Skip Bishop

I have skipped Bishop joining me today. This guy is magical. It's the only way I can describe him. He You see him, and he's like a musical wizard. He walks in, he has all these turquoise rings. He's got this wild hair, this huge, light, effervescent personality, and he comes in and he literally cast a spell on you. He's amazing. I got to work with him. He started a label called Hit Shop Records, and we worked together. I worked on his radio promotion team. It was an amazing experience. He ran.

He was vice president of Sony Promotion, vice president of a Risk of Promotion. He's worked in record labels in the industry for over forty years. He's worked with Lisa Lowe, Alan Jackson, Carrie Underwood, everyone at Sony. He's absolutely incredible. He has so many stories. He got started off as a fake radio personality when he was a kid talking into a cardboard box and performing for the whole neighborhood. He is incredible. His stories are great. So I'm so

excited you guys welcome skip Bishop. So I'm here with Ski Bishops. So strange, it's fun. Is it weird that I'm interviewing Yeah, it is your employee. I think I interviewed you once for a job and then you made me um from a special ops regional I did. That was really fun. That was you know, that really worked. I really did. That was one of our craziest ideas. And it's just so worked. Did I really interview you or did we just say, hey, should we do this?

I think you just said, hey, let's do this. I think I did, so okay, so going back and we did, and we did, and we did a really good job. So I worked for you at hit Shop Records. To all you guys listening, Skip Bishop is a promotion extraordinaire which most people don't know anything about what record labels are, or what working in promotions means or anything like that. It's a mysterious profession, it is, Isn't it kind of give us a breakdown of what that even means to

be head of promotions at a record label. Yeah, I can um, But you know, to someone who you know out there in the in the outside world, they don't really realize that there's this very mysterious profession called record promoter and they sort of work in the shadows. They're not openly known. But if they make it all happen, and you think about the importance of it that take a great song like like the House of Building, the House It built Me, or you can go all the

way back to Marvin Gay What's going On? Or Bob Dylan like a Rolling Stone, and all these songs that either launched a revolution or became the theme of a cause, or was maybe your daughter's first dance at a wedding, or was something that will always remind you of a beach relationship that you had in nineteen something. Somebody had

to get those records played. They did not just mysteriously appear on the radio, which is what probably most people think yeah, they think, ah, these songs are so great, and they and there is a machinery that that gets records on the radio. There's there's a there's a serious profession, there's an education process, there is an economic structure, their staffs of usually at a record company, it's the biggest staff on a record company. That the staff, right, that's

the thing. There's a huge staff that has to get records played correct. It takes a team. It takes a team that. It also takes about a mountain of money, a ton of money. Yeah, it's really not. It's not cheap. It takes just you think about the travel alone. And when you're trying to break a new artist, let's say, let's come up with an artist stealing angels. Oh my gosh. Those they never quite made it, did they? You know

they did. They did pretty darn well though. But you think about just how many radio stations they walked into. I think it was a million dollars at least spent. It had to be, it had to be. And they were so talented, thank you, thank you. Adorable stealing it's so talented the world will never know. You know where I saw stealing angels for the first time. I think I told you this at Al Gore's house. Oh yeah, we did playoffs. Yeah, and that was the first time I think I met you. And it was the first

time I saw stealing angels. And we got in trouble there because we used to always like post pictures and we always had video cameras, and we started videoing everything in the Secret Service confiscated all of our videos. Oh yeah, I'm not surprised. And that was the first time I ever really learned something about politics. That was quite a that was quite a little event. A war said that the lay public knows about two of what really goes on.

I think I agree. But I think that in today's immediate environment, immediate environment where you look at the things that have happened in the last forty eight hours in politics, things are changing. People are starting to really be able to because of social media and because of of everyone's life being so broadcast and so visible that people are starting to find out now that you can run, but

you can't hide. That's right. I mean, I'm I'm frightened when I when I checked the news in the morning, which I do, I say, Alexa, can you give me the news headlines. Did you re name Syria Alexa? Oh god, you are so yesterday cyber girlfriend Alexa is my cyber girlfriend, and she's also so many other people's cyber girlfriend's. That site where married men go to cheats. You know what I'm talking about. I certainly do not. I am. I am married to the most beautiful woman in the world.

Oh God, who happens to be in the room. So I'll tell you the name of it later. Yes, your wife, your beautiful wife, Diane is joining us and m h the dog and this is really cool. Emma used to be your dog. Now Diane was never your wife's, but Emma was your dog. And now Emma is our dog. So when I was working at head shop, I had a friend who had Emma who ended up staying at the house with this a show called a d D

dot com. Yeah, it's a rabbit trail. And so when my friend Byron, he moved in with me in my roommate Emily and his son Booker and Emma the dog, and then I ended up keeping Emma brought in the office every day. You ended up falling in love with her, and now Emma is your dog. Yes, yeah, it's really funny, and that you let us bring dogs to the office. It was a dog friendly environment. It was we had rules if they if they pet on the floor, out they went. Unless you're ruby. Yeah, your ruby can stay

on the floor. And they had to take their little walks every day and if they made too much noise, they were banned. But they weren't banned for long because we missed them. We had a good time. It okay, when I ask you a few questions, a little rapid fire, I gotta move the Buddha all right. If you had to have one word to describe yourself, what would it be? Tornadic? Tornadic? I don't know why I came up with that. It's just you have so many moving pieces swirling at all times.

