Jimmy Harnen

could be adult content. I'm super pumped about this episode. I have Jimmy Harnet in the house. What what? This guy was a rock star. He had a huge pop hit, Are you now? One of the only guys in the record business to have also been a huge star himself. So now he's running Big Machine labels as E v P and he is the head president of BMLG Records, where my husband and a thousand horses a signed Michael Hobbey. What what? Also he launched Luke Brian or Church, Darius Rucker,

Brett Young. He's awesome, He's amazing, and we talk all about what it's like to be in the middle of the record industry, running it all, making it happen. You'll get excited. Here is Jimmy Harnin. Hi, Hi, how are you? Hi? Jimmy Harnett. I was going to wear that same shade lipstick, and then I thought, I just had a feeling today you're gonna wear that Like, No, it's actually like cherry red cherry. Are you feeling it? I'm feeling it would

looks so good at you think? So Okay. So I'm here with Jimmy Harnan, who you have an incredible bio, an incredible life, and you're pretty much just the sh isn't it? Would you like to manage me? Or I'd like to be a helplicist. I want to start off with a few questions and just answer rapid fire the first thing that comes to your mind. Boy, are you ready for okay? Vision board? When? Oh? I love that? Okay?

Bucket list shooting under part the Masters, like playing the Masters, like do you want to play with like Tiger and on them on the real I say a bucket list, I mean any any any time. A great round of golf on a great golf course is a big is a big bucket list for me? Why do you love golf so much. You know, I don't really know. I think it's just a it's a it's a chance to get out and do something different than what I do. Um,

you're in the outdoors. You get a chance to walk and see some beautiful scenery and spend time with a lot of people. So it's just the opposite of what I do day in and day out. So it's like a great escape. So day and day out, what do you do? I do a lot of stuff. Um, you know, depends on where Scott wants to use me. But it's because you're a Big Machine label group. So I'm VP of the label group and the president of BMLG Records. What does he mean executive vice president? Okay, so your

executive vice president of the entire label. And there's Sport Labels, yes, so you run there's there's b MLG Records, okay, and your president of that one. Yes, there's Big Machine, there's Valerie, There's nash Icon, and then there's Dot So there's five. So you are vice president of all of them, and then president if you have all of those, and then president of BMLG Records. That's a lot of responsibility. Well,

I mean Scott balances it out. So there'll be a lot of times when I commem in and work with the promotion departments for all the labels, commend with some of the marketing um again, some of the promotions, some of the A and R work with Allison and Laurel. So it's great nose two days are the same, which is fantastic, and it's a lot of fun seeing great people like your husband and A thousand of horses. Yes, how we have a new single coming out, okay, so I kind of there's so many things I wanna talk

about since you brought that up. How do you decide what single to go with with an artist, because to me, that's one of the hardest decisions as a creative person myself, former songwriter, all that, like, how do you know which song is the one? Because all of them are so good in their own right, you know. I think it's a it's a process. I think you, um, you get the songs and then you you know, you share them with the staff and the staff will start raising their

hands and saying, I like this song. Uh so I got the thousand horses. We had several cuts and preaching of the choir just kept raising its hand. It's a phrase that's got boor Show to uses. I like that phrase. Yeah, he said, the hit single always raises its hand. So then you start taking it to some radio people. You think you're trusted ones, and there's there's a lot of people who we you know, we call them the you know, the kind of the ears of the format, and they're

always very honest. So you played for them, You play for your friends, your wife, your family, and all of a sudden the song just kind of kind kind of creeps up. But the real ones like preaching to the choir, we just knew instilling we heard, were like, that's the one you just felt it. Yeah, and then we use the rest of our our our taste makers, you know, confirm or reconfirm what we think. So okay, so say like you go to your staff and you say, we

really feel good about this. Everyone feels good about it. And so then you take it to radio. What if ray Dio doesn't feel good about it? Well, I mean you hope, you hope that by the time you've done all those screeners that radio likes it and it works out well, and typically it does, I mean you miss I mean, sometimes great songs aren't hit records. That's true, which is sad, but well, a lot of the greatest songs aren't hit records. Sometimes, like the most lyrically profound songs,

