9-6: Bobby Cast Ep. 6 (Charles Esten)

what everybody calls me. I mean when it maybe to watch twos line, it was always Chip, and on the show they said they chipped this, Chip that, and in fact they used that on the screen. But every other time you ever see me, my credit is Charles. But everybody's calling me Chip. People think I somehow moved to Nashville and I'm Charles. Now. It was never that. It wasn't. This is Mike. By the way, a producer, Hey Mike, I'm Charles called me Charles. Sorry. You had to walk

through the war zone to get here. The flood has caused this place to be a disaster. No, it was. It was very interesting. It was like back at this alley, up through there and downstair. That felt very magical. When I finally arrived at it's like you've walked through the d dark woods then finally it opens. So let's start with today, and I want to make a full circle back all the way around to today. Okay, so let's start with today because now I think it's interesting what

you're doing. And so you're doing something now every single Friday, which means you put out a song every single Friday. It's like a single every single Friday. Now, So so talk about that for a second. So you decided why did you want to do this? Well, you know, I get to be on the show and I get to play a singer song, right exactly. Yeah, and that's what brought me here. But I was a singer songwriter long before I ever came here, long before I was an

actor either. And um, I just certainly the show gets to where you can meet a whole lot of people, and I've been able to write with a lot of

people and performing a whole lot of people. Some of these last four years, I've been not only writing music but actually recording it and ended up with a whole bunch of music that when I would go out to play shows, I would play a show fucus songs that nobody had ever heard and then when I was done, nobody could even go buy it, or if they liked it they had there was nothing they could really do. And so I always meant to put out an EP or an album, because you know, that's what you're supposed

to do. And finally I just I don't know what was holding me up. It was the very fact that I wasn't doing that. It was telling me something was wrong with that, that was rubbing against me and the wrong way. Certainly, some of it is is that it's not like there were all these labels, you know, O Line and dynam me or calling me or anything like that,

just that that's just the nature of it. I have this following in these people that love the show Nashville and love and come see my shows, um, but I didn't have that, and so it was like, well, am I gonna do this? And I don't know what made me think of it, but when I finally did, it was just like an aha moment of Yeah, the only reason I wouldn't do this is because nobody does it. And that's not a good enough reason because what I really really want is all these songs that I really

love and I love getting to go play. I just want them out there. I mean, if anything comes of it, that would be fantastic, but I'm not really chasing that per se. I want to say fantastic. I mean it would be unbelievably fantastic because I just wanted to get hurt. And for now, I know very well what the mistakes are about this. I know how you're stepping on your own single every single week and how long it takes for one to go. But this is really just inspiring

for me. It makes me want to write, It makes me want to record. If I can do this for a while, if I could do it in some insane way for a year and somehow a song every week for a year, if I could, I'm not Look, I'm not gonna go, oh I need a song. Oh this one sucks, but I need one. I'm not gonna do that. I mean, you might think it sucks, but I'll never put out one that I think sucks. They're always going to mean something to me. And that's the other thing is that I'm all over the map. I don't know

what the album would be everybody. I mean, it wouldn't be cohesive. There's no A and R department or no label saying this is the album and this song gets off it, and this song gets on it. I also don't think the albums are going to be a thing right in five years, Like they're not going to be a thing because nobody cares. Right frankly, nobody cares about records and people do buy them because they have artists.

And but you're saying, for example, Florida, Georgia Lina put out a record this week and I think it was number two Barbara Streis and beat it crazily like I was less. If people don't understand how big Barbara Streis it is and was and has sold over the years. So she's number one, their number two. Brittany's right there too. This album was like sixty thou less than the last album. And it's not because this album isn't any bigger or there any smaller. It's because people are consuming it the

same way they're not buying whole products anymore. We want the songs, one to three songs, maybe because we're not looking for the whole album anymore. You know, go make when when when I was growing up, it was always mixed tapes. I mean, yeah, they had albums and we all had the albums, but then you would take your albums and you would make mix tapes with the exact songs you wanted on it, or even if it was

the one artist. So I'm like, here's all these singles, go make your own albums out of my single I did on the radio, like I would hit a core pause play and then tone loqual come on and I would hit un paused and then record funky called Medina, and then I'll wait for that to go off, and then I would do I Touch Myself by the Divinyls and I would do that, and then I would do President and as I have there is the actual cassette tape. I bet you still have those tapes to I do.

I just put them all on a playlist, now do it. So I'm gonna play this is uh, this town is ours. Tell me about this song here? Well, this is actually a song I wrote with Chris Farren and Matthew West. Just wanted a song that says I like songs when

when you go play live, you probably notice yourself. When you play live, it makes you realize what you're set needs, what your show needs, um in, whether there's I need something tempo here I I just wanted a song to step out on stage and say we're here, you know, and and the first lines really speak to me. It's it's been a long time coming. It's been a hard road running. Now all that's done and all we want

to do is play. Is it less that people searching as Charles or Chip It's that's that's a very good point. You probably shouldn't given me a long time. IM gonna go it's all under Charles because wherever, wherever it's written, it's Charles. But if they if they, if they search chip est and I believe they do find it. Here we go. This town is ours. I'm gonna give me some of this night. Who everybody right left the good town? You said so tonight We're gonna go and tell it's

gone night, no doubt about it. You're friending in stuff. This town is so that's been part of every single Friday. Yeah, that's the most recent single. And um, I tell you, even listening to you play, even listening to you play my single is a whole different ball game than hearing you play something that Deacon sings on the area. That's me performing it. But I think this is getting to the real root of it as I was hearing that, because you're like, well, that's that's my baby, that's my child.

Some people are gonna like it. Some people aren't gonna like it. And by the way, the cool thing about is if you didn't like that, guess what in like three more days, there's another saying, So don't sweat it. But the cool thing about it is is that, um, even just having it out there UM is thrilling. I've been an actor for twenty five years, so that means for twenty five years, I go around, uh, saying what other people tell me to say, saying it in a

way another guy or directs me to say it. Somebody else edits. It's produces that they dressed me. They want to address me. I realized that it was tricky when coming here is like who am I? What do I have to say? What is? You know what I mean? And that's what music does, is you're trying to speak from your heart. So I think I'm pinballing around to

anything that comes through me right now. And I think after doing a whole bunch of this, I bet you that I know a whole lot more who I am and where my strengths are and what people are drawn to the most, and then maybe uh, you know, at some point it's I'll click into that a little bit more. But right now told me so. I can say from experience that listen, Chips are really nice. Guy like he he's one of the few guys that he is as

nice as he seems. We were walking through the airport and we've been together on a few occasions doing different things. And when people call you Deacon, that's just hey, it's great to see you. Thank you for It's weird that people have like hey, Deacon, and you're like, that's that's me. How are you? Let's take a picture. And I was like, man, like a little bit, are you? Like? Man? I wish they would call me Chip. I wish they would know me as my How does that work in your brain?

You know what's funny is I don't it's interesting to me hearing you say that, because it doesn't even occur to me that I wish they called me Chip or they called me Charles. I don't care. It brought them joy, it brought them a connection. There's something about that character that means something to them. Maybe they share they watch it with their mom every week, or maybe they share that you know, Um, there's something about the music. So the like I said, maybe it said I've been doing

this a long time. So there were people that knew me as Chip when I did whose line, and then there were people for a long time they just didn't know me. So I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get in their face about how they know me. I just you know, and it's all pure low. I mean, especially when you're walking down Broadway a little too late at night, you'll get a whole lot of teak And that's all right. That's that's why, that's why we have season five, Bobby.

