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Speaker 1: The first line of the song, better get your attention,

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Speaker 1: I mean, right out of the gate, you better say

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Speaker 1: something bank, gotcha. You're never truly free until you can

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Speaker 1: say no. If I had a record deal that song

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Speaker 1: does not get hurt. When everything is out out of

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Speaker 1: your control, find the one thing you can still control,

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Speaker 1: and control it well.

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Speaker 2: I'm raving an arroyo. Welcome to Arroyo Grande, where we

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Speaker 2: dive into the wild currents of this culture and talk

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Speaker 2: to some of the most incredible culture makers and thought

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Speaker 2: leaders anywhere. I'm so glad to hear Country superstar John

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Speaker 2: Rich is my guest today. And for anyone who is lost,

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Speaker 2: or you've hit a dead end, or just feeling rejected,

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Speaker 2: does Jean Rich have some advice for you? Powerful stuff?

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Speaker 2: Stay tuned for that. First a little free flow. I

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Speaker 2: was getting on a plane the other day and they're

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Speaker 2: coming down the aisle was a couple. The woman had pajamas,

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Speaker 2: her hair in some kind of bag, and slippers and

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Speaker 2: the man with her sported pajama bottoms, a T shirt

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Speaker 2: and flip flops. Now bear in mind these people probably

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Speaker 2: paid four hundred and fifty bucks between them to fly,

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Speaker 2: but they went out of the house into the car

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Speaker 2: and through tsay in their sleepwear. Couldn't they at least

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Speaker 2: put jeans on? As I watched them come down the

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Speaker 2: aisle at me, I thought, here in shambling stark relief

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Speaker 2: is American manners in one image, I should have snapped

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Speaker 2: a picture slobs at home, slobs in the world. Surveys differ,

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Speaker 2: but it's estimated that Americans spend roughly fifteen one hundred

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Speaker 2: dollars a year on clothing. Did they have to blow

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Speaker 2: it all on pajamas and flip flops to cop and

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Speaker 2: distort Dolly Parton's line, I guess it's expensive to look

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Speaker 2: that horrible. It's hard to believe that there was a

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Speaker 2: time when Americans didn't leave the house without a hab

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Speaker 2: on their heads and women actually wore gloves. I hate

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Speaker 2: the fact that Americans have abandoned all sense of self

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Speaker 2: respect and insist on advertising it to the rest of us.

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Speaker 2: Try dressing up for a change, you might feel good

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Speaker 2: about yourself. Look, I've made it a habit in recent

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Speaker 2: days to wear a hat when I go out. I'll

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Speaker 2: tell you why in a minute, but I think it's

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Speaker 2: a good idea. It's one of the reasons I love

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Speaker 2: going to Texas and Nashville. People still wear hats, nice hats.

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Speaker 2: It bespeaks self respect. Gentlemen. Every man in America once

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Speaker 2: wore a hat. It was principally to shield them from

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Speaker 2: the sun as they walked about. If I guess there

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Speaker 2: was any one thing that killed hat wearing or ran

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Speaker 2: over it, it was probably the car. The low ceilings

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Speaker 2: of cars made hat wearing difficult, and since you weren't

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Speaker 2: walking around outside too much, you didn't really need a hat,

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Speaker 2: so they fell out of fashion. But I think we

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Speaker 2: need to revive hat wearing, and not just baseball cap apps, Stetson's, dobs, Borsolinos,

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Speaker 2: and Mazers. Elegant hats with brims. You know why, because

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Speaker 2: you can't wear a fedora with pajamas. As the fish

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Speaker 2: rots from the head down, the clothing improves in the

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Speaker 2: same order. The hat kind of dictates the rest of

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Speaker 2: the outfit. You'll notice at the end of each show,

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Speaker 2: I put a hat on as a head outside. That,

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Speaker 2: by the way, is good manners. Unless you're a lady.

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Speaker 2: You should never wear hats indoors. There for outdoor use.

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Speaker 2: And all you guys eating with your baseball caps on

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Speaker 2: take them off. It's a sign of respect the dinner table. Rather,

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Speaker 2: it is not your personal ballgame. Wearing a hat could

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Speaker 2: be a corrective for the sartorial sins all around us.

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Speaker 2: It's a sign of respect and dignity. People look at

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Speaker 2: you differently. Strangers will compliment you. I promise when you

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Speaker 2: wear a hat, you know why, because elegance is a rarity,

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Speaker 2: and I think we need self respect in the way

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Speaker 2: we carry ourselves dress because that leads to better behavior

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Speaker 2: in public. Think about wearing a hat as a start

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Speaker 2: show the world you are a human being and not

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Speaker 2: a slumber party escape. Now let's go into the deep

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Speaker 2: for our conversation with a man who is leading the

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Speaker 2: way on the hat front. John Rich is a multi

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Speaker 2: platinum country artist half of the country duo Big and Rich.

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Speaker 2: John has penned some of the best known country songs

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Speaker 2: not only for himself but for other artists. He also

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Speaker 2: discusses here the setbacks he faced, how he recovered and

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Speaker 2: found his groove, the faith that animates him, and the

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Speaker 2: terrible day he was caught in the crossfire of the

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Speaker 2: Mandalay based shooters attack on a festival he was headlining.

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Speaker 2: Here's John Rich John, Thank you so much for inviting

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Speaker 2: me to your town. It's nice to being here.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Music City.

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Speaker 2: Well, I knew you'd have the hat, so I brought

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Speaker 2: my hat at and put it on link. I'm going

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Speaker 2: to build up to the hat. Tell me about your father, Jim,

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Speaker 2: who was a pastor, but he spread the gospel in

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Speaker 2: an interesting way. I read he had always had a

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Speaker 2: guitar with him. Yeah, tell me how that marked you,

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Speaker 2: what you learned from him.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a singer songwriter. Actually went to college on

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Speaker 1: a vocal scholarship. You know, he's a real singer. And

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Speaker 1: at nineteen he said, I was called to go preach

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Speaker 1: at nineteen and so he said, So that's why I

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Speaker 1: started doing. He started on college campuses where he was

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Speaker 1: going to school, and then when he got out of there,

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Speaker 1: he started going. He went to the Democrat National Convention

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Speaker 1: right after that, and then he started going to places

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Speaker 1: like Marty Grass, the Indianapolis five hundred, all kinds of

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Speaker 1: major events around the US. And he would go out

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Speaker 1: in the streets and take his guitar and take a

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Speaker 1: speaker and on a client's cart, stand it next to

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Speaker 1: him and start singing. And I asked him why. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I understand the point of why you're doing that. What

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Speaker 1: a great thing to do. But man, you're such a

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Speaker 1: charismatic guy, You're such a great minister. You could have

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Speaker 1: been preaching at a massive church and where he goes, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because the people I was told to preach to will

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Speaker 1: never walk into one of those churches. The people I

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Speaker 1: was told to preach to, so prisons, Yeah, Marty Grass

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Speaker 1: like go where the people are who are never never

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Speaker 1: going to walk in the front door of a church building.

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Speaker 1: They're the ones that need to hear what I have

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Speaker 1: to see.

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Speaker 2: You feel that calling on your life? Now? I think

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Speaker 2: you're it in your music now, John.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think to a large degree. You know, an

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Speaker 1: audience that I've been able to build up with his

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Speaker 1: help since the mid nineties with the band Lone Storing,

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Speaker 1: then Big and Rich and then solo and combinations of

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Speaker 1: those things. You know, they get used to hearing you

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Speaker 1: singing hit country songs and they go, I love you music,

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Speaker 1: I love you music. I love your music. Well, now

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Speaker 1: when they come up to me, they go, I love

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Speaker 1: what you stand for. Uh, I like your music. I

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Speaker 1: really love what you stand for. So I guess with

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Speaker 1: the skill set and audience I've built over all these years,

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Speaker 1: I'm now able to write songs that mean something other

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Speaker 1: than just a check or an award or a plaque

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Speaker 1: on the wall, like you can put into gear. A

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Speaker 1: piece of music that in three minutes can communicate more

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Speaker 1: to people, get them to think more, think more deeply

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Speaker 1: than if you talk to them for three weeks than

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Speaker 1: any speech anybody could ever get. You're a musician, you

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Speaker 1: know the power of music. It disarms people, It opens

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Speaker 1: up a different part of their mind. I believe a

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Speaker 1: different part of their spirit as well. So they're so

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Speaker 1: and when they hear something that's real, that's truth, and

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Speaker 1: it's wrapped in music. It's a really powerful thing.

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Speaker 2: And the guitar. You all, you and your father shared

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Speaker 2: guitar lessons when yeah young.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how I learned how to play my dad.

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Speaker 1: You know, you don't get real rich preaching and Marty Grass.

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Speaker 2: I mean you get reach in different ways John rich Well, of.

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Speaker 1: Course, absolutely, but not monetarily. And so he had a

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Speaker 1: lot of different jobs. My dad slapped hogs at a

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Speaker 1: barn on the weekends. He was the night watchman at

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Speaker 1: Amberland National Bank, where I'm from, he sold cars and

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Speaker 1: he gave guitar lessons. And so when I was a

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Speaker 1: little kid, probably five, my dad goes, he's walking out

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Speaker 1: the door and he goes, you want to go with

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Speaker 1: me to the music store and do guitar lessons. I

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Speaker 1: was like, yeah, let's go. You know, I'll get to

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Speaker 1: go with dad.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 1: And so I go in there and there's this whole

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Speaker 1: like semicircle of adults that got their guitars out. He

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Speaker 1: pulls up a little chair for me, golees here, just

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Speaker 1: sit right behind me and hands me like a little

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Speaker 1: cheapy guitar. Just follow along, follow along. Well, after a

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Speaker 1: few weeks of tagging along, I'm sitting at the house

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Speaker 1: playing better than the adults were playing. And he went,

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Speaker 1: he picked that up pretty fast, didn't you? Aon went?

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Speaker 1: I said, it's really fun, you know. And so then

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Speaker 1: he said, you want to sit behind me in the

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Speaker 1: poolpit sometimes when I go preach at these places and

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Speaker 1: back me up. I said, yeah. So that's where I

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Speaker 1: got into playing the guitar, was wanting to play with

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Speaker 1: my dad.

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Speaker 2: What did your dad teach you about spiritual warfare and

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Speaker 2: the power of music and the gospel to counter evil.

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Speaker 1: My dad priests alon on that still does that Basically,

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Speaker 1: everything you see happening in the flesh has already happened

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Speaker 1: in the spiritual side. It plays out down here amongst

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Speaker 1: all of us, and that it's always really important to

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Speaker 1: remember that when you meet an individual that seems vile, well,

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Speaker 1: that seems violent, angry, way out of whack. He said,

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Speaker 1: look at that person and realize that is not how

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Speaker 1: they were born. They were not created to become that.

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Speaker 1: They started out as an innocent little baby. Okay, they

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Speaker 1: weren't like that. At some point in their life the

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Speaker 1: other side got a hold of them and ripped their

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Speaker 1: life to shreds. And this is how they are are now.

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Speaker 1: And you know, when you look at presidents, for instance,

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Speaker 1: my dad and I had a conversation about that before

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Speaker 1: this last election, and he says, well, if Trump wins,

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Speaker 1: it'll be an act of God, and if Trump loses,

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Speaker 1: it'll be an act of God.

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Speaker 2: I want to talk about your origin story. You leave home,

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Speaker 2: graduate high school, you go to Opry Land, right, why

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Speaker 2: Opry Lad, Why what had you gone there? And said Land,

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Speaker 2: I went as a kid multiple tire. You go, yes,

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Speaker 2: we love it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So Oppyland, for people that don't know, is a

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Speaker 1: big theme park in Nashville for a very long time

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Speaker 1: live country music, bluegrass, gospel, and they had roller coasters

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Speaker 1: and log rides and everything else. And so as I

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Speaker 1: was a senior in high school, a friend of mine says, uh,

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Speaker 1: oh look at this back when we had a newspapers, Oh,

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Speaker 1: look at this. Oppyland's having auditions. I went, oh, that's cool. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: been there one hundred times. He goes, you should audition

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Speaker 1: for that.

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Speaker 2: Huh.

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Speaker 1: I said, they're not going to hire me. He goes,

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Speaker 1: why not? I said, because you got to dance and

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Speaker 1: do all this stuff. I said. He goes, well, you know,

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Speaker 1: going to be a bunch of good looking girls there.

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Speaker 1: I said, well, no, that is true. That's a good point,

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Speaker 1: because you should just go down there. I'll go down

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Speaker 1: there with you. I said, okay, fine, So drove my

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one Dodge Dark Swinger, which I still own,

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Speaker 1: by the way, drove it down there and I auditioned.

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Speaker 2: And I got the call back with your guitar.

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Speaker 1: Just me and a guitar. That didn't make me dance

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Speaker 1: or anything. I just sang. Got the call back, came

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Speaker 1: back sang again, and they said, can you dance? And

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Speaker 1: I said I can two step. I'm from Texas. I

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Speaker 1: said I can do that, but that's about it. They go,

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Speaker 1: could you learn some stuff? I said maybe, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: They said, well, it doesn't matter, because you're hired. You're in.

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Speaker 1: So I knew halfway through my senior year I would

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Speaker 1: be working at Apeland. So that's the first time I

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Speaker 1: ever got real, a real check. I think it was

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Speaker 1: three hundred and thirty dollars a week to do Opuland,

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Speaker 1: which is where I met the guys that started the

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Speaker 1: band Lone Star.

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Speaker 2: Right Deep Dean Sean Sam Sam's how did you meet?

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Speaker 1: Well, he worked at Appyland what he had been there

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Speaker 1: several years, and I wound up on a show with

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Speaker 1: him and he heard how high I sang. I was

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Speaker 1: first tenor. I was really high, first tenor. And he said, hey,

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Speaker 1: we're putting a band together, a bunch of guys from Texas.

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Speaker 1: You're from Texas. He said, man, your voice is so high.

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Speaker 1: We need somebody that can hit those high notes. We're

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Speaker 1: going to covering modern day country music. Because at that

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Speaker 1: point he still had a lot of harmony. Rest his

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Speaker 1: heart in Alabama and all that. I said, that's cool.

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Speaker 1: He goes, you play bass, right, I said, I mean, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I can play a bass. I'm thinking, how hard can

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Speaker 1: it be? It's only got four strings? How how could

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Speaker 1: it be? The answer was no, I was not a

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Speaker 1: bass player. So he goes, great, learn these songs and

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Speaker 1: he hands me a cassette tape of the top twenty

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Speaker 1: I think the first twenty out of the top forty

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Speaker 1: country songs of that week. So we're we're going to

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Speaker 1: have a little get together this weekend. So I called

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Speaker 1: a friend of mine who was a pro bass player.

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Speaker 1: I said, can you show me how to play bass

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Speaker 1: on all these songs this week? And by the way,

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Speaker 1: can I borrow a bass and a cable and an amp?

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Speaker 1: He goes, sure, I can show you how to do it.

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Speaker 1: So he goes, here's the technique, and here's it. So

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Speaker 1: I spent eight nine hours a day leading up to

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Speaker 1: that little rehearsal with my thumb you're supposed to play it,

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Speaker 1: I play it like this now, doing this, trying to

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Speaker 1: find all the notes. And went to the rehearsal and

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Speaker 1: they said, okay, you can stay in the band because

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Speaker 1: you can sing higher than Richie McDonald, which was the

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Speaker 1: lead singer. But you got to get better at the base.

