#61 - Nicolle Galyon - Writer of “Automatic” and others

you will love her. First person universally we've ever had someone said you'll everybody said you love no pressure, no pressure at all. Um. You know who was up here and was fantastic as Natalie Himby and she loves you love her. And if anybody notally loves somebody, pretty cool, we'll let you know. She doesn't. Yeah, I just lets

you know real quick too. So let's see. I want to tell you how because I want to run through your resume real quick, and then we'll come back to it because I like people to know who we're talking to it first. So just some songs that Nicole has written here, I which I actually wrote this jingle for our show. This is a really amazing tune. You can um no like for example automatic by the way you do it with today. That's what Frank Lidel. We were

sitting at a table for like three hours. I'm assuming he produced yeah, um, because he produces, you know, random stuff. We set for about three hours at a table today and talked about the future of the business and and at a at a seminar of his brutal and I like Frank and we were both like, I'm over it, but yeah, Frank produced that. Let's see we were Keith,

you pumped your fist on that one. We're gonna come back to that line things like and I have a whole opinion and we can get to this and I'll rant a bit, but love Triangle from Raylan Lantic Forever Heart and the Long Swabs and then a lot of other stuff. But I want to tell you how it was introduced to you because I am the biggest Walker Hayes fan and like that's my friend too, and I took him on tour. We just finished our last show together. We did January through May, and he opened from my

stand up comedy tour and months ago. I mean before he even had I was just like, dude, this stuff is next level. Like when this Volume one came out, I was playing it on the radio and I was like,

I love it. I love everybody of it. This Halloween song and you sing it and you wrote it with them, and I'm hearing this song and it was just before I play I remember hearing it and kind of listening to the message, and it was, you know, Halloween ended and all the things I pretended to be, Like, you met somebody and you don't have to dress up and be this character anymore. You can just be yourself. And I was like, I don't know where this came from,

but this is like next level stuff. And not only did you write it with him, you sang it with them. So I'm gonna play it and then we're gonna talk to you. I'm done with my whole spill up front Halloween to look at all these talents. I love this song, man, I love this song Halloween. Hell. I don't know why.

I'm like as a dam like I was so good, he's so good, he's so good, like and when he finally I've saved tweets, I'm like a year ago, and I'm like, everybody's gonna be sorry they didn't sign walking Y's because he's that good and I've been written with him and he does a different level. He's he's so wordy, but like in this amazingly like precise way. So enough enough, enough of me rambling. We'll come back to that, Okay, I'll come back about you. So where did you grow

up and how did you get here? I grew up in Kansas the Middle. I grew up in a little farm town of like two thousand people where West Town, then Ton. Okay, well I guess if we went to town, we went to a another smallest town called Hutchinson. I know. Yeah, so, um, that's where we would go to the Target or the Applebee's for or for a date or something like that. Um, but that was probably thirty miles away. So how long

ago did you move to Nashville. I moved here in two thousand two, right when I graduated from high school. So this is my fifteen year Nashville versary. Um. I came here and went to Belmont. At that time, I had never sung I go you know, I actually got into the business backwards because I came here wanting to be a manager. Really, I had never written a song.

I had never sung in front of anybody. When I moved here, I you know, I was like the anti girl moving to Nashville who had grown up singing at every county fair, wanting to be in the music business. You know, I just wanted to be on the business side. What made you want to be a manager? Like growing up in a small town of Kansas, I wouldn't again if I'm a tight toown in Arkansas. I never even knew managers were a thing. Well, I was just obsessed

with the music. I was just obsessed with country music. And so for me, I was like I I was raised real blue collar, like my dad and his brother's all poor concrete that's still what they do. And so for me it was like I was very business minded and how can I how can I work and be in the music business. I never had that. I mean, I grew up playing classical piano hardcore like one competitions. It was like my thing, But that mean hard course did you start training at a young age, like like

at three? And then I was like play in these like symphony orchestra things when I was in high school, I was very disciplined, but like, I never saw a way for that to connect with my passion, which was country music. I mean, my mom and I went to every concert. We were like, you know, we were those fans, you know, but playing classical piano and loving the Dixie Chicks. How do you where's the middle ground between those two?

And so for me, I was I'm actually I actually thought that I was a manager because of the way that I'm made. I'm not made like a creative like most of the people who write songs. I'm type A. I'm very like like I could be really happy in a suit and tie job. Like I thought that, And that's actually the way that I operate in process and wire and I'm wired and stuff. So I was like, well,

that makes sense. You're passionist country music and your type A and you're wired like this, you must be something behind the scenes. So that's what got me here. You're going to manage artists. I moved here. I went to Belmont thinking that I was going to get this degree and manage artists and got here and just started meeting songwriters and literally the first time I sat in someone's living room and saw guitar pool. I thought I can do that, and it wasn't like it wasn't pride, and

it wasn't. I didn't I had never written a song, but I just knew myself and knew that I could do that. And so I was like a closeted songwriter for many years. Even as you're playing piano. All those years, you never wrote a song. So what did you do play? I dropped off. Yes, I played Beethoven. I played like study because that's what was available in the country. Was like choral mute. Like if I sang, I sang in a quiet choral music because that's what you do in

a small town. That was no band. There was no one learning guitar, no one. It was you know. It wasn't until I got here that I figured out that I could put all that stuff together. Did you sing solos in your choir? If you have to think about it, there there are no distinct memories of you just rocking in a solo. I think they made me. My choir director made me do one like my senior year, and it was kind of a joke, and it wasn't. I mean, I don't have like a great choral voice. I don't

think of myself as a singer still. Um So, I definitely didn't think of myself as a singer when I was seventeen, as I thought a singer was Martin McBride. That was the only way you could sing and be a good singer. And then I got here and met songwriters and I'm like, oh, you're all artists in your own way, and you don't sound like Martin McBride or Faith Fell, you know, the people that had these huge voices, and I don't have that voice. So I never considered

myself a singer. At what point did it turn for you? And you go, Okay, maybe I don't want to manage. I want to be someone who creates. Um well, probably you kind of have to note kind of what was going on on this side too. I worked for a booking agent at William Morris all through college as I was like his assistant for four years, and part of

my job was helping him throw parties. So we would throw these parties at his house with all these people in the music business, and then everyone would be drunk and at the end of the party, he knew I was writing songs because he was kind of he kind of became family to me, and he'd be like, Nick, get up there and play a song, and he would always put me on this spot, and I would always be so scared. But something in me just loved songwriting enough that I was like, if you can't do this,

you're never going to be a songwriter. So could you start playing guitar when you moved here? I just read on piano, So you don't play guitar now? And I still don't play Wow, so you right on piano. So Walker just back to walking. Walker writes and plays piano. So on YouTube it said, like the doling it's like Billy Joel and Elton John, I want to that concerts like doing pianos. He oh, I don't. I don't. I rarely play in the room anymore. And that's the weird thing.

