Speaker 1: I can't speak for her, but I think for me
Speaker 1: it was like I wouldn't have been so influenced by
Speaker 1: the fans being involved in it. And to be honest,
Speaker 1: I think I knew in the beginning or around that time,
Speaker 1: that this was something we probably should have slowed down.
Speaker 2: This is episode four hundred and seven with Michael Ray.
Speaker 2: He walked in and he just looked like a wrestler,
Speaker 2: professional wrestler. He did massive and Michael Ray has always
Speaker 2: been a guy in shape. But I think we start
Speaker 2: talking about that immediately. I think people are like, how
Speaker 2: do you start these shows? Like what do you talk about?
Speaker 2: It's the first thing that I think of when I
Speaker 2: see them, and it usually goes from there. And I
Speaker 2: got places that I'll maybe go where I never go though.
Speaker 2: Is the Ray bus thing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2: We got so on and I was going to ask
Speaker 2: him about standing Ray up at the bus, and I
Speaker 2: think people are going to hear it in this We
Speaker 2: got so onto something that was so opposite that it
Speaker 2: just felt weird to kind of crash that and start
Speaker 2: over there. I feel like you were very strategic in
Speaker 2: this interview. I didn't want him to feel uncomfortable because
Speaker 2: I wasn't going to go poking after the ex wife
Speaker 2: stuff unless he kind of, you know, stuck his head
Speaker 2: out of the groundhog out of the hole a little
Speaker 2: and be like, hey, I'm willing to talk about it
Speaker 2: a little bit. I never want to push anybody into
Speaker 2: a place where they're not comfortable. And we danced there
Speaker 2: a little bit early in the interview. We got out
Speaker 2: and I said, Okay, he's pretty, he's good, and I
Speaker 2: didn't want him to say anything that he wouldn't I
Speaker 2: don't want to say be proud of saying, but anything
Speaker 2: he would regret saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I was kind of feeling him out there, like
Speaker 2: he's not too emotional about it, he's controlled. And so
Speaker 2: then we go back to it. We go back to
Speaker 2: that well later on. I don't think it's the biggest
Speaker 2: takeaway from this, and maybe the most clicks from this,
Speaker 2: but I think the biggest takeaway is a guy who
Speaker 2: is just trying to be a better person, is trying
Speaker 2: to live healthier, had some crap go down, some people die,
Speaker 2: a divorce, and he was forcibly help told to get
Speaker 2: healthier by himself. I mean, he put himself through it,
Speaker 2: so you know, big growth. I think that's the takeaway
Speaker 2: here is big growth. But Michael Ray I have not
Speaker 2: really spent much time with Mike Corey. We allude to
Speaker 2: it in the beginning here. The last time I saw him,
Speaker 2: we did a couple operate things together. One of them
Speaker 2: was on stage, I remember what he brought up, and
Speaker 2: then one of them was we played the opry at
Speaker 2: the same time and we were just backstage in the
Speaker 2: dressing rooms together. I don't know they even remember that
Speaker 2: one he was talking about. The one on stage. I
Speaker 2: gave him a plaque. I was just part of the
Speaker 2: TV show, and if I'm on camera, I don't even remember.
Speaker 2: That's not even real life. So I had to go
Speaker 2: back and look at see the picture he was talking about.
Speaker 2: But I will say after this, I like the guy.
Speaker 2: He's a really nice guy. I liked the guy, and
Speaker 2: I think early on I would just see all the
Speaker 2: tattoos and I would go, you know, he's sleeved up.
Speaker 2: Probably not a guy that I'd like to hang out with.
Speaker 2: It's like an ultimate fighter, a guy unfair. I think
Speaker 2: I signed some unfair things to him based on that.
Speaker 2: But he's always been super nice and had a great
Speaker 2: time and then he hung out afterward and we just talked.
Speaker 2: Eddie and I were about to work out afterward, me
Speaker 2: and him and Klug and Michael. We had just hung
Speaker 2: out with like twenty minutes. We worked out and just
Speaker 2: you know, talked and I don't know, I liked the guy,
Speaker 2: not that I didn't like him, I just didn't know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was like sleep with one eye open. And then
Speaker 2: he you know, Ditsch Ray that time, which we never
Speaker 2: got to. So Michael Ray here, follow him at Michael
Speaker 2: Ray Music at Michael Ray Official. Can we play a
Speaker 2: couple songs this Yeah, he's got this new song called
Speaker 2: Spirits and Demons with Meghan Patrick, Spirits and Mombing. He
Speaker 2: may at the bottom some songs you may know, think
Speaker 2: a little less at number one from March of twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: Bundlings sing in twenty nineteen a number one with one
Speaker 2: that Got Away.
Speaker 1: That's all rap, that's okay, She's going to be one
Speaker 1: hell of a one that got Away.
Speaker 2: And then last year, which he talked about here, in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, he had Whiskey and Rain for multip
Speaker 2: multiple weeks. Yeah, come in all right, Michael Ray from
Speaker 2: Eustas Florida, thirty five years old. He was inspired by
Speaker 2: his grandfather, who played music for him, taught him how
Speaker 2: to play guitar, and had him perform at Assistant Living centers.
Speaker 2: It was very close to his grandfather. That's, you know,
Speaker 2: part of the reason he loves the opry so much.
Speaker 2: He's played the opry over seventy times. He assigned to
Speaker 2: Warner Brothers in Nashville. He's currently on tour till the
Speaker 2: end of October, and he has a new EP called
Speaker 2: Dive Bars and Broken Hearts that came out on June
Speaker 2: twenty third. Here is Michael Ray. Good to see you, man,
Speaker 2: you too, Man, I was talking to these guys. I
Speaker 2: guess I haven't seen you since backstage is the opry
Speaker 2: rhyman opry? Maybe pre pandemic?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was when actually you gave me my first
Speaker 1: platinum plaque that day.
Speaker 2: You know what, Maybe that wasn't I.
Speaker 1: Think it was a regular the opera, the opera. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that was the last time which has been
Speaker 1: a yeah you look jacked, thanks hard? Yeah? Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: you know me and out rabble. I was always like
Speaker 1: trying to be lean and then like I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I want to put some size on, and during the
Speaker 1: end of the pandemic, I was like, screwed. We don't
Speaker 1: got photo shoots or anything going on. So you can
Speaker 1: pack on some weight if you want.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Uh now I'm trying to lean back down. I feel
Speaker 1: like I got but pack on.
Speaker 2: Way that looks fair because you look jacked. There's a
Speaker 2: difference in if I eat a bunch of sugar and
Speaker 2: have a crazy water retention and like, so, what what's
Speaker 2: the routine? What's the beef up routine?
Speaker 1: Man? I've been I started doing this carnivore diet where
Speaker 1: it's pretty much like it's kind of like Keto but
Speaker 1: not as like strip. But it's all meat. Uh, all meat,
Speaker 1: all meat, Like yeah, like I eat a bunch of steak,
Speaker 1: bunch of chicken, bunch of you know, any any any meat, eggs, fruit,
Speaker 1: a bunch of my buddies in the UFC. They they
Speaker 1: got on and they said they started feeling really good.
Speaker 1: And it's so hard me. You know how it is
Speaker 1: on the road to try to eat healthy.
Speaker 2: And it's impossible.
Speaker 1: It's impossible, and so at least then it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't eat fast food. I try not to. But
Speaker 1: if I do have to at least there's something there
Speaker 1: I just eat, like the meat.
Speaker 2: It's so hard to not live a regular life but
Speaker 2: have regular habits.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, and it gets really bad for me when I'm
Speaker 2: traveling a lot, if I'm doing a TV show or touring,
Speaker 2: because if I'm here and I'm working Monday through Friday
Speaker 2: and I'm getting up at this time, I'm going to
Speaker 2: bed at this time, and I'm working out everything i
Speaker 2: can then do just straight habitual I can commit it's habitual.
Speaker 2: But man, you start staying up late or not knowing
Speaker 2: where food or not having access to and you're hungry. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you're like, it's just gonna be the bag of
Speaker 2: free does it's it?
Speaker 1: But you just got you got to go down and
Speaker 1: grocery shop at the little convenient part of the hotel.
Speaker 1: We were just in a place some similar thing. Maybe
Speaker 1: it was this tiny town and I've been shooting a
Speaker 1: TV a second season for Inside the Base on the
Speaker 1: Circle Network, and so we're in this little town shooting
Speaker 1: stuff with the Coastguard and like there is no uber,
Speaker 1: there is no food around there. It's like mom and
Speaker 1: pop and it shuts down at seven. It's just a wholesome,
Speaker 1: all American little town, you know. So you get there,
Speaker 1: you're like, well, I guess it's the chips that we're
Speaker 1: doing tonight, you know, So it's all there can Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it.
Speaker 2: And it's also like, you know, growing up how I
Speaker 2: grew up, you know, and most people where I come
Speaker 2: from are obese or just not healthy because we didn't
Speaker 2: have the education of what good food was and everybody
Speaker 2: was poor. So to get to eat clan healthy is
Speaker 2: kind of a rich person thing, Dude.
Speaker 1: I just said this the other day. My friends of
Speaker 1: mine down home, man that that work, you know, bust
Speaker 1: their butt, man, and they're the souls provider because the
Speaker 1: mom stays at home because it's cheaper for them to
Speaker 1: stay at home than it is for them to have daycare. Right,
Speaker 1: And man, I got to think about this, I go,
Speaker 1: the reason why we have I think some of the
Speaker 1: weight issues we have is because you know, I come
Speaker 1: from a small town of Florida. It's the same thing, man,
Speaker 1: you feed the kid. The kids got to eat, you know,
Speaker 1: so feed ten piece a Kentucky fried chicken and so
Speaker 1: instead and now it's fourteen dollars for three pieces of chicken. Breasts,
Speaker 1: or it's ten dollars for ten pizzas, well, what are
Speaker 1: you going to do if you're on? You know, you
Speaker 1: got no choice? And uh, and I've told him, I go,
Speaker 1: I don't know how people do it. Man, Just for me,
Speaker 1: it's two hundred dollars to fifty three hundred dollars just
Speaker 1: for me if I'm home for a week.