So I'm not gonna look that in the face and go, come on, man, my name is Charles. So let's talk about that for a second, because I want to go full circle and come back to the music. So Nashville is about to take season five, and it got pulled from ABC and CMT and Hulu. I believe we're doing it altogether now with it. Is that right? That's right the first time on CMT and then Hulu has it

the very next day, I believe. So was there a bit of time where you were really like Oh, I don't know if it's gonna get picked up, Like maybe I have to go and search for another job. Was that to you nerve racking because you had set your roots down here with your family. Yeah. And you, you know, you were kind enough you had me on in that in that interim gap where we were between um, what we had lost and what we might find, what we

were sort of hoping to find. But again, I think this goes back to how long I've been doing it and how old I am, and how and maybe it's just my basic faith has a lot to do with it as well. Before I got Nashville, I've been doing it all for a long time. And I remember having a meeting with my agent and I said, here's my problem with me as an actor. Um as I'm content. I'm too content. I have this unbelievable family that I

just love being around. I get to do these good arcs on great shows, like whether it was The Office or Big Love or Enlightened, and you know, just on and on. I've been able to do these things that where I was never the star, and I was I never really stepped above radar, but I was always that guy that people sort of knew, and so I literally said to him, my problems is that your problem with me is that I'm content. I said, anything else more

than I have right now would be gravy. And I literally said this, and I said, but don't me wrong. I love gravy. Gravy is amazing, because I said, And it was weird because once I said that, it was it was literally speaking it out and sort of letting go of the desperation to be that other thing. And I had a long time to let go. Sure, when I started out, I was gonna be you know, my wife worked with Kevin Costner, and I remember sitting across from Kevin and hanging out with him, and he could

not have been kinder. But in my mind I was young enough to go, yeah, I could be this. I got this, I could be the next that. And you know, after a long time ago or not. And you understood first of all that very few people are that and are that anymore, and the way we are, they don't have that. But what I'm getting back to is, so when I got Nashville, that was that was you know,

that's southern gravy. That was everything I ever literally everything I ever wanted in the show because it put together the music, the writing, the guitar, acting with people like Connie Britton and Hayden and just these unbelievable actors. Written by Callie Curry t Bone Burnett. Literally, my wife used to say, if you wrote down everything you ever wanted on the show, you would have missed of this, And she's right. So I get to do four seasons of it.

Then when it goes away, I don't slip right back to desperation. Honestly, the first thing I said to was gratitude. And I know it's probably a little boring, and you want you want, like, oh my god. I went to gratitude first because there was no nothing I did out of desperation that got me Nashville. It was probably relaxing into it that got me Nashville. So I thought, man, And now the other thing I thought was that's a shame.

It's a real shame, because I knew we had new writers coming in and I thought we had places to go, and I thought we had more songs to do. And then the very next thing that happened, the very next breath, almost the same breath, is that the Nashville fans started being heard and then it was even more gratitude. It's like, damn, I don't know, man. It's one thing to lose your show and nobody says a word and it just sort of goes away. It's another thing to lose your show.

And there's this outcry and people are really upset and really organizing. I mean that's the other thing. You know, how fan is now they're not just into you. Their savvy, they know that they don't know social media. They know getting organized as signed petitions and things. And still if nothing had ever come with that, that's a have of way to go out with people that love your show and your character going nuts. Um. And then there were people on the show that I was like, oh yeah,

we're getting picked up and by somebody. And I was never that guy, but when it happened, I was like, that's awesome, that's really awesome. How did you get the role?

And were you ever in? It was at a spot where you're sitting because I was reading an article by John Krasinski and he's talking about he went to New York and he was trying to make it forever and he didn't make it at g Q, but did this great article about how he spent three or four years out there, and he told his mom, hamm moving back, and she's like, wait a few more months, and he said he walked into this room and there were like eleven guys that looked exactly like him trying for the

role of Jim Halpert for the Office. And he was like, there's no way, and he said as as his time came up, they all went to lunch. He's like, well, this is weird. So he sits there through lunch. They come back. One of the guys sits down and he goes, hey, what do you think about the show? And he goes, well, to be honest with you, I just don't want to see an American version of the greatest show of all

time run that show. And the guy to being like, Jeff Daniels or whoever the producer or the Greg Daniels, give me Jeff Daniels. Yeah, so Greg dani it was Greg Daniels. He was like, I like your honesty. They auditioned and he got the role right before he quit, and so for me, I'm thinking, man, that's how that's how these guys are auditioning. Can you talk about how you auditioned or they came to you for the role of Deacon. Sure. First of all, By the way, do

you ever go to YouTube and watch auditions? I do sometimes watched, Yes, I have so fully and completely Jim immediately and you get to see the other guys do it too, and they're they're all fantastic. And that's my nightmares that my bad auditions are somewhere up there out there. But um, they're also great. But he's just so utterly Jim. I don't know when I started out. I guess it was the fact I didn't have a plan. B Um, there's nothing else, um that I thought I'd be great at.

So I told you before. I had a desk job and the the my boss utterally found me more than twice with my face on the desk and slaw, what did you do? Oh, honestly, I sold. I sold advertising supplies for real estate companies, so like Coldwell Banker, fly Swatters and E. R A. Shoe Wrens and Century. No. No. In fact, I remember the guy told me that got me the job. I needed something to support me while I was first in l A and he said, this

is after. I want a game show. By the way, I want a game show that that got me to be able to be there for a year. But then I need to get an actual job and so um, he said, oh, you gotta don't tell this guy you're an actor. He wants somebody's really a salesman that wants to So I had to go to act. I had to act like I really wanted to sell you know, your a key chains for for the rest of my life.

And this I found my career. Um and and then it was about eight months later that I got my first talking bit on TV and I was gonna have to quit and go do this this show. And that was when I got my first taste of people just love TV man. Because that boss, I was like, I'm real sorry I wasn't honest and upfront and I'm not gonna lie again because it felt gross. I didn't like.

I was like, um, I should have told you I'm an actor, and um, I'm gonna After he was like, you're good about TV, Like he could he could have cared less that I was quitting. I was a lousy employee anyway, but he was a thrilled I was gonna

be on TV. So anyway, Um, what show was that that was a thing a long time ago on a little cable channel called it was it was Nickelodeon, so it was nick at Night and that was called on the television, which was sort of like a Ciskel and Ebert spoof, except it was TV shows that they would, uh, they would make a little mock TV show like My five Dads instead of my two dads. And and I just had a few roles, a little small roles on it, and I got to write a little bit on it.

It was it was the first thing. But um, I'd bring it back to the Nashville. So that so I was saying that, um, that's uh. I had been doing it for so long that I was always the guy I knew. I remember, I was gonna said there was nothing else that I was to do. I figured it was gonna take six years. I don't know where I got that number, but I also knew that I just keep doing it as long as I can do it. Um. So six turned into more and turned into more, and

then I was always working. But there was always sort of a I don't know, we're definitely have a thing where I like to be liked, and when you're an actor, that can be able to brutal because it means you're always trying to be the good boy. And I can remember once it occurred to me that do you know that you take a shower and brush your hair and get brand new clothes on for every single audition, and

like I'm going on a job interview. You know, even if it was I could probably go playing a homeless guy that had been in the streets for three weeks and I'd go take a shower and brush my teeth and get a hair cut. And I was just always trying to be the best guy. And there's so little in acting that you can actually take care of that.

I was trying to take care of every variable I could um And it was it wasn't long before this, as I just told you that other story, that I sort of relaxed into it, like just quit trying so much quick caaren so much. And and I think that was really important for a like Deacon, because there's nothing needy and hepped up about Deacon. It's just sort of very very chill guy that's seen it all, been there, done it. I don't think I could have gotten the

role even three years earlier. I wouldn't have been able to sit back it in it in the same way. Were you the guy that had in mind originally or there are a bunch of guys that you had. Nobody had me in mind originally. It was Thank goodness, it was. Calie Curry was casting with R. J. Cutler was the other producer, and very strangely, Um, Jennie Backrack was the casting director. Jennie backracks husband is one of my best friends in the world, David Burke. David and I went

to college together. I did one play in college because of in a band. David and I did that play together, almost like a two man thing. So all those years later she's casting it. Now that to anybody out there, that sounds like, oh he's in, it's you're not. And that's I could have gotten into that audition. So Jennie was very kind and supportive always of me. But um, you got it once you're in. All the casting director doesn't get you in and support you on the way.

You gotta earn that from the producers. So I remember I knew who Cali crew was. I read that script and I was like, oh man, you know, the inside head goes, I really want this and and you go shut up, man, just calm down, be cool, and and somehow that was the stronger voice. And I never went to I really want this again. I just I just said. What occurred to me is I'd come so close on so many things shows you've seen, movies you've heard of and not gotten them that I realized that. So what

I survived. You know, like when you do stand up, they say you die on stage. Died last time. I died many times during a great set. Yeah, but that's the thing is you don't really die. The next morning. You know, you're still eating breakfast, and you know, when you get kids, they're still telling you they need new shoes or something. So you don't die. And all those shows I didn't get, I was like, I'm fine, I'm still here, so you sort of let go in that

way a little bit. And by the way, maybe letting go and maybe my lack of drive and my I'll take all the time I want is why it took me twenty damn years. It's very possible. I just don't have that my so that some others have. But in an event, so um, when I when I know I'm going in there, Yeah, they got other people in mind, they got names and were the only one there when

you showed up. Well, that's funny because um, I was except as I showed up there in the waiting room was Hayden Panachier and there were no guys are no. Obviously she wasn't trying for the deacon role. She was not. No, no, thank god, because she would have she would have beat me out. Um. Before I went in there, I thought, you know what I can. I've been doing this country music.

