#457 - Drew Baldridge on Playing 300 Backyards + Everyone Being Against Him

The song comes out Friday, right, it jumps up on streams because this video is reacting. I don't have a manager, I don't have a record label. It's just me and this goes kaboom and I'm sitting here like what do I do? I hope I get a record deal and nobody calls.

Episode four fifty seven with Drew Baldridge.

He has a song called She's Somebody's Daughter that's currently Top twenty, and it's his first ever top twenty, which I was surprised to hear. And it's his first ever top forty, is what he said, right, yep. But his whole story of how he got here, I did not know it until I started to read about him and talk about him, and I was kind of blown away by this interview. I don't think I've ever met him

His name is Drew Baldridge.

I'm just gonna shut up and let you hear it because it's an awesome story. I'm not crazy, right, No, It's an awesome story.

Amazing. Yeah.

I kind of just kind of waded into it not knowing what to it was, and the whole time I could have done.

Two hours with this guy. Uh.

Drew Baldridge Follow him on Instagram Drew Baldridge Music. Check out his music, go buy his merch He you know, worked on a farm. It's a family farm of Potokio, Illinois. And next thing you know, he's here. Next thing you know, well, all this happens here. He is Drew Baldridge. True.

How's it going?

Buddy?

Good?

Buddy, how are you good?

Are you a sports fan?

Huge sports fan?

Are you a former athlete?

I am? Yep.

What is your thought on why? Because I have a thought?

What is your thought on why there are so many athletes that are also successful artists?

Oh man?

Or maybe there's no correlation at all.

I don't know.

I think I think it's also like the hard work determination aspect. Maybe, you know, I know, growing up sports was like everything. Like music really wasn't anything until I was like sixteen seventeen. But just talking to a lot of other athletes, know, I feel like, if you're an artist, you want to be a baseball player a basketball player and vice versa. You know, I know several other like sports guys that would like love to sing.

You know, it's super interesting.

I think that has a lot to do with the culture of competition within yourself. I think if you grew up an athlete, you know how to work. Yeah, you know how to train, you know that you've got to get better. You're comparing yourself against others, against what you've done in the past yesterday. Hard work is a big part of it. I mean, to be an elite athlete. It's not like even if you're super talented, it's that easy to still be an eleaite athlete.

Yeah.

I think that's a lot to do with it.

And only asked that because it got a lot of d ms of people just asking me random questions, and one of them was that it was why are there so many athletes slash artists? And I think those cultures mix well together.

Yeah, I do agree the challenge aspect of like competition, you know, there's always I mean, as much as we don't want to do it, and we always say we don't, look at the friends around you. You know, some of my friends have been uber successful and some of the went home, you know, And but there's always that drive of no matter if they're your friend or not, you want to win.

You know.

It's like you got a pickle ball court, you know you're talking about It's like, no matter who you have on that court, you're gonna try to you're gonna try to win.

Yeah, we'll kill you. Do you ever to play pickleball?

I have?

So we used to do it all time in high school, which is interesting.

Well that was before I even thought pickleball exists.

I know.

And so now it's like this whole new craze and I'm like, man, everybody is talking about pickleball.

And we did in high school pickleball.

In high school, we did yeah.

Yeah, they had like tape on the gym floor and we would play. We played in high school, like twelve years ago.

Where'd you grow up?

Grew up in southern Illinois? Patka, Illinois, Boom in metropolis?

What's that near? How far is away from somewhere that I know?

Probably?

Have you ever heard of Mount Vernon, Illinois? Or Saint Louis eighty.

Miles east straight east now we're talking, or straight yeah, straight east of Saint Louis, Saint Louis. We were in Saint Louis two weeks ago, and what was annoying to us was because we went to work out with the Cardinals, which is super cool.

They invited us up. We get to love that work out with a huge Cardinals fan.

Are you the massive It's cool. I give you a couple of stories then. But we were there and we wanted to we wanted to bet. We couldn't because it's not legal in Missouri and have a big deal with DraftKings, and they were like, just drive over.

The state line.

Not the Cardinals, by the way, it wasn't the Cardinals said. We were doing a podcast there out in front of the stadium before we went into work with the Cardinals, and Eddie and I were so frustrated because we couldn't bet inside Missouri because you Canton, Tennessee. Yeah you can in Illinois. And they were like, they have like boats there. I guess the boat the boats, Yeah, it makes the water.

Okay, that makes sense.

Which is also the most ridiculous thing because growing up in Arkansas, there was no gambling in Arkansas except for the race track, the horse race track, but nothing else.

You can only gamble on horse in this one spot.

So we would drive to Louisiana, and even in Louisiana you couldn't gamble unless.

You were gambling on the water on a boat. But it wasn't really a boat. It was a big, huge, like old school. It looked like one of those old civil wars.

Doesn't move, it just states it's not really a barely floating Yeah, because it's on water, they allowed you to gamble on it.

That's funny. What was what was home like for you? Parents together?

Parents together? Yeah, I was very blessed man.

I had a great family, very Christian household.

You know.

We were farm family. So my grandpa farmed and he farmed corn and beans, and we uh had cattle a hundred.

Head of cattle or so. So we did a lot of work on that.

And it's you know, I always tell everybody a lot of music, you know, kind of comes with that.

We were not rich farmers. You know.

It's old tractors and combine combine, Yeah, old white tractors, and they would break down like every every year, you know, like something would break and it would be like, well, we're just gonna try to fix it, you know, and see what we can move on That's how always fell about music a little bit too kind of interesting, of like something always breaks, you know, something doesn't go your way, but you just hey, you got to get the crop in, you know, you got to get it out.

Did you have a new combine? Oh? Did you ever get to it?

We had this old gleaner, all right, and it's called a gleaner.

And I'll never forget one time my grandpa was combined in the field. It was wheat, and sparks were flying out the top of this whole week of this old combine, and I had one of my best friends with me and caught the whole field on fire. The whole thing was up because the sparks. Yeah, because sparks fell out. And I run out there and I'm like waving my grandpa.

Now, I was like stop stopping. He's like what what. I'm like, the whole look behind you. There's a trail of fire.

And I'm like running up to my uncle's house with buckets out of the pool and like trying to put this fire out.

Wow.

When I did a show on that GEO called Breaking Bobby Bones, one of the deals that I did was I went to a farm in Virginia, and they had me use every version basically a combine, but I used a hand and then that's tractor pulling, and then I used a big, new, nice combine.

Those things are so nice, so nice. It's like a million.

Dollars drives itself GPS, it's air conditioned. You just sit in and basically turn the corner. It's like an anesthesiologist. You're trained for if something goes wrong. Otherwise you just sit and chill and helped that. The day is what the day brings.

And we didn't have any of those new ones.

And my brother is still farms back home, and I think my brother and my cousins are getting newer. But like when I was growing up, man, all they I was the baby of the family, so it was like got all the crap jobs, you know. It's like, hey you haul the grain in, you know, or hey you disked the field. There was nothing of me driving the combine because they did not trust little baby Drew to do that.