Speaker 2: Do you go gro This is funny because listen, except
Speaker 2: for stopping at a gas station to buy groceries, I
Speaker 2: went from being having absolutely no money to having a
Speaker 2: lot of money in a relatively quick span where I
Speaker 2: didn't have the education to learn about money. So I
Speaker 2: went from not knowing about money at all because it's
Speaker 2: never around it too, then not knowing at all because
Speaker 2: I had to have people helped me with it because
Speaker 2: I did have I'm having to pay percentages of people,
Speaker 2: and I got agents and managers and I got and
Speaker 2: so I was like, oh my god, I don't want
Speaker 2: to do it wrong, so please, so I have to.
Speaker 2: So my money education kind of came and went quickly.
Speaker 2: With that being said, I would like go grocer shopping
Speaker 2: at the gas station when I was had no money,
Speaker 2: and then when I had all the money. Until recently
Speaker 2: my wife has said, Okay, we're going to the grocery store,
Speaker 2: and so I go to the grocery store. I'm it's
Speaker 2: weird how much groceries cost. And that's a weird thing
Speaker 2: to say because I'm so disconnected in that way. And
Speaker 2: I was single until I was thirty seven years old.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, so you're just eating whatever you want, whatever.
Speaker 2: I want, grab go to the I would just literally
Speaker 2: any milk, go to the gas station. I get one
Speaker 2: thing at a time. That's how it exactly what we do.
Speaker 2: And I was gone so much or I would uber
Speaker 2: eats it. So until I've only had to start learning
Speaker 2: like the real life, like normal human connection. Grocery store stuff. Dude,
Speaker 2: it's crazy. After you have a grocery store's stupid.
Speaker 1: It's insane. Bro it just you go to now and.
Speaker 2: To go to Whole Foods.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Whole Foods. That's a big flex. Yeah, Whole
Speaker 1: Foods is you're you're spending two hundred dollars, you walk
Speaker 1: out with nothing's more depressing than you spend the two
Speaker 1: hundred dollars and you walk out with like.
Speaker 2: Two bags And I'm not here thing I can't affore.
Speaker 2: I want people to be like, oh, listen to Bobby
Speaker 2: Waring with no, no, no, I just had no idea. Yeah, dude,
Speaker 2: I'm with you, man, I would suck at prices right
Speaker 2: right about those games like how much? How much is it?
Speaker 1: Come all down?
Speaker 2: Pine sol and a box is a Hamburger? But about
Speaker 2: seventy three dollars?
Speaker 1: Bot?
Speaker 2: You know, two dollars one hundred and fifty.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is.
Speaker 2: So do you do your own grocery shopping?
Speaker 1: Yeah, whenever I'm home, because I'm only home for a
Speaker 1: few days, and so I got a trigger out there
Speaker 1: and that's been like something that's really like broad. I
Speaker 1: just love it. Man. I've cooked some stuff and like
Speaker 1: give it to neighbors and stuff. So it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a I don't know, kind of get away, you know.
Speaker 1: I go pick up the meat and stuff and I
Speaker 1: just grill out at the house for a few days.
Speaker 1: So so, like I said, many we're always on the road.
Speaker 1: We travel with the grill and stuff, and I try
Speaker 1: to grill out there and eat as healthy as a camp.
Speaker 1: Like we said, it's tough. So when I'm home, I'm
Speaker 1: tried it. It's like a it's like a spa retreat.
Speaker 1: When I am home, it's like getting the sauna, split
Speaker 1: everything out, and.
Speaker 2: Do you cook you like a sauna?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I got an infrared at the house. You know.
Speaker 2: We were just talking about having one of those. My
Speaker 2: wife was like, she she will go somewhere with those,
Speaker 2: an infrared sauna, and she believes in it. And I
Speaker 2: guess I just don't. I guess I haven't spent the
Speaker 2: time educating myself on the difference of what an infrared
Speaker 2: versus just a hot sauna is. Why do you do it?
Speaker 1: For me? What I found well, so it's it he's
Speaker 1: from like the inside, you know, and so there's a
Speaker 1: bunch of like of your body or that machine of
Speaker 1: the machine. So it's like it's not like a steamer,
Speaker 1: you know. And so it's like you're sitting there and
Speaker 1: it's slowly you start feeling get hot. And man, dude,
Speaker 1: mine's like half the size of the couch that Mike's
Speaker 1: sitting on. It's in my garage and you just plug
Speaker 1: it in. Man. And what I what I have found
Speaker 1: out though, is if you do it consistently for a
Speaker 1: few days, you start feeling I start feeling just less
Speaker 1: kind of anxious, you know. And I do the cold, cold,
Speaker 1: bad thing, and I take cold showers.
Speaker 2: Cold plunch in the morning or just at any time
Speaker 2: in the morning. So the one thing that I've been
Speaker 2: doing a little bit is my friend and he's also
Speaker 2: if I get sick, I call outam.
Speaker 1: Bobo, Oh yeah, bobo yeah.
Speaker 2: So he has irrita. And I've been learning a bit
Speaker 2: about inflammation within the body, inside the body, especially with
Speaker 2: injuries and walk come to a hell of Well podcast
Speaker 2: with Bobby and Michael by the way, but he has
Speaker 2: a cryo.
Speaker 1: Oh man, those are awesome.
Speaker 2: And I swear to god, I do it for a
Speaker 2: couple of days in a row, and I just feel
Speaker 2: better in my joints, even if it's a placebo.
Speaker 1: I wonder how much some stuff of that is. Probably some, I.
Speaker 2: Mean really probably some. But I tell you, after a
Speaker 2: couple of days, I really do feel better in my
Speaker 2: because of And you get in and it's three and
Speaker 2: a half minutes, and you know, you turn on any
Speaker 2: song you want, but I actually turn on Bullson Parade.
Speaker 2: I do that to get a machine because it's so
Speaker 2: freaking cold it is, so I'm just in my underwear
Speaker 2: it's like ice blowing on you. That song exactly three
Speaker 2: minutes and bull and you know I'm in. I'm focused.
Speaker 2: I finish your cold. Your nipples about to break off.
Speaker 1: That's what I was about to say. I feel like
Speaker 1: they're like icicles about to just fall off your chest.
Speaker 2: Now that the cryo I get and I love the
Speaker 2: infra red, I guess I just haven't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think try it. Man tried it a few
Speaker 1: days in a row. What I feel the most out
Speaker 1: of it is mentally, like I feel more clarity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I do it in a so I'll wake up
Speaker 1: do like fastic cardio all got bow flex bike is
Speaker 1: like a peloton that they have. So I do that
Speaker 1: and then hop in the sauna for thirty minutes and
Speaker 1: then go take a cold shower.
Speaker 2: Did you find yourself like you needed to get on
Speaker 2: some sort of mental health physical wellness journey after all
Speaker 2: the crap that you've kind of been a part of
Speaker 2: the last couple of years, or is this is general
Speaker 2: something you've been in for the last six seven years.
Speaker 1: No, it was definitely after that time. After all that
Speaker 1: during too, you know, I think I just really leaned
Speaker 1: on a lot of people that were, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to make healthier choices and healthier habits out of that situation,
Speaker 1: and I just really started feeling my man, I feel
Speaker 1: when I did those consistently, I felt more clear, I
Speaker 1: felt more less anxious. I felt like I could was
Speaker 1: making right decisions and navigating, you know, especially that time,
Speaker 1: navigating that as well as I could.
Speaker 2: A close friend of mine has gone through public, very public,
Speaker 2: something very similar, and listen, I've been through similar. It's
Speaker 2: very hard to be a public person going through something private,
Speaker 2: and everybody feels like they any way more than they
Speaker 2: actually know, and they really don't, but they know more
Speaker 2: than they would if you were someone had no notoriety
Speaker 2: at all. Yeah and so, and it's also a weird
Speaker 2: thing too, because if you volunteer to give people information,
Speaker 2: people then expect they can have all the information on
Speaker 2: the whole world about you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like, well, you you told us this, so
Speaker 2: now we deserve to know more and more and more,
Speaker 2: And they get mad and then they insert their on
Speaker 2: story if they don't get exactly what they want exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah and and and it's all you know, we're all
Speaker 1: showing everything we can on social media, so like you said,
Speaker 1: they feel like they're well, I want to know more
Speaker 1: and wanted more about this, and you know, people make
Speaker 1: decisions off of headlines that you know aren't true, or
Speaker 1: things that are that are twisted or you know, and
Speaker 1: I understand, man, like you know, we signed up for
Speaker 1: the public side of stuff. But it is tough, man,
Speaker 1: It's tough when you're going through something private. People forget
Speaker 1: that you're you're human. You know, you're a human being,
Speaker 1: you're somebody's son, you're you know. It's it's it's bigger
Speaker 1: than you know. It's it's different than than than just music.
Speaker 1: You know, there's more to.
Speaker 2: It, and we'll get back to that later on. I
Speaker 2: was just thinking about the health and wellness stuff. Let's
Speaker 2: talk about music then we bring that up. Megan Patrick.
Speaker 2: I love Mega Patrick.
Speaker 1: She's the best man. She's awes didn't.
Speaker 2: Didn't know her, like like if sitting here, I just had.
Speaker 2: I had seen her a couple of times. I knew
Speaker 2: her from Mitchell a little bit of Mitchell's wife. And
Speaker 2: I box at rumble here in town a little bit
Speaker 2: and I don't have my glass and I can't see anything.
Speaker 2: And I was about to go in and some blonde
Speaker 2: girl woman lady can't really tell. It's like, hey, I'm like, hey,
Speaker 2: I can't see any it wouldn't matter who it was. Hey,
Speaker 2: I'm like, what's up because I don't know who is
Speaker 2: it's a listener and I'm like what up? And she's like,
Speaker 2: I'm coming over to your house. And I'm like, oh God,
Speaker 2: I don't know what you like.
Speaker 1: I don't even drink.