Like the first I got a publishing deal in two thousand seven, and I pretty much wrote at the piano. I was the girl. I was like the country Sarah borellis, I guess, for lack of a better, the description when I first had a publishing deal and and I was just given that when you write, when the coolst she writes on the piano. And then this whole track. Guy. Revolution happened with songwriting where all these guys were incredible.

You know, they've had these incredible tracks. So then I started walking in and I became more of a top liner. Basically top line. The top line is pretty much anything you would sing in karaoke, So lyric, melody, whatever the singer does in karaoke is what top lining is. And that's more of like an l A pop way of talking about writing. We don't say that as much here in Nashville because everyone just kind of is chameleon and

everyone does everything in the room. But when I got rid of my piano, which is ultimately what got me into writing in the first place. That so when I really started to blossom. That sounds so dumb. Blossom he says that. But do you write with piano now? Maybe like a handful of times a year? Wow? Really do you play it for? Fine? Still a little bit? Yeah?

I mean, are you burnt at all from it? I'm I got to the point on a writing front where I was um uninspired by everything I was playing because I was just playing everything and writing for the country market. There's a lot of kinds of songs that I wanted to write that just don't pay off in the room on piano, Like I can't write a song to pitch to Luke Brian most of the time. Writing on piano, you can't write a lot of the same fields. It would just sound like bad Billy Joel you know, it

would just sound like terrible Elton John. You know. I just didn't sound like anything anyone would ever cut, and it wasn't inspiring. So I just kind of gave that up. So you got your first publishing girls, which means they start paying you'd write songs. Yeah, So what was your first bit of success, meaning who was the first one to ever put a song on hold and go oh, even if you didn't get it where you kind of got a little bit excited. I don't remember the like

a substantial hold, but I remember. Are you familiar with

Josh Kelly Charles Brother not country but kind of Americana acoustic. Yeah, And at the time all I knew of him was that he had been a pop artist and was coming to Nashville and um was making a country record and he I wrote a song with him that was going to be his first single, and it was going to be my first time to hear something that I had written on the radio, and the last minute they changed their mind and went with another song, and it kind of struggled, and then I think they kind of like

used all their bullets per se on that song, and then then they put ours out and it just like died at fifty, which is such a rite of passage for every songwriter. Do you all dream of getting, you know, your first single, because in your mind you think if I get a single, I get a hit. Well those two very different things. So you get the single and then it fails, and then you go, okay, now my new goal is to have a hit. So you get a song with Josh Kelly. Yes, no real success, but

it is at least a song. You probably heard it on the radio a couple times. It's gonna be cool, right, Yeah, that was cool? Okay, So then what was your first song where you finally got to actually be okay, this thing has a shot. Was we were us, Wow, that's a that was a monster, Like that was your first real one and it was that big. I had a song on the song that always feels like my career

kind of like it happened after this. Go ahead, you can talk I keep it low so we can talk over what was this song the Lady Annabelle Um cut of mine called it Ain't Pretty? I had that one right here here, so you thought this one myself fall it ain't pretty. It ain't pretty a heartbreak. So this was a cut before we were us. This was a

cut before we rest. This was a song that It's funny because, like my publisher always says, you know, songsid different purposes, Nicole, and we all as writers, all we think is songs need to be hits or else we're not gonna have a job. But this song had a different purpose, which was to just make other people aware of me as a writer. And a lot of people wrote with me because they were like, who wrote that? I wrote this with Eric Pasley, one of my one

of my best friends in the whole world. Everyone knew Eric, but then they were like, this is a female song. Who's the missing who's the new variable in this song? And so that that's that's how Shane mcinally became aware of me was he heard me play this at a Lady in a Bellum event and was like, you don't know me, but I can't believe that song. And so now we're like great friends. So so this was the first cut you It wasn't the first cut, but it was like the first legit thing like this night record

was that on Golden So just god. So people hear this and start to go, hey, listen to the record, love that song? Who wrote it? And that's how they started track down like the new new sound songwriters. I mean, I guess at least within our writing community, it was, Oh, it's so funny because it's like getting a cut like that is like when one artist validates you and says your song is worthy of my project, so many other

artists feel more confident in cutting your songs. And I think, and you know, I just did an event with Lady a couple of weeks ago and I played that song and I was like, no one ever heard this song, But this song actually changed everything for me, um because it made other artists go, oh, what else are you writing? And you know, you have to see the long game. When you do what we do, you can't get can't

put put all your eggs in any song's basket. You know, it just has to be like, well, if that was what that song's purpose was, then I have peace with that and write another one. I was wondering because I have a lot of songwriter friends and there you write a song and it takes forever for for it to come to fruition. So when you write the song, you don't go, well, we'll see that one next week or in a month. You kind of just write a bunch of songs and then just let them go about their day.

You can almost forget about them, and you just keep writing. And then eventually after time somebody go come back and go, oh, over that song you wrote three months ago. This one's kind of been play. Is that somewhat right? Yeah, I mean, I think about it. My husband is used to be

a farmer. He's a writer too, but I always use like the farming metaphor of like every day we just plant seeds and like then you look back and you like have this whole field of songs, and some of them grow and some of them don't, and you know, some of them you really have to like work hard for another. You know, they just kind of do their own thing. They have this they have a whole life

of their own beyond what happens in the room. And that's like the most intriguing part of the business to me is like how certain songs go all the way around the world to get cut. You know, it's really humbling, honestly, because you go, I could have never orchestrated that. I could have never been smart enough or made that happen on a business front. That just happened on its own. That's really cool to watch. Talking about wag Walker for