I am tornadic. I'm tornadic. My life is tornadic, but in a good way, in a fantastic There is nothing slow and peaceful going on in my life. It is all one big spinning mess, and it's a beautiful mess. But you can juggle the spinning mess. I'm a juggler. How do you juggle the tornado? Tornadic spinning mess? I don't know where I came up with tornadic. It just

just gave to me. I've I've always done that. I like doing a lot of things, a lot of different things, and a lot of and have you know, a lot of different interest and a lot of different friends, and that you know, keep everybody connected, and it moves fast and it's really exciting. I mean, my our audience over there, we were talking about was it twenty minutes ago that we were thinking about doing this in New York? And all of a sudden our lives have been spending sometimes

out of control, but mostly in control. For for as long as I can ever remember it. I do like it that one. What was your upbringing like? Did you grow up with a lot of moving pieces all the time? I did. My mother was an absolute, uh dynamic person. She raised myself and my sisters and uh she was a high school teacher and she she she she wrote books as her life went along. She had people in

and out of the house all the time. People would come and stay in the house, and they would like these these kids that were either bounced out of their house or people that needed a place to stay for six months. We're always in with us. And there was like twelve people at the dinner table and everyone had different less names where you eyes get it because you and Diane always have like Sunday dinner and all everyone in the neighborhood and their dogs, like everyone can come over.

We do and they do. So you get that from your mom, I guess. So. Yeah, she always said come one, come all. Yeah, And it was it was a wonderful environment. I mean when I was a kid, people were sitting around in our living room playing guitars and singing. And some of them I knew who they were, and some of them I didn't. They were poets, there were painters. It was all a very artistic group. Uh. Yeah, she was.

She could draw. She she was a pretty good writer. Creative. Yeah. Yeah, she wrote a book and she wrote a weekly column in the newspaper. And she was very very smart. But she was crazy as hell. She was really wacky. Was her crazy like could be annoying. It was a little annoying. She was. She loved to She was kind of a somewhat of a puppet master. Okay, yeah, okay, so but yours, I've met your beautiful mother. Oh yes, my parents are fantastic, they really are. Your dad's very very cool too. I

met him. He survived a shark bite bite attacked to the face. Excuse me, you didn't hear about that? The World Wide Web, he was, We don't have the World Wide Web yet. Over here on sneed Road, he was spear fishing in the Bahamas with my whole family and got a fish and a shark bit him in the face. And you're kidding. Yeah, he was excited about it. How does his face look great? Just a few scars and he thinks it adds character and I'm sure it does.

That is so exciting. Where are you from, Danville, Virginia? What brought you to Nashville? What brought you to music? I know you haven't always been a Nashville You've been in New York. You've done all sorts of record label stuff. Well, Nashville is kind of a funny story because we were in h New York. We were living in New York for a very long time. Love living in New York, Yes,

and we miss it very much. Was there yesterday and I called home and I said, we have got to move back here because miss it, miss it, miss it. Do you think you love it? Love it? Love it? I hope so at some point. But we love Nashville too. I mean we ideally we'd like to have a house here in Nashville, a house in New York, and a house in Mexico. You have to well we do you have the Mexico in the Nashville. So I had it would just skill a little apartment in New York, tiny,

one little bitty. All you need is tiny apartment in New York, a little bitty bitty. Our first department in New York was about as big as the closet right over there behind that curtain. Though it was great. The living room, the dining room, the bedroom, the dressing room, and the den were all one room. And then there was a kitchen that was separate. And it was really that was it was like we go on vacation. We go into the kitchen. It was like a trip. I

love that. It was very nice. So how did you get into music and the music industry and all of that from your town, your little town, because it was your family. Never know, I've never done anything else to do it, because it's I was born knowing that I wanted to do it. You know what existed? Well, I'll tell you why. Because when I was tiny, all I did was listening to the radio. Just it's all I ever did, and and collect records, and that's all I did. That's all I did, and I mean and it was

it was crazy. I tell the story all the time that my parents used to tell because I remember when I was really little, my parents bought some new carpet and the carpet came in a huge cardboard roll. It was like this big around and it was like about seven two I guess it was about seven ft long. It was this big tube. And they pulled the carpet out of the big tube and at the end of you know, one end was wide open. The other end was closed off and had a hole in it about

this big. So I took the two the big carpet tube, and I put it on the porch and I put propped it up on a propped it up on a chair. Yes, ma'am,

should we should? Should we have headsets on? But we don't, okay, So I would I took my little record player out there, and what I would do is I put the I propped the tube up on the railing and put the other end on a chair, a ladder back chair, and I would play a record on my record player, and then I would talk into the hole like okay, that was the searchers with bumblebee, And before you know it, all my my buddies in the neighborhood, the kids in

the neighborhood would be sitting in the front yard and I would do it every day I was there, DJ and I would play it through the carpet thing and I would I would move the tube over to the record player when the record was playing, and then it was time for me to talk, and I would change records with one hand and talk about the record that I was about to play. That's creative. Well, it was fun. And then the audience started getting bigger, and I thought, well,

