Speaker 1: The song comes out Friday, right, it jumps up on
Speaker 1: streams because this video is reacting. I don't have a manager,
Speaker 1: I don't have a record label. It's just me and
Speaker 1: this goes kaboom and I'm sitting here like what do
Speaker 1: I do? I hope I get a record deal and
Speaker 1: nobody calls.
Speaker 2: Episode four fifty seven with Drew Baldridge.
Speaker 3: He has a song called She's Somebody's Daughter that's currently
Speaker 3: Top twenty, and it's his first ever top twenty, which
Speaker 3: I was surprised to hear. And it's his first ever
Speaker 3: top forty, is what he said, right, yep. But his
Speaker 3: whole story of how he got here, I did not
Speaker 3: know it until I started to read about him and
Speaker 3: talk about him, and I was kind of blown away
Speaker 3: by this interview. I don't think I've ever met him
Speaker 3: until he came over and we did this. As a
Speaker 3: matter of fact, I didn't know what to expect, but
Speaker 3: really I came away from this this has been one
Speaker 3: of my favorites in a long time.
Speaker 2: His name is Drew Baldridge.
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna shut up and let you hear it
Speaker 3: because it's an awesome story. I'm not crazy, right, No,
Speaker 3: It's an awesome story.
Speaker 2: Amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I kind of just kind of waded into it not
Speaker 3: knowing what to it was, and the whole time I
Speaker 3: could have done.
Speaker 2: Two hours with this guy. Uh.
Speaker 3: Drew Baldridge Follow him on Instagram Drew Baldridge Music. Check
Speaker 3: out his music, go buy his merch He you know,
Speaker 3: worked on a farm. It's a family farm of Potokio, Illinois.
Speaker 3: And next thing you know, he's here. Next thing you know, well,
Speaker 3: all this happens here. He is Drew Baldridge. True.
Speaker 2: How's it going?
Speaker 4: Buddy?
Speaker 2: Good?
Speaker 4: Buddy, how are you good?
Speaker 2: Are you a sports fan?
Speaker 4: Huge sports fan?
Speaker 2: Are you a former athlete?
Speaker 4: I am? Yep.
Speaker 2: What is your thought on why? Because I have a thought?
Speaker 3: What is your thought on why there are so many
Speaker 3: athletes that are also successful artists?
Speaker 4: Oh man?
Speaker 2: Or maybe there's no correlation at all.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think I think it's also like the hard work
Speaker 1: determination aspect. Maybe, you know, I know, growing up sports
Speaker 1: was like everything. Like music really wasn't anything until I
Speaker 1: was like sixteen seventeen. But just talking to a lot
Speaker 1: of other athletes, know, I feel like, if you're an artist,
Speaker 1: you want to be a baseball player a basketball player
Speaker 1: and vice versa. You know, I know several other like
Speaker 1: sports guys that would like love to sing.
Speaker 4: You know, it's super interesting.
Speaker 3: I think that has a lot to do with the
Speaker 3: culture of competition within yourself. I think if you grew
Speaker 3: up an athlete, you know how to work. Yeah, you
Speaker 3: know how to train, you know that you've got to
Speaker 3: get better. You're comparing yourself against others, against what you've
Speaker 3: done in the past yesterday. Hard work is a big
Speaker 3: part of it. I mean, to be an elite athlete.
Speaker 3: It's not like even if you're super talented, it's that
Speaker 3: easy to still be an eleaite athlete.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that's a lot to do with it.
Speaker 3: And only asked that because it got a lot of
Speaker 3: d ms of people just asking me random questions, and
Speaker 3: one of them was that it was why are there
Speaker 3: so many athletes slash artists? And I think those cultures
Speaker 3: mix well together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do agree the challenge aspect of like competition,
Speaker 1: you know, there's always I mean, as much as we
Speaker 1: don't want to do it, and we always say we don't,
Speaker 1: look at the friends around you. You know, some of
Speaker 1: my friends have been uber successful and some of the
Speaker 1: went home, you know, And but there's always that drive
Speaker 1: of no matter if they're your friend or not, you
Speaker 1: want to win.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like you got a pickle ball court, you know
Speaker 1: you're talking about It's like, no matter who you have
Speaker 1: on that court, you're gonna try to you're gonna try
Speaker 1: to win.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll kill you. Do you ever to play pickleball?
Speaker 1: I have?
Speaker 4: So we used to do it all time in high school,
Speaker 4: which is interesting.
Speaker 2: Well that was before I even thought pickleball exists.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: And so now it's like this whole new craze and
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, everybody is talking about pickleball.
Speaker 2: And we did in high school pickleball.
Speaker 4: In high school, we did yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they had like tape on the gym floor and
Speaker 1: we would play. We played in high school, like twelve
Speaker 1: years ago.
Speaker 2: Where'd you grow up?
Speaker 1: Grew up in southern Illinois? Patka, Illinois, Boom in metropolis?
Speaker 2: What's that near? How far is away from somewhere that
Speaker 2: I know?
Speaker 4: Probably?
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of Mount Vernon, Illinois? Or Saint
Speaker 1: Louis eighty.
Speaker 3: Miles east straight east now we're talking, or straight yeah,
Speaker 3: straight east of Saint Louis, Saint Louis. We were in
Speaker 3: Saint Louis two weeks ago, and what was annoying to
Speaker 3: us was because we went to work out with the Cardinals,
Speaker 3: which is super cool.
Speaker 2: They invited us up. We get to love that work
Speaker 2: out with a huge Cardinals fan.
Speaker 3: Are you the massive It's cool. I give you a
Speaker 3: couple of stories then. But we were there and we
Speaker 3: wanted to we wanted to bet. We couldn't because it's
Speaker 3: not legal in Missouri and have a big deal with DraftKings,
Speaker 3: and they were like, just drive over.
Speaker 2: The state line.
Speaker 3: Not the Cardinals, by the way, it wasn't the Cardinals said.
Speaker 3: We were doing a podcast there out in front of
Speaker 3: the stadium before we went into work with the Cardinals,
Speaker 3: and Eddie and I were so frustrated because we couldn't
Speaker 3: bet inside Missouri because you Canton, Tennessee. Yeah you can
Speaker 3: in Illinois. And they were like, they have like boats there.
Speaker 3: I guess the boat the boats, Yeah, it makes the water.
Speaker 4: Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Which is also the most ridiculous thing because growing up
Speaker 3: in Arkansas, there was no gambling in Arkansas except for
Speaker 3: the race track, the horse race track, but nothing else.
Speaker 2: You can only gamble on horse in this one spot.
Speaker 3: So we would drive to Louisiana, and even in Louisiana
Speaker 3: you couldn't gamble unless.
Speaker 2: You were gambling on the water on a boat. But
Speaker 2: it wasn't really a boat. It was a big, huge,
Speaker 2: like old school. It looked like one of those old
Speaker 2: civil wars.
Speaker 1: Doesn't move, it just states it's not really a barely
Speaker 1: floating Yeah, because it's on water, they allowed you to
Speaker 1: gamble on it.
Speaker 2: That's funny. What was what was home like for you?
Speaker 2: Parents together?
Speaker 4: Parents together? Yeah, I was very blessed man.
Speaker 1: I had a great family, very Christian household.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: We were farm family. So my grandpa farmed and he
Speaker 1: farmed corn and beans, and we uh had cattle a hundred.
Speaker 4: Head of cattle or so. So we did a lot
Speaker 4: of work on that.
Speaker 1: And it's you know, I always tell everybody a lot
Speaker 1: of music, you know, kind of comes with that.
Speaker 4: We were not rich farmers. You know.
Speaker 1: It's old tractors and combine combine, Yeah, old white tractors,
Speaker 1: and they would break down like every every year, you know,
Speaker 1: like something would break and it would be like, well,
Speaker 1: we're just gonna try to fix it, you know, and
Speaker 1: see what we can move on That's how always fell
Speaker 1: about music a little bit too kind of interesting, of
Speaker 1: like something always breaks, you know, something doesn't go your way,
Speaker 1: but you just hey, you got to get the crop in,
Speaker 1: you know, you got to get it out.
Speaker 2: Did you have a new combine? Oh? Did you ever
Speaker 2: get to it?
Speaker 4: We had this old gleaner, all right, and it's called
Speaker 4: a gleaner.
Speaker 1: And I'll never forget one time my grandpa was combined
Speaker 1: in the field. It was wheat, and sparks were flying
Speaker 1: out the top of this whole week of this old combine,
Speaker 1: and I had one of my best friends with me
Speaker 1: and caught the whole field on fire. The whole thing
Speaker 1: was up because the sparks. Yeah, because sparks fell out.
Speaker 1: And I run out there and I'm like waving my grandpa.
Speaker 4: Now, I was like stop stopping. He's like what what.
Speaker 4: I'm like, the whole look behind you. There's a trail
Speaker 4: of fire.
Speaker 1: And I'm like running up to my uncle's house with
Speaker 1: buckets out of the pool and like trying to put
Speaker 1: this fire out.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: When I did a show on that GEO called Breaking
Speaker 3: Bobby Bones, one of the deals that I did was
Speaker 3: I went to a farm in Virginia, and they had
Speaker 3: me use every version basically a combine, but I used
Speaker 3: a hand and then that's tractor pulling, and then I
Speaker 3: used a big, new, nice combine.
Speaker 2: Those things are so nice, so nice. It's like a million.
Speaker 3: Dollars drives itself GPS, it's air conditioned. You just sit
Speaker 3: in and basically turn the corner. It's like an anesthesiologist.
Speaker 3: You're trained for if something goes wrong. Otherwise you just
Speaker 3: sit and chill and helped that. The day is what
Speaker 3: the day brings.
Speaker 4: And we didn't have any of those new ones.
Speaker 1: And my brother is still farms back home, and I
Speaker 1: think my brother and my cousins are getting newer. But
Speaker 1: like when I was growing up, man, all they I
Speaker 1: was the baby of the family, so it was like
Speaker 1: got all the crap jobs, you know. It's like, hey
Speaker 1: you haul the grain in, you know, or hey you
Speaker 1: disked the field. There was nothing of me driving the
Speaker 1: combine because they did not trust little baby Drew to
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 2: Who lived in the house, Your mom or dad? You?
Speaker 1: My mom, my dad? Me and my older brother how
Speaker 1: much older. He was two and a half years older.
Speaker 1: So when I when he was a senior, I was
Speaker 1: a freshman and uh, you know they all still live
Speaker 1: in little Patoka.
Speaker 3: If you wanted to go to a concert or too.
Speaker 3: We had town if you wanted to go to town,
Speaker 3: but there were no concerts in town. You have to
Speaker 3: keep going to Littleron to get to town to a concert.
Speaker 3: Where would concerts be or whe would you go grocery shopping?
Speaker 1: Well, like you know school, like if we go school
Speaker 1: close shopping, we'd go to Saint Louis area, like Fairview.
