Speaker 1: What's up. It's Granger Smith and this is the Granger
Speaker 1: Smith Podcast, Episode one. I'm brand new to this, so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kind of make it up as i go,
Speaker 1: like a lot of things I'm do in my life,
Speaker 1: and I've got a lot of stories to tell. I
Speaker 1: hope that there's a lot of people that want to
Speaker 1: hear them. So here goes Nothing, Episode one. Iowa. It's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite places to be. I'm a Texas
Speaker 1: boy and I didn't know much about Iowa until I
Speaker 1: started touring, and for that matter, it wasn't until probably
Speaker 1: about twenty thirteen before I finally got to Iowa, before
Speaker 1: we had enough fans to get to Iowa. So that
Speaker 1: brings me to today. Got three Center Iowa a plan
Speaker 1: to do these podcasts wherever I am, which is usually
Speaker 1: on tour. So the first one is right here at
Speaker 1: Guthrie's River Ruckus Festival. I'm sitting in the back of
Speaker 1: my bus Wildflower. I'm looking out of the window. The
Speaker 1: blinds are open. It's an empty festival yard. Rolling hills
Speaker 1: of Iowa, which most people think Iowa was flat, but
Speaker 1: it actually has some beautiful rolling hills, a little slice
Speaker 1: of heaven and today is a blue sky afternoon, so
Speaker 1: I couldn't ask for a better day to start this podcast,
Speaker 1: which leads me to my point. Let's get started. I
Speaker 1: want to talk about how this whole crazy journey began.
Speaker 1: You know, my very first memory I was three years old.
Speaker 1: When people think I'm a little crazy because I can
Speaker 1: remember being three, and I don't remember complete thoughts, you know, stories.
Speaker 1: I just remember this one very specific memory. And we
Speaker 1: were living in Carrollton, Texas. We moved away from there
Speaker 1: when I was four. That's how I could kind of
Speaker 1: narrow down the timeline of this thought. We were living
Speaker 1: in a little house that had a sunroom, tile floors,
Speaker 1: a stereo, and a couch. Besides that, I could remember
Speaker 1: a window that looked into the backyard, so off into
Speaker 1: the distance. Through the window, you could see past the backyard,
Speaker 1: over our old wooden fence that we had, and there
Speaker 1: was a hill and you could see a road, a
Speaker 1: highway off in the distance, and so on a clear
Speaker 1: day you could see all the cars, right. And so
Speaker 1: my memory is three years old, waking up in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night, and I would go to the
Speaker 1: sunroom and I would lay on the couch and look
Speaker 1: out through the window, out into the distance to this highway,
Speaker 1: and I would see these headlights and these tail lights
Speaker 1: back and forth the middle of the night. My parents
Speaker 1: are asleep, my brother is asleep, and I remember very specifically.
Speaker 1: The part of this memory is that I'm thinking, where
Speaker 1: are these people going in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: driving And I wish I could do that too. It
Speaker 1: wasn't because I wasn't happy. Actually, nothing to do with that.
Speaker 1: I had a great family. Strange. I know it sounds weird.
Speaker 1: I'm three years old. Sounds weird, but that that has
Speaker 1: never left me, and that feeling is still, It's still
Speaker 1: in me. It's still I have a little, maybe a
Speaker 1: little fomo, a little fear of missing out and when
Speaker 1: people are going somewhere I want to go to. I'm
Speaker 1: not much of a homebody. I guess you could say.
Speaker 1: I like to keep moving. And that's why this business
Speaker 1: was perfect for me, the music business. And the first
Speaker 1: time I jumped in a pickup truck and hooked up
Speaker 1: a trailer and we headed out to San Angelo, Texas,
Speaker 1: which that was my first road trip ever from college station.
Speaker 1: And that that first trip was freedom. It was like, man,
Speaker 1: here we go we're heading west. We got guitars and
Speaker 1: amps stacked up in the back. It's we're off on
Speaker 1: an adventure. We don't know how this day is going
Speaker 1: to pan out, how this is an adventure, and I
Speaker 1: can't wait to find out where it leads me. And
Speaker 1: that feeling is every day still today. And what I
Speaker 1: want to talk about on this first podcast. And I've
Speaker 1: done a little thinking about this, and by the way,
Speaker 1: thank you for listening, thank you for tuning into something
Speaker 1: like this, because I can't imagine a more personal way
Speaker 1: to reach people than a podcast. Me sitting here in
Speaker 1: the back of my bus with one microphone. I'm the
Speaker 1: only one in this room. I'm the only one producing this.