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one over time, but it's really great. Okay, so how about this. Let's talk about we were Us. This was a monster. I mean, I don't think of songs in the past five years this, I mean, this is one of the bigger ones. So was it written as a duet? It was? There was another artist that we um had. I don't know. I never feel right saying who it is. Everybody always says you don't have to, but everybody always says,

don't feel like you have to. There was another artist that there was just like a rumor that they were looking for a feature. It was a female artist and looking for a feature. And it was, to be quite honest, not as massive like not as you know at the time, that artist didn't have you know, hadn't had a song on the radio and years. Not a feature. What what

do you mean? Not a feature? So Keith had the song already and they wanted to know it was written as a female song to feature a guy it and then um one of the one of my co I wrote this song with Jimmy Robins and John Knight, and one of my co writers, Jimmy Robbins his he was actually published by Keith, so Keith was getting to hear what he was writing before, but before anyone else ever heard it. So he heard it and then it never really actually made it to that other artist. So Keith

was like, I'll take it. Actually, that's not true. He said, oh my god, I have to have that song. In the meantime, we had already sent it off to the other artists camp and they came back and we're freaking out like, oh my gosh, we have to have this song, and we're like, I'm so sorry you can't now because Keith wants it. And that's always like a really that's what you dream of those situations as a writer, but it, you know, it kind of stunk. Did you have to

have the conversation? Did you know the other artist well enough for I did eventually, Like I don't think I was. All of us were connected to this, to this girl, and we all love her and adore her. Um, but how could we tell Keith no it was his? He had technically owned the song, and are you kidding me? Like, are you freaking kidding me? Why would we ever tell him? No? Ever, Keith wants the song, gets the song, and then how

does Miranda get on it? I don't remember. I feel like, there for a minute, there were other possibly like and he might remember I mean, he would obviously remember this better than I would because and I'm even hesitant to say, because all the information we get as songwriters is so third, fourth, fifth hand that who even knows? I mean, but I know there were other names that were thrown out in the process that we were told. Now whether they were

like every legit in the running. I don't know, but I actually, um, I actually remember writing the day that we wrote Automatic with Miranda. She was like, I sang the vocal on that song? What's going on with that song? And I was like, I don't know, you know, we don't know anything. We're just is that the first time you heard that she had sang the vocal on it? What she told you that? Um? I think she I knew that she had done the vocal, but it had been a minute, And in my mind, I'm like, like,

no news is not always good news. You know, you want momentum, you want excitement, you want feedback, and I hadn't heard anything, and so I was like, oh, maybe it didn't work. I don't know. Even Randon didn't know. It sounds like like I sang the vocal. What's happening with that? So she didn't even know at that point. Because and I can tell you like, I'm I'm pretty close to Keith and like, I know things he's cut right now with the other arts, and I know the

other artists. I'm like, you know what, I don't know where It's kind of the same weird thing you would think everybody would be in on it, but it's really

everybody really not well. I think it's I think it's cool because they are like you're I mean, I would think I'm not an artist per se, but I would think that you would want to be precious because information is I would say, like as songwriter is like information is currency, you know, like knowing all the songs that everyone's cut for their project, that you know that or who's looking for water. I mean, you'd be surprised just

being close in proximity to an artist. What a heads up for you know, what a cut in line, I would say that is and getting cuts because you just take for granted that knowing the other things that are involved in the project really helps you. And so I think artists are they're smart, and that they're protectv of the information that surrounds their projects so that they can keep them precious. So tell me. Then you hear the song, it's Keith, it's Miranda, you know now it's Miranda and

Carrie and then everybody else. So you get the biggest I mean, you got Keith Urban and the basically the biggest female country artist on the same song that you wrote. I mean, are you like okay, this is it? Like, yeah, that's in my mind. How could it not be right? No, I did, and I and I I would think that just by who was singing it. But then when I heard it, I was so blown away by the production on it, and they suppose sing their butts off. I

was like, Wow, that sounds amazing. I still when it comes on I still, I'm like, oh my god, that sounds so good. When do you get to hear it for the first time after it's all the way down in master sometimes like when it gets released iTunes, I mean wow. That to me, certain artists will have like a listening party or like um, hey, come out to my house and or come to come by a studio and we'll listen to the record. All the writers get to come, but you know, or if you're friends with

the artists, they'll play something for you. But a lot of times it's not until it comes out of ice. That's crazy to me. We don't find out a lot of times if our song even made the record until the track listing goes up on iTunes. You know, we're just sitting there going, well, I got three cuts, but I have they recorded three of my songs. But I don't even know if I should tell my mom. She'll start asking me about it every day, and I don't want to let her down if they don't make it,

or I don't want you know, I don't know. So so when what single was this off that record? It was second? I think, did you know it wasn't going to be the first single because it was a duet? Maybe it's it's kind of weird to release to do it as the first single. Well, we I feel like

you're always told you have the first single. It always feels like when people get excited about a song of course, and our or you know, artists, I feel like someone along and maybe it's just a co writer wishfully thinking, but like I think this could be the first single. But I know those words I said that the and around I don't remember. That was like two babies ago, literally literally, so we were us hits. It's a smash and that changed the whole game for you, right, like

even lifestyle like you can buy more food now. Well, I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm married to another songwriter who has much more success than I've ever dreamed about having. Well, I dream about having it now, but you can say I know who

it is. Well, I'm married to Rodney Clawson, um, and so technically i'm Nicole Clawson, but I'm Nicole guy In by day, and and so my motivation for you know, I'm not technically the breadwinner in the house as a writer, which is honestly such a gift as a creative because I feel like, like not, I don't have to. I can create out of a more pure place. I can write what I love, I can write what I would

want to hear. And I'm I can actually strike out more times and swing for the fences because I'm not trying. It's not a utility bill to me. It's a passion. And I want to tell stories and I want to make sure that the art is right and that the artist gets to say what they want to say. And it's so free to get them, very very blessed and lucky to be in that position. So not for me, it wasn't ever about the money. I don't think that, do you. What's the dynamic with you and your husband

when you write? Did you ever write together? So this year we've been married ten years? Wow? Um, we when we got engaged, we made a very very deliberate decision to not write together. Um. We had written, we tried to write a couple of times, UM, and it just it wasn't like we don't fight, but when we wrote, it was like the most tints that we ever were with each other. And the things that we wrote were not special. So we were like, we don't need to

do that and on. And also he was very sweet and saying, I don't want anybody to think that you need me, because I know you don't. I know that you're awesome writer. And I had just signed a publishing dope not too long before that. So he's like, I just want to give you the gift of your own lane, and I wanted. I'm very independent, and I was like, I want my own lane. And so we didn't write for nine and a half years and we just started writing about six months ago and we wrote two songs.

