WEBVTT - Sam Hunt 0:00:01.639 --> 0:00:05.520 I Heart Radio presents Inside the Studio and I'm your 0:00:05.519 --> 0:00:16.959 host Joe. Leaving this episode, I caught up with Sam 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:19.599 Hunt and we talked about how he went from a 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:25.200 college football quarterback to one of Nashville's best songwriters, about 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:27.920 the work he did to get his life together between 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:30.800 the success of his first studio album and his new 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:35.120 ones Southside, and also I kid you not about why 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:39.159 he packs some Nietzsche in his suitcase when he heads 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:44.639 to Mexico. Now, given the current quarantine conditions, we connected 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:47.919 from New York to Nashville, so it was part inside 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:51.839 the studio and part inside my living room. Did we 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:56.240 get zoom bombed? We got zoom bombed, though it actually 0:00:56.240 --> 0:01:00.480 came from inside my apartment. Get any of you gotta 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.080 you gotta excuse my cat. He just decided to join us, 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.800 one of the two. And that's how Sam Hunt got 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:10.200 to meet one of my two cats, Kit as in 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:14.839 kit Cat and Bow as in Bo Diddley. Guess which 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:17.600 one my wife named and which one I got to name? 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:21.560 And actually this is kind of a trick question because 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:24.960 my wife got to name both of them. Sam Hunt, though, 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:27.600 is more of a dog person. On the cover of 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:30.240 South Side, which debuted at number one when it was 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:34.240 released in April. Hunt is standing with Kai, his husky, 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:36.440 one of his three dogs, in front of a white 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:40.160 clapboard house, and if you haven't seen it, it's pretty 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:42.880 close to a snapshot. It's a six ft three guy 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:46.399 in khaki's with a dog on a leash, and there's 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:50.520 a truck. Nothing fancy, but the house he's in front 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:53.600 of is the one where he was living when he 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:59.360 wrote the songs on histeen breakthrough album, Madavello. And since 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:01.640 in a lot of ways, south Side is about the 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:06.480 distance Hunt has traveled since Madavello came out, it makes sense. 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:09.680 And the story behind the picture is apparently that Hunt 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:13.200 was on his way home from church one Sunday and 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:15.320 he stopped by there. He sold that place to his 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:17.639 brothers since he lived there, and he had the idea 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:19.679 that it might work for the album cover. So he 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.280 got out. The photographer he was with snapped that shot 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:25.440 and they were done. I mean, he brought along some 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:27.680 clothes that he thought he might change into. They never 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:29.400 even made it out of the back of his truck. 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:33.840 He did not want to overthink it, and that maybe 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:37.240 the only thing about South Side that he didn't overthink. 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:42.080 This album was a long time coming six years, during 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:47.519 which time Modavello became massive. Singles like leave the Night On, 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.680 Take Your Time, House Party, break Up in a Small 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:55.880 Town absolutely dominated the country charts and also became top 0:02:55.960 --> 0:03:00.800 forty pop hits thanks to their careful blend of country pop, 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:04.280 R and B hip hop Maybe a Little Rock, gutar 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:09.919 kind of whatever You've Got. In February of Hunt followed 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.800 up all that success with a single that became, up 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:18.760 until that moment, the biggest hit in country history. Body 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:23.080 Like a Back Road, spent an astounding thirty four consecutive 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:27.840 weeks on the top of the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.800 Now you don't need to be a master marketing guru 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:35.040 at a record label to know that that was probably 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:39.640 a good time to put out another album. But time 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:41.800 went behind it a little more time almost a year, 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:46.680 and it wasn't until January that Hunt even released another song, 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:50.240 and that wasn't really a song for the radio. The 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:54.480 somber Drinking too Much is more like reading someone else's 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:59.520 late night I'm sorry texts. It's Hunt apologizing to his 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:03.080 ex girl friend Hannah Lee Fowler, the woman who's now 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:07.480 his wife. She comes from Montevello, Alabama, and he begins 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:10.200 the song saying he's sorry for naming his album after 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:14.200 her hometown, for robbing her of her privacy. Drinking too 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.800 Much is a pretty extraordinary song, and it's full of 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:23.240 the concrete details that makes Sam Hunt a truly extraordinary songwriter. 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:27.400 In this song, he talks about wishing she'd let him 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:29.719 pay off her student loans in return for all those 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:33.000 songs that she gave him. About how she overpacked when 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:34.920 she came to see him in Nashville and they went 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:38.400 to the c m AS together, About being drunk two 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:40.920 years later on stage at the c m AS, now 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:43.120 that he'd become a star, About being in a hotel 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:46.400 room in Phoenix thinking about telling her a lie, and 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.960 about imagining her lying in a bathtub with her face 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:54.440 under the water, crying. I've sat through two hour Netflix 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:58.960 movies with less narrative and character development. Then Hunt puts 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:01.880 into the three minute in fifty two seconds of this song. 