Speaker 2: Heights and half our and a half.
Speaker 1: Yeah, their concerts Verizon Wireless, you know, Amphitheater, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's still called that or not. Out on
Speaker 1: in Saint Louis area. That's where we would go to
Speaker 1: like watch Tobe Heath, you know, and Tray Atkins. That
Speaker 1: was like one of my first prominent concerts was watching them.
Speaker 1: But you know you could drive up to We've gone
Speaker 1: up to Springfield, Illinois, which is state capitol like state Fair,
Speaker 1: you know, watched Aldan and Chris Young there like my
Speaker 1: senior year high school, and that was like another place
Speaker 1: like county fairs, you know, And they're starting to become
Speaker 1: more shows than what they were when I was growing
Speaker 1: up because it was just hard.
Speaker 4: It's just hard to get to a concert. You know,
Speaker 4: you go to church.
Speaker 1: And you play music, and you watch people on CMT,
Speaker 1: and you know you would just that's where you found
Speaker 1: your music, was the radio.
Speaker 2: Or that where was music in your house?
Speaker 1: My dad sang. My dad sang in church, and so
Speaker 1: I just wanted to sing in church too. So I
Speaker 1: started singing in church when I was I think first
Speaker 1: time I sang was first grade Christmas program at my school,
Speaker 1: and then that turned into anytime there was a talent
Speaker 1: show in town or anytime there was, you know, a
Speaker 1: church function, I would lead worship.
Speaker 3: Did your dad want to be a singer or was
Speaker 3: it just something he liked to do since he was
Speaker 3: home He's like to do it at home.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just think he liked to do it.
Speaker 1: He liked to sing Southern gospel music, so lots of
Speaker 1: old cassettes of the Cathedrals and Statesman Quartet, and he
Speaker 1: just loved singing, you know, Southern gospel church music.
Speaker 4: So it was just something he was passionate about.
Speaker 1: So but when I started doing it, it's definitely made
Speaker 1: like his passion. I think he sees a lot of
Speaker 1: himself and probably what we're doing now of music, and
Speaker 1: he never misses a show and we're up there. They
Speaker 1: traveled down here a lot. He follows me to a
Speaker 1: lot of places, and it's been really fun to kind
Speaker 1: of share that hobby with my dad.
Speaker 3: What did he and or your mom think whenever you
Speaker 3: wanted to get into this non traditional career.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I had a scholarship to go to
Speaker 1: a little little college and next it's called Kaskaskia College
Speaker 1: and went there for a year. And that whole year
Speaker 1: I was coming here for like a week out of
Speaker 1: a month and like trying to write, meet people, do
Speaker 1: all thing. And then the next year I said, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna move to Nashville, but I'll still do the
Speaker 1: junior I'll do it all online. And here they were,
Speaker 1: you know, put so much time into me at sports.
Speaker 1: And I had a chance for a scholarship and I
Speaker 1: turned that down because I wanted to play music, and
Speaker 1: I thought my mom was going to kill me. But
Speaker 1: I will say like they supported it. You know, They're like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is your dream, go do it. And I talked
Speaker 1: to my mom and I was like, man, you let
Speaker 1: me nineteen year old, like didn't know how to drive
Speaker 1: in the city. Go down to Nashville, kid, and just
Speaker 1: figure it out, and she goes.
Speaker 4: I thought always thought you'd come home. I always thought that.
Speaker 1: That would be like you go down for a little
Speaker 1: bit and you'd get tired of that and you'd come home.
Speaker 2: What was your first time to Nashville.
Speaker 1: Man, My first time to Nashville. I saw Josh Turner
Speaker 1: in concert.
Speaker 2: At for that reason, you came to a show here.
Speaker 1: Came to a show when I was for my eighteenth birthday.
Speaker 1: My Mama brought me and I went downtown Broadway, bought
Speaker 1: a hat, cowboy hat, just because it was the thing,
Speaker 1: and I had meet and greets. I was front row
Speaker 1: at what was.
Speaker 2: A Wildhorse Yeah me and great, that's funny.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I got meet and greet to meet Josh Turner.
Speaker 1: He signed my cowboy hat. And I still have the
Speaker 1: picture that's awesome somewhere of me and Josh Turner.
Speaker 4: And you know the fast forward.
Speaker 1: The first time I played the Opry, I sang a
Speaker 1: Josh song and he came out on stage and surprised me.
Speaker 4: And that was pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Dang, that's awesome.
Speaker 4: I cried.
Speaker 3: It was like I got a little chill you hearing that,
Speaker 3: are me hearing that? Yeah, you came to a Josh
Speaker 3: show and then your opry. I mean I I first
Speaker 3: time I played the opera do and stand up? I
Speaker 3: told my grandmother's favorite joke, because she is who I
Speaker 3: watched the opry with.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like when you get to the opera.
Speaker 3: You know, obviously playing the oprey is cool, and it's
Speaker 3: something that you wait to do, but you always want
Speaker 3: to like do something that kind of.
Speaker 2: Brought you to it, like to that that's interesting some
Speaker 2: kind of respect.
Speaker 3: It could be something you wear, something you do, or
Speaker 3: a song, but that was it for me too.
Speaker 2: I was like, man, I would only be here really
Speaker 2: if it wasn't for.
Speaker 3: My grandma who made me when I was real young,
Speaker 3: like listen to the opera or watch the opry on
Speaker 3: TNN or CMT or wherever it was. And to you,
Speaker 3: you played a Josh Turner song the first concert in Nashville.
Speaker 2: That's freaking cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I haven't really told anybody that story, you know,
Speaker 1: about seeing Josh Turner first at the Wild Horse, but
Speaker 1: it was just you know that's I always covered your
Speaker 1: man at every karaoke thing there ever was that was
Speaker 1: the go to song, and so I sang it, and
Speaker 1: I'll never forget my guitar player stepping up on when
Speaker 1: he was on the opp he started playing a solo
Speaker 1: and everybody started cheering for my guitar player.
Speaker 2: But you didn't You for sure didn't know. You didn't
Speaker 2: not know Josh Starner was coming.
Speaker 4: Oh clue.
Speaker 3: Okay, not even five minutes before, because that would still
Speaker 3: been cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not even five minutes before.
Speaker 1: He my guitar players playing a solo and the crowd
Speaker 1: starts screaming. I'm like, what the freaking heck, you know,
Speaker 1: they're all screaming from my guitar player. And I turned around,
Speaker 1: looking's Josh standing behind me, and I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I'm literally crying tears on the opry stage
Speaker 1: and he starts singing and I just quit and he
Speaker 1: just kept singing, and I'm just like trying to do
Speaker 1: little parts. And then I'm like lost in it, you know,
Speaker 1: and he's like take it Drought, and I forget every word.
Speaker 1: I'm like, uh, I say on the mic, I don't even.
Speaker 4: Know where we're at. And the old man had like
Speaker 4: take it to the end.
Speaker 2: But it was so special awesome story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll never forget it.
Speaker 2: And no one tipped you off.
Speaker 4: Nobody tip me, but.
Speaker 2: For them too, because I'm sure some people knew.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean at that time, my manager was
Speaker 1: rusty gassing.
Speaker 4: And he pulled it and that's all off.
Speaker 1: No idea. Nobody at the opera even even told me
Speaker 1: you're hinted at it.
Speaker 3: Did you ever hear Josh's stories about going to Willie
Speaker 3: Nelson's or no, Johnny Cash's house.
Speaker 4: No, that's probably I.
Speaker 2: Know we've talked about it like on my show, and
Speaker 2: I don't want to like be wrong about it. But
Speaker 2: he just drove up to his house.
Speaker 3: One day and like knocked on the door, and it's
Speaker 3: like Johnny Cash live here, Oh, and like wanted to
Speaker 3: ask him questions that he went in. Yeah, and I
Speaker 3: And again, this only popped in my head because you
Speaker 3: brought Josh up. But it seems to me and Mike,
Speaker 3: you ma can help me with the memory of this,
Speaker 3: But it seems to me like Johnny Cash was like,
Speaker 3: what are you doing here?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 2: Come on in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you opened the door and let him in, Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, and they had a conversation.
Speaker 3: And then yeah, that's what it feels a special. There's
Speaker 3: a couple of really cool Johnny Cash stories. Ronnie Dunn
Speaker 3: from Brooks and Done obviously, who's a family friend of ours.
Speaker 2: He said that he moved here and he had been
Speaker 2: doing music.
Speaker 3: And in Oklahoma and Texas kind of the Arkansas region,
Speaker 3: but really just there. His girlfriend then wife was really
Speaker 3: good friends with June, and so he came and he
Speaker 3: lived with Johnny Cash.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Ronnie Done did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Wow, that's it, Ronnie Okay, yeah, Ronnie Done. And
Speaker 3: so he there's like a little house on the property,
Speaker 3: and so we've been living in that house. But he'd
Speaker 3: go over to Johnny's house and he'd be like, Johnny's
Speaker 3: watching CNN, just hanging out and Ronnie that was just
Speaker 3: sitting on the couch with him. And ron I was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it was weird because that's Johnny Cash, but also that
Speaker 3: was like my wife's friend, and that's who like, if
Speaker 3: you're coming to Nashville, come stay with us.
Speaker 2: How wild is that? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean talking about your heroes. I mean, yeah, that's
Speaker 4: pretty cool.
Speaker 2: You and Josh. Do you guys ever become buddies at all? Anyway?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean, could you ever call him and just be like,
Speaker 2: what we didn't I.
Speaker 4: Don't have Josh's number.
Speaker 1: We've played several shows after that together, you know, we
Speaker 1: played one this past year and just catching up.
Speaker 4: And I remember one time I was down.
Speaker 1: My producer was living in College Grove and this was
Speaker 1: after I played the Opry and I'm pumping gas and
Speaker 1: I look on the.
Speaker 4: Other side Josh and I'm like, he's like, hey, hey, Drew. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was like, what are you doing.
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 4: He was like, man, I'm just I did live out here,
Speaker 4: you know, in his area.
Speaker 2: And he's like the normal guy, Josh. Yeah, Like it
Speaker 2: was just normal.
Speaker 1: They say, don't meet your heroes, but he was so
Speaker 1: cool to me, and you know, I know he was
Speaker 1: also like I just saw, you know, Scotty McCreary got
Speaker 1: inducted into the Grand Ole Opry as a member, and
Speaker 1: I saw Josh came out for that. He's just a
Speaker 1: really good dude. And I think that's what excited me
Speaker 1: after I met him, was like, he's still a good dude.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And he was Josh even more normal than you
Speaker 3: think he's going to be, even when you know he's normal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you just think this here, this big voice
Speaker 1: out of him. You know, you see sons of hits,
Speaker 1: respected by everybody and just like man, super normal dude,
Speaker 1: family man, you know, loves his wife, got his kids,
Speaker 1: you know, towards that way.
