Speaker 1: So this is a fun episode for me because for.
Speaker 2: Those of you that don't know, I'm a musician, I'm
Speaker 2: not just an actor.
Speaker 1: I love play of music.
Speaker 2: I love writing songs. I first visited Nashville when my
Speaker 2: brother was living there as a staff songwriter at Combine
Speaker 2: Music and I was about twelve years old, and I
Speaker 2: got on a train to from Philly where I grew up,
Speaker 2: to head south and kind of went into this whole
Speaker 2: other world. This would be back in the seventies. I
Speaker 2: think I sort of fell in love with that city.
Speaker 2: It's changed a lot over the years, but it's always
Speaker 2: remained a place where amazing, amazing songwriters and musicians meet and.
Speaker 1: Play and write.
Speaker 2: Not just country music. I mean has a reputation for country,
Speaker 2: but there's all kinds of stuff being done there. I
Speaker 2: have myself done the whole thing, gone to a little room,
Speaker 2: met somebody that I didn't know, drank some coffee, and
Speaker 2: written a few songs. And so to hang out today
Speaker 2: with someone who has not only written a few songs,
Speaker 2: but has written just twenty tops end songs something like that.
Speaker 2: Just a fantastic artist and to you know, kind of
Speaker 2: shoot the breeze about music and writing country and other
Speaker 2: kinds of music, and also find out about something that
Speaker 2: not only he cares deeply about, but also has been
Speaker 2: a very, very big.
Speaker 1: Part of his personal life.
Speaker 2: I'm really excited to be hanging out today with Thomas Rhett.
Speaker 3: So Lean.
Speaker 1: Here we are with Thomas Rhett.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited to meet you, and thank you so
Speaker 2: much for being here.
Speaker 1: We were chatting before.
Speaker 2: You're You're just in the middle of the tour.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So we started in February in Canada. I don't
Speaker 4: know you've ever been to Canada in February, but it
Speaker 4: is the coldest I've ever been.
Speaker 5: In my whole I'm sure you have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're halfway through the tour.
Speaker 4: We go through like September, and my family and I
Speaker 4: have been at the beach for a few weeks, so
Speaker 4: I've kind of been touring in and out of here.
Speaker 4: So been a good summer, man, been a busy one.
Speaker 2: You got a new vinyl coming out right, twenty number
Speaker 2: ones or is it out now or yeah?
Speaker 5: I think it comes out in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 4: It is still kind of mind boggling to me that
Speaker 4: that we have that coming out. I feel some days
Speaker 4: I feel like I've been doing this career for like
Speaker 4: a year, and then some days it feels like thirty.
Speaker 1: So wow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the fact that we've had that many number ones
Speaker 4: in a decade is pretty it's pretty mind boggling.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's just amazing. Man, that is just amazing.
Speaker 2: You must be so proud of that. And I don't know,
Speaker 2: just to have that kind of like milestone for songs.
Speaker 2: And I'm guessing that you probably wrote or used to
Speaker 2: hand and writing all of these tunes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say maybe maybe seventy percent of the
Speaker 4: songs I wrote.
Speaker 5: Some of them were pitched to me, you know, from
Speaker 5: outside folks.
Speaker 4: But Nashville is such a tight knit community that you know,
Speaker 4: there's there's really not a week that goes by or
Speaker 4: I'm not getting sent at least fifteen to twenty songs
Speaker 4: by buddies that are writing all the time. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, if it were not for co writers, man,
Speaker 4: would I would not be I would not be sitting
Speaker 4: where I'm sitting.
Speaker 1: Okay, one of real heroes.
Speaker 2: I want to dig into that because I'm actually a
Speaker 2: songwriter myself and I have.
Speaker 5: Been on the road right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're kind of like, well, we were, we were
Speaker 2: out and then our last three days I got COVID
Speaker 2: and then we shot down and I had we had
Speaker 2: to punt them for a little while. Right, We're going
Speaker 2: to go back out in uh September, I think. But
Speaker 2: that's awesome. Yeah, yeah, I love I love doing it.
Speaker 2: But I've always kind of written. Either when I was young,
Speaker 2: I wrote with my brother and then from that point
Speaker 2: on just by myself. And recently we've started to do
Speaker 2: a little bit of partnering and do and getting into
Speaker 2: a room with a complete stranger a couple of times
Speaker 2: in Nashville. Yeah, once in New York and a few
Speaker 2: times in Nashville. And it's such a it's such a
Speaker 2: challenging and strange sort of situation I find because it's
Speaker 2: a very vulnerable to me. It's a very vulnerable place
Speaker 2: to be, you know. Stor writing to me is so
Speaker 2: kind of confessional and and and then to get in
Speaker 2: there and you know, you're you're playing something you're going
Speaker 2: through like some changes, and you're like, you know me,
Speaker 2: how do you like, how do you handle first off,
Speaker 2: somebody telling you.
Speaker 1: I think you could do.
Speaker 2: Better with that rhyme or whatever it is. Or someone
Speaker 2: else saying, yeah, that's that idea that I don't want
Speaker 2: to write that today.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I'm fascinated by that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, man, I've been kind of writting.
Speaker 4: My dad was a country artist in the nineties, and so,
Speaker 4: you know, I was born in South Georgia and then
Speaker 4: we moved to Nashville when I was like one years old.
Speaker 4: My dad signed a record deal in nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 4: and so I kind of grew up around the space,
Speaker 4: you know, from the time I was like nine or ten,
Speaker 4: I would do anything that I could to get out
Speaker 4: of school on a Friday, to hop on the bus
Speaker 4: with my dad on Thursday night, wake up at the
Speaker 4: Nebraska County Fair, go to the Illinois County Fair, and
Speaker 4: then come home. So I got to watch my dad write, record,
Speaker 4: perform all the things, you know, from a young age.
Speaker 4: And I was always kind of that kid that just
Speaker 4: really loved being behind a camera. Like I loved entertaining
Speaker 4: anyone that was in the room. I loved entertaining those people.
Speaker 4: So like there's pictures of me in diapers and red
Speaker 4: cowboy boots and a guitar, you know, with my dad
Speaker 4: singing every Hank William senior Merle Haggard Whaling Jenny Song,
Speaker 4: and so I kind of grew up around the craft
Speaker 4: of songwriting. And so when my dad kind of retired
Speaker 4: from the road, he kind of just just started writing,
Speaker 4: you know, for country artist Nashville. And so I would
Speaker 4: go when I was in college and watch him, and
Speaker 4: he always co wrote, you know. So all I've really
Speaker 4: ever known is co writing, and I've got a pretty
Speaker 4: second guessing type of brain. And so as many times
Speaker 4: I've tried to sit down at a piano or a
Speaker 4: guitar and try to write something myself, I feel like
Speaker 4: I'll write a verse that I'm okay with, but once
Speaker 4: I get to the chorus, it's like I don't trust
Speaker 4: I don't trust my instincts enough to just do it
Speaker 4: by myself. And so co writers for me have, honestly,
Speaker 4: and I'm sure you found this, they've become a therapy
Speaker 4: session for me, because some days you can go in
Speaker 4: there and write something super from the heart, something super
Speaker 4: detailed about your past or about your present. But in
Speaker 4: other days, it's like, man, let's just let's write something
Speaker 4: fun today. Let's write a party song today, Let's write
Speaker 4: a song that's gonna make somebody dance, and so so
Speaker 4: many writers in Nashville. There are these niche groups of
Speaker 4: people that do each of those things so well. And
Speaker 4: you know, over time you kind of find those people
Speaker 4: who you want to write specific songs with. And so
Speaker 4: I've kind of had to learn through the years of like, oh,
Speaker 4: maybe not everything I say is correct, and the older
Speaker 4: I get, I'm like, actually, most things I say are
Speaker 4: probably incorrect, and so but yeah, I've been doing most
Speaker 4: of my writing on the road. Man, I don't have
Speaker 4: time to do it at home. So Ibring Co writers
Speaker 4: with me on the bus, ok, and we write it.