this is this is working. I'm building up a fan base all right here on carpet Radio. Oh you should start, I think so. And okay, it has a sad ending. Oh no. I left the carpet tube on the porch and there was a very very bad storm and it just warped it. How long did you have it? Weeks? Months and maybe a month. I'm going to call it six weeks, but you know, and I had first I had to walk up and down the street and say and say hey, guys, you need to come down and

find out that. You know, I'm doing something kind of fun. I'm playing all my favorite records and I dude. Okay, the dude wasn't invented, but yeah, it was a blast. It was so much fun. And they would come and then you know, get to your fan base that now you're no longer going to DJ. Well, it was pretty sad. That's a little hard the neighborhood. Well, I found a

way around it. Yeah, I did. Um. I was every Saturday, uh W y PR, which was the town's top forty radio station, would broadcast from the Ballue Park Shopping Center, not Blue Balu Balu Park Shopping Center, and every Saturday, Dandy Dan Henderson would go up there, and I started riding my bike up to see Dandy Dan. I befriended him. I would go get coffee for Dandy Dan. I would was his gopher and after a while he invited me into the van and I would do things like you know,

used to work for free for people. Oh, absolutely, there wasn't work. It was heaven. It was heaven. You were his errand boy, I was his errand boy I would do whatever he needed me to go get me a newspaper. Okay. Then he started making little quips about me on the air. He would say, you know, the skip the kid or whatever he called me, is back again. But one day, one fateful day, this is shortly after the carpet tube incident. Am I moving too fast? How old am I? Now?

I'm really I'm I'm thirty eight. Now I was probably nine. I could have been somewhere between seven and nine, which would have made me eight if my math is correct. I was eight. I could have been nine, Okay, so somewhere in there, which would be eight. Anyway, So I've been hanging out with Dandy Dan all day. I even went, oh by the way, I would get him coffee at one store, and they knew I was getting it for dance,

so they would give it to me for free. And then I started going to the ice cream store and they would I would say, I'm getting an ice cream comfort for Dandy Dan, and then no, no, it was for Dandy Dan. I would do one for myself of course that was they never charge. It was like the jack. It was awesome. So what was the Fateful Day? Oh? Yeah, yeah,

I forgot about that part. A d D radio So what happened was, is I take my ride my bike home after I had a great day hanging out with Dandy Dan It's been it was great, are having a great day, so I am. I get home and the Danville be which is the afternoon paper, the registered Danville Register was the morning paper. The B was the afternoon paper. Okay, let's review. Which one was the morning paper, the Register? The Register was the morning paper. The afternoon paper was

the B. I get home Saturday afternoon. The Saturday B, that's what we referred to it as the Saturday B is on the on the and I pick it up. I take the little rubber band off. Newspapers used to come in rubber bands. I take it off and unfolded, and right in the bottom of the front page it said, uh, soul singer. I don't even think they use the word sould back then. R and B singer Sam Cook was shot in his motel room in Los Angeles and is dead.

Details Intomorrow's Sunday Register. And I thought, this is long before you had you know, like internet or anything else, and you know Dandy Dance sitting out there enough, you had breaking news. I had breaking news. I got on my bike. I slammed that thing into the basket. It was I was rank. You were just peddling as fast as you could. Oh please, my little I was probably about eight inches off the ground. You knew you had breaking news? I did. I was thinking. I was thinking

Dan does not know this. This is big. So I'm peddling. So I go up and I, hey, am I you're so excited. Oh boy? Uh? So I slide, you know, do a skid mark, and up the bike and I walk up to the to the window of the van and I just very cinematically pressed it up there against the glass with with you know, my hair falling in my face and I'm gasping for breath. I'd pedaled for so hard. And Dan looks at it and he says, this is a really big news. And as he said,

come in, you're going to have to read it. And all of a sudden, did you of course? I did? Did you find words? I did? I did? I got into Oh of course not. They didn't ask about the carpet. So I get into the van and he puts the little headphones on me. Back then, they were ceramic. There were ceramic headphones with like a metal thing going over your head. And he says, what you're gonna hear is you're going to hear do you know when news breaks out whip breaks in? And I said, yeah, I know

what I've heard it on. He said, okay, when you hear that. After that, you're going to hear the did did did? And when you hear that, you read this. And he took the actual piece from the from the newspaper and he edited it. It's hard to say, that's a tough one. Uh So luckily that word was not in the copy. Yeah, he revised it much better. And he said, you know, he took the whole thing and then he tagged it out for w y PR News.

I'm skip Bishop and he said, when you hear the deep didet, I'm going to open your mic and you read it just as it is. Yes, my heart was coming out of my ears. Have you ever been that nervous again in your life? Do you think now? No? But I have to tell you I steadied myself right before it all happened. And he was playing a record that you do not remember because you weren't even thought about back then, by an artist called Millie Small, and the song was called my boy Lollipop. It was a

big record. Did you have a radio voice at eight years old? So how did you talk real? A little bit more high pitched back then? Probably I was eight year old. Probably, I don't know what it sounded like. There was no I don't I really, I don't know if it was ever recorded. I doubt it. Uh. So Dan, I'm we're listening to my boy Lillypop. That it Di did you make my heart go flip? It flop? That it did it? And all of a sudden, bam, he

hits the news sounder. Boom when news breaks out, whipper breaks in and then the deep did he did heat start? And what Dan did, which was a mistake and I will never forget it, and I knew it was a mistake when he did it. He dumped out of the record without turning it down, so it go went on the air. But then the sounder came in, so it was like Millie Small was singing along and people were grooving in their cars, and then it was boom down when news breaks out. So I said, oh my god, damn,

that's wasn't cool, man? Uh in my head, I said that. So the D D D comes on and I read the copy and I and I nailed it. I just and I knew I had nailed it. I knew it feeling it was incredible, you know that feeling after you're like you're on stage, you're doing a song and the song goes great. Yeah, Yes, smacked it out of the park. And then he brought up the sounder and here comes