I've been writing it, I've been playing it live, I've been doing writers rounds, and I know that all these guys that beat me out all the time, the same guys. You know that. Uh John was talking about that. You see those same guys again and again in the room, or if they weren't the room, you'd see him later in the show. That's it's one of the hardest jobs in the world because it's one thing to really want

a job. If you'd say, there's in the real world, there's a job, and you really want to do everything you can. You put your your soul, you go and you do a meeting and you give your resume, and then you don't get it all right, you move on, but which you don't have to do in the real world, is watch somebody else go do it for twelve years

and make thirty million dollars to it. And so so I had anyway, I've gotten around that and I and I just I thought, you know what, I might have a chance at this one because all those guys, I know, not everybody can play guitar. Did you take a guitar with you? Oh yeah, they told us to, they said, And I was thrilled by that. I was like, oh man, they're not going to pretend that these people are musicians and singers. That's that's why I might have a shot at this one. And um, so there's a couple of

things real quickly. This is a small piece of the story. But I had just recently found a really cool little stand from my guitar, pulled it up into nothing. You know, sometimes the guitar stands are big, unwieldy things. So I'm walking out the door and I go, I might as

well bring my cool new stand. And I go to this audition and I walk into the building and this happens again again in my career, where things that are meant to be have meant to be written all over them and the little hints from God that this might be the thing. And one of those was the very place I went to audition with Kadi and r J and Jeanie. Was the same building and the same aim

hallway where I had shot whose line is it? Anyway for a couple of years, and I knew that place way didn't feel comfortable to you just because you were there. Oh yeah, absolutely, there's a little bit of ownership. I mean, um, years ago I auditioned to play Buddy Holly, and it ended up that I got to audition for Buddy in the very same theater where I was the house manager. I swept up, I tore tickets, made coffee, and so it was like auditioning in my living room. And this

had a little bit of that. So I walked into that building already with that little lift in your step, like alright, this not everybody has this wind behind them. And then I walk in and there's Hayden panic here and you know that's the cheerleader, say the cheerleaders saved the world. And I know who she is. You know clue who I am? And um, we said, oh it's nice to meet you, shook her hand, and we all both went back to our notes. They were seeing me first.

She was just doing something before she went in. So I went in and um, they were very very warm and welcoming, and there was two songs and then I first I did a couple of scenes. Then I'm gonna do two songs. I completely forget the order I did the man Um I played an original. I played a bleak Shelton song actually, which was what I wouldn't give, which is what I really liked, and I thought it was right for Deacon and Reino. Um, did you know rain I was gonna be Connie at the time in

the first audition, I don't think. So that's a character in your mind that you were thinking too or about or with Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and and it jumped off the page. Who that character wasn't who these two people were in the history they had. By the way you ask questions, I don't know when I went. When I read your autobiography or when I read other people's autobiographies, I'm like, I would have no shot at writing that because I have the worst memory, So I would How

do you know all that? Because you're gonna get sued if it's not right you better freaking get it right. No, I'm not. That's start you'll start remembering once you decided, well, I gotta write a book. You got to get sued if I'm not right. I could see that You're like. It was kind of like, um no, I don't know. Yeah, I guess I don't think I didn't know at that point, because I would have made me a little nervous for

for for for to be honest. So I sit down and I think what I did is I played the songs first, and then um, I remember, I pulled up my little stand and I put my guitar in it, and I went over to do the scenes. And I knew this guy. I knew this guy Deacon. I don't know why. I just got him and I could sit back in him and and it came very easy. And the thing that I know what I was talking about earlier, from this long career, not getting these things I wanted.

Sometimes there's roles that are so good that you might end up only getting to play this guy once, and that's at the audition. So what I would always say is I'm gonna do it my way. I get one shot to play this guy right now in this moment, I'm the one playing Deacon, and this is how and instead of what you know, you always talking about aiming for what they want, instead of doing what you are going to be great at or what you what you want. I wouldn't know what they wanted Deacon to look like.

There was a time. That's all I tried to guess that you didn't chase what you thought they wanted. You did what you felt was you because honestly, you reach us certain point where I was like, you might think you want that, You're wrong. You want this. You finished the audition, you you play, you sing, you do your scene. How long until you actually know from that point that you have their old Deacon. Let me take a quick shortcut.

As I'm walking out of the room, I don't know if I told you this before, but as I opened the door, there's Hayden Panet chair by the door, like listening,

like like comedically, like I love Lucy or something. He almost hit her in the head with the door and and I walk out and she starts clapping and saying because she heard me singing and she liked the songs, and she was I'm like, what, who I've never I said can you come to all my auditions because this is fantastic and and so I'm acting cool and she now we really meet, and I said, as I'm ready to leave, I I'm just sort of blowing small guy. Well,

I'll see you on the set. That's what I said to her totally, and I was nowhere near getting this job. And uh, you know, finally when we're on the set one day, she said to see on the set, and um, but so no, I go home, and I knew it went really well. Um, Kellie Curry is a very enthusiastic heart on her sleeve person and um, and she also doesn't suffer fulls gladly, She's very intelligent, very and I could tell there was a connection towards what I was doing.

I also know how far that I'm not a name, and so that they generally networks you want to give shows to name, especially a bang on lead like this. I've been doing it long enough to know a bang on lead and Deacon is exactly that. Um, he gets to hurt, he gets to feel, he gets to fail, he gets to win. And that was all in the lance, so I knew. So yeah, it took a while and then I had to go in again, and then I had to go in another time, and uh, not a lot of people know this, but at one point they

made an offer to somebody. They called me, my agent calling, well, they made an offer and I was like, oh, you're commune, they said who? And the guy they said was somebody I knew personally and somebody had grown up with actually and sort of not followed out to l A, but somewhere where somebody where. I was like, I know that guy. I know those guys. Maybe it's not just crazy easiness. If you can do it, maybe I can do it.

So they offered the role to him and he said no, Well I didn't know that the first day, and then the second day I keep reading the trades right, and I thought he'd be great, he'd be fantastic, And I was a little heartbroken. There's more than a little heartbroken. Finally, after a week, I'm going, what the hell and my agent calls up and goes, um, yeah, your friend passed, Like what, they go, they want to see you again. Even after that, there was another two auditions, including a

stre screen test again for ABC. I'm telling my family we would drive right by the ABC building in Burbank every day I was taking my girls to soccer, and every single day we'd drive by it at least twice there in back yeah yeah, well yeah, but I was on the one four yeah right, but right, well, Baba drives NBC. It's right before, that's right next to it. Yeah. And and every single time we'd walk drive by, the whole car would say please, ABC, I'm talking. We'd be

in the middle of a discussion. We'd be going, I don't want to when we had chicken last night, let's get hit us ABC Hamburgers and and and then uh and so I waited and I waited, and finally, um, I ended up getting it. And real funny is a couple of weeks after I shot the pilot, I finally gave my friend a call and said, I didn't really know. You know, they don't make Hallmark cards for this situation, but thank you for passing on Deacon. And by the way,

he had personal reasons. It wasn't that he didn't love the role. He just there was something he had, He had other things. He was. He more aheaded than I was. And he started laughing. He said, I was so glad when I heard you got it. I was just you know, meant to be and it still blows my mind. I'm not gonna ask you who it was, but we what do we know him? If he said his name? Yeah, yeah, yeah cool. I'll leave it right there. Uh so, okay, let's back off in Nashville for a second. Go backwards.

So my two favorite shows are The British Office in the American Office. Those are my two favorite shows. Like I love them both. I just I just loved them. And so one of my top favorite episode and even it's you You're in like whenever they go to the convention and working with those guys and working with because you're on the office, working with Jim and Michael Scott. Michael called their characters than Steve Carrell like talk about that, like you get such your role was so funny as

a straight guy. So they called and said, hey, we want you to do this role in the office. You walk in. It's a single camera shoot. Had you been a part of a single camera shoot before where there's no laughter while doing a comedy? I actually had And let me back up, Will said, they didn't just call and offer me this thing. This is a very interesting story on how I got the Office, and by the way, the Office opened me up for a whole bunch of

other things. If you went back and look at my resume, you would see that The Office was a point, was sort of a sea change. And the reason for that is because it was an industry show. It was beloved, it was intelligent, it was done right. So in a sense, when you get on a show like that, it vouches for you for other shows. The it's a shortcut. They go, oh, there was the guy in the office, and they probably watched it too, so that gets you another level up.