Who lived in the house, Your mom or dad? You?

My mom, my dad? Me and my older brother how much older. He was two and a half years older. So when I when he was a senior, I was a freshman and uh, you know they all still live in little Patoka.

If you wanted to go to a concert or too. We had town if you wanted to go to town, but there were no concerts in town. You have to keep going to Littleron to get to town to a concert. Where would concerts be or whe would you go grocery shopping?

Well, like you know school, like if we go school close shopping, we'd go to Saint Louis area, like Fairview.

Heights and half our and a half.

Yeah, their concerts Verizon Wireless, you know, Amphitheater, I don't know if it's still called that or not. Out on in Saint Louis area. That's where we would go to like watch Tobe Heath, you know, and Tray Atkins. That was like one of my first prominent concerts was watching them.

It's just hard to get to a concert. You know, you go to church.

And you play music, and you watch people on CMT, and you know you would just that's where you found your music, was the radio.

Or that where was music in your house?

My dad sang. My dad sang in church, and so I just wanted to sing in church too. So I started singing in church when I was I think first time I sang was first grade Christmas program at my school, and then that turned into anytime there was a talent show in town or anytime there was, you know, a church function, I would lead worship.

Did your dad want to be a singer or was it just something he liked to do since he was home He's like to do it at home.

Yeah, I just think he liked to do it.

He liked to sing Southern gospel music, so lots of old cassettes of the Cathedrals and Statesman Quartet, and he just loved singing, you know, Southern gospel church music.

So it was just something he was passionate about.

So but when I started doing it, it's definitely made like his passion. I think he sees a lot of himself and probably what we're doing now of music, and he never misses a show and we're up there. They traveled down here a lot. He follows me to a lot of places, and it's been really fun to kind of share that hobby with my dad.

What did he and or your mom think whenever you wanted to get into this non traditional career.

Well, you know, I had a scholarship to go to a little little college and next it's called Kaskaskia College and went there for a year. And that whole year I was coming here for like a week out of a month and like trying to write, meet people, do all thing. And then the next year I said, hey, I'm gonna move to Nashville, but I'll still do the junior I'll do it all online. And here they were, you know, put so much time into me at sports.

I thought always thought you'd come home. I always thought that.

That would be like you go down for a little bit and you'd get tired of that and you'd come home.

What was your first time to Nashville.

Man, My first time to Nashville. I saw Josh Turner in concert.

At for that reason, you came to a show here.

Came to a show when I was for my eighteenth birthday. My Mama brought me and I went downtown Broadway, bought a hat, cowboy hat, just because it was the thing, and I had meet and greets. I was front row at what was.

A Wildhorse Yeah me and great, that's funny.

Oh yeah, I got meet and greet to meet Josh Turner. He signed my cowboy hat. And I still have the picture that's awesome somewhere of me and Josh Turner.

And you know the fast forward.

The first time I played the Opry, I sang a Josh song and he came out on stage and surprised me.

And that was pretty cool.

Dang, that's awesome.

I cried.

It was like I got a little chill you hearing that, are me hearing that? Yeah, you came to a Josh show and then your opry. I mean I I first time I played the opera do and stand up? I told my grandmother's favorite joke, because she is who I watched the opry with.

It's kind of like when you get to the opera.

You know, obviously playing the oprey is cool, and it's something that you wait to do, but you always want to like do something that kind of.

Brought you to it, like to that that's interesting some kind of respect.

It could be something you wear, something you do, or a song, but that was it for me too.

I was like, man, I would only be here really if it wasn't for.

My grandma who made me when I was real young, like listen to the opera or watch the opry on TNN or CMT or wherever it was. And to you, you played a Josh Turner song the first concert in Nashville.

That's freaking cool.

Yeah, And I haven't really told anybody that story, you know, about seeing Josh Turner first at the Wild Horse, but it was just you know that's I always covered your man at every karaoke thing there ever was that was the go to song, and so I sang it, and I'll never forget my guitar player stepping up on when he was on the opp he started playing a solo and everybody started cheering for my guitar player.

But you didn't You for sure didn't know. You didn't not know Josh Starner was coming.

Oh clue.

Okay, not even five minutes before, because that would still been cool.

Yeah, not even five minutes before.

He my guitar players playing a solo and the crowd starts screaming. I'm like, what the freaking heck, you know, they're all screaming from my guitar player. And I turned around, looking's Josh standing behind me, and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm literally crying tears on the opry stage and he starts singing and I just quit and he just kept singing, and I'm just like trying to do little parts. And then I'm like lost in it, you know, and he's like take it Drought, and I forget every word.

Know where we're at. And the old man had like take it to the end.

But it was so special awesome story.

Yeah, I'll never forget it.

And no one tipped you off.

Nobody tip me, but.

For them too, because I'm sure some people knew.

Oh yeah, I mean at that time, my manager was rusty gassing.

And he pulled it and that's all off.

No idea. Nobody at the opera even even told me you're hinted at it.

Did you ever hear Josh's stories about going to Willie Nelson's or no, Johnny Cash's house.

No, that's probably I.

Know we've talked about it like on my show, and I don't want to like be wrong about it. But he just drove up to his house.

One day and like knocked on the door, and it's like Johnny Cash live here, Oh, and like wanted to ask him questions that he went in. Yeah, and I And again, this only popped in my head because you brought Josh up. But it seems to me and Mike, you ma can help me with the memory of this, But it seems to me like Johnny Cash was like, what are you doing here?

All right?

Come on in.

Yeah, you opened the door and let him in, Oh my gosh, and they had a conversation.

And then yeah, that's what it feels a special. There's a couple of really cool Johnny Cash stories. Ronnie Dunn from Brooks and Done obviously, who's a family friend of ours.

He said that he moved here and he had been doing music.

And in Oklahoma and Texas kind of the Arkansas region, but really just there. His girlfriend then wife was really good friends with June, and so he came and he lived with Johnny Cash.

Yeah, Ronnie Done did.

Yeah, Wow, that's it, Ronnie Okay, yeah, Ronnie Done. And so he there's like a little house on the property, and so we've been living in that house. But he'd go over to Johnny's house and he'd be like, Johnny's watching CNN, just hanging out and Ronnie that was just sitting on the couch with him. And ron I was like, yeah, it was weird because that's Johnny Cash, but also that was like my wife's friend, and that's who like, if you're coming to Nashville, come stay with us.

How wild is that? Yeah?

I mean talking about your heroes. I mean, yeah, that's pretty cool.

You and Josh. Do you guys ever become buddies at all? Anyway?

Yeah?

I mean, could you ever call him and just be like, what we didn't I.

Don't have Josh's number.

We've played several shows after that together, you know, we played one this past year and just catching up.

And I remember one time I was down.

My producer was living in College Grove and this was after I played the Opry and I'm pumping gas and I look on the.

Other side Josh and I'm like, he's like, hey, hey, Drew. Yeah. I was like, what are you doing.

Man?

He was like, man, I'm just I did live out here, you know, in his area.

And he's like the normal guy, Josh. Yeah, Like it was just normal.

