Speaker 1: I'm honest enough to be on your podcast today to
Speaker 1: tell you that I still get stuck here sometimes. I
Speaker 1: probably never said it this honestly, but this is the
Speaker 1: podcast to be that real about it is that I
Speaker 1: have just.
Speaker 2: He's a crossover artist and we'll waste them one multi
Speaker 2: genre multi plata really wrong. You went to jail for
Speaker 2: an armed robbery at fifteen? Have you ever thought about
Speaker 2: what you'd say to that person if you met them?
Speaker 3: I guess it's the best question I've ever been asked.
Speaker 3: I've avoided this question.
Speaker 2: Do you truly believe that you're a horrible person? I
Speaker 2: can't imagine you're having a horrible heart weird throw to
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Speaker 3: The number one health and wellness podcast.
Speaker 2: Jay Setty, Jay Sheetty.
Speaker 3: Je.
Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you
Speaker 2: come to become happier, healthier, and more healed. Today's guest
Speaker 2: is someone that I have been dying to have on
Speaker 2: the show ever since the moment I saw him perform
Speaker 2: live and I got to give him a big hug
Speaker 2: the day after. This guest's story is truly unbelievable, truly inspiring,
Speaker 2: truly spectacular. I'm speaking about the award winning, Grammy nominated
Speaker 2: Nashville native singer songwriter Jelly Roll, who debuted top three
Speaker 2: on the Billboard two hundred All Genre chart and number
Speaker 2: two on the top Country album charts with his debut
Speaker 2: country album, and it earned him the biggest country debut
Speaker 2: album in Billboard Consumption chart. History. Jelly Roll was nominated
Speaker 2: for Best New Artist and Best Duo Group Performance for
Speaker 2: Save Me with Landy Wilson at the twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: Grammy Awards, a four times winner at the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: three People's Choice Country Awards, and the most nominated male
Speaker 2: at the twenty twenty three CMO Awards with five total nominations,
Speaker 2: capturing his first CMO Award for New Artists of the
Speaker 2: Year for the twenty twenty four CMO Awards. Jelly Roll
Speaker 2: was just nominated this morning for Entertainer of the Year,
Speaker 2: Album of the Year, and Male Vocalist of the Year.
Speaker 2: Jelly Roll is set to least his new album, Beautifully Broken,
Speaker 2: on October eleventh and launch his Beautifully Broken Tour on
Speaker 2: August twenty seventh. Welcome to on Purpose, Jelly Role.
Speaker 1: Yes, as you kept reading off, I was getting nervous.
Speaker 1: I was like, that's wow, this is all associated with me.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's beautiful to see it. And you know you
Speaker 2: just said to me outside, you said, did you ever
Speaker 2: dream of this? And I said to you, no, I
Speaker 2: didn't dream of it, and you were saying it was
Speaker 2: the same back And I just want to take folks
Speaker 2: back to how we connected because I went to Clive
Speaker 2: Davis's pre Grammy party. That was the first time I've
Speaker 2: ever seen you perform, and I was just like, who
Speaker 2: is this guy? Like, that's a hard party to perform at.
Speaker 2: I feel there's short segments, it's moving fast, there's so
Speaker 2: much going on, and you came on stage and you
Speaker 2: had everyone in raptures. I remember like MGK was bopping
Speaker 2: a lit that stood on his chair on his table,
Speaker 2: like everyone was rocking out to you, and I was thinking,
Speaker 2: you had everyone in there, fully present, fully locked in.
Speaker 2: It was beautiful. So I posted it. I took a video,
Speaker 2: posted it. I thought nothing of it. I was just like,
Speaker 2: this guy's amazing. Can't way to follow his work, listen
Speaker 2: to more of his music? And then you DM me
Speaker 2: back and I was just taken away because you said
Speaker 2: you were aware of my work and you'd read think
Speaker 2: like a monk had a really low time in your life,
Speaker 2: and I was like, I was genuinely humbled. I was like,
Speaker 2: no way. I was like, I didn't have a clue
Speaker 2: that you knew who I was. And I was just
Speaker 2: so grateful and I wanted to ask you. They're like,
Speaker 2: how did you even get think like a monk? How
Speaker 2: did you find on purpose? Like what was the low
Speaker 2: time in your life that it found you out?
Speaker 3: It's funny, man.
Speaker 1: So in twenty nineteen, my father passed away in March
Speaker 1: of twenty nineteen. He got sick in January of twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: and I had spent the last three months of his
Speaker 1: life with him and every day because it was kind
Speaker 1: of one of those really kind of slow ninety data
Speaker 1: clients and I was coming out of.
Speaker 3: That really really struggling.
Speaker 1: And about a year later, I had gained like sixty
Speaker 1: or seventy pounds back right, because I'd lost a lot
Speaker 1: of weight at the time and I just felt it
Speaker 1: weighing on me. And we were going into COVID at
Speaker 1: that point too, and I had discovered you on YouTube
Speaker 1: and I think this, I don't remember when did you
Speaker 1: launch on purpose? Because I think this was yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So I just discovered the pod and I was watching
Speaker 1: just like the initial stuff, like I got into the
Speaker 1: super earlier stuff where you were just like direct to
Speaker 1: camera stuff before the pod, and then I was like,
Speaker 1: I should read this book. So my wife knows. Side note,
Speaker 1: I've always been obsessed with monks and like that whole.
Speaker 1: I live a very chaotic life, and I maybe romanticize
Speaker 1: this idea of disappearing too the mountains for a year
Speaker 1: and refiguring my life out Unlike every other kid that
Speaker 1: watched Dumb and Dumber, you know what I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: it's like, you.
Speaker 3: Know, like maybe this will work.
Speaker 1: So when I read it, and it was a really
Speaker 1: big transition for me, my father had just died. I
Speaker 1: thought my purpose had been taken away from me because
Speaker 1: to that point, music to me was a donkey to
Speaker 1: get to people, right, and that was taken away. I
Speaker 1: couldn't get to people the way I used to get
Speaker 1: to people. I was used to doing two hundred bar
Speaker 1: shows a year. So I'm trying to grieve my father
Speaker 1: and I'm going through this and we're all going through
Speaker 1: this national pandemic together. And of course the fear of
Speaker 1: it initially was really strong as well. And that was
Speaker 1: kind of that season of life that I got introduced
Speaker 1: to mister Jay shetty Man.
Speaker 3: It was really really cool because.
Speaker 1: I've always believed that what we put in our body
Speaker 1: comes out, and that's a lot deeper than just what
Speaker 1: we eat or drink. I think it's what we consume.
Speaker 1: You know, if I'm watching a bunch of murder mysteries,
Speaker 1: I'll feel a certain kind of anxiety if I watch
Speaker 1: them for a month straight. You know, if I'm listening to,
Speaker 1: if I'm listening to On Purpose or Doctor Despenser, these
Speaker 1: people that I look up to, Cuberman, you know, these
Speaker 1: guys that I think are just great.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Then I'm always putting out better stuff. So yeah, you
Speaker 1: have no clue how much your art helped me, and
Speaker 1: in exchange, I think my art's been able to help people.
Speaker 1: It's funny how iron sharpens iron without us even knowing
Speaker 1: each other. You know what I mean that I was
Speaker 1: being inspired by what you were saying and what you
Speaker 1: were doing.
Speaker 2: Now, what you're doing is so inspiring. I mean, whenever
Speaker 2: I'm hearing you any music you put out, I'm like,
Speaker 2: I can pray to this, I can meditate to this,
Speaker 2: you know, I can dance to this. It's real heart
Speaker 2: music and soul music. And for me hearing that from
Speaker 2: you and the big hug you gave me at the Grammys,
Speaker 2: I was feeling so much love and so thank you
Speaker 2: because knowing that someone who was having such an incredible
Speaker 2: impact that I had somehow been connected to your life
Speaker 2: was really profound. But you spoke about your father then
Speaker 2: losing your father, What was your relationship like with him
Speaker 2: up until that point, and what was what walk us
Speaker 2: through that moment of losing him and what that felt like?
Speaker 1: He was He was like, really, we were really really
Speaker 1: close when I was a really troubled juvenile. My father
Speaker 1: was an alcoholic, My mother had her own struggles, and
Speaker 1: we wasn't as close whenever I was a kid because
Speaker 1: I was just so rebellious in spirit. But as I
Speaker 1: got in my twenties and finally got out of that
Speaker 1: revolving cycle of the judicial system, me and him started
Speaker 1: really getting close and I started leaning on him, and
Speaker 1: we would go to happy Hour three or four days
Speaker 1: a week, every day, and we'd go sit at the
Speaker 1: same spot at the same bar and the mumber and
Speaker 1: Street in Nashville called the ten Roufe from four to six.
Speaker 3: And he was such an impactful man.
Speaker 1: Later in his life, he really started becoming enriched in
Speaker 1: his community in his church, helped with the Room and
Speaker 1: the End program for the homeless every Thursday. I mean,
Speaker 1: he just was a but he also kind of taught
Speaker 1: me that duality of man because he'd still throw one
Speaker 1: back and party. He wasn't like a square, you know,
Speaker 1: but he was like it was cool. So he kind
Speaker 1: of encouraged me, and we were really close. And he
Speaker 1: was one of those situations, Jay, that I didn't see
Speaker 1: it coming and he didn't either. We all thought he
Speaker 1: was good. I knew he was getting older. He was
Speaker 1: probably about seventy six, but he was still sharp as attack.
Speaker 1: And it kind of out of nowhere, he got a
Speaker 1: really he thought he just got sick, and it turned
Speaker 1: out that he'd had leukemia for a few years and
Speaker 1: just never even really checked on it. But he was
Speaker 1: one of them old tough dudes that never went to
Speaker 1: the doctor, didn't believe in you know. He was one
Speaker 1: of those guys that Grandpa's cough syrup in a good
Speaker 1: sweat will get any cold out of you know, drink
Speaker 1: a little burbon and go to sleep.
Speaker 3: Sleep in a hot room with two blankets.
Speaker 1: You'll be like, oh, like penitentiary dudes, it'll just try
Speaker 1: to sweat colds out.
Speaker 3: It's like, just sweat it out.
Speaker 1: So those last ninety days were really cool for me, Jay,
Speaker 1: because I got to really spend the time with him.
Speaker 1: Like when he got sick that day, I showed up
Speaker 1: to his house, I put him in my car and
Speaker 1: drove him to the hospital closest to my house. And
Speaker 1: I got to drive up there every morning and hang
Speaker 1: out with him all day is you know, all the
Speaker 1: way until the end. And it was really cool because
Speaker 1: he taught me how to live, and he also taught
Speaker 1: me how to die. And uh, because man, he did
Speaker 1: it like a gangster. He did it just the way
Speaker 1: I thought my father would do it, you know, not
Speaker 1: a tear in his eye, not not not a worry
Speaker 1: in his face, just just a man of faith that
Speaker 1: was just kind of ready to go, you know.
Speaker 3: But it was but it hurt, you know, it hurt hard.
Speaker 2: Was there a lesson or something he said at that
Speaker 2: time or was it just the way he was, just the.
Speaker 3: Way he dealt with it.
Speaker 1: He Uh, he was, I think not even what he said.
Speaker 1: One thing he said, I'll never forget. That was funny,
Speaker 1: but it stuck with me. Was the nurse came in
Speaker 1: to give him his pain pills or whatever medicine it was,
Speaker 1: and he chewed it. It was a whole tough just
Speaker 1: swallowed it. I said that don't bother you, and he
Speaker 1: was just just as quick as he could say it.
Speaker 1: He said, sometime when the pills too hard to swallow,
Speaker 1: you just got to chew it right.
Speaker 3: Stuck with me good, it's like.
Speaker 1: And I thought about that because I was like, that's
Speaker 1: so much bigger than just this particular moment, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. But he was always full of those
Speaker 1: little one liner wisdoms. That's kind of how it was.
Speaker 1: He was the opposite of me. I'll talk to everybody
Speaker 1: a lot. My dad was very kind of reserved, and
Speaker 1: when he spoke, it really counted, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And what about your mother, because I've heard that sheilds
Speaker 2: she was dealing with her own mental health challenges when
Speaker 2: you were growing up. What was that experience like of
Speaker 2: you know, having a father that was this way? And
Speaker 2: then what was she like? And was she complimenting who
Speaker 2: he was? And how does she impact you?
Speaker 1: They were polar opposite. She was she struggled with drugs
Speaker 1: and just real mental health stuff. She started becoming really reclusive.
Speaker 1: There was a twenty year period in my life that
Speaker 1: I didn't see my mother outside of a nightgown, but
Speaker 1: maybe twice ever you know, I just never seen her
Speaker 1: come out of her room very much more or less
Speaker 1: out of our house. And I didn't understand anything about
Speaker 1: drugs at the time or mental health, but she really
Speaker 1: really struggled with that. But I connected music with her
Speaker 1: mental health right because the few times when she was
Speaker 1: out of that bedroom and at that kitchen table, she
Speaker 1: was thriving. I mean it was like and she would
Speaker 1: hold court and she was so special in how she
Speaker 1: dealt with people and she's still like this that she
Speaker 1: would come downstairs and sit at that table and it
Speaker 1: was almost like a light shot out at the top
Speaker 1: of the house. The whole family would come into the table.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't talk about it. We just like you would
Speaker 1: just see them start to Neighbors would start to come over,
Speaker 1: her girlfriends would start to pull up. She'd start playing music,
Speaker 1: smoking cigarettes, telling stories, talking shit, holding court at the
Speaker 1: kitchen table, and it'd be like a group of us
Speaker 1: have her four girlfriends sitting around the table. We'd all
Speaker 1: be standing around them some I mean like it was
Speaker 1: like a crowd trying to just just take anything she'd
Speaker 1: give us.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: But that's where my love for music came in, because
Speaker 1: imagine you're ten years old and you don't see your
Speaker 1: mother in a healthy space very much. But when she
Speaker 1: seems her healthiest, there's always music playing. There's always this
Speaker 1: record player, there's always and I always tell the story, Jada,
Speaker 1: it was that you're old enough to remember this era
Speaker 1: that we didn't have Google, we didn't have a bunch
Speaker 1: of thesauruses, so.
Speaker 3: You just had to believe people.
Speaker 1: So they would just tell these wild stories about I
Speaker 1: don't know if any of these stories I heard about
Speaker 1: all these songs are true. But she would always set
Speaker 1: up a song first for a big story and then
Speaker 1: play it. So we were like all on the edge
Speaker 1: of our seat and she'd hype up a song that
Speaker 1: we'd never heard and then play it. We were all
Speaker 1: like listening, like we were watching a movie, like the
Speaker 1: first time she played Coward of the County or The Gambler,
Speaker 1: Like we're like ears locked, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: or that.
