comes to
Speaker 1: comes to my head, and that was really helpful. So
Speaker 1: but but also I was inspired by those drum sounds
Speaker 1: that were Um, that were a little more urban. I
Speaker 1: guess you could say, looking so good, shot me out
Speaker 1: of my mind, all you're breaking. You mentioned that the
Speaker 1: town works a little more this way now, But but
Speaker 1: that kind of working method very typical for pop or
Speaker 1: hip hop, you know, like one line at a time.
Speaker 1: You know, Little Wayne used to talk about how he
Speaker 1: would just leave phone messages for himself back home, like
Speaker 1: just yeah, a couple of lines into the into the
Speaker 1: into the answering machine or something like that. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: I do the same thing, and I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people here intil do the same thing as well.
Speaker 1: But that there's also that you know, I think in
Speaker 1: that world you see now that I'm a little more
Speaker 1: familiar with it, you see guys who will get up
Speaker 1: on on the mic and just I mean cause you
Speaker 1: could call it freestyle, but just sort of sing melodies
Speaker 1: and and lyrics just off the top of their head,
Speaker 1: and a producer can capture that and start to piece
Speaker 1: it together. And that was something that that really did well.
Speaker 1: So I would um a lot of that first record
Speaker 1: was the bones of those songs were just um, like
Speaker 1: the stream of consciousness off the top of the head
Speaker 1: in the in the booth. So he'll play a track
Speaker 1: and that inspiration when it hits you gotta jump to
Speaker 1: the mic. Quit because when it goes away, it's gone
Speaker 1: and only last for a few minutes. But if you
Speaker 1: can just sing out everything that you hear and think
Speaker 1: at that moment is actual really good at capture and
Speaker 1: all that, and you know, staying this melody you sing here,
Speaker 1: it feels like a great verse melody. And what you
Speaker 1: did here in the chorus, even though you kind of
Speaker 1: were just mumbling a lot of the lyric. Once you
Speaker 1: get that structure in place, then you can sit down
Speaker 1: with a pen and pad and fill in the blanks.
Speaker 1: So that was like a new something that Zach brought
Speaker 1: to the table. That was really helpful for me. And
Speaker 1: when you see the first record, are you talking about
Speaker 1: now between the Pines or yeah? That that one of
Speaker 1: those songs which a lot of those songs were also
Speaker 1: on Mona Vala, but mainly but Mona Valo. The songs
Speaker 1: that were on Mona Valo a lot of those songs.
Speaker 1: So that record comes out and it really tears up
Speaker 1: the country charts, phenomenally successful. It does well. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of that had to do with
Speaker 1: you mentioned Between the Pines, I put out an acoustic
Speaker 1: we caught it a mix that it was just acoustic
Speaker 1: songs that we put up on SoundCloud for free. Um,
Speaker 1: the summer before I don't know, is that you was
Speaker 1: it the summer the year before put out my develop
Speaker 1: At that point, a lot of people were finding their
Speaker 1: music on the internet. You know, that was before Spotify,
Speaker 1: but SoundCloud was big. Um, people found artists on YouTube.
Speaker 1: So people were digging around on the internet, especially like
Speaker 1: pure music fans, and those are the fans who who
Speaker 1: really dig and find like up and coming artists, and
Speaker 1: they are the people that really kind of the trend
Speaker 1: setters and taste makers. They'll go tell that they'll they'll
Speaker 1: tell everybody they know about something they're excited about. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we were able to get some of those people on
Speaker 1: board early on and they they drive. We got in
Speaker 1: a van and started tour and you know, even before
Speaker 1: the record came out, and they would you know, there'd
Speaker 1: be people from two states over showing up for the shows.
Speaker 1: And that was when I started. It just started blew
Speaker 1: in my mind that people were that excited about the music.
Speaker 1: But they would tell me stories about finding the music,
Speaker 1: and then they'd have a group of buddies who would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: my buddy or my girlfriend found this music and we've
Speaker 1: been listening to it and telling all our friends about it.
Speaker 1: And it just slowly grew that way. And that was
Speaker 1: before you know, radio or or the record level really
Speaker 1: got involved. But I think that helped that first record.
Speaker 1: It built the foundation so that when we did put
Speaker 1: out Mono Valo, there was even though the record label
Speaker 1: didn't have a they couldn't figure out why it was
Speaker 1: it was having. You know, they read the charts and
Speaker 1: do the research, and they can't figure out why this
Speaker 1: record was doing well. And I don't think the towns
Speaker 1: or industry was quite yet onto the fact that the
Speaker 1: Internet was a really powerful tool for upcoming artists in
Speaker 1: this in this era. Right. But but you've already been
Speaker 1: out there and you've encountered, you'd seen firsthand that there
Speaker 1: was an audience who who was craving to hear things
Speaker 1: the way you heard things, right, And that really um
Speaker 1: excited me just about a feeling like I had a place,
Speaker 1: because I started to feel like after the first few years,
Speaker 1: like maybe there's not a place for me in country music.