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:05.520 So one of the reasons that South Side took so 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:09.279 long is that Hunt was getting his life together and 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:15.280 putting their relationship back together. Race in the first few 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:22.000 praises for shoe case of small town repression. The body 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:29.760 was baptized, so disfriendious I was your favorite conversion. My 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:35.480 past was checkered, your spotless records, brobo being jet boody. 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:41.120 Your place in my place is grace, and your grace 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:45.040 feel like the same thing I never felt like I 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:47.440 was saying. He explained some of that in the first 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:51.040 track on south Side. It's called and It's about wanting 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:53.920 to put the whiskey back in the bottle, Stop chasing 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:57.560 dreams and lonely women. Drive a thousand miles to see 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:00.160 the woman he left so he can walk in he 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:04.400 walked out. I mean, just about every line of could 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:07.599 be its own song. And when people like me write 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.599 about Hunt's music, they tend to write about his mix 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:15.000 of country tradition and hip hop flow, which is, for real, 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:18.840 pretty remarkable, though it's also something that's been going on 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.279 for a long time. I mean to choose one of 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:25.799 many examples Nelly recorded over and over with Tim McGraw 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:30.520 in two thousand and nine, and it sure sounds pretty 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:33.640 similar to the way Hunt deployed an acoustic guitar and 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:36.880 a drum machine on the mix tape that he uploaded 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:42.800 the SoundCloud before he got signed Between the Pintes. But 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:46.839 what really makes Hunt's songs stand out for me is 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:50.480 those details raised on it. The first song on Between 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:53.520 the Pines paints a picture of how he grew up 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:58.040 in Cedar Town, Georgia. Here's a few details, snapbacks and 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:01.880 Levi jeans, pbr and and c D S three guard 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:04.520 at the barber shop, ducking from your ex at the 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:07.839 four way stop. And you've got to admire that last bit, 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:10.240 not just the part about exactly how he gets his 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.520 hair cut, but ducking from your ex at the four 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.880 way stop is a perfect summation of just how small 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:18.880 that town is. And it's also a scene so sharp 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:21.440 you feel it, you can see it even if you 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:24.240 haven't lived it. The other thing that took so long 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:28.560 with south Side is that Hunt has a perfectionist streak. 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:31.680 He followed up the huge success Amountabella with the even 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.880 bigger success A Body Like a Back Road, and he 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:38.320 was still wondering, more than a year after that song 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:41.120 came out if there might have been a better way 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:44.120 of recording it. So as he was trying to figure 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:46.360 all this stuff out his life and his music, he 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:50.480 recorded some tracks with Diplo and Charlie Handsome. The producer 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:53.200 has worked with Post Malone, Collide and Chance the Rapper, 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.400 and those tracks haven't come out. But on South Side 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.480 Hunt manages to go in two directions at once. Some 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:04.520 songs like hard to Forget, which is hooked to a 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:08.560 sample of the country classic Web Pier song there Stands 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.800 the Glass from are more a clear blend of country 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:16.000 and hip hop than Hunt has ever made, and others 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:21.040 like The Weepy s or Sinning with You are more 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:25.559 clearly throwbacks to country music tradition, even if they push 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:28.800 that tradition along in a new direction. Hunt told me 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:31.160 about how he wrote Sinning with You Late at Night 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:33.800 by himself, the way he first wrote songs before he 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:36.920 ever got to Nashville, So in a way, it's a 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:47.840 throwback to himself. Here's what else he had to say, 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:51.160 Sam Hunt, thank you for being with us, Welcome to 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:55.440 inside the studio. Yeah, man, thanks for having me. So, 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:58.880 how is how's Quarantine treating you? I I've read you 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:03.040 have a new puppy. I do, yeah, he um, he's 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:06.640 been around since Christmas, so um, I've had him for 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:10.400 a few months now, but he uh, I've gotten to 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:12.559 spend a lot more time with him since being quarantined, 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:15.120 and it's gonna get the wrong impression of what being 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.080 a dog in the hunting. He gets lots of play 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.360 time right now. I get to run every day and uh, 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:24.840 he's he and the other dogs are have been my 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:31.400 uh closest buddies here the last two months. How many 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:34.679 dogs are it for? All three? Three? And all three overall? 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.760 Yeah too, two of the same breed and one h husky. 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:43.840 Some dogs in a husky okay, And uh, what's the 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:45.320 name of the dog on the cover of the south 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:48.559 Side album? That's the husky. His name is Kai, my 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:52.160 wife name. I'm glad I've gotten into the menagerie with you. 