Speaker 3: And he must have so much testosterone his body to
Speaker 3: have that voice, like to have that voice, I mean,
Speaker 3: just dripping out.
Speaker 2: So you lived to Nashville at nineteen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when you say scholarship, was it a academic academic?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Just smart kid was pretty good edictorian pretodol You were
Speaker 3: a valedictorian, Yeah, VALDIETI I'm not surprised.
Speaker 4: I'm going to tell you of how many.
Speaker 2: But you know, my.
Speaker 3: Graduating class was like, you know, fifty kids or so.
Speaker 3: I went to a small school.
Speaker 4: Yeah, mine was twenty two.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's listen. You're still talking about better than ninety
Speaker 3: five percent. You're in the top four percent. Basically we'll
Speaker 3: take it, you know. But it was, Yeah, I was valedictorian.
Speaker 1: Always really proud of myself and learning and studying kind
Speaker 1: of like with this business, you know, coming here and.
Speaker 4: And just really learning the business.
Speaker 1: And I just didn't want to be an artist that
Speaker 1: just sang songs, you know, Like I looked at Toby Keith.
Speaker 1: He learned the business, had a great business mind, and
Speaker 1: that was something that I really wanted to dive in
Speaker 1: and learn into.
Speaker 2: First concert was it the Toby concert?
Speaker 4: It was, yeah, it took you to that.
Speaker 1: My mom and dad took me to that, and Toby
Speaker 1: was one and then another. Craig Morgan was like my
Speaker 1: second concert. I think that there was this place in Effingham, Illinois.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever heard of that sound
Speaker 1: watched Craig Morgan there. I'll never forget Craig forgot the
Speaker 1: words to uh International Harvester, and that was my favorite
Speaker 1: song at the time, and I just thought it was
Speaker 1: hilarious how he handled it, you know, and just like
Speaker 1: you couldn't get to put a flour and I was
Speaker 1: just like, oh my gosh, people, they're human, you know,
Speaker 1: I forgot the words.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love Craig Man. That guy's awesome.
Speaker 3: I was looking at the chart success of your current
Speaker 3: song She's Somebody's Daughter. I did not know is this
Speaker 3: what is your highest charting song?
Speaker 4: Is this this?
Speaker 2: Oh? It is?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've never had a top forty.
Speaker 2: Oh I didn't. I did not know that.
Speaker 3: I just suspected you've had in the most complimentary way.
Speaker 3: I'll say I suspected you had a couple.
Speaker 4: Oh man, well, thank you for saying that. But in here forever.
Speaker 3: Super congratulations, Thanks man. But what stuck out to me was,
Speaker 3: and you can define what this means. I was reading
Speaker 3: that you were a bit self funded.
Speaker 4: All of it. Yeah, real self.
Speaker 1: Well, She's Somebody's Daughter came out in twenty nineteen. I
Speaker 1: wrote it about my wife. It did nothing, It sit
Speaker 1: there I wanted. I was part of a label called
Speaker 1: Cold River Independent.
Speaker 3: So who owned that label? Guy named Peedle heron okay,
Speaker 3: So do they have anybody else?
Speaker 1: They had Katie Arminger her name, yeah, okay, And so
Speaker 1: we had a couple songs came out. A song called
Speaker 1: Rebound did pretty well for us. Nothing ever top forty.
Speaker 1: We got to forty two, I think was our highest song.
Speaker 1: And you know, I did all the radio tour, I
Speaker 1: met everybody, all the things. And that label closed down
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, right around the sign I put this
Speaker 1: song out and luckily Praise the Lord, like that was
Speaker 1: gonna be my single. But I'll never forget I sang
Speaker 1: the vocals of She's Somebody's Daughter. I go out and
Speaker 1: sit in my car, I pull up my email and
Speaker 1: on Country air Check, which is for everybody out there,
Speaker 1: it's like a tells radio everything that's going on. There
Speaker 1: was a girl named to Neil Towns that had a
Speaker 1: song called Somebody's Daughter going for.
Speaker 2: Ads Somebody is God, and I.
Speaker 1: Was like, you gotta be freaking kidding me. You know,
Speaker 1: this is my favorite song. So I just it just
Speaker 1: sit there on It did nothing. And then me and
Speaker 1: my wife got married in twenty one and I made
Speaker 1: a wedding version so she could dance to it with
Speaker 1: her dad.
Speaker 2: Wait two years, it's set, nineteen to twenty.
Speaker 1: One, nineteen to twenty one, it's set. It did nothing,
Speaker 1: and it was on Spotify, but it just no. I
Speaker 1: didn't really talk about it, did nothing with it. And
Speaker 1: then twenty one we got married. I on our honeymoon,
Speaker 1: I posted TikTok and I just say, hey, if this
Speaker 1: gets three thousand likes, i'll put it out on Friday,
Speaker 1: you know, just trying to tease.
Speaker 4: It was Wednesday.
Speaker 1: I woke up Thursday and I had almost ten million
Speaker 1: views and the video had a million likes, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my gosh, I'm crying, and me and
Speaker 1: my wife are dancing in our little condo, and I'm thinking.
Speaker 2: Rewind that for a second.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you do your video saying I'm gonna put this
Speaker 3: out now, being transparent is probably already gonna come out.
Speaker 1: For plan Yeah, yeah, the song is already coming out,
Speaker 1: but you just hope, Yeah, reaction happens, you know.
Speaker 2: And so what day was this?
Speaker 4: When this was a Wednesday night?
Speaker 2: So Wednesday night you make the video?
Speaker 1: Yeah in my rental car, like, not extravagant at all.
Speaker 1: I said, my wife danced to this at our wedding
Speaker 1: last week. If you guys like it, it's coming out Friday.
Speaker 2: And how was it positioned? Are you sitting in the
Speaker 2: car and you turned the radio up and you played
Speaker 2: over the top or are you singing.
Speaker 4: I'm lip singing it? Got it?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And then when did the ten million views happen? By
Speaker 2: what day? Thursday?
Speaker 4: By the next day?
Speaker 1: That's crazy crazy, And mind you, I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: look all night because I haven't had a video do that,
Speaker 1: you know. I'm just thinking, like I'm going to wake
Speaker 1: up the next day. Obviously I'm with my wife. It's
Speaker 1: our honeymoon. We're enjoying it, and I wake up and
Speaker 1: I look at her and I'm like, wow, Katie, look
Speaker 1: at this. And I pulled up and my followers jump
Speaker 1: like one hundred thousand.
Speaker 2: Did you think that something may be wrong with your
Speaker 2: TikTok account? No, I was just like, holy freaking crap.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what was going on. I've never seen
Speaker 2: a video do.
Speaker 3: Even Like I've had some pretty successful videos, like if
Speaker 3: I get half a million a night, I'm like, this
Speaker 3: is awesome. I would think that there was something with
Speaker 3: all on my TikTok. If I had ten million in
Speaker 3: the night.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was just like, I've never seen it.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: And you know that was early on in TikTok Land
Speaker 1: twenty one. You know, they were kind of I feel
Speaker 1: like they were letting videos go more than they were now.
Speaker 1: And dude, you know, I started getting calls from some
Speaker 1: mind you every label in Nashville is shut down, it's COVID.
Speaker 1: Pretty well, music ain't really happening. It's kind of starting
Speaker 1: to come back. But I started getting calls from LA
Speaker 1: labels every day like, hey man, we see your cause.
Speaker 1: The song comes out Friday, right, it jumps up on
Speaker 1: streams because this video is reacting and uh, I don't
Speaker 1: have a manager, I don't have a record label, I
Speaker 1: don't have a booking agent at this time.
Speaker 4: It's just me.
Speaker 1: And this goes kaboom and I'm sitting here like what
Speaker 1: do I do? I hope I get a record deal
Speaker 1: and nobody, nobody calls, Like all La LA would would
Speaker 1: take the call and they're like, hey, we want to
Speaker 1: get Universal Nashville involved, and then we come to Nashville,
Speaker 1: they kabash it. They would be like, no calls from Nashville.
Speaker 1: Be Warner LA Electra. They would call, they'd be excited.
Speaker 1: It'd get to Warner Nashville, Warner Nashville, w do nothing
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 2: Why do you think that is?
Speaker 4: Man? I don't know.
Speaker 1: The only thing that I can guess is I had
Speaker 1: a shot, and I had three singles at radio and
Speaker 1: none of them did anything. And I'm thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: Nashville is kind of that town. If you get one shot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you gotta be shiny. You gotta take advantage of it.
Speaker 1: You gotta take time, you gotta take advantage of that
Speaker 1: shiny time. And if you don't get that, then they're
Speaker 1: going to find the next shiny kid.
Speaker 5: Hang tight, the Bobby cast will be right back and
Speaker 5: we're back on the Bobby cast.
Speaker 3: That would have been my theory too. And also is
Speaker 3: before TikTok had this history of having some making, having
Speaker 3: some worth and yeah, and the making not the making,
Speaker 3: but the highlighting and labels investing in artists and then
Speaker 3: them having success.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean at the same time this was happening, Priscilla
Speaker 1: Block was having her moment, you know, Bailey Zereman was
Speaker 1: having his moment.
Speaker 4: Me and Bailey were real close.
Speaker 1: He was from my hometown area, and you know, we were
Speaker 1: talking about it and he was at that time he's
Speaker 1: getting calls from some of the same people that I
Speaker 1: were in LA and making it. And I was just
Speaker 1: like it would I would go have these label meetings
Speaker 1: and it would be like, well, we want to see
Speaker 1: you do a million streams a week, and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's been out four months and it's got sixteen million streams.
Speaker 4: That's a million a week. What else do you need
Speaker 4: to see?
Speaker 1: It's like, well, if you come here, it's going to
Speaker 1: be eight months before we take you to radio.
Speaker 2: They were looking for reasons to not do there were
Speaker 2: binding reasons to not do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and mind you like. I love a lot
Speaker 1: of these people. I think they're good people, but I
Speaker 1: just wanted a chance. I wanted a shot. And so
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, I don't have anything. I decided to
Speaker 1: post on socials and I say I'll play in anybody's
Speaker 1: backyard that wants to have me because I don't.
Speaker 4: I'm broke. I'm broke.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel you.
Speaker 1: And so I thought i'd get like five requests, and
Speaker 1: so I get like twenty some thousand requests on TikTok.
Speaker 1: For two years, I go play three hundred people's backyards,
Speaker 1: just me and a guitar.
Speaker 4: Show up. Hey, how's it gone. I'm drew, never knowing
Speaker 4: what our setup was really and.
Speaker 2: No way they would just fly to their house and
Speaker 2: play in their backyard.
Speaker 4: Play in their backyard. Yeah, I did like three hundred,
Speaker 4: and some of them.
Speaker 2: Just take whatever money they gave you.