Speaker 1: It's just me, and that means a lot that anyone
Speaker 1: would w would want to engage in that. So what
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about was how I became a fan.
Speaker 1: I'll talk about how I played guitar, how I started
Speaker 1: singing on stages. I'll talk about all that stuff at
Speaker 1: some point, but this first one, I want to talk
Speaker 1: about how I became a fan because me becoming a
Speaker 1: fan is such an important part of my story and
Speaker 1: such an important part of how I live my life.
Speaker 1: As a musician. Now it's all reflecting upon when I
Speaker 1: became a fan and how passionately engaged I was on
Speaker 1: that front row. It was Garth Brooks for sure. In
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, that was my first musical love.
Speaker 1: I listened to, you know, all kinds of crazy bands
Speaker 1: as a kid, like Poison and Doctor Dre and Vanilla Ice,
Speaker 1: Bobby Brown, The Eagles probably the first band I ever
Speaker 1: sang to. That's another story for another time, but I
Speaker 1: think when I really started feeling what the passion of
Speaker 1: music was, it was Garth Brooks. Sometimes late at night
Speaker 1: I lie awake and watch her sleep. This song If
Speaker 1: Tomorrow Never Comes was released in August of nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: I was just a kid, but it is crazy the
Speaker 1: impact that this song made, And this was my first
Speaker 1: understanding of the power of music. My granddad was very
Speaker 1: sick with lung cancer and he was in his last day.
Speaker 1: He was a very quiet man, very hard worker, very traditional,
Speaker 1: raised six children, loved his garden, worked construction, slow Texas
Speaker 1: draw hero from World War Two in the Pacific. You
Speaker 1: get the picture of who this guy was. Very typical
Speaker 1: of what we like to call the Greatest Generation. He
Speaker 1: was not very affectionate with his words. It was very
Speaker 1: rare that he would say I love you to my
Speaker 1: grandmother or to his children. And when this song came
Speaker 1: out in August of nineteen eighty nine, it spoke to
Speaker 1: my grandmother so much, and even more interesting, it spoke
Speaker 1: to my grandfather. And he was so affected by that
Speaker 1: song that he felt that compassion of those lyrics and
Speaker 1: told her how much he loved her, which is exactly
Speaker 1: what the song was written for. If tomorrow never comes,
Speaker 1: will she know how much I love her? This was
Speaker 1: obviously the very beginning of Garth's career, and he came
Speaker 1: to College Station, Texas for a show at a place
Speaker 1: called the Texas Hall of Fame, and that day he
Speaker 1: went and did a Walmart meet and greet. People did
Speaker 1: this all the time back in the nineties. You would
Speaker 1: go to Walmart and meet your favorite artist and get
Speaker 1: their autograph and such a cool one on one experience
Speaker 1: you could have. So she went and waited in line,
Speaker 1: and she met Garth and she told him what that
Speaker 1: song meant to her. That might not be that big
Speaker 1: deal to most artists, but knowing the stories you hear
Speaker 1: about Garth, I'm sure I'm sure he listened to her.
Speaker 1: If tomorrow never come, will she know how much joy
Speaker 1: you're not trying every way? Show every day? And she's
Speaker 1: my only one. Three months later, November nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: my granddad passed away. It was tough on everybody in
Speaker 1: the family, but there was a There was a piece
Speaker 1: about it because he was able to say how much
Speaker 1: my grandmother meant to him. Thanks a lot to Garth
Speaker 1: for that and the power of his music, the power
Speaker 1: of the song. But the story doesn't end there. It
Speaker 1: meant so much to her that she wanted to include
Speaker 1: that song on his gravestone. I called her just now
Speaker 1: to tell me exactly what she had written on that stone.