sometimes they're too heavy for people. Well, I don't think people really understand how difficult it is to get an entire country of radio stations. It's like a miracle to move up at the same time. And sometimes you might have success that comes out of the Northeast, and then it comes out of the Southwest, and by the time it gets here this this format, this part of the

country is already done. You could have another because when you mean that, like, so there's a hundred and thirty radio stations across the country, right or something like, there's a ton of them, I mean, and they and they break down into different panels just like reporters non reporters, and then there's media based Billboard music row. So there's various different ways that they put them together in categories.

So when you say you're moving a song across the country, every radio station adds a song at their own pace, Like no one. You don't just send a song on. Everyone adds it and starts playing it. We like certain amount of times a day. That that's how been With some big records, yes, what's your superstar kind of happens more, but especially with the baby bands. Can you break down? Why is it breaking an act? Is like it's an act of God. It's a miracle when it actually happens.

Everything has to line up right. Yeah, it's really really challenging and it does happen a lot. And when it does, especially with you, you're really great at it. Well, we've been. I've been blessed to work with a lot of great people and have a lot of great music. You're great at breaking acts. Thank you. I appreciate that. Again, it's the great music. Because without great music and a great support team and a great team of other people, uh,

you just can't do it. So we've we've been blessed and I've been blessed to do it here at a capital and uh, you know, just very fortunately. Tell me some of the people you've broken well in terms of breaking and I ran the promotion department of Capital when we broke Luke, Brian, Eric Church, Darius Rucker, Lady Annabellum and then of course Keith Urban was already successful. Dirks was already successful, and then over here big Machine Labor group.

It was the band Perry Florida, George Line, thousand Horses, and now Brett Young. So what is how do you do it? How do you break? And how do you pick your team? Because I know having a great team is really important. So how do you pick your staff? Because they're like your hands and feet that go out there and talk to radio get the song going, Like, how do you pick your staff? And then how do you set up and break a new act? Well? Picking his staff? I think I really take a lot of

pride in interviewing people, and it's always about character. So I like people who are hard workers, who were driven but really have great character. And I have a little stick around my computer that Mike Dungan gave me a capital and says, do the right thing. So I'm always interested in people who do the right thing. And if you have good people who work really hard, do the right thing and have a great, great character, you always get great results, or you'll get you'll get great results

more often than you won't. And in terms of picking songs, um, you know, it's the same thing we've talked about. We screened them and then after a while, you know, I don't do anything else very well. So this has been the one set of talent that the God has given me. I can't fix a car. I can't even fix a lawnmower. I don't cut the grass, and I'm the world's worst handyman. So I think all my brain cells have been in this.

And just like somebody who's great at fixing cars, he was great at baseball or great at football, they they they've just been in it long enough. And you know, I've done this my entire life since I was five years old, so well, singing and performing and all that. Because you, I think are the only record label president or record label executive in the history of music that I can find that was a hit artist yourself. Uh, Jimmy Gilmer who was a publisher at EVE and I

did it. And then uh, Tommy Mattolo actually had a hit. He was a singer also, So it's a very small club. Well, and there might be more, but it helps to be I mean, when you were around it all the time and you just immerse yourself in it, you just you know, if you're in a pool all day long, you get wet. So if you're in the music business your whole life. You eventually learned things that people who don't do with

that much you know, you know, don't learn. So tell me about how you got into singing, how you got your first hit, and then how you transferred into now being a badass record executive. Uh well, badness right, thank you for that. Um. When I was a little boy, my we used to live in a town called Plymouth, Pennsylvania, and my mom used to take me on this bus to Wolkesbury to go shopping. We didn't have a lot of money, so she just took me. We walked around

the stores and stuff. But when I on the bus one day, it was empty and it's and it sounded very reverberated, and I started singing the ballad of the Green Berets O Goodness. But when I sang, it was like fighting soldiers from this guy. And I heard that my voice resonating inside the bus, and I love the way that sound. And I can't believe my mother actually let me sing. So people would get on the bus and she'd still let me sing. And I was wondering, like if my son did that now or my daughter,

