Speaker 1: Welcome the Inside the Studio presented by I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Joe Lousy. Okay, So, if you have
Speaker 1: talked to as many musicians as I have, you have
Speaker 1: heard a lot of stories about life on the road,
Speaker 1: and some of them are hilarious, and some of them
Speaker 1: are sad, and some of them are something else. Because
Speaker 1: I've talked with musicians who simply cannot adjust to staying
Speaker 1: in one place at a time after so many nights
Speaker 1: in vans, buses, airplanes. I mean, I've talked to guys
Speaker 1: who have trouble sleeping in a bed that's not moving.
Speaker 1: And I thought of that when the guests on this
Speaker 1: episode of the home edition of the show, Chase Rice
Speaker 1: opened up about having some difficulty tapping into his creativity
Speaker 1: because these last few months of quarantine are the longest
Speaker 1: he's ever been off the road since he started putting
Speaker 1: out music ten years ago. I mean, as he puts it,
Speaker 1: when he's on, he's on, and when he's off, he's off.
Speaker 1: And I guess lately he feels like he's off. He's
Speaker 1: been on vacation sort of. I mean he's even checking
Speaker 1: in with us from Wrightsville Beach in North Carolina. So
Speaker 1: things are not all bad. You know. We started the
Speaker 1: home edition of Inside the Studio to let you know
Speaker 1: how the pandemic has impacted the lives of artists and
Speaker 1: how it's affecting the way they make music. Chase Rice
Speaker 1: has released two EPs already this year, and he tells
Speaker 1: our Quarantine correspondent Jordan Runtog that there may be a
Speaker 1: stadium sized guest collaboration on the third, which he's working
Speaker 1: on now. If you enjoy this episode, be sure to
Speaker 1: listen to the I Heart Radio podcast that Jordan's hosts.
Speaker 1: It's called Rivals, Music's Greatest Feuds, and it's available where
Speaker 1: ever you get your podcasts. Hello everybody, my name is
Speaker 1: Jordan run Tug. But enough about me. My guest today
Speaker 1: has worn many hats over the years. He was a
Speaker 1: college football linebacker, a member of the NASCAR pit crew,
Speaker 1: and a contestant on the reality show Survivor Nicaragua. But
Speaker 1: you know him as a country powerhouse who first climbed
Speaker 1: the charts with Ready Set Role. Since then, he scored
Speaker 1: hits like Eyes on You and also panned the Florida
Speaker 1: Georgia line smash Cruise in January. He's surprised fans by
Speaker 1: releasing the album Part one, the first in a series
Speaker 1: of EPs featuring what he says is some of the
Speaker 1: most meaningful music he's ever made. I'm so happy to
Speaker 1: welcome Chase Rice, Chase, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1: Oh no, thank you man. This will be And I'm
Speaker 1: literally at the beach and I'm just chilling. So oh nice.
Speaker 1: Wait what beach right? Soul Beach in North Carolina? Oh nice? Oh?
Speaker 1: I used to go to the Outer Banks as a
Speaker 1: kid every year. Yeah, actually just south of there. So
Speaker 1: um so this this day in quarantine finds you very well,
Speaker 1: I should say, yeah, this is this is one of
Speaker 1: the good ones for sure. Oh man, that's good to hear.
Speaker 1: How have you been feeling, I mean, are you feeling
Speaker 1: particularly creative during lockdown or not so much? Uh No,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I haven't been on the type of I
Speaker 1: think that like when I'm on, I'm on, I'm I'm go,
Speaker 1: go go, and when I'm off, I'm off. And I've
Speaker 1: always been good about that because I'm on ten months
Speaker 1: a year, so there's two months off are pretty easy.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, well I don't have that long, so
Speaker 1: I'll take off. But this has been weird. Obviously, this
Speaker 1: is the longest time I've ever not towards so um
Speaker 1: I'll shut my mind off from that. And it's been
Speaker 1: very hard for me, especially live shows or what I
Speaker 1: really thrive off of, and that that's the energy that
Speaker 1: I love. UM, So not being able to do those
Speaker 1: it's been it's been hard. Well. I know, in January
Speaker 1: you put out the album Part One, which I think
Speaker 1: you've described it as like the beginning of your career
Speaker 1: as I think the quote you had for why is
Speaker 1: that was it feeling like you were getting back to
Speaker 1: basics in a way, or I mean I've only played
Speaker 1: I didn't even learn how to play guitar, so I
Speaker 1: was like twenty two years old or around there. So
Speaker 1: I think you just do something long enough, no matter
Speaker 1: what it is, and you get better at it as
Speaker 1: you go. And I think tip of the iceberg for
Speaker 1: me was was for sure eyes on You. I just
Speaker 1: really really found what I really wanted to do, I
Speaker 1: think with that song, and so that gliding right into
Speaker 1: the album Part one, I think that's the That's that's
Speaker 1: why I say it at the beginning of my career
Speaker 1: because it's really what I found what I want to do.