Are you nervous the first time you going to write together? I was nervous. Um. I had felt it like a stirring for about a year, like I think we're going to do something together and I don't. And I was actually booked to write with them, with Ross Copperman and whoever the third person was like, had just like bailed on us, and Ross had been saying for a year, I want to be the first one to write with you and Rodney, and I think he I think it's a literal impression of Ross, by the way, I want

to be the first one. Oh my gosh. And so I was like he was like Rodney and I was like, well, I'll see and like and he showed up and the song actually got cut yeah, by a big artist, like I'm freaking out about. Okay, So it's still not out yet, it's not out, um, but it's it's like an artist that I could have never dreamed to have Blake No, mm hmm, Prince, No, it's in our mar but anyway, So yeah, so we're we're starting to join forces a

little bit now. So let's talk about this one here and you can tell me if this urban legend is true or not. So you wrote automatic here even bigger, even bigger than than we were up. He wrote this with Natalie right Natalie him anybody and right now? And did you and Natalie meet on an airplane? So the story is dead? Who is were you scared to fly? Was she scared? Scared? Natalie scared to fly, and so you sat beside her and comfort did her. Well, I had just met her. I was just meeting her basically

for the first time. I didn't even know. I had never heard her sing, had never heard a song she had written when we met. So I was she was just a girl on a plane to me. And did you know she was a songwriter? Though? Yeah, Actually Rodney had told me she's she used to like be in town and then she went to l A and now she's back. She's an incredible writer. And I was like, oh, cool, you know, really cool. I don't know what she's doing now. But so we just started talking and we just became

fast friends. But we didn't we were friends first, um, and you know, and she had success like shortly thereafter she had some Miranda songs and and I didn't, and we just kind of didn't write for a really really long time. And then, um, just a few years. I guess it's probably like four years ago we were we Um. I had met ray Lynn and said I didn't have this girl that I think that you would really appreciate,

and so we wrote. I was like, well, you write with her, and and so the three of me Natalie wrote a song called Golden Girls with Raylan, and we came out of that right and Natalie and I were like, oh my god, we have to write more. Like there's something that's happening. Obviously Raylan and I have our thing, but like me and Natalie were like, oh my god, we have to write more. We went on to write five songs that you're total together, and all five of

them were on Miranda's record. Yeah. So there was like this little magic, this lightning in a bottle moment for us as friends and co writers that year. But even since then, I mean, that's just somebody that like we'll be We'll be there when the other one dies, you know. So tell me about this song, Automatic like, where were you? Well? I, Um, I think i'd were we when we wrote it? So, um, we wrote this song in Miranda's at the time, Random

Blake's condo in Nashville. Um. I had never written with Miranda before the only way that she knew of me was because um, of songs that I was writing with ray and Raylan was playing them from Miranda. Miranda is like, well, I know that you're kind of a new songwriter. Who are you writing these with? And so that's how she

became kind of prippy to what I was doing. And then Natalie, I had our thing kind of going already, so I got pulled into write literally like a month after I just had a baby and I wasn't writing, like I swore I was going to take all this time off, and we were us hadn't come out on the radio yet, so I hadn't had a hit, and I was getting the opportunity to write with Miranda Lambert, which is any songwriters like a list of co writes, but especially for a female writer, because there's just things

that you can say with Miranda that you for a Miranda project, that you could say nowhere else in town, especially at the time. You know, now we have other females that have really like gone there in their own way, but at the time, she was just she was like the dream co write. So I was obviously nervous and hired and had any born baby, and we walked in and we started talking about girls moving to Nashville wanting

to get record deals. They've lived here for six minutes and they're like, why don't have a record deal yet? We don't have a record do it yet? And and you know, Miranda was kind of pouring her heart out, like don't they understand, like I've played a hundred and fifty shows in the back of a van with a bunch of smelling guys for this many years before anything ever happened from me. And then we kind of started sharing our stories and that's kind of where the this

song started to get written. But the night before, Natalie and I see like for a rite like that, Natalie and I would like, that's like a really big day, and Miranda's time still precious, Like we would have normally sat down and started three or four choruses or just something to just to come in really prepared, because these artists don't have very much time, you know, they have like a couple of hours and you gotta just like

make the most of it and be ready. But her I just had a newborn baby, and she her daughter got sick or something, and so we were like on the phone at midnight the night before just like throwing out titles and concepts and um, we had the title automatic, but it was going to be a love song, like nothing about us and our love like came automatic, Like

we've had to work for whatever it is. That we this love that we have, and when that conversation started happening, the whole thing shifted to then a story that Miranda told about Patty Loveless telling her about all these artists in the nineties taking like quarters in the bag when they were on their tour bus when they were on tour because they would pull the tour bus over and have to do all their radio phoners from payphones, and they always had all these quarters with them, which is

something I would never even think happened, but of course it had happened that way, and so that's where recorder and payphone came from, which is the first line of the song, and then it just kind of wrote itself from there. The night before you write with Miranda, let's aside from you talking to Natalie even the week before. Is it like, I mean, I'm I'm a little nervous about this. It's crazy, it's freaking ran the Lambert like you do. You don't want to go on to look

at a chomp Like is there that added pressure? Oh? For sure, I mean I would feel nervous going to write with Miranda tomorrow. I would feel pressure tomorrow. And this is like four or five years after that word. Now I've had I get to write with all the artists that I could ever dream of now, you know, but at that time that that was like a once in a lifetime for me. I'm like, this is like, we either get a good song or she's never written

with me again. That's what I think. Now I'm not saying she's like that, but that's what how I take it. I gotta like deliver something, and so this song cleaned up. This is the biggest song that's not for me. That's one of the biggest songs. Again, you have two anthems here, but oddly ones we all have Rando in them. Yeah, is it still fun to hear? Like? Is it cool to hear? Like? Still? Like it still makes you feel something and it's not numb because you've heard it so

many times? No, I am A lot of songwriters are really jaded, and a lot of them like they can never they get caught up and then what's the next thing I'm going to do all the time and they can't even enjoy where they are. Like, I'm actually one of the most nostalgic people that I know, and I

like it's fun. No, it's and I don't think it's like a coincidence that both of those songs are looking back songs, because that's like my heart and anytime something awesome, like when I hear that I'm seventeen and I'm like, oh my god, like a girl in my hometown is listening to this song right now, I can't. Just like that's how I process it. I mean, I I don't know. I still feel like I'm seventeen. I don't know how

I got here. That's how that's my perspective. It doesn't matter how old I get or how many opportunities I get. I'm just like, how did this happen to me? You know? And I'm not like the biggest songwriter in town by any stretch of the imagination, but I just can't. I'm always in awe every time it comes on. So I want to play this one here. I played this one Where's Raylan Love Triangle, And I've said something here. I

felt like this song got jobs. I feel like this song got and if it had been a dude singing it, it's a number one song, Like really, I there'd have been this has been a dude singing this song, it's a number one Sonny, I've never even thought about it as a never considered that as a guy like that that would even be an option. Two things. One, it's it's tougher for women right now because labels stopped building the farm system first of all, when it was all

dudes all the time. They stop even cultivating from the bottom of building females to even get to radio. So radio is kind of waiting on the minor leagues to give us these artists. But record I was just stopped making females a priority. So here we are again and radio struggling to find these females to put on, and it's harder and harder to find them. And ballads are hard because everybody so a d D and if something

slow on the radio, like you research goes. If something slow, boom, they change it because it's like again, it's a female and it's a Baladi song. If it had been a male, it would have been it had been a hit because it's such a good song. And that's not even a

dig at ray Ln. It's the opposite. Raylan can sing her brains out and she sings it wonderfully, and I just felt like it was such a good song and I saw a couple weeks ago, whenever they stopped promoting, I was like, Oh, that sucks, because any other scenario you give it to a dude, and that's probably man.

