Speaker 1: What's up, y'all. It's The Granger Smith Podcast, Episode twenty.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, Thanks for being with me on the
Speaker 1: back of the bus. This is gonna be a good episode,
Speaker 1: and I want to kind of connect you guys with
Speaker 1: some of the older episodes here. Maybe this is your
Speaker 1: first time. Maybe you came to this podcast through YouTube,
Speaker 1: which we're doing now, or some other platform. The previous
Speaker 1: nineteen episodes I can catch you up on. I went
Speaker 1: through one by one and told the stories about my life.
Speaker 1: Where I came from, how I started playing music, how
Speaker 1: I started getting little breaks along the way, Where Earl
Speaker 1: Dibbles Junior came from, where Yee came from, How my
Speaker 1: brothers and I started ye apparel, How I got the
Speaker 1: record deal, how I got my first number one song,
Speaker 1: and that just kind of chronologically went through my life.
Speaker 1: And I feel like now I need to start kind
Speaker 1: of opening up to you guys a little bit more
Speaker 1: on this podcast. And what I want to do is
Speaker 1: I want to answer some questions because of everything I
Speaker 1: do in my career, like including the Smiths, I can
Speaker 1: never answer questions fast enough or enough times because I
Speaker 1: get a lot of questions and Amber gets a lot
Speaker 1: of questions, and I don't have enough platforms to answer
Speaker 1: them in the way that I should in a long
Speaker 1: form answer, not like I'm on a radio interview and
Speaker 1: I get to answer, you know, in fifteen seconds. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about go in depth and actually answer some of
Speaker 1: your questions. And oh my gosh. I asked on social
Speaker 1: media today this afternoon if you had any questions, and
Speaker 1: I got some good ones. Some of them are fun,
Speaker 1: some of them are super deep. And I want to
Speaker 1: try to answer some of these lighthearted ones, and I
Speaker 1: want to try to dive in to some of the
Speaker 1: deeper ones. And I'm really nervous, and I was actually
Speaker 1: going through some of these questions and my heart started
Speaker 1: being faster, my my pull started rising because I just thought,
Speaker 1: oh God, I don't want to I don't want to
Speaker 1: mess this up because some of these some of these
Speaker 1: questions are actually from the heart, and I feel like
Speaker 1: I have some answers in my own opinion, and so
Speaker 1: I took some notes on my phone, I took some
Speaker 1: notes here on the computer, but I don't want to
Speaker 1: mess them up. So that's that's what's making me a
Speaker 1: little bit anxious. I want to do this right and
Speaker 1: I also want to encourage you. If you asked a question,
Speaker 1: please know that I got a lot of them, and
Speaker 1: I scrolled through so many good ones and I kind
Speaker 1: of had to pick, you know, like six, seven, eight
Speaker 1: of them. And so if you asked a question that
Speaker 1: you're really interested in getting an answer from me, please
Speaker 1: ask it again. And here's the goal with this new
Speaker 1: form of the of this podcast episode twenty. Starting with
Speaker 1: episode twenty, my goal is to put one out every week,
Speaker 1: once a week. I'm not sure exactly the pattern. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's going to be like maybe Wednesday,
Speaker 1: because I put out the Smiths on my family vlog
Speaker 1: on Tuesdays and Thursdays on YouTube. And by the way,
Speaker 1: if you if you haven't seen that channel, please go
Speaker 1: and check that out and subscribe and you'll get those
Speaker 1: videos Tuesdays and Thursdays. And maybe I'll put up the
Speaker 1: podcast on Wednesdays. So it's either going to be Mondays
Speaker 1: or Wednesdays. I'm assuming not a weekend because I'll be busy.
Speaker 1: I'm currently in Davenport, Iowa on the bus, and every
Speaker 1: time I do a podcast, I talk about where I am,
Speaker 1: but this is the first time I'm filming it so
Speaker 1: you could see this is my setup. It is snowing outside.
Speaker 1: It's really cold, twenty nine degrees, which is typical Iowa
Speaker 1: this time of year. And we were in Saint Louis yesterday.
Speaker 1: And if you want to catch up on me and
Speaker 1: my tour, you go to grangersmith dot com Forward slash
Speaker 1: Tour and you could see where we're going to be
Speaker 1: and most likely we are coming close to you. That's
Speaker 1: probably including Europe and Canada and Australia. We will be
Speaker 1: close to you at some point and all fifty states
Speaker 1: will be there within eighteen to twenty four months. I
Speaker 1: can guarantee that you could also at the same link
Speaker 1: gratersmith dot com Forward slash Tour, you could also see
Speaker 1: that every tour dight has right underneath it you could
Speaker 1: it has tickets, and then right next to that says
Speaker 1: meet Granger. I think that's what it says, Meet Granger
Speaker 1: or VIP experience. At some point it says that, So
Speaker 1: click on that and that'll get you to backstage and
Speaker 1: you come meet me and love that. Love love being
Speaker 1: able to meet all of you guys hang out. You
Speaker 1: kind of get that personal connection which is so important
Speaker 1: to me as an artist, and yeah, speaking of I
Speaker 1: want to do a giveaway right now. I want to
Speaker 1: start this thing with a giveaway, and maybe I should
Speaker 1: do that every time too. And you can't see, but
Speaker 1: up here I have my hats that hang up on
Speaker 1: the bus and these are the ones that I grab
Speaker 1: before showtime. I'll kind of go through and grab a hat.
Speaker 1: This one I'm wearing now is the original from the
Speaker 1: That's Why I Love Dirt Roads music video that I'm
Speaker 1: promising someone on another giveaway that I did on social
Speaker 1: media to go to that music video and comment Dirt
Speaker 1: Roads hat. So I haven't done that yet, but that's
Speaker 1: the one I'm wearing now. I'm gonna sign it. I'll
Speaker 1: pick somebody, and then right now i'll pick somebody for
Speaker 1: this podcast. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get this is an exact replica of what I'm wearing.