Speaker 2: I don't So she was like Megan Patrick and so
Speaker 2: she had a makeup on. She was just a sweats
Speaker 2: and megans an athlete too. And I'm like, oh what,
Speaker 2: I'm Megan and so she we we said hello, there,
Speaker 2: she comes over. We do this. It's awesome. And then
Speaker 2: we go and we play golf together in Austin. She
Speaker 2: she told me that y'all y'all played.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we played.
Speaker 2: We hung out for a whole day. So we had
Speaker 2: we had had like two and a half days together,
Speaker 2: not consecutively, but I just left left those couple of
Speaker 2: days going Dan. Megan Patrick's like down, like, oh she's awesome, dude,
Speaker 2: just like you want to hang out with her. You
Speaker 2: want to be your friend. You want if you're going
Speaker 2: to get into a fight, that's what you.
Speaker 1: Want to do. I always jugs to the other day,
Speaker 1: I go, I go. If there was like a section
Speaker 1: like in the Yearbook where it was like which couple's
Speaker 1: gonna probably end up kicking a bunch of people's butt
Speaker 1: in a bar fight, and go, Meghan and Timpenny would
Speaker 1: be the couple. I put my money off. Now I
Speaker 1: think Megan Mitchell and Megan Megan with out a beat
Speaker 1: goes It's happened a couple of times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how do you Megan know each other? How did
Speaker 2: you get together? In the song?
Speaker 1: You know, we knew each other just from kind of
Speaker 1: seeing you know, we running the same circle and knew
Speaker 1: each other for for a while and kind of see
Speaker 1: each other like dog House a little you'll get together
Speaker 1: as a songwriter events or whatever's what's dog Else. It's
Speaker 1: a place on de Mumbrey and by tin Roof, like
Speaker 1: they have a bunch of like songwriters rounds and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. So just kind of like you I'd see
Speaker 1: her and Mitchell out. They had come out on the
Speaker 1: you know, everybody gets home on Sunday, so kind of
Speaker 1: go out and see everybody. And and I always been
Speaker 1: a fan of her stuff. And here in the last
Speaker 1: few years. You know, she's from Canada and crushing it
Speaker 1: up there. And I started hearing some stuff and and uh,
Speaker 1: and I was just saying, like I got the same thing.
Speaker 1: When we first hung out with I was like, man,
Speaker 1: she's a badass dude like this girls like she's a
Speaker 1: she's a real deal and like not afraid to go
Speaker 1: up to somebody and go, hey, I'm Megan. You know
Speaker 1: what's up? And so we were we would recorded Spirits
Speaker 1: and Demons first, and we just used Alison Velt, who's
Speaker 1: one of the co writers on it, for the female part.
Speaker 2: So Alison saying in the place that Megan.
Speaker 1: In the place of Megan did yeah, until we found
Speaker 1: somebody and so we you know, bounced around and it's always
Speaker 1: like do you go outside of the genre, do you
Speaker 1: stay in the genre? Who's at the label? I'm signed
Speaker 1: to Warner, you know, so who's there that maybe we
Speaker 1: could work something with? And started bouncing around and then
Speaker 1: her name popped up and I was like, man, yeah,
Speaker 1: I love her voice. Man, Like, she's got this strong
Speaker 1: you know, she's just it's there. She's powerful, has some
Speaker 1: soul and some grit to it. And we sent it
Speaker 1: to her and they had just released her EP like
Speaker 1: a month Greatest Show, Greatest Show on Dirt. I believe
Speaker 1: it was called which is great EP that I love
Speaker 1: that song, Greatest Show on Dirt. She agreed to do it,
Speaker 1: and dude, she comes in the studio.
Speaker 2: Oh you did it with her?
Speaker 1: Like she did her part. I was there, me and
Speaker 1: Michael Knox, who's my producer who produced all Jason Auden stuff.
Speaker 1: Megan goes in there and like first take, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: look at Knox. I'm like, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess if she wants to re sing it, you know,
Speaker 1: like let her do it. So she did it a
Speaker 1: few times just to have you know, But dude, she
Speaker 1: showed up, and she showed up every time and just nails.
Speaker 1: We've been able to sing it a couple of times
Speaker 1: live and she just crushed it. And it was like
Speaker 1: soon as we as soon as we got in the
Speaker 1: studio and we heard our voices together, even without any
Speaker 1: polish or anything on it. Man, it just fit and
Speaker 1: our voices fit real well together. And I'm excited for her, man,
Speaker 1: and excited for her that she's a part of it.
Speaker 1: I think that it was made.
Speaker 2: For and that's a single, right, we played it before
Speaker 2: you got here. That's a single.
Speaker 1: It's just now what we released the day of the EP,
Speaker 1: so we haven't picked a true single yet. I think
Speaker 1: that's it. I think, so I'm shoot, that's what That's
Speaker 1: what I want.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's really good.
Speaker 1: Thank you man.
Speaker 2: I was going through the EP and just looking at
Speaker 2: some of I'd heard all the songs that I was
Speaker 2: going through again just see who had written a bunch
Speaker 2: of these songs. The last track Wallen and Hardy and
Speaker 2: Josh I was born Jesse Frasier, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 2: My favorite part of it though, is the song hate
Speaker 2: this Town. So there's a place down here with my
Speaker 2: wife and I would go eat all the time. And
Speaker 2: this guy it was mask time too, so he just
Speaker 2: didn't know what anybody looked like. You know. There were
Speaker 2: times after COVID where people I had known for like
Speaker 2: a year, I was like, that's your mouth, bro, Like
Speaker 2: one way, the other was like that you have a goatee.
Speaker 2: Like there are all these things that were discovered, and
Speaker 2: that was one of them. I think. So we go
Speaker 2: to this and and our waiter, we didn't really know
Speaker 2: what his face looked like but every week we would
Speaker 2: go and here we'd see him and he's just awesome.
Speaker 2: And we knew his name, I knew where he lived,
Speaker 2: and like, one of the last times we were there,
Speaker 2: I was like, hey, so what's the deal. He says,
Speaker 2: it's his last week working there. I said, well, like,
Speaker 2: what are you going to do? And he said, man,
Speaker 2: I'm about to sign a publishing deal? And I was like,
Speaker 2: you're a writer. He'sai, yeah, I'm a writer, I'm an artist.
Speaker 2: I said, we've been coming in here for twelve thirteen months.
Speaker 2: You never once mentioned that. And I said, first of all,
Speaker 2: in a way, that's awesome, cause everywhere, not everywhere, but
Speaker 2: a lot of places I go, people will find a
Speaker 2: way to either bring it up or bring bring it
Speaker 2: to me. Not once did this guy do that. And
Speaker 2: I said, well, are you any good? And he was like,
Speaker 2: I mean I'm trying to be and so yeah, he
Speaker 2: showed me his face. Honestly, I was like, can I
Speaker 2: see we haven't in your face yet. We've been with
Speaker 2: us forever. He takes his mask off and I was like, dang,
Speaker 2: you're actually pretty good looking. And so I was doing
Speaker 2: some stand up here at a theater in town, and
Speaker 2: I said, hey, you're you've been awesome forever. Once you
Speaker 2: come to this show, you and your friend could come
Speaker 2: sit of the show. And he's like, oh cool. So
Speaker 2: he comes to the show. Well, what he doesn't know
Speaker 2: is I've got this thing planned and I say, hey,
Speaker 2: will this Our waiter has been here for a while.
Speaker 2: He has no idea he's going to get invited up here.
Speaker 2: So his name is john the Clawson and he wrote
Speaker 2: hate this Town yep, yep, and so and I didn't
Speaker 2: put any of it together until I was looking back
Speaker 2: through your EP again.
Speaker 1: That's wild, dude, What a what a full circle moment.
Speaker 2: And he came up and he killed. He did not
Speaker 2: know he was going to perform. He didn't even have
Speaker 2: his guitar. We had Eddie's guitar. He came up and
Speaker 2: he crushed. But so Johnny Clawson who was that guy?
Speaker 2: Wrote it with Kaylin Roberson and John Wood. But that
Speaker 2: song specifically hate this Town? How did it get to you?
Speaker 1: You know? I love writing songs, and I write a lot,
Speaker 1: but I also lean on the songwriting community, you know,
Speaker 1: and all my heroes cut outside songs, and especially now
Speaker 1: more than ever, I feel it's important for us to
Speaker 1: lean into that community, you know, with just the way
Speaker 1: that music is being bought. You know, there's the revenue
Speaker 1: for songwriters isn't what it was when people were buying
Speaker 1: tangible albums anymore. And and we're torn so much. Man.
Speaker 1: I just I sometimes I just feel like it's best
Speaker 1: I just hit my songwriter buddies and go, hey, man,
Speaker 1: here's what we're looking for. If you're writing today and
Speaker 1: you've you know, got anything in this vein, He's kind
Speaker 1: of what we need. Knox actually got this song sent
Speaker 1: to him and he put it in our drop box
Speaker 1: and I heard it, and I grew up in Florida, man,
Speaker 1: where it was southern rock and and you know, I
Speaker 1: grew up on a lot of traditional country and and
Speaker 1: so it had some of that pieces to it, you know,
Speaker 1: and it just I love the I felt like i'd
Speaker 1: gone I'd gone through that, you know a little bit.
Speaker 1: And I think everybody's gone through that when especially in
Speaker 1: a small town where you something has happened, and you
Speaker 1: know a lot of times that's a breakup or something
Speaker 1: where you never thought that this town would be a
Speaker 1: place you wanted to get out of or needed a
Speaker 1: break from for a little bit. Uh. And you always
Speaker 1: a place that you loved and you went to, but
Speaker 1: now there's so many memories too, There's so much going
Speaker 1: on that you just need a break from it. I
Speaker 1: just felt like we'd all been there and it's a
Speaker 1: it's been a fun one to play. Man.
Speaker 3: Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor. Wow,
Speaker 3: and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2: You feel like you've aged a lot in the past
Speaker 2: five years.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like you have a lot of advice
Speaker 2: now that you wouldn't have been able to give that
Speaker 2: now you can give.
Speaker 1: Oh, I feel like a grandpa.
