You know, when I get off the road, it's kind of just like, hey, don't die, so you can come back here in a couple of days and do this again.
Episode four sixty nine. Nice Jackson Dene. What I did not mention in this interview because I'm sure he gets it every single interview he does, although I don't really does a lot of interviews. Do you know what I'm gonna say? His high school viral thing. Yeah, he went viral because he played football. He's a big dude, is his athletic dude. But he also played in the band, and he was playing in the band at halftime in his football uniform.
And that's what that was a viral thing way back in the day, which I didn't bring up because I think we've talked about it on the show and I'm sure he gets it everywhere. Yeah, and I'm sure he's also like, hey, you know, I'm kind of over talking about that, but I didn't want to mention it here. The other thing that I did not bring up was when he was in high school. We didn't know this, but he dm the show. Oh yeah, yeah, going, Hey, I'm a huge fan of the show. I'm doing music,
you know, I don't know, am I any good? That type thing. We didn't know that until way later when he had his first hit and he was in and then we like tagged him on something because he was a guest on the show, and then we saw the message from years before and we're like, holy crap, that's crazy.
Jackson Dean. I Don't Come Looking was his number one song that's already been out on the back of My Dreams is the name of the new album that just came out on September sixth Luke Dick, who's been a guest here, and Luke Dick's hilarious and is also a great producer and writer. He produced it. Jackson is a writer on every single song. Jackson's out with Landy Wilson, He's doing dates with Miranda. I mean, he's really doing his own thing. Though he rotated the entire globe in March.
He's a guy who, it's a cliche statement, walks by the beat of a different drum in a way that I can really appreciate because he just does his own thing. I think that's also what makes him a great artist. So he's twenty three years old, although you would think he could be one hundred and twenty three based on the maturity that he gives in demands back. Yeah, I forgot that too. Even talking about like a story's like on the road, I'm like, oh, he's probably been doing
this for like fifteen years. He's twenty three, which is crazy. He's the youngest four kids. The album Green Broke came out in twenty twenty two. That was his first album. And I don't know, let's just do it. Jackson Dean here he is, follow him at the Jackson Dean on Instagram and Jacksondan music dot com. Enjoy a right, Jackson, Good to see you, buddy. Did you get a haircut?
No, it's in the top knote.
Okay, of course it is, of course in the top knot.
Uh.
Yeah, you came in. I was like, dang, cut all his hair off.
Oh no, I've thought about it seriously for a few months now, but I can't bring myself to do it.
Oh you're in that phase where you're constantly questioning should I cut off my hair?
Well, it gets into that awkward phase and it starts bumping over your collar and then it just starts looking weird.
Yeah. I don't have that face. I'm like cool enough to pull off the the long here. No, no, definitely not the long hair. My face is always should I get contacts again? But I hate wearing stuff in my eyes and have one eye that works, so then I wear one in one eye and then I feel like I'm lopsided the whole freaking time.
Symmetrical.
Yeah, so I won't get contacts and you won't cut your hair blood packed right here.
I gave them to the first of the year, so I'll do it.
To the first deal first of the year. I'll commit to that too.
Uh.
How's life, man? I haven't seen you in a little bit.
Yeah, man, what was the last time.
I've been nine months or so.
That's pretty right.
When was that? I feel like the opery that when I see you, it's always like yeah, boom boom boom, Like you don't evenally get to talk. It's always like totally JAS will tell Buddy good to see you. Okay, I gotta go do my thing. You go do your thing. Isn't it cool that you get to do the opry though? It's awesome, like you just get to do the opry. Yeah,
it's they're like, so when can you come back? Yeah, like okay, like compared to the first time that you were invited, I know, for me, like the third time I played it, it was like, oh, this is this is really fun because the first time, and I'd like to hear your experience the first time, at least for me, it was a big, holy crap night and there are people there that I care and it's a big to do for me to go on for twelve minutes when I normally if I'm touring doing stand up, I'm doing
an hour show. But this is like everybody's there. You got a parking spot, they got a they made a cake, somebody made a cake. I don't know the cake came from. And it's like here we and then the lights and I can't even really see the people because I'm nervous. And you get off and you're like, how was it And it doesn't matter. It's like you did awesome and I'm like, did I really? So all of that's one, two and then three is where you just get to get in your groove and be like, oh, this is
just cool. So what was your first Opry experience like? And then now what's it like? Because I'm betting it's a little bit different now.
The first time, man was a lot of pressure, as you can imagine. You know, I had touched that circle and one time before I was about fifteen, we flew down just to see what it was all about and whatnot. And so getting knowing that I was stepping in that circle holding to the deal that I made myself, the deal that I made with myself then that I wouldn't step back in that circle without a guitar was pretty heavy for me. And I took a minute to one last look at it before I did, Like, I didn't
sound check in it or nothing. Really, I made sure that I didn't touch it. Yeah, you know, it's a big thing for me, and they really do make it. They really do great job making fun. All the doors are open into the green rooms. You know, you can hear music throughout the entire place, you know, and it's really a lovely room to sing in. It really is, like they do such a great job. You just see the silhouettes and it goes all the way to the ceiling.