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Speaker 1: You can't stay in the band. I said, you got it.

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Speaker 1: And that's what really made me not go to college,

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Speaker 1: because the guys called up and said, hey, we got

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Speaker 1: a booking agent that can put us on a road

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Speaker 1: for about two hundred dates this year. I said, I'm

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Speaker 1: supposed to go to college. I said, I've got a

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Speaker 1: full ride scholarship to Belmont University on a vocal scholarship.

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Speaker 1: They go, well, you're gonna have to pick. And I

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Speaker 1: went to my dad and I said, I don't think

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Speaker 1: I'm going to go to college this year. He went,

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Speaker 1: do what I said? He said, what are you going

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Speaker 1: to do? Instead of that? I said, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: get in a van pulling a trailer with a bunch

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Speaker 1: of guys who are ten and fifteen years older than me,

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Speaker 1: and we're going to go play holiday in lounges, rodeos

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Speaker 1: and casinos. This is the dad who preaches at Marty Grass.

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Speaker 2: So this is this world.

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Speaker 1: But you have signs now. I can't even imagine the

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Speaker 1: pit in his that must have given him. But he said,

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Speaker 1: what's your ultimate goal? I said, MultiMate goal is I

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Speaker 1: want to write hit songs beyond country radio and play

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Speaker 1: the grand O Library. I don't know how going to

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Speaker 1: college is going to do that. He goes, it won't

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Speaker 1: I said, So he goes, that's what you think you

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Speaker 1: need to do. You're grown man. I was eighteen. You're

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Speaker 1: grown man. So that's what I did. I took off

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Speaker 1: on the road and never look back.

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Speaker 2: And you have a number one hit. Of course not

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Speaker 2: long thereafter.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, come crying to me hit number one? That's my

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Speaker 1: first number one?

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Speaker 2: How did that come to be?

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Speaker 1: So in Nashville, when you get a record deal back

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Speaker 1: then you would get a de facto publishing deal. Because

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Speaker 1: you have a record deal, you get a default publishing deal.

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Speaker 1: And when that happens, they'll take these greenhorn songwriters like

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Speaker 1: me and sit you in the room with Hall of famers,

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Speaker 1: I mean, like the greatest country songwriter minds that have

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Speaker 1: ever existed. And you're sitting in the room with them,

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Speaker 1: and they're trying to write songs to get on your

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Speaker 1: new record. That's the point. And they figured if one

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Speaker 1: of the guys in the band is a writer on

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Speaker 1: to he'll vouch for the song. We got a better show,

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Speaker 1: shoot into the album, right, So I got to sit

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Speaker 1: in the room with all these guys, and I guess

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Speaker 1: by just really watching them in Osmosis, I started getting

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Speaker 1: a lot better. And so Come Crying to Me was

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Speaker 1: actually a co write. It was a three way, right,

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Speaker 1: so it was me and two established songwriters, but it

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Speaker 1: was my title and I had the thing going. I

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Speaker 1: was always walking with an idea started and they go,

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Speaker 1: that's a really good idea, that's write that. Why not

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Speaker 1: being my first number one?

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Speaker 2: Wow? What did you learn from them that you didn't

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Speaker 2: know before sitting in that room because you always picked great.

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Speaker 2: I mean, when you're working with people at the top

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Speaker 2: of the game. I always tell my kids, you really

317
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Speaker 2: want to know how this works. Go find the best

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Speaker 2: people in this gameit next to them, clean their their

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Speaker 2: toilets or offices, do whatever you need to do to

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Speaker 2: be near them.

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Speaker 1: Yes, do not hang out with people that are at

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Speaker 1: your level. If you can keep from it. You know,

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Speaker 1: you can say all day, well, I'm really good compared

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Speaker 1: to this one, this one and that one and that one. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but are you pretty good compared to Johnny Cash? Right? No,

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Speaker 1: and you never will, but you're pretty good compared to

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Speaker 1: George Jones. No, okay, then keep their faces on the

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Speaker 1: wall when you're writing, which is what I have at

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Speaker 1: my house. What you learn from pro country songwriters is

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Speaker 1: which is what I know now and how I do it.

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Speaker 1: And if you listen to my songs, you'll hear this

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Speaker 1: play out. The first line of the song better get

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Speaker 1: your attention. I mean, right out of the gate, you

334
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Speaker 1: better say something bang, gotcha. That way they'll hear the

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Speaker 1: second line and the third, and really you want every

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Speaker 1: line in the song to be a standalone thought. I'm

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Speaker 1: I'm a still picture songwriter. So some people saw all

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Speaker 1: different styles. But some people like to write, you know,

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Speaker 1: some chronological story and that's fine too. I love those songs.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: For me, ninety percent of what I write would be

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Speaker 1: I'm sitting here with you. I take a mental picture

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Speaker 1: of this room, and I write what's happening in that room,

344
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Speaker 1: so you could literally watch the picture and listen to

345
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Speaker 1: the song and be in the picture. I write in pictures,

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Speaker 1: I try to put you in the spot, make you

347
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Speaker 1: smell it, feel it, taste it. I want you to

348
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Speaker 1: feel what's going on in this situation of the lyrics,

349
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Speaker 1: so almost voyeuristic to a degree. I've been able to

350
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Speaker 1: write songs for other people. Faith Hill said, I wish

351
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Speaker 1: you'd write me a song. Said, I'd love to write

352
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Speaker 1: your song. Faith, What do you want to sing about?

353
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Speaker 2: Mississippi? Being for Mississippi?

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Speaker 1: You know, you know my history? You did your homework? Well, yeah,

355
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Speaker 1: she says, I said, what do you want to sing about?

356
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Speaker 1: She goes, I don't know, write a song where it

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Speaker 1: would only make sense if I sang it. No other

358
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Speaker 1: girl singer could even sing it. What do you make

359
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Speaker 1: sense for them? I went, well, that's quite a homework assignment. Okay,

360
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Speaker 1: all right, let me think about it. So we're right

361
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Speaker 1: on tour with Tim McGraw at the time, and Faith

362
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Speaker 1: was out there. And during the day you see Faith

363
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Speaker 1: Hill back in the back parking lots by the tour buses,

364
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Speaker 1: flip flops, cut off jeans, ball cap, sipping a corona,

365
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Speaker 1: got her kids playing at a kiddie pool, I mean,

366
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Speaker 1: just mom. And then the concert hits and Faith comes

367
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Speaker 1: walking off the bus in an evening gown and diamond

368
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Speaker 1: earrings and her hair's all done and she's singing, It's

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Speaker 1: your love with him, growing kind of thirty thousand people

370
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Speaker 1: and five minutes later, she's right back in the parking

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Speaker 1: lot with her flip flops ball cap. I said, that's

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Speaker 1: what the fans don't know about Faith, because she had

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Speaker 1: been doing some Hollywood movies at that point, and a

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Speaker 1: lot of the fans said, oh, she's gone Hollywood. She's

375
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Speaker 1: forgot about where she came from. So I said, I'm

376
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Speaker 1: gonna write a song about where she comes from. So

377
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Speaker 1: the first line of the song, it's a long way

378
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Speaker 1: from Star, Mississippi, her hometown, to the big stage. I'm

379
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Speaker 1: singing on a night. So Martina can't sing that. She

380
00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:29,520
Speaker 1: and I can't sing that. Gretchen can't sing that, Riba

381
00:18:29,560 --> 00:18:31,920
Speaker 1: can't sing that because none of those people are from Star,

382
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Speaker 1: see what I mean. Yeah, So there's approaches that I've

383
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Speaker 1: taken to songs, all various approaches, but in general, it's

384
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Speaker 1: writing in pictures.

385
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Speaker 2: Gretchen Wilson. Then you write red neck woman Forgreting right,

386
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Speaker 2: Wilson after the fall?

387
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Speaker 1: That would know it was right before Faith. Faith came

388
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Speaker 1: to me because she heard you heard that one. She said,

389
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Speaker 1: I want a red neck woman for me. I need

390
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Speaker 1: my song.

391
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Speaker 2: I don't blame her, she's got a good ear.

392
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was it was quite a challenge.

393
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Speaker 2: And I wouldn't take you back. What happened with Long Star?

394
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Speaker 2: They boot you out of the band?

395
00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:04,680
Speaker 1: Yes, they did? Why because I deserved it? Why because

396
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Speaker 1: I was a real ass and it's hard to deal with.

397
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Speaker 2: Man, Why were you so difficult? You're feeling your road?

398
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Speaker 2: You got number one hit right out the gate right? Yes?

399
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Speaker 1: And when you grow up? So I grew up in

400
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Speaker 1: a double wide trailer Emerald, Texas. We didn't miss meals,

401
00:19:23,280 --> 00:19:27,800
Speaker 1: but it wasn't any extra laying around, and a lot

402
00:19:27,880 --> 00:19:30,000
Speaker 1: of people around me had said not my dad, but

403
00:19:30,119 --> 00:19:33,760
Speaker 1: others were down on me, down on me all the time.

404
00:19:33,880 --> 00:19:37,320
Speaker 1: Growing up, I was very as you can imagine, headstrong kid.

405
00:19:38,880 --> 00:19:42,480
Speaker 1: And when I finally broke through and made it to

406
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Speaker 1: the other side and had started having real big success

407
00:19:44,960 --> 00:19:49,080
Speaker 1: like that, I took success like a hammer, and anybody

408
00:19:49,160 --> 00:19:51,199
Speaker 1: that had ever messed with me, I just whack them

409
00:19:51,240 --> 00:19:53,520
Speaker 1: in ahead with it. By the way I would talk,

410
00:19:53,640 --> 00:19:56,040
Speaker 1: the way I would live, the way what I would drive,

411
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Speaker 1: how I would present myself, what I would say in

412
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Speaker 1: a meeting, what I would say on a microphone. I mean,

413
00:20:02,280 --> 00:20:05,960
Speaker 1: just one hundred percent totally engrossed with my own arrogance

414
00:20:07,040 --> 00:20:09,639
Speaker 1: and so. At one point the band just said, you

415
00:20:09,720 --> 00:20:12,120
Speaker 1: know what, we've had just but enough of you. Think

416
00:20:12,119 --> 00:20:15,840
Speaker 1: it's time for you to go wow, which sucked because

417
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Speaker 1: the very next song they put out was Amazed Yeah,

418
00:20:18,960 --> 00:20:21,560
Speaker 1: one of their biggest songs in country. And I was

419
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Speaker 1: sitting at home in my little apartment that I no

420
00:20:23,680 --> 00:20:25,720
Speaker 1: longer could pay for because I just lost my income,

421
00:20:25,920 --> 00:20:28,440
Speaker 1: lost my record deal, and lost my what publishing deal

422
00:20:28,480 --> 00:20:30,720
Speaker 1: because by the fault you get the pub deal lost

423
00:20:30,800 --> 00:20:34,280
Speaker 1: them both lost. The management lost a business manager, lost

424
00:20:34,320 --> 00:20:36,840
Speaker 1: the shows on the road, lost all of it. Boom,

425
00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:38,880
Speaker 1: just like that in a phone call. So I'm sitting

426
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Speaker 1: at home watching my old band except the award for Amazed.

427
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Speaker 2: And so and you thought what when you watched it? Oh?

428
00:20:46,200 --> 00:20:53,239
Speaker 1: I was viciously upset at them initially and then started realizing, well,

429
00:20:53,280 --> 00:20:55,840
Speaker 1: I would have fired me too. I would have fired me.

430
00:20:56,440 --> 00:20:59,520
Speaker 1: I deserved being fired over that. So I thought, well,

431
00:20:59,560 --> 00:21:02,680
Speaker 1: now would have I do? Maybe I can get a

432
00:21:02,720 --> 00:21:05,359
Speaker 1: solo record deal. I got one, you got one. I

433
00:21:05,480 --> 00:21:07,760
Speaker 1: got one and it flopped, put out two songs and

434
00:21:07,840 --> 00:21:09,680
Speaker 1: neither one of them hit. So I lost that deal.

435
00:21:10,040 --> 00:21:12,280
Speaker 1: Now I'm a two time loser. I got kicked out

436
00:21:12,280 --> 00:21:15,080
Speaker 1: of a band, my solo deal failed, and in country music,

437
00:21:15,160 --> 00:21:17,520
Speaker 1: that's a big deal. If you can't hit your radio

438
00:21:17,640 --> 00:21:20,879
Speaker 1: goes now he tried, it didn't work. Next, I mean,

439
00:21:20,960 --> 00:21:24,160
Speaker 1: it is just like that. It was at that point

440
00:21:24,359 --> 00:21:26,960
Speaker 1: I got some really good advice from a couple of

441
00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:29,600
Speaker 1: the older songwriters, and they said, listen, when everything is

442
00:21:29,640 --> 00:21:32,800
Speaker 1: out out of your control, find the one thing you

443
00:21:32,880 --> 00:21:37,920
Speaker 1: can still control and control it well. They said, that

444
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:41,359
Speaker 1: could be what you're eating, how many pushups did you

445
00:21:41,480 --> 00:21:45,159
Speaker 1: do today, whatever, Find what you can still control and

446
00:21:45,200 --> 00:21:47,200
Speaker 1: control it well. Well, for me, that was a pencil

447
00:21:47,280 --> 00:21:47,880
Speaker 1: and a piece.

448
00:21:47,680 --> 00:21:50,119
Speaker 2: Of paper, writing back to your core writing.

449
00:21:50,359 --> 00:21:52,399
Speaker 1: So in the course of about four or five years,

450
00:21:52,880 --> 00:21:57,399
Speaker 1: I wrote around seven to eight hundred songs because you

451
00:21:57,400 --> 00:22:00,360
Speaker 1: couldn't stop me from writing, and I write on every

452
00:22:00,400 --> 00:22:00,840
Speaker 1: single day.

453
00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:02,680
Speaker 2: All were making ends meet. What were you doing?

454
00:22:04,119 --> 00:22:05,960
Speaker 1: There was still a little bit of money coming in

455
00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:07,960
Speaker 1: from come crying to me and a couple of other things,

456
00:22:08,040 --> 00:22:09,760
Speaker 1: but that's about it. That's about it.

457
00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:10,159
Speaker 2: It was.

458
00:22:10,359 --> 00:22:13,520
Speaker 1: It was burning down then. And then I meet Big Kitty,

459
00:22:13,600 --> 00:22:16,080
Speaker 1: which I know you're gonna ask about, and he was

460
00:22:16,200 --> 00:22:18,520
Speaker 1: kind of the same thing where he was just writing

461
00:22:18,560 --> 00:22:22,359
Speaker 1: every single day and misunderstood by the industry. You know,

462
00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:26,480
Speaker 1: my anglic country music was ac DC was a banjo player.

463
00:22:27,560 --> 00:22:29,640
Speaker 1: That's what it sounded like. That's what I wanted to sound.

464
00:22:30,280 --> 00:22:30,440
Speaker 2: You know.