They say, don't meet your heroes, but he was so cool to me, and you know, I know he was also like I just saw, you know, Scotty McCreary got inducted into the Grand Ole Opry as a member, and I saw Josh came out for that. He's just a really good dude. And I think that's what excited me after I met him, was like, he's still a good dude.

Yeah, And he was Josh even more normal than you think he's going to be, even when you know he's normal.

Yeah, because you just think this here, this big voice out of him. You know, you see sons of hits, respected by everybody and just like man, super normal dude, family man, you know, loves his wife, got his kids, you know, towards that way.

And he must have so much testosterone his body to have that voice, like to have that voice, I mean, just dripping out.

So you lived to Nashville at nineteen.

Yeah, when you say scholarship, was it a academic academic?

Yeah?

Just smart kid was pretty good edictorian pretodol You were a valedictorian, Yeah, VALDIETI I'm not surprised.

I'm going to tell you of how many.

But you know, my.

Graduating class was like, you know, fifty kids or so. I went to a small school.

Yeah, mine was twenty two.

Okay, that's listen. You're still talking about better than ninety five percent. You're in the top four percent. Basically we'll take it, you know. But it was, Yeah, I was valedictorian.

Always really proud of myself and learning and studying kind of like with this business, you know, coming here and.

And just really learning the business.

And I just didn't want to be an artist that just sang songs, you know, Like I looked at Toby Keith. He learned the business, had a great business mind, and that was something that I really wanted to dive in and learn into.

First concert was it the Toby concert?

It was, yeah, it took you to that.

My mom and dad took me to that, and Toby was one and then another. Craig Morgan was like my second concert. I think that there was this place in Effingham, Illinois. I don't know if you've ever heard of that sound

Yeah, I love Craig Man. That guy's awesome.

I was looking at the chart success of your current song She's Somebody's Daughter. I did not know is this what is your highest charting song?

Is this this?

Oh? It is?

Yeah, I've never had a top forty.

Oh I didn't. I did not know that.

I just suspected you've had in the most complimentary way. I'll say I suspected you had a couple.

Oh man, well, thank you for saying that. But in here forever.

Super congratulations, Thanks man. But what stuck out to me was, and you can define what this means. I was reading that you were a bit self funded.

All of it. Yeah, real self.

Well, She's Somebody's Daughter came out in twenty nineteen. I wrote it about my wife. It did nothing, It sit there I wanted. I was part of a label called Cold River Independent.

So who owned that label? Guy named Peedle heron okay, So do they have anybody else?

They had Katie Arminger her name, yeah, okay, And so we had a couple songs came out. A song called Rebound did pretty well for us. Nothing ever top forty. We got to forty two, I think was our highest song. And you know, I did all the radio tour, I met everybody, all the things. And that label closed down in twenty nineteen, right around the sign I put this song out and luckily Praise the Lord, like that was gonna be my single. But I'll never forget I sang

Ads Somebody is God, and I.

Was like, you gotta be freaking kidding me. You know, this is my favorite song. So I just it just sit there on It did nothing. And then me and my wife got married in twenty one and I made a wedding version so she could dance to it with her dad.

Wait two years, it's set, nineteen to twenty.

One, nineteen to twenty one, it's set. It did nothing, and it was on Spotify, but it just no. I didn't really talk about it, did nothing with it. And then twenty one we got married. I on our honeymoon, I posted TikTok and I just say, hey, if this gets three thousand likes, i'll put it out on Friday, you know, just trying to tease.

It was Wednesday.

I woke up Thursday and I had almost ten million views and the video had a million likes, and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm crying, and me and my wife are dancing in our little condo, and I'm thinking.

Rewind that for a second.

Yeah, you do your video saying I'm gonna put this out now, being transparent is probably already gonna come out.

For plan Yeah, yeah, the song is already coming out, but you just hope, Yeah, reaction happens, you know.

And so what day was this?

When this was a Wednesday night?

So Wednesday night you make the video?

Yeah in my rental car, like, not extravagant at all. I said, my wife danced to this at our wedding last week. If you guys like it, it's coming out Friday.

And how was it positioned? Are you sitting in the car and you turned the radio up and you played over the top or are you singing.

I'm lip singing it? Got it?

Okay?

Yeah?

And then when did the ten million views happen? By what day? Thursday?

By the next day?

That's crazy crazy, And mind you, I'm like, I don't look all night because I haven't had a video do that, you know. I'm just thinking, like I'm going to wake up the next day. Obviously I'm with my wife. It's our honeymoon. We're enjoying it, and I wake up and I look at her and I'm like, wow, Katie, look at this. And I pulled up and my followers jump like one hundred thousand.

Did you think that something may be wrong with your TikTok account? No, I was just like, holy freaking crap. I didn't know what was going on. I've never seen a video do.

Even Like I've had some pretty successful videos, like if I get half a million a night, I'm like, this is awesome. I would think that there was something with all on my TikTok. If I had ten million in the night.

Yeah, it was just like, I've never seen it.

That's awesome.

And you know that was early on in TikTok Land twenty one. You know, they were kind of I feel like they were letting videos go more than they were now. And dude, you know, I started getting calls from some mind you every label in Nashville is shut down, it's COVID. Pretty well, music ain't really happening. It's kind of starting to come back. But I started getting calls from LA labels every day like, hey man, we see your cause.

It's just me.

And this goes kaboom and I'm sitting here like what do I do? I hope I get a record deal and nobody, nobody calls, Like all La LA would would take the call and they're like, hey, we want to get Universal Nashville involved, and then we come to Nashville, they kabash it. They would be like, no calls from Nashville. Be Warner LA Electra. They would call, they'd be excited. It'd get to Warner Nashville, Warner Nashville, w do nothing with it.

Why do you think that is?

Man? I don't know.

The only thing that I can guess is I had a shot, and I had three singles at radio and none of them did anything. And I'm thinking, you know, Nashville is kind of that town. If you get one shot.

Yeah, you gotta be shiny. You gotta take advantage of it.

You gotta take time, you gotta take advantage of that shiny time. And if you don't get that, then they're going to find the next shiny kid.

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

That would have been my theory too. And also is before TikTok had this history of having some making, having some worth and yeah, and the making not the making, but the highlighting and labels investing in artists and then them having success.

Yeah.

I mean at the same time this was happening, Priscilla Block was having her moment, you know, Bailey Zereman was having his moment.

Me and Bailey were real close.

He was from my hometown area, and you know, we were talking about it and he was at that time he's getting calls from some of the same people that I were in LA and making it. And I was just like it would I would go have these label meetings and it would be like, well, we want to see you do a million streams a week, and it's like, oh, it's been out four months and it's got sixteen million streams.

That's a million a week. What else do you need to see?

It's like, well, if you come here, it's going to be eight months before we take you to radio.

They were looking for reasons to not do there were binding reasons to not do it.

Yeah, and and mind you like. I love a lot of these people. I think they're good people, but I just wanted a chance. I wanted a shot. And so twenty twenty one, I don't have anything. I decided to post on socials and I say I'll play in anybody's backyard that wants to have me because I don't.