Speaker 1: Maybe I just need to try to write for other
Speaker 1: artists and not let my personal tastes or interest or
Speaker 1: the way I would say it if I were an artist.
Speaker 1: Let's kind of put that aside and just try to
Speaker 1: write for the voice of artists who are existing on
Speaker 1: radio now. And but fortunately, those those people who were
Speaker 1: coming out of the shows, they you know, that opened
Speaker 1: my mind and get me some optimism in terms of
Speaker 1: like a whole another market out there who were They
Speaker 1: may be country music fans, but they were open to
Speaker 1: a different take on music. Absolutely. So this record is
Speaker 1: is so massive, and then you begin to follow it
Speaker 1: up with a couple of songs here and there. But
Speaker 1: body Body like a back Road, of course, which which
Speaker 1: sets a record on the Billboard Country Charts for the
Speaker 1: longest longest running number one. But then it's like five
Speaker 1: and a half years for us to get to south Side. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I could ask you what took so long, but
Speaker 1: you're pretty upfront about it, Like the first song on
Speaker 1: the record, Steen, You're you're pretty clear it took a minute. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that pretty well explains kind of what was going
Speaker 1: on for the most part. Yeah, So I was just
Speaker 1: sorting a lot of things out trying to map out
Speaker 1: the next five teen years, which is something I had
Speaker 1: not really paid much attention to up unto that point,
Speaker 1: I had really just I was living day to day,
Speaker 1: a week to week, you know, um, enjoy all life
Speaker 1: and just everything that was going on. But I needed
Speaker 1: to do a little I need to make some big decisions.
Speaker 1: I was at a point in my life where they
Speaker 1: were crossroads finally showing up, like not many I had
Speaker 1: not really really had to face any crossroads yet that
Speaker 1: had um long term implications, you know, as far as
Speaker 1: the decisions I was gonna want to make. And um,
Speaker 1: I was at a point in life where Okay, now
Speaker 1: it's time to commit to some things that uh are
Speaker 1: going to really be important decisions looking back, you know, ten, fifteen,
Speaker 1: twenty years from now. So uh, they kind of freaked
Speaker 1: me out. So I took a step back and and said, Okay,
Speaker 1: let me make sure that I'm in a in a
Speaker 1: in the state of mind and spiritually in a place
Speaker 1: to feel connected enough to the guiding like so that
Speaker 1: I make sure I make these right decisions. So you
Speaker 1: mentioned big decisions, you mentioned commitment. Uh. One thing that
Speaker 1: happened in Seen you got married. Yeah, congratulations, thank you,
Speaker 1: or as we say here in New York muscle time,
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. So what other big decisions, what other
Speaker 1: things we're factoring in that five to ten year plan
Speaker 1: you just mentioned? What other things were you thinking about,
Speaker 1: because because that's a big one, that's that listen, I
Speaker 1: would take some time off just to think that through
Speaker 1: truth be told, I did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean that,
Speaker 1: you know, the doing life with one person and spending
Speaker 1: and spending your life with one person is a big decision.
Speaker 1: And then along with that family that you want our kids,
Speaker 1: something that I've always wanted kids, you know, growing up
Speaker 1: in a small town. That's something that I always just
Speaker 1: naturally felt like, Yeah, I want to be a father.
Speaker 1: One day I felt closer to the stars. I felt
Speaker 1: forgiveness in my heart. Are you I saw the light
Speaker 1: in the dog? You feel like fly take me down?
Speaker 1: Whether it is I wasn't. I I never felt like
Speaker 1: I was saying you. Always felt like I could talk
Speaker 1: to God in them. And I never really put a
Speaker 1: lot of philosophical thought into what I was getting into
Speaker 1: when I got into music, in terms of how I
Speaker 1: wanted to spend my the next twenty years, Like how
Speaker 1: what I wanted to what I felt like I had
Speaker 1: to offer to the world, and and whatever tools I
Speaker 1: might have and how how could I put those to
Speaker 1: the best use? And I chose music because that seemed
Speaker 1: like it was fun and I didn't want to get
Speaker 1: a real job, you know, when I was twenty two,
Speaker 1: and UM, I needed to think about it a little
Speaker 1: more than that, just trying to decide what success looked
Speaker 1: like within within choosing music, you know, um, what what where?
Speaker 1: Where would I be? Where will I be happy and content?