Speaker 3: Oh, oh, come my baby, you know, We're just all
Speaker 3: like She's like, listen, listen, listen. She wait for the
Speaker 3: good parts. We'd all get goosebumps at the end of
Speaker 3: a song. And it really really kind of brought that
Speaker 3: being young to me. I was like, Oh, this solves problems,
Speaker 3: this brings people together, this makes sick people better. Like
Speaker 3: there's something happening with this vibration that's different. And I
Speaker 3: probably tend Jay And right then I was like, I
Speaker 3: want to write songs.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: I came down like a week later with a poem,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. I didn't know how to
Speaker 3: write a song, so like I wrote a poem, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Did you sing in perform it for her?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah? Every time? Oh dude.
Speaker 1: It got to the point where, like and if she
Speaker 1: was downstairs with her girlfriend, she'd called me up there
Speaker 1: to read whatever. The most one I wrote was. She
Speaker 1: was very looking back now, you don't realize how much
Speaker 1: that feeds the positive side of reinforcing a little dreaming
Speaker 1: you as a kid. But she I don't even know
Speaker 1: if she did it, but she hammered it home because
Speaker 1: she made me feel like the bell of the ball.
Speaker 1: I mean, she'd be like, Jason, come down here, little Jelly,
Speaker 1: Come down here, little Jelly, and I'd come down. She
Speaker 1: goes show pat that thing you wrote last week, and
Speaker 1: I'd run back up get my little sheet of paper
Speaker 1: and I'd come down like, check this out Pat and
Speaker 1: Pat would act like it was the coolest thing ever.
Speaker 3: You know, it sucked. Of course I was ken. It
Speaker 3: was horrible, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But they were super, super complimentary, and that was something
Speaker 1: that really encouraged me.
Speaker 2: Do you still have any of those original poems?
Speaker 1: No, dude, we are such a white trash family. We
Speaker 1: lost all our pictures, all our poems. We lost everything.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can imagine. Just no matter how bad you
Speaker 2: think it was, it would be fun to look back,
Speaker 2: Oh for sure, see what you were writing about.
Speaker 1: Just to see that. I'd love to see some of
Speaker 1: the my home videos. I was watching the I forget
Speaker 1: her name. I think her name is Sadie. She's with
Speaker 1: the Duck Dynasty family, but she's a pastor now, and
Speaker 1: they were showing a video of her standing on her
Speaker 1: kitchen table when she was two going three, going Jesus.
Speaker 3: Forgives everybody, He'll love.
Speaker 1: You, and then fast forward and she's twenty eight now
Speaker 1: and she like runs a mega church, and it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's funny. I wonder there's any videos of me being
Speaker 1: a little asshole. Yeah, I'm running around wrapping the people.
Speaker 2: That's beautiful, man, that's beautiful. It's uh, how does he
Speaker 2: go from that to then being incotrated to the thirteen Like,
Speaker 2: I feel like, you know, that's ten years old. You say,
Speaker 2: it seems like there's the ability to find joy. You're
Speaker 2: looking back and smiling, but then thirteen, that incarceration journey begins.
Speaker 3: It deep rooted insecurities. Early.
Speaker 1: I was always a bigger kid, always struggle with an
Speaker 1: eating disorder. I just I think I ate my emotions
Speaker 1: whenever I was younger in feelings and what was happening
Speaker 1: in my environment, in the household and outside. So I
Speaker 1: had a little chip on my shoulder naturally as a
Speaker 1: young kid, I was I've always said this and it's
Speaker 1: but it's true. Excuse my language is, big kids become
Speaker 1: are one of two ways. They're either very shy and
Speaker 1: very timid, or they're very funny and can be very aggressive.
Speaker 1: And I was the funny, aggressive, big guy, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And I carried that in my neighborhood
Speaker 1: was you know, I mean, it was happening. It was
Speaker 1: a very active area, you know what I mean. It
Speaker 1: was a very very normal, middle lower class neighborhood in
Speaker 1: the nineties, So there was just so much crap happening.
Speaker 1: It was so easy to get involved. When you're a kid,
Speaker 1: you're just looking for any kind of acceptance, any you know,
Speaker 1: any any sense of belonging, any sense of want, and
Speaker 1: the streets will always give it to you, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. They're they're, they're they're praying on it.
Speaker 1: They're they're they're they're praying on it and praying for
Speaker 1: it that it happens. And I just immediately got washed
Speaker 1: into it just and I also was one of the
Speaker 1: people in my family that had a I've probably never
Speaker 1: said this this way, and I hope I'll get in trouble.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a good relationship with how I looked
Speaker 1: at money, you know. I looked at money as the
Speaker 1: way out of this particular situation, and I was willing
Speaker 1: to do whatever it took to get that. And I
Speaker 1: had no morals about it. I had no moral compass
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I looked back at those years, Jane,
Speaker 1: I'm so embarrassed to talk about them.
Speaker 3: I was such a I was.
Speaker 1: I was still a bad person in my early thirties,
Speaker 1: but I mean I was a really horrible kid all
Speaker 1: the way into my mid twenties.
Speaker 3: I was people always like, You're the nicest dude I've
Speaker 3: ever met.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm so glad, y'all haven't met nobody that
Speaker 1: need me twenty years ago, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But yeah, So I just immediately started getting this shit.
Speaker 1: And the first time I caught a real case, i'd gotten, well,
Speaker 1: we got caught with weed and stuff and all that
Speaker 1: little two days and juvenile stuff. But I'd gotten a
Speaker 1: fight with a kid, and back then, they had the
Speaker 1: chain wallets, and when we were wrestling, I grabbed a
Speaker 1: chain wallet to try to hit them with it. And
Speaker 1: that was a strong arm robbery case. So I ended
Speaker 1: up in the system for like twenty something months when
Speaker 1: I was like thirteen, for that strong arm robbery.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, it's Jay Chatty and I'm thrilled to announce
Speaker 2: my podcast tour. For the first time ever. You can
Speaker 2: see my on Purpose podcast live and in person. Join
Speaker 2: me in a city near you for meaningful, insightful conversations
Speaker 2: with surprise guests. It could be a celebrity, top wellness expert,
Speaker 2: or a CEO or business leader. We'll dive into experiences
Speaker 2: designed to inspire growth, spark learning, and build real connections.
Speaker 2: I can't wait to see you there. Tickets are on
Speaker 2: sell now. I had to Jay Shetty, don't me and
Speaker 2: get yours today? Do you truly believe that you're a
Speaker 2: horrible person. I can't imagine you're having a horrible heart.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I kind of leaned towards I don't know if I
Speaker 1: had a bad heart as much as I leaned towards
Speaker 1: kind of the Damascus thing where I think I was
Speaker 1: just a really less than admirable person.
Speaker 3: I was desperate and delusional. I say it.
Speaker 1: I was a desperate, delusional dreamer in the desperate park
Speaker 1: got me in a lot of trouble. I encourage delusional dreamers.
Speaker 1: Be a delusional dreamer. Just don't be a desperate delusional dreamer,
Speaker 1: you know. But I definitely was consciously making really horrible decisions.
Speaker 1: I just had such an anger. I was just so
Speaker 1: mad at life. Everything that wasn't right was everybody's fault
Speaker 1: of mine. I had such a victim mentality. I took
Speaker 1: zero accountability for anything in my life. I was the
Speaker 1: kid that if you asked what happened, I immediately started
Speaker 1: with everything but me, you know what I mean? And
Speaker 1: it took years for me to break that, like years
Speaker 1: of work, solid work to just like break that. It
Speaker 1: also has took in years of work for me to
Speaker 1: even forgive that kid, years of real intensive work to
Speaker 1: just be like, you know what, because when you're sixteen
Speaker 1: and you do something very manipulative and you look back
Speaker 1: at it, Jay, you're like, man, that was super manipulative. Like, man,
Speaker 1: what was I thinking back then? That's just I knew
Speaker 1: what I was doing. I knew I was being being manipulative. Man,
Speaker 1: I was also sixteen. I was a kid. And I
Speaker 1: know that because I now have a sixteen year old
Speaker 1: and Jay, Man, she's the smartest kid's cool And of
Speaker 1: course everybody thinks they got the coolest smartest kid. I'm
Speaker 1: no exception, you know, but she's the smartest. She's so
Speaker 1: much smarter than me. She's so much better than me.
Speaker 1: She's gonna be everything I wasn't in life. It's going
Speaker 1: to be so fun to watch. But she'll still do
Speaker 1: shit that'll make me go, oh, she's sixteen.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Like all the time, like I have moments where I
Speaker 1: look like, dude, I think you could build a rocket,
Speaker 1: And then I have moments when I'm like, I think
Speaker 1: you put your shoes on wrong.
Speaker 3: Today, you know what I mean, She's sixteen, you know.
Speaker 1: So I've been able to do the work and forgive
Speaker 1: myself for being that, for being what I was. But
Speaker 1: I definitely did a lot of work to change my
Speaker 1: whole outlook on people and love. That's why I'm such
Speaker 1: a hugger man. I was not a touchy guy, dude.
Speaker 1: I was a fist bump, stay away from me, flat faced.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I was kind of a jail guy. And now I'm like,
Speaker 1: I just I joke all the time.
Speaker 3: Jah. I didn't cry until I was thirty three. Now
Speaker 3: I can't quit.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like if I thought I'd caught up
Speaker 1: by now, but I mean I still just just for
Speaker 1: no reason, I'll just sob.
Speaker 2: I love that. What does it take what's blucking us
Speaker 2: from forgiving ourselves?
Speaker 3: Mmmugh?
Speaker 1: I think accepting our responsibility in what we did. It's
Speaker 1: really hard for me. That was the hardest part of
Speaker 1: forgiving myself was just really when I quit running out
Speaker 1: of it was this person's fault, It was that person's fault.
Speaker 1: It took a long time for me to, as my
Speaker 1: father would say to that peal of realizing that maybe
Speaker 1: it was me. You know, it's the classic quote on
Speaker 1: relations and chip number twenty seven. You look up and go, now,
Speaker 1: there's no way I picked twenty seven crazy with you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, like, at some point, maybe I
Speaker 1: am the problem. And that's the first thing I did
Speaker 1: to forgive myself was just almost like the basic principles
Speaker 1: of AA. I just had to admit, like, you know
Speaker 1: what this is, this is me. This is all a
Speaker 1: reflection of the way I've carried myself. And yeah, things
Speaker 1: happened to me in life that created this, And yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of I don't look at people
Speaker 1: and go what's wrong with them?
Speaker 3: No more. I look at people and go what happened
Speaker 3: to them? But I've that is no excuse not to
Speaker 3: not to move on.
Speaker 1: And I was tired of forgiving everybody but me, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't figure out what the problem was. I was like,
Speaker 1: I forgave everybody. I don't have a bitter heart about nothing,
Speaker 1: like you haven't forgave you, And man, I just.
Speaker 3: It hit me like a ton of bricks.
Speaker 2: You went to jail for an arm rubbery at fifteen.
Speaker 2: Have you ever thought about, or maybe you have even
Speaker 2: met them, but have you ever thought about what you'd
Speaker 2: say to that person if you met me?
Speaker 3: I guess it's the.
Speaker 1: Best question I've ever been asked. I've avoided this question
Speaker 1: hoping because I don't know how to answer it. Jay,
Speaker 1: I really want to have a conversation with them. I've
Speaker 1: thought about reaching out. This has been twenty four years
Speaker 1: ago now, and I just don't know how that would
Speaker 1: even start, you know, how it would go about it?
Speaker 1: Because sometimes I wonder if they might have even seen
Speaker 1: me in passing and are aware of my success, and
Speaker 1: I wonder if they've even correlated. I mean, I've obviously
Speaker 1: dramatically changed. You know, I was fifteen, dude, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. I couldn't grow facial hair at all.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't I hardly hit puberty. I still
Speaker 1: had my hay voice when I did that rivalry. So
Speaker 1: I've thought about that a ton, and they're definitely on
Speaker 1: my list, my men's list.
Speaker 3: I just haven't made it that far down yet.
Speaker 2: What do you think you would say?
Speaker 1: I would just ask them to understand. I would ask
Speaker 1: them to just one forgive me, because there's no excuse
Speaker 1: and that the first accountability is no matter how old
Speaker 1: I was, I had no business taking from anybody. Just
Speaker 1: this entitledment that I had the world owed me enough
Speaker 1: that I could come take your stuff. Just what a horrible,
Speaker 1: horrible way to look at life and people. It's what
Speaker 1: a horrible way to interact with the earth, you know.
Speaker 1: And I would apologize for that first, just flat just
Speaker 1: one accountability is what I'm so big on now.
Speaker 3: Jays just looking at me, an I go, man uh.
Speaker 1: And then I would hope they would give me a
Speaker 1: little grace as I explained to them that I was
Speaker 1: fifteen and I was just trying to be. I don't
Speaker 1: know what I was even trying to be. When I
Speaker 1: look back now, I don't know what my thought.
Speaker 3: I don't have.
Speaker 1: This is how I know I was fifteen because there
Speaker 1: When I try to make logic of it, I can't.
Speaker 3: There was no logic to what I did. It made
Speaker 3: absolutely no sense.
Speaker 1: And I learned so much from it and the way
Speaker 1: that I interact with people. And I hope that they
Speaker 1: would see that I've made it my life's mission to
Speaker 1: change and to change people, because that's what I'm representing
Speaker 1: the most.
Speaker 3: In what I do.
Speaker 1: With my This whole thing for me is I think
Speaker 1: people cheer for me Jay because they see a little
Speaker 1: bit of me and them, or they see their cousin
Speaker 1: or their I'm a family member, they relate, and I
Speaker 1: speak for an unspoken group of people, you know, and
Speaker 1: I hope they would know that. You know, money doesn't
Speaker 1: create character, it reveals it. Right, if I was an asshole,
Speaker 1: what a great time to start, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: What a great time to show the world.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I think that I'm trying to diligently prove myself that
Speaker 1: I'm I've not only changed that I took the platform
Speaker 1: serious and it's making me change more every day, you know,
Speaker 1: the responsibility that God's given me, and I would hope
Speaker 1: they would forgive me.
Speaker 2: That's beautiful. Even sitting with you for a few moments
Speaker 2: and the few interactions we have had, it's so evident
Speaker 2: to me that you've done so much work, Like it's
Speaker 2: so clear, it's so clear, and I think you remind
Speaker 2: everyone of the potential we do want to see in humanity,
Speaker 2: Like it's like that's what we want to see. Like
Speaker 2: when we see someone struggling, we want to see them
Speaker 2: figure out how's that transformation? And I think what you
Speaker 2: were saying that when people see you, I think they're
Speaker 2: reminded that, oh it's possible, Oh it's real, or it
Speaker 2: can be genuine like it it's so genuine to your
Speaker 2: care when you're talking about it to me, like I
Speaker 2: feel the vibration of just you know, the growth and
Speaker 2: transformation you chose. What I'm fascinated by is how did
Speaker 2: it affect you at the time to make a mistake
Speaker 2: in your early years? How long did that end up
Speaker 2: putting you in jail for that time?
