#429 - Before They Made It Big with Chris Stapleton, Dierks Bentley, Jon Pardi, Walker Hayes + More!

Hey guys, welcome to a special episode of The Bobbycast. This is before they made it big. I love these kinds of episodes. It was super cool to compile all of this because over the years, I've sat down with artists who are massive stars now, but once upon a time, they were just normal people trying to figure out live whether going to college or starting a family, or playing

Part of you, this.

Chapter of Chris Stapleton, you and Sam and you're not the same, but it's like nobody kind of came out of nowhere, completely organic, and it's been boom songwriting first, like paying dudes writing songs for people, like that's why, Like that way you moved, you moved down to write song a songwriter.

I thought that was that sounded like the greatest job I've ever heard of, and I heard of even.

Though singing like you did you want to like, I can go be an artist. So let's be honest.

You know, sitting in a room playing a guitar for maybe three hours a day and getting paid to do that is probably still the greatest job in the world.

Would you rather sit in a room and write a great song with one of your songwriter buddies or play on stage for fifty thousand people.

I like to play, so that that's hard to say. But I like to write a good song too. But you know, at this point, I probably have to pick playing because I like playing. I like playing a whole lot.

Do you ever get to where I'm getting kind of tired of playing? I just kind of want to write songs for a few months.

No, No, I mean certainly, if you're if you're not feeling one hundred percent, if you're sick, you know, there's times I'm sure you get out there, not sleeping and working nine days a week where you're just like, you know, I wish I could just, you know, chill out just a minute. But the fear will keep you going.

The fear. That's why I have fear.

I'm terrified that I feel like, and I don't know if you feel this way, because I'm obviously nuts, but I feel like I've been committing crimes for a long time, and eventually the cops are gonna catch me, and when they do, my career is over because they're if they've got me, or everyone's going to figure out that I'm not even some imposter syndrome, you.

Feel like, absolutely, I think I think a lot of people feel that. Not a lot of people will verbalize it, you know. But I had somebody that uh and I won't say his name, but uh, you know it was.

A hero of mine. You have that very thing.

He's like, I'm just waiting for everybody to figure you know, figured out, and I'm just like, I was just like, even you feel that way.

I was like, okay, all right, do you feel that way? Oh?

Sure, everybody you know to some degree, nobody you know. But then you know the flip side of the corner. I used to say to people when even when you walking to meet somebody, hey you doing man, and be like, oh, I'm far better than I deserve.

I used to say that the people.

And then I had I met somebody and then and they were walking up on the bus and there was another artist and he said, uh, he said, well me too, But do you know, maybe we all deserve great things? And it really made me. It took me back for a minute, and I was just like, wow, that's uh okay, maybe we did, and maybe that makes it okay, you know, like maybe that can make the fear go away a little bit if you if you just think that we

Do you get in your own head a lot?

You feel like.

I can in a moment, And yeah, I get in my own head quite a bit. That's probably why I don't talk that much.

What's your fear getting in your own head of talking? H Like, what's the worst that could happen in your mind?

What you say?

You know, I don't want to get in my own head, So that's why I don't.

I might get in my own head on stage. Sometimes that's the worst place for it to happen to me, you know, like maybe I don't like how something sounding, or I don't like the way guitar feels at the moment, you know, or it's you know, any little thing that can happen, you know, is the danger for me to go completely off the edge and just like not be able to dig myself out of that moment. It's bad when I go down, but I try to avoid it.

Me my co host Amy can you can notice that and she's the one that goes boom and she'll try to pull me out of it.

Is that what Morgan does for you? Absolutely?

Absolutely, because she can see it sometimes or she can see it happening when maybe.

You can't, or you're just starting. Absolutely, Yeah, same thing, just delevery slow because part of the creative part of you needs to be in that space. Well, yeah, you've got to be on the edge. You just can't fall off of it. Do you feel like sometimes you don't want to fix yourself because you'll lose your edge. Do you ever have that thought? I'm not till now, never mind scratch that, because that's something I'll be like, I don't know if I should get better because I'll lose it.

No, you know I used to think those kind of things, but I always feel like there's room for improvement and and if something's making your your overall health or life better, it's not necessarily it's not losing your edge, you know, I feel like those things.

It's not losing edge. It's just it's making making you sharper.

You finish the show, you come off stage, what's the what's the first thing you do finish the show.

Yeah, I thank all the local crew guys for for the work, and a lot of times my wife is retired for the evening before the encore.

Is over, so.

I'll go find out where she is if she needs anything, and then I'll probably why not hang with the band guys for a few minutes in the dressing room and then hit the bus and I'll be up till two three in the morning watching Face Off.

For the eightieth time for the eightieth time.

Do you go back and listen to shows like your live shows and then criticize or love on yourself.

No, not, No, I try not to. I mean, we do record now, and we have a pretty elaborate recording rig. We basically, you know, have as much of that kind of stuff as we can have out there for cataloging, and we're trying to put together some live things. But it's a real uh, well, that microscope is tough, you know, on live shows, you know, because there's so much other

So, well, you look at a crowd, and when you look at a crowd, will you focus on the people that are having a great time or you see the one that's.

Like anybody that spending my show just knows that I don't look at the crowd a whole lot, because that a little bit can break focus for me. Like I'll look at the crowd when I'm not playing and I'll try to interact with them in that way. But if I do look out there and I see somebody not having a good time, it can do that thing and we're talking about or if I see somebody having too good of a time, it will make me smile, it will make me too happy, and I forget what I'm doing.

You know, Yeah, I didn't know that because I do. I've seen you play a bunch and you do kind of keep down a bit when you play.

Yeah, I'm here, yeahside the circle, like.

Somebody can see me over the radio or whatever this is.

And but I'm I'm very much in the guitar and I'm in my singing, and I'm in with the rest of the band. That's where that's where the stuff's happening. And when that's not going on, then the interaction happens a little bit more in the crowd. Maybe if I take a solo off step out front just for a minute, and we can give a little plants here in there.

That circle too is important to you. Oh yeah, the people in that circle. Absolutely, they're the same people on the record. Absolutely Why they's so important to you?

None of we wouldn't be sitting here talking if it wasn't for the people in that circle. You know, none of this would be what it is, and none of it would be happening at all if it weren't for the people in that circle.

You really care about it, huh, oh yeah, absolutely.

Can it?

Try as I can tell you, I feel like with me, I'm as good as the people around me are. Like I try, I surromise. The people made me.

Better, right, And that's that's one of the best things you can do if you want to be better, surround yourself with the best people you can find and whatever. And that extends into you know, when we're on the road with a pretty what I will consider a good sized crew, and everybody in that crew is that for us. And I think that's the key to putting on a successful tours is you get the absolute best people to work with you.

Can find at all times.

And uh, there's four on stage, but the four on stage, Yeah, that's.

I mean, that's that's that's the fist for you.

That's you.

Yeah, it's the type like right there, those four. I mean it sounds like ten, but it's you four.

Yeah, No, that's that's the you know.

And then you know, Dave Cobbs in there when he wants to be in there, and uh, you know, Micky rolfe Els in there when he has meant to be.

In there, and Dave go wherever he wants to be whenever he wants to be like.

That dude, But interpically, Dave likes the show up for things that are really easy travel or very high profile. Those those are days too. He'll he'll tell you as much he likes you know, those the best things to go to. You know, this is the easiest things to go to. So uh oh, let me talk about Blue Egg all right? So all right, let's let's switch.

It up a bit.

Uh You you played for Tom Petty, you get to play it wriglely with Tom Petty.

Yes.

I don't know anyone who loves music, you know, just genre less music that didn't love Tom Petty.

If you don't love Tom Petty, I don't know what's the matter with you?

Ready to go.

Seek some kind of help. It's you know, if you can't find something in some of Tom Petty's music that you like, I worry about you a little bit.

When you're when you're playing before Tom with Tom, did you take a second and like take.

It in when you're on stage?

Absolutely, you're well, first of all, we're at wrigley Field. The first first show we played with him was at wrigley Field, And so that alone would be enough to be like, hey, we're playing a wrigley Field. But then you add to the fact that we're there with Tom Petty and the harb Wreckers. It's you know, that's you know, if you told seventeen year old me that that was going down, my head would blow up. And it still

You still get excited? Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah.

Every night it's a new thing, you know, because you know, we don't run tracks, we don't do any that kind of stuff. So every night anything can happen.

Which is crazy because again it's for the most part, it's four people on stage. Yes, and you don't run tracks. That's what I'm saying.

It sounds like ten people up there. Well, we're just playing your dad can and you and you're playing the lead I am, and you're singing. I watch it and I'm just like, okay.

Are you are you harsh on?

Let's say you're doing a solo, Well you pick a part, We're like, oh man, I really I really screwed that up.

Well I'm gonna screw this. Let's just get one thing out of the way. I'm gonna screw up a solo at some point in a show, and probably two or three solos in the show. But hey, it's that way, you know, it's live, and I've I've learned to just laugh it all a little bit, you know, and then and then see if I can find my way back home, you know.

So it's Soloing is a very new thing to me. Really.

It's really only something I started doing pretty much right before the Travel record because I had two guys in the band quit and it got down to me and JT and Derek and we had we had.

Three gigs that weekend. I was like, hey, you think we can cover this. They're like, I don't know that.

You have a bass player and a drummer. You really don't have many options. Except it was out of.

Necessity that that I started doing that, and I was like, well, maybe I uncover it, maybe I'll figure something out, and then you know, from there, I've learned to forgive myself my shortcomings as a guitar player and just you know, enjoy it, because I do enjoy playing guitar.

I really do.

It's probably as much as I enjoyed saying I enjoy it, and so you know, maybe someday I'll wake up and be a real boy, you know, like be a real guitar player.

You know, whenever you hurt yourself, you just didn't want to sing, You don't want anybody to come in? Was that a like a when you hurt your hand, you didn't want to not be able to do both?

Well, So much of our show is, like I said, we don't run tracks. There's not a roadmap necessarily for what we do. A lot of it is very much something we've developed over time of I'm gonna do this here, and you know, and like Derek, A feel things coming when I'm playing that he can catch. And so much of our show is that if I can't play, we can't do a show because nobody coming in is going to have that you know, understanding of the musicianship within

When you had to cancel the shows, that sucked for you that.

Yeah, well it sucked worse for the people that had tickets and plans than it did for me. You know, I had to deal with. You know, it's still a little aggravating to deal with, but you know, I felt worse about the people that I was inconvinced than anything I was having to go through. So it'd be fine, what's up with.

These the Eagles. That's that's pretty freaking cool. That is cool. I'll say that, be proud. It's pretty freaking cool. Yeah, man, it's it was Eagles with Vince Gill.

So it's just like, yeah, you know, I'm I was trying to talk to somebody the other day.

You know, I paid, I.

Saved up my money and when the hell is over to it was out and I bought me a ticket, my brother a ticket, and we would fourth throw up in Charleston, West Virginia, and they played for four hours, and to this day it's one of the greatest shows.

I've been to. So they played for four hours.

They played for four hours, They played us to the Eagles for like two hours, and then the Eagles became the house bands, so to speak, and they played everybody's solo.

So, like Henley when did.

Anything you can think of, yeah, that was solo stuff. So that you got the Eagles and all their solo stuff.

Did you watch the documentary on CNN that like the Eagles multi part document you ever see that, No, that's it.

That's the first of all. It was like a hundred hours and way better than Face Off. So it covers like it's a on Direct TV. On the bus is probably not on Direct TV. Okay, well that's on my own entertainment. I don't have TV at home.

Here's Derek Spentley on driving to Nashville with his dad and how he had to learn to balance life on the road and being a new dad back in the day. You mentioned a minute ago in two thousand and eight when you say your career is stalled. M M nine, Yeah, eight or nine, because right now we see you as the guy who has You're now in the A it's hard to get in the A group.

You're in the A group. You're now in the A group.

I think you're a recent addition, just speaking frankly to the your regional edition to the A group. Yeah, B plus maybe you're you really are in the I would tell you if you weren't plus plus.

You're in the U.

You're in the You're in the like you're in that mix of is he going to be in the Entertainment of Year category. Now it's not He's for sure going to be nominated, Like you know Luke is going to be nominated, Yeah, and probably gonna win yeh.

And he didn't win ACML, Dean did.

But like you know, Luke's gonna be But you're on that is he going to be in and it's happened in the last couple of years. But it's but you're like the consumate grinder. Yeah, I've used that word a lot.

It's like the hockey player that goes down there and not the slap shot guy from out top, not the fancy ford that's getting the sweet goals with the guy that goes down in the corner and digs the pucks out.

You know.