Speaker 1: How much tour and how many records I need to
Speaker 1: put out? What? What's the music need to look like? Um? What? Um?
Speaker 1: What type of venues do I feel like? Um? I'd
Speaker 1: like to play based on that? And um So those
Speaker 1: were decisions I was I was making as well. But UM,
Speaker 1: I realized also during that time I might be over
Speaker 1: overthinking it and just to try, you know, I was
Speaker 1: able to control it so well up until the point
Speaker 1: that it just got out of my control, and that
Speaker 1: that freaked me out a little bit too. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I really had my finger on the pulse of this thing,
Speaker 1: and I could I could press the gas a little bit,
Speaker 1: and I could feel it speed up, and I could
Speaker 1: let off and I could feel it slow down, but
Speaker 1: it got to a point where it just it took
Speaker 1: off out of my control. So, um, I couldn't I couldn't,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. I couldn't control it quite
Speaker 1: as much. And that freaked me out a little bit.
Speaker 1: The thing that happens to a lot of people is
Speaker 1: you're chasing after music, you're chasing after success, and it
Speaker 1: looks from the outside like you're chasing after something like fame,
Speaker 1: but you're not really. And when fame catches you, then
Speaker 1: who's in control you or the fame part of it?
Speaker 1: And and that can be confusing, right yeah? Um, yeah
Speaker 1: for sure. And and it changes the dynamic of basically
Speaker 1: every situation that you're in every day at all times,
Speaker 1: whether it be even going back home to a family
Speaker 1: function or a family get together now, something that I've
Speaker 1: done for twenty seven years. If it why does it
Speaker 1: feel different? Now? Wow? These conversations are different, the way
Speaker 1: taking pictures with relatives feels strange. Yeah, because you got
Speaker 1: a song on the new record breaking up is Easy
Speaker 1: was easy in the nineties. You're talking about the pre
Speaker 1: pre Instagram era of breaking up, right, but also family
Speaker 1: reunions were easier before Instagram or just being out in public.
Speaker 1: You might say it might have been easier, right, It
Speaker 1: applies to the whole of your life, right, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think so. And it's and it's you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: really cool. I mean, being coming from a small town,
Speaker 1: if somebody from my hometown had success in the country
Speaker 1: music industry, I want to know all about it. I
Speaker 1: don't want to like ask all those questions tends and
Speaker 1: get the scoop on what it's like. But I like
Speaker 1: talking about you know, Um, I mean we're having a
Speaker 1: conversation right now about like my experience over the last
Speaker 1: few years. But typically in a conversation, I like to
Speaker 1: ask the questions and and like I want to talk
Speaker 1: about other people and what's going on with you, you know.
Speaker 1: But but for the most part, you end up having
Speaker 1: a lot of conversations about yourself, and that's that can
Speaker 1: feel a little funny. And so, yeah, fame is something
Speaker 1: that is it's not really really natural and I don't
Speaker 1: want to complain or seemingly grateful, so I try not
Speaker 1: to talk about it too much. But um, it is
Speaker 1: something that has a psychological effect on on your brain.
Speaker 1: I think, um, even chemically, I bet if you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know that we we haven't studied people who
Speaker 1: have been exposed to fame for years and years and years.
Speaker 1: I don't guess, because it's not a whole lot of people,
Speaker 1: but I bet it changes. You know, that much um
Speaker 1: stimulation affects your brain in some way. And that's something
Speaker 1: that I was kind of scared of because I met
Speaker 1: a few people who have been famous for a long
Speaker 1: long time, and I was like, huh, is this something
Speaker 1: that is inevitable if you're exposed to this this this
Speaker 1: much stimulation over years and years. So that scared me
Speaker 1: a little bit too. You were just saying during that
Speaker 1: time between records, you you were taking some time to
Speaker 1: to think about things you'd never necessarily approached it philosophically.
Speaker 1: And suddenly I remembered, you did study philosophy in college,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna shrug this off a little bit. But
Speaker 1: I found an old interview where you were talking about
Speaker 1: how when you made the video for Downtown is Dead,
Speaker 1: you went off to Mexico to film the video and
Speaker 1: you were reading Nietzchi Oh yeah, yeah, UM, so intrigued
Speaker 1: by like those those thinkers, Like I can't reach that
Speaker 1: level of thinking. But that's that's the way that I think,
Speaker 1: you know, questioning everything. And yeah, but the philosophy classes.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that was the best or worst
Speaker 1: thing that ever happened to me. Well, if you're the
Speaker 1: kind of guy who takes Nietzche to Mexico, I I
Speaker 1: gotta say maybe maybe it was a good influence. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, it um, reading those guys for some
Speaker 1: reason just brings a piece to me to give me. Um.