Speaker 4: Yeah. It started off that way.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, hey, whatever you could give me, and
Speaker 1: then I was like, this is what I need. Because
Speaker 1: there were some times I would lose on it, and
Speaker 1: so I'd be like, this is what.
Speaker 4: I really need.
Speaker 1: Two or three grand, pay for mym my tour manager,
Speaker 1: and I will come play in your backyard for seventy
Speaker 1: five minutes, play corn hole, eat barbecue.
Speaker 3: I thought what you did for two years people houses
Speaker 3: just play in the backyard.
Speaker 4: Just play in their backyard.
Speaker 2: Clip that clipped that we're gonna get ten million of
Speaker 2: you tonight we post that.
Speaker 1: Well, it was like there was a stint after I
Speaker 1: got married. After our honeymoon, I fly home, my tour
Speaker 1: manager picks me up in my sprinter van and we
Speaker 1: go play twenty backyards in nineteen days.
Speaker 4: We went all around the country.
Speaker 1: There was a day we played two shows and somebody
Speaker 1: in different in that same town, in different people's backyards.
Speaker 1: But we played twenty backyards in nineteen days. And mind you,
Speaker 1: I'm just playing. Everybody will have me. Hey, if this
Speaker 1: is what I need to get there, They'd say yes,
Speaker 1: I'd drive there, I'd fly there.
Speaker 4: I'd go play it.
Speaker 1: And you know, I would make little t shirts that
Speaker 1: had their little hometown you know of you know, ma
Speaker 1: scoot to Illinois instead of Saint Louis. It would put
Speaker 1: that on the back of the shirt. I called it
Speaker 1: the Baldridge and Bonfire Tour. And I just played three
Speaker 1: hundred people's backyards.
Speaker 2: Dang man, you are a winner.
Speaker 4: Nah, man, it was just that's what I had to do, survive.
Speaker 2: That's what winners do. That's what winners do. That is
Speaker 2: one of the best stories that I have heard.
Speaker 4: Man, Well, well, thank you for that.
Speaker 1: And then it got I was doing these backyards and
Speaker 1: I play my first festival, you know. Back I texted
Speaker 1: some friends that were promoters and I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: I don't have an agent.
Speaker 4: I'll give you a good deal, like, please let me play.
Speaker 1: And they gave me a couple of fairs in twenty
Speaker 1: three and I go play my first one and everybody
Speaker 1: singing every word to She's Somebody's daughter. And I haven't
Speaker 1: really like I knew it was having this moment, but
Speaker 1: I haven't played for any people. I've been back. It's
Speaker 1: been out since nineteen. It's been out since nineteen on
Speaker 1: streaming platform.
Speaker 4: Just sitting there.
Speaker 1: But then when I when I made these videos, what
Speaker 1: happened was I put my video out, then this one
Speaker 1: girl start in twenty twenty one. She posted the video
Speaker 1: was like her in the mirror and it said listen
Speaker 1: to these lyrics girls, and then acted out the verses.
Speaker 4: She's more than just a.
Speaker 1: Pretty face in a late night bar to show her
Speaker 1: in a bar. She's more than just a paratie jeans
Speaker 1: sitting in her car, and she'd be sitting in her car. Well,
Speaker 1: then the whole chorus is her growing up with her
Speaker 1: dad pictures. And I would watch this video and I
Speaker 1: had like, I don't know, five six million views brought
Speaker 1: me to tear, so I just do edit it.
Speaker 4: I was like, check this out.
Speaker 1: And then it started this daughter trend and all these
Speaker 1: girls from from Mexico to France to Norway to sweet
Speaker 1: all these different languages.
Speaker 2: Is bigger than the song. At that point, it was bigger.
Speaker 4: Than the song. It was dad and it was dad
Speaker 4: and daughter.
Speaker 1: And then that happened for about six months, and then
Speaker 1: Father's Day ish or something came around where one girl
Speaker 1: did a duet of her video with her dad's reaction
Speaker 1: that got ten million views, and then all those videos
Speaker 1: started doing their dad's reaction.
Speaker 3: Would you see the effect on streaming from when TikTok
Speaker 3: was blowing up with yours?
Speaker 2: And you would see it.
Speaker 3: But then when these new versions we'll call them, these
Speaker 3: new viral yeah movements would happen.
Speaker 4: Every time you would see pops yeah.
Speaker 1: And luckily I own that you know, like it was
Speaker 1: my little song that could, and every time new virality happened,
Speaker 1: I would see tick up and then you know, like
Speaker 1: I said, fast forward twenty twenty three, here we are
Speaker 1: playing the show.
Speaker 4: I get off stage.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of frustrated at this moment because I'm like,
Speaker 1: what else do I got approved to Nashville that I
Speaker 1: deserve to be on a record label that I want
Speaker 1: to tour with people, I want to have an agent,
Speaker 1: And I look.
Speaker 4: I start googling.
Speaker 1: I start not googling by going to my artist Spotify
Speaker 1: because you could see back in.
Speaker 4: How many streams.
Speaker 1: I start counting up as like, dude, this has a
Speaker 1: song has one hundred million streams and it's done. There's
Speaker 1: been no money involved, like pushing songs up. It's just
Speaker 1: people finding it on TikTok and are Facebook or Instagram.
Speaker 1: And I decided I got off. I got off the
Speaker 1: stage and I just started calling radio. I said, hey,
Speaker 1: I got this song. I think I'm going to try
Speaker 1: to do it myself. Would you play it?
Speaker 4: Dude?
Speaker 1: I think you're going to miss out on a lot
Speaker 1: of streams if you don't bring it to radio. Then
Speaker 1: I woud ask radio. I'd be like who should I hire?
Speaker 1: And they would tell me. So I just created my
Speaker 1: own staff, paid for it on my own streams, with
Speaker 1: my streams, and now we have a freaking top twenty.
Speaker 1: Maybe this week might be top fifteen record.
Speaker 3: Maybe my favorite story ever told. Oh my goodness, that
Speaker 3: is that is that's the greatest. Like that is you grinding.
Speaker 3: It didn't just happen for you, like you had to
Speaker 3: do things for the fall in place, and then you
Speaker 3: taking advantage of every little small opportunity that was fed
Speaker 3: to you by the big amounts of work that you
Speaker 3: were doing.
Speaker 2: The fact that you would go and playing people's yards.
Speaker 1: Well what started that yards was Okay, twenty nineteen, lose
Speaker 1: my record deal. I just came off a radio tour.
Speaker 1: And radio tour for everybody out there is like.
Speaker 2: It's miserable.
Speaker 4: It's tough.
Speaker 3: You got to go into every freaking radio station and
Speaker 3: act like every PD he's the coolest guy you ever
Speaker 3: freaking met.
Speaker 1: It's hard. It's so hard. But I come off this
Speaker 1: radio tour. The label closes, well, I have this song
Speaker 1: that I put out at the same time as Daughter
Speaker 1: was called Senior Year, and the hook of the song
Speaker 1: said never thought it would disappear senior year. I just
Speaker 1: meant live it up, kids, it's gonna go by fast. Well,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty comes, all their senior years disappear, so it
Speaker 1: starts having this TikTok thing. So what I do is
Speaker 1: I get on TikTok and I'm like, hey, class of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, I'm doing zoom concerts. Anybody wants a zoom concert,
Speaker 1: I'll do it. So it was turning like seven or
Speaker 1: eight zoom concerts today from my living room. I play
Speaker 1: for like one hundred and fifty kids at a time,
Speaker 1: and then some schools were like, will you come play
Speaker 1: our graduation drive through?
Speaker 4: And I was like, sit on my butt, yeah.
Speaker 1: So then I created a tour where there would be
Speaker 1: like Florida would call and be like, hey, we want
Speaker 1: you to come play our drive through graduation. So then
Speaker 1: I would look around surrounding areas and I would cold
Speaker 1: call front schools at their front office.
Speaker 4: And be like, Hey, I'm Drew Baldridge.
Speaker 1: I see your graduation is on July seventeenth, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to be in town on the eighteenth. Do you
Speaker 1: want me to come play your graduation? And then it
Speaker 1: would be like are you like no, you're a creep,
Speaker 1: you know, and and be like somebody like I can't
Speaker 1: believe we're talking to you.
Speaker 4: Like, yeah, please come play the graduation.
Speaker 1: So I started playing graduations and then that's what gave
Speaker 1: me the idea to play backyards. It's like, well, I'm
Speaker 1: playing for schools. Why don't I just take it to
Speaker 1: the people and see if that works?
Speaker 3: And yeah, it'd be so frustrating to not get that.
Speaker 3: And it's not the most important thing. I say it too,
Speaker 3: but it does matter, like that respect from like your
Speaker 3: peers or like the town that you live in, like
Speaker 3: you do want that. It's not the main it's why
Speaker 3: we moved here, but it's nice to have people that
Speaker 3: you work alongside acknowledge.
Speaker 2: That, hey, I'm doing pretty good too.
Speaker 3: That would be difficult that you are killing it, but
Speaker 3: no one will even look at.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, man, I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how frustrating, how much sleep I
Speaker 1: lost over and my poor wife just supporting me through
Speaker 1: all this. But like going home and seeing all my
Speaker 1: friends and my peers being uber successful, and I'm so
Speaker 1: happy for them because I want that for them. We
Speaker 1: moved here at the same time and I want them
Speaker 1: to be successful, but also being like, I got this
Speaker 1: song that's doing just what their song is.
Speaker 4: Why am and I think it's a.
Speaker 1: Wedding version that really blew up, so they're thinking it
Speaker 1: doesn't really fit our model. It's not radio, it's not
Speaker 1: streaming because Spotify doesn't put me in one playlist until
Speaker 1: last week.
Speaker 4: Really, that's it's the first playlist I ever got.
Speaker 2: That's the first time you're playlisted.
Speaker 1: On She's Somebody's daughter. Really, it's all been natural. And
Speaker 1: then since we got top twenty on country radio, Spotify
Speaker 1: put me in a playlist this last week, so radio
Speaker 1: is driven playlisting to start playlisting us, And I'm just like,
Speaker 1: thank you Lord, finally.
Speaker 2: Are you ever like? Who out there is against me?
Speaker 4: That's what I feel like, man, I mean like I
Speaker 4: feel like that.
Speaker 3: Eddie and I would put out raging Eddiot's songs and
Speaker 3: we get playlisted and I'd be like, I can't believe that,
Speaker 3: and here you are killing it and you just now
Speaker 3: got played. I mean, if I were you, I would
Speaker 3: be like, Okay, who out there's who's running this shoke?
Speaker 1: That's what I feel like, you know, And that's when
Speaker 1: I got to the point of like, screw it. If
Speaker 1: nobody else believes in this like I do, why don't
Speaker 1: I just try it myself?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: And now it's been really fun to see that we're
Speaker 1: top twenty, you know, maybe this week top fifteen, which
Speaker 1: would be insane.