Speaker 4: We write from ten am till you know, I start,
Speaker 4: you know, to meet and greet and then we'll do
Speaker 4: the show and then right after the show. And that's
Speaker 4: kind of become my place of kind of creation.
Speaker 2: So wow, that's amazing. And so do you have like
Speaker 2: a kind of recording situational on the bus? I mean,
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess if you got a mic in
Speaker 2: a computer your self. I mean, yeah, as you know,
Speaker 2: technology is insane. Like I've been at the beach for
Speaker 2: a month now and I set up like a just
Speaker 2: a mic, a computer and an Apollo twin in this
Speaker 2: little Harry Potter looking closet that we have underneathn stuffs,
Speaker 2: and I'm like recording record vocals under there.
Speaker 5: It's like amazing way you can do with just a
Speaker 5: laptop and a microphone these days.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: It is amazing.
Speaker 2: So let me ask you another question, obviously with with
Speaker 2: you know, twenty number one songs incredible, you mentioned that
Speaker 2: people are pitching you tunes all the time. I have
Speaker 2: on one. Actually it's in the chat. I just send
Speaker 2: it to you, and I'm just kidding perfectly, kidd thank you.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna check it out right now.
Speaker 2: But but people are people are constantly pitching you things.
Speaker 2: So you gotta have an excellent ear to be able
Speaker 2: to say, yeah, not only I like the song, but
Speaker 2: for sure because you probably like them all, sure I
Speaker 2: think it's a hit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, that's like a It's a whole different skill,
Speaker 4: you know. I mean, so many of the greatest artists
Speaker 4: of all time weren't necessarily songwriters, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: Like if I at least in my genre, you don't know.
Speaker 4: George Strait probably wrote a lot of his six number ones,
Speaker 4: but some of his biggest ones he wasn't. He wasn't
Speaker 4: a writer on you know so, And I could say
Speaker 4: the same for a lot of people in a lot
Speaker 4: of genres. But I think having that ear to hear
Speaker 4: something that you go not only is that great, but
Speaker 4: I think that is a mega hit for me, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, And me also being a songwriter.
Speaker 4: I think for me, when I'm listening to a song,
Speaker 4: I'm trying to hear things that I've physically could not
Speaker 4: write for sure melodically and second lyrically, you know, like
Speaker 4: cause my brain it doesn't have like a melodic limit
Speaker 4: on it. But there are other people that just do
Speaker 4: things so much differently than I would do then, right,
Speaker 4: so like I kind of know my lane of like
Speaker 4: what what am I capable of?
Speaker 5: What do I what do I do well?
Speaker 4: And there's always multiple of those kind of songs on
Speaker 4: a record, But every now and then, man, there's a
Speaker 4: song that gets sent that you're like, Wow, if you
Speaker 4: gave me one hundred co writes with a hundred different writers,
Speaker 4: I don't think I could write that song. And it
Speaker 4: speaks to me it's almost like I was in the
Speaker 4: room with that person writing that song. That's how real
Speaker 4: it felt to me. So that's been kind of my
Speaker 4: gauge on you know, whether I cut an outside song
Speaker 4: compared to a song that I wrote. It's just it's
Speaker 4: got to hit me like a like a ton of bricks,
Speaker 4: And if I listened to it over one hundred times,
Speaker 4: then more than likely that song is gonna get cut.
Speaker 1: So and how many how many.
Speaker 2: Out of what percentage of the songs that you cut
Speaker 2: end up on records.
Speaker 4: Maybe eighty you know, I've gotten to work with a
Speaker 4: bunch of different producers, and each producer is different.
Speaker 2: But because I noticed actually that you're you know, you're
Speaker 2: you're it's your stuff is not always you know, uh
Speaker 2: like straight up exactly the same kind of sound, the
Speaker 2: same kind of sure it kind of it kind of
Speaker 2: moves in, uh in and out of you know, the
Speaker 2: traditional kind of country stuff that you're were raised onto,
Speaker 2: you know, pop, and I hear a lot of when
Speaker 2: I listen to uh Renegades that has like a real
Speaker 2: kind of Springsteen sort of yeah for sure vibe to me,
Speaker 2: you know, And that's and it's a little bit of
Speaker 2: an out lot, Like I'm just interested that is that
Speaker 2: is that a function of multiple producers or is that
Speaker 2: you just have a feeling about that this song needs
Speaker 2: to kind of in production wise, needs to go in
Speaker 2: this particular direction.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean what you're talking about, you know, early
Speaker 4: on in my career was absolutely terrifying. You know, I
Speaker 4: started in this business eleven years ago and we were
Speaker 4: kind of entering the phase that a lot of people
Speaker 4: call bro country. That was kind of the phase that
Speaker 4: we were in as a genre. And so, you know,
Speaker 4: when you're first starting out, really in any career, you
Speaker 4: can either kind of follow in the same footsteps as
Speaker 4: everybody else. You can kind of chase and you can
Speaker 4: kind of copy, or you as you know, you can
Speaker 4: carve your own path, you know. And so for me,
Speaker 4: it was writers, it was producers.
Speaker 5: It was a lot of.
Speaker 4: People on my team saying, hey, I know that this
Speaker 4: is kind of off kilter, but it suits you will.
Speaker 4: And you know, growing up, man, I mean, on the
Speaker 4: way to school with my dad, it could have been
Speaker 4: DMX one day, and then the next day it could
Speaker 4: have been Aretha Franklin, and then the next day it
Speaker 4: could have been Ricky Skaggs, and the next day it
Speaker 4: was in Sync, and then and the next day it
Speaker 4: was some hardcore metal band like I grew up listening
Speaker 4: to some many different types of music that even though
Speaker 4: country music has always been and will forever be my
Speaker 4: first love, I always ventured in and outside of those lines,
Speaker 4: trying to take things influence as I grew up on
Speaker 4: and trying to make them into my own brand of
Speaker 4: country music. And so, you know, in the beginning of
Speaker 4: this career, it was kind of terrifying.
Speaker 5: I got a lot of.
Speaker 1: Flak for it.
Speaker 4: You know, there was a lot of people that were like,
Speaker 4: you're not a real country where's the steel, where's the violin,
Speaker 4: where's all these things? And you know, I mean, I'm
Speaker 4: fine with that argument, because yeah, it's not traditional, but
Speaker 4: it was the most authentically me that I could do.
Speaker 4: And then somewhere along the way it kind of started
Speaker 4: to stick with people, and I think people started to
Speaker 4: expect me to be different on a record. So like,
Speaker 4: when I'm making a record, man, I'm constantly making new
Speaker 4: playlists of all the songs and rearranging them and rearranging
Speaker 4: them and making sure that as I'm listening to this record,
Speaker 4: I don't ever get bored, you know, I always want
Speaker 4: something new to catch my attention or catch my ear. So,
Speaker 4: like song one through four might have a vibe, and
Speaker 4: then song five through nine might have a vibe, and
Speaker 4: then something really different happens on ten, and then a
Speaker 4: ballot on eleven, and then you know, just trying to
Speaker 4: give people like an emotional roller coaster in the forty
Speaker 4: five minutes, start going to spend you know, listening to
Speaker 4: these records.