Speaker 2: There was a time to in my career. Yeah, where
Speaker 2: I went. I've been through some real crap now and
Speaker 2: for the first time I have somebody said, hey, can
Speaker 2: you help me Mandy's advice?
Speaker 1: I'd be like, yep, I sure can and have Yeah, yep, absolutely, man.
Speaker 2: And it takes challenge, It takes going through challenges to
Speaker 2: actually be understand why you're grateful for stuff too. Absolutely,
Speaker 2: it gives you a new perspective.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man. And and you just have no other choice.
Speaker 1: It's like you get everybody's life's going to have ups
Speaker 1: and downs. But I believe, especially now man, that no
Speaker 1: matter if it's the up or the down, it's all
Speaker 1: part of the purpose to get you where you're going
Speaker 1: to be, you know, and who you're supposed to be.
Speaker 1: And sometimes having that wake up or having that jerk,
Speaker 1: you know, just oh my god, life altering something happening
Speaker 1: is what makes a lot of people reassess everything, you know,
Speaker 1: and then you're in that fork in the road where
Speaker 1: you go, Okay, well do I go this way? Do
Speaker 1: I go this way? And either you know, and now
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you got a clear mind because
Speaker 1: you went through all this. And the Rocky movies are
Speaker 1: my favorite ever, and so I always tell people on
Speaker 1: my dude at the end, it was like Adrian, we
Speaker 1: he's all beat up, you know, but he did it.
Speaker 1: You know, he's a champion. It's like going through those
Speaker 1: things I used to always, you know, my one of
Speaker 1: my biggest problems was showing vulnerability. You know, I grew
Speaker 1: up in a divorced home, a lot of fighting, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of verbal abuse, a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: I was always in different places all the time, and
Speaker 1: and so I never wanted people to see that side
Speaker 1: I never wanted people think the bad of yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so I always wanted I just never showed vulnerability.
Speaker 1: Always try to keep that wall up, you know, And
Speaker 1: it's exhausting. It's what I found out through the year.
Speaker 1: So my parents got divorced when I was eight, and
Speaker 1: then do you remember them together a little bit? I
Speaker 1: remember one Christmas and it was a Christmas where we
Speaker 1: grew up in this double white trailer on ten Acres
Speaker 1: and my family donated. My family started the first fire station.
Speaker 2: In your town.
Speaker 1: In that town, yeah, uh, in that area, is it,
Speaker 1: like what Eustace? Yeah, And so my grandfather, my grandmother
Speaker 1: started that and that was at the front end of
Speaker 1: our acreage, and everybody kind of lived all our family
Speaker 1: lived pastors apart, you know. And so I remember one Christmas.
Speaker 1: I don't other than that, very little, very little memories.
Speaker 1: And it's weird how me and my little sister talks
Speaker 1: about it. It's weird how you block out a lot
Speaker 1: of things, you know. And when you look back at
Speaker 1: my childhood, I'm like, man, there's some I don't There's
Speaker 1: like years I'm like, where did what do we do?
Speaker 1: Like it's just like kind of gone, did.
Speaker 2: Your my parents had divorced on five or six, and
Speaker 2: I can remember barely them before my biological dad left,
Speaker 2: just barely, right, and so I do have like this shred.
Speaker 2: But then my biological dad was never around. I never
Speaker 2: saw him ag until I was almost thirty six, thirty
Speaker 2: seven years old. Did your mom and dad are they
Speaker 2: still alive? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: And did they remain in the same town. Did you
Speaker 2: have a relationship with both of them? Did you go
Speaker 2: back and forth?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I did, and they they you know, my
Speaker 1: mom was from you to there. She's from Tallahassee. But
Speaker 1: when Ustic's high school moved down there when she was
Speaker 1: grown up, and she grew up in a real tough
Speaker 1: environment to you know, abused and divorced home and kind
Speaker 1: of split and so luckily, I mean that the one
Speaker 1: thing they did do right is they kept me and
Speaker 1: my sister together. You know, even though I live with
Speaker 1: my dad and my sister lived with my mom. Our
Speaker 1: weekends were at the same time, you know, unless I
Speaker 1: was playing music with my grandpa or whatever, then I
Speaker 1: was out with him. But yeah, and that what what
Speaker 1: was tough though, And it was tough bro until not
Speaker 1: that long ago. Was my mom and my dad.
Speaker 2: Their relationship was so tumultuous.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah. I mean we to a point where
Speaker 1: I was like, man, listen, I can't put somebody over
Speaker 1: here and somebody. You know, I didn't ask for any
Speaker 1: of this, you know, I was we were I was eight,
Speaker 1: my sister was six. Like, we didn't ask for any
Speaker 1: of this, you know, like both of y'all remarried and separated.
Speaker 1: You know. Let's you know, also, I need you to
Speaker 1: look at it as I know you got some personal
Speaker 1: stuff there. But that's my dad and that's my mom.
Speaker 1: So I you know, imagine.
Speaker 2: You have these conversations with them. That's a that's a
Speaker 2: tough conversation to be the kid and the adult.
Speaker 1: It's tough, man, It's tough, and it's and it's a
Speaker 1: weird thing too. Is. I feel like in life there
Speaker 1: is that switch where it starts we all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: your parents are like my mom is you know, call
Speaker 1: me and my sister and my dad's calling us for advice.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, when did this happen? You know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Like when did we become the I'm like, Dad,
Speaker 1: what are you doing?
Speaker 2: Bro?
Speaker 1: You can't do you know you can't do that, or Mom,
Speaker 1: don't you know? And uh, it is, it's it's weird, man.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't confident in doing that until I went
Speaker 1: to I did my first ever. I never really done
Speaker 1: therapy before. And uh, there's a group of guys and
Speaker 1: a guy named Al here in Nashville that has helped
Speaker 1: a lot of artists out and him and a guy
Speaker 1: named Miles.
Speaker 2: And so I've been on site, so that's okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: No, but I went to a place in Arizona that's
Speaker 1: like yeah, and so it was dude, I won't mention
Speaker 1: because we obviously got to keep things of private in
Speaker 1: those things. But I go to Arizona, right, This is
Speaker 1: this was a this is such like a god like
Speaker 1: universe moment of just like humbleness but also what people
Speaker 1: think our lives are, you know, from the Instagram or
Speaker 1: from a social media whatever they've made in their hip. Bro,
Speaker 1: I go to Arizona for therapy seven days intense. I
Speaker 1: mean it was, like the guy told me, because you
Speaker 1: pretty much went from not driving a car to the
Speaker 1: Daytona five hundred, right, and h I go in there
Speaker 1: and known exactly what dude, I just started feeling like
Speaker 1: I was getting angry, started feeling I was getting some
Speaker 1: traits that people in my family had and I wasn't
Speaker 1: being able to control them. And I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: I want to nip this in the butt. I've always
Speaker 1: felt since I was a kid, I was a guy
Speaker 1: that was going to change my family's path. And I
Speaker 1: started seeing those things pop up, and you know, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, my anger or this shit that's not me,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm like, we got to do something.
Speaker 1: And h somebody at a friend of mine at the
Speaker 1: label reached out to al and aw hook me up
Speaker 1: at this place. And first person I meet when I
Speaker 1: walk in, their first person in my group, it's from Franklin,
Speaker 1: tonnes site.
Speaker 2: Really you had to go random Arizona, Random Arizona.
Speaker 1: And it even better, I do.
Speaker 2: Do you see at the wy Yeah, Steve, what are
Speaker 2: you doing here?
Speaker 1: B So I thought maybe I'd get out and it'd
Speaker 1: be you know, no one would know, and it would
Speaker 1: just be you know, me and a bunch of people
Speaker 1: in a group. And it was when I want to
Speaker 1: I'm driving to my first day park, get a call
Speaker 1: from my management, Hey, congratulations, whiskey and rain went number
Speaker 1: one A week early. It looks like you're about to
Speaker 1: have your first two week number one. And it was
Speaker 1: already right to go, about to go platinum. I just
Speaker 1: pulled into therapy. I'm sitting in the parking lot, get
Speaker 1: this call, dude, And it was just this rush of
Speaker 1: emotions because I think I didn't realize, you know, coming
Speaker 1: from the South, coming from you don't talk about stuff.
Speaker 2: Therapy was not a thing for what people did, what
Speaker 2: rich people did on TV. Yeah, and there were shrinks
Speaker 2: and that's just not for us because we got to
Speaker 2: worry about eating, not going to have mental health jet yeah,
Speaker 2: or are you looking?
Speaker 1: You go, I'm not paying you one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: dollars an hour to talk to you. You know, I'll
Speaker 1: go and do this or I'll go whatever. And all
Speaker 1: douz is just push it down and push it down.
Speaker 1: And at some point it's like filling up a five
Speaker 1: gallon bucket. You know, it only can hold five gallons,
Speaker 1: you put five and a half. Half of it's falling out,
Speaker 1: you know. And so I think it's what we do
Speaker 1: as humans. We just push it down, push it down,
Speaker 1: push down, and then it comes out in an angry
Speaker 1: way or in a way that you grew up that
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you're like, oh, wow, why did
Speaker 1: I just say that, you know? Or why did I
Speaker 1: just do that?
Speaker 2: It's funny you were seeing some of those traits that
Speaker 2: you didn't want to have that maybe you had seen
Speaker 2: though as a kid in yeah, and you to even
Speaker 2: acknowledge to even have the where it's all to go, oh,
Speaker 2: I see this, Yeah, I don't like it. Yeah, because
Speaker 2: sometimes I'll have these but I don't I can't notice.
Speaker 2: I don't have the capability to go oh. Some of
Speaker 2: my wife would be like, hey, just so you know,
Speaker 2: you're spiraling, and I'm like, oh, you're right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The fact that you could see it in yourself, like
Speaker 2: that's that's pretty mature.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it was. It was. I think I
Speaker 1: just those are the memories I have growing up of
Speaker 1: some of those you know, holes punched in walls and
Speaker 1: you know, all of that stuff that I never did that,
Speaker 1: but it was like those little things where I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's close. And then I also had a my mom's sister.