I go stop, they're giving you people. I'm sure everyone loved it. It was like the magic bus riding it was well, they were very kind, and so that's how I started to sing. And the people would walk up to my mom and say, you should give him singing lessons. So I took some singing lessons, and then I started to play clarinet and trumpets and drums and guitar. And okay, you're a little bit of a project. You play all those instruments not very well. Why do you know I

tried to play a guitar for twenty years. They still can't play it. You play like six things. Well, I've I've dabbled in all in all things, so but it's always been the music. And again that gets back to your last question. It's always been the music. So while other people were, you know, working on their craft in another form, this is all I did. So I did all that, and then when I graduated from college, I said to my mom and dead, can we write and record the best song that we can before I go

to grad school? Did your parents write? No? But me? I mean sorry, I mean my friends. So we wrote a song called where you Know. It was about a girl who broke up with me. And I write. My piano player friend Rich Congdon wrote the piano part. He gave it to me. I took it home, sat down me how my drums, played the drum track, and sang

and wrote the song in about three minutes. And then literally bon Jovi was coming to my hometown doing his show in Wilkesbury, Pennsylvania, and I'd already taken the song over to Jeff Walker, who was the DJ at w k Z FM and Wilkesbury, and he liked it. So when bon Jovi was coming to town, I told him, I said, can we open up for bon Jovi? Will even pay to play? Okay? I love how you just put yourself out there in your hustler like you're just

like making it happen. You're not waiting for it that well, because I spent five thousand dollars recording the song. My mother is gonna kill me if I didn't make this happen. This is a get a life, needs to get a liv and then not or I needed to get a life. And so we opened up for bon Jovi, and VI the radio stations said, hey, I think I need to open up for bon Jovi. Then you did? They heard the song. They liked it, and then they said you'll

have the have the gig. But when we wanted if you can play the record on the radio, So they played it on the radio and they called me and they said, you need to make up forty five out of this, and I said, well, I don't know how to do that. So I learned how to mix a record and I'm sorry master a record manufacturer, record and I and the record stores in the in the area where Joan Ardan's Gallery of Sound. They wanted a thousand of them, so we gave them a thousand, and then

a week later he called me. He said they were all sold out, so he wanted another thousand, so we made another thousand. We ended up selling about fifteen thousand singles like independently Yeah, and then that's and then it started to go to Allentown, Philadelphia, and then that's when all the major labels. That's just what the dream is like. That is the dream story. Everyone dreams of that happening, but it actually happens. It's funny because that movie that

thing you do. Yes, they're from Erie, Pennsylvania. Our story was almost like that. I often wonder if they if there was a yeah, but um, naturally just started rolling. Did you put obviously you put the momentum out there,

but then it just started going well. And then as it started to go, we were tied in with some independent promoters who got themselves in some not good situations, and all the new artists that were tied to those and these were delayed, I'm sorry, dropped, and all the major artists were delayed, and so um, we ended up getting dropped from Columbia Records. And then between eighty six and eighty nine there were radio stations rediscovering songs that

didn't work the first time. So um, his name was Jay Taylor and guys Napoleon in Las Vegas at k z z P and Kayla you see, and they started playing the record and a friend of mine, Joan ard Own, who owned that record store, was in Las Vegas, and he said, they're playing your song every three and a half hours. You got to find out ho who it is. So I went and I looked through a book called the Yellow Pages of Rock, found out who you know?