465
00:22:30,480 --> 00:22:32,720
Speaker 1: I wanted to do save orts, ride a cowboy, lone Star,

466
00:22:32,760 --> 00:22:35,480
Speaker 1: wanted to do mister Mom. They want to do love

467
00:22:35,600 --> 00:22:38,280
Speaker 1: songs and family songs. I wanted to do stuff that

468
00:22:38,359 --> 00:22:43,920
Speaker 1: make the college campus. Yea. So controlling what I could

469
00:22:44,040 --> 00:22:47,280
Speaker 1: control in that time period. None of those songs got

470
00:22:47,320 --> 00:22:49,879
Speaker 1: recorded in that span of time. But the second Big

471
00:22:50,000 --> 00:22:53,120
Speaker 1: and Rich and Gretchen hit al Dean also hit, which

472
00:22:53,119 --> 00:22:55,639
Speaker 1: I wrote four number ones on his first record, and

473
00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:58,280
Speaker 1: then the whole city starts coming to me and goes,

474
00:22:58,320 --> 00:22:59,960
Speaker 1: you got any more songs like these? I go, yeah,

475
00:23:00,119 --> 00:23:03,159
Speaker 1: here's nine hundred. Here you go, you're giving them. So

476
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:06,080
Speaker 1: there was just a raid on my catalog where everybody

477
00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:07,959
Speaker 1: wanted to cut those kinds of songs, and so all

478
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:10,040
Speaker 1: the stuff I've been stockpiling now is valuable.

479
00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:12,480
Speaker 2: So what's the lesson for people who find themselves in

480
00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:17,520
Speaker 2: those positions, those predicaments where God maybe hitting you across

481
00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:20,800
Speaker 2: the head was two by four? Yeah, just to reorient

482
00:23:20,960 --> 00:23:22,920
Speaker 2: you do what you can control.

483
00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:25,800
Speaker 1: Is that the lesson boil it down to the simplest

484
00:23:25,840 --> 00:23:27,960
Speaker 1: thing that you can still control. And it could, like

485
00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:30,000
Speaker 1: I said, it could be what you're eating every day.

486
00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:33,000
Speaker 1: It could be that you're going to call your mother

487
00:23:33,160 --> 00:23:35,639
Speaker 1: every day, it could be whatever it's going to be.

488
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:38,320
Speaker 1: You go find a charity you're going to want to

489
00:23:38,359 --> 00:23:39,919
Speaker 1: go work with, and go do the best you can

490
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:44,080
Speaker 1: at that you basically start rebuilding yourself. What you'll find

491
00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:46,920
Speaker 1: is when you get that next opportunity, which you will,

492
00:23:47,440 --> 00:23:50,119
Speaker 1: because opportunities continue to come for people that continue to

493
00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:52,879
Speaker 1: push right all that stuff that you screwed up, and

494
00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:56,159
Speaker 1: those first times come to bear again and you go,

495
00:23:56,320 --> 00:23:58,560
Speaker 1: oh yeah, not going to be that guy this time.

496
00:23:58,760 --> 00:24:00,840
Speaker 1: I'm going to be this guy. And that's a never

497
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:01,719
Speaker 1: ending pass.

498
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:03,520
Speaker 2: I love that story. I mean I read about this

499
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:08,920
Speaker 2: that you're rebuilding, but you're also you're quietly and maybe

500
00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:12,920
Speaker 2: unbeknownst to you, rebuilding the future because in that, in

501
00:24:13,040 --> 00:24:17,639
Speaker 2: the panic, in the loss, in the hurt, you found

502
00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:18,520
Speaker 2: why you were here.

503
00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 1: Well there's gone. When you're that upset and now you're

504
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:25,680
Speaker 1: embarrassed in front of the whole industry and your money

505
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:30,879
Speaker 1: is gone. Two ways to go, one drink, your face

506
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:33,600
Speaker 1: off twenty four hours a day and wind back up

507
00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:36,080
Speaker 1: down on Broadway playing in a bar somewhere as the

508
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:38,040
Speaker 1: guy who used to be in Lone Star. And that's

509
00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:39,680
Speaker 1: your claim to fame for the rest of your life.

510
00:24:40,600 --> 00:24:42,119
Speaker 2: A lot of people do they make that out of

511
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 2: that path?

512
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:46,640
Speaker 1: Oh, a lot of them. The other is to drill

513
00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:49,040
Speaker 1: back down into what got you in the game of

514
00:24:49,080 --> 00:24:51,920
Speaker 1: the first place. What's your original goals? Go back to

515
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:54,440
Speaker 1: piece of paper and a pencil. Cheapest thing in the world.

516
00:24:54,480 --> 00:24:55,159
Speaker 1: Everybody has that.

517
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 2: How did you and Big Kenny meet? How did you meet?

518
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:01,920
Speaker 2: And why did the partnership work.

519
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:06,720
Speaker 1: There was a girl that worked for Fender Guitars named

520
00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:11,919
Speaker 1: Cindy Simmons, and back then, Cindy's job she was an

521
00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:13,879
Speaker 1: artist rep. So her job was to find up and

522
00:25:13,920 --> 00:25:16,919
Speaker 1: coming singers that she thought might get a record deal

523
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:19,119
Speaker 1: or might and get them early and say, oh, I

524
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: see you're playing that nothing to get your guitar, but

525
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:24,879
Speaker 1: that's not a great guitar, and they go, that's all

526
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 1: I could afford. She goes, how about if I get

527
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:28,720
Speaker 1: you a brand new Fender guitar and they go what

528
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:31,560
Speaker 1: She'd go, here you go? And she tried to get

529
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:33,640
Speaker 1: them to play fenders and then when they hopefully they'd

530
00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:35,720
Speaker 1: go hit almost like venture cap right. I can give

531
00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:37,400
Speaker 1: it to one hundred artists, three of them get deals

532
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 1: and they're playing fenders. So she had done that with

533
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 1: me and done that with Big Kenny, and we didn't

534
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:43,880
Speaker 1: know each other. She knew the two of us separately

535
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 1: and had told him and told me about the other,

536
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:49,320
Speaker 1: and hit me up one night and said, hey, Big

537
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:53,800
Speaker 1: Kenny is playing a show down at Douglas Corner. I said, okay,

538
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:56,119
Speaker 1: I'm going to be down here. Come on down here.

539
00:25:56,440 --> 00:25:58,320
Speaker 1: I want you to hear him. I said, can I

540
00:25:58,359 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 1: ask you a question? I said, is he big and fat?

541
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:05,719
Speaker 1: Big and loud, big and tall. That's the dunnest thing

542
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 1: I've ever heard. Why is he called that? She goes,

543
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:11,159
Speaker 1: just come see him and you'll it'll make sense when

544
00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:13,080
Speaker 1: you see a show. I said, okay, fine, So I

545
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:15,720
Speaker 1: go down and sure enough, he walks out on stagers.

546
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:18,679
Speaker 1: He is tall, he's about six y four, but all

547
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:22,399
Speaker 1: his hair and he's going everybody. He's like Willie Walker,

548
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:26,119
Speaker 1: and I was like, what is that. Hagrid didn't like

549
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:29,960
Speaker 1: him at all. I'm like, that's a strange individual. I

550
00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:32,160
Speaker 1: wonder what he sings like. And then I hear about

551
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:34,359
Speaker 1: sixty minutes of his set and I went, I don't

552
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:35,560
Speaker 1: know what I just heard, but that was some of

553
00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 1: the most creative things I've ever heard somebody.

554
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:38,120
Speaker 2: Right.

555
00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:40,959
Speaker 1: So when it was over, walked up to him, Hey man,

556
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 1: I'm Johnny goes, oh, hey, I've heard about you, right,

557
00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:45,960
Speaker 1: and he goes Cindy says, we ought to write a

558
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 1: song because what are you doing tomorrow morning? I go,

559
00:26:48,560 --> 00:26:51,280
Speaker 1: I'm not doing anything. He goes, well, you want to

560
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:52,720
Speaker 1: come over to my house and write a song, so

561
00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:54,959
Speaker 1: she'll leave us alone. Basically, I said, yeah, I'll come over.

562
00:26:55,400 --> 00:26:57,920
Speaker 1: We wrote that next day. That was October of ninety nine.

563
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:01,560
Speaker 1: Next day, we wrote again, next day, next day, next day,

564
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 1: and we have written hundreds and hundreds of songs. And

565
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:06,600
Speaker 1: as a joke, people started calling us big and rich.

566
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:09,320
Speaker 1: We'd show up at somewhere late at night to come

567
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:11,200
Speaker 1: hang out and go, oh look it's big and rich.

568
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:11,480
Speaker 2: Ha ha.

569
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:13,479
Speaker 1: That's where that came from.

570
00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:14,640
Speaker 2: That's where it came from. Yeah.

571
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 1: So Kenny is Kenny and are really polar opposites on

572
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:23,680
Speaker 1: many many things, including creatively, and so what's interesting about

573
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 1: that is I'll come at you with a straight line,

574
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 1: and he's coming at you with flowers. So, like I said,

575
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 1: Kenny likes to smell the flowers and I like to

576
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:34,919
Speaker 1: mow him down. But when you lock those two together,

577
00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:37,400
Speaker 1: what do you get, Raymond get? You get a three

578
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:40,160
Speaker 1: sixty view at the whole song, at the whole subject

579
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 1: that you're writing, whether it's a love song, party song,

580
00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:46,360
Speaker 1: whatever song. So that that locking in of the two

581
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 1: opposites like that have really created something.

582
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:51,159
Speaker 2: So I know it's hard to describe why partnership were

583
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:54,200
Speaker 2: a creative partnership works. It's always hard. I mean I

584
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 2: remember talking to Jerry Lewis about why he and Dean

585
00:27:56,560 --> 00:27:59,720
Speaker 2: Martin worked right, and he knew but he didn't know.

586
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 2: M h, how would you why does this partnership work?

587
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:06,879
Speaker 1: I would take that answer. I would say, you know,

588
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:09,680
Speaker 1: but you don't know. One of the reasons that prop

589
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 1: Jerry said it was love. Well, okay, I would say

590
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:16,359
Speaker 1: on between Kenny and I, it's mass respect for the

591
00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:22,640
Speaker 1: other person's competency and ability and creative energy. I don't

592
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:24,680
Speaker 1: have what he has and he does not have what

593
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:27,200
Speaker 1: I have, and we both know that. You know, It's

594
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: like in a relationship. If you're both the same, one

595
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:32,480
Speaker 1: of you is irrelevant. That goes for marriage to That

596
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:35,399
Speaker 1: is exactly right, you know, it's the opposite's a track. Well,

597
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:37,879
Speaker 1: that's a real thing. I mean, you want to be

598
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 1: strong where they're not, and you want them strong where

599
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 1: you're not. And I think even though you know, we've

600
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:45,800
Speaker 1: disagreed over the years strongly on a lot of different things,

601
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:50,120
Speaker 1: like what we've disagreed on political things, We've disagreed on

602
00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:53,680
Speaker 1: musical things, business moves. You can imagine it's a duo.

603
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 2: Man, it's hard.

604
00:28:56,080 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 1: Both have to agree or it does not happen. Right,

605
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 1: And so if you had, you know, three people, or

606
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 1: it's a band like lone star, majority rules. There's no

607
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 1: majority in a duo, yeah, right, it's one in partnership. Yeah,

608
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:11,520
Speaker 1: but throughout Now you're looking at twenty years since our

609
00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 1: first record came out, came out in two thousand and four.

610
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 2: Amazing.

611
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: We're still on the road doing fifty sixty cities a year.

612
00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 1: The crowds are, I would argue, maybe bigger than they

613
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 1: were back in the day. You know, all our original

614
00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 1: fans are all still there and now it's their kids

615
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:28,840
Speaker 1: are all coming out. You got college girls hanging out

616
00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:31,880
Speaker 1: with their moms going save of Ours right again, loving it,

617
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 1: and then the Patriot crowd from songs like Eighth of

618
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:38,920
Speaker 1: November Right. It's just massive at our shows. So I

619
00:29:38,960 --> 00:29:41,720
Speaker 1: think we're a good example of how Americans ought to

620
00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:44,719
Speaker 1: try to be. Me and Big Kenny, are you get

621
00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 1: your first record deal? You had to be worried about

622
00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:49,720
Speaker 1: that first record coming off of what you would.

623
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:50,040
Speaker 2: Come off of.

624
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 1: Well, the whole music industry, except for one guy, said,

625
00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 1: big and rich music is what is that? I mean,

626
00:29:57,600 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 1: is this a clown show? What are you guys trying

627
00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 1: to do? I mean, first of all, John kicked out

628
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 1: a loan star, his solo deal totally failed. And what

629
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 1: is a Big Kenny? I mean really, And you've got

630
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:11,880
Speaker 1: a big black, rapping cowboy cowboy Troy who at that

631
00:30:11,960 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 1: points working at foot locker in Dallas, Texas. They're like, guys,

632
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 1: it sounds like a lot of fun. Enjoy playing that

633
00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 1: in the bars. That was everybody's answer except one guy

634
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: named Paul Whirley. And Paul Whirley is one of the

635
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 1: best record producers, guitar players it's ever been, highly creative guy.

636
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:32,760
Speaker 1: He signed the Dixie chicks and a bunch of other

637
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:35,880
Speaker 1: He was producer Martina McBride, and he heard about us

638
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 1: at a jam we were doing called the Music Mafia,

639
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:40,600
Speaker 1: where Paul's daughter Ashley had started coming to these On

640
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:44,040
Speaker 1: Music Mafia, seventy eighty people crammed into a room on

641
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 1: Tuesday nights, me and Kenny and other artists that we

642
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:48,800
Speaker 1: knew that nobody had a record deal. We would jam

643
00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 1: and Paul came down and saw that. He goes, you, guys,

644
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:55,120
Speaker 1: want to come to my office tomorrow. I just became

645
00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:59,000
Speaker 1: the president of Warner Brothers Records last week. We went, yeah,

646
00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 1: we'd love to come to your office. We're thinking we're

647
00:31:00,560 --> 00:31:02,920
Speaker 1: going to pitch him a song for somebody. We get

648
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 1: in his office, he goes, no, I want to talk

649
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:08,040
Speaker 1: about Big and Rich. I think that's a thing. We

650
00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:10,240
Speaker 1: go to his office and he said, play me some

651
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:12,760
Speaker 1: songs that you would play if you had your own record.

652
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:15,280
Speaker 1: So we started playing those songs and he goes, he

653
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:17,440
Speaker 1: slams his hand out on the table. He goes, boys,

654
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:20,480
Speaker 1: I want to do this. Kenny goes, you want to

655
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 1: do what? He goes, I want to sign Big and

656
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: Rich to Warner Brothers Records. And I looked at Kenny,

657
00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: I said, are you hearing this? He goes, are you

658
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 1: serious right now? And he goes, yeah, I want to

659
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:31,160
Speaker 1: do it, And we went well, all right, and we

660
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:33,640
Speaker 1: high fived, ho was it? And off to the races.

661
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:37,560
Speaker 1: So he was short of him seeing that there was

662
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 1: something there. I doubt you'd have ever heard of us.

663
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:42,800
Speaker 2: Horse of a different colors at first time? Right. They

664
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 2: fought you though on Oh they including some of your

665
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:46,560
Speaker 2: biggest hit.