Speaker 1: And I've been wearing this one too, and we sell
Speaker 1: these now. But I'm gonna sign this right now under
Speaker 1: the under the brim and then I'll give this away
Speaker 1: for this podcast, and I'll do this once a week.
Speaker 1: Pick something different that's hanging in my little room here
Speaker 1: on the bus. And so let's see, go to go
Speaker 1: to social media whatever your favorite is, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and just comment and say I want the hat hashtag
Speaker 1: granger Smith podcast, and I'll send you with this one
Speaker 1: that I just signed. Also speaking of this is how
Speaker 1: I found these questions today is I went to social media.
Speaker 1: I went to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and all three
Speaker 1: different platforms. I said, hey, I'm putting together information for
Speaker 1: a podcast today. Ask me a question hashtag Grangersmith podcast.
Speaker 1: So the reason that hashtag is important is because when
Speaker 1: I find the questions, I go on those different platforms
Speaker 1: and I just search for hashtag Grangersmith podcast and it
Speaker 1: pops up your question. So you don't have to wait
Speaker 1: for me to ask for questions. You can go ahead
Speaker 1: at any point and go to social media hashtag ask that,
Speaker 1: and then I'll search. And this is probably how we'll
Speaker 1: build a podcast. I will have guests and I will
Speaker 1: talk about different things, but this is going to be
Speaker 1: the way that I can consistently give you guys a podcast.
Speaker 1: Is you know, that's I don't have to think about
Speaker 1: what am I going to talk about today, or what's
Speaker 1: the latest story that I need to discuss, or what
Speaker 1: story from the past. I could still do that, but
Speaker 1: it takes no thinking to just get questions and then
Speaker 1: go through them. Well I say that, and then I've
Speaker 1: been sitting here for an hour going over these questions
Speaker 1: and getting nervous about it. And eventually we will have
Speaker 1: some sponsors for this podcast, because I do have to
Speaker 1: send this off and get it, get it put together
Speaker 1: since there's video. Today's sponsor is ee ee Apparel, and
Speaker 1: it's funny because that's that's our company. But that's also
Speaker 1: a lot of questions kind of came around that, and
Speaker 1: I hope you guys understand that this is a very
Speaker 1: much so a passion project, family run business. My brother
Speaker 1: Tyler manages me, and then our youngest brother, Parker, manages
Speaker 1: the brand ee Apparel, so he works there full time.
Speaker 1: And then his brand development manager is Hayden, who is
Speaker 1: Parker's best bud from back home in Clifton, Texas. So
Speaker 1: we run all this out of Georgetown. Actually, one of
Speaker 1: the questions was, and this was on Twitter, do you
Speaker 1: ever come up with apparel ideas for ee Apparel or
Speaker 1: do you just leave it to your team? Well, that'd
Speaker 1: being said, See, my team is my boys, it's my brothers,
Speaker 1: and yes, we have meetings just about once a week
Speaker 1: and go over new shirt and hat and jacket and
Speaker 1: pants and you know, design new designs, and we're we're
Speaker 1: always working towards the next big release, so like spring, summer, fall,
Speaker 1: Black Friday, stuff like that. Those are those are the
Speaker 1: big ones. So we're usually about six weeks in advance.
Speaker 1: And right now as I'm speaking, as I'm recording, it's February,
Speaker 1: so we have kind of our spring launch ready and
Speaker 1: we're working on summer. So absolutely love it. Love ye,
Speaker 1: love Ye apparel. You know, I never got into music
Speaker 1: thinking that I was gonna be a part of an
Speaker 1: apparel company. It was usually just like artists merch like
Speaker 1: that was my thing. And as it evolved into Ee Apparel,
Speaker 1: I found out I had so much passion for it
Speaker 1: and loved creating the brand that people could show up
Speaker 1: you know, at our at our shows wearing it, or
Speaker 1: or get together with each other and sharing that lifestyle.
Speaker 1: And I always say that we strive for it to
Speaker 1: be a lifestyle brand. And you know, like one of
Speaker 1: our competitors, Grunt Style is It's interesting because well I
Speaker 1: was talking about it with Hayden today, like I think
Speaker 1: the biggest difference between that and those guys are awesome
Speaker 1: and their apparels great, but you see our our people
Speaker 1: have yee tattoos, Like that's the dedication of the lifestyle brand.
Speaker 1: Like you don't see grunt style tattoos, but you see
Speaker 1: yee tattoos. Another thing you need to know, you know,
Speaker 1: just kind of getting through some house cleaning here, I'm
Speaker 1: on the bus. The generator's running. So if you hear
Speaker 1: that low rumble, sorry, that just comes with recording a
Speaker 1: podcast on tour. I'm gonna do soundcheck here in a
Speaker 1: couple hours, so I figured this is the perfect time
Speaker 1: to knock this out. And I'm also gonna try my
Speaker 1: best to not cut this tape, so I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: cut this audio or this video. So if I mess up,
Speaker 1: if I fumble, if I sneeze, that's all gonna be
Speaker 1: part of it. And I hope you guys are okay
Speaker 1: with that. So let's start. Let's get into some questions.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start with Twitter, and I wrote some down
Speaker 1: here and then I screenshot some on my phone. First
Speaker 1: first question from Twitter is about the Throwback Show and
Speaker 1: EEE Fest, and I mentioned this on many podcasts to
Speaker 1: go that I was trying to put together a throwback
Speaker 1: show for twenty nineteen, and we were going to start
Speaker 1: ee Fest, which is a festive music festival that we
Speaker 1: could put together and kind of brand it towards everything EEE,
Speaker 1: including the bands, including the food and everything. And twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen took a huge turn for me in June and
Speaker 1: that all those things ee Fest throwback show really just
Speaker 1: got it just got put on the shelf. And so yes,
Speaker 1: I'm still thinking about it. Yes, I would love to
Speaker 1: do a throwback show where we play a bunch of
Speaker 1: old songs, but it's it's not the top of the
Speaker 1: priority list right now, but we will. We will. Another
Speaker 1: question from Twitter says, what is one vacation that you
Speaker 1: would take with the family that you've never done before?