Speaker 4: Never been here.
Speaker 3: Before as a momentum. I know you're top twenty, but
Speaker 3: it's still looking for soolid looks.
Speaker 4: Incredible, that's all. It's exciting radio.
Speaker 1: I think all these pds are excited for us because
Speaker 1: we're kind of going against the machine a little bit,
Speaker 1: and they're like, hey, we support that, we want to
Speaker 1: go And I think what's been the most fun is
Speaker 1: artist friends that have been where I've been, and I'm
Speaker 1: not going to name any names, but artist friends that
Speaker 1: have try to single at radio it didn't work, label
Speaker 1: gave up on them.
Speaker 4: I get to talk to them and talk.
Speaker 1: About strategies of ways to get their music out and
Speaker 1: help and you know, if we maybe we could take
Speaker 1: a single Overlert.
Speaker 4: I don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: But it's just wild that that radio has supported this song.
Speaker 1: I really think, man, I don't want to say it,
Speaker 1: but I think we could get number one that would
Speaker 1: be insane.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's not everything, but just like been here for thirteen
Speaker 1: years and never had a number one record or anything,
Speaker 1: that's that would be really cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's not everything, but it is a it is a
Speaker 3: thing if you make that a goal. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's not everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but if it's a lot.
Speaker 3: If that's a goal of yours, If it was always
Speaker 3: to come to town and have a number one, then yeah,
Speaker 3: that's not the pretty significant If it was always to
Speaker 3: move to town and run a record label.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not everything if you don't, but if you do, that.
Speaker 4: Was a goal. That was a goal. Yeah, and I think, what.
Speaker 2: Well, that wasn't your goal. I could have been anybody.
Speaker 2: It's go.
Speaker 3: I'll miss using them separately. Yeah, I think the last
Speaker 3: thing you want to do is run a record label.
Speaker 3: And you're freaking late.
Speaker 2: Hold, I don't know how old you are.
Speaker 4: Thirty two yeah, ye.
Speaker 3: Starting to label at twenty nine, thirty thirty one years old,
Speaker 3: that's probably not the plan.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I was scared to death because there's you're putting
Speaker 1: pumping money out right, because you got to radio, you
Speaker 1: got to hire staff. I mean, for everybody out there,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to get two business on.
Speaker 2: Everybody feel free too.
Speaker 1: But it's like, you know, to run a staff, and
Speaker 1: you know radio, you have to do ad bys. You
Speaker 1: have to figure out I got to go play free shows,
Speaker 1: you have.
Speaker 2: To do ad byes. I don't know about that. I've
Speaker 2: been out of the programming.
Speaker 3: Part of radio forever, right, Yeah, So part of my
Speaker 3: ignorance because I'm gonna.
Speaker 2: Ask a couple questions I should Yeah.
Speaker 3: People would think I would know the answer to yeah,
Speaker 3: But I've never been in programming. I get paid to
Speaker 3: do compelling content and I just play a song or
Speaker 3: two if I like it.
Speaker 2: Occasionally.
Speaker 3: I have no real pro I program an a couple
Speaker 3: of national shows, but that's it. So when you say
Speaker 3: stuff like that, I don't even know what that means.
Speaker 1: So like an ad by, you know, let's say your
Speaker 1: business and you know radio runs on advice, But why.
Speaker 3: Would you because I understand that, like people, I need
Speaker 3: people to buy sponsorship on my radio show, but why
Speaker 3: would you have to buy an add buy?
Speaker 1: So it just creates like I think also shows radio,
Speaker 1: you're investing in radio, do.
Speaker 3: They make they don't make you buy an ad by?
Speaker 3: Do they or is it something that's like, hey, if
Speaker 3: you do this.
Speaker 4: I think it's a partnership.
Speaker 1: You know, like hey, we want to see you invest
Speaker 1: in radio, and you know vice versa.
Speaker 2: Like local markets, you'd buy ads.
Speaker 4: I would buy ads. Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: So it would be like a thirty second ad of
Speaker 1: like hey, there's Drew Baldridge and this is my song
Speaker 1: She's Somebody's daughter, okay, and it would play like thirty
Speaker 1: seconds of my single and go stream it and download it.
Speaker 3: Now, I'll read some of those sometimes the people buy.
Speaker 3: If I like the artist, it'll pay me.
Speaker 2: But if I kind of have a policy where I
Speaker 2: don't have to read this commercial for anything, I don't
Speaker 2: want to, that's awesome.
Speaker 3: So like when Bailey or you just mentioned Bailey's aught
Speaker 3: to say it like Bailey puts out something. I like
Speaker 3: Bailey and so and I like Bailey's music, and I'd
Speaker 3: be like.
Speaker 2: Hey, check out they check out the new from Bailey's
Speaker 2: and the record came out, go check it out.
Speaker 4: That type of thing. That's exactly what an ad by is.
Speaker 4: And so his label had to pay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that ad buy for so that would be something
Speaker 1: on me that I now have to invest in that
Speaker 1: and that's not cheap.
Speaker 2: You're spending money on this, dude.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but in return? You know what's different with labels
Speaker 1: now and radio? Sorry, I'm probably getting way too you.
Speaker 2: No, I want to hear it because I'm learning too.
Speaker 4: But labels only make money when songstream.
Speaker 2: Look at you, you know about the label and the
Speaker 2: radio bits the stream because you've had to.
Speaker 4: I've had to learn it.
Speaker 2: You've had to learn it. I'm taking a lesson. I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me break this down, please do So, labels
Speaker 1: only make money when song stream and a song a
Speaker 1: million streams on Spotify is about forty one hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: A million streams on Apples about seventy five hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: So let's say an artist.
Speaker 2: To do that again with between the two forty forty.
Speaker 1: One hundred bucks on Spotify and about seventy five hundred
Speaker 1: on Apple.
Speaker 2: Why are they different? Just?
Speaker 4: I have no idea. Apple supports master owners better.
Speaker 1: And so that's what's crazy is you know mind you
Speaker 1: master ownership, you know, writers share is completely different. Master,
Speaker 1: the person that owns the master makes the money. So
Speaker 1: the labels are making printing money right now, and the
Speaker 1: writers are.
Speaker 2: Like making nothing, making nothing.
Speaker 4: But here's what I think.
Speaker 1: When what I've noticed is the big disjoint labels make
Speaker 1: money when songstream Labels don't make money on radio because
Speaker 1: the writer does, and so they only make money when
Speaker 1: the song starts.
Speaker 2: Streaming and from people hearing it on the radio.
Speaker 1: People hearing it on the radio, but you don't get airplay,
Speaker 1: like I'm just now getting daytime airplay and seeing my
Speaker 1: streams jump top freaking twenty. So like I'm just now
Speaker 1: starting to see that. So when labels are coming right now,
Speaker 1: labels are going less and less, you have to see it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've heard this streaming story. We need to
Speaker 1: have a streaming story before we go to radio because
Speaker 1: they have to fund it. But when you sign a
Speaker 1: record deal, you give my last record deal, eighty four
Speaker 1: percent of my master was to the label.
Speaker 2: So previous you having you as an art Yeah, you're
Speaker 2: talking about what with the cold River? Yeah, and that
Speaker 2: was a Coldstone creamery yeah, Colt still Creamery.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it was like, okay, so I signed a record deal,
Speaker 1: I'm a new artist. I give eighty four percent of
Speaker 1: my music to my label. I get sixteen. I have
Speaker 1: to give four of my sixteen to my producer, so
Speaker 1: I have twelve. So everything that a label puts into you.
Speaker 4: You have to pay it back.
Speaker 1: Right, So let's say I drop in one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars on a record they've put in me
Speaker 1: and maybe some small radio tour. So I have to
Speaker 1: make that label a million dollars to pay back the
Speaker 1: one twenty because I only own twelve percent.
Speaker 4: And so what's really hard with that.
Speaker 3: Is because it doesn't count if you're making them money
Speaker 3: as part of their eighty six percent. That doesn't count, right,
Speaker 3: It only counts if you're making them part of that
Speaker 3: twelve percent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what you that's how you can pay back.
Speaker 2: That's crazy, that's freaking crazy. It would take forever to
Speaker 2: pay it back.
Speaker 1: You won't, and that's why artists tore their brains out
Speaker 1: because the only time you get money is when you're
Speaker 1: on stage, and so you don't. There's lots of artists
Speaker 1: maybe Taylor Swift now, but like lots of artists that
Speaker 1: will never see a dime because they're still in the red,
Speaker 1: you know, like they're not they're not refunded. And so
Speaker 1: that's what's crazy right now, is I think that artists.
Speaker 1: This shift in social media and this shift in artists
Speaker 1: now being able to own that master has changed the
Speaker 1: game drastically for labels, because hey, well I can put
Speaker 1: a song out She's somebody's daughter and not have a
Speaker 1: label and get a hundred million streams and I own that. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't have to tour unless I want to and
Speaker 1: pick the markets that I want to. And I think
Speaker 1: artists are starting to see that, and I think the
Speaker 1: business is going to start changing drastically, and it already
Speaker 1: has of artists being like, oh man, you know, I
Speaker 1: can put this song out and make this money and
Speaker 1: streaming and see my watch my son play baseball in June,
Speaker 1: you know. Like I just think there's a big shift
Speaker 1: that's going to come, and it's already starting to happen
Speaker 1: of labels not needing that eighty four percent anymore because
Speaker 1: a it's really expensive to take songs to radio, so
Speaker 1: I get why they need a big chunk of it.
Speaker 1: But if they're not going to take artists to radio
Speaker 1: and you're just be a streaming artist like some people
Speaker 1: are doing, don't give that eighty four percent. If you're
Speaker 1: an artist, like, there's no reason for them to just
Speaker 1: pay for a record and you give all that to them.
Speaker 4: That's wild to me.
Speaker 6: The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the
Speaker 6: Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2: You're obviously a very intelligent guy. I can tell about.
Speaker 4: Sorry, I'm probably talking way too.
Speaker 2: I like it.
Speaker 3: I like it, and I can tell by listening to
Speaker 3: you talk to you're a very intelligent guy. Do you
Speaker 3: think you would have learned this had you not been
Speaker 3: put in the situation to have to learn that?
Speaker 1: No way, no way, because I would have just I was.
Speaker 1: I sit back and I let my team do everything.
Speaker 1: You know, I had, the manager had everything, and then
Speaker 1: just like normal artist fashion, I'd be like, where are
Speaker 1: we at with that?
Speaker 4: Why am I not on?
Speaker 2: And you're focused on artisting? Yeah, to your moment. So
Speaker 2: it's not like you don't want to know, but you've
Speaker 2: got you know, when you're a artist signed a label,
Speaker 2: you only have a one hundred percent capacity and that
Speaker 2: capacities on being an artist.