666
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:50,680
Speaker 1: The industry hated that record. Why because it didn't sound

667
00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:53,400
Speaker 1: like anything that had ever happened. And Nashville goes through

668
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 1: these phases. I think it's in one right now. It

669
00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:58,360
Speaker 1: starts trying to break out where it sounds like they

670
00:31:58,400 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 1: all went to the school of redundant.

671
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 2: See school, you mean the truck I left my truck

672
00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:03,480
Speaker 2: running school.

673
00:32:03,680 --> 00:32:08,040
Speaker 1: I mean, same tempo, same court progressions, everybody looks the same,

674
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 1: the storylines are all the same. And it's kind of

675
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:13,720
Speaker 1: gotten back into that. There's a few breakouts starting to

676
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:15,720
Speaker 1: push out now. But at this point country music, that's

677
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:18,760
Speaker 1: where it was at that point, and they said, you

678
00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:22,040
Speaker 1: don't fit on country radio. What are you even singing about?

679
00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:25,400
Speaker 1: I mean, really, you guys writ songs based off of

680
00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 1: bumper stickers you saw, which is exactly what save worst

681
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:30,720
Speaker 1: RD A Cowboy was, what, oh, he has a bumper sticker?

682
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:32,040
Speaker 2: You saw a bumper sticker.

683
00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 1: This friend of ours saw it, yeah, and said that'd

684
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:35,560
Speaker 1: be a funny song.

685
00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:35,840
Speaker 2: Right.

686
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:38,959
Speaker 1: We're like, yeah, it would be a funny song. Let

687
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:40,520
Speaker 1: me go right, And it was a funny and it

688
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 1: is a funny song.

689
00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 2: But they said, no, don't do it. They said this

690
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 2: wouldn't This is saying to trivialize you.

691
00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:49,520
Speaker 1: If you put this on the record, guys, nobody's going

692
00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:52,600
Speaker 1: to take you seriously. And we said, but yeah. When

693
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 1: we played at Music Mafia, people go nuts. They're like, okay,

694
00:32:57,640 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 1: we'll put it on the record. We'll just bury it

695
00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 1: in the track out. We'll put it at track seven

696
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:03,680
Speaker 1: or eight. It's not going to be a single though,

697
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 1: that's fine. Just let us put it on the record.

698
00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:08,040
Speaker 1: So we put the record out. A song called wild

699
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:10,840
Speaker 1: West Show was our first single, and when that single

700
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 1: came out, the whole record became available, so fans started

701
00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:16,120
Speaker 1: buying a record. Next thing you know, radio stations are

702
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: getting hey, can you play track seven on the horse

703
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 1: of a different color record on Drive Time. On Friday, Wow,

704
00:33:23,360 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 1: a station in Florida played it one time. Phones exploded

705
00:33:26,560 --> 00:33:28,560
Speaker 1: and we went. The record label goes, well, I guess

706
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:30,800
Speaker 1: it's going to be the single A single vout. Thank goodness,

707
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 1: because if we walked out and didn't play save Ors

708
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 1: RD a Cowboy, they'd be throwing stuff at us. You know,

709
00:33:36,800 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 1: how do you write?

710
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 2: And where do you write?

711
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 1: Well? I write for various You say, how.

712
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:46,240
Speaker 2: Do I write? You know, I like to be in

713
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:47,840
Speaker 2: my room. I like quiet. I don't like a lot

714
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 2: of noise when I write. But I'm not writing music right,

715
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:53,080
Speaker 2: So where do you go? Do you have to be

716
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 2: in a place so you write wherever you are.

717
00:33:56,360 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 1: I sat next to Tom Petty one time in La

718
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:02,200
Speaker 1: at the ASCAP Expo, which is a huge songwriters deal.

719
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 1: It was usher, Tom Petty and me. I'm the country

720
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:08,640
Speaker 1: guy on the panel, and a lady asked Tom Petty

721
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 1: from the audience, mister Petty, how do you get your

722
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:14,720
Speaker 1: ideas for your songs?

723
00:34:15,160 --> 00:34:17,880
Speaker 2: I didn't ask you that one. I know, bumper sticker.

724
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:22,719
Speaker 1: He's leaning back in his chair. He goes, well, I

725
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:25,279
Speaker 1: just stick my antenna there as far as it'll go

726
00:34:25,520 --> 00:34:29,400
Speaker 1: and wait for a song to drift across it. Then

727
00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 1: he just stopped talking. The whole place went Okay, start laughing,

728
00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:35,120
Speaker 1: yay Tom. And I heard that answer, I went, that

729
00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:37,880
Speaker 1: is not far off from exactly how it is. I

730
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 1: don't know what it is in a songwriter's brain, but

731
00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 1: you don't just walk around thinking about songs all the time.

732
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:46,759
Speaker 1: But there is a spot that if you give me

733
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:49,200
Speaker 1: three or four minutes, it's almost like you can turn

734
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:51,680
Speaker 1: a key and it opens up. I always point to

735
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 1: this down in my head. It feels like they come

736
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 1: out of here for some reason, but all of a

737
00:34:55,239 --> 00:34:58,120
Speaker 1: sudden it opens up and you as a songwriter, I

738
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 1: will hear melodies, rhythms, lyrics, all kinds of stuff. It's

739
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:04,879
Speaker 1: almost like a faucet. Turn it on and turn it off,

740
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:06,840
Speaker 1: turn it on. Every now and then one will hit

741
00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:10,719
Speaker 1: me so hard that I wasn't in the frame of

742
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:12,960
Speaker 1: mind to write a song, and it will literally just

743
00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:16,840
Speaker 1: come into my head like as loud as you can imagine.

744
00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:19,960
Speaker 1: And that doesn't happen very often. It happened with a

745
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:23,279
Speaker 1: song called Revelation. That's when you grab a guitar off

746
00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 1: the wall and tell everybody, Okay, I'm going off in

747
00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: another room. I need an hour and get your pencil

748
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 1: out and you get to going out.

749
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:31,719
Speaker 2: But you write Alonge, you like quiet when you write,

750
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:32,799
Speaker 2: when you're working the song.

751
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:35,320
Speaker 1: I'm working now, I gotta be by myself.

752
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:37,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, what I figured.

753
00:35:37,200 --> 00:35:40,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you're you're wrestling with your own thoughts.

754
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:44,759
Speaker 2: You know, is it harder writing for others when you

755
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 2: write woman or easier? I mean you're a for Taylor

756
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:48,319
Speaker 2: Swift as well.

757
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, easier writing for somebody else because you can see

758
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:54,759
Speaker 1: the whole person. I think for you, you can't see me.

759
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:57,279
Speaker 2: It's harder writing I can see you.

760
00:35:58,000 --> 00:35:59,320
Speaker 1: You want me to write a song about you and

761
00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:01,960
Speaker 1: about this podcast on I can do that for you

762
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:03,839
Speaker 1: in about ten minutes. I can have you a song

763
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 1: ready to go, a new royal ground think so I

764
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:08,040
Speaker 1: can see you, I can hear you. I know what

765
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:09,960
Speaker 1: you're about. I know what the point of this is.

766
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:12,319
Speaker 1: But if you're writing it from your own perspective, man,

767
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 1: that's a deep spot to go to because you're there's

768
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:17,160
Speaker 1: nobody to bounce it off of and you're just you're

769
00:36:17,200 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 1: wrestling with your own thoughts. What am I feeling about

770
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:21,640
Speaker 1: this subject that I need to get on the paper

771
00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:22,800
Speaker 1: as strongly as possible.

772
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 2: We'll return to John Rich in a second. When John

773
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:29,320
Speaker 2: agreed to join us, it got me thinking about another

774
00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:33,319
Speaker 2: singer who stuck to his guns. This story has its

775
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:36,319
Speaker 2: own lessons, and wait until you hear how it ends.

776
00:36:37,160 --> 00:36:41,319
Speaker 2: George Harvey loved ranching in his native Texas, but when

777
00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:43,960
Speaker 2: he joined the army, his whole life changed. In nineteen

778
00:36:44,040 --> 00:36:47,360
Speaker 2: seventy one, he was sent to a base in Hawaii

779
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:50,880
Speaker 2: and an army general put together a country band to

780
00:36:51,080 --> 00:36:54,720
Speaker 2: entertain the troops. He cast George as the lead singer.

781
00:36:55,640 --> 00:36:58,439
Speaker 2: It was the first time he had ever sung country music,

782
00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:02,520
Speaker 2: and he thought it of suited him. In college, George

783
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:05,759
Speaker 2: Harvey assembled his own band, Stony Ridge. They were called

784
00:37:06,239 --> 00:37:10,800
Speaker 2: and kept singing, and he had from the start dressed

785
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:14,560
Speaker 2: like a cowboy on stage, complete with his hat and jeans,

786
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:17,879
Speaker 2: at a time when it had fallen out of style. Well.

787
00:37:18,040 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 2: When George finally broke down and headed to Nashville, he

788
00:37:21,560 --> 00:37:25,560
Speaker 2: was signed by MCA Records, but there was a producer

789
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:29,320
Speaker 2: there who had two demands for the singer. He needed

790
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:33,840
Speaker 2: to change his name and lose the cowboy hat. George

791
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:37,880
Speaker 2: had a fateful decision to make. Wait until you hear

792
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 2: how it ends, and this is how it ends. George Harvey,

793
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:47,280
Speaker 2: after years of playing rodeos and honky tonks, had finally

794
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:50,840
Speaker 2: made it to Nashville and he was signed by MCA Records.

795
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:54,920
Speaker 2: But his producer wanted George to dress up, lose the

796
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:58,040
Speaker 2: cowboy hat he had always worn on stage, and replace

797
00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:02,440
Speaker 2: his jeans with slacks. George would have none of it.

798
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:05,360
Speaker 2: He was determined to keep his hat and his jeans.

799
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:11,080
Speaker 2: His manager told the MCA executive, you don't understand where

800
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:16,919
Speaker 2: he's from. That is dressing up. Georgia's decision inspired many

801
00:38:17,120 --> 00:38:21,759
Speaker 2: acts that would follow him. Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks, Toby Keith,

802
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:26,800
Speaker 2: even Lady Wilson would don their stetson's on stage following

803
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:30,879
Speaker 2: George's example. He was just a Texas boy being true

804
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:34,360
Speaker 2: to his roots. But to these performers, the hat was

805
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:40,719
Speaker 2: part of George's mystique. The MCA executive also suggested that

806
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:46,279
Speaker 2: he change his name to Cain Cooper. Thank goodness for us,

807
00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 2: George Harvey strait kept his birth name and write this down.

808
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:55,759
Speaker 2: When you're true to who you are, others will inevitably

809
00:38:55,880 --> 00:38:59,160
Speaker 2: figure it out and follow your lead in time. George

810
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:03,480
Speaker 2: Strait has had eighty six singles on the Billboard Country Charts,

811
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:07,120
Speaker 2: and in twenty twenty four, he became the first artist

812
00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:10,680
Speaker 2: to hold the largest concert in the United States, breaking

813
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:15,920
Speaker 2: all attendance records. And he's still wearing his hat. Now

814
00:39:16,040 --> 00:39:18,320
Speaker 2: you know how it ends. Here's the rest of my

815
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:22,480
Speaker 2: conversation with John Rich, who is also wearing his hat.

816
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:26,480
Speaker 2: Why have you gone more political in recent years? Is

817
00:39:26,520 --> 00:39:31,680
Speaker 2: that just where you feel God taking you, the times

818
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 2: taking you and your music.

819
00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:38,160
Speaker 1: I think after my two sons were born and started

820
00:39:38,200 --> 00:39:44,239
Speaker 1: to get old enough to realize dad is part of

821
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:49,440
Speaker 1: this industry here, and they would watch me get upset

822
00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:52,839
Speaker 1: at the television screen like we all do, and say,

823
00:39:53,200 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 1: be talking to my wife about something going on in

824
00:39:55,120 --> 00:39:58,359
Speaker 1: the music industry that I didn't like. But then turn

825
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:01,840
Speaker 1: right around, cowboy up, walk out the door, hit the

826
00:40:01,920 --> 00:40:04,520
Speaker 1: red carpet, go play Patty Cake with all these people

827
00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 1: I was just yelling about is hypocritical. That's being a

828
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:11,560
Speaker 1: hypocrite in front of your own two sons. And one

829
00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:13,239
Speaker 1: day that hit me really hard. I said, I am

830
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:17,080
Speaker 1: being a hypocrite. Not only am I upset that they're

831
00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:19,560
Speaker 1: watching me do that, I'm upset that I'm watching me

832
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:21,920
Speaker 1: do that. How long am I going to keep this up?

833
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:24,600
Speaker 1: Because the record labels in the industries are telling me

834
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:28,280
Speaker 1: at this point, do not do that interview with Raymond,

835
00:40:28,360 --> 00:40:31,240
Speaker 1: do not go on that network, Do not talk about

836
00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:34,120
Speaker 1: this on social media? No, no, no, no no. They

837
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:37,880
Speaker 1: would have meetings about it. I'd make a comment something,

838
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:39,800
Speaker 1: you know, something they didn't want me talking about, and

839
00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 1: they'd have a full blown meeting with the press they're

840
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:44,759
Speaker 1: press people at the record label and bring me in

841
00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:47,319
Speaker 1: and say you got to stop doing that. You're going

842
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:49,719
Speaker 1: to blow your career up. And I listened to that

843
00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:51,600
Speaker 1: for quite a while. I'd go, Okay, well, I don't

844
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:53,120
Speaker 1: want to blow my career up, and I don't want

845
00:40:53,160 --> 00:40:55,399
Speaker 1: to cost Kenny his career, and you got a band

846
00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 1: and crew and bus drivers and yeah, wife and kids,

847
00:40:58,239 --> 00:41:02,160
Speaker 1: and okay, okay, I'll back up. But after a while, man,

848
00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 1: it got to the point where I said, yeah, that's

849
00:41:04,560 --> 00:41:07,840
Speaker 1: being a hypocrite. And so if it means that I

850
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:10,160
Speaker 1: got to say exactly what I know needs to be

851
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:12,759
Speaker 1: said and do it like it needs to be done,

852
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:15,719
Speaker 1: I run the risk of losing this industry that has

853
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:17,840
Speaker 1: put more plaques on my walls than I can count.

854
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:20,200
Speaker 1: They will be done with me if I ever go

855
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 1: to this point. But can I live with myself if

856
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 1: I keep playing this stupid game with these people? And

857
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 1: the answer was no, you can't. And by the way,

858
00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 1: your sons are watching you, and what are they going

859
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:31,800
Speaker 1: to do when they grow up and get out of

860
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:34,480
Speaker 1: the house, They'll go, well, yeah, I really don't like

861
00:41:34,560 --> 00:41:36,520
Speaker 1: how this is going. But you know what Dad did.

862
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:38,680
Speaker 1: Dad just yelled at the TV, rolled over and took

863
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:41,080
Speaker 1: the check, kept going. Which is the problem with a

864
00:41:41,160 --> 00:41:46,319
Speaker 1: lot of Americans and Christians that they'll just roll over

865
00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:51,439
Speaker 1: and get along, get along and stay in a nice, easy,

866
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 1: comfortable spot instead of taking the harder route and punching

867
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:54,800
Speaker 1: through it.

