WEBVTT - How The Middle Of Nowhere Is What Got Me Somewhere 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:19.520 What's up. It's Granger Smith. This is the Granger Smith Podcast, 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:24.720 Episode one, five fifteen. Thank y'all for caring enough to 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:29.280 listen to me on a podcast. I put out episode 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.600 fourteen in October, and for those of you keeping score, 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:36.880 it is January nineteenth, and that's been a long time, 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:40.080 so I'm sorry. I've had a lot of people telling 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:42.800 me and meeting greets when I talked to him saying 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:47.880 when your next podcast, And in my defense, a lot 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:52.280 has gone on since the last podcast I have. Of course, 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:57.680 the holiday season, I had hey documentary that came out 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:01.280 called They Were There, which I'm very proud of. And 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:06.319 we've been making some new music which I'm so excited 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:09.039 to play you guys very soon. Can't do it today, 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:13.240 but very soon. But I do have some loose ends 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:16.480 to tie up on that last episode fourteen. I have 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:18.440 to finish that story. I have to talk about the 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:20.919 current tour that I'm on. I have to talk about 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:23.080 what I think twenty nineteen is going to bring to 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:29.040 you from me. Here we go. I'm in Norman, Oklahoma today. 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:31.840 It is a Saturday in the parking lot. I'm in 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:35.000 the back of my bus wild Flower, and it is 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.800 really cold. It's like nineteen degrees outside, which is cold 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:42.440 for a Central Texas boy. We are at the University 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:46.840 of Oklahoma and we're playing in the basketball arena on 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:49.800 the Cane Brown Lift Forever Tour. And this is for 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:53.920 me right now, the end of the second week of 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:57.280 this tour. And I'll tell you what. This has been 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:03.880 a really really good tour for me. I have theories 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:08.440 on why it's so good. And fan wise, this has 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.960 been the loudest compared to Florida Georgia Line Tour that 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:14.120 I was on two years ago and then last year 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:17.880 the Luke Bryan Tour, this has been the loudest, fans, 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:21.760 the most accepting, the most people in their seats when 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.240 I start, I'm talking sold out everyone in their seat. 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:27.639 That's the testament to EE nation. That's also a testament 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:30.200 to Cane Round fans that don't know me, that hopefully 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:34.040 do now what a blast this has been. Let me 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:37.520 talk about this documentary. It's called they Were There, a 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:43.120 Heroes documentary, and I've taken a lot of time to 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:47.359 make this documentary. It took about three years and the 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:51.000 concept of it goes way beyond that. It goes back 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:53.560 all the way to two thousand and seven when I 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:58.080 took my first entertainment tour in Iraq. After coming back 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:00.880 from that tour, I was so motivated. I wanted to 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:03.480 go to Iraq and play music. And I think I've 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:05.919 talked about this in a previous podcast, but I wanted 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.840 to bring a little piece of home to the soldiers 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:12.680 to tell them thank you for allowing me to play music. 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:15.360 But what I got out of it was so much more. 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:19.960 What I got was this vision of who these men 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:22.680 and women are, what they're doing twenty four to seven, 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:28.320 no breaks, no holidays. The sacrifice became real to me 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:30.560 when I saw it over there in the desert. So 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:33.200 I came back and immediately wanted to go and go 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.120 back to Iraq again. So I went back two more times. 