Speaker 1: I mean, you weren't so many hats in the past.
Speaker 1: You've football, linebacker, NASCAR pit man, been on Survivor. Did
Speaker 1: you know from an early age that music was what
Speaker 1: you wanted to do with your life or was this
Speaker 1: something that kind of revealed itself to you later? No? No,
Speaker 1: I definitely revealed itself later. We Uh, Like I said,
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to play guitar until I was
Speaker 1: years old somewhere around there. So once I learned that,
Speaker 1: it was more just I just love playing guitar. I
Speaker 1: love learning these songs from the guys that I grew
Speaker 1: up listening to. And and I remember one of my
Speaker 1: college roommates was like, he said, man, you should be
Speaker 1: a country singer, where he was sitting there playing and
Speaker 1: I'd sing along in the dorm room and stuff, and
Speaker 1: that was as foreign as him saying you should be
Speaker 1: an astronaut, like that's how fun was playing football. I
Speaker 1: was focused on that, And so when he said that,
Speaker 1: I just it's funny now that after seeing obviously what's
Speaker 1: going on with my life and and doing this for real,
Speaker 1: is is um it's crazy that that not that long ago,
Speaker 1: it was such a foreign concept to me, and they
Speaker 1: tore in with Willie Nelson Garth Brooks, that's crazy. What
Speaker 1: would Baby Chase think of that? It's incredible. Yeah, I would.
Speaker 1: I would definitely look back if you had told me
Speaker 1: that way back then, I'd be like, wait, what, So
Speaker 1: a lot of fun, It's been a lot of fun
Speaker 1: to get to this this point. Now. It's uh, obviously
Speaker 1: this year's kind of a weird one for everybody, but
Speaker 1: it's it's still in a great direction and I'm I'm
Speaker 1: excited to the day where we can finally actually play
Speaker 1: the album Part one live into the album Part one.
Speaker 1: Part two came in in May. What was the strategy
Speaker 1: behind sort of dividing the album up like that. It's
Speaker 1: just the white people listen to music these days. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just it's become a singles world. And I don't
Speaker 1: like that very much because I think it just focuses
Speaker 1: to that's just not how I how I grew up
Speaker 1: listening to music. So I tried to find a little
Speaker 1: bit of a middle ground of I don't want to
Speaker 1: just put out singles. I don't want to just do that.
Speaker 1: I want to still tell a story. Albums to me
Speaker 1: are still very important, but I want each song to
Speaker 1: have it's it's time in the limelight. I want each
Speaker 1: song to have it's time to be heard. And if
Speaker 1: you put fifteen sixteen songs on a on a record anymore,
Speaker 1: people tend to just kind of go through and pick
Speaker 1: a couple of their favorites and move on. But if
Speaker 1: you give them less to listen to, but giving more music,
Speaker 1: you know less music more often. I'm finding that that
Speaker 1: gives people the chance to really dive into seven songs,
Speaker 1: or drive into four songs or three songs and learn
Speaker 1: those and then they can move onto two more music.
Speaker 1: What can we look forward to on part three? I
Speaker 1: haven't fully put it together yet, to be honest, but
Speaker 1: I think I've never really done a huge, huge collapse.
Speaker 1: I did ride with Macy malloy and she's amazing, um,
Speaker 1: But for me to do a song with any artists
Speaker 1: that just is up in the stadium's level of music
Speaker 1: and a huge arena level of music, um, which I'm
Speaker 1: not there yet. I'm still clawing and fighting to get there. UM.