I'm broke. I'm broke.

Yeah, I feel you.

And so I thought i'd get like five requests, and so I get like twenty some thousand requests on TikTok. For two years, I go play three hundred people's backyards, just me and a guitar.

Show up. Hey, how's it gone. I'm drew, never knowing what our setup was really and.

No way they would just fly to their house and play in their backyard.

Play in their backyard. Yeah, I did like three hundred, and some of them.

Just take whatever money they gave you.

Yeah. It started off that way.

I'd be like, hey, whatever you could give me, and then I was like, this is what I need. Because there were some times I would lose on it, and so I'd be like, this is what.

I really need.

Two or three grand, pay for mym my tour manager, and I will come play in your backyard for seventy five minutes, play corn hole, eat barbecue.

I thought what you did for two years people houses just play in the backyard.

Just play in their backyard.

Clip that clipped that we're gonna get ten million of you tonight we post that.

Well, it was like there was a stint after I got married. After our honeymoon, I fly home, my tour manager picks me up in my sprinter van and we go play twenty backyards in nineteen days.

We went all around the country.

There was a day we played two shows and somebody in different in that same town, in different people's backyards. But we played twenty backyards in nineteen days. And mind you, I'm just playing. Everybody will have me. Hey, if this is what I need to get there, They'd say yes, I'd drive there, I'd fly there.

I'd go play it.

And you know, I would make little t shirts that had their little hometown you know of you know, ma scoot to Illinois instead of Saint Louis. It would put that on the back of the shirt. I called it the Baldridge and Bonfire Tour. And I just played three hundred people's backyards.

Dang man, you are a winner.

Nah, man, it was just that's what I had to do, survive.

That's what winners do. That's what winners do. That is one of the best stories that I have heard.

Man, Well, well, thank you for that.

And then it got I was doing these backyards and I play my first festival, you know. Back I texted some friends that were promoters and I was like, hey, I don't have an agent.

I'll give you a good deal, like, please let me play.

And they gave me a couple of fairs in twenty three and I go play my first one and everybody singing every word to She's Somebody's daughter. And I haven't really like I knew it was having this moment, but I haven't played for any people. I've been back. It's been out since nineteen. It's been out since nineteen on streaming platform.

Just sitting there.

But then when I when I made these videos, what happened was I put my video out, then this one girl start in twenty twenty one. She posted the video was like her in the mirror and it said listen to these lyrics girls, and then acted out the verses.

She's more than just a.

Pretty face in a late night bar to show her in a bar. She's more than just a paratie jeans sitting in her car, and she'd be sitting in her car. Well, then the whole chorus is her growing up with her dad pictures. And I would watch this video and I had like, I don't know, five six million views brought me to tear, so I just do edit it.

I was like, check this out.

And then it started this daughter trend and all these girls from from Mexico to France to Norway to sweet all these different languages.

Is bigger than the song. At that point, it was bigger.

Than the song. It was dad and it was dad and daughter.

And then that happened for about six months, and then Father's Day ish or something came around where one girl did a duet of her video with her dad's reaction that got ten million views, and then all those videos started doing their dad's reaction.

Would you see the effect on streaming from when TikTok was blowing up with yours?

And you would see it.

But then when these new versions we'll call them, these new viral yeah movements would happen.

Every time you would see pops yeah.

And luckily I own that you know, like it was my little song that could, and every time new virality happened, I would see tick up and then you know, like I said, fast forward twenty twenty three, here we are playing the show.

I get off stage.

I'm kind of frustrated at this moment because I'm like, what else do I got approved to Nashville that I deserve to be on a record label that I want to tour with people, I want to have an agent, And I look.

I start googling.

I start not googling by going to my artist Spotify because you could see back in.

How many streams.

I start counting up as like, dude, this has a song has one hundred million streams and it's done. There's been no money involved, like pushing songs up. It's just people finding it on TikTok and are Facebook or Instagram. And I decided I got off. I got off the stage and I just started calling radio. I said, hey, I got this song. I think I'm going to try to do it myself. Would you play it?

Dude?

I think you're going to miss out on a lot of streams if you don't bring it to radio. Then I woud ask radio. I'd be like who should I hire? And they would tell me. So I just created my own staff, paid for it on my own streams, with my streams, and now we have a freaking top twenty. Maybe this week might be top fifteen record.

Maybe my favorite story ever told. Oh my goodness, that is that is that's the greatest. Like that is you grinding. It didn't just happen for you, like you had to do things for the fall in place, and then you taking advantage of every little small opportunity that was fed to you by the big amounts of work that you were doing.

The fact that you would go and playing people's yards.

Well what started that yards was Okay, twenty nineteen, lose my record deal. I just came off a radio tour. And radio tour for everybody out there is like.

It's miserable.

It's tough.

You got to go into every freaking radio station and act like every PD he's the coolest guy you ever freaking met.

It's hard. It's so hard. But I come off this radio tour. The label closes, well, I have this song that I put out at the same time as Daughter was called Senior Year, and the hook of the song said never thought it would disappear senior year. I just meant live it up, kids, it's gonna go by fast. Well, twenty twenty comes, all their senior years disappear, so it starts having this TikTok thing. So what I do is I get on TikTok and I'm like, hey, class of

And I was like, sit on my butt, yeah.

So then I created a tour where there would be like Florida would call and be like, hey, we want you to come play our drive through graduation. So then I would look around surrounding areas and I would cold call front schools at their front office.

And be like, Hey, I'm Drew Baldridge.

I see your graduation is on July seventeenth, and I'm going to be in town on the eighteenth. Do you want me to come play your graduation? And then it would be like are you like no, you're a creep, you know, and and be like somebody like I can't believe we're talking to you.

Like, yeah, please come play the graduation.

So I started playing graduations and then that's what gave me the idea to play backyards. It's like, well, I'm playing for schools. Why don't I just take it to the people and see if that works?

And yeah, it'd be so frustrating to not get that. And it's not the most important thing. I say it too, but it does matter, like that respect from like your peers or like the town that you live in, like you do want that. It's not the main it's why we moved here, but it's nice to have people that you work alongside acknowledge.

That, hey, I'm doing pretty good too.

That would be difficult that you are killing it, but no one will even look at.

Oh my gosh, man, I can't.

I can't tell you how frustrating, how much sleep I lost over and my poor wife just supporting me through all this. But like going home and seeing all my friends and my peers being uber successful, and I'm so happy for them because I want that for them. We moved here at the same time and I want them to be successful, but also being like, I got this song that's doing just what their song is.

Why am and I think it's a.

Wedding version that really blew up, so they're thinking it doesn't really fit our model. It's not radio, it's not streaming because Spotify doesn't put me in one playlist until last week.

Really, that's it's the first playlist I ever got.

That's the first time you're playlisted.

On She's Somebody's daughter. Really, it's all been natural. And then since we got top twenty on country radio, Spotify put me in a playlist this last week, so radio is driven playlisting to start playlisting us, And I'm just like, thank you Lord, finally.