Speaker 1: He said, if tomorrow never comes, I love you now
Speaker 1: and I always wil Gouse, You're my only one that did.
Speaker 1: And she chokes up. And it's been thirty years since
Speaker 1: she had those words put on his headstone. I was
Speaker 1: just a little kid, but that's the first time I
Speaker 1: felt the power of country music. Unbelievable. Looking back, Ah,
Speaker 1: the memory the dance wee Shire to meet the stars.
Speaker 1: Why did you decide to put Garth Brooks on there?
Speaker 1: Because when doub was sick over it temple that I
Speaker 1: want to see God. He came to Walmart and it
Speaker 1: is one the first time you'd ever been there. He's
Speaker 1: gonna be thenner of one hour, but then so many
Speaker 1: people came in backing the state. He s take two hours.
Speaker 1: Then when we went out to the twelve that night
Speaker 1: to be, threw a note of film that stays that
Speaker 1: my mother's here. He loves you and would get played
Speaker 1: than Tama never comes. Hey, my white a white bag,
Speaker 1: and everybody in that we're looking at a million out
Speaker 1: of the groom. I love that guy. So I'm sure
Speaker 1: a million people have a very similar story with Garth.
Speaker 1: He just has that kind of legacy with his fans.
Speaker 1: But you know, the reason I'm talking about it in
Speaker 1: my podcast is because I'm an artist now. I make
Speaker 1: my living on the road. I make my living because
Speaker 1: of fans, because of community, and gosh, is there anything
Speaker 1: better that you could possibly learn than this from Garth?
Speaker 1: And I was a kid, you know, And that's the
Speaker 1: effect that's having on me, and that now it's part
Speaker 1: of my story. That was my grandmother And she's still
Speaker 1: little cries about this. She still laughs about this, ninety
Speaker 1: two years old. That's crazy to me. So the podcast
Speaker 1: is brand new. Obviously, I don't have any sponsors yet.
Speaker 1: I don't even have any listeners yet. Actually, but hey,
Speaker 1: I can't talk about one thing. Ee Energy. It's not
Speaker 1: really a sponsor because it's my drink. Me and my
Speaker 1: brothers made it. But people always say, oh, Grangersmith, he
Speaker 1: just aligned himself with some energy drink company and then
Speaker 1: stamped his name on it. That's actually not what we did.
Speaker 1: We actually started from scratch and built an energy drink ourselves.
Speaker 1: We got several different companies from all over the country
Speaker 1: to make these recipes and they would send them to
Speaker 1: us and we would taste test ourselves, me and my
Speaker 1: two brothers. We would decide on what we didn't like,
Speaker 1: a little too sweet, little too tangy, and we would
Speaker 1: send our results back until we finally got what I
Speaker 1: think is the perfect tasting drink. So if you haven't
Speaker 1: had yee Ye Energy, go to my website Grangersmith dot com.
Speaker 1: Go to yee Energy dot com. You can get it
Speaker 1: on Amazon right now. However you get it, I just
Speaker 1: I hope you try it and let me know what
Speaker 1: you think. And that's my shameless sponsor plug. So there.
Speaker 1: I was a kid in the nineties, deeply and directly
Speaker 1: impacted by songs. Country music was alive and well in
Speaker 1: my family. And by the way, there was this brand
Speaker 1: new thing that everyone was listening to music on, and
Speaker 1: it was called a compact disc. Don't Rocks, Ju Fire's Jon.
Speaker 1: I had all kinds of CDs. I collected Alan Jackson,
Speaker 1: Clinton Black, Vince gild Tracy Lawrence, Neil McCoy sent me Kershaw,
Speaker 1: Steve Warner, on and on. But it wasn't just CDs
Speaker 1: I was listening to. We were watching music videos on CMT.
Speaker 1: They called it country music Till the Cows Come Home
Speaker 1: back then, and we didn't have cable at home. But
Speaker 1: my grandmother Manye, who I just talked to on the phone.
Speaker 1: She introduced me to music videos and would record them
Speaker 1: on vhs. And every time I would see her, she
Speaker 1: would have a brand new tape labeled that she had
Speaker 1: written on with hundreds of music videos that she wanted
Speaker 1: me and my brother to see. It was this way
Speaker 1: that I found Mark Chestnut. In sports. Last night in Oakland,
Speaker 1: Nolan Ryan pitched the sixth no hitter of his career,
Speaker 1: Boy Oh Boy, Nolan's hot isn't he talk about hot?