Speaker 1: I think that could be something pretty special. So I'm
Speaker 1: working on a possible song with f gl Um. I
Speaker 1: think it's It's a cool story with those guys because
Speaker 1: we were roommates when I first moved to town, and
Speaker 1: I don't hope a lot of people know that. We
Speaker 1: literally just lived in the house. We we're broke as
Speaker 1: you can pretty much get, and we were just writing
Speaker 1: songs together. We ended up writing Cruise and that changed
Speaker 1: my life, it changed their life. Um, and we haven't
Speaker 1: put out anything mainstream ever together. So I think if
Speaker 1: if we could figure out a way to find a song,
Speaker 1: we got a couple in mind, we're gonna go in
Speaker 1: the studio and just kind of see what happens. But
Speaker 1: I think that will be the highlight of the album
Speaker 1: part three and possibly um pushing whatever song we end
Speaker 1: up figuring out to being the next thing. Oh, that
Speaker 1: is incredible. I I also heard you're working with Shay
Speaker 1: from Tan and Shay Too. What's the latest on that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I love Shay, I don't Shay years. Um. We have
Speaker 1: a song called Secrets that we've just never finished. It's
Speaker 1: I mean, we started it one night and literally after
Speaker 1: bar we just wanted to his apartment which is also
Speaker 1: a studio, started this song and then like two and
Speaker 1: a half years later, got back together, started to finish it.
Speaker 1: Still didn't finish it. Um and now we every time
Speaker 1: we see each other like, hey man, when we're gonna
Speaker 1: finish secrets. So I don't know one day what day
Speaker 1: that will happen, but we'll finish it at some point
Speaker 1: because it is a great song. It sounds like a
Speaker 1: good Quarantine project. Yeah. That's the thing is that you
Speaker 1: think right now we have all the time in the
Speaker 1: world to be creative and do music. But for me,
Speaker 1: my mind just in there. So I think it's gotta
Speaker 1: it's gotta come to you. Yeah, I can't force it
Speaker 1: for me, it does I I can't force it. If
Speaker 1: I force it, trust me that you ain't gonna life
Speaker 1: what you hear. I know you're you're a very active
Speaker 1: journal or journalist, diarists something like that. Do you ever
Speaker 1: draw your song inspirations from what you write in your
Speaker 1: in your journal? Not really. I don't think that it's
Speaker 1: directly correlates to a song, Like I don't write something
Speaker 1: and be like, oh, that's a good song title. But
Speaker 1: I do think it's it's been why I can write songs.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's allowed me to just be able
Speaker 1: to dive into that part of your brain when you're journaling.
Speaker 1: My only rule is just to write. I have no rules,
Speaker 1: just right Philip age, Philip page, and whatever comes out
Speaker 1: comes out. Um, And usually it's about the day before
Speaker 1: that that day whatever, I do it in the morning
Speaker 1: and night. But I think that allows me to go
Speaker 1: to that part of my brain that is kind of
Speaker 1: similar or at least close to writing songs and get
Speaker 1: creative in that way. So it's it's definitely helped me
Speaker 1: along the way. I would say, do you start with
Speaker 1: a lyric or a title or do you have a
Speaker 1: tune in your head and then put lyrics to sort
Speaker 1: of fit whatever that tune is. Um, they kind of
Speaker 1: hit at the same time sometimes, But I like, I
Speaker 1: like having titles and ideas and when I say that,
Speaker 1: like to me, the melody is gonna come. We're gonna
Speaker 1: figure that part out. But as long as I have
Speaker 1: a title and where I kind of wanted to go, um,
Speaker 1: like like guys on you, for instance, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: about how we wrote that one. It's uh actually Groy
Speaker 1: was in there playing the piano and I was just
Speaker 1: I had I walked in and I was like, man,
Speaker 1: that that sounds amazing. But I don't. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, what is it about. It's just a
Speaker 1: piano melody. So I'm looking through my phone, looking through
Speaker 1: my phone. It's where I keep my notes. And I
Speaker 1: had a song called eyes on You travel the whole world,
Speaker 1: but missed it all because your eyes are on her,
Speaker 1: And I just thought about that. I was like, that's
Speaker 1: enough for me. If I have that and I have
Speaker 1: the title, at least have the idea of what that means,
Speaker 1: then you can put it to a melody. And that's
Speaker 1: what we did that particular day, and uh, and obviously
Speaker 1: the rest of that one is history. So it's some
Speaker 1: days it works like that. Some days it doesn't work
Speaker 1: at all. So songwriting songwright could be the toughest thing
Speaker 1: you've ever done. And then some days a song like
Speaker 1: guys on You comes. It's like going fishing. Some days
Speaker 1: he catch nothing, and then some days you get a
Speaker 1: big one. Some days you catch them all. So yeah,
Speaker 1: some days you read a bunch of little or you
Speaker 1: catch a bunch of little ones, and some days that
Speaker 1: that big one hits, and it's, uh, those are the
Speaker 1: fun ones. I love fishing. So you're talking about language,
Speaker 1: I I saw a video tour you were giving of
Speaker 1: your house recently. Uh, beautiful house, something I had never
Speaker 1: seen before. You have an indoor crossbow range. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: compound bow is what I should. I could shoot across across.