Are you ever like? Who out there is against me?

That's what I feel like, man, I mean like I feel like that.

Eddie and I would put out raging Eddiot's songs and we get playlisted and I'd be like, I can't believe that, and here you are killing it and you just now got played. I mean, if I were you, I would be like, Okay, who out there's who's running this shoke?

That's what I feel like, you know, And that's when I got to the point of like, screw it. If nobody else believes in this like I do, why don't I just try it myself?

You know?

And now it's been really fun to see that we're top twenty, you know, maybe this week top fifteen, which would be insane.

Never been here.

Before as a momentum. I know you're top twenty, but it's still looking for soolid looks.

Incredible, that's all. It's exciting radio.

I think all these pds are excited for us because we're kind of going against the machine a little bit, and they're like, hey, we support that, we want to go And I think what's been the most fun is artist friends that have been where I've been, and I'm not going to name any names, but artist friends that have try to single at radio it didn't work, label gave up on them.

I get to talk to them and talk.

About strategies of ways to get their music out and help and you know, if we maybe we could take a single Overlert.

I don't know what's going to happen.

But it's just wild that that radio has supported this song. I really think, man, I don't want to say it, but I think we could get number one that would be insane.

I don't know.

It's not everything, but just like been here for thirteen years and never had a number one record or anything, that's that would be really cool.

Yeah.

It's not everything, but it is a it is a thing if you make that a goal. I mean, yeah, it's not everything.

Yeah, but if it's a lot.

If that's a goal of yours, If it was always to come to town and have a number one, then yeah, that's not the pretty significant If it was always to move to town and run a record label.

Yeah, it's not everything if you don't, but if you do, that.

Was a goal. That was a goal. Yeah, and I think, what.

Well, that wasn't your goal. I could have been anybody. It's go.

I'll miss using them separately. Yeah, I think the last thing you want to do is run a record label. And you're freaking late.

Hold, I don't know how old you are.

Thirty two yeah, ye.

Starting to label at twenty nine, thirty thirty one years old, that's probably not the plan.

Yeah.

And I was scared to death because there's you're putting pumping money out right, because you got to radio, you got to hire staff. I mean, for everybody out there, I'm not trying to get two business on.

Everybody feel free too.

But it's like, you know, to run a staff, and you know radio, you have to do ad bys. You have to figure out I got to go play free shows, you have.

To do ad byes. I don't know about that. I've been out of the programming.

Part of radio forever, right, Yeah, So part of my ignorance because I'm gonna.

Ask a couple questions I should Yeah.

People would think I would know the answer to yeah, But I've never been in programming. I get paid to do compelling content and I just play a song or two if I like it.

Occasionally.

I have no real pro I program an a couple of national shows, but that's it. So when you say stuff like that, I don't even know what that means.

So like an ad by, you know, let's say your business and you know radio runs on advice, But why.

Would you because I understand that, like people, I need people to buy sponsorship on my radio show, but why would you have to buy an add buy?

So it just creates like I think also shows radio, you're investing in radio, do.

They make they don't make you buy an ad by? Do they or is it something that's like, hey, if you do this.

I think it's a partnership.

You know, like hey, we want to see you invest in radio, and you know vice versa.

Like local markets, you'd buy ads.

I would buy ads. Yeah, it's crazy.

So it would be like a thirty second ad of like hey, there's Drew Baldridge and this is my song She's Somebody's daughter, okay, and it would play like thirty seconds of my single and go stream it and download it.

Now, I'll read some of those sometimes the people buy. If I like the artist, it'll pay me.

But if I kind of have a policy where I don't have to read this commercial for anything, I don't want to, that's awesome.

So like when Bailey or you just mentioned Bailey's aught to say it like Bailey puts out something. I like Bailey and so and I like Bailey's music, and I'd be like.

Hey, check out they check out the new from Bailey's and the record came out, go check it out.

That type of thing. That's exactly what an ad by is. And so his label had to pay.

Yeah, that ad buy for so that would be something on me that I now have to invest in that and that's not cheap.

You're spending money on this, dude.

Yeah, but in return? You know what's different with labels now and radio? Sorry, I'm probably getting way too you.

No, I want to hear it because I'm learning too.

But labels only make money when songstream.

Look at you, you know about the label and the radio bits the stream because you've had to.

I've had to learn it.

You've had to learn it. I'm taking a lesson. I don't know.

Okay, let me break this down, please do So, labels only make money when song stream and a song a million streams on Spotify is about forty one hundred bucks. A million streams on Apples about seventy five hundred bucks. So let's say an artist.

To do that again with between the two forty forty.

One hundred bucks on Spotify and about seventy five hundred on Apple.

Why are they different? Just?

I have no idea. Apple supports master owners better.

And so that's what's crazy is you know mind you master ownership, you know, writers share is completely different. Master, the person that owns the master makes the money. So the labels are making printing money right now, and the writers are.

Like making nothing, making nothing.

But here's what I think.

When what I've noticed is the big disjoint labels make money when songstream Labels don't make money on radio because the writer does, and so they only make money when the song starts.

Streaming and from people hearing it on the radio.

People hearing it on the radio, but you don't get airplay, like I'm just now getting daytime airplay and seeing my streams jump top freaking twenty. So like I'm just now starting to see that. So when labels are coming right now, labels are going less and less, you have to see it. I'm sure you've heard this streaming story. We need to have a streaming story before we go to radio because

So previous you having you as an art Yeah, you're talking about what with the cold River? Yeah, and that was a Coldstone creamery yeah, Colt still Creamery.

Yeah.

So it was like, okay, so I signed a record deal, I'm a new artist. I give eighty four percent of my music to my label. I get sixteen. I have to give four of my sixteen to my producer, so I have twelve. So everything that a label puts into you.

You have to pay it back.

Right, So let's say I drop in one hundred and twenty thousand dollars on a record they've put in me and maybe some small radio tour. So I have to make that label a million dollars to pay back the one twenty because I only own twelve percent.

And so what's really hard with that.

Is because it doesn't count if you're making them money as part of their eighty six percent. That doesn't count, right, It only counts if you're making them part of that twelve percent.

Yeah, that's what you that's how you can pay back. That's crazy, that's freaking crazy. It would take forever to pay it back.

You won't, and that's why artists tore their brains out because the only time you get money is when you're on stage, and so you don't. There's lots of artists maybe Taylor Swift now, but like lots of artists that will never see a dime because they're still in the red, you know, like they're not they're not refunded. And so that's what's crazy right now, is I think that artists.

That's wild to me.

The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the Bobby Cast.

You're obviously a very intelligent guy. I can tell about.

Sorry, I'm probably talking way too.

I like it.

I like it, and I can tell by listening to you talk to you're a very intelligent guy. Do you think you would have learned this had you not been put in the situation to have to learn that?

No way, no way, because I would have just I was. I sit back and I let my team do everything. You know, I had, the manager had everything, and then just like normal artist fashion, I'd be like, where are we at with that?

Why am I not on?