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:38.840 I went back twice in two thousand and eight. One 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:40.920 of those was a Christmas in New Year's When I 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:44.720 got home to Texas after that third trip to Iraq, 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:48.600 I was motivated to bring that feeling that I had 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:52.360 that was an addicting feeling, to help out the cause, 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:55.120 to say thank you to these men and women. And 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:57.720 I wanted other civilians to feel that same thing that 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:01.080 I had, So I decided on a whim, you know, 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:03.400 one crazy day, that I was going to walk one 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:06.560 hundred miles in combat boots over the course of five 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:11.920 days from South Austin up to Fort Hood, Texas. I 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:14.680 had never done anything like this. It just, you know, 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:16.919 I just thought, you know, we'll walk one hundred miles 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:20.440 and I'll create awareness and morale and patriotism and say 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:22.280 thank you and raise some money for a charity called 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:28.000 Boot Campaign for returning Soldiers re entering civilian life. That 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:32.479 was so fun that first Boot walk. We had so 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:35.520 many volunteers that came out and walked with me. I 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:38.160 camped on the side of the road. It went along 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:40.200 along with a song that I had called Sleeping on 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:43.880 the Intercede at the time, and that led the year two. 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:46.320 That year led the year three, and year four. I 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:48.400 did that four years in a row where I walked 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:50.599 one hundred miles from South Austin up to Fort Hood. 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:55.360 But after the fourth time, I lost my dad. He 0:04:55.400 --> 0:05:00.080 died of a heart attack in March twenty fourteen, and 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.599 it changed my perspective on a lot of things. It 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.360 changed the way I looked at heroes because my dad 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:10.760 was my hero. And when he died, I felt like 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:16.760 that would die along with him, that what made him 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:19.799 a hero would be lost, and I wanted to retell 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:23.240 that story, and I realized that I really couldn't, and 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.960 I wanted to tell everybody, the whole world, what he 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:32.800 meant to me. It was through that grieving process that 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:38.800 really opened my eyes to fallen soldiers, the heroes that 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:42.279 they were, and that if I felt like that about 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:45.360 my dad, who was my hero, how should we feel 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:51.320 as Americans about soldiers, fallen soldiers that died volunteering to 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:56.159 protect our freedom, to allow us to live the American dream? 0:05:56.920 --> 0:06:01.840 How did those families feel that have lost that soldier, forgotten, lost, 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:09.000 unable to tell the world who this man or woman was. Probably, Yeah, 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:13.800 that was the perspective I had, And so I thought, 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:15.960 you know what, this one hundred mile walk that I've 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:19.280 done for four years needs to change a little bit. 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.520 I want to I want to honor soldiers. You know. 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:26.799 My first thought was to honor one hundred fallen soldiers 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.800 one per mile. And I was talking to one of 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:33.920 my friends, a wounded warrior himself named Joey Jones, and 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:35.800 I was excited. I said, I want to honor a 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:39.000 hundred soldiers and walk one hundred miles and each mile 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:43.840 marker will represent one soldier. And he said, man, I 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:48.080 appreciate your inspiration, but let me be honest with you. 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:51.280 I think you would be better suited to represent five 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.799 soldiers one each day. That way you could you could 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:59.159 really concentrate on who they were, the lives that they lived, 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:04.880 and spend an entire day talking about the soldier that 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:08.200 he was right. It was a great idea. And so 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.880 what I wanted to do was not know anything about 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:17.280 a soldier and learn about them during the course of 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:26.040 the day. So the families would send me a care package, letters, 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:29.120 anything that I needed to know about this soldier that 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.800 would would let me understand more about the hero that 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:36.040 they were, the lives that they lived, the hometowns, the mothers, 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:41.520 the wives, the families, the brothers, the friends. And that's 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:43.600 what we did. I decided to go to West Texas 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:46.880 Big Ben National Park, a place I had never been 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:51.960 as a Texan, went out there and picked five days 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:55.360 and walked about the still the equivalent of one hundred miles. 