Speaker 1: That's the time I got charged an adult, So I
Speaker 1: still have that felling on my record of this day
Speaker 1: for that crime that was I did a few years.
Speaker 1: I mean I came home right, I've made bond right
Speaker 1: before I was seventeen, So I did two and a
Speaker 1: half years, and then I ended up having to go
Speaker 1: back and do another few years for the actual case
Speaker 1: when it settled out.
Speaker 2: What does that experience do to a young person? Walk
Speaker 2: us through that, because I feel like you're now looking
Speaker 2: back at it when you're, you know, late thirties, But
Speaker 2: when you're looking back at it, it's a different perspective
Speaker 2: to like when you're actually fifteen in jail for two
Speaker 2: and a half years, going back in and out cases.
Speaker 2: What does that do to the mental health of a teenager.
Speaker 3: Well, here's the perspective. Jay.
Speaker 1: Imagine us as adults now to me and you go
Speaker 1: have a conversation. I go, hey, man, let's go spend
Speaker 1: three months in the mountains together, not use our phones.
Speaker 3: Just fellowship.
Speaker 1: You look at a like, great idea, right, You're like,
Speaker 1: it's just three months, it'll be fun. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think this will be great. We'll bring our wives, we'll
Speaker 1: invite other people. Let's actually make a thing of this
Speaker 1: now because us, because we know in our age that
Speaker 1: three months is but the hardest we're working three months.
Speaker 1: But I might be need to break we need You know,
Speaker 1: when you're fifteen years old, three months is your life.
Speaker 1: It's an entire semester of school. You're now going to
Speaker 1: be a second year freshman, or you're going to have
Speaker 1: to make up these whole classes next summer because of
Speaker 1: three months. You know. So imagine getting thrown into that
Speaker 1: vortex for three years. I missed high school, I missed
Speaker 1: any kind of normal socializing, any kind of what would
Speaker 1: be growing up, what would be developing in those airs.
Speaker 1: And I was developing in a room and I did
Speaker 1: a crime that deserve this, by the way, But I
Speaker 1: was developing in a room with stone, white walls, a conk,
Speaker 1: a steal commode, and a steal bunk and a six
Speaker 1: by eight sel six foot wide, eight inches long. By
Speaker 1: the time I was an adult, I had to sleep
Speaker 1: with my legs curled, couldn't stretch all the way out.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll never forget being seventeen realizing I grew
Speaker 1: enough that I couldn't fit in the bunk no more
Speaker 1: length wise. So you go through these things as a juvenile.
Speaker 1: And do you ever see Blow? You gotta watch the
Speaker 1: movie Blow. It's incredible. It's a crazy movie. It's about
Speaker 1: a guy named George Young Young that was a huge
Speaker 1: Johnny Depp played a huge Shiny Death fan. But he
Speaker 1: was a big weed dealer and he finally got some
Speaker 1: federal time for moving, you know, hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: pounds of weed. And the joke he says in the
Speaker 1: movie is I went to prison with a bachelor's degree
Speaker 1: in marijuana. I left with a PhD in cocaine because
Speaker 1: he came home and ended up being the biggest cocaine
Speaker 1: dealer in American history. So that's the true though. That's
Speaker 1: how that impacts us, Jay when we're in these situations.
Speaker 1: Our judicial system is set that when you put the
Speaker 1: worst of the worst in a room together and give
Speaker 1: them nothing to do but talk, argue and fight, you're
Speaker 1: only making smarter criminals. They're only when there's no outlets.
Speaker 1: Because there was very few outlets for us. Even as
Speaker 1: a juvenile, we didn't have no outlets. I didn't get
Speaker 1: my diploma, I didn't get my ged until I was
Speaker 1: twenty five. In adult jail, we didn't have real classes.
Speaker 1: We didn't have a real wreck yard, an exercise program,
Speaker 1: a mentorship program. At the juvenile we didn't have anything.
Speaker 1: I mean, they treated us like lifers, you know, orange jumpsuits.
Speaker 1: And these were hainous crimes we were committing. And I
Speaker 1: understand that I am huge on discipline, Like I'm one
Speaker 1: of the few people that even in my justice reform
Speaker 1: doesn't anywhere do I believe people shouldn't be incarcerated. I
Speaker 1: think that I've learned some of the greatest things in
Speaker 1: my life and that it's changed my life. But what
Speaker 1: changed my life the most of those facilities. Was later
Speaker 1: when I started getting resources in them, when they started
Speaker 1: and education units where I could get my ged and
Speaker 1: they had a Christian program that I could go to
Speaker 1: call Jericho breaking the walls down, and these were the
Speaker 1: things that I started learning, these fundamentals, and they had
Speaker 1: AA in NA and I started being getting access to
Speaker 1: different kind of books and literature and these things.
Speaker 3: But all through my juvenile years, Jay, none of that.
Speaker 3: You're just sitting in there.
Speaker 1: You know there's kids that went to juvenile my age
Speaker 1: and came home and couldn't never could read and write.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, no, I appreciate that perspective. And it comes
Speaker 2: back to what you keep referring to is this principle
Speaker 2: of accountability. And I think accountability gets a bit of
Speaker 2: a hard rap right now, Like it's a difficult reputation
Speaker 2: that accountability has because talk to me about the difference
Speaker 2: between accountability and self sabotage or self blame. Right there's
Speaker 2: a difference huge, and I can tell you know it
Speaker 2: because from the way you're using the word. But I
Speaker 2: think people get scared of accountability because they think, well,
Speaker 2: if I think it's all my fault, right, then maybe
Speaker 2: I shouldn't be here, or maybe I don't matter or
Speaker 2: I'm not enough? How do you see the difference.
Speaker 1: There was a poem called the Guy in the Glass.
Speaker 1: Have you ever read this poem? It's an incredible poem.
Speaker 1: I used to have it memorized, but I read it
Speaker 1: in jail and I hung it up on my jail mirror,
Speaker 1: and until about two years ago, it was on the
Speaker 1: mirror in my bedroom every day, my whole as long
Speaker 1: as me and my wife have been together. It's something
Speaker 1: I live by. The Guy the pretty much says that
Speaker 1: you can be king for a day and get pats
Speaker 1: on the back in life as you pass, but it's
Speaker 1: only heartache and tears if you fool the Guy in
Speaker 1: the Glass. That was the moment where now, if there's
Speaker 1: a triggering thing that happens in my life, I used
Speaker 1: to the old mentality was who did this? First thing
Speaker 1: I do now is I go straight to the mirror
Speaker 1: and go what could Jason have done differently? What could
Speaker 1: I have really done differently to avoid this situation? Because
Speaker 1: once I learned that there's accountability, this old head once
Speaker 1: told me, if I'm running up a flight of steps
Speaker 1: and I slip on a step and fall whose fault
Speaker 1: is it is a mine of the steps or what's
Speaker 1: it's mine? He goes, what if there's a cracking of steps?
Speaker 1: I go, it's the steps? He goes, You think, and
Speaker 1: I go, well, for sure, that's the variable. Right, there's
Speaker 1: a cracking of steps, it's the steps fault.
Speaker 3: He said.
Speaker 1: The steps didn't have a choice to be there. You
Speaker 1: had a choice to run up them. Man, those are
Speaker 1: the moments where you're like, oh so, and then if
Speaker 1: I can assess that I did everything right, that's how
Speaker 1: I avoid self blame. Real self assessment, honest self assessment
Speaker 1: to go because a lot of times we just don't
Speaker 1: honestly assess ourselves. Something I learned through AA that I
Speaker 1: love so much is going home and having these like
Speaker 1: you assess your day, you write what did you do?
Speaker 3: What do they call it? Like a moral inventory?
Speaker 1: Right, and having these real moments, and then you get
Speaker 1: freedom because sometimes you find out it ain't you and
Speaker 1: then you're like, you know what, I actually did pretty
Speaker 1: good by this. Then you can start handling your business
Speaker 1: and then going down the line all right, well where
Speaker 1: did this fall apart?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean? And then you can start
Speaker 3: checking your boxes.
Speaker 1: But I've learned that even and then it'll always come
Speaker 1: back to you, because even if it's somebody you hired
Speaker 1: to do a job and they fail to do the job,
Speaker 1: still hired that person to do the job, that was
Speaker 1: still my own going and that just changed everything. I
Speaker 1: had to do it that way, though, Jay, because I
Speaker 1: was a chronic. I was the spider Man. Mean, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean all the time, Dude, it was everybody.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. I had Taim, but Tim
Speaker 3: at Tim, it was never me. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Turns out it was pretty much always me.
Speaker 2: But I love that you can laugh at that and
Speaker 2: say that, right. I think that's the I think that's
Speaker 2: the beauty of it when you start realizing that even
Speaker 2: when you got it wrong, it wasn't this like deep
Speaker 2: dark paint. And it was just like we're young, we're stupid,
Speaker 2: we think about things. We were kind of we're kind
Speaker 2: of trained to believe the problem is not us, and
Speaker 2: when we do make it us, we don't need to
Speaker 2: hold it as like this heavy dark weight. It's like,
Speaker 2: oh wait, let me just relieve myself of this stupid
Speaker 2: idea I have that it's not me and maybe if
Speaker 2: it is me.
Speaker 4: I love that poem Guy Guy in the glass. Question
Speaker 4: and opinion on that, how do you think that? How
Speaker 4: do you encourage people to get over that? Because that's
Speaker 4: a real thing you're saying is to be like when
Speaker 4: you do assess it, you there is a heavy, heavy
Speaker 4: feeling for me. I just started finding freedom in it
Speaker 4: to be like like you said, it was more. I
Speaker 4: started looking at less like damn, I'm enough to more like,
Speaker 4: oh I can let that go. I blew that? What
Speaker 4: did I?
Speaker 3: I started taking this mentality of I don't lose.
Speaker 1: I learned, you know what I mean? Like like I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: like we don't this team, we don't. We might screw
Speaker 1: stuff up, but we don't. Just we learned something. It
Speaker 1: was all valuable. Yeah, what do you think? What do
Speaker 1: you think that process?
Speaker 2: There's two things that come to mind. One of them
Speaker 2: is in the monk tradition, our highest self is called
Speaker 2: the monk mind and our lower self is called the
Speaker 2: monkey mind. And so whenever you're acting in that way,
Speaker 2: it's compared to a monkey. So if you see a monkey,
Speaker 2: and obviously you're not going to see a monkey in
Speaker 2: most places, but at least in India. When you see
Speaker 2: a monkey, monkeys are crazy. They're silly. They're jumping brands
Speaker 2: to brands, they're swinging around, they make you funny sounds.
Speaker 2: They're playful. They'll show you their teeth to scare you
Speaker 2: a little bit. They'll steal your credit card and trade
Speaker 2: it back for a banana. They're like, they're silly. And
Speaker 2: the reason why the mind is compared to a monkey
Speaker 2: is because it often acts like that. It's silly, it's unreasonable,
Speaker 2: it's awkward, it does funny things. And so when you
Speaker 2: look at the mind that way, you're like, oh, it's
Speaker 2: just a monkey, Like it's okay, Like it doesn't have
Speaker 2: to be this serious, heavy thing. You recognize that the
Speaker 2: mind's nature, the mind's propensity, is to be that way.
Speaker 2: And then you go, wait a minute, I wouldn't judge
Speaker 2: a monkey if it did that. So let me not
Speaker 2: judge myself. Let me free myself of that guilt and shame.
Speaker 2: And I think the bigger thing there is Guilt blocks growth.
Speaker 2: Guilt doesn't make you want to grow. It might make
Speaker 2: you start to grow, but it won't help you grow
Speaker 2: long term if you keep guilting yourself. Shame is not
Speaker 2: going to help you shift. If you keep shaming yourself,
Speaker 2: you're so only gonna shift. It may shift you a
Speaker 2: tiny degree, but it's not going to cause a transformation.
Speaker 2: And so guilt, shame, and judgment don't help you grow,
Speaker 2: shift and transform. And I think so many of us
Speaker 2: have to realize that it's just not a useful emotion sustainably.
Speaker 2: It can be useful in the interiom to like get
Speaker 2: you off your backside and get you going, but it's
Speaker 2: not a where I see you today. It's not like
Speaker 2: love and grace and compassion, like these things are sustainable.
Speaker 2: These things are infinite, whereas shame, guilt, and judgment are
Speaker 2: finite reasons for motivation, they run out. I don't know
Speaker 2: if that makes sense. Yeah, So that's how I see it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's how I see it. And that's big to touch on,
Speaker 2: especially with shame. That shame spiral for me has been
Speaker 2: my biggest demonally. I mean, it's the monster in front
Speaker 2: of me all the time.
Speaker 1: It's the monster that I battle the most with my obesity,
Speaker 1: which to me is one of the things that I'm
Speaker 1: working on, but it's clearly where I have the most
Speaker 1: work to do. My nan would always say, you can't
Speaker 1: quit everything at once. I was with my dad one time.
Speaker 1: My nan was at a nursing home and she was
Speaker 1: she was so funny, man, and uh, we came in.
Speaker 1: First thing my dad tells her is Jason quit smoking cigarettes.
Speaker 1: Old baby Jason quit smoking cigarette. She said good, I said, Grandma,
Speaker 1: I ain't gonna lie.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: It was hard as hell. And uh, buddy goes. My
Speaker 1: dad goes, hey, you could tell he didn't quit cussing.
Speaker 1: She looks up and goes, wait, can't quit everything at once?
Speaker 2: Can? I like that?
Speaker 1: So my uh, I'm finding that getting out of that
Speaker 1: shame as I'm focusing on emotional sobriety. So I'm really
Speaker 1: focusing on that, you know what I mean. And it
Speaker 1: was just in the last few years I got I
Speaker 1: did enough work to even learn what emotions were when
Speaker 1: I seen any emotion chart for the first time, because
Speaker 1: you ever heard, you know, people to ask you how
Speaker 1: do you feel? And I just like it was always
Speaker 1: one of two things. It was always just angry, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. For so many years, every emotion
Speaker 1: that came to me was anger. But I didn't I
Speaker 1: didn't know that it wasn't really anger. It was uh uh.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I was disappointed. Sometimes I was sad, you know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I was guilt. I felt guilt. Sometimes I was
Speaker 1: in a shame spiral. But I didn't know that. So
Speaker 1: to me, it was like they were like, well, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, tell me how you feel right now.
Speaker 1: But it was just always angry, you know. And then
Speaker 1: I worked my way through that too, learning more about
Speaker 1: the emotions and trying to anchor down and being honest
Speaker 1: about how I feel. Now where I still struggle, jay Is,
Speaker 1: I still struggle when I get stuck ruminating, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean.
Speaker 3: I still.