You know, it's it's really is magic. But I feel what you're saying though, like you get you get three songs quick and we're out here doing, you know, for five hours, hour and a half and like coming down after that is is always tough, you know. I love being in the Porta Wagoner room. And like the last time a couple weeks ago at the Opry, mom came, I flew down with a couple of girlfriends. I mean, we had twenty five people in Porter's room, you know,
and it's always such a great time. But it's like, okay, everybody, we're at the Opry and this is like high stakes here. Yeah.
It just it's almost too It's like it gets in the best way. It starts to be normal because they treat you like you're just part of.
The group when you they remember you when you come back, Yeah, they really do. And and playing with the playing with the Opery band, man, it's always it's such a different animal and it's so awesome to get to to get to do that with them because they one thing I've noticed is that they've taken my songs and not only put a saddle on them, but they've choked up on
the reins on them a good bit. And it just it's a different feeling you get with the Opry Band that's like really great and they're all top of the top players, you know, but they they really have taken a few of mine. I mean a few times that we've been there, you know, and just giving it a different feel from what I do with my boys. You know, what I do with my man is all adrenaline and control chaos, you know. Them, it's just like we're gonna
sit right here and do this, yeah, I think. And it's just they remember you when you come back, dude, everybody in that building.
Yeah, you know. It's in this been last Opry story that I'll share. But I think at this point, I've probably played it about fifteen or sixteen times, and I've done I've hosted it or the TV show thirty, so I've spent a good amount of time there. And my stepdad was coming into town and he had never been to the Opry and he was coming early and I wasn't playing that night, but he was coming kind of last minute, and I was like, Hey, my step dad's coming into town. Is there any way I can take him
and show him around? And they're like, I swear to God, They're like, yeah, we'll leave the doors unlocked, just going up and lock the doors whenever you're gone. To the whole opry. They left, They left the doors unlocked to the whole operay, and they we're like, just have at it. Just when you're done. Just locked the door. Like it was like my aunt's house and she's like, hey, just lock up when you're done. And I was like, man, that is a lot of trust.
There's a lot of trust.
You got the keys to the office, dude, I didn't even need the key that you can leave it unlocked for anybody. You've been on the road a bunch.
A good bit, man. We we get We did get to take about uh. I gave the boys about a month and the month and a week off. I had some shows in there, but but we've been we've been touring a lot, and it was weird coming back to it after that long of a break. It's just like you do something three or four times a week every week for the last two and a half three years, that you stop for thirty days.
Oh yeah, you get rust development.
It was it was so weird coming back. We were all like, ohh God, but no, we got a truck. We've had a Since then, we've been on the road every weekend and we're not really stopping until December. We got Miss Laney Wilson coming up.
Yeah, that's cool.
We got that the twenty last week August. That starts and then it runs all the way to November.
What are your weeks like when you're home for four days before you head back out? Like, what are you doing in those four days in town?
If I get four, that's lucky. But most of the time I'm trying to trying to still make a name for myself and you know, interviews working here in town. I finally bought a place out of town and a little cabin in the woods, and really I like to spend my time up there when I can, Like I'll get off the bus and go straight there.
We have bus call kind of nearish that area.
No bus calls back here in town. It is. I actually park in my PMS place and just it's right right close there.
But are you writing much in town when you're here in those days or do you do you write on a schedule meaning you're gonna write these or do you write it anytime it comes over you?
Anytime we can make it happen. Man. But you know, I moved down here in twenty twenty in the middle of the pandemic, and I had our he'd been writing. I'd already had two records up by then. Then I put out by myself, who are not what we are now? You know? But my catalog was sick. It's so big. I mean when I got down here, I was doing nothing but two days, you know, when I got with Luke, and so there is songs in the bank. You know, I write a lot with my boys on the road.
You know, we were just on the bus last last week making demos in the back.
Bus riding. Man, well, bus riding sucks, but bus writing that's tough because you got you gotta be feeling like up to it.
Yeah, it is by the tickey, you take the ride for sure. On this record that we're getting ready to put out here, I mean half of those songs came from a bus trip and that was Luke and Ryan, Luke, Dick and Ryan and me in the back of the bus for like two weeks.
Just keep it in the bus or do you record it?
Yeah, you know, we got a rig on the bus and my drummer Sean mercer. I mean he and I are coming up right on a decade together and he's a producer and engineer in Baltimore, So for pretty much first two records that I did with him and my boys and whatnot. So he he understands that kind of Yeah, he's an engineer.
Sure, and you can do it on the road. Oh yeah, very easily.
I mean we'll listen back to sets. Oh yeah, we are full on dissecting, Like you need to be doing this here.
I can't listen to a show I've done. Take your medico or radio show. I want to vomit, Like I don't want the medicine yet I probably need the medicine. What are you listening for? If you're listening, let's say a show you listen to a show back, what are you listening for?