I've never even thought, I guess I've just been so wrapped up in that as her that's her story, that I never thought of it as a song that from even a pitching standpoint of who could sing it and and what would it be if someone else did it? And to me, it wasn't even a pitching thing. It was just that so good. I think that people and I get I'm on the radio, but I'm still so anti the establishment of radio that I think you have a lot of program directors that are like, well, it's

slow and it's female. It's got two strikes against it already, so as soon as there's a bomb, we're gonna go ahead and pull out of it. What's so crazy, though, is like those are the songs that, when they do get through, they are song of the year. They're the songs that are industry puts on a pedestal in such a highway. So it's it's like you've got to swing for the fences occasionally, noting like not every day, am

I gonna be willing to write. I'm not gonna write a hundred songs a year about divorce and ballads for girls, you know. But when the song presents itself, you owe it to the idea, and you owe it to the artist and the to to make it the best that it can be, even if it doesn't make sense, for even if radio doesn't understand. Well, I just want to say I love the song. I always love the song.

I loved it from the first time I heard. I was like, holy cow, that song like speaks to people, you know, and I think a lot of people understand it, and I just felt happy for it whenever they quit on it. And it wasn't even their fault for quitting on it, because it was people wouldn't they weren't playing it, and it two strikes again, one strike could be in a ballot. I think it would have made it. The feedback that I had heard kind of through label people

and was interesting, was like certain markets. It was like one of the highest researching in Nashville. It was testing like great, like I can tell you here because I see I see all the research, right, I'm lucky enough to see national research in Nashville, it was one of the best songs that we had like to play, and then in other markets it was like the worst one

of the at the bottom of in the research. And I just that's always so like it makes my brain turn of like, what culturally is different between Nashville and San Diego? You know what I mean? Is it the real answer? At least my We all have different perspectives. And again, I have a radio show. I'm not in the programming of picking songs, but I'm involved and I get to see a lot of stuff and I get a champion artist, which is a fun thing for me.

But a lot of it is just the timing and what lucky group you get to do the research, Like really, that's it. There are songs. I give you an example either probably kill We were talking about this. My church tested terribly forever for many more terribly. We had to sit on it and continue to play, play, played, play, play as it tested horribly, just because we knew that you couldn't listen to that song and go this is

an amazing song. I remember sitting in a meeting because I have a wall here and and this is just a wall of people that I've been really close to everybody, from Eric who is one of my closest friends, to Keith to man. It's people that I would bring in before they've been record deals. And I was so I say this with full like the truth that like I

was a huge Marin fan. So I wanted to succeed as well, just personally and selfishly because I thought, and I think Marion is awesome, but I would this song was selling like crazy one and two. It was just an awesome song. And so sometimes ears are over brain whenever you're just seeing data and we just hung. I wish people would have just hung with this song. We just couldn't get enough people to hang because there was a fight. There really was a fight, Like this is

a song. We just couldn't get enough old middle aged white men to go. Let's keep playing it, okay, all the music, yeah, a k A. Every program to write. Some of them were some of them were fight But I just wanted you to know that because I'm on

the inside A fantastic thank you. I appreciate that information because I you know, I think that song like really helped um show the evolution, you know, like as I said earlier, like the purposes of songs that helps rebrand her, you know, and show her evolve into something new, and hopefully that will just be, if nothing else, a gateway into who she is now. You know, you wrote a lot with her on her last record, which is Wild Horse, Wild Horsey. Um, how many songs did? I had eight

songs on there? So you guys just sat and wrote Did you write purposely to write a record with her? No, it just happened. But it happened like three or four years ago. It happened around the time that I told you, like Miranda started hearing songs I was writing. We wrote all those songs I love Triangle. Those songs are four years old. We wrote like probably eight of her record, me and Jimmy Robbins and and Ray like and probably a nine month period. We just kind of had that.

There was like a season where we all just kind of clicked and and I think it started to feel like an album to us then. But we didn't know that it would be three or four years before she would get a real shot and and really get to put it out as is. And then we ended up co producing it. I don't know if you know that, but I actually got to co produce the record, which when was the last time a female ever got to

co produce anything. So I'm super proud of a lot of things beyond radio success with that with that project. For me, from my standpoint, how did you guys become friends? Because I was on the voice with her the same year? Really? Yeah? Just what season was that? Season? Two? Yeah? And well I left addle. There's a there are a lot of gaps in the story, which you know, which we've jumped around, but like if you heard it all chronologically, it would

make sense. But you know, I had had a publish deal for probably three or four or five years at that point, was having any success, and I kept getting feedback from like A and R at labels when they'd pitched my songs, they'd be like, Oh, that's in a cool song. That's in a cool song. And I was getting to be a better singer because I was singing every day and I had gotten the bravery to do it, you know, and and I was recording and this like

I got I was so late to the game. All these girls grew up making demos in the studio when they're twelve, and I was like learning it like twenty three. How to do this, and um, so I was kind of like, well, screw it, I'm not getting nobody's cutting my songs. Maybe I'm supposed to make a record and because and it. But it was never like I want to perform. I want to sing. I told my songs

out there. So I kind of was working with a manager for a minute, trying to get my house in order to approach labels, and then this manager sits me down and it's like, you're not an artist. You're never going to be an artist. You're going to be a successful songwriter, but you're not an artist. But through that process, people had started to brand me more as like a

girl that wanted a record deal. And so I got referred to try out for the voice and the ringer kind of that friends that have been ringers on this show. I have a bunch of friends that have been like they recruit said ringer. Yeah, well it was so early on it wasn't quite as strategic as it probably is now because it was so fresh the show that season was kind of just ending and they were like, well, the show is blowing up, like would you want to do this? And it was it was like the perfect

time to get to do it, you know. But I didn't make it very far. I didn't. I was only on a couple episodes. But I had actually written with ray this girl Rachel Woodward at the time two days before that audition, not the one that you see on TV, but like the audition to like to sing here in Nashville, like the preferred kind of thing. And and I met her and I was like, are you in town this week? Because at the time, she's like sixteen, And I was like,

are you in town by chance? Because you're trying out for the voice? And she's like no, And I was like, you have to do it. You are made for TV. Wait, so you convinced raight Lynn to the voice? And I met her before she was ray Lynn and told her to try it for the voice. We both ended up

trying out and made it it. And then I was kind of like like while we were on the show, um, she was a minor, and so like during production, like she always had to have a parent with her, and so like there would be days that like her mom flew out in the morning and then her dad didn't get there until the night. So production would call and say, hey, ray wants to go to the mall. We can't leave. What could she hang with you today? I was like her big sister slash mom, and so you know, and

we just I don't know. I just um to be honest, I think I was becoming like a mother. I think I was kind of getting the bug to be a mom myself. And she was like a little kid and so cuddly and just she just has this childlike thing about her. And I was like, I took her under my wing and we just had this bond. So when we came back from filming the show before it before it started airing on TV, I knew that she was like a front runner, and I knew that Blake and

Miranda had basically adopted her. And I was like, we need to write, Like you need to be writing right now because you need to have songs before you get a record deal and before like when you walk in you need to have as much to say before they tell you what say. So I was just writing with her, and that's where I was like, Hey, Natalie, I got this girl. So if you go back into my story, you take out the voice, everything is different from me.