And that started opening up things on HBO, and all of those things were one of the reasons where they said, yeah, he can do that in Nashville. So it all goes together. But the funny story about I got that one, let me tell you. I was on a single camera comedy pilot um that got It got shot for NBC, and in that show, it was a complete cattle call for these two characters, and I got completely arbitrarily hooked up with Rain Wilson. This is years before the years before

The Office, totally randomly me and him. These two characters are androids who solve crimes and this pilot called The Expendables. It wasn't even a pilot that it was a script and they would just put you together. And we're reading the script back and forth, and we just started improvising and messing around and screwing around, and immediately I saw this guy was brilliant and hilarious and very kind, and so we just we just clicked and we were having

a ball with it. You know. It was so silly and goofy, and so we went and then we we ended up getting it, and more than that, then we end up getting Now we're gonna have a it's all, it's the whole show is cast. Now we go to NBC and it's a big table reading. This is where they decided they're going to even make a pilot of it. And we're sitting at this long corporate table and he and I just sit next to each utterly riffing on these two idiot um characters who are androids that soft crimes.

And by the way of the show, we were naked, and you know, just because we were androids, and they were just strategically shot. So we end up because it went so well, we were so loose and that we're making each other laugh at that table. Read ends up getting going to pilot. So we shoot a pilot for this thing, and um, it's such a tricky line to walk and it ended up not really work and we

didn't get picked up. But there's some very funny moments back and forth with he and I, and I knew he was destined for great and big stuff and an even I get this audition, and when I was a huge British office fan myself unbelievable believe we talk about sea change. I've never seen anything like that, when anything could be allowed to be that quiet and that boring for that long, and that uncomfortable. Uncomfortable is the key. I mean, it's the most uncomfortably awesome show I've ever

seen in my life. It's cringe e it's you wouldn't even share it with some people, like you gotta see this most amazing and you'd sit there for a couple of minutes ago they got it. They're gonna have to get this, idiots like it's like, you gotta see this video of paint drying hilarious. Yeah yeah, yeah, and they're just going I just see paint drying. So and then I was a huge fan and I saw it and I was like, man, there, I can't even believe they're gonna try that. I know a bunch of shows that

they've done it this way. But and then I saw Steve Carrell was going to be the lead, and then I saw Rain was and I was like, I don't know, they might be able to do this. So immediately I saw the first two, I go, I think they got a shot at this. They're finding their own voice. I called my agent type, I go, you know, on the British one, there's the good boss, the guy that has this stuff to gather and everybody Michael wishes he was, I bet they end up doing that. When they do,

you gotta get me in there. And so they ended up doing that in season three or at the very end of season two actually, and he got me in there, and I wanted to meet with them, and uh we I'm sitting there and go, so I hear you're a friend of Rains. Because Rain must have said something nice that I was coming in. I saihow let him know or maybe saw him as I walked in, and I go, I said, yeah, not only that, Rain and I were in a pilot together where we played androids that solved crimes,

and they're they're just dying laughing. You know, you're kidding myself. And not only that, I have a DVD of that pilot and they're they're like, no, you don't saying. And not only that, if you give me this job. On the first day of shooting, I will show up and put that DVD in here. And I could just see all their eyes light up. And they called before I got to my car on the parking lot, and I'm

I'm certain that's how I got that. There was a lot of great guys in the town, but they wanted that DVD, so they got their DVD and I got to play this character, and you're right, he was. He was a straight man. And that was another real lesson because that showed what it's like to be on something great. I had been on a lot of cool things, but this was really very, very special. And what it occurred to me was that just being on it, people thought I was funnier, because if you look, I don't have

that many jokes. I don't I didn't really. I had to really work a lot harder at being funny on things that weren't half as good so people would see you on and they go, oh my god, you're so funny. But here's the thing, though, when you say that, like I look at that and I and I disagree and go your timing of not being funny was equally as funny, because to me, humor is not just about saying something funny.

It's also about sitting back and letting funny happy, letting funny happen, and then hopping back in at a point even if you're not funny, knowing when that point to hop back in was know what, You're right, You're you're right, You're right. I was very funny, you were. I thought it was amazing, Like it's really one of my favorite episodes. I mean, and then Michael Scotten's up in him by himself having the party. Oh that's one of my favorite lines is Jim and I do uh an inside joke?

He goes, huh part of joke. Not a fan of that show. That's so crazy. Yeah, did you crack a lot during that? Well, you know what, I was actually pretty good at maintaining for the joke itself. But then when when normally you would say cut because we're out a dialogue that you'd be a fool to cut on Steve or on Gen or any of them. So that's when they would try a couple of other things. And and those are the ones that sometimes you would you'd

lose it a little bit. But look, I was just I'll tell you what, I was uncool when I went to the office. I had been doing this a long time, but I wasn't cool enough to be cool. I was too much of a fan. It was like I'd want a damn radio contest to go be on a show that you love. Um. I was doing my best to be good, but I have to admit, those are some cool kids to be hanging around. It's like a high school. And in retrospect there probably yeah, he was a little

bit uh you know, excited to be there. I bet they would, but they couldn't have been kinder. I spent you know, most of the time with with John, with Ed helms Um, and we had a We had a great time. It was one of the hardest lines I've ever said in my life was when I'm offered the job to take over it, uh you know, the Scranton branch, and I said, well, actually, I have agreed to a

job that I'll be taking at Staples. And I remember first reading that in my script, the line that basically kills you off the show, and I was like, Ah, what would happen if you just refused to say that? What if I had just said, well, thank you very much, accept your The producer like, oh damn, So let's let's go back for a second to whose line, because I

watched whose line? And you know, I remember, uh, all of you guys like Wayne and drewid hosted and Wayne and I mean, you can go through the whole cast. But I just didn't know how that was shot, Like would you guys just call up a nail at every time half hour? And no? No? That See, that's the thing is the level of First of all it was people always wonder how could it be so good at it? It was perfect. I was like, you guys are improving in are nailing every second every joe. So everybody would

think with improv that it wasn't really improvised. They were always sure that we were given the topic, are the topic. We were never given the topics. In fact, I contend that it would be way harder to act like you were thinking of something off the top of your head

than to actually think of something off the topic. And something else I'll say is if you go back and look at the transcripts, that's not like something you would write if you're gonna You know, Greg always talks about somebody heard he was on an improv show and watch and said, why not prepare something funny? It was was that guy's take you you can't really do that. Now. What the trick was that nobody really thought of was

they just wouldn't air the crap. They wouldn't, you know, say, you would take for a long period of time for whose line. Yeah, you would take like maybe three hours, maybe three and a half hours. Sometimes I think it would be like that. I don't know, because you never you never came down. You would even you would even stop during commercial breaks. They would they would put the commercial break in there. But while they were doing that, it wasn't like we were towling down and just drinking water.

We had to keep that audience going. So we keep giving each other crap or just you know, giving Drew a hard time, or the director would come out and Ryan would throw something at him. And so it was like Colin who was on the show when I was on. I was, I was one of the fourth chair guys. It was Um, Wayne Brady and Ryan Styles and Colin Mockery and then the fourth chair would rotate and between a bunch of different, you know, great people, and it

was it was great to be on that. But that meant I remember when I got I was on the British one, and then I wasn't on for a little bit. Who hosted the British Clive Anderson who was the British one, he goes, you know, it was it was just a little bit of a different ball game. In fact, that started off as extremely British. It was a radio show. Bobby started off in in England as a radio show. So they would improvise just like we are sitting at

mix and create these things. And then they decided to make a TV show out of it, and still very British and still in that more British way, was very cerebral and very verbal, so they would almost stand right where they were. That's why the stage was probably so small. Um, and then you started hiring Americans like Ryan and Colin who would look like a velociraptor walking across this strager or I remember Ryance was just a baby deer being born,

and that some of that way more physical stuff. And then the Americans, you know, the British invasion came this way, the American invasion of whose line went that way, and then the whole show came here to the States. And when it came back to the States, it was not lost on me that here's these three guys that are on every week. Andrew and and these guys my friends. Ryan was my biggest supporter. He told those producers all the time, you gotta get chipped on, and that meant

a lot to me. But I knew that when I got on the show, it wasn't just a matter of being funny. I had seen other people as in that guest role, and I noticed that the ones that worked didn't defer, didn't act like a guest at the party. They acted like they belonged there as much as anybody. And the way to do that is to throw a few elbows and smack somebody else comedically in the face,

because it's like walking into your house. I would defer a little bit, and you know, but um, I realized that that didn't work there, So you just had The first job was to act like you belonged, and then once you act like you belong now you're just improvising, and they want you to do that too, because it's just like tennis with people that are putting the ball right back on your racket, and they want you to put it right back at them, very very hard. So you know, it was just a matter of at first

of all, they're the funniest guys. I know, which you feel because I have Pierre's friends, very close friends that I think are so much better than me at what I do, and we do the same thing. Like one of my buddies has the biggest hip hoptional in the country is named Charlemagne. I have a friend named Kennedy who was on MTV uh she does Fox. She one of my best friends. She's so smart, and we will go to dinners together. It's like our little like group.