Speaker 1: My time of clearing my head and getting a logical
Speaker 1: thought sometimes takes still takes a little longer than I
Speaker 1: wanted to, because I can accually get stuck Miles. You see, Miles,
Speaker 1: my buddy from on site. He always calls it. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I remember.
Speaker 3: He calls it.
Speaker 1: Rumination laying a rumination row. But I'll just end instead
Speaker 1: of making a decision. You know, it's freedom or grace
Speaker 1: here and you can ruminate here. And I'm still the
Speaker 1: guy that'll just pace here for three or four days
Speaker 1: just making myself madder about something.
Speaker 2: We let it go one of the things you're reminding
Speaker 2: me of is this idea that like one of the
Speaker 2: most addictive things in the world is actually shame. Shame
Speaker 2: is such an addiction. We get addicted to it and
Speaker 2: it just becomes our rhetoric, our habit, our go to place.
Speaker 2: It's a go to comfort and it's a go to pain,
Speaker 2: and we know it's both, but we kind of hold
Speaker 2: on to it like an addiction and we get caught
Speaker 2: in that spiral. I think that's real, but it sounds
Speaker 2: like you're taking a lot of steps in your health journey.
Speaker 2: You were just saying to me drinking like two gallons
Speaker 2: of water a day.
Speaker 1: Like you know what's crazy too. I'm just having a
Speaker 1: fan moment right now where you just looked at me
Speaker 1: and said the kind of shit I watch you say
Speaker 1: on this podcast.
Speaker 3: That inspires me. But it was to me, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, that was so cool? Thank you.
Speaker 1: I was just sitting here like a little giddy kid,
Speaker 1: like I see this all the time. This is cool
Speaker 1: that I'm on the other side of this now.
Speaker 2: Anytime.
Speaker 3: Thank you, brother. I think the wait for me right now.
Speaker 1: It's the mountain in front of me and I'm taking
Speaker 1: I'm learning, you know, I'm being very diligent with it,
Speaker 1: and I'm taking it serious. I'm drinking a bunch of water,
Speaker 1: I'm cold plunging, I'm eating right, I'm doing good. I
Speaker 1: just I just have to fight that little that little
Speaker 1: pirate on my shoulder, that's you know them late nights
Speaker 1: and just I'm a food addict, man. I've always I
Speaker 1: probably never said it this honestly, but this is the
Speaker 1: podcast to be that real about it. Is that I
Speaker 1: have just had a bad relationship with food from birth.
Speaker 1: I've never had a good relationship with food. I've never
Speaker 1: had a good example around me of it, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? And uh, I've always said that I
Speaker 1: believe obesity is directly connected to mental health. I know
Speaker 1: how easy it is for people to go just quit
Speaker 1: eating so much, just work out. It's so easy, you
Speaker 1: know what I was like, I just I don't I
Speaker 1: wish I looked at food that way. But I understand
Speaker 1: it from the perspective of an attic, because I know
Speaker 1: what addiction is.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And how I struggle with food is the same way
Speaker 1: I struggle with codeine. It's the same way I struggle
Speaker 1: with cocaine, like couldn't you know, even getting.
Speaker 3: It away from me.
Speaker 1: It took years to be able to be around people
Speaker 1: doing cocaine and just not be doing it, you know,
Speaker 1: just to know what's happening in my environment and be
Speaker 1: okay with that. So I'm having to take that same
Speaker 1: approach with food, to be honest, and I'm not ashamed
Speaker 1: to say it that I'm having to make those dramatics
Speaker 1: of decisions where I'm like, I don't need nothing to
Speaker 1: eat in my gream room, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I need to change my entire relationship with how I
Speaker 1: look at food. But a lot of that changed with
Speaker 1: me how I looked at myself, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: A lot of that started changing with me loving me
Speaker 1: and really starting to love me because I went through
Speaker 1: this thing forever where I did all this work and
Speaker 1: started loving people and hugging people, and I still laid
Speaker 1: down and hated me, you know, And I deal with
Speaker 1: days of this.
Speaker 3: I still deal days. It's real.
Speaker 1: I'm honest enough to be on your podcast today to
Speaker 1: tell you that I still get stuck here sometimes and
Speaker 1: it's scary, man, it's really scary.
Speaker 3: Scared of myself.
Speaker 1: But I've got a good support system around me, and
Speaker 1: I will say that all that cliche stuff is real.
Speaker 1: When they're like, go walk out in the sun, drink water.
Speaker 1: You remember you hear it as a fat person. I'm
Speaker 1: like you, it's not that easy.
Speaker 3: It's just hard.
Speaker 1: And then I started walking around in the sun and
Speaker 1: drinking water. I'm like, dude, I feel somewhat you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: I feel like it sounds like though that because you've
Speaker 2: been through other addiction Jenny's there's a part of you
Speaker 2: that is inspired and knows you can do it. Yes, right,
Speaker 2: it feels like you've been You've been able to break
Speaker 2: so many habits and so many addictions at this point
Speaker 2: that it feels like you have an inn belief that
Speaker 2: you can. Would you agree with it?
Speaker 1: I believe it in my spirit, in my soul, I
Speaker 1: believe it. And I also believe it's because God's purpose
Speaker 1: for me is so much bigger than even what I'm
Speaker 1: doing now. And I almost feel like I heard the spirit,
Speaker 1: my spirit tell me that you're holding you back from
Speaker 1: what's really for you. You know, your physical is what's
Speaker 1: holding you back for what we have for you. And
Speaker 1: I want to shed that skin. I want to shed
Speaker 1: it bad, but I also want to do it to
Speaker 1: us by our kids the same way I've inspired. I
Speaker 1: never thought I would be able to talk to you
Speaker 1: in real life. I never got into this thinking I
Speaker 1: would be a mental health advocate or that I would
Speaker 1: be you know, this wasn't I just wrote songs about
Speaker 1: how I felt and how people around me felt and
Speaker 1: the brokenness that was in my life. And man, it's
Speaker 1: helped so many people. The messages you get. You know,
Speaker 1: I think we could connect on that, the messages because
Speaker 1: I've sent you messages of how I feel of things
Speaker 1: that we actually are helping people. This is called on purpose.
Speaker 1: Purpose is what changed my life. Shil Lah buff did
Speaker 1: an interview one time where he said, I quit trying
Speaker 1: to be happy. I started being useful. I started trying
Speaker 1: to be useful, and I've lived by that quote ever since.
Speaker 1: It's like, once I started prioritizing my purpose, it's funny
Speaker 1: how much life's just awesome, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: When I was trying to make life awesome, it sucked
Speaker 1: when I when I started just trying to be a
Speaker 1: man of purpose and just try to walk in my
Speaker 1: purpose and what I think God put me here for.
Speaker 1: It just opened up every thing for me. It's been
Speaker 1: such a dynamic shift.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you said, I want to read this from you
Speaker 2: because it's from your own post, but this was to
Speaker 2: your wife. You said, happy anniversary. This is my best friend. Literally.
Speaker 2: People ask me what was the turning point in my career,
Speaker 2: and the answer is simple. I married my best friend period.
Speaker 2: This woman changed my life. Four years ago. On a
Speaker 2: drunken night in Las Vegas. My wife and I made
Speaker 2: a decision that night during a deaftone show. I walked
Speaker 2: on stage during Yellowolf's performance, Thank you for this brother.
Speaker 2: I'll always be grateful for that moment. We rushed the
Speaker 2: courthouse and got married at some random chapel. I was
Speaker 2: a lost cause. I was in the middle of custody battle.
Speaker 2: I was broke, living out of a van, doing two
Speaker 2: hundred shows a year for two hundred dollars a show.
Speaker 2: I was addicted, bruised, used, and barely breathing. She came
Speaker 2: in and changed everything. She made me whole, She gave
Speaker 2: me purpose. It was truly the turning point in my
Speaker 2: career in life. I mean when I read that, I
Speaker 2: was like, you know, you can't read that not feel
Speaker 2: moved by that? How was how would the people we
Speaker 2: choose to spend our life with A, Y are they
Speaker 2: so important?
Speaker 3: And B?
Speaker 2: How did she help you find your purpose? Like that would? Especially?
Speaker 1: First of all, it felt like somebody actually believed in me,
Speaker 1: and I hadn't felt that in a while. My father
Speaker 1: believed me, my mother, you know, but like outside of
Speaker 1: my little crew, she just prophesied over me from I'll
Speaker 1: never forget the first time we hung out, she whispered
Speaker 1: in my ear. She said, I don't know what it is,
Speaker 1: but your special. She's like your special. And I felt
Speaker 1: the same way about her. We just celebrated our eighth
Speaker 1: anniversary last week. Thank you, man, I'm talking to you
Speaker 1: about I've done so many interviews.
Speaker 3: I never talked about this.
Speaker 1: I was so insecure in my body for so many
Speaker 1: years that I found validation through women, and I thought
Speaker 1: that if I could pull pretty women.
Speaker 3: That it would then I wasn't that, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, And it was just something else, you know.
Speaker 1: And because of that, I had a really really bad
Speaker 1: relationship with women, multiple women all the time, many partners
Speaker 1: as I could get, living double, triple, quadruple lies, relationships
Speaker 1: with all these people. The first thing that happened was
Speaker 1: when I got with Bunny. It was something that just
Speaker 1: happened where I was immediately, I didn't want to talk
Speaker 1: to nobody.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to be with her.
Speaker 1: And somebody used to always tell me that anybody who's
Speaker 1: ever built an empire, it was a modern era. It
Speaker 1: was always a one woman man. You know what I mean,
Speaker 1: because when you focus on one woman, and one woman
Speaker 1: focuses on you, and y'all focus on building together.
Speaker 3: I've seen it with you and your wife. It's amazing
Speaker 3: what happens.
Speaker 1: So it's crazy, Jay, just what happened the day. I
Speaker 1: just was like, this is all that matters, is just
Speaker 1: me and you and building this thing together.
Speaker 3: And she came straight in.
Speaker 1: And now keep in mind, I'm fixing to get custody
Speaker 1: of a kid that I don't even have a place
Speaker 1: for them to live. I don't know what I'm doing
Speaker 1: with my life. If Bunny comes right in and goes, look,
Speaker 1: I don't know if we're gonna work or not, but
Speaker 1: I'll help you get custody of your daughter. Let's go
Speaker 1: get an apartment for you. I go stand in court
Speaker 1: beside you as a you know, as a person of
Speaker 1: this like she put together this thing for me to
Speaker 1: get cussed. And we call her our daughter now because
Speaker 1: she raises her as her own, and she calls Bunny mama.
Speaker 1: We've had that little girl for eight years now, and
Speaker 1: she gave me purpose because I felt like our story
Speaker 1: was one that could help so many people. The two
Speaker 1: broken people that were able to kind of heal and
Speaker 1: then come together, not as healed as we probably should
Speaker 1: have been, even but then we were able to heal
Speaker 1: together and grow together and learn together. And just knowing
Speaker 1: I have somebody that really supports me, really encourages me,
Speaker 1: and holds me accountable too.
Speaker 3: Bunny, will you know, I'm sure.
Speaker 1: Your wife's the same way. When them doors closed, man,
Speaker 1: Bunny will get in my ass. Bunny will tell me
Speaker 1: what's really going on. She will check me if I
Speaker 1: start egoing out a little bitter getting a little son.
Speaker 1: Bunny will be the first person go, man, I don't
Speaker 1: know what's up with you. Man, You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: She was the first woman. And I know people are
Speaker 1: going to say this ain't right, but she was the
Speaker 1: first woman. I had a healthy amount of fear of
Speaker 1: I've never been afraid of losing something before ever.
Speaker 3: Never.
Speaker 1: I was always lived by the motto of heat. If
Speaker 1: you can get rid of you can't get rid of
Speaker 1: it in thirty seconds. That don't need to be in
Speaker 1: your life, you know. And she was the first one
Speaker 1: where I was like, I don't want to lose this.
Speaker 1: I don't want to blow this. I'm willing to do
Speaker 1: the work for this. I'm willing to get in there
Speaker 1: talking about doing work. This will be a cool podcast.
Speaker 1: Share this story me and my wife. I was learning
Speaker 1: about how trauma affects us as our children, our children
Speaker 1: years and about my wife was in a place where
Speaker 1: when she was growing up, she had a very abusive
Speaker 1: stepmother and her father that was detached and she was
Speaker 1: grounded to her room a lot, so her room became
Speaker 1: her safe place. When I was growing up, I had
Speaker 1: a mother that never left her room. So for me,
Speaker 1: the room is a dark place.
Speaker 3: Right. It reminds me of a story about you and
Speaker 3: your wife. The dishes. Yeah, for the dishes story, you
Speaker 3: sit down, you do them after y'all watch TV.
Speaker 1: She does them before, yes, yes, yeah, So it's like
Speaker 1: this is a similar thing, but you know, so imagine
Speaker 1: when she would shell up and life would be hard
Speaker 1: on her, she would back into the bedroom.
Speaker 3: What is that trigger for me? Jay, it's my mother.
Speaker 3: I got to go entertain my mom. What's wrong? Go
Speaker 3: to the room. Try. I'm trying trying to hoist her out,
Speaker 3: but she's I think she needs to come out here
Speaker 3: to be better. But this is better for her.
Speaker 1: And you could imagine this is rubbing rocks together. We're
Speaker 1: starting fires all the time. And then as soon as
Speaker 1: we really did the work and I found out that
Speaker 1: about her, Man, we do we argue, but we have
Speaker 1: a typical relationship argument once a year and it's almost.
Speaker 3: Always over the kid. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But it's like, once I learned that, now it's like
Speaker 1: when she goes to a room, I'll walk in, Hey baby,
Speaker 1: are you okay?
Speaker 3: Cool? Do you want to talk about something? I want
Speaker 3: to talk cool? I love you. I'm downstairs. Call me
Speaker 3: if you need me, Because I know that's how she processes.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I don't take it personal no more, you know, But
Speaker 1: those are the things and I learned. So she's taught
Speaker 1: me so many things like that. Her patience with me,
Speaker 1: Jay Man I don't deserve that. I didn't earn that patience.
Speaker 1: That's just grace. She just gave that to me because
Speaker 1: she loves me, very very dial and she lets me
Speaker 1: be the wild horse. I still am as something else.
Speaker 1: Every other woman still tried to tame this old wild mustang.
Speaker 3: I got to run, you know. Know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I'm programmed to go Jay two or three hundred days
Speaker 3: a year, I'm out of the house.
Speaker 1: It's just how I offer rate, you know. And she's
Speaker 1: the opposite. She's a homebody, prefers to be home. But uh,
Speaker 1: she cheers for me.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: So that's my best friend. Dude.
Speaker 2: I love that, and it reminds me. It definitely reminds
Speaker 2: me of me and my wife in so many ways
Speaker 2: as well. Like I talk about that example in my
Speaker 2: in my second book gave Rules of Love. I talked
Speaker 2: about how just like there's love languages, there's fight styles.