I'm not saying I wouldn't have found some success eventually, but the voice has nothing to do with songwriting, and it literally is one of the most crucial parts of my story. It's still insane to me because the ray, because of Natalie, because of morn that Domino all the way through. Very odd because the voice was the butterfly in your butterfly effect. It was when I came back from that show, everything started clicking, even outside of the stuff that we've talked about, Like, I was like a

different writer. It's so weird. How far did you get? I had lost in the battle rounds? Do you have to get in the boxing ring and saying it's somebody, Yeah, that's the battle round thing. I don't. I don't have seen a bunch of the voice, but I have friends that this is a funny side voice, that side side thing on the voice that had their own part of the show, right, and they were they were like, hey, and I won't say who it is, but um they said.

They were given the option of do you want to own part of the TV show or do you want to own the contracts of the artists that come after the show as they go and uh, you know, pursue music careers, And they chose the artists. Man, I know, that's the same thing they did. They were like, what a terrible decision. They were like, we made the worst

decision ever. They said, we could have taken the chairs, and this is no slight ca Cassidy or or Ray or any of these girls who later It took a minute, but they were like, we could toward the chairs, and they would have toward better because even I don't because even Idol was losing their star power. It was becoming more of a TV show than it was let's produce somebody that America is going to consume. It's more of

a TV show. So um, they don't have the infrastructure and they never have on that show to do to work with artists. They've never had a label involved, like you know, like they have had labels involved, but it hasn't been in house like the infrastructure on Idol is there. They it's like a similar line. They know what to do, you know. There the voice feels so much more TV, but yet it also feels a lot more from my taste, a lot more authentic to an artist than maybe being

on an Idol. Maybe I'm going to hate myself for saying that tomorrow, but I have friends have been on both, and I think the two of them and they I think they both say the same thing. I can only say that from experience the short time that I was there, where I felt like I was treated like an artist, not a contestant on a game show, whereas I think a lot of people that are on reality TV shows sometimes come away feeling like I'm not even a person, I'm just like a casting here. They lock you away

for a long time. No, no, oh, they do now, they lock you away for a long time. Well, maybe they do if you win, but I was like, free and clear. They lock you away now, like I have a buddy, even if you don't do well, and they lock away before the traven starts if you're one of the select. Because I have a friend, a guy friend who ended up being in the top fine like being and even before he went on the show, they put him a hotel for months before the show even started.

And so but again, it's become bigger, it's become more of a thing. Who knows she's a one two? Season three? If it's really going to become a thing, who did you lose to in the battle on do you remember this girl? Named this really sweet girl who was in She was the nursing student from such and such Mattai. Her name was Mattie and she was precious. And what do you sing? We sang um Sarah Barella's love song, which when I was given that song because I was

on team Adam, Um, why did you? I didn't choose he chose me and he was the only person that his chair is only one that turned for you? Adam was, yeah, were you disappointed that Blake's chair didn't turn? Or were you just looking for any chair to turn? I can you cuss on the ship? I was so scared shitless to do it that I was like, I was doing that just I said yes, I would go to this first tryout so that I could have peace that I wasn't supposed to do it, because that's how I am.

I'm could just just say yes, and it's worked for me long term. When I really look back, I'm willing to go fail at a bunch of things. It's okay, that doesn't affect me. So I was willing to go try this thing that scared me so much, but I kept making it and they made me like so I was like, oh God, now I'm singing for Oh God, now I'm singing for Carson. Oh I'm getting really close. Now I gotta really do this. Now, I've like signed paperwork. So when I went out, I was like, I just

have to get through it. That was my thing. I can't cry, like like honestly, I was so scared. I hate performing. That's another reason I'm never going to be an artist, or was never gonna be. And I don't think that I'm a great live singer. I think that, yeah, And I had just come off that manager telling me I wasn't gonna be an artist, and probably for that reason because I'm not good at performing live with a

band and stuff. So having to go out on live TV in my mind and my weird sick minds like, well, that's no better way to figure out if you got what it takes, and I go do it on national television. But I never thought I would make it. I still never thought i'd do it. I mean, so when he hit the button, I think I came back from that whole experience because he hit the button as like, oh my god, if that can happen, anything can happen. That goes to show how little faith I had that I

would actually make the show. So when I made the show, I was like, I can totally write songs. It's while that that turned into writing automatic, because can we look back at a lot of things in our life and how we got here, like you going okay and then telling her she should go on the show, and then you two writing together, and then the next thing, you know this, that's such a magical, such a magical chapter in my life. When I looked back on it, it's

really humbling. Because do you think that any anybody's smart enough to try to write their own story like that? I think it's kind of impossible to do to write your own story. Okay, okay, let me talk about this because I think you're on the verge of another one here, this song that you wrote for Lee Bryce Boy, So tell me about soon. Did you write this with? I wrote this with John Knight, who also write We Arrest with just You're gonna dry the kids parts rob way

too fast. You're gonna drop the ball, get the all and pring some hard to that class. I know you will. Did. You're a part of me and a part of you who will always be boy. So tell me about this one here? Because it's this right now, this is a big buy song. It's like, yeah, it is, well it is in my world, but that's just because I'm my cousins are calling me about it. I mean I don't know. Um uh. Last song I wrote before I had my son, when did you know it was going to be a son?

So I knew I was having a boy. Um, And I was writing with John Night that day is my last day on the books. I was not thirty nine weeks pregnant. I was huge, and I had like I kept throwing out ideas and John was like, no, that's not I don't like that at no, no, no, and he was like, you know what, I think. He was kind of like, Nicole doesn't really have any good ideas today.