Speaker 2: So and and you know you're you're kind of ahead
Speaker 2: of the curve, I think, because that's the direction that
Speaker 2: country music in general seem to have gone in. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, I hear country uh country records now that
Speaker 2: they're just straight up pop, you know, or hip hop
Speaker 2: hip hop beats.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I mean the only the only difference is that the
Speaker 2: singer has an accent.
Speaker 4: Right and singing and singing about country stuff, well country stuff, right,
Speaker 4: Speaking of singing about country stuff, I mean you kind
Speaker 4: of think to yourself, Okay, is it really.
Speaker 2: Possible to write a new song about beer? I mean,
Speaker 2: like like that can't like aren't we done? Hasn't everything
Speaker 2: been said? And yet that song is so great. It's
Speaker 2: so great. It's it's like this is I.
Speaker 6: I my my sort of barometer of of what I
Speaker 6: think is a great song is when I just go, Oh, God,
Speaker 6: I wish I'd thought of that.
Speaker 2: For sure, God, I wish I'd written that's anything. I mean,
Speaker 2: even if it's just a you know, a beautiful love
Speaker 2: song or whatever. For sure, but half of me, that's
Speaker 2: a really really funny, funny idea.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 4: No, you're right though, Like, because I'm in the process
Speaker 4: of making a new record and my producer Julian we've
Speaker 4: been going through all of the songs and anytime that
Speaker 4: there is a drink reference, a beer reference, a whiskey,
Speaker 4: a tequila, anything, we've been trying to change all of
Speaker 4: those words to be anything else unrelated to alcohol.
Speaker 5: Because country music we do.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 4: It's like on a record, there's at least three songs
Speaker 4: in a creative way about a cold beer before wheel drive,
Speaker 4: getting stuck in the mud, making out in the moonlight,
Speaker 4: sitting on a tailgate, and you know, I think that
Speaker 4: those those are all things that that we live, you know,
Speaker 4: especially as a country genre, live on a weekly basis,
Speaker 4: and so it is part of the culture for sure.
Speaker 4: But I think when you can find unique and creative
Speaker 4: ways to come up with new ways to say those things,
Speaker 4: sure a lot of the times they can work.
Speaker 5: You know love songs.
Speaker 4: I mean, gosh, I feel like i've that's the majority
Speaker 4: of my career has been based on writing love songs.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: My my biggest hit everyone was a song called.
Speaker 4: Die Happy Man, and I've spent years trying to recreate
Speaker 4: that song. And I think, sometimes you can't recreate magic,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, Like sometimes you just kept
Speaker 4: lightening in a bottle and you never.
Speaker 5: Know when that's gonna happen again.
Speaker 4: But you have to just keep trying to come up
Speaker 4: with new ways to say I love you, And at
Speaker 4: least for the for the country market, it's like how
Speaker 4: do you come up with new ways to drink?
Speaker 5: To drink a cold beer? So right, yes, you are correct.
Speaker 2: In what order to put those three maybe four chords in.
Speaker 2: You know, it's really uh it. I find it to
Speaker 2: be such a fascinating expression where you know, in under
Speaker 2: four minutes you're gonna tell a full, well rounded story.
Speaker 2: I make movies and TV shows and have hours and
Speaker 2: hours and hours to you know, to tell the story,
Speaker 2: and you know, to be able to capture in that
Speaker 2: way is really fascinating. Tell me about the road, Like,
Speaker 2: what's your relationship to it? Are you still enjoying it.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that you bring writers on the bus with you.
Speaker 2: How does it interact with family, etc.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I think before we had four kids,
Speaker 4: when we just had two kids, it was a lot
Speaker 4: easier for the fam to travel. But now we have
Speaker 4: a seven year old, a five year old, a three
Speaker 4: year old, and an almost two year old, and they're
Speaker 4: coming with me this weekend and I'm sort of already
Speaker 4: getting anxiety about it.
Speaker 1: And you know, they're all girls.
Speaker 5: All girls. Yeah, it's crazy. Our house is chaos twenty
Speaker 5: four hours a day. But no, dude, I love the road.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: I think as my kids are getting older and starting to,
Speaker 4: you know, do sports, whether it's horses or ballet or
Speaker 4: soccer or basketball, whatever, it is, like, I just miss
Speaker 4: a lot, you know. And I think that that is
Speaker 4: probably the whole est part of being gone, is knowing
Speaker 4: that you're going to miss a ballet recital, or you're
Speaker 4: going to miss a a horse jumping lesson or a
Speaker 4: golf lesson or whatever. It is, Like I just don't
Speaker 4: want to miss all that stuff. But at the end
Speaker 4: of the day, so many parents have to travel. Like
Speaker 4: I was tucking my kid in the other night and
Speaker 4: she was like, why do you have to leave all
Speaker 4: the time? And I'm like, well, I do have to leave,
Speaker 4: but most parents have to go to work, you know,
Speaker 4: at seven o'clock in the morning, and they don't get
Speaker 4: home till five o'clock at night. So I'm not going
Speaker 4: to see you for these three days, but when I
Speaker 4: do get home, you have all of me for four
Speaker 4: straight days, you know. So trying to kind of tell
Speaker 4: them that, like, you know, I don't have to leave.
Speaker 5: I get to leave.
Speaker 4: It's like a privilege that I that I get to
Speaker 4: go on the bus and sing for people that love
Speaker 4: my music.
Speaker 5: And so I'm.
Speaker 4: Trying to like really instill in them from a young
Speaker 4: age that it is possible to love what you do,
Speaker 4: because I never want their dreams to get killed of
Speaker 4: just like, well, I don't know that I could do that,
Speaker 4: or I don't know that I could do that. I
Speaker 4: love that, but that might be too tricky. I do
Speaker 4: believe that if you if you put your mind on something,
Speaker 4: you can accomplish it. So I'm really trying to teach
Speaker 4: even though they were very young, I think they're trying.
Speaker 4: They're starting to get a grip on that that's great,
Speaker 4: that's that's awesome. There's a lot of that that I
Speaker 4: can relate to as for sure, Dad, who you know,
Speaker 4: when we were raising our kids, how many kids do
Speaker 4: you have?
Speaker 2: I have two kids now, they're kids that are grown.
Speaker 2: I mean they're in their thirties, and we brought them
Speaker 2: on the road a lot. Our kind of road was
Speaker 2: that we would go to a town and actually live
Speaker 2: in a town for sure, you know, two or three
Speaker 2: months making a film all over the place, all over
Speaker 2: the country.
Speaker 1: My wife's and actress too, so there was a lot
Speaker 1: of that, you.
Speaker 2: Know, flying in and you know, I used to kind
Speaker 2: of say the same thing, which was that, yeah, I
Speaker 2: know that I'm going to work and I'm working a
Speaker 2: long day, but there's going to be a lot of
Speaker 2: time when I'm not going to work at all. And
Speaker 2: there was, you know, and there was a long period
Speaker 2: where Cure was a on a TV show in LA
Speaker 2: and I was, you know very much, you know, spending
Speaker 2: more time than the than the than the average dad
Speaker 2: with them. And I think that it it it paid
Speaker 2: off in the long run. I'm not saying sure, you know,
Speaker 2: somebody should feel bad about having a you know, a
Speaker 2: nine to five gig like that's that's that's that's the
Speaker 2: way the world. But I do think that sometimes people
Speaker 2: look at parents in the arts and kind of go, well,
Speaker 2: you know, where you're really there for your kid, you know,
Speaker 2: And I just I push back on that all the time.
Speaker 5: I agree completely.
Speaker 2: You spoke about about your dad and about his his
Speaker 2: music and looking up to him, and I'm assuming that
Speaker 2: the house had a lot of instruments around that you
Speaker 2: could grab at any at any moment.