Millie small back. He goes right back into the record and I'll never I fell back on the on the chair, and I remember I fell back and I closed my eyes. I was catching my breath and then I looked up and Dan is doing this thing where he's nodding. He's nodding, not saying anything. He's just nodding. And he said, stick with it. You said stick with it? Do you know what? No, And I have googled him several times with maybe we will find him on He was incredible. I will tell

you this confidence he did well. Yes, And I would hang around every radio station in town every I mean I would every weekend. I would go from w BTM to w d v A to YPR in any event where they were, I was there and I got to be buds with all this is available that's very like um. For a child so young to have that kind of confidence and hustling power is very was a really hustling patty. It was pure joy, nervous to go talk to adults and put themselves out there like that. Oh well ship,

it was just fun. It was fun. I would go. But you weren't scared, that's the thing, Like most kids would be too scared to do it. I would knock on the door at radio stations on the weekend until someone would come, and it was usually the weekend jock, and they'd say, they come on in, and they let me sit in the control room. They did, you know, because I would, you know, can I get you anything? You know, like you know, I can go to the store,

I can get you some coffee. No, no, no, and you know, and I would be quiet or or I would ask questions. Sometimes I said, look, you can't come in, my boss is coming. But they would give me Billboard magazine, you know, which was like the you know that would they'd give me free copies of records gold. So that sparked it. Did that lead to you? Were you on air as a radio personality? First? Okay? So then you became a radio personality and that lasted for how many years?

How long were you on air as a radio I'm gonna have to think about that, the voice of stations. I was mainly a morning show. Dude, did you like me on the morning show? I did? That was the only show I liked. Would you like about the morning show? Not you? You were ahead of the world. You had to jump on everything. It was more of a creative palette. You couldn't just go in there and do the time and the temperature and talk about what record was coming

up next and talk over the intros. This was top forty, by the way, pop pop. So what how did you find your breaking news? Like where did you gather that? Because point shows you have to know what's happening. Well, I'll tell you we we rewrote the newspaper. You just read the news things. We rewrote it. We rewrote it. I had a couple of people in there and we

would bring in the morning paper. And you also had a teletype, you know, you would have the machine that would from a p or U p I which would constantly spit out all the news and you'd get there early enough to take all the human interest stories, all the headline stories and then you take the local news out of the newspaper, which we just blatantly stole. Yeah, what't really plagiarism, was just you know, like it is the news, this is what's happening, and you know, and

we would just rewrite it. But how do you know the news was correct? Who cares? It's certainly not now, is it. Well? No, I've realized now doing some hosting and working with some news news taken straight off the internet, which isn't really like, well, no strong sources. Sometimes we are finding that out, aren't. So tell me one of the craziest stories that happened as a morning show host and some of the celebrities that you worked with that blew your mind? Um, I really, I don't know. I

can't off the top of my head. I can't think of who that. Probably my favorite interview I ever did of all time was Vincent Price. Do you know who he is? Yeah? You do, not do He's so good looking. He's all dead though, Yeah, but when he was alive. Yeah, I have actually somewhere in this office, it's that guy right about Diane. That's my son in law. That's Andy. Andy's got some good eyes. Going on. Yeah, that's a

self portrait he painted at himself. Vincent Price, uh was in town speaking and I got to do the interview ask him, Well, it's really funny. I'll tell you what it was. Uh I had a lot of questions prepared for him about films, and I knew he was an avid art collector. And I was so excited because I think I had seen every Vincent Price horror film ever made and loved them. I loved him. I mean, you couldn't collect movies back then. This was before you could

collect movies. You just got to see them when they came on. But uh I knew a lot about his films and I was so ready. But when we got into the interview, on every hand he had a turquoise ring. Is that where you picked up your turquoise rings? That is exactly the moment top it way way way, So I go and you can ask you about your rings, because here's flash rings. You're known for your rings, your turquoise rings. That's where it started. It's it's exactly where

it started. To go by them all the next day. No, I was very poor. I was a poor college student. But he had these cool turquoise rings, and I couldn't stop looking at him. And you know, we get seven eight minutes into the interview and I say, Mr Price, I have to ask you your rings. You're they're just beautiful, They're stunning. Could you tell me about him? And he says, well, you know, they're all different designs of turquoise and this

is uh. I love them. And we spent probably a good piece of the interview talking about talking about his rings and and that that moved on to that he collected other arts besides painting, he collected other things. But afterward, after the interview, we chatted about rings a little bit more and I just, you know, I thought, man, that's the coolest thing ever. So I have been collecting turquoise rings since that day. Wow, and you have you wear