Speaker 1: And I like that question because I've actually been thinking
Speaker 1: about that lately. And so I have this crazy idea
Speaker 1: that a buddy from high school told me that you
Speaker 1: could actually go to the Bahamas and you could fly in,
Speaker 1: so basically, your your only expense is to flight and
Speaker 1: you can go to this town up on the north
Speaker 1: side of one of these little islands. Don't even remember.
Speaker 1: I'd have to look it back up. But and then
Speaker 1: you could rent camping gear and some kayaks. And so
Speaker 1: I've been telling Amber that we should go do this,
Speaker 1: rent some camping gear, rent rent some kayaks and just
Speaker 1: take off and you just basically go off into the
Speaker 1: next island. And there's these tiny islands everywhere. There's hundreds
Speaker 1: of them, and you could you can go to these
Speaker 1: completely uninhabited islands and some of them are probably no
Speaker 1: bigger than this bus, and you could set up a
Speaker 1: tent and you could fish, you could spearfish, make campfires,
Speaker 1: cook your food right there, stay in the tent, and
Speaker 1: it just sounds like a crazy adventure. It sounds like
Speaker 1: a really fun episode for the Smiths that we could
Speaker 1: film too. So that's been on my mind lately, and
Speaker 1: that's why I think that's a good question. Okay, so Facebook,
Speaker 1: let's go to Facebook. Here's one that says, what do
Speaker 1: you do to not get bogged down in your songwriting process?
Speaker 1: And that is that is a question I think about
Speaker 1: all the time, and it's it's something that I I'm
Speaker 1: constantly tweaking in my life. And I think it doesn't
Speaker 1: only have to be the songwriting process. This this could
Speaker 1: apply to anyone that's just trying to focus, it's trying
Speaker 1: to get some deep work done. And I think we
Speaker 1: all know on the surface, the first answer is this
Speaker 1: the phone, getting that thing to shut up and pulling
Speaker 1: away from that form of addiction that the phone brings.
Speaker 1: Because if you're trying to really focus and dig into
Speaker 1: whatever works, so it's minus songwriting, it's really hard to
Speaker 1: focus and kind of come up with on this creative level.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, you know, you get
Speaker 1: a text, or you get a call, or you get
Speaker 1: or you you kind of have a second downtime and
Speaker 1: you're like, I wonder how this new episode of The
Speaker 1: Smith is doing. You know, let me check out some
Speaker 1: comments on the new episode, or let me let me
Speaker 1: see what the music video is up to. I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't handle it. My willpower not strong enough to
Speaker 1: sit there for an hour and all these distractions are
Speaker 1: around me and I don't touch them. That's that's that's
Speaker 1: too much for my willpower. And and that's the same
Speaker 1: thing with like if you're on a diet, you can't
Speaker 1: You can't go on a diet and say I'm gonna
Speaker 1: cut out sugar during the day or cut out sweets,
Speaker 1: and then right there in the kitchen on the counter,
Speaker 1: you got a big old bowl of chocolate chip cookies.
Speaker 1: You can't walk past that bowl every day, and you're
Speaker 1: craving sweets and not grab one. So the answer is
Speaker 1: get rid of the bowl of cookies. So same thing
Speaker 1: with the phone. I can't just throw this phone out
Speaker 1: the window. But lately what I've been doing, and for instance,
Speaker 1: I have I have an iPhone I go to and
Speaker 1: I can pull it up right now. I go to settings,
Speaker 1: and I go to screen time, and then you set
Speaker 1: your downtime right here. So I have downtime set for
Speaker 1: nine pm to nine am, and then I have apps
Speaker 1: always allowed, So then I'll allow like our our touring
Speaker 1: app that tells us our schedule for touring. I will
Speaker 1: allow text so that I could still talk to Amber
Speaker 1: and FaceTime so I could talk to the kids. And
Speaker 1: there's a few others like relaxing apps and like weather
Speaker 1: things like that that don't soak up my time. I
Speaker 1: could leave those on. But other than that, everything shuts
Speaker 1: down at nine thirty pm and starts back up at
Speaker 1: nine am. Because it's also important for me to get
Speaker 1: to kind of wind down at night and not just
Speaker 1: mindly sit there on mindlessly sit there on Instagram or whatever,
Speaker 1: or YouTube or whatever it might be. And so that's
Speaker 1: that's important. And I could also so back to this question,
Speaker 1: I can say I'm gonna write songs from noon to one.
Speaker 1: I can go ahead and hit that downtime instantly and
Speaker 1: it shuts down my phone for an hour so that
Speaker 1: I could really concentrate and kind of dig in to
Speaker 1: that deep work. And so there's a lot more to
Speaker 1: that question, But that's a pretty good start, and I
Speaker 1: could on future episodes, I can dive into even more
Speaker 1: of the unplugging process for me. All right. Another one
Speaker 1: from Facebook says how about some backstories on your bandmates?
Speaker 1: And that question stood out to me today because just
Speaker 1: yesterday there was a girl from our record label. She
Speaker 1: was at our show in Saint Louis, and she said,
Speaker 1: you know what I love about this band and crew?
Speaker 1: She said, every time I come to see you guys,
Speaker 1: it's the same people. And that might not sound like
Speaker 1: that big a deal, but what she means is typically
Speaker 1: in the music business there's just a lot of turnover.
Speaker 1: And you guys probably know this when you see bands,
Speaker 1: is that like Oh, there's a new bass player, or
Speaker 1: there's a new drummer, or there's new tour manager. That
Speaker 1: lighting guy's new. There's a lot of turnover, a lot
Speaker 1: of hiring and firing, and you know, people get mad
Speaker 1: and cuss each other out and quit or get fired.
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm I'm a firm believer in loyalty within
Speaker 1: the company. As long as you have as long as
Speaker 1: you believe that they're the right people. I believe that
Speaker 1: you got to you gotta keep them through thick and thin.
Speaker 1: We all go through, you know, bad weather. We all
Speaker 1: go through storms in our life. And there's no reason
Speaker 1: to constantly be firing people and hiring people or or
Speaker 1: watching people quit. You know, someone quits, that's that's your
Speaker 1: fault as the leader. And so the backstory of my
Speaker 1: bandmates and my crew is, it's all the same guys.
Speaker 1: We all are from Texas. We've all been together a
Speaker 1: very long time. We're all in the the van and
Speaker 1: trailer days, you know, pulling into venue where nobody was
Speaker 1: there to see us. And as we all grew, we
Speaker 1: grew together, and so much of my success in the
Speaker 1: music business has come from them and their professionalism and
Speaker 1: their hunger and their passion and just watching them grow
Speaker 1: has been so inspiring. And we lift each other up
Speaker 1: on good days and bad days, you know. And at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, when I'm out there on
Speaker 1: the stage, or you say it's a big arena and
Speaker 1: it's packed and the pressure's on, or say it's a
Speaker 1: and this has happened a festival, when a technical problem happens,
Speaker 1: you know, something really bad and it's embarrassing. At the
Speaker 1: end of the day, I'm very comfortable with my crew.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like if the ship's going to sink,
Speaker 1: we're all going down with it. And I trust them
Speaker 1: and I love that about my guys, and so we
Speaker 1: all go way back. We go way back. All right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to I'm gonna go to Instagram. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know what I also, I think I screenshotted to
Speaker 1: see Okay, this is another Twitter I screenshotted. It was
Speaker 1: too long to type, so it says, Hey, Granger. The
Speaker 1: question I would ask is about your success from authenticity
Speaker 1: and what you would tell someone who is inspiring aspiring
Speaker 1: to be more. I think I'm on the right path,
Speaker 1: but I'm finding it's hard reaching for success. So first
Speaker 1: of all Lee, I would tell you, buddy that it's
Speaker 1: really gonna depend on how you define success, and that
Speaker 1: is that's such a huge, huge secret because people define
Speaker 1: success in many different ways, and it's really scary because
Speaker 1: if you're defining success on business alone, you're totally setting
Speaker 1: yourself up for failure. Like there's probably when it comes
Speaker 1: to music, there's probably an equal number that look at
Speaker 1: me and say, man, that guy has succeeded big time,
Speaker 1: and there's another equal half to go, oh man, that guy,
Speaker 1: poor Granger, he just hasn't quite succeeded yet. I'm serious.
Speaker 1: There's probably equal that think that either way. And that's
Speaker 1: a perfect example of how if you haven't defined your success,
Speaker 1: then it's impossible to attain that. Let me show you
Speaker 1: something real quick. Let me go to this is. This
Speaker 1: is such a great Of course, of course it's gonna
Speaker 1: be slow for me, but this is such a great deal.
Speaker 1: I lost my dad in twenty fourteen, and when we
Speaker 1: were kind of going through as things, we found like
Speaker 1: in his drawers some things that he had written down
Speaker 1: that he didn't tell us about, and one of them
Speaker 1: was this poem. And this is by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Speaker 1: And it's called success. And I read this and just
Speaker 1: cried be thinking about my dad right after he died,
Speaker 1: because he was a man, and he was a simple
Speaker 1: man of such integrity who really knew how to define
Speaker 1: success and knew exactly who he was and what he
Speaker 1: wanted to achieve. And to me, if I'm defining my success,
Speaker 1: I want to read you this poem and I could
Speaker 1: just tell you this is it. It says to laugh
Speaker 1: often and love much, to win the respect of intelligent people,
Speaker 1: affirmation of children, to earn the approbation of honest critics,
Speaker 1: and to endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty,
Speaker 1: To find the best in others. To give of oneself,
Speaker 1: to leave the world a little bit better, whether by
Speaker 1: a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition.
Speaker 1: To know that even one life has breathed easier because
Speaker 1: you have lived. This is to have succeeded. Man, Isn't
Speaker 1: that awesome? I love that. It's There's nothing in here
Speaker 1: that says to have attained ten number one songs. You know,
Speaker 1: you know I mean to have sold your company for millions.
Speaker 1: You know that's not that's not success. I want to
Speaker 1: tell you, buddy that if you're trying to say you're
Speaker 1: just talking about yourself, say you're talking about your your
Speaker 1: own success and not society or your family, or say
Speaker 1: it's just yourself, which I also believe that everything has
Speaker 1: to start with yourself. And it's kind of like I
Speaker 1: always think about on the airplane when they tell you,
Speaker 1: if the oxygen mask comes out, put it on yourself first,
Speaker 1: and then the child next to you, because if you're
Speaker 1: too busy worried about putting the oxygen mask on your child,
Speaker 1: then you're not going to make it in that situation, right,
Speaker 1: And that's life. Take it. Make sure you're okay first.
Speaker 1: But I wrote this down for you too when I
Speaker 1: was thinking about that question. Be better than you were yesterday,
Speaker 1: not better than someone else's today. And how often have
Speaker 1: we gone to social media or seen someone else and thought, man,
Speaker 1: it must be nice, or man's he or she's really
Speaker 1: really killing it right now? And man, guys, that's how
Speaker 1: I feel too. I hope y'all know that's how I feel.
Speaker 1: Like I could look at something and go, oh, man,
Speaker 1: they really have it, they really got it going on.
Speaker 1: And there's probably some of y'all listen to this going.
Speaker 1: That's how I feel about you, Granger. Bro. We're humans,
Speaker 1: that's what we do. We're constantly comparing, and you got
Speaker 1: to stop that. You gotta try strive to be better
Speaker 1: than you were yesterday, not better than someone else's today,
Speaker 1: because you don't know their path. You don't know where
Speaker 1: they came from. You don't know the steps it took
Speaker 1: to get there, or the luck that happened, or the
Speaker 1: blessing that was given to them for some reason that
Speaker 1: we don't understand. And you can never compare to anyone
Speaker 1: besides your own reflection in the mirror. Right. The other
Speaker 1: thing I would say is take take your priorities as
Speaker 1: part of your success and make sure you have your
Speaker 1: priorities separated. And once again it goes back to business
Speaker 1: verse yourself or your family. And so look at it is.
Speaker 1: You're all always juggling, right, and that's what we do.
Speaker 1: We juggle. We juggle things in life. We try to multitask,
Speaker 1: we try to keep the balls in the air, and
Speaker 1: that's okay, but imagine you got two kinds of things
Speaker 1: that you're juggling. You got you got your glass balls
Speaker 1: right that you're juggling, and then you got your unbreakable
Speaker 1: foam ones, and your family is your glass like that's fragive.
Speaker 1: You don't want to drop those now, your your business
Speaker 1: and everything else that's foam like. You could. You could
Speaker 1: accidentally fumble one, it falls on the ground. It's not
Speaker 1: going to break. You don't have to pick it up
Speaker 1: right now. You could pick it up in a year
Speaker 1: or two years or six months or whatever. Just don't
Speaker 1: drop the glass ones. That's your family and that's yourself, Like,
Speaker 1: don't forget about yourself. Don't forget about your family. Don't
Speaker 1: don't drop those. That's important. And that Once again, I
Speaker 1: could probably say there's there's a lot more to be
Speaker 1: said about this subject, but I I feel like I
Speaker 1: kind of have to move on to with some of
Speaker 1: these other questions. But let me say one more thing.
Speaker 1: I wrote this down to Marcus Aurelius, just a great
Speaker 1: ancient philosopher. He said, ambition means trying tying your well
Speaker 1: being to what other people say and do. Ambition means
Speaker 1: tying your well being to what other people say and do.
Speaker 1: Sanity means tying it to your own actions, and that awesome.
Speaker 1: So basically, don't don't compare yourself don't compare yourself. It
Speaker 1: ain't gonna work right Facebook, here's another question. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to give all the social media equal love. Then I'll
Speaker 1: go to Instagram. I screenshoted this one because it's interesting
Speaker 1: to me. I don't totally understand this question, but I'm
Speaker 1: willing to try to interpret it. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I noticed the camera went off, So I'm sorry. If
Speaker 1: you're watching this, please bear with me because I still
Speaker 1: have some things to say and I don't want to
Speaker 1: break this rhythm. And I know now that my camera's
Speaker 1: gonna shoot for thirty minutes only, so in the future
Speaker 1: I'll try to keep these under thirty minutes. But I'm
Speaker 1: getting to some really, really deep stuff, so hang with
Speaker 1: me and keep listening. Here's the next question. It says
Speaker 1: I've noticed a significant change in your stage performance. Not
Speaker 1: in a bad way, but I definitely see you being
Speaker 1: more conscious of what you allow yourself to do on
Speaker 1: stage and in the smiths. As a music fan, I
Speaker 1: was hoping to see more interaction on the crash my
Speaker 1: ply of vlogs, but have been following you long enough
Speaker 1: to know why you chose to stay low key. Did
Speaker 1: you get to hang with the other artist, did you
Speaker 1: kind of keep to yourself? Do you feel those social
Speaker 1: things could make or break you in the business? And
Speaker 1: then it ends with saying, do you think that you
Speaker 1: and Amber will ever do a national interview promoting the
Speaker 1: River Kelly Fund and share your story and will Earle
Speaker 1: change because your life has changed? Interesting question that once again,
Speaker 1: I don't. I would have to sit down with you.
Speaker 1: This is Carissa. I'd have to sit down with you,
Speaker 1: Chrissa and kind of kind of pick your brain on
Speaker 1: what you think has significantly changed in my stage performance.
Speaker 1: But yes, since River, I instantly became a little bit
Speaker 1: more self conscious about how I represented myself. Earl is, naturally,
Speaker 1: you know, just kind of a polarizing redneck character that is,
Speaker 1: you know, like crashing beers together, stone cold, Steve Austin
Speaker 1: style in the stage, and I had to I had
Speaker 1: to start thinking about is this well, if there's people
Speaker 1: coming to the shows and they're wanting to see from me,
Speaker 1: how I'm handling the situation. That thought occurred to me
Speaker 1: that do I continue to portray this party animal Earl
Speaker 1: Devils Junior? And I still don't know the answer to that.
Speaker 1: I do know part of it is I shouldn't worry
Speaker 1: about what anybody thinks, because I've definitely learned through this
Speaker 1: process that everyone handles it differently, that everyone grieves differently,
Speaker 1: that you could smile and be joyful at the same
Speaker 1: time they could coexist the same emotion. You could laugh,
Speaker 1: you could really laugh, like feel joy and be sad
Speaker 1: at the exact same time. And so I have learned
Speaker 1: through me knowing I can't judge people on how they
Speaker 1: really feel. That's reflected in me saying, well, people, if
Speaker 1: I can't judge people, then people can't judge me. You
Speaker 1: never know what's going on with someone in their life,
Speaker 1: don't And isn't that a testament to why we should
Speaker 1: have just be kind all the time, because you don't know.