Speaker 5: For sure. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Man, you know, my my dad was always like growing up,
Speaker 4: was in rock bands, country bands. The Rolling Stones are
Speaker 4: are as all time favorite band, The Stones and Zeppelin both,
Speaker 4: And so at a young age, I got really into
Speaker 4: just like rock and roll, like seventies rock, eighties hair metal.
Speaker 5: I wanted to be. I wanted to be a thrasher.
Speaker 4: So I remember in eighth grade, I dyed my hair black,
Speaker 4: started talking in a British accent, and and me and
Speaker 4: like me and me and three of my buddies started
Speaker 4: this band called the High Hilled Flip Flops when we
Speaker 4: were in eighth grade, and we basically sang British pump.
Speaker 5: Music, oh wow wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And so the drums were my first instrument I can
Speaker 4: get around okay on a piano, but guitar is kind
Speaker 4: of the first thing I learned how to play. And uh,
Speaker 4: you know, all through high school, man played in all
Speaker 4: the talent shows.
Speaker 2: You still have a kit? Do you still go and
Speaker 2: bang away sometimes?
Speaker 5: Yeah, dude.
Speaker 4: This year on tour, actually we built we put a
Speaker 4: drum kit on this like little riser at the end
Speaker 4: of the catwalk, and so the very first song, I'll
Speaker 4: come up on a drum kit playing this like super
Speaker 4: metal like halftime beat with my with my drummer, and
Speaker 4: it's always just been one of my favorite instruments to play.
Speaker 4: I'm not great at it, but any means that can
Speaker 4: get great.
Speaker 2: People people let go nuts when they see they do.
Speaker 5: If only they knew that I was not a great drummer,
Speaker 5: you know, so.
Speaker 1: Listen, I'm sure, I'm sure you can play. I have
Speaker 1: no doubt about that.
Speaker 2: So they were all the so the house was just
Speaker 2: filled with music all the time.
Speaker 4: It was man, you know, And it's crazy because like
Speaker 4: my my grandparents, like my dad's mom and dad like
Speaker 4: played piano a little bit, singing church a little bit.
Speaker 5: But my dad was really the first person kind of
Speaker 5: our family to take a big leap.
Speaker 4: And you know, move to Nashville and try the whole thing.
Speaker 4: And he toured really well for like ten years, and
Speaker 4: I think ultimately decided after ten years that writing was
Speaker 4: like the thing that he wanted to do for the
Speaker 4: rest of his life.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: So my dad has written I think forty five number ones.
Speaker 5: Uh in our genre.
Speaker 4: He's one three BMI Songwriter of the Year, he's one
Speaker 4: ACM and CMA Songwriter of the Year, song of the Year.
Speaker 4: He's he's kind of the goat, you know, of the
Speaker 4: Nashville community, amongst a few other people.
Speaker 1: But you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, dude, we've written, we've written I think seven or
Speaker 4: eight of of my number ones to get which is
Speaker 4: really special. Wow, it could it could could be a
Speaker 4: huge Like yeah.
Speaker 2: I can I can guarantee. Well, my my father was
Speaker 2: so tone deaf that we used to we joked that, uh,
Speaker 2: when he would sing us a lullaby, we would pretend
Speaker 2: to be asleep so that we could he would stop.
Speaker 2: But uh so, I can't imagine sitting down and trying
Speaker 2: to work with him, my dad in that kind of cartiosity.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 5: It works somehow, man. You know, I think in the beginning.
Speaker 4: I think my dad had a vision for what he thought,
Speaker 4: you know, my career was going to be. What kind
Speaker 4: of songs you were going to write? Like he wrote
Speaker 4: my very he wrote he wrote my first number ones,
Speaker 4: and and it was after that that I, you know,
Speaker 4: I kind of got with my dad and I was like, hey,
Speaker 4: I want to try something different, you know, And my dad,
Speaker 4: being the the musical jukebox that he is, like, if
Speaker 4: you you give my dad a couple a couple of
Speaker 4: beers and then give him a guitar, he can literally
Speaker 4: sing you the dictionary of any jhant name a song
Speaker 4: and he can play it.
Speaker 5: And so as I started to kind.
Speaker 4: Of shift a little bit musically, like, my dad was
Speaker 4: just immediately right there with me, like helping me along
Speaker 4: that journey, giving me advice on you know, how these
Speaker 4: songs should go, what they should feel like. And so,
Speaker 4: you know, my dad is just like a huge, huge
Speaker 4: reason as to why I'm even sitting here talking to
Speaker 4: you today.
Speaker 2: Som hm wow, that's so that's that's so great. You
Speaker 2: have brothers and sisters.
Speaker 5: I do.
Speaker 4: My My family is kind of all over the place.
Speaker 4: I've got a twenty eight year old sister a sixteen
Speaker 4: year old brother and.
Speaker 5: A three year old brother.
Speaker 4: So my dad got remarried five years ago, had had
Speaker 4: had my brother, and uh so him and my three
Speaker 4: year old were actually in the same preschool class, which
Speaker 4: is amazing. And so uncle and niece, I think that's
Speaker 4: how that works, are in the same preschool class.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we have a pretty big I'm on my
Speaker 2: wife's side, we have a she's got a Brady bunch family.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, and then I'm the youngest.
Speaker 2: Of six, so wow, we have a pretty big Thanksgiving
Speaker 2: here at the at our at our apartments because just
Speaker 2: a lot of people and they're all spread out all
Speaker 2: over the place. It's it's it's amazing.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't want it any other way. I think it's read.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's great family, you know, it's it's such
Speaker 2: a cliche, but it's everything. Sure, you live in Nashville,
Speaker 2: live in Nashville. Yeah, do you do you.
Speaker 1: Find that.
Speaker 2: The it has I mean, Nashville has obviously changed a lot,
Speaker 2: tremendously tremendous. I mean, my brother moved to Nashville to
Speaker 2: work as a songwriter in uh, I guess it was
Speaker 2: the seventies. He was a staff songwriter at Combine and uh,
Speaker 2: you know all those like Fred Foster days and right
Speaker 2: would would go and you know, kind of sit there
Speaker 2: and you know, write write songs. And he moved down
Speaker 2: there with his wife. Uh and and when they were,
Speaker 2: you know, really young. So I I used to went
Speaker 2: down and visited him a couple of times when I
Speaker 2: was when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: And uh.
Speaker 2: Now obviously we go through Nashville, you know, quite a bit,
Speaker 2: and you've been back a lot in the years. It
Speaker 2: really is kind of just mind blowing how much that
Speaker 2: that city has expanded and grown. Do you feel the
Speaker 2: change also kind of culturally there? Yeah, is can you
Speaker 2: expound on that at all?
Speaker 1: I mean, what's it?
Speaker 2: What's what's the biggest change that you feel?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, so I grew up thirty minutes north
Speaker 4: of Nashville. You know, I went to high school thirty
Speaker 4: minutes north of Nashville, and you know, when I when
Speaker 4: I was growing up, it would take I'm going to
Speaker 4: talk about the traffic first, because I feel like traffic
Speaker 4: is always like what it was all about.
Speaker 5: In their towns. Yeah, it will.