five every day, five turquoise rings. And that's well, that's not that's not in the five Okay. So then you move on to promotion. So how did you decide to leave radio world and morning show and start working at a record label and how did you move from pop radio to country. Here are some of the acts that you broke in country music because you had a seven year number one streak at Sony. I don't know what that means. Well, I was there for seven years and

we had a tremendous amount of Number one. I think that the time that I was there, we had a total of I don't remember, forty seems to come to mind. I can't do that. Well, it was, it was several things number one. It was a really good time for music and we had a strong roster, and and Sony still does that time. When I got there, I was at Arista proper came into work at Arista. So sometimes people don't know this. There's like a major label, which

is Sony, and then sometimes there's like labels underneath it. Correct, so there's four labels I think under at the time. At the time it was Arista R c A where I was the first record yeme I ever had was at our c A Records on the pop side, where I met that girl over there, Beautiful was hanging out in New York winking at me. She moved to New York and she's following me around and she's trying to

get me coffee just like I'm Dandy Dan Anderson. We had formed a company in New York after I had gone from our CIA Records to m c A Records on the West Coach Records. No, no, no, no, no, we're pop rock everything but country rhythm records. Uh Urban Records. Oh my god, where do you want to? Good Lord? Uh, I don't know where to start in sync? Uh? Rick Astley, Jefferson's Starship, Uh, Lou Reid Uh, Elton John the Band Live,

Elvis Presley not not not as a current hall of notes. Uh. Lisa Lope Yeah, Lisa Lowe, who is still one of my dearest friends in the world. Yes, yeah, yes, yeah. Actually we became very very close during the state days because she was unsigned at the time and we boom boom boom boom. Anyway, so we had left New York and gone to Los Angeles, and I was at m

c A Records. Then we left there because we had decided to start our own company, which my my business partner over there, Diane and Skip have decided to start their own company, even which my wife was in the music business. She was before she retired. Uh. Which here's how she retired. Promotions she did. Okay, So y'all met in promotions, Yes, yes, promotions we're talking about earlier where they are kind of what launches. We're the ones that

go out and get the record. Yes, that's where we were, the hands and feats of getting a single play exactly. That was a long time ago. We have really just bounced all around radio. Yeah I like it. Yeah. Okay.

So you and I and have met working promotions. You are both in the pop world in l A. And we decided we're going to start our own company, which was a promotion and marketing company, and we went to Florida for a few minutes to play with our baby who had just been born, and we moved back to New York after that, and we started a company called Bishop Bait and Tackle. And if you think of what that, you know what that really means. You know that we

would bait and tackle. We were a marketing company and people would call all day, gone, do you guys have uh worms and shiners, and like, no, we're not really a bait and tackle company, but but we we get that. So that company grew and grew and grew and grew, and um for one reason or another that we won't get into, we just really got tired of it. It was really successful, unbelievably fun, but it was just it ran its course and almost ran me ragged. It was

just so huch craziness. It was crazy. So we decided to bull the plug, shut it down, and moved to from New York City, living on Broadway. We decided, okay, where do we want to move to? Where do you think we moved to? I know where you moved because I researched you some little tiny town on top of a mountain, Lookout Mountain. Yes, we moved to Lookout Mountain. Yeah. Yeah. We we like, we want to piece out from city last. Yeah yeah, and we it was like Green Acres. Did

you like it? Well? Have you ever seen the movie The Shining? First of all, okay, okay, alright, let me The purpose was we were going to move there and I was going to write a book. And you have been to have you written a book? About eight chapters in skit? Bishop? I have known you not for three years, and you've been talking about writing. Let me get word press unt. I'm writing the book and a lot of these stories are in the book. So when it's out, if you want to hear him again. Yeah, so you

started writing. So we went to Lookout Mountain. We bought this big old rambling house on the with this gorgeous view of a bunch of trees and wild turkeys and the rocks. Yeah, it was so peaceful. So we moved up there and in about it took about six weeks for me to go completely out of my skull. It was like, oh my god, in heaven and y'all did y'all did a fat diet for moving? You were so ready for, like a change in a diet that you

but then you got there and you wanted out. Right, Well, it's not that we wanted out, but we knew like, oh my god, what I mean? It was there was no one there. There was the town was one thousand people. There was one thousand people in our building in New York. And then we're in and this town and it was

so isolated and crazy. And I would go down to the grocery store just to have conversations with people, and I would drive him nuts, are like, hey, let me let's talk about something, and chase him around and so uh. Then butch Waw, who I worked with my entire career, and Joe Galante who was running Sony at the time, but that too correct. He's the guy that hired me into from radio into our c A Pop. So he took you from the morning show, butch Wall took him

in the morning show to our pop promotions. Correct. Now he's taken you to Nashville. Correct, but has been like you're kind of like he's he I'm telling you, he and I have been and we today we have two companies together now we have Studio to Be and we're we have Hits Me Up. And he was the best man at our wedding and to work with and for that many years and still love each other. We love each other. Best man at your wedding is an amazing sign. Well,