And you're focused on artisting? Yeah, to your moment. So it's not like you don't want to know, but you've got you know, when you're a artist signed a label, you only have a one hundred percent capacity and that capacities on being an artist.

Be an artist, creating, trying to record, trying to create content.

So you're not being lazy.

So what I'm telling everybody listening, yeah, you're just putting in all in one place. But you've had to learn how to put in many different places to just get by.

To get by, and it was like I had to put on a manager hat and be like, Okay, how do I get shows? How do I create income? And then I had to run a promo staff. I'm doing a calls every Monday, running a promo team. Hey, why are you?

My mind is blown by this?

Why are we not being played in Philadelphia?

You know, like having those conversations and breaking it down and hey, how do we attack that? And how do we go after that? And let's create a strategy. You're going to talk to them. I'll talk to them too. And so it's just been a really weird year and a half of having to do and then like shows coming in and booking that and booking it myself. And you know what's most exciting, Bobby is like being on this podcast with you man is a really big deal and a dream of mine.

I think I'm the biggest fan. I'm tell you, over like the last twenty minutes, my mind is blown at what didn't work turned into probably and possibly h the greatest thing that ever happened to you in the most difficult way.

Yeah, and that's what I talk about all the time.

A lot of people is like, Okay, what if what if Tanil wouldn't have put out somebody's daughter? And I thought my career was in him because I didn't get to put out my song I loved. I wouldn't be here being able to have this story with this song five years later, and it's my own. I've had to learn and I've had to you know, I always say, man, sometimes in the lowest lows, you learn so much about your business and your life around you and if you're going to stay and hey, there's only one way but up.

Those conversations with your wife? I'm assuming yeah you had. What was she like when you're like, man, this is very hard and I'm lost? Was her reaction and response.

She was like, God wouldn't have given you this town if you didn't you know, didn't deserve to be where you're at, or didn't put a song in your heart for you know, for a reason, like it's you're supposed to be doing this. You know you're supposed to be doing this. She always believed. When I didn't believe in myself, she believed. And then I go to her and I say, hey, I'm about to sync X amount of dollars into a radio single.

She's like, hey, go do it. You made you made this money off your song. You believe in it. I believe in it.

And it's just I can't tell you how lucky I am to have my wife and now playing radio shows going on. We have a seventeen month old and so she is rock star mom. And it's not easy.

You know.

There's times I come home she's like, I've been here for five days without you and I'm alone.

It's a lot.

And she's been my biggest support system, you know, she's been my sounding board of Hey, what do you think of this idea?

Do?

We almost like, you know, talking business things with her that probably no wife could be happen to be a part of.

And she's just been there. Man who manages nobody? You still don't have it, So you're managing yourself.

Still, I'm still managing myself. I don't have a booking agent. It's just me and today, before I came I met with the booking agent before I came here.

Today don't give them ten percent, and so I don't have all the power.

I don't have anything. I don't have an agent.

Except for everything. You have nothing except for everything. So you are so base, you're so set now to have every leverage, on every piece of leverage in every situation for the next at least eighteen months. Wow, that's why a booking agent, any agents, you know, I have agents.

They take ten percent, right, Yeah, if I were you, yeah, you can do it for six because I don't need you don't need them. It would help, It would help a little bit.

Yeah, for sure, it would. Yeah.

And that's where I'm I'm at the point now where you know, I'm tired of doing it all. I'm more out and talk like conversations with fest and all that stuff. Like I have literally had like opening opportunities for artists and fairs, and the buyer comes to me and says, well, they don't want you on it because they want through William Morris act on it. And William Morris is a big booking agent that I was with for five years.

Launcher right, love it. And for everybody listening, there's Cia, There's Well I was. I was with CAA for a long time. Yeah, there's William Morris. There's Uta. I'm with Uta.

Now, that's who I just met with right before I came over here.

Who'd you meet with?

I met with all of them.

I feel like Matthew Morgan, that was Zach Hartley had to go went really well.

Yeah, they're great people.

I feel like, and again we're just talking in the weeds here. I was with CIA for twelve years. Wow, And I was like, you know, my agent, who was awesome at CIA had had risen in the rank so much that she was like at the top of her genre. Because when I met her, we're both kids.

I never had an agent.

My radio thing was going pretty good here as a national show, but I was starting to do a little bit of TV, and I was taking a little bit of a risk and an agent that never had anybody, and she was taking a risk is who the heck represents somebody in radio with like a bad podcast and wants to do TV.

So we kind of took a risk on each other.

But she had blown up so much into in the political world where she had all of these big political commentations and gotcha and it got to the point where that was our specialty. And then there was you, and then there was me, almost like the one person and had a very difficult conversation, even for me because I loved her.

We spent twelve You get very close.

You do to conversations every week, yes, yeah, And I was like, I we tried to supplement other people, but unless it's your main person, it's tough.

Yeah.

And I was like, I have to open this up and take meetings with people.

And even if I was going to stay with Caa, I couldn't stay with her because she was killing it so much.

She didn't she didn't have the capacity.

Yeah, to take you on to do more things.

Yeah, to at least because she was so big in living in the political space. So everybody comes to you and I go and I meet with you Ta, And I felt like those guys, guys and girls, but I say guys about everybody. They were bold, like grinders. I could feel that today, like they weren't the biggest, but they were big enough to be in the top category. Like they were big enough to be in that you know, Cia William wore not the biggest, but not the biggest, William Moore's biggest hea.

But I felt like they were gonna go hard.

Yeah, And I think one thing I've learned in this whole like journey is that sometimes it doesn't matter the biggest, like it matters who believes in you the most.

Yeah, you can definitely get lost in the big. You can get lost in the big, but you're exactly right. It's who is so my agent at Uta, he he goes hard, who is your agent? But his name is Jerry, Jerry, but Jerry is basically he does It's kind of weird that just talked about somebody, but he does a lot of sports people.

He has.

Cow heard and he has rich eyesen and yeah, all these massive but he was a fan of the show or would listen to the show. But he like puts all of his effort. That's what you want, that's all, that's all you can ask for, that's all.

I'm so.

I'm so happy that you've had to go through all of this struggle because now you you have, you have every weapon.

Man, Well thank you for that.

And wow, I'm I'm the biggest fan.

I mean, thanks man.

And like I said, this was always, you know how dream of having number one when I moved here. I've always dreamed of doing an.

Interview with you.

Oh thanks man. Have we ever done anything together? Never didn't. I didn't think so. But sometimes people feel like, come on, man, been twenty fourteen, we stood six feet from each other.

You're like on my stream Foregner, And I'm like, I'm very sorry. No, I think nobody cares about me. So I'm not like looking around being like, what's up everybody?

Oh man, you're You're one of the most influential people in Nashville, and so like just being here and talking to you and just being able to tell my story. This has been a dream of mine. And you know, since I started this and started climbing the ranks. I was like, man if I could just tell my story to somebody and get it out, you know.

So you're managing yourself.

Yeah, you're booking myself.

Yourself. Yep, you're well labeling yourself. The good thing is you probably have a three sixty deal with yourself.

Dude.