It's our group. We talk all we stay close, we confide, we go to advice. But I feel like there's so much brighter and quicker and funny that I just felt so much pressure and I want to be as good as they are. At the same time, I just respect them so much. Did you feel that with those guys like, Wow, these guys are so good. I've got to get to that level, or do you just feel like I'm part

of the group. It was. It was when I was in England that I felt I didn't know what the group was and I didn't know how good they were when I first got it, so that was not an issue. And then when I was I was like, oh, man, they're bringing it, so I gotta bring it. And then I did, and then I started seeing how good that people I was with were, and and it made me think about them more. And when I started thinking about it, I got less good and so I fell off for

a while. But when I got back on, I didn't go to that place again. Now, I have to admit, and the reason is, in any given moment, uh, what you don't have is you're rarely on stage with those peers of yours I had. I would sit in four chairs, we'd all stepped to the end of the line, and they would tell a joke and it would kill and somebody else to do another joke, and then I would step forward, and every once in a while I would get the biggest laugh in any given moment, any of them,

any of us can kill. And we would realize that on tour. We would tour with the larger groups, like ten of us would go out in Las Vegas every Super Bowl, Drew would bring like ten people to the MGM Grand and at the beginning of the night they would give all the applause the last people out, where the people that everybody knew the most. You would end with the biggest names, and the applause would gradually grow so that by the very and the very people they

knew the most got the most applause. What we what we always notice is at the end of the show, the applause was based on what kind of show you had, so it would it could totally change up. The first guy introduced might have just been on fire and he would get the biggest and people go crazy at the end. And so we did know that on any given night, anybody can can win the day. And and honestly, it's funny, it's it's not you would think it would be way

more competitive. It's not. It's thrilling when somebody across from you says something hilarious and it's not competitive. With my friends, it's like, man, I just want to be that good. Oh I look at them and go there that I don't know if I can ever be that good? But aren't they completely good in different ways? For some reason they come to me too and go, hey, can you help me with this? And I'm just blown away that

they're like, why do you need my help with thing? Well, the thing is with comedy and when this thing we're doing, and you guys too, you're different things in the stew, like Ryan's a carrot and and you know Collins a potato and I mean that literally for both of them. No, no, no, I'm like, but but so I would never say how can I be more potato e? Or how can I be more carroty? I know that I had a different role,

and it's funny. Once you start to understand what your role is, then you get to really be that thing. I mean, I forget who said that somebody's famous and learn what you are then go be that um And we ended up getting to do that, and then they rely on who your characters. Drew, for example, would always know he was the guy that would be the butt of the joke, and and he played that. That's not always an easy play to character to play because you can act to hurt in an audience is like oh

or you or just that, you know. So everybody had their role and they made me honest to god, that's probably the real answers. Those friends of mine. They made me feel funny. So I have a clip hered of how down from whose? Line? So? What does it? Mike set me up here? Just the music. That was my favorite bit on the show. So what was who? What was? Hold down? Holdown? They start playing this and you just

had to make up a line. And if you went first, it was the hardest because you had no time, right, you had to just think of it quick, and you usually first, right, I was first, Yeah, I'm um. So it was tricky, although sometimes I liked first the most because you've got a song you had to continue on. Yeah, I get big on I'm sitting here with Bobby and we're sitting in the chair, you know, and and and then make it comes the woods. I see a Harry Bear.

He's gonna chase me. Now, he's gonna be a blaster and I can't run that fast, but Bobby can run faster or something something like that. And uh, they weren't all that good, um, you know. But the thing was you would get to gather your thoughts as quickly as you could. And the good thing about going first is when you went second, what would happen all the time is that person in first part would steal your best rhyme with steal your best joke and so um god,

people loved how down um? And those are some of my favorite things. Two and it's funny real quickly. No, you didn't even ask. One of the funny things that people that try music improv and something even like howdown is, they forget the concept of a punch line. So that if if you're doing a song um about about um this podcast, the line is UM gonna be um the last the punch line would be podcast alright, so, or maybe I'll make it Bobby Bones, um zona. But I'm

not here alone. I'm sitting in my chair beside Bobby Bones and beside Bobby Bones. Right. So what people would do is they mess up in what every amateur does is they go, um, I'm here with Bobby Bones, but that's okay because I am not alone. And it's like, wait, that didn't pay off. That that was the rhyme that you wanted to set up. The thing the feeling of resolution when you say the thing that clinics um. You know,

you get what I mean. It's not it's not like your name is some huge punch line, but it's the It's the more satisfying way to do it. Otherwise you say the thing and then anybody can come up with the thing that rhymes with Bobby bones and it doesn't really point to anything. So um, there was one I did, um and sometimes you would have to actually have a a punch a punch line itself. And these jokes. I did one about Colin. It was about drinking, and um,

I talked about his His mother drank when she was pregnant. Sorry, that's the truth. When they took her her blood, her her blood was a d proof. Um. The doctors felt so bad. They didn't know what to do. But if your baby looked like Colin, then you'd be drinking too, was was you know? And and and it's not. That's the thing is it's not the funniest joke in the world. But number one, it rhymed in the right order, and the punch line came at the end. And number two

they just watched you think of it. That's always the magic of it, and it is a little bit like magic that um it seems like a magic trick, which is why sometimes it's even more exciting in person. I don't know if you've been to a vive improv show, but you know how you watched magic on TV. There's always somewhere in the back of your head, well yeah, it's on TV. Yeah, but if you're sitting there, I mean, if you're sitting somebody did it. I was over at um Tin Ruth the other night and this guy came

by doing card tricks and he did that thing. I wrote my name on a card and he put in his and I was like, if that had been on TV, but it was right in front of me, So that's improvs Like that, it freaks you out. I had friends that would come to the Groundlings Stater did it and they just didn't believe it was improvised. Actually I was not a Groundling because I was I took all their classes. It was like you start with basic, Intermediate, Lab, Advanced,

did all that got into the Sunday Show. Did when in the Sunday Show would be like the JV and it's from the Sunday Show. You're generaling this Sunday Show about six months or maybe a year, and from that they get the new ground Links. So I was there almost a year and a half, two years, taking all these classes and getting high and hirh get in the Sunday Show, did one Sunday Show and I got Buddy Holly, and I moved to London, say even to London to

the stage show Buddy Holly. Yep. So was there anyone that you were training within the ground Lings that ended up being a big deal because they put out a lot of famous people. Yeah, I was actually right before a lot of them. I was sort of in between. Um. Uh Phil Hartman had been just a few years and John Lovett's right, what geniuses You're right, especially I mean

especially Phil. I mean anybody at the Groundlings would say that he was auto unique and born to be on that SNL stage because he could play all those characters, but all those things, so many of his earlier characters happened right there on the Groundling stage. And he was actually um a mentor towards uh um Julia um Sweeney who it's patch, she was there too, And then right

behind me was Will Ferrell. When I went off to London, Will came in right after and was joined was in the Groundlings and Will Farrell and Chris Ktan and Cherry Oh, Terry, and I mean it really wasn't training ground for us to now. I mean that's where they went to find yeah, because it there was there were a few of them. There was one in Chicago, there was one in l A. There was one, but that was really one of oh man, Yeah, I mean I couldn't do justice to the actual list.

You would have to go look at it and you'd be blown away because it wasn't just improv at the Groundlings. Most of it was sketch work. You would That's what actually brought me there when I first went to l A. I mean, I was so respect you doing stand up because I've tried it. I went out when I first went to l A. And you can't just jump in a movie or jump in a TV show, but you can jump up on a stage with a microphone. They'll

let you do that every Wednesday at certain places. So I remember going to the comedy store on Sunset Boulevard wrote this horrible little five minutes, and I remember getting up and I had a guitar and I had a couple of funny songs to sing, and um. I remember the first reson I learned is you gotta be talking immediately, because I was silent and I was setting up my mic and my head was down and getting everything ready, and I look up and it's been dead silent for

thirty seconds. And I was so scared. I remember my knees knock and my mouth was foamy. I was freaking out, and I in my horrible five minutes and I got

off and I went into the bathroom. And this was one of the most pivotal things for me ever, was I went into that bathroom at the comedy store and I looked into the mirror, and I was just so furious with myself, just furious because it was instantly clear to me that as I walked off the stage, even before I got to the stages, this is what you want to do for a living, not stand up perhaps, but standing in front of people and performing. You want

to do this for the rest of your life. And you're gonna let two strangers that you will never see again, half of whom are in the bag. You're gonna let them petrify you like that. You're gonna let them freak you out like that? So how did that change you? I went back a week later with the same middling material and did it again, and it wasn't even a little scared. It was. It was so it was so binary and on off switch because I was way more afraid of me and what it was. It was a