It's probably that's when I play hockey here in town in my little league at the Beer League. That's kind of my role in real life on that hockey team, and I think in my career, yeah, it's all about well grinding. My favorite quote is was written on a It was the Calvin Coolest quote. But it's about you know, persistence and determination. It's you know, education and talent and genius can't take the place of persistence and determination. That is the key to my success for sure, and I

What what happened in two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, and your mind, where do you.

Take a step back?

You know, I went out on the road with I played a thousand dates on my own. I went out of the road with Kenny, and then I went out of the road towards straight and I went back on the road with Kenny. And that's usually that's usually the platform to jump off of. You know, that's where urban flats everyone went through Kenny back when those when we

I'm so happy that things are where they are. But I think I discovered you can't tour.

I think I was in my mind, I was trying to make albums that would be jet fuel for the for touring, like how can this album, how can this song lead to headlining? And that's and you know, I need, I need the song help me get there. And that's just a terrible way to make records. And nothing against

In forty five days one time.

I mean, I'm out there all the time, and I'm trying to rush back here and make records and go back out there again.

It just it just doesn't It just doesn't work that way.

So I was on the road in two thousand and eight or nine with Paisley and except I tried my headlining thing, it just wasn't working. So it was like, okay, retreat Brad was I had a chance to go with Brad and it was on that tour and I was opening for him, and there's a lot going on that tour.

And it just killed all of us.

So I left and made ended up making just just a bluegrass record, and uh it really and I went back in the process of making that, being off the grid and not worrying about singles or touring or anything, just trying to make a great record that stood alone by itself and existed just for for itself totally rechanged

And I carry that on with working with.

Ross Kapperman into the next couple of albums and uh, really trying to make albums that don't worry about touring, do worry about anything.

Who cares? Just make a great record.

And one of the great things now I don't have an A lister, but who are am in my career is there's the better off you are doing touring and the more of you you have those fans, more freedom you have to say, who cares, Let's make the record you really want to make. I feel like that's why Keith is making like his best records, Keith Thurman's records me just get better and better each time because I feel like he's even more like I don't care. I'm gonna make great music that makes me happy that I

To you, you can really make your best records. And I feel like that's what's happening now. I'm not sure to I answer your question, but yeah, you and Keith get along pretty well.

I love him man too. It's hard for me to be friends with them because I just have so much respect for him. It's like we're good friends, but at the same time, like you're Keith Urban.

It's almost it's almost like why do you This is the feeling I have with him because him and I are closer than him than.

Me and other arms.

Yeah, and he's one of the guys I like when we'll talk to off the show. But it's like what I was, like, why do you want to be friends with me? He like, you're so smart, yeah, and he's so talented and you're so rich, like everything about you is way better than why would you want to be friends with me?

That's how I feel with him.

He is for me.

He's like a he's like a beacon. He's someone I look up to for advice on just for for lifestyle and management and how you approach things. And he's just he's so present, which is something I always you know, that's my main thing with anything I do is trying to be as present as possible in the moment that I'm in.

And he really is a true reflection of that.

I mean when when you speak to him, and you talk to him, he's so focused on what you have to say. He's listening, and uh, it's very uncommon in this business full you know, singers and people are trying to look at me and you know are have like five seconds look into your eyes and they're kind of thinking about the next thing. He's just really focused and present and has great advice and he's been through a lot,

Talk, like have an actual real conversation.

Hang tight, the Bobby Cast will be right back. Wow, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

What was that for you?

What was the song that were you kind of switched it up for You're like, oh boy, we're a different plant Field now.

As man, I think my career has been so different than anyone else's. I know it's it's just been so such a long slow.

What comes to mind where you're like, I'll be talking a plane changed a lot for me. I'm getting drunk on playing. I mean the biggest song, this song had a big like body.

The most important song of my whole career, and I say every night when I'm on stage is as I Hold On. That's a song that like connects the most of the whole most personal song for me. I wrote a rap my I passed away and the audience, man, those it's a song in the show where like we're having a party.

Thing's fun. It's awesome.

We're all fully connect because we're all having so much fun and throwing a party. In this song I play, it's just like it loses in a different direction. It's it's it's more just like this instead of this. It's like we just come together over the let's share sentiment of the whole amount of things that mean something to you, and it's it's more important song.

The important, but not the one you felt flipped you like, oh boy, this is it. I remember the day drunk on a playing like I heard of at the first time. Yeah, you brought it into the studio. I hadn't been played yet, and you were like, I want you to hear this song. I was like, this is a real song, drunk on a playing. I thought you were messing with me. Yeah, And I almost didn't even put it on the record. Really, who makes that call then to put it on the record.

Just you know, I'm so everyone I work with there's such an open communication.

If I like even the label.

With Mike and sending everyone to Capital, If if I have doubts about something, they don't immediately jump on that new set to promote their agenda. Everyone just just like cooling, work out together and work with Mary and we just kind of like and our tour and my executive producer and Ross and just okay, let's put it on there, you know.

But then they make it a single you're talking about like completely left of center.

I know.

I remember I had some people like that's all will never worked. Man, Red necks don't fly like I don't know. I don't know if it will work either, but it's it's I'm a pilot and I love you know. At the time, it was a few drinks and it was it was. But it is a huge song for me, for sure.

It was a month it was. It was a monster. Yeah, and then it flew up the charts. Yeah, it was big. I remember the day it came on the radio. We did a debut, like a world premire of it, and it played all day long. And I won't say what it is, but I was like, man, this sounds really good, right, because I like things that are different. Yeah, I don't care. I like taking big chances and hitting home runs more so than being consistent and just you know, having that three hundred bating average.

Yeah.

So it came out I was like, man, I love this song because this is sound like anything else, and that one of our radio guys, with a big radio guy, he was like, this sucks.

Sucks, We're gonna work. It's too weird. No, it's not.

Obviously it wasn't right because but like I love this song. You know a song I loved yours it didn't work for you was Bourbon in Kentucky. Yeah, well you and Casey. I loved that song too.

That album cycle is so funny because I put up Bourbon it didn't work, pulled it back, put out I Hold On, which probably you know, was a huge songf for me, then Drunk on a Plane, which was obviously the biggest song off that album. But Bourbon, it was a great song that Hillary Lindsay wrote, and I just I love that song. And I had to call her up. She's down Orange Beach. She had a few drinks and I was like hey, She's like, hey, what are you doing.

What for you, because the artists will come in and say, hey, this is like, for example, I think, who was it? My American kids like Kenny cut a little big town had it yeah, and Kenny cut it yeah, and so.

No, no, Kenny had it. Wait, yeah, a little bit down had it. Yeah, a little bit down had it. Yeah.

Shane was telling the story. Okay, now it's all sorts of yeah, a little Shane had it. He's on a flight and uh, he's on a flight with Kennedy. He plays his song for Kken. He's like, I gotta have the song. But Shane's like, I'm too scared to tell him a little bit now I's already cut it. Yeah, so he has to call they have to call a little big down and Kenny said like, I would love to have this song. And Shane's like oh, and Kenny's like,

Yeah.

So a lot of people come to the stories like, man, I had this song and then I was like, yeah, last minute, I let it go.

I have a bunch of songs that like I heard and I because the main thing if you're picking singles you got to pick are picking songs. You gotta pick songs that are hits, but also their hits for you, and that's that's that's how you get the big hits out of the park.

And I hit three hundreds.

When you pick singles that are like made for you, you think of songs like Don't Close your Eyes by Keith Whitley, songs that like We're just as a singer was made for that song, John Party song during my Boots.

I heard that song. I think before he you know, before he cut.

It, and what did you think when you heard it?

Huge hit? This is a monster, This is a huge song. There's a line there about.

A tractor, you know, and I was like that, I don't have that tractor factor.

You know, I don't have that thing. It's not what I do. So, like, I could either try to change this song up to make it work for me, or just let it go and help those guys, you know. I don't want the songwriters.

I want them to find for songwriters, man, they might get one or two great Oh these guys, they probably get five great songs.

Right.

I don't want to stand away someone's like baby and tied up, because that's the way Nashville used to be. People to hold songs like yours, you know, hold thirty forty songs to the record, and the hold was respected nowadays as it should be. It's not like you either cut it or you don't. And if you're you're you're taking your time. I'm gonna pictck it to somebody else and get them to cut it.

You know.

Songwriters have more power now, I think than they did back in the late nineties.

But so that song Whiskey Lullaby is a song that came that I oh, that's a good herd and I was like, ah, and then and why why not that one?

What?

What?

What? That?

It's just uh, I don't know just what, you know. I didn't hear it as a duet that the way Brad heard it, which is genius.

It just wasn't. I don't know. I just didn't have it, didn't do it, didn't do something for me. I don't know what it was.

But there's that happens all the time, but for me, it's there. I ever go, oh my gosh, I'm kicking myself. I'm always like, I'm happy for that that song found the right home and made its way.

There's there's always another song out there.

Who have you heard the opposite where you got this long? Because somebody else was like, and you made it a hit and they have to be well, man, you know, somewher on the Beach was a big deal.

It really was.

Man.

That was like, uh, yeah, I.

Had this song on hold. And there's five guys who wrote that song. And there's a lot of people wanted that song, and I just who wanted it wrote One of those the writers of the song. I'm totally drawing a blank right now. My brain is what happens when you're on the road for three days straight. But well, actually, Michael Knox, I think I think Michael Knox wanted it for one of his artists of what it was, and we kept saying, you know, our tour. I luckily I

When you're a new artist.

You know, a big song that that's different you can kind of set you apart from other people.

But I hopefully they're happy it was a big hit. You know.

It's like Lady A you know, Lady has You Look good? Notice.

Yeah, And that was Thomas Rhetts first. That's his song, and it was he didn't write it, he had it okay and he was like he was gonna cut it huge. It's awesome the whole I mean and the whole. But every artist does different things with it too. Yes, that's what we don't know too, Like, yeah, what are you gonna do different about? Like Kenny's totally was like this beach vibe. Who knows how Little Big Tow went cut it and tracked it when what they would have had as a part of.

This song, and it's it's yeah, totally, it's you know, I think all you can do. I mean, it's just the business we're in and in life in general, is you have to like you cannot like hold like that you could. You got to be have an attitude of gratitude and be thankful for what you got. And if something it's all meant to be, it's it's it's there's a reason why you didn't cut that song. There's just

Like song song, song, song song. If you're you know, that's not that's not the work.

Jake Cohen says he owes his career and where he is today to the Nashville songwriters that he met real early on. Because here, I'll tell you, I was talking to Ross Kapperman and good Man.

We were talking about you know, we had a.

Really good talk and he's coming to the stand up show Saturday. Just talked to him and we were you know, you kind of get lost in these conversations and didn't feel like this microphone in front of you.

For a while.

And we're talking about songs, and I'm just so interested in the songwriter part of it for me, Like that's why I started this thing. Were like, I'm interested in songwriters and why they write songs, artists, artist or songwriter, songwriter a song I just wanted to know, Like I want to put some light in a place that really there's not a lot of lights shined on. And so I was like, so tell me you write these songs.

The money you'll make.

Yeah, And he.

Was like, that's what a lot of artists. And again he's a songwriter who isn't and who's not on the radio. So you gotta understand way's come up from a biased agenda phil place. We all are, I am, your everybody is. But he was like, you know, that's what the new artist should know, and that's what artists should know, Like you should take outside song from songwriters, because here's Kenny Chesney, who I don't know that Chesney writes anything on his records anymore.

Yeah, he has very little. Yeah, so but.

He's not he doesn't, it's not it doesn't matter to him. He wants to find great songs.

Well, he said, what's.

Yeah, And that's why Kenny's always been great. He's found the greatest way possible of doing something, whether it be a song, whether it be a show, whether it be his body working out. Like the guy does everything to a high level, and he expects a high level of of everything and his music. He's written great songs that were number one hits. You know, I go back, you wrote that by himself? I think, but a lot like I've learned from him being on the road as many

Tough for you to take an outside song for the first time and go, well.

Here's what a lot of people don't know either, Like when you come to town, when you're come to town and you're just a guy that is trying to make it and be validated as a great Like I wanted people in town to be like, man, have you heard this j Kid. He's a great singer, he's a great songwriter, He's a great I felt like in order to get that buzz happening, I had to write my own songs and write with other songwriters and show that I could I could do that. But and I was also with

That you can have a hit that and and people don't care. They don't.

You're just as much validated if you have a if you because you know, what's funny is, I think probably a lot of people thought I probably wrote Barefoot Blue j Knight because it was so much like me, but.

It also made it sound like you too. That's also yeah, well thank you.

Yeah.

I think that's what I realized is that I had hits by songs I wrote. I had a career song by taking an outside song, which that career song started a string of Alone with You was next and went number one. Uh, Anywhere with You was the third one.

It went number one. Well a second, let's let's learn over a second. Le me tell you my favorite.