Speaker 2: And so my fight style is venting. I want to
Speaker 2: talk about it. I want to fix it. I want
Speaker 2: to get to a solution by talking about.
Speaker 3: It, right.
Speaker 2: And my wife's fight style is hiding. She wants to
Speaker 2: go into a room right, like she don't want to
Speaker 2: talk about it. Yeah, And in the beginning of our marriage,
Speaker 2: I used to think she doesn't care about it as
Speaker 2: much as I do because I want to talk about it.
Speaker 2: That's because I care. But what I didn't realize is
Speaker 2: her having that space that was her caring so that
Speaker 2: she could come back with a solution, so that she
Speaker 2: could come back with the energy and the capacity for
Speaker 2: going to some resolution. Whereas to me it was like, Oh,
Speaker 2: you don't care as much as I do. I'm standing
Speaker 2: right here ready to fix this and solve this, and
Speaker 2: you just want to run away. What does it take
Speaker 2: to have the humility to have your partner help you heal?
Speaker 2: Because I think it requires humility on both parts to
Speaker 2: a allow someone to heal you and be healed someone
Speaker 2: else without judging them and like you said, giving grace
Speaker 2: and space, Like, how do you strike that balance, especially
Speaker 2: as a man, of putting your ego aside and allowing
Speaker 2: someone to come in with the medicine.
Speaker 1: I had to quit looking at the word help as
Speaker 1: an ego death and start looking at it as I
Speaker 1: had to start looking at it as an empowerment.
Speaker 3: Almost.
Speaker 1: That's so good, you know, to just be like, hey,
Speaker 1: can I get some help? There's a book that I
Speaker 1: read when I was an on site doing some therapy work.
Speaker 1: I'll always butcher the name, and they should have changed
Speaker 1: the name because of this, by the way. But it's
Speaker 1: like you probably read. It's a children's book, but it's
Speaker 1: all drawn. It's like the horse, the mule, the donkey,
Speaker 1: and the fox, right, and it's this version of winning
Speaker 1: the pood. They could have done way better. They picked
Speaker 1: weird animals. That person should call me. I'll help them
Speaker 1: with the next book. But they had some really good
Speaker 1: stuff in it. But it goes to the horse and
Speaker 1: it goes what's the hardest thing you've ever had to do?
Speaker 1: When the horse goes ask for help?
Speaker 3: I cried. I've seen that illustration the first time, sitting
Speaker 3: in that cabin.
Speaker 1: Of course, I was in a highly emotional place doing
Speaker 1: some intensive therapy, but I just bawled because I was like, man,
Speaker 1: that's a core thing with me and my wife. We
Speaker 1: got to look at the word help is we're trying
Speaker 1: to make the word help sexy. Now you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, like instead of like this, oh help, because
Speaker 1: that's how we're growing up, like you don't ask for help.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to look at it like all that sexy.
Speaker 1: She asked me to help her with something, you know what,
Speaker 1: like he yo, can can I run something by you?
Speaker 3: That's like, man, I get goosebumps and she can so
Speaker 3: she hit if I hit her with that or she
Speaker 3: hits me. It's like, oh, this is this is the good.
Speaker 3: This is we're growing. This is where we grow, baby,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. We call it the foxhole.
Speaker 1: That's the biggest thing is that we started making it fun,
Speaker 1: like let's getting a foxhole. Lets huddle up, let's talk
Speaker 1: about this, you know, like making real decisions. It's kind
Speaker 1: of where we started thriving. So it went from being
Speaker 1: afraid to ask for help to like now it's like
Speaker 1: our thriving point, like when we can really get in
Speaker 1: that foxhole and start trying to sharpen each other's skills.
Speaker 3: It's really cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that that putting your ego side's huge. I wrote
Speaker 2: another chapter those called your partner is your Guru, and
Speaker 2: it was that idea that your partner is your teacher,
Speaker 2: but your partner never makes you feel like they're your teacher,
Speaker 2: and you never feel like you're the student. Right, Like,
Speaker 2: there's learning, there's growth without the other person kind of
Speaker 2: pointing a finger at you, making you like pointing out
Speaker 2: your mistakes in a negative way, Like my wife will
Speaker 2: call me up and call me out like you're saying.
Speaker 2: But I know it's full of love, full of love,
Speaker 2: like I know it's to make me better. I know
Speaker 2: it's because she actually cares about me, not the perception
Speaker 2: of me, and she doesn't want me to get carried away.
Speaker 2: But you have to trust that, because as a man,
Speaker 2: it's so easy to have your ego rise above that
Speaker 2: and go, who are you to tell me? Or you
Speaker 2: know where's that coming from? Or you don't even see it,
Speaker 2: you don't know it. And so I love hearing how
Speaker 2: much you've been able to put that ego aside and
Speaker 2: truly allow it in. I think that's really inspiring.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well, the first step for me was just
Speaker 3: admitting I had an ego. Now hard that was.
Speaker 1: It was like I used to I was like I
Speaker 1: thought I was the only dude on earth that didn't
Speaker 1: have an ego. I'm telling you, I'm the most egoist
Speaker 1: dude ever. And I had such an ego, you know,
Speaker 1: And I still have to have to fight that guy
Speaker 1: a lot. I always joke with my management, but it's true,
Speaker 1: is that I need an hour when I wake up
Speaker 1: before I deal with people.
Speaker 3: I need to.
Speaker 1: I got to kill the bad half of me. Me
Speaker 1: and that guy go to war as soon as I
Speaker 1: wake up, because he's there, he's waiting for me. He's
Speaker 1: by the night's then you know what I mean, Be mad,
Speaker 1: Be mad because I used to just wake up angry.
Speaker 1: Just woke up mad, and uh, I fight that guy
Speaker 1: for an hour every morning we wrestle. You know, I
Speaker 1: feel like Jacob. I break a hip every day wrestling. God,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. But it makes me and
Speaker 1: you'll notice it because I'm a lesser, better version of me.
Speaker 1: If I don't get that album, I come out and
Speaker 1: you can kind of steal sens it on me. But
Speaker 1: that's all about that ego death man. But I started
Speaker 1: I just replaced ego with love and compassionate, started going
Speaker 1: what would love say? Because it's so funny how fast
Speaker 1: you separate what's love and what's not when you really
Speaker 1: think about it, when you go, if you really just
Speaker 1: bring everything back to like did I say that really
Speaker 1: out of love or was it a loving way?
Speaker 3: I said it? Most of the time and say I
Speaker 3: bleew that one. You know what I mean, I couldn't
Speaker 3: reframe that for sure.
Speaker 2: It's uh, hearing about your purpose through your wife as
Speaker 2: well as I mean, I'm just gonna read a few
Speaker 2: things that are happening right now, because there's SOUTI Save
Speaker 2: Me is one of the most played songs at recovery centers.
Speaker 2: I mean, how does that feel me? Before I go on?
Speaker 2: How does that feel?
Speaker 3: Unbelievable? Man, It's.
Speaker 1: One of the coolest experiences of my life is being
Speaker 1: able to especially catch people in that.
Speaker 3: First thirty days, of those first ten or fifteen days.
Speaker 1: Anytime we get to go back to a detox center
Speaker 1: and love on people and play songs for them.
Speaker 3: We go to prisons all the time and play, and
Speaker 3: we go to homeless shelters.
Speaker 1: But you catch somebody on them first ten days, man,
Speaker 1: because I know what them ten days are, you know,
Speaker 1: And to know that that's the song getting people through
Speaker 1: that particular stretch, I couldn't.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like when they told me that save Me's becoming
Speaker 1: the new free bird in the South for funeral homes,
Speaker 1: cause you know, free bird roll Leonard Skinnert's song has
Speaker 1: been like the famous funeral home in the South, and
Speaker 1: they said they get more requests for save Me Now.
Speaker 1: And that used to really bum me out and make
Speaker 1: me sad because I used to carry that. But then
Speaker 1: I started thinking about how much that's helping people grieve,
Speaker 1: because how many songs have really helped me grieve? You
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Toby Keys, I'm gonna miss that smile.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna miss you, my friend. I mean, it got
Speaker 1: me through the death of my father. I listen to
Speaker 1: that song every day, so I know how music can
Speaker 1: do that. Even though I'm leaving by Luke Combs, you know.
Speaker 2: I think it's beautiful to hear that, to feel that
Speaker 2: your music's there. And then this one too, when you
Speaker 2: performed for the Oregon prison mates, the inmates, it's the
Speaker 2: first time the prison has allowed live music in twenty years.
Speaker 2: I mean, how does that feels?
Speaker 3: Cool?
Speaker 1: Stevie ray Vaughan, So even cooler shoes to follow for
Speaker 1: them to trust us enough to bring our message to
Speaker 1: a yard. That prison has the most lifers in Oregon, Orgon.
Speaker 1: There's twelve prisons in Orgon. It has the most lifers.
Speaker 1: I probably met thirty or forty men that day that
Speaker 1: were doing life. It was such a different perspective, Jay,
Speaker 1: because you're not normally when you go into a jail,
Speaker 1: you're kind of trying to show the change is possible
Speaker 1: and that you know recidivism is you know, you can
Speaker 1: bring down recidivism and go home and actually do something
Speaker 1: productive with your life. It's a whole different thing when
Speaker 1: you're looking at guys that aren't going home, you know,
Speaker 1: which made it even more special because then you're just
Speaker 1: spreading one thing.
Speaker 3: Hope, just a little smile, baby, a little love. I
Speaker 3: just want to be.
Speaker 1: All I'm looking for today is a smile because I
Speaker 1: know this is a place that a lot of not
Speaker 1: a lot of that happens, you know. I just want
Speaker 1: these guys rocking. And it was chicken soup for the soult. Jay,
Speaker 1: you should come with me one day.
Speaker 3: I would, you know.
Speaker 2: I was just speaking to the gentleman outside for his
Speaker 2: name Miles, Yes, and I was telling him when I
Speaker 2: was reading about researching the work you're doing, I would
Speaker 2: love to be alongside you in any way I can.
Speaker 1: I think we'll reach out. We're setting up something big
Speaker 1: with a big prison. We'll talk about loft camera, but
Speaker 1: we can use all this, but I'll tell you the
Speaker 1: exact when you'll be like, oh, but we do it.
Speaker 3: I'd love to have you.
Speaker 2: I'd love to suppoint anyway. I think the work you're
Speaker 2: doing is spectacular. When I was researching for this interview
Speaker 2: and reading about all the stuff you do, I was like,
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe it. I was like, this is this
Speaker 2: is exactly it. I mean, this is what's needed. This
Speaker 2: is the most important work you could do right now.
Speaker 2: So any way I can be helpful, Thank you.
Speaker 3: I'm on in and you just let me know. I
Speaker 3: will call.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's I'm putting putting feet on faith, baby, That's
Speaker 1: what we say. Yeah, you know, is you gotta It's
Speaker 1: It's one thing to sit in these interviews and talk
Speaker 1: all that shit, but it's another one. You got to
Speaker 1: get them go do it, you know. And I got
Speaker 1: and I'm as a musician, I make it a point
Speaker 1: to to go do it. It's also so much easier
Speaker 1: what we do than what most people do, because you know,
Speaker 1: it's music, right, it just works anywhere all the time,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's just super It's like
Speaker 1: I love sometimes we'll go to these places we won't
Speaker 1: talk at all.
Speaker 3: We'll just go in and sing three or four songs,
Speaker 3: just like a regular show. You know, we don't.
Speaker 1: It's just being present, man, It just seeing inspiration and
Speaker 1: spiring these guys. It's such a dark place. Those places
Speaker 1: are people are getting sexually assaulted every day in there,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's people do not truly
Speaker 1: understand how dark prison is.
Speaker 3: It is a point.
Speaker 1: It is the scariest thing I've ever lived through any
Speaker 1: kind of any kind of incarceration. So you see them
Speaker 1: dudes out there smiling and nodding their head for a
Speaker 1: day and dancing. Dude, man, I'll make you cry like
Speaker 1: a baby.
Speaker 2: Oh man, Are there any memorable intractions you've had any
Speaker 2: with any inmates that kind of stick out to you,
Speaker 2: or any conversations that you have had that tons.
Speaker 1: But I'll start with the Oregon State Penitentiary, Jay Man.
Speaker 1: So there was some guys that were work in the prison.
Speaker 1: So they're the ones who set up the equipment that day. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're they're the trustees, is what they are.
Speaker 1: They're the people that they trust in this prison. So
Speaker 1: I first moment talking about ego death, I'm singing and
Speaker 1: I come off stage, I go, hey, I'd love to
Speaker 1: meet as many of y'all as I can before I leave.
Speaker 1: So I go kind of stand over here, and everybody
Speaker 1: on that yard formed a line to get an autograph
Speaker 1: from me. And I was like, what an ego death
Speaker 1: for these guys, Like these are tough dudes, these are
Speaker 1: you know, these are murderers, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: that are standing in line to get one for their
Speaker 1: daughter or their wife. So you see the humanity in them,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, And the and the and
Speaker 1: the gratefulness because they've been incarcerated so long that getting
Speaker 1: an extra snack at dinner is.
Speaker 3: A big deal. Where to thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: So it was.
Speaker 1: But then after I meet, I meet three hundred in mate,
Speaker 1: sign autographs, hug everybody that touched, everybody, just it was emotionally.
Speaker 1: I come back and there's these twenty trustees Jay and
Speaker 1: they go, can we grab some pics? I was like,
Speaker 1: of course, I'm taking pics with all of them. And
Speaker 1: the guy taking the picture has been in there for
Speaker 1: thirty nine years. He spent thirty something years on death
Speaker 1: row before they got rid of the death penalty in Oregon.
Speaker 1: Completely in solitaire and now he's the camera guy for
Speaker 1: the prison. He's still incarcerated, but we're all taking these
Speaker 1: pictures and at the end of it, they go, hey,
Speaker 1: can we take one with just the lifers And I'm like, yeah, Now,
Speaker 1: these are the trustees. These are the best inmates in
Speaker 1: this prison. And when they said the lifers, I thought
Speaker 1: maybe it was two or three of them. I've been
Speaker 1: talking to these guys. Every one of them were the smartest,
Speaker 1: most talented, they were just awesome guys. Twelve of the
Speaker 1: twenty were doing life Jay and I was so emotional
Speaker 1: in that moment dog because they were so full of life,
Speaker 1: they were so grateful. I was there and these dudes
Speaker 1: will never see the streets again, and uh, we're taking
Speaker 1: a picture and I'm starting to cry, like I am
Speaker 1: now and I'm like, God, it's.
Speaker 3: Just because they were just I was hopeful that I
Speaker 3: was hopeful that some of these guys are going on
Speaker 3: because they're telling me their dreams, their wives, their kids,
Speaker 3: you know, showing me pictures and I'm excited. I'm thinking,
Speaker 3: all these are the trustees. At least some of these
Speaker 3: guys got a chance, and it was just sad man.