I'll tell you a funny story. So we're on the way to the church and we're getting married, you and Diane, Yes, and and her. We're getting married. Butch and I are in one car going to the church. This is in Manhattan. Diane's in another limo, which is a whole another story, because the limo driver got lost. It was twenty minutes late to the wedding, so you thought Diane was not showing up to the wedding. Correct, Oh my gosh, did

you have a heart attack? Yes, Anyway, I'm already sweating bullets because I'm getting married, right, I mean, yeah, of course yes. I'm like, I'm calling onto the cell phone. They had just been invented. Uh and nothing, I'm getting nothing and awful. Yeah, And I understand that she used some very un Christian language to the limo driver who got lost in Manhattan traffic. So we're all standing there, and you know, the music is playing and people are looking and up. Anyway, the point is is on the

way over. I'm already a nervous ray and BT says to me in his true Southern accent, he says, you know the only difference between my tuch ceda and your tuxeda. And I said, no, what's that? He said, I tried my own first. And I'm like, oh god, do I need this? And he and the whole time we were backstage or whatever you call it, at the church and he's looking out going she ain't coming, she ain't coming. Your tuxeda doesn't fit and she ain't coming. So you

really didn't try your tuxedoing of course I did. He was just giving me grief. So anyway, she shows up about an hour and a half late. Oh my god, we get married? And where were we going with this? Friendship. So thank god I could keep talking a little bit. I haven't try worse than you, though. So now he plucked you out of pop radio, and he looks he's not running our c A or is he running Sony? He is the president. When uh, when I left pop radio, he was the regional guy for our c A. Pop.

He hired me to be one of his regionals. Then he got promoted to New York to run the promotion department, and shortly thereafter he called me and said I need you in New York. So he took me from Texas to New York. And boy did we have a lot of fun and gotten a lot of trouble. Trouble trouble, trouble. Martini's as big as your head. But it was great. But we got a lot done. We broke a lot of records, and we tried a lot of We took a lot of chances and did a lot of innovative things.

Actually said a quote about you wish I have to read. It's so cute. He goes asked the question, if you could trade last with anyone for one day, he would it be, And he said, I would trade with Ski Bishop. He's the most creative person. I know. I would like to get in his head and find out what's going on in there? What I never heard that? Where'd you find that on the internet. I gotta get that. He actually quotes you a lot. He talks about you a lot on that talk about each other with a big buddies.

You talk about him too, Yeah, he's the one of guy. So then so now you are in pop Radio New York together. So now he gets asked to do what at Sony He uh, well, he well, he was the head of promotion. He was a senior VP. I think he was the e v P, the executive VP of the label. And Joe Glani came up short, yes, Joe

of our CIA in New York. Yeah, And Joe Glani left Nashville and came to New York and became the president of our c A pop went from country to pop correct and we were all up there, you know, we were it was hill Billy's running the show. It was like a reality show before reality. Country folk were doing great. Yeah, we had a good time great. So then what happens now, how do y'all get to know? So I go to m C A boom, Joe goes

back to Nashville and become chairman of Nashville. Uh. Butch goes with him to coome become the e v p g M of Sony Nashville, which wasn't Sony at the time. I think it was still b MG. And then the

merger happened. Uh. There's mergers everywhere left and right. Um, and I was still out on the West Coast with m c A. So when I left and I started Bishop Peyton Tackle, they were already fully entrenched in Nashville, and my one of my jobs in my company was to cross their records to pop so for organ crossover. Correct a matter of fact. Um, Butch and Joe brought Lone Start to New York and said, I gotta play this record. Do you think we can get it played

on pop radio? And Butch and I took it to to Z one hundred, the biggest top forty radio station, and of course, and then there's Kissing l A. I have to say that because John Ivy is probably watching and he would give you really mad at me if I said that Z one hundred was bigger. But I happen to be living in New York, so Z one hundred We convinced them to play it one time, one time and the things that you have to like really work hard to get the lately. Oh it was crazy.

I mean it would go around and around and I have to go back in. I will look, I would plead my case, and they go, we don't play country. Records were a top forty radio station in New York. We're leaning dance right now and I'm going play it one and I had and here's what I had. Here's what I said. I said, Look, if you play it one time in mid day and if you don't get any reaction and it's nothing, I won't work you on any more records. What does the reaction meaning calls? Back

then it was phone calls. Now it's it's that an immediate reaction through things have changed and we could talk about that later. But back then it was phone calls and and sales. But it's still sales to a degree. They radio steal monitors that, but it then it was mostly phone calls in the phones. Balloonded, Yes, yeah, one time, one play in the middle of the the you know, hot Rock and Flamethrow and Zee one d from high top of the world's rad question, Yes, why is it

so hard sometimes to convince radio to play songs? Because they are the gatekeeper and I love radio so much, but it is because their playlists are so tight, and it's so expensive, and it's money driven because sometimes people might think, oh, a superstars putting out a song, or oh, an act is putting out a song. You know what's really more important than money when it comes to a radio campaign is passion and belief true that it's true you you can have a tremendous budget, and and there's

three things. Passion belief in great music, because if you've got a lousy record and a trillion dollars, you can't make it a hit. You can't. You maybe get it played and put it in position to be a hit, but you it won't become a hit if it's not a hit. If you've got great music and you know it and you feel it and you believe in it, and it's like they become they become your children. If those songs you will you like it's only they're very

similar to the same thing. It's it's it's a similar emotion to your to how you love your children and I love my children. So you have to love the songs you're promoting us. You can't do it. You you do, but you can make yourself believe. Sometimes there have been times that we have to make ourselves believe. But the key is is when you're in a position to where you can influence what gets what gets released as a single because you know that one is better than that one.