Jake On song.

This one here.

Songhand and that's not some beechy coastal song, you know, it's just a song that I And what's funny is Shane Mcanawly wrote this song and I told him for a year before I recorded it, I didn't even have it on hold.

I was just like, dude, I love that song. I was like, I hate the line in.

It you got edge every time you call?

Uh? He said, you you don't have to, I sang and change the lyrics.

You've got me out on the edge every time you call.

You know what he said originally in this in that line, no kidding, said you've got me running.

With scissors now the hall, Yeah, you know, okay?

And he said because he was right reading a book called running with Scissors.

Another book, dude. And I was like, no, that's terrible.

I was like I can't know, and like I was like, I don't run with ever since my mom was a I was a kid. My mom's like, don't run with scissors. Like, and I understand the idea of it, but like, isn't it more of a metaphor? Now I'm not saying the line was right now, I like the line change, but isn't it a metapal run with scissors? Like it's a metaphor. Yeah, it is a metaphor. And I know it was a metaphor, but there's also lines and songs like that's the thing

It's just like and it turns you off. Right. I'm not saying I've ever done that. I'm just saying.

People people can be like particular about certain things. And that's how I am with songs. Like if I hear one thing that, it'll throw me off, so I either have to rewrite it and then just say, hey man, I'll cut this song. I just had to rewrite this one part. But that's one thing I'll tell you I've never done. You can ask Eric Paslay this and he

Yeah, Eric talked for a long time about how you came into that song and fixed it to be you a lot and didn't want any credit for it, Like he was like it was kind of unbelievable that he came in, did so much rearranging of things that made it felt like his song and never asked for anything.

Man, I just I don't feel like it's right.

Plus, it will all come back around one day, you know, like I've always looked at it, like you do the right thing right, good things come back around.

Barefoot Blue Jenn Number one Alone with You number one one that.

Got away When we got away every one. I wrote that song, Uh true story about a girl of it just came to town in my small town, go to beach, Florida and met her one summer and she went away and never met.

Never saw her ever again.

And I thought this song actually would like as much like the reset that story, that person would pop up and be like, did.

You ever look for on Facebook? You never even looked for it.

I don't even have a Facebook, man.

Yeah, that didn't mean you didn't have Facebook, like old Jabe, Twitter or something old Jake.

Maybe my Space. I looked up around MySpace a.

Lot of places in our lifetime. We've got to see it all like start. Yeah, how about uh.

For Jane too? Yeah? Another song I didn't write. I did not write that song. I just love it. David Lee Murphy wrote this song, I think with Ben Hayslip and Uh, well, man, I feel terrible. I'm forgetting the third writer on this song right.

Now because we had a great night in d and my awards or game my show that I did. There you came out the first time and introduced team Actually if you remember that did yeah you did?

Yeah?

Again, it's been I've been here four years now, you did.

That's when I gave you that photo.

Lived twenty years. Yeah, does it feel like you've been here one hundred years.

Yeah. But I love it here, like I moved here because I love it here, Dude.

I love it here. I hate the industry. I love the people, and I love the part of the country. And I love the listeners of my show because they're normal people and I get to be a normal person with them.

Yeah, I hate the music industry. Here's the thing about the music industry. And this is dude, I could say whatever I want about the music industry and it wouldn't matter one way or another as far as you know how I feel or whatever. No one gives us a crap about what I think. But I do believe that there are so and I think you have to admit in this, like the music industry gets a rep for

Things that people I should never said. I've done that, like and.

I've said things that I didn't They weren't even meant the way they received them that were played against me. But I've learned that like in a town where people in and then this business, which is creative, by the worst thing you can do is be like the negative nanny of the day, you know about the business, because I found like it can turn against you quick.

Here's John Party talking about moving to Nashville and the time he got stabbed right before he moved.

I mean, there's a lot before Nashville. When was it okay?

So you start making music in California about what age when you start actually performing and making some money and thinking, okay, maybe I could do something musically.

Well, I have a first band of fourteen and we played the Dixon Mayfair and you know, like during it was kind of like rock and roll punkish, kind of like the rebellion from being growing up singing Alan Jackson and George Strait And.

Were you still doing some like Nirvana any of the nineties mock.

Me we we did?

You know, we were in the letter skinnered phase and like you know, some classic rock and Tom Petty, lots of Tom Petty. All of my friends jammed out to like Rage Against Machine and Nirvana and you know, like Blink Blink.

Went a two and Green Day were huge at a time.

And and and I kind of took that when you ask the question when you start like playing for real and kind of making tips and stuff. Eighteen but I was singing country again, but I had this like kind of fast rock and roll vibe to it. And then I went to a place called Chico, California, and has a college there called Chico State, and it is like party down, good time, and formed a country band and learned. And I had a mandolin player and he kind of taught me a lot about bluegrass. And so we had

And then after that I moved to Nashville.

And.

I was new.

I wanted to move in Nashville.

I took some trips out kind of you know, realize that I should probably be twenty one so I can get into the bars.

You know, like hang out and like get up and do a microphone.

You get there's still places you can play with back in two thousand and eight, you know, even that way, maybe I moved here with an atlas, like I didn't have GPS on my phone, like it's still kind of it was.

It seemed so like.

Really, did you have a horse and a buggy? And it seems like so long ago, years ago? Yeah, like what would you do without your GPS now? But there we're back in the day.

We have maps, and it was pretty easy. It was three three highways and.

What's that drive? What's that drive?

Like three days?

Yeah, three days of excitement, you know, twenty two.

I was excited, like I'm doing it. My mom was sad. My dad was like, go get a job.

Like trying to.

He's such a worker, but he you know, my dad. Everybody pushed me to go to Nashville.

You know.

It's they always said, ain't gonna happen here, you know, And so saved up some money when I was working for my dad, and I got my dog in a PA system and I drove to Nashville, found a place to live and was on the grind, you know, kind of hanging out and.

You drove three days, three three and a half.

I think, so you and your dog, you sleep in the truck, you stop at hotels that we kept the dogs.

He'd stay in the truck because sometimes I'm stinking in but we had you know, he had guitars and stuff back there, and he like, he wasn't the dog that you wanted to open the camber fell you would like he would bite you and he's scary, and uh so he kind of and he was fine staying in the truck.

So how do you get a place to lift, Like if you're coming from California, northern California or so, and you gotta find a.

Place of people.

Well, it came to a couple of trips that I've come out, you know, like you can easily network and you know, kind.

Of meet people. And I just did that, and I you know, I was excited.

I live within you know, when you're twenty two, you live in a bathroom. You know, if you had if it was cheap enough to you know, provide and and a lot of those people I don't even I don't even talk to you anymore.

It is like that that phase where it's just you know.

Kind of starting at the bottom, I mean the bottom learning learning the town learn to learning how it was back in the day. I mean it's totally different.

Now you move here, you're twenty two, you moving with a roommate or two. Yeah, how do you start? Meaning if you get here, you met a few people on some trips where you come check it out, But how do you start making a life in music? What's the first.

Thing that you do?

Well?

I had songs I've written in Northern California with my band called.

Northern Comfort shout out doing the Comfort.

That were fun, they were upbeat, they were different, you know, And so I always had that in my back pocket. I never like really even shared that, but I just go out and mingle. I got a job as a lifeguard and an after school counselor. That kind of helped me get by and and and uh, I got it back up before really getting down to the nitty gritty of how I survived the long haired days. So in my neighborhood, while I was living in a basement, there was a townhouse that you can get with no payment.

Down in Nashville.

Yeah, And my mom was like, she was all co signed with it. It wasn't you know, going from California and Nashville that townhouse wasn't too bad, but I.

Had like four rooms and two and a half bathrooms. It's like I could totally rent this out. And like I literally rented every room at the house.

And that was I was paying my mortgage and I was playing and I had my little lifeguarden job. But I did, you know, through mingling basically and kind of getting that one shot to get up there and play a song at the time, and you know, everybody kind of liked and it was fun and we get like get down and play that song again.

And uh.

That kind of happened in a place called Losers and that was kind of like my home. And I ended up playing substituting. You know, if the guy couldn't make a gig, they'd call me come play four hours. I knew a bunch of covers because we played in covers and we played for four hours in northern California, like we were, you know, we started tending and we ended it too, so I was like, I can do that,

Now I kind of knew him, and he would sometimes answer my phone calls always to make that joke. Now he answered my phone calls.

But he kind of set me up in with some people and and and just kind of climbed the ladder to this old school way like shaking hands. You know, I'm John Like, yeah, I'm a songwriter. I kind of focused on songwriting. I didn't want to go play downtown.

You didn't want to go play like Broadway where all the mornings, right, No, I was I did that, you know.

I got that I need to learn how to write, like what how does Nashville write?

How can I put? How could I fit into.

This this system that that there it's obviously songwriters, you know, and really focused on that and got a publishing deal and then got some songs and you know, how to show, you know, started doing We got enough songs for a showcase. Three showcases in I got signed by Capitol Records with handshake deal.

It was kind of like and it took a year to sign the contract.

Once twenty eleven we got signed and then they were like your first single comes out in twenty twelve, so there's another year.

So two years and I just kept.

Writing and writing and writing and recording songs, even demos and kind of learning learning, and then you know, I bet that felt like.

Forever though, Like from the moment that your handshake signed, you're excited and you had your wait two years for your first song to come out. I bet that was it felt like a slow two years to get that first thing out there.

Well, I mean, we had a great booking agent and we had a lot of we had a lot through showcase. I found a band, and we had a van, and we learned the South and there was a lot of places that we still talk about playing and like a lot of guys that are still I see all the time that that gave us a shot because we could play cover. We could do this, you know, we could we could play for three hours, you know, with no

It is great.

That's why now why everyboys asked why is music in Nashville? Well, it's it's easy for a van to get around really, when it comes down to because back in the day, it was built for Cadillacs to get around. So, I mean the van was really hard to keep up with a tour bus. Let me tell you that was like play a show, getting a van dry for five hours, sleep in a hotel, wake up early to go keep you know, trying to trying to catch up. But we were always playing. I was always writing, so it just

But you know, one day, it was always one day. It's still always one day. But just kept on grinding and kept on believing it's still always one day.

You're right about that, It's still always one day for all of us.

Yeah, I try to do a better job. And now I had not always looking for one day. One day, this next thing's gonna happen. Yeah, one day, this next you know, I try, I really try to put myself in today. I think that's a struggle for me sometimes. Yeah, all right, so let me let's put this a little head over.

Boots from from John Party here before we get back.

Into the.

I mean, this is the one here. It kind of catapulted the next level. Yeah, this was the next leveler. It's just the first one off the record.

Huh.

This thing came out and it was just like, oh yeah, well I felt that the record sounded.

It sounded super.

Super forward while still being a country record. You know, it wasn't one of these where you listen to and you go, oh, that's trying to be something new. It felt country. Yeah, yet it sounded you're using cool sounds. There sounds that I think, am I to you?

Sonically?

What's this record about? California Sunrise? You know it was.

I was.

It was a kind of this is where I am now? Because I had a first record. I had four singles on the radio. My first record is called Rayu Song, and we got up all night on the radio. We got to number ten, and that let me get my album out and my first record. Literally once it got on iTunes and people started listening to it, we're selling out clubs. We're selling out clubs, is that right with

Now, Oh we got it, already.

Got it, we gotta got it. We got the whole story down. Then Up all Night and that was in two thousand fourteen.

Here's a little Up all Night. This is a jam too.

I gotta come back to this, but yeah, this is one. When I moved to town, I think this had had lived its life and had gone away, but was still one that people were.

Kind of in love with.

Still, yeah, this is one. This is one turned up a little bit, you know, the wrong baby, were getting.

A good one?

You still like that one?

Yeah, we played we still play it. I still like what I can't put down? That was right, That was right before Up all Night and I was.

Like, this is it. This is the one, you know, but.

It just didn't you know, tests well, and people played it, but it got the thirty three and then would put up on I O and uh, we got to put the album out and which is a big deal because you have to have some momentum in a single for them to go okay.

Well, now put some money behind a full album.

And it was a full album, had eleven songs on and it changed the van life basically. And so, but what my point is of California Sunrise, there's four years of writing and being on the radio. Regardless of what you know, I still was always top forty because I still have believers in country radio. No matter how high, what failures, whatever it, I still believed. Like we got in a label. Was always like, it's not a race,

Can you believe that what was happening?

You know, I never really got too worked up about it because you know, if you did listen to what I was doing, it was kind of it was kind of different. You know, it's countrier, but it was upbeat, but it was a country and I kind of came into my own, like I'm still growing up.

I was only I got signed at twenty six, and I don't even know, I don't even know, I don't remember, but.