Speaker 1: But the good thing about humor is while we're taking
Speaker 1: the pictures, I go, damn, it's twelve of y'all. He
Speaker 1: said yeah. I said, well, hell, it would have been easier.
Speaker 1: Just tell the eighth wn't doing life. Get out of
Speaker 1: the picture.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And one good thing about prison is every one of
Speaker 1: them cried. Every one of them cried laughing. I said, uh,
Speaker 1: and I was right before I turned around left, I said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna come back and do this again next year,
Speaker 1: and they said, we're not going anywhere. I was like,
Speaker 1: thank you all for making me laugh. But it was
Speaker 1: just such a moment because I had never even fully
Speaker 1: experienced that yet. I've been to a lot of prisons
Speaker 1: and a lot of jails, but I had never got
Speaker 1: to do the yard or do three four hundred inmates,
Speaker 1: and I'd never got to really go into death row
Speaker 1: or going to see this many people doing. It's such
Speaker 1: a different perspective. You go to jail, I'm spreading hope, like, hey,
Speaker 1: you're coming home, you could change. There's dudes that are
Speaker 1: never coming home, you know, never coming home, And uh, man,
Speaker 1: that just really really really for me a little bit,
Speaker 1: absolutely sorry.
Speaker 2: I got no man. I think you you invited us
Speaker 2: into a world that we wouldn't have a understanding of,
Speaker 2: right Like, that isn't a daily experience. We're not We're
Speaker 2: not getting to interact with what that feels like. And
Speaker 2: we can have all of views and assumptions or whatever
Speaker 2: it may be. But I think through you, we're getting
Speaker 2: to have a human experience of what that looks like.
Speaker 2: I wanted everyone to know this. If you haven't heard
Speaker 2: Jelly Row's congressional speech, I highly commend it to everyone.
Speaker 2: I thought that was one of the most powerful things
Speaker 2: that I've seen you do. Every every line was just
Speaker 2: so that's the way word I'm looking for. It was
Speaker 2: just so clear, it was so powerful, it was so
Speaker 2: it just grabbed my attention immediately. You said there was
Speaker 2: one thing that just stood out to me. I had
Speaker 2: to write it down. You said that there's one hundred
Speaker 2: and ninety people every day that die in the USA,
Speaker 2: and you said that that was based on well, I'll
Speaker 2: let you explain it. Actually you explained the point because
Speaker 2: you went on to compare it to a seven three
Speaker 2: seven plane. And when I heard that, I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm going to let you explain because it's so powerful.
Speaker 2: But I want everyone to go listen to that speech.
Speaker 3: Please.
Speaker 1: The idea that I said was, could you imagine if
Speaker 1: there was a plane crashing every single day in the
Speaker 1: United States of America with two hundred passengers on it?
Speaker 1: How many days would that happen before as Americans we
Speaker 1: completely lost it, canceled every flight, looked under every engine
Speaker 1: of every plane again, whatever I mean, we would you know.
Speaker 1: I also use the comparison sometimes that if there was
Speaker 1: eleven squirrels a day dying in Central Park unexplained, I
Speaker 1: bet that don't go four days before the EPA comes
Speaker 1: out there, shut Central Park down and it's a national crisis.
Speaker 1: I bet fifty squirrels die before it is like, hold on,
Speaker 1: we've got to figure this out. But one hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety humans jay every single day or dying because of drugs,
Speaker 1: drug addiction and fentanyl, and the way we have looked
Speaker 1: at them previously as society is well, that's their fault,
Speaker 1: that's their choice. They chose to be drug addicts. They
Speaker 1: should make their bed and lay in it.
Speaker 2: One.
Speaker 3: That's just such a not compassionate way to look at
Speaker 3: life and humans. It's just such a way to dehumanize people.
Speaker 3: And I think part of us dehumanizing people is why
Speaker 3: America's got put into all these separate boxes and so
Speaker 3: again each other. I say this and I mean it.
Speaker 1: I went and spoke to Congress because I had a
Speaker 1: moment where I was like, maybe I should bring these
Speaker 1: statistics here, because there's no way our federal government could
Speaker 1: know this is happening and not be doing nothing about it. Right,
Speaker 1: I would like to believe in the betterment of the
Speaker 1: world that they just don't know. Let me be the
Speaker 1: guy that goes and tells them, like, hey, maybe y'all
Speaker 1: are missing what's really happening out here. Y'all are so
Speaker 1: busy arguing with each other about stuff that people have
Speaker 1: been disagreeing about for.
Speaker 3: One hundred years.
Speaker 1: Anyways, what I know is, and I said this in
Speaker 1: a speech, and I really really do hope y'all go
Speaker 1: check it out. This is somebody's cousin.
Speaker 3: Jay.
Speaker 1: Have you ever known somebody that's been addicted to drugs,
Speaker 1: like real, like a heroin addiction, like a full blown
Speaker 1: like somebody close to you by chance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, close to a friend, dewn.
Speaker 1: If you've never experienced that. For the people watching, it
Speaker 1: might not have. It's like seeing somebody you've known your
Speaker 1: whole life become a zombie. It's like watching somebody you've
Speaker 1: known your whole life become a completely different human. They
Speaker 1: talk different, act different. It's irrational. It makes no sense
Speaker 1: at all. You have no clue what drugs do to
Speaker 1: people if you've never really experienced that, And those are
Speaker 1: mostly the people who are quick to go, oh, they
Speaker 1: should just shouldn't do them in the first place. It's like, man,
Speaker 1: you don't know what it was like when that young
Speaker 1: lady broke her back in that car accident and they
Speaker 1: started feeding her these extremely addictive pain pills to help
Speaker 1: with the pain that she couldn't shake herself out of.
Speaker 1: And then eventually you're doing thirty twenty Lord tabs a day.
Speaker 1: It's cheaper to go get a gramar heroin. You know
Speaker 1: this issue. These are humans. It's kind of like I
Speaker 1: try to talk about the inmates, man, kids. They've done
Speaker 1: horrible things, but they're humans, and I want to humanize.
Speaker 1: What I wanted to do in that speech, cha was
Speaker 1: I wanted to humanize drug acts. I wanted people to
Speaker 1: remember that, and that's why I said to that panel,
Speaker 1: I said it's some of y'all right now sitting up
Speaker 1: here in this Senate that have family members that you're
Speaker 1: thinking of right this moment that are addicted to drugs.
Speaker 1: And you know what I'm telling the truth. Does that
Speaker 1: person have to die before you walk up here and
Speaker 1: make a difference. That's all I want, man, And just
Speaker 1: back to practice and what we preach. It's sad that
Speaker 1: we didn't learn nothing from They said, history is bound
Speaker 1: to repeat itself if we don't learn nothing from it.
Speaker 1: And I don't think anything could be more true if
Speaker 1: you watch what was the cocaine epidemic, into the crack epidemic,
Speaker 1: into the pill mill epidemic, into what was the heroin
Speaker 1: epidemic that's now into the fen and al epidemic, and
Speaker 1: it has done nothing. But it's a snowball that's just
Speaker 1: getting bigger and bigger and less addressed. We got to
Speaker 1: do something about it.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: How did they receive it? What was the What did
Speaker 2: you feel was their response?
Speaker 1: I felt genuine love in that room. I felt like
Speaker 1: they were very receptive. I think the bill, the bill
Speaker 1: got passed into law, which was a big which was
Speaker 1: a huge, huge deal because that bill had got put
Speaker 1: up three or four times before it never got passed,
Speaker 1: so it's huge. But what it did the most was
Speaker 1: I'm walking the Grammy red carpet and I will never
Speaker 1: say the names, but when I tell you a list celebrities,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about loft camera friends of ours, friends of mine,
Speaker 1: now I've probably been friends of yours are dragging me
Speaker 1: to the side, going hey, I just want to tell you,
Speaker 1: I've never heard a song of yours. But I watched
Speaker 1: the five minutes and thirty seven seconds that you gave
Speaker 1: that speech to Congress, and I cried because my son
Speaker 1: is seven years sober. And right then I was like,
Speaker 1: this is what God's purpose was for me, was for
Speaker 1: these kind of conversations to not be taboo, no more
Speaker 1: to be These aren't conversations that are being had on
Speaker 1: Grammy red carpets, these aren't conversations being had at Clive
Speaker 1: Davis's party. And I'm creating this kind of vulnerability with
Speaker 1: people that they that they'll walk up to me, and
Speaker 1: it won't even just celebrities, people that work there security.
Speaker 3: Guys, Hey man, what you did? Ist sen it man?
Speaker 3: Thank you. I got a nephew, I got a niece.
Speaker 1: It showed me how it started putting faces to the
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety people a day, And once we started
Speaker 1: putting faces to them, I think things will change. It's
Speaker 1: my hope at least, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I think that's what Whether it's you're telling
Speaker 2: us the stories of the inmates or the congressional speech,
Speaker 2: I love that you said it in your own words,
Speaker 2: that it's really humanizing these stories and these experiences of
Speaker 2: people that are happening all around us, and we either
Speaker 2: choose not to believe they exist, or we live in
Speaker 2: a blissful ignorance, or you know, hide away from it
Speaker 2: all or put it away into this area of society.
Speaker 2: And I think it it's it's harsh, but it's like
Speaker 2: until we have to deal with it face to face,
Speaker 2: we don't really deal with it. And so being aware
Speaker 2: of it, hearing about it in all of these spaces,
Speaker 2: opening up conversations. You're right, I mean, I hear it,
Speaker 2: I hear about I'm sure from this interview I'm going
Speaker 2: to get so many calls and messages saying, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I saw the clip of you and Jelly Roll and
Speaker 2: jelly Roll speaking about that made you know that's going
Speaker 2: to happen, right, And I think that's the beginning of
Speaker 2: the opposite snowball effect, the one you're talking about.
Speaker 1: People haven't really conversations about it, and maybe that'll start helping.
Speaker 1: I mean, dude, getting into a rehabilitation center in America
Speaker 1: is so hard getting into a real rehab The ones
Speaker 1: that are state funded or federally funded are backed up
Speaker 1: for years. You can't afford the other ones, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a it's a big problem to fix,
Speaker 1: but it's one that it's one of the ones I'm
Speaker 1: gonna advocate for. I'm definitely gonna spend my time in
Speaker 1: life pushing towards that because I know what drug addiction
Speaker 1: did to my family. Do you all I hear all
Speaker 1: this in the speech. You know my daughter's a victim
Speaker 1: of drug addiction. I used to think drugs was a
Speaker 1: selfless crime, right. I used to think they were that.
Speaker 1: It was like nobody got harmed kind of crime. It
Speaker 1: was like, this was a fair exchange. You need drugs,
Speaker 1: I have drugs.
Speaker 3: You have money. Here's the drugs for your money. It's
Speaker 3: just like it was.
Speaker 1: I used to justify it, like it's no different than
Speaker 1: KFC selling that chicken. It's killing people.
Speaker 3: You know it was that was.
Speaker 1: Now you get insight into how I used to think.
Speaker 1: We were talking about it earlier. And then when I
Speaker 1: came home from jail, my daughter was born and her
Speaker 1: mother was addicted to heroin and was completely out of
Speaker 1: her life. Now I every day look in the eyes
Speaker 1: of a victim of what drug dealing is and what
Speaker 1: drugs are. And I was a guy that sold drugs.
Speaker 1: I went to jail for selling drugs. I got caught
Speaker 1: with the same pain pills that lead to people doing heroin.
Speaker 1: I got caught with cocaine, I got caught with crack,
Speaker 1: I got caught with these these I was selling these
Speaker 1: same drugs. That's why I'm so passionate about it, Jay,
Speaker 1: That's why I tear up when we talk about drug
Speaker 1: addicts or prisoner inmates, because I remember genuinely being.
Speaker 3: The other side of that problem, the same guy.
Speaker 1: So this has been so good for me, the same
Speaker 1: guy we talked about it forty minutes ago, where I was,
Speaker 1: like I do, did not think logical at all, you know,
Speaker 1: thought it was I was better than KFC. I had
Speaker 1: more integrity than KFC. They're killing people and not talking
Speaker 1: about it. That was how lack of accountability I had
Speaker 1: in life, even when I'm selling heroin, and I justified
Speaker 1: it by well, so it was KFC.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like, come on now, big fella.
Speaker 2: Well I hope there's a kind of believe that too.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, yeah, I think I think that does
Speaker 2: need to change. Yeah, sure, there's there's stuff that happened.
Speaker 2: There was this picture that I saw you spoke about
Speaker 2: you do it just for a second, this picture that
Speaker 2: I loved. It brought so much joy to my heart.
Speaker 3: This one, Oh yeah, that's my muchkin.
Speaker 2: Dude. You brought so much joy to my heart when
Speaker 2: I saw that. What's it been like to perform together? Man?
Speaker 3: Because it's been so cool.
Speaker 1: Just to share anything in life together, but then to
Speaker 1: share what we both love. And I was the first
Speaker 1: and I don't I don't know. I think if I
Speaker 1: remember right, you were the first person in your family
Speaker 1: to kind of go into the space you're in. Yes,
Speaker 1: nobody we know. I don't come from a family of musicians.
Speaker 1: I come from a family of the opposite. I don't
Speaker 1: nobody in my family can carry a tune of the bucket.
Speaker 1: We all nobody has music there. We sound like drunk
Speaker 1: alley cats together.
Speaker 3: It is nothing.
Speaker 1: So when my daughter started getting interested in the guitar
Speaker 1: and the piano, it was like I didn't I tried
Speaker 1: not to show her, but everything in me was just glowing.
Speaker 3: Same way.
Speaker 1: I have a niece that plays the guitar and I
Speaker 1: just was so excited when she picked it up. I
Speaker 1: was like, I think I might have been the inspiration
Speaker 1: that'll change his family and that in three generations will
Speaker 1: be a music family.
Speaker 2: Yea.
Speaker 1: Three generations from now, those kids will be born probably
Speaker 1: wanting to play instruments because everybody in the family did something,
Speaker 1: you know, and they'll link back one day and go,
Speaker 1: we always been a music family, and that somebody gets
Speaker 1: to go, No, actually, you had a great great grandfather
Speaker 1: that wrote a bunch of country songs.
Speaker 3: It was famous.
Speaker 2: That's beautiful. That's beautiful, man. It's like you're getting to
Speaker 2: rewrite your family's history.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, breaking generational curses. Bunny and I were.
Speaker 1: That was our mission too, man, taking an next drug dealer,
Speaker 1: convict and an ex prostitute and showing people that you
Speaker 1: can really come from the sketchiest of past and completely
Speaker 1: change everything about it. Change everything about the way you
Speaker 1: look at life, how you interact with people. It's never
Speaker 1: too late to forgive, it's never too late to love.
Speaker 1: It's never too late in life. Anyways, Jay, I'm probably forty.