Speaker 1: You don't know if the gas station attendant just lost
Speaker 1: his dad that morning and he had to go to
Speaker 1: work to pay for the casket. Seriously, and then they
Speaker 1: might have been a jerk to you, But would you
Speaker 1: blame him if you knew that was their story. It's
Speaker 1: interesting right diving into this crash my play. If you
Speaker 1: catch you guys didn't know I was on a Luke
Speaker 1: Bryan thing in Mexico, and I think you know as
Speaker 1: far as the music business is concerned. And me, you said,
Speaker 1: do you feel like these social things could make or
Speaker 1: break you. I'm just kind of a shy person by nature,
Speaker 1: and I've never been I have never all the way
Speaker 1: back to high I've never been the one that's like,
Speaker 1: come on, man, let's stay a little bit later, let's
Speaker 1: do this. I'm always like the one that's like, man,
Speaker 1: where's the door. I would love to go to bed.
Speaker 1: That's just I can't help it. That's my personality. And
Speaker 1: so I've kind of taken that into the music business.
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna be the guy that's like staying late
Speaker 1: just so that hopefully somebody sees me or so that
Speaker 1: I could have a conversation with somebody that's important and
Speaker 1: they'll like me even more. And I've struggled with that.
Speaker 1: I've struggled with that, like in the in the country
Speaker 1: radio game, because a lot of times you got to
Speaker 1: go and you got to be so nice to these
Speaker 1: people in radio so that they like you enough. I say,
Speaker 1: they're deciding to play your song and someone else's song,
Speaker 1: and they're kind of on the fence on which one
Speaker 1: to play. So you hope that if you're nice enough
Speaker 1: to them, they'll play yours, which is fine, that's great,
Speaker 1: that's that's American business. I get it. But there's a
Speaker 1: fine line between being nice as someone so they play
Speaker 1: your song and kissing. But you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I could say cuss words on here, but just
Speaker 1: totally kissing their butt because you don't really care about them,
Speaker 1: You just care that they play your song. There's a
Speaker 1: big difference in actually just being nice because you're respecting
Speaker 1: another human being, right. So that's me. And so when
Speaker 1: I went to crash my play, I didn't go to
Speaker 1: all the after parties. I didn't hang out with all
Speaker 1: the other artists all the time. And I legitimately like
Speaker 1: those artists. I really do like their buddies of mine.
Speaker 1: We've been we've been at it for years together, a
Speaker 1: lot of these guys and girls, and and so I
Speaker 1: feel like they know me well enough and I know
Speaker 1: them well enough, or we're I'm I'm confident in myself
Speaker 1: enough to know that I don't have to hang out
Speaker 1: with my camera and take a picture with someone, you know,
Speaker 1: selfie backstage and then put it on Instagram so that
Speaker 1: I could hopefully get some likes. And be like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I love that you're hanging out with famous people. It's
Speaker 1: just not me. I'm sorry. The second part of this question,
Speaker 1: do you think you and Amber will ever do a
Speaker 1: national interview promoting the River Kelly Fund and share your story?
Speaker 1: The answers, Yes, I have yet to talk about River
Speaker 1: outside of my own sources. So Amber and I have
Speaker 1: talked about it on our YouTube page, and I've talked
Speaker 1: about it on probably like Instagram posts the way I feel,
Speaker 1: but we have not let an outside source take control
Speaker 1: of the interview yet. So if you've seen our story
Speaker 1: on National News, that wasn't because it was pitched that way.
Speaker 1: It's because they literally needed clickbait and went to our
Speaker 1: YouTube and cut out sections of things that we say,
Speaker 1: or went to my social media. And that's just that's
Speaker 1: the nature of news. That's just that's the way it's
Speaker 1: always been. And they're just running a business. Remember that
Speaker 1: news is entertainment, right, so they're just trying to fill
Speaker 1: space so they can get advertising, not in a negative way,
Speaker 1: that's just their job. So we have not done that yet,
Speaker 1: but we will and the reason we will, and we're
Speaker 1: working it out right now. We're trying to find the
Speaker 1: best host. We think Amber and I think that the
Speaker 1: Today Show is are like, maybe Fox and Friends is
Speaker 1: probably a pretty good way to go first because they
Speaker 1: will be respectful to our story. I'm talking about it
Speaker 1: as opposed to like TMZ, who we've had all you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's crazy. No, I'm not going to TMZ. But
Speaker 1: but the reason we do want to do it and
Speaker 1: want to let someone else drive the story for the
Speaker 1: first time is because we're really interested and I should
Speaker 1: say I should say we're really motivated and spreading awareness
Speaker 1: about water safety with children. It's the number one killer
Speaker 1: of children under the age of four, and it's there's
Speaker 1: not a lot known about it. And this is, you know,
Speaker 1: the first time I've really even start talking about it,
Speaker 1: because when it first happened, I know some people were like,
Speaker 1: we need to hear about water safety, and me and
Speaker 1: Amber are like, we need to tell you. We need
Speaker 1: to preach about loving your child and being in the
Speaker 1: present moment and tomorrow is not guaranteed. That was the
Speaker 1: first message we wanted to get out there. But yes,
Speaker 1: we do need to talk about water safety because of
Speaker 1: all the things we did not know, and this is
Speaker 1: there could be many episodes of the podcast about this.
Speaker 1: But you know, you think about water safety and think, oh,
Speaker 1: every human knows, I got it. If I go underwater
Speaker 1: for long enough, I'm going to stop breathing. Got it right? Done?
Speaker 1: Story over wrong. There's a lot of things that children
Speaker 1: do very differently from adults. One, it's silent. So many
Speaker 1: stories we've heard it's absolutely silent. We've heard of this happening.