Flaws? And there's certain you know, we don't every night is different to some aspect. Every single song is have some different feel to it because there's no click, there's no tracks, there's no nothing. It's just us up there, you know. And sometimes you'll catch a vibe where you need to you really need to run down that that feeling of what that feeling of the song that you're looking for.
So will you find what went right though? To if it's different, like let's say you're listening to a song and you say you're looking for flaws, and again, you're not playing to a click, so it's never going to be exactly right on. But if you hear something that's kind of special, will you also chase that down absolutely?
That leads to the betterment of evolution of songs. Wings was a great off of Greenbroke was a great example of that. You know, Wings went from of three minute, forty second song to like you're looking at five fifty six minutes at the end of it on the live record, you know, and that's all due to composure.
You know, what do you mean, Like, what did you hear that made you want to change the way you were picturing that song?
It's honestly just vibing with the dudes on stage. You know. In the beginning of US, we were really trying hard to sound like Explosions in the Sky. You know. I love that big cinematic band sound, epic guitars great, great, just great playing. But when you especially, i mean you get sound checks and whatnot, you go off on a tangent and you're like, oh, we need to do something like that.
Will you listen to sound checks too?
Not so much. We're about to start taking uh stuff for Sewan from sound checks and putting it into mobile rig and whatnot and building ming that stuff. But a lot of ideas come from soundcheck though, of a lot of ideas of composure, like it's just vibes that we fall into and we can we can make it last for a while.
You Brandon just has to You can jam ban it if you need to. You can go to fish real quick, big jam band vibes. Yeah, do you have to sometimes keep yourself from jam band because you're feeling it so much?
Yeah? Man, And I'm I am always for the song being longer, Like, let let the music say all that you could not. That's what the music's supposed to be, is all that the spoken word cannot. So of course I want more. I want the best playing for what the song calls for as possible.
Can you give visual cues to your guys at this point because you've been together so long and they know, yeah, let's just keep going.
Yeah, I mean, if somebody stumbles, like Shawn missus a phil but she's I think last year he broke like four sticks. So you break a stick in the middle of something and you're like everybody turns around. It's like, oh god, you know, but that's that's communication between your men. That's worth it's worth something that everybody's is on their toes, you know, Because I think I would go full Dave Matthews.
I'd just be feeling it. Hour later. We done three songs, you know, just one of those nights where you're just then the crowd would be like, dude, you play three freaking songs. Yeah, my bad, we're really feeling that second song that we did. I don't really have the ability to do that, but I feel like I would get into that, like if it was feeling good, I would just continue that. You have three other siblings, right, that's right. Any of them do music.
My brother played guitar with Lynwood Taylor a few times around town. He's just like me at heart, a dirty hippie. He's played acoustic. It's not really you know, it's great admyras of music. I mean, my brother is everything from bluegrass Turnpike to John Butler Trio, to all the classic rock stuff to all the Ska stuff to the Northeast Guy Orchestra.
Like loves that are plays.
It just loves it. Yeah, it's It's always around. It has always been around in our family. My sister sang in the choir of her entire life. She never wanted to do what I did. She once she gets something in her head, the way that it's supposed to sound her head, that's the way that it stays, big, powerhouse vocal. So she was She was a singer too. Cody liked to think he could play the drums, but he really.
Where where did the music come from? In your family?
My dad was always My dad was a very big admirer of it. I mean I remember it on every every time we were in the truck, any trip that we ever went on, it was always on.
What did what was always on? Like what comes to mind on any trail.
Our stations were nine eight point seven Big one hundred point three, which was the rock station, classic rock station, so playing all the old the oldies ish and obviously the two country stations from back Home which is nine three point one ninety eight point seven.
Yeah.
But yeah, man, I mean I remember watching Lane and my sister in the choir, and I remember watching her in the plays that they used to do up in the middle school. And so it was always around, you know, it was always around, and then they figured out I could hold a tune. You know, at a very early age.
How old were you when you get actually sing.
Belting it out? Not till I was, I mean just singing in the truck, I mean ankle blighter size.
Yeah, I mean there's an indication at seven eight nine that there's some promise here.
I was. It wasn't like that. It didn't come. The start of my dedication didn't come until the house burned down, and that was probably I was thirteen when that happened.
Talk about that.
So me and my old man were trying to thaw out a pipe on h We thought it was right next to the sink, which in reality it was twenty yards across the house, so we weren't even in the right But we threw a little heater and an enclosure outside of it, and he caught the roof and burned from the top down. While I was still inside of it. I was getting up for school and breathing in smoke, and uh yeah, February twenty second, three inches of snow on the ground, flames in the sky.
Wow, it was snowing too.
Yeah. But while we were rebuilding that, we took four months off of work. My dad's a brick layer Stonemation. We've nicol Sa Mason. Anyway, took four months off of work, and while we were rebuilding, I would sit up there in the evenings. And our house was connected by a breezeway on the second story and office space for business. We lived in there for four months while we rebuilt the househouse. But I would sit up there in the evenings and play and learn songs. And it was a
very big escape for me. I mean, we just got smashed and to like two bedrooms and not a lot of space, so I need to get away from people.