So how do you know when a song is better than another song and it's gonna work on radio? Well, I'm gonna tell you there there is a way and it's and a lot of people don't believe this, but I do. And I've had a fantastic career because I do believe it, and I and I and I will, I will fight for this till the end of the day. Is people are born with the gift. They are born with the gift of hearing hit records. It's a weird gift.

It's a you know, it's like, well, I like to be you know, if you know if God said, Okay, we're going to make you a fantastic accountant or we're gonna make you a brain surgeon, you know, of course you have to do all that. You have to study it, and you have to but you study it because you love it. There's people who study the art of records and hit records because they love it and they become I mean, it's one of the I can give you a list of three hundred and twenty six things that

I am so bad that I just terrible. But I know I get that feeling when I hear one that it's good, it's good. No, no, no, no, it's as time goes by, and you do it, it's like everything else. It's like flying a plane or blame professional football. It becomes your d n A that you know that track is going to work faster than that track, and that track may work not work at all, but if it's a great song, and you know it's a great song. But there's sometimes you hear a great song, you're like

radio doesn't won't play this slow? Well, that's true, and then you have to be you have to be creative, and you have to be tenacious and sometimes like the contents too serious and they don't want to. And I'll tell you the the toughest and best record I ever worked in my entire career was Brad Paisley's Welcome to the Future. We had a it was right after Barack Obama was elected for the first time, is when that it really was welcome to the It really was. That's

what the song was about. It well, at least the song was about a lot of things. The song was about. Yeah, it landed itself. And remember the last verse was it addressed racism and uh. And we had pushback. We really had pushback over that song. There were people who were upset that, you know, that their candidate didn't win, and they would say, I didn't vote for the guy, and it's a valentine to our to Barack Obama, and I don't think my listeners want to hear it, and I'm going,

it's a great song about the world changing. It's not it's not about Barack Obama per se. It's about the world changing. And if you don't think it is, you need to get out of your job. And we really had to wrestle and fight and go back and people. There were people that refused to play it. There were people that played it and took it off because they intentionally said, oh, it's not working for me, but they

didn't really know. There were other people who would pound it because they thought it was an innovative piece of art, but it was tough. When do you know when to give up the fight for a song? Never? Never a song? I that? Or when when you're seeing nothing And if you've given it all you have and radio is just resisting and the sales aren't happening, then that's then you you know, if you're getting nothing, it must be a hard feeling when one of your babies isn't taking fight. Well, yes,

and it happens, um it happens. But you know, the beautiful thing is is these artists have other songs, and you know, there's songs that you believe in so much that don't grow grow legs or wings. And it's a difficult thing. But if you if you know, and you stay in it and you're seeing the signs, if you're seeing you know, back then it was all about sales, but now it's all about streams and uh streaming, uh a lot of that. You want to have like millions

of streams. You want to have millions of streams, and you still want to have sales. Yeah, and you have to. You know, it's really interesting record promotion has changed. You have to I talk about, you know, the endgame being terrestrial radio, but I just like the radio station you turn on in your car and a lot of time. Correct, that's the one with the antennas, the ones that that you listen to. And but ten years ago we didn't have what we did ten years ago. But there was

a time that we didn't have Serious XM. Right, we did not have Spotify, we did not have Pandora. Uh, we didn't have robust social media campaign. Also those are important to notice because terrestrial radio in your car, they are run by major corporations and they are only allowed to play a certain playlist for the most part, which is like twenty songs. Right, Well, it depends on the company. It depends on the company. And x M they can play whatever they want. So that's a whole new appot.

They don't play whatever they want. They just take more chances and they're more aggressive. But I will tell you some radio stations are as aggressive. But the corporate stations tend to have guidelines and they also have they rely on let's look at the two difference of the models. Uh, Spotify and Serious XM rely on subscript and where radio relies on add money and and and time spent listening. And they want everything to be familiar and they you know,

theyre it's a different it's a different yardstick. And luckily ratings, ratings turned into dollars for for terrestrial radio. It's a different game. And but but since the whole landscape is changing, you've got um I Heart Media spending so much attention and time and creativity with I Heart Radio an app, so that you know, they have changed their model because

we we didn't have that before. We didn't have before you went to radio, and you really didn't have a whole lot more except for touring and and those sort of in marketing and press in print. But now it's a wonderful new world where you can break a record off serious, Spotify, Pandora, all the other sites. Uh and and really I can't ever downplay the importance of social media. You can break a record on social media and in some cases, in some cases, radio is the last piece

of the puzzle. That's still yeah, yeah, but it it is. I mean, these records will become hits and other sources. But that's great for radio because they someone someone will take the chance that they don't have to take because they're constantly being asked to take chances on new side everybody is. That's what we radio gets a little bit like I can't adda right now. I can't because they're having people call them every day saying add this song, add this song, and they're like, I have fifty songs

that people want to add today. I was on the other side of that desk for a long time. And if you allow the amount of phone calls, if you take the amount of phone calls that you get, you will never get any work done because a day endless. Well at first you've got the major labels, then you've got the you've got the smaller labels, then you have you know, a lot of the smaller independence and it's it's very different. It takes of course, that's how you find the hits, by the way, because a lot of