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:54.760 But of course I want to ask you about south Side, uh, 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:56.920 what it's all about, where it comes from. But I 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.240 want to go a little further back than that, and 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:02.680 and ask you a little bit about where you come from. 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:04.160 And I want to ask you a bit about your 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:07.439 time in college. So you played football at the University 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:12.520 of Alabama, Birmingham. You were quarterback. Yeah, but this is 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:19.200 also where you started learning to play guitar. Yeah it is. Um, 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:23.160 I got a guitar the summer before leaving for college. 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:26.320 It was a slow summer between you between high school 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:29.160 and college and just waiting on school to start. Really, 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:32.160 I guess camp to start football camp to start, which 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:36.600 starts in August, and U I, uh, I didn't know 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:39.959 for sure how I would progress because I didn't know 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:45.440 whether or not I had any potential or to excel 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:50.439 in music. And I was not too optimistic about, you know, 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:53.520 how how good I might get on the guitar. But um, 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:56.280 a buddy of mine got a guitar, bought a guitar 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:58.959 to pun shop. And I think I got got a 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:02.000 little money from my parents, my mom, my parents, you know, 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:04.960 like you graduate as a singer, and they gave me 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:06.880 a little a little spending money and I just enough 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:09.920 to get a guitar. And yeah, I was just but 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:11.880 I just fell in love with it. I never could 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:14.800 get into video games, and never anything that's card games, 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:16.240 board games. I can't. It's hard for me to just 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:18.240 sit still in one place in the house and do anything. 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:20.360 But the guitar was the first thing that kept me 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:23.320 still for hours at a time. And I was just 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:27.640 just so intrigued with with the guitar and and just 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:30.040 learning to play so when you were learning to play, 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:31.839 how did you go about that? And and what were 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.000 the first songs that you learned to play? Yeah, that 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:36.800 we had a little music store in my hometown, which 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:39.520 was you know, it's one of those stores down on 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:42.760 main Street where all the shops are have big glass 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:47.760 front windows, and everything in the store was like thirty 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:50.480 years old. You know, there's like, uh, the song books 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:52.480 with dust on them, and there's like these old instruments 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:56.000 in the front front window display. Um. So I found 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:59.000 a guitar there and it looked like I've been hanging 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:02.400 on the wall for the teen years. And uh, and 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:05.040 a in a song book that covered the most ground 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:07.480 in terms of learning to play an instrument, and it 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:10.120 was it had I think some songs. I think it 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:13.280 may be simple Man by Leonard Skinner was one of 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:15.600 the songs that it broke down in there. And when 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:18.960 you first learned to play, you know, you you you 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:21.200 haven't learned even learned to play chords yet. Chords are 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:23.120 kind of boring. But if you can pick out a 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:26.520 little introducted like a song intro of of a song 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:28.520 like simple Man, it has that little it's a c 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:31.199 cord that you just do do Do Do Do Do 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:34.079 Do Do Do do do, And you could play those 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:36.080 bass notes and that was pretty easy to figure out. 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:38.600 And I thought that was so cool that, um that 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:41.280 I could almost sound like the introduction to Simple Man 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:43.920 without you know, within two days. And how did songwritings 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:46.360 start for you? I think I got bored with playing 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:50.000 other songs and um, you know, having a hard time 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:54.079 making my guitar sounded like the song I was hearing, 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:56.480 uh that I was trying to learn to play. So 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.000 I just would get off on my own thing and 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:04.360 start playing, um, making up chords or combining chords, and um, 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:06.920 I used to I used to write quite a bit 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:12.559 during that time. Um, not songs, but just and I 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:15.319 wouldn't even call it a diary either. Just I wouldn't 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:16.880 call it poetry. I don't know what it was. It's 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:19.679 just kind of stream of consciousness, free verse stuff. I 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:22.480 would just write my thoughts and and try to create 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:25.640 rhymes and and tell stories that and I guess it 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:29.439 and I was, you know that they were song esque, 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:31.320 but a lot of them would be If I were 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:32.719 to pick up a guitar and sing, it would be 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.080 a ten minute verse, you know. But just write a 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:36.920 lot of just writing stuff down, so and I tried 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:39.800 to start just giving it some form. And I think 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:43.320 the first two or three songs I wrote were we're 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.800 songs that were an attempt to make my buddies laugh. 