perception perception thing. I perceived the whole thing differently. I didn't perceive that I need it to be great right then. I perceived that I needed to not give and not be afraid of them, not just I needed to be able to breathe on stage. So I just got up and I just stood there and and and then I was able to do it a couple of other times, and it quickly became clear to me that it wasn't my thing. I'm not that solitary a guy. I'm a more um social person and I'd like interacting and and

also not knowing anybody. It was a really bad way to uh did network. I wasn't meeting anybody. Um and a couple of comics I met, I would feel like we'd be talking and have a conversation and I was like, Oh, this guy's cool and he's funny man and then like an hour later, I go that dude was trying out his whole act on me. He get up there and say all those same bits and if you laugh during the conversation and like, oh man, I didn't know my friends sometimes and they don't even know I got you stuff,

but like and they didn't laugh. And that's what we do. We have to find a training now, because here's the difference is that I can sit in my room and for us when we do the reging and it's a whole different show. I can sit do around, I can pla guitar, and I can practice. I can practice uh chords and and fingering and muscle memory. And then you

can't practice on stage. You have to get up and fail, and you have to be confident that you're going to fail, and then it's okay, well you're never going to make This is why I'm so impressed with what you do, because I'm I've often thought of what if I went back. Now, I have points of view, now, I have things I might like to say. I might be able to do that, but I know you gotta suck for a while, or

you gotta be um find your material. Even the best comics go into little clubs and and there's some now, some of the bigger ones, I think Chris Rock and the others where everybody has to put their cell phone in the back. And because you know that all these comics they got great with that to suck for a while. It's the ten thousand world. They got great by being bad for ten And you how do you do that? You suck for a long time, but you suck and you get better and you get better until you hit

it and then you accord it. Then you're done. You gotta start sucking again. Yeah, that's the weird part about it all, because well, I'm gonna do the comedies a shell in March or April the next year, like a special special that we haven't announced it. But it's like we've been building and getting better and getting better, and I know as soon as we do the special, all that material is dead because you've done it. It's not like a song where you can hear it thirty times.

You know, there's there's a real debate on that. There goes back and forth. There's a there's a book I gotta I gotta give you a fantastic book I just read. I guess I'm I can remember Steve Martin would do this some of the because I'm huge Steve Martin, like one of Steve Martin did something remarkable in his career that I have seen no one do, and that is retire at the top of his game and not tell anybody. He was just the greatest and was like I quit.

He didn't tell anybody quit. He just quit. But he but he people knew his jokes. Well, that's the thing this this book. I was reading Judd Apatow's since he was really young. Wasn't just a stand up, but he would interview all these stand ups, so he has interviews with his kids. He would have them. Yeah, exactly, I'm trying to remember this. It's crazy in the head or something like that. I'm getting the title wrong. In any event um, there was a debate within there with some people.

To Jared Seinfeld, I guess it is one of the few that says you don't have to retire anything. People don't mind hearing that joke again if it's funny, but I i'd be in your camp. I would feel like, oh, they've heard this one. That's the worst. I start to feel like, oh, they already know where does it go? And I needed to get better and man, maybe that's a personal thing with me like you. But even if it is a personal thing, you gotta you can't fight it. You get is get But how do you what is

your thing like when you're on stage? If when something wouldn't work, that's the thing I realized, when something wouldn't work in improv we can you know, we always get to go what I just made it up? Don't judge me. You know it's not so easy, is it? Um? And the other thing is if something if I said something that wasn't funny, I got three other guys to go. Really, that's that's what you're gonna go with and the audience would die laughing at how bad the thing I said was.

So what do you do? Do you embrace the suck when it goes bad? Or what do you do? You know that it's the loneliest place in the world before you go out there, there's no one to lean on, there's nowhere to fall back. It's it's when you miss, and you shouldn't miss a lot, and I do you have to you have when you miss, it's awful. When you hit, it's the most amazing thing. So you really play for the amazing nous. But we cross to your head after a miss interception. You have to be the

quarterback that throws in. You gotta be Aaron Rodgers, the thirst three picks in the game and gets back up and continues. And if you don't have that mentality, it's just not for you because you will throw a lot of interceptions. Yeah, you know, it's it's very That's something that's very common with improv is. I used to say that you have to rip out the rear view mirror because every second you're looking in that rear view mirror, that thing that you could have made funnier twenty seconds ago,

you're gonna go right into a brick wall. So and take that out and you move forward. But I'm even talking about that thing where you tell a joke and it gets sort of a go anyway that I know the next thing. Just move, Just move, just go to the next thing. And there are jokes that I've I've worried about and that I wonder and I don't ever share my act any you know, because I just wait for But there was one joke that I told in particular that I tried it out because what happened. I

had a weekend off, which is awful for me. I don't like to have weekends off. And so I was like, no, I'm gonna go to theater down in uh Franklin and I'll do two shows back to back. So I wanted to work just new material. And so the problem was some of the critics and blogs and press wanted to cover it. And I was like, oh, great, I can't just go work new material if people are gonna come out and watch it. But I still had the two shows and I wanted to throw some new stuff in.

And I had written this joke this day, and I was like, oh, I don't know if I should try it. And the joke was it was and it's already happened. It's not me and and I don't ever just sit after a joke and wait, like more of my stylists tell the joke, and I'm moving, I'm quick, I'm quick, I'm quick, I'm quick, and sometimes they missed, sometimes they don't. But the joke was, you know, finding an uber driver is like, I've been an uber. I think I would

not stop talking. I think I would not stop talking. And I was like finding a good uber drivers like finding um a good woman. Because I've been single a long time. I had I had let up into all this singleness joke. They have apps for that too, Yeah, they I tried him. It's like finding a good uber drivers like finding a good woman. Either talk all the time that either don't stop talking or they don't let you do but stuff. And I just sat and I let and I let them, and I let the crowd go.

I let the crowd go, and then they started it. And there's never a more vulnerable moment than when you say that either don't stop talking or they don't let you do butt stuff talking about an uber dry and it was a really hard spot for me just to sit and wait. Well, that's that's fascinating because so much what you do on the radio, you don't get to learn the timing of it all. It's a completely it's two different things. So you wouldn't have a clue that differing,

but you would. You were wise to know that that required math. They had to do the math on Wait a second, that is he's talking about an uber and then they get and it's just so absurd exactly what let me ask you, I haven't seeing the app They get there faster when the jokes are like that. My problem was as some of my jokes would be one way and then I would do the absurd one. And if they're not expect you know, Steve Martin, you knew the absurd one was coming, was Stephen right? You know

the absurdance coming, So they're faster to it. But if you're not dealing pitches like that, then they it takes them a second longer to catch. Is that a lot of them or is that very That one is unlike any other, and it's it's a very vulnerable feeling sitting and waiting because as I sit there and waited, I just waited and if nobody laughs, you're you're isolated, and then you just go to the next joke. But they laughed.

Do you ever watching Andy Kaufman. That's my hero, It's my hero any conference my hero, like David Letterman is my real life hero of my lifetime. Like I was able to watch Andy Kaufman, to me, is the most brilliant. The name was a comic performer that I have ever seen. I just went down the Andy. I went down that rabbit hole the other night on YouTube was watching Jerry Lawler. Uh, there's a great Jerry Lawler interview about that whole thing I did. The wrestling thing that Andy did, that he

would wrestle women. For those who don't know, Andy was the woman's wrestling champion. No woman could beat him wrestling. And he finally said that this Jerry Lawler, and nobody would nobody would have him wrestle guys up north. But there's this guy down here I think it was in Memphis actually, and Jerry Lawler said exactly, said I'll wrestle him.

So they went down and Jerry Lawler put a pile drop, put two pile drivers on him, then supposedly broke your neck and he put on that and back in the day when you were watching it live, you were honestly never you were you thought it might be a put on. But then you go, no, no, no, I think this is real. And that was the joy in the in

the beauty of Andy. But on what I'm relating it to is I would think going back to that and watching him stand in front of an audience that hates him or isn't getting it, that would give me, that would give me strength to the next time I went on, I would choose to be braver. I would want to be able to stand there. I remember even one of my first auditions. I had an audition to play um Prince Charming and some show at some big, big theater.

This is in the Los Angeles. I had not auditioned for anything, and I could feel those nerves creeping in again, and I knew I didn't want to do this job and I probably wasn't going to get it. We had to audition in front of everybody. Everybody was all in the room when you auditioned and read before, like the table. I can fame that long table where they all sit there, and I didn't. They said they wanted you to read a piece like a monogue. I didn't have a monologue.

So I stood there and I and I said, um, I do not have a monologue today, So for my audition, I will be reading from the classic Louis Lamore novel Hondo. It's like it was. It was exactly that, and I knew that. I knew I wasn't being original, but I also knew it was going to take a tremendous amount of balls to just stand there and read until they stopped me. So I just opened up and it's dead silent, and you hear a little rustling and go Hondo walked

into the noonday sun and I just began. And they're just sitting there a letting me read and read and read. And I was doing it on purpose, for cou frominesque reasons of internal strength. Man, I bet you were developing as a yes, I'm the boss at this moment it um and and to prove it, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm not gonna go for your approval at all. I'm gonna stand here and be disapproved by you, and and and sit in that for a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, you know it's funny because uh, it's the same way

we both makes sense. We love the British Office. It's uncomfortable, so uncomfortable. I don't know why I love that. I'm comfortable because it's it's a risk. I think that's why I love it. It's a really risky thing to do. It is and also you talk about his timing and his commitment, um, it's he was fully fully invested. And I just honestly, I don't regret much, but I do regret looking back that I didn't more fully commit to

some of the comedy I was a part of. That's who the great ones are, that's your Chris Farley's And you know it's always it's always the darkest people that are the brightest shiners. Well that's true. But which is weird for you because you are the happiest and not like me into a hole, Chip and I go into a hole until the time to come out and do my thing, and I'm not super social. And I see you and people, and you talk to people and you

hug people, and I do until I don't. But you are always on, Which is weird for me to see someone who can do all of this and still maintain like your creativity. You know. I there was a time in my acting classes where I remember, look, I haven't had this easy upbringing. If I could, if I wrote a book, there would be things. There would be my parents divorce and growing up without my dad right there, Um my dad uh and his second wife lost a son to crib death, and I was I was still

a young guy. Um there there's that stuff was brutal and hurts and still hurts. So that's all in there. But I remember, even in acting going seeing these people with these really these stories and going, man, I somehow wish my life was a little more messed up and I'd have more to draw on. But I stopped that. I grew, I grew out of that. I am not believe me. I got my dark places on, my tough, my sad moments. I don't know if it's any less

than a whole lot of people. I some times, I gotta be honest, I feel very very blessed, very very fortunate, and I feel not a responsibility that I have to put a fake face on. But when somebody comes up, it requires so little for me. It requires so few calories fame or these TV things. It's almost like a long level. Like if you're trying to get a rock out of your yard right and you have a little stick,

it's not gonna do it. But if you have this long and long two by four right, and you stick it under there, and you got a good level, you barely gotta pull at the end of it, and you can move a big old boulder. I feel like that's what it is. When I'm out there. Oh I gotta do is say it's nice to meet you. Thank you, really, thank your mom. For me and you know, take a picture. It just doesn't feel like a lot to me. In fact,

I don't know why. Psychically, emotionally, it feels like more energy to me to hold that off somehow, to put my to give a stiff hand, to keep my head down, to avoid it feels like it would take a whole lot of effort for me. It's not avoidance because when I'm out, like, I appreciate anyone that does anything that I do, it comes listens, but it's I stay in my room until I want to go out. It seems like you're out and you're very social all the time. No, I don't. I don't. I'm home. I'm home a whole

lot um the things I go to. You when you do a ton of charity events, you go to things, and you're I mean, you're out in the world, probably more than I am. If we were really going to compare schedules you're talking about when you're off the clock. You mean, I just feel like I have two modes. Hide in my room and then when I'm out, and when I'm out, I'm appreciative and I love everybody all the time. But I have a really well, I just want to be by myself a lot. Well, I think

the family changes that. You know, that's fair, and you do have a family, Yeah, when when when you do, when you have whatever you have, you're gonna you're going to go to your daughter's UM pageant. You know, You're going to go to your son's UM scout meeting. And there's gonna be other fathers and there's gonna be other people. And I'm not always super in my comfort zone in those in those moments, but I can't choose that other thing,

and um, and I really don't want to look. It goes again to I've been doing this a long time. I'm just grateful. I don't know how long I have doing this. We saw how fragile it is. It almost went away right there. And when it's gone, I don't know how long people care about my singles or what I'm doing. Um, I've had twenty years to sort of not be bothered. It's like it's not even please, It's

like I don't mind. I mean, whose line was fine, I'd be in line, it would nobody say anything for like a week, and then I'd be in line at the bank and somebody just tapped my shot and go. You're very funny and you can't pay for that, and so so yeah, I think I just I'm making hay while the while the sun shines, and I do enjoy it. I'm not gonna lie. I love it. Mike. How long we into this? Okay, well we're about to wrap. This

is the long we did for three hours? Like I really felt like we get here for three hours and just talk. I do want to say the first time I saw you, I was a huge married with children fan. And when you came in, and when you came in as Kelly's boyfriend, um Lonnie Tott. Yeah, that's the first time I ever saw chip past on television. There you go, and you were Kelly Bundy's boyfriend. What you have a mechanic? Were you? What was your job? You know what? I Yeah, I think I was. I was the heir to the

top fortune. They actually made tater totts, and so I was. I was the dumb son of a rich really dumb. Yeah, really good looking. I made I made Kelly look smart, which was which was the trick? And that thing, by the way, I think I bet I knew something. I bet I was on something before that that you knew. Do you remember were you a Cheers fan? Oh? Yeah, I watched yours obviously. Young. Do you ever remember an episode where um give me pitching myself? I was? I was.

That was the very first thing I did, which was mind blowing because it was like through the looking glass. It was literally like looking at a painting, or it would be like looking at that dogs playing poker, painting your whole life, right, and then one day you're sitting at the table with the dogs looking out. That made no sense, but you know what I mean, I'm stepping

to the other side of that was mind blowing. But it was a really fun episode where cliff Um buys a video camera and he and he gets into this idea that he and Norm are gonna start filming people's events because so many events happened at the bar, they will start videotaping I'm on a big old VHS tape and they will make some money while they're they're in

the bar anyway, so let's video tape their events. The very first one they do, it's a giant family reunion and they've got this thing on their shoulder and these cool things are happening, and suddenly they realized that they don't have a battery. There's no battery and he didn't get a battery, and so it's just a dead camera. And so they decided what they're gonna do iss that's all right, Nomi would is gonna pretend that way shooting

this whole thing. And then later we tell him we lost the tape in the mail that you know we sent. We sent the tape and it just won't arrive. So the whole episode is them pretending to tape and he goes, what's gonna happen anyway, It's just a family reunion, and uh, of course bigger and bigger things happened, and the grandfather stands up and goes, I've never told you all this, but I want you didn't know I love you. I love every one of you. And he's like, oh, it's

not my fault. He didn't tell his family love them. And then later I was like the second thing where I'd come busting in the door and dressed in full military garden. I'm like Grandma Grandpa through thirty hours on the MAX Happy Anniversary, like, oh, Terry, we thought you were dead, and they're pretending to film it. And then the best one of all is the grandmother who's been in a wheelchair. The entire episode says I want you to all know that you've given me the strength to

do this about it and they're, oh my god. So I guess you don't remember. But if if you saw that was that was the real first big thing that I did. It was their last season. It was it was a thrill. So yeah, so here's and back to today. So search Charles Eston and this is called this town is ours. It's out now right lo, the good town Son? So in every single Friday for how long are you putting these songs out? Like do you have in your

mind what you can do? Now? I think that's number nine and m yeah, I gotta I got a bunch more, and each I like more than next of They're all very very different. I look, let's I'm gonna aim at a year. That's crazy to even go twenty five is crazy, to go fifty two, Like that's right, I probably won't make it. And but but but if I say twenty it's like, so what you made two albums? You made a double album. That's a lot. That's still a lot.

I know. Um, Look, I love writing, I love doing and more than anything, if we've come down to one thing, unifying threat of all this, I don't mind failing if I don't make it through a year. I didn't make it to a year. It's just it's a nice round number. If there were ten months in a year, I'd probably say that. But um, I know I have over thirty. Um. And and for me, it's it'll mean the music's out there, It'll mean I have a body of work. I'm I'm fifty damn years old and two days I'm fifty one.