Speaker 1: I have a different target for that, but it's mainly
Speaker 1: just I have my bow set up right there. When
Speaker 1: I don't feel like walking the when I'm lazy enough
Speaker 1: to not want to walk the hunter yards out to
Speaker 1: the outdoor range, or if it's too hot or some
Speaker 1: like that, I'll just pick it up real quick watching TV,
Speaker 1: take a couple of shots. And it's a good practice
Speaker 1: for me. I'm a big hunter. Um and and for
Speaker 1: me it means a lot. I mean, you're going out there,
Speaker 1: you're putting an animal in danger like that. You better
Speaker 1: be good. You better practice what you're doing, because my
Speaker 1: goal is to go out there and get it done
Speaker 1: as quick as possible so that they feel the least
Speaker 1: amount of pain they can. And uh, and then I
Speaker 1: have a freezer full of food for at least a year,
Speaker 1: So that's uh. I take it very seriously. And that
Speaker 1: that that compound bone in my kitchen helps a lot.
Speaker 1: Let's gonna say, what is your favorite distraction these days
Speaker 1: when you know, we all need that, we need to
Speaker 1: go exercise, binge watch, tiger king or something like. Is
Speaker 1: that hunting for you? What's your favorite distraction these days? Uh?
Speaker 1: Well that that's usually the time of the year for me,
Speaker 1: which is the fall. So I haven't been able to
Speaker 1: do that a lot. Um. I've been starting to get
Speaker 1: back into two fishing a good bit. Um, but I
Speaker 1: like going out west of fish so and I'm a
Speaker 1: big fly f fly fish. That's about all I do.
Speaker 1: I might start going back out there now that everything's
Speaker 1: to open it up a little bit at least to travel, Um,
Speaker 1: go out there and start doing a little bit fishing.
Speaker 1: I'm at the beach this week and just kind of relaxing,
Speaker 1: getting away from everything. Um, and a lot of drinking.
Speaker 1: I have, me and my buddies. We've had we've had
Speaker 1: a quarantine crew with a couple of families and a
Speaker 1: couple of friends and and we have we have drink
Speaker 1: enough enough to fill this ocean over here, I believe
Speaker 1: in the last three months. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people are doing that. Um. It went from like
Speaker 1: Friday Saturday too, all right, Thursday, Friday, Saturday Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
Speaker 1: all right, Monday? Why not? Uh so we gotta we
Speaker 1: we've better tone it back a little bit, but we've
Speaker 1: got fun. How has there been a sort of a
Speaker 1: silver lining of all this for you? Is it like
Speaker 1: taught you something about yourself? You picked up a new hobby. Well,
Speaker 1: I remember telling him John, my tour manager. So we
Speaker 1: took February and March off the beginning of the year.
Speaker 1: It's just a week of gear up for the rest
Speaker 1: of the year. And I said to him, like, probably
Speaker 1: three weeks before we're about to go back out in April.
Speaker 1: I said, Man, I'm not really ready to go back yet.