Speaker 4: Never be New York, it will never be La but
Speaker 4: it could be Atlanta. You know, I'm sure you've seen
Speaker 4: tons of time in Atlanta, but I have have. We
Speaker 4: just we don't have the infrastructure for what we are
Speaker 4: trying to do, you know. And I think that that
Speaker 4: was probably a flaw that happened fifty years ago when
Speaker 4: no one thought Ashville was going to be anything other
Speaker 4: than just this tiny little country music town.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: So it used to take me twenty minutes to get
Speaker 4: to Nashville, and now, you know, my parents used to
Speaker 4: live out thirty minutes and it would take an hour
Speaker 4: to get to their house. And so, you know, all
Speaker 4: my neighbors when we and Lauren first got married, all
Speaker 4: were from either Nashville or Huntsville, Alabama, or Atlanta or Greensboro,
Speaker 4: North Carolina. And now I would say our neighbors are
Speaker 4: literally from all over the country. A lot of folks
Speaker 4: from New York, a lot of folks from from la
Speaker 4: a lot of folks from Miami are now moving to
Speaker 4: this like central location because it's not just a country
Speaker 4: town anymore. It's like you can come to Nashville to
Speaker 4: do anything, whether it's film or pop music or hip
Speaker 4: hop or R and B or soul or jazz or
Speaker 4: bluegrass or whatever.
Speaker 5: It is. It's kind of become this melting pot.
Speaker 4: And like it's always been called music city, but now
Speaker 4: it's like legit all genre music city and so but man,
Speaker 4: I'm not mad about the food scene has really gone.
Speaker 2: The food is insane. The food is insane.
Speaker 5: I mean it's gone away up like chill Well, all
Speaker 5: we used to have was Chili's and now we have
Speaker 5: like James Beard Award, you know, chefs winners.
Speaker 1: Like what was it called.
Speaker 2: I remember my brother taking me to it was called
Speaker 2: meat and two vegs or something like that, or meeting meat. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like a meeting three yeah, meeting three yeah, three three yeah,
Speaker 2: the original for a Philly kid.
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, that's I mean that just I mean,
Speaker 1: and now, oh my god, it's crazy. It's crazy good
Speaker 1: the food. But what's interesting.
Speaker 2: Is you still see some guy or girl walking down
Speaker 2: the street with a guitar and a dream and a dream.
Speaker 2: That's right, that really has sustained. I also think that
Speaker 2: what's what's fascinating. We kind of touched on this before,
Speaker 2: but you know, there's, uh, there isn't really a tradition
Speaker 2: in straight ahead rock of doing songs that other people wrote.
Speaker 2: You know that it's really a real country tradition, and
Speaker 2: Nashville has always been the center of the greatest songwriters
Speaker 2: in the world.
Speaker 1: I mean for sure.
Speaker 2: You know, I remember going once later on in life
Speaker 2: and going to the Blueberd Cafe and just you know,
Speaker 2: one of those you know, circle kind of things, and
Speaker 2: you just go, oh, man, I got to go back
Speaker 2: to school. I mean, these are incredible songs that some
Speaker 2: many of which will never be heard other than you know,
Speaker 2: in that in that framework. So it's just I find
Speaker 2: it fascinating. One thing, I'm always curious about them. Maybe
Speaker 2: you have the answer to this. Last time we were
Speaker 2: in Nashville, I saw, like, I don't know, twelve bachelorette parties.
Speaker 2: Is that like a thing that it's it's it's a
Speaker 2: destination for bachelorettes for some reason.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think I could be wrong on my likesatistics here,
Speaker 4: but I do think we have I think we have
Speaker 4: become the number one location now, like even over Vegas
Speaker 4: and Troston for bachelorette parties.
Speaker 2: Okay, so it wasn't just a coincidence. I know it
Speaker 2: was like a bachelorette convention or something was in town.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, but the ironic part is that there's a
Speaker 4: bachelorette convention every single night of the week, three hundred
Speaker 4: and sixty five days a year. It's like, so Nashville.
Speaker 4: Nashville started this thing called pedal taverns. Have you heard
Speaker 4: of these?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's that's right. I saw them there.
Speaker 2: They there, you drink beer and you and you pedal
Speaker 2: your an pedal town, right, yeah, so right.
Speaker 3: And I don't. I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't go downtown very often, maybe if I'm going
Speaker 4: to watch the Preds play or watch, you know, our
Speaker 4: minor league baseball team play, Like me and Lauren kind
Speaker 4: of stay away from downtown. I love downtown, but when
Speaker 4: you go, it's, uh, it's intense.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 4: There's party buses everywhere, there's pedal taverns everywhere, there's bachelor
Speaker 4: and bachelorette parties everywhere. Downtown is absolute. It's amazing, but
Speaker 4: it's absolute chaos, especially for someone like me. It would
Speaker 4: it would, it would be a complete disaster.
Speaker 1: No, no, going to Broadway, but.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no no.
Speaker 4: It is unlike really any any other city, you know,
Speaker 4: because you can you can literally hear music from six
Speaker 4: a m To six am, Like it's non stop coming
Speaker 4: out of every bar on Broadway. It's like, I mean,
Speaker 4: if you if that, if that is your dream to
Speaker 4: become a musician of any kind, Like yeah, La and
Speaker 4: the Orc are amazing, but when you when you go
Speaker 4: to Nashville, man, it just it just bleeds out of
Speaker 4: every orifice of the city. So it's pretty wild.
Speaker 2: Tell me about your daughter and your relationship to Uganda,
Speaker 2: and I'm really fascinated by that whole story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, I mean, you know, I could, I could
Speaker 4: get into the weeds and all this stuff. But long, long,
Speaker 4: super long story short. It was twenty sixteen and I
Speaker 4: was I'll never forget it. I was in Phoenix, Arizona,
Speaker 4: playing the show and my wife, I know it. We'll
Speaker 4: probably get into this stuff later, but my wife was
Speaker 4: really getting into traveling, you know, across the world. My
Speaker 4: wife graduated the University of Tennessee with a nursing degree,
Speaker 4: and right when we got married, our marriage counselor advised
Speaker 4: us to for her not to go to work and
Speaker 4: to come on the road with me so we could
Speaker 4: spent our whole first year of marriage sorting out marriage things,
Speaker 4: you know. So my wife did six hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: something straight toward dates with me on one bus with
Speaker 4: nine you know dude band members and crew guys. And
Speaker 4: it was like year two of the road and she
Speaker 4: was like, you know, I think I'm I think I've
Speaker 4: had my feel of the road.
Speaker 2: I don't know that my wife has ever spent a
Speaker 2: single night on a tour bus with me.
Speaker 1: I don't know that.
Speaker 2: I mean she's been on she's maybe gone, she might
Speaker 2: have gone.
Speaker 1: Two hundred miles or something like that.
Speaker 2: But she's never done it overnight. That is so impressive, dude.
Speaker 4: And we had no like zero dollars, like we took
Speaker 4: a bus out, but it was like we were losing
Speaker 4: money every weekend that we were touring. And so we
Speaker 4: were sharing a bunk and you know you've been on
Speaker 4: a but those bunks are like small sharing a bunk,
Speaker 4: hearing a bunk, Yeah, smaller than a twin sized bed
Speaker 4: for like two years.
Speaker 2: Oh, but for sure you'd be in the back louns.
Speaker 5: We didn't have the back louns.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 5: Oh we do now, but but we did not back then.
Speaker 4: And so well, yeah, to you know, two years of that,
Speaker 4: Like you know, in the beginning of any career, just
Speaker 4: the grind is just never ending. You know, I feel
Speaker 4: like we were doing like six shows a week. I mean,
Speaker 4: it was just a lot. And so after the second year,
Speaker 4: my wife was like, I think I'm gonna chill. I'm
Speaker 4: gonna I'm gonna figure out what I want to do.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I think my wife, about two or three years in
Speaker 4: our marriage, were just like, I think that there has
Speaker 4: to be a bigger purpose for me, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. Like she was a graduate of the nursing degree,
Speaker 4: I think, always wanted to work in a hospital, always
Speaker 4: wanted to take care of people.
Speaker 5: And you know.