Where'd you get the guitar?
I had gotten one for Christmas. It was a little Fender. I remember telling my mom I wanted I wanted to fiddle with it because I thought it would be cool. And I took about a month of lessons and that fell out of the out of the routine real quick because I was doing football across. I was wrestling at that time. I said football. But yeah, man, it was a little fender and it was I don't I don't think it even played. It didn't even plug in. And then the house burned and then it started, so you're.
Just playing guitar at random hours, I mean evening time. Okay, so no lessons.
I had taken about a month.
We quit then yeah, I was like, okay, this is did you have enough to go off of?
I guess what that means.
But then a couple of bar a chords.
Yeah, yeah, I hate bar chords.
I don't do bar cords ca yeah, I mean not Cao capo.
And alternate tunings are the way to go. Man, It's and it's alternative tunings because bar chords just restricted, you know, it's it chokes the the guitar chokes that sound. Open tunings is just all wide open.
You know the problem with open tuning, though, is you have to tune it that way. So that means you have extra guitars with you. You are just tuned open. Where if I'm doing stand up and I'm playing funny songs, I've got one guitar with me and I'm not it's gonna be forever to tune it. So I'm capo. I'm straight capo all the way. I'm choking it if I have to love me and yeah, let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor m h.
And back on the Bobby Cast.
The first songs you learned? Was it?
For me?
It was a lot of classic rock stuff. And I'm not the player that you are, but I remember just what I what I would learn. I learned, like Metallica stuff, because some of that stuff was easy. I'd learn like some using like tab. I would learn like some some guitar times. Yeah, I don't even use tab anymore. But but at the beginning, it was really good for me to learn, you know, six three. But what what was that for you? What did you want to learn? What did you learn first?
I can't read music at all, period whatsoever. I don't read a chart. I hardly know the Nashville skills here, Like I know enough to understand what they're talking about, but I don't. I've never been able to. It doesn't translate with me. So it's all about that being said. The first things that I kind of learned when I started playing guitar, I mean, simple man, smoke on the Water, those are all like ditty smoke on the water army, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But like when you talk about getting into like ultimate guitar tabs and like all that kind of stuff, like the first ones that I remember putting together all the way through were Drake White songs. Probably the first ever was probably a simple man letter skinned that was probably the first one top to bottom that I learned all the way through.
How long until you could actually sing and play?
Oh god, it took a while, man. It was uh, you know, and I'm not the I'm not I'm still not the player that I want to be when it comes to this hand you know, or this one you know. But it took a while, and my timing used to be so weird, so weird, man.
It What about because haven't you know, we get to know you a little bit over the past couple of years in the time that we spent together. You're not a guy it's gonna walk into a room and just demand everybody's attention when everybody just hanging around talking. You have you don't say a lot. You have a big presence because you're a big guy, and you definitely dress
like you're gonna murder someone if they cross you. However, I would not, just by knowing you as a person, think well, this is a guy that wants to get on stage and sing or talk or entertain in any way whatsoever. Now, did you have the same demeanor younger, and was your dad and your family like.
You want to do what My dad never wanted us to lay brick and block, So anything other than that was very welcome in our family. Now my siblings have taken over the family business and they're doing that, you know. But they all went out and had their time in the world and chase their dreams and they've come home and you know all that stuff. But no, he wanted anything other than what he was doing.
He had to be so surprised though, and maybe he wasn't, but that you wanted to go entertain people your because again, if you meet you, you don't think, well, he wants to get on stage and just rock people's face off. You're like, that guy's probably I don't know what kind of mobby's in, what kind of cattle he who knows? But you know, your personality on stage is large. Your personality here it's very compact. Your demeanor is very straightforward.
People can hear that I used to be scared of you, not anymore, but he's scared of you when I first met you because I was like, this dude, he hates my guts. But I would compare like you and I'm friends with Kane Brown. I thought Kine hated me because Kine doesn't say a whole lot, no, no man a few words. Yeah, now that I know Kane and love Kane like that's one of the things I love about him. It's like he's still who he is off stage, but then when he gets on stage, he's he puts it
on again. Were they surprised that you wanted to get on stage and put it on?
It definitely took some time to grow on my mom. She didn't quite understand. She didn't quite not fathom it at first, but she was like, I don't know, honey, you know, I don't know. And I also took about two and a half three years before she was like, okay, let's go.
It's also got to be weird too, because where I come from, nobody did anything in the art community because they worked at the mill. Like they worked at the mill, or they had a job, you know, just because where you and I both come from, it's not like people move off and are, for my case, work on radio and TV or your case. They don't move off and become country stars. So it's not the people say you can't do it, but they don't know that you can because no one else really does it around and.
The only the only people that The only references we had from around home, you know, comeing from construction. We don't know the music industry, right. The only references we had were brothers Osbourne and Maggie Rose, you know they Maggie's from Mechanicsville and the brothers are from literally twenty used to light Fire is the same place as they did.