Speaker 1: And because of those guys are a lot of that
Speaker 1: stuff over my head. But but I am really intruded
Speaker 1: to those to those things. I want to get back
Speaker 1: to south Side and UH ask you a little bit.
Speaker 1: Just let's start with the album title south Side is
Speaker 1: is it is? South Side? Are you thinking? Is that
Speaker 1: a place? Is it an idea? Is that a culture?
Speaker 1: Because I mean the first thing I think of is
Speaker 1: I vibed right away on that Goody Mob song from
Speaker 1: Dirty South. Yes exactly. Yeah, all the things you mentioned
Speaker 1: captured I tried to capture with that that album title. Um,
Speaker 1: but um, yeah, it's all those things the south side
Speaker 1: of town. It's it's when you think of the south
Speaker 1: side of town, you think of this melting pot of
Speaker 1: of culture and people and and um Tyson music and
Speaker 1: and just a lifestyle and mindset and um there's a
Speaker 1: grittiness of toughness typically with those people. Um and uh,
Speaker 1: I just really relate to that all of that and
Speaker 1: and uh the place that I grew up even though
Speaker 1: it's a really small town, you know, Um, I didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily grow up on the south side of the little
Speaker 1: town that I grew up in, but it felt like
Speaker 1: our whole town was the south side of a place,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, So um, yeah, it just it just
Speaker 1: felt felt right for this record. You're talking about melting pot,
Speaker 1: and that I think really brings us too hard to forget. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, when when I heard this song right away, Now,
Speaker 1: this really makes good on that idea that's talked about
Speaker 1: a lot when people like me talk about you of
Speaker 1: mixing country and hip hop, because it's hooked to this
Speaker 1: classic country song, this web Pier song there stands the Glass.
Speaker 1: It's from the fifties. Web Piers, a classic country singer,
Speaker 1: but you deploying it as a hip hop style sample here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was I think that was The conundrum I was
Speaker 1: in when I first moved to town was that I
Speaker 1: love this traditional country, but also I love this other
Speaker 1: genre of music and this other style of music. And
Speaker 1: I kept going back and forth, and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: is there a way to just kind of draw out
Speaker 1: my favorite parts of both? And a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of times that doesn't work, Um, just kind of
Speaker 1: let them be. But but sometimes I think it can work.
Speaker 1: And I don't know. After Mona Volo was successful, I
Speaker 1: think after experimenting a lot with different styles of music,
Speaker 1: I think when I landed on in that lane, it
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, this is where I feel like I
Speaker 1: can live and be successful and this this feels like meat,
Speaker 1: you know, this feels authentic and so uh, I think
Speaker 1: I'm just building off of off of that, and Hard
Speaker 1: to Forget was the most obvious version of of that
Speaker 1: thus far, taking a song from the nineteen fifties and
Speaker 1: putting the be behind it and writing to hold you
Speaker 1: song to it. And I wanted a sample of song
Speaker 1: for a while. Obviously that's been done. You know, people
Speaker 1: have sampled UH music for for years, um, and I've
Speaker 1: I've wanted to try that in country music. But he
Speaker 1: just hadn't been able to find the right song and
Speaker 1: I didn't want it to do. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: do it just as a trick, which has been happening
Speaker 1: long enough now that I wouldn't call it a wave
Speaker 1: or a trend, but it's it's something that's effective I
Speaker 1: think in music, and um, I've heard an artists from
Speaker 1: other genres do it and do it well. So I
Speaker 1: wanted to do that for a while. And I can't
Speaker 1: take credit for that song. I heard that song after
Speaker 1: walking into a co write with a buddy of mine,
Speaker 1: Luke Lair, who Um, he and I share tasting music
Speaker 1: and uh he had made that track. Um, I think
Speaker 1: knowing that I would be into it, and he was right.
Speaker 1: He played that for me and U and uh that
Speaker 1: I knew that was the one, you know, if I
Speaker 1: was going to sample of songs that after like to writ.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really interesting too that it's a web
Speaker 1: Pier song because if you know a little about web Piers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a classic guy. He was a flashy guy.
Speaker 1: He had these pimped out rides, these cadillacts done up
Speaker 1: with silver dollars. He wore the Nuty suits which came
Speaker 1: out of l A and you don't see country singers
Speaker 1: wearing those kind of things now, but you see post
Speaker 1: Malone dressed up like that. Yeah, you don't get the
Speaker 1: sense that he was like a hardcore traditionalist um for
Speaker 1: that era. You know, looking back now, we associate that
Speaker 1: with traditional country, but at that time that was pretty
Speaker 1: progressive in terms of being flashy and in a conservative genre.