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.560 Even though it was more of a hike and it 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:02.880 was a religious experience for me, it was unbelievable, and 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.840 we filmed a documentary. This all started when I went 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:10.960 to social media and asked for gold Star families to 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:16.320 submit their stories, and we got over three hundred submissions 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:19.520 of fallen soldiers and we had to go through and 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:23.600 pick five, which was difficult. And it wasn't like we 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:28.120 went and picked the most dramatic, craziest stories. We decided 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:32.560 to pick five stories that represented the whole, that represented 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:35.720 the greater group, which was very difficult. It was including 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:40.040 one suicide. It was very appropriate to add a suicide 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:44.760 to this list because that's a big part of fallen 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:51.080 soldiers today with PTSD. And so we took these names 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:54.760 and I stayed away from anything beyond the name until 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:57.560 that day in Big Ben. I'd wake up, I would 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:01.040 call the family. Sometimes it was a wife, sometimes it 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:05.160 was a father, a mother, and I would FaceTime them 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:08.760 and I would just tell them how excited I was 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:11.839 to start the day and that this day would be 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:16.840 all about their son or husband. And I learned, as 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:22.160 the viewer learned, just who they were. And I'm so 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:26.000 proud of this film. I hope that a lot of 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:29.240 y'all have watched it. If you haven't, I also made 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:35.920 this as easy as possible to watch. It's not subscription based. 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:38.000 You don't have to pay for it. You don't have 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:41.600 to do anything but go to YouTube and search Granger Smith. 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:46.480 They Were There, a hero's documentary. It's for free, and 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:48.000 I wanted it to be like that. I wanted it 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:51.000 to be where everyone if they wanted to check this out. 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:53.720 It's about forty five minutes long. I wanted you to 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:56.200 go and be able, on your own time, on your 0:09:56.240 --> 0:10:00.640 own couch at your own house, to go to YouTube 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:04.120 and check this out. And I encourage you to watch 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:07.560 three or four minutes. And I hope that if you 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:09.400 just dedicate three or four minutes to it, then you're 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:11.640 gonna get sucked into it and ended up watching the 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:14.959 entire film and then let me know what you think. 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:19.120 It's a very very important project to me. I've been 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.080 playing the theme song called They Were There that I 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:24.640 wrote with some of my great friends, including Mitchell Timpenny 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.200 and an awesome artist himself. I've been playing that song 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.920 live when this came round tour, and last night when 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:34.520 we played it in Memphis, it just kind of kind 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:37.080 of brought the house down. It was just crazy, everyone 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:39.480 lifting up their phones and the lights on their phones. 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:43.280 And it's a powerful song with a different message than 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:46.920 any other soldier song, because this is from the civilian perspective. 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:51.000 This is a song about while we were here, living 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:55.679 our lives, doing these mundane things, all the while, there 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:59.760 are people over there right now paying for this freedom. 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:13.199 Here's a song called they were there. We were here, 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:18.200 blowing out birthdaycads, riding our bikes, jumping in legs, feeling 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:22.440 butterflies on our first dates, and stealing our old man's beard. 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:25.880 We were here back home and the home and the bridge, 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:29.280 but the breath ain't home. There's been notion away doing 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:33.280 their job and keeping us safe. While we were here, 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:37.120 they were there, fighting back on the front line, strapping 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:41.160 up their boots before the sun rites, keeping their mamas 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:46.120 up full night in field. They were there in the 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:49.360 name of a hometown of the last name that was 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:53.760 passed down every day, every night, every moment we were here, 0:11:55.720 --> 0:12:08.240 they were there. They were there. We were here, singing 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:11.200 the floods of the league and repeating those words, not 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:15.760 knowing their meaning, taking for granted all our freedoms in 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:20.480 the land of the free. We were here bitching batmanimum wage, 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:23.880 splitting ourselves in the Red and Blue states, we still 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:27.280 sat down hot food on the plate. Yeah hour, we 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:31.200 were here. They were there, fatting back on the front lines, 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:35.719 coming up their boots before the sunrise, keeping the marbles 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:40.640 up at night in seeing. They were there in the 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:43.880 name of a hotwn of the last name that was 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:48.280 passed down every day, every night, every morning. We were here. 0:12:50.280 --> 0:13:06.079 They were there. They were there. They were there, given everything, man, God, 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:11.240 they were there. Some came home in a pine wood 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:18.320 box with those stars and strips on top. They were there, 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:21.720 fatting back on the fun line, scrapping out there Bruce 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:26.480 before the sun lights, keeping their mama's up phone nine feed. 