Speaker 4: Be an artist, creating, trying to record, trying to create content.
Speaker 2: So you're not being lazy.
Speaker 3: So what I'm telling everybody listening, yeah, you're just putting
Speaker 3: in all in one place. But you've had to learn
Speaker 3: how to put in many different places to just get by.
Speaker 1: To get by, and it was like I had to
Speaker 1: put on a manager hat and be like, Okay, how
Speaker 1: do I get shows? How do I create income? And
Speaker 1: then I had to run a promo staff. I'm doing
Speaker 1: a calls every Monday, running a promo team. Hey, why
Speaker 1: are you?
Speaker 2: My mind is blown by this?
Speaker 4: Why are we not being played in Philadelphia?
Speaker 1: You know, like having those conversations and breaking it down
Speaker 1: and hey, how do we attack that? And how do
Speaker 1: we go after that? And let's create a strategy. You're
Speaker 1: going to talk to them. I'll talk to them too.
Speaker 1: And so it's just been a really weird year and
Speaker 1: a half of having to do and then like shows
Speaker 1: coming in and booking that and booking it myself. And
Speaker 1: you know what's most exciting, Bobby is like being on
Speaker 1: this podcast with you man is a really big deal
Speaker 1: and a dream of mine.
Speaker 2: I think I'm the biggest fan. I'm tell you, over
Speaker 2: like the last twenty minutes, my mind is blown at
Speaker 2: what didn't work turned into probably and possibly h the
Speaker 2: greatest thing that ever happened to you in the most
Speaker 2: difficult way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's what I talk about all the time.
Speaker 1: A lot of people is like, Okay, what if what
Speaker 1: if Tanil wouldn't have put out somebody's daughter? And I
Speaker 1: thought my career was in him because I didn't get
Speaker 1: to put out my song I loved. I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: here being able to have this story with this song
Speaker 1: five years later, and it's my own. I've had to
Speaker 1: learn and I've had to you know, I always say, man,
Speaker 1: sometimes in the lowest lows, you learn so much about
Speaker 1: your business and your life around you and if you're
Speaker 1: going to stay and hey, there's only one way but up.
Speaker 1: And that was something for me some dark times where
Speaker 1: I was like, do I just quit.
Speaker 2: Those conversations with your wife? I'm assuming yeah you had.
Speaker 2: What was she like when you're like, man, this is
Speaker 2: very hard and I'm lost? Was her reaction and response.
Speaker 1: She was like, God wouldn't have given you this town
Speaker 1: if you didn't you know, didn't deserve to be where
Speaker 1: you're at, or didn't put a song in your heart
Speaker 1: for you know, for a reason, like it's you're supposed
Speaker 1: to be doing this. You know you're supposed to be
Speaker 1: doing this. She always believed. When I didn't believe in myself,
Speaker 1: she believed. And then I go to her and I say, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm about to sync X amount of dollars into a
Speaker 1: radio single.
Speaker 4: She's like, hey, go do it. You made you made
Speaker 4: this money off your song. You believe in it. I
Speaker 4: believe in it.
Speaker 1: And it's just I can't tell you how lucky I
Speaker 1: am to have my wife and now playing radio shows
Speaker 1: going on. We have a seventeen month old and so
Speaker 1: she is rock star mom. And it's not easy.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: There's times I come home she's like, I've been here
Speaker 1: for five days without you and I'm alone.
Speaker 4: It's a lot.
Speaker 1: And she's been my biggest support system, you know, she's
Speaker 1: been my sounding board of Hey, what do you think
Speaker 1: of this idea?
Speaker 5: Do?
Speaker 1: We almost like, you know, talking business things with her
Speaker 1: that probably no wife could be happen to be a
Speaker 1: part of.
Speaker 2: And she's just been there. Man who manages nobody? You
Speaker 2: still don't have it, So you're managing yourself.
Speaker 1: Still, I'm still managing myself. I don't have a booking agent.
Speaker 1: It's just me and today, before I came I met
Speaker 1: with the booking agent before I came here.
Speaker 2: Today don't give them ten percent, and so I don't
Speaker 2: have all the power.
Speaker 4: I don't have anything. I don't have an agent.
Speaker 3: Except for everything. You have nothing except for everything. So
Speaker 3: you are so base, you're so set now to have
Speaker 3: every leverage, on every piece of leverage in every situation
Speaker 3: for the next at least eighteen months. Wow, that's why
Speaker 3: a booking agent, any agents, you know, I have agents.
Speaker 2: They take ten percent, right, Yeah, if I were you, yeah,
Speaker 2: you can do it for six because I don't need
Speaker 2: you don't need them. It would help, It would help
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, it would. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And that's where I'm I'm at the point now where
Speaker 1: you know, I'm tired of doing it all. I'm more
Speaker 1: out and talk like conversations with fest and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Like I have literally had like opening opportunities for artists
Speaker 1: and fairs, and the buyer comes to me and says, well,
Speaker 1: they don't want you on it because they want through
Speaker 1: William Morris act on it. And William Morris is a
Speaker 1: big booking agent that I was with for five years.
Speaker 1: They let me go, and I'd be like, dude, I
Speaker 1: was with them, and they're like, yeah, but you can't
Speaker 1: play it because they want their small act to play it.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna have to put you on a side
Speaker 1: free stage, and you're like, what the heck? So obviously
Speaker 1: agents hold weight that I need to be a part
Speaker 1: of that. But it's also like here, I've been alone
Speaker 1: for five years and nobody is I've met tried to
Speaker 1: be a part of agencies, and nobody wanted me, you know,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't get any attention until I got top twenty.
Speaker 1: And that's when sorry, I'm probably not at least in
Speaker 1: so much dirty.
Speaker 2: Launcher right, love it. And for everybody listening, there's Cia,
Speaker 2: There's Well I was. I was with CAA for a
Speaker 2: long time. Yeah, there's William Morris. There's Uta. I'm with Uta.
Speaker 4: Now, that's who I just met with right before I
Speaker 4: came over here.
Speaker 2: Who'd you meet with?
Speaker 4: I met with all of them.
Speaker 1: I feel like Matthew Morgan, that was Zach Hartley had
Speaker 1: to go went really well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're great people.
Speaker 3: I feel like, and again we're just talking in the
Speaker 3: weeds here. I was with CIA for twelve years. Wow,
Speaker 3: And I was like, you know, my agent, who was
Speaker 3: awesome at CIA had had risen in the rank so
Speaker 3: much that she was like at the top of her genre.
Speaker 3: Because when I met her, we're both kids.
Speaker 2: I never had an agent.
Speaker 3: My radio thing was going pretty good here as a
Speaker 3: national show, but I was starting to do a little
Speaker 3: bit of TV, and I was taking a little bit
Speaker 3: of a risk and an agent that never had anybody,
Speaker 3: and she was taking a risk is who the heck
Speaker 3: represents somebody in radio with like a bad podcast and
Speaker 3: wants to do TV.
Speaker 2: So we kind of took a risk on each other.
Speaker 3: But she had blown up so much into in the
Speaker 3: political world where she had all of these big political
Speaker 3: commentations and gotcha and it got to the point where
Speaker 3: that was our specialty. And then there was you, and
Speaker 3: then there was me, almost like the one person and
Speaker 3: had a very difficult conversation, even for me because I
Speaker 3: loved her.
Speaker 2: We spent twelve You get very close.
Speaker 3: You do to conversations every week, yes, yeah, And I
Speaker 3: was like, I we tried to supplement other people, but
Speaker 3: unless it's your main person, it's tough.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I was like, I have to open this up
Speaker 2: and take meetings with people.
Speaker 3: And even if I was going to stay with Caa,
Speaker 3: I couldn't stay with her because she was killing it
Speaker 3: so much.
Speaker 2: She didn't she didn't have the capacity.
Speaker 4: Yeah, to take you on to do more things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to at least because she was so big in
Speaker 3: living in the political space. So everybody comes to you
Speaker 3: and I go and I meet with you Ta, And
Speaker 3: I felt like those guys, guys and girls, but I
Speaker 3: say guys about everybody. They were bold, like grinders. I
Speaker 3: could feel that today, like they weren't the biggest, but
Speaker 3: they were big enough to be in the top category.
Speaker 3: Like they were big enough to be in that you know,
Speaker 3: Cia William wore not the biggest, but not the biggest,
Speaker 3: William Moore's biggest hea.
Speaker 2: But I felt like they were gonna go hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think one thing I've learned in this
Speaker 1: whole like journey is that sometimes it doesn't matter the biggest,
Speaker 1: like it matters who believes in you the most.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can definitely get lost in the big. You
Speaker 3: can get lost in the big, but you're exactly right.
Speaker 3: It's who is so my agent at Uta, he he
Speaker 3: goes hard, who is your agent? But his name is Jerry, Jerry,
Speaker 3: but Jerry is basically he does It's kind of weird
Speaker 3: that just talked about somebody, but he does a lot
Speaker 3: of sports people.
Speaker 4: He has.
Speaker 3: Cow heard and he has rich eyesen and yeah, all
Speaker 3: these massive but he was a fan of the show
Speaker 3: or would listen to the show. But he like puts
Speaker 3: all of his effort. That's what you want, that's all,
Speaker 3: that's all you can ask for, that's all.
Speaker 2: I'm so.
Speaker 3: I'm so happy that you've had to go through all
Speaker 3: of this struggle because now you you have, you have
Speaker 3: every weapon.
Speaker 4: Man, Well thank you for that.
Speaker 2: And wow, I'm I'm the biggest fan.
Speaker 4: I mean, thanks man.
Speaker 1: And like I said, this was always, you know how
Speaker 1: dream of having number one when I moved here. I've
Speaker 1: always dreamed of doing an.
Speaker 4: Interview with you.
Speaker 2: Oh thanks man. Have we ever done anything together? Never didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't think so. But sometimes people feel like, come on, man,
Speaker 2: been twenty fourteen, we stood six feet from each other.
Speaker 3: You're like on my stream Foregner, And I'm like, I'm
Speaker 3: very sorry. No, I think nobody cares about me. So
Speaker 3: I'm not like looking around being like, what's up everybody?
Speaker 1: Oh man, you're You're one of the most influential people
Speaker 1: in Nashville, and so like just being here and talking
Speaker 1: to you and just being able to tell my story.
Speaker 1: This has been a dream of mine. And you know,
Speaker 1: since I started this and started climbing the ranks. I
Speaker 1: was like, man if I could just tell my story
Speaker 1: to somebody and get it out, you know.
Speaker 2: So you're managing yourself.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're booking myself.
Speaker 3: Yourself. Yep, you're well labeling yourself. The good thing is
Speaker 3: you probably have a three sixty deal with yourself.
Speaker 2: Dude.
Speaker 3: Yeah, get you get a little portion of your mirg
Speaker 3: Yeah a little Porsche has this with all the money
Speaker 3: that you've invested. I mean, like, are you doing all right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm doing great, you know.