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:49.880 I was trying to be funny. Something would have happened 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:51.720 to a buddy of ours in some situation that we 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:53.400 thought was a funny story, and I would take that 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:55.520 story and turn it into a song. And just you know, 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:58.760 that was my first I guess attempts because I didn't 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:00.560 want to. I was a little you know, I felt 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:04.000 a little vulnerable. You know, I was an athlete growing up, 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:06.880 and those two worlds didn't really overlap. In a small 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:09.160 town like where I'm from. You either get into the 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:13.120 arts or you play sports, and um and so uh. 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:16.360 I think I was a little insecure about picking up 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.840 a guitar and learning to play. So I just would 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:22.360 try to be funny with my songwriting those first the 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:27.960 first couple of years. You've got a cold and truth 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:32.240 and got him, but I got no truth that you 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:44.240 showed up to just my head. So you're looking so 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:48.960 good rating me out of mind or you're breaking You 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.240 had a try out with the Kansas City Chiefs. Right, 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:55.240 you were thinking sports was a lane for you, But 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:59.720 then shortly after that you moved to Nashville. After college, 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:02.520 I had an opportunity to go to the trial with 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:06.160 the Kansas City Chiefs, but a career in the league 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:09.480 in the NFL was still a long shot. And at 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:13.520 that point I, UM I had pretty well decided I 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:17.160 wanted to live in Nashville and pursue music. UM I 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:21.640 had been playing for four years on the guitar, and 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:23.720 at that point I had written a few songs and 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:27.600 I had gone out and started playing. We all hung 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:32.360 out at the same two or three little bars music venues, 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:36.160 and UM I would get up and maybe do two 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:41.400 or three original songs every couple of weeks, and that 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:43.040 was a lot of fun. And then I started UH. 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:45.880 I connected with a buddy down in jackson Jacksonville State, 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:47.560 and he had a he was in a he he 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.800 managed some fraternities and book bands for fraternity So I'd 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:52.960 go down there like on a Saturday and play for 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:55.000 an hour and a half before the football game came on, 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:59.280 and did that. I went up to UT and did that. 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:02.400 Did that Exmable State, UM I think Auburn. We went 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:06.520 down to Auburn one afternoon and now that was a 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:11.520 lot of fun. But that, um, that really piqued my interest. 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:16.240 I mean, um in terms of pursuing a career in 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:18.840 music in some capacity. And that was before I even 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:21.240 knew about the songwriting world. So I just packed up 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:25.520 and moved to Nashville kind of with im just hoping 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:27.520 to figure it out. So what do you tell your 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:29.960 mom and dad? It's like, well, I'm I'm not gonna 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:32.520 play football, which might be a bit of a relief 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.760 because you know, um, I'm not gonna get injured doing that, 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:38.160 but I'm gonna go to Nashville and make music. And 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:41.320 was there any sense of like, well you could think 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.080 about earning a living. Yeah, there definitely was, especially for 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:48.560 my dad. Yeah, And I think they thought, you know, 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:52.360 I've had buddies who went out and went out west 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:56.080 and worked at ski lodges, or or they guided fly 0:16:56.160 --> 0:17:00.760 fish and trips, or um, they went to Europe, you 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:03.520 know other things like that. Some people went straight to work. 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:06.560 But um, that's that's sort of a phase an era 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:09.240 in life that you get the sense from the adults 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:11.199 in your life said Okay, they're gonna do this. For 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:13.120 a couple of years, and they're gonna realize it's hard 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:15.000 out there in the real world. They're gonna get a 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:17.760 real job, and they'll wake up, and we're gonna even 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:21.679 kind of passive aggressively push them towards that so that 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:23.800 they do it sooner than later. Let you get this 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:26.960 out of your system. Yeah that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:29.959 yeah yeah. Even coming back home from Nashville, it's like 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:32.320 you get that, oh, you're still doing the music thing, 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:35.640 you know, and um, you kind of feel a little 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.239 offended by that because you get the impression that they 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:41.600 don't think that's gonna work out. What was Nashville like 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:43.399 for you when you first got there. I mean it 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:47.080 was exciting for somebody who had not really lived anywhere, 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:51.199 had other than my hometown Cedar Sound and gone to 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:53.879 school in Birmingham, which really consisted of going to class 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:57.239 and football practice. So I wasn't really experienced in the 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:02.000 city necessarily. Um, but uh, it was like, you know, 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:05.880 just having free reign in a new place where there 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:10.160 was lots of live music. Um. I was really really 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:12.639 really obsessed with live music at that point because I 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.080 was learning to play guitar and there was one place 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.480 in Birmingham where I could go listen to live music, 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:21.200 and it was a little bluegrass jam joint that UM 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:23.840 every other other Tuesday they would