Speaker 4: For the first two years after she got out of college,
Speaker 4: she just like, you know, travel with me. And so
Speaker 4: she had met this woman who is going to hop
Speaker 4: on on the zoom in a little wild name names
Speaker 4: Suzanne Marrinick. And Suzanne has been doing you know, mission
Speaker 4: work for like fifteen years kind of all over the
Speaker 4: country help and take care of babies in different countries.
Speaker 5: And my wife met her.
Speaker 4: They became instant best friends, and my wife was like,
Speaker 4: anywhere you go, where you're going to serve and do
Speaker 4: any kind of mission work, I want to go with you.
Speaker 4: And this would have been twenty sixteen and my wife
Speaker 4: was in Uganda, and she just was sending me a
Speaker 4: bunch of pictures of the children's song that they were at,
Speaker 4: you know, facetiming me with a bunch of the babies
Speaker 4: that were there. And she had posted a picture that
Speaker 4: night of this one little girl whose name at the
Speaker 4: children's song was Blessing. And I've always thought my wife
Speaker 4: is the most beautiful person ever seen in my life,
Speaker 4: but there was something about this picture that she was
Speaker 4: like glowing man. And so was this baby who I'd
Speaker 4: never met before. And I remember facetiming or that night,
Speaker 4: saying who was that baby that you were holding? And
Speaker 4: she said, well, you know, this is Blessing and there
Speaker 4: are no you know, living parents or living relatives, and
Speaker 4: so she has no family, and so she's she's been
Speaker 4: at this children's home now and her name is Willie Gray,
Speaker 4: but her name was Blessing at the orphanage, and she
Speaker 4: had been there for like a week. She was six
Speaker 4: weeks old. And my wife was just talking to me
Speaker 4: and she was like, we have to find a home
Speaker 4: for this child. And I'll never forget it, dude. It
Speaker 4: was two o'clock in the morning, where I was half
Speaker 4: asleep and It just kind of blurted out of my
Speaker 4: mouth of like, well, we're going to bring her home.
Speaker 4: And I don't even I don't even remember saying it.
Speaker 5: It was just like I don't even know.
Speaker 4: I don't even know if I was ready to have
Speaker 4: kids yet. Wow, Like I was really loving the road thing.
Speaker 4: My career was just starting to take off. I was like, man,
Speaker 4: if we have kids right now, you know, what is
Speaker 4: that going to do? And I'll never forget those words
Speaker 4: coming out of my mouth. And then, you know, two
Speaker 4: months later, do we started the whole you know, home
Speaker 4: study process, had people come into our house asking us
Speaker 4: a bunch of questions, doing background checks, you know, making
Speaker 4: sure the home was safe and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: And then we spent the next foreseeable future in a
Speaker 4: little town called mas Cindi, Uganda, which is where Willi
Speaker 4: Gray is from. And it wasn't maybe six months later
Speaker 4: that I that I met Willi Gray for the first time.
Speaker 5: Went to this children's home.
Speaker 4: And she had met Lauren, but she never met me.
Speaker 4: And I walked into this little front room on the
Speaker 4: grounds and she was taking a nap on a dirt floor.
Speaker 4: It was it was the first time I'd ever met
Speaker 4: her and so spent a ton of time with her
Speaker 4: there and once we actually started the adoption process, we
Speaker 4: were we lived in Uganda roughly for almost a year.
Speaker 4: You know, I had to travel back and forth playing shows.
Speaker 4: My wife basically stayed in Uganda for almost a year.
Speaker 4: And just you know, this is kind of cliche, but
Speaker 4: a lot when a lot of people begin the adoption process,
Speaker 4: they get pregnant as well, and that's that's what happened
Speaker 4: to us.
Speaker 1: So, oh, no kidding.
Speaker 4: You know, we were five months in the adoption process
Speaker 4: and found out that Laaren got pregnant, and uh so,
Speaker 4: you know, Lauren was like your version of twins for sure.
Speaker 4: So not only was like Lauren and Uganda by herself
Speaker 4: a lot, she was also by herself, uh six seven
Speaker 4: months pregnant, So it was it was a really crazy time.
Speaker 4: But dude, I look at Willie Gray now, she's offtionally
Speaker 4: eight years old in November, smart as a whip, beautiful,
Speaker 4: just it's I will never get that image out of
Speaker 4: my head the first time I'm at her, and then
Speaker 4: I look at her today and I'm just like, this
Speaker 4: is one of the most incredible things in the world.
Speaker 2: So wow, that is such an amazing story. Oh my gosh.
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Speaker 2: Well, Suzanne Marineck is here, Susan, would you like to
Speaker 2: join us?
Speaker 3: Good morning?
Speaker 5: How you do?
Speaker 1: It's up?
Speaker 3: Says I'm doing great, Harry Hei Jr.
Speaker 2: Thanks, Thanks, thanks so much much for being here, and
Speaker 2: I'm well. First off, how did how did the two
Speaker 2: of you meet?
Speaker 3: Three? Lauren? Yeah, big Lauren. Lauren was friends with my
Speaker 3: nephew in college and I was traveling somewhere where we're going.
Speaker 3: I was actually going to Haiti, and my nephew reached
Speaker 3: out to Lauren and said, hey, I know that you.
Speaker 3: Your heart's always desired to go and serve somewhere. My
Speaker 3: aunt's going in a few weeks. She ought to see
Speaker 3: if you can jump on her trip. And I got
Speaker 3: an email or call I don remember from Lauren just saying, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm friends with Land then and I heard you were
Speaker 3: going out of you know, to Haiti and I would
Speaker 3: love to join. And I had actually just had my
Speaker 3: trip was full, but I had the week before, I
Speaker 3: had had a nurse drop out, and I said, oh,
Speaker 3: actually I have one spot open for a nurse. And Lauren,
Speaker 3: I don't know if tr told you, but in school
Speaker 3: she got her nurse seemed to gree and so we
Speaker 3: just filled that spot with Lauren and I got to
Speaker 3: know her on that trip, and I think the Lord
Speaker 3: just kind of knitted our hearts together. And when we
Speaker 3: got ready to leave Haiti, she looked at me and
Speaker 3: she said, I really feel like this is something that
Speaker 3: I'm supposed to do in life. Everywhere you go, I
Speaker 3: want you to book me a flight. I want to
Speaker 3: go with you. And I said, be careful what you
Speaker 3: asked for, because I'm going to be going to Africa, saying,
Speaker 3: and she goes, I want to be sitting next to you.
Speaker 3: And several months later I looked over and there Lauren
Speaker 3: was sitting in the airplane next semi headed to Uganda.
Speaker 3: So that's kind of how it started.
Speaker 2: Had you been to Uganda before, I have, I.
Speaker 3: Have a little girl. That actually's how this whole thing started.
Speaker 3: That we brought home, that we adopted from Meganda.
Speaker 2: And Thomas Rover was telling me the whole process of
Speaker 2: adoption is pretty pretty complicated and time consuming.
Speaker 3: It is. She's been here now for thirteen years, and
Speaker 3: so when we adopted her, we didn't you didn't have
Speaker 3: to live there for a year or all the you know,
Speaker 3: the things that they've put in place. Now, it took
Speaker 3: us about a year to get her home just with paperwork.
Speaker 3: But it's gotten a lot more difficult than it was.
Speaker 1: Why is that? I'm just curious.