Speaker 1: I just kinda that was a short break and we
Speaker 1: just kept traveling through the break. We pick up an
Speaker 1: acoustic show here, uh, any type of show just to
Speaker 1: go play, you know, whatever it was. And and I
Speaker 1: didn't get my break in. And I remember and I
Speaker 1: talked to God a lot. Whether whether he hears me
Speaker 1: or not, I'm not real sure. But I was just like, man, God,
Speaker 1: I'm not really ready to go back here, um just yet.
Speaker 1: And uh, he answered me, and possibly the biggest way
Speaker 1: he's ever answered anybody, he said, all right, cool, take
Speaker 1: the rest of the year off. And I didn't quite
Speaker 1: mean that, but here we are. It's a It's definitely
Speaker 1: allowed me to fall in love with wanting to get
Speaker 1: on the road again and wanting to tour and wanting
Speaker 1: to be Um, you get tired, I mean you get
Speaker 1: real tired on the road, especially when you toured for
Speaker 1: seven basically seven straight years like we have. So this
Speaker 1: has allowed me to realize I'll probably never complain about
Speaker 1: tour again in my life. I'll be like, oh, thank God,
Speaker 1: let us go. It's definitely a big be careful what
Speaker 1: you wished for a moment, I guess so you're for sure.
Speaker 1: I'm still I'm still living in this wish right now.
Speaker 1: I UM, I loved your song Belong. I just thought
Speaker 1: it was such a sort of a hopeful, optimistic message
Speaker 1: in these you know, really stressful to multiple divided times.
Speaker 1: Uh what does that song mean to you? Where did
Speaker 1: that come from? Yeah? It's um, it means a lot.
Speaker 1: It means a whole whole lot, especially right now, and
Speaker 1: I think it's it's getting even more important the more
Speaker 1: stressed out people are getting. The more I'm not real sure.
Speaker 1: There's just so many different issues going on right now
Speaker 1: and so many different opinions on on so many different things.
Speaker 1: So the part that I don't love about something's going
Speaker 1: right now just is a lot of negativity, whether that's
Speaker 1: people not wanting to hear other people's opinions. And I
Speaker 1: just think that people need to slow down and actually
Speaker 1: have conversations about these things because the battles on social
Speaker 1: media and stuff, it's, uh, it's dangerous. It allows you
Speaker 1: to kind of hide behind the screen. And if people
Speaker 1: will just have conversations and actually talk about it, I
Speaker 1: think they'll realize that every it's not as crazy as
Speaker 1: as some people are making it out to be. So
Speaker 1: that's why I just wanted to put that message out there.
Speaker 1: It's like, y'all, let's take a second. We're right where
Speaker 1: we belong. We're not changing what's going on right now,
Speaker 1: that this is the world we live in. Whether it's quarantine,
Speaker 1: whether it's social injustice matters, um, so let's have a
Speaker 1: conversation about it and enjoy where we are. And I
Speaker 1: think that will actually spring forward a lot more change
Speaker 1: for the future. And uh, it's conversations need to happen,
Speaker 1: and I think that's what belongs about for me especially,
Speaker 1: We're right where we belong. Let's talk about it, let's
Speaker 1: live in it, and hopefully learn from and move forward
Speaker 1: in a in a positive way. Great song, a great message.
Speaker 1: What have you been listening to during quarantine? Because I
Speaker 1: don't know about you, but I've been sort of following
Speaker 1: back on the old familiar like I've been listening to
Speaker 1: the stuff I've been listened to since high school just
Speaker 1: because I want to feel that sort of connection and
Speaker 1: just familiarity. How about you? Yeah, it's I started laughing
Speaker 1: because I was like, oh, my god, So I've been
Speaker 1: hanging out. There's there's been two buddies that, uh, that
Speaker 1: I've become and that he's talked about silver lining. These
Speaker 1: two guys, I didn't really know him that well before quarantine.