Speaker 1: Like I think what's interesting is, like I was telling
Speaker 1: everybody earlier, of labels don't make money on radio, writers do.
Speaker 1: I wrote daughter, So what I'm envisioning is, yes, it's
Speaker 1: costing me to send this song to radio, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to get that back because I own the writer's share,
Speaker 1: so that that payment is always like six months behind,
Speaker 1: seven eight months behind. And so I'm envisioning of Okay,
Speaker 1: yes it cost me X, but I can make X back.
Speaker 1: But also, you know, instead of going out and making
Speaker 1: very little money, you know, with a number one record,
Speaker 1: you can go out and be like, Okay, now I'm
Speaker 1: worth a little a lot more, you know. And so
Speaker 1: that's what I'm envisioning. Okay, yes, I had to invest
Speaker 1: in myself, but now I'm going to get the agent.
Speaker 2: How many writers on that song?
Speaker 4: Three of us?
Speaker 2: Have you talked to any management or do you want
Speaker 2: to management company?
Speaker 1: I do, yeah, and I have talked to some to
Speaker 1: some managers and those conversations are starting to go.
Speaker 4: Really really well. That's a very delicate relationship.
Speaker 3: And for those listening again, let's just going and I'll
Speaker 3: weed out on everybody. So here's the difference. Because I
Speaker 3: did not know the difference till I had to start
Speaker 3: getting agents and managers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I literally knew no difference.
Speaker 3: And when people would talk about them, I'd be like,
Speaker 3: who cares? Yeah, Like when somebody i'd like to think
Speaker 3: my manager will be like, what's it?
Speaker 4: What's that doing?
Speaker 2: I don't care? And what's the difference to that an
Speaker 2: agent and I don't care? But so.
Speaker 3: An agent is the person who is basically booking out
Speaker 3: looking for jobs to book for you. Now they're in
Speaker 3: the development a bit as well, but they're out trying
Speaker 3: to book you work. They're out putting your name in places,
Speaker 3: getting you in front of.
Speaker 4: People, putting you on tour days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they have.
Speaker 3: Maybe ten twelve clients that they're agenting four on different levels.
Speaker 2: A manager is in most cases a much more personal thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah. They every aspect of your everything.
Speaker 3: I took my executive producer of my radio show, Morgan,
Speaker 3: and I was like, hey, I want you to go
Speaker 3: and leave the radio show and manage me because she
Speaker 3: was doing she was awesome. I was doing radio, but
Speaker 3: I wanted her and like I was writing books and
Speaker 3: I was doing TV and I was doing you know, podcasts,
Speaker 3: and so I took her out of that job and
Speaker 3: I put herself as my manager. And so, but that's
Speaker 3: a very personal relationship because we've been together for I mean,
Speaker 3: I went and spoke at a college at MTSU.
Speaker 2: She emailed the address. She was my assistant. I know,
Speaker 2: my intern.
Speaker 4: That's awesome.
Speaker 3: Then like my fake assistant. She knows your whole business everything,
Speaker 3: and she's as consistent and she's loyal to wanting the
Speaker 3: best for me.
Speaker 2: She's not always loyal to my thoughts because she knows
Speaker 2: sometimes I'm an idiot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so she'll definitely push back. But the management thing
Speaker 3: is so every day and everything.
Speaker 1: Everything, Yeah, and it's like so that's a very delicate thing.
Speaker 1: And it's also like, you don't want to just find
Speaker 1: somebody because now you're having success and they're just going
Speaker 1: to jump in. You want somebody to that's gonna build
Speaker 1: with you, you know. You want somebody that's gonna be like, hey,
Speaker 1: when there's hard times, which everybody has hard times, they're
Speaker 1: not just gonna ditch and run like they're in it
Speaker 1: with you. You know, they're not gonna just be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I have five other clients, Drew, you go do your thing,
Speaker 1: and I wanna I'm gonna be good over here, you know.
Speaker 1: And so it's a very that's a more delicate thing.
Speaker 1: And I've had some really good conversations with some great people,
Speaker 1: and I'm really excited about that because here's the deal.
Speaker 1: Like I was telling you, I'm a I'm a father,
Speaker 1: like I got a seventeen month old. So last thing
Speaker 1: I want to be is on phone calls eight or
Speaker 1: nine o'clock at night, trying to talk to shows or
Speaker 1: trying to you know, send assets over to a venue
Speaker 1: that needs it. Like all those things that managers can
Speaker 1: be doing, I want them to be doing it. But
Speaker 1: but like you said, you know, right now, we've been
Speaker 1: very lucky that I own this stuff. And if you
Speaker 1: start giving all those percentages away, it becomes a lot
Speaker 1: harder to fund a label, It becomes harder to do
Speaker 1: all that stuff.
Speaker 4: And so it's interesting, right Yet I had a.
Speaker 1: Meeting probably seven months ago with them, and I haven't
Speaker 1: who'd you meet with? That was a guy named Tom Lord.
Speaker 2: My manager?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 4: That's amazing how they go. I like him, I like
Speaker 4: him a lot.
Speaker 3: But so they didn't they call you back away? They'll
Speaker 3: begin a call for me, don't you worry? Oh dude,
Speaker 3: well please, they'll begin They'll be in a call for me, please.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 4: That would be huge.
Speaker 2: Like Morgan and Tom are my direct managers, that would
Speaker 2: be I mean, man, think it may not work out,
Speaker 2: but I'm gonna call him ra after this and be like,
Speaker 2: you're this guy's story.
Speaker 4: Man. That means the world to me.
Speaker 3: It doesn't even matter. It honestly doesn't even matter to me.
Speaker 3: What you sound like, what your songs are hearing, how
Speaker 3: you work.
Speaker 2: I think that's inspiring because you're good at what you do. Right.
Speaker 2: A lot of people are pretty good to goo to
Speaker 2: what do they do? But a lot of people get
Speaker 2: told no or this won't work, and you basically just
Speaker 2: took that as a nott right.
Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, well I think going I let the nose drive,
Speaker 1: you know, like, well you know you're telling me no.
Speaker 1: Now I'll show you like I want to get there.
Speaker 5: Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor.
Speaker 5: Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2: What we should do.
Speaker 3: I should call Tom and be like, hey, you should
Speaker 3: call Drew Baldridge back, like I really believe in this dude.
Speaker 3: And then when he calls you big time, big time,
Speaker 3: he'll be like I called him, man, and he never
Speaker 3: called me back.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, uh, have you talked to him? Have
Speaker 2: you talked to him before? I didn't know if you
Speaker 2: guys ever talked Well yeah, like seven months ago. Well
Speaker 2: you messed it up then, you dummy. That would be awesome,
Speaker 2: that's hilarious.
Speaker 4: Well, like I said, I loved Tom. His hang is awesome.
Speaker 1: But it just, you know, there wasn't like kind of
Speaker 1: how I felt with the labels, like hey, I met
Speaker 1: with you and I like you a lot and everything's great,
Speaker 1: and then just silence. Yeah, yeah, what's your label called
Speaker 1: lyric Ridge? So bald Ridge obviously, and then my son's
Speaker 1: name is Lyric, so Lyric Ridge Records. Got it.
Speaker 2: You have a song with Bailey, multiple songs of Bailey.
Speaker 4: I've written songs for Bailey, for Bailey. Yeah. So me
Speaker 4: and Bailey grew up twenty minutes from each other. I
Speaker 4: saw his TikTok.
Speaker 2: Is he younger than you?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a lot. He's probably like third or nine
Speaker 1: years yeah, thirteen years old. So so funny story about Bailey.
Speaker 1: He grew up in Lewisville, down the road from me.
Speaker 1: I saw, Well, I didn't see it. I got I
Speaker 1: got a message from somebody back home was like, hey,
Speaker 1: there's another kid trying to do it, And so I
Speaker 1: watched his video and I was like, dude's got a
Speaker 1: cool voice, you know. And so I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I wish I would have had somebody that I could
Speaker 1: have just really called on as an artist friend when
Speaker 1: I first moved to town. So I just shot him
Speaker 1: on Instagram and said, hey, Bud Drew, here's my number.
Speaker 1: You ever need anything, you really want to do this,
Speaker 1: call me. And it wasn't three minutes later.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, Drew Bater talking to you. I can't
Speaker 4: believe you're on here. Man, like, so cool, thanks for
Speaker 4: sending me your number. So I'm talking. I was like, dude,
Speaker 4: you really want to do this. He's like yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like, come to Nashville. Let's write songs. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's COVID. We'll just write in my house.
Speaker 4: So he came down. We started writing songs.
Speaker 1: He had a friend named Gavin Lucas who was also
Speaker 1: in his in his h in his hometown, and we
Speaker 1: started writing songs out of my out of my living room,
Speaker 1: and uh, it was just wow, I've never seen anything
Speaker 1: happen so fast for somebody. And you know, he was
Speaker 1: calling me the next week. He's like, hey, man, Warner
Speaker 1: wants me to have a meeting with him. And mind you,
Speaker 1: at this time, I am like trying so hard and
Speaker 1: I'm like, this kid's coming in here getting meeting with Warner.
Speaker 4: I'm like, and I'm so happy for you.
Speaker 2: Got to be happy and sad at the same time.
Speaker 2: That's okay because you can have two emotions about something.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm so pumped for him. And then he was like,
Speaker 1: I got a dilemma. Man, there's a guy here and
Speaker 1: he wants to manage me too. He's like, I can't
Speaker 1: have a record label and a manager can I.
Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, dude, that's exactly what you need.
Speaker 1: And so he ended up signing with them and it's
Speaker 1: just been history and it's just been so fun to
Speaker 1: watch him go with from Braces and working on you know,
Speaker 1: pipeline and.
Speaker 4: Trucks and trucks and trucks. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He had a big following on social media because of
Speaker 1: his trucks. Yeah, and he was like at that time
Speaker 1: he came to my house, he was only singing for
Speaker 1: four months. You know, he's never sang his whole life,
Speaker 1: and he just started singing songs and it started working
Speaker 1: for him. And then to watch here we are now
Speaker 1: he's selling seven eight thousand tickets a night.
Speaker 4: Like, what a great story.
Speaker 1: And I tell you what Bailey, for what he's had
Speaker 1: to go through of fast stardom like that can wreck
Speaker 1: a person. I've seen it since being here for thirteen years.
Speaker 1: In a couple of weeks, I've been here for thirteen years.
Speaker 1: He's handled it really well, you know, just like keeping
Speaker 1: a level head and even when people have said nasty
Speaker 1: things on social media about him and they don't even
Speaker 1: know him, and he's just been the same, good dude.
Speaker 4: You know, positive through it all.
Speaker 2: I believe in Mike.