Speaker 1: Children dying in the water with adults standing right next
Speaker 1: to them. I'm talking. I'm not talking about someone's drinking
Speaker 1: or smoking weed. I'm talking about good attentive parents standing
Speaker 1: right next to them. But you don't realize what's happening.
Speaker 1: And there's been so many birthday parties where like the child,
Speaker 1: it was his or her birthday party, usually three. That's
Speaker 1: like the age and I die at their own birthday
Speaker 1: party with adults and grandparents and aunts and uncles and
Speaker 1: other friends and other parents all there is. And it
Speaker 1: takes less than thirty seconds. It could take it could
Speaker 1: take ten to fifteen seconds for cardiac arrest. That means
Speaker 1: ten seconds, ten seconds. You notice your child's underwater, you
Speaker 1: pull them out, and their heart stopped. Now, if you
Speaker 1: don't know proper CPR, and you can't get their heart
Speaker 1: back within four minutes. They're brain dead, so silent fifteen
Speaker 1: seconds underwater. Because another key thing is a child inhales water.
Speaker 1: They you know, an adult knows if you go underwater,
Speaker 1: you're just you don't You just kind of hold your
Speaker 1: breath and you got sixty to one hundred and twenty seconds. Right. Well, no,
Speaker 1: a child, they gasp it in, they fill their lungs
Speaker 1: with it. That's why it takes fifteen seconds. This is
Speaker 1: a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny sliver of a massive story
Speaker 1: that I need to tell that I from a lot
Speaker 1: of research. We're on the Board of Pediatrics right now
Speaker 1: for the Pediatrics of America. We've been on conference calls
Speaker 1: with them. There's so much misunderstanding about it. The first
Speaker 1: thought is you just think to yourself, well, I got it,
Speaker 1: watch your kid. No. No, I've heard too many stories
Speaker 1: for that to be the answer. It's a multi layered problem,
Speaker 1: and so that in a long way is answering the
Speaker 1: question on Yes, we're going to get on some kind
Speaker 1: of national syndicate, but that's what we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about water safety, and we're going
Speaker 1: to have some pediatric doctors with us and probably some
Speaker 1: other families that have been through similar events. And that
Speaker 1: is the goal behind all that is to raise awareness
Speaker 1: for someone that has a pool, or maybe their neighbors
Speaker 1: have a pool, or maybe they just don't they don't
Speaker 1: know enough about how dangerous it really really is. And
Speaker 1: if it saves I told Ambery yesterday, if it saves
Speaker 1: one child, then twenty twenty, If one child is saved
Speaker 1: because they learned something from this news, then that's a start.
Speaker 1: That is meaning. That is purpose, and meaning and purpose
Speaker 1: are what offset suffering. Because life is suffering. We all suffer.
Speaker 1: We're all going to suffer. That's human nature. The only
Speaker 1: way you could offset that suffering and alleviate the dreaded
Speaker 1: life right has by finding meaning and purpose. And once
Speaker 1: we do that, it makes it worth living. I told
Speaker 1: you all this is going to get deep. Let me
Speaker 1: hit in a couple more here. Let's check my time, Okay.
Speaker 1: I told you at the beginning that I kind of
Speaker 1: got anxiety when I was just reading some of these.
Speaker 1: My heart started beating. So this is why. Because I
Speaker 1: read one like this, what would be your advice for
Speaker 1: someone battling cancer at the age of thirty one by herself.
Speaker 1: And that's just heartbreaking reading that. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if the person that typed that, if that's them, or
Speaker 1: if it's a friend. And the reason I get a
Speaker 1: little nervous is because I think, you know that old mister,
Speaker 1: vulnerability comes out of me, and I think, who am
Speaker 1: I to speak to someone battling cancer at age of
Speaker 1: thirty one by herself? The heck am I country singer?
Speaker 1: What would I know about this? But I feel obligated
Speaker 1: to try, and I'll try to give you something my
Speaker 1: advice if you're battling cancer at the age of thirty
Speaker 1: one by yourself, Off the top of my head with
Speaker 1: no notes. There's a book I read one time by
Speaker 1: Ryan Holiday called The Obstacle is the Way. And I
Speaker 1: believe that everything has everything happens for a reason. And
Speaker 1: it's really hard to stand by that thought when terrible
Speaker 1: things happen. But I believe that all of our lives
Speaker 1: and all of this world and everything that happens in
Speaker 1: it is written by the same hand. And that's from
Speaker 1: another book called The Alchemist. But Ryan Holiday writes a
Speaker 1: book called The Obstacles the Way, And sometimes we we're
Speaker 1: forced into an obstacle, and we have to make the
Speaker 1: decision that this obstacle is going to be our demise,
Speaker 1: or this obstacle is the reason we're going to get better.
Speaker 1: It's the reason that we are going to become the
Speaker 1: best version of ourselves. And so many times, you guys
Speaker 1: know this. So many times, it's the fight. It's the battle,
Speaker 1: it's the failure. It's falling down and getting back up.
Speaker 1: It's those moments when we rise and we push forward
Speaker 1: and we fight back. It's those moments that we grow.
Speaker 1: It's those moments we look back in our lives and
Speaker 1: we go It was this obstacle. It was this obstacle.
Speaker 1: It was losing my granddad. It was getting diagnosed with cancer,
Speaker 1: it was getting laid off from my job. It was
Speaker 1: those moments that either broke me or It was those
Speaker 1: moments when I fought back and I stopped fighting the
Speaker 1: current and it said I went with the current, and
Speaker 1: I realized this was happening for a reason, to teach
Speaker 1: me something so that I could be better. We all
Speaker 1: love each other because of our vulnerabilities. That's why humans
Speaker 1: love each other. It's not we don't love each other
Speaker 1: because we're perfect, and we don't grow. If life is perfect,
Speaker 1: if life is easy, if life is smooth, we don't.