Speaker 1: And it gets into the idea that that there was
Speaker 1: this dynamic of people pushing the boundaries or working outside
Speaker 1: the rules for a long time. That's a big tradition.
Speaker 1: You could go back to Buck Owens, you know, an
Speaker 1: we think of him now as classic country, but he
Speaker 1: took guph for being too rock and roll. Black and
Speaker 1: white culture, you know, has has overlaps in country music
Speaker 1: forever and I love it. I think it it has
Speaker 1: been an important part of the progress and the relations
Speaker 1: race relations over you know, over the decades. That Kim
Speaker 1: Burns documentary does a good job of making that point.
Speaker 1: And I would really impressed to see that and really
Speaker 1: excited about what Kim Burns did with that documentary because
Speaker 1: it makes that point pretty well. You talked a little
Speaker 1: bit about the thought process that went into this and
Speaker 1: the sense if I know you recorded some with actual
Speaker 1: hip hop producers, Um, those cuts didn't really make the record.
Speaker 1: But but this is a record you've been it's been
Speaker 1: a long time, justest dating. And if I go back
Speaker 1: to you told bill Board at some point you might
Speaker 1: want to make a record that's more purely R and B,
Speaker 1: but you might also like to make an acoustic record
Speaker 1: that's more traditionally country. And if you listen to south Side,
Speaker 1: it feels like you did do both of those things
Speaker 1: with this record. Looking at it now, I don't think
Speaker 1: I was necessarily consciously doing that. I think when I
Speaker 1: stopped thinking that just it just naturally overlaps and blends.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of what I did with this record.
Speaker 1: I think for a couple of years, I was trying
Speaker 1: to compartmentalize everything and really control it too much, and
Speaker 1: and and you know, either make a country record or
Speaker 1: R and B record, And I got to a point
Speaker 1: where I was like, I just need to make a record,
Speaker 1: and so I stepped back and just wrote songs without
Speaker 1: thinking about it too much. And of course, naturally what
Speaker 1: comes out is kind of a blend of the two worlds,
Speaker 1: and that's what happened with south Side, And how did
Speaker 1: the process change for you in between Montebello and South Side?
Speaker 1: Because I get the impression you're a bit of a perfectionist.
Speaker 1: I guess you could call it like a control freak.
Speaker 1: I'll try to control the process a little too much.
Speaker 1: And I think with um that first record, you know
Speaker 1: wrote those songs, you know a lot of that stuff
Speaker 1: out of your control, like you know, the ideas, So
Speaker 1: where did this idea come from? Where did this melody
Speaker 1: come from? This? This magic, this whatever, this happened in
Speaker 1: this room today, and you kind of want to take
Speaker 1: credit for it. You want to feel like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I did that by moving this over here and moving
Speaker 1: this over here, and then it became what it what
Speaker 1: it is, But you can't really control it. You you
Speaker 1: kind of have to just put yourself in an environment
Speaker 1: where you can be creative and just hope, hope a
Speaker 1: little magic comes from that. And I think I tried
Speaker 1: to control a little too much and also tried to
Speaker 1: make every every line just perfect, and UM got in
Speaker 1: a way by myself a little bit. So UM, I
Speaker 1: had to step back and kind of let this record
Speaker 1: just happen. And UM, I learned a lot how to
Speaker 1: kind of relearn how to make a record because it's
Speaker 1: been so long since I made that first record. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm just flashing back to that interview that I mentioned
Speaker 1: stumbling across. You were talking to Bobby Bones and and
Speaker 1: you're promising, Oh, I've I've got this song that I'm
Speaker 1: gonna put out and it's gonna come in like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe a couple of weeks, maybe months. Took more like
Speaker 1: two years. Yeah. There there was one song nothing Lasts
Speaker 1: Forever on this record that I had at that time
Speaker 1: and planned on putting putting out. But the single that
Speaker 1: we put out Downtown is dead. It didn't quite have
Speaker 1: the mad it and I was like, I need I gotta.
Speaker 1: I made a decision at that point to stop just
Speaker 1: putting out singles, which is what I thought I could
Speaker 1: do for a little while, and I realized that I
Speaker 1: needed to dig in and get a full record out
Speaker 1: because it was I felt like it was a little
Speaker 1: unfair to the fans too, who wanted to hear more
Speaker 1: music for me to continue to tour at a at
Speaker 1: a pace that kept me from digging in and making
Speaker 1: a record, And um, I I felt like at a
Speaker 1: certain point I realized that I owed it to the
Speaker 1: people who put me in the position, and I was
Speaker 1: in to step back and put some TLC into a
Speaker 1: record put it out. So with this record, was there
Speaker 1: a concentrated moment where you you went in and thought, okay,
Speaker 1: we gotta finish now that it was the clock ever on?