Yeah, you know that has equal though to see those guys and see that they were doing it and it because again, there is normal I know their parents. There is normal and blue collar.
And there's like two hundred and fifty of them of them, of the of the os It's it's nuts, man, It's it's nuts. I've met fifteen uncles of theirs. They They've been really good to us over the last couple of years. The first big ass show that we did was Delaware State Fair with them, and I remember choking so bad. I choked on Hallelujah. On Ryan Bingham's hall Oljah. I've been playing the song for three years and just too much happening in my brain and just completely choked on it.
But that was the biggest show that we had done to that date. And they were so good to us and have and have continued to be. But there they were the only they were the only people close to us that we were like, that's dope, you know what I mean, like and humans like us can do that?
Yeah, because that I mean, I think representation, regardless of what it is. You were kind of being represented by somebody showing that if you want to do it, you're good enough to do it, and you work hard enough to it, it actually can be done. So they were super cool. I mean, they are super cool. I love them, both of them so much. And you knew a lot of the Osborne family, or at least they were around.
They were around, they were down in Deal. We were a little bays north, but we've met several several occasions, and their riot.
The whole family because their dad, their.
Dad is I mean here on me. Yeah, yeah, your.
Dad a big old boy.
He's about my size, but you're pretty big. When he walks in a room, you think he's a lot bigger than he is.
I would say, I don't know, you feel pretty big anyway.
He's a presence.
What's up with you like your first show, and I say show is in the first time you ever wanted to get on stage and play for someone that wasn't sitting outside where you're building your new house.
The first show, the first time I ever stepped on stage with the guitar. It was my uncle's guitar. He played in the Air Force a little bit and it was a washburn. I didn't even have a guitar strap. That was the only guitar that I knew of in the vicinity of my family.
Here just holding it, almost Johnny Cash style.
I threw my foot on a bucket literally and just put it on my knee and went and I did. My mother's grandfather built the train station that is now the Irish pub that I started in. It's like the restaurant and down that it's the bar. But yeah, man, it was two Drake White songs and Cost of Living by Running Done. Those were the first three songs I played on stage with a guitar. And that's in the middle of the town that my parents grew up in,
so they know everybody and their mother. So you have an attic bar full of one hundred and fifty people and you could here here you could hear a pin draw. Really, it was awesome.
What about the first show you ever got paid to do?
Oh my god, the first paid gig I ever had. I got paid eighty bucks. It was a Thursday night. I had just gotten out of football practice and didn't even showered. Roll over there in my bronco. And you know those uncles that aren't really your uncles. Yeah, okay, I have an uncle, Marv right, and he also plays music. He he did Jimmy Buffett for years, Marshall Tucker, all that kind of stuff, just you know, bar gigs. And he was like, well, you can come up here and
kill two hours if you want. I mean we God, we did two hundred and fifty shows together, maybe you know, over the span of four or five years, you know, but yeah, it was a car wash. It it was a car wash service, throwing a party, like a company party at a car wash. And that was pretty fun.
Is that where you'd say you kind of got your chops those shows with them, like you really started to understand a little bit of who you were as a performer for the first time doing those two hundred and fifty shows.
Yeah, man, I mean, those are those are really long sets acoustic, just buy up by yourself, play as many songs as you possibly can.
You know, there would be the stories of the Beatles when they were playing Germany and they play eight hour sets to a bar. They sometimes play the same song three times, nobody there most of the time, but they would credit that to where they really found themselves or at least the early version of who they were musically, because they just had to figure out how to keep going. And the more you go, the better you're gonna get. Yeah, and I feel like you gotta know what you're capable of. Yeah,
it sounds a bit like that. Was that ear early early part of you? When did you decide you want to move to Nashville. It's a big move.
It took it took a while. If I I had been making music in Baltimore with Sean by the time all of this is happening, you know, So it was it was a it was a I don't want to say, a blimp on the radar, but it was. It was not my first thought. And as we started coming down here a little bit more to check out a little bit more of what was going on, what would you do first? The first time we came, I was fifteen,
and we drove down. We stopped in like Gatlinburg and pitching Ford and played a couple of open mics and stuff and did the rhyman, did the opry, all the touristy things. Worked with a couple of people down here very lightly and whatnot. But it was not my first thought. What made me want to do it is that I signed a record deal. I just just like, I can't do this from back home, do what the whole artist shebang.
You know, I need to be accessible down here. You know, as time goes on, it won't always be the case for everybody, you know, but for a time, I love this city. I love being here. I love these back alleys that I've walked for a long time now.
I mean, is it starting to feel like home?
Yeah? Man, I mean it's the short answers, Yes it is. I've been down here since twenty twenty. Now it reminds me of my home a lot. You know, anywhere in the world I could be. I could be out in La and be you know, this feels a lot like home to me.
Why'd you name the record on the back of my dreams?