Speaker 1: And one's Ryan Johansson from the Nashville Predators and once
Speaker 1: James Neil from the Evans and Oilers who used to
Speaker 1: play for the Preds. And they're hockey guys. These are
Speaker 1: got hockey guys straight out of Canada. And my god,
Speaker 1: like now we've just become really good buddies. But I'll
Speaker 1: say this, I have never heard more nickel back in
Speaker 1: my entire life. Than hanging out with these two guys. Man,
Speaker 1: it's it's I mean, we have a playlist that the
Speaker 1: day will be going, that they'll be going as soon
Speaker 1: as rock star or photograph comes on. It's like our
Speaker 1: eyes are gonna meet at some point around the house
Speaker 1: or some point point around the pool wherever we're all hanging.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh God, here we go again. We're actually
Speaker 1: doing this again today. Okay, nickelbacks off, Let's go No exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like the kind of stuff that we playing. It's
Speaker 1: just like I want something I I know that just
Speaker 1: makes me, just takes me away from where I am now.
Speaker 1: I guess maybe I'm not sure why I do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. I love reminiscent songs. I think one of
Speaker 1: the best to ever do songs like that, um is
Speaker 1: Kenny Chesty. I think he's got a lot of songs
Speaker 1: like that. I'm at the beach right now. Anything but
Speaker 1: mine is one of my favorite songs of all time.
Speaker 1: So I love songs that do take me back, and
Speaker 1: I will I will forever after this, I'll be able
Speaker 1: to hear nickelback and it'll take me back to this
Speaker 1: quarantine promise. Oh yeah, Well, I guess I didn't think
Speaker 1: about that being but I'm I'm putting new memories on
Speaker 1: these old songs now exactly. Now you're gonna think about quarantine.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I gotta choose my songs more carefully now,
Speaker 1: I gotta ask. I'm a huge Willie Nelson fan. I
Speaker 1: know you've been on the road with him. Uh what
Speaker 1: was that? Like? My God, that's that's a dream for
Speaker 1: me because I have a lot of memories. My grandpa
Speaker 1: and grandma will come visit me and my brothers once
Speaker 1: a year and they take they take us on the
Speaker 1: road and their motor home. And that's part why I
Speaker 1: think I got it. I love being on the road
Speaker 1: so much because I grew up like really wanting to
Speaker 1: enjoy and really looking forward to hanging out with my
Speaker 1: grandparents for two weeks in the summer in a motor home,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of tour bus type style, UM and
Speaker 1: travel in the country. And the song he'd always played
Speaker 1: when he rolled in on this ultimate horn, this little
Speaker 1: push button thing that they have, UM was on the
Speaker 1: road again by Willie Nelson. And every time he'd come in,
Speaker 1: he'd be playing that, and every time he'd leave, they'd
Speaker 1: be playing that, so that always took me back to
Speaker 1: hanging out for on summers, kind of my training for
Speaker 1: being on tour for the rest of my life. And
Speaker 1: then the very first guy that I go on to
Speaker 1: tour with, it was a two week long thing eight
Speaker 1: nine years ago now, um, was with Willie Nelson. So
Speaker 1: it was unbelievable. It was really cool to hear him
Speaker 1: sing that, obviously because that one took me back. Um,
Speaker 1: and he's a I mean he wrote crazy like that.
Speaker 1: That's one of the greatest songs of all time and
Speaker 1: and uh, funny time slips away. I know, man, it's uh.
Speaker 1: It was unbelievable, really cool experience, and really cool that
Speaker 1: I got to get to say that I didn't you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: did you let you play trigger a guitar? I got
Speaker 1: to touch trigger one time. I didn't. I didn't play trigger. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm sure he would have. I don't know, but I
Speaker 1: did get I put my hands on trigger, and I
Speaker 1: was just like, this is history right here. Oh man,
Speaker 1: that's that's so cool. So I got a funny question
Speaker 1: for it. You've done so much prior to music, I've
Speaker 1: never been able to ask anyone this, but you're in
Speaker 1: a unique position to answer, in what ways is the
Speaker 1: music industry like being on survivor coming for you? It's um,
Speaker 1: So you can plead the fifth if you want, no, No,
Speaker 1: it's it's a good question. UM. I do think there's
Speaker 1: an aspect of of competition in music, and I think
Speaker 1: you'd be crazy not to say that that's not true. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Everybody talks about Nashville, how it's a community. Everybody talks
Speaker 1: about how it's like one big family. But at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, we're all still trying to get
Speaker 1: our songs played. So the less songs that this over
Speaker 1: here is getting played, the more chance I have a
Speaker 1: getting eyes on you or only if you are on
Speaker 1: the radio. So I think that's that, this survival aspect
Speaker 1: of it plus survivors forty days and forty nights, um,
Speaker 1: which is a lot when you're starting and all that's
Speaker 1: that's a whole long time. I had six meals and
Speaker 1: in forty days, um. And that's that's what I say.