Speaker 1: I didn't this shit didn't start working for you. I
Speaker 1: was thirty seven, you know what I mean. You know
Speaker 1: how long I was throwing darts in the dark. It's
Speaker 1: there had to have been groups of people around me
Speaker 1: that loved me that just now. I'm glad they didn't.
Speaker 1: They were just scared to come go. Hey, Bubba, maybe
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I don't know. December fourth, Yeah, I'll be forty December
Speaker 3: of the fourth, Ba. I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that speech you gave it the CMA's last year.
Speaker 2: I mean that, just like you you like took us
Speaker 2: to chest. That's what it felt like. When I saw that.
Speaker 2: I was like, I felt like I was at check.
Speaker 1: Hey you, it's like a jelly roll show. I got
Speaker 1: to get you out to one there. I used to
Speaker 1: I have a natural Uh. I grew up in a
Speaker 1: Southern Baptist church, so I have a natural thing that
Speaker 1: happens whenever I speak. But one day I came off
Speaker 1: stage and somebody said that was church tonight, that was church.
Speaker 1: This was a two hundred person bar and my wife goes,
Speaker 1: that was church. And I looked at her, and I
Speaker 1: was such a Southern Baptist. Still, I was like, I
Speaker 1: hadn't really forged my own true relationship with my higher
Speaker 1: power like I have at this time.
Speaker 3: And I was like, hey, that's where I'm from. That's sacrilegious.
Speaker 3: I don't want to call this church.
Speaker 1: I know some people no no, no, no, no no no,
Speaker 1: but what you're in a lover this goes and she goes,
Speaker 1: this is the only church some of those people ever
Speaker 1: walk into.
Speaker 3: Jay, I changed it. Now it's church. I make it church.
Speaker 1: So you saying that that's what I want people to feel,
Speaker 1: because I have a room full of people every night
Speaker 1: that might be disconnected from any kind of spirituality, but
Speaker 1: they're all hurting and.
Speaker 3: This music has helped them in some way, and we
Speaker 3: can this can be church for them. You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's like I want you to laugh, I want you
Speaker 1: to dance, I want you to cry, and I want
Speaker 1: you to leave inspired and filling ten pounds lighter. You
Speaker 1: know I don't want not you know, well, some crises
Speaker 1: will put you to sleep, and some cries make you
Speaker 1: feel better.
Speaker 3: I want to make you feel better. Cry, not to
Speaker 3: put you to sleep. Cry, you know. And that is it,
Speaker 3: and ever since then we we lean into it. We
Speaker 3: call it. It's the church, man, it's this is church.
Speaker 3: We say it on stage every night. Brother, this is church.
Speaker 3: And once again, my wife, my purpose, reframed that.
Speaker 1: For me in a way that I needed it, because
Speaker 1: she was like, why would you go away from what
Speaker 1: you naturally do? God naturally gave you a gift of
Speaker 1: evangelism of the way that you speak, like, this is church.
Speaker 3: Right. Then I was like, you're right, this is church.
Speaker 3: And ever since then it's been church. Baby, Yeah, No,
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: It's for me too.
Speaker 3: It's been like.
Speaker 2: In our tradition, it's almost like you carry a temple
Speaker 2: in your heart, right, like you carry God within your heart.
Speaker 2: And so a lot of people to me would also
Speaker 2: be like why are you going to this event? And
Speaker 2: why are you in this? Like why are you going
Speaker 2: to this event? And that? And I'm like if usually
Speaker 2: when I go to these events, someone will come up
Speaker 2: to me and start a spiritual, God centered healing conversation.
Speaker 2: I'm like, but if I don't show up in these places,
Speaker 2: we're not going to have that conversation. So that conversation
Speaker 2: heals me, that conversation hopefully helps support someone else. It's
Speaker 2: like I get to go as an ambassador for spirituality
Speaker 2: and get to just put in a little sprinkle of
Speaker 2: a reminder, and that to me feels like a hopeful,
Speaker 2: beautiful thing to do because you never know who's going
Speaker 2: to need that conversation, that interaction, that connection. It's not
Speaker 2: that I'm doing it. I don't have any of that power.
Speaker 2: But when we're being a vessel and we're being an instrument,
Speaker 2: and we're happy to play that, play our role and
Speaker 2: play our part and just be there as a as
Speaker 2: a connector of worlds and be a portal. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't have any power or any any of that,
Speaker 2: but the ability to just represent whatever that may be
Speaker 2: to the individual. I think, to me, that's that's how
Speaker 2: I see my role in these places, and it's to me,
Speaker 2: I feel like that's what I needed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, sometimes the messenger has to become the message.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, and you your presence, Jay, sometimes you got
Speaker 1: to go places like I think about us. I don't
Speaker 1: know how long it would have took for the universe
Speaker 1: to put us together had it not happened at a
Speaker 1: Cloud Davis party.
Speaker 3: I know I've been wanting it to happen.
Speaker 1: And also equally, the last person I thought I was
Speaker 1: gonna meet at the Cloud Davis party.
Speaker 3: Was Jay Shetty, you know what I'm just saying.
Speaker 1: So it was really cool for me to be like,
Speaker 1: because I'm an example of that of you being somewhere
Speaker 1: where somebody might be like, what're you doing out at
Speaker 1: this party at one o'clock in the morning, But it's
Speaker 1: like you've helped me a ton, and getting to see
Speaker 1: you lifted Just seeing you and hugging you lifted my spirit.
Speaker 1: It's like I always call them them little arrows that
Speaker 1: are showing you you're going the right way, and we
Speaker 1: ignore them so much in life. We miss them. And
Speaker 1: to me, you were an arrow. You were an arrow
Speaker 1: that night, you know what I mean. Tyler Childers was
Speaker 1: at my table. It's a country music artist I love.
Speaker 1: I'd never met him and he's a big fan. Him
Speaker 1: just saying that to me, it was like, that's an arrow.
Speaker 1: I'm point going the right direction around here, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: This is all right. I wasn't as loss as I
Speaker 3: thought I'd be at a big LA party.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, dude, Yeah, that's what I mean,
Speaker 2: like that idea, it's a big LA party and saying
Speaker 2: for me, I was like, I'm watching this guy sing
Speaker 2: about gut instead. Yes, this is insane, you know it is.
Speaker 2: It was so special and I think watching you just grow.
Speaker 2: I mean this new album I've picked out on my
Speaker 2: favorite lyrics from some of my favorite tracks from yours.
Speaker 2: There's this, uh well, this one of stone. Yes, there's
Speaker 2: one lyric that says, I've had enough of my demons,
Speaker 2: but angels only meet you where you are and I'm
Speaker 2: in the duck.
Speaker 3: This is my favorite song on the album.
Speaker 2: I know that.
Speaker 3: That's what's so cool, and it's my favorite song because
Speaker 3: of the lyrics.
Speaker 1: I think these lyrics say the most and this whole
Speaker 1: album if they were like lyrically, who do you stand
Speaker 1: for and what do you stand by?
Speaker 3: On this album?
Speaker 1: Every song's great winning streak means a lot to it,
Speaker 1: but this record, man, that line that angels only meet
Speaker 1: you where you are and I'm in the dark, and
Speaker 1: it goes at least for now Lord, I an't losing
Speaker 1: hope that somehow you could make a heart of gold
Speaker 1: from a heart of stone. And I love songs. When
Speaker 1: you can read a song and it's impactful. That is
Speaker 1: as a song writer, Jay, that's it. That's the tail tale,
Speaker 1: because most of the time our messages in the melody,
Speaker 1: and if you don't have the melody there, they'll kind
Speaker 1: of be like, oh, it didn't sound as cool as
Speaker 1: I thought it did when I just read it flat.
Speaker 1: But when I read heart of Stone, it goes, uh,
Speaker 1: Dear Lord, can you hear me?
Speaker 3: But dear Lord, can you hear me? I falling out
Speaker 3: of grace. It's running like.
Speaker 1: The river filled with all of my mistakes. My blood
Speaker 1: is getting heavy, there's metal in my veins. The second
Speaker 1: verse goes, their, Lord, can you hear me? I'm sackling
Speaker 1: these chains. I'm haunted by the lies of every time
Speaker 1: I said I change. It's slipping through the shadows and
Speaker 1: that's weighing on my soul. The lights are shining on me,
Speaker 1: but there ain't nobody home. I get goosebumps reading that,
Speaker 1: and I you know what I mean. It's like, that's
Speaker 1: to me, that was the ultimate cry for help.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And like my whole music is about honesty. I love
Speaker 1: the idea of being like God, I know I need you,
Speaker 1: you know what i mean. But you got to come
Speaker 1: over here, and I'm in a really dark place if
Speaker 1: you're gonna get me out of this one, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Man, that song is just the goose. I just
Speaker 3: every lyric on that record. Man, just that song was
Speaker 3: the one. I would not let that song go. We
Speaker 3: we wrote that song three different times. Oh wow, true
Speaker 3: story just where I'd go home and just be like,
Speaker 3: it's just not I wanted every every single line. You
Speaker 3: wrote books, so you know every single word can't be
Speaker 3: a killer, you know what I mean. But this song,
Speaker 3: I just was like, I want every line of this
Speaker 3: song to be thought out.
Speaker 1: I want to be a killer, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But sometimes you got to get people to that. You
Speaker 1: got to set them up for the kill and so
Speaker 1: they really get it, you know what I mean. But
Speaker 1: this was one of those where it's like I just
Speaker 1: wanted Man, every lyric on that.
Speaker 3: Was it for me. So powerful.
Speaker 2: There's another one that I love. I mean, there's so many,
Speaker 2: but I'm picking a couple that I love and we've
Speaker 2: talked about this. This is on un pretty. Uh. I
Speaker 2: hate the man I used to be, but he would
Speaker 2: always be a part of me, the man who I
Speaker 2: was wrong, but he's the one who built me. I
Speaker 2: feel like that's been our conversation today of just being
Speaker 2: able to accept that he'll always be a part of you,
Speaker 2: but that doesn't make you any lesson it's.
Speaker 1: Do you ever watch Stutz? Yeah, it's the shadow, right?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, It's that, it's that idea
Speaker 1: of the shadow that's there. It's yeah, that's that's exactly
Speaker 1: that there was. I'm so glad you got to get
Speaker 1: into these lyrics and you're picking the ones that were
Speaker 1: Me and Miles were talking about the other day, is
Speaker 1: that you can tell on this album that I was
Speaker 1: doing some work because it came out on the album,
Speaker 1: like the way that I'm the stuff, the way I'm
Speaker 1: writing is clearly like oh, you're like, oh yeah, this
Speaker 1: kid's really doing some therapy.
Speaker 2: For sure, and and and so so clearly, I mean,
Speaker 2: this is higher than heaven. I get higher than heaven
Speaker 2: to hide from myself, you know. Uh, just even that idea,
Speaker 2: like is there a place higher than heaven? Right?
Speaker 1: Right exactly. Yeah, and then think about this, you want
Speaker 1: to get to heaven to hide from you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The thought of that was so good, and you hearing
Speaker 3: that lyric right was awesome. I've had to send back
Speaker 3: my label.
Speaker 1: They sent me the list because they try to transcribe
Speaker 1: my lyrics and I'm so country. They thought I said
Speaker 1: too high for myself, and I was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: too much from myself, and they were like okay, But
Speaker 1: I was like that was cool too, but not as
Speaker 1: cool as for myself.
Speaker 2: I love that. That's so funny, that's hilarious. No, but
Speaker 2: I'm so excited for people to hear it. I was
Speaker 2: lucky enough to, you know, get it earlier. I'm so excited.
Speaker 3: Thanks for taking the time to listen to a couple
Speaker 3: of MS.
Speaker 2: Of course, No, I think it's I mean, it's not
Speaker 2: even I listened to a lot of it, but those
Speaker 2: were just I mean, I've got so many more. But
Speaker 2: we could go on for every track. But I just
Speaker 2: feel like it's healing music. And it's like I said earlier,
Speaker 2: I could pray to it, I can meditate to it.
Speaker 2: I couldn't to it, I can hang to it. I
Speaker 2: get you know, and I think it's rare that I
Speaker 2: feel that way, where a lot of music, when it
Speaker 2: tries to be healing, it's cheesy, it's like kind of
Speaker 2: like a bit corny, it doesn't you know. And I
Speaker 2: feel that's when it's your real journey. That's that comes
Speaker 2: across exactly because you're not trying to preach, you actually
Speaker 2: going through it exactly.
Speaker 1: You're going through it with the me and the listener
Speaker 1: are going through this together, and we're sharing this experience
Speaker 1: and feeling together. And it's also you're right because you
Speaker 1: know what when they try to write songs, they try
Speaker 1: to write these you songs, and nobody wants to be youwed,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's like you know, uh,
Speaker 1: I know, I know you, I know you're feeling down.
Speaker 1: It's like I don't you know, you don't know I'm
Speaker 1: feeling down, you know what I mean? So, yeah, they
Speaker 1: just write it on such a weird yeah, they it's
Speaker 1: so hard to write cathartic music without it coming off
Speaker 1: super corny or preachy or.
Speaker 3: Also that's why I don't feel a need to resolve
Speaker 3: every song.
Speaker 1: And this is where we talk about how my sausage
Speaker 1: is made a little bit but I think artists and
Speaker 1: songwriters feel the need to resolve songs. It's like like
Speaker 1: a song is a authority. Yeah yeah, and it's like
Speaker 1: it's not. This is just a part of the movie.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to resolve, Like there doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be Hope can happen at the end of the album.
Speaker 1: Hope can happen on the first song of the album, right,
Speaker 1: but you can take them through a genuine journey. Everything
Speaker 1: doesn't have to cap you know what I mean, It doesn't.
Speaker 1: Sometimes leaving a song unresolved. Fire and Rain by James Taylor,
Speaker 1: I feel like that song never fully resolved itself, right,
Speaker 1: And because of that, it's made it open for my interpretation.
Speaker 1: And It's Against the Win by Bob Seeker, never really
Speaker 1: resolved itself. These songs are the songs I always come
Speaker 1: back to because you can identify with them every part
Speaker 1: of your life. You know, when you resolve a song,
Speaker 1: sometimes you take that away, and you take away the
Speaker 1: power from allowing the person who's healing healing the song,
Speaker 1: hearing the song to heal from what they're getting from it.
Speaker 1: I hate when people go, what was this song about?
Speaker 1: I love it when people like you go what's up
Speaker 1: with this lyric?
Speaker 3: This is deep.
Speaker 1: When they're like, so, what's this song about, I'm like, yo,
Speaker 1: I want this person to get some from this song.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they might think about it. I've
Speaker 1: tell him what I thought it was about. They might
Speaker 1: not ever hear it the way they need to hear.
Speaker 3: Yes, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because then it's not their story. They're not
Speaker 2: a part of this story. Yeah. You want someone to
Speaker 2: fill in the blanks. You want someone to be the
Speaker 2: guy in the glass.
Speaker 3: Art exactly.