You know what, we should just do no pressure. We should just write a song for your son, like because John has a son at the time, he had a two year old son, and and so we just wrote that. I mean we both were bawling. And then the craziest part of the whole thing to me, but that song is two weeks later the A c M s were on. I had my son like a week later, ten days later,

four days after I had my son. We win Song of the Year at the a c M S for Automatic and I can't be there to win Song of the Year because I had just had this boy, and so now it's like I hate to even say it out loud, but everyone's like texting me going like, so yeah, a song of your material and I'm like, how I'm only going to say because I want to put it out in the universe, but like, how amazing would it be to be nominated for Song of the Year and

like get to take my sons my date. The guy that kept me from you know, because that that year at the SAMs was like a Texas when it was like the Guinness's million people there anniversary doesn't get it. You can't think, You can't dream of the bigger moment for a songwriter. And I wasn't there, you know, because of my son. So this is like my this is

my like come back. Well, congratulations on that song, because right now it's the song that everybody's tweeting and talking about and texting about it, and you know how it's who knows, there's no it could do love Triangle. You know. If Lee Bray sang love Triangle, that's a hit man, I know, and again not slightly toward Raylan at all. It's just tough to be a female and have a ballot. It won't be. It's better than it was a year ago, and in a year it's going to be even better

than it is now. But there just is no farm system. There is now starting to come back with female talent because they just abandoned it. They were just like, you know what, this is what was paying the bills right now, Let's just have more sounds like this. Yes, and it's nobody's fault. When somebody does something successful, everybody wants to replicate it, and they also want to have success and make money bottom line quarter a quarter, a quarter, um so.

But yes, I think it's just such a love trying out such a good song. I hated seeing that one. Go let me see what other do I like? What are the songs do I like here? That? Ever? First of all Halloween from Walker, which we talked about earlier. Like, I'll just brag on him as much as we can. I can't brag on him anymore. We've been on the road together five months after I listened to that his record more than any other record last year period, but

I can't. Whenever it was like, hey, you should have you, I was like, I know her from something other than I couldn't remember what it was, but it was having the song and seeing your name scrolling across the screen

so many times when I'm listening to so flatter. When he kept me on it and he said he's gonna put it up, I mean, and I know he hasn't like put out his record record yet, and I'm sure they're going to find somebody amazing, but and I'm excited about up, but like, there's just something magical about that little demo to me. It's a demo, I mean, yeah, I mean it's a it's a shot shot song. Yeah, it's such a like there's an Australian girl that that I know well. And she opened and then Walker's the

feature music performer. Then I do stand up for an hour. We just finished Walker did where Carly Pearce is going to do it for now for the next four months. But Walker has been the guy and so I remember the first day the tore Walker asks Nikita Carmen, who's an Australian singer songwriter. He goes, hey, um, I do a song called Halloween do you show? I know every word of it? And I was like, wow, you know what,

Like there, Walker's awesome. This song is awesome. So he had that idea, that concept sessed out way a lot of it sessed out when I walked down that day. I mean, he's just I would love to see what his brain looks like. Yeah, it's crazy how it works. Here's a funny, embarrassing story and a humble bragg At the same time, Walker and I were in Which Tall We did two shows at the or film in which it talks. We did two nights, and so I text

him because we were gonna write on that Saturday. We got into Friday night, and so we had all day Saturday in the same town. And rarely do we need two shows in the same place, but it's we told at theater both nights. So we were like, we just stayed. So I sent him to Texas, Hey, do you still want to write? And get a message back? And then I finally got a message back It's like yeah when and I was like, this is why would Walker say win?

We're like four hotel rooms down from each other. And so I look and actually texted Clay Walker not Walker has and then and then, and to me, I kind of nerd out Clay Walker because when I was a kid, that's what I listened to on the radio, nineties Country is Life. Yes, And so I was like, Clay, sorry, dude, I'm in Kansas with a Walker. We were gonna write today, And so I text Walker and I was like, every that was kind of embarrassing, but still who gets who

has Walker's and Clay Walker on their phones? And like it's a pretty cool life. No, I was gonna say, that's an awesome story that you should never forget. It's a pretty cool alive And so now yeah, it's it's cool and Walker's Yeah, whatever, we can talk about Walker forever. I want to play some more stuff here. Um, how about Because I'm just big fans of some of these people.

For example, one of the first ever one of these that I did, when I start talking about songwriters, even before Ryan Heard had his project out, I was like, Ryan, you have to come up because I'm just a fan of Ryan as a person and I love his songwriting and now I love his music that he's put out. But you guys will hold you back, Yeah a little bit. I don't know. Him that well, we actually just wrote the other day. It's like probably the first time we had written since we wrote that song. Um, he is

so talented. He's one with the university is he is. It's such a It's always whiplash for me because I go from like my domestic mom world and then I walk in. I'm like, here's a rock star. You know. He just has that presence about it. It's like, hey, it's so cool. Yeah, we get you, kiss you good back. Someone a band that I've been fronts with for a long time, back when I lived in Texas and before they kind of did the Nashville thing was Mike Eli

Eli Young Best. You guys throw this one saltwater gospel, so good about that song would be better? You know, those guys have a It's a weird thing for Texas artists. And I can tell you firsthand because I still live in Texas part tim like I live in Austin's. I love Austin, like God, no better place. I got lucky that Austin and Nashville the two cities that I get

to live and working like they're the best. And so with the Texas artist here's the weird thing, like any Texas artists that tries for mainstream success gets screamed abt sell out, sell out, so that there's like this weird thing where they and I'm talking about Eli Young band specifically, but where they have to like cater back to the Texas country while going I'm not a sell loud, I'm still doing all the same red dirt stuff, and it

does impair them a bit. It's um, I mean, I'm not from Texas, but growing up in Kansas, all those Texas bands when I was in high school, that's what

all my that's what all my friends listened to. The Pat Green and the Jason Bullan Cross Canadian Red like ccr A. I mean, there's so many of them, and I I kind of got to know Pat a little bit after I moved here, like and then I was like I was totally you know, seventeen again, like fan fan, growing out and just watching that happened with Wave on Wave and like what that did for him and didn't do for him, you know, it just it helped him

and hurt him at the same time. I remember what happening because Pat Green was Texas still and he is and he still is, and we just have pat On the radio show Texas all the time, and I was doing Tough for You at time, but I would have pad On and you know Eli Young and Dirk's. I was a country fan and I would put these country artists on a national syndicated pop shure. That's why ended up be doing country because it was just better for me.