So on the back of my Dreams is a line that we chose from Jane. It's one of my favorite songs on the record. It's pretty witchy and mountainous. So growing up on the East Coast, you're right there at the foothills of West Virginia, Kentucky and all that stuff, and I wanted to do something that's just sounded like Appalachia, you know what I mean. There's another song on this record called Sweet Appalacha that's all about the Yak River
and the triangle where we come from. But that line, I mean, Greenbroke was We named the last record Green Broke, after my favorite song on the record. You know, I didn't want to name it Jane, so I just picked a line out of there that sounded dope, and across the whole record there is a flare of Jane. And all of these songs, there's a you know, that moment, a bliss that you have when you first wake up and it's right before reality comes back and hits you.
It's the elongation of that. They all have a little bit of that flare. Some of them are a little manic, some of them are a little intense. They are all little fever dreams and vignettes. Man, that are some of them are good, some of them are bad, and some of them are just having a good time.
Do you feel like this is a bit of a concept album?
Yes?
I love concept albums. Now, it's like the only album I would make.
The record is split down the middle, and I wanted, I wanted. I had been working towards that for a good long while. Now, I mean since Greenbroke, I knew I wanted. I wanted there to be a definite color change, you know what I mean. The first half of this record is really the reds and oranges and deep greens of it, and then the second half is all the blues and purples and blacks. You know, it's it's the darkness of it, which is the second half of it.
You know, there's a couple of different characters throughout this record. Man, They're all extensions of me, you know. But yeah, man, it's trippy little record. There's some sonic footprints on here that are wild, some really great grooves.
Talk about duct tape heart, Oh, duct tape, man, because when you're saying that, that's what comes to mind.
So so that's me, Luke Dick, Casey Bethard there was like three straight Christmases in a row. I got nothing but duct tape for Christmas. I mean I had all the neons, I had every camo that you could, you know, all the gorilla tape, you know. And I hadn't written a song with Casey in a while. It had been like a year since I seen him. And Luke and I were together one day and Luke had this duct tape hard idea, and I was just like, that sounds fun. I had an obsession when I was a kid. Let's
do it. You know. That one's just pure fun. And it sounds sounds like there's like not rockabilly, but there's blues rock tunes that you know, with a Western flare in there.
The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the Bobby Cast.
Heaven's Betsy. You were not gonna right? Was the idea? It just playing? I don't know, but then you did.
That song has such a crazy journey man that went from an acoustic demo, and.
Well, tell me about it. Tell me about all of it, like even the demo that was written.
On music Row. Right down the road, Driver Williams, Benji Davis and myself and Driver walked into the door with that title, and the first thing that popped into my head was quite literally the flash of a picture frame, which is worth every word that was written, of a daddy looking down on his daughter from the outskirts, right outside the gate, onto his daughter. It's just it's literally a little picture frame. And I think when the video
comes out, it's gonna make a lot more sense. But he's sitting there on the outside of the gates, the outskirts of this cloud on a CB, hoping that that transmission goes through. That's the first thing that flashed in my head when it came out of his mouth. That married me with me since that first time it came out of his mouth, That's why I love it. And if you listen to the words that he says, it is so brutally heartbreaking to know. I mean, we've seen
that dynamic play it out too many times. Yeah, I've seen this song work grown men to tears and grown women to tears, and all the music that is behind it is everything that that man left unsaid and all the love that was never given. And that's why it's a little bit more intense than a few of the others.
You know, music gets me because I love my dogs and love my dog. I mean of a couple of dogs worth me ten twelve, thirteen years and like Carl was like that was your dog, that my first one. And so obviously if you're can write something about Carl. Why was Karl such a great dog?
He was just the first one. He uh he is all white and one brown ear. I had him from the time he was about yet big. Now, Carl Carlito was quite a legend man. He was my shotgun writer in a lot of places, especially when I got my Bronco. But no, man, he was just fastest, grease, lightning dude and just one of the best dogs I've ever had in my life. And he's big blue sky right he is he is. He died and his brother went about two weeks after him, right right within the same time.
So he died. He died while we were out on the Blake Shelton tour, and we had written it just a little prior to that. But he never saw the road, he never saw the bus, never saw any of that. Just like Betsy. That's a picture frame that is quite literally a dog running up over a hill and in the sunset, it was just scoring that moment and they elongate of that moment. You know. But that's ode de Carl, big blues O de Carl, this classic American huge rock and just bash it away.
You know, Carl, What do you do that's not music? What's fun? I'll tell you.
It's hard to have hobbies in this business. You know. When I get off the road, it's kind of just like, hey, don't die, so you can come back here in a couple of days and do this again. I try to get out in the woods as much as I possibly can.
You just travel a bunch, say that, where did you go?
Well, just this year we've been.
Like not music travel, not tour, but did you just travel like we're traveling by yourself?
Oh we went to Taos. Yeah, yeah that's what. Yeah, you know, I talk about Singapore and.
No I am talking about all that. Yeah, talk about Yeah, that's what I'm talking about it.
So wait, we've done a full trip around the globe already this year. Berlyn Rotterdam.
Is that fine?
London? It was a wild time. It was really the first. The first couple days getting over there are always chaotic. Once you're over there, I love it. It's great. My girdlist figure gets worked on, and I drop a few pounds because everybody's walking so much. You know, it's a really great time over there. But then from London, Singapore, Australia, La and then back, so literally took off to the east and then I came back from the west. Yeah.
He went all the way around, all the way around. Yeah, that's crazy when when you say it like that.
And then right back to right back to tour here. What other were you talking about? We went? I went out to Taos for about a week. I stayed in one of those earth ships.
I don't know what. I don't know what Tawasa is.
You tell me Tawas, New Mexico. That's right above, Like so, Taoas is here. You can see Wheeler Is Wheeler Mountains right there, and then you look this way.
I've been to Albuquerque. That's about it.
You need to get to Santa Fe.
I don't know if I've ever been to Santa Fe. Santa Fe fills more, New Mexico.
It's great, it's a great.
What what what happened in Tallas? What do you like about it?
It was just nothing but sage and mountains in the distance and just I needed to clear my head, and that was in the break that we were talking about earlier. I get the boys about a month and now a month and some change. But I went out there for about a week and stayed in the earth ship where it's got a thirty foot garden on the inside of it. It's all self sustaining, all that kind of stuff.
It's called a what earth ship? And what's it's shaped like above?
Half a half of it is built into the ground. Most of the time. They're pretty flatish, you know what I mean, have air conditioned a glass it's concrete slab.
I'm out.
No, it stays like sixty three year round.
Oh that's not bad then, yeah, okay, Yeah, it's sick a lot of bugs.
No, no, not particularly, I mean.
It's it's a house Wi Fi. Yeah, okay, Well I'm back in. Yeah that was out, but now I'm back in. If I'll send you three, I'll send And so you go out there, and what's the goal when you go out or a place like this? Are you I'm assuming you're by yourself with a very select few people and you're just spending evenings doing what like, how do you get out of your head?
What I can tell you on podcast. I'm really here in months of late son like an exploration. You know, I've you get into these rets where you're like, man, there's nothing I'm listening to here that's musically inspiring, and you just gotta hunt for that stuff, you know. I most of the time I have tunes rolling all the time wherever I am.
Do you mean music rolling like in your head or music that you're just listening to listen? What's your comfort music meaning? Because I have different versions of the music that I listen to. If I want to just not pay attention to music and have on what I like, I'm gonna put on John Mary Counting Crows, just like I watched The Office at night because I'm not really watching it to watch it, but I love it and I just need it on. It makes me feel comfortable. I already know it. It puts me in a calm
place like That's that for me? What's that for you?
Put me in a calm place.
Like Ben Folds. That'll be what I put on that I don't have to like listen to see if I like it, like, it doesn't matter. I love all that now. If I'm doing whatever A different type of music exploration. But I'm like a couple of friends that send me some more let's say, check them out. I'm listening to that way different than I'm listening to that's dissection. Yeah, So what is your comfort? What's your comfort music that you're gonna put on if you're just gonna chill. There's a record.
Of a band that opened for us about two years ago, and they're from Richmond Wild Band. But the record itself, it's self titled. It's called Holy Roller, and it's just some some of the best Like it's not even that it's just chill. It's just like it's the best kind of chill music that I have on my phone as a project, as a whole, top to bottom. So you can let that thing you just hit play right at the top and let it go and.
Perfect album to you? What are some of the perfect albums? I'll give you a couple. I let you think. I think, same trailer, different Park, Casey Musgraves. To me, that feels like a perfect album. I think continuing from John Mayer feels like a perfect album, meaning there's no skips, right, I'm just I'm not gonna write, you know, write boom, make it red and disappear from your list. Those two are perfect.
What about you? Oh man, I don't know, only the obvious.
Oh yeah, man. I watched some of those Chris Cornell videos if him singing that man in a studio, Oh my god, that.
Man open vortexas to other.
Dimensions, and I would go, okay, I roll my eyes usually when someone would say something like that. I watched him so with the temple of the dog, you know, before I'm going huh, And it was like it seemed effortless and so full of effort at the same time and just perfect.
He's laser beam. He laser beamed everything that came out of his mouth. It's just yea, like the best man. He's probably at the front of my Mount Rushmore, right next to Robert Plant.
Chris Cornell one of the best ever.
Oh yeah yeah. He's been talking about covering audiously forever and just god, it is just so high, you know.
And stays high, like he starts high and goes higher, like going high. I mean, I can't even play it, but I'll get in my algorithm on TikTok because I love Chris Cornell and my favorites are just the live like him singing at concerts, or him in a studio, or him just with they'll hot, they'll isolate the raw vocals, and it's like, how can someone do this without it being manipulated by technology? And he's one of those rare, super rare yeah Robert Planto two.