Speaker 1: Artists open for interpretation, and I want you to find
Speaker 1: yourself in it, which is also why I write from
Speaker 1: first person a lot. It's not a big eye thing
Speaker 1: because I'm not a big eye guy, but first person
Speaker 1: writing for me is a It's a cry for help
Speaker 1: that we can all feel.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's only two more things I want to talk
Speaker 2: to you about, because I know you've got to get
Speaker 2: out here to perform today, so kind to us. This
Speaker 2: blew my mind. Jim Todd, Yes, this is crazy. When
Speaker 2: I heard about this, I was like, what so, Jim Todd,
Speaker 2: who's the young attorney who prosecuted you. You're now working
Speaker 2: with him?
Speaker 3: That's true. This is a fact. It's the first time
Speaker 3: we told this story too.
Speaker 2: This is really cool, this is amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's starting the Dinkins Center for Juveniles to teach
Speaker 1: traits for juvenile at risk kids. And you want to
Speaker 1: talk about somebody just being awesome, Jay, imagine being the
Speaker 1: guy who he charged.
Speaker 3: Me as an adult bound me over.
Speaker 1: I mean, the hardest thing that's ever happened in my life,
Speaker 1: a felony I'm still trying to get rid of, is
Speaker 1: now working to help juveniles. And then me, the same
Speaker 1: kid he bound over, who is as wrong as I
Speaker 1: should have been. You know, are now work.
Speaker 3: It's just to me one.
Speaker 1: It's such a change. It's such a signature of like,
Speaker 1: I keep having these really cool moments Jay, where I'm like,
Speaker 1: what a full circle moment?
Speaker 2: God?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 1: You know, there's an old saying that when you do right,
Speaker 1: they'll restore everything that went wrong. I'm watching it all restore.
Speaker 1: It's happening, Jay, right in front of me. Dog like
Speaker 1: my old prosecuting attorneys, my partner now to help juveniles.
Speaker 1: You know that old juvenile I was in. Now let
Speaker 1: me build studios in it and paint the walls for
Speaker 1: the kids. You just like, I look at all these
Speaker 1: moments and I'm like, man, God is like He's healing
Speaker 1: my inner child in front of the world.
Speaker 3: It's dude.
Speaker 1: When I got slimmed at Nickelodeon, I was like. I
Speaker 1: went back that night and I was like, and I
Speaker 1: got to do some with summer Slam. I got to
Speaker 1: choke Slamspiday Summer Slam. I was like, God is really
Speaker 1: healing my inner child in front of the world.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I suffered in silence by myself for so long that
Speaker 1: I'm now getting to redeem myself on a national platform.
Speaker 1: The sheriff to Davidson County's jail, his name is Darren Hall.
Speaker 1: Twenty two years he's been a sheriff. He was the
Speaker 1: sheriff whenever I was in that county jail. The last
Speaker 1: time I got locked up, the day my daughter was born.
Speaker 1: He gave me a key to the jail I was
Speaker 1: locked up in. It's the first inmate he's ever gave
Speaker 1: a key to the jail too. And I got a necklace, mate.
Speaker 1: I made a diamond crusted got a necklace with a
Speaker 1: pair of handcuffs for every time I got arrested for
Speaker 1: it and I call it my redemption chain. And to
Speaker 1: have the relationship with Sheriff Darren Hall that we're close.
Speaker 3: My mayor loves me. Me and Jim Todd. I mean
Speaker 3: that guy put me in jail. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 3: What's funny is they reached out to us. Now.
Speaker 1: I've always been friends with him because when he became
Speaker 1: an attorney, we used to talk and he represented a
Speaker 1: couple of cases of mine.
Speaker 3: That wasn't that case because he conflict of interest.
Speaker 1: The cool part of this story is not even just
Speaker 1: what I'm doing with it, but him think about the
Speaker 1: heart change. He had to be hands on and watch
Speaker 1: the system fail these kids for so many years that
Speaker 1: it bothered him enough that later in life he was like,
Speaker 1: I gotta circle back.
Speaker 3: And fix that.
Speaker 2: That's beautiful, isn't it?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like Jim Todd's the real hero of that story to me,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, because I've been changed my life.
Speaker 3: It's glad you came around, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: That's what It just shows that if everyone's intentionally reflecting
Speaker 2: looking at that life, what's possible.
Speaker 1: Just a little bit of Jim Todd had some guy
Speaker 1: in of glass. Mama, didn't he At some point in
Speaker 1: time he went and looked at guy in glass and said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I was a part of the problem
Speaker 1: at one point too, and I want to be the solution.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Let's help these kids. Let's give these kids the resources
Speaker 1: they didn't have whenever I was a district attorney. And
Speaker 1: they said that he had that heart back then. But
Speaker 1: you want to talk about humanizing stuff, Jay and I go.
Speaker 1: I do a songwriter program with a company called The
Speaker 1: Beat of Life at the Juvenile I was incarcerated in
Speaker 1: and we go in there one day and Judge Callaway,
Speaker 1: who's a judge in juvenile is there and she came
Speaker 1: in to write songs. Jay and I'm in there watching
Speaker 1: for the first time. I'm listening to her in her
Speaker 1: group and they're giggling, they're laughing, they're writing lyrics, they're
Speaker 1: having a ball. And I thought to myself, back to
Speaker 1: the human thing. I love that we've had themes of
Speaker 1: this whole conversation. She's seen those kids as kids for
Speaker 1: the first time. She got not an inmate case number
Speaker 1: that killed somebody or shot somebody or did something wrong.
Speaker 1: She seen them as little, giddy fifteen year olds playing
Speaker 1: cards and trying to write a song they never wrote before,
Speaker 1: and they got to see her as a concerned mother,
Speaker 1: and man.
Speaker 3: It just it was cried.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just so special to watch and
Speaker 1: it was it was such a good thing. They were
Speaker 1: so in the moment they didn't realize how special it was.
Speaker 1: It's when she left. I was like, I want you
Speaker 1: to know that that is the coolest thing that I've
Speaker 1: ever seen a judge do. That you came, took off
Speaker 1: the road, showed up a regular clothes and sat down
Speaker 1: and wrote songs with these kids, Like that'll go maus
Speaker 1: with everybody, you know what I mean. I understand you
Speaker 1: still have a job to do and guidelines, you got
Speaker 1: a bad bite, But I think this humanized everybody. I
Speaker 1: think we all looked at each other a little different
Speaker 1: that day in that jail cell, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And uh, it was cool because you could tell that
Speaker 1: she loved songs and singing in church, so to be
Speaker 1: a part of that, it brought out a little child
Speaker 1: and her right. And then these kids they never wrote
Speaker 1: a song, so they're just they're they're they're really tough kids.
Speaker 1: That are holding it back, and they just you start
Speaker 1: seeing them get excited, and I was like, this is special, man,
Speaker 1: this is a this is redemption spectacular.
Speaker 2: It's incredible. I want to and the the one thing,
Speaker 2: Jelly Roll, that we reached out to your brother, who
Speaker 2: sent through this beautiful love letter for you, Scott. Yes,
Speaker 2: and so I'm going to read it to if you
Speaker 2: don't mind, because you've given us such a gift today
Speaker 2: and I wanted to find a way to thank you,
Speaker 2: and I thought who better than the person who's known
Speaker 2: you for so long? So he says, Dear Bubba Love,
Speaker 2: Where to begin? First off? I just want to tell
Speaker 2: you how unbelievably proud I am of you for what
Speaker 2: you've achieved, and even more so the man you have
Speaker 2: become personally. One of my proudest memories was being in
Speaker 2: the courthouse with you, Bunny, Dad, and Pook the day
Speaker 2: you got full custody of Bailey. Makes me tear up
Speaker 2: a little just remembering how proud we all were of
Speaker 2: the man you grew to be. Even back then. One
Speaker 2: of those moments I remember looking at Dad with a
Speaker 2: smile and not even having to say a word. Growing up,
Speaker 2: I always saw the talent that the world is getting
Speaker 2: to see now. Thinking back to your first day of
Speaker 2: middle school and you had missed the bus, my mama said,
Speaker 2: take your brother to school. We pull up across from
Speaker 2: JC Napier Housing Projects and before you could open the
Speaker 2: car door, me telling you that it would probably be
Speaker 2: a good idea to start rapping, or to not be
Speaker 2: the guy who doesn't throw the first punch. Long you
Speaker 2: figured it out, brother. You were freestyling every ride after that.
Speaker 2: I know, growing up I was not always the best
Speaker 2: role model, and the older I got has given me
Speaker 2: many sleepless nights of regret. You always always always came
Speaker 2: to visit me when I was locked up, and yeah
Speaker 2: I came to juvenile a few times, but when you
Speaker 2: got bound over I was not there. Just know that
Speaker 2: I had to leave TM, Bubba. I know it had
Speaker 2: to hurt you that your brother wasn't there, and I'm
Speaker 2: so sorry. Being young and where we came from is
Speaker 2: my only excuse, Bubba, although not a good one. But
Speaker 2: the amazing part of it all is what you're doing
Speaker 2: as a human now, being so young and getting out
Speaker 2: of being incarcerated over and over. Then hearing you had
Speaker 2: a little girl born. While being there, you grew strength
Speaker 2: and changed everything, started helping others with your songs. Those
Speaker 2: who went and still are going through similar pasts and
Speaker 2: struggles as we did. Being at your shows and seeing
Speaker 2: people cry and be so touched by the words you
Speaker 2: sing and person you are as amazing. You portray love
Speaker 2: and hope. Jaja, you got out of lock up and
Speaker 2: totally changed your direction, taking all the negatives and turning
Speaker 2: them positive. For helping others to overcome what they've gone
Speaker 2: through is amazing. Reaching out to me in Idaho Falls
Speaker 2: several months ago and taking me out the dark place
Speaker 2: I was in for years and years. I'm forever grateful
Speaker 2: for you, brother. You've always been there for me and
Speaker 2: our family. I love you more than you will ever know.
Speaker 2: I know Dad is in heaven looking down, smiling ear
Speaker 2: to ear with Nan and Beebee. He called it thirty
Speaker 2: plus years ago at the Italian Street Fair in Brentwood, Tien,
Speaker 2: where you were on stage doing carry to George Straight.
Speaker 2: He looked at me and said, Jason has never met
Speaker 2: a stranger. One day he will be an entertainer. Well,
Speaker 2: look at you now, Bubba, I just want you to
Speaker 2: know how proud your family is of you, and thank
Speaker 2: you for doing what only you can do every day,
Speaker 2: helping the world to be better and letting people know
Speaker 2: it's never too late. You're a true inspiration to so many,
Speaker 2: including your big brother. I love you, Bubba, Scott, Scooby Defort, Scooby.
Speaker 3: Baby God, Man, that is so awesome, dude. Oh thank you,
Speaker 3: brother God. I love him. Man. He didn't even tell me,
Speaker 3: he just left. I was just with him three days ago.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I want to thank you for just being
Speaker 2: an amazing inspiration in my life brother, being introduced to you.
Speaker 2: From the moment we met, I was like, this is
Speaker 2: the guy I need to talk to. I'm here to
Speaker 2: support you, serve alongside you in any way I can
Speaker 2: thank you, Jack, and I can't wait to go want
Speaker 2: to see what you do. I know this is just
Speaker 2: the beginning, and I'm so so inspired by you. Your
Speaker 2: true true light in this world and a true testament
Speaker 2: to every transformation we believe in. You're you're living in
Speaker 2: right now. So deeply humbled and uh. We end every
Speaker 2: episode with a fast five. Every question has to be
Speaker 2: answered in one word to one sentence.
Speaker 3: All right, And the first of.
Speaker 1: All, though, Jay I need to give your flowers though, brother,
Speaker 1: you thank you again for your impact. You don't know
Speaker 1: how many people you help. I always have this phrase
Speaker 1: I use that. Uh, it's not a ticket stub, it's
Speaker 1: a story. Those YouTube views are sold, baby, and you're
Speaker 1: touching them.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Appreciate that deeply, deeply, man, I feel that and I
Speaker 2: receive it all right, last last few minutes. Fair. Question one,
Speaker 2: what is the best advice you've ever heard or received?
Speaker 1: Oh, best advice I ever heard or received, as cliche
Speaker 1: as it is, just don't give up. It just my
Speaker 1: father was real big about don't give up. He was
Speaker 1: just super super. He believed in the law of hours
Speaker 1: that if you put enough time into something that it
Speaker 1: would work.
Speaker 2: Question number two, what is the worst advice you've ever
Speaker 2: heard or received?
Speaker 3: Give up?
Speaker 1: The worst advice I ever received with somebody telling me,
Speaker 1: you know it's not going to work, cut your losses.
Speaker 2: Question number three. If you could define your current purpose,
Speaker 2: what would it be. My current purpose is to help
Speaker 2: and heal. I think my current purpose is to help
Speaker 2: people heal through music.
Speaker 3: Beautiful.
Speaker 2: Question number four, a message you'd like to share to
Speaker 2: anyone who's listening right now, like just what you need
Speaker 2: them to hear, what you feel they need to hear
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 3: I said it in my speech, but I live by
Speaker 3: this quote.
Speaker 1: It's a quote I live by that the windshield is
Speaker 1: bigger than the rearview for a measing baby, You've got
Speaker 1: to move forward talk.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: And fifth and final question we asked this every guest
Speaker 2: has ever been on the show. If you could create
Speaker 2: a law that everyone in the world world had to follow,
Speaker 2: what would it be?
Speaker 1: Love truly, love truly, act out of love. If you
Speaker 1: just thought to yourself, is that what love would say?
Speaker 1: Every time you were fixing to say? Something that would
Speaker 1: change the way we all talk to each other.
Speaker 3: Jelly Row, thank you so much, Thank you brother, thank you.
Speaker 2: The album is out right now while we're speaking.
Speaker 3: And beautifully Broken, Babe, you got the biggest podcast in
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 1: Shameless plug. My name is Jason Jelly rol D four.
Speaker 1: My album is available. It's called beautifully Broken.
Speaker 3: Check it out. I'm trying to have my first number
Speaker 3: one album.
Speaker 2: We're gonna make out, We're gonna make your mouth, We're
Speaker 2: gonna put everything behind it.
Speaker 3: Beautif So grateful. Thank you for such a good conversation.
Speaker 2: If this is the year that you're trying to get creative,
Speaker 2: You're trying to build more. I need you to listen
Speaker 2: to this episode with Rick Rubin on how to break
Speaker 2: into your most creative self, how to use unconventional methods
Speaker 2: that lead to success, and the secret to genuinely loving
Speaker 2: what you do. If you're trying to find your passion
Speaker 2: and your lane, Rick Rubin's episode is the one for you.
Speaker 3: Just because I like it, that doesn't give it any value,
Speaker 3: like as an artist, if you like it, that's all
Speaker 3: of the value. That's the success comes when you say
Speaker 3: I like this enough for other people to see it.