Speaker 1: We just exist. There's nothing to that. And I love,
Speaker 1: I love thinking about the analogy of Superman. Right, the
Speaker 1: Superman comic comes out, and here's this guy who could
Speaker 1: go faster than a speeding bullet, He's stronger than a locomotive.
Speaker 1: He flies like whatever they say canaries. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but no one cared when that came out. No one
Speaker 1: cared about Superman. Who cares about a man that's perfect
Speaker 1: and it just doesn't You could do anything he wants.
Speaker 1: He could shoot lasers out of his eyes and fly
Speaker 1: with his cape. What fun is that? Like? What's worse
Speaker 1: following that story? So, what the genius thing that those
Speaker 1: comic writers did was they gave him kryptonite. And it
Speaker 1: was kryptonite to change the story. It was kryptonite Superman's weakness.
Speaker 1: When he found his weakness, Superman found his cancer, when
Speaker 1: something could take him down, something could really hurt him,
Speaker 1: something could kill him. And when he decided to fight
Speaker 1: back and win against something, this mortal fear, then he
Speaker 1: became the person everyone wanted to read about, everyone wanted
Speaker 1: to look up to Superman. Everyone wanted to read the
Speaker 1: comics and watch the movies because although he's strong and powerful,
Speaker 1: there is obstacles they can take him down, and we
Speaker 1: all want as humans, we want to see how do
Speaker 1: you get past the obstacle, how do you fight through it?
Speaker 1: That's what defines you. The other side of that too.
Speaker 1: If I was thirty one and I had cancer. But man,
Speaker 1: this is it's hard. It's hard to deal with the
Speaker 1: subject and not and not sound like I'm mister know
Speaker 1: it all over here. But please don't take this the
Speaker 1: wrong way. But I do believe with all my heart
Speaker 1: that you could if I was thirty one and I
Speaker 1: was battling cancer, I could very well look at that
Speaker 1: as a gift, a gift. And you're like, what a gift?
Speaker 1: You could look at that as a gift, like this
Speaker 1: is your chance to give you the ultimate perspective of life,
Speaker 1: to make you cherish every meal, to make you cherish
Speaker 1: every actual good night's sleep. You have to make you
Speaker 1: cherish the next sunrise, because for the first time ever,
Speaker 1: maybe you don't know how many more sunrises you might
Speaker 1: have if you don't win, if you don't beat this,
Speaker 1: so you could be given a gift. If you look
Speaker 1: at it that way, you could you could look at
Speaker 1: cancer as a gift that provides you a divine insight
Speaker 1: above all other humans, that allows you to appreciate the
Speaker 1: present moment, to live in that moment, because life is
Speaker 1: about moments, not minutes. You know, there's plenty of people
Speaker 1: that stay healthy and live ninety years, But out of
Speaker 1: those ninety years, did they ever really have the gift
Speaker 1: of appreciating the very moment, the little things, the smiles,
Speaker 1: the hugs, the sunrises, the sunsets, a good slice of
Speaker 1: Filet mignon. You know, I would think that this could
Speaker 1: be a gift for you, that you could you could
Speaker 1: enjoy every moment more than any other human on the
Speaker 1: planet with that kind of diagnosis. I hope that I
Speaker 1: hope that is appropriate. I hope that's not overstepping any bounds.
Speaker 1: And I should probably uh, I should probably end with
Speaker 1: that one. There's so many, so many more questions that
Speaker 1: you guys had, and I was seriously scrolling through, and
Speaker 1: I want to answer them all, but I also want
Speaker 1: to make this podcast a normal length, and I want
Speaker 1: you guys to keep asking them. And if I didn't
Speaker 1: answer your question on this one, please ask it again,
Speaker 1: And like I said, you don't have to I will ask,
Speaker 1: but you don't have to wait. On social media, you
Speaker 1: could just go and hashtag Grangersmith podcast and ask her question.
Speaker 1: And I do want to take this time to tell you,
Speaker 1: guys that I feel like this podcast is legitimately brought
Speaker 1: to you by all the men and women in our
Speaker 1: armed forces that volunteer, that sacrifice everything for the freedom
Speaker 1: of speech. That I could sit here behind this microphone
Speaker 1: on a tour bus in Iowa and talk about whatever
Speaker 1: I want and that's that's a right granted to me
Speaker 1: by the men and women that allow me to do that.
Speaker 1: I also feel like the men and women in law enforcement,
Speaker 1: fire departments, e mts, all all the first responders for
Speaker 1: keeping us safe in this beautiful place and this earth
Speaker 1: that we only get so many times around. So thank you,
Speaker 1: guys for blessing me with this dream that I truly
Speaker 1: love to live. And I hope you know that by
Speaker 1: me through the the experiences that Amber and I have had,
Speaker 1: we feel more blessed than ever to be able to
Speaker 1: talk and maybe help a little bit for anyone that
Speaker 1: might be looking for some help, because that like I
Speaker 1: said earlier, gives us meaning, that gives us purpose that
Speaker 1: offset suffering. So I have an option to sit in
Speaker 1: a dark corner and close my eyes and live out
Speaker 1: my days like that. But I don't think that's what
Speaker 1: life's about. I don't think that's utilizing the hand that
Speaker 1: we're dealt things that we can't control, and it'll be
Speaker 1: an endless search for meaning, But this is part of it.
Speaker 1: For those of you that hung with this, that we're
Speaker 1: watching the video and you just hung with the audio,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, thank you so much, but I figured you
Speaker 1: probably didn't want to keep seeing my face anyway that long.
Speaker 1: But I know now to time myself and keep these
Speaker 1: under thirty minutes so this doesn't happen. But you guys rock.
Speaker 1: Love you guys, Thanks for listening. The new version of
Speaker 1: the Granger Smith podcast. Ye Ye