Speaker 1: Is what I mean to say. Yeah, I would say
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen. So I came off the road with
Speaker 1: Luke Luke bryant Um in September of two thousand eighteen,
Speaker 1: and I decided at that point I was going to
Speaker 1: write for twelve months and put whatever came of that out,
Speaker 1: And two or three of the songs were around, and
Speaker 1: ended up making the record that it existed before that September,
Speaker 1: But the clock basically started ticking that September, and uh,
Speaker 1: it felt like it started ticking faster about September of
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen. You write the record, and you think
Speaker 1: you got the songs, and then you get in the
Speaker 1: studio and start producing it, and then you get you
Speaker 1: start falling into that same trap of trying every instrument
Speaker 1: and every different variation and then okay, we gotta just
Speaker 1: if it feels good, go with it, and so that's
Speaker 1: what I did in the ninth hour. It was like
Speaker 1: just roll and I learned, you know that, Uh, the
Speaker 1: ninth hour is like a cure for a d h D.
Speaker 1: It's like it there's something about like a clock ticking
Speaker 1: that makes your brain focus and you can really get
Speaker 1: a lot more done. But it was amazing how without
Speaker 1: that clock I could just sit there and not really
Speaker 1: have any ideas as soon as that clock tick was
Speaker 1: ticking like those a few of those songs were written
Speaker 1: like the week before I turned them in or finished,
Speaker 1: you know the verses, after spending a month trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to you know, finish it, and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Okay, in thirty minutes, you write
Speaker 1: the verses and turn it in because you have to.
Speaker 1: That deadline brings some clarity and there are people, great
Speaker 1: people who work that way. You two used to talk
Speaker 1: about this all the time, that they would have like
Speaker 1: fifteen versions of the song and then like right before
Speaker 1: the deadline to finish the record, the fourteenth would emerge
Speaker 1: and that's the that was the classic one. Or Kanye
Speaker 1: is the great example. He's gonna basically run it like
Speaker 1: a basketball game. He's gonna run the shot clock until
Speaker 1: it's out, and with him, he's gonna keep mixing, remixing
Speaker 1: the records once they're out. Now, yeah, that's true, and
Speaker 1: you can, you can definitely suck the life out of
Speaker 1: a song because that thing that you know you want
Speaker 1: to take credit for that it's hard to really take
Speaker 1: credit for. What you think about it is that it
Speaker 1: is the inspiration, which is which happens. It's a fleeting thing.
Speaker 1: But creativity in that context really um is when you're
Speaker 1: when you're you're most creative is when you're inspired and
Speaker 1: you just gotta let go and let it happen. And
Speaker 1: typically those are those are the best songs, the ones
Speaker 1: that you you don't overthink. I know what it feels
Speaker 1: like crossing the line, but I never felt shamed, never
Speaker 1: feel sorry, never felt guilty touching your body as long
Speaker 1: is your for me, as long is I'm for you? Good? So,
Speaker 1: which ones were the ninth hour songs? Here? And I
Speaker 1: think you said that Ain't Beautiful was one of them? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was like a voice memo, that was just a
Speaker 1: voice note of lyrics that that I just sang down
Speaker 1: one time and yeah, it was done last minute. I don't.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it was done last minute, that it
Speaker 1: was actually written or I recorded it over his acts
Speaker 1: like two and a half years ago. But he played
Speaker 1: it for me and I've forgotten about it. He was like,
Speaker 1: remember this thing, and he played it and it hit
Speaker 1: me and I thought, and I forgot about that, And
Speaker 1: I don't even know what headspace I was in at
Speaker 1: that time, and I so I can't. I feel like
Speaker 1: it's not finished and it needs a better chorus, and
Speaker 1: it needs a third verse. It I don't. I can't
Speaker 1: tap into that state of min because I don't remember
Speaker 1: what I was thinking about when when that was written.
Speaker 1: So we just put it out as it was and
Speaker 1: then uh breaking up in the nineties. It was another
Speaker 1: one that that chorus. We had that chorus and idea,
Speaker 1: but I didn't didn't have the verses and so um,
Speaker 1: I had to write the verses pretty quickly, and um, yeah,
Speaker 1: those were a couple. I'm trying to think they all.