But when wave on wave of hit, everyone's like, oh, what a sell out, and it's like, no, what a sell out me? And you get to put more music out for more people. I feel bad for guys like Granger because here's Granger, the best guy, just just a phenomenal guy, still lives in Texas, and people like, oh, he's sell out. He's got a record deal. We got a record deal. It's not selling out. If you want to have a nicer life, you can still remain true, like I will always be an Arkansas razorback like in

my blood. But you know I live in Nashville right now. That does mean I'm not an Arkansas razorback. You can bother. That part really bothers me because I love Texas and I love the people, and I have so many friends that do Texas country, but they there's an alienation at times where it's like some some of the artists like, well, if you like the natural artist, then you're not one of us. And it's why some of the arts do only want tor in Texas because they feel like everybody

hates them. It's weird. Yeah, it's like two steps forward, one step back, or even one step forward two steps back on that stuff. So guys like Eli young Man make it. You're like, man, that's awesome because then they got there, they kept kept their Texas, got their Nashville, and I thought it would do it too, But they just have this two sides that are just pulling from both directions where I kind of felt bad for them.

So I agree with that. I love the song would do better too that, but again I can't predict it. So let's see, let's see, let's see, let's see. Let me do one more. How about I think it's don gonna take a home hear? How'd you get in the lady a camp because of it ain't pretty? Um probably I don't actually remember. Actually, oh so my publisher. They were published by the same publisher that I was, um years ago. I've been at Warner Chapel the whole time.

But they they were there and then they left. Now they're back. Um, but they kind of pitched a lot of my songs because we're all in the family together, and that's how it Ain't Pretty happened. But now I'm like super good friends with all of them, like family friends, Like they come over to our house for Halloween and our kids play that kind of thing. Um. In fact, when I play Heartbreak in my car, like my daughter's like, oh you wrote that with Easley's mommy. You know. It's

that's my dynamic with them now. Um. And what's interesting is I thought it Ain't Pretty was going to be

my first big hit, and it wasn't. And then right after that he asked about like the dynamic between Rodney and I. Rodney went out and wrote with them for the first time and wrote Bartender and he got The Big Lady a single, and um, I remember thinking, damn, if I'm not gonna get it, then I guess I guess I want you to get it, you know, like that's my consolation prizes again, as all the Dodts are connecting,

you and Eric wrote it Ain't Pretty. Eric wrote Friday Night, which was on their record, which they did not cut as a single, and Eric said, hey, you might if I have it back, got it back cut it went number one. I mean, the whole world was weird and crazy and awesome and awful and amazing and terrible and you just never know. Son, It's all a long game, you know. You can't, like I said, you can't get one little disappointment dictate anything about your future. You just

have to keep moving and keep writing more. Who'd you write with today? Do? Right? Today? Today? I wrote with Um Josh Kerr and Cassie Ashton. Cassie's this Girl that's on signed to Bethan Luke Laird's company, Creative Nation. We wrote a song called Wedding Cake and that girl is so much fun. Really, I know josh ka really well. Yeah, well he played guitar on the road with this for a long time and I'm on Black River. Oh yeah

that's right. So yeah, so we wrote, we wrote, and then Cassie left, and then this other amazing artist named Emily Wiseman came in and we had to tweak another song UM that we had written with. So Emily's his girlfriend right now? Yeah, I was like another amazing artist, like the Emily's girlfriend. Everybody knows that. I guess. Oh yeah, yeah, it's out there. Yeah, oh yeah, I mean their Instagram shows it. By the way, you don't have Twitter, which is weird. Why how can you look don't I would

get news in no other way. I don't know. I think I just um, I think it was a minute when I had a like, had a log in issue for some reason. Quit and I was just like, you know what, I love Instagram so much, and I love taking pictures like like I was the yearbook editor, loved taking pictures like I could care I carry a camera all the time, you know. Um, So that was just a good cleaning of the closet. On that one. I was just like, yeah, go away. I just didn't have

enough time for it. Well, I appreciate you coming by, thanks for having me. My mom's going to think that I'm I've so made it. Now. Does your mom get to hear the show where she lives my radio show, Yes, because that's one of my favorite places to go in the whole world. Which saw that's what we just sent to. I mean, I'm telling you it is degree. Oh. My show would not be nationally syndicated without which Dock Kansas,

Well probably my mom. My mom's probably just probably has going on twenty seven radio, you know, devices in the house at the same time. And when you say Hutchinson, like I know the area because I guess twelve years or so ago I went and not that you even care about since it is your hometown. I'll tell you. I went and begged a station on which put my show on, and I paid for everything, Like I was like, I have this new technology I just bought trying to

figure it out. I'll pay for everything. All the phone lines all don't pay me anything. And the very first station to ever pick up my show on syndication was Whichtock, Kansas. And every year I go back to three sometimes four times, which I just did two nights at the Oar film there, and then I'm going back to play My band is the Raging Gas. Were playing at festival with Granger in like three weeks. Like I can't get enough at that place,

and for some reason they keep having me back. I love it there, Well, I love you for loving it. We're actually building a house there, so I'll come and eat dinner. I do cook, yeah, yeah, I cook like a Midwestern though, so you cook chicken friedes well not fried that feels more Southern, but just like steak and potatoes, like meat patoes all day long. Well, I appreciate you coming by. Everybody was like, you have to have our

She's amazing. You've got no bad reviews and everybody gets at least one bad review, right, Mike, Yeah, everybody gets at least one bad review on your yelp was amazing. It was spotless. Yeah it was, Yeah, it was. It was basically the Chipotle of songwriters. Like had liked it on the news, I'd be like, oh there's food pointing and Chipotle, Chipotle, Chippole, I need Chipotle, like it worked like that. Well, thank you so much for having me.

Congratulations on just Man. You got some big songs and I think, yes, you got some comment this boy from Lee Bryce, Like I think in a year we look back at this, we're gonna we're talking about when boy just was at least so Elsten And I'm not the jinks. I've said too many things that I went right, I'm not the drinks, I Mike, I've actually they're yeah yeah, yeah, um, well, thank you for coming buy. We really appreciating all right, and that's a rap. What episode is Mike one and

thanks to our sponsor. Oh that I'm telling you that you have a dog, you have kids, have kids? Did you have a dog? This Wagwalker is the greatest app. It's not they're not paying me right now, Okay, like I'll do a freaking martial because it's so good. It's a dog walking service. It's app and you just get on your app and you go, heay, they can walk your kids. I don't know. So you hit it and you go when your dog walker and they're like thirty minutes hour they come and I have a lock and

they push the little code in. They get a lock, open door, take my dog out. They take pictures of the dog. It texts you while it's going. When it poops like dog poop, it's send you a text. It's amazing. Yeah, anyway for that that, I'm here. Do you know wherever you want? Yeah? Yeah, I'll let the story you. It's a story me. We're still on by the way, hut well good, that fits my brand. I'm only a total instant. All right, We're gonna go, Thank you and we'll see you next time. Our boy