WEBVTT - Brent Smith 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:13.119 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Bob left Set's podcast. My 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:19.279 guest today is Brent Smith, frontmans to the band Shinedown. Brent, 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:22.239 good to have you on podcasts. So I've got to ask, 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:29.040 Shinetown has nineteen number one rock tracks. Why are more 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:32.760 Americans not familiar with the music of Shinedown. Well, it's 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:36.040 interesting because I think it's changing. I think more Americans, actually, 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:38.239 I think the entire world is getting more and more 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:41.880 familiar with us. But I mean, we've been a band 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:47.640 for two decades now and we've gone through We're always 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:50.960 going down these very unique roads with our career. We've 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:54.320 always built the band around the audience and growing the audience. 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:58.840 But if I'm being totally honest with you, the touring 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:02.760 last year was some of the biggest that we've done 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.760 in the last two decades. The band is consistently growing 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:09.119 every year, and the band is consistently going to more 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.839 countries every year. It is expanding, it is getting bigger. 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:16.920 But that's all credit to the fan base. Okay, So 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:21.919 who is a Shinedown fan? Anyone from anywhere, at any 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.639 time can be a Shinedown fan. But I'm asking different. 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:27.839 You know, you're in touch, you know, with your audience. 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:31.440 What do you think they're Who are they, what are 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:34.440 they like, what's their personality, what are their desires, etc. 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:40.200 I think that they I mean, listen, as the main 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.759 lyricist in the band of two decades, I've been talking 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:46.680 about mental health for the better part of twenty years, 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:49.920 even before it was in headlines and people were talking 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:53.560 about it in media. You know, politicians were bringing it up, 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.240 so on and so forth. You know, it's two thousand 0:01:56.680 --> 0:02:00.240 and twenty three and mental health is a made your 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:04.200 topic now, but it's been a major topic my entire life. 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:07.680 So I think to answer your question, you know, a 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:13.560 Shine Down fan is somebody that, more than anything, I 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:17.639 think they're tenacious. I think that they're humble. I think 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:21.040 that they at certain points in times in their life, 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:23.919 they have to understand that it may take a minute 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:26.760 to figure out who they are, and that's completely okay. 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:30.680 We're all a work in progress, and I think growth 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:32.840 is a big part of what we do as a 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:36.760 band and our connection with our audience, whether they've been 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:39.840 there from the very very beginning or they're just finding 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:45.000 out who we are. There's such an intensity between the 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:49.760 relationship of the band and the audience because they know 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:53.640 what we're trying to do, especially in the music on record, 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:59.079 but also the live performances are an experience. One of 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:01.080 the main things I do a shine Down show is 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:06.960 we intro first two songs. After that, I asked the audience, 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:09.000 if this is your first time seeing shine Down, raise 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.040 your hand, don't be shy, and continuously eighty percent of 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:14.720 the audience, no matter where we are, continues to raise 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:17.639 their hand, which shows us that it's growing. But then 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:19.639 I tell everybody to look to the left and look 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:22.239 to the right and know that the person next to them. 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:24.720 You may have not met each other until tonight's show, 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:27.679 but that's all gonna change now. So everybody turned to 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:29.280 your neighbor. I want to see you high five in 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:32.519 each other, shaking hands, tell everybody it's awesome to see 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:34.840 him at the show, and that kind of breaks the 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:41.800 ice with everyone and it just becomes this experience. Okay, 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:43.360 let's you know, there's a lot of stuff there. Let's 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:46.560 start with the mental health component. So how did you 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:51.480 get motivated to address that? I think I got it 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:56.360 motivated to address it because growing up I was a 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.520 bit I don't want to say necessarily that I was ostracized, 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.960 but I was not the cool kid. I was also 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:06.160 the weird kid. You know. I grew up in a 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:11.760 very sports driven family, and I was always artsy. I 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:13.920 was always I mean, I started writing songs when I 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:19.160 was ten years old, and you know, for for me, 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:24.760 I think that what I had to understand about, you know, 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:29.000 who I was is I had to be honest that 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:34.599 I loved music. That um, it was a part of 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:38.320 who I am. I remember, like my mom and my dad, 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:42.360 as I got older, you know, I started to try 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:44.840 to tell them what I wanted to do and what 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:49.960 I wanted to be. And when you have this dream 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:53.560 or this desire to be something that maybe they've never 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:56.520 seen before, or maybe it doesn't run in the family 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:01.279 or what have you. It was just important to me 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:06.279 anyway to be able to express who I was and 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:11.200 the vision that I had. You know, when you're fifteen 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:15.039 years old and you start writing songs, and these songs 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:19.200 are the lyrics, and these songs are extremely deep, and 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:22.880 it takes a lot to kind of go there. And 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:25.640 my parents would like grab these journals and look at 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:27.640 it and stuff like that, and they would just be like, 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:31.359 what is going on, like where's all this coming from? 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:34.000 And it was just a part of who I am. 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:35.719 If I answered that question and write I think I 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:38.560 got no. No, Okay, that's all. That's all very interesting 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:40.480 and we'll get back to some of the what you're 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.200 seeing there. But you say in your lyrics and the 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:46.839 image of the band, you're very focused on mental health. 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:52.039 Is that based on personal experiences, have you contemplated suicide, 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:58.480 attempted suicide? What's going on there? So the mental health 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:02.880 of everything in the band and why it's important to 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:07.880 us is that we've lived through it on a daily basis. 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:10.080 I have a substance abuse addiction that a lot of 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.040 people know about, and you know, it's kind of out there. 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:19.320 And I appreciate this this interview right now because you're 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:23.040 going you're going at me with some pretty heavy material. 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:26.039 It's making me really kind of center myself here and 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:31.600 think about this. I want to do everything in my 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:38.320 power to the best of my ability and the band 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:41.880 the best of our ability, to bring the suicide rate 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:46.279 in America and the rest of the world down because 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:51.480 we've lost so many family members, we've lost so many friends. 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:54.920 And I'm talking about even when I was a teenager. 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:57.600 There's a lot of kids. And even when I got 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:01.440 older and left home and went out to pursue what 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:03.920 I do now, you would get the phone call that 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:07.279 this person passed away, my friend from here passed away. 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:11.080 How do they die? They killed themselves, And it just 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:13.360 seemed like it was it would pile on and it 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.520 would get worse and worse and worse. And so the 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.280 music that we talk about, it's one of the reasons 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:22.760 why I name the band shine Down. I name the 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:25.440 band shined Down because it's the yin and the yang. 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:27.560 Everything that's good has a little bit of bad, and 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:29.680 everything that's bad has a little bit of good. There's 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:32.680 a balance inside of it all, and sometimes you have 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:35.760 to fall into a hole to figure out how to 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:39.560 get out of it. So there is always there's this 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:42.920 empathy in our music about triumph, about triumph and about 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:47.760 overcoming and about being strong and going after that. But 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:50.280 there's also those moments in the song where it just 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:54.160 feels like sometimes like you don't understand why certain things 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:57.400 are happening to you. And you know, growing up, I 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:00.760 know that kids today and adults today, everything that social 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:03.760 media brings to you, everything that's put on a platform. 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:07.200 Everything that's exposed. Everyone has an opinion, you know. That's 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:13.280 constantly motivating everyone. And my son just turned fifteen years 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:16.960 old and I always tell him, I say to him, remember, 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:19.040 when it comes to the phone, when it comes to 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:22.720 the Internet, you're in control of the device. The device 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:25.600 does not need to be in control of you. And 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:30.240 you know, listen, It's just something I think that I was. 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:36.600 I was born with this part of me that, however 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:39.160 I was feeling, I have to write it down. Whatever 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.280 I experienced growing up, the scenarios, the situations that I've 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:44.559 been in, all of those things that are very very 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:47.680 hardcore factors for me. I put them in these songs. 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.560 And the mental health aspect of it is goes back 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:53.520 to what I said earlier, which was we're all a 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:58.440 work in progress. It's the reality. I don't want people 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:01.520 to think just because in a rut or just because 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:04.920 one moment in their life they're having a hard time, 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:07.320 that it's going to be like that forever. I also 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:10.120 don't want them to think that they can just slide by. 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:13.920 You've got to figure out a way to overcome. You 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:18.840 have to build adversity into your core, into your being. 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.960 Into your soul and that takes time. And I just 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.320 don't want people to give up on themselves more than anything. 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:28.280 And I don't want people to give up on this planet, 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:31.800 in this world, because it's an amazing place, but it 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:35.120 can also be very devastating. Like this is not an easy, 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.720 this life that we all lead. It's not necessarily always 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:42.319 easy to navigate. So I try to create this soundtrack 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:46.400 for people that keeps them on their road. And if 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.440 they want to change directions on their road, that's totally fine, 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:54.160 but just don't give up going down those roads. Okay, 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:58.720 let's go back to the beginning. You're from Lochsville, Tennessee 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:02.080 or that area, totally what the environment was for you 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:10.040 growing up? So the environment was very country, even though 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:15.960 the University of Tennessee is there. It was very kind 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:20.880 of backwoods, very good old boy, good old girl type 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:26.839 of you know upbringing. You know, we all had four 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:30.439 seasons that was nice, you know, lakes and mountains. It 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:34.880 was a beautiful place to grow up and live. But again, 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:40.760 I'll be honest, being the weird kid didn't bode for me. 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:45.480 All always so good, you know, I was in sports. 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:49.280 My dad was a part of the school system, and 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:53.560 my mom worked for the banking system and probably the 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:56.320 one person in my life that gave me my work ethic. 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:59.720 My drive comes from my mother's mother, which is my 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:02.440 grand an who I talk about all the time. So um, 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:05.000 you know, I was pretty much raised by the three 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:10.240 of them and my other grandmother who passed away before 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:14.160 the first record from Shinedown was able to be released. 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:16.079 But it was a good upbringing. I mean, it was 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:18.839 a cool town for what it was. You know. I 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:21.200 went through high school, never went to college or anything 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:22.800 like that. I was out of the house at eighteen 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:27.079 years old. But I had a pretty pretty normal upbringing, 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:30.240 nothing through out of the ordinary. Oh okay, how well 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:32.559 did you do in school? And did you have friends? 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:35.920 I was terrible in school at the stuff I didn't 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:38.679 care about. If I cared about it, I was really 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:43.160 really good at it, so music and art. I did 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:47.760 great at math and arithmetic, and you know, English and 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:49.320 some of the other things I didn't do as well. 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:50.840 I did pretty good when I was in high school. 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:53.840 I did good in sociology though in psychology I was 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:58.080 good in that, And yeah, I had friends. But I'll 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:03.400 tell you an interesting thing from elementary school to middle school, 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:10.000 all the same kids. We all like I went to 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:12.679 school with all the kids in elementary school, that I 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:14.920 went to school with all the kids in middle school, 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:16.920 and then we all went on to high school together. 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.880 And everybody was cool with each other in elementary school, 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.199 and then everybody got kind of mean in middle school. 