What day is it? Three days? Oh? You can cut that out if we're not on the right day. Um, but what am I gonna wait from? I'm gonna put out an album, put out twelve songs, and wait another eight ten months, put on another twelve. Yeah, I could do that. I don't know. Is it gonna. Am I gonna knock Barber streisand off the starts? No? So I'm just putting out the songs and and and I already they're streaming, and already people are you can put on

play left like I mean it is you. You're doing a thing where I think people are starting to appreciate you as an artist, which is hard to do. If you're coming for more, people know you doing something else, which is your acting. I think this takes that on immediately. That's right in the face. I mean, if I could, if I could do that for any amount, and if it's nowhere near fifty two. And by the way, I wrote a ma all, I co wrote them all. That's just that's saying something I mean. So it's I'm I

gotta be honest. I'm I told you old I am. I'm at the foot of a mountain again and I'm looking up and I'm just starting to climb. And that's thrilling. I'm not one of those guys that want to be I've worked hard long enough. I'm done with it. I I love this, and I love the fact that you and I sitting right here don't know what will come of this. We don't know what will come of it in a month or a year, um any of it. If nothing comes of it, the music's all out of it.

But meanwhile you're walking around. Every single song is a lottery ticket. I don't care if somebody here's one cuts it, and you know it does an unbelievable version of it that I could never imagine. Um, any there's I don't even know what's going to happen. All I know is that I can only be in control of what I'm control of, and that is making this music and sending it out there. And Nashville starts back in November. Actually, um, I believe they said the beginning of January, and I

start back tomorrow. I shoot my first scene to January. Why do I think November? Um, I don't know. There was there was talk of December, but it wasn't my talk. Well that's also not November. Twice you just couldn't wait. It's January. You were thinking of Thanksgiving and gratitude. That the gratitude that I have for you for sitting in a bedroom here at my house. Hey we have Do you have cushy chairs that rock? This is cushy. This is the most comfortable interview I have ever been in.

This sincerely, the fact that I'm still await this is so comfortable. I appreciate it. Hanging for an hour and just talking like this is my favorite thing to do, Like just get down, learn understand. I like this podcast because it's it allows you to what what was the version? You get a different version of it's like, um, slower, you can you can go down paths and abbey way that you normally wouldn't have time for want to. I could take you on a boring and ordote or anecdote

or two that we would add to cut from. Sometimes it's just how stories is. So that's why I like listening to them too, And so you're gonna get that next level. So thanks Nashville back in January, and uh, that's awesome. We're watching and the music's out there for it starts again stars Charles that's his performer name and his hashtag every single Friday. Let me say one more thing about Nashville. We we didn't get too much. Um.

This will be about the show. Okay, I'm really this is not like going to c MT and these new writers. This is not like a tact on extra year to a show that by all right, I didn't know that. That's what it feels like it could be. No, that's that's what it might have been and could have been. I totally get that, honest goodness. As much as I love the show, I wouldn't have wanted to do that. I don't want to tackle on and out a year beyond what it is. Uh, this is at the beginning.

I sat the beginning of my Mountain. Again, this is a new thing. These writers have a new take on this show. But when I say a new take, it's almost there. It will take not look even this right what we're doing right here as a more lyrically paste and you can wander and meander and and touch on some things that you couldn't on on Well, I can't tell you you can't do, because you do whatever you

want on your show. But I just generally mean in the format of radio broadcast radio, well, what's the exact same thing with network TV. You have to you have there, there's things you have to do, there's masters, you have to serve, you have to flip a truck or two, you have to uh, you know, fall off a building or two. There's and these things that Um, I'm I'm real pleased for the four years we had and very grateful.

But in this other setting, whether it's CMT and these new writers, I think that we can go back to some of the stuff that not only was initially drew people to the show, but I always think it was the real heart of the show. Anyway, we were sometimes competing in an arena that we weren't wasn't our strength, It wasn't our forte to compete with a show um

that can be so um incredibly. I'm uh. There's so many things that go on on some of these shows, on these network shows, and we were doing that too. But I thought the thing and that's what makes them great, But that's never was what made us great. What made us great, what what attached people to us and made him not let go, was those tiny little moments, those little looks between Deacon and Rain or that or that little sad moment between you know, whether it was Juliet

or something like that. As those moments of connection and those those more real moments, I think we're gonna be able to get to do a lot more of those, and the whole thing is gonna be able to breathe a little bit. It's gonna it's like an old time lemonade, that lemonade stand that we first were for a little bit. We ended up having to make a lot more lemonade

at a much bigger scale, quicker pace. Yeah, and even what I'm saying, I don't I'm not disrespecting what we did, but I'm just saying that this the nature of the Beast was that you had to do a network television show at a network television pace. Yeah, and and we loved getting to do it, and they were fantastic while we got to do it. But it's like, oh, what are we gonna get to do now? Well, is there anything you want to say? Because we rather that Connie

only signed up for half the season. I'm not allowed to comment on any of that because that that leads to her storyline, and all that all I can do is comment backwards and and you know, I mean, how much uh she was the day I met her. This is the worst line in the world. But it was truer than a Kobe. So I said, I said, there's a million reasons I'm excited to do this show, and you're a couple of hundred of them. I was a

huge Friday Night Lights fan. She is going to be there tomorrow when I go to work, and she's been there every day until now. And I could not act. I could not bring that up. No, no, no no, I wouldn't. I would have drive out here going I couldn't. Don't even ask. Yeah. I have also become personal friends with Connie and man, what a strong And I'm like, I don't even say a strong woman, because I don't want

to disrespect women. Right, She's just one of the strongest people and one of you have a conversation and you just kind of fall into it with her. I completely agree. And I'll tell you what more than that. Throughout all these years of what we've been doing, one of the one of the true north of the show was Callie Curry.

Whenever she would direct her, whenever she would write an episode, I always could feel the whole thing come more back towards true north, Like on your compass of what the show is best at, what it's meant to be, Connie is that as well. Connie Um would always have a clear vision of what this should be and what we

were doing, and Um she was for me. I give her so much credit for anything I've ever been able to do on the show because she's an absolute truth detector or maybe that's a nice way of saying a bullshit detect her big time and with me too, like she's called me out on She's passionate and she's very much here's what I am and that's it. And also even in terms of her acting, it's just real. She's

just talking. I remember, I think it was first season, but I realized that if you're talking to her in a scene, and it's very hard not to add your little things that you think are gonna make you look cool or make the line sound really good. And so you create this little primrose path that you might walk down for how the scene will play the best. But that's not being in the moment, and that's not being real. And I don't know how she's going to react to something I said, So how can I know how I'm

gonna react to her reaction? So it forced you to let all that go, because the second I didn't let it go, if I ever said something her truthfulness would make me sound so damned phony that I'd go, let's try that again. Stop, I can't do it that way, and I would just And so remember one time, this was it in a nutshell that we did. We were doing some scenes and she did all her coverage and it was my turn, and it was feeling good. It

was fine. And uh and finally, um, we had a great director too, but he worked back and he's going to the back to the video village and and we're about to stay action again. I just leaned over to her. I go, I just wasn't bend it all the way, and I said, just give me something, give me something, give me not say something, make me be better, you know, real quickly, and she smiles. She goes just talk to me, and I was like, m damn it, yes, yes, exactly that.

It's so obvious, but it's so brilliant. And so we did that take and she says her thing, and I just talked to her and it's like that that again and again that. But it takes somebody uh strong, uh, both mentally and you know, mostly every other way to remember that and to hold their guns and always be that. It's back in January. Uh, Chips got songs every Friday for the next ten years. He's claimed it here. He's going to do this for ten years, every single day.

It's every single Friday until it's stupid. And I don't know it might already be, but until I think it's stupid. I think it's like I told you privately, was I think as an artist, you're showing something here that people didn't know you were, and so you're consistently putting out

new music. You're showing that you are Okay, yeah, you're deacon on Nashville, you're this, here, that, but you're also an artist and play live shows and you you know, for people to be able to see versatility is tough because they start to put people in rolls and you're doing something that's kind of hard for people to understand it first. But I think people are finally getting it now. I'll tell you one more thing, the real already though.

It's it's it's been so cool because you've seen this and now I've finally seen it after all these years of playing here in a round town and around the country. I played shows now for the last couple of weeks, and as I'm singing a song I love, I see it on their lips. It's the coolest thing ever. It's the cool thing ever. Yeah, so it's nuts. So already I wind all right, there is Chip Veston or is it makes me call him off the microphone, Charlie. Thank

you for being here on the Bobby becaust dude. I hope you had fun. This is a lot of fun for me to sit back and and and talk it out. Thank you, man. Mike Wanna, we never went to we got lost. Anything you want to ask the ship before we go. Just thanks for talking about Holdown. That was my favorite bit ever. I was geeking out a bit. Yeah, alright, well, thank you. I appreciate it, alright. Hashtag every single Friday again Charles Eston. And he's got new music every Friday.

And there's a light out there already. And he's also on the road a lot playing You, and Claire are playing You and all. We're in New Jersey on I don't know when this airs, it'll it'll be up tonight, but it'll be up forever. So he'll be in New Jersey soon and they're probably again again. All right, thank you guys, and we'll talk to you soon.