Oh yeah, in terms of unpredictability, especially in his live of stuff where you think you would go up where a regular person would go up, he goes down. Or where you go down, he goes up. You know those isms that not only him Cornell, everybody on my Mount Rushmore does. Yeah, man, that's all vocal control. Man, that's bad ass.
Who else is on that list your singers?
Just out of nostalgia and the overall demeaning that I want, demeanor that I wanted to carry in the beginning of when I set out to do this was cash Man, Johnny Cash dude, just all around American badass with one of the most iconic voices of all time and will forever be that way. But really for all those all those really low down, all that low down singing that he did, because he's not a high singer. He's very low and tough. You know what, I mean, and then there's Whalen.
Your dad listened to a lot of Whalen.
My dad listened to a lot of Murle. My mom loved Whalen.
Two pretty strong influences. You got to coming from both sides. You got Murle one whale on the other. Yeah, man, they argue about who was better.
Hey my mom. My mom was not that confrontational about music as as her offspring. Her offspring was.
So what's the goal with this record? Like, what do you want people to feel here?
Do? There's some songs on this record that are designed to pull at your heartstrings. There's someone here that are designed to make you move your feet and sway your hips, And there's someone here that are supposed to make you want to run through a brick wall at least how I digest music, Man, I need something appropriate for the appropriate time, for what I am feeling at the time.
There's a lot of different emotions happening here, and it's they all operate at the extreme ends of those emotions, you know what I mean?
Do you feel like you challenged yourself to write and record this record to where it almost got a little bit uncomfortable because you're really pushing it.
Oh yeah, pushed hard, you know. But just like we were talking about earlier, you got to know what you're capable of. This. This is a wild This is a really big project that has taken a good while to put together, you know, and it is vocally a hard record, man, is up there? You know.
Do you ever wonder when you record a song and it's a really hard record to record whenever you're going to perform it live? Why did I record that song like this? Because now I gotta sing it every night?
Yeah?
I mean, And that's the version of what I'm saying about pushing yourself, Like that's pushing yourself to do it and then know you're gonna have to always do it that way. M h.
And it's knowing that I can do it is what I'm after, Like being able to do it outside of the studio. I mean, we've been playing Big Blue and Train and Sweet Apple and a couple of these other songs out on the road for a while and we're doing it, you know. But that is the other side of that coin, is not only being able to do it in the studio, but to be able to do it live every night and push yourself that much further and that much harder. Ain't nobody ever gonna be able to take that away?
Well, then you're gonna go listen to tape of it. Yeah yeah, and you through it, but you're getting better because you keep putting yourself through it. You keep getting better.
It has worked wonders not only for me, but for my men as well, because like the curse is like, we're never going to know what we sound like on the other side of that pa fully, like in the flesh, you know, all the closest thing we will get is to a multi track. So it just it's helped me immensely as a singer. And like I can hear where I'm running out of breath and where I'm pushing too hard, and like where I need to open it all up and drop my jaw and all that stuff.
Do you talk much?
No? No, I do not, No, not on stage.
That would be what I would be afraid of. And I recorded a comedy special and we've just gone through the edits and I'm doing a talking special and I hate me talking. And I think if I were listening back to myself, I'll be like, well, I'll say that between those songs that sounds so stupid. But as you can tell, I hate myself for the most part. Anything else I'm like, oh, I hate me. But so you don't talk a lot, so you don't have to like criticize.
No, but we're we are our biggest critics, yeah, you know. I mean I I don't want to think about where we would be if we weren't biggest critics.
But I think you also know how to celebrate what you're doing right and actually do that better too. You know, it's pretty healthy, Jackson, It's pretty healthy.
It's weird talking up there, man, And it's just I'd rather let the song speak for themselves, you know, and how I'm singing them songs speak for itself.
Last question, if I were to open your closet, is it all black.
The majority? Yes, there might be some tan, some beige, but for the majority, yeah, it's black.
I'm severely color blind with dark colors, so you could be wearing blue, but from what I know of you, it's mostly black. When you buy new clothes, it mostly black. You also can wear the same stuff over and over again and nobody really even knows the difference because it's mostly all black anyway.
Exactly, man. I got I got ten black Pearl snaps that are some of the best show shirts I have ever had, and I got them year ago and they're all the same, just pitch black, just wonderful.
Well, I'm a big fan.
Thank you, ma'am.
Congratulations on the record. You can follow Jackson and we mentioned a lot of this stuff before you came in in the pre but at the Jackson Dene Jackson Dene music and you're uh as when this airs, he's out with land you right, Mike, when this airs doing some random shows.
Yeah, man, we did Pearl and yeah, man, we got we got a few of them.
That's cool. Yeah, yeah, But I mean the real place to see Jackson if you can see him do a whole freaking set when he's headlining it, that's where to see him. We have people that I'm very close to that are very close to you, and they.
Just they love you.
I like you a lot, they love you. So all right, thank you guys, and uh yeah, everything else will be in the notes. You can follow Jackson and all the album information is there, all right, go to see dude.
Thank you too, man, Thanks for having me.
Thanks for listening to a Bobby cast production
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