Speaker 3: I think, well, in all countries it's kind of come
Speaker 3: to a it went to a screeching halt for a
Speaker 3: long time with China and Ethiopia and Ukraine and Russia
Speaker 3: and Africa, and then they've kind of started opening them
Speaker 3: up again. I think countries started feeling like that it
Speaker 3: was a money It became a moneymaker. I think there
Speaker 3: were people here that had a heart to bring children
Speaker 3: home and were willing to pay the money because they
Speaker 3: but like that they needed homes rather than them laying
Speaker 3: in orphanages, and you know, the it's this unequaled balance
Speaker 3: of and for children and then countries being corrupt in it,
Speaker 3: and so I think they just leveled it for a
Speaker 3: little bit. Now the countries are starting to open up
Speaker 3: a little bit more, but they have made the process
Speaker 3: a lot more difficult. And so some children are you know,
Speaker 3: still coming home to forever families and others aren't.
Speaker 2: I'm curious, Suzanne, about what you think it is. Tom's
Speaker 2: rad and I were talking about this a little bit,
Speaker 2: how that connection to that little girl just sort of
Speaker 2: hit him without really having planned to have this, you know,
Speaker 2: be a part of his life. But I'm wondering what
Speaker 2: it is in your either your upbringing, or your point
Speaker 2: of view about the world, or some some kind of
Speaker 2: experiences you have that you've had that makes you, you know,
Speaker 2: want to follow this path because it's not an easy path,
Speaker 2: you know, to go to places like Haiti, to go
Speaker 2: to go to Africa, to see the kind of conditions
Speaker 2: that these children are living in. A lot of us
Speaker 2: want to sort of kind of like turn away from
Speaker 2: that or at the very least not spend our life
Speaker 2: focused on it. So I'm just wondering if there's something
Speaker 2: that you think is a reason for you.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you. If you've ever held a dying
Speaker 3: child in your arms, or a dying baby and you're
Speaker 3: wondering if they're every while you're holding them, if they're
Speaker 3: going to take their next breath, it's a failing that
Speaker 3: you can't shake and that you never forget. And if
Speaker 3: you ever sit across from another mother who is holding
Speaker 3: her baby wondering if her baby's gonna live, truly is
Speaker 3: to my child fixing to take their last breast And
Speaker 3: the look on the mother's face feels like, I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't care what country you're in. A mother's love
Speaker 3: is a mother's love. And when they are holding their
Speaker 3: child and they are worried that they're gonna die in
Speaker 3: their arms, yeah, they have no way to get them
Speaker 3: the help that they need to keep them alive, it
Speaker 3: does something to you. And I think I had enough
Speaker 3: of those times to where I was either holding a
Speaker 3: baby thinking they're fixing a die. They're fixing a die,
Speaker 3: we have to like, I've got to do something to
Speaker 3: get this baby help. Or I was sitting next to
Speaker 3: a mother and I could feel her emotion of worry
Speaker 3: that her baby was going to die. And then I
Speaker 3: would come back to my home in Brentwoo, Tennessee and
Speaker 3: look around and everything that I've ever needed or wanted
Speaker 3: was at my fingertips. And it was this battle and
Speaker 3: my head and my heart. If I can sit here
Speaker 3: and I can live this great life, or I can
Speaker 3: do more to help these other mothers and these babies
Speaker 3: that I've held. And I just couldn't lay in bed
Speaker 3: at and I and do nothing. I just couldn't do it.
Speaker 3: I couldn't sleep. I worried all the time. My heart
Speaker 3: just continued to be called back to the different countries.
Speaker 3: We ended up landing in Uganda, which is where loved
Speaker 3: One is now because basically that's where Jessie Love is from.
Speaker 3: But when you have ever held a dying child, you
Speaker 3: don't forget it. And that's what me to do it.
Speaker 3: I mean, on a weekly basis, I get photos and
Speaker 3: babies that truly are skin and bones on oxygen, and
Speaker 3: I think about their moms sitting there in the hospital
Speaker 3: next to him, wondering if they're going to take their
Speaker 3: last breath, yet they don't have the money to pay
Speaker 3: for them to have the oxygen that's on on their face.
Speaker 3: And you know, Kevin, I tell my kids all the time,
Speaker 3: we only have one life and what are we going
Speaker 3: to do with it while we're here? And so for
Speaker 3: me to answer your question, that's what moves me to
Speaker 3: continue to do it.
Speaker 2: Well, it sounds like might think the thing that you
Speaker 2: that what really struck me with what you said is
Speaker 2: that you felt like you didn't really have a choice,
Speaker 2: that it just you just had to do it, and
Speaker 2: that it it. It sounds like also that it continues, it
Speaker 2: feels better, a lot better than doing nothing, and it
Speaker 2: continues to give back in that way. I mean, you
Speaker 2: must feel a tremendous sense of I don't know, just
Speaker 2: pride or energy to keep going. When you see a situation,
Speaker 2: when you see a child whose life is saved or
Speaker 2: moved or moved to a nice home or whatever, that
Speaker 2: must that must really fill you up.
Speaker 1: I would think.
Speaker 3: It makes the heart happy. And I looked at a
Speaker 3: mom who was once holding her child, worried about it,
Speaker 3: and then their child is healthy, rating around their community,
Speaker 3: and it does you know, I feel like that that's
Speaker 3: what my number one calling in life is to be
Speaker 3: a mom to my children and a wife to my husband.
Speaker 3: But I do feel like that he has given me
Speaker 3: a passion in my heart to do more to help
Speaker 3: other babies and moms, and thankfully now we have a
Speaker 3: way and means to be able to do that.
Speaker 2: So you said that loved One is on the ground
Speaker 2: in Uganda. Explain to me what happens on a day
Speaker 2: to day basis how the organization functions there.
Speaker 3: Okay, So children come to us in several different ways.
Speaker 3: We have moms who truly strap their babies to their back,
Speaker 3: walk for miles and knock on our door. We have
Speaker 3: community liaisons or unity leaders that are out in all
Speaker 3: the different villages and if there's a child that's in need,
Speaker 3: they'll call the loved One Admin center and say, hey,
Speaker 3: we have a child that needs care. Or the hospitals
Speaker 3: that are in our area they'll call and say there's
Speaker 3: a child that has come they need medical care, but
Speaker 3: their parents can afford it. And so our staff goes
Speaker 3: in and they do a medical assessment on a child
Speaker 3: or out in the community or either on our center
Speaker 3: when they show up and they see what their basic
Speaker 3: needs are. We have several pediatricians, nurses, social workers, nutritionists,
Speaker 3: we figure out kind of what they need, but our
Speaker 3: first step or stop is always make sure they go
Speaker 3: to the hospital so we have an overview medically to
Speaker 3: know if they have any secondary infections that are accompanying
Speaker 3: the malnutrition. We get a medical care that they need
Speaker 3: at the hospital, make sure that that's paid for and
Speaker 3: the mom is there with them or a caretaker is there.
Speaker 3: Then they bring them to our center. A lot of
Speaker 3: times once we get rid of the secondary infection, they're
Speaker 3: so malnourished they can't have solid foods. Their bodies want
Speaker 3: to absorb the nutritional like the substance, and so we
Speaker 3: have to start on a liquid diet that's full of awe.
Speaker 3: It's just packed full of vitamins and nutrients to kind
Speaker 3: of get them boost into where then their body can
Speaker 3: absorb the other solid foods. Then our nutritionists make a
Speaker 3: specific meal for that child depending on what their situation is,
Speaker 3: and they start feeding that child that meal. In the beginning,
Speaker 3: when they first come, they typically kind of sit and
Speaker 3: they they're sad and well, they've just been sick and
Speaker 3: they haven't had energy to do anything. But once they
Speaker 3: start getting healthy and then they start playing with the
Speaker 3: other children and they have energy and they go from
Speaker 3: sitting in a corner or laying in the bed to
Speaker 3: actually getting out and playing. Then we start if they
Speaker 3: need physical therapy, we can give them physical therapy. We
Speaker 3: have a spiritual peace to our program to where where
Speaker 3: everybody that comes through the doors we're trying to share
Speaker 3: the love of Jesus and tell them just about Christ.
Speaker 3: Then once they get healthy and they're ready to go
Speaker 3: back home, we have their families come in and do
Speaker 3: training the whole time they're at they're at our center,
Speaker 3: we train them on nutrition, on hygiene, preventative measures, on
Speaker 3: you know, how to keep your child from getting in
Speaker 3: this situation again. And then when they're ready to go home,
Speaker 3: we bring their families in. We send them home with
Speaker 3: a meal for about a month for them and their families, mattresses,
Speaker 3: mosquito nets, Bibles in their language, and we resettle them,
Speaker 3: make sure they're okay, and then our social workers go
Speaker 3: back and do follow up checkouts just to make sure
Speaker 3: that they're continuing to stay healthy and thrives.
Speaker 2: Wow, that is that's kind of a full service situation.
Speaker 2: That's that's incredible. You know, Thomas fred I didn't even
Speaker 2: ask how is how is your little girl doing? How's
Speaker 2: the adjustment been? I mean, she's been here for quite
Speaker 2: a few years now, but how's that going.
Speaker 4: It's uh, it's been the biggest blessing of my entire life,
Speaker 4: you know. You know Suzanne was talking about, you know,
Speaker 4: right when we sort of decided that we were going
Speaker 4: to adopt the rules, did change, you know. So I
Speaker 4: don't think we I don't think we thought we were
Speaker 4: going to live in Uganda for as long as we did.
Speaker 4: But but that time being in Uganda for that long
Speaker 4: really opened my eyes up to just a whole different
Speaker 4: kind of life, you know, Like Suzanne said, like we
Speaker 4: all of us are on this podcast or are so
Speaker 4: blessed and there is not anything that we couldn't hop
Speaker 4: on Amazon right now and have delivered to our doorstep
Speaker 4: in twenty four hours, you know. And so I think
Speaker 4: when you see that type of poverty, and you see
Speaker 4: that type of malnutrition, and you start to play with
Speaker 4: a bunch of kids, I mean I literally I remember
Speaker 4: walking to the children's home one day, was just a
Speaker 4: bracelet on and it was like the kids just swarmed me,
Speaker 4: asking me.
Speaker 5: For my bracelet.
Speaker 4: You know, it's just I think I was just like,
Speaker 4: how can you all, how can you be so happy
Speaker 4: in these circumstances where I live in a world full
Speaker 4: of excess and there are so many days where I'm
Speaker 4: just like either non content or at a want for more.
Speaker 4: And I think that surrounding myself with so many of
Speaker 4: the of the folks in Uganda, it just changed my
Speaker 4: outlook on life and honestly transformed my heart. And so
Speaker 4: every day that I wake up and I get to
Speaker 4: see Willi Gray, it's just absolutely incredible. And so you know,
Speaker 4: next year we're actually going to take Willi Grade back
Speaker 4: to Uganda for the first time, wow since twenty sixteen,
Speaker 4: So wow, Wow. Willi Gray talks about it all the time.
Speaker 4: Every night we got to bread. She prays for her
Speaker 4: friends in Uganda and loves seeing pictures and loves getting
Speaker 4: updates all the kids that love one is helping, and it's.
Speaker 5: Just been incredible. Man.
Speaker 4: She and Willi Gray at a young age are He
Speaker 4: has a heart for wanting to go and do it
Speaker 4: as well, which is which is pretty awesome for wille
Speaker 4: Grade to get to watch her mom, you get to
Speaker 4: watch Susanne do it, because it's I think it's lighting
Speaker 4: a fire in her heart to kind of go back
Speaker 4: to Uganda and and uh and uh you know, she's
Speaker 4: so obsessed with learning about her culture and learning about
Speaker 4: her friends and and uh. So it's going to be
Speaker 4: a very special time for for us and our family
Speaker 4: to you know, to get to take WILLI grade back
Speaker 4: to Uganda and get to kind of watch her kind
Speaker 4: of reunite with with a bunch of our friends. So
Speaker 4: it's been incredible. Man, it's been the big blessings of
Speaker 4: my life. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2: You know this some podcast was sort of started with
Speaker 2: the idea, I mean, you two are the perfect example
Speaker 2: of what we're trying to do in this in this
Speaker 2: situation where you have somebody who is incredibly successful in
Speaker 2: in uh in you know, in one way, and then
Speaker 2: also finds the time and the passion to do something
Speaker 2: good in the world, and through that has found someone
Speaker 2: who is generally unsung like you, Susan uh and and
Speaker 2: giving both of these people an equal voice. So thank
Speaker 2: you so much for for being here. I mean, this
Speaker 2: is your your exactly what we're talking about on this
Speaker 2: on this podcast. But is there a call to action,
Speaker 2: like how can how can people help? Where can they
Speaker 2: get in touch with you find out about the organization.
Speaker 2: Let's give it a shout out.
Speaker 3: And well, we have our website. It's www dot leve
Speaker 3: one International dot org. You can find us on all
Speaker 3: our socials. It's eleven one I N T. And you know,
Speaker 3: we started out honestly, Kevin, I thought, if I can
Speaker 3: help five longs or five babies, and that's five babies
Speaker 3: that would live that wouldn't ordinarily be able to live.
Speaker 3: And we're five years in. It was five years in
Speaker 3: April that we kind of just put our sword down
Speaker 3: in Uganda, and we've helped over eleven thousand children. Amazing,
Speaker 3: and so I think, so we've gone from a little
Speaker 3: bitty house that held ten children to now our center
Speaker 3: will hold forty five. And we just started construction and
Speaker 3: we're hoping to be finished in twenty twenty four for
Speaker 3: a rehab center that'll hold over one hundred children. And
Speaker 3: so we started out with one district in Uganda and
Speaker 3: now we're touching ten. And so as we grow, our
Speaker 3: operating costs to go up. And you know, I think
Speaker 3: if that's one of the biggest things that Thomas, Rent
Speaker 3: and Lauren have played such a significant role in just
Speaker 3: helping us as we've grown to be able to fund
Speaker 3: what you know has come our way, and I would
Speaker 3: love to touch every district in the entire country and
Speaker 3: just making be just a huge impact for malnourished babies
Speaker 3: in Uganda. And I think learning t are both kind
Speaker 3: of have that fire in them now that we've actually
Speaker 3: watched it and be able to grow. You start out
Speaker 3: going can we do it? Can we not do it?
Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden it starts happening, and
Speaker 3: so it feels your fire to do more and to
Speaker 3: help more. And so I just think anybody that wants
Speaker 3: to come alongside us and help the babies that we're serving,
Speaker 3: we would be more than happy to take them along
Speaker 3: with us on our journey. Day.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you guys for your time. Thomas Rhetz's in
Speaker 2: Mary Nick, keep up the great work.
Speaker 5: Kevin, thank you so much, man. This is huge. We
Speaker 5: cannot thank you enough. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: It's huge for me too, So thanks a lot for being.
Speaker 2: Hey, guys, thanks for listening to another episode of Six
Speaker 2: Degrees with Kevin Bacon. If you want to learn more
Speaker 2: about Love One International, all you got to do is
Speaker 2: head to their website. At www dot Loveweinternational dot org.
Speaker 1: You can find all.
Speaker 2: The links in our show notes and to hear more interviews,
Speaker 2: more laughs, more good in the world. To make sure
Speaker 2: you subscribe to the show and tune into the rest
Speaker 2: of our episodes, you can find Six Degrees with Kevin
Speaker 2: Bigon on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: See you next time.