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:31.439 They were there in the name of a hometown, of 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:35.040 a last name that was passed down every day, every 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:45.080 night of the malling we working. They were there. They 0:13:45.160 --> 0:14:05.640 were there, and you can watch this full documentary on YouTube. 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.079 Just searched. They were there. Granger Smith, I hope you 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:11.480 like it, and please give me your feedback. It's important 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:21.479 to me. Hey, thank you for listening to this podcast. 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:23.240 If you want to help, if you want to hear 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:25.320 more of these, then I'll tell you exactly how you 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:28.280 could help. Me, tell your friends about it, and go 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.880 on at whatever streaming device you're using. Give it a 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:35.560 good rating. That helps me. This podcast is brought to 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:40.360 you by EEEE Energy. That's my official, unofficial energy drink. 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:43.200 I'm actually drinking one right now and I will be 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.320 tonight before the show. As I always like to point out, 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:48.200 this is an energy drink that my brothers and I 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:52.600 made from scratch. We took several different recipes and we 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:57.120 kind of decided the best one for us that we liked. Actually, 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:59.080 people were asking me last night was it taste like 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:01.960 Red Bull or Mass And I said, it's not tanging 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:05.000 like Red Bull, and it's not as fruity as Monster. 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:08.840 I like to think that it's just right the Goldilocks drink. 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:12.880 Check it out at eye energy dot com or Amazon Prime. 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:17.560 At the end of episode fourteen, and by the way, 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:19.640 I'm still kind of telling my story of where I 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:22.120 came from and how I got to where I am now, 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:26.040 and it's collectively through all these past episodes. So if 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:28.760 you're brand new to this podcast and you're just starting 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:32.520 right now with episode fifteen, you might have to catch 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.280 up just a little bit, because at the end of 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:39.400 episode fourteen, the timeline of the story I was telling 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:43.320 was in about twenty eleven, and I was talking about 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:46.440 how I put out a record called Poets and Prisoners. 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.880 I was very proud of it. I still love that album. 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:53.200 It's still such a time piece for me at the 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:56.680 time and where I was in my life, as all 0:15:56.720 --> 0:16:01.560 my albums are, but that particular one wasn't doing great. 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:04.760 It wasn't getting a lot of attention. I think people 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:07.000 liked it, but they did not a lot of people 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:09.320 knew about it, and no one really bought it, and 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:12.280 no one was coming to the shows. It wasn't translating 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:16.560 to ticket sales, and all that was about to change 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:20.800 with one show. And that's how I ended episode fourteen, 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:24.600 was saying that, and that is true. Now three things 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:27.520 were about to happen for me in this twenty eleven window. 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:31.880 These are three major things that started moving my career 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:36.520 at a rapid pace. Number One, I recorded a live record. 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:40.960 It was in College Station, Texas, one of my favorite 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:46.120 old historic bars called the Dixie Chicken. I decided to 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:49.960 call it Live at the Chicken. I was so nervous 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:53.800 about this because you only get one chance. But I 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:57.600 had my entire band travel with me to a hotel 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:01.120 in the middle of nowhere the night before, just so 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:03.560 that they wouldn't go party too hard and be too 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:08.240 hungover to play a good record. It might have been overkill, 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:25.600 but they did really good, and I was really proud 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:28.200 of how this record turned out. I mean, we brought 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:30.720 all this gear and recording stuff into this little bitty 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:33.440 wooden bar and packed it out with some of our 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:36.160 best fans that knew exactly what we were doing that day, 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:39.880 and just have a really good memory and an album 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:42.120 to show for it. And still to this day, it's 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.439 the only live album I've ever done. I didn't know 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:49.080 it then, but that album Live at the Chicken That 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.840 kind of marks the end of an era for me, 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:57.720 because things were changing rapidly for me. I was writing songs. 