have blue grass jams 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:26.480 and I'd go there every Tuesday, kind of sitting the 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:29.720 back and just listen and UM. When I got to Nashville, 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.679 of course, you know there are a hundred places like 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:35.119 that where you can go listen to live music. So 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:38.440 that was exciting for me getting to Nashville, UM and 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:41.360 getting out and realizing that there were there's a lot 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.360 of people out here around my age who are UM 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:49.920 and and all levels of talent and and and ability 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:53.200 out here pursuing this thing. So it's inspiring to see 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:55.560 that and to being that kind of community. Tell me 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:57.840 a little about that community and how you found your 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:00.959 own sound, because that crowds such a key collaborator for you. 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:03.000 And you've talked a little about how when you first 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:06.479 came to know him, he was really making beats for 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:08.680 for hip hop, and I know we worked with Lacra 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.800 and others, and he wasn't really versed in country music. 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:14.560 Howd that community come together for you? How do you 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:17.280 begin to find your sound? I signed my first publishing 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.240 deal with a producer named Jimmy Ritchie, and he was 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.760 producing records like he produced a Mark Chestnut record. He 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.240 grew up on the bluegrass circuits a really good player 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:31.040 and a songwriter producer, and Uh, Jimmy Bowen was like 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:33.840 his guy that he aspired to be, and he produced 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:35.800 a lot a lot of Merl Haggard records. And my 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:37.800 interests were I didn't know what I wanted to do. 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:40.160 I loved old country music and I loved a lot 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:44.920 of UH music outside the genre. But being plugged into 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:48.480 that little community of writers who were bone country, like 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:50.760 that's all they wanted to write, I was like, well, 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:53.359 that's good with me, and so I wrote. We wrote 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:56.679 those songs for two or three years, and for for 0:19:56.720 --> 0:20:00.080 some reason, it never felt authentic. You know. I if 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:03.439 we'd write the songs, we go demo him UM and UH, 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:06.400 I just never quite felt like UM didn't feel very 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:08.520 authentic when I would hear the demo. So it just 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:12.399 didn't feel like me. So then UM, I started to 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:15.760 experiment with some other writers, and UH learned a lot 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:18.040 from those writers I wrote with in that camp during 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:20.760 that time. But it started to experiment with other writers 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:22.800 and I was walking to the study in a in 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:25.439 a published office one day and I heard a demo 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:28.520 playing in the other room and I knew the guy 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:30.520 who worked in front desk that was listening to the music. 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:32.120 And I walked up to him and asked him who 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:35.280 who produced that music he was listening to and he said, Oh, 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:37.720 that's a guy Za crowd He Um he worked with 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:40.520 Ashley Gourley. Sum. He's a mostly worked in the pop world, 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:43.240 but he's made some hip hop music for some local 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:45.720 rappers over the years. UM, and I said, can you 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:47.760 set me up with a co write with him? And 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:49.359 he said, well, he hadn't really written a lot of 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:50.840 country music. And I was like, I don't care. I 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:53.560 just just set us up and if if, if he's 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.840 cool with it, and UM he did. He set us 0:20:56.880 --> 0:20:58.400 up and we just hit it off that first day. 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:01.000 We both it was like I only found another like 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:03.520 minded individual who saw the world the way I saw 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:06.520 it and UM and we uh wrote a song that 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:10.640 day and started working together. And UM at that point 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:14.480 I decided, Okay, this is the guy that Uh I'd 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:17.240 really like to be a big part of this this 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:21.360 production on this music. Also UM Shane McNally and Josh 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:25.359 Osborne were good buddies. Connected with those guys about about 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:28.159 two years before. That was a big part of my 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:31.679 of making progress towards the um, you know, making the 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:34.639 first record as well. But we were just missing we 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:38.000 were missing just a little bit of urban influence that 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:41.240 those Pops instabilities, whatever that was, and Zach brought that 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:43.520 at the table, so it it really rounded the whole 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:46.199 thing out, and finally the thing that I saw and 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:49.119 heard and my head started to come together and make sense. 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:02.080 You've also talked about how when you first started playing 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:05.080 out you didn't have money for bass player or a drummer, 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:07.640 so you were using a drum machine. And so how 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:09.840 did that all come into the sound of those first 0:22:09.920 --> 0:22:12.800 records on Between the Pines, like things like raised on 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:16.840 it that feels like a manifesto, Like the lyrics are 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:20.560 about a very specific place in world, but the music 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:24.359 is pointing to almost a new place. Yeah, you know, 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:26.920 I wasn't a great guitar player when I came came 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:30.399