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:28.000 It's always middle school, like that's when everybody's like everything's changing, 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:30.600 your body's changing. It's always a wild, kind of weird 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:35.160 time for any kid. And then the interesting thing was 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:40.520 for me, I went to a different school that I 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:44.480 was zoned to my ninth grade year, so I actually 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:46.280 didn't go to the school I was supposed to go to, 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:48.440 and I got kicked out of the school that I 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:50.120 did go to, so I had to go back my 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:52.480 sophomore year to the school that I was zoned to 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:57.160 go to. Why'd you get kicked out? I just I'm 0:12:57.200 --> 0:12:59.360 gonna say something, and some people are gonna be like, really, 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:00.640 but this is the only way I know how to 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:05.080 say it. I found myself. I got kicked out because 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:07.719 I found myself, Okay, a little and what I'm a 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:11.480 little deeper. Yeah, well, I guess the way I was 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:14.880 doing everything that I could to be the good kid 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:17.160 from my parents and my mother and my dad, and 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:19.880 because they were just wonderful, great people, and you know, 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:22.160 they got this kid that they don't necessarily know what 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:25.960 they I was not easy to raise, let's just put 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.240 it that way, and so my parents wanted me to 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:32.600 have and I got bullied a lot and got beat 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:34.839 up a lot, and I had to kind of Middle 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:37.800 school was tough for me. I was one of those 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:41.480 very awkward moments in life where my body was changing, 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:43.360 and it just was one of those things where every 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:45.520 day I go to my I remember my eighth grade year, 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:48.800 every day was you know, I had to kind of 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:51.960 fend for myself. It wasn't pretty. So you asked me 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:55.679 about did I have friends. I had friends in elementary school, 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:58.120 and then I had friends in sixth grade. But by 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:00.800 the time I got to seventh and eighth grade, I 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:04.240 just became like a punching bag. And so my mom 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:06.400 was like, I'm gonna take you to a different school, 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:09.160 like let's let's let's start over, let's try something else. 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:15.760 So we go to to this other school and I 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:18.840 had a huge gross spurt over the summer of my 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.920 eighth grade year, so I got really tall, and I 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:25.600 had a terrible acne when I was in eighth grade, 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:28.680 and so I actually was one of the first two 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:32.000 hundred people in North America to take a drug called acutane, 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:37.360 and I was one of the youngest to take it. 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:40.400 But it worked because I had a severe acne and 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:43.000 it worked and it cleared my cleared my skin up. 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:48.400 And so mind you, I grew, I got a little 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:50.800 bit better looking. I was on the football team and 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:55.440 the wrestling team. But I just remember one day just 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:57.080 thinking to myself, and this was in the middle of 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:00.040 the school year. I was like, this isn't who I 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:02.960 I am. Like this this is just not who I am. 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.720 And like I was into punk rock. I was having 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:10.480 to kind of um hide what I was listening to. 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:13.680 I couldn't really bring it into the house. You know, 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:16.640 nothing against my parents, they just didn't understand, you know, 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:18.560 like what was going on with their kid. You know, 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:20.640 there was somebody in our in our family that had 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.480 a music background. So I kind of like came out 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:27.240 of the blue. And so I changed and I got 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:30.400 defiant and I got hard to deal with, and I 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:34.480 stopped caring about like what people thought, Like I just 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:36.280 wanted to be me. It didn't mean I was like 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:38.320 a punk kid and I was mean or I was 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:41.240 violent or aggressive or anything like that. It just I 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:43.760 wanted to come out of my shell, you know. And 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.080 I didn't want to wear khaki pants, and I didn't 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:50.040 want to wear like a button down shirts and stuff 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:52.520 like that. I wanted to wear white T shirts. I 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:54.840 had a chain wallet, you know. I wanted to wear 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:57.720 you know, baggy jeans. You know. I wore air walks 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:03.160 instead of like nikes, just things like that. And I did, however, 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:08.640 rubbed the principle the wrong way too many times and 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.000 I got kicked out. And then that made it to 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:12.520 where I had to go to the school I was 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:16.280 already zoned for. But when I went to my sophomore year, 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:20.160 what was kind of interesting about that was I had 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:22.640 been gone for a year, so like they remembered this 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:25.720 kid that was kind of chubby and short and had 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:27.720 really really bad acne. All of a sudden, I came 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:30.720 back to this school and I had grown two and 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:33.960 a half feet, and you know, I looked completely different, 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:35.800 Like people didn't know it was me when I went 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:38.920 back to school. So it kind of was like I 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:42.040 was able to have a bit of a do over. 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:46.560 I guess you would say, but all those people that 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:49.800 I went to school with, now I'm back into school 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:54.040 with them, I didn't necessarily care to like reach out 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:55.800 and befriend them or what have you. I was much 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:59.040 more of a loner and I was much more to myself. 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:01.280 But I will tell you this, the cool thing was 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:04.440 by the time we got to our senior year, all 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:06.359 of the people that I went to elementary school with 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:09.359 in middle school and all that, everybody just kind of 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:12.560 let their guard down. I remember this very vividly my 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:16.840 senior year, and everybody was cool with each other. Like 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:19.320 when we graduated, like we just kind of forgot about 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:23.480 all of that stuff and we just everybody. We were 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:25.200 all friends. It didn't matter if you were a jock 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:27.200 or if you were you know, if you were into sports, 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:29.639 or you were an academic, or you were popular or 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:31.840 you weren't popular, or you know, if you were the 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:35.200 weird kid or whatever. Everybody was just cool with each other. 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:37.720 So I do remember that being a nice way to 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:41.879 kind of finish out that part of my high school years. Okay, 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.800 so what was your exposure to music and what drove 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:50.679 you to write lyrics. It's pretty instantaneous from the from 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:54.720 the moment I was born. As soon as I could read, 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:01.680 words affected me in a very very powerful way. And 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:05.120 then as soon as I heard music and I could 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:10.359 understand melody that a good friend of mine once told me, 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:12.760 he said, you don't pick the music, The music will 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.080 pick you. It's what you do with it after that, 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:21.520 And so language was a big deal for me, and 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:23.920 poetry was a big deal to me. I started writing 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:27.120 poetry when I was ten years old. Writing lyrics came 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:31.280 a little bit later. But the music aspects of things, 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:36.720 it kind of started with like the Beach Boys I remember, 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:39.840 and Whalen Jennings and Willie Nelson. That was kind of 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:43.240 the early stuff. And these were like songs that had 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:45.920 melody to them, but they also like very clever lyrics, 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:48.800 especially the Whalen Jennings stuff and the Willie Nelson stuff 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:51.040 like that was really deep, like the things that they 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:53.200 were talking about in those songs. And Johnny Cash. I 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:56.120 remember I found I found Johnny Cash when I was fourteen. 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:58.600 It really kind of changed my life. And I didn't 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:01.160 listen to the Beatles until I was twenty four years old. 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:04.399 I remember the very first time I heard the White Album. 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:10.080 I was in my mid twenties so, but very early on, 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:14.000 just language A was a big deal for me. It's 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:17.240 at this point in time, are you a reader? Yeah, 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:22.040 I mean not reading like necessarily novels or books of 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:26.480 that nature. But what I was reading was a lot 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:31.760 of I was reading a lot of music magazines. I 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:34.640 was also reading a lot of it. You gotta understand 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:38.120 something too, Like it was hard for me to go 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:41.199 into a store, you know, even before I was a 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:44.560 teenager and get kind of the books that I wanted 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:46.639 to read, and if you were at a library, you 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:49.160 could only get so like my mom would only allow 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:50.840 me to get so many things. And then by the 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:52.439 time I got to middle school, there were certain things 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:54.959 that we had to read. When I got to high school, 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:58.000 that's when I read some of the classics, Like I 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:03.600 remember remember reading Moby Dick. When I got to to 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.720 high school. I remember all the Canterbury Tales that you 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:10.440 had to read, which is like some really really heavy stuff. 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:16.439 But Shakespeare was a big deal. I read a lot 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:18.919 of Shakespeare. I can't remember a lot of it to 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:21.840 this day, but I just I remembered I was. It 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:24.359 was a lot of Shakespeare at that time, and I 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:29.080 read a lot of Nietzsche because Nietzche is a huge 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:31.800 part of my life too, just from a and why 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:34.760 I say that is he had a tormented life. I'm 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:38.520 not saying that my life is tormented. But when I 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:42.200 read the quote that he penned, which says, without music, 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:44.600 life would be a mistake, I was like, there's my guy. 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:48.800 That's that's my guy. And I just kind of went 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:52.000 down a rabbit hole all of his work to just 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:54.879 kind of see what was going on in his mind. 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:57.960 Him and Edgar Allan Poe. You know, I loved the 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:00.720 you know, if you stare into the this long enough, 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:04.320 the abyss will stare back. It was always those types 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:14.320 of individuals. What turned John to punk rock? And when 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:20.000 did you form bands? Punk rock? Was? When did I? 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:22.960 I'm trying to remember the exact time that had happened. 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:28.760 I went backwards a little bit. The album that got 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:32.000 me into punk rock was Appetite for Destruction. And I 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:34.680 have to set the scene a little bit because I 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:37.080 was in fifth grade and there was music class and 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:40.840 on Fridays, the teacher was very kind of open and 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:44.359 very free and what have you. She was rad I 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:46.520 can't remember her name, but I just remember like she 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:49.480 wasn't a normal music teacher for a bunch of fifth graders, 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:52.880 so she would let students bring in tapes and what 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:55.080 have you, and you could on Fridays, everybody would to 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:57.240 listen to different music. So there was like rock and roll, 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:01.320 there was pop music, there was hip hop. It was 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:03.640 all kinds of stuff. And I remember this kid brought 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:06.480 an appetite for destruction. This was like nineteen eighty nine, 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:10.040 and she was just kind of doing her own thing. 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:12.680 I'll never forget it. She was just doing her own thing. Meanwhile, 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:17.520 like It's so Easy came on and it was just 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:20.640 like all the other kids weren't even really paying attention, 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:24.080 but I was like, what did you just say? And 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:27.440 then like welcome to the Jungle, and then like mister Brownstone, 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:29.320 I'm gonna listen to the whole record. I just remember 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:31.280 all the kids were all running around doing other stuff, 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:33.680 and I was just sitting in front of this stereo 0:22:34.160 --> 0:22:36.800 in this classroom listening to what was coming out of 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:39.240 these speakers. Because I had never heard anything like it 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:40.399 in all my life, and a lot of it had 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:43.320 to do with the language and then so that kind 0:22:43.359 --> 0:22:46.960 of got me into I wanted to know more about that, 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:50.640 and you know Operation IVY. I remember finding out about them, 0:22:50.760 --> 0:22:54.439 and then Fugazi was next, and then Minor Threat, and 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:59.240 then the Dwarves were after that, and I'm trying to 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:02.520 remember Lloyd was in there. But when I found uh, 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:07.480 when I found bad Religion, like that changed everything too 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:13.000 once again, very lyrical, like really intense, really thought out, 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:19.159 really uh like spell like spell bounding. Um, as far 0:23:19.200 --> 0:23:22.480 as you know punk rock is concerned, I think that 0:23:22.840 --> 0:23:26.520 you know Bad Religion, as far as the lyrics are concerned, 0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:30.000 that's the most profound punk rock band on the planet 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:34.520 in my mind. Okay, so you get turned onto all 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:40.400 this music? When do you become a performer? Fourteen thirteen 0:23:40.480 --> 0:23:49.120 fourteen um I h. I started playing in a group 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:53.600 of guys. I remember my very first performance in front 0:23:53.600 --> 0:23:57.479 of an audience was a talent show. Um. I think 0:23:57.520 --> 0:24:00.919 it was sophomore year when I went back to the school. 0:24:00.960 --> 0:24:05.240 I was zoned for me and like three other kids 0:24:06.000 --> 0:24:09.320 got together. I remember the drummer though, was like five 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:14.120 years older than everybody else and he had a drum 0:24:14.200 --> 0:24:16.000 kid and he had like a garage and he had 0:24:16.000 --> 0:24:18.560 an extra bass and a bass amp, and he had 0:24:18.600 --> 0:24:22.080 like this really old crate amp and a guitar, and 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:24.880 there were two other kids from school. We didn't really 0:24:24.880 --> 0:24:27.000 know each other that well. I can't remember how we 0:24:27.040 --> 0:24:29.359 actually got hooked up, but I remember we just I 0:24:29.760 --> 0:24:33.639 remember being in that garage at that house, and they're 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:36.240 like they didn't know how to play anybody's music, Like 0:24:36.280 --> 0:24:38.800 we didn't know how to play any any songs or 0:24:38.840 --> 0:24:43.520 anything like that. So we made up our stuff, and 0:24:43.560 --> 0:24:45.280 I mean it was awful. It was terrible, and we 0:24:45.280 --> 0:24:46.960 were just like banging on this stuff and it was 0:24:47.119 --> 0:24:49.320 very very you talk about punk rock, it was worse 0:24:49.400 --> 0:24:53.439 than punk rock. I think that Henry Rollins would have 0:24:53.440 --> 0:24:57.080 probably punched us all in the anyway, but or he 0:24:57.160 --> 0:24:59.520 might have dug it, who knows, but it was very 0:24:59.560 --> 0:25:01.639 like it didn't matter. It was probably a good thing 0:25:01.640 --> 0:25:03.560 that we weren't trying to play other people's music. We 0:25:03.560 --> 0:25:05.400 were trying to kind of go off of each other 0:25:05.400 --> 0:25:07.520 and see if we could create something together. And I 0:25:07.560 --> 0:25:11.040 remember we wrote this song that was decent enough to 0:25:11.119 --> 0:25:15.480 like hold a melody, and I just remember going on 0:25:15.600 --> 0:25:20.560 stage and having absolutely no fear at all at this 0:25:20.640 --> 0:25:23.040 talent show at our school with these other guys, and 0:25:23.080 --> 0:25:25.679 the other guys were like really nervous, which makes it 0:25:25.720 --> 0:25:30.080 really funny now in my career because I'm terrified every 0:25:30.160 --> 0:25:33.200 night before I go on stage twenty years doing this 0:25:33.359 --> 0:25:38.240 and before the curtain drops, I'm terrified. But I remember 0:25:38.359 --> 0:25:41.760 that specific moment in time, I had no fear whatsoever. 0:25:42.080 --> 0:25:43.720 It's like I wanted it more than anything in the 0:25:43.760 --> 0:25:45.760 world because it was a packed house auditorium. There was 0:25:45.760 --> 0:25:48.399 like three hundred kids in there, and I just went 0:25:48.440 --> 0:25:51.040 for it. And I just remember kind of everybody being 0:25:51.800 --> 0:25:54.920 a little dumbfounded, didn't really know what they were watching. 0:25:54.960 --> 0:25:57.199 They saw this kid walking around school and stuff like that, 0:25:57.240 --> 0:25:59.480 and then all of a sudden, I just opened my 0:25:59.520 --> 0:26:02.840 mouth and you know, it probably wasn't great, but it 0:26:02.920 --> 0:26:04.840 was me and it was five. Remember it was primal, 0:26:04.880 --> 0:26:08.160 and I remember it was real. And then after that, 0:26:08.960 --> 0:26:15.160 I towards the back half of like, um my, my 0:26:15.280 --> 0:26:17.920 junior and senior year, I got in a band called 0:26:17.960 --> 0:26:22.200 Blind Thought in Knoxville, Tennessee. Um we did some local 0:26:22.200 --> 0:26:24.200 stuff around the area. The band was kind of based 0:26:24.200 --> 0:26:27.360 out of Farragut, Tennessee, and uh, it did that, and 0:26:27.400 --> 0:26:31.040 then I got into this other band called Dreeve, which 0:26:31.080 --> 0:26:33.960 was actually the first band signed to Atlantic Records. That 0:26:34.040 --> 0:26:36.040 was signed for ten months and then it was dropped 0:26:36.480 --> 0:26:39.080 or we were dropped. And then about two months later 0:26:39.160 --> 0:26:41.600 I was signed to a development deal with Atlantic Records. 0:26:41.600 --> 0:26:44.720 And then that okay, okay, a little a little bit slower, 0:26:45.000 --> 0:26:47.440 my bad. What do your parents say when you don't 0:26:47.440 --> 0:26:53.080 go to college since your father was in the school system. Um, 0:26:53.560 --> 0:26:56.840 I think they knew it wasn't gonna happen. Like I 0:26:57.080 --> 0:26:59.960 think they knew, I don't. Here was the thing about me. 0:27:02.200 --> 0:27:06.080 I was not afraid of hard work. So at fourteen, 0:27:06.600 --> 0:27:09.120 I remember my parents Back in the day in Tennessee, 0:27:09.200 --> 0:27:11.520 you had to sign there had to be an order 0:27:11.920 --> 0:27:15.320 for the state. But I'm trying to remember what the 0:27:15.440 --> 0:27:19.240 year would be, it doesn't matter. Fourteen years old, I 0:27:19.320 --> 0:27:20.720 go to my mom and my dad and I'm like, 0:27:20.760 --> 0:27:22.399 I want to I want to work. I want a 0:27:22.480 --> 0:27:27.200 job like on the weekends, like during the school during 0:27:27.200 --> 0:27:29.800 the school year and in the summer. I want to 0:27:29.800 --> 0:27:32.040 be able to work at least forty hours. You know. 0:27:32.160 --> 0:27:34.639 I said this at fourteen years old, and they were like, 0:27:35.960 --> 0:27:37.639 do you think you can get a job. And I 0:27:37.680 --> 0:27:38.720 was like, well, I can get a job if you 0:27:38.800 --> 0:27:42.120 signed this paper. You know, I'd gone to the library 0:27:42.119 --> 0:27:43.800 found out about this paper that you could get from 0:27:43.840 --> 0:27:45.840 the state if your parents signed it, it it would allow 0:27:45.880 --> 0:27:47.320 you to work and this and that and the other. 0:27:47.400 --> 0:27:50.280 You can only do like ten hours a week during 0:27:50.320 --> 0:27:52.280 the school year or something like that, but you could 0:27:52.280 --> 0:27:55.080 still go. I wanted to make my own money, and 0:27:55.440 --> 0:28:00.520 they they did it. And so, you know, so for me, 0:28:01.040 --> 0:28:03.119 the whole thing about college and the whole thing about school. 0:28:03.160 --> 0:28:05.040 You know, the one thing my parents would say about 0:28:05.080 --> 0:28:07.040 me is, you know, as soon as I could get 0:28:07.080 --> 0:28:08.600 a job, I had a job. And then when I 0:28:08.640 --> 0:28:13.840 was when I was sixteen, you know, I just I 0:28:13.880 --> 0:28:16.480 worked as much as I possibly could. And then you know, 0:28:16.600 --> 0:28:18.919 by the time I was eighteen, I was working, you know, 0:28:19.000 --> 0:28:21.640 sixty hours a week, two different jobs. So my work 0:28:21.680 --> 0:28:23.520 ethic was always there. I just didn't want to go 0:28:23.560 --> 0:28:25.800 to school anymore. So I don't think they really I 0:28:25.840 --> 0:28:29.560 was always I always at a job. Okay, so when 0:28:29.720 --> 0:28:32.919 was the dream to become a rock star kindled? And 0:28:33.080 --> 0:28:35.240 did you graduate from my school? So yeah, this is 0:28:35.280 --> 0:28:43.320 my future? Yeah, I mean, but here's the thing. About me. 0:28:44.520 --> 0:28:49.320 The rock star thing has never been me. If I'm 0:28:49.320 --> 0:28:52.880 a rock star or I'm a performer, I'd rather be 0:28:52.920 --> 0:28:57.680 considered that in a lot of ways. Whatever my set 0:28:57.720 --> 0:29:02.600 time is, that's when that switch goes off. But the 0:29:02.680 --> 0:29:05.360 other twenty hours out of the day, twenty two hours 0:29:05.400 --> 0:29:09.160 out of the day, I'm very, very high profocused. I'm 0:29:09.360 --> 0:29:13.240 very you know, centered in, and I'm able to juggle 0:29:13.240 --> 0:29:16.320 a lot of different things. But the I guess you 0:29:16.360 --> 0:29:20.600 would say the performer aspect of me, the quote unquote 0:29:21.080 --> 0:29:25.000 showmanship side of me, is only turned on when it 0:29:25.040 --> 0:29:29.600 needs to be turned on. Okay, so you're in this band. 0:29:30.200 --> 0:29:35.840 How does the band get a deal with Atlantic Records? Well, um, 0:29:38.560 --> 0:29:42.280 talking about Shakespeare, it's kind of Shakespearean in a way. 0:29:43.120 --> 0:29:46.240 So we were we were based out of Knoxville, Tennessee, 0:29:47.760 --> 0:29:54.840 and at that time we were we were playing all 0:29:54.920 --> 0:29:58.520 over like we were actually playing regionally, so we weren't 0:29:58.520 --> 0:30:00.560 just playing in Knoxville. We were going out of state 0:30:00.640 --> 0:30:03.920 by you know, anywhere between two hundred fifty three hundred miles. 0:30:04.160 --> 0:30:06.240 You know, we'd go out and play anywhere that we could. 0:30:06.960 --> 0:30:09.880 It was it covers or originals or both. It's all original, 0:30:10.640 --> 0:30:14.680 No covers, nothing. It was all original and we had 0:30:15.720 --> 0:30:20.080 and we did. We had two records come out, both 0:30:20.120 --> 0:30:24.400 were on cassette and both were on compact disc. And 0:30:26.160 --> 0:30:36.160 the drummer befriended a young lady. And the best way 0:30:36.200 --> 0:30:39.280 I can tell everybody this because it's such a unique 0:30:39.280 --> 0:30:41.680 story and I'm kind of in the birthplace of all 0:30:41.720 --> 0:30:43.800 of this right now, the studio that I'm in at 0:30:43.800 --> 0:30:47.080 the moment in Orlando, Florida, because I'm actually in J R. 0:30:47.240 --> 0:30:55.320 R Studios in Orlando. And so basically, the drummer started 0:30:55.320 --> 0:30:57.880 hanging out with this young lady, and this young lady 0:30:58.640 --> 0:31:01.840 had a boyfriend and he was in a band signed 0:31:01.840 --> 0:31:08.920 to Atlantic, and the young lady and I were friends 0:31:08.920 --> 0:31:12.120 as well. And I'm getting to it. Everybody's like, Okay, 0:31:12.160 --> 0:31:16.360 where is it going. But this young lady would turn 0:31:16.400 --> 0:31:19.520 out to be the mother of my fifteen year old son, 0:31:20.440 --> 0:31:24.640 And so the reality is that we were playing all 0:31:24.640 --> 0:31:31.800 over Knoxville, and my son's mother, Ashley, she was engaged 0:31:31.880 --> 0:31:36.080 to a drummer from another band on Atlantic Records, and 0:31:36.120 --> 0:31:39.520 so our drummer in the band that I was in, dreaw, 0:31:40.040 --> 0:31:43.440 he gave her our CD and so the A and 0:31:43.680 --> 0:31:50.960 R of that band, she gave this disc to him, 0:31:51.200 --> 0:31:56.320 and basically this is what happened, and who that was 0:31:56.320 --> 0:31:58.800 was a guy named Steve Robertson, who was the A 0:31:58.960 --> 0:32:01.160 and R of Shin Down and has been the A 0:32:01.280 --> 0:32:03.480 and R for Shine Doown for the last two decades. 0:32:03.920 --> 0:32:06.400 We've also been on Atlantic Records for the last two decades, 0:32:06.440 --> 0:32:09.960 which in this day and age as an anomaly, also 0:32:10.000 --> 0:32:12.360 been with the same manager, Bill mcgafey for the last 0:32:12.400 --> 0:32:17.200 twenty one years. So very family oriented group. And so 0:32:17.840 --> 0:32:23.640 Stevo gets the CD from this young lady who is 0:32:23.680 --> 0:32:27.280 the girlfriend of the drummer of a band that he 0:32:27.440 --> 0:32:31.760 signed and he's working with on Atlantic, doesn't really listen 0:32:31.800 --> 0:32:33.360 to the CD, throws it. This is back in the 0:32:33.440 --> 0:32:35.600 day when like A and R guys would have one 0:32:35.680 --> 0:32:39.800 hundred CDs a day sent to them, because it was 0:32:39.840 --> 0:32:43.920 like twenty years ago. And so one day he's kind 0:32:43.920 --> 0:32:46.600 of going through old stuff, what have you, trying to 0:32:46.600 --> 0:32:49.240 clean everything out this other He comes across the CD 0:32:49.360 --> 0:32:51.040 that he had kind of thrown off to the side 0:32:51.080 --> 0:32:52.960 or what have you. He puts it in and he 0:32:53.040 --> 0:32:56.800 goes to like the third song on the record, and 0:32:57.520 --> 0:33:03.720 I let out this huge note in this song, and 0:33:03.880 --> 0:33:09.840 so he contacts her says, who is this? Who are 0:33:09.880 --> 0:33:15.720 these guys? Where are they from? He then Steve flies 0:33:15.840 --> 0:33:22.040 to Knoxville, we set up a show. He brings Michael Binhorn, 0:33:23.040 --> 0:33:26.440 who if people don't know who Michael Bienhorn is. He 0:33:26.560 --> 0:33:29.640 produced Celebrity Skin for Whole, he did What Hits by 0:33:29.680 --> 0:33:32.320 the Red Out Chili Peppers, he did super Unknown by 0:33:32.360 --> 0:33:36.000 Sound Garden. I can stop there anyway. So he brings 0:33:36.000 --> 0:33:41.880 Michael Biinhorn to Knoxville and we have a showcase. Then 0:33:42.080 --> 0:33:44.960 we go out with him that night, and then basically 0:33:45.520 --> 0:33:48.320 we end up getting a record contract, essentially a demo deal. 0:33:49.640 --> 0:33:53.080 And then the demo deal was there for about ten months, 0:33:53.120 --> 0:33:57.000 and we were rehearsing and rehearsing and rehearsing, and eventually, 0:33:57.200 --> 0:34:02.360 after around ten months, the band was dropped. And then 0:34:02.400 --> 0:34:06.760 about two months went by and then I got a 0:34:06.760 --> 0:34:11.600 phone call from Stevo and Steve says, I want to 0:34:11.600 --> 0:34:15.120 sign you again, and I'm like, he just dropped me, 0:34:15.880 --> 0:34:18.959 and he goes, why, I know, I want to sign 0:34:19.000 --> 0:34:21.440 you to a development deal, which I didn't know what 0:34:21.480 --> 0:34:24.000 that meant. And so it was really kind of created 0:34:24.000 --> 0:34:26.720 by Ahmed Urnigan who was the founder of Atlantic Records, 0:34:26.760 --> 0:34:32.960 God Rest his soul, and who was an amazing influence 0:34:33.000 --> 0:34:38.200 on my life on so many levels. So the deal 0:34:38.440 --> 0:34:46.279 was six months essentially Stevo had with me for us 0:34:46.320 --> 0:34:52.719 to start producing and sending the record label actual songs, 0:34:53.120 --> 0:34:56.000 like songs that were starting to show actual growth, like 0:34:56.200 --> 0:34:58.920 actually that there could be something there, because he essentially 0:34:58.960 --> 0:35:03.360 told me, he said, I know that you're in a band, 0:35:03.480 --> 0:35:05.879 and I understand that brotherhood, and I understand what you're 0:35:05.920 --> 0:35:07.640 trying to do and what have you. But you have 0:35:07.680 --> 0:35:10.640 to understand my side of this. I think you're a performer, 0:35:10.640 --> 0:35:13.080 and I think you're a songwriter. I think you're with 0:35:13.160 --> 0:35:15.960 the wrong people. I need to put you in front 0:35:16.000 --> 0:35:18.920 of the right people to see if my hunch about 0:35:19.160 --> 0:35:21.080 what I think you are and who I think you 0:35:21.120 --> 0:35:24.000 are is real. Because I never wanted to be a 0:35:24.000 --> 0:35:26.960 solo artist. I always wanted to create a band. And 0:35:27.000 --> 0:35:30.040 I signed that deal with him, and then three years later, 0:35:30.280 --> 0:35:36.320 Shine Down released its debut album Okay when the original 0:35:36.360 --> 0:35:41.279 band got dropped, did you think your future was over? No? 0:35:41.560 --> 0:35:44.320 I had none of that. The thing was what was 0:35:44.360 --> 0:35:47.759 interesting was this Steve did do something very unique right 0:35:47.760 --> 0:35:51.120 before the band got dropped. He sent me. Granted, I'd 0:35:51.160 --> 0:35:54.000 never been on a plane before, so he goes. He 0:35:54.080 --> 0:35:55.480 I remember, he called me, he goes, have you ever 0:35:55.520 --> 0:35:56.920 been on a plane. I'm like no. He's like, well, 0:35:56.920 --> 0:35:58.600 I'm gonna send you to Los Angeles because I want 0:35:58.640 --> 0:36:00.680 you to work with two songwriter And I was like 0:36:00.719 --> 0:36:03.840 what and uh. So that the very first time I 0:36:03.880 --> 0:36:06.120 got on a plane. I went out all the way 0:36:06.160 --> 0:36:10.360 from Tennessee to Los Angeles and I worked with John 0:36:10.400 --> 0:36:14.680 Shanks and I worked with Tommy Simms, two wonderful, wonderful songwriters. 0:36:15.360 --> 0:36:17.279 And what I was able to do was, you know, 0:36:17.360 --> 0:36:20.440 work with these guys, and we wrote. Me and Tommy 0:36:20.480 --> 0:36:24.320 Simms wrote three songs together. Me and John wrote two together. 0:36:24.640 --> 0:36:27.120 The unique thing about being with John Shanks was the 0:36:27.160 --> 0:36:29.960 fact that Vinnie Caliuto was a friend of his. We 0:36:29.960 --> 0:36:33.640 were in Henton Studios, and those first demo, those two 0:36:33.680 --> 0:36:36.440 demos of those songs have Vinny Caaliudo playing drums on him, 0:36:36.480 --> 0:36:40.560 which is crazy, um but uh. And then he sent 0:36:40.640 --> 0:36:45.000 me to Nashville. I went, I came back to Tennessee 0:36:45.040 --> 0:36:47.400 with those songs. Steve had him. Then he sent me 0:36:47.440 --> 0:36:51.160 to work with Desmond Child and I wrote a song 0:36:51.200 --> 0:36:53.879 with him and uh, and then you know, I get 0:36:53.920 --> 0:37:00.440 back and that's when the band gets dropped, which was 0:37:00.560 --> 0:37:02.640 very you know, it was interesting. I knew what, you know, 0:37:02.760 --> 0:37:05.480 you could figure out what was happening as I'm saying it. 0:37:05.880 --> 0:37:08.120 But he needed to see if there was something there 0:37:08.760 --> 0:37:11.160 if he put me with some other people, because it 0:37:11.200 --> 0:37:13.239 wasn't like those guys wrote these songs like. It was 0:37:13.520 --> 0:37:15.160 very much like when I got into the room with 0:37:15.200 --> 0:37:18.279 these guys, these were songwriters, but it was like they 0:37:18.280 --> 0:37:19.799 looked at me and they said what do you got? 0:37:20.440 --> 0:37:22.200 And I'm like, what do you mean? And they're like, 0:37:22.200 --> 0:37:23.799 what do you got? What are you working on? You know, 0:37:23.880 --> 0:37:26.000 sing me something? So I would just sing off the 0:37:26.040 --> 0:37:28.560 cuff and I would just write like on the spot, 0:37:28.920 --> 0:37:33.000 and we were just you know, writing a song and 0:37:33.040 --> 0:37:36.560 you're just doing it. It was just evolving, and I 0:37:36.600 --> 0:37:39.400 hadn't had that with the band. The band it was like, 0:37:39.440 --> 0:37:40.839 you know, you get in a room, it's just bang 0:37:40.840 --> 0:37:42.879 bang bang bang. There's no time to like work out 0:37:42.920 --> 0:37:45.440 melody and work out lyrics. It was all on. Everybody 0:37:45.440 --> 0:37:46.719 had kind of like a thing. You just had to 0:37:46.800 --> 0:37:48.799 whatever was presented to you. That's just what you had 0:37:48.800 --> 0:37:52.160 to work with, and so it was just a different experience. 0:37:52.200 --> 0:37:55.600 So no, I wasn't bummed out when when I got dropped, 0:37:55.840 --> 0:37:59.160 you know, we I was a little it was peculiar 0:37:59.600 --> 0:38:01.279 in a way. It was kind of like, wow, I'm 0:38:01.280 --> 0:38:06.839 surprised it lasted that long. I was, you know. And 0:38:08.120 --> 0:38:09.920 but then he called and he was just like, I 0:38:09.920 --> 0:38:12.360 want to resign you. And then he was like, this 0:38:12.400 --> 0:38:21.480 is what I want to do, Okay, so walk us 0:38:21.480 --> 0:38:25.880 through that. And now he ended up in Florida. Well, 0:38:27.400 --> 0:38:30.120 a lot of that was when I say that it 0:38:30.200 --> 0:38:33.520 was trains, planes and automobiles with Steve robertson, it was 0:38:33.600 --> 0:38:38.240 exactly that. I don't know if I was John Candy 0:38:38.640 --> 0:38:41.080 or he was, or who was Steve Martin, But anyway, 0:38:42.960 --> 0:38:46.960 what I mean by that to everybody is we went 0:38:47.000 --> 0:38:50.120 on the road together. Any songwriter he could put me 0:38:50.160 --> 0:38:54.720 in front of he did. He literally for the first 0:38:55.719 --> 0:38:59.799 year from the development deal. I think me and him 0:38:59.840 --> 0:39:02.080 were on the road together probably two hundred and eighty 0:39:02.120 --> 0:39:05.000 days out of that first year, and we stayed in 0:39:05.040 --> 0:39:08.840 the same hotel rooms together. We rode the same buses together, 0:39:09.000 --> 0:39:11.840 took the Thame flights, a lot of rental cars, a 0:39:11.840 --> 0:39:14.520 lot of miles on the highway, and he would put 0:39:14.560 --> 0:39:17.280 me in front of anyone that would take a session 0:39:17.320 --> 0:39:22.520 with me, and he worked me. I'd never stopped And 0:39:23.560 --> 0:39:29.200 that lasted ultimately for about two years. And ultimately what 0:39:29.360 --> 0:39:32.040 got me to Florida was Steve because Steve was based 0:39:32.080 --> 0:39:35.160 here in Orlando. He was working obviously with Atlantic Records, 0:39:35.200 --> 0:39:37.800 but they were allowing him to be based in Orlando 0:39:38.120 --> 0:39:39.600 so that he could go out in the field and 0:39:39.680 --> 0:39:41.840 scout music and he could go where he needed to go. 0:39:41.880 --> 0:39:43.719 They didn't feel that it was necessary for him to 0:39:43.719 --> 0:39:48.120 be in New York and so that led us to 0:39:48.120 --> 0:39:54.279 Tony Battaglia. And so when I met Tony Battaglia, who 0:39:54.320 --> 0:39:57.640 was a huge part of the first two albums and 0:39:57.760 --> 0:39:59.840 he's a part of the and he's a part of 0:40:00.040 --> 0:40:04.160 number three two, Tony had called me. It was written 0:40:04.160 --> 0:40:07.960 by myself and Tony on Sound of Madness album. But 0:40:09.800 --> 0:40:15.560 Tony was probably the first songwriter that he saw something 0:40:15.600 --> 0:40:17.680 in me, and he really took me under his wing. 0:40:18.480 --> 0:40:24.279 And so for the better part of I guess it 0:40:24.320 --> 0:40:28.920 was about a year into that signing and then I 0:40:29.000 --> 0:40:33.319 met Tony and then the next year was a lot 0:40:33.360 --> 0:40:38.120 of just working diligently with Tony, and then Stevo would 0:40:38.160 --> 0:40:42.600 get a line on, Hey, this guy is working with 0:40:42.640 --> 0:40:46.680 this guy. This dude's a bass player, this guy knows 0:40:46.719 --> 0:40:50.160 another guitar player, but this dude's a really, really great drummer, 0:40:50.280 --> 0:40:53.399 or this band. It was interesting how it was all 0:40:53.480 --> 0:40:56.960 put together, and it was very organic, and it was 0:40:57.120 --> 0:41:00.319 very much the universe is real. But when I said that, 0:41:00.360 --> 0:41:04.719 Steve was literally doing the definition of what an A 0:41:04.840 --> 0:41:08.720 and R is supposed to do. He was really doing 0:41:08.920 --> 0:41:13.799 artist development. He was networking at all hours of the day. 0:41:13.880 --> 0:41:16.640 He never took any time off, like he was always 0:41:16.640 --> 0:41:18.279 trying to find certain people. So it was like there 0:41:18.280 --> 0:41:21.359 were all these different auditions all the time. So that 0:41:21.440 --> 0:41:26.200 led me to meeting which would essentially be Brad Stewart. 0:41:26.920 --> 0:41:30.239 And Brad Stewart came in when I started to work 0:41:30.280 --> 0:41:32.680 with him on songs and what have you. And he 0:41:32.719 --> 0:41:34.600 had a drummer friend and we were working with him 0:41:34.640 --> 0:41:36.160 for a while, And he had a guitar player friend 0:41:36.200 --> 0:41:38.000 and we were working with that for a while. So 0:41:38.040 --> 0:41:40.360 what happened was that led me to Jacksonville, Florida. I 0:41:40.400 --> 0:41:42.520 was working in Orlando with Tony and then I went 0:41:42.600 --> 0:41:47.080 up to Jacksonville and then made in the Shade Studios, 0:41:47.200 --> 0:41:49.160 which is no longer there, which is owned by Melody, 0:41:50.160 --> 0:41:53.920 was owned by Judy van Zante Ronnie van Zant from 0:41:53.960 --> 0:41:59.399 Leonard Skinner, that's his widow, and in Jacksonville. So we 0:41:59.400 --> 0:42:03.320 were getting studio time there. And so what was happening 0:42:03.520 --> 0:42:06.759 was we were going into the studio and there was 0:42:06.760 --> 0:42:12.560 this really really tall, black haired, you know, really lanky dude, 0:42:12.680 --> 0:42:17.560 kind of intimidating looking, but really but but cool, cool looking, 0:42:17.719 --> 0:42:20.160 you know what I mean, but very like interesting guy. 0:42:20.600 --> 0:42:25.239 And that was Jason Todd, and he was listening to 0:42:25.280 --> 0:42:27.520 all this stuff that was going on with you know, 0:42:27.640 --> 0:42:30.160 me and Brad and these other players and what have you. 0:42:30.640 --> 0:42:35.680 And essentially there was a guy, a studio engineer named Pete, 0:42:36.560 --> 0:42:39.160 and Jason knew Pete because Pete was working at the 0:42:39.200 --> 0:42:42.600 studio and he was doing our demos and stuff that 0:42:42.680 --> 0:42:44.560 we were working on. And Jason went to him one 0:42:44.640 --> 0:42:47.400 day after he had heard me singing and things of 0:42:47.440 --> 0:42:49.880 that nature, and he said, I don't care what you 0:42:49.920 --> 0:42:52.600 gotta do, you gotta get me an audition with that 0:42:52.840 --> 0:42:57.440 with that guy. And so he did, and then me 0:42:57.480 --> 0:43:00.680 and him started working with each other. And then that 0:43:01.480 --> 0:43:04.600 became me and Brad and Jason going down to floor, 0:43:04.640 --> 0:43:08.280 going down to Orlando, working with Tony like non stop. 0:43:08.880 --> 0:43:11.640 And then we started putting all these songs together and 0:43:11.719 --> 0:43:13.880 developing all these songs and writing all these songs. And 0:43:14.480 --> 0:43:16.960 you know, Rick Botto came into the fold, and then 0:43:16.960 --> 0:43:19.840 Bob Marlette came into the fold. But I should say 0:43:20.080 --> 0:43:22.600 the most interesting thing of it all was it was 0:43:22.640 --> 0:43:24.600 the three of us at this point in time. But 0:43:24.719 --> 0:43:28.200 I it was like, and it's like this for every band. 0:43:28.239 --> 0:43:32.319 I feel, what is the hardest member of a band 0:43:32.360 --> 0:43:35.000 when you're when you're creating a band, what's the hardest 0:43:35.000 --> 0:43:37.440 position to figure out? I know everybody says a singer. 0:43:37.480 --> 0:43:40.799 It's not a singer, it's a drummer. The drummer is 0:43:40.800 --> 0:43:49.440 the hardest thing to find. And so we auditioned seven drummers, 0:43:51.480 --> 0:43:56.399 and I'll never forget there was a young name, young 0:43:56.560 --> 0:44:00.480 young man named Matt Brown. He's known very well and 0:44:00.640 --> 0:44:09.279 like the Florida circuit, phenomenal drummer, incredible drummer. And he 0:44:09.400 --> 0:44:11.800 came in and he had gotten some of the demos 0:44:11.840 --> 0:44:14.000 and stuff like that, and to work out this and 0:44:14.000 --> 0:44:15.640 that and the other and so he comes into Maid 0:44:15.680 --> 0:44:17.760 in the Shade with us and what have you, and 0:44:18.320 --> 0:44:21.080 he had some of the material and so he starts 0:44:21.120 --> 0:44:24.040 to play. Granted, the other drummers that we had been 0:44:24.840 --> 0:44:26.560 working with at the time and trying to see if 0:44:26.560 --> 0:44:28.840 it was going to work this and that they were okay, 0:44:29.680 --> 0:44:34.080 but like Matt came in and just like it was 0:44:34.080 --> 0:44:38.799 just a different animal. And so we actually were going 0:44:38.840 --> 0:44:42.200 to offer the gig to Matt. We were all excited. 0:44:42.200 --> 0:44:43.880 We thought he was gonna be you know, stoked and 0:44:43.920 --> 0:44:50.600 everything else. And I remember we met him at a 0:44:50.640 --> 0:44:54.600 barbecue joint called Sticky Fingers and we're like, we want 0:44:54.640 --> 0:44:57.160 to give you the gig and he was like, yeah, 0:44:57.160 --> 0:45:03.719 I don't want it. And we were like, okay, you 0:45:03.760 --> 0:45:06.000 tell us, why do we do something wrong? Did we 0:45:06.040 --> 0:45:08.319 say something? He goes, absolutely not. I think you guys 0:45:08.320 --> 0:45:10.960 are awesome. It's just not my style of music. It's 0:45:10.960 --> 0:45:14.520 just not really my thing. But then he goes, however, 0:45:16.040 --> 0:45:21.120 I have somebody that I think is one hundred percent 0:45:21.560 --> 0:45:24.879 perfect for you, And so I was like, well, who 0:45:24.960 --> 0:45:26.480 is it? And he's like a gentleman by the name 0:45:26.480 --> 0:45:32.080 of Barry Kirch, And so literally about a week later, 0:45:32.320 --> 0:45:35.040 he gave us Barry's number. I started talking to Stevo 0:45:35.120 --> 0:45:37.640 about it. We talked to the band about it, and 0:45:37.960 --> 0:45:39.600 you know, the guys were getting at this point in time, 0:45:39.640 --> 0:45:41.719 like everybody was getting frustrated, and I just was trying 0:45:41.719 --> 0:45:43.759 to tell everyone just calm down, it's gonna be all right, 0:45:44.120 --> 0:45:47.000 Like let's let's give this guy a shot. And I'll 0:45:47.000 --> 0:45:51.840 tell you what's interesting. Barry was number seven. And what's 0:45:51.880 --> 0:45:55.640 even more interesting is Barry's birthday is the same day. 0:45:56.280 --> 0:46:00.200 He shares a birthday with my dad. And there were 0:46:00.200 --> 0:46:02.000 just all these things that lined up all of a sudden, 0:46:02.000 --> 0:46:03.600 like none of these other drummers had anything. It was like, 0:46:03.640 --> 0:46:07.560 all of a sudden, it's like seven snake guys. And 0:46:07.600 --> 0:46:09.800 then he's got my dad's birthday. I was like, Okay, 0:46:09.800 --> 0:46:14.240 this is interesting, and lo and behold, this brother happened 0:46:14.280 --> 0:46:19.440 to be a program director for Planet Radio in Jacksonville, Florida. 0:46:20.160 --> 0:46:23.720 So who is the who is still the program director 0:46:23.800 --> 0:46:28.640 for Planet Radio in Jacksonville, Florida, which is Chad Chumley. 0:46:28.719 --> 0:46:33.120 So anyhow, Barry comes in, and Barry was completely different 0:46:33.200 --> 0:46:38.680 than everybody else because Barry came in with Holy Moly, man, 0:46:38.760 --> 0:46:41.360 Like I get chills thinking about this actually, because I 0:46:41.360 --> 0:46:44.880 remember when he came in, he knew all facets of 0:46:44.920 --> 0:46:47.360 like drumming, Like he knew how to play jazz, and 0:46:47.400 --> 0:46:50.160 he knew how to play like traditional style, and he 0:46:50.239 --> 0:46:54.040 knew how to play like reggae and all these different things. 0:46:54.040 --> 0:46:57.239 And he funk and like inspired by Prince and all 0:46:57.280 --> 0:47:00.200 these different things. So he added all these wild elms 0:47:00.239 --> 0:47:02.880 to everything. But he was very unassuming and very like 0:47:03.360 --> 0:47:05.560 nice to be here and stuff like that. But when 0:47:05.560 --> 0:47:09.200 he came in and he auditioned it, you know, it 0:47:09.239 --> 0:47:10.880 was a it was a it was a wonderful audition 0:47:10.920 --> 0:47:12.520 because he was kind of like doing a lot of 0:47:12.520 --> 0:47:16.440 different things. But I remember his very his real audition. 0:47:18.520 --> 0:47:22.719 The song forty five on the album Leave a Whisper, 0:47:23.280 --> 0:47:25.000 that is the song that's been heard for the last 0:47:25.040 --> 0:47:29.080 twenty years. The drum take on that song on that 0:47:29.120 --> 0:47:37.120 record is Barries demo drum track. Really, yes, and that's 0:47:37.200 --> 0:47:42.400 his audition that that that drum track is Barry's first 0:47:42.440 --> 0:47:46.480 time playing. And really we showed him the song you 0:47:46.520 --> 0:47:49.200 know and everything, and then we were like, just come 0:47:49.200 --> 0:47:51.680 in here and play it, and we just all looked 0:47:51.719 --> 0:47:55.439 at each other and but that that that drum take 0:47:55.719 --> 0:47:58.279 on leave a Whisper on forty five, that's basically his 0:47:59.200 --> 0:48:03.359 that's his audition, and it was yeah, it was after that. Man, 0:48:03.440 --> 0:48:06.080 he was the guy. Okay, this band is not playing 0:48:06.120 --> 0:48:15.319 out live? Is limit records keeping everybody alive? No, no, now, 0:48:15.360 --> 0:48:19.760 you you have to like Judy helped keep me alive 0:48:20.560 --> 0:48:22.480 during this time. I'm gonna be totally honest with you. 0:48:22.640 --> 0:48:27.200 I had run out of money because and Steve was 0:48:27.239 --> 0:48:30.560 working on it like Steve was because we gotta understand something. 0:48:31.200 --> 0:48:34.400 At that point, we had a drummer, we could record, 0:48:34.840 --> 0:48:36.520 you know what I mean, Like, we had the songs 0:48:36.560 --> 0:48:38.480 and everything ready. So it was time to go to 0:48:38.520 --> 0:48:40.440 Los Angeles. So we had a budget to go to 0:48:40.600 --> 0:48:43.880 LA and all this. But before that happened, there was 0:48:43.920 --> 0:48:48.000 like an eight month nine month window where like nothing 0:48:48.120 --> 0:48:50.360 was happening except we were just practicing and trying to 0:48:50.360 --> 0:48:52.640 get ready and we were writing songs and songs and 0:48:52.880 --> 0:48:54.759 you know, me and Barry were getting to know each 0:48:54.800 --> 0:48:57.120 other and all these types of things and what have you. 0:48:57.160 --> 0:48:58.920 But I didn't have any more money. So I actually 0:48:58.960 --> 0:49:02.520 had to go home to Knoxville for about two weeks. 0:49:02.520 --> 0:49:04.520 But then I had to do sessions back in Jacksonville. 0:49:04.560 --> 0:49:07.920 So I was driving back and forth from like Jacksonville 0:49:07.920 --> 0:49:10.960 to Knoxville, like, you know, staying at twenty five dollars 0:49:11.000 --> 0:49:13.560 a night Motel six you know this, and then the other. 0:49:13.600 --> 0:49:18.239 And then Judy found out about this and found me 0:49:19.760 --> 0:49:23.480 and said, well, actually she didn't say anything. She just said, 0:49:23.480 --> 0:49:25.440 when's the next time you're going to when's the next 0:49:25.440 --> 0:49:28.200 time you're going back to Knoxville. I was like probably 0:49:28.239 --> 0:49:30.319 tomorrow night. She's like, when are you supposed to come 0:49:30.360 --> 0:49:32.920 back here? And I was like, well, I mean if 0:49:33.000 --> 0:49:35.480 I Judy, it's not your problem. And she was like, 0:49:35.520 --> 0:49:39.239 I didn't ask that, and she was like when what 0:49:39.280 --> 0:49:40.920 do you need to do here? And I told her 0:49:40.920 --> 0:49:42.399 what I needed to do and she was like, how 0:49:42.440 --> 0:49:44.440 long do you think I'm like until they call us 0:49:44.480 --> 0:49:46.719 to LA Probably like six months. It ended up being 0:49:46.719 --> 0:49:48.560 eight months, but I just threw out a number, you know, 0:49:48.560 --> 0:49:51.840 I just did six months, and she was like, she 0:49:51.960 --> 0:49:56.839 handed me a key, and she handed me a like 0:49:56.880 --> 0:50:00.239 a garage door opener, and she gave me a and 0:50:00.320 --> 0:50:02.759 she gave me a like a posted note with a 0:50:02.840 --> 0:50:05.000 number on it, and she was like, this is the 0:50:05.040 --> 0:50:07.799 guest house to my house. This is the gate you 0:50:07.840 --> 0:50:12.520 go in, it's yours. There's no furniture in there. There's 0:50:12.600 --> 0:50:19.239 a stove, there's a microwave and you know, refrigerator, you know, 0:50:19.280 --> 0:50:22.120 but it's a place to stay. And so she housed 0:50:22.160 --> 0:50:26.279 me for eight months rent free, and I told her 0:50:26.280 --> 0:50:28.839 that I would That's a totally different story down the line, 0:50:28.840 --> 0:50:30.160 but I told her. I was like, I have no 0:50:30.200 --> 0:50:33.400 idea how I'm going to pay you back, but I 0:50:33.440 --> 0:50:36.480 promise you I'll pay you back one day. And inadvertently 0:50:37.000 --> 0:50:39.120 when the simple man thing happened. And I call it 0:50:39.120 --> 0:50:41.440 a thing because it wasn't a planned thing. At the time, 0:50:41.760 --> 0:50:44.800 she owned fifty one percent of the Leonards Ginnered catalog, 0:50:45.040 --> 0:50:47.160 and I remember when that got released and she had 0:50:47.200 --> 0:50:49.920 the ownership of half the catalog. I remember looking at 0:50:49.960 --> 0:50:52.920 her going, I told you, I'll pay you back. Okay, amazing. 0:50:53.040 --> 0:50:56.880 So you go to Los Angeles. What's the experience of 0:50:56.960 --> 0:50:58.920 making the first record? Good back? Because a lot of 0:50:58.920 --> 0:51:01.680 people say I was green and if I knew better, 0:51:01.719 --> 0:51:03.839 I would have taken work control. How was it for you? 0:51:04.320 --> 0:51:07.399 It was an absolute blast. It was the most fun. 0:51:08.040 --> 0:51:10.480 I mean, honestly, it couldn't have been a better experience. 0:51:10.520 --> 0:51:13.080 We were in Los Angeles. We were raising hell. We 0:51:13.120 --> 0:51:16.239 didn't care. We were twenty two, twenty three years old, 0:51:16.680 --> 0:51:18.840 you know, we were just having the best time it was. 0:51:19.000 --> 0:51:21.799 It was amazing and honestly when we were in when 0:51:21.800 --> 0:51:24.880 we were there, we got super lucky. We worked again, 0:51:25.400 --> 0:51:29.480 going back to going back to Henson Studios. That's where 0:51:29.480 --> 0:51:32.440 we did a bulk of the first record. Bob Marlette 0:51:32.800 --> 0:51:36.440 was the producer. There's three producers on Levea Whisper and 0:51:36.520 --> 0:51:39.879 there's three mixers, so Bob Marlette had the lion's share 0:51:39.920 --> 0:51:42.840 of the album production wise, But then Tony Battaglia is 0:51:42.880 --> 0:51:47.640 on there for the mix and the production of forty 0:51:47.640 --> 0:51:50.480 five and also a version of Burning Bright, and then 0:51:50.560 --> 0:51:54.319 Rick by Otto as a producer on three songs on 0:51:54.320 --> 0:51:57.520 that record as well, and then for the Bob Marlette material, 0:51:57.640 --> 0:52:00.719 Andy Wallace mixed his stuff. So there's a lot going 0:52:00.760 --> 0:52:04.920 on on that record. But the experience of being out 0:52:04.960 --> 0:52:06.920 there with Bob like that was like the bulk of 0:52:06.960 --> 0:52:09.319 everything when we first got out there, and he was 0:52:09.360 --> 0:52:14.320 just great, and he had great engineers and just amazing 0:52:14.320 --> 0:52:16.239 people that we were able to work with because it 0:52:16.280 --> 0:52:20.200 was he Bob made sure that it wasn't like it 0:52:20.280 --> 0:52:23.759 wasn't stuck up, like yeah you're in LA, Yeah you're 0:52:23.760 --> 0:52:26.960 at Henston Studios, but your this is your first record, 0:52:27.400 --> 0:52:30.320 Like this is a celebration, Like you're supposed to ask questions. 0:52:30.320 --> 0:52:32.200 It's okay to ask questions. It's okay if you make 0:52:32.200 --> 0:52:35.040 a mistake. Yeah, the clock's running, but who cares. You know, 0:52:35.120 --> 0:52:36.719 it's like we're gonna get what we need to get. 0:52:37.040 --> 0:52:41.040 And I mean it really was. It was an absolute blast. 0:52:41.360 --> 0:52:43.520 We had a great We had a great time. How 0:52:43.560 --> 0:52:48.480 does McGathy get involved, McGaffey, You have to rewind it 0:52:48.520 --> 0:52:53.799 a little bit. Steve. Oh again, Steve Robertson. I can't 0:52:53.840 --> 0:52:57.880 stress the amount of how important Steve Robertson is to 0:52:58.000 --> 0:53:01.439 this band and to this DNA of who we are. 0:53:03.239 --> 0:53:09.920 He this was right before I think this was right 0:53:09.960 --> 0:53:14.640 about the time, and I know the clock's running right now. 0:53:15.440 --> 0:53:18.279 I'm trying to remember all the dates. It was probably 0:53:18.880 --> 0:53:22.960 right when we were still in a demo phase. We 0:53:22.960 --> 0:53:25.399 were still writing songs, like the band had just kind 0:53:25.400 --> 0:53:28.200 of got going as far as like we we kind 0:53:28.200 --> 0:53:30.000 of got into a function way with each other and 0:53:30.000 --> 0:53:34.680 we were getting into a rhythm of songwriting, and STEVEO 0:53:34.800 --> 0:53:36.040 was like, I want you to go to New York. 0:53:36.080 --> 0:53:39.640 I want you to take a meeting with I want 0:53:39.640 --> 0:53:42.520 you to meet with a few people. I think there 0:53:42.600 --> 0:53:45.759 was four people I was supposed to meet. But the 0:53:45.840 --> 0:53:49.080 very first person I wanted, a very first, very first 0:53:49.080 --> 0:53:54.520 person I met, excuse me, was Bill McGaffey at one 0:53:54.640 --> 0:53:59.800 nineteen West twenty third Street, New York, New York. I 0:54:00.000 --> 0:54:05.480 remember I walked in and he didn't have a lot 0:54:05.520 --> 0:54:07.640 of time. And for people that don't know who Bill 0:54:07.719 --> 0:54:13.960 mcgathey is, he is the rock and roll mogul, like 0:54:14.080 --> 0:54:16.879 he is the real thing. Like you don't get more 0:54:16.880 --> 0:54:20.239 real than Bill mcgathey. And Bill's the last one with 0:54:20.280 --> 0:54:25.000 a soul and Bill, you know, I remember Bill always 0:54:25.000 --> 0:54:27.000 telling me from the from the beginning. He was always 0:54:27.040 --> 0:54:29.160 straight up with me, and he said, remember it's about 0:54:29.160 --> 0:54:32.680 the music one hundred percent of the time. Don't ever 0:54:32.800 --> 0:54:36.719 lie because you got to remember the lies. But the 0:54:36.840 --> 0:54:40.840 thing was, I walk into this. I mean it's like 0:54:40.840 --> 0:54:43.600 Willie walking in the chocolate factory for musicians, like I 0:54:43.680 --> 0:54:48.120 walked in to this. I mean it was indy as 0:54:48.200 --> 0:54:52.160 Indy could get the entire walls, the ceiling, like how 0:54:52.239 --> 0:54:55.200 high the building was. Everything. You walk into this room 0:54:55.280 --> 0:54:58.000 and there's death side by side with each other. They're 0:54:58.080 --> 0:55:00.839 catty corner to each other. There's no falls up between him. 0:55:00.840 --> 0:55:04.400 People are on the phones, The phones are ringing, music's blasting, 0:55:04.640 --> 0:55:08.800 there are gold, platinum, diamond records everywhere. People are yelling 0:55:08.800 --> 0:55:11.560 at each other like they're I mean, it was like 0:55:11.600 --> 0:55:14.440 it was like the New York Stock Exchange. It was crazy, 0:55:15.040 --> 0:55:17.680 you know. And they're they're getting records, they're getting ads, 0:55:17.719 --> 0:55:21.440 they're doing the thing. Man, They're they're they're running the business. 0:55:22.080 --> 0:55:24.840 They're they're really they call it the music business for 0:55:24.880 --> 0:55:27.239 a reason because it's still a business. And it was 0:55:27.280 --> 0:55:29.840 my first introduction to that where it was just mind blowing. 0:55:30.080 --> 0:55:34.600 And so he he comes up and he's very um, 0:55:34.800 --> 0:55:36.640 you knew who he was, Like I didn't have a 0:55:36.640 --> 0:55:38.719 picture of him or anything, but when he walked up, 0:55:38.760 --> 0:55:40.719 I knew who he was because you could just tell. 0:55:40.719 --> 0:55:44.279 It's just the way he carried himself. And so he's like, 0:55:44.360 --> 0:55:47.040 let's go in the back, and we go in the back. 0:55:47.640 --> 0:55:50.319 He's kind of like this conversation we're having right now, 0:55:50.480 --> 0:55:52.439 kind of asking me about certain things, but he looked 0:55:52.440 --> 0:55:53.880 at me. At a certain point in time, He's like, 0:55:54.960 --> 0:55:56.640 and at the whole time we're back there, people are 0:55:56.719 --> 0:56:00.080 yelling for him, and he's screaming, I'm busy, I'm busy. 0:56:00.120 --> 0:56:02.560 I'll call him back. I don't care. Like it's just 0:56:02.960 --> 0:56:06.239 in between me trying to stay on track with our conversation, 0:56:08.560 --> 0:56:10.239 and I had to stop because it was just so 0:56:10.320 --> 0:56:12.480 much chaos. And finally I just looked at him. I said, Bill, 0:56:14.200 --> 0:56:17.719 why should you be my manager? Like I'm supposed to 0:56:17.719 --> 0:56:20.040 meet with all these other people today, you haven't, like 0:56:20.080 --> 0:56:22.320 I haven't really had a chance to ask you anything. 0:56:22.320 --> 0:56:24.080 You're asking me everything and I'm in your world and 0:56:24.080 --> 0:56:27.040 this is really intimidating, man, But why should you be 0:56:27.160 --> 0:56:30.920 my manager? And he knew the label that I was on, 0:56:31.000 --> 0:56:33.040 He knew more about me than I did about him. 0:56:34.040 --> 0:56:37.000 And he looked at me and he said, Son, I'm 0:56:37.000 --> 0:56:40.080 gonna tell you this right now. I am the only 0:56:40.160 --> 0:56:43.080 person that will be able to get you through that 0:56:43.160 --> 0:56:47.239 Atlantic record system. You can take that with you. I 0:56:47.280 --> 0:56:49.800 gotta go. And then he got up and started yelling 0:56:49.800 --> 0:56:51.839 at people and everything else, and I, like, I came 0:56:51.880 --> 0:56:53.680 in there on my own. I just was and they 0:56:53.680 --> 0:56:57.400 were like so I remember somebody looked at me, you 0:56:57.440 --> 0:56:59.880 can go now. I'm like okay, and I just left. 0:57:00.160 --> 0:57:02.439 But there was something about that moment in time, man, 0:57:02.520 --> 0:57:04.640 where it was so rock and roll and it was 0:57:04.680 --> 0:57:07.759 so like real to me, like what was going on 0:57:08.080 --> 0:57:10.799 and that energy in that room and like they were 0:57:10.920 --> 0:57:13.880 in it, like like I saw it with my own eyes, 0:57:14.719 --> 0:57:16.920 and it was like, this is real. This guy is 0:57:16.960 --> 0:57:20.240 not joking. This guy's real. I called Stevo from a 0:57:20.280 --> 0:57:24.760 pay phone outside of one nineteen West twenty third and said, 0:57:25.480 --> 0:57:29.000 I'm not going to any of the other meetings I wanted. 0:57:29.120 --> 0:57:32.200 I want this guy. And then I went back to 0:57:32.240 --> 0:57:34.320 the Guardia and had to wait eight and a half 0:57:34.320 --> 0:57:37.680 hours to get on a plane and come back to Jacksonville. 0:57:38.040 --> 0:57:41.240 And there you go, and the rest is history. Bill 0:57:41.320 --> 0:57:45.960 mcgaffe's a busy guy, started out radio promotion. They have 0:57:46.040 --> 0:57:49.280 multiple locks. He's obviously done a great job for you, 0:57:49.560 --> 0:57:53.560 but can you get a hold of them. We're gonna 0:57:53.600 --> 0:58:00.280 be here for four hours, which if Bob, and I'm 0:58:00.280 --> 0:58:01.960 happy to deal with you. I'm having the best time 0:58:01.960 --> 0:58:05.120 with you right now. Um. I talked to him for 0:58:05.160 --> 0:58:10.760 two and a half hours today, like that guys my 0:58:10.840 --> 0:58:14.520 second father. So you can essentially get him whenever you 0:58:14.560 --> 0:58:18.600 need him at any time. And by the way it 0:58:18.640 --> 0:58:21.800 works both ways, he can get me whenever he needs 0:58:21.800 --> 0:58:25.200 me to Like it's it's twenty years man, and and 0:58:25.200 --> 0:58:28.320 and I'm I'm looking forward to the next twenty you know. 0:58:28.480 --> 0:58:30.760 It's uh, there's a We've been through a lot, man, 0:58:30.840 --> 0:58:32.280 We got a lot more to go through. But no, 0:58:32.520 --> 0:58:35.760 it's even from even from Jump Street man. And I'll 0:58:35.800 --> 0:58:37.800 give you a story real quick, and I'll make it short. 0:58:38.040 --> 0:58:42.000 But that first tour that we did where we went 0:58:42.000 --> 0:58:44.920 out he was managing Three Doors down at the height 0:58:44.960 --> 0:58:49.360 of their career um and we went out there with them. 0:58:49.400 --> 0:58:51.360 And it was only supposed to be for three weeks. 0:58:51.360 --> 0:58:52.920 And this is in two thousand and three, so this 0:58:53.000 --> 0:58:55.560 is twenty years ago, and we were only supposed to 0:58:55.560 --> 0:58:57.360 be on this tour for about two weeks. We ended 0:58:57.440 --> 0:59:00.280 up being on this tour with Three Doors for nine months. 0:59:00.600 --> 0:59:03.000 We went from being the first of four to buy. 0:59:03.000 --> 0:59:05.760 The last two months of that nine month run we 0:59:05.840 --> 0:59:08.320 were main support. I learned a lot from that band. 0:59:08.320 --> 0:59:11.000 I learned a great deal from Brad Arnold about being 0:59:11.000 --> 0:59:13.600 a front man and just respecting your crew and all 0:59:13.600 --> 0:59:17.400 these different things. But I will fast forward here and 0:59:17.480 --> 0:59:21.240 I'll never forget the record to come out. We were 0:59:21.280 --> 0:59:24.160 on the road. We were making some noise, but it 0:59:24.200 --> 0:59:27.120 was a little funky, and I remember he came out 0:59:27.240 --> 0:59:31.520 to where the Stone Pony was. We were playing the 0:59:31.520 --> 0:59:34.800 arena there, the same arena where Jim Morrison got arrested 0:59:34.840 --> 0:59:38.040 for indecent exposure up in Jersey. I think it's I 0:59:38.040 --> 0:59:41.560 think it's gone now. But it was first of four. 0:59:42.120 --> 0:59:44.800 We walked out there. There was eight thousand people, but 0:59:44.880 --> 0:59:48.080 there was only like three thousand in the building. Walked 0:59:48.080 --> 0:59:50.400 out there, and you know, we were the first band 0:59:50.440 --> 0:59:52.640 of the night, and Bill hadn't seen us play live 0:59:52.920 --> 0:59:55.919 in like a few months, you know what I mean. 0:59:56.680 --> 1:00:00.920 And it was terrible. We were a I mean, we 1:00:00.920 --> 1:00:06.000 were awful. And I knew it too. I knew it 1:00:06.040 --> 1:00:08.360 because we had partied the night before and my voice 1:00:08.400 --> 1:00:10.480 was shot and everything else, if all the things that 1:00:10.520 --> 1:00:14.960 you shouldn't do, you know. And we got off stage 1:00:15.520 --> 1:00:20.880 and I find him out in the mezzanine of the 1:00:20.920 --> 1:00:23.800 arena and everybody had gone in to go watch Three 1:00:23.840 --> 1:00:28.040 Doors and he was all by himself. I walked up 1:00:28.040 --> 1:00:31.280 to him, and he looked at me and he goes, hey, 1:00:31.400 --> 1:00:36.040 And I looked at him and I said, please don't 1:00:36.120 --> 1:00:41.120 leave me. I know it wasn't good. I know we 1:00:41.200 --> 1:00:46.440 need to do better. I apologize. I promise you I 1:00:46.480 --> 1:00:51.000 will do better. Please don't drop us, and please don't 1:00:51.040 --> 1:00:54.560 give up on us, and please don't leave me. And 1:00:54.640 --> 1:00:56.480 he looked at me, and he'll tell you to this 1:00:56.560 --> 1:01:01.000 day that he didn't hesitate. But if I was him, 1:01:01.160 --> 1:01:04.360 I would have, like anybody would have, I would have 1:01:04.440 --> 1:01:07.920 taken a little bit longer of a pause. But he didn't. 1:01:08.680 --> 1:01:11.360 And he looked at me and he goes, I'm not 1:01:11.400 --> 1:01:15.640 going nowhere. Let's get to work. That's exactly what he said. 1:01:17.320 --> 1:01:26.880 He said, I'm not going nowhere and let's get to work. Okay. 1:01:27.040 --> 1:01:30.000 Was there a turning point or was it just long 1:01:30.200 --> 1:01:34.880 hard work of the ladder, long hard work up It's 1:01:34.920 --> 1:01:38.280 still that. It's still a mountain man. Every every every 1:01:38.280 --> 1:01:41.720 single record, everything we do. I'll give you an example. 1:01:41.720 --> 1:01:45.880 We had one of the best our touring schedule last year. 1:01:45.960 --> 1:01:49.320 We broke twenty six merch records last year. You know 1:01:49.640 --> 1:01:52.840 for us, you know, we were pushing the envelope. And 1:01:52.840 --> 1:01:54.600 by the way, I'm gonna say this because it's true, 1:01:54.800 --> 1:01:58.000 Like that's because of all of the foundation that we have. 1:01:58.520 --> 1:02:01.040 And why I say that is it is a thousand 1:02:01.040 --> 1:02:03.920 percent the fan base, but it's also one thousand percent 1:02:04.280 --> 1:02:07.080 you know. Look, it's terrestrial radio in the very, very beginning. 1:02:07.080 --> 1:02:09.480 It's still trestrial radio to this day. Even with the 1:02:09.480 --> 1:02:12.040 consumption the music and the way that we platform everything 1:02:12.440 --> 1:02:15.200 and streaming and all the way digital playlist, all those 1:02:15.200 --> 1:02:17.560 types of things and how you consume the music, it's 1:02:17.600 --> 1:02:20.240 still at the end of the day, if you mean 1:02:20.840 --> 1:02:23.560 what you mean as a musician, as a songwriter, as 1:02:23.600 --> 1:02:27.000 a performer, there's always going to be a ladder, there's 1:02:27.000 --> 1:02:29.600 always going to be a mountain. You have to constantly 1:02:30.000 --> 1:02:33.160 outdo what you've already done. That does not change. You 1:02:33.240 --> 1:02:38.880 have to be willing to go through just unparalleled obstacles 1:02:39.080 --> 1:02:41.720 in this business. Anybody that's listening to this right now, 1:02:42.080 --> 1:02:44.920 you can never phone it in ever, You can never 1:02:44.960 --> 1:02:48.040 ever have the mentality of I've arrived. You might as 1:02:48.040 --> 1:02:50.680 well pack your bags. And the other thing too is 1:02:50.720 --> 1:02:52.760 if you ever fall out of love with it, then quit. 1:02:53.120 --> 1:02:55.880 You can always come back to it once you want 1:02:55.920 --> 1:02:58.080 it badly enough, you know, what I mean, But don't 1:02:58.160 --> 1:02:59.920 let it. You know, I don't think that this industry 1:03:00.040 --> 1:03:03.160 to kill you either. You know, you got you gotta understand, like, 1:03:03.160 --> 1:03:04.640 if this is what you want and this is who 1:03:04.680 --> 1:03:08.160 you are, then drive, get in, get in the vehicle 1:03:08.360 --> 1:03:13.160 and drive. But yeah, there was no magic bullet to anything. 1:03:13.160 --> 1:03:17.760 There's no magic, you know, there's no method. It's just tenacity, 1:03:18.440 --> 1:03:22.000 just unadulterated, pure tenacity. Okay, you're on the road for 1:03:22.120 --> 1:03:24.360 nine months with freet doors down. You know, from the 1:03:24.400 --> 1:03:28.840 outside it looks very glamorous, but from the inside, okay, 1:03:28.960 --> 1:03:32.120 you got the same people you've been hanging with, in 1:03:32.160 --> 1:03:35.120 your case for not that long, but at least, you know, 1:03:35.280 --> 1:03:38.760 for a year or two. And you go on stage, 1:03:38.920 --> 1:03:41.720 you get this incredible reaction, and if you're lucky enough 1:03:41.760 --> 1:03:44.240 you have a bus, it takes a long time to 1:03:44.280 --> 1:03:47.400 come down. You drive to the next city. This is 1:03:47.440 --> 1:03:50.800 why a lot of performers do drugs. So you're now 1:03:50.880 --> 1:03:54.760 having this experience, how do you cope into what degree 1:03:54.840 --> 1:03:59.080 to alcohol and drugs come in pretty much right there 1:03:59.120 --> 1:04:05.480 from the start, it's yeah, man, it's I mean, it 1:04:05.560 --> 1:04:09.600 came in first record, first time we got I mean, 1:04:09.640 --> 1:04:14.240 but it was happening. What I would always try to 1:04:14.280 --> 1:04:18.000 maintain in the studio was that I never went to 1:04:18.080 --> 1:04:21.720 the studio high or drunk. Like if I was in 1:04:21.720 --> 1:04:23.160 there to work and I was in there to work 1:04:23.200 --> 1:04:24.640 on a song, or I was in there to sing 1:04:24.720 --> 1:04:27.600 or do a track, I was always clearheaded. Even in 1:04:27.640 --> 1:04:29.920 the worst of times where I was at the you know, 1:04:29.960 --> 1:04:32.400 kind of in the throes of my addiction, I still 1:04:32.440 --> 1:04:36.320 never walked on stage high and drunk. I might have 1:04:36.320 --> 1:04:39.080 been a little hungover from the night before, but I 1:04:39.160 --> 1:04:41.960 never ever purposely got high and then went on stage. 1:04:41.960 --> 1:04:44.320 I never ever purposely got high, got drunk, and then 1:04:44.320 --> 1:04:47.040 went into a studio and then, knowing that I had 1:04:47.080 --> 1:04:51.200 to do I had a session. But when I wasn't 1:04:51.240 --> 1:04:55.400 on stage, you know, and you know, once my track 1:04:55.520 --> 1:04:58.800 was done or my studio time was done, it's just, 1:04:59.040 --> 1:05:02.480 you know, I immersed myself in that lifestyle. I mean, 1:05:02.520 --> 1:05:04.600 you're talking to a you're talking to an individual that's 1:05:04.640 --> 1:05:08.920 lucky to be alive from that world. But it's also 1:05:08.960 --> 1:05:12.880 you're talking to somebody that understands that. For me personally, 1:05:15.480 --> 1:05:20.640 I've been cleaned since March first of twenty sixteen. I 1:05:20.760 --> 1:05:23.480 got clean in two thousand and eleven. But I had 1:05:23.480 --> 1:05:29.160 to slip up in twenty fourteen. But the dynamic of 1:05:29.200 --> 1:05:31.000 all of that is what I had to learn more 1:05:31.040 --> 1:05:34.000 than anything, was the fact that there is another individual 1:05:34.040 --> 1:05:37.000 inside of my mind that does not want to hang 1:05:37.040 --> 1:05:40.560 out and party with me. Ultimately, he's trying to kill me. 1:05:42.200 --> 1:05:45.360 You know, I admire people people that go in with 1:05:45.400 --> 1:05:49.480 substance abuse, twelve step programs, rehab, if you need it, 1:05:51.000 --> 1:05:56.760 all those elements, try everything that you can to survive. 1:05:56.960 --> 1:05:58.560 That's how I would say it. But at the end 1:05:58.600 --> 1:06:02.520 of the day, you have to understand that a lot 1:06:02.560 --> 1:06:05.760 of people's rock bottom. Sometimes they don't come back from it. 1:06:06.320 --> 1:06:10.360 I've had some serious rock bottoms. I'm lucky to be alive, 1:06:10.960 --> 1:06:14.120 and I don't take it for granted. But what I 1:06:14.120 --> 1:06:17.200 would say is for me, I had to do it. 1:06:17.880 --> 1:06:22.120 I had to do it inside of myself. I often 1:06:22.160 --> 1:06:25.360 tell people that I didn't do drugs today, I didn't 1:06:25.400 --> 1:06:27.480 drink today. I have no idea what I'll do tomorrow. 1:06:27.880 --> 1:06:29.320 That part of my life I have to do one 1:06:29.400 --> 1:06:30.919 day at a time. But of a really good friend 1:06:30.920 --> 1:06:34.040 of mine, a young lady who is still to this day, 1:06:34.160 --> 1:06:37.760 she's a great friend of mine. Her name is Teresa. 1:06:37.920 --> 1:06:39.800 She said something to me that was probably the most 1:06:39.800 --> 1:06:43.000 profound thing when it comes to my addiction of the 1:06:43.000 --> 1:06:47.040 forty five years that I've been on this earth. She 1:06:47.240 --> 1:06:52.480 said to me, in the throes of my worst, she said, 1:06:54.240 --> 1:06:55.760 you have a lot of people that love you. You 1:06:55.760 --> 1:06:57.960 have a lot of people that depend on you. I'm 1:06:57.960 --> 1:06:59.280 gonna tell you something. I want you to listen to me me. 1:06:59.320 --> 1:07:04.480 I want she listened me good, I go okay. She said, 1:07:06.520 --> 1:07:11.840 you are way more dangerous when you're sober. When you 1:07:11.880 --> 1:07:14.320 are clear headed and you are focused and you are 1:07:14.400 --> 1:07:17.400 locked in, that is when you are the most dangerous. 1:07:18.320 --> 1:07:23.960 And what she meant by that was the idea that 1:07:24.280 --> 1:07:27.320 being inebriated is that I'm this fun, loving guy and 1:07:27.360 --> 1:07:29.520 that everything's cool and everyone wants to be around me, 1:07:29.640 --> 1:07:33.439 is the complete opposite of what the reality is. You're 1:07:33.480 --> 1:07:37.480 just not meant to be that that other part of 1:07:37.480 --> 1:07:40.680 you that's inside you is not trying to have fun 1:07:40.760 --> 1:07:44.000 with you, it's trying to end you. But when you 1:07:44.280 --> 1:07:48.080 are clear headed and when you are sober, that's when 1:07:48.080 --> 1:07:51.000 you're the most ferocious. And that really it was like 1:07:51.000 --> 1:07:54.200 a light bulb like literally went off. So when I 1:07:54.200 --> 1:07:56.720 think back to the younger days and all of the 1:07:56.800 --> 1:07:59.160 drug use and everything of that nature. And I'm just 1:07:59.240 --> 1:08:03.840 lucky to be a five. And of course with drug 1:08:03.880 --> 1:08:08.600 and alcohol comes sex. Yeah, then were you partaking there too? 1:08:09.840 --> 1:08:13.920 That was the interesting thing about me. Um, No, not really, Um, 1:08:14.000 --> 1:08:17.519 that was ever my jam. It really wasn't. Like. The 1:08:17.560 --> 1:08:21.200 one thing about me is that the women in my life, UM, 1:08:21.400 --> 1:08:25.120 a lot of them. Uh, there's not that many of them, 1:08:26.160 --> 1:08:28.960 and I'm still ninety percent of them. I'm still friends 1:08:28.960 --> 1:08:32.160 with them and I still talk to him. I was 1:08:32.160 --> 1:08:35.559 always monogamous. Um. You know, if I loved you and 1:08:35.600 --> 1:08:40.000 I was in a relationship with you, then you know. 1:08:40.200 --> 1:08:42.599 Me and my son's mother, you know, we were never married, 1:08:42.760 --> 1:08:44.760 but we have a great relationship. We were together for 1:08:44.800 --> 1:08:49.599 a long time and I adore her and I appreciate her, 1:08:49.680 --> 1:08:51.519 and we have a great relationship and we have an 1:08:51.520 --> 1:08:57.280 amazing son. Um and I respect her wholeheartedly. Um. She's 1:08:57.320 --> 1:09:00.280 a huge part of why why I'm here. You know, 1:09:00.400 --> 1:09:02.240 she I mean, if I think back, I mean she 1:09:02.400 --> 1:09:04.680 was the one that handed the CD. She's kind of 1:09:04.680 --> 1:09:07.519 the one that she kind of passed the tor you know, 1:09:07.600 --> 1:09:09.880 passed the torch. You know, in a lot of ways, 1:09:10.000 --> 1:09:12.200 but the women in my life. I have such a 1:09:12.240 --> 1:09:15.800 massive respect for women on so many levels because of 1:09:15.800 --> 1:09:20.640 the women that raised me. And like my mother. You know, 1:09:20.720 --> 1:09:22.200 my mother was the one that taught me to like, 1:09:22.479 --> 1:09:26.400 you know, don't shake hands, you know, like a whimp. 1:09:26.920 --> 1:09:28.160 You know. She was like, you know, when you shake 1:09:28.200 --> 1:09:30.000 someone's hand, whether it's a girl or a you know, 1:09:30.240 --> 1:09:32.439 a male or a female, like you have to be stern. 1:09:32.520 --> 1:09:34.320 You have to look him in the eye, like you know. 1:09:34.320 --> 1:09:35.840 She taught me how to be a gentleman. But she 1:09:35.840 --> 1:09:37.519 also taught me how to be tough, how to stand 1:09:37.600 --> 1:09:40.000 up for myself, how to be who I am, um, 1:09:40.240 --> 1:09:42.040 you know, how to be prideful and what have you. 1:09:42.080 --> 1:09:44.160 But also how to help each you know, help people 1:09:44.160 --> 1:09:47.000 out and and be a good man. You know, my 1:09:47.400 --> 1:09:50.000 her mother, my granny, she gave me all of my 1:09:50.040 --> 1:09:54.200 work ethic. You know. Um she's ninety one years old 1:09:54.360 --> 1:09:58.479 and she's beyond the spitfire. I mean, she's still all there, 1:09:58.560 --> 1:10:01.080 which is amazing because she gives you know, she's she's 1:10:01.120 --> 1:10:03.439 an incredible individual. And that might be a lot of 1:10:03.439 --> 1:10:06.679 the reason why I've just always had an immense amount 1:10:06.680 --> 1:10:11.760 of respect for women. And you know, that type of 1:10:11.800 --> 1:10:13.479 thing like orgies and all that kind of stuff and 1:10:13.520 --> 1:10:15.320 a bunch of women and all that said. Never really 1:10:15.400 --> 1:10:18.639 was my That never really was my thing. So why 1:10:18.640 --> 1:10:22.200 did it end with the mother of your son? We 1:10:22.280 --> 1:10:24.719 just weren't meant to be together, not in that way. 1:10:24.920 --> 1:10:28.120 We have a beautiful son. We co parent together very well. 1:10:28.560 --> 1:10:33.599 She's a beautiful woman inside and out. I adore I 1:10:33.680 --> 1:10:37.240 think she's I think she's amazing. You know, it's just 1:10:37.360 --> 1:10:39.559 we're just not. You have to be an adult and 1:10:39.600 --> 1:10:43.120 look at the situation, and you know we're better as 1:10:43.280 --> 1:10:47.960 co parents than we are together. And you know, it 1:10:48.200 --> 1:10:50.920 doesn't change my respect for her, and you know, my 1:10:50.960 --> 1:10:54.760 appreciation for her. And I think it's vice versa. Did 1:10:54.800 --> 1:10:56.719 you want to have a kid or will you freaked 1:10:56.720 --> 1:10:59.880 out about having a kid? No, our son was planned. 1:11:01.800 --> 1:11:04.720 Like I remember the time too. She was like, I 1:11:04.760 --> 1:11:09.920 know you don't want to get married, but I wanna. Yeah, 1:11:09.920 --> 1:11:11.880 it was both of us, you know. She was just like, 1:11:11.920 --> 1:11:15.760 I know you don't want to get married, but I 1:11:15.760 --> 1:11:17.599 would really like to have a child, and I would 1:11:17.640 --> 1:11:20.120 really like to have a child with you, So would 1:11:20.120 --> 1:11:22.200 you think about it at least? And she never pressed me. 1:11:23.080 --> 1:11:24.720 It was just like we thought about it and had 1:11:24.760 --> 1:11:27.160 to think about it hard, and you know, so did I. 1:11:27.200 --> 1:11:31.920 We were young, Um, but yeah, I mean it was 1:11:31.960 --> 1:11:34.960 a conscious decision, you know, from the two of us. 1:11:36.200 --> 1:11:41.680 And would you have any more children? I'm focusing on 1:11:41.720 --> 1:11:47.360 the one. I'm not anytime soon. Um. I have such 1:11:47.600 --> 1:11:50.599 an affection from my my son. You know, my son 1:11:50.720 --> 1:11:54.879 is fifteen years old, and you know, he's six feet tall, 1:11:54.960 --> 1:11:58.720 and he's playing basketball and he's he's so wild and 1:11:58.920 --> 1:12:04.640 awesome and so many different levels, Like I'm blessed that 1:12:04.840 --> 1:12:08.920 I have him, And you know, I would want to 1:12:08.920 --> 1:12:13.320 be able to focus and concentrate on my children. And 1:12:13.360 --> 1:12:16.160 the one thing about my son is that from the 1:12:16.200 --> 1:12:18.439 moment that he was born. And I'm saying this for 1:12:18.479 --> 1:12:23.479 a reason because it's important to know this. You if 1:12:23.520 --> 1:12:25.600 you're going to bring a child into the world, you 1:12:25.680 --> 1:12:28.479 need to be there for them. You need to focus 1:12:28.520 --> 1:12:32.000 on being a parent because it's not their responsibility, it's 1:12:32.040 --> 1:12:35.960 your responsibility. And until he's eighteen years of age, he's 1:12:36.040 --> 1:12:39.320 my responsibility. But you know what, even after that, he's your's, 1:12:39.400 --> 1:12:42.720 my son. So I need to be able to concentrate 1:12:42.800 --> 1:12:46.160 on him. And you know, the younger years of his life. 1:12:46.240 --> 1:12:49.679 I wasn't there as much, you know, not physically, anyway, 1:12:49.760 --> 1:12:53.479 I was there, and I've always been there financially and 1:12:53.560 --> 1:12:57.360 supportive in all of those elements. And I will fly in, 1:12:57.880 --> 1:12:59.320 you know, when I can't, even if I can only 1:12:59.360 --> 1:13:01.040 fly in for like a day or two days, just 1:13:01.080 --> 1:13:03.760 to be with him, I'll be with him. And he's 1:13:03.800 --> 1:13:06.599 never known any different, you know what I mean. So 1:13:07.200 --> 1:13:09.000 the thing is is that some people might think that 1:13:09.040 --> 1:13:12.559 we have an interesting relationship, and sometimes people will be like, 1:13:12.920 --> 1:13:14.720 you know, you should probably spend more time with your son, 1:13:14.800 --> 1:13:18.160 and I have to politely tell them me and my son, 1:13:18.280 --> 1:13:22.879 and our relationship is between me and my son because 1:13:23.200 --> 1:13:28.000 when I'm with him, we don't talk about the band. 1:13:28.720 --> 1:13:31.360 When I'm with him, we don't talk about me. When 1:13:31.400 --> 1:13:34.760 I'm with my son, it is only him. That's the 1:13:34.840 --> 1:13:36.640 only thing I care about. That's the only thing I 1:13:36.680 --> 1:13:38.880 want to be He's the only thing I want to 1:13:38.920 --> 1:13:42.559 concentrate on. And the other side of that, too, is 1:13:42.600 --> 1:13:44.799 it's not that he doesn't know that I'm in a band, 1:13:45.040 --> 1:13:46.960 but because I've never made it about me from the 1:13:47.000 --> 1:13:52.240 moment he was born, it doesn't really necessarily mean anything 1:13:52.280 --> 1:13:54.680 to him, you know. I want him to have his 1:13:54.720 --> 1:13:56.559 own life. I want him to be able to grow 1:13:56.680 --> 1:14:00.320 up and not have this kind of you know, your 1:14:00.400 --> 1:14:02.800 dad is this or what have you? I keep a 1:14:02.840 --> 1:14:05.160 low profile that going back to the beginning of our 1:14:05.479 --> 1:14:07.679 talk with each other, you know, being a rock star, 1:14:07.880 --> 1:14:10.280 I'm only a rock star or a performer for the 1:14:10.640 --> 1:14:13.839 for the set time. You know, I'm I'm pretty modest, 1:14:14.560 --> 1:14:18.120 you know, when I'm not on tour. What do your 1:14:18.120 --> 1:14:24.760 parents say about your success? Very proud, like like really 1:14:24.800 --> 1:14:30.400 really proud. You know. Um, I think that people should 1:14:30.479 --> 1:14:32.600 understand this too. This one of the biggest songs in 1:14:32.600 --> 1:14:36.840 our catalog. You know. We just released a brand new 1:14:36.880 --> 1:14:41.160 song off of the new record, which is our we 1:14:41.360 --> 1:14:44.240 It's crazy to say this. We just released our thirtieth 1:14:44.439 --> 1:14:47.360 single as a band in the last two decades. It's 1:14:47.400 --> 1:14:52.960 mind blowing to me. And I go back to a 1:14:52.960 --> 1:14:55.760 song called second Chance. And the reason I go back 1:14:55.760 --> 1:14:57.839 to that song is it's a big song in our catalog. 1:14:58.320 --> 1:15:03.559 But that song came from when I found out that 1:15:03.640 --> 1:15:06.599 I got dropped. My parents had found out I got 1:15:06.640 --> 1:15:10.360 dropped from the first record contract, but then I had 1:15:10.360 --> 1:15:12.800 been resigned, and my mom was just like, what do 1:15:12.840 --> 1:15:15.840 you mean? You've been resigned and now you're leaving to 1:15:15.880 --> 1:15:20.240 go where. She had a hard time kind of wrapping 1:15:20.280 --> 1:15:22.519 her head around it, and I remember we kind of 1:15:22.560 --> 1:15:26.360 got into it with each other before I, before I 1:15:26.479 --> 1:15:30.120 left for this what would become. You know, I had 1:15:30.240 --> 1:15:32.800 left home because the first band I was signed, and 1:15:32.840 --> 1:15:34.880 I was in Knoxville when I got signed, so we 1:15:34.960 --> 1:15:37.120 did all the work in night. So I was still home. 1:15:37.200 --> 1:15:40.080 I was still there, but now I was gonna leave. 1:15:41.000 --> 1:15:46.600 And I remember sitting the Sunday before I left to 1:15:46.760 --> 1:15:52.519 go to Florida to meet Steve. We used to when 1:15:52.520 --> 1:15:56.720 I was a kid. She would um on Sundays. She 1:15:56.720 --> 1:15:59.559 would go to McDonald's and she get McDonald's breakfast on 1:15:59.600 --> 1:16:03.679 Sunday and we'd have like we'd have pancakes together, and 1:16:03.760 --> 1:16:05.200 you know, we do hash browns and sauces, all that 1:16:05.280 --> 1:16:07.080 kind of stuff. It was like our thing growing up 1:16:07.439 --> 1:16:09.880 on Sunday. Remember I woke up on a Sunday and 1:16:09.920 --> 1:16:12.680 I could smell it in the house and I like 1:16:12.800 --> 1:16:15.639 walked upstairs to the to the kitchen and my mom 1:16:15.680 --> 1:16:18.080 had it all laid out like it was just for 1:16:18.160 --> 1:16:20.200 me and her, and she was like we had breakfast 1:16:20.280 --> 1:16:24.360 with me and I was like, yeah, it's very sweet. 1:16:24.840 --> 1:16:27.920 But here's the thing, And if I can tell you 1:16:27.960 --> 1:16:30.799 a little bit about my history for just a quick second, 1:16:30.920 --> 1:16:34.040 going back to being a hard kid to raise, I 1:16:34.160 --> 1:16:37.720 also got in trouble with the law in my hometown 1:16:38.040 --> 1:16:44.640 a lot. I was. I was a roughneck. And I 1:16:44.680 --> 1:16:47.120 think that it's important to kind of know that because 1:16:47.120 --> 1:16:49.080 my mom and my dad went through a lot with 1:16:49.160 --> 1:16:52.840 me and they loved me unconditional. So we're sitting there 1:16:54.160 --> 1:16:56.720 and we're having breakfast and we get kind of done. 1:16:56.720 --> 1:16:58.519 I can tell my mom's getting a little emotional. So 1:16:58.560 --> 1:17:01.960 I remember grabbing her hand and men like yeo, okay, 1:17:02.439 --> 1:17:05.720 and she looked at me and she said, I want 1:17:05.720 --> 1:17:08.840 you to get out of here. I want you to 1:17:08.960 --> 1:17:14.200 run as fast as you can go because I have 1:17:14.280 --> 1:17:18.320 no idea what this life you're searching for is or 1:17:18.320 --> 1:17:20.639 what it means, but I know it must mean everything 1:17:20.680 --> 1:17:23.519 to you because you're willing to sacrifice everything for it. 1:17:23.840 --> 1:17:26.920 But you can't stay here. You can't stay in this 1:17:27.040 --> 1:17:29.280 town because this town is going to swallow you up. 1:17:30.640 --> 1:17:36.120 And I remember her giving me permission. She said, whatever 1:17:36.160 --> 1:17:41.559 it is that you're going after it, go get it, 1:17:42.880 --> 1:17:46.360 you know, And don't. But but don't you dare stop? 1:17:47.439 --> 1:17:51.320 Go get it? And you know, years later, I'm sitting 1:17:51.320 --> 1:17:55.679 in a studio and I remember the first chord rang 1:17:55.720 --> 1:18:00.880 out when we were when we wrote it, and I 1:18:01.000 --> 1:18:03.799 just remember hearing the first couple chords of the chorus, 1:18:04.040 --> 1:18:05.840 and the very first thing out of my mouth was, 1:18:05.880 --> 1:18:09.160 tell my mother, tell my father. I've done the best 1:18:09.160 --> 1:18:13.160 I can to make them realize this is my life. 1:18:13.240 --> 1:18:17.960 I hope they understand. I'm not angry. I'm just saying 1:18:18.680 --> 1:18:22.719 that sometimes goodbye as a second chance, and I'm I'll 1:18:22.720 --> 1:18:24.719 get emotional about it, but I have no choice because 1:18:24.720 --> 1:18:30.680 I have to. But you know, she she gave me 1:18:30.760 --> 1:18:35.160 my second chance. You know that's why song. I think 1:18:35.200 --> 1:18:41.680 that song resonates with so many people. Um, but you 1:18:41.680 --> 1:18:44.880 know a mother's love, you know, for their son especially, 1:18:46.360 --> 1:18:49.200 you know what she had to endure to give me 1:18:49.240 --> 1:18:53.000 this amazing gift and to tell me that she goes 1:18:53.040 --> 1:18:56.519 me and your dad may not fully understand, but we're 1:18:56.560 --> 1:19:02.439 with you. We're on your team. Go get it. So 1:19:02.760 --> 1:19:05.080 when did you start to see some money from the 1:19:05.120 --> 1:19:08.840 band and what did you do with the money. I'll 1:19:08.840 --> 1:19:11.240 tell you this. I remember the very first time I 1:19:11.280 --> 1:19:14.160 remember the first time. I didn't have a publishing deal yet, 1:19:14.200 --> 1:19:18.200 and the first single was was Fly from the Inside. 1:19:18.680 --> 1:19:21.680 And me and my producer Dave, we're hanging out here 1:19:21.720 --> 1:19:23.439 right now. We were just talking about Fly from the Inside. 1:19:23.479 --> 1:19:27.400 I'm in the studio right now, the studio that played 1:19:27.400 --> 1:19:29.599 the first single for the very first time on air 1:19:30.240 --> 1:19:35.160 right now. See is how the universe is real. But 1:19:36.880 --> 1:19:39.120 I remember the first single was Fly from the Inside, 1:19:39.160 --> 1:19:41.040 and then it had been played. I mean I think 1:19:41.120 --> 1:19:43.519 it was made it to number five on the mainstream 1:19:43.600 --> 1:19:46.439 rock chart. But I didn't have a publishing deal. This 1:19:46.479 --> 1:19:49.919 is one of another thing with Bill McGaffey. Bill McGaffey 1:19:50.120 --> 1:19:52.120 had all of these like back in the day, like 1:19:52.160 --> 1:19:56.040 two between two thousand and two and two thousand and six, 1:19:56.479 --> 1:20:00.240 publishing companies were given out insane amounts of month money 1:20:00.720 --> 1:20:03.080 to like, brand new bands and what have you. And 1:20:03.080 --> 1:20:05.559 they were doing this because they knew they'd never recoup 1:20:06.439 --> 1:20:09.280 so they could just keep getting the residuals later on, 1:20:10.560 --> 1:20:12.840 which unfortunately is you know, once again going back to 1:20:12.880 --> 1:20:18.519 the music business. Remember, kids, it's a business, so pay attention. 1:20:19.680 --> 1:20:23.719 But the very first time I got any real money 1:20:23.840 --> 1:20:26.760 was a publishing check. But because Bill was like, you're 1:20:26.800 --> 1:20:30.679 not signing these publishing deals because the catalog is too 1:20:30.680 --> 1:20:33.080 strong right now, not for a debut album. And I 1:20:33.160 --> 1:20:37.240 remember he got all kinds of hell for this because 1:20:37.280 --> 1:20:38.840 people were like, what are you doing. You can make 1:20:38.880 --> 1:20:41.920 so much money off this right now. He's like, no, 1:20:42.360 --> 1:20:45.559 I want to be a part of this band's career. 1:20:45.720 --> 1:20:47.519 I'm not trying to cash in right now. I'm trying 1:20:47.520 --> 1:20:50.120 to look at longevity, so they don't need to sign 1:20:50.160 --> 1:20:54.400 a publishing deal right this second. So because I had 1:20:54.400 --> 1:20:58.160 the writer's portion of the song, and I had fifty 1:20:58.520 --> 1:21:01.400 of the song because I wrote all the lyrics, you 1:21:01.439 --> 1:21:03.760 have to understand I've never ever dealt with anything like 1:21:03.840 --> 1:21:09.240 this before. I'm twenty three years old. And the very 1:21:09.240 --> 1:21:12.840 first check, and this is in two thousand and very 1:21:12.920 --> 1:21:15.240 very beginning of two thousand and four. Leave a Whisper 1:21:15.280 --> 1:21:17.920 came out in May two thousand and three, I believe 1:21:17.960 --> 1:21:21.040 May twenty seventh is when the record came out. And 1:21:22.080 --> 1:21:25.040 this was like roughly I think February of two thousand 1:21:25.040 --> 1:21:27.960 and four, and I got a check for seventy seven 1:21:28.000 --> 1:21:32.000 thousand dollars and I did not know what to do, 1:21:32.760 --> 1:21:36.920 Like I just remember like calling my mom and being like, 1:21:38.439 --> 1:21:41.200 I don't even know how to explain this, mom, but 1:21:41.360 --> 1:21:43.920 I have a check. But I've never seen a number 1:21:43.960 --> 1:21:45.880 on a check this big. And she was like, well, 1:21:45.880 --> 1:21:48.080 what is it, like a couple of thousand, a couple 1:21:48.120 --> 1:21:52.000 of thousand dollars. I'm like, it's seventy seven thousand dollars 1:21:52.680 --> 1:21:55.680 and like she dropped the phone. I remember it was 1:21:55.680 --> 1:21:58.800 a clunk, and I'm like mom, and she was like, no, 1:21:58.840 --> 1:22:01.960 I'm here, I'm here, she said. It was just one 1:22:02.000 --> 1:22:04.240 of those things where it's like, you know, she was 1:22:04.280 --> 1:22:07.519 like it's how much? And you know, and you know, 1:22:07.880 --> 1:22:10.040 God bless her. You know, she worked at a bank 1:22:10.120 --> 1:22:12.400 my whole life, so like the very first thing she did, 1:22:12.439 --> 1:22:14.120 she was just like, we've got to open you up 1:22:14.160 --> 1:22:17.120 a money market account all he says. She was just like, 1:22:17.160 --> 1:22:19.400 you've got She was like please. And my mom was 1:22:19.439 --> 1:22:21.200 so rad about all that. She helped me so much 1:22:21.200 --> 1:22:23.519 in the very very beginning with all that. But yeah, 1:22:23.560 --> 1:22:25.479 that was the first like real check I ever got, 1:22:25.840 --> 1:22:27.760 and I just did not know what to do with it, 1:22:28.400 --> 1:22:30.200 but because of my mother, I was able to I 1:22:30.520 --> 1:22:33.479 invested it. So thanks mom. Okay, but you've been at 1:22:33.520 --> 1:22:37.040 this for over twenty years now, have you saved most 1:22:37.080 --> 1:22:39.240 of the money or have you spent it in that 1:22:39.760 --> 1:22:42.080 you which you did spend what did you spend it on? 1:22:43.880 --> 1:22:48.439 I mean in the first I mean, I do remember 1:22:48.479 --> 1:22:52.000 this because I don't want to bore you with all 1:22:52.000 --> 1:22:54.880 the details of like necessarily you know the ins and 1:22:54.920 --> 1:22:57.040 outs of everything. I mean, this is what I'll say 1:22:57.040 --> 1:23:00.840 to everybody out there. If you want to be successful 1:23:00.920 --> 1:23:04.200 financially in the music industry, write your own songs like 1:23:04.280 --> 1:23:06.439 That's what I'll tell you. And you need to learn 1:23:06.479 --> 1:23:09.760 how to play live. Like you get those two things 1:23:09.800 --> 1:23:13.639 going for you, you're gonna be okay. And the other thing, 1:23:13.920 --> 1:23:16.519 you gotta have tenacity. And don't worry. You can learn 1:23:16.560 --> 1:23:18.880 how to have tenacity. It's a skill. You have to 1:23:18.880 --> 1:23:20.960 get good at it. You know, what do they say, 1:23:21.400 --> 1:23:24.080 you know, ten thousand hours and then ten thousand more. 1:23:25.240 --> 1:23:28.520 But I'll let you know, one of the most ridiculous 1:23:28.640 --> 1:23:32.960 nights of my life with having that kind of money. 1:23:33.040 --> 1:23:37.880 On the first record, I remember we were our schedule, 1:23:39.760 --> 1:23:43.479 we were touring. We did like twenty two months straight 1:23:43.600 --> 1:23:45.719 on leve A Whisper. And when I say twenty two 1:23:45.720 --> 1:23:47.840 months straight, I'm not talking about like we would have 1:23:47.920 --> 1:23:50.000 like two months off and then go out for three months, 1:23:50.000 --> 1:23:51.920 and then we'd have like a couple of weeks here 1:23:52.520 --> 1:23:54.400 and then you know, we go back out for another 1:23:54.439 --> 1:23:56.840 two weeks and like that. I'm talking about twenty two 1:23:56.880 --> 1:24:01.479 months straight like times. I mean, I think the longest 1:24:01.520 --> 1:24:03.360 we ever did. I remember one time we had nine 1:24:03.400 --> 1:24:06.800 shows in a row. Like it was just crazy, you know, 1:24:06.840 --> 1:24:08.479 and you're young and you can do it and you 1:24:08.520 --> 1:24:10.120 know this and then the other, but like you can't 1:24:10.160 --> 1:24:15.600 sustain that. Nobody can. And I remember we had just 1:24:15.640 --> 1:24:20.160 been out and this was like the back end of 1:24:20.160 --> 1:24:22.720 two thousand and four, so the record came out and 1:24:24.280 --> 1:24:27.240 in two thousand and three, so this was probably November 1:24:27.240 --> 1:24:29.559 of two thousand and four, and we're in Houston, Texas, 1:24:30.760 --> 1:24:34.080 and I hadn't had a shower, and like, I think 1:24:34.120 --> 1:24:37.200 it was something. It was nasty, man. I mean it 1:24:37.240 --> 1:24:39.840 was like two weeks I hadn't had a shower, and 1:24:40.200 --> 1:24:45.439 I was so like we we were able to get 1:24:45.520 --> 1:24:47.639 a hotel, I remember, because we had two days off. 1:24:47.680 --> 1:24:50.400 So like I took money because I had money at 1:24:50.400 --> 1:24:53.799 this point in time, and so I said, I remember 1:24:53.840 --> 1:24:57.479 I took like ten grand and I like for the 1:24:57.640 --> 1:24:59.360 for those two days, and I bought everybody in the 1:24:59.400 --> 1:25:01.719 crew hotel rooms. We stayed at a super super nice 1:25:01.760 --> 1:25:04.880 like Hyatt or a Hilton, and um, you know, the 1:25:04.920 --> 1:25:06.840 bus was in there and took care of that. All 1:25:06.880 --> 1:25:09.120 I wanted that night was a steak I just wanted 1:25:09.160 --> 1:25:10.800 a steak dinner. That's all I wanted. And I wanted 1:25:10.800 --> 1:25:14.519 to be alone. I remember that, And so I went 1:25:14.640 --> 1:25:20.519 to this. I asked the I asked the the front 1:25:20.560 --> 1:25:22.760 desk clerk. I said, is there like a really nice 1:25:22.760 --> 1:25:25.120 steakhouse around here in walking distance? And he said, yeah, 1:25:25.120 --> 1:25:29.160 there's a There's a place called Houston's, like about five 1:25:29.240 --> 1:25:31.439 hundred feet from here. It's right over there. So I 1:25:31.560 --> 1:25:33.800 walk over to Houston's. I don't remember what kind of 1:25:34.400 --> 1:25:37.240 what day of the week it was, so I walk in. 1:25:38.000 --> 1:25:40.640 I'm not showered yet. I'm just kind of you know, 1:25:40.640 --> 1:25:42.240 getting off the bus, this and that and the other. 1:25:43.479 --> 1:25:47.240 I go in and it's a nice place, and this 1:25:47.280 --> 1:25:49.160 young lady at the front kind of like is a 1:25:49.160 --> 1:25:51.800 little wild eyed because I don't I look pretty rough, 1:25:52.200 --> 1:25:54.280 and she goes, can I help you? And I was like, 1:25:55.200 --> 1:25:57.120 I just want to sit in the back. I just 1:25:57.160 --> 1:25:59.840 want a table on my own. I won't be a bother. 1:26:00.200 --> 1:26:03.280 I just want to steak dinner. Please, will you seat me? 1:26:03.320 --> 1:26:05.559 Because everybody was dressed up in fancy and stuff like that. 1:26:05.640 --> 1:26:07.200 For whatever reason. Man, she was cool with me and 1:26:07.240 --> 1:26:08.920 she let me sit in the back. So going the 1:26:08.960 --> 1:26:11.840 back had a cool waiter. The waiter came up to 1:26:11.840 --> 1:26:13.759 me and was like, what do you want to drink? 1:26:14.080 --> 1:26:18.160 And I was like, wine, like red wine. I didn't. 1:26:18.160 --> 1:26:21.880 I didn't drink red wine. I drank Yeagermeister and Jack 1:26:21.960 --> 1:26:25.559 Daniels and you know, just liquor. But I was like, 1:26:25.640 --> 1:26:27.679 I'm in a nice place. I want to I want 1:26:27.680 --> 1:26:29.400 to I want to steak dinner and I want some 1:26:29.479 --> 1:26:32.960 red wine. You know, just a redneck on paydays what 1:26:33.000 --> 1:26:37.960 we call it um and uh remember this is two 1:26:37.960 --> 1:26:42.080 thousand and four. So I had a great server. So 1:26:42.320 --> 1:26:44.960 I said, show me, like, what's a good bottle of wine? 1:26:45.000 --> 1:26:47.120 He was like, I'm gonna give you a bottle of 1:26:47.200 --> 1:26:50.800 opus opus one. For some people that are listening to this, 1:26:50.920 --> 1:26:54.639 they'll know what opus one is. Um. So he brings 1:26:54.640 --> 1:26:56.280 it to me. It was like a I think it 1:26:56.400 --> 1:27:00.280 was like a two thousand or something like that. But 1:27:00.320 --> 1:27:02.120 I remember the bottle that he gave me. The first 1:27:02.120 --> 1:27:05.200 bottle was at the time, it's a six hundred dollars 1:27:05.200 --> 1:27:08.640 bottle of water, a six hundred bottle of wine. And 1:27:08.680 --> 1:27:11.519 I was like cool, and he just opens it. So 1:27:11.920 --> 1:27:13.960 I take that bottle of wine out, and I take 1:27:14.000 --> 1:27:16.280 another bottle of wine out, and I had a steak dinner, 1:27:16.320 --> 1:27:20.120 and I was, you know, feeling full, very drunk. And 1:27:20.479 --> 1:27:22.560 what I noticed, though, when I leaned back in the 1:27:23.439 --> 1:27:25.080 booth that I was in, is that they had this 1:27:25.160 --> 1:27:28.200 corridor of these two giant glass It was like a 1:27:28.200 --> 1:27:30.280 corridor in the center of the restaurant and it was 1:27:30.360 --> 1:27:32.799 filled with bottles of wine. So like their wine cellar 1:27:32.920 --> 1:27:35.639 was like in the center of the restaurant. And so 1:27:35.760 --> 1:27:37.600 I asked the kid that was the waiter. I was like, 1:27:37.640 --> 1:27:39.799 can I go in and look at those wines because 1:27:40.040 --> 1:27:42.360 there's a really really big bottle of wine in there 1:27:42.400 --> 1:27:45.080 is a I am I seeing things And he was like, yeah, 1:27:45.120 --> 1:27:48.760 that's like a we call that a magnum bottle. It's 1:27:48.800 --> 1:27:52.360 like it's it looks almost like cartoonish, but it's a 1:27:52.400 --> 1:27:57.439 real bottle of wine. It was a nineteen eighty bottle 1:27:58.040 --> 1:28:04.479 of opus one. It was seven thousand dollars. And so 1:28:04.680 --> 1:28:09.439 I walked in and I'm in there looking at it, 1:28:09.880 --> 1:28:12.200 and the kid that let me in there, and so 1:28:12.320 --> 1:28:14.200 here's this like I look like a bum. I look 1:28:14.240 --> 1:28:16.520 like a homeless person in the middle of this nice 1:28:16.560 --> 1:28:20.719 restaurant because you could see through the wine thing or whatever, 1:28:20.720 --> 1:28:22.720 and all these people are looking in because there's this 1:28:22.920 --> 1:28:26.000 whino in there, literally, and so the manager runs in 1:28:26.280 --> 1:28:27.840 and he's like, get out of here. What are you 1:28:27.880 --> 1:28:30.040 doing in here? And so the waiter runs and he's like, no, 1:28:30.040 --> 1:28:31.880 no, no no, no, that's my patron or that's my that's 1:28:31.880 --> 1:28:34.880 my customer. And he's like the managers like what and 1:28:34.920 --> 1:28:36.479 he's like, no, no, he's with me. He's with me. 1:28:36.560 --> 1:28:39.320 He just bought like this, like he's with me. And 1:28:39.360 --> 1:28:41.960 I looked at the manager and I was like, how 1:28:42.040 --> 1:28:45.240 much is this bottle of wine? This big bottle of wine? 1:28:45.760 --> 1:28:48.920 And he was like, sir, you need to leave the restaurant. 1:28:48.920 --> 1:28:51.240 And he's like no, like how much does this bottle 1:28:51.240 --> 1:28:53.479 of wine? And he was like I'll go look, I'll 1:28:53.520 --> 1:28:55.000 go how about that, I'll go look, but you need 1:28:55.040 --> 1:28:56.479 to get out of here. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna 1:28:56.520 --> 1:28:58.320 take the bottle with me. He's like, you're gonna leave 1:28:58.360 --> 1:29:03.000 the bottle right there. So he walks out, and the 1:29:03.000 --> 1:29:05.080 the kid that's my waiters like, you gotta go. And 1:29:05.080 --> 1:29:06.880 I was like, Hey, I'm gonna get my bottle of wine. 1:29:07.479 --> 1:29:10.439 And I take this bottle of wine. It's like a giant, 1:29:10.439 --> 1:29:14.400 it's like a baby, It's huge. And so I walk 1:29:14.479 --> 1:29:17.920 it out and I walked. I'd already paid my bill 1:29:18.240 --> 1:29:21.280 at this point in time with the server, and so 1:29:21.320 --> 1:29:23.760 I go up to the front where the manager is 1:29:23.840 --> 1:29:27.479 checking out to see how much this bottle of wine is. 1:29:27.680 --> 1:29:30.400 And he looks at me and he goes, it's seven 1:29:30.439 --> 1:29:34.360 thousand dollars, and so I give him my credit card 1:29:34.560 --> 1:29:36.479 and I was like, put it on this and he 1:29:36.600 --> 1:29:41.080 laughs at me. And he's got all these like really 1:29:41.120 --> 1:29:43.760 hot girls around him and stuff, little hostesses and this 1:29:43.880 --> 1:29:45.320 and that and the other, and he's trying to be 1:29:45.479 --> 1:29:51.960 you know whatever, and he basically runs the card and 1:29:52.000 --> 1:29:55.559 it's approved and he goes and you just see his 1:29:55.640 --> 1:30:00.400 face drop, and I'm like, is there a problem, Like no, 1:30:00.960 --> 1:30:04.000 and he hands me the ticket and I take the 1:30:04.000 --> 1:30:06.920 ticket and I sign it and I throw the bottle 1:30:07.000 --> 1:30:09.880 over my shoulder and I walked to the doors, and 1:30:09.960 --> 1:30:13.640 I turn around and I yell the line from Scarface 1:30:13.720 --> 1:30:17.840 to the entire restaurant, say good nights of the bad Guy, 1:30:19.680 --> 1:30:24.559 and then I walked out. Well that's an amazing story. 1:30:24.720 --> 1:30:27.320 I could talk about that for ten minutes. But how 1:30:27.320 --> 1:30:28.920 many houses do you own and how many cars do 1:30:28.920 --> 1:30:33.320 you own? I don't own a house and I don't 1:30:33.360 --> 1:30:37.720 own any cars. I had a house in Thousand Oaks, California, 1:30:37.800 --> 1:30:40.519 from two thousand and eleven to two thousand and sixteen, 1:30:40.880 --> 1:30:43.320 and then I sold it because of those times that 1:30:43.400 --> 1:30:45.960 I was there. Of the five years that I was 1:30:46.040 --> 1:30:48.360 in the house, I was only inside the house maybe 1:30:48.400 --> 1:30:52.240 seven months, seven or six or seven months. I sold 1:30:52.280 --> 1:30:54.640 it to a family when I went on tour in 1:30:54.640 --> 1:30:59.080 two thousand and sixteen, and I haven't had a home since. 1:30:59.160 --> 1:31:03.479 So I live in hotels and I rent cars everywhere 1:31:03.479 --> 1:31:06.320 that I go because I'm not in a location long 1:31:06.479 --> 1:31:11.000 enough to merit owning a house, because I move constantly. 1:31:11.040 --> 1:31:13.559 I mean I'm on the road. Going back to the 1:31:13.560 --> 1:31:18.120 beginning of our conversation, you know I'm probably on the 1:31:18.200 --> 1:31:20.720 road even off cycle. I'm on the road around two 1:31:20.760 --> 1:31:22.479 hundred and eighty days out of the year because I'm 1:31:22.520 --> 1:31:26.719 constantly doing business for the band. I'm constantly taking meetings 1:31:26.720 --> 1:31:30.160 and doing certain things, and I'm networking with other you know, 1:31:30.560 --> 1:31:32.640 procedures and different things that we're setting up for the 1:31:32.640 --> 1:31:36.519 band and different timelines and touring, and so I'm constantly moving. 1:31:37.320 --> 1:31:40.280 I'll eventually figure out where I want to, like, you know, 1:31:40.720 --> 1:31:43.479 put roots down and what have you. My son will 1:31:43.520 --> 1:31:45.200 need to be a little bit older, so I know 1:31:45.280 --> 1:31:47.360 kind of where he's gonna be and where he's gonna go. 1:31:47.640 --> 1:31:50.120 He wants to go to the NBA. He's a hell 1:31:50.120 --> 1:31:52.880 of a basketball player. We're gonna see what happens with that. 1:31:53.800 --> 1:31:56.000 But you know, it doesn't really make a whole lot 1:31:56.040 --> 1:31:58.040 of sense right now, and I'm on the road so much. 1:31:58.080 --> 1:32:01.640 But yeah, I am a I am the definition of 1:32:01.680 --> 1:32:06.439 a modern day gypsy without I don't steal, though, I 1:32:06.520 --> 1:32:10.800 love you gypsies. What credit card do you use? Uh? 1:32:12.000 --> 1:32:14.400 The card that I use the most is my American 1:32:14.479 --> 1:32:19.679 Express Platinum. That's the one I use the most. Have 1:32:19.720 --> 1:32:25.000 they solicited you first Centurion card? Yes, it's it's not 1:32:25.040 --> 1:32:27.040 a myth. It's not a myth. It is a real thing. 1:32:27.920 --> 1:32:30.439 And you just said it's not worth the price it's 1:32:30.479 --> 1:32:33.280 just I mean, it's just it's more of a status 1:32:33.320 --> 1:32:34.920 And here's the thing about it. I'm gonna get in 1:32:34.960 --> 1:32:39.400 so much trouble, Um, American Express. I love you, I 1:32:39.479 --> 1:32:41.680 love you for all that you do. You're you're a 1:32:41.680 --> 1:32:45.479 great company. I'm I'm not even joking, um, but I 1:32:45.560 --> 1:32:48.880 gotta say this, the Platinum card is going to give 1:32:48.920 --> 1:32:52.479 you a hundred times more benefits than the Black card. 1:32:53.200 --> 1:32:57.240 There's I mean, it's a status thing, the Black card. 1:32:57.479 --> 1:32:59.599 And the thing about it is is, if you want 1:32:59.600 --> 1:33:03.040 to get down to the brass tacks of it, the 1:33:03.160 --> 1:33:05.880 Platinum card is going to give you way more benefits, 1:33:05.960 --> 1:33:08.479 especially owning an LLC, being in a band, with all 1:33:08.520 --> 1:33:11.479 the flights and the hotels and all those different types 1:33:11.479 --> 1:33:14.160 of things. I mean, you just get exorbitant amount more 1:33:14.320 --> 1:33:17.559 points on the Platinum card than you would on the 1:33:17.560 --> 1:33:27.400 Black card. It just doesn't make any sense. Okay. So 1:33:28.960 --> 1:33:32.240 you know the world has even changed musically since you've 1:33:32.240 --> 1:33:35.760 been in the landscape. So what do we know? Streaming 1:33:35.920 --> 1:33:40.920 dominates many artists or anti streaming. There's a lot of 1:33:41.000 --> 1:33:45.440 negativity about labels. Rock used to be the dominant format. 1:33:45.560 --> 1:33:49.439 It's not the dominant musical style. Now, what do you 1:33:49.479 --> 1:33:54.639 think about all this? I think that whoever wrote that 1:33:58.080 --> 1:34:02.160 isn't a touring musician and isn't somebody that makes music 1:34:02.200 --> 1:34:06.400 for a living and write songs for a living. I'm 1:34:06.439 --> 1:34:10.640 not trying to be offensive. I'm just being honest. The 1:34:10.680 --> 1:34:15.679 reality of that is sometimes that type of ideology comes 1:34:15.760 --> 1:34:22.360 from journalists that are getting fed certain stats from other journalists, 1:34:22.360 --> 1:34:26.680 from other conglomerates. What I would tell you is this, 1:34:28.920 --> 1:34:31.840 anytime you have an opportunity for your music to be heard, 1:34:33.920 --> 1:34:38.880 say thank you, thank you very very much, because at 1:34:38.920 --> 1:34:41.439 the end of the day, the evolution of the music 1:34:41.479 --> 1:34:44.920 industry is not going to stop. Like it's just not 1:34:45.000 --> 1:34:47.840 going to So you have a lot of people in 1:34:47.880 --> 1:34:51.680 the beginning of the streaming era that we're complaining about streaming, 1:34:52.160 --> 1:34:55.040 and these young kids today, and you know, this younger 1:34:55.040 --> 1:34:57.840 generation doesn't know anything about what it takes to make 1:34:57.880 --> 1:35:00.120 a record and put it on a CD and and 1:35:00.720 --> 1:35:02.960 have all these what about all these stores? And I'm like, 1:35:03.280 --> 1:35:06.080 you're absolutely right. They have no idea what a CD 1:35:06.280 --> 1:35:09.040 is because they didn't grow up in that era. They 1:35:09.080 --> 1:35:11.640 have no idea what it is. That's not their fault, 1:35:11.680 --> 1:35:16.599 first of all. And so you sound like you sound 1:35:16.640 --> 1:35:20.360 bitter to these, to this younger generation, when you're acting 1:35:20.400 --> 1:35:23.720 like that, you gotta get on their level and understand 1:35:23.760 --> 1:35:26.519 that once again, ladies and gentlemen, it's a business. It's 1:35:26.520 --> 1:35:29.760 called the music business for a reason. And so what 1:35:29.800 --> 1:35:32.639 you gotta do is you have to learn how to maneuver. 1:35:32.760 --> 1:35:35.439 We often talk and shine down about the brick wall. 1:35:35.680 --> 1:35:37.600 If you run head first into a brick wall, I 1:35:37.680 --> 1:35:39.840 guarantee you the brick wall will win. You got to 1:35:39.840 --> 1:35:41.840 figure out how to negotiate with it, how to go 1:35:41.880 --> 1:35:46.080 around it, go under it, go You know, there are 1:35:46.120 --> 1:35:49.519 other ways to look at the obstacles in front of you. 1:35:49.760 --> 1:35:52.920 But I will tell you this. We were the number 1:35:52.960 --> 1:35:56.760 one album the first week that Planet Zero came out 1:35:56.840 --> 1:35:59.960 on six different charts on Billboard, and one of those charts, 1:36:00.080 --> 1:36:03.840 we were the number one record on vinyl. And you 1:36:03.880 --> 1:36:06.840 know the other side of that too, is we are 1:36:06.880 --> 1:36:12.240 a physical selling band. We signed seventeen thousand covers of 1:36:12.360 --> 1:36:15.519 Planet Zero before the album came out. Well, how did 1:36:15.520 --> 1:36:19.040 we do that? We signed seventeen thousand covers because we 1:36:19.120 --> 1:36:23.360 sold seventeen thousand covers in a pre sale before the 1:36:23.439 --> 1:36:26.559 record came out. Because we gave everybody an option if 1:36:26.560 --> 1:36:28.720 you want to sign copy of this record, if you 1:36:28.760 --> 1:36:32.120 buy it now, you'll get a signed copy. And we 1:36:32.160 --> 1:36:35.080 actually had to cap it because we could have kept going. 1:36:35.240 --> 1:36:37.439 It's just we didn't have the physical time to keep 1:36:37.479 --> 1:36:41.800 signing records. Because all four of us, seventeen thousand, it 1:36:41.920 --> 1:36:45.679 took us. Like it took us, we had to send 1:36:45.720 --> 1:36:47.800 I remember we had to send them to each other 1:36:47.800 --> 1:36:50.360 because we weren't all together at the time before we 1:36:50.400 --> 1:36:53.000 got on the road. But that's what I mean. I'm 1:36:53.040 --> 1:36:55.400 using that as an example because there are ways to 1:36:55.400 --> 1:36:57.519 sell your music, you know, there are ways to do 1:36:57.600 --> 1:36:59.519 these things. And the thing that we look at with 1:36:59.560 --> 1:37:02.519 the stream services are we go to them and say 1:37:02.560 --> 1:37:05.840 to them, we would love for you to think about 1:37:05.920 --> 1:37:08.280 us for all your playlists. We have a record coming out, 1:37:08.320 --> 1:37:10.000 we have a new single coming out, We've got a 1:37:10.000 --> 1:37:14.599 new video coming out. Terrestrial radio I cannot say this enough. 1:37:14.640 --> 1:37:16.920 And it's not because I'm in the birthplace of one 1:37:16.920 --> 1:37:20.920 of the greatest radio stations in North America. But the 1:37:21.320 --> 1:37:24.280 point being is that rock radio, but just terrestrial radio 1:37:24.360 --> 1:37:26.759 in general, has been there for us from the beginning. 1:37:27.000 --> 1:37:29.600 By the way, we're one of the only bands in 1:37:29.640 --> 1:37:34.719 the United States that has crossed five different formats multiple 1:37:34.800 --> 1:37:38.280 times in the last twenty years. When Casey Casum signed 1:37:38.320 --> 1:37:40.679 off the air, probably one of the most famous American 1:37:40.800 --> 1:37:44.599 DJs in the history of radio after thirty nine years 1:37:44.640 --> 1:37:46.920 of being in radio when he signed off the air 1:37:47.000 --> 1:37:49.519 because it was the number one song in the country 1:37:49.800 --> 1:37:54.439 on the Hot one hundred was second Chance. So we 1:37:54.520 --> 1:37:57.639 know what it means to cross formats to You should 1:37:57.640 --> 1:37:59.960 not have boundaries. It shouldn't be about your music. Shouldn't 1:37:59.960 --> 1:38:01.840 be put into a box. Don't let nobody, don't let 1:38:01.880 --> 1:38:05.640 them put you into a box. Like the dynamic of 1:38:05.680 --> 1:38:09.240 the fan and the artist, that's a relationship that has 1:38:09.280 --> 1:38:11.400 to be There has to be respect involved in that. 1:38:11.760 --> 1:38:15.280 But to the people that talk about how if streaming 1:38:15.479 --> 1:38:20.200 ruined the business or it ruined the model, maybe you're 1:38:20.200 --> 1:38:24.920 being lazy, maybe you're not looking at it the right way, 1:38:25.040 --> 1:38:28.519 Like nobody owes you anything. They really don't. We can 1:38:28.560 --> 1:38:30.920 all talk about it. In this industry. I hear it 1:38:30.960 --> 1:38:33.479 all the time. How people just talk about, you know, 1:38:34.439 --> 1:38:36.960 they're not making any money, and you know their music 1:38:37.080 --> 1:38:39.400 is worthless and it's disposable, and why should I even 1:38:39.600 --> 1:38:45.280 record music? Well, then quit quit because there is somebody 1:38:45.280 --> 1:38:48.800 that will take your place. Somebody wants it more than 1:38:48.840 --> 1:38:52.759 you do. And I just we've curated this fan base 1:38:52.840 --> 1:38:56.120 that is every single year continuously growing, and that's because 1:38:56.120 --> 1:39:00.559 we self physical records. In my opinion, we let the 1:39:00.600 --> 1:39:03.840 fans talk to us about our merchandise, from our sweatshirts 1:39:03.840 --> 1:39:05.960 to our hats, to our hoodies, to our you know, 1:39:06.280 --> 1:39:08.679 all of the merchandise that we present, to the music, 1:39:08.720 --> 1:39:11.480 to the way that they interact with us, our websites, 1:39:11.760 --> 1:39:15.240 our platforms, all the streaming services. You know, I could 1:39:15.400 --> 1:39:17.680 go down the list. I don't want to be, you know, 1:39:17.760 --> 1:39:20.880 given everybody favorites and what have you. But YouTube and 1:39:20.960 --> 1:39:25.560 Apple Music and Deezer internationally and Spotify, she Zam, Pandora. 1:39:25.600 --> 1:39:28.439 We're part of the four billion stream club in Pandora. 1:39:28.479 --> 1:39:31.840 They just gave us a plaque like three three months ago. 1:39:31.920 --> 1:39:35.320 I'm still baffled by that. You know. It's there's a 1:39:35.360 --> 1:39:38.280 lot of success here and it does generate revenue. And 1:39:38.320 --> 1:39:41.360 believe me, we have a system of what we do 1:39:41.479 --> 1:39:44.360 in this band that did not happen overnight, especially when 1:39:44.360 --> 1:39:47.440 it comes to what we do live like we're responsible 1:39:47.520 --> 1:39:51.559 for seventy seven. Crew members now include and that's not 1:39:51.840 --> 1:39:55.000 like that's truck drivers, that's bus drivers, that's all the techs. 1:39:55.040 --> 1:40:00.840 That's tour managers, production managers, lighting, pyrotechnics, video aging. It 1:40:00.880 --> 1:40:03.600 goes on and on and on. It is a machine. 1:40:04.280 --> 1:40:08.439 It is a machine that is built by It's built 1:40:08.439 --> 1:40:11.640 by the love of the show. It's built by the 1:40:11.680 --> 1:40:13.839 love of the music. Yes, the music is very important, 1:40:13.880 --> 1:40:17.080 but there's all these different aspects of how this industry works. 1:40:17.760 --> 1:40:20.880 And I get passionate about it and I get very 1:40:20.960 --> 1:40:23.599 very hypersensitive to it and focus because I want people 1:40:23.600 --> 1:40:28.560 to understand, especially the younger generation, don't don't limit yourself 1:40:28.640 --> 1:40:31.479 and don't come up with excuses like, oh, it's this now, 1:40:31.560 --> 1:40:33.160 or it should be this, or it should be that. 1:40:33.280 --> 1:40:36.320 There are kids that are being born right now. They're 1:40:36.360 --> 1:40:39.599 not gonna have any idea ten years from now like 1:40:39.640 --> 1:40:42.120 what it was like to either listen to music or 1:40:42.120 --> 1:40:45.200 sell music or any of that. And that's you have 1:40:45.240 --> 1:40:47.760 to evolve. There's a great line in the movie Moneyball 1:40:48.120 --> 1:40:51.240 where Brad Pitt says, adapt or die. You don't have 1:40:51.320 --> 1:40:53.400 to sell out, you don't have to sell your soul. 1:40:53.680 --> 1:40:55.600 You don't have to stop making the music that is 1:40:55.600 --> 1:40:57.640 truly who you are. But if you want to be 1:40:57.640 --> 1:41:00.400 in this industry, you have to learn to adapt and 1:41:00.520 --> 1:41:03.479 you have to figure out what works for you. And 1:41:03.960 --> 1:41:05.759 you don't have to be a part of the industry 1:41:05.800 --> 1:41:07.400 if you don't want to. You know, I have this 1:41:07.439 --> 1:41:11.080 conversation about TikTok. I think it's amazing what TikTok does. 1:41:11.320 --> 1:41:14.160 Like all of these kids out there that just have 1:41:14.640 --> 1:41:18.760 insane imaginations and it's just awesome to watch and they're 1:41:18.800 --> 1:41:21.800 so creative and it just blows me away, and like 1:41:22.040 --> 1:41:24.120 take the music and take you know, they'll take all 1:41:24.120 --> 1:41:26.519 these different songs. I love how the younger generation they 1:41:26.560 --> 1:41:29.519 don't care about an expiration date because it doesn't exist 1:41:29.560 --> 1:41:32.559 for them. They don't care like when a song came out, 1:41:32.720 --> 1:41:36.280 Like look at Kate Bush with Stranger Things that rekindled 1:41:36.720 --> 1:41:40.040 her existence, you know what I mean. Think about Metallica. 1:41:40.120 --> 1:41:43.720 Not that Metallica isn't working, you know, hard every single year, 1:41:43.760 --> 1:41:45.840 but look what happened on Stranger Things with Master of 1:41:45.840 --> 1:41:48.439 Puppets and opening up a big door, a huge door 1:41:48.680 --> 1:41:53.080 to another generation of fans that should be embraced. And 1:41:53.120 --> 1:41:55.439 I just love that the younger generation They don't care 1:41:55.479 --> 1:41:57.680 if something came out in nineteen seventy five. If it 1:41:57.760 --> 1:42:00.240 sounds good and it's awesome, that's all they care about. 1:42:00.520 --> 1:42:04.840 I think that's I think that's awesome. Okay, people just 1:42:04.920 --> 1:42:07.640 say we do have the Internet, and it led to 1:42:07.680 --> 1:42:10.000 a lot of things you just talked about. But to 1:42:10.120 --> 1:42:13.280 what degree do you and the band interact with your 1:42:13.360 --> 1:42:16.920 fans on these varying platforms and how important do you 1:42:16.960 --> 1:42:21.519 think that is? I think it's important if you want to. 1:42:21.680 --> 1:42:23.840 Here's the thing about us. We always try to have 1:42:24.400 --> 1:42:28.120 at certain times a bit of a mystique because everything 1:42:28.200 --> 1:42:31.280 is out there now there are everything is out there 1:42:32.160 --> 1:42:34.599 to the public, and some artists choose to just be 1:42:34.960 --> 1:42:37.040 every single second, every part of the day, this is 1:42:37.040 --> 1:42:39.920 what I'm doing, this is what's happening, you know, and 1:42:40.160 --> 1:42:42.920 they kind of put their entire lives on display. We 1:42:43.720 --> 1:42:46.360 I feel like, have a really really good balance and that. 1:42:46.439 --> 1:42:49.200 But we're very involved with our social media. We're very 1:42:49.240 --> 1:42:52.280 involved with our digital campaigns and what we do and 1:42:52.320 --> 1:42:55.519 how we interact with our audience, not only in North 1:42:55.560 --> 1:42:59.519 America but also just around the globe. So we're also 1:42:59.640 --> 1:43:03.800 constant learning, whether it's from Facebook or snatchap or TikTok 1:43:03.920 --> 1:43:07.400 or Instagram or I mean, there's so many different platforms 1:43:07.400 --> 1:43:10.160 that we use now. And that's another thing too, there's 1:43:10.200 --> 1:43:12.080 just so many of them. You just want to do 1:43:12.120 --> 1:43:14.680 your best to be authentic. Like that's our biggest thing 1:43:14.760 --> 1:43:17.240 is we're like, I'm not gonna go like I do 1:43:17.280 --> 1:43:19.840 tiktoks if I think they're cool or it's something that 1:43:19.880 --> 1:43:22.400 I would do or I find it fun. But well, 1:43:22.439 --> 1:43:25.479 I go and like do something silly and like do 1:43:25.520 --> 1:43:27.800 a dance and make myself you know why, I poke 1:43:27.840 --> 1:43:30.760 fun at myself. Sure, I don't care, you know, as 1:43:30.760 --> 1:43:32.960 long as it's authentic to me and it's something I 1:43:32.960 --> 1:43:34.680 would do. Now, if I look at something, I'm like, 1:43:34.720 --> 1:43:37.559 I'm not doing that. I'm not gonna do it. You know. 1:43:37.560 --> 1:43:39.519 That's kind of how you have to look at it. 1:43:39.680 --> 1:43:41.839 But I think that it's bad. I think that it's awesome, 1:43:42.960 --> 1:43:45.320 and I think that it's a badass that we have 1:43:45.520 --> 1:43:48.880 this kind of communication with our audience because some people 1:43:49.000 --> 1:43:51.519 might say that what takes kind of the mystique out 1:43:51.560 --> 1:43:55.360 of it, doesn't it not necessarily everybody's different, and it's 1:43:55.360 --> 1:43:57.519 all how you want to curate, how you want to 1:43:57.520 --> 1:44:02.479 curate your social platforms. I mean, there's there's no handbook 1:44:02.840 --> 1:44:04.920 to social media. There's really not. You can see a 1:44:04.920 --> 1:44:06.519 bunch of stuff on YouTube and they'll tell you about 1:44:06.520 --> 1:44:08.320 algorithms and all those things, and I'm sure there's a 1:44:08.439 --> 1:44:11.160 juxtaposition there and you don't want to be desensitized to 1:44:11.200 --> 1:44:14.280 those platforms. And I'm sure you can get in there, 1:44:14.280 --> 1:44:16.160 and you can, as I would say, you could mister 1:44:16.280 --> 1:44:18.280 beast it if you wanted to. But there's only one 1:44:18.360 --> 1:44:21.320 mister Beast, you know, and he's brilliant at what he does, 1:44:21.600 --> 1:44:25.000 but his entire life is as an algorithm on YouTube. 1:44:25.000 --> 1:44:27.600 That's why he's got one hundred and thirty nine million subscribers. 1:44:28.080 --> 1:44:31.000 But that's not that's not my gig, you know what 1:44:31.040 --> 1:44:33.519 I mean. And I think one of the smartest things 1:44:33.520 --> 1:44:36.000 that we did for our social media was the fact 1:44:36.080 --> 1:44:38.320 that we're on a record label that has over two 1:44:38.400 --> 1:44:41.000 hundred and fifty artists and we actually work with two 1:44:41.000 --> 1:44:43.640 different record labels. We work with Atlantic Records and then 1:44:43.640 --> 1:44:46.240 we work with promotion with Electure Records under the Warner 1:44:46.360 --> 1:44:49.800 Music Group. And about four and a half, I guess 1:44:49.800 --> 1:44:52.040 it's been five years ago now, I hired a young 1:44:52.120 --> 1:44:56.599 lady named Morgan Townsend and who she was. She didn't 1:44:56.640 --> 1:45:00.200 necessarily know what she was getting herself into because I 1:45:00.200 --> 1:45:02.760 didn't know what she was getting herself into. But going 1:45:02.840 --> 1:45:05.400 back about five years ago, with social media and what 1:45:05.520 --> 1:45:08.559 have you had management companies and you had the labels, 1:45:09.040 --> 1:45:11.719 and they have a digital department and they have somebody 1:45:11.760 --> 1:45:13.880 there that does digital. But when you have two hundred 1:45:13.920 --> 1:45:16.120 and fifty bands, you're only going to be able to 1:45:16.160 --> 1:45:19.680 concentrate so much uncertain bands or certain artists. And it's 1:45:19.720 --> 1:45:23.519 not even about the genres, because it's it's limitless when 1:45:23.560 --> 1:45:24.880 it comes to that when you're on a label and 1:45:24.920 --> 1:45:26.920 you've got all these different genres of music. Same thing 1:45:26.920 --> 1:45:29.559 with a management company, you have all of these different 1:45:29.640 --> 1:45:33.800 artists one person. It's just too much work. So what 1:45:33.800 --> 1:45:37.000 we decided to do was go out and try to 1:45:37.040 --> 1:45:40.360 find somebody that would be willing to kind of come 1:45:40.400 --> 1:45:43.240 in and learn with us. And it was basically, what's 1:45:43.280 --> 1:45:46.880 the job description. You're gonna take this band, and you 1:45:46.960 --> 1:45:48.920 and this band are going to figure this out together 1:45:49.000 --> 1:45:52.400 for what works for this band. We're gonna learn how 1:45:52.439 --> 1:45:55.000 this what works and what doesn't work. I often tell 1:45:55.040 --> 1:45:57.880 people sometimes what works for Shining Down is probably not 1:45:57.920 --> 1:45:59.840 going to work for some other band, and what works 1:45:59.840 --> 1:46:02.760 for that band, it probably won't work for us. And 1:46:02.800 --> 1:46:05.200 a lot of times too, when people describe other bands 1:46:05.240 --> 1:46:07.479 to me, I'm appreciative of that. When they're trying to 1:46:08.000 --> 1:46:10.400 I guess you would say, give me an analogy, but 1:46:10.520 --> 1:46:12.840 I also have to tell them, I appreciate you giving 1:46:12.880 --> 1:46:15.439 me the analogy. I'm not in that band, I'm in 1:46:15.439 --> 1:46:19.800 this one. So when we hired this young lady you 1:46:19.800 --> 1:46:21.760 know who is our we gave her a tie, We 1:46:21.800 --> 1:46:25.160 had to create a title. She's she's our social media 1:46:25.479 --> 1:46:28.920 media manager and she's the director of Digital Media for Shiningdown. 1:46:29.040 --> 1:46:31.760 But we had to learn how to do all that 1:46:31.840 --> 1:46:35.760 stuff together. And she works with the label like one 1:46:35.800 --> 1:46:37.720 hundred percent of the time. She works with management one 1:46:37.800 --> 1:46:40.160 hundred percent of the time, but she's hired by the band. 1:46:40.920 --> 1:46:44.479 So I would tell anybody out there with social media, 1:46:44.920 --> 1:46:48.560 take a certain amount of money and focus bringing somebody 1:46:48.640 --> 1:46:52.160 in that can literally manage your social media, because I'll 1:46:52.200 --> 1:46:54.360 tell you right now, it can be the difference if 1:46:54.400 --> 1:46:57.360 you have a strong social media game in your success, 1:46:57.520 --> 1:47:00.559 especially you know twenty and twenty three and beyond at 1:47:00.600 --> 1:47:06.000 least right now. Okay, But on your new record, there's 1:47:06.040 --> 1:47:11.840 all this commentary about social media the Internet. We're talking 1:47:11.840 --> 1:47:15.400 about keeping people off the social media sites, keeping certain 1:47:15.439 --> 1:47:18.840 actors off of it because they consider them to be 1:47:18.880 --> 1:47:21.080 bad actors. And I'm not talking about people on stage 1:47:21.160 --> 1:47:26.600 or screen and screen time, etc. So how do you 1:47:26.640 --> 1:47:29.440 know we just heard all the stuff about social media. 1:47:29.600 --> 1:47:32.880 Where exactly are you guys at on this Well, we 1:47:32.880 --> 1:47:35.800 wrote Planet Zero the record in the middle of a pandemic, 1:47:36.600 --> 1:47:38.320 and in the middle of a pandemic, it was not 1:47:38.439 --> 1:47:41.120 something that everybody. I mean, we didn't wake up in 1:47:41.160 --> 1:47:42.960 February of twenty twenty and be like, you know, it 1:47:43.000 --> 1:47:50.679 would be fun, let's shut the world down, and we 1:47:50.720 --> 1:47:54.559 watched the chaos that ensued inside of that. And granted, 1:47:54.560 --> 1:47:56.639 we don't need to be going on and on about 1:47:56.680 --> 1:47:58.760 that anymore because that was then and this is now. 1:47:58.800 --> 1:48:00.560 But you asked me a legitimate question. I want to 1:48:00.560 --> 1:48:04.800 give you a legitimate answer. You know, we had no 1:48:04.920 --> 1:48:08.439 choice on this record but to write about what was 1:48:08.520 --> 1:48:11.200 going on. We tried to have a crystal ball method, 1:48:11.280 --> 1:48:13.960 if you will, in the beginning of writing this record, 1:48:15.160 --> 1:48:16.920 because we looked at each other and we were like 1:48:17.479 --> 1:48:20.639 nobody's gonna and we started writing it in twenty twenty, 1:48:21.840 --> 1:48:25.679 and it was let's write like it's three years from now. 1:48:25.960 --> 1:48:28.080 Let's do it that way. Well, just we'll act like 1:48:28.120 --> 1:48:32.200 this isn't even happening, But it was happening all around us. 1:48:32.280 --> 1:48:37.480 I arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, with Eric, the producer 1:48:37.479 --> 1:48:40.479 of Planet Zero, and the mixer and the engineer of 1:48:40.520 --> 1:48:44.040 the record, our bass player who also did the last record, engineered, 1:48:44.120 --> 1:48:49.680 mixed it, and produced it. We built a studio in 1:48:49.840 --> 1:48:52.000 eighteen weeks because we didn't know when we were going 1:48:52.040 --> 1:48:54.639 to be able to get into a studio to start recording, 1:48:54.680 --> 1:48:56.559 so we just took eighteen weeks on his property and 1:48:56.600 --> 1:48:58.920 built a studio from the ground up. And while we 1:48:58.920 --> 1:49:01.240 were doing that, we're also watching the news. You couldn't 1:49:01.240 --> 1:49:03.960 stop but look at your device. You know, everything that 1:49:04.040 --> 1:49:08.320 was going on, the social injustice, the you know, the 1:49:08.479 --> 1:49:11.680 plague of COVID nineteen and everything that was going on 1:49:11.720 --> 1:49:13.680 with that, the divisiveness. It didn't help that it was 1:49:13.680 --> 1:49:16.320 an election year, this time in human history, where people 1:49:16.320 --> 1:49:20.080 should have been banding together. In America, we had the 1:49:20.160 --> 1:49:24.719 most i mean polarization I've ever seen in at the time, 1:49:24.800 --> 1:49:29.679 the forty four years that I've been alive. So trying 1:49:29.720 --> 1:49:33.639 to write a record on good faith of all these 1:49:33.680 --> 1:49:36.080 different elements that you know, we're trying to act as 1:49:36.120 --> 1:49:39.280 if this stuff isn't going on around us was virtually impossible. 1:49:39.600 --> 1:49:42.400 And I just remember Eric looking at me when I 1:49:42.439 --> 1:49:47.320 got to South Carolina in June. He said, it feels 1:49:47.360 --> 1:49:50.360 like we're on planet zero. That's exactly what he said. 1:49:50.640 --> 1:49:52.960 And Planet zero was the first song written. And I 1:49:53.000 --> 1:49:56.960 know what you're talking about with you know, the language 1:49:57.000 --> 1:50:00.559 and the record and the dynamic of s and things. 1:50:00.640 --> 1:50:04.000 You know, the last song on the album, which is 1:50:04.040 --> 1:50:07.639 a song called what You Wanted, and it talks about 1:50:07.680 --> 1:50:09.960 it has that lingo in there like it didn't subscribe 1:50:10.000 --> 1:50:12.240 and all these different types of things, and you know, 1:50:12.280 --> 1:50:14.160 the course of that song is like goodbye, so long, 1:50:14.200 --> 1:50:16.160 see you later, good night. Did you get what you wanted? 1:50:16.400 --> 1:50:19.200 You know? Is this what you wanted? And that you 1:50:19.240 --> 1:50:21.599 got to remember that was written in the midst of 1:50:22.640 --> 1:50:25.439 everything that was going on in not only the United 1:50:25.479 --> 1:50:28.360 States but the entire world. And we're a band that 1:50:28.400 --> 1:50:31.160 has to talk about what we know, the situations that 1:50:31.160 --> 1:50:34.080 we're in front of in the scenarios that we're being presented, 1:50:34.439 --> 1:50:37.559 and once again, how do you overcome it. You have 1:50:37.600 --> 1:50:39.519 to talk about what it is and what it means 1:50:39.520 --> 1:50:41.680 and what's actually going on, but you also have to 1:50:41.720 --> 1:50:44.400 dissect it and make sure that everybody's looking at everything 1:50:45.560 --> 1:50:48.880 with the wool not being pulled over their eyes. And 1:50:50.680 --> 1:50:53.479 there's so much symbolism in the record, but there's a 1:50:53.479 --> 1:50:58.200 lot of truth in the record. And I remember one 1:50:58.200 --> 1:51:01.800 of the earliest songs that was written on Planet Zero, 1:51:01.920 --> 1:51:06.240 aside from Planet Zero, the song and What You Wanted, 1:51:06.280 --> 1:51:09.000 Those were two of the songs that were actually written first, 1:51:09.479 --> 1:51:12.679 but I remember I think it was right after we did. 1:51:13.920 --> 1:51:17.400 I think it was right after What You Wanted. My 1:51:17.560 --> 1:51:20.840 favorite song on the record was written, and that's a 1:51:20.840 --> 1:51:25.000 song called a Symptom of being Human. And the symptom 1:51:25.040 --> 1:51:27.280 of being human in a lot of ways is a gift. 1:51:27.840 --> 1:51:29.920 And why I call it a gift is on every 1:51:29.920 --> 1:51:32.080 record you hope to get one gift. You don't always 1:51:32.120 --> 1:51:33.960 get a gift on a record. But what a gift 1:51:34.080 --> 1:51:36.680 is is a song that writes itself. It comes out 1:51:36.680 --> 1:51:39.640 of nowhere. You didn't wake up that day expecting to 1:51:39.680 --> 1:51:45.360 write this song with these heartfelt lyrics and this crescendo 1:51:45.439 --> 1:51:50.479 of sound, it just happens. And that's exactly what occurred 1:51:50.479 --> 1:51:53.920 with A Symptom of Being Human. And the interesting thing 1:51:53.920 --> 1:51:56.080 about it was inside of all the chaos that we 1:51:56.080 --> 1:51:59.080 were watching on television and on our smartphones, and we're 1:51:59.080 --> 1:52:01.160 trying to dissect everything that was going on. We're trying 1:52:01.160 --> 1:52:03.160 to build a studio and we're trying to think about 1:52:03.200 --> 1:52:04.880 what kind of record we're gonna make and are we 1:52:04.920 --> 1:52:06.920 going to piss people off? And we've never talked about 1:52:06.920 --> 1:52:09.519 this type of stuff, and we've never done this before, 1:52:09.560 --> 1:52:11.880 and we've never been political, and we've never talked about 1:52:11.880 --> 1:52:14.000 these things. What are we doing is it's the right thing. 1:52:14.160 --> 1:52:16.639 So many things that we're just coming to a boiling 1:52:16.680 --> 1:52:19.479 point and then all of a sudden, this song falls 1:52:19.479 --> 1:52:23.479 into our lap and it's literally an example of the 1:52:23.560 --> 1:52:29.559 human spirit. It could not be a more honest and 1:52:29.680 --> 1:52:35.120 heartfelt song about being a human being and about living 1:52:35.120 --> 1:52:37.360 on this planet and having the gift of being alive 1:52:37.479 --> 1:52:41.360 right now because you're not promised tomorrow, and you know, 1:52:41.400 --> 1:52:44.280 A Symptom of being Human is exactly that. It talks 1:52:44.320 --> 1:52:49.080 about the uncertainty of tomorrow. It talks about the uncertainty 1:52:49.320 --> 1:52:54.479 of oneself. It encompasses this time in human history where 1:52:54.520 --> 1:52:57.680 everybody is now talking about mental health. Where it used 1:52:57.680 --> 1:53:00.720 to be about diet and exercise. Now it's about survival 1:53:01.280 --> 1:53:04.360 of the human spirit. It's about really the survival of 1:53:04.360 --> 1:53:12.120 our species. Because during the pandemic suicide rate, this is 1:53:12.160 --> 1:53:17.800 the most disturbing thing about it. In two nineteen, at 1:53:17.800 --> 1:53:19.599 the end of the year, one thing I should tell 1:53:19.640 --> 1:53:24.040 your listeners is that shine down. We've for the last 1:53:24.080 --> 1:53:28.120 decade we've been ambassadors for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 1:53:29.640 --> 1:53:35.559 and the projection at the end of twenty nineteen was 1:53:35.640 --> 1:53:40.719 that the year twenty twenty was on record and hopes 1:53:41.520 --> 1:53:45.320 statistically to be the lowest number, to be the lowest 1:53:45.320 --> 1:53:49.840 percentage of suicide in North America in twenty twenty in 1:53:49.880 --> 1:53:52.680 over a decade, like they were projecting for for the 1:53:52.800 --> 1:53:57.760 rate to drop drastically in twenty twenty, and then the 1:53:57.800 --> 1:54:04.639 pandemic hit. November of twenty twenty. The stats were released 1:54:04.880 --> 1:54:09.800 and I don't have the exact numbers, but I do 1:54:09.880 --> 1:54:17.800 remember this that men and women aged fourteen to forty five, 1:54:19.520 --> 1:54:24.519 it was the highest percentage in the last decade, so 1:54:24.560 --> 1:54:27.760 it was completely reversed. What was supposed to be the 1:54:27.800 --> 1:54:31.559 lowest percentage became the highest percentage in over a decade. 1:54:32.280 --> 1:54:36.200 And that was part of why Symptom was such an 1:54:36.240 --> 1:54:40.880 important song and how it was about, you know, it's 1:54:42.320 --> 1:54:45.080 it's okay to struggle. It's okay. I know it feels 1:54:45.080 --> 1:54:46.880 like it's never gonna end. I know it feels like 1:54:46.880 --> 1:54:49.080 there's no tomorrow. I know it feels like everything is 1:54:49.120 --> 1:54:54.280 just crashing around you. You have to hold on. You've 1:54:54.280 --> 1:54:56.160 got to hold on. I'm not saying that you're not 1:54:56.160 --> 1:54:57.680 gonna have to put the work in. I'm not saying 1:54:57.720 --> 1:54:59.920 that it's not going to be difficult to get out 1:55:00.040 --> 1:55:02.240 of that hole that we talked about at the beginning, 1:55:02.520 --> 1:55:03.960 you know where sometimes you got to fall in a 1:55:04.000 --> 1:55:06.800 hole to figure it out. But the world didn't quote unquote, 1:55:06.800 --> 1:55:09.880 people didn't quote unquote ask for a pandemic to happen. 1:55:10.000 --> 1:55:13.720 It just happened. Now you got to figure out a 1:55:13.760 --> 1:55:17.400 way to give everybody back their spirit. Now you got 1:55:17.400 --> 1:55:19.680 to figure out a way to build people up. And 1:55:19.720 --> 1:55:21.840 the most powerful way to do that that I know 1:55:21.920 --> 1:55:25.120 of is with music. Because where I come from, music 1:55:25.200 --> 1:55:29.600 is medicine. And that's why I just feel it's you know, 1:55:29.640 --> 1:55:33.200 that song is extremely important. Okay, you know you've talked 1:55:33.200 --> 1:55:38.480 about the new album. Underneath this is the p word politics. Yeah, 1:55:38.520 --> 1:55:40.320 now you have a luxury. You didn't go on a 1:55:40.400 --> 1:55:45.160 plane for your first two decades. Basically, Now you've been 1:55:45.160 --> 1:55:50.640 all over the world many times. Okay, now we live. Okay. 1:55:50.680 --> 1:55:54.320 In terms of my experience with Tennessee, which is relatively limited, 1:55:54.680 --> 1:55:57.560 I've been in Nashville, I've been to Memphis. Both in 1:55:57.680 --> 1:56:01.760 Tennessee couldn't be more different, right, I know some people 1:56:01.840 --> 1:56:05.880 from Knoxville. I have not been to Knoxville. But what 1:56:05.920 --> 1:56:11.200 I'm saying is, yes, there is red and blue, there 1:56:11.400 --> 1:56:15.240 is VACS, there is anti vax, there is Twitter. We 1:56:15.280 --> 1:56:18.200 should have certain people shouldn't be on there, certain people 1:56:18.280 --> 1:56:23.640 should be on there. Since you and an addition, perception 1:56:23.920 --> 1:56:30.000 is that rock fans lean right, modern rock fans is 1:56:30.040 --> 1:56:33.920 supposed to people fans of classic rock whatever. Yeah, Well, 1:56:35.000 --> 1:56:37.400 what do you see since you're out there and what's 1:56:37.400 --> 1:56:46.920 going on? What I see, honestly is the best way 1:56:46.960 --> 1:56:49.600 I can say it is this because this is how 1:56:49.680 --> 1:56:54.560 I feel and how I view it all. It goes 1:56:54.640 --> 1:57:00.200 back to your smartphone, because that's kind of a part 1:57:00.240 --> 1:57:03.320 of us now in our society, And anybody can argue 1:57:03.320 --> 1:57:05.000 with me if they want to, but I mean, it's 1:57:05.040 --> 1:57:09.040 just the reality for the people that can afford it, 1:57:09.080 --> 1:57:11.800 and it's very affordable now because it's a part. Like 1:57:11.840 --> 1:57:16.600 there's so many people that I know that they will 1:57:16.640 --> 1:57:19.720 literally go into an absolute panic attack if they forget 1:57:19.760 --> 1:57:22.440 their phone or they like they dropped it or they 1:57:22.520 --> 1:57:24.360 left it somewhere or they busted or whatever. I mean, 1:57:24.360 --> 1:57:26.840 I've watched people like people that I've known for years, 1:57:26.920 --> 1:57:29.560 like if something happens through their smartphone and they lose 1:57:29.560 --> 1:57:31.360 it or they forgot it or it's not with them, 1:57:31.400 --> 1:57:35.760 they will freak out. So why am I saying that? 1:57:35.800 --> 1:57:37.960 And why am I? You know, what does that have 1:57:38.000 --> 1:57:39.880 any relevance to do with rock and roll? And to 1:57:40.000 --> 1:57:42.960 the right? And you know, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, 1:57:43.480 --> 1:57:45.680 red or blue or liberal or what have you, I 1:57:45.680 --> 1:57:47.840 will tell you this right now. For me personally, I 1:57:47.880 --> 1:57:49.720 think that there should be three parties. I don't think 1:57:49.720 --> 1:57:51.680 there should just be two parties. I think two parties 1:57:51.680 --> 1:57:54.440 it's kind of ridiculous at this point anyway. I think 1:57:54.440 --> 1:57:56.720 there should be a third party. Will that ever happen. 1:57:56.800 --> 1:57:58.920 I have no idea, and I'm talking about in North America, 1:57:58.960 --> 1:58:03.440 but that's my opinion because it's just it's intense on 1:58:03.480 --> 1:58:05.920 both sides. And the thing about it is, what I 1:58:05.920 --> 1:58:09.960 would tell you is this, if you get outside of 1:58:10.040 --> 1:58:15.320 your phone, if you get off of certain social media 1:58:15.400 --> 1:58:19.600 and take a break and go out into the real world. 1:58:19.640 --> 1:58:22.800 I'm talking about the real world where and you're talking 1:58:22.840 --> 1:58:28.920 about Tennessee, Memphis, Knoxville, Nashville. Those three places are actually 1:58:28.920 --> 1:58:35.160 more similar than you think because a lot of Nashville, Knoxville, 1:58:35.200 --> 1:58:39.320 in Memphis, a lot of the same minded people. You'd 1:58:39.360 --> 1:58:42.960 find him in Colorado. In Colorado, you'd probably find him 1:58:43.000 --> 1:58:46.280 in Maine. In Maine, I bet you. I'm gonna say it. 1:58:46.280 --> 1:58:48.840 It's gonna probably not necessarily sit well with certain people 1:58:48.880 --> 1:58:50.920 because they won't believe me, but I'm gonna tell it's true. 1:58:51.240 --> 1:58:55.000 People in Maine you would probably find that the way 1:58:55.000 --> 1:58:57.640 that they look at politics is ride in line with 1:58:57.680 --> 1:59:00.840 a lot of people in Florida. Oh here's the thing 1:59:00.840 --> 1:59:03.240 what I'm getting at. When you go out into the 1:59:03.280 --> 1:59:08.240 real world and you get off of this constant news feed. 1:59:08.400 --> 1:59:10.440 Remember how back in the day news would come on 1:59:10.520 --> 1:59:14.040 three times, and that's all you got. And they would 1:59:14.040 --> 1:59:16.919 just tell you the news, and like at three o'clock 1:59:17.520 --> 1:59:19.160 they would give you the news, and then at like 1:59:19.200 --> 1:59:21.839 eleven o'clock they give you the news, and sometimes five o'clock, 1:59:21.880 --> 1:59:23.400 at five o'clock they give you news. They give it 1:59:23.400 --> 1:59:25.600 to you again at eleven and a lot of places 1:59:25.800 --> 1:59:28.200 the five o'clock news was the same as the eleven 1:59:28.240 --> 1:59:32.120 o'clock news. It didn't change that much. You have a 1:59:32.200 --> 1:59:38.000 constant filter, a constant iv of just carnage. How bad 1:59:38.120 --> 1:59:41.400 is it, Like, let's get every bad. It's nothing can 1:59:41.440 --> 1:59:44.400 be good. We can't have anything that's good. It's got 1:59:44.400 --> 1:59:47.040 to be bad. And it's just it's clickbait a lot 1:59:47.120 --> 1:59:49.040 of times, you know, they're looking for likes, they're looking 1:59:49.120 --> 1:59:51.920 for they want you to hit the button. So if 1:59:52.520 --> 1:59:56.160 from the political side of things, when you go out 1:59:56.200 --> 1:59:59.880 into the real world, people aren't trying to destroy each other, 2:00:01.320 --> 2:00:04.600 I'm not. I'm not. I don't see that. I don't 2:00:04.640 --> 2:00:08.360 see people, you know, actively trying to mess with one another. 2:00:09.120 --> 2:00:11.800 I don't actively say and I'm I've gone all over 2:00:11.840 --> 2:00:14.040 the world. I will continue, God willing, you know, to 2:00:14.160 --> 2:00:17.000 go all over the world for as long as that 2:00:17.080 --> 2:00:21.760 I'm meant to be here. But that is a focus 2:00:21.880 --> 2:00:26.000 that it doesn't necessarily have to become political. And I 2:00:26.080 --> 2:00:30.960 often tell people this too in society. We live in 2:00:31.000 --> 2:00:38.480 a country where it's a democratic republic and it's it's 2:00:38.560 --> 2:00:42.120 laid out a certain way for a reason, and everybody 2:00:42.120 --> 2:00:44.000 has an opinion about it. Now, do I think that 2:00:44.240 --> 2:00:48.200 certain amendments should be updated, Yes, I do think that 2:00:48.240 --> 2:00:51.280 they should some of them, but a lot of them 2:00:51.280 --> 2:00:53.920 are in that constitution for a reason, to not have 2:00:54.080 --> 2:00:59.000 full on anarchy, to not have full on just chaos. 2:01:00.280 --> 2:01:04.560 And the best thing that I can tell you is 2:01:04.680 --> 2:01:09.800 I believe that human beings are inherently good. I truly do, 2:01:10.000 --> 2:01:11.960 because I've seen it with my own eyes on a 2:01:12.040 --> 2:01:14.400 daily basis. If you're looking for chaos, I guess you 2:01:14.400 --> 2:01:18.720 can find it anywhere. But in the last three years, 2:01:18.840 --> 2:01:22.720 what I've noticed, in what I've seen is that everyday, 2:01:22.760 --> 2:01:25.840 people that make up the majority of this planet. I'm 2:01:25.840 --> 2:01:27.800 not just talking about America, I'm talking about the majority 2:01:27.800 --> 2:01:29.840 of the planet. There are more of us than there 2:01:29.920 --> 2:01:33.560 are of them. And what I mean by that is 2:01:33.600 --> 2:01:37.080 political figures should be put in office by the people 2:01:37.400 --> 2:01:42.560 to represent the people You're not God. That's not the 2:01:42.600 --> 2:01:44.280 way it should be looked at. And I'm not for 2:01:44.560 --> 2:01:47.240 career politicians. I don't think that, you know, if you're 2:01:47.240 --> 2:01:49.000 in the Senator of the Congress, you can you know 2:01:49.040 --> 2:01:50.920 you get in when you're thirty five, that you need 2:01:50.960 --> 2:01:54.480 to stay there until you're a hundred. So, you know, 2:01:54.600 --> 2:01:56.000 I'm saying a lot of things that a lot of 2:01:56.000 --> 2:01:59.720 people feel. I'm trying to explain also too, it's not 2:01:59.760 --> 2:02:02.120 just about rock and roll. It's not just because somebody 2:02:02.240 --> 2:02:04.200 is into rock and roll music. That person could be 2:02:04.240 --> 2:02:06.840 into hip hop music. That hip hop music person could 2:02:06.840 --> 2:02:10.839 be into country music. You know, music is our saving grace, 2:02:11.120 --> 2:02:13.440 if you will, It's what keeps us all, it's what 2:02:13.560 --> 2:02:17.040 glues us together. So isn't it interesting and the human 2:02:17.160 --> 2:02:20.520 history that the universe and Mother Nature tested everybody? Because 2:02:20.520 --> 2:02:22.320 I can tell you right now you're talking about the Internet. 2:02:22.920 --> 2:02:25.200 The Internet everyone wants to say is undefeated. I can 2:02:25.240 --> 2:02:27.600 tell you that is not true. Mother Nature is undefeated. 2:02:27.680 --> 2:02:30.920 She proved that, and she's proved it time and time again. 2:02:31.280 --> 2:02:34.560 And isn't it interesting how the universe and Mother Nature 2:02:34.960 --> 2:02:39.600 gave human beings an opportunity to see what we would 2:02:39.640 --> 2:02:42.760 do in these last three years, and everybody has to 2:02:42.840 --> 2:02:44.960 kind of look at each other and go, what did 2:02:45.000 --> 2:02:48.840 we do? What have we done? And what are we 2:02:48.880 --> 2:02:53.440 going to do now? And that's the biggest question. But 2:02:53.560 --> 2:02:56.320 when it comes to music, that's what joins us together. 2:02:56.600 --> 2:02:59.000 So you take two years and everybody says, stay away 2:02:59.000 --> 2:03:02.800 from each other, don't go anywhere near one another, stay away, 2:03:02.920 --> 2:03:07.080 you want to do your part, stay apart. It's just 2:03:07.240 --> 2:03:13.440 very interesting how life unravels sometimes and unfolds at the 2:03:13.520 --> 2:03:17.800 same time. We don't know how long we're here, but 2:03:17.840 --> 2:03:20.800 while we're here, I think we should do everything that 2:03:20.840 --> 2:03:23.920 we possibly can to be together and to celebrate together 2:03:24.240 --> 2:03:27.680 and to push forward together. That's ultimately what I see 2:03:27.680 --> 2:03:30.680 in people. It's not about red or blue. It's just 2:03:30.720 --> 2:03:36.160 about being human and being respectful. Okay, so you've had 2:03:36.160 --> 2:03:38.920 this incredible career in excess of two decades, you've had 2:03:38.920 --> 2:03:43.240 a lot of success. Looking forward, what would you like 2:03:43.320 --> 2:03:47.840 to accomplish or what mark would you like to leave? Bob, 2:03:47.840 --> 2:03:49.520 we were having such a good time and now you 2:03:49.520 --> 2:03:55.720 want to get all dark, like you're talking about the 2:03:55.840 --> 2:03:58.760 end of stuff. What I want to leave I haven't 2:03:58.760 --> 2:04:05.920 even begun. I think that for me and I know 2:04:06.000 --> 2:04:10.840 for the band. When I look at it all, I 2:04:10.880 --> 2:04:12.320 want to see all the guys that I'm in a 2:04:12.360 --> 2:04:17.080 band with. I want to see them fulfilled. I want 2:04:17.080 --> 2:04:23.440 to see Eric and Zach and Barry. I want to 2:04:23.440 --> 2:04:26.360 see them all four of us. I mean, because we 2:04:26.400 --> 2:04:30.280 are in a band together, I want us to be 2:04:30.320 --> 2:04:33.280 honest with each other, because we've always been honest with 2:04:33.320 --> 2:04:35.520 each other. That's one of the reasons why we've been 2:04:35.520 --> 2:04:37.920 a band for as long as we have. The reason 2:04:37.960 --> 2:04:40.640 I'm bringing this up is because it's important, because it 2:04:40.640 --> 2:04:45.000 comes down to the band. Your happiness depends on your 2:04:45.040 --> 2:04:50.360 mental health, your communication with each other. You know, because 2:04:50.440 --> 2:04:53.400 as time changes two decades, one guy might want one 2:04:53.440 --> 2:04:55.880 thing in the beginning, another guy might want something different. 2:04:55.880 --> 2:04:57.960 Ten years down the line, another guy might. You know 2:04:58.000 --> 2:05:00.480 what I mean, It goes back and forth. It's constantly evolving. 2:05:01.640 --> 2:05:03.920 I want to be able to continue to make the 2:05:03.960 --> 2:05:06.560 best music and the strongest music and the best songs 2:05:06.560 --> 2:05:10.720 that we possibly can. I want to continue growing the audience. 2:05:10.960 --> 2:05:14.080 I want to continue having the opportunity and the blessing 2:05:14.760 --> 2:05:17.880 of being able to travel the world. There's yes, You're right, 2:05:17.960 --> 2:05:19.760 I've We've been all over the world to a lot 2:05:19.800 --> 2:05:22.520 of different places, but we've not been everywhere. And there's 2:05:22.520 --> 2:05:23.840 a lot of places that we want to go to, 2:05:23.960 --> 2:05:25.400 and there's a lot of places that we want to 2:05:25.400 --> 2:05:27.000 play for, and a lot of people we want to 2:05:27.000 --> 2:05:29.280 play for that we haven't had an opportunity to yet. 2:05:30.800 --> 2:05:33.160 You know, all of us have kids that are growing up. 2:05:34.280 --> 2:05:39.720 You know, Zak has two young boys, Barry's daughters, Stella 2:05:39.960 --> 2:05:43.960 is approaching being a teenager. You know, we're all family men, 2:05:44.520 --> 2:05:47.360 and we love our families. We we care about them. 2:05:48.800 --> 2:05:50.360 I gotta give a lot of credit to to the 2:05:50.360 --> 2:05:54.960 women in this in this band and the wives, because 2:05:56.920 --> 2:05:59.200 they really do get it. They really do understand what 2:05:59.200 --> 2:06:01.400 it is we do gone for a long period of time. 2:06:01.440 --> 2:06:03.400 It's we're at a certain point in our career now 2:06:03.400 --> 2:06:05.400 where we can bring them out for long periods of time, 2:06:05.600 --> 2:06:08.360 which helps out a lot. But we just want to 2:06:08.360 --> 2:06:11.400 continue being successful. We're never ever gonna there's never gonna 2:06:11.400 --> 2:06:14.160 be a top, They'll never ever be a ceiling with us. 2:06:16.080 --> 2:06:19.080 I don't think it exists. We've always looked at it 2:06:19.120 --> 2:06:22.520 the same way. Everything that we do together. It's like 2:06:22.560 --> 2:06:24.320 looking at a mountain, and if you're looking at the 2:06:24.360 --> 2:06:26.920 mountain and it's just you and you're staying to yourself. 2:06:26.920 --> 2:06:28.560 There's absolutely no way I can get to the top 2:06:28.600 --> 2:06:32.040 of this. You're probably right, not by yourself, but if 2:06:32.040 --> 2:06:37.000 you do it together, you're probably limitless. And you know, 2:06:37.200 --> 2:06:39.240 each mountain you climb together, you take a minute when 2:06:39.240 --> 2:06:41.520 you get to the top, and you high five, you 2:06:41.560 --> 2:06:42.920 give each other a hug, you say a good job, 2:06:42.920 --> 2:06:45.200 and you go find a bigger mountain. And that's why 2:06:45.240 --> 2:06:48.400 we're here. You know, things could change, things could evolve. 2:06:49.720 --> 2:06:51.400 I think we all want to watch our kids grow 2:06:51.480 --> 2:06:53.960 up and become young adults and have families, and we 2:06:54.000 --> 2:07:00.080 want to be there for them too. But ultimately, I 2:07:00.120 --> 2:07:03.480 don't think I can stress it enough. How lucky we 2:07:03.520 --> 2:07:07.920 are to do what we love for a living. My 2:07:07.960 --> 2:07:11.520 granny always used to say, if you find something you 2:07:11.600 --> 2:07:14.320 love that you want to do for the rest of 2:07:14.360 --> 2:07:17.160 your life, and you'll never work a day in your life. 2:07:17.240 --> 2:07:18.800 Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of work. It's 2:07:18.880 --> 2:07:22.720 it's hard work, but I live for it. I love it, 2:07:23.160 --> 2:07:25.800 and that in and of itself is a gift to 2:07:25.840 --> 2:07:28.760 be able to do what you love for a living. 2:07:28.960 --> 2:07:33.320 So I just want to keep grinding and on that note, 2:07:33.360 --> 2:07:35.720 I think we're going to close it for today. We 2:07:35.880 --> 2:07:39.680 certainly could go on for much longer, but we'll let 2:07:39.800 --> 2:07:42.360 the audience take a break at this point. So, Brent, 2:07:42.440 --> 2:07:44.000 I want to thank you so much for taking the 2:07:44.000 --> 2:07:46.160 time to talk to me in my audience. It was 2:07:46.200 --> 2:07:49.040 an absolute pleasure and a massive, massive honor. Thank you 2:07:49.080 --> 2:07:51.040 so so much. This is one of the best conversations 2:07:51.040 --> 2:07:52.960 I've had in the longest time. I had a blast, 2:07:53.800 --> 2:07:57.920 and I love talking to you too. Okay, till next time. 2:07:58.200 --> 2:07:59.560 This is Bob left Sense