Speaker 1: I mean, we I remember the last week just making
Speaker 1: at least a change, so about every song on the
Speaker 1: record except for one or two. Again, I'm reminded of
Speaker 1: that Bobby Bones interview from twenty team where he asked
Speaker 1: you about Body on the Back Road, and you respond,
Speaker 1: I was listening to it last night and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: maybe the drums should the guitar should have kept going,
Speaker 1: and the drums should have and I was like, this
Speaker 1: song is the biggest song in country music, and here's
Speaker 1: this guy going what we could have done better? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's amazing. Well, that's the thing about success
Speaker 1: that is, well not success, but uh, everything subjective with music,
Speaker 1: So nobody knows when it's finished. Who's like when it
Speaker 1: when it feels right? I mean, you just you just
Speaker 1: gotta say, at some point, this is it. So Sam,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a clue to when
Speaker 1: it's finished. When it is one of the longest running
Speaker 1: number one songs on the country chart, it's pretty much done.
Speaker 1: Then you're still thinking about oh yeah, yeah, you're still
Speaker 1: thinking about how it could be better. So, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: perfection is undertainable, that's for sure, I guess. So I
Speaker 1: guess that's right. But I mean music maybe, well, no,
Speaker 1: I think in most things, let's let's face it, we're
Speaker 1: we're just men. We're not God's you know, that's for
Speaker 1: somebody else to deal with but but but there are
Speaker 1: these guys who work at it that way. I just
Speaker 1: mentioned Kanye. But the thing I really think of is
Speaker 1: these stories about Bruce Springsteen making Born to Run and
Speaker 1: spending like five days arguing over what you should sound like.
Speaker 1: You know that kind of thing. You know that that
Speaker 1: level of perfectionism is it can yield some interesting results. Yeah, yeah, you.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's it's if it's the desire
Speaker 1: to be perfect, or if it's a fear of messing
Speaker 1: up something that it could be better. So so so
Speaker 1: like an anxiety about getting it wrong right, That's that's
Speaker 1: the biggest thing I think is like an anxiety about
Speaker 1: messing up. You see the potential of something this has,
Speaker 1: this has a lot of potential, this idea or this
Speaker 1: this sound on this song, man, I'd hate for it
Speaker 1: not to live up a potential because I didn't do
Speaker 1: my due diligence. So um, I think that's what it is,
Speaker 1: more than it is trying to be perfect. One last song,
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about Sitting with you. You've
Speaker 1: talked about this. You said that it was it was
Speaker 1: written more in a late at night kind of vibe
Speaker 1: and more like when you were first learning to play
Speaker 1: the guitar, and that that's something we started off talking about.
Speaker 1: So I wonder if you could tell me a little
Speaker 1: more about this song than where it came from. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was Um. When I was writing songs before moving
Speaker 1: to Nashville. UM, it was all emotion. It was just
Speaker 1: pick up a guitar and playing a minor chord, feel
Speaker 1: something and whatever comes to your brain. You know, Brian
Speaker 1: just starts saying the words, singing the melodies, and UM,
Speaker 1: don't get caught up in structure too much, or is
Speaker 1: this something that would work on the radio, or what
Speaker 1: are all the different ways you could write this title?
Speaker 1: And instead it was like writing when I first picked
Speaker 1: up the guitar after moving to Nashville and sitting in
Speaker 1: rooms with two or three people and talking it all
Speaker 1: out and looking at it from every angle and and
Speaker 1: doing the whole process. Um, you learned the process and
Speaker 1: how to craft a song. But then but that song
Speaker 1: was more just just let it come out. And so
Speaker 1: that was that. First I had the first person chorus
Speaker 1: finished and or or up most of the chorus finished.
Speaker 1: Um that night. Then the night that I was just
Speaker 1: messing around the guitar and then I took it in
Speaker 1: the next day, uh through with a couple of buddies,
Speaker 1: and we finished it. So that was legit one that
Speaker 1: that started at home with just you late at night,
Speaker 1: pouring your heart out to yourself and your guitar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I should go back to writing that way more,
Speaker 1: and I probably will going forward, But a lot of
Speaker 1: times it's I'll only go as far as getting a
Speaker 1: title or a concept, and then I'll wait till I
Speaker 1: get in the room with a producer or find the
Speaker 1: music and get up on the mic and really sing
Speaker 1: and explore which direction to go, and you get in
Speaker 1: an emotional state to be when you're inspired in the room.
Speaker 1: But also it's a little more professional. I guess it's
Speaker 1: it's that's that's the best way to put it. It's
Speaker 1: a little more of a professional approach as opposed to
Speaker 1: um at home, where you're can be vulnerable enough to
Speaker 1: say a line that might be a little too true.
Speaker 1: You might not say that out loud, and CO write,
Speaker 1: it's the song this right so long, why I did
Speaker 1: never feel like sing? Co writes for for folks who
Speaker 1: don't know that that Nashville way of doing things, someone
Speaker 1: might come into the room with a concept or an idea,
Speaker 1: and then you spend time flashing that out and and
Speaker 1: and and it happens in a sort of more regimented
Speaker 1: than free flowing way, like you know, five o'clock you
Speaker 1: might be done. Yeah, And I've gone away from that
Speaker 1: approach over the years, just because I'm not great in
Speaker 1: that environment. Some people are. They put the songwriter hat
Speaker 1: on and there, well, this is how you write that
Speaker 1: idea and turn the nuts and bolts and get the
Speaker 1: song finished. And a lot of cool songs are written
Speaker 1: that way. But that's another thing with with writing for
Speaker 1: me is what it's hard for me to write some
Speaker 1: people because you develop relationships with the people that you're
Speaker 1: right with, and um, you kind of have to have
Speaker 1: that relationship to be a little more vulnerable in the room.
Speaker 1: But it's funny you you talk about how you're not
Speaker 1: necessarily good at at writing that way. But when I
Speaker 1: was listening to and you said, this was not a
Speaker 1: song where you were trying to be songwriter clever putting
Speaker 1: it together, but I was like, every single line in
Speaker 1: this song could be a country song. Like if I
Speaker 1: walked into the room and said, hey, I've got an idea,
Speaker 1: let's put the whiskey back of the bottle. We could
Speaker 1: write that song. I came into the room and said,
Speaker 1: I wish I could put the tears back in her eyes.
Speaker 1: We could write that song. I came into the room
Speaker 1: and said, hold on, I gotta take some girls off
Speaker 1: of my phone. We could write that song. Like that's
Speaker 1: almost like three different songs. Yeah, that's interesting that. Um,
Speaker 1: most of it was written the same way. Sent him
Speaker 1: with you was at least conceptually. Then you go back
Speaker 1: like a puzzle. Once you get the the corners and
Speaker 1: the edges together, you kind of go back and then
Speaker 1: start the paces and at all. But yeah, that that one,
Speaker 1: I would put it in the same category of standing
Speaker 1: with you well amazing. Um and and and and the
Speaker 1: last thing I wanted to ask you was you talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about on the first record your wife
Speaker 1: and that was your girlfriend then and your ex girlfriend
Speaker 1: your wife. You talked about how you ran the songs
Speaker 1: by her. You wanted her to to know what these
Speaker 1: songs were saying. Was that something that you did in
Speaker 1: this process as well? Yeah? Yeah, I did that. Um,
Speaker 1: any song that that that I put out that was
Speaker 1: told a little more of my personal story. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll always run those by her. And uh, she's kind
Speaker 1: of my spiritual advisor in that regard, like she can
Speaker 1: kind of she feels when something is like all or
Speaker 1: something doesn't need to be put out, or or if
Speaker 1: I'm saying something the wrong way. She signed off on two.
Speaker 1: And then even the song that I put out a
Speaker 1: few years ago called Drinking too Much, she signed up
Speaker 1: on that one as well. So, but yeah, I always
Speaker 1: run to run the song by her, and I run
Speaker 1: a lot of songs by her, but especially the ones
Speaker 1: that maybe uh a little more true, I guess you
Speaker 1: could say. But but she didn't just sign off on
Speaker 1: Drinking too Much? Didn't she play some piano on it
Speaker 1: as well? Yeah? She did? Um, yeah, I wanted I
Speaker 1: wanted her to just have her energy on it. If
Speaker 1: for a lack of better way of putting it, so,
Speaker 1: your spiritual advisor blessed you with a little bit of
Speaker 1: a spiritual or gospel song on that track. Yeah, through
Speaker 1: playing how great they thou art? Right? That's right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: just a little little soft piano melody at the end.
Speaker 1: Is there any chance, because I know you must have
Speaker 1: recorded a lot of music for this record. Is there
Speaker 1: any chance, Drake Style, you're gonna sneak up on us
Speaker 1: with a demos record at some point. I've thought about it.
Speaker 1: I've I've definitely kept kept um. I wouldn't gonna want
Speaker 1: to call him stragglers, but the the Misfits, I keep
Speaker 1: them in a pile. So we'll see. Maybe maybe there
Speaker 1: there'll be a time when here's your album title right there,
Speaker 1: misfits right, Uh, yeah, we'll see. I'm I do. I
Speaker 1: am hell being on putting out more music going forward
Speaker 1: because uh, you know, five years was too long to
Speaker 1: go without putting out music, and so I'm gonna try
Speaker 1: to make up for lost time over the next five years. Well,
Speaker 1: we're looking forward to it. Sam, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for being here. Thanks man. Good chat with Inside the Studio.
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