868
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:57,400
Speaker 2: It's a good time to talk about revelation. You mentioned

869
00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:00,200
Speaker 2: it a moment ago, which is this incredible soult you

870
00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:03,759
Speaker 2: wrote this year, and you said, I'm gonna quote it

871
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:05,840
Speaker 2: felt like a hammer hit me in the back of

872
00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:10,239
Speaker 2: the head. Was it physical? Was it a jolt? No?

873
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:12,719
Speaker 1: I mean no, not like a physical hammer. But it

874
00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 1: was if you could take a thought and pound it

875
00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:18,520
Speaker 1: into your head, as if you hit yourself with a hammer.

876
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:20,800
Speaker 1: That's what it felt like. It was mine in my

877
00:42:20,840 --> 00:42:25,840
Speaker 1: own business, and I mean out of nowhere Boom. I

878
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:30,040
Speaker 1: could hear the melody, I could hear the lyrics. I'm

879
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:33,319
Speaker 1: seeing that Revelation. This is when you know, there's been

880
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 1: so much intensity placed upon our country and so many

881
00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:41,719
Speaker 1: things going on that I have read about in the

882
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:43,800
Speaker 1: Bible my entire life, and I've heard it preach my

883
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:47,120
Speaker 1: entire life, and not until recently have many of those

884
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:50,320
Speaker 1: things even been possible to be carried out. You know,

885
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:53,720
Speaker 1: most of Revelation and Daniel and Second Thessalonians and places

886
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:55,959
Speaker 1: that talk about the end times seem like science fiction

887
00:42:56,480 --> 00:42:59,400
Speaker 1: to people, including my own father. He goes, We never

888
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:03,000
Speaker 1: could understand and how these things could be possible, he says,

889
00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 1: until recently, and now it's really easy to track everybody

890
00:43:07,239 --> 00:43:09,040
Speaker 1: on the face of the earth. It's really easy to

891
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:12,200
Speaker 1: control how you spend your money and what you're allowed

892
00:43:12,239 --> 00:43:14,239
Speaker 1: to buy and sell, which is what the mark of

893
00:43:14,280 --> 00:43:17,520
Speaker 1: the Beast is about, he said. With the advent of tech,

894
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 1: where we are in the world today, the globalization of

895
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:25,520
Speaker 1: everyone that is new, that's new that allows for these

896
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:27,680
Speaker 1: things to now take place. It doesn't mean they're going

897
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:30,200
Speaker 1: to take place tomorrow or even in my lifetime. But

898
00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:33,440
Speaker 1: it's now possible and we're looking at it. So I've

899
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:36,840
Speaker 1: been thinking about that and really scrutinizing things and watching

900
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:39,360
Speaker 1: and that's when that song came and I realized, Raymond,

901
00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:42,759
Speaker 1: nobody had written this song. I started going back through

902
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:46,359
Speaker 1: gospel bands, Christian artists, contre artists. I could not find

903
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:50,200
Speaker 1: anybody that literally wrote what the book says in the Book.

904
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:53,759
Speaker 2: Of Revelation, and and Saint Michael the Archangel and the

905
00:43:53,840 --> 00:43:56,279
Speaker 2: battle with Lucifer. I mean, the whole thing is in there.

906
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:58,120
Speaker 2: All of that is there, all of in the song.

907
00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:01,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's throughout the bios the song. Yeah.

908
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:01,879
Speaker 2: The video.

909
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:07,040
Speaker 1: The goal of the video was can we show what

910
00:44:07,680 --> 00:44:11,040
Speaker 1: spiritual warfare would look like if it came into the physical.

911
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 1: I remember telling my video director, Doc Abbott, who lives

912
00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:17,560
Speaker 1: here in Nashville. He goes, how do you think how

913
00:44:17,640 --> 00:44:21,719
Speaker 1: do we do that? I go, probably CGI. I said,

914
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:23,800
Speaker 1: I've got a great guy that works with Tom McDonald,

915
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 1: who's probably my favorite rapper, alive out in California and

916
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:29,239
Speaker 1: he has a lot of CGI in his videos. I

917
00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 1: called Tom told him the idea. He goes, oh, yeah,

918
00:44:31,360 --> 00:44:33,759
Speaker 1: you need to work with Jareded. Jared's up in Washington State.

919
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 1: So I sent it to Jared. He goes, that's going

920
00:44:37,040 --> 00:44:40,279
Speaker 1: to be difficult, but I'm definitely capable of making that happen.

921
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:42,960
Speaker 1: I said, I want the Devil and Michael the Archangel

922
00:44:43,040 --> 00:44:45,960
Speaker 1: to have a battle, with me standing in between them.

923
00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:49,920
Speaker 1: That's what I'm looking for. He goes, okay, and so

924
00:44:50,040 --> 00:44:51,800
Speaker 1: we shot it, and that's what the video is.

925
00:44:52,160 --> 00:44:54,200
Speaker 2: Have you ever seen a video like that? No, I've

926
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 2: never seen a video like that. I never heard a

927
00:44:56,239 --> 00:44:58,400
Speaker 2: song like that either. Yeah, it's a pathetic song in

928
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:01,719
Speaker 2: many ways. Do you think of it that way?

929
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:04,879
Speaker 1: No, because the song is not really even a song.

930
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: It's me saying what the pages of the book say.

931
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:09,240
Speaker 1: I just made them rhyme. Those are not my words,

932
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:10,279
Speaker 1: those are John's words.

933
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:13,920
Speaker 2: Well, but those are prophetic. It's a prophetic yesterday and.

934
00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:17,280
Speaker 1: Today spoken by the prophet John as he was exiled

935
00:45:17,320 --> 00:45:20,960
Speaker 1: to Patmos. He's writing what he's seeing and hearing, and

936
00:45:21,160 --> 00:45:23,879
Speaker 1: that becomes a book of revelation. And two thousand plus

937
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 1: years later, we're standing in situations that look an awful

938
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:30,479
Speaker 1: lot like what he was talking about. And so here's

939
00:45:30,560 --> 00:45:34,399
Speaker 1: your lone songwriter who think God doesn't have a record deal,

940
00:45:34,520 --> 00:45:36,759
Speaker 1: publishing deal, or any company that can tell me I

941
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:39,480
Speaker 1: can't put that song because you would have been not

942
00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:42,000
Speaker 1: in a million years never, you would have never heard

943
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:44,480
Speaker 1: a song if I had a record deal. That song

944
00:45:44,560 --> 00:45:45,239
Speaker 1: does not get heart.

945
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:47,719
Speaker 2: You've got a new song that I just heard. Yeah,

946
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:50,000
Speaker 2: it has read it, but I've been reading about it.

947
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:53,399
Speaker 2: And tell me about this song.

948
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:58,240
Speaker 1: Well, if you can say you're inspired by by Sean Combes.

949
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:03,200
Speaker 1: I saw a video a couple of weeks ago of

950
00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:08,400
Speaker 1: that monster looking right into the microphone bright lights on

951
00:46:08,560 --> 00:46:11,520
Speaker 1: a stage. He looks in the camera and he goes,

952
00:46:12,239 --> 00:46:16,840
Speaker 1: I own your soul. I own it. I determine what

953
00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:20,560
Speaker 1: your kids wear. I determine what your kids listen to.

954
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:23,799
Speaker 1: I determined all these things about your life, about your

955
00:46:23,920 --> 00:46:26,479
Speaker 1: kid's lives. And he's got that look in his face,

956
00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:29,960
Speaker 1: just look like looking straight at the devil. And I said,

957
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 1: look at this guy walking out here in broad daylight,

958
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:38,520
Speaker 1: saying he owns us and owns the souls of our children.

959
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:42,200
Speaker 1: Reminded me of Goliath walking out, mister hih and mighty,

960
00:46:42,320 --> 00:46:46,120
Speaker 1: mister powerful, biggest guy on the block walking out when

961
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:51,359
Speaker 1: Glath called out the Israelis and he's just mocking them incessantly,

962
00:46:51,800 --> 00:46:53,400
Speaker 1: and they all stood back, like, what are we going

963
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:55,360
Speaker 1: to do? He's too powerful, he's too big. And then

964
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:57,919
Speaker 1: David walks up and hits him with a rock, which

965
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:01,600
Speaker 1: didn't kill him, oh so helped him down. He takes

966
00:47:01,640 --> 00:47:03,520
Speaker 1: a gliass On sword and cuts his head off. So

967
00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:07,440
Speaker 1: I go, okay, okay, Sean Combs. So your weapon of

968
00:47:07,640 --> 00:47:14,279
Speaker 1: choice is music? Correct? Mine? Too nice to meet you,

969
00:47:15,239 --> 00:47:18,120
Speaker 1: So I thought, you know what, nobody's written a song

970
00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:20,759
Speaker 1: about these devils. Nobody's written that.

971
00:47:21,719 --> 00:47:24,200
Speaker 2: So well, it's really not about the devils. It's about

972
00:47:24,239 --> 00:47:26,560
Speaker 2: the defiant reaction to the devil.

973
00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 1: Correct. We are not supposed to, as Christians, be weak.

974
00:47:37,080 --> 00:47:39,040
Speaker 1: The people that wrote the books and the Bibles were

975
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:41,680
Speaker 1: not weak people. Jesus was not a weak. Jesus was

976
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:44,960
Speaker 1: so strong he allowed human beings to torture him to death.

977
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:50,800
Speaker 1: He allowed them to do that. It says in the

978
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:53,960
Speaker 1: Bible that we are supposed to be weapons in the

979
00:47:54,080 --> 00:47:57,880
Speaker 1: hands of God to tear down the thresholds of Hell. Itself,

980
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:02,200
Speaker 1: a weapon cannot itself. An axe cannot cut down a

981
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:04,800
Speaker 1: tree by itself. It takes an operator to pick that

982
00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:07,040
Speaker 1: axe up. Now, you hope when you pick it up.

983
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:09,880
Speaker 1: That it is heavy, and it is sharp, and it

984
00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:12,840
Speaker 1: has cut trees down before. And when you start wailing

985
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:14,880
Speaker 1: away at that tree, chunks of wood are going to

986
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:18,319
Speaker 1: go flying. You hope that tool is ready when you're

987
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 1: ready to pick it up. So I look at myself

988
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:23,440
Speaker 1: and I look at other Christians in this country, that

989
00:48:23,640 --> 00:48:26,560
Speaker 1: we better be preparing ourselves to be the tool He

990
00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:29,359
Speaker 1: created you to be. Maybe one guy's an axe, one

991
00:48:29,400 --> 00:48:32,640
Speaker 1: guy's a screwdriver, one guy's this, one guy's that they

992
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:36,320
Speaker 1: do this. Everybody's got their job. But be prepared for

993
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 1: him to use you and the way he wants to

994
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:42,480
Speaker 1: use you to bring it to these people, Raymond. The

995
00:48:43,239 --> 00:48:46,680
Speaker 1: most egregious sin I believe a person can commit is

996
00:48:46,760 --> 00:48:50,560
Speaker 1: to harm children. And the reason I believe that is

997
00:48:50,680 --> 00:48:53,239
Speaker 1: because Jesus Christ himself said in the New Testament, you'd

998
00:48:53,280 --> 00:48:55,839
Speaker 1: be better off to have a millstone tied around your

999
00:48:55,920 --> 00:48:58,200
Speaker 1: neck and cast into the sea than to ever cause

1000
00:48:58,239 --> 00:49:00,799
Speaker 1: one of these little ones to stumble. He didn't say

1001
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:03,120
Speaker 1: to kill them or hurt them or abuse them. He

1002
00:49:03,160 --> 00:49:05,080
Speaker 1: said to mess with them at all, to mess with

1003
00:49:05,160 --> 00:49:08,680
Speaker 1: their innocence at all. He'd be better off dead than

1004
00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:11,279
Speaker 1: ever being that person. So we know how Son of

1005
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:13,719
Speaker 1: God felt about it. And now we look around our

1006
00:49:13,760 --> 00:49:16,040
Speaker 1: country and Tom Holman's going, there's three hundred to five

1007
00:49:16,080 --> 00:49:18,920
Speaker 1: hundred thousand missing kids that we know about that have

1008
00:49:19,040 --> 00:49:22,680
Speaker 1: come across the border. That's not even taking into account

1009
00:49:22,719 --> 00:49:25,000
Speaker 1: all the other ones they didn't come across.

1010
00:49:24,640 --> 00:49:26,400
Speaker 2: The American citizen bingo.

1011
00:49:27,040 --> 00:49:29,560
Speaker 1: And we're allowing this to go forward. And then you've

1012
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:32,480
Speaker 1: got people like Sean Combe standing there on television telling

1013
00:49:32,640 --> 00:49:35,360
Speaker 1: us that he owns our souls and owns our kids' lives.

1014
00:49:35,920 --> 00:49:37,279
Speaker 1: How long are we going to sit around and just

1015
00:49:37,360 --> 00:49:39,640
Speaker 1: let them keep talking to us like that, because it

1016
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:42,439
Speaker 1: ain't just talk. They're doing it. So that's what set

1017
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:44,239
Speaker 1: you off to all the same time, can you tell?

1018
00:49:44,800 --> 00:49:45,640
Speaker 1: Can you tell? Oh?

1019
00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:47,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can. I could feel it in the lyrics.

1020
00:49:47,680 --> 00:49:49,719
Speaker 1: Face is getting hot talking about it.

1021
00:49:50,239 --> 00:49:52,080
Speaker 2: Tell people about this song. About the lyrics, I mean,

1022
00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:55,520
Speaker 2: it's basically go and repent now, brother, while I go

1023
00:49:55,600 --> 00:49:59,000
Speaker 2: get my gun. This is not I'm gonna go pray

1024
00:49:59,080 --> 00:49:59,319
Speaker 2: for you.

1025
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:02,280
Speaker 1: At point is song is you come after my kids.

1026
00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 1: Horrible things are going to happen to you. You will

1027
00:50:05,640 --> 00:50:07,719
Speaker 1: not survive what happens to you if you come after

1028
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:11,319
Speaker 1: my kids. You will not survive. You think you're tough,

1029
00:50:12,560 --> 00:50:15,960
Speaker 1: try it one time. Come on, come on up my road,

1030
00:50:16,560 --> 00:50:18,279
Speaker 1: Come on up and try to get my kid one time.

1031
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:20,040
Speaker 1: Try to take one of my sons and see what

1032
00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:23,080
Speaker 1: I do to you. Is what the song is all about.

1033
00:50:23,560 --> 00:50:25,880
Speaker 1: It and it talks about because we fight with the

1034
00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 1: sword of the Heavenly Father and we ain't afraid to die.

1035
00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:33,560
Speaker 1: Are you afraid to die for your kids? Me either?

1036
00:50:35,160 --> 00:50:37,440
Speaker 1: I would stand right in front of whatever I had

1037
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:41,000
Speaker 1: to gladly, happily. That song is going to to keep them,

1038
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:43,200
Speaker 1: you know, to keep these demons off my kids.

1039
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:44,880
Speaker 2: That song is going to be a huge hit, not

1040
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:46,640
Speaker 2: because you wrote it to be a big hit, but

1041
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:47,680
Speaker 2: because it resonates.