Yeah, get you get a little portion of your mirg Yeah a little Porsche has this with all the money that you've invested. I mean, like, are you doing all right?

Yeah, I'm doing great, you know.

Like I think what's interesting is, like I was telling everybody earlier, of labels don't make money on radio, writers do. I wrote daughter, So what I'm envisioning is, yes, it's costing me to send this song to radio, but I'm going to get that back because I own the writer's share, so that that payment is always like six months behind, seven eight months behind. And so I'm envisioning of Okay, yes it cost me X, but I can make X back.

How many writers on that song?

Three of us?

Have you talked to any management or do you want to management company?

I do, yeah, and I have talked to some to some managers and those conversations are starting to go.

Really really well. That's a very delicate relationship.

And for those listening again, let's just going and I'll weed out on everybody. So here's the difference. Because I did not know the difference till I had to start getting agents and managers.

Yeah, I literally knew no difference.

And when people would talk about them, I'd be like, who cares? Yeah, Like when somebody i'd like to think my manager will be like, what's it?

What's that doing?

I don't care? And what's the difference to that an agent and I don't care? But so.

An agent is the person who is basically booking out looking for jobs to book for you. Now they're in the development a bit as well, but they're out trying to book you work. They're out putting your name in places, getting you in front of.

People, putting you on tour days.

Yeah, and they have.

Maybe ten twelve clients that they're agenting four on different levels.

A manager is in most cases a much more personal thing.

Yeah. They every aspect of your everything.

I took my executive producer of my radio show, Morgan, and I was like, hey, I want you to go and leave the radio show and manage me because she was doing she was awesome. I was doing radio, but I wanted her and like I was writing books and I was doing TV and I was doing you know, podcasts, and so I took her out of that job and I put herself as my manager. And so, but that's a very personal relationship because we've been together for I mean, I went and spoke at a college at MTSU.

She emailed the address. She was my assistant. I know, my intern.

That's awesome.

Then like my fake assistant. She knows your whole business everything, and she's as consistent and she's loyal to wanting the best for me.

She's not always loyal to my thoughts because she knows sometimes I'm an idiot.

Yeah, so she'll definitely push back. But the management thing is so every day and everything.

Everything, Yeah, and it's like so that's a very delicate thing. And it's also like, you don't want to just find somebody because now you're having success and they're just going to jump in. You want somebody to that's gonna build with you, you know. You want somebody that's gonna be like, hey, when there's hard times, which everybody has hard times, they're not just gonna ditch and run like they're in it

And so it's interesting, right Yet I had a.

Meeting probably seven months ago with them, and I haven't who'd you meet with? That was a guy named Tom Lord.

My manager?

Is it?

Really?

That's amazing how they go. I like him, I like him a lot.

But so they didn't they call you back away? They'll begin a call for me, don't you worry? Oh dude, well please, they'll begin They'll be in a call for me, please.

Man.

That would be huge.

Like Morgan and Tom are my direct managers, that would be I mean, man, think it may not work out, but I'm gonna call him ra after this and be like, you're this guy's story.

Man. That means the world to me.

It doesn't even matter. It honestly doesn't even matter to me. What you sound like, what your songs are hearing, how you work.

I think that's inspiring because you're good at what you do. Right. A lot of people are pretty good to goo to what do they do? But a lot of people get told no or this won't work, and you basically just took that as a nott right.

Now, Yeah, well I think going I let the nose drive, you know, like, well you know you're telling me no. Now I'll show you like I want to get there.

Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor. Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.

What we should do.

I should call Tom and be like, hey, you should call Drew Baldridge back, like I really believe in this dude. And then when he calls you big time, big time, he'll be like I called him, man, and he never called me back.

And I'm like, uh, have you talked to him? Have you talked to him before? I didn't know if you guys ever talked Well yeah, like seven months ago. Well you messed it up then, you dummy. That would be awesome, that's hilarious.

Well, like I said, I loved Tom. His hang is awesome.

But it just, you know, there wasn't like kind of how I felt with the labels, like hey, I met with you and I like you a lot and everything's great, and then just silence. Yeah, yeah, what's your label called lyric Ridge? So bald Ridge obviously, and then my son's name is Lyric, so Lyric Ridge Records. Got it.

You have a song with Bailey, multiple songs of Bailey.

I've written songs for Bailey, for Bailey. Yeah. So me and Bailey grew up twenty minutes from each other. I saw his TikTok.

Is he younger than you?

Yeah?

Yeah, he's a lot. He's probably like third or nine years yeah, thirteen years old. So so funny story about Bailey. He grew up in Lewisville, down the road from me. I saw, Well, I didn't see it. I got I got a message from somebody back home was like, hey, there's another kid trying to do it, And so I watched his video and I was like, dude's got a cool voice, you know. And so I was like, man, I wish I would have had somebody that I could have just really called on as an artist friend when

Oh my gosh, Drew Bater talking to you. I can't believe you're on here. Man, like, so cool, thanks for sending me your number. So I'm talking. I was like, dude, you really want to do this. He's like yeah.

I was like, come to Nashville. Let's write songs. I mean, it's COVID. We'll just write in my house.

So he came down. We started writing songs.

He had a friend named Gavin Lucas who was also in his in his h in his hometown, and we started writing songs out of my out of my living room, and uh, it was just wow, I've never seen anything happen so fast for somebody. And you know, he was calling me the next week. He's like, hey, man, Warner wants me to have a meeting with him. And mind you, at this time, I am like trying so hard and I'm like, this kid's coming in here getting meeting with Warner.

I'm like, and I'm so happy for you.

Got to be happy and sad at the same time. That's okay because you can have two emotions about something.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm so pumped for him. And then he was like, I got a dilemma. Man, there's a guy here and he wants to manage me too. He's like, I can't have a record label and a manager can I.

It's like, yeah, dude, that's exactly what you need.

And so he ended up signing with them and it's just been history and it's just been so fun to watch him go with from Braces and working on you know, pipeline and.

Trucks and trucks and trucks. Yeah.

He had a big following on social media because of his trucks. Yeah, and he was like at that time he came to my house, he was only singing for four months. You know, he's never sang his whole life, and he just started singing songs and it started working for him. And then to watch here we are now he's selling seven eight thousand tickets a night.

Like, what a great story.

And I tell you what Bailey, for what he's had to go through of fast stardom like that can wreck a person. I've seen it since being here for thirteen years. In a couple of weeks, I've been here for thirteen years. He's handled it really well, you know, just like keeping a level head and even when people have said nasty things on social media about him and they don't even know him, and he's just been the same, good dude.

You know, positive through it all.

I believe in Mike.

You can fact check me. I believe we were the first person. I don't say this in like a braggy way, but we got bail, We got him really fresh. I think we're the first.

Interview ever first, it probably will ever.

And I love the kid came out. I don't know. There was something about him when he came in, and I remember telling Mike I was like, I don't know, I like even he was like, yeah, it's just this is just happening. He wasn't like hiding from it or like downplaying it. He knew yeah, and he would be like, you know, I ran out on a catwalking. I never realized you couldn't run and sing.