Speaker 1: That's the biggest difference though. That's forty days, forty nights, UM.
Speaker 1: Nashville and the music industry, you know, Garth Brooks and
Speaker 1: George Strader still playing all these years later. So if
Speaker 1: you can turn forty days into forty years um and
Speaker 1: actually have a long career in the music industry, I
Speaker 1: think that's the way to play. And that's that's what
Speaker 1: my goal has always been. It's not trying to be
Speaker 1: the overnight sensation and not try to have that overnight hit,
Speaker 1: try to write the biggest, best songs possily right for myself,
Speaker 1: but to have great relationships with people, treat people well.
Speaker 1: And I didn't get that early on in my career.
Speaker 1: I didn't understand. I was trying to be the overnight
Speaker 1: sensation for sure, um. And that takes your focus on
Speaker 1: what really matters, which is great music and treating people well.
Speaker 1: And and I think that if you have that mindset
Speaker 1: in music industry, you're gonna you're gonna do really well,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna move forward and and be around in
Speaker 1: forty years hopefully. I was gonna say, you've you've been
Speaker 1: up close to these legends, you know, the Guards and
Speaker 1: the Willie. Is there a common thread you see between
Speaker 1: those those folks that have been doing it for for
Speaker 1: decades that you that you notice that maybe people who
Speaker 1: don't have that kind of staying power, don't have is
Speaker 1: there something they're doing differently? Um. I think, first of all,
Speaker 1: it starts with the music. If the music is not there,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna hang around. Um. And and that's for me,
Speaker 1: My biggest focus is the music. Music has to be writing.
Speaker 1: Music has to be believable from the person who's singing it.
Speaker 1: And that's where I really focus hard on if your
Speaker 1: music is great. But then then one thing I really
Speaker 1: noticed when I played with Garth in February. I was
Speaker 1: actually my last one of my last full band shows
Speaker 1: before forever. That was my last show before the quarantine happened.
Speaker 1: And just the way he treated me, the way it
Speaker 1: took the time I walked up, I was on stage
Speaker 1: and all sound check and and he comes out to
Speaker 1: me and we talked for probably fifteen minutes about The
Speaker 1: funny part is what about music? There was nothing that
Speaker 1: we talked about. It was about music, it was about life,
Speaker 1: it was about God, it was about friends, family, UM.
Speaker 1: And I even asked him, I said, man, it just
Speaker 1: feels like sometimes people are trying to pull at you
Speaker 1: seventy five different ways. And he said, he said, man,
Speaker 1: he's first of all, he said, has your relationship with God?
Speaker 1: And for me. That's that's very personal because because that
Speaker 1: puts me in and Garth and in at least the
Speaker 1: same head space and um, and that was a special
Speaker 1: moment for me. And he also the biggest thing i'd
Speaker 1: he said was you get to do music for a living.
Speaker 1: You don't have to wake up, you don't have to
Speaker 1: go to work, you don't have to go to the
Speaker 1: bank whatever day. And I said the bank because both
Speaker 1: my brothers, uh are one of them now works at
Speaker 1: a bank, and him and I talk all the time.
Speaker 1: He's like, man, you don't want my job. Trust me.
Speaker 1: As great as it can be some days, it's not
Speaker 1: all the time. Um, and I get to wake up
Speaker 1: and do music and I get to wake up and
Speaker 1: sing songs and make people happy or try to make
Speaker 1: people happy. So and that was his point to it all.
Speaker 1: So the way he treated me was I think a huge,
Speaker 1: huge reason why Garth Brooks is still one of the
Speaker 1: best that country music and music in general has ever seen.
Speaker 1: On top of the fact that he's got great music too.
Speaker 1: This whole time has been so tough on all of us.