1042
00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:52,520
Speaker 1: I wrote it out of sheer anger towards these people,

1043
00:50:53,440 --> 00:50:57,319
Speaker 1: and I want most of them. Probably won't hear this song.

1044
00:50:57,400 --> 00:50:59,040
Speaker 1: I don't even know when I'm going to put it out,

1045
00:50:59,160 --> 00:51:03,480
Speaker 1: probably pretty soon. It doesn't matter if they don't hear it.

1046
00:51:03,560 --> 00:51:06,160
Speaker 1: I want parents to hear it. I want parents, moms

1047
00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 1: and dads to realize we do not have to put

1048
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:11,279
Speaker 1: up with these people and listen to them and give

1049
00:51:11,360 --> 00:51:15,640
Speaker 1: no rebut back to them. Because they're so powerful, they

1050
00:51:15,719 --> 00:51:18,920
Speaker 1: have no power their power comes from the Father lies

1051
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 1: and we all know what happens to him. He gets

1052
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:23,160
Speaker 1: utterly destroyed in the end. You see what I'm saying.

1053
00:51:23,600 --> 00:51:26,560
Speaker 2: I do, And John, I love that you're writing. This

1054
00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:30,200
Speaker 2: is the path of every artist, whether it's Irving Berlin

1055
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:33,640
Speaker 2: or the great novelists of the eighteenth century. They're writing

1056
00:51:33,719 --> 00:51:37,080
Speaker 2: about their time and they're using their art to speak

1057
00:51:37,160 --> 00:51:40,600
Speaker 2: to that moment. Correct, And that makes it like the

1058
00:51:40,640 --> 00:51:43,720
Speaker 2: Book of Revelation. It's true in the moment it was written,

1059
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:47,040
Speaker 2: it's true for all time. In the case Revelation, it's

1060
00:51:47,040 --> 00:51:50,120
Speaker 2: going to happen in the future too. So it's the

1061
00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:52,960
Speaker 2: alpha and the omega, it's all of it. Art has

1062
00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:55,440
Speaker 2: that same power, though in some ways Do you feel

1063
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:59,160
Speaker 2: a part of that and has that and why aren't

1064
00:51:59,280 --> 00:52:04,200
Speaker 2: others speak to that same country? Music always reflected the

1065
00:52:04,239 --> 00:52:07,400
Speaker 2: heart of the people in a powerful direct way, and

1066
00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:11,560
Speaker 2: we're still singing he stopped Loving Her today and we're

1067
00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:14,959
Speaker 2: still singing those songs. Yeah, because they were so true

1068
00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:17,200
Speaker 2: in the moment they were written. Do you feel this

1069
00:52:17,400 --> 00:52:19,040
Speaker 2: is a part of that tradition?

1070
00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:24,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just feel that the age were in currently

1071
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:28,880
Speaker 1: in the world and in our country. Sometimes I wonder

1072
00:52:29,480 --> 00:52:32,719
Speaker 1: if Johnny Cash was alive in twenty twenty four, what

1073
00:52:32,800 --> 00:52:35,520
Speaker 1: would he say if Charlie Daniels, who was a good

1074
00:52:35,560 --> 00:52:38,719
Speaker 1: friend of mine, if he was still around he died

1075
00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:42,840
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, right before it all got crazy, what

1076
00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:43,560
Speaker 1: would he say?

1077
00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:44,160
Speaker 2: Now?

1078
00:52:44,239 --> 00:52:46,480
Speaker 1: These are old men, and I have to think there's

1079
00:52:46,520 --> 00:52:48,759
Speaker 1: a big advantage to being an old man, being in

1080
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:53,120
Speaker 1: your eighties that you just don't care anymore. Well, I'm

1081
00:52:53,160 --> 00:52:55,320
Speaker 1: not an old man. I'm fifty, so I'm not a

1082
00:52:55,440 --> 00:52:58,120
Speaker 1: young guy. But I'm not an old guy and I

1083
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:01,239
Speaker 1: don't care. As a matter of fact, it worries me more.

1084
00:53:01,840 --> 00:53:05,360
Speaker 1: If something is laid on me to go say and

1085
00:53:05,520 --> 00:53:09,680
Speaker 1: I don't say it. That is more dangerous than saying it,

1086
00:53:10,040 --> 00:53:11,520
Speaker 1: because guess who you just upset?

1087
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:13,279
Speaker 2: The boss.

1088
00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:16,800
Speaker 1: I put that on you and you did not follow

1089
00:53:16,880 --> 00:53:19,920
Speaker 1: through with it. So guess what. I ain't sending you

1090
00:53:19,960 --> 00:53:21,960
Speaker 1: any more of those or whatever else he might decide

1091
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:25,960
Speaker 1: to do. I think he opens doors for people who

1092
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:28,600
Speaker 1: have enough nerve to run through them. I don't think

1093
00:53:28,640 --> 00:53:32,040
Speaker 1: he opens doors for everybody. I think he opens especially

1094
00:53:32,160 --> 00:53:34,320
Speaker 1: the dangerous doors, the doors he goes. I need this

1095
00:53:34,440 --> 00:53:36,800
Speaker 1: to be said. I need this. I need people to

1096
00:53:36,920 --> 00:53:40,239
Speaker 1: hear this message song, whatever it might be, and so

1097
00:53:40,320 --> 00:53:42,080
Speaker 1: I'm going to put it in that kid's brain and

1098
00:53:42,120 --> 00:53:44,040
Speaker 1: see if he's got enough, you know what, to carry

1099
00:53:44,080 --> 00:53:47,080
Speaker 1: through with it. And I'll be honest, it is unnerving

1100
00:53:47,160 --> 00:53:49,320
Speaker 1: to talk about those things, those subjects.

1101
00:53:49,680 --> 00:53:50,880
Speaker 2: What do your colleagues say to you?

1102
00:53:54,840 --> 00:53:57,880
Speaker 1: Most of them that are my actual friends. Thank you

1103
00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:00,520
Speaker 1: for saying that. Ah, I wish I could say that.

1104
00:54:00,880 --> 00:54:01,680
Speaker 1: I get that a lot.

1105
00:54:01,840 --> 00:54:03,520
Speaker 2: I'll bet I'll have some.

1106
00:54:03,560 --> 00:54:05,680
Speaker 1: Of the biggest country artists out there, even some of

1107
00:54:05,719 --> 00:54:08,840
Speaker 1: the new ones that are massive right now back channel

1108
00:54:08,880 --> 00:54:11,560
Speaker 1: and direct message of me on X. Hey, I heard

1109
00:54:11,600 --> 00:54:13,799
Speaker 1: that interview you did with so and so, keep it up.

1110
00:54:13,920 --> 00:54:16,359
Speaker 1: Wish I could say that. I could show you those

1111
00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:19,399
Speaker 1: over and over and over that say that, and I go, well,

1112
00:54:19,440 --> 00:54:21,840
Speaker 1: that's I wish they would say it, but I understand

1113
00:54:21,840 --> 00:54:23,440
Speaker 1: why they don't. They're right in the middle of what's

1114
00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:26,879
Speaker 1: going on. I know what's at stake. So maybe my job,

1115
00:54:27,000 --> 00:54:30,200
Speaker 1: Raymond is right now is to keep your mind standing

1116
00:54:30,239 --> 00:54:33,400
Speaker 1: wide open and he hits you with something that he

1117
00:54:33,440 --> 00:54:35,320
Speaker 1: wants to be said, write it down, do it the

1118
00:54:35,400 --> 00:54:38,399
Speaker 1: best you can, and unapologetically slam it out there.

1119
00:54:39,320 --> 00:54:42,680
Speaker 2: I forgot you were at the Mandolay Day shooting. Right

1120
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:46,279
Speaker 2: you were performing with Jason Alden. What did you think

1121
00:54:46,360 --> 00:54:49,840
Speaker 2: when that hill of gunfires started falling on these poor people?

1122
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:54,120
Speaker 2: It almost hit you. You were there, what forty minutes before?

1123
00:54:54,200 --> 00:54:56,439
Speaker 1: I was there forty five minutes before the bullets started

1124
00:54:56,480 --> 00:54:59,759
Speaker 1: flying through the drum risers on the stage. So big.

1125
00:54:59,840 --> 00:55:03,680
Speaker 1: And we opened for Aldean that night, and so as

1126
00:55:03,719 --> 00:55:06,680
Speaker 1: soon as we got through playing, we left on the bus.

1127
00:55:07,000 --> 00:55:09,880
Speaker 1: Actually had a Rednick Riviera kind of satellite little bar

1128
00:55:10,040 --> 00:55:11,680
Speaker 1: over there, and I we'll go over there and hang

1129
00:55:11,719 --> 00:55:13,640
Speaker 1: out with the local band and you know, get ready

1130
00:55:13,680 --> 00:55:16,759
Speaker 1: to leave town. We get over there and we're up

1131
00:55:16,760 --> 00:55:18,920
Speaker 1: there singing a little bit. The security man comes up

1132
00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:20,560
Speaker 1: to me and he says, he go stop the music.

1133
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:22,279
Speaker 1: Stop the music. I'm like, what are you talking about?

1134
00:55:22,280 --> 00:55:24,319
Speaker 1: He goes, stop the music. They pulled the plug, killed

1135
00:55:24,360 --> 00:55:26,879
Speaker 1: the pa. I'm like, what is going on? And they say,

1136
00:55:26,960 --> 00:55:29,759
Speaker 1: there's a mass shooting happening at where you guys just

1137
00:55:29,880 --> 00:55:31,000
Speaker 1: were at the concert.

1138
00:55:31,120 --> 00:55:31,560
Speaker 2: I'm went what?

1139
00:55:32,560 --> 00:55:34,759
Speaker 1: So everybody got quiet. We turned on the local news.

1140
00:55:34,840 --> 00:55:37,680
Speaker 1: We had, you know, we had TVs everywhere, and the

1141
00:55:37,840 --> 00:55:42,759
Speaker 1: local news is reporting if you were anywhere near Mandalay Bay,

1142
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:48,480
Speaker 1: Bellagio or Caesar's Palace. Get away from the windows. Well,

1143
00:55:48,520 --> 00:55:50,520
Speaker 1: we were looking right at Blagio. We're looking at the

1144
00:55:50,560 --> 00:55:53,520
Speaker 1: fountains and all that. I'm like, everybody, get away from

1145
00:55:53,520 --> 00:55:55,400
Speaker 1: the glass. So you go get off in the corner.

1146
00:55:56,239 --> 00:55:58,960
Speaker 1: And I remember looking down you can hear all this

1147
00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:01,399
Speaker 1: racket going on. We're kind of up high. We're looking

1148
00:56:01,440 --> 00:56:03,600
Speaker 1: down and you could see police squads moving through the

1149
00:56:03,640 --> 00:56:07,239
Speaker 1: streets down below. I'm like, okay, so somebody's on the

1150
00:56:07,320 --> 00:56:11,279
Speaker 1: loose through the town. So I said, somebody needs a

1151
00:56:11,280 --> 00:56:14,000
Speaker 1: whole point on this front door. And I asked, has

1152
00:56:14,040 --> 00:56:16,000
Speaker 1: anybody got a weapon in here? And everybody went, h

1153
00:56:16,160 --> 00:56:19,200
Speaker 1: I know, well I did the only one. I had

1154
00:56:19,200 --> 00:56:21,759
Speaker 1: a Colt forty five in my belt, so I pulled

1155
00:56:21,800 --> 00:56:24,040
Speaker 1: it out start walking to the front door. We got

1156
00:56:24,080 --> 00:56:27,800
Speaker 1: a glass door and this big old cop officer brown

1157
00:56:28,800 --> 00:56:31,239
Speaker 1: flops his badge out and I looked at him. I thought, oh,

1158
00:56:31,280 --> 00:56:33,239
Speaker 1: I'm in trouble because I have a firearms. First thing

1159
00:56:33,280 --> 00:56:37,520
Speaker 1: I thought, he goes, I'm a police officer Minneapolis Police Department.

1160
00:56:37,560 --> 00:56:41,080
Speaker 1: I'm here with my wife on our honeymoon. Can I

1161
00:56:41,560 --> 00:56:45,919
Speaker 1: have that and let me protect the door? I said, yes, sir,

1162
00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:48,600
Speaker 1: and I turned the gun around. I said it's not chambered,

1163
00:56:48,640 --> 00:56:50,200
Speaker 1: and he grabbed it, went it is now, and he

1164
00:56:50,320 --> 00:56:52,640
Speaker 1: racked it, got down on one knee and put his

1165
00:56:52,719 --> 00:56:55,440
Speaker 1: elbow up on the T shirt table there and just

1166
00:56:55,560 --> 00:56:57,200
Speaker 1: held point on that door because for all we knew,

1167
00:56:57,200 --> 00:56:59,640
Speaker 1: somebody was coming straight through the door. Got back home

1168
00:56:59,719 --> 00:57:02,680
Speaker 1: after all that had happened, and going through my suitcase,

1169
00:57:04,080 --> 00:57:06,439
Speaker 1: and I found the hotel key because we were staying

1170
00:57:06,480 --> 00:57:09,560
Speaker 1: at the MGM. Found the hotel key, and I'm watching

1171
00:57:09,600 --> 00:57:11,360
Speaker 1: the news, and I'm looking at the room number on

1172
00:57:11,440 --> 00:57:13,200
Speaker 1: my hotel key, and I'm looking at the news, going,

1173
00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:16,600
Speaker 1: hang on a minute. My ceiling of my room was

1174
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:18,960
Speaker 1: the floor of that guy that was lobbing those bullets

1175
00:57:19,000 --> 00:57:21,760
Speaker 1: shouter all day. I'd been up in that room just

1176
00:57:21,840 --> 00:57:23,960
Speaker 1: waiting for the show to start. He was literally right

1177
00:57:24,000 --> 00:57:24,760
Speaker 1: there all day long.

1178
00:57:25,200 --> 00:57:27,840
Speaker 2: Are you satisfied with the answers that we've gotten about

1179
00:57:28,440 --> 00:57:28,720
Speaker 2: this guy?

1180
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:29,560
Speaker 1: What answer?

1181
00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:32,400
Speaker 2: This old man running back and forth between how you

1182
00:57:32,520 --> 00:57:33,800
Speaker 2: know how long? That's sweet? Was?

1183
00:57:34,080 --> 00:57:36,760
Speaker 1: What answer? There are more cameras per square inch in

1184
00:57:36,840 --> 00:57:39,439
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, Nevada than probably any city on the earth.

1185
00:57:39,480 --> 00:57:44,240
Speaker 1: There are cameras everywhere everywhere, can't find any camera footage

1186
00:57:44,280 --> 00:57:46,320
Speaker 1: the cameras we don't have cameras. Reminds me of other

1187
00:57:46,360 --> 00:57:49,800
Speaker 1: things I've heard since then. And then you start thinking about, well,

1188
00:57:49,840 --> 00:57:51,720
Speaker 1: how in the world can one guy sit in a

1189
00:57:51,760 --> 00:57:53,720
Speaker 1: hotel room like that, because my hotel room would have

1190
00:57:53,720 --> 00:57:57,320
Speaker 1: been exactly like his and fire thousands and thousands of

1191
00:57:57,440 --> 00:57:59,800
Speaker 1: rounds and not choked to death. That's the first thing

1192
00:57:59,840 --> 00:58:02,240
Speaker 1: I thought, I'm a shooter. I'm like, man, if you

1193
00:58:02,280 --> 00:58:05,800
Speaker 1: fire enough rounds outside, you can serve. Okay, clearly are

1194
00:58:06,120 --> 00:58:08,360
Speaker 1: he's inside a hotel room doing this? And then you

1195
00:58:08,440 --> 00:58:10,520
Speaker 1: think about what the local news said, get away from

1196
00:58:10,560 --> 00:58:13,480
Speaker 1: these hotels and get away. And then national news took it.

1197
00:58:13,560 --> 00:58:16,439
Speaker 1: And I remember seeing the big FBI guy leaning over

1198
00:58:16,560 --> 00:58:19,280
Speaker 1: that sheriff while the sheriff hands are just shaking like

1199
00:58:19,360 --> 00:58:21,680
Speaker 1: a leaf, trying to read the statement. There's the FBI.

1200
00:58:21,680 --> 00:58:25,200
Speaker 1: I'm going, what is going? What happened? What really happened here?

1201
00:58:25,720 --> 00:58:29,120
Speaker 1: Anybody that was there, anybody that was around that situation.

1202
00:58:29,680 --> 00:58:32,280
Speaker 1: None of us believe a word that we were told.

1203
00:58:32,640 --> 00:58:34,880
Speaker 1: And I'm hoping in this new administration that is one

1204
00:58:34,920 --> 00:58:39,200
Speaker 1: of the things. There's many, but I hope they tell

1205
00:58:39,320 --> 00:58:42,920
Speaker 1: us what that actually was, what actually went down to

1206
00:58:43,040 --> 00:58:45,520
Speaker 1: a lot of people, that over fifty people got killed

1207
00:58:45,520 --> 00:58:46,200
Speaker 1: at that concert.

1208
00:58:46,360 --> 00:58:50,120
Speaker 2: Your fans, yeah, your fans. You had met with some

1209
00:58:50,240 --> 00:58:52,840
Speaker 2: of these people who were victims of this right before

1210
00:58:52,880 --> 00:58:53,360
Speaker 2: the concert.

1211
00:58:53,520 --> 00:58:56,240
Speaker 1: Died. Yeah, that died. A young young man came through

1212
00:58:56,280 --> 00:58:59,000
Speaker 1: with his wife and the meet and greet, big fan

1213
00:58:59,160 --> 00:59:01,920
Speaker 1: took pictures with him. And I got word that when

1214
00:59:01,960 --> 00:59:04,080
Speaker 1: the bullets came in, he turned his back to where

1215
00:59:04,120 --> 00:59:06,120
Speaker 1: the bullets were coming, shielding his wife, and he took

1216
00:59:06,160 --> 00:59:09,080
Speaker 1: several rounds in the back and he died. And you know,

1217
00:59:09,840 --> 00:59:13,600
Speaker 1: they deserve answers. We deserve answers. And pardon me for

1218
00:59:13,720 --> 00:59:16,040
Speaker 1: being so skeptical when you go through something like that

1219
00:59:16,240 --> 00:59:17,560
Speaker 1: and you go back and look at it and go,

1220
00:59:18,240 --> 00:59:21,200
Speaker 1: that is not true. That is not true what they're

1221
00:59:21,240 --> 00:59:23,440
Speaker 1: telling us. And America knows that a lot of things

1222
00:59:23,480 --> 00:59:25,520
Speaker 1: have happened in our country that America knows is not

1223
00:59:25,640 --> 00:59:26,040
Speaker 1: the truth.

1224
00:59:26,840 --> 00:59:30,000
Speaker 2: We need answers particularly for that. I mean, that is

1225
00:59:30,080 --> 00:59:32,680
Speaker 2: a that well the shooting here in Nashville too, that's

1226
00:59:32,680 --> 00:59:37,000
Speaker 2: school shooting here not sufficient answer now, and we're talking

1227
00:59:37,000 --> 00:59:37,920
Speaker 2: about babies, and.

1228
00:59:39,080 --> 00:59:41,480
Speaker 1: You, Valdi, why are their cops standing in a hallway

1229
00:59:41,520 --> 00:59:45,040
Speaker 1: for an hour while this guy's executing kids, and they're

1230
00:59:45,080 --> 00:59:48,280
Speaker 1: all got bullet proof vest rifles, everything they need to

1231
00:59:48,400 --> 00:59:50,360
Speaker 1: walk in that room and take that guy out, and

1232
00:59:50,480 --> 00:59:53,360
Speaker 1: they just stand there for an hour as the shots

1233
00:59:53,440 --> 00:59:56,840
Speaker 1: keep popping and killing these kids. Yeah, America is sick

1234
00:59:56,880 --> 00:59:58,640
Speaker 1: and tired of it. Honestly, that's one reason why Trump

1235
00:59:58,720 --> 01:00:04,080
Speaker 1: won it. It is the gravity that is that finally

1236
01:00:04,120 --> 01:00:06,640
Speaker 1: got together of all these things, put all into one

1237
01:00:06,680 --> 01:00:09,360
Speaker 1: big package and drop it in your lap and go Trump,

1238
01:00:09,920 --> 01:00:13,520
Speaker 1: fix this. Tell us the truth, tell us what's going on.

1239
01:00:13,840 --> 01:00:15,360
Speaker 1: I have a feeling if we all know the real

1240
01:00:15,440 --> 01:00:18,520
Speaker 1: truth about everything, it would change America's future for probably

1241
01:00:18,560 --> 01:00:21,040
Speaker 1: a century, because it'd be real hard to trick us

1242
01:00:21,080 --> 01:00:22,480
Speaker 1: in anything again for a long time.

1243
01:00:23,400 --> 01:00:26,840
Speaker 2: Tell me about Rednick Riviera. I've loved the Rednick Riviera

1244
01:00:26,920 --> 01:00:29,320
Speaker 2: because I know the origins of that. But I'll bet

1245
01:00:29,320 --> 01:00:31,840
Speaker 2: a lot of people, yeah, the Gulf Coast. Tell people

1246
01:00:32,040 --> 01:00:34,520
Speaker 2: where that title came from. Why you had to call

1247
01:00:34,560 --> 01:00:35,760
Speaker 2: it Redknick Era.

1248
01:00:36,080 --> 01:00:38,640
Speaker 1: As a as a songwriter, it's one of my favorite

1249
01:00:38,680 --> 01:00:42,480
Speaker 1: phrases because it's funny. First of all, I like funny stuff,

1250
01:00:42,880 --> 01:00:46,360
Speaker 1: but it's basically back in the sixties, people living on

1251
01:00:46,600 --> 01:00:48,680
Speaker 1: limited income, which is still the way it is today,

1252
01:00:49,000 --> 01:00:50,960
Speaker 1: couldn't afford to go to the French rivi era. So

1253
01:00:51,040 --> 01:00:52,760
Speaker 1: where would they go. We've got to go to the

1254
01:00:52,880 --> 01:00:56,320
Speaker 1: Rednick Rivier. So that's like destin Florida golf shores as

1255
01:00:56,480 --> 01:01:00,280
Speaker 1: small city beach, and the beaches are pristine, and the

1256
01:01:00,320 --> 01:01:02,440
Speaker 1: food is great, and there's music everywhere, and you can

1257
01:01:02,560 --> 01:01:05,280
Speaker 1: drive there, you can afford to stay there for a week,

1258
01:01:05,520 --> 01:01:08,120
Speaker 1: and your family have a good time. Yeah, And so

1259
01:01:08,160 --> 01:01:10,240
Speaker 1: I always thought, man, what a great phrase. Growing up

1260
01:01:10,360 --> 01:01:12,640
Speaker 1: blue collar myself, I thought, Yeah, I remember calling it

1261
01:01:12,720 --> 01:01:14,680
Speaker 1: Rednick Rivera when I was a kid. First time I

1262
01:01:14,680 --> 01:01:17,360
Speaker 1: ever got stung by jellyfish was in Panama City Beach.

1263
01:01:17,360 --> 01:01:19,000
Speaker 1: My dad drove us down there in the station wagon.

1264
01:01:19,400 --> 01:01:23,040
Speaker 1: And so I thought that should be a brand into itself.

1265
01:01:23,120 --> 01:01:27,480
Speaker 1: So I wanted to step out and build all American,

1266
01:01:27,480 --> 01:01:31,120
Speaker 1: one hundred percent made in the USA brand that reflected

1267
01:01:31,960 --> 01:01:35,360
Speaker 1: my life. Like basically, I grew up blue collar. My

1268
01:01:35,480 --> 01:01:37,960
Speaker 1: brain still works that way. But you go to a

1269
01:01:38,040 --> 01:01:40,000
Speaker 1: place you can afford because it's truly nice, and you

1270
01:01:40,080 --> 01:01:42,720
Speaker 1: make memories with the family. And can we get back

1271
01:01:42,760 --> 01:01:45,320
Speaker 1: to veterans to a brand which we have to fold.

1272
01:01:45,880 --> 01:01:47,360
Speaker 2: How many tuitions have you paid?

1273
01:01:47,400 --> 01:01:49,920
Speaker 1: The folds and on it a lot, It'd be hard

1274
01:01:49,960 --> 01:01:53,320
Speaker 1: to say how many tuitions we've The brand has generated

1275
01:01:53,400 --> 01:01:56,520
Speaker 1: one point six million dollars since twenty eighteen. That's a

1276
01:01:56,640 --> 01:02:01,360
Speaker 1: lot for any brand, much less privately owned, small upstart brand.

1277
01:02:02,200 --> 01:02:06,520
Speaker 1: But I look at that as you know, the only

1278
01:02:06,600 --> 01:02:09,760
Speaker 1: reason guys with high school diplomas who grew up in

1279
01:02:09,840 --> 01:02:12,640
Speaker 1: a double wide in Texas and nothing fancy get to

1280
01:02:12,720 --> 01:02:16,680
Speaker 1: go out here and just shoot at the moon, literally

1281
01:02:17,080 --> 01:02:18,640
Speaker 1: just go all the way as hard as you want

1282
01:02:18,680 --> 01:02:20,920
Speaker 1: to go and chase the American dream. It's because of

1283
01:02:20,920 --> 01:02:24,080
Speaker 1: the United States Military. Short of those men and women,

1284
01:02:24,840 --> 01:02:26,520
Speaker 1: you don't get to sit here and be on TV.

1285
01:02:26,760 --> 01:02:28,680
Speaker 1: I don't get to go make music. Nobody gets to

1286
01:02:28,760 --> 01:02:31,400
Speaker 1: do what they want to do short of life liberty

1287
01:02:31,400 --> 01:02:34,040
Speaker 1: and pursuit of happiness being kept in tact by the

1288
01:02:34,200 --> 01:02:38,680
Speaker 1: US military, And so Folds of Honor puts kids and

1289
01:02:38,760 --> 01:02:42,000
Speaker 1: spouses through college who lost their mom or dad, or

1290
01:02:42,040 --> 01:02:44,240
Speaker 1: who have a family members one hundred percent disabled. That

1291
01:02:44,400 --> 01:02:46,840
Speaker 1: was the income earner. And so there's people all of

1292
01:02:46,920 --> 01:02:49,760
Speaker 1: the US right now going to college partially subsidized by

1293
01:02:49,840 --> 01:02:50,920
Speaker 1: redneck Riviera.

1294
01:02:50,640 --> 01:02:52,280
Speaker 2: Love that I love it, and you got and you

1295
01:02:52,360 --> 01:02:54,600
Speaker 2: have the club here in Nashville, which is a great

1296
01:02:54,720 --> 01:02:56,280
Speaker 2: place to one place if you want to come to

1297
01:02:56,360 --> 01:02:58,760
Speaker 2: if you're coming to Nashville, you should go to the

1298
01:02:58,840 --> 01:03:00,920
Speaker 2: Redneck Revere. It's a lot fun. It's a great bar,

1299
01:03:01,000 --> 01:03:04,400
Speaker 2: there's live music. And you were one of the first

1300
01:03:04,560 --> 01:03:08,360
Speaker 2: country artists really to start. I mean everybody followed John

1301
01:03:08,400 --> 01:03:09,480
Speaker 2: Rich's lead on this way.

1302
01:03:10,000 --> 01:03:12,439
Speaker 1: Everybody Alan Jackson had to play. There was a couple

1303
01:03:12,480 --> 01:03:14,680
Speaker 1: of the big dogs. Yeah, they had couple places, not

1304
01:03:14,840 --> 01:03:16,600
Speaker 1: like it is now. Everybody and the dog's trying to

1305
01:03:16,600 --> 01:03:18,760
Speaker 1: get a place. It brought you out, I mean it truly.

1306
01:03:18,920 --> 01:03:21,000
Speaker 1: I think every building down there has a country artist's

1307
01:03:21,080 --> 01:03:23,840
Speaker 1: name on it at this point. But we try to

1308
01:03:23,880 --> 01:03:26,240
Speaker 1: make the bar really be its own thing, and it

1309
01:03:26,560 --> 01:03:28,920
Speaker 1: really is. When you walk in the front door, we

1310
01:03:29,040 --> 01:03:31,000
Speaker 1: call it the Heroes Bar, and that's where if you're

1311
01:03:31,040 --> 01:03:34,520
Speaker 1: a vet, active duty or a first responder you get

1312
01:03:34,560 --> 01:03:36,760
Speaker 1: the seat and the first drinks on the house and

1313
01:03:36,840 --> 01:03:40,720
Speaker 1: the walls are covered in patches and military coins. Probably

1314
01:03:40,720 --> 01:03:43,920
Speaker 1: the proudest moment I've had seeing that place operate was

1315
01:03:44,080 --> 01:03:45,960
Speaker 1: a bunch of rowdy guys were down there having a

1316
01:03:46,040 --> 01:03:50,400
Speaker 1: batchlor party. That's the Rednick Riviera, And I mean they're

1317
01:03:50,440 --> 01:03:52,439
Speaker 1: getting you know, you could imagine you're having a big time.

1318
01:03:52,880 --> 01:03:55,880
Speaker 1: And these two old Vietnam vets come walking in with

1319
01:03:56,000 --> 01:03:59,640
Speaker 1: their Vietnam Veteran ball caps on. They come walking in.

1320
01:04:00,120 --> 01:04:02,000
Speaker 1: It's six deep at the bar. You can't get up

1321
01:04:02,040 --> 01:04:04,960
Speaker 1: to the bar. And I watched these bachelor party guys

1322
01:04:06,120 --> 01:04:08,520
Speaker 1: see those old men and got up out of their

1323
01:04:08,600 --> 01:04:10,160
Speaker 1: chairs and moved people out of the way and said

1324
01:04:10,840 --> 01:04:14,080
Speaker 1: take much hair, come on, take much here and sat

1325
01:04:14,120 --> 01:04:16,160
Speaker 1: the old man down at their chairs and then they

1326
01:04:16,240 --> 01:04:18,480
Speaker 1: got up and that was the coveted spot to sit

1327
01:04:19,160 --> 01:04:21,480
Speaker 1: and respected those old men for their service. So that's

1328
01:04:21,520 --> 01:04:24,880
Speaker 1: really the culture of that kind of encapsulates the whole brand.