I'm still growing up. As I come into a young man, into a man, and I got to do that with the record label and kind of under the radar, you know, not like just boom, here I am world. I kind of got to learn it all and not be like the the headliner, you know, where it's just like because you know sometimes like boom, I'm here, and it wasn't like that for me. And then I kind of became this,

I remember you posted an Instagram video probably two years ago and it was at a festival and the entire crowd was singing head over Boots. I remember a message you go one good God, like it's this is amazing, Like they were singing all of it. Watershit, it was watersheded yeah, and George Comma Washington yeah, and it was the Gorge.

Yeah, the Gorge.

I probably spelled him wrong. Was so exciting.

Is it Gorge not George?

No, it's the Gorge.

I've played that well. I played Watershed. I thoughtay, thought it was George Washington. I thought it was the Gorge and George.

I mean, it's cooler George Washington.

I always thought that was the thing I was like, named George Washington.

Did you ever think that, my dear tonight, I thought it was a gorge.

Oh, it is called the Gorge. I thought it was the Gorge and George. Anyway, I'm an idiot. But moving on, I remember watching that video and going, oh, this has now arrived on.

Kind of a macro level.

No, it's not just a song that is cool and it's going to come and go like it's still the one when you have a whole thirty or forty thousand people singing every word of the Yeah.

Give me some of that again.

I mean, the whole crowd was out of their minds singing that song.

Bonkers.

It was fun.

That was That was the first that was probably one of the most surreal, Like, wow, this is the first you know, you can't get emotional and stuff, and it was that was that was really cool and uh, I always I always remember that because that.

Partico there we go with them words, but.

That slot was uh we finally got you know a little later on, and like Merle Haggard was supposed to play either I think right in front of me or right behind me.

I don't know.

It was like, you know, but he passed like two months before and then then came out and played before us, and it was like kind of crazy that like with that moment and Merle Haggard was, you know, gonna play right for me, which probably would have been like no, Marl not playing before me, but it was like he just passed it, and it was It's one of those things like dang, you know, uh from that crowd and that kind of just that introspect of me and Merle would play together and it didn't happen.

You know.

It's one of the moments I'll never get.

Yeah, that was a good one just watching it so that that hits and then it was like, all right, right, what's happening next with John Party?

He had head over Boots. Surelie's not gonna put another songid Boots in it.

And then boy, did you ever I mean and you raised that. I mean you saw Boots and you raised that funkier Boots man. Yeah, what's that conversation like where you go, all right, we got another song that we love, but it's name is basically the same thing.

What do we do?

Is that a room conversation whereverybody's sitting around?

Well, I, you know, I research a lot. I you know, I listen.

You know.

iTunes is great because they have like they have you know, things like playlists of like, hey, you know, new artists from all top of the levels, and you know, I'm always like listening and stuff and so like I do pay attention. And I pointed out that Keith Urban had two head at that year. He had cop car and then somewhere in my car and I was like, well, this is another car song, other Boots song out, you know.

You know.

I always say to everybody asked me, I wear boots all the time. I we're on boots right now. So it's not it's not like something that it is just a thing.

You know.

I have a lot of boots.

Look at that two Boots songs in a row, you know.

Look at that hit after it hit you started. So when did you go from the band of the tour bus. That's a big step in the life because the tour bus is expensive.

Yeah, well there's still expensive.

Two of them are really how you go too? Now? The humble brack right there. Oh, it's so expensive, it really is, it really is. Uh.

Now went up at the end of the year when Up All Night was was peaked and we started going in and we started own records and kind of selling out clubs.

We got our bush. It was fun.

I want to bring up this story about you getting that.

I didn't know.

I felt like I knew everything about you already. I'm stalker, a big jump party fan, my man.

Yeah, but I know you got stabbed, uh huh in a belly Yeah five times?

Oh, I didn't see.

I didn't even know it was five times. So you're at you're at a like a bar.

No, I was eighteen, So the first two or just slices on the arm. But who get so where were you.

I was out in the country and I was at my one of my best friends, and we were two towns that were not rivals, which just you know, you always kind.

Of have bad kids in your town.

Man.

There's always the guys that always get in trouble or fight, you know. And uh, in this town and on name towns or anything. He got jumped by my hometown by guys I didn't even know. But he found out that I was from my hometown. And you know, we had a great time at this party. I met a bunch of new people and we were you know, I was nice to meet you. We gotta go then, and uh he was waiting outside for me and he was like having me pinned out.

And I was walking back.

To the to the car, and he came up and asked me where I was from, and I told where I was from. I said, yes, you know, and he popped me in his mouth, knocked me down, yeah, busting my lip.

I got back up and I started, you know, I started fighting him, you know.

And it wasn't he said, he got scared and pulled a knife out, but he started to fight, you know, and and uh, I ended up with losing that fight.

You know, you know, he's just swinging. You know, I'm not like a trained karate man or something. You know, I was just swinging. I just it's you know, had adrenaline at eighteen. It's like ah.

And then I didn't even know I got stabbed, and my buddy came and broke up the fight and pushed me back in his hands full of blood. And then that was like the beginning of.

The ride to the hospital. So what happens.

So we're in the country and my my, my buddy, he's now firefighter to paramedic.

He was always trying to be a firefighter paramedic. So he was like, all drive, We're going to hospital.

So he's like he knew the back road. So we're like screaming down his back roads. Girls are screaming and crying, calling nurses and like. So the nurse through the phone was like, you know, compressing the wounds. Took my shirt off, blood everywhere you got stab what part of your belly's eleven inches across the center.

Oh, he stuck it and then went across and I got.

Two right on the left side.

Wow, So you're bleeding pretty hard.

Yeah, No, we were bleeding, and we were bleeding.

The first hospital we stopped at didn't have emergency room.

It was like an animal hospital.

At the time.

They didn't have emergency room. So we had to drive I don't know, fifteen miles to UC Davis and we got there and they didn't even know what do me that, like, you there's not ever a feeling you want to go through when you're like going into like the sports er and like there's a guy in the football pads like busted arm and like, you know, hold. It was just kind of very calm injuries and where I busted to the.

Door, like you know, like he's dad.

It's just blood everywhere.

Like I couldn't imagine being in the lobby and be like, oh my god, this guy comes in here, this blood everywhere. And so they kind of did some tests on me, like for visual and like asking me like you know, they wanted me to pee and try to see if there's blood in the her and to kind of see if they got any internal organs.

And I couldn't pee. She was kind of cute nurse, and I was.

Like she's just sitting there like pee and I'm like, I can't pee right now.

Like stop it stop, I'll be fine.

Uh.

And so they sent me off Sacramento and ambulance and man, I was it's and then you know, going from that like kind of sports and you know, saying that they always get anybody will get bad things and you know are but when you got to a big city like Sacramento, man, there it was people were shot. One girl was to the side of me got chopped up by a bull propeller. One girls just grabs a curtain, says how Bay how man.

And uh.

They stitched me up and then the next day I was out and I had to have a nurse come to the house and pack my We stitched them an inch apart, so.

We'd pack alcohol gauze.

Down in the wound, so it grew from the bottom up, so you know, you didn't just have a big hole inside your stomach.

So we had to pack wound for I don't know. It was a long time ago, but.

Would you ever do to that dude or get whatever happened to that dude jump back?

No, he still happening in town. They're still paid half in each other every month. You know.

He uh, he got away with he has a phony and he got away with I saw with the dead weapon, a deadly weapon. And uh, two years later, you know, I was I needed some money and there.

Was some he he had got a job, and he offered to pay the restitution.

And uh, in all realness, like he looked at me like he messed up, Like that's I didn't talk to him, but you know, it was just kind of that moment because.

I'm like, you know what, we're all young.

You know, I'm just thankful to be a lie basically and not peeing out of a bag for the rest of my life, you know, because there was that option, and uh.

I don't know, wait, what's that option? I don't know.

Well, you got you get cut cut right, you know, and your your center and your all your organs. I don't know that that's that's that's what somebody told me. But that may not even be true. But regardless, I survived. I didn't die. Nothing really bad happened. I got big scars across my stomach and I was, you know, I was getting ready to move to Nashville. You know that that would help out with the whole move, you know.

And uh, he paid me like.

I don't know, eight or nine grand and and uh I got to keep it and he he got to live a life of a felony, which isn't easy.

And but I did, you know it was no. I think we both moved on and he's looking for better things, you know.

And that guy's name is Dirks Bentley.

And that's how I met Dirk's Bentley.

And that's the rest of the story.

The Bobby Cast will be right back. Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.

Bred Eldridge got super vulnerable and talked about the terrible anxiety that he had early in his career.

It's funny.

We were talking about Kip with the phones and I've Kip and I have a friendship that has grown over first fighting lot and then like, hey, we're both weird introverted people. Let's probably be on the same team we had. We had the same team talk at a coffee shop one morning. Our relationship had gotten actually really good since then, so I say, this is a friend.

But Kip and I were sitting and I think I do Kip does?

I don't know?

Probably you because you're an artist a heart. We have huge insecurity issues. Oh yeah, like we may be these larger than life characters on stage behind the microphone, but really it all comes down to we're searching for some kind of love. Oh yeah, we're in some place searching for some kind of love. And Kip and I were talking about watching a crowd and for me, if I'm doing a stand up, I can't look at faces because if I see someone's face and they're not laughing, I go, oh, I must be bombing.

So I just look at foreheads.

I can't look at face and kept we'll go oh, I'll see someone not having a good time, and it'll throw me. It'll completely throw me from doing a show. Do you will you look down and see people not feeling it? And or do you let that affect you? Oh?

Yeah, I've had times where it really affected me that my my thing that I've you know, you have certain fans that are I almost always have fans that I know are going to be repeat fans, like for different shows, and if I know out they're there, and if I'm feeling like if I see some people that I don't know if they're really totally into it, it kind of messes me up. I I because I struggled with that for

And I do feel it's a bit unfair for us as people, if on the stage performing to judge people based on just their outward reactions, because if I'm comparing myself or yourself. We're watching a movie. Unless they're watching the same movie, we may react absolutely different to watching old school.

Now.

I may be laughing out loud. You may be enjoying it the same amount, but laughing in a different way. You keep it outside, but that doesn't mean somebody is not enjoying it as much as the other person. But when we step away, it's so easy for us. You can't disconnect from that in a show. But we just feel like, oh.

I haven't thought about that, and that's that's really good to talk about that because it's a it's the hardest thing to explain to anybody, and there's so many people that get And I've never really talked about this, but I used to get nervous about I used to be. I'm I was born a warrior, like worry, anxiety, all that, and I so I used to I was never afraid to go on stage. I'm not like I'd love to perform. I'm actually the most comfortable doing that a lot of time.

I think I was going to pass out.

I have because I thought, Okay, well I'm gonna I'm going to fail in front of all these people. I'm going to pass out or something, which you know, you're not going to dive from passing out in front everybody, and I'm probably not going to pass out. But I was telling myself that. So I was learning that. So I had all these these things and all these things because you're about to go give all yourself and you

You know.

Sometimes you're headlining at festival or show at eleven o'clock at night.

I wake up at seven o'clock, so you have the whole.

Day to think about a show, and I've had to try to forgure out ways keep your mind busy. You're here for a reason. You're you're playing this show because people are coming.

Here to love you.

But it is it's a complete mind game. As performer he gives. You know, it's a major sacrifice throughout that all day to you to be up there for an hour and a half and you and you have to get your mind right to that point of the show, athlete even.

Yeah, you know, it's a lot of downtime. You got your ninety minutes to perform, and it all is inside that ninety minutes.

Yep.

And then if you don't, you got a lot of game tape to watch the next time.

And you're going to think about it. You can't not think about it. Yeah, all right.

So you talk about sleeping.

I've had real bad issues with sleeping, and a lot of mind comes from a mile PTSD stuff. I got jumped and robbed a gun point, stuff like that. You know, anxiety issues from that. What's your issue with sleeping?

What was it?

Anxiety?

Just right about? What do you know?

Dumb stuff?

I mean, you know, I thought, honestly, I so, I mean I tried everything. I mean I would try and medicase, I would try whatever it was to try to get sleep.

Never like a problem with it. I would just you know, try to figure it out.

Stay sick. I stayed sick. Oh yeah, constantly run down.

I wasn't getting it.

And if if you feel like you're never going to get out of it. And it's not like I still don't have bad nights to sleep, but i'd sleep great last night. But it doesn't mean like you know, if you tell yourself you're not going to you're not a good sleeper.

You're not going to be a good sleeper, you know what I mean?

Like a lot of the time thing where you close your eyes and you go fall asleep. Right now, I get five hours twenty seven, oh yeah, thirty seconds.

Yeah, then you then then another hour goes by, and then I got this.

Four hours twenty seven and thirteen seconds.

Yeah.

And so I tried the I tried antidepressants for a while.

I tried.

Xan x, the alpaslem for a while. I've tried I've tried everything but smoking weed. And I I was talking to front even today because I have I've never drank alcohol or smoke weed, but I want to do both. But I just know I would do all the both. Like if I started, I would do it, and I wouldn't. I would be like a I'll take that and I'll have all of that and go ahead and give me the rest of all that that's just how I live my life or everything. But I went to the dentist

Yeah. I got so high.

And then I don't.

I don't relax have trouble relaxing this in general. I got so high. I became so relaxed. I started to have these really deep emotional sharing within my self thoughts, and I'm like, man, if this is what it's like to get high, I gotta do this.

Yeah.

And I felt like I could go to sleep or I could stay awake. I just felt great. So I was talking to a friend and she was like, you should try the gummies. But I hear a snoopg talk about this stuff and he's like, don't eat it. He's like, you can't control it if you If you eat it, you can't control it.

Man. I just don't like eating.

I don't.

I don't like hot this, smoking anything. It seems like it would just be pain on the lawn. A cigarettes, yeah, I actually never re smiled a cigarets. That that heat going into the I don't like I don't drink coffee. Yeah, because I mean I've tasted coffee once. No way, I'm not against coffee. Yeah, I mean it's not a moral

At I'm like, I'm very and I've I've just recently started becoming very open with it because I mean, I feel like everybody should go to therapy. Honestly, me too. I mean it's it's for me too. And it's not like you're not crazy, you're not whatever. We all have anxieties, we all have worries, we all have I mean, it's human, the most human thing we were.

This is how we're built.

And for me, it got to a place where I was like, I'm not I'm really good at covering that up. And I wasn't like depressed or like major. I was just always worried about stuff and it totally throws your body out of a whack and so I was I was like, I'm tired of this. So I actually got into mindfulness. So meditating really helped me a lot.

You able to do that, I have trouble. It's hard.

I have trouble.

It's hard. I mean I've been doing over like a year and.

A half, likesidental, like what kind of meditation, just like mostly just sign like so I did the apps, So I did. I started with headspace. Tell me about that. I've done the sleep app. I haven't done any meditation.

Head Space is great. It just kind of walks you through. It's not like one of those things where you're feeling very sleepy or you know whatever. It's very much like, all right, now, take your now. No, you might feel yourself your mind wandering and having all these thoughts throughout the day whatever, I'll take it back to the breath and so you you switch your focus back to the

I mean you still. You never get rid of anxiety.

You just have a different relationship with and I think through a lot of different things, I've I've got a different relationship with it. And I used to not be able to enjoy tour and all that kind of stuff near as much because you'd always be worrying about worrying about feeling this way. Then you're feeling more that way, and it's like it doesn't have to be that way.

So you know why it sucks? Is it not enough people talk about it? I know I grew up like you in a really small town. Therapy wasn't a thing. Oh no, it was more like you got to pay the bills, So therapy doesn't matter. You know, when you're trying to buy Manwich, there's not money for therapy or even to know that mental illness is like a real life thing. And I'm not even a mental I'm just talking about any sort of therapy like it. Just so I remember going and I was like, this is my insurance,

But therapy changed me.

And listen, I'm still in my thirties, I'm single, I'm married, I got no kids. Like I struggle with relationships and trust I do. Yeah, bridges raise his hand too. But for me, it showed me that I'm struggling. Before I just didn't know, like what's the problem? Why am I? But now I see there's a struggle and the first

Yeah, well the same here, And I think I think it's it's up to you know, each of us to try to get everybody to look at that and just say you're not crazy for going to get help from orders telling or even going through a friend or whatever.

I mean, does it have to normal?

You're normal, You have this stuff, totally normal, I mean, but nobody talks about it, so then you feel isolated and alone when you're feeling these well, I'm the.

Only person that I just feel like, no, try hundreds of millions of people.

Nobody's post on Instagram, so it can't be real.

Yeah, that's a feeling of it because they know, yeah exactly.

Walker Hayes talks about trying to make ends meet early on and what helped him stay motivated when times are tough. So you you decide we're moving to Nashville just from one night of playing in front of people.

Yeah, it was pretty wild.

I mean, I played, had such a great time. I called Lanny said, I don't want to move to Nashville to sing that was it?

So I want to go, what's her action? Uh? You know, I think she was pretty adventurous.

You know, at the time we were kids excited about you know, getting out of town. She was with it. I mean, oddly enough, there was no second guessing on her part.

She was ready to go.

And so what was your style back then?

So my style back then? I remember two songs that I played.

One was sitting on the dock of the bay, and then didn't Adobie Gray drift Away? Yeah, drift I guess drift Away. And uh I only played like five songs. I just played them over and over and so yeah, I mean I was just gonna come up and sing, you know, move to Nashville, try to be a rock.

Star, make it. Yeah I did.

I was dumb enough to be like, yeah, I'm gonna go, you know, and figure this out.

Be famous. I mean I knew nobody.

We had a great time picking out our apartment and stuff like that. Honestly, meeting with her parents, they were really frightened and just thought I was nuts. You know, this was not This was on such a whim and the security that I had, you know, and mobile made a lot more sense. To them and so yeah, I mean, man, we just found an apartment, got married, and drove up here.

So you move here? And what does one do when you don't know anybody into town like Nashville and you want to make music?

Like, what's the first step? You go outside?

And man, I mean, as cliche as it sounds, the absolute first thing I did was go sign up for an open mic night at the Bluebird. I was I don't remember exactly what number I chose, you know, to get selected that night, But so you played the first night you went. I came on a Monday night, stood in the line, got selected. They were about to call my name, but I realized that everybody in there was playing songs that they had written, and I showed up

The same rush.

Know, so the first time you went, you end up not playing.

Well, I check it out, but you know, I wasn't about to get up and play that.

I was gonna play drift.

Away, give Me the Bee Boy Free? And what did you write that you something? I wrote so so you first time you don't do it. The second time you go and you do it. What did you play? What song you remember?

I do?

I remember I played a song about as short of a time period as we had been married. I learned very quickly that when you bring up the in loss that your significant other gets really pissed.

And so I wrote a song about that.

And it was kind of a joke, you know, a funny song, and uh, I don't remember the title of it. And I played too and I just remember the crowd reacting, you know, they laughed, they had a great time, and they went nuts.

It's a real supportive crowd, and the Bluebergs.

They're there to hear the writer performing their songs, so they went nuts. And it was not I didn't like get a deal or anything quick.

You know.

Did you feel like after that night, though, that you had submitted a little more in your head, like I can do this.

Uh?

I didn't really think about whether I could or not. I just did, you know what I'm saying. And I also it was like a drug, I mean honestly, but since then, I haven't stopped writing songs. It's just I fell in love with that that conceiving the idea, putting it together, playing it for somebody, getting their reaction, moving on to the next one. You know, my favorite song is always the one I'm working on right now, and

So how long.

Until you get and I'm assuming you're getting into publishing deal first, which is what happened to they pay you to write songs. How long did it take from you playing that bluebird till you getting a publishing deal?

So had I had a day job.

I booked motivational speakers at Premiere Speakers Bureau in Franklin.

Like what motivational speakers ran through in Franklin.

A lot of right.

Wing conservatives, old Steelers player Rocky Bleier, a couple of authors, Oliver North and the guy Sean Hennity. We booked them. Uh some of those were exclusive. Sorry again trying to get rid of that tic.

Uh but yeah, just I booked them and uh lost.

I actually lost my job in a year and then I got a pub deal. So it took me a year and a couple of months to secure a pub deal.

So in that year, you're just writing and sending songs to people going, hey you check it out.

No, in that year I was working, you know, that was No. Nine to five.

My clientele was West Coast event planner, so I got to show up a little bit later and stay a little longer. But I was writing songs while I was working, you know, on my computer, just loading it up. And yeah, I mean playing open mic nights anybody I could ever get my songs in front of. Obviously I was trying to do that, playing all the local you know, songwriter nights that I could. And yeah, I wasn't really comparing

So you write and you start to get paid to write. And what did your first cut?

Shoot? Man?

I mean, my my first pub deal actually got me a record deal first.

I mean I didn't get a cut.

So your pub deal got you a record deal first? Is this the Keith Urban Demo story? No, that's that's capital. That's the second deal.

The first pub deal I ever got was from a neighbor heard me messing around on the porch. He said, man, I really like what you do. I'm gonna take you to introduce you to two or three people. He brought me into town. I met two big time producers Franklin. In Franklin, here's your porch, here's me on the porch.

Yeah.

He's like, dude, I really love your voice. Did you write that? I'm like, yeah, you want to hear some more? And up I wrote a song about his kid, whose name is Hogan, which that was a business move right there. I was like, dude, if I write somebody's kid, really, you know, hooked me up. So he takes me into town, introduced me to introduces me to Scott Hendricks, David Malloy, and a guy named Christy DiNapoli. And Christy wanted to

And so you get a publishing a deal and a record deal basically at the same time.

Well, I got a pub deal and then we worked on it, you know, and he had cut some sides there and then they shot me and then got me my first record development deal.

So when you get signed to a development deal, what do they start doing with you? Where do they develop?

So the development deal basically got me James Stroud, great producer.

He cut some sides on me.

So what we did is just accumulate songs, kept writing for a little while, chose the best ones, went in the studio, cut them with an excellent band. So that was my first experience with that, you know, And of course we came home with five songs. I thought I was gonna be Garth Brooks, were you I sounded like him? Yeah, it sounded better than Now. I was not Garth Brooks. I had some great stuff, you know, looking back, I think some of those sides were good.

But there was a.

Falling out within the company and it wasn't long till I was off that that labeled me and that that deal expired pretty quick.

So you're on. Did you put a record out? I didn't.

I cut five sides, literally celebrated the cutting.

My first five songs. You cut five songs. Yeah, I'm going We're beside myself and this stuff sounds so great.

Uh.

We finished those in a December.

I got a call in January saying that James Stroud was gone from the label and that they he had parted with co you know, head People, and Alison Jones was leaving and I wasn't.

I wasn't on the label anymore. But the label stayed. Label stayed.

Yeah, and you never put out a single?

No, never put out a single. Did you tell a publishing deal? I did? Okay, still writing.

Still writing, and still still still trying to get outside cuts, but did not get outside cuts.

So you have to go to another try to get how long until you get signed to a different label.

So after that it took me two years to get another label.

That is this when Urban here's your This is.

When Autumn House, a friend of mine, pitched the song for Keith Urban. Keith Urban did not take the song, but the A and R rep at Capitol Autumn House said, I like this guy singing, I like this writing style. You know, who is this kid? And they said it's Walker Hayes, you know. And within a couple of months I had a deal in Capital. A lot of my deals came pretty quick, you know, deals are hard to get, but my first two just kind of fell into my lap.

So you get a deal, you start to cut songs again or to use your old song.

Oh.

Man, when I got a deal at Capital, I was writing.

You go through the producer search, you know.

I was on Capital two years probably before we even decided, you know, to try a single.

You had been signed for two years before you put a song out.

Yeah, yeah, I think I've been a Capital around that time. So frustrating. Yeah, it was, yeah, it was.

I mean we were looking for the right producer. We tried some, we cut some. They just didn't didn't blow our minds.

You know.

So then you have your first song. What's your first thingle.

My first single was pants?

All right?

I like that look you're giving you by write that I did. I wrote it for my wife my cringe.

I don't know, man, you know, I just hear it, and uh, it just doesn't sound you know, it doesn't sound that great.

I just don't.

I don't hear it like I did then when when I heard it then, I just I just thought, this is gonna be amazing. And I don't know, I just hear it now and it just the Maybe I've gotten better at writing, you know, and I.

Can just see the holes in there.

But yeah, I cringe, just like hearing myself on a answering machine.

How the single do? I have no idea?

The song was added heavily, you know, right off the back, and uh, you know, I saw success coming my way quick and h then it just hit a wall and uh, some people were slow to pick it up, and it went to thirty eight, and eventually, you know, Mike Dungan and Capital pulled it and they decided to go with another one shortly after that.

What song was?

After that one?

They went with a song called why Wait for Summer? And it did not do as well those pants.

If you have two singles that didn't work, did they drop you or are they? We're gonna work on some other stuff.

So we chilled out for a long time.

You know, I got put on the back Burner and I sat for a long long time, and man, honestly, just to give Capital some credit, I mean they believed, I mean, they believed hardcore and they stuck their neck out for me. I didn't fully understand, you know, the need for the machine. I didn't know how the biz really worked, you know at that time. Uh, you know,

So I fought and fought.

You know, to write and to get that that song, the one, and man just couldn't find it, and.

You know, eventually got dropped.

And uh yeah, I mean that was that was the beginning of some dark some dark times right there.

So you get dropped every second label. Yeah, what year was that, you.

Know, let's see, it's twenty seventeen, sixty fifteen. For probably fourteen, beginning fourteen.

So you get dropped in twenty fourteen, So what do you.

Do well at that period?

I think I have four kids, So I'm still not I'm still not, uh truly buried in finance, financial woes. But I had a pub deal. You know, I'm still my my publishers. That's one thing that's that I've always had as a pub deal, publishers that believe that I can get outside cuts.

You know. So at that time, I didn't.

I wouldn't say I just shut the artist thing down, but I wrote, man, I aimed and aimed to get outside cuts. You know, I wanted outside country cuts. I wanted these mainstream artists, uh to to you know, I just knew somebody who's gonna cut one of my songs, It's gonna be huge, kind of solidify me as spot in that writer community.

And uh, I.

Eventually did get a cut from Rodney Atkins. Uh he cut one of my songs called Touching Feet, and uh it was you know, it was a great motivation, you know, to keep on writing.

Didn't end up being a single, But hey.

What about this here a Cold Fort song, dirty.

Side dude, I love this song.

This is my jams.

You write it, Yeah, you're on Coult. Yeah he featured me, so you wrote we wrote it together. Yeah, I'm super appreciative feature.

I'm talking about the perfect girl. Man, I'm gonna tell you everywhere stopped looking at the magazine's head on out. So you're writing, you're out.

You don't have artists he all right, which you probably still want even though you're you still want to be the artist, right, but you do you want to be the writer. You talk about having dark times like your mind, just like they.

Tell you what the darkest period I ever experienced here in Nashville was past these cuts.

You know, you get a couple of cuts.

And I'm still I'm not able to I mean, I'm barely supporting this, you know what I'm saying. The money is not just rolling in from from these types of cuts. I'm I'm not having hit singles, which is kind of what you gotta have, you know nowadays to thrive as a writer, you gotta have one every now and then.

I'm loving what I'm doing.

I mean, i feel like I'm getting better and better and so much closer to dialing it in, you know, with with what artists need and what they want and getting those outside cuts. But I'm playing at Pucket's boat House and money gets real tight. I'm talking seriously tight, and uh, I don't really like to ask for help.

And I had toyed with.

You know, getting kind of a second gig, and I remember this this night I will never forget.

Uh.

I'm playing Puckets boat House.

Which, by the ways, it's like a restaurant in a stage for people. I just so, it's like a very famous Nashville Southern food restaurant and there's a stage on as well.

Right, And so what I what I was doing is, you know, I didn't have an artist deal, but I want to keep performing so that the Annie Marshall at Pucket's so always so gracious to me giving me a gig, and I'm playing for tips, and what I would do is play an hour and then host an open mic night just for the community.

I wanted to meet new writers and.

Stuff and kind of do what people did for me in my first couple of years here. So one night, this guy comes and his name is Nick Canjre and sweet sweet guy comes up wants to play at the open mic night, and he just thinks, you know, he's heard my songs on Rodney, my stuff on Colt. He thinks I I'm like Elvis, you know, and he's just treating me like it too. And he mentions at one point in the night that he worked at the tire center at Costco, and I was looking for a job at

Can you can you hook me up?

And so that was that that was a low a low point for me, kind of having to ask for help from that guy.

Do you feel like you learned from it and appreciate it even more afterward.

Just through that experience with Costco experience, everything, everything that is connecting with people now is pretty much about that experience of my life. So yes, it's been truly beneficial. I got a great perspective. Uh, you know what matters, you know, what matter in life. That's kind of what Leela's Stars is about. You know, I did a lot of I did a lot of I don't know what you say, like not soul searching, but you know we uh yeah.

Interesting songs. This guy's just from the Car about your daughter.

Yeah yeah, that song is about the thumb tacks that she gave me to hold up the roof of my Honda that I had at the time, and when my roof was coming down, I lost it and I was just cuzy. At that point in my life, I was drinking a ton just to kind of cut the edge off the heaviness and the burdens and stuff that I was kind of up against with one to still chase my dream, kind of thinking I was nuts. Pretty much. Let everybody looking at us from the outside, I probably

So you were drinking a lot. You don't drink it all now, no sober, so you must have been drinking a lot.

Tend to go.

I have to stop, man, I was, I mean, we want, we want to talk about numbers. I mean I was, like, I mean, I was drinking from I was drunk at Costco. You know, obviously I was doing my work, working hard, but I mean I was, I was drinking on on breaks at Costco. You know, I go to the parking lot, you know, and do that leave, go do a show with Bluebird. You know, they were hiring me for shows. I was still able to get some work out of them.

Drink because you're sad man.

Uh yeah, I think, you know, I think I was just uh, I just didn't want to face.

Not making it, you know, not not.

Being able to to take care of everybody. You know, It's almost like when you're drunk, Uh, those things aren't as heavy, you know, they don't matter, I guess, and drinking a little bit out of just insecurity and fear, you know, I guess, uh, you know, just scared what.

Was the point where you were like, Okay, I gotta I gotta chill, dude.

Me quitting is the weirdest story, I don't. You know.

Hopefully at some point it will make sense where I could kind of help other people and and and and and explain it. But honestly, I mean.

I think I was.

I think my body just said to my brain, you have to you have to quit. You know, we're working and drinking that much. I woke up on a Saturday.

I remember that.

It was in October, football game day, me and football. Not drinking just didn't ever happen. That hadn't happened since I was probably like fifteen, I don't know, something crazy like that.

And I just didn't drink one Saturday. And I don't even know why.

I didn't like wake up and say, man, I gotta stop. I just woke up, didn't drink that day, didn't drink on Sunday. A couple of days turn into a week, you know, and then it became this like challenge where it was like I've gone this far, I want to go backwards, you know. And I also kind of had a little sobriety high. You know, when you quit drinking. You've been drinking that much, your body feels really really good once it gets over, you know, not craving just

The funny thing is I don't drink. A guy there, Walker doesn't drink. And when we go on tour this beer like the writers like full of beer, and Walker he just sits there. Yeah, it's like, Walker, I know you don't drink, but if you know anybody that wants beer, they can have it.

Hang tight.

The Bobby Cast will be right back. Wow, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

Cole Swindell talks about making the move in Nashville back in two thousand and seven with the plans on being a songwriter, but became a successful artist too. When you first moved to town, though, you had to be pretty intimidated to walk into some of these big rooms. Oh yeah, yes, Like what was the first ride that you can think

Yeah, I mean I remember one of the stories for me, and it goes back to being a kid.

You know.

I always say I fell in love with nineties country music, and that's one of the guys, you know, Thomas Rhetz that Rhett Akins was one of the artists I loved

So you go on to write it. How long you've been to Nasville when you wrote the song?

Probably for four years or so.

I had just gotten off the road from you know, doing the T shirt thing. I had a publishing and this was one of my this is the first time in read everybody, we've been buddies. But that was a man I was. That was a crazy story to go from being a fan of his to write with him. And it was just a straight car, right, me and Rahet and Michael Carter, my producer.

But yeah, so you walk in, you write this song, and when you write a song, did you think maybe it would be for you?

Now?

You know at this point like this is this all happened? Before I got my record deal. I was writing songs every single day, just wishing somebody would record them. And this one, I don't know what.

I loved it.

I thought it was a great song, but I just didn't have enough going for me. I didn't have the artist thing going and I was willing for anybody when I heard that Thomas Rhett loved it. You know, I've always been the Thomas Repp fan and a Buddy hiss, so I was just hoping to get a cut, you know that those things that's what got me.

You know.

I think my chance that ultimately had a record deal was getting other big time artists to record my songs. And that was That's one memory of you know, you go from playing songs written by people on the board of sitting in a room with them and writing a song, and that's just that's when you know you're you're living the dream man, when you're getting to do do that.

Is that the first song for you that was like, Okay, I can make a little money, I can relax a little bit.

Is that the first one of those?

I mean, yeah, because I had I had, you know, a couple of early cuts, like Scotty McCreery right after he had won American Idol he want he recorded one of my songs, water Tower Town, I wrote about my.

Tea goes come with it.

How do you have on this? But that's like we do our research on this.

This is water Tower down.

Yeah, this is you know that's I wrote that about my hometown. And I remember, you know, thinking that it didn't end up doing you know, what we thought was still that that let me know that, hey, I got a chance in this town. And Scotty what a great guy he is, and speaking to him that his new song that you, Oh my god, that's that's one of the best songs I've heard. I texted him as soon as I heard it when when y'all were talking about it, and.

It's just it's he's a great dude.

So to have somebody like that to record one of your songs about your town and and you know, some of the same beliefs, it's just a cool moment for me. But Thomas Rhad that was a different level.

You know, Paula, let me stop you. So this is Scotty McCurry song. This was the first one by an artist that was somewhat successful that you're like, Okay, this literally has a chance, and it was kind of really a cool moment for you.

It's huge, huge moment because I remember it was one of those I learned a lesson because you know, when I wrote this song, ultimately, you know, me and Luke were close, and I was like, man, Luke's gonna love this. I can just see him loving it. And I remember I sent it to him and all he sent back was yeah, man, I love that everybody knows your mom and them lying, and that's all he said. And I was like crushed. I was like, man, I was like oh, I was like, that is not what I was wanted

So water Tower Town, Scotty mccury cuts that and then you just realized, Okay, I I can write these songs.

Did you have the confidence before that?

Was it like it's a matter of time or did it take songs to hit before you started to realize you could play in the league.

You know, I would like to say I moved up here thinking I was gonna be but you know, I think you have to, you know, have something like that happen. Have you know, you know, publishing companies, record label doing that. That that means they believe in what you're writing. And yeah, you do get confidence. I mean it's hard to have confidence when you're writing all these songs and you know they're not really getting any traction. But you just learned.

Was that Do you think that'd be a big single?

When you when you cut it, were you hoping, like man, that this could be a number one hit? Is that what you Is that what every every time you cut wanted?

I mean, yeah, I.

Think you're you're hoping that that's what? Uh you know, but I think being around the business, you know how hard it is to to to do that, to write. There's so many great writers in this town. But yeah, I think you're always wanting like and that that song when it there's one thing for it to be.

On the album.

I mean, that's a huge album coming straight up. I mean selling over a million copies these days, it's it's hard unheard of and uh, pretty much but and uh to have that. But then when it announced as a single, I remember thinking that was my first single to country radio,

It, and watching a charge watching it, yeah, watching the chart.

And it's it's, uh, you know, that's that's just how how you learn the business, I guess. And I'm just glad that, you know, that song helped me, you know, no matter how it did, it got me. Uh, it gave me the confidence to keep writing and know that how my songs are, you know, hopefully worthy of radio someday.

All right, So after water Tower Town, what's the next song you wrote? That you were like, Okay, this one has a shot. Now, okay, like this one has a shot like WaterTower Town had a little higher hopes, but you're still happy about it. It made you feel confident you could walk into a room. Then what'd you write? So?

Well?

I know, I wrote a song that that Chris Young recorded after that, but then after I wrote wrote a song for Luke Bryan called roller Coaster that I've heard of, that one this is the one. I mean, yeah, this, this was this didn't get me some of that, Like those were almost around the same time, I feel like, and you know, but this one was the one that you know, just our history from you know, knowing Luke

Where that feeling is?

That's one of a kind feeling when somebody you've looked up to is about to I mean, it's freaking out literally over a song like you've never seen them, you know, you used to freak out over their songs like that, and now here's something we wrote and to see him and Jeff Stevens just you know, go crazy over this song. I mean, it was one of the best, you know, moments of my life, just knowing that man, this song, right,

And that's crazy.

But after no on that Astrard, let me hear.

This, and now I'm wondering word going.

I need to recut this too.

I wish yeah, yeah, yeah, and you put your vocal on in the jemo I got to see.

I still have.

I thought about that someday, you know, like maybe putting out my own little uh like just the you know, the the versions of my versions of the songs, because I mean, that's what pretty much got me my you know, when labels we were pitching my songs and they're like, what, you know, why aren't you why can't you sing this song? Or why wouldn't you sing this? And it just kind

With the writing. Did you move here to be an artist?

I mean, ultimately yes, but I knew that I was, you know, I wanted to have my own songs, and I you know, I had friends in the business that was that said, you know, you need to if you like songwriting and you're interested like you are.

I mean I was looking up.

I was more starstruck by the songwriters when I got here because I you know, I had been on stage. I loved entertaining, but I knew I didn't have the song. I didn't I couldn't write a song like I wanted to. And you know that's why I'm lived here and to take three solid year and just focus on songwriting. I mean that if that wouldn't have happened that way, I wouldn't have had those songs for you know, when I

I think, so, you know, in this town and then luckily during the show, I get to bring up all the great songwriters. Yeah, you know, there becomes the coolest songwriters of the moment. Did aren't artists yet, it may never be, but it's like, you know, who's the coolest? Were you for a while? That the coolest songwriter for a minute?

I don't think so. I don't.

You know, I wouldn't think that. I would think that I was a guy that people hopefully wanted to write with a second time and.

The third time.

I think that's you know something my publisher, the people that you know brought me up through the business. It was like, you know, you got to have this town, you know behind you wanting to write with you again. I mean, you gotta you know, you gotta write the

You know.

It's it's crazy to think like it's all that happened. Uh, and then I finally got my chance.

So I it is crazy to think that you've really only been an artist for about four and a half.

Years, and that's what's something I think.

You know, there's a ton of hits.

Well thank you man, I'm on my It's crazy to me from I mean, I met you during chilling It and now I'm on my seventh single that is in that amount of time. I mean, you know, we talked a little bit of you. I don't know how you measure success really. I think it's happiness. But I think that if you look at what I've done, and I can't I don't have anything to complain about it if something doesn't go my way, I mean, look at look

And you hid from the internet at the same time.

Oh my god, it's amazing. Here I'm gonna play chilling It. I think I'm a story about this when I yeah, I got my shame.

So this song comes out by this dude. I don't even know what this dude.

He says, up a cooler to the studio, and I'm like, let me see what this is. He set up a cooler, Let me see what this is.

Chilling it.

And I remember listening to it my ears saying, I was like, let me hear, let me hear this, set up a cooler. I was like, I like the sound of that times a little progressive but still country. And I was like, I liked it.

And I remember playing it and I know you. I would never met, I know, but I had heard.

I remember my mom telling me that you were playing it like and that.

Was and you texted me you said, my mom heard the song in the radio for the first I.

Had to get you know, of course, you know, I just I was like, hey, some my label was like, can you get me Bobby Bones, and my mom's freaking out he played my song.

I just want to thank you because at.

That point, you know how to. I mean, somebody's got to give you a chance, and that you know, when you're a new artist and an artist, and I mean putting out a new song anything, you got to have people that believe in you. And I will never I will never forget that the people that you know, you met at the beginning that kind of gave you that shot. I mean, from from you to my label to the.

Cooler cool big cooler, like CD is a cooler of the CD. I even listening to CD, I was like, he said, a big old cooler up here.

What am I gonna do with it? Well, at least you like the song maybe better than the cooler sends cool.

But I was like, well, let me let me listen to the download it and then yeah.

I got my shame.

Long time as a jam.

That crowd's what started.

And I watched you at Stage Coach this year.

Oh well yeah, we played the same day I played we played before you.

We don't worry.

We're playing a peon times like we're playing like four you were playing at dark whatever, and I was watching you play the song and the whole crowd was still just they were singing their brains out to the song.

And that was my first single. I think that is you know, people ask me buddies that are trying to get record deals or whatever, it's like, you know, what song should I you know, what's the first sing?

And I don't.

I don't know that as to that, but I just think that if any other song I've had since then would have been my first, it might not have broken me through there like that one did. And that's that's scary to think about. But that's, like I said, and that's why I love writing songs. I've always listened to music, and I think I'm a fan. I grew up a fan of music and I still am. And I think that's why I, you know, try to put myself on their shoes and what would I want to hear? What

But I wonder let me wonder out loud for a second. I wonder because you put that song out and I was like, I like the song and it sounds a little different. I bet you you got some pushback for that song. Yeah, I bet you did. Yeah, And now it's just a song that there was a hit that gets played as what they call a recurrent and nobody thinks a thing about it. Oh yeah, in just four years, you've seen it change from WHOA, this is crazy. I bet you got some dad in't countries for that song.

But like I said, that's I guess that's always you know, it's always gonna be a whole thing. And and you, like you said, man I, that's the one thing about being in positions like we're in.

It's like you're opening stuff.

You're opening yourself up to just get you know, people that have you know, nothing other to do than just you know, talk trash or whatever it is. But that's you're gonna get pushed back about things. But I think those are always the things that mean you're you're breaking through and getting getting something done. And you know, not everybody's gonna like that's the toughest thing for me is I you know, I try to treat everybody how I want to be treated. But everybody's not gonna like your music.

They don't know me.

But you know, I uh, you got to understand that you're putting yourself in that position. And I tell you what, I think. We we got a lot more people that do like us than do and that's to me, the fans, I mean people that that's what you.

Gotta focus on.

And that let me wonder a lot again.

I wonder.

I wonder because something I've had to do in my life, especially in the last six months to a year, is if I get one hundred tweets, right, I'll zero in on that negative one, yeah.

And I'll be like, everybody hates me and this person just rip me.

But there are ninety nine positive tweets, and I would always focus in and it would make me go, oh, I'm so angry or I'm sad, or but what why do we do that We should really make an effort to appreciate those ninety nine.

I'm not kidding. That is a great point, because you know, that's that's being honest. If somebody says that they don't, then I don't know. I guess they've got it figured out. But it's just it's tough to see that something that you know you love to do and you're doing you're you're not out there, you know, doing what. I don't know, you're doing the right that you're doing great things and trying to do the right thing, and people just no matter what.

You just trying to do, just trying to do things.

And they they're gonna, you know, they're not gonna like it.

And we gotta focus on We gotta focus on the ninety nine I got yeah, gotta focus They play this song, talk about this one here. This is by Craig Campbell. Yeah, Craig singing here.

This is the one that was my second thing. Yeah, that was my second single the country readio out there. Craig Campbell, great friend of mine, great friend of yours.

The thing about Craig is that and the weird thing about this song, I believe it was a song as it was climbing. He gets dropped from his record label. Now dropped the record of folds.

Yeah, you think the song was.

Climbing hard es? Yes, And I remember sitting in a meeting with my boss's boss. We were in New York and Craig Campbell was our radio on the Bird artist YEP, and so loved the song and the song was just top ten and boom, his record label goes out, and we're like, what what do we do? So it's like, well, we're gonna keep charging with the song even though there's no record label and no promotion. And I think it ended up getting to like six or something.

Yeah, that's huge.

Yeah, that doesn't even happen. Then we were all flowering.

Guess like, he's got a top ten song and now the record label folds and goes away.

But just because that's never had, why can't it have?

And that's what I love about, Like people that believe in a song, believe in music, and you, like I said, man, you can't really you don't know how to say thanks for this? And I know Craig appreciates that's probably is that when you is that when y'all met kind of yeah, then was it? But I know you've had Yeah, yeah, it's wed that. So you wrote this, Yeah, I wrote this one. So this is the one that as a writer on that scene that happened. And a good friend, I mean me and Craig and he used to play

He's crazy to do it, knowing every song.

Every song, and I mean i'd sit there that wouldn't be you know that many people in there at the start. I mean they have like four hour sets down there. By the end it was full. But I'd be there from the beginning. I was his buddy and I always supported him. So to see you know, him record a song like that, knowing that he used to get me up. That was my only chance to really ever sing in

So Craig has always been.

Good to me and I look for hopefully one day, you know, we can do some shows together. I know he's out there, I think with Luke doing some stuff now, and like you said, you've you're a fan of his and I you know, I just I like to pull for good people and he's He's one of those.

If you if your friend is an artist, so back when you before you were trying to be an artist, and you wrote something you use that was fantastic, would you go to your friends with it first and say, here's a song I think is really good. And is it awkward when they don't think it's really good?

Yeah?

I mean that is so so true. I mean yes, it's like, you know, I've had, you know, a couple of close friends. I mean, Luke obviously is one of them, but you know Thomas redd Or but he's a songwriter himself. So I'm trying to think, you know, me and fg O or boys, but it's hard to it's hard to think Dirk's now. But uh, I had to. You know, when you send the artist a song, you want them to love it, but it is awkward, like you if

Lets say I write a song. I'm like by my sitting.

About to ask myself songwriters that are pitching me songs.

This is something that gets talked about a lot here that and a lot of people say I believe someone like in the last week or so said they would get songs and they just don't reply. And that's kind of these Hey, I wasn't really feeling it without saying I wasn't really feeling it.

That's so I'm laughing because I know I've done that before. But I know anybody listening, they just didn't reply.

Do you remember who it was, Well.

It was Nicole Guy, and that's somebody I'm looking forward to write. She's so I know I'm looking Nicole. I want to write with you, but we're gonna I know, we'll we'll try to work that out. But that is very true. I've done that before too, and you know, you try.

To get to hers what it was. It's not Blake, that's what it was because her and Blake are friend. She was like, she'll send Blake songs and if Blake doesn't reply, that just means he wasn't feeling it.

That's their universal language. I used to do that.

Yeah, I've done that, and you're kind of like, well he hadn't replied by now, she hadn't replied by now. They don't like it, So.

Didn't you send it to someone else if they haven't replied in how much time do you give them?

You know?

I don't know.

These days, I don't think there is any I think they just send it and if you answer first, then it's good some people. But to me, I mean there were some times when you know, I remember like Roller Coaster when when Luke he had that on whole for a long time, and there were other artists that I remember a couple of artists you know, wanted it or their A and R people wanted it for them maybe, and Luke was like, you know, I want this song. He ended up recording it, you know, like after you know,

So food.

I mean, that's what and that's why I'm so glad I got to do the writing thing, and I still do. But come up that way because I want to write all my stuff, but I don't have have to. I know, I can't write every song because there's too many great songwriters here. And if they're gonna send me their best stuff, I mean, you know, I think that's how you support the indust I'm not going to record that just because

So let me ask you something about your boy Luke.

Why is he falling down all the time we're talking about this today, like he jump on a beer cooler.

It's just he's dangerous. I don't know, man, he's worth too much money to be jumping around. I know he's getting a lot of people depending on him out there to that's but he's got too many people to pay. I know he's I don't know, man, he's an entertainer, and that's that's something that I don't know. I literally though I think from being around it, I'm careful, but I have like anxiety about falling off this about your throat ill all of it, man.

Because again, if you're not making money, the people that you have you're peging aren't making money.

And that's that's and that's something that I never you know, you never think about those things when you're chasing a dream that you may get to.

A level where you got a lot of.

People behind you that are helping you on your team, and every little thing you do, every decision you make, every song you release, every whatever, it matters. But those people and there's people depending on you. And it's a good thing to have responsibility like that. But I don't think some people understand the pressure that we're, you know, put in in these situations. Anybody in the entertainment business

So let's go back to you moving to Nashalle.

So what's it?

How old are you? What's the thought? Did you always? I think just put me where you are? How old you were?

See a lot of people I was leaving college. I left college. I mean I had like eighteen nineteen hours or a lot of people don't even don't know that, but you know, it was just something that I had to do. I was, I was playing shows and I had already just go. When I got to college, I didn't. I was undeclared major. I finally settled in on marketing and did got so close.

But it was just it was.

Time and I knew that I loved music, I knew what I wanted to do, and you know, I knew I had to get to Nashville. So I moved. I was, I think twenty three. It was August twenty thirds, my dad's birthday, two thousand and seven. So yeah, August twenty third, two thousand and seven, moved to Nashville. I remember broking my mom. She was clutely, I mean, just couldn't understand. She had never really even seen me play in bars

That did you know Luke like what we met?

Uh?

He?

You know, in college, I was in fraternity fraternity singing with Kay and he was there a few years earlier than me, same fraternity. He was in a band there while he was in college. And they had come back to do like a do a show that weekend and he just stops by and I knew his name and knew that he was pretty popular in the local, you know,

So, So two thousand and seven, you packed up? Where'd you pack up?

I mean not a bed, nothing, my clothes. I had a guard you have. I had a ninety six Chevrolet trucks seventy one. That's that's truck. Eyed Well that was what I had when I was sixteen. So I had a just a black Chevrolet truck. So you loaded down, loaded down the trailer behind it, or just put all

Man.

I never when I moved up there, I didn't bring a bed or anything. It just I lived there for a while until I moved, you know, probably where I moved after a year, and then I lived there for about six years.

So would you do?

Did you write Monday through Thursday and then go out and sell merch for Luke on the weekend?

And you know, I'd like to say I had it set up like that, but you know, at first, who do you write with? I mean, how I'm a merchandise? Nobody took me serious, and I think that had a lot to do with when I was first coming out, people weren't really sure if I you know, was like, who's this guy that just got off and got off the road? Still in teachers? But I think, uh, you know, I don't know how it happened like that. But to write, you know, every day, you can't do that without appointments,

Now it was.

Coming up with that line or what I thought was good and that feeling. It just took over. And so songwriting was my new love at that point.

So when you were selling for Luke, did he know you wanted to be an artist? And is that a weird dynamic because of that?

Yeah, I mean I don't think, you know, he knew that I was interesting, use he knew I loved music and I wanted to be a songwriter. And I think he you know, that was his way of saying, hey, well, you know, come out here and see what goes on and kind. It wasn't a really long term plan, but it was something I went out one weekend and ended up being at for like three years. But you know, that's not what I moved to do. But it gave me an opportunity to just be around the business and

Do the best.

I can write the best.

And you know, make a name for myself.

Talking about the hat because everybody thinks it means Cole Swindell and it doesn't. But tell me about the hat and why you wear that hat all the time. Could you not make any money off the hat?

Are you?

No?

No, I don't, I don't know. I'm just obviously a hat guy is kind of kind of my thing. And the Georgia Southern thing, it just I remember when I went out and did some of my first shows when I got my band and I was gonna try to

But what if you don't make any money off that Georgia Southern hat.

No, I just I just think it's something that nobody knows to Georgia southing. And I get a chance to represent my college where my family we all, I mean everybody. I think everybody graduated with me from there, but everybody went there, and it's just I don't know.

I love that.

Schooling and commendable look out the state of Arkansas attitude to my body. I love representing home. I don't always wondered.

I got you. Yeah, well you know I appreciate do you sell Georgia's other hats at your shows. No, they have them in the bookstore like at the college. So it's like, I mean, they had a graph of the sales of baseball hats before I started wearing it now and it's pretty it's pretty funny.

But to me, it's the col merch booth of the college.

I mean, I know, but I make I mean, you know, I have my own line of merch down there at Georgia Southern now, so it's I don't know, I mean, they don't do anything like the baseball hats, but it's still I mean, just to be tied in when I used to be a kid in that bookstore. Now I have stuff in there. But it's it's pretty wild to think about that. But there, I know they're proud of me, and I'm proud to represent them. So I'm glad, glad you uh know, proud of where you come from.

I mean, I know this story. I just wanted you to say any because a lot of people don't know.

I well, thank you, and this is a lot of people listening and this is my only way. And that's funny about people tweeting and stuff like when I get you know, a couple of TV moments here and there. But when I do, that's like the meanest thing. It's like, why does this guy think he can just wear his initial And it's like, well, okay, I mean that's not that worst thing. I guess I can. I can deal with that, but uh yeah, well who knows, Maybe I'll change it someday.

Here's Thomas Rhett talking about what it was like growing up with a famous dad and talking about writing songs for other artists and how he felt like he had to prove to people that he was country. It's kind of wild too, Like your kids are going to grow up in an environment of knowing terrifies me all the like all the Country Star La New York yep, Like they're gonna have I say different. But I mean you grew up knowing some of these guys, Like yeah, when

Yeah, I mean not so much McGraw. I mean I met MacGraw when I was nine. I met Garth when I was like eight or nine years old. We spent like a couple of halloweens over at Reba's house, mostly people that dad toured with. I knew pretty well Blake Shelton when he is back in his younger in his younger days, not saying that you're old, Blake, you're younger.

Then he's a big fan. He'll for sure he this, Yeah, for sure.

But uh yeah, man, I definitely grew up in that environment.

But it was so different.

Social media didn't exist then, you know what I mean, Like if if there was an artist that did something that was worth talking about, it was in the newspaper. Just so different now, like if something happens this immediately for anyone in the world to see.

Do you and Lauren have the talks about the kids on Instagram and the kids on Twitter and like give rules?

We talk about it daily, man, And we get asked that question quite a bit, like what is the balance? And I think we're still trying to figure it out. But I think through it all, me and Laurena are still trying to be super real to how we like to live life. And ever since we got married. We're both twenty two and we got married, and my fans

And also, nobody's wrong, right, I mean, I think that's a thing to understand too. Is that because somebody disagrees that you put your kids on Instagram? Yeah, and because maybe they don't, they're not right or wrong exactly right or wrong. There are much like music, there are just different ways to do yeah.

Yeah, and it doesn't make you right or wrong.

You can be different, yes, and you don't have to hate somebody that's different exactly. But we're in that climate where it's like so it be a climate, political climate, it's all all the time.

It is so frustrating to me.

Probably one of the biggest frustrating factors in my life of the last five years have been Instagram or Twitter or whatever.

And it's funny because Instagram is a big part of your successful career too, yet it's still one of the most frustrating parts of it as well.

Yeah.

It's such a blessing and a curse, you know, because all you want to do is use your Instagram for a platform and use it to just promote positivity and love and peace and all these things. But it's just like, it doesn't matter what you or I post, there's going to be something ridiculous on there.

I posted a.

Picture yesterday or video yesterday just of saying, like what my new single is going to be? The first comment was shave your beard? You know what I'm saying. I'm like, first of all, what do you?

What are you doing in your life?

You have time to just say that to me. You know what I'm saying, like or like, hey, bend the bill of your hat.

But okay, let me play Devil's advocate because I agree, what a dumb thing.

But you remember that, like, right, That's what I'm saying. I'm giving that person they got noticed.

On your next Instagram, I'm gonna write, hey, been the bill of your hat?

Right, and I'll remember that some likes I know.

It on that what's frustrating for me And I don't know, and I'm not speaking for you, but I know watching you and I'm a big fan of how you.

Do your music.

Thanks You're you're pretty unapologetic about this is my style?

Sure, like this is me and okay, you can get a feeling as mutual man, so you can get all you can get off the ride. But I'm just gonna do what I do.

Yeah, And I know that for me to watch at times some of what to call it the old guard or to go that's.

That guy is not country. Yeah, that frustrates me.

For you, I don't know how you feel about that, but that for me, I'm like, God, if you guys even just knew like that, dude, as a country.

As can be, right, Yeah, man, yeah, I mean that that. That's been my life as a country artists, not necessarily in the beginning, but I'll say on my second record, when I started to like lean way more just progressive as far as production goes, and started to take my singing a whole lot more seriously and doing vocal lessons and all this stuff, trying to just make my record sound like something that wasn't happening in our genre. Dude, I have gotten more comments of you are not country

You're gonna take one for the world the team, I'm gonna take one for the world.

Yeah, but really I'm taking one for like sixty people. Yeah, you know what I'm saying.

A small vocal.

My very small vocal minority. And the more I thought about it, I was like, you're not country. You're not country? Okay, Why why am I not country? Well, you don't wear cowboy boots on stage? Okay, let me mentally go through that. The reason I don't wear cowboy boots on stage is because I jump up and down like a crazy person. And on the Aldean tour in twenty thirteen, his thrust was this metal grating material and I was wearing snip toed cowboy boots and got stuck in them every night.

Yes? Do I dress a little different? Yes? Are some of my songs more progressive than some things on country radio. Yes, I'm allowed to.

Explore my outlets, you know what I'm saying. Like you look back at any and we I think we've had this conversation before. But when Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson, all these dudes came out, they were called outlaws.

For a reason.

An outlaw is not just a term that you used to describe country music today. It is every twenty years we look back at the artists twenty years ago and say that was real country music. You know what I'm saying. We say Shanaia Twain is real country music. At the time, she was a pop singer. They told her on Instagram shave or beard she was.

I was talking to Garth and he said to say, you know, that's my favorite one to share with people who go, uh, it's Garth thrial country. Garth was like, dude, country music did not embrace me. No, he was like, they were antis. I came to town and they were like, you're not country. Get out of here, like what are you? And you can go through and you can go back.

And in any genre people hated and people hated the land because they weren't the Beatles in any art, in any not even just music, in any art whatsoever.

You can look at comedy or visual art, just whatever. People that break the mold and are not get the finger like you're not this are the ones that create the new this exactly. And so that's always what's frustrated me for you, and partially too, I think selfishly, when I came to town, it was hey, you're not country, and I'm going m I grew up a mountain pine arch and like, I live in a trailer, Like what animal do you want me to clean because I can any of them. And I started to think, what makes

He's he's the renegade, Like, isn't country? Just tell him the truth? Yeah, you don't have to be from the South.

I am you are, so we kind of get that little nickel that we can defend.

Yeah, but there's more seen more country folks in New York, upstate New York. I was about to say, I was just up there and it was country as crap, or like right outside of DC, like northern Virginia.

Yep.

So like, I feel your pain.

And sometimes when I see people write stuff, I'm like, you know what, First of all, who cares? But second of all, I go I know, as a creator, after a while, it starts to go, oh, it just gets to be a weight that you almost don't like to acknowledge because you're giving them power for sure, but it's real. But it also makes me better to Yeah.

Absolutely, it's honestly that that's the one area in my life that's has taken a lot of growing. But like you said, like when I do get those comments, it fuels my fire. It used to suck my life away, and now now it fuels my fire.

Your dad's country, he was here. My dad is country. Your dad is No one's gonna see your dad and go that game country.

Yeah.

Oh and that's that's my face. That's my favorite comment I've ever gotten. Your daddy must be so ashamed. Oh people say that. Oh yeah, for about a year there.

That that was.

That was the special comment. Your daddy is ashamed of you? And I was like, I don't think I don't think he is. Well, what, like, what a rotten thing, that's what I'm saying.

That that's a rotten thing to write, right, even for trolls exactly, Like I lost a little faith in all trolls that they actually write that, and I know it already didn't have a good opinion of them.

So what is it? What's the relationship between and your dad? Now, it's amazing dude.

Yeah, me and me and dad have gone through a bunch of seasons in our life, uh, from high school playing football into you know, signing a record deal and kind of starting the career to kind of getting into my career and kind of finding my own voice to my own sound, and then's now going through a lot of different phases in life and all good.

You know.

I think every father and son has their definitely ups and downs. But I would say that me and my dad today at twenty nine and almost fifty, are in the best place I've ever been in our father son relationship because like, he's so young, and.

He had me when he was nineteen.

My mom had me when she was nineteen, and so to have a young parent that is I think, because I feel like I'm kind of a young parent, and I feel like when I'm fifty, I'm going to be a lot different than my kids then than I am now, because I think parents just go through continuous learning phases. But my dad is obviously my dad, but he's also like one of my best friends in the world, you know.

So he's on tour with us.

This year, brings his wife out on the road, and when my kids come out. They just they flock to my dad like they're obsessed with my dad. They call M Popeye. And I think for the longest time, I was like, what does my dad going to be like as a grandfather? And he's like the best grandfather in

As he's turned forty eight to fifty. I just felt he's got a lot less.

Pressure on his shoulders, and I think it's kind of made our relationship a lot better. And he's given me a lot more you know, older man wisdom. I think, did he encourage you early early on to start music? Not really, man, My dad never pressured me to do a lot, but his big things don't quit anything, you know what I mean. Like we battled that for a while, like in high school, like going to football camp. No one likes football camp. I don't care if you're the

So do you look back now and see that you're your father's son. Yes, maybe you didn't see it then, but now you look back and go, I'm I didn't.

Yeah, I didn't see it a lot then, but now I'm looking at the way that I parent the way that he parented, and we are we are a lot alike in a lot of ways, and we are still very different in a lot of ways, but more so alike.

What's your first cut ever?

A song called I Ain't Ready to Quit by Jason Eldan twenty ten.

You were still in school at the time.

I was at Lipscomb University down the street. Yeah, and you get a cut? Yeah, what's that like?

I thought that I was a gajillionaire and I probably made a hundred bucks that cut. But I remember when that when that came out, Dude, it was like all my buddies in college. I remember we went to Walmart that night and we all bought two copies of the record, and uh, we parked my truck in the front yard of this little house next Lipscom and we just we had a party to one song. We literally just played

You signed a record deal like a year.

Later, A year later, Yeah, did you do the let me talk to some record labels?

Did you do the showcases for people?

Did?

Was it a uh?

They all offering you deals like what was the Thomas Rhett record label?

Uh?

Kind of pursuit like they did.

Man, I think I played for I played for six or seven record labels, and uh, the only song that I had that I thought was even remotely good was a song called if I Could Have a Beer with Jesus that was on my first record, and every every label that I played for a day later had offered me a record deal, and I couldn't believe it because all all, all I thought I wanted to be was a songwriter. I just wanted to follow in dad's footsteps, like I didn't. I don't think I wanted to go

Record, to do all that stuff. But as I got.

Into it, started to get some cuts, it gave me the bug because when I wrote the songs instead of other people singing, I really wondered what it would be like if I recorded them and put them on the radio, and so once I signed a record of a Big Machine. I think it was twenty eleven. It's just kind of been a roller coaster since then, but it was definitely the right thing for sure.

Thanks for listening to this special episode of the Bobbycast. I hope you enjoyed hearing stories from the early days of artists who had massive careers and they're still topping the charts, they're winning major awards, but they always weren't chart toppers and award winners at the end of the day, normal folks, dads, brothers, sons, who started somewhere. We'll probably have another episode like this with some really awesome female artists,

That helps us so much.

We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production