Speaker 1: It's hot everywhere here at Southeast Texas. So here's Mark
Speaker 1: Chestnutt and his music video for two Gold at home,
Speaker 1: and he's driving in his pickup and he goes and
Speaker 1: he visits this little single wide trailer that obviously his
Speaker 1: girl left him in and he's alone. You better he's
Speaker 1: up around seventy percent and give us a feat of
Speaker 1: nuts in about one hundred and ten at tonight. And
Speaker 1: so I'm locked on watching this country boy another muggy
Speaker 1: night on the bayou with lows in the eighties, man
Speaker 1: own mad old man. Well, like they say, you can't
Speaker 1: do nothing about the weather, So let's get back to
Speaker 1: more music. The steel guitar leads the song in he
Speaker 1: steps out of the truck, walks into the bar to
Speaker 1: grab a cold beer, and I'm thinking, can I like
Speaker 1: this guy? Well, it sure feels good to come in.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't just the music now, it was the video.
Speaker 1: It was the visual that starts moving me and drawing
Speaker 1: me in. I became obsessed with music videos and I
Speaker 1: watched this one over and over, wore out that old
Speaker 1: vhs that many gave me. This is my favorite part
Speaker 1: right here oh, well, work. He looks at the bartender,
Speaker 1: he says, well, I gotta go to work, and he
Speaker 1: gets up from the bar and then he's with his
Speaker 1: full band and they're playing in the honky tonk and
Speaker 1: that's his job. And I'm thinking, that's his work. I
Speaker 1: want to do that, And just like that, the honky
Speaker 1: Tonk seeds are playing it. Inside me, it's so not care.
Speaker 1: It was because of these music videos that my brother
Speaker 1: Tyler and I first started messing around with the camera,
Speaker 1: and we re enacted music videos a lot of them.
Speaker 1: We would just set the camera up, either me or him,
Speaker 1: and we would play a song on a stereo, and
Speaker 1: then the other one would kind of dress up a
Speaker 1: little bit, maybe put on a cowboy hat, and act
Speaker 1: out like we were a country music star. The truth
Speaker 1: is I had no idea who I was about to
Speaker 1: discover that would drastically change the course of my life forever.
Speaker 1: I don't remember how or when or why, but I
Speaker 1: know the song was Ocean prompt property that first led
Speaker 1: me to George Strait, and then it wasn't long before
Speaker 1: I found a Maillo by morning by morning up from
Speaker 1: the sign and tall. I loved it. I still do
Speaker 1: my favorite song. It was my good luck song. I
Speaker 1: felt like every time I came on the radio or
Speaker 1: through speaker, the rest of the day would be good.
Speaker 1: And that's sun Side in that Texas guy. So his
Speaker 1: Greatest Hits Volume two with Oceanfront Property then took me
Speaker 1: backwards the Greatest Hits Volume one, and then I found
Speaker 1: Straight Country, and then straight from the Heart, and then
Speaker 1: right or wrong? There's forward ever crossed her mind? Something special.
Speaker 1: I was a George straight junkie and had everything he
Speaker 1: put out. But apparently I wasn't the George Strait super
Speaker 1: fan yet that I was about to become. Amy Haynes,
Speaker 1: that was her name. She said, Hey, I'm having a
Speaker 1: bunch of people come to my house and we're gonna
Speaker 1: watch Pure Country together. I say, what's Pure Country? She
Speaker 1: looks at me like I'm crazy. That's George Strait's movie.
Speaker 1: What George Strait has a movie? How did I not
Speaker 1: know this? How in the world did this get past me?
Speaker 1: When did you star? Mean? So? I watched it, and
Speaker 1: I watched it again, and then I went and bought it,
Speaker 1: and then I watched it over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: I'm talking so many times that I memorized every single word,
Speaker 1: and that's exactly what I did, freakishly. I didn't watch
Speaker 1: any other TV only that movie. And right around the
Speaker 1: time when this obsession starts to become unhealthy, it gets worse.