Speaker 1: But you know, also especially for musicians, because you can't
Speaker 1: get up there and do what you love. What's been
Speaker 1: keeping your feeling ground and hopeful, just knowing that this
Speaker 1: will go away. Um, it's I mean this percent will
Speaker 1: will go away. We will be back to Almo at
Speaker 1: some point. I don't know what that looks like. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's a year from now, six months,
Speaker 1: two years. And honestly, social media has been huge for me,
Speaker 1: just kind of simple as that, to be able to
Speaker 1: stay in touch with people because as a musician, no
Speaker 1: matter what anybody says, I mean, the fans are why
Speaker 1: we do what we do. We literally aren't showing up
Speaker 1: playing to nobody. If we were, that would what's the point.
Speaker 1: It's like sports, you can still at least compete music,
Speaker 1: It's not that way when we show up. When I
Speaker 1: show up to do a show. Um, the fans singing
Speaker 1: back and the fans listening to us, being there for
Speaker 1: each other is why it happens. So being able to
Speaker 1: still have a connection with them via social media, which
Speaker 1: is an ideal at all, but still having that knowing
Speaker 1: that it's going to go away at some point we
Speaker 1: will be back to gathering. I saw, actually Eric Church,
Speaker 1: I saw one of his random and Instagram post and
Speaker 1: he was talking about people gathering, people gathering to worship,
Speaker 1: people gathering too to drink, people gather into whatever to
Speaker 1: sing songs. Um, it's always been a thing, and it
Speaker 1: will get back to that. And I think if you
Speaker 1: want to go check it out. He worded it really
Speaker 1: really well. Well, I mean it's a primal thing. It's
Speaker 1: what humans do here, right, yeah, yeah, if we if
Speaker 1: we don't, if we're you know, I used to even
Speaker 1: think when I first moved to Nashville, is like, oh,
Speaker 1: I gotta be I thought it was okay to be
Speaker 1: a loner and kind of be in my my space
Speaker 1: all the time, and that that gets lonely real real fast.
Speaker 1: So you realize we're meant to gather. We're all meant
Speaker 1: to be together and and and gather and be in
Speaker 1: a community. And country music community along with the fans,
Speaker 1: is one of the best ones I've ever seen, ever
Speaker 1: been a part of. So I'm looking forward to the
Speaker 1: day where we can get back to that for sure.
Speaker 1: My last question, I've had a lot of fun. It's
Speaker 1: been interesting asking people this. If you can snap your
Speaker 1: fingers and have everything returned to normal instantly, no virus,
Speaker 1: no walkdown, will be the very first thing you do
Speaker 1: go into a stadium full of people and feel normal again.
Speaker 1: I mean the last thing that I did before it
Speaker 1: always play at Ford Field in Detroit and saying to
Speaker 1: seventy thousand people with Garth Brooks. So, um, I would
Speaker 1: do that again. If that's that's what I love to do.
Speaker 1: That's why I got into music, and I'm a wrestler.
Speaker 1: Why I got into it, I guess, but that's what
Speaker 1: I've made me really fall in love with music was
Speaker 1: seeing live shows and I loved it as a fan
Speaker 1: before ever did it as an artist. So even if
Speaker 1: I wasn't the artist on stage, I just want to
Speaker 1: be around a concert again and be around that many
Speaker 1: people with that much energy. Um, I'd go right and
Speaker 1: I'd do that in a second. If it wasn't that,
Speaker 1: it also be a put me into sec football field
Speaker 1: somewhere and let let me let me hear the crowd
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah like that. It makes me happy football stadiums.
Speaker 1: Once a linebacker, always a linebacker, yep. So I know
Speaker 1: again I didn't get to play in the NFL certain circumstances,
Speaker 1: but like I said, the last show I did was
Speaker 1: in Detroit and Ford Field. So now I'm playing in
Speaker 1: NFL stadiums and it's uh, it feels good. I'm ready
Speaker 1: to get back to it. We got those stadiums one
Speaker 1: way or another. Yep, either way, let's do it. We
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this episode of Inside the Studio Home Edition,
Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio. For more episodes of
Speaker 1: Inside the Studio and other shows from I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: check out the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts,