When I'm diving down, there's no chatter, doesn't exist, so you're only in that moment and it's so primal and you're so just connected to the ocean and nothing else, and you feel small in the greatest possible way.
Episode four fifty six. I sat for an hour with Zach Brown of Zach Brown Band. Obviously, I'd never sat with him for this long. We've done like twelve thirteen fourteen minute interviews. I'd spend some time with him away from the show, but never and it's a very intimate process, just sitting with someone for an hour. But never liked this. He shared some interesting things. One thing I don't think that he knew possibly hadn't been released yet of information
I don't know. The concert thing. Yeah, so I guess this maybe the first time you hear that coming up I seeing him say anything about it. I haven't either, I've been looking so that happens. He talks about a pian and a bottle, which we'll get to as well. I mean, this guy, I feel like I can't get my brain to stop. I feel like he suffers from this too. I don't know when he has time to be creative. I know Zach Brown band has two new singles, tie Up and Pirates and Parrots. Uh, they're torn with
Kenny Chesney. You know. I make the comment to him if I were Kenny, I would never have Zach Brown play before me. They're so good, and so we talked about that. I don't know. Camp Southern Ground is a whole thing too with Ah and he talks about how, you know, how they started and how he tries to give back in a lot of different ways, and Camp Southern Ground is about that, you know. I think we'll just go with it. I think you'll like this. I did first time I'd ever spend an hour with him,
Zach Brown. He would you say? He's reclusive? Yeah, comes out for just concerts. Really Yeah. It's kind of weird to see him in the backyard because usually I only see him a like work stuff, and he's like a hunk of muscle with right. He's he's a guy that could I feel like you could punch as hard as you want it anywhere in his body except as nose possibly, and he would not be vulnerable to attack. He's a monster, all right, Harry is Zach Brown? Good to see you, man,
You too, appreciate you coming over. Hey, So what is what? What is the deal? What do you live here? Now? I have a place here, not in my house? Do you live But because I always thought he was one of the guys who was never here, then you would like show up, are you here more?
My home base is in Georgia still still that's home base. But I do have a place here in my studios here as well.
Studio as in your recording studio.
Yes, sir, it's Southern ground Nashville.
It's over in that move too, right, because you sold the old one, really one, you should you get a pretty penny. Trust me, I know a little bit about real estate. Yeap.
I need the Tenter during COVID because it was kind of wild. You listed everything I did.
I listed it.
I had it in a contract for a year and a half and the guys were they were just holding it, and then interest rates and everything went up, and then they kind of started getting fishy, and I was like, I'm not holding this another day without some heart earners money.
So it was under contract for over a year.
Yeah, and then and then they put on hard earners money and then they ended up backing out again.
So I just keep the money. Oh hell yeah, we had. We were still in the process of selling our other house. It was right down the road from here, and we put it up and we bought it right when COVID started. We bought it when everything went way down, so we got very fortunate. Yeah, and since then things have gone way up and we're going to do pretty good on it. Whenever we finally sell it. And some guy was like, I want it, and he said, I'll take it and put it in a contract and like two weeks went buy
and he's like hey man, Like hey man. He didn't like reach out like a buddy, but he was like, hey, I just got divorced and I bought this house because it just got divorced. And my ex wife did not want me to get this house the last time it was up for sale, so I bought it to spite her. And I like to get out of the contract because I shouldn't have made that decision, so I let him. We haven't sold it since, which was gonna sell it.
But I could have held an account, and you know, I could have been like, nah, you but yeah, real estate, real estate. It's the I don't know much about money. I didn't grow up with money. But it's like the only thing I've ever done where it's like almost you went almost every.
Time, especially around here.
Is it like that everywhere though? I mean I know, because everyone's always like around here, but only know around here.
Yeah, it depends on what it is, man, you know, in a growing area like this. It is in my experience, you know it. I mean I bought I bought my studio and the building next door to it in like twenty ten, and there were no high rise buildings except the Orbison building was the biggest building around anywhere close to us.
So it was like little houses still.
And I wish I had bought everything anywhere around there at that time, knowing hindsight.
But so we did good on that. We put a lot into it.
We turned the whole thing into guitar woods, floors, walls, you know, everything, ceiling. But it's such a cool historic place, you know. It was monument records back in the sixties. It was like Fred Foster's place, and then Al Jolson owned it after that, and so when we got the studio, it was completely stacked full. The tap vault was completely full of old tapes that people recorded there. There was like a let the tape. There was Christofferson tapes there.
There was all the financial records of everyone that ever recorded there from the sixties until now what do you do with those? I've got a little area set up that's just like all the history. So we set it up and organized it all. And there's like unreleased Shel Silverstein records there's but there's a file for everyone that recorded there, and everyone recorded there. The B three that's
in there, the Allman brothers came. And the story is the brothers came and recorded there and then couldn't pay their full studio bills, so Greg left his his hammon there, So the B three was Greg's. There's the piano was one of Liberachi's pianos. It was from nineteen twenty Baldwin, huge grand piano sound nothing sounds like that thing. And Al Jolson owned that and it was came along with the sale of studio. So I got all this old treasure that was in the place and all the history behind it all.
So you knew that a lot of that older historic stuff was in there when you bought it. It wasn't like you stumbled on a small door and you crawled through the door and you're like, oh no, the whole studio was completely full.
It was full of old Mike stands, like my MIC's stand has Jjkle's name sprayed on the bottom of it. It's like and supposedly there's an Elvis necklace somewhere that someone left in the wall, like one of his in the people on his thing, like he gave out gold TCB you know, yeah, take care of the necklaces. And supposedly one of the guys that was working on it back in the sixties or whatever left his necklace up and it got closed in a wall somewhere in the building.
There's all kinds of crazy stories, but steeped in history. It was a church had built in nineteen oh one, and before that the ground it was on was like a Civil War battlefield, like resting ground, like they had the overflow from hospitals. So it's pretty haunted as well as a lot of my staff will tell you that stayed in there late at night often and found really weird things in there. So it's a it's a cool place, man,
It's like dripping with weird cool stuff. And I'm not one of those super ghost people.
Like that.
I just try not to be open to that kind of stuff. I'd rather just if it's around, I'd rather just not pay attention to it. Yeah, but people friends of mine that are have coming there and like gotten sick of their stomach. They're like, oh God, there's so many spirits in here and whatever, and it's like cool, sweet.
I got two places I want to go. One, I bring up the property in the real estate things. I feel like you're a guy who's gotten into a lot of different things and is actually and I don't know if you have if you're like me and you just want to do a little bit of everything and learn about everything, or if because you're with the food, with the music with I mean, if I feel like there's five or six places that you've the leather, you know, with all that you've done, what part of you is
the person that chases that? Like mine is like I get obsessed with things like addict They come from an addiction family big time. Right now. My thing is like sports Mambillian cards. Can't get about to saus helmets and gear. I'm just I get it. Yeah, have you ever seen these? I just actually brought this down and I never bought these before they're called Apparently they are pop centery. They're like not athletes, but like celebrity, like famous people who sign cards.
I haven't seen those yet.
I will break this in a minute. What part of you though, interest you in all these different things?
I'm the same way, Like I'll chase a rabbit hole something that's interesting to me, I will latch onto it and research and learn as much as I can about it.
And I think the part about being an artist is not just you know, music is one of the mediums that you can use, but you know, I've been making knives since I was eighteen years old, So creating something and whether it's space or whatever, like I love to come into a space if it's somewhere where I'm going to be, and transform that space into a vibe that I'm really going to, like, like getting the lighting correct, the right way of getting the right things. And then
all my traveling I come upon things. I seek things too, Like if I go to do a tour in the UK, I'm going to head up all the old weird antique stores that have like five six hundred year old stuff in them and kind of pick through those things and find things to bring back. So I'm I'm kind of a people collector as far as on the business side of things, and I'm kind of a collector of art and weird things.
Well, So where does that come from? What was what was home like growing up? Did anybody do that? Did anybody collect or draw or?
My uncle.
On my mom's side, so my grandma, my great uncle, my grandmother's brother, he was the same way. Like when I went to his house and saw his whole setup and everything too, I'm like, that's got to be somewhere from that side of the family. But I think for me, I'm a hyper curious person. So I'm always curious about things, and I want to learn about things, and I'm interested.
So you know, when I was learning about leather goods and things like that, I would find people that made leather goods, give them the space.
And the tools, help them buy the tools.
And you know, I had one hundred and sixty five thousand square feet of manufacturing space in Georgia before COVID hit, and that was compartmentalized into nineteen different businesses and spaces and stuff, and I had craftsmen in there and engineers and things, and you know, S and C equipment, CENC, metal, S and C leather, CE and C wood shop all in this place.
So what's C and C.
It's basically no computer, computer controlled machines, got it?
Yeah? I don't want to act like a smart and new so yeah.
So you know mills, lathes, things that run themselves. You put it in a program like I could do a full body scan of you and then carve it out of wood. Put a block of wood on this machine and it had two five axis routers heads that would carve you like full on like nostrils and everything out of out of wood.
Can you imagine if I like made out with that, that'd be weird. Yeah, you get a splinter my own Yeah, I'm like in my tongue, I'd be weird. Uh what about the what the craftsman part? Who did that?
People that I would find?
I would find people that were already making amazing things and reach out to them and like, would you.
Be interested in that as a kid? Were you interested in that? Like cutting and building? And I was? I was very creative as a kid. Were you artsy and weird or were you because right now you're not you're artsy, but you're not weird, and you've take it taken the weird way because you have tattoos in your jacked.
Well, I think I think you know. I think being a nerd of anything's kind of cool actually, but it doesn't actually get to be cool.
Until you're a little bit older, I agree.
And then then you find out when you put energy and effort into something and you really like search it out, and you really Because of my music, I was able to reach people. I was able to call people on the phone and maybe people would know who I was and I could speak to them and like show them what we're doing later on, Yeah, what is the kid?
Were you a weird kid? Though? I was a weird kid or what was considered weird for Mountain Pine, Arkansas? I was weird because I wanted to like perform and be funny. That didn't happen where I came from.
Yeah, I was a choir kid, so I could inquire when I was in first grade, so I always loved to sing. My dad and my brother played guitar, so I wanted to play guitar, and so I was From the time I was seven, I started taking guitar lessons and a guitar was always like home for me wherever I was, so I carried my guitar everywhere I went. Music was definitely like my first love that I ever had, singing along with shows. My brothers tell me to shut up and stop singing, you know, just be quiet and
thin like that. But my love for music was definitely my absolute first first love. And I think as a kid just being super creative, like I would make stuff in class out of you know, construction paper and pipe cleaners and stuff I'd make like little weird grappling hooks and tear up the corner of the carpet and make a rope for it, and like, I don't know, I was always making things, So it's natural as my progression.
And I always love to see anyone that's really amazing at doing something, somebody that's like the leather worker that I have Ramone, he's unbelievable. So for Louis Vuittan for twenty years, he's when he crafts something out of leather, it's like it's perfect, you know. And finding people like that that are so good at what they do and they have this level of passion that drives them to be that kind of excellent. I wanted to like provide a space for them to do what they do, just like,
what do you need? What tools do you need to do this on a bigger level, so we can make things and sell them pay for your salary, but also be able to make things very bespoke things for people or make things, you know, like my plane, the whole interior my plane Ramon and made every piece of the plane, all the chairs, the panels, ceiling, the bathroom, every everything in it. So I've always been really attracted to people
that are really amazing at something. And then what I'm at is being a pragmatic person and going, Okay, if I just give this person every tool that they need in the space and freedom to do it, what can they create?
Do you expect the same thing whenever it comes to you and your music. You want them to give you every resource to let you do your perfection? Yeah?
Absolutely, And my band is extraordinary.
I'm like a record label or whomever, because you you know, they have to fund things. It's not you know, there's reasons flid with a label. Do you expect them to give you the same liberty that you give your creatives? For sure?
And you know, I think if you're going to work with a label, they have to trust you as the artist.
You know.
I don't have a and R coming in to tell me what kind of songs to write and what it needs to sound like and be like and.
Stuff like that. Like I create what I create.
And if they like it, then they're gonna, you know, support it, and they'll listen through everything that we made and say this might be the best one for this. And being able to kind of trust your team with that.
But it's very important to me. I've been fanatically rebellious since I was a child, to where I someone tries to tell me what I should be, how I should act, what I should I didn't get a record deal for ten years because people came in and we're like, Okay, we're going to get you a cowboy hat and some boots and we're going to put you up. And that was the end of the conversation for me because I knew who I was, and I was brave enough to
say that's not who I am. And I remember one time we were selling out like five six thousand seats at places before we had a record deal. I mean, we played every night. I had to create a business model. So I would go to bars, sports bars that didn't have live music, and I'd say, I'm going to play here every Friday night. I'm going to come set up and all I want is the door, give me a tab, give me some food or whatever, you know, give me a couple hundred bucks in a tab for me in
mist in Georgia, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. So my first ten years of touring, I did that, and I played house gigs at the same place every the same night of the week for ten years. But after a little bit of time, on a Wednesday night at as Sidelines in Kinnesau, we'd have three hundred people come in pay a door charge, and I'd make, you know, twelve hundred
bucks at the door, and then they're stoked. Because if I've owned restaurants too, so you lose your ass in a restaurant Monday through Thursday, Friday Saturday as you make up for the rest of the whole week. But making a business, making a night of business for somebody on a Wednesday, that's like a Friday Saturday, is like a gold mine. That's that's but I would show up and play. We'd play four hours a night and we'd set up. I mean, at first it was six hours a night
we'd play. But we created a business model. And if I had been in Nashville here trying to go hunt a gig for sixty bucks a night, you know, hustling like that, there's a lot of people. There's so many incredible players and things around here, but it's so saturated, there's not it, there's not a business. Well, we created a business model. So we would play those places every every single week, and we'd bring in tons of people. And that's how I could test my songs that I
was writing. I would know I'd play it out like I was playing Chicken Fried in bars for years before we put it on an album. But I knew after playing that in front of three hundred people a night on a Wednesday in a sports bar that it would work. I could tell by the reaction of what the people were doing. So they were the litmus test of like
what's working and what's not. So six nights a week for ten years, bro, just grinding my ass off, sleeping against the window of a truck, you know, hired a dude to drive me and pull my you know, covered trailer around with our shits on sticks in it and our PA.
System and doing that.
So I didn't know how other people did it. I didn't know there were rules or how it works or anything like that. So it was always interesting to me when I come to Nashville and the way people write songs. And I was writing just you know, late at night, up after shows at somebody's random living room, you know. So I didn't know that people sit and write like they'll take four sessions a day and come in to write and do things. So I never knew the way
business should work or how it should work. All I knew was I'm just playing and I was cutting my teeth, and it gave me the best like resilience, and it also gave me this incredible appreciation for every single person because sometimes the dude cleaning up the bar was the only person that was listening to me. And so my connection to people, to I don't know, this is not a derogatory thing, but like to common people, being out
there with people. So I learned to love all kinds of people of all different abilities because you never know how. And I can still go in the back in the kitchen and Dixie tavern right now, and see Fernando, the guy that was always cooking in the back of the kitchen, and give him a hug and hang out with him, because that was my family back then.
Yeah, I don't think it's derogatory term if you're also one of them.
I am absolutely one of the people, And.
I don't think even what take this that if you're like common people. But if it's like if I were to call somebody hillbilly, that's okay. I come from freaking Mountaine, Arkansas, so I can do that. But if somebody from it's not a hillbilly, for sure calls me hillbilly. But you have this weird stew of of perfectionist and creative. Those don't often go together. What's what's the tug on that?
And who wins? Because again, the creative and the perfectionists, that doesn't mix well a lot of the times.
Man, you know, I got a tattoo of Teddy Roosevelt on my on my left arm.
I think.
The people who go do the deeds, who actually do the things and show up and aren't afraid to fail.
So like the arena is what you're talking about, man?
In the arena?
Yeah, so every I come back to that.
Every time I hear some failed New York some guy, some author or writer in New York that writes something derogatory about my album when he had a failed band and just the only way he found a job was to write and you know, critique other people's music. I go back to that speech to the man in the arena, to Teddy. But I wasn't afraid to fail. And that's
the that's the thing I just you have to. I think perseverance is the most extraordinary thing that we can possibly have, because if you if you're willing to put in the work and grind and hustle and an artist, talent comes pretty cheap.
You can find talent to people all day long.
But the people that have the grit to persevere and fucking get out and grind and like get on the horse and hear a thousand people tell them that you can't do this and don't give a shit and just do it anyway, and just fucking keep going, keep going, keep going, because you don't start great. You start where you are and you work on it, and the more
hours you do it, the more great you become. And the more hours Like so, I think that that resilience for me and getting to I didn't know where I was going.
I just knew I wasn't gonna stop.
But when you're creating, it could be then or now versus when you want it to be exactly right, you're not going to put where does that fall? At some point you've got to have a point where I'm just I just got to put it down on stop spending all this time worrying if it's perfect, or the other way where it's like, man, I am not putting anything out until it's exactly right. Yeah.
I've said on lyrics to songs like Goodbye in Your Eyes. As an example, we have a song. It took ten to find the bridge for that song because I knew it was great, but I wouldn't compromise and just put some lines in that rhyme.
So if you.
If you like the people that you're writing with and you're creating with, which is a big thing for me now I've just started writing with this guy in the last year that I just love. In every two or three hours, another great song pops out. And so when you can find the energy and synergy around that, when you don't.
I just thought ten years though have you had it, you'd have the bridge.
I had it, but I knew that it just I didn't have it yet. It just wasn't there. But I hear songs on the radio all the time that I'm like, they're just making that shit rhyme, Like if you care about every line of the song, if a song is your baby, it's like the to me, songwriting is like the last like real American form of poetry and trying to you know, and some songs are are this poetic, like amazing thing that's like, you know, based on family
or relationships or whatever. Some of them you write to just be absurd and to have fun. So it depends on what you're going for. But if you're looking, if you're looking for that poetry and seeking it out and you're trying to find the best line, I mean the genius in songs for me, like simple songs like Willie Nelson was a genius songwriter because he could say something so simple and you could any layman person could listen
to it and go, that's great. But if you listen to how perfectly simple that it was, there's genius in how you do that, like boiling it down to something so simple. So for me, the chase of a song is like I never love a song more than right when we finish writing it, because you kind of forget what you did. You listen back to it and you're like, oh, yeah.
There it is.
But I have a really good radar with If that line's not good enough, the song's not done.
Yet, hank Ty, the Bobby Cast will be right back and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
I would have never finished a song then because if it waited ten years, there's nothing that could have been good enough to finish the song. So how did I want to go back to that specifically?
Yeah, I just I heard it. It was actually a part of another song that a friend of mine had written, and I was like, that's and I changed that a little bit, but I was like, that's the bridge, that's the one, And then they got created, you know, credit for writing on the song as well, but you know, you don't know what it is, but you know it's not right yet.
So that's the thing. You don't compromise.
The songs are your babies, and however long it takes to do that. Sometimes you'll split a song out in an hour, and sometimes it takes ten years to finish one. But if you're proud of every single line and every single one and hopefully the people that listen that really care about every line, like you're looking for that duality. Like you're saying a lot of things in a very few simple words, like on you know.
A layer of it.
But I think I was blessed also, you know, my dad was a good businessman, and I think having a little bit of the left side brain about it, and also listening to everybody's horror stories of how they get taken advantage of in music business and things like that, Like I was very stubborn with negotiating those things because you have to negotiate it on what you're going to be and not what you are. Because most I've never signed a publishing deal because I had tons of offers
over the years. Somebody wants to come, you know, give you half a million dollars, they'll loan it to you, and then they own half of everything you write after that point in time. And it's like, if I'm betting on myself, then I'm betting on one day I'm going to sell out stadiums and I'm going to have number one songs and I'm going to be doing this, so is taking you know, one hundred grand advance for doing
this right now a smart thing to do. So I think being longsighted and how you negotiate with things, and it made it where some it was hard for some people to work with me because I was very stubborn, but I live outside of the rules of what everybody else did because I didn't come from it.
I didn't know what they were.
So I was really blessed in that way.
I feel like I didn't know how it was supposed to work, so I just did what worked for me. And then I'm one of the only artists that I know that owns all of my masters. I own all the masters to all my recordings, and that doesn't normally happen, right, even the Beatles, the Beatles Michael Jackson own the Beatles Publishing, and then the Beatles own Michael Jackson Publishing, but they never own their own It was always tied up. It was always in all these details of contracts that people
don't understand and don't know. And I would say a big contributing factor to this thing too, is like anybody's starting out to the music is the first thing that you need to have is a great lawyer. I've had read Hunter since day one, since I had one, and he's been incredible because I'm asking him, Okay, what does this mean? You know, he'd have to dumb things down for me to help understand. Okay, how does that work in eight years from now? What does that mean? How does it go?
And when I sign a new contract, what does that mean?
And as far as you don't have a law firm with everything else you got see law firm is Hebb law firm, leather in law.
But finding one that you can really trust and that has the influence and has the stuff. If he didn't know the answer, he can find someone that does know the answer. And that's how you build your team. You find that person first and then you kind of help, you know, do that. But man, you gotta be tough. Man, you gotta be tough, and you can't let people tell you what you are, because if you become what other people think that you should be, you don't know who the fuck you are.
I would agree with that. I also like songs that Ryan Barron Carr. Do you have any of those?
I don't think, so I try to stay away from Love the Bar and car some of those. Yeah, okay, we can do that to you. I write one with.
You on whatever you like. No, here's the thing about my songwriting that could probably heard some of my hits, like Hobby Lobby Bobby, It's sweeps the Nation. But I have this idea for a song and it's about driving in the country and it's the hardest sing along ever. It's my idea, and so I do stand up, I
do music whatever fair mediumly. And the idea is I'm driving in the country and I look over on the rock, on the rocks that have been cut out for the road, and there's like a lot of drawings up there, and I'm like, oh, this is cool. And then everybody sings along and it's called plural rural murals, and it's the hardest thing along ever because it's hard to say plural rural murals, especially a few times in a row. Oh
that's true. So that's where I am right now. I just really haven't foud I've been waiting ten years to get some way to write it with. Well, I haven't even started writing it just to get someone to write it with. I'm not even to needing a bridge. Yet that's how perfectionist I am. With the song plural rural murals.
Okay, all right, tell me that is not I desire. I actually see a lot in those three words together. I can see a lot of possibility. So that's a great start.
Thank you. And that's where I am. I probably wait another ten before I get to the park for sure. I just got to find that.
Yeah, when you're ninety, bro, you're gonna have it.
I need a good lawyer and a good person to ride it with. I'm ready to go. Yeah. The thing about a lawyer, though, is a lot of people that are starting in this business and I would even put myself into this business as being the the artistic side where you make money. Is we didn't grow up around lawyers.
We don't know. Yeah, I didn't know. I know now the value of it, but if I would, I mean, I had a couple of backstreet boy deals which meant bad ones at first with agent with but I didn't know because I was I never even knew a lawyer. And so the importance of saying you need a lawyer and having people not go he's not talking to me because I don't know much about lawyers. Like it's almost like, if you're going to do music and you're gonna have an art that you monetize, you need somebody making sure
somebody's not ripping it off, even at the lowest level. Sure, And when you say that, I'm like, man, I wish I would have listened to somebody tell me that, because people probably did. But I was like, lawyer, that's fancy. What am I gonna do it? What am I gonna do with a lawyer? But it would have saved me a lot of stress.
Well, I think it comes along with recognizing your own strengths, right, Like, I know, I feel like I know my lane and I know what I'm good at.
So everything. So if if I'm a nine, or if I'm a nine and.
Some things say at a ten scale, Right, if I'm a nine, it's some things and I'm two's and other ones if I'm doing it the right way. My team are all nines and tens at their area of what they do.
Over the that I'm terrible at doing.
To even know to get a lawyer though, yeah, well that's because I heard about everything, and you know, I don't have a contract with my lawyer. We made an agreement early on, like you're gonna make this percentage of everything that I make or whatever. And he did that when I was making nothing, and he stood by me and helped me to do that, help me build my team, help me to put things together.
Still, you know, still my guy to this day.
And that's the thing with me, Like if somebody's made of the right character in fabric or whatever, I will work with that person forever. There's there's lots of things that change in and out of time, things that fit. It may not mean that they're bad people or make
bad decisions, but it just doesn't work. But I've been really blessed to build my team of people where I've got people around me that are all tens where I'm a two, and then everything's covered, you know, and then seeking counsel from people, having people like Jimmy Buffett, who you know, rest in peace, people like him that I can call and go, hey, man, what.
Was this like for you?
What how do you think about this?
There's only a handful of people that I could call and get quick answers from that independent that would.
Make sense to you. For you, because only a few people ever done what you're doing at the level you're doing, and have somewhat of an understanding of what you're going through.
How he built his brand, how he does his things, what he doesn't do, what he does, you know, like, what's the advice you know? I mean even like even Springsteen. I remember the time I talked to him. I was like, tell me something that's the most important thing that you can tell me for my career, like what he is, there's something that you can think of. And his reply was, you need to sweat every day for an hour. I don't care what you do. Just go find a place, walk, run,
work out, whatever it is. Sweat for an hour a day. And after he told me that, I was like, all right, he's a boss. I'm gonna do that. It give me little things like that that people say they can change your trajectory. They could change like what you're doing, and you know, having but being able to access people like that and being able to do it and somehow beyond their radar was amazing because I started off and I still am. I'm a giant music fan. I'm a music
lover like fanatic. I try to seek things out that move me, seek things out like the way people are writing and the way they sing it and the way they play it and put it with the melodies and the harmonies or whatever it is that makes it give you that visceral feeling where you can listen to something and you really feel what they're feeling. So I still seek that out to this day. So I started out
as a music lover. So it's it's weird and amazing along my journey to get to share stages with my heroes.
Yeah, that's wild. I'm finally I finally have people that I think are cool, that think I'm kind of cool exactly. And it's not even that they have to be super famous. It's just somebody that I thought was cool. It's like, oh, I kind of You're like, that's the that's the greatest thing.
But I never lose sight of the kid that was just in love with music, because that's still who I am. So it's always when I'm sharing, like we just did that the Jimmy Buffett tribute in LA and the Hollywood Bowl Show. Yeah, and with you know, Paul McCartney and the Eagles and Jackson Brown and you know, it goes on and on, but you.
Still have to go be cool, be cool to yourself, like be cool, be cool, be cool. But Paul McCarney be cool.
Yeah, always, I mean always, and I'm never So my life is so polarizing, Like when I'm at home, I got five kids, So when I'm at home, I'm the house bitch, Like I'm there to serve them.
I'm there to drive.
Them, take them school, pick them up for school, take them.
Around and do whatever.
And I love that.
I want to be there to see all that as much as I possibly can, and I have them half the time. So that's half of my life is in Georgia doing that, and I absolutely love that. And I never get used to when I go back out on the road and I stand at a stadium full of people and singing and going, holy shit, this is what I this.
Is what I do.
That part, that part of grandeur of whatever that is whatever doesn't.
Live with me constantly.
I'm not like you know, it's it's always humbling to me every time that we get to do it.
And it keeps me humble because I know just who I am.
I'm just a dude trying to create something, make something, and trying to make my family work and be connected to them, but also be connected to my music and my creativity, and you know, COVID happens everything, and it simplified my life in the greatest way.
Meaning in a way that you didn't think you would enjoy, but it ended up being a great learning experience. You learn from it, and you wouldn't have picked it.
I wouldn't have picked it because I didn't know what it meant.
If someone would have said, this is what you're gonna do, this is what's going to happen, and in the end, it's gonna be good for you.
I had two hundred and fifty employees when COVID man.
That's that's a lot of people.
It's a lot of families that depend on me to be solid and me to do things and come through and all of that. And so looking in the face of that and the uncertainty of it, I had to close things down.
I had to sell my huge warehouse and some my.
Equipment, sell some of my businesses to friends, which I still have a piece of, which is great because I don't have to babysit the people making it. Now I can create, you know, contribute ideas and design and things like that, and help with marketing. But I don't have to do it, but it put me in a space. And this is something that because of my curiosity and my energy level, I have a lot of energy. I learned just because you can do a lot of things doesn't mean you should.
Like, if you can.
Figure out how to have an acceptable amount of things that you're good at doing and focus on those, you're going to be better. You're going to be able to serve all those things way better than being spread so thin across so many different avenues.
I think you have to learn. I had to learn that lesson the hard way. I had to learn that lesson by burning out a bit. Oh yeah, did you do that or did you just realize, oh, I'm smart. I'm not going to burn myself out. No.
I would definitely burn myself out because then it's the little things that happen in life when you're having to like, oh shit, I've got to deal with all this shit now, and like my mental space goes down, and also thinking that. So here's another principle for people that are trying to have a business, asn't matter what you do or what it is or whatever. Your business is only as good
as your systems and if your system doesn't allow. If your system has checks and balances in every possible area and doesn't allow people to take advantage, you will succeed. If there's any gap in your business where people can take advantage, they always will. And learning that the hard way was hard for me because I would get it taken of, getting taken advantage of the efficiencies of what's happening when I wasn't there to oversee what happens day to day.
It was just a bleed. It was a bleed.
But on paper, you hire a placement agency, a headhunter, help me find a CEO. That's the baddest motherfucker in the world, Like, help me find somebody, and you pay the money to bring this person in and you put them in that position, and you assume because of their resume, because of these things or whatever, they're going to oversee things, they're going to run toward problems. They're going to help you do this thing right. But if I'm not there
to engage with that company in that business. But that's why my touring runs like a top because I have incredible people that do it. I'm there with them when we're doing it. They put out all the fires. So I don't have to be consumed with that. But in these other businesses that I had and I tried to start and go, it doesn't matter how well you hire for that, if the amount of attention that you spend there.
It's like having a restaurant. If you want a successful restaurant, you need to live there, you know.
But dear, I feel like the talk macro businesses. But has that happened to you personally that taught you this? Because the real lessons I've learned of things that have been happened to having me personally.
Yeah, oh absolutely.
One of my greatest friends, Paul, I asked him. He's got a lot of people and a lot of stuff on his plate, you know, and when you have something that happens on a personal level where it's a betrayal and you know you weren't really looking over their shoulders as much as you should have.
And that's what I'm saying.
The system in place when you have friends that work with you and family that works with you and things like that, When those things, when those people take advantage,
it hits you on a whole other level. And I remember the first time that that happened to me, where I was like, Wow, this person is you know, suing me sure five years after the fact for something just because I was successful after they were gone, they made poor decisions, got fired or whatever, and just because my time is so valuable now, my opportunity cost and fighting this is going to be more expensive than giving them
some money for what they feel entitled to. I remember that what that feels felt like that first time that that like, and that's a lot to deal with. But I think over time, like I mean, knock on wood, like, I'm pretty I'm pretty resilient. Yeah, there's probably someone this couch, but I think your resiliency as time goes on, like, you're not gonna let people steer your joy.
You know you're gonna that.
My buddy Paul says said, you know you breathe in, breathe out, move on.
And it's and and and that's what I told him.
What do you do when someone that you really love betrays you and that you're you're left in this place within whatever?
And he said, it's just the cost of doing business.
Can you forgive? Not in that situation, but generally are you good at forgiving?
I would say, as far as being a human and being a friend, Yes, I would say yes. As far as your business and things like that, when someone shows you what they are and who they are, and you know, I keep my charity with my charity and then so in my business there's no place for that. But as far as friends and things like that, yeah, I think I've been forgiving. But I've also learned how to make my boundaries a lot more rigid. You know, I spent three years doing a full like vision spirit quest, all
myself working on myself being able to draw boundaries. And once somebody shows you that they're not of the fabric to be in your circle, and you know you've given them a chance or two or whatever, then you move.
Those people out of your circle.
But where the forgiveness comes in is like you still wish them the best, Like somebody scues me over, It's fine, I'm gonna be okay. I just don't want them around anymore. I want them to be well, but I don't want them to be in my circle anymore.
The other way though, meaning i feel like I've gotten a bit better. I got a lot of therapy, but I feel like I've gotten better at forgiving. Still like good at it, I think just because I'm so, I get in my protective shell and just don't talk to anybody. I don't have rage, but my rage is like enter right, and I just shut down. But I've also needed to be forgiven right. And I used to not even care. I would just be like, I screwed up. I'll just never go back to that person again. Yeah, Like I
feel like I've grown in that. But if I'm getting better at forgiving, but I'm also getting better at actually asking and going, hey, I screwed up, Like are you are? How would you say you rate on both of those sides.
Well, I don't think I'm a master of any of those things, you know. I think that's something that you that you work on as you as you go, you know. I think being able to just say I was wrong?
Can you do that?
I can do that.
I suck at that.
I can do it getting to the point where you really fully see it because there there are there's there's a lot of gray around perception, right, So it's and it's like the perception of it, and it's like when you when you hear somebody else out on their side of the story and you see how it made them feel I can empathize with that and understand, and I'm like, I can say I'm sorry for my part what I
contributed to that feeling or whatever. But as my life coach that I had would say, you know, everything is a mirror, right, So she's like, Okay, what do you seek the most in a partner like you? What's the thing you seek the most? And I would say consistency and she'd say, okay, well, then you need to be
more consistent with yourself. And that was like, so the things we seek in other people is actually what we need for ourselves and the things that we might be our kind of achilles here that we don't see as much. That was really interesting for me. But I'm a student to everything. I'm a student to myself, to the relationships, to whatever it is. But I've gotten better about going, Okay, this person showed me who they are and I want them to be great, but I don't want them to
be around me anymore. And the more that I've done that, the more that I've kept my circle with people that are expanders for me. If they're not on the same frequency, same thing, just just because of precedent, it's just because you used to hang out with this person.
It used to be great, it used to be whatever.
Like you know, you, the people you surround yourself with are a direct reflection of your level of success and where you're going and what you're doing.
I agree. The environment that you put yourself in or you stay in definitely manifest itself into who you are, because if you stay there long enough, that's going to be who you are, or it's going to change because of you. Right, the Bobby cast will be right back.
Mm hmm, this is the Bobby Cast.
You play pickle ball.
I have a pickleball court at my house.
I'm building one right there behind the place right now.
You canna have a bridge for your dog already have a bridge for my dog that goes over the pickle ball court so he can watch.
Yeah no, no, no, no, I'm not crazy. I mean we did build out of plywood a Vegas skybridge for our fat bulldog into the side yard because he would drown. Yeah.
Yeah, they don't swim, they don't.
Then they they just sing. He's not a big farter really yeah? No, basic? Yeah, big snore. You like bulldogs? Yeah? You have everyone?
No, you have ever had one? Fad French bulldogs. Oh man, same thing.
People like steal those in the street. Yeah, like just see you. They wouldn't see you and steal your dog.
Though, there's things you learn about, like a tail pocket.
I don't know what that is.
So underneath their tail they have this prison.
Hey, this is my tail pocket, Bobby.
Like, if you're holding someone's immediately immediately be like all right, first day in prison, I'll hold your pocket And they're like, no, you don't have to do that.
No I will, I'll do I know my right.
Yeah, well that's that's a good self defense mechanism. What's what's a tail pocket? So frenchies have like underneath their tail, they have this little like cavern where their little gnarly tail. First of all, bulldogs haven't been able to procreate. They would be extinct already. They're like the Dodo bird of dogs, right. So so it's a process to doing all that you know, like you know, and then you find out things about them at you have them, like oh, the tail pocket
is infected. It's like this weird moist place that's on the back side of the dog, and it's like, you know, that's an ish, that's a thing. So you learn weird things when you have dogs. It should be dead, but they're not, should be extinct.
So you spend a whole lot of money on yours because it was always sick. And uh, it's because a hundred years of genetic.
Yeah, I mean that's that's our story with his dog. Yeah, yeah, it's it's wild. I mean, there are cool they're like little gargoyles.
He's the greatest. Yeah, and he's actually not that much of an idiot. He likes to sleep a lot now, but he's awesome. But yeah, he's because they just genetically aren't supposed to exist. Yeah, and there's been so much inbreeding.
Yeah.
People would say the same thing about people from Arkansas. But I'm here. Hey, look at me.
You're doing great.
I gotta I got a bridge for my dog to walk over. You're pretty good.
But it should be in the Arkansas Hall of Fame for that dog bridge.
Bro.
I don't know if anybody in Arkansas has a dog bridge.
I think I got into that when I just drove across the border. Yeah, it was like I'm gonna I'm gonna be somebody, and they were like, you're in the Hall of fame. What's it. What are you a good pickleball player?
I'm learning, I'm learning, I'm working on it.
I me and the kids are out there and it's just that time of year now too, where it's fun where we're out there doing it. And what's weird about it is you get a little bit better every time you play. Just learn how to hit it and keep it in the bounds. But I love anything that is active and you're exercising without thinking about exercising.
That's my whole thing too, Like I will work out three or four times when my trainer. It sucks. I hate exercise. I hate for the sake of exercise. I'll do it, and I do do it, but I hate it. But I love being act I like competing yeah, and then you're exercising yeah, and you're like, man, that was fun, and I just like totally, I don't have to go to bench press right now. I will. I'm pretty good. I did like two sixty. Look at me, not that big a dude. Awesome to sixty. I'm old too, That's
why I shouldn't be doing max reps. I've done this in high school. But I was like, let's see what I can do now.
I hired a trainer about four months ago, and his approach to everything is completely different than anything I've ever seen or done.
And eat during the lesson or whatev.
Seventy five percent of the workout is rolling on folam rollers, pasture, ball, lacrosse balls, peanuts super important.
Yeah, and that's how you keep the old man out.
I never got flexible and ever in my whole life until like the last year. Spent so much time stretching, and it has helped my performance. Like I don't know what I'm doing, it has helped. I did tear my My labor's good, but my rotator cuff tour twice right now. It sucks. But I'm here doing this interview. I show up so we'll be.
Talked about labs on.
Las laboram two different things. See, I got a book for you to read. Make sure it's called a medical journal.
Okay, what do you so?
What's what's fun for you right now? What's fun? Like? I'm going to play pickleball my buddy when this is over. I've been working since like four this morning. Awesome, just a normal day, right. But what I do if I get a second is I'm going to go play pickleball when this is over. And that's how I don't think about things for a minute until my mind starts running again. What is that for you?
Two things right now? So Thursday tomorrow, I'm gonna go bow fishing. So I have a bowt fishing boat. You got to go to the coast though, right, No, on the river here?
Oh got it? Yeah, you have a boat fishing boat on the river. Yeah, that'll be like having a yacht on the lake.
It's just a dis aluminum boat, that's not It just had lights all the way around it. So you go up front and you have a bow and arrow with a with a reel on the so.
It's a it's a like on the bottle bttom or whatever kind of boat. But then you just you kind of gear it to be up. Yeah.
You run around at night and it shines the lights and you can see where the fish are laid up along the banks, and.
You you miss a lot, but when you shoot and you hit them, it's fun.
The bow attached you pull it back or is it gone? Yeah?
Yeah, it has the arrows attached to a bottle of string, and then you have a reel that reels that back end so you shoot a big fish and then squeeze a little handle and you reel the fish in pull in that boat. There a fight you Oh, yeah, they don't. Yeah, they don't want to come in, so they don't. You don't kill them immediately, No, not necessarily. I mean if you can, if you hit them in the head on the right spot. So another my greatest source of that recharge for me is spearfishing.
That's got to be on the coast, right Usually usually.
It's in the ocean. Yeah, but like Nationals last year was held in a big lake.
So Nationals, Yeah, there's competition, there's world teams. No, I didn't compete, but it's my absolute favorite thing. So free diving and diving, diving down and hunting fish.
You me, you free dive, yes, then you go and you hunt fish. Yes. Do you have to train and just holding your breath, yes, you do.
And you have to learn how to relax.
You have to learn how to lower your heart rate when you get in the water so you have more time when you're holding your breath and you dive down and swim down, you know. But I have friends that I go with that are like my buddy justin Lee's
like one of the best in the world. He won nationals last year the year before, and you know he can go two hundred feet free diving and go down and shoot fish two hundred feet down with no tank, no nothing, just just a spear and some weights and fins and a mask.
But you only do that wrong once it's over. It's not like you can do it wrong and get I mean you do that wrong once. Yeah, but you go you usually have somebody in the water with you.
You want to have someone that that's you know, spotter good enough to be there to kind of keep an eye on in case you have a blackout or whatever.
But like this is Fiji, this this last year.
What that fish looks as taller like and I've been that's saltwater.
Right, saltwater? Yeah, God dang, it's a dog tooth tuna.
I feel like you could crawl in the mouth of that thing.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's I mean there it is out of the water.
Oh you could. It's as big as you are. So how did you get into freaking spearfishing?
I went to the Bahamas and this old Bohemian guy that was there, it's like a legend guy took me spearfishing one time. It's like fourteen years ago, and I just fell in love with it.
I feel like.
You're challenging your breath, you're challenging the ocean, you're challenging the fish, you're challenging the weather. It's like it's this whole thing. But for me, it's one of the activities. When I'm doing that. When I'm diving down, there's no chatter. Chatter doesn't exist, so you're you're only in that moment and it's so primal and you're so just connected to the ocean and nothing else, and you feel small and the greatest possible way.
Do you have trouble sleeping? Generally, no, unaided You can just go to sleep.
I take I take magnesium three and eight and magnesium stuff.
You know, Like, I don't know, you can go to sleep. Yeah, yeah, I would think a guy like I. I don't really I don't feel like I have anxiety in any way until I fall asleep, and then I wake up, and I feel like that's when it kind of sits and wakes it because I don't feel anxious, like I'm rocking. Yeah, yeah, I can get a lot done.
Yeah well yeah, I have an overactive brain, for sure.
But and so my thing for me. You may tell you a secret that a lot of people don't know.
Well, if it's gonna be a secret, i'll turn a mic off.
Yeah, well it's okay, we'll leave it on, all right, and whatever judgment might be out there. I use a pea bottle through the night to just pee in the bottle, pee in the bottle, because I got used to doing that when I'm touring, because you're riding. You know, we played three four shows in a row, so sleeping on my bus, the bus is going down the road during that day. For my voice, I drank two gallons of water. So through the night I'm gonna pee two or three times.
So I have to get my pea bottle right by the bed and you peeing it. Yeah, if you get up on a moving bus, and I have an overactive brain, anyway, you get up, you stub your toe, you bash your head in the wall, you're awake, and then it.
Throws you off.
So for people that have to do that, they make nice big ones with lids, so it's not doesn't stink, it doesn't spill.
It's like, you know the deal.
But you can't. You can't promise it doesn't stink, it may not spill.
Well, I'm not saying you stick, you're facing it. I'm just saying it to someone if someone else was around. It's not like you're gonna smell this thing happening. And I rent it out every day. But little things man one.
Step ahead of that. I just stay dehydrated.
That's that's not an option for me.
You never got to get up and pe if you're dehydrated.
That's true. And then it's brown, right, that's right.
It's all different colors. Yeah, it's never sometimes bloody. Okay, it's never bloody. Okiddy, what's the other trick you're about, Tell me another one, Give me another one.
So as a singer, you seen that pure gum. It's like, you know, no no sweet no bad sweetener or whatever. Yeah and whatever. So this is a thing that I learned because I'll sleep on the bus and I'd wake up if I wake up on my back with my mouth open and I've been breathing and it's you know, it's sucking all the moisture out of the air. There's like three percent humidity. My throat will be dry and
i'd lose my voice the next day. So I sleep with eight pieces of gum in my mouth when I sleep at night, and it keeps saliva keeps going, it keeps my throat from drying out.
That's interesting. I think I would choke because I have it. Well, it's a big enough piece.
It's not just like a little one where it's going to come out and be stuck in my beard or something like that. So I you know, there's a little like they look like chick lits or whatever, but it's like healthy gum.
No, I have the gum.
Yeah, I chew the gum. So I sleep with that in my mouth now, and that keeps me from getting dried out. It keeps me from losing my voice. So basically, if I'm just playing guitar or building knives or whatever I'm doing, I can go.
I can go on no sleep. I can do that for a week or two at a time.
If what I'm just saying, like, if you get four hours of sleep at night, it's fine.
Your voice is like taking care of a baby. If you can do that, it's don't have a voice.
No, I'm saying, I can't my voice. Taking care of my voice is like taking care of a body. If I don't sleep, if I don't nap, if I don't hydrate, if I don't chew my gum, if I don't use my pea bottle to keep from waking up in the middle of the night, if I don't do all of those things, if I don't do my CARDI So I
have a regimen like before I go. You know, when I get up in the morning on the road, I'll go do something in the city for a few hours, come back, take a nap, I wake up, I eat something, I work out to wake my voice back up again, and then I come back in. I do a steam shower to hidrate my voice. I've been drinking water all day with this. Then I'll get cleaned up, do my meet and greet, say hey everybody or whatever. Then I come do my vocal warm ups with my vocal coachs.
Then I do my vocal warm ups with my band, and then we play the show. If any of that gets screwed up, if I don't get enough sleep, if I don't hydrate, any of those pieces don't fall in line, I'm gonna lose my voice.
Okay, but how much of that is your mind making you lose your voice versus your body going I didn't get what I needed. I'm losing my voice.
Oh, it's one hundred percent your body like it. It's not a my mind.
I don't think that a bit of your mind. If you miss one of them, you're gonna Because I freak out all the time about sleep because I have to talk for five hours a day, just just the morning part of the show, Right, I freak out about sleep.
But if I freak out a whole lot, it then manifest itself and meat like my body start not to sleep the first or second time, but my psychological issue then manifest itself into me losing my voice, which was what I was scared about to begin with, which wouldn't have happened to had it not.
Freaked out about it right right, Well, your cortisol, I was like, ues could go up from stress where you're like affecting your wellness for that day or whatever.
That can definitely play into it. Because nights I try to go to bed super early.
I wake up at like.
Two in the morning, why fucking awake, and I can't do anything. So I kind of know what those things are. But also the sleep cocktail that I take is magnesium three and eight, which I learned this from Andrew Huberman.
I don't know if you listen to his podcast. He's brilliant physically.
You guys remind me of each other, Like he's all tatted up and like, yeah, super smart, and he talks like you and you're like, oh, guys are actually really smart and can beat me up. That sucks. That's how That's what I said, Go ahead.
So I take magnesium three and eight, which is the only magnesium that breaks the blood brain barrier, so it actually relaxes your mind as well as your body when you're sleeping.
And then I take theenine l theenine, and then I.
Use this other little score bottles called lipocalm and it's like Quicksilver Labs makes the stuff and it's I could turn you onto it. So if I do those things thirty minutes after I take those or whatever, I'll feel more tired. But also if I've gotten my workouts and my stretching and everything in that day, I'm also kind of there if I don't. And caffeine's a big thing for me too, So I can't drink caffeine on show days. At all because it's a diuretic. It makes you flush water,
which makes you dehydrated. So you know, the amount of caffeine that you take, and doing it earlier in the day is good rather than later because that disturbs my sleep.
It makes me. I feel caffeine in my teeth.
If I drink like a big latte or something like, I feel it in my teeths ahile like my teeth and feel tighteror weird. It's like a weird thing, like it affects me. So I'm sensitive to those kind of chemicals. But if I take my sleep cocktail and I've worked out that day and I've kind of you know, and the other thing is just like trying to reduce the stress. Like that's what Covid did for me, because having nineteen businesses and trying to stay on top of those things and just it's.
A matter of math.
If you have great people and there's only drawing my five percent of the time, when you have two hundred and fifty people, there's always eleven people that have a problem and you have to help deal with that problem. So the less brain damage that I put myself through, the better I am. The less quartersol that I have and the more chill that I'm going to be, so
that helps you to sleep as well. So you know, if I focus on the things, that is just the absolute best use of my time and and the things that I enjoy spirit fishing.
I also really enjoy playing Fortnite.
I like to play Madden. I play my friends, only my friends, but I lay Madden too. But I play, and it's the only time I can really that or like pickleballs, when I can turn my brain off, and that's it.
That's how I mind fuck myself into exercising. I would go down to my arc trainer and I would play Madden for an hour. And while I'm on the arc trainer, like just moving my feet playing a game of Madden.
So in my head, I'm going down to play Madden.
But then that turned into Fortnite, and so now I play, and I got a bunch of my friends are telling me that I need to stream and do that stuff too. It's but playing with my ca kids and then playing with my friends all over that play and that's not something I sit around the house doing all day like I do that usually at night when after everything's kind of done. But that's a great escape for me as well because it's competitive and you get better at it
as you as you go and do those things. But so that's that's a fun thing that I like to do.
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor. Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.
Only gonna keep you like five or six more minutes. But I got a few things. I'm gonna ask you a question that my therapist asked me, but in a very complimentary way where I'll go in and they'll say one of my two we go to a couple's councilor too, best thing we ever did before. We just we committed to it very early on. It's very it's always uncomfortable because it's like you, you don't go in to celebrate, you know, but do that. I don't go and by myself to celebrate. You go in you like to you
just as a fish as possible. And I go in and it's like, what are you working on now? It's like I'm writing a book, or I'm doing the radio show, or I'm touring or that day is like, okay, what are you running from? Because I fill up every minute of every day hearing you talk about everything that you're doing. What are you running from? What are you running too? Why so much all the time?
Again, I say that I've actually cut back a lot, like I was forced to cut back a lot, and then I realized the value in that that I shouldn't have been doing all of those things. I shouldn't have been taking up so much of my capacity, because my creativity is buried underneath the fucking chatter and the effort it takes to just try to get things even.
So I'm running toward that. I'm running towards ease.
I'm running towards choosing an acceptable amount of things to get done in a day, and to try to do those things really well. I'm running toward trying to be in the best shape that I've ever been in, you know, nutrition wise, investing, you know, you turn forty, your warranty runs out.
I hurt all the time.
And so if you don't, if you don't start investing in all the things that make you feel good, then your life experience. You can either suffer your whole life, or you can suffer a little bit every day and just do these things that help make you feel better, so you have more to give and more to do that, because that's the sugar man, the greatest thing, the real joy comes from serving other people.
Well, what were you running from? Then? Sounds like you're healthier now running from? Yeah, I mean you do one hundred and seven things. What are you trying to do it? What are you running from?
I guess I'm running from old versions of myself and trying to be better, you know, I'm running from I'm running from the patterns that I would find myself in. And it's like, how did I end up here again? And it's by my choices, and it's things that aren't always intuitive, you know. I mean, being too generous can end you up in really bad situations.
That's that's my nature.
My nature's to do that because I always want to feel I always want to err on the side of generosity with people, even if they do me wrong. I want to end on the side of generosity, not for them, for me, because I don't ever have to look back and think I didn't do the right thing in that moment. So, but if you're too generous with people, if you give people cars and houses and things like that or whatever, it kind of ignites a certain kind of greed or
entitlement in them. Then it changes the relationship and it's kind of like the right the wrong. The part of human nature that reacts to that is, well, why don't you give me more? Where's the next thing? How's that going to becoming? How's it going to be doing? So the old part of myself like studying the old part of myself and the ways I was fucking up my current state of zen were doing things that I felt like, well, I have enough to give. I want to share this
with people or whatever. Being more careful of how I share that preserves the relationship a lot better. So just telling someone that works for me, hey, an awesome job, thank you, you kill it, and then you know there's a Christmas gift and a bonus or whatever it is, but not being not interjecting my generosity into these things too far because it ends up having a negative result even though it was a positive thing.
So I'm learning.
I'm trying to learn that within my my interpersonal relationships, and you know, if I'm dating someone or whatever, it's like, what is that level of doing it? Because I'm a give all motherfucker. That's just how I'm made. So I have to limit some of that sometimes in some ways bio.
That might change my bio to give all, but that in mind, that's what I want to recalled. Yeah, I give all.
I like to put myself into things and I like to love on my people.
But are the way that you do that?
Sometimes?
There's a really badass book called Sway. That book was very enlightening. They did all these studies of like, you know how what someone intuitively, what we do intuitively is like, hey, if you want to fix this, give them some money so to help them fix their problem.
But they don't spend the money on fixing their problem.
They spend it on something else and then they're just asking for my money and it just makes the problem worse.
So it's a right, right, but there's a psychology.
Around it all. It's like, can somebody give me tools? And that's why I do therapy as well. That's why I applaud you for doing it, because we're not born with these tools, right.
We need we need things to go. What do we do when this thing happens?
And it's like, here's a tool, and if you practice that long enough you can see a result, Like I'm getting a better result in my life because I was given this tool to do this, So doing therapy, finding people, mentors, asking questions, getting as much as many tools as you can so that you can handle these things in a good way and have a better result, because the results really all that matters. Like and it's like, Okay, I
have to do these hard things. I have to not give myself fully in these ways to get a better result. And so I'm just always curious, like what is that? What's the tool?
Tell me? Tell me what's you know? Because I don't.
I'm not someone that really lives on ego around things. You know, if somebody has a better way of doing something, that's why it works great when you find the right songwriter. The best idea wins. Always doesn't have to be my idea. I don't care. But you both know it when you're with somebody and you can lay your ego down and you write something and somebody comes up with something and you're like, there it is.
We've been looking for that for two hours.
There it is.
We both can recognize it, and it's like, fuck, that's awesome.
Or ten years or ten years, Yeah, it may take ten years to get the right thing, but you know, what you shouldn't compromise, you know, to get things to that level ten experience, like do you want to write something it's okay, you want to write something that's fucking great, and then you're always hear and you're like, I got every line of that song the way I wanted it, and that's all that matters. It's not really about it
being perfect, because you're never going to be perfect. Let's get it where you want it.
Got two final questions for you. It seems from thirty thousand feet up that you and your band are closer than the average person in their band. And I don't know this specific relationship you have with every one of them, and that's not what I'm asking. But if that is true, how do you stay a boss and a friend. I've hired all my friends my whole life. Yeah, seventeen twenty years. I've had to learn by doing things wrong on how to be a boss and a friend. And you can
do it both. But it is tricky. But what is it for you? How do you do it?
It comes along with a lot of time. It comes along with them really trusting my judgment on things. They don't question my judgment anymore. I think in the beginning, I had to stand up and say, look, if there's eight ideas and everybody wants their idea to win, there's not ever a solution.
You can't ever finish anything.
But I think the people in my band, we all love each other and we trust each other and also trust them to challenge me if there's something that's like, hey, they think this can be better, let me listen to here. My bass player just text me the other day. He sent me a version of a song that we did last week, and I thought one of my guys missed
an entrance on the thing. I'm like, hey, remind them that they missed the interests And he sent it to me and it was actually me, I missed my entrance to it, which you know, he came in at the right place, but in my mind, I thought he needs to be mindful of that or whatever. And he was like, I'm not trying to challenge you. I'm like, dude, always challenge me if I'm wrong.
You know, to win though. Yeah, So Mike, while you laughing, buddy, you got it win if you points something out like that. Yeah yeah, yeah, I'm just saying, yeah, I agree, like challenge, but if you do, you better make sure you win. Yeah.
Well, and to me that that's the thing and having incredible people. The people in my band are all exceptional human beings. They're all dynamic people, but we share a love for music, every one of us, and we all want to get it right. Because there's nine people in the band, right, if everybody's playing on something, what.
You don't play is just as important as what you do.
So a lot of times we'll go in, all nine of us will play something, then I'll subtract sixty percent of all of it and that's what serves the song. But they ultimately know and can trust I'm going to pick what serves the song, and then they play their role in doing that. So they're like the ultimate orchestra for me. They're as much or as little as it needs to be for that thing, whatever serves it, and
they don't have egos about it. We don't have egos about arriving at the best solution, and I think that's what makes it go around. But I can't I watch like the Egos documentary, like they.
Hated each other. I couldn't.
I could not work or live in an environment where I hated the people I worked with.
I'm not capable. I'm too close to that people, I mean literally physically too close to have to hate and act. And if I'm acting and I'm uncomfortable, I'm not creating at my best.
So bad energy, bad vibes does not work, and it takes sucks away the creativity. And I'm so blessed to have the band that I have because they're all extraordinary human beings and extraordinary musicians, and we all serve the song and we serve the live performance. Whatever makes that the best, that's what we do. But ultimately someone has to be the leader, and they're trust me with that role,
and I have to have last say on whatever. It is, not for my ego, but because my instincts have gotten us where we are and they trust my instincts, and that was earned.
Doesn't just happen.
I feel like you're saying what I think all the time. I'm just gonna play this. People listen to what Zach says, but it's actually like, okay, look two things, not even questions too. I want to We talked about a lot of the new music the ACM before you came in, so all the business was covered. I wanted to spend this time just kind of get to know you in a way that I've never really got to know you
although we've spent time together. Yeah, you rarely get like this forced intimacy, which is what this is in the best way.
Yeah, because it's not pulling on us or whatever.
So two things. Number One, I will say it again. I've said it to you and I've said it to other people. I believe with all my heart that you guys are the greatest country band to ever exist.
Thank you. That's a huge honor.
And there are some there's some good ones, there's some great ones. But I do think that what you have produced and what you have kept consistent is and I don't even want to put you in the band category, but I will because you're a band for the I do think you're the greatest country band of all time. And I think there were real misses too, where not by you, but by the industry, which again, you can't care about the industry to create how you create, and
that's part of how you create. And at times, and I've been I'm not going to even say victim, the victim of it where I do things my way, but I can't be mad. Sometimes when the industry goes, we don't like it, so we're not gonna ward you things, right because I do things that are absolutely counter of what I've been told I'm supposed to do. I do think there have been times where you guys were you
just undeservingly didn't get what you deserved. Because we're gonna look back in twenty years and you know you're gonna be sixty something and it's going to be known. It's like, oh yeah, obviously that was the Derek Jeter of I mean, you guys do that, but you're still in it. You're still in your prime right now, and it's really rare, I think to understand what an artist is in the
middle of being awesome and they're still doing it. A lot of times we just know later I look at that body of work, who even knew they were that great? So that's a compliment for me to you. I believe the greatest country band in the history, and not even in the band space and live aside from the music that you make and produce, it's the best live band show. I've never actually considered like it'd be Top three, and I wouldn't even have a ranking i've ever seen you guys are that good?
Thank you?
Uh so I want to say that. And I don't know if whatever awards you're up for. We talked about the Acmosulf. I hope you win everything. I know what it's like to not win, to be like, well this sucks. But then I got to go, you know what, you don't play by the rules, So why do you expect to be rewarded by the rules.
Yeah, I can't. You can't be measured by those wins.
I still get but I still get up. I still get mad sometimes.
Yeah, I get mad for other people too. I get mad for people that really deserve to be heard. And I wish I wish in some ways that country music was like the Olympics, right, that the people that are the most extraordinary and then they write the most extraordinary things would be the ones that get the attention and get those things. Sugenctive though it is, it is, I mean it's very and it's like, you know, who's the greatest guitar player ever? Like they're it's you can't really
decide that that thing. I wish that there was sometimes a little bit higher bar for what is accepted and celebrated, but those people aren't the most exploited sometimes and living outside of those things. So we accept our wins every night that we sell out a stadium, every night, that we sell out a ballpark, like, that's that for us is our wins. So we win our awards every night and our mind my band of that. It's hard bringing my band to ordshow after ward show after ward show
and never winning. But we're not really one of their horses necessarily, So that's okay because we don't have to be anything other than ourselves and we get to play for people, and we get to do what we love to do, and we fucking win.
And what kept you from winning awards is what made you wildly successful at the same time, Yeah, for sure doing it differently, Like so I wanted to say that to you. And then secondly, uh, I don't know what. I don't know what Kenny's thinking. He said, come on after you, guys. He's out of his mind. He's out of his and I love Kenny, and Kenny doesn't like nobody have ever seen, he plays stadiums. He's that guy. If there's one artist I am not coming on after, it's you, guys. What is he thinking.
I love I love Kenny's you know tenacity man, He's he's great. And I watched I watched the first half of the show after he played or whatever, and he's bringing the energy, man, he's bringing the love and pulling those things together. And his model, he created his own model. You know, he's not it's his own promoter, his own I mean, he works with his own group to do everything, management, everything. So Kenny, I tip my hat to Kenny because you know he's a force man and he's he's done it.
And when when this thing came up to being able to do it, and you know the big thing, my baby.
Next year we're going into the sphere.
You are going to do that or you want to do we are.
Really we're going in the sphere. We're gonna do a residin see the sphere, my baby. And so this year, because of the Kenny opportunity, we're only playing basically one day a week, but that gives me six days a week that I don't have my kids that I can work on my baby, which is the sphere and what we're going to do in the.
Sphere visually, sonically.
The whole thing, the concept, everything about it, and I've got an incredible team I've put together to help me to do this thing, working on it, but you have to come to see us at the Sphere.
It's the greatest.
It's the greatest canvas for creativity and video that's ever been created ever.
That's all. The fish was fish. You see the fish fish.
Yeah, I want to see them.
Did you like the car inside the Sphere? And you know talking about Yeah.
What FIST did was a different concept because they did sixteen hours of music.
They did four four hour nights of music.
They never played the same song twice, and they never did any of the same video content twice. So theirs was not as it wasn't utilizing what the place can fully do, but it was giving them the biggest.
Craziest backdrop they've ever hat.
Sure, so I didn't know what it was going to be, but I went to see it and I was like, Okay, I get it now.
But possibilities were You're just blown away at the possibilities when you saw it the first.
Time when I when I went to see the thing, when you two was loading in before the building was open and saw what it was, and the possibilities or whatever it's like, this is my moment, this is my moment to create something that so far exceeds everyone's expectations that we're in a different category now.
And that's our plan. So when do you march next year?
So here's my idea and we're gonna end on this. You're not gonna like it, but whatever, it's better than plural ar mules though I can't even say it. So you see how hard this is? Singing like everybody sing along plural ar see even just be a disaster. But this is what I want to do. I want to do like a small documentary of me in a large band faking playing instruments the whole night, like a saxophone one you don't I'm not even plugged.
In, right, just have a track plan and you're just know, I don't even you don't have to.
Have to have a saxophone playing. But I'm just over on the side, just riping a saxophone with the band, right, switch it out next thing you do, and I'm playing, okay, So and the.
Whole are you going to be yourself or be something else? Like I have someone disguise used to know they.
Have to dis guise me a little bit so they don't know what the shoke, but just me going to town. I wanted to do it in like a big band, like uh, you know, Brian sits the orchestra, that type thing with all that, and just act like I'm on a horn the whole time and see if anybody even notices and do that and see if anyone ever posts what this guy's played like every instrument and I've not heard him once. At one point I got like the drug.
You know, okay, so they wouldn't be any audio of supporting it, just be no no.
But also you don't acknowledge it. You never acknowledge it's fake. No one ever even looks over it makes a deal. But I'm like, given to the.
Tuba, all right, when are you gonna do this?
I don't know. I'm trying to find the right partner. It's been to be about ten years figured out, but I'm gonna get to it, okay, Yeah, okay, Look, we talked about tie up everything, all the business this we did before you came in. I appreciate you giving me an hour to just hang and talk to you and get to know you a little better. All the all
the cool things that are happening now. I mean, it's absurd to have a goal of doing something amazing, but if you don't have that goal doing something amazing, that absurdity will never happen. That's true. And You've always been that guy that's like, we're selling out, we're doing it big, we're doing it bigger. Let's keep going bigger, and like that inspires me because I'm like, let's go, let's go. So to see you continue to do this that that's
that's that's really cool. And you're still in your freaking prime. And I give you I don't have any literal flowers, but I give you my creative flowers.
Thanks brother. Hey you too, man. I've watched your career climb and get you get where you are and I.
Got to do a bridge. I'm tested. I was gonna say, tapped out. Man. Once that bridge went up, I was like, you're still doing I've accomplished it all. And also I don't like the compliments. I'm gonna move off, but good to see you, Mike. Anything for for Zach, when did you fully commit to the tattoos? Because right now I just got my second one, and I'm like, I kind of want to go and get a little further, Like how like what point did you say I'm going fully committing?
You know, I love art so much, and you get to carry a certain art around with you, so you better find things that you like and that you like to look at and do. And then just I think, over time, I just kept finding things, things that meant something to me.
You know.
It's kind of like a map of my life on me, and it's art that I get to carry with me and things that have meaning, you know. It just I think over time it just keeps you just keep adding to it. It's like anything else, man, It's just a journey.
Man.
So in your journey, you just keep finding something that means something to you and just keep adding to it. And then all of a sudden, enough time goes by, you look down You're like, I got a bunch tattoos.
It was never like I'm just gonna be all tatted up.
It wasn't a goal like I'm gonna go because that's what I would do, be obsessed with getting my whole body cover.
Oh, after you get one, you're definitely gonna want more.
I got like six all in one off. Yeah. Yeah, Like the picture of you I have here. I don't even even seen it yet, but I thought it'd be weird to show you. But yeah, once I got referred to as the tatted up guy, I felt good by that. Yeah, yeah, don't forget about it.
Yeah, they are kind of addictive when but then it takes away from my spear fishing sometimes. If I know if I'm going to be tattooed and I can't swim for a week, like that's kept me from getting a lot of tattoos in the last year.
Should be like, look at the tatto dude coming down.
He's kind of camouflage. It's kind of camouflage.
Actually, it's that good to talk to you about it too.
Thank you, Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production