And he was like telling all these stories about how he'd never performed before. And I like, I really liked him and him and I've kept definitely kept a relationship of and I would tell him, if you ever get in trouble, like Bailey and I grew up very very similar. Yeah, And I was like, if you ever get in trouble, you can call me. It doesn't matter where you are.

That's awesome because you're going to have people And first of all, you're going to make bad decisions.

Yeah.

Yeah, and you're like.

Young and rich now yeah, and that's just going to happen. That's you're young, rich, good looking, you're talented. Yeah, so you got to limit those bad decisions. You're going to make some bad ones. And I just am like, do not get anybody pregnant?

Yeah, and he hasn't and he had good Hey right, good so far. Yeah. I love him though.

That's that's you're right though. He has had a lot come fast.

Faster than almost anybody in our business ever because he was the TikTok all that stuff. But it really, I mean, you go from just just put this out here in people's minds right now wherever you're listening to this. You're a small town first, maybe you're an artist, I don't know, and you're thinking, man, I want to be a singer, and then one year you're on tour with Morgan Wall

You know.

Yeah, that's a big thing for a while, because he would perform and he would be right or he'd be but it's like, dude, he's hype. You're you're watching and you're also watching a kindergartener perform at college like call graduation. As far as like the matura maturation process of being the artist. Everybody else got to do it in bars and got to do it slowly, getting better as they and he didn't.

He didn't did the reps.

He got thrown into the fu and it's like, hey, bro, your first tour you ever do sold out every night and you.

Know he he came and he performed on our show and no no effect. And I made a point to say this, we're not putting any vocal effects on him. Well you're getting about to hear Is Bailey perform and he was really good. Yeah he's great, and so I think, But.

Who cares about the eight percent of people that are idiots? I don't want to give them too much power. But yeah, yeah, it's I want to talk about it.

I want to talk about you. Look, we spent an hour. I just feel like I could talk to you for another hour. I have to go obviously work out.

Here, I got stay fit, me getting buff, like like right now, it doesn't just come by doing no work. I mean, I'm really rooting for you, I really am. That is a that is a great story, that that inspires me.

Well, thanks man. And I was talking to somebody that ran that like knows the chart really really well. There's kind him Chris Owen, who knows the chart really well. He's always tagging everybody in post and.

I he, oh yeah, Chris, yeah, yeah, he like works in New York. You used working a little radio station, did hey.

Yeahs working in little I think. Now he's somewhere in Nashville working for some year. Now yeah he's here now, oh yeah. And so I shot him a message because he said, you know, we're top twenty. It's Drew's every first top twenty. And I say the message, like, dude, has there ever been an artist is self fund independently a number one record? He me right back, He's like, there's been three, There's been Kenny Rogers, by her Rose, there was Tracy Lawrence. Find out who your friends are,

And he hit me right back. He's like, you would be the if you have a number one.

You'd be the first artist in the history of country music to self fund their first number one.

Yeah, And I was like, holy crap, have you met him?

Never met him?

I haven't met him either, just on Instagram, Like, we should get him and Drew, or we should just do a podcast like talking. I mean of this podcast like talking, Like I'm so.

Interested in this version and I feel like I can learn a lot from hearing somebody who's gone through it, and then somebody like him who has studied it.

For so long.

Yeah, and then somebody who's kind of like, I'm not really in it, but I'm definitely around it and can influence it or be influenced by it.

Yeah.

I think that'd be real fun to come back with.

Man, I think, like what you do and what your show is for artists and things like that is such a it matters so big, Like when Bobby bones your name in this town, your name on, you support a single, you do whatever, you change artist's.

Life like that, and I clip that rate. Yeah, I mean it really is.

And you know, I know you're so humble, Bobby, just talking this is like our first time ever meeting and just hanging out with you or such. It seems like a small town dude i'd hang out with back home, And you know, I just want you to know that, because you know it could be easily looked over. But like you get behind an artist, you do whatever you

Fair the iTunes charts like ten downloads at this point. Very true, who's even listening to that?

Very true?

We can dominate the iTunes. But I bet I bet you.

Could see whoever you have on your show, and Mike probably see this, whoever you have on your show. I'd be interested to go that day and check out their streams and see if there's a bump.

There's definitely situations. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, we have a big audience audience.

Yeah. When I get to pick a wall court, you still move around pretty good?

Yeah, yeah, I freaking come over and feature book.

How far do you live from here?

I live in Brentwood. I'm right down street.

Oh you are?

Yeah, it took me like five minutes ago.

All right, I'm bad.

Yeah, I'd love that I mean, you're a veteran. You've been playing since like thirty grade. Yeah, so who knew it was like the national sport of pato. Yeah, and I'll be I'll be paying a lot of attention to this now. I again, I don't generally I like doing this version because it's an hour long. This podcast is really good. People like long form conversation. I can invest in a person. I feel like a person that we're sitting across can invest in the conversation.

Oh, we can get into the weeds.

But I rarely am just like lit up like I am now during this conversation. And I did not expect to be. I was like, oh, let's see what this is about.

You know. Yeah, generic person comes by for generic chat, but this is this is real good.

You guys.

Follow Drew on Instagram, Drew Baldridge Music, same thing on TikTok or go to Drew Baldridge music dot com. And I'm gonna make a call and it may not turn into anything, but I'm gonna call my guy and be like, just.

Talk to Drew dude.

Thank you, yeah, thank you.

If it doesn't work out, great and maybe you don't want anybody.

Yeah, I mean, I'm to the point now where I'm like.

You're fighting somebody.

Yeah, yeah, because it's just it's getting too much. And I also want to make sure I'm a good husband and a good you know, father, and so it's just I gotta have time to do some of that. And it's like, man, right now, I feel like my time is being sucked pretty. I mean, you're you get it. You're probably times crazy too, but it's just like, man, it's good.

It's a good problem.

Yeah, it's a good problem.

I've never i haven't been here, so I'm just trying to be like take advantage of where we're at and get a really good team.

And final question, would you ever quit being an artist to run a late to run your own label if it was like pop?

Would you ever go? Or do you have that you just got to make.

I've had so many people ask and I was like, man, I would have to be My songs would just have to just immediately suck and not work. Because I love playing, I love being on stage. I love connecting connecting with people. I love writing songs that mean a lot, like She's Somebody's daughter, the stories that I get, the messages I get about what this song means to the people.

I want that, I want to connect.

I've been writing song since I was sixteen and dreaming of this moment of having a song that meant something. It would have to be I'd have to be a lot older and be like, hey, I'm not I'm not doing music anymore. But I don't see that happen. I love playing freaking the opry. I want to be on a big tour. I've never played stadiums, I never played areenas, and I want to do that, you know, so I can't imagine, like right now, that's not in my head.

But right now, music, baby.

Mike, we should plan a round table. Get me, Eddie, Drew and Chris It never met, Chris, never met Drew until today. Meet and Chris after seven years, Me too, same thing, Drew.

Good to see Buddy, good to see man.

Thank you, thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.