1329
01:04:24,720 --> 01:04:27,320
Speaker 2: Really well, and what the country should be.

1330
01:04:28,040 --> 01:04:29,160
Speaker 1: The hope we get back to that.

1331
01:04:29,600 --> 01:04:31,520
Speaker 2: I think we're getting there. I want to ask you

1332
01:04:31,640 --> 01:04:33,760
Speaker 2: quickly before I get to I have a list of questions.

1333
01:04:33,760 --> 01:04:36,720
Speaker 2: I ask everybody. Give me the state of country music

1334
01:04:36,760 --> 01:04:39,840
Speaker 2: through John Richard's eyes. Now you've said there couldn't be

1335
01:04:39,920 --> 01:04:43,560
Speaker 2: a Loretta Lynd today, there couldn't be a Johnny Cash today.

1336
01:04:44,000 --> 01:04:47,400
Speaker 2: Why not, especially when you hear those young artists reaching

1337
01:04:47,440 --> 01:04:49,680
Speaker 2: out to you privately and saying thank you for saying that.

1338
01:04:51,120 --> 01:04:53,840
Speaker 2: Clearly that's where they are still.

1339
01:04:54,000 --> 01:04:57,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the talent of a Loretta Lynn or the

1340
01:04:57,520 --> 01:05:00,880
Speaker 1: talent of a Johnny Cash can ex to Nashville and

1341
01:05:01,080 --> 01:05:05,280
Speaker 1: does there there are people with unbelievable talent in Nashville

1342
01:05:05,320 --> 01:05:07,280
Speaker 1: that are that are coming up through the ranks. The

1343
01:05:07,400 --> 01:05:14,600
Speaker 1: part that's different is is the record label's stranglehold on creativity.

1344
01:05:16,040 --> 01:05:20,720
Speaker 1: Back in the day, Johnny Cash could sing you know,

1345
01:05:20,920 --> 01:05:23,160
Speaker 1: I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die,

1346
01:05:25,040 --> 01:05:27,040
Speaker 1: and they would let him put that out and let

1347
01:05:27,120 --> 01:05:29,040
Speaker 1: the fans decide if they like a song like that

1348
01:05:29,240 --> 01:05:30,960
Speaker 1: or if Johnny Cash is too crazy. I don't want

1349
01:05:30,960 --> 01:05:33,800
Speaker 1: to ever hear that again. That's really not how it

1350
01:05:33,960 --> 01:05:36,120
Speaker 1: is now. And I know that for a fact because

1351
01:05:36,160 --> 01:05:38,640
Speaker 1: I was in it. And then now all these artists

1352
01:05:38,680 --> 01:05:41,040
Speaker 1: that come to me and go, I'm gonna play at me.

1353
01:05:41,120 --> 01:05:42,640
Speaker 1: I'm gonna send you a song I just wrote. The

1354
01:05:42,720 --> 01:05:44,160
Speaker 1: label's not gonnaver let me put it out, but I

1355
01:05:44,200 --> 01:05:46,000
Speaker 1: wanted you to hear it. Anyway. They'll send me a

1356
01:05:46,120 --> 01:05:48,400
Speaker 1: song and it'll be it'll be making some kind of

1357
01:05:48,440 --> 01:05:52,320
Speaker 1: a cultural statement or something, and they won't even bother

1358
01:05:52,480 --> 01:05:54,760
Speaker 1: turning it in to the record label. It's almost like

1359
01:05:55,080 --> 01:05:58,240
Speaker 1: it's not censorship, because nobody ever puts it forward to

1360
01:05:58,280 --> 01:05:58,640
Speaker 1: even be.

1361
01:05:58,720 --> 01:06:01,880
Speaker 2: Some self censorship. It's else. They get what they understand,

1362
01:06:02,520 --> 01:06:03,640
Speaker 2: what's going to make a no go?

1363
01:06:03,880 --> 01:06:06,640
Speaker 1: So why don't even try? And that's not healthy?

1364
01:06:07,200 --> 01:06:09,800
Speaker 2: No? Okay, I gotta put my hat on. Can you

1365
01:06:09,840 --> 01:06:12,200
Speaker 2: throw that hat to me for a second? I gotta

1366
01:06:12,200 --> 01:06:12,600
Speaker 2: put my hair.

1367
01:06:12,760 --> 01:06:14,320
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I think that's my hand I got

1368
01:06:14,520 --> 01:06:17,440
Speaker 1: it almost looks like a look at that. Look at you.

1369
01:06:17,720 --> 01:06:18,360
Speaker 2: That's a big one.

1370
01:06:18,960 --> 01:06:21,160
Speaker 1: All right, one tip, pull it down a little bit lower.

1371
01:06:21,480 --> 01:06:24,720
Speaker 2: There you go. That's it. That's quite. That guy's ready

1372
01:06:24,720 --> 01:06:25,560
Speaker 2: for the grand ole up.

1373
01:06:25,640 --> 01:06:26,280
Speaker 1: Really all right?

1374
01:06:26,360 --> 01:06:28,960
Speaker 2: Here we go, ladies, And they won't let me on

1375
01:06:29,000 --> 01:06:31,520
Speaker 2: the opery. That'll bring down the stage forever. Okay. These

1376
01:06:31,560 --> 01:06:35,280
Speaker 2: are my royal grande questionnaire questions I asked everybody. He's

1377
01:06:35,280 --> 01:06:38,560
Speaker 2: a rapid fire, but they're important. Who is the person

1378
01:06:38,680 --> 01:06:42,120
Speaker 2: you most admire my dad? Why?

1379
01:06:43,560 --> 01:06:46,680
Speaker 1: Because he is unyielding and relentless.

1380
01:06:47,720 --> 01:06:50,960
Speaker 2: You took the lesson? Well, my friend, who's the person

1381
01:06:51,040 --> 01:06:52,640
Speaker 2: you most despise.

1382
01:06:55,160 --> 01:06:59,120
Speaker 1: Right now? Sean Combs and anybody like him?

1383
01:07:00,200 --> 01:07:08,240
Speaker 2: What is your best feature loyalty, ah, and your worst.

1384
01:07:11,800 --> 01:07:15,160
Speaker 1: Hm? Which one should I pick?

1385
01:07:16,280 --> 01:07:17,640
Speaker 2: Pick a card? Any card?

1386
01:07:20,480 --> 01:07:23,400
Speaker 1: I would say, h rushing to judgment.

1387
01:07:25,240 --> 01:07:29,280
Speaker 2: The last great book you read? And your favorite book?

1388
01:07:30,040 --> 01:07:31,600
Speaker 2: I think I know the answer to this one.

1389
01:07:32,440 --> 01:07:36,160
Speaker 1: Well, I mean discounting the Bible, not counting the not

1390
01:07:36,280 --> 01:07:38,640
Speaker 1: counting the Bible. Hill Billy Elogy is one of my

1391
01:07:38,840 --> 01:07:40,760
Speaker 1: town favorite books. To be honest with the book. Yeah,

1392
01:07:40,960 --> 01:07:43,760
Speaker 1: it reminds me of where I grew up, my people.

1393
01:07:44,360 --> 01:07:45,200
Speaker 2: The American people.

1394
01:07:45,640 --> 01:07:51,680
Speaker 1: What do you fear, John, something happening to my kids?

1395
01:07:53,040 --> 01:07:56,000
Speaker 2: We all fear that, all of us. The greatest virtue

1396
01:07:56,400 --> 01:07:56,680
Speaker 2: is what.

1397
01:07:59,360 --> 01:07:59,800
Speaker 1: Patience.

1398
01:08:03,320 --> 01:08:05,720
Speaker 2: I think we have a shared lack of that. If

1399
01:08:06,120 --> 01:08:14,880
Speaker 2: it gets out what the word you could not live without? Idiot?

1400
01:08:15,480 --> 01:08:17,080
Speaker 1: I say that word a lot every day. Look at

1401
01:08:17,120 --> 01:08:19,960
Speaker 1: this idiot. Sometimes I'm looking in the mirror and go

1402
01:08:20,040 --> 01:08:20,880
Speaker 1: look at this he Oh.

1403
01:08:20,960 --> 01:08:24,160
Speaker 2: No, you shouldn't do that. If you could live anywhere,

1404
01:08:24,439 --> 01:08:25,160
Speaker 2: where would you live?

1405
01:08:27,439 --> 01:08:29,200
Speaker 1: Probably just outside of Yellowstone?

1406
01:08:30,640 --> 01:08:31,920
Speaker 2: Wow? Except in the winter.

1407
01:08:32,560 --> 01:08:33,479
Speaker 1: No, in the winter too.

1408
01:08:33,520 --> 01:08:34,240
Speaker 2: Gets a little deeper.

1409
01:08:34,400 --> 01:08:36,840
Speaker 1: That's why with me. Wow. Yeah, I like it out there.

1410
01:08:36,920 --> 01:08:41,400
Speaker 2: Beautiful country, good air, beautiful country. What is your biggest regret?

1411
01:08:41,600 --> 01:08:47,080
Speaker 1: John? Not jumping that train and getting the hell out

1412
01:08:47,080 --> 01:08:47,639
Speaker 1: of this interview.

1413
01:08:49,080 --> 01:08:55,560
Speaker 2: We're almost done. Your biggest regret, John, besides jumping the train, biggest.

1414
01:08:55,200 --> 01:09:00,559
Speaker 1: Regret probably disrespecting my father and my youth. H I've

1415
01:09:00,600 --> 01:09:03,280
Speaker 1: apologized since then, but still I regret it.

1416
01:09:03,520 --> 01:09:06,360
Speaker 2: The best piece of advice you ever got was.

1417
01:09:06,400 --> 01:09:10,840
Speaker 1: What You're never truly free until you can say no.

1418
01:09:12,040 --> 01:09:13,719
Speaker 1: Who gave it to you, Larry Gatlin?

1419
01:09:14,000 --> 01:09:17,479
Speaker 2: Wow, You're never truly free until you can say no.

1420
01:09:17,680 --> 01:09:18,280
Speaker 2: I love that.

1421
01:09:18,479 --> 01:09:18,840
Speaker 1: That's right.

1422
01:09:19,360 --> 01:09:22,479
Speaker 2: If you could not do what you're doing now, you

1423
01:09:22,560 --> 01:09:24,800
Speaker 2: weren't a singer and a songwriter, what would you be?

1424
01:09:25,080 --> 01:09:27,080
Speaker 2: What would you like to do? What else were you

1425
01:09:27,200 --> 01:09:28,320
Speaker 2: called to do? Do you think.

1426
01:09:30,200 --> 01:09:32,680
Speaker 1: Something where I can inspire people? Whatever that would be.

1427
01:09:32,960 --> 01:09:35,479
Speaker 1: I've always thought if I'd ever gone into the military,

1428
01:09:35,680 --> 01:09:37,320
Speaker 1: I would have been a guy that would have really

1429
01:09:37,439 --> 01:09:41,240
Speaker 1: probably enjoyed that and excelled at it, being around other

1430
01:09:41,760 --> 01:09:45,320
Speaker 1: really competent people, younger ones, especially bringing them up. I

1431
01:09:45,360 --> 01:09:47,160
Speaker 1: don't know that it would have been military, but something

1432
01:09:47,160 --> 01:09:48,600
Speaker 1: that would have put me in a spot where I

1433
01:09:48,680 --> 01:09:50,519
Speaker 1: can communicate, Like.

1434
01:09:50,560 --> 01:09:54,120
Speaker 2: That final question, what happens when this life is over?

1435
01:09:55,160 --> 01:09:57,960
Speaker 1: When this life is over, every single human being that's

1436
01:09:58,040 --> 01:10:00,960
Speaker 1: ever lived stands directly in front of the Son of God,

1437
01:10:01,640 --> 01:10:03,880
Speaker 1: and he will either say come on in or he'll

1438
01:10:03,880 --> 01:10:06,280
Speaker 1: say depart from me. I never knew you one or

1439
01:10:06,280 --> 01:10:08,320
Speaker 1: the other. And the only way you get into heaven

1440
01:10:08,400 --> 01:10:11,599
Speaker 1: is by submitting your entire life and will to Jesus Christ.

1441
01:10:11,880 --> 01:10:15,880
Speaker 1: Going to church will not get you in. Academia about

1442
01:10:15,880 --> 01:10:17,960
Speaker 1: the Bible will not get you in. All of your

1443
01:10:17,960 --> 01:10:20,439
Speaker 1: philosophy will not get you in. Doing good deeds will

1444
01:10:20,479 --> 01:10:22,920
Speaker 1: not get you in. If that was the case, the

1445
01:10:23,000 --> 01:10:24,920
Speaker 1: thief on the cross would have never gone into heaven.

1446
01:10:26,120 --> 01:10:27,280
Speaker 1: That's what happens when you die.

1447
01:10:27,560 --> 01:10:30,479
Speaker 2: No, you're on your way there, my friend God, bless you.

1448
01:10:30,560 --> 01:10:31,559
Speaker 2: Great John.

1449
01:10:31,680 --> 01:10:33,640
Speaker 1: Yes see you next time looks good.

1450
01:10:34,040 --> 01:10:36,599
Speaker 2: I've never taken it off. Now here's the least in town.

1451
01:10:36,800 --> 01:10:37,519
Speaker 1: Give me one of these.

1452
01:10:38,400 --> 01:10:42,639
Speaker 2: There you go, Thank you John. Okay, here's the hole.

1453
01:10:42,840 --> 01:10:44,920
Speaker 2: You know. This one idea that always sticks in my

1454
01:10:45,080 --> 01:10:48,920
Speaker 2: mind after an interview. I loved what John Rich shared there,

1455
01:10:49,600 --> 01:10:53,840
Speaker 2: when everything is out of your control, find the one

1456
01:10:54,000 --> 01:10:58,400
Speaker 2: thing you still can control, and control it, do the

1457
01:10:58,479 --> 01:11:01,639
Speaker 2: one right thing you're capable of, and build from there.

1458
01:11:02,000 --> 01:11:04,360
Speaker 2: The other thing that I think is so good is

1459
01:11:04,479 --> 01:11:08,200
Speaker 2: that God opens doors for those who run to him. Oh,

1460
01:11:08,520 --> 01:11:12,840
Speaker 2: and keep your hat on. I'll carry a lot of

1461
01:11:12,880 --> 01:11:14,479
Speaker 2: those things with me. I hope you'll carry them with you.

1462
01:11:14,760 --> 01:11:17,560
Speaker 2: Why live a dry, narrow, constricted life when if you

1463
01:11:17,680 --> 01:11:21,160
Speaker 2: fill it with good things, it can flow into a broad,

1464
01:11:21,600 --> 01:11:25,280
Speaker 2: thriving Arroyo Grande. I'm raining at Arroyo. Make sure you

1465
01:11:25,520 --> 01:11:28,560
Speaker 2: like and subscribe to this episode. Thank you for diving in,

1466
01:11:28,680 --> 01:11:33,679
Speaker 2: and we'll see you next time. Arroyo Grande is produced

1467
01:11:33,720 --> 01:11:37,200
Speaker 2: in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and is available on the

1468
01:11:37,280 --> 01:11:40,680
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.