Speaker 1: Not to get all down, but my mom's sister took
Speaker 1: her own life around just before that time, and I
Speaker 1: remember sitting at the service, and for the first time
Speaker 1: ever before I went into the therapy, like I literally,
Speaker 1: dude could sit on my count and this is not me,
Speaker 1: Like I'm up in the morning at the gym, like
Speaker 1: I try to like live every second I can. And Dude,
Speaker 1: for months, man, I couldn't get off the There'd be
Speaker 1: days where I just didn't literally no, no, should just
Speaker 1: checked out and numb Laurie like I could. I'd look
Speaker 1: at that water bowl and go, man, I'm thirsty and
Speaker 1: sit there for ten hours, you know, and I had,
Speaker 1: and I could, and I'd break out of it for
Speaker 1: a little bit, but then I'd go out, you know,
Speaker 1: and then I'd come back and isolate. And that was
Speaker 1: my problem, is isolation. And I realized that once stuff
Speaker 1: get bad, I just removed myself from the stuff.
Speaker 2: I do the same thing.
Speaker 1: And it's tough, man, And it's from friends, you know,
Speaker 1: people calling you, people hitting you up, and and luckily, man,
Speaker 1: I got a good group of guys around me. You know.
Speaker 1: Brandley Gilbert was one of them that called me and
Speaker 1: was like, hey, get in that jeep, get your ass
Speaker 1: down to my house for a few days and come
Speaker 1: hang out, you know. And so it was all these things.
Speaker 1: I started realizing, I'm like, I don't like the fact
Speaker 1: that I feel like somebody's driving the ship and I'm
Speaker 1: looking at it.
Speaker 2: Did they were you diagnosed as being clinically depressed when
Speaker 2: you were started going to therapy?
Speaker 1: All right? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Or were you just like going that I was depressed?
Speaker 1: Uh no, They told me that because I had to go.
Speaker 1: So what it ends up happening? They said that when
Speaker 1: your body has so much going on that there's two
Speaker 1: ways that it reacts, right, and it's either this hyperactive
Speaker 1: thing where that's the nervous people that are you know,
Speaker 1: or it's like paralyzed. And they're like, that's what you
Speaker 1: fighter flight. Yeah, it's fight or flight exactly. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: so that's pretty much what I was what I was
Speaker 1: dealing with, you know. And then and then what's what's
Speaker 1: more messed up about that situation is in your mind,
Speaker 1: you're like, why am I doing this? I know I
Speaker 1: shouldn't be doing this. Why am I not answering this call?
Speaker 1: Why am I not doing this whatever? But it's like
Speaker 1: your body's not It's like I can't go. I want
Speaker 1: to grab that book, but like someone's holding me down,
Speaker 1: you know, And it was the weirdest thing. So I
Speaker 1: think all of that and then starting to notice like
Speaker 1: anger and the different things I didn't like seeing growing up.
Speaker 1: And like I said, I always felt like I was
Speaker 1: a guy that was meant to change the path of
Speaker 1: my my family, and and I just wanted to wanted
Speaker 1: to change it, man. And luckily, you know, somebody at
Speaker 1: Warner stepped in, and a lot like your wife, you
Speaker 1: know something we need people like you need your wife,
Speaker 1: And those situations where it's like, hey, Bobby, because I
Speaker 1: love you.
Speaker 2: And I'm always irritated and you don't even understand. You
Speaker 2: don't even know what I mean, what I've been through.
Speaker 2: And then it's like after like after she tells me
Speaker 2: this and I have an hour, I'm like, god, dang,
Speaker 2: she was right. She was right. And sometimes she tells
Speaker 2: me this and I'm like, you don't even and in
Speaker 2: my mind be going, She's been right the other right time.
Speaker 2: So still I'm like, you don't even know. It's like
Speaker 2: I cannot stop the cycle of telling her she's wrong
Speaker 2: when she's always right.
Speaker 4: The Bobby cast will be right back, Welcome back to
Speaker 4: the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2: I just think, are we have parallel paths here in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways, from where we come from, the
Speaker 2: culture that we were in, what we were exposed to,
Speaker 2: what the people in our towns did. I'm from a
Speaker 2: very hard working mill town. Like that's work. You go
Speaker 2: and you work, and then you have a few hours
Speaker 2: in the evening and then you go to sleep and
Speaker 2: you go to work again.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And so for me, I always been so scared to
Speaker 2: have kids because I don't want to make that mistake
Speaker 2: that my biological father did, which he was just gone.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know him now met him. We
Speaker 2: don't hate him anymore, but we don't have a relationship.
Speaker 2: You coming from where you come from, does that concern
Speaker 2: you at all with having children? Because again you can
Speaker 2: sit and have the understanding of I'm going into these patterns.
Speaker 2: Does that Does it concern you that you would do
Speaker 2: that as a dad?
Speaker 1: No, because I wanted to break that before that ever happened,
Speaker 1: you know, before I ever have a family. I didn't
Speaker 1: want that to be my first reaction. And so because
Speaker 1: I feel, I really feel what you're saying, because I've
Speaker 1: always kind of battled that too, of like do I
Speaker 1: want to have kids? What if I repeat this process.
Speaker 1: That's my fear, you know. And if I repeat it
Speaker 1: and I don't even know I'm going down that rabbit,
Speaker 1: that pattern, I don't see it, and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden boom, I look up and I'm in it. You know,
Speaker 1: this is not what I wanted. And now I'm dragging
Speaker 1: a kid through. You know what I went through and
Speaker 1: all that as hell, Man, you don't want I would
Speaker 1: never want to do that. But then there's also a
Speaker 1: part of me, man, and I think over the last
Speaker 1: couple of years, it just really made me feel like
Speaker 1: there's a bigger purpose in life, and that's something I
Speaker 1: want to I hope to experience one day.
Speaker 2: You know, when you were at and we'll just call
Speaker 2: it your therapy camp, that's what I called. I was
Speaker 2: at a pretty bad place where i'd have any connections, Like,
Speaker 2: I didn't feel true connections with people. I was just numb.
Speaker 2: Instead of drinking because I don't drink. I've never drank
Speaker 2: because of my biological debt. They all drink, so I've
Speaker 2: never drank. But what I would do is I would
Speaker 2: just work just the same thing. Just you just find
Speaker 2: something to consume yourself with so you don't feel other things.
Speaker 2: And that's what I was doing all the time, all
Speaker 2: the time, all the time. And so I had a
Speaker 2: couple different friends and I said their names. I don't
Speaker 2: think they would care, and it's not a name drop,
Speaker 2: but just to acknowledge how important they were at the time.
Speaker 2: Dave Haywood, Oh yeah, he's one of the sweetest guys
Speaker 2: from Lady, A very analytical guy but also super creative.
Speaker 2: And he was like, hey, man, you're having to run
Speaker 2: your own crap and you're also having to like be
Speaker 2: creative and think and and you know, come up with
Speaker 2: these ideas at the same time you're managing folk. He
Speaker 2: was like, if you thought about on site and I
Speaker 2: want to go some therapy, I mean, I'd go to therapy,
Speaker 2: but I'm not going on something hoity toty therapy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what am I going to live for?
Speaker 1: As I feel that was the same way man.
Speaker 2: And so he's like, just think about it. I said, okay, okay.
Speaker 2: Nicole Galli and I talked to me about it a
Speaker 2: little bit because Nicole and myself and Ross Kaufran had
Speaker 2: done this secret writing project together. We'd written all these
Speaker 2: songs and did it under a fake name, and so
Speaker 2: we did, and and then it was honestly, Tyler Hubbard
Speaker 2: and I had got into a huge fight. A couple
Speaker 2: of them. They had like come at me randomly, and
Speaker 2: then we'd always like get on the phone and he'd
Speaker 2: yell at me, I'd yell at him, and then we'd
Speaker 2: be like cool again. And we went to have coffee
Speaker 2: once and he was like, bro, you need to go
Speaker 2: out to Osie. That's my best tiler of impression. And
Speaker 2: I was like, really because he had helped me complete it,
Speaker 2: and so it was freaking Tyler.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Who And We've been up and down in our relationship
Speaker 2: for my whole time I've been here, but it was
Speaker 2: definitely one of those places we were good. He was like,
Speaker 2: it would really help you because I think Tyler and
Speaker 2: I very I think that's probably why we but had
Speaker 2: sometimes two were very similar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's at workaholic too.
Speaker 2: That guy stop very similar. So I trusted him and
Speaker 2: I went and there was an entire group that was together,
Speaker 2: and then there was me and some of the folks
Speaker 2: that were like, you won't want to get in a
Speaker 2: group because people are gonna know who you are and
Speaker 2: you're gonna worry that they're going to be telling folks
Speaker 2: stuff off your show. So I did I think six days,
Speaker 2: five or six days of eight hours a day.
Speaker 1: One on one on one, one on Oh.
Speaker 2: I hadn't cried in years, and I remember telling the
Speaker 2: lady that same therapist, that same therapist every day.
Speaker 1: Right, Oh my goodness. I'm like, that's heavy.
Speaker 2: I don't cry. I wish I could cry. I'm like
Speaker 2: a bathtub that hasn't been unclothed.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's got like hair in and the waters
Speaker 5: like green. There's maybe some book. And she was like, well,
Speaker 5: I'm not going to force you to cry, but at
Speaker 5: some point it's gonna happen.
Speaker 2: Day one, Nope, Day two. Note a couple of things
Speaker 2: happened day three. Day four. We did this thing where
Speaker 2: you put like a scarf on it and you talk
Speaker 2: to it. It's the scarf like reminds you of one
Speaker 2: of your relevant Dude, Yeah, it's my grandma who raised me.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: So she's like, talk to your grandma.
Speaker 1: Boom bude, just gone.
Speaker 2: And I couldn't from then on for the next couple
Speaker 2: of days, I could not not cry. Yeah, because once
Speaker 2: it hit and it was the biggest breakthrough I've ever had.
Speaker 1: Mine was I and Ed m R. Yeah done that too,
Speaker 1: That was mine, dude. Mine and I went there very
Speaker 1: and it was funny cause it's a very similar thing.
Speaker 1: They were like, do you want to do the group whatever?
Speaker 1: And I was like, I don't want to stay there,
Speaker 1: so I gotta I got a place next to it.
Speaker 1: But I was like, I'll I think in my mind
Speaker 1: it was like I just I'll do whatever I got
Speaker 1: to do to get out of this, right, and so
Speaker 1: just where I need to go, let's go, let's do it,
Speaker 1: and I'll be a part of all of it. So
Speaker 1: the first day I get there and they're doing the group,
Speaker 1: which is like, you know, everybody's saying there's strangers in there,
Speaker 1: like they're saying what they're there for, and like some
Speaker 1: people were there for, like I mean, they're really going
Speaker 1: through stuff, you know, And it gets I'm like last,
Speaker 1: and everybody's saying and I'm like, then what am I
Speaker 1: going to say? I'm a little mad, you know, like
Speaker 1: I've got to going through some anger issues like this
Speaker 1: guy's like his family's falling apart, you know, and I'm
Speaker 1: like and so I just stood up there and I
Speaker 1: was like, hey, I don't really know how to say this.
Speaker 1: I go, this is my first time doing this, I said,
Speaker 1: but and I debated on if I want to do this,
Speaker 1: and I schod. But Michael Roach is my actual name,
Speaker 1: Michael Ray is a stage name or whatever you want
Speaker 1: to call it. I go, I'm a country artist. I go,
Speaker 1: here's why I'm here. Blah blah blah. I go, And I,
Speaker 1: oddly enough have the number one song in country radio
Speaker 1: right now. And this guy I'll never forget. He was
Speaker 1: sitting over there, and he was an older guy. And
Speaker 1: after the group, he comes up to me and that
Speaker 1: kind of opened up everybody and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: everybody starts talking a little bit more. And now that group, dude.
Speaker 1: By day two, day three, we were like we're in
Speaker 1: a group text, you know, and like really leaning on
Speaker 1: each other. And the one guy had been in therapy
Speaker 1: quite a bit throughout his life, and he was in
Speaker 1: his late sixties, mid sixties, and he told me, he's like, man,
Speaker 1: he goes, you come in here in your early thirties.
Speaker 1: He goes, you won't go through what I've had to
Speaker 1: go through. You know, you're doing it now. And and
Speaker 1: we would do the group and then we would do
Speaker 1: a few sessions one on one and then group, and
Speaker 1: there's a few sessions and the group we had to
Speaker 1: do those where you set the hear up. And it
Speaker 1: was that same exact thing to me, man, And it
Speaker 1: was like, my grandpa died two weeks before my first
Speaker 1: single came out, and three days before my house a
Speaker 1: blue show where all the in Orlando we sold out,
Speaker 1: all radios comeing, they Warner brought everybody in. He passed
Speaker 1: away two days before that. And then and then he
Speaker 1: was supposed to be the opry and me and him.
Speaker 1: That's how I learned it all. Three weeks after he passed,
Speaker 1: I get an email, Hey, pick your opry date, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, And so I didn't realize that
Speaker 1: I was in the radio tour. So what did I do?
Speaker 1: I go honor my grandfather at the show. That's what
Speaker 1: he'd want me to do. Show goes great. I said,
Speaker 1: as guitar that he played for forty fifty years up
Speaker 1: there had a light on it, went to the service,
Speaker 1: wrote us a bituary, did everything right back out on
Speaker 1: the road. And I did that every time someone passed away.
Speaker 1: Didn't mourn never, never, Really, I'm mourned in that moment.
Speaker 2: But not you didn't. You didn't have time to like
Speaker 2: natally and yeah, and I just.
Speaker 1: Left, you know. And then and then I realized I
Speaker 1: did that E M D R DMR whichever. Someone messed up.
Speaker 1: But dude, that was why I went, like, I didn't
Speaker 1: know anything about that stuff. But many this one they
Speaker 1: put these prongs in your hand like vibes, and I'm
Speaker 1: closed my eyes and I'm talking. And one of the
Speaker 1: craziest things do that happened on the last day. She
Speaker 1: goes to you, she goes, what do you see now?
Speaker 1: And I go, I see my grandparents in there in
Speaker 1: that door, And I said, my grandma's wearing this white
Speaker 1: shirt with like some stuff like embroidery on it. But
Speaker 1: she's not old. She's like in her fifties, see on forties.
Speaker 1: I said, she's got these coke bottle big glasses on
Speaker 1: they used to wear in the nineties, and her hair
Speaker 1: prin druss and my grandpa's wearing a blue polo shirt.
Speaker 1: I describe everything right, And then it hits me. I
Speaker 1: have that photo in my phone, in an old photo,
Speaker 1: and they were standing there, man, and it was just
Speaker 1: it was And then again, they tell you to talk
Speaker 1: to them it, which sounds so crazy when you're talking
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 2: You know, it sounds crazy to even start doing it.
Speaker 2: But once you start, oh dude, then you're like.
Speaker 1: It's like a baptism. Bro. It's like it's like you're
Speaker 1: you just you know, bro, you know, I'm bubble ugly crying.
Speaker 1: And it was like that man, I told him, I
Speaker 1: go if that's the only reason I came, like I
Speaker 1: felt like this massive. I feel like God just put
Speaker 1: a took his hand and pulled the way off, you know.
Speaker 1: But it's because al and then got me into that place,
Speaker 1: and I know how because of Tyler and all them.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of a weird yeah, weird circle.
Speaker 2: But you know, I guess I never cried. There was
Speaker 2: a little shame for me and crying, not because there
Speaker 2: was any sort of masculinity, like men don't cry. I
Speaker 2: didn't have a male influence really, right, my dad was gone,
Speaker 2: but I didn't even call my dad. But for the
Speaker 2: sake of this, my biological I was gone. I had
Speaker 2: a head football coach who was a father figure ish
Speaker 2: as much as you can be when it's not even
Speaker 2: your kid. Very much disciplined, how a youth director who
Speaker 2: helped but never had a dad, so it was very missed.
Speaker 2: So my not crying was never oh I can't, men
Speaker 2: don't cry. It was like, people already think I'm weak
Speaker 2: and I'm already the charity case, so I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: cry because I can't show weakness because they already think
Speaker 2: I'm weak. So it was never a masculinity thing, but
Speaker 2: it was a shame in being not as much. I
Speaker 2: didn't feel like people would feel like I had value.
Speaker 2: So I have trouble crying. And even the first time
Speaker 2: I started crying in therapy, I was just so embarrassed.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I was just like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: She was like, great, why are you sorry? And I
Speaker 2: was like, no, no, I shouldn't be doing this. And
Speaker 2: I still struggle with that, but that was a big
Speaker 2: part of that for me, was just crying and not
Speaker 2: apologizing for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think people grew up like we did.
Speaker 1: Sorry is our first go to. Yeah, I apologize. I'm like,
Speaker 1: why did I just apologize? Sometimes I'm sorry? It's like
Speaker 1: just comes out. And I think it's because growing up, man,
Speaker 1: you know, my dad was a paramedic firefighter too for
Speaker 1: twenty something years, and so the PTSD that he never
Speaker 1: got taken care of until later on in his career. Dude,
Speaker 1: that I mean it made growing up sometimes hell, you know.
Speaker 2: And he probably didn't even know why he was being
Speaker 2: affected in ways he was being affected.
Speaker 1: Dude. He would wake up in the mill of the night.
Speaker 1: And I remember one that some of the craziest stuff,
Speaker 1: manbe I was like eight or nine. My parents got divorced,
Speaker 1: and I was at my grandparents' house and I stayed
Speaker 1: a lot with them, and my grandpa was, you know,
Speaker 1: teach me chords on the guitar, and I was always
Speaker 1: over there. He would call it like two in the
Speaker 1: morning and my grandpa coming, hey, wake up, say hey
Speaker 1: your dad. I'm like, hey, hey, you good? Yeah? All,
Speaker 1: I love you. And that'd be it. Later on in life,
Speaker 1: I'd ask my dad later on as an adult, I'm like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: why would you call us like two in the morning,
Speaker 1: you know where we were at? And he goes, Man goes,
Speaker 1: because I just worked a call on an eight year
Speaker 1: old who God had the same here you know everything,
Speaker 1: And it was like and then the dude, these these
Speaker 1: men and women are trained to literally me and you
Speaker 1: go see horror I mean a horror movie in real life,
Speaker 1: take it to the hospital, do all this stuff, and
Speaker 1: then go you good, Yeah, all right, Hey, we're we're
Speaker 1: back in yeah, or go eat a sandwich, you know,
Speaker 1: And they push it back in here because they have to.
Speaker 1: That next call might be right as soon as they
Speaker 1: call in. That next call might be the exact same
Speaker 1: or worse, or it might be some you know, an
Speaker 1: older lady slipping fella needs help picking up, or it
Speaker 1: could be what you just saw. And so he all
Speaker 1: he never got help for that. He never talked to
Speaker 1: anybody and did it. We did. Just came out in anger.
Speaker 1: He was pissed off because of you know, stuff that
Speaker 1: he had gone through, and it was over controlling and
Speaker 1: just a lot of like you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: just got whatever can stop the fighting, I'll do.
Speaker 2: That's heavy stuff that I don't think that I think
Speaker 2: about enough either. With the jobs military, I understand, I
Speaker 2: don't even understand, but like I understand that I don't understand,
Speaker 2: like I stand with it. But yeah, even like a
Speaker 2: paramedic you're just see or a police officer. Yeah, man
Speaker 2: aside from the possibility of you dying by some bad
Speaker 2: dude killing you. Just what you're seeing by going to Rex,
Speaker 2: like like, that's some traumatizing stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, Or hearing like the screams of somebody that's
Speaker 1: pulling up to a scene and they don't know if
Speaker 1: their loved one's okay. You know, it's just I mean,
Speaker 1: I and there's a lot that I didn't understand obviously
Speaker 1: growing up, I'm like, why is my dad this way? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was. He made it made a lot of
Speaker 1: things really tough. But as you get older, I think
Speaker 1: you have empathy. You know. Also when I went to there,
Speaker 1: but we did this like family tree thing. Dude, when
Speaker 1: you look at it written up, you're like, man, we've
Speaker 1: been screwed up for generations.
Speaker 2: This is generations total pull.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was. So I think that made me
Speaker 1: have a little more empathy. And then he went and
Speaker 1: got taught to somebody really figured out, you know, man,
Speaker 1: you got to you gotta get this stuff straighten out
Speaker 1: because it's getting where it's hard to live with you,
Speaker 1: you know. And so I think I think him just
Speaker 1: going through that stuff really caused it to be harder.
Speaker 1: And then because of that, it was all, there's so
Speaker 1: much fighting all the time that I would just a
Speaker 1: people pleased. And that was one of the things I
Speaker 1: brought with me into my adult life, I guess, which
Speaker 1: made stuff really hard. And you're like, yeah, i'll do
Speaker 1: this yet, and then you're panicking because you add too
Speaker 1: much stuff to your plate. Now you got all this
Speaker 1: stuff going on. So I think the saying I'm sorry
Speaker 1: or the people pleasing all this stuff guys like you
Speaker 1: and I where we grew up. Man, it's just it's
Speaker 1: it just comes out. You know, I'm crying, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Who are you started for?
Speaker 2: I feel like you have so much perspective, and perspective's
Speaker 2: hard to get because you never want to have to
Speaker 2: get it because for you to have to get perspective
Speaker 2: means a lot of things didn't go right. But it's
Speaker 2: also like the most valuable thing. Perspective and empathy are
Speaker 2: like the most valuable things you could possibly own, but
Speaker 2: you can't own them if you don't do the work
Speaker 2: or go through the crap to get on Yep. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I feel like at this point in your life you
Speaker 2: have had to develop so much perspective, yeah, man, and
Speaker 2: understanding what would you do differently if you could go back,
Speaker 2: because I feel like a little bit this is I
Speaker 2: don't know you that well. You know, I've spent a
Speaker 2: couple of months. I don't know your ex at all,
Speaker 2: so I have no I know nothing. What would you
Speaker 2: have done differently with that whole relationship? Would you have
Speaker 2: slowed it down a little bit?
Speaker 1: Yeah? You know, I think too, if I'm being honest,
Speaker 1: I think being really the only true thing I ever
Speaker 1: knew about love or marriage was my grandparents, or my
Speaker 1: aunt and uncle, my gun uncle, my dad's brother him
Speaker 1: and my aunt Kim. They'd met when they were fifteen
Speaker 1: and fourteen, and that was it for the rest of
Speaker 1: their life, you know, until my uncle passed away. And
Speaker 1: so those are the only two things. And I always going, man,
Speaker 1: I want that. Or I'd go to my friend's house,
Speaker 1: you know, and i'd see them and their family or whatever,
Speaker 1: and there was none of the at least obviously when
Speaker 1: you're over there, they're not showing you what's really happening.
Speaker 1: But I think, you know, I can't speak for her,
Speaker 1: but I think from it was like, man, look at
Speaker 1: all this going right, I think she was, you know.
Speaker 1: I also we weren't around each other a lot, and
Speaker 1: we're both touring arts. Yeah, man, and so you got
Speaker 1: the one day and that you're trying to cram it
Speaker 1: in to see each other and do what you know,
Speaker 1: and you're packing and you know you're out again. And
Speaker 1: so I probably would have slowed things down. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been so influenced by I think the people, you know,
Speaker 1: fans being involved in it, and you know, to be honest,
Speaker 1: I think I knew in the beginning or around that time,
Speaker 1: that this was something we probably should have slowed down.
Speaker 2: If I could go back, I would not have exposed
Speaker 2: my wife to the public as early as I did.
Speaker 2: And we still waited a while, but I was like,
Speaker 2: you know, I lived my life very openly. She never
Speaker 2: really had an interest in being exposed. Right, exposed is
Speaker 2: a weird word, but just like, you know, really just
Speaker 2: exposing people, because it really made it hard, really hard
Speaker 2: for her because she that's not her favorite thing is
Speaker 2: to be public. She's not trying to be an influencer.
Speaker 2: That's not her life. She's very family oriented, not trying
Speaker 2: to be famous. But what I did by doing it earlier,
Speaker 2: I think it came on so hard and strong for her.
Speaker 2: It was a it was a negative, and she was like,
Speaker 2: I don't like this very much, and I already already
Speaker 2: didn't love it, So I'm just gonna kind of take
Speaker 2: another half step back where I wish I would have
Speaker 2: just waited a little longer in that What was that
Speaker 2: conversation like for you guys, like, Okay, are we going
Speaker 2: to do this? Because I would also think if I
Speaker 2: were you guys, I would love the attention because two together.
Speaker 1: Oh dude, I mean, I mean, listen, I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the greatest thing ever.
Speaker 1: It's cool as shit, you know when you want, you know,
Speaker 1: and you see Tim and Faith and you know Garthatricia,
Speaker 1: and you know, we were both coming up kind of
Speaker 1: at the same time, her and I. So it was
Speaker 1: like it wasn't like one was over here and the
Speaker 1: other one was, you know, first starting out, it was
Speaker 1: like we're kind of right there at you said, So
Speaker 1: it was a lot to celebrate. But yeah, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's yeah, I'm not gonna lie do it is
Speaker 1: It's a lot of.
Speaker 2: A lot of perks come with you flatch some of
Speaker 2: the toughness, honestly, like all three hundreds, like look, at
Speaker 2: these two. I don't want to say names. I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna bring her name up because it's not but it's like,
Speaker 2: look at these two together, because sometimes when you put
Speaker 2: two together, it's.
Speaker 1: Bigger than the absolutely man then the two individual lead. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And one thing too that we didn't like, we didn't
Speaker 1: do counseling. We didn't do any of that before. And
Speaker 1: I think that and there was moments that I look
Speaker 1: back now and I'm like, why didn't I speak up
Speaker 1: on that? Like that was one of the first times
Speaker 1: I realized her and I are opposite, you know, and
Speaker 1: I'm a very much more extroverted, you know person, and
Speaker 1: she's not. And so there was a lot of different things.
Speaker 1: I come from a big family that, you know, everybody helped.
Speaker 1: My cousins had keys on my dad's you know, we
Speaker 1: used to just go we'd go and we wouldn't have
Speaker 1: food at the house, and we'd go just go to
Speaker 1: my uncle's house and we'd be in there cooking. They
Speaker 1: weren't even home, you know, Like it was just that,
Speaker 1: you know, So there were little things that I think
Speaker 1: if we would have done that, I think we would
Speaker 1: have seen that, oh, this isn't We're when when you
Speaker 1: do have the two at the same time and it's
Speaker 1: even the same business and it's all the eyes are
Speaker 1: on you, it's very easy to keep that Hey everything's good,
Speaker 1: even when you're home, you know, and you're really not
Speaker 1: going you're really not addressing issues, you're not really knowing
Speaker 1: each other. Honestly, it's just like, hey, we're here for
Speaker 1: twenty four hours and I kind of got to do
Speaker 1: this meeting. I do just this meeting. You going to
Speaker 1: do dinner at five? Cool? You know, And I don't
Speaker 1: think we really just realized that, man, this is we're opposite.
Speaker 2: At one point on the internet, did you go, I
Speaker 2: can't read this. I can't look at this up anymore
Speaker 2: because one it's either not fear not true, or it's
Speaker 2: just overwhelming for me to see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I uh yeah, I thought for a while, I
Speaker 1: went I went dark for a little bit, just because
Speaker 1: there was there was so much that isn't true, and
Speaker 1: there's so much that was twisted, and it was just
Speaker 1: like out of nowhere, everybody's just like, oh, look what
Speaker 1: he did. I'm like, well, what are you talking about? Like,
Speaker 1: first off, none of y'all were around, you know, for
Speaker 1: three years and you don't know anything that happened. You
Speaker 1: just know what this headline on what she has said.
Speaker 1: And because I don't believe in throwing shade at her
Speaker 1: or any of that stuff. We were both learning and
Speaker 1: growing up. And I'm not trying to ruin what she's
Speaker 1: trying to go into. If she wants to, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, she gets another relation, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't want to ruin any of that. I don't want,
Speaker 1: you know, I hope she has the best success and
Speaker 1: does everything that she wants. I'm not trying to make
Speaker 1: this this you know, beef. Yeah, between us two, Like listen,
Speaker 1: both of us dropped the ball in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: And that's the truth, you know, And so we I
Speaker 1: didn't show up after, you know, the wedding day because
Speaker 1: by that point in time, there was a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that she did show up for and it was
Speaker 1: just kind of like there's stuff that happened that day
Speaker 1: where I was like, I'm out, you know. And and
Speaker 1: again I never went to therapeut and never did any
Speaker 1: of this stuff. So it was just I had all
Speaker 1: this stuff built up, and then I think the fear
Speaker 1: of am I repeating this process? What did I do
Speaker 1: what about you know, and so all of that kind
Speaker 1: of just it was a lot, man. It really took
Speaker 1: its toll, and I think just we just didn't we
Speaker 1: showed up at two different times. And then then to
Speaker 1: to kind of go back to where you're asking about
Speaker 1: the comments, I had to I had bought my tongue
Speaker 1: a lot, man, because I was your restraint.