Speaker 3: You can fact check me. I believe we were the
Speaker 3: first person. I don't say this in like a braggy way,
Speaker 3: but we got bail, We got him really fresh. I
Speaker 3: think we're the first.
Speaker 4: Interview ever first, it probably will ever.
Speaker 2: And I love the kid came out. I don't know.
Speaker 2: There was something about him when he came in, and
Speaker 2: I remember telling Mike I was like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I like even he was like, yeah, it's just this
Speaker 2: is just happening. He wasn't like hiding from it or
Speaker 2: like downplaying it. He knew yeah, and he would be like,
Speaker 2: you know, I ran out on a catwalking. I never
Speaker 2: realized you couldn't run and sing.
Speaker 3: And he was like telling all these stories about how
Speaker 3: he'd never performed before. And I like, I really liked
Speaker 3: him and him and I've kept definitely kept a relationship
Speaker 3: of and I would tell him, if you ever get
Speaker 3: in trouble, like Bailey and I grew up very very similar. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I was like, if you ever get in trouble,
Speaker 3: you can call me. It doesn't matter where you are.
Speaker 2: That's awesome because you're going to have people And first
Speaker 2: of all, you're going to make bad decisions.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're like.
Speaker 3: Young and rich now yeah, and that's just going to happen.
Speaker 3: That's you're young, rich, good looking, you're talented. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: you got to limit those bad decisions. You're going to
Speaker 3: make some bad ones. And I just am like, do
Speaker 3: not get anybody pregnant?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he hasn't and he had good Hey right,
Speaker 4: good so far. Yeah. I love him though.
Speaker 2: That's that's you're right though. He has had a lot
Speaker 2: come fast.
Speaker 1: Faster than almost anybody in our business ever because he
Speaker 1: was the TikTok all that stuff. But it really, I mean,
Speaker 1: you go from just just put this out here in
Speaker 1: people's minds right now wherever you're listening to this. You're
Speaker 1: a small town first, maybe you're an artist, I don't know,
Speaker 1: and you're thinking, man, I want to be a singer,
Speaker 1: and then one year you're on tour with Morgan Wall
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people. Can you imagine like going from singing
Speaker 1: in your garage to fifty thousand people and just expecting
Speaker 1: to be every note correct, every not to be nervous?
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a big thing for a while, because he
Speaker 3: would perform and he would be right or he'd be
Speaker 3: but it's like, dude, he's hype. You're you're watching and
Speaker 3: you're also watching a kindergartener perform at college like call graduation.
Speaker 3: As far as like the matura maturation process of being
Speaker 3: the artist. Everybody else got to do it in bars
Speaker 3: and got to do it slowly, getting better as they
Speaker 3: and he didn't.
Speaker 2: He didn't did the reps.
Speaker 1: He got thrown into the fu and it's like, hey, bro,
Speaker 1: your first tour you ever do sold out every night
Speaker 1: and you.
Speaker 3: Know he he came and he performed on our show
Speaker 3: and no no effect. And I made a point to
Speaker 3: say this, we're not putting any vocal effects on him.
Speaker 3: Well you're getting about to hear Is Bailey perform and
Speaker 3: he was really good. Yeah he's great, and so I think, But.
Speaker 2: Who cares about the eight percent of people that are idiots?
Speaker 2: I don't want to give them too much power. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's I want to talk about it.
Speaker 3: I want to talk about you. Look, we spent an hour.
Speaker 3: I just feel like I could talk to you for
Speaker 3: another hour. I have to go obviously work out.
Speaker 2: Here, I got stay fit, me getting buff, like like
Speaker 2: right now, it doesn't just come by doing no work.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm really rooting for you, I really am.
Speaker 2: That is a that is a great story, that that
Speaker 2: inspires me.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks man. And I was talking to somebody that
Speaker 1: ran that like knows the chart really really well. There's
Speaker 1: kind him Chris Owen, who knows the chart really well.
Speaker 1: He's always tagging everybody in post and.
Speaker 3: I he, oh yeah, Chris, yeah, yeah, he like works
Speaker 3: in New York. You used working a little radio station,
Speaker 3: did hey.
Speaker 1: Yeahs working in little I think. Now he's somewhere in
Speaker 1: Nashville working for some year. Now yeah he's here now,
Speaker 1: oh yeah. And so I shot him a message because
Speaker 1: he said, you know, we're top twenty. It's Drew's every
Speaker 1: first top twenty. And I say the message, like, dude,
Speaker 1: has there ever been an artist is self fund independently
Speaker 1: a number one record? He me right back, He's like,
Speaker 1: there's been three, There's been Kenny Rogers, by her Rose,
Speaker 1: there was Tracy Lawrence. Find out who your friends are,
Speaker 1: and there's been uh Garth Brooks. Ask me how I
Speaker 1: know because he had that Pearl label.
Speaker 4: And he hit me right back. He's like, you would
Speaker 4: be the if you have a number one.
Speaker 1: You'd be the first artist in the history of country
Speaker 1: music to self fund their first number one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I was like, holy crap, have you met him?
Speaker 4: Never met him?
Speaker 2: I haven't met him either, just on Instagram, Like, we
Speaker 2: should get him and Drew, or we should just do
Speaker 2: a podcast like talking. I mean of this podcast like talking,
Speaker 2: Like I'm so.
Speaker 3: Interested in this version and I feel like I can
Speaker 3: learn a lot from hearing somebody who's gone through it,
Speaker 3: and then somebody like him who has studied it.
Speaker 2: For so long.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then somebody who's kind of like, I'm not
Speaker 3: really in it, but I'm definitely around it and can
Speaker 3: influence it or be influenced by it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that'd be real fun to come back with.
Speaker 1: Man, I think, like what you do and what your
Speaker 1: show is for artists and things like that is such
Speaker 1: a it matters so big, Like when Bobby bones your
Speaker 1: name in this town, your name on, you support a single,
Speaker 1: you do whatever, you change artist's.
Speaker 2: Life like that, and I clip that rate. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean it really is.
Speaker 1: And you know, I know you're so humble, Bobby, just
Speaker 1: talking this is like our first time ever meeting and
Speaker 1: just hanging out with you or such. It seems like
Speaker 1: a small town dude i'd hang out with back home,
Speaker 1: And you know, I just want you to know that,
Speaker 1: because you know it could be easily looked over. But
Speaker 1: like you get behind an artist, you do whatever you
Speaker 1: have them on your show. Even that amount of reach
Speaker 1: for an artist's song or whatever, they probably ump up
Speaker 1: in the iTunes chart the same day because you're reaching
Speaker 1: what you're you know, in.
Speaker 2: Fair the iTunes charts like ten downloads at this point.
Speaker 2: Very true, who's even listening to that?
Speaker 4: Very true?
Speaker 2: We can dominate the iTunes. But I bet I bet you.
Speaker 1: Could see whoever you have on your show, and Mike
Speaker 1: probably see this, whoever you have on your show. I'd
Speaker 1: be interested to go that day and check out their
Speaker 1: streams and see if there's a bump.
Speaker 3: There's definitely situations. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, we have a
Speaker 3: big audience audience.
Speaker 2: Yeah. When I get to pick a wall court, you
Speaker 2: still move around pretty good?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I freaking come over and feature book.
Speaker 2: How far do you live from here?
Speaker 4: I live in Brentwood. I'm right down street.
Speaker 2: Oh you are?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it took me like five minutes ago.
Speaker 2: All right, I'm bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd love that I mean, you're a veteran. You've
Speaker 3: been playing since like thirty grade. Yeah, so who knew
Speaker 3: it was like the national sport of pato. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: I'll be I'll be paying a lot of attention to
Speaker 3: this now. I again, I don't generally I like doing
Speaker 3: this version because it's an hour long. This podcast is
Speaker 3: really good. People like long form conversation. I can invest
Speaker 3: in a person. I feel like a person that we're
Speaker 3: sitting across can invest in the conversation.
Speaker 2: Oh, we can get into the weeds.
Speaker 3: But I rarely am just like lit up like I
Speaker 3: am now during this conversation. And I did not expect
Speaker 3: to be. I was like, oh, let's see what this
Speaker 3: is about.
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, generic person comes by for generic chat,
Speaker 2: but this is this is real good.
Speaker 4: You guys.
Speaker 3: Follow Drew on Instagram, Drew Baldridge Music, same thing on
Speaker 3: TikTok or go to Drew Baldridge music dot com. And
Speaker 3: I'm gonna make a call and it may not turn
Speaker 3: into anything, but I'm gonna call my guy and be like, just.
Speaker 2: Talk to Drew dude.
Speaker 4: Thank you, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2: If it doesn't work out, great and maybe you don't
Speaker 2: want anybody.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I'm to the point now where I'm like.
Speaker 2: You're fighting somebody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because it's just it's getting too much. And
Speaker 1: I also want to make sure I'm a good husband
Speaker 1: and a good you know, father, and so it's just
Speaker 1: I gotta have time to do some of that. And
Speaker 1: it's like, man, right now, I feel like my time
Speaker 1: is being sucked pretty. I mean, you're you get it.
Speaker 1: You're probably times crazy too, but it's just like, man,
Speaker 1: it's good.
Speaker 2: It's a good problem.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a good problem.
Speaker 1: I've never i haven't been here, so I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to be like take advantage of where we're at and
Speaker 1: get a really good team.
Speaker 3: And final question, would you ever quit being an artist
Speaker 3: to run a late to run your own label if
Speaker 3: it was like pop?
Speaker 2: Would you ever go? Or do you have that you
Speaker 2: just got to make.
Speaker 1: I've had so many people ask and I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I would have to be My songs would just have
Speaker 1: to just immediately suck and not work. Because I love playing,
Speaker 1: I love being on stage. I love connecting connecting with people.
Speaker 1: I love writing songs that mean a lot, like She's
Speaker 1: Somebody's daughter, the stories that I get, the messages I
Speaker 1: get about what this song means to the people.
Speaker 4: I want that, I want to connect.
Speaker 1: I've been writing song since I was sixteen and dreaming
Speaker 1: of this moment of having a song that meant something.
Speaker 1: It would have to be I'd have to be a
Speaker 1: lot older and be like, hey, I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: doing music anymore. But I don't see that happen. I
Speaker 1: love playing freaking the opry. I want to be on
Speaker 1: a big tour. I've never played stadiums, I never played areenas,
Speaker 1: and I want to do that, you know, so I
Speaker 1: can't imagine, like right now, that's not in my head.
Speaker 1: If I will work my own thing and maybe a
Speaker 1: friend along the way if that happens.
Speaker 4: But right now, music, baby.
Speaker 3: Mike, we should plan a round table. Get me, Eddie,
Speaker 3: Drew and Chris It never met, Chris, never met Drew
Speaker 3: until today. Meet and Chris after seven years, Me too,
Speaker 3: same thing, Drew.
Speaker 4: Good to see Buddy, good to see man.
Speaker 6: Thank you, thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.