Speaker 1: I joined his fan club so I could find more
Speaker 1: people like me. And guess what, He's coming to San Antonio,
Speaker 1: Texas on tour for the George Strait Country Music Fest.
Speaker 1: And yes, I gotta go. I'm fifteen years old, and
Speaker 1: my amazing dad takes me and two other buddies on
Speaker 1: a four hour trek from Dallas down to San Antonio.
Speaker 1: On the way, we even took a pitstop in New
Speaker 1: Bronfles so that I could walk in Green Hall, the
Speaker 1: place where George took the pictures for his first album,
Speaker 1: Straight Country. The concert was unbelievable. I screamed like a
Speaker 1: little girl, I'm sure, and all I wanted when it
Speaker 1: was over was for there to be more. I look
Speaker 1: at his calendar and he's coming to Dallas in the summer,
Speaker 1: and by then I'll be sixteen years old. You can't
Speaker 1: write this script any better for me at this point. Now,
Speaker 1: I have a green nineteen seventy four GMC pickup truck
Speaker 1: three in the tree, and you damn right, it could
Speaker 1: get me to Texas Stadium. The interesting news is, since
Speaker 1: I'm a fan club member, I could spend the night
Speaker 1: at Texas Stadium about a month before and get fan
Speaker 1: club exclusive seating, which just happens to be second row center,
Speaker 1: second row in a stadium. You know how amazing that
Speaker 1: would be. And so my parents, bless their heart, allowed
Speaker 1: their sixteen year old son to go to Texas Stadium
Speaker 1: spend the night with a bunch of other crazy George
Speaker 1: Strait fans. And when the sun came up that morning,
Speaker 1: you better believe I was second in line at seven
Speaker 1: am when they opened the ticket office, and there it
Speaker 1: was like gold in my hand, a paper ticket that
Speaker 1: had second row smack dab in the middle. I got
Speaker 1: there early, the gates opened at noon. I saw a
Speaker 1: bunch of great bands like Asleep at the Wheel, Faith Hill,
Speaker 1: Tim McGraw, and then it was time for George. The
Speaker 1: show started exactly like the movie Pure Country, Lights Down.
Speaker 1: The track started, his son Bubba starts singing Heartland in time.
Speaker 1: A video starts playing up on the big screen. It's
Speaker 1: from Chevy Trucks and it's this gorgeous, brand new pickup
Speaker 1: truck traveling through the Texas hill country and everyone is
Speaker 1: fixated on it. The lights in the stadium are off.
Speaker 1: I mean it's black besides the video. I'm looking around
Speaker 1: and it's kinetic energy, like crazy. People are losing their minds.
Speaker 1: Sixty thousand people in the dark together and I'm taking
Speaker 1: the bait, put line and sinker. I'm scanning the stage.
Speaker 1: I've got incredible second row seats. I could see footsteps
Speaker 1: rushing around, and I could see lighting, guides and security
Speaker 1: and band members and tour managers. And I'm thinking, if
Speaker 1: I could just be a part of this, nothing else matters.
Speaker 1: I have found my calling. This is what I want
Speaker 1: to do for the rest of my life. The energy raises,
Speaker 1: there's a stir in the crowd. Cameras are up, people
Speaker 1: are looking left, right, up, down. They know he's close.
Speaker 1: I know he's close. I could feel it. There's a
Speaker 1: place where and like a light from heaven shining on
Speaker 1: a white cowboy hat, and you feel the mother nature
Speaker 1: walk along. The spotlight illuminates them, ladies and gentlemen. George
Speaker 1: Strait ten feet away from my house, rush hands, my job,
Speaker 1: rops sing the Sun about the Heartland. Would you believe
Speaker 1: me if I told you I walked away from that show,
Speaker 1: getting to shake his hand from the stage, getting one
Speaker 1: of his guitar picks, and getting his entire band's autograph.