Speaker 2: Yeah, top notch, just having a restraint period. Even if
Speaker 2: every comment was right or wrong, I would have just
Speaker 2: been in the mix. Yeah, it would have been completely
Speaker 2: unhealthy and for me, and i'd have been but I'd
Speaker 2: have been in it, and I'd made myself worse. But
Speaker 2: you never You didn't say anything. He didn't put a
Speaker 2: song out, you didn't get in the comments. I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't know how. I don't know how you did
Speaker 2: it if you had good people in your ear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, I think a lot my management
Speaker 1: team who was helping me a lot during that time also, Man,
Speaker 1: I just realized too. I went home, I went to Eustless, Florida,
Speaker 1: and stayed at my uncle and ant's house and they're
Speaker 1: downstairs and hung with family. And it was at that
Speaker 1: COVID time where no one was working we weren't toaring
Speaker 1: it was. It was Florida, so it was open, you know,
Speaker 1: Florida we were doing. Never got Florida, never got COVID
Speaker 1: yet stopped at the Georgia line. Yeah. So dude, I
Speaker 1: think I just got re and retouched with your roots, man,
Speaker 1: because you know, I mean, like you were saying, we're
Speaker 1: all over the place all the time, and it's very
Speaker 1: easy to get disconnected. And I think I was during
Speaker 1: that ang that that was when I started seeing some
Speaker 1: of that anger start popping up. And then I went
Speaker 1: from oh, you won't say that, Okay, Well now the
Speaker 1: trailer park uses Florida kick comes out, you know, and
Speaker 1: I'm like I'm ready to fight, and I'm like, what
Speaker 1: do you say? You don't know anything about this, And
Speaker 1: so I was like, I need to go home, chill
Speaker 1: with my mom, you know, with my buddies, fish with
Speaker 1: my cousin, just do stuff that we did and just
Speaker 1: reconnecting and push that all away and not even not
Speaker 1: even look at it.
Speaker 2: It had been hard to even listen to the radio though,
Speaker 2: because you're on all of a sudden, you hear a
Speaker 2: song about you and you're like, mother, oh yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Just embraced that. I just turned it up. Good for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like, screw it up, man, let's go.
Speaker 3: Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor.
Speaker 3: This is the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2: Did you write songs that you'd never put out?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's a couple. I wrote one with my
Speaker 1: buddy John Saderfield and John Stone that might put out
Speaker 1: at some point, but it's not. It was mainly just honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't think I actually will. Because we
Speaker 1: were on my bus one day and they came out
Speaker 1: to write, and I was just like, man, because everybody
Speaker 1: kept asking he gonna write a song, you know, just
Speaker 1: I was like.
Speaker 2: No, because everybody felt like they would have backed. I mean, honestly,
Speaker 2: we're all like, yeah, wow, like he's it's going hard
Speaker 2: on him? True, not true. We don't know. I don't
Speaker 2: know your relationship. I don't know what happened. But it's like, god, dang,
Speaker 2: there's like six songs in every song about you, like,
Speaker 2: how's he not respect FONDI.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was, you know, I mean I think
Speaker 1: she could have gone a different way of that, and
Speaker 1: I think it was you know, I think you know, also,
Speaker 1: I don't think people realize we we both we grew
Speaker 1: up and broken broken homes. We know people from our
Speaker 1: hometown Sadly, in small towns, broken homes is more common
Speaker 1: than ever. Now. I know how hard a divorce can be.
Speaker 1: I've seen it, seen it when my parents have seen
Speaker 1: it with buddies of mine. I got friend of mine
Speaker 1: with four kids. He's hundreds of thousands of dollars and
Speaker 1: still fighting. You know, in there, it's just wow, it's hell.
Speaker 1: We didn't own anything together. We both prenups. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen her, spoken to her in three and a half years.
Speaker 1: I went my way, she went hers vorce paper sent
Speaker 1: to my manager's office. I signed them, got sent to
Speaker 1: her business manager's office. She signed them. That was it.
Speaker 2: That's clean.
Speaker 1: That was clean. It's c There's not this like And
Speaker 1: I'm not downplaying anything, and I'm not downplaying Hardbury, what
Speaker 1: anybody goes through, or any of that. But when you
Speaker 1: look at what my problem was, why are we trying
Speaker 1: to make a financial gain on something that is not
Speaker 1: what is being portrayed? You know, when I see friends
Speaker 1: of mine that have gone through hell and back, you know,
Speaker 1: on both sides of the fence, man process of a divorce,
Speaker 1: the process through the fighting back and forth. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, yes with ours was public. Yes there is
Speaker 1: some answers to fans, Like you said, they feel like
Speaker 1: they needed and a we let them in, so you
Speaker 1: got to you know. But on the on the whole thing,
Speaker 1: I was like, man, this isn't as what This isn't
Speaker 1: what people think it was, you know, and it was
Speaker 1: as clean as it could be. It was a breakup
Speaker 1: with paperwork. I hate that it happened. No one gets
Speaker 1: married to get divorced. I It's something that haunted me
Speaker 1: for years, you know, made me mad at myself, made
Speaker 1: me you know, you over you played things through where
Speaker 1: I did look back and go, maybe I should have
Speaker 1: done that different. You know, I think you have no
Speaker 1: other choice in those situations to look in the mirror
Speaker 1: and go, Okay, what what did I What did I
Speaker 1: do out of this?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: How can I stop what I did? If what I
Speaker 1: contributed to this? How do I not bring this into
Speaker 1: the next and which is how it helped me get
Speaker 1: through all of it, you know. But that was the
Speaker 1: part that really just kind of stuck to me a lot.
Speaker 1: Was like, man, I don't think people realize like this
Speaker 1: wasn't this like gruesome battle. It was trying to be
Speaker 1: forced to be something way bigger than it was, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think too, that's why I didn't want to
Speaker 1: add any flame to the fire. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's funny too, is you'll be able to help somebody
Speaker 2: else the way Brandley called you, because I'm thinking I've
Speaker 2: I've had a lot of contents with Branley, both in
Speaker 2: professional settings and like, if we're playing a festival at
Speaker 2: the same place, you just hang with people, right, And
Speaker 2: I like Brandley a lot me too.
Speaker 1: May it's salt of the earth. What you see is
Speaker 1: what you get. Don't get any better, man.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, probably pretty scary, dude, if you want to
Speaker 2: be scary towards you, I wouldn't, but.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't shove them in an alley, but.
Speaker 2: Ye, but I would also if I needed something. And
Speaker 2: Brandley and I don't talk a whole lot, but I
Speaker 2: do feel like I've had a connection with Brandley where
Speaker 2: I could call and be like, hey, dude, would you
Speaker 2: help me? And he would come and help me without
Speaker 2: it being said he did that for you. Because Brandley's
Speaker 2: been through some crap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, crap that he probably.
Speaker 2: Was like if I handle that different, I would totally.
Speaker 2: And you're doing this now, and what's going to happen
Speaker 2: is and I'm sure of it. It's gonna come around
Speaker 2: where you're gonna be able to do that for somebody now.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's that perspective and empathy that you never
Speaker 2: really want to sign up for that paperwork, like, I'll
Speaker 2: have some perspective and empathy because it sucks to have
Speaker 2: it because you had to get it through something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't have it before.
Speaker 2: It's so valuable. Yeah, and it rounds you out as
Speaker 2: a person. And I feel like you're like, I mean
Speaker 2: like I'm just looking at you, but I feel like
Speaker 2: you're like happy.
Speaker 1: I am, man, I just feel in a good place.
Speaker 1: I feel I've also allowed you know, I think one
Speaker 1: of the cool things about therapy is it shows you
Speaker 1: how to use tools when you're out of there.
Speaker 2: What I say, like, if therapy doesn't fix you, it
Speaker 2: just give it.
Speaker 1: Gives you tools to understand how to do it. And
Speaker 1: so it's allowed me to win instant before when I
Speaker 1: I help myself feeling that like kind of just sitting
Speaker 1: on the couch. I don't want to do anything. You know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's really feel sorry for yourself,
Speaker 1: but in a way, I guess, you know, And now
Speaker 1: I know how to stop that. Now I go, well,
Speaker 1: what am I doing?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: Get up, do something, call.
Speaker 2: Somebody, or at least have the awareness that it's happening,
Speaker 2: or at least have the weareness to me is sometimes
Speaker 2: I can't stop it, but I'm like, I know this
Speaker 2: is not good. I know what's happening, and I can
Speaker 2: say something A want and they can. She can help
Speaker 2: me a little bit.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: That's I mean, this has been a really good, like
Speaker 2: healthy mind. This is all health and wellness.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: I think we might we might have.
Speaker 2: So this is the new show.
Speaker 1: This is it.
Speaker 2: Let me say this that Spirits and Demons out now
Speaker 2: with Megan Patrick. The new EP, Dive Bars and Broken
Speaker 2: Hearts came out in June, because we're in July, so
Speaker 2: two weeks.
Speaker 1: Ago, I believe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's out. It's six tracks. You are you
Speaker 2: on the road a lot? Now? Is it back full?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah? Man? Yo, it's this year really feels like
Speaker 1: it's like it's twenty nineteen, like the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: It was obviously twenty twenty one was weird. Twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two was more open. You kind of had some of
Speaker 1: the places that were you know, you had a show
Speaker 1: car whatever. But now it's Yeah, me and John Party
Speaker 1: played Barefoot Fest I think in New Jersey and it's
Speaker 1: like third Thursday, like twenty seven thousand people out there
Speaker 1: on a Thursday on the beast. If we're back, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2: Full full till congratulations. Man. I just I don't know
Speaker 2: a like an existence that just feels healthy.
Speaker 1: Thank you man.
Speaker 2: You know that's it's awesome, Like that's where it is. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that's what it is. And you're gonna have songs
Speaker 2: to go number one, and you're gonna have seasons that
Speaker 2: you can't get anything to work, and you're gonna get
Speaker 2: back to the number one again. Yes, seasons again. But
Speaker 2: that ain't as much as what it's about. It is
Speaker 2: like just that that consistency and knowing that for me,
Speaker 2: like there's value regardless.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know there's more. We look, we're so
Speaker 1: fortunate to do what we love and we're passionate about
Speaker 1: what we do what we do, but it's not who
Speaker 1: we are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I struggle with that. My identity. I really struggle
Speaker 2: with what my identity is. Yeah, say man, I'm working
Speaker 2: towards it. I still suck at.
Speaker 1: He He's just making tomorrow better than today.
Speaker 2: You guys follow Michael Ray at Michael Ray Music, Instagram, TikTok,
Speaker 2: Michael Ray Official on TikTok, and you guys check out
Speaker 2: the new music this is out now. Michael, good to
Speaker 2: see buddy
Speaker 3: You tue, Buddy, Thank you man, thanks for listening to
Speaker 3: a Bobby Cast production