It was Kaylea you see. And Jay Taylor said to me tomorrow morning, on the cover of the USA today, there's gonna be a story about you. Benny Mardonna's sheriff, and you be forty, So I'm like, wow, I was like finding a bag of money, Like this was just a little gift that was happening. I'm sorry. Nine. So then I went back to the people who got me my first deal. They rereleased the record in the second time. It went to number three on the A C chart and top ten c HR and it stayed on the

charts for like forty eight weeks. And since I was one of the writers, it made a lot, a lot of good chunk of money. So that helped me pay some bills in some of the debt. And as fast as that happened, the second single I wrote that I had released was a stiff and I got dropped again. Yeah, but talk about like a glory story of how it had a second life though it was amazing. That doesn't usually happen, so actually get their one shot. If they don't work out, it's like by yeah. Well, there was

a lot of great people. I mean Brian Phillips who's now at CMT. He was a big believer and he was in a radio station called Katie w B in Minneapolis and uh, some other former guys like Mike Kennedy used to be in Kansas City and there's a lot

of move played and they were all great people. But it was really an ergazing thing because the band had broken up and I was just starving, still playing music, and literally it was like finding a bag of money, like Holy Calum on the cover of USA Today's Entertainment section and the song is being rereleased and it really

was a great energizer. But I learned a lot about the business and when well, when I went to l a UM, Jerry Greenberg was the president, Davis was senior VP of promotion, and I used to hang out at the record company more than the studio. I just loved watching them get songs on the radio, putting the videos together, marketing everything. And that was when I got the bug to switch sides. Okay, I was gonna ask you, how

did you decide to switch? Well, I was starving, to be honest, I mean I learned a lot, and I said, you know, I need to make a living. I was married and my wife said, rock star with the best ads I've ever seen. I would agree with, you could wash your clothes on this. We do. We saved so much money, but I'm not gonna wash it. So she said to me, Um, we could pick New York, Nashville, or l A. But let's just go and move there. And so we picked Nashville, came here, knocked on a

few doors. One thing led to an other, and I met Scott Borchetta. That was the first guy I met, and he uh. He offered me a job at m c A and then got fired the next day. So then I had to take a job in the Southwest at Curb Universal doing Southwest promotion. And then Scott started up dream Works and then he called me and made me the Northeast regional and then I did that for a few years. He made me a co national, and

then Mike Dungan offered me the capital. He offered me the national job, then the VP, then the senior VP. Did that for about five or six years, and you did. Yes. I was always so nervous to say hi back in the day, thank you, I think, but I was so when I was an intern. I was so nervous because there's just so much happening, so much like powerful things going on, and like you were running it all. And I've told you before I will never forget you printed out this book The Art of War, and there are

all these stuffs. You passed them out to all of your staff and you're like, we're reading this as a group. Was I think it was the forty it Laws of Power in the forty eight Laws of Seductions or something like that, and I just wanted anybody to read it and understand that, you know, this is this is sales and it's not easy. And we had so many records and they were all hits. So you know, I never wanted to go to Luke Brian or Charles Kelly or Darius Records say this isn't working. But I will tell

you funny story. So Luke Brian, one of the classiest guys in the business, first single comes out and with Mike Dungan picked, it was called all my Friends Say Goes. The number three second single was a song called We Wrote in Trucks, which I love. Fourteen weeks and it's not working. So what does that mean? When it's not working? It just means that people were either not playing it, didn't want to play it, or when they did play it,

people didn't like it. But overall it just wasn't working, So I have to call in Luke Brian and tell him his second single is not working. So I call him and he sits in the office and I go through this long, very soft pedaling things, just trying to make it easy on him, and he goes, well, fuck, I wrote the thing. If it sucks and it your fault, it is my fault. Le's just pick another single. And

the next day I went to number three. And the reason I say that is because success has many fathers, but failures and orphan and success has many fathers but failures. What does that mean? When any anything is is successful, everybody wants to take credit, but when it fails, nobody wants to be near it. Oh okay, And so Lute was great and he just he said, listen, you know, we all did it. It didn't work. Let's just get our stuff together and go. And he's still that classy

guy today. Don't you kind of think to sustain yourself in an industry like the music industry that does have so many ups and downs, you kind of have to develop that attitude of just okay, let's just keep it going, keep it rolling. Like everyone tries their best, but it's like you can't harness magic and like predict what's going to happen, and you have to have tough skin and you can't take it personally because it's art and there's you know, there's no there's no best guitar player in