Speaker 1: I guess after everything I've told you, you probably would
Speaker 1: believe that I was a crazy fan. It definitely didn't
Speaker 1: end that night. I mean, I guess you could say
Speaker 1: that was the beginning. I started following his tour everywhere.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I had friends with me, and then sometimes I
Speaker 1: just went by myself. I learned all the intricacies of
Speaker 1: the entire show. I even knew the routines of the
Speaker 1: security guys, and they even told me. They said, hey,
Speaker 1: you could rush the stage whenever they bring the big
Speaker 1: concert cameras down, and of course I knew exactly what
Speaker 1: song that was, and I would leap over the front
Speaker 1: row and boom, there I was on the foot of
Speaker 1: the stage with a thousand teenage girls pushing me up
Speaker 1: against it. So, hey, George, it's me. I was that
Speaker 1: kid on the front road for all those Texas shows
Speaker 1: in the nineties. You know. I even went as far
Speaker 1: as going to the back of the arenas where all
Speaker 1: the buses were parked, and I knew George's bus. It
Speaker 1: was a big white one, and I would wait in
Speaker 1: the closest spot by that fence so that I could
Speaker 1: see his bus, and I would wait for George to
Speaker 1: walk out of the dressing room, and usually he would
Speaker 1: walk out with his wife, Norma, and during that little moment,
Speaker 1: during that time, I would yell out George, George, and
Speaker 1: he would kind of look over and wave. And that
Speaker 1: wave doesn't matter how many hours I waited by that fence,
Speaker 1: just the acknowledgment that I was another human being on
Speaker 1: the same planet as him made it all worth it. Okay,
Speaker 1: I know what you're thinking, and this is not the
Speaker 1: George Strait Fanclub podcast, even though I could do a
Speaker 1: pretty damn good one, but it would probably be about
Speaker 1: four hours long and very boring. But the reason I'm
Speaker 1: saying it, and the reason it's part of this podcast
Speaker 1: and part of my story, is for me to tell
Speaker 1: you that I was a crazy fan, right and I
Speaker 1: believe with all my heart that me being a crazy
Speaker 1: fan allows me to understand them. And there's not a
Speaker 1: single night that goes by that I don't as an
Speaker 1: artist scan that front row and look for that boy
Speaker 1: or girl and look for that fire in their eyes
Speaker 1: that I recognize so well. And if I could give
Speaker 1: them a guitar pick or shake their hand, then I
Speaker 1: get it. I know what that is doing. I consider
Speaker 1: myself a fan first, VIPs, meet and greet shows. That's
Speaker 1: all allowed by fans. And this is not all going
Speaker 1: to last forever anyway, It might not even last the
Speaker 1: next few years. I hope it does. It's not up
Speaker 1: to me, it's up to the fans. So every day
Speaker 1: when I walk out on that stage, it's a blessing
Speaker 1: for me to live my dream. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: also a responsibility for me to give back to those
Speaker 1: fans because they deserve it. I felt like I deserved it,
Speaker 1: and George Strait gave that to me. And I'm never
Speaker 1: going to compare myself to George. But don't you think
Speaker 1: it's my job now to pass on what I saw,
Speaker 1: what I experienced, what I witnessed, especially now knowing what
Speaker 1: I have the ability to share. Don't you think that's
Speaker 1: my responsibility? I do. There's so many more stories to
Speaker 1: connect these dots, like how I started playing music myself,
Speaker 1: and there's plenty of time for that. I can't start
Speaker 1: boring you too much on episode one. Plus, I got
Speaker 1: a show to play in Iowa, and there could be
Speaker 1: that kid night on the front row and he needs
Speaker 1: a guitar pick. So, as Mark Chestnut said, I gotta
Speaker 1: go to work. Thank you so much for being a
Speaker 1: part of episode one. There's more to come. I promise
Speaker 1: it happens up that out of the blue scat lost
Speaker 1: in her blue glass. Yeah, when it happens up that
Speaker 1: nothing to lose turns right into you, Julie, or you
Speaker 1: can do just to keep her around till the moon
Speaker 1: goes down in her back at your house. One thing
Speaker 1: is to another. You love each other when you can,
Speaker 1: you never look back. It happens like that. This podcast
Speaker 1: is brought to you by EE Energy. Come find us
Speaker 1: on tour grangerspid dot com, Forward Slash Tour, See you
Speaker 1: down the road.