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:01.400 As I talked about in at the end of episode fourteen, 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:04.200 I had talked to a couple of indie rock record 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.520 labels that wanted to sign me. And when I really 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:11.639 thought about everything and kind of dove into where I 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.879 was in my career, I realized I could possibly be 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:18.959 on a misleading path. I was a country artist. I 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:21.200 loved country music, and that's what I wanted to do. 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:26.119 And so it was time to solidify myself as a 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:29.560 country music artist without a shadow of a doubt, to 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:33.760 make sure that my music and my lyrics screamed country, 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:39.080 because that's who I was. And I could pinpoint the 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:43.679 exact time when all of that became very real to 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:46.560 me in my head. It's because I was at a 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:48.399 place when I was ready to write songs. I was 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:51.399 ready for a new album. I was ready for the 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:54.280 granger that was going to bust through, that was going 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:57.080 to finally have a lot of fans. And so I 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:59.560 was in that mindset and we played this show at 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:03.119 private party. It was in the middle of nowhere. The 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.120 closest town was bass Drop, Texas, but it was still 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:10.439 about fifty miles from bass Drop, And it was this 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:14.120 tiny dance hall that was used only for private parties. 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:18.679 And there was no bars, there was no hockey tonks, 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:22.240 there was no dance halls open to the public anywhere 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:26.959 near this place. And during the party, one of these 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:29.760 guys was talking to me and I said, man, what 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:31.879 do you around here? What do you guys do for fun? 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:33.359 What do you I mean, where do you go? And 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:35.520 I'm thinking, where do you go drink beer? You know you. 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:40.640 Where do you go? Dance with the girls? And it shows. 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:42.960 It just shows that I had been touring so long 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:45.199 in this van and trailer, I'd been beating up this 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:48.600 honky tonk circuit that I had forgotten my roots. I 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:51.000 had forgotten what I did in high school. I've forgotten 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:53.359 what I did in college. All I knew was where 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:55.440 I was currently playing, and that was so ingrained in 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:57.920 my mind. This guy looked at me like I was crazy, 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:01.119 and he said, where do we go? We do it 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:20.159 in the field, in the little Betty town between min dots. 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:23.680 We don't tell get in a parking lot. We bump 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:27.880 down their roads and jack dump trucks. Far from the 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:32.400 bars and smoky nightclubs. We do it in a field, 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:37.480 rocking all night until the sun comes up. We got 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:41.160 a hundred blue Cans sitting all ice on the back 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:44.800 of my club and George Stream playing it in a 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:49.240 chevro Laine. We're opening on the doors wide and let 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:52.920 it play. We do it in a field, rocking all 0:20:53.080 --> 0:21:00.159 night until the sun comes up. A few days for 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:02.359 that conversation, I wrote, we do it in the field, 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:06.920 And to whoever that was that I talked to that day, you, sir, 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:11.159 saved my life. And you know, in this business, in 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:15.360 this career, it has taken several times. There's many times 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:16.919 like this in my life where I needed to get 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:19.399 hit in the head with a hammer to remember just 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:22.600 what the hell I'm supposed to be doing, because as 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:24.439 all of us, in all of our lives, we can 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:27.560 get so micro focused on what we think is right. 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:30.399 And as they say, you could start climbing the ladder 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:32.320 and then once you get to the top, you realize 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:35.240 the ladder was leaning on the wrong building. That's kind 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:37.600 of what I was doing. So thank you, buddy for 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:40.000 clocking me in ahead. I needed that. One Are we 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.440 Doing in a Field? Ended up being the exact identity 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:45.360 that I was stepping into, and it would soon be 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:48.720 the lead single off of a brand new project of mine. 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:52.360 So all I had was this song, and so many 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:54.640 of the other songs off of what would become Dirt 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:57.479 Road Driveway kind of started falling into my lap I was, 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:00.320 I was writing them, and in the meantime, as I 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:04.239 was kind of recording and getting ready, Tyler and I 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:07.920 my brother who's my manager still is still the best 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:10.879 manager in country music. He might get mad if I 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:14.240 say that the best manager in music, he would probably prefer. 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:19.479 But we're going over ways to launch the new me, 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:23.000 the you know, the how do we launch outside of 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:25.560 our small, tiny region that we're living in. How do 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:29.000 we become more than just poets and prisoners? How do 0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:33.919 we reach people? So we had a vision of going 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:36.880 viral on YouTube and not you know, no one wanted 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:38.720 to see me sit there and talk on YouTube, So 0:22:39.480 --> 0:22:43.000 we wanted to do some serious stuff, some of the 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:47.280 stuff from Bootwalk in Iraq, some music videos, and some 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:52.600 funny videos. And a lot of the funny videos although 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:55.399 it's me is you know in the video it's Tyler 0:22:56.040 --> 0:23:00.600 uh with the vision and what's you need about some 0:23:00.640 --> 0:23:03.520 of these funny videos that we started doing was that 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:05.840 they if you notice, they don't play any music at all. 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:10.080 It's just it's some kind of silly skit and at 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:13.240 the end it just tags really quick grangersmith dot com, 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:16.160 so that if it goes viral and it spreads, then 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:20.679 people would ultimately say that's kind of funny. Well is 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:23.920 there more? Oh there's a website, click on that. Oh 0:23:23.960 --> 0:23:27.199 it's a musician and he sings songs and hopefully that 0:23:27.320 --> 0:23:29.920 you like them. You know that was the goal, and 0:23:30.280 --> 0:23:33.159 we set our sights on one million views. That was 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:36.600 so far then past anything we had ever done. We'd 0:23:36.600 --> 0:23:38.760 put out a lot of videos up until this point, 0:23:38.800 --> 0:23:40.840 but nothing even close to a million, But that was 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:43.000 the goal. We knew it was going to take one 0:23:43.080 --> 0:23:47.119 million views on YouTube to make a dent remotely and 0:23:47.560 --> 0:23:50.879 to even think about going back and relating to the music. 0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:53.480 So that's what we wanted, and that's what we dug 0:23:53.520 --> 0:23:56.840 our heels into. And if you search YouTube for me, 0:23:57.280 --> 0:23:59.240 you could find all kinds of old videos, like Live 0:23:59.280 --> 0:24:01.480 with Lionel. That was a really funny one. I thought 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:05.080 that was really funny. He says a super awkward interview guy, 0:24:05.640 --> 0:24:07.400 and it didn't get it didn't get a whole lot 0:24:07.400 --> 0:24:12.439 of exposure. We had a Mexican restaurant owner named Freddie, 0:24:13.240 --> 0:24:15.439 and I loved Freddy. I still love Freddy. I think 0:24:15.480 --> 0:24:18.439 he's an absolute rock star. I actually think we're going 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:21.199 to see more from Freddy in the future. But he 0:24:21.640 --> 0:24:24.440 didn't get a lot of views. We had Don't Touch 0:24:24.480 --> 0:24:28.640 the Turtles, which is this old redneck guy that has 0:24:28.640 --> 0:24:32.600 an affinity for saving sea turtles. We like that one. 0:24:33.040 --> 0:24:34.800 I thought that was funny. Once again didn't get that 0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:37.640 many views, and we had Cribs. We had an episode 0:24:37.680 --> 0:24:41.639 of Cribs where I'm in this old, broke down house, 0:24:42.119 --> 0:24:44.560 and that one did pretty good. Actually, that didn't get 0:24:44.560 --> 0:24:46.480 close to a million. I think it has over a 0:24:46.560 --> 0:24:49.320 million now, but back then it was kind of another 0:24:49.400 --> 0:24:54.000 slow growth video. All this was leading into what you 0:24:54.000 --> 0:24:57.680 guys are probably thinking. Yes, what you're thinking is right. 0:24:58.760 --> 0:25:02.440 I didn't know it. But during this time, during this 0:25:02.680 --> 0:25:06.920 experimental time filming a lot of videos, usually Tyler be 0:25:07.000 --> 0:25:09.240 on the camera and I would take the footage and 0:25:09.280 --> 0:25:11.600 go back on my little laptop and edit all these 0:25:11.640 --> 0:25:17.919 by myself. I was barreling towards a huge career explosion 0:25:19.000 --> 0:25:22.840 and things. That might be an understatement, because things absolutely 0:25:22.920 --> 0:25:26.000 blew up for me because of what we were about 0:25:26.040 --> 0:25:31.359 to do. And as far as I know, it was 0:25:31.760 --> 0:25:35.120 such a simple idea. As far as I know, it 0:25:35.160 --> 0:25:37.720 was just a voice that I had. I had talked 0:25:37.720 --> 0:25:42.600 in this voice. Tyler called it the country guy, and 0:25:42.880 --> 0:25:47.960 he represented some family members of mine, you distant cousins. 0:25:49.400 --> 0:25:52.720