the world, there's no best singer in the world. It's all subjective and it's like, why does one person take off at another person with all this talent doesn't And that's the toughest part of my job is when I have to say something's not working after you know, a collegiate try and it is a business at the end of the day. If it doesn't, it's a business, it is. And if it doesn't work monetarily, you know, we always say that art that doesn't that doesn't sell is an

obsession with a storage problem. Art that doesn't sell is an obsession with a storage So many good lines, he's one liners. We needn't read a one liner book of Jimmy Harnet. Okay, So how do you decide when you want to sign an artist? What is it that makes

you want to sign someone? You know? I think I read a book of Clive Davis and he said he signs things that he can't get his arms around, meaning when he sees something or hears something and it's you know, it could be reminiscent of something else, but he just can't figure out why he's just attracted to it. Um. You know, it's kind of like when you get married, you know what what makes you want to get married? It's just that that attraction that you go, I just

need to be with this person. And it was that way with you know, Michael Hobby and a thousand horses, And it's the same way with Brett Young and I'm sure Scott with Taylor and all the other artists we have here. So it's just that thing that you see

and you go, this is where I belong. I feel like you I've never been scared to take a risk on people either, like I feel like you will put yourself out there for something that is a little bit more alternative or not like as mainstream because a lot of your acts other people didn't sign and then they've gone on to be like really successful because you saw something that maybe other people didn't. Well, I think the thing I look for something unique. I always listened for

a unique voice. Again, Michael Hobby has a very unique voice, but done voice, And I think because it starts there, it has its own space and it has its own oxygen. And if you have that lane, then that's one check mark out of the way. Then you just need to get great songs, which is not easy, and you need to have a great performance. But that's the first thing I listened for, is is the voice unique? And will people hear it on the radio or hear it on Spotify?

Here on iTunes and go who is that? Can you explain to me the marriage between record labels and radio stations because I think al yes, like the marriage of like that balance, because I think a lot of people, most people do not understand the power of radio and like how it works. Well, I mean, in radio they are the ultimate matchmakers. Is Kimberly Perry once said, you know from the band Perry. She said, they're the people

who take your song to the consumers. But the thing is, you don't just send them a song and they play it. It's way more complicated than that. Well, I think they obviously they what they don't play can't hurt them. So their airwaves are very important and you can't sit back and not respect that. So they only have a certain amount of time in a day, and the best songs win, and every program director or music director puts on what they think is best for their station, and many people

to stay listening to that station. They don't want to have a song that makes people want to turn the dial and so so it's it's a balancing act. So you'd have to sign, you know, because all the way back to the beginning, you have to find great artists with unique voices, with great songs, have great relationships at radio, be trustworthy, do the right thing, have a great character,

and you're not always going to win. Sometimes winning, in my opinion, you have to lose a lot to win, and you can't win every game because there's another thing. You know. A pig gets fed, the hog gets slaughtered. So never be a hog. You want to be a pig? I want to be a pig. Can you start writing your quote? I'm done, we're doing let's go okay. So you that's the thing. So how do you may stay a pig and not a hog? Because isn't it sometimes don't you want to be a hog? I think it's

a balance. I think that you know, you know. Another saying my dad used to say is if you try to pick up ten pillows, you're gonna drop all of them, but if you pick up two, you're gonna be able to carry them out. So I think life is always a balance and you can't be greedy. And I think if you do that in the long run, more people will help you out. Then if you go the other way. Who has been one of your greatest inspirations in this business?

Who have you really learned from? I guess who would you call like a hero for you or someone that you have admired greatly throughout your career. I think anybody who's come in my life. I mean from from Jerry McDowell who hired me a curb Universal, to Mike Dungan, Scott boor Shadow. Um my old manager is back in Wilkesbury, Pennsylvania. Tom Greco was a great business guy. Uh. Gary Cornfield, Mitch Cornfield and Mark corn fell down the club called

the Woodlands. I worked there. They all taught me a lot of things. One are the things that stood up the most of They taught you how to be driven, how to be detailed, how to make sure you're always moving forward. Uh, don't confuse motion with progress. Don't, because that's just like being busy but not accomplishing any point. It's like being in a rocking shore. You move all day, but you don't accomplish anything. So I've all those people have taught me all that kind of things and to

be good with details. And then my mom and dad just taught me to be as good of a person as you can be. And my wife still does that today, and and my kids still teach me that kind of stuff. It's like, Dad, you're being, you know, a dork. Don't do that. You know, my wife's saying, don't do that. So everybody you meet, you know, they say, you have two ears in one mouth, so you should listen twice as much as you talk. And so I try to

listen more than I talk. I love that, Okay, So if your world could go perfectly, what would things look like for you and the next five years, and then let's just go ahead and say the next ten years. If you could just lay it all out there, what would be happening for you in the next five years. Well, I like people to understand. I think we have to find a way to um get people to understand the

value of music. I agree, and what do you think, like with the whole Spotify stuff and streaming, like, because there's people are streaming on this music, but it's not making money, Like, how do you think that's going to happen? I think it's the what happened because music needs to make so much money. Well, I think that the digital world changed everything. So I think that you know, if you have a phone right now, it's very easy to pay fifteen dollars a month for Spotify and streaming and

it's right there, and it's a great concept. It's a great concept and it's a great platform. What we have to do is get as many people as we can to Spotify, to Pandora, to the streaming services and pay appropriately. It's the free streaming that it's just that it's just taking money out of our pockets. And I actually think that, you know, um, we need to raise the cost of a single a little bit and raise the most of

an album. It's not inexpensive to do what record labels do or what artists do, and not anybody can just do it. You know. I was somebody was talking to an artist and I think they were talking to Sting and they kind of made they made him feel like, well, anybody could do what you can do, And I'm like, no, he's Sting. You don't just do what Sting does. Thing

is a genius. And I was I was watching listening to that interview and I was kind of just deflated, thinking that people just think it's easy, but exactly it's not. So it's a it's a tough life and it takes a team, absolutely, and it's not easy to create. It's not easy to get brilliance to to write a song like Michael, they would smoke, or to to write what Taylor doesn't mean, that's just those songs just don't fall out of the sky. They come from within and it's

a gift and music really does have value. In Scott and Big Machine Label group are really trying to push that message to let people know how much value music really does have because if it if we don't start monetizing this, we could endanger in American art form, which is music. If you could have it the way you want it, how would you monetize it. Well, this is

just a person of you. I I think we have to get a lot more people, as Scott Borsche says, we have to get it to scale we get to get more people to pay for it, not do the free. And I think if we do that, that's a step in the right direction. And then let's take it from there. Let's, you know, how to eat an elephant one bite at a time, So let's just take it one bite at a time and move on. And I think, well, it'll start showing us how to to move towards the future. Okay,

what are you most excited about this year? What's on the horizon for you this year? Well, I mean all the music, um, you know, I'll take it to the family thing for that. My son is now sixteen and driving, and he's about to go to his senior year and then go to college. So I'm excited about that. That's crazy, he's already going to college. Where does the tough Where didn't? Where did it go? Now? Where does it go? I know?

It just flies right by. And you know when he was he's born in two thousand and don't blink, came out right when he was born. Yeah, And and it does. It really does fly right by. Life happens when you're doing stuff. And so I'm really excited about him going to college and my daughter driving, which is and by the way, your daughter's would knock out, So good luck

with that. I'm scared about that, excited about that, and scared about and just spending time with my family and try to balance my life and be a good father and a good executive and and break a lot of new music. And that's that's been my biggest thrill is breaking new music. So how exciting is it when you stay like with a thousand horses with smoke and then

Brett Young just had his first number one? How exciting is it to you when you have this artists that you believe in and then you put all this build up and all of the set up and then it

actually works. The best I mean is that the moment you live for, Like in the industry, is that like the moment of like, oh my god, yes, if you if you realize that they start from essentially nothing, no disrespect, they start from very little meaning in terms of chart success or sales, and you see it happen, and you watch it happen, and it's even more exciting to know that the art that you saw and heard the consumers

like as well. That that's a great feeling and the only way you can get that is by doing it, and it's I'm very fortunate to be able to experience that. What stresses you outmost about this business, uh an honored dishonest people, UM, people who yeah, just not any anybody who's dishonest and just can't have a grown up conversation or a positive conversation and any kind of negativity. I mean, I got into the music business because it was fun.

And when someone's dishonest or when they get angrier, when they get all bent out of shape about stuff, It's like, we're not saving lives here, we're making music. So let's keep it fun, let's keep it positive, let's keep it happy, and it'll all be good. What makes you respect someone that they respect themselves. Um, that they take care of themselves and they present themselves well, and they're positive and they try hard and they're optimistic. Um. You know, just

good people attract good people. And I think if you are a good person, there's a lot of things that can go your way and you don't even know they're happening because you're just a good person. I totally agree with that. I actually think that people want to root for people who just keep trying, positive energy and it's it's not easy, especially in this business, because you know, it's like you just keep trying. You hit you miss, you hit you miss, you hit you miss. But you

have to or you you know. Kenny Rodgers great line. He said, there's two kinds of people, those who get it done and those who bitch about it. So try not to bitch about it. I agree. I think it doesn't do any good, just attract more of that negativity. Okay, So I have a question. If you won the lottery, and you won thirty million dollars tomorrow, what would you do? I probably donate a good part of it, um if I got it all one lump um to a lot of people who I think might need a lot of

charities that might need it. Obviously, take care of my family, um, and probably in your life a little more crazy in some ways, like I think anybody would do, probably buy something stupid if you could be the pet dog to anyone. My wife, My wife, I mean, she's like the she's like the the animal queen. I mean, she's just she just loves animals. She's you know, you probably seeing her social. She's always got the two dogs. I mean we have two rabbits, two dogs. We feed the deer and the

turkeys in our yard. And yeah, definitely my wife. She's like snow White with the animals. Yeah. If you could be the pet dog to any celebrity, he would it be in Why Reba McIntyre details. She's just the best. I mean, she's just what is it about Reba that you love everything? Uh? We just released an album on her that I went to number one and she the whole week on the road. I mean, she's Reba McIntyre and she's never stopped reinventing herself and staying relevant. How

does she do that? Well, she never because she's talented. I mean obviously she's incredibly talented. She's a mentor and and and many. She inspires a lot of people, both in the business an artist. But she never complains. And I'll never forget the first time I met her, it was like nineties six and dallars how I'm reading mcintarre like she needed a last name. Oh yes, weepen McIntyre. But there's never a stuck up. No, there's never a you know, knows up in the air. She's just that

hard working, incredibly talented artist. That's you know, changed a lot of people's lives, and she's never too like to she I feel like she never gets too caught up on who she is to stay young and hungry, Like she's always seeing what's out there and evolving with it, which I think is so crucial. Why do you like her? Probably because when you see her, she makes she feel

like she's your best friend. She's got talent for days, she's approachable, she doesn't feel like she's too good to talk to anyone, and her songs like they were late. I agreed, and she's cool. She's yeah. Okay, So let me make sure I've asked you all the questions that I want, because then I like to wrap up with leave your light, So leave some inspiration. Leave your light or how you have been inspired or how you would like to inspire people. I mean kind of a lot

of the things we just talked about. UM. I hope that. UM, when someone looks at something I've done, they say that I did the right thing. I was positive, I was respectful. UM I did it with it with as much care and sensitivity as I could and impacted their lives in some way. Positive, that made them go, That helped me move in a direction I need you to go. I love that, Jimmy Harden, thank you for Julie and I'm gone that I got it writing where she's I hope

you guys loved hearing from Jimmy Harnon you guys. Next week, I have the Redneck Woman Herself, Question Wilson, Joy Any Meek What and John John Barry your love Amazes Me are joining me. I interviewed them at CRS, which is Country radio seminar where tons of artists go around and they talk to radio and they tell what's going on in their life and their careers and their music. And I got to interview Gretchen Wilson and John Barry, so I'm making it a double episode. You will not want

to miss it. Gretchen Wilson in the house and John Barry will see you next week. Don't forget to subscribe and leave some comments by