those records break out of the lower sectors. And but you you have to have someone on staff usually to be able to filter, filter, not filter, but really take the information, compile it. Let's look at what's happening, break down the charts. Uh, I mean, it's it's it's quite a thing. I mean, if you you can't spend the whole day on the phone with every record promoter, because your head would explode. So and also I think it's

quota segue. So you speaking of record promoter. So you've had record promoters calling you wanting you to play their songs when you worked on the on the other side, like the morning shows and at the radio station. Correct. Then you move and you're actually being the promoter calling who you used to be saying play my record. So you're like, you totally get it. You get both sides of the fence. Then you go, you're working in a

major label. When you leave Sony, you start your own independent label, which is like a really big deal because it's so much harder to get independent acts played. But at the same time you have more freedom and more flexibility. How was the difference of working in a major and running an independent Well, I'll tell you the thing that that always comes to mind was I would think, Okay, we let's do a campaign. We need here's what we

need to do. We need to do a marketing campaign on this particular artist, on Natalie Stove all in the Drive. What we need to do is this. And before I was so used to picking up the phone and calling someone in the marketing department or someone in in the art department, or someone in the A and R department. I would think, well, if I want to do that, I kind of kind of have to do it myself. There's no one to call, and you're, you know, a small group of people. How many people were we twelve? Yeah,

it was not a big staff. And uh, it really brings out the best in people. You find out everyone rises to the occasion. And it was fantastic because I think that we were a very creative, a very driven, and a very tenacious group of people who had a lot of fun. It was so nice. Oh we had a blast. It was so yeah. And um, that's that's really the main difference. And it's really funny. You can have a gazillion hits at a major label and then

you call and say, hey, I'm starting my own label. Uh, and they go, okay, well what do you got your your even some of your best relationships musically, you're kind of right back in the back of the line. You have to sort of start over. Luckily, you do have the relationships that were people that will give you a shot and they will listen to your music. Acts and major labels always have the manpower and which we never have to hear are some of the acts that you

were breaking at Sony. Well, the first record I was handed was Carry Carry had just when I got there in two thousand and five, she had just one IDOL and uh, I love Carrie. And the first when I first got there, like when even before I even showed up for work, it was when I was just kind of hanging around the office. Uh. Butch handed me a white label copy and said, this is the first record you're going to work And I put it on and it was Jesus Take the Wheel. And I thought, well,

this is gonna be easy, because this is awesome. And I it was familiar with Carrie because I watched Idol and she came to the office and she was just such a little munchkin back then, and she was so hard working and so sweet. Uh. And at the time we had just launched when I got there, Brooks and Done had believed, which was they were probably four weeks into it, and it was slow going because people were going,

oh man, that's a that's a really long record. And it has the same tempo as first time ever I Saw Your Face by ROBERTA. Flack, which is something you won't remember. It was a slow song and it was tough and it took ballads are harder to break than you know. Even though Brooks and Dunna had a gazillion hits, they it took it took fifty weeks to get that record all the way through Wow, when they were at the top of their game. Fifty weeks. That made my hair.

I had brown hair when I started working at Record because it looks great. Thank you so much. Those songs that are superstars take like what twenty weeks? Well, a typical back in those days when it was when Brad and Carrie and Brooks and Dunn and Alan Jackson and when we were you know, we had Kenny Chesney and uh, you know we Miranda was you know, it'd come to us from Sony. A an act would be from fourteen to twenty weeks, some as much as fourteen as quickly

as fourteen weeks. The charn they are the chart is very slow now. And why did artists cycle out? Like why does artists be huge stars like Alan Jackson and Brooks and done and then all of a sudden they're just it's just they're not the ones that are the huge stars on the charts anymore. Well, I will tell you, because just like everything else, it's a lot a lot of it's it's it's life, it's you know, the artists are they have earned the right to try different things.

I remember when Alan came in with he had two consecutive albums. One of them was Read on a Rose, which was produced by Alison Krauss, and it was brilliant. It was brilliant, and but it was not your typical radio record. It was Some even called it a side project for Alan. He had had a tremendous amount of hits and he kind of took some time off and did this brilliant record, and I I thought it was a masterpiece. And but then I was also thinking, oh

my god, I gotta get this thing played. And you know, country radio, we did. We had a song on there called a Woman's Love which went top five. It could have been number one. It was definitely inside the top five, and it was the most radio record on there. But the rest of it was a very ethereal esoteric, beautiful, beautifully produced love song collection with you know, a lot of pain, and it was almost like Alan had listened

to a Joni Mitchell record. Yeah, and then after that he came with his gospel record, which sold two and a half million units, but radio wasn't going to touch it. So Alan had earned the right to take chances. But that's what happens. I mean, you know, you look at Paul McCartney and you look at Elton John. You know, they right symphonies, and they write whatever they want to write. And and you know, is pop radio or is rock

radio gonna play Paul McCartney song. I don't know if he's going to give them the song that they want, because he's going to do what he has earned the right to do. So maybe when they're making their more creative albums, someone else just slips up into that. Well, there's always going to be. It's just like it's just like the young kids in the school. There's always new geniuses coming along, and you know, some people will rus to the top and some will. Really there's it's it's

the way life is. It's the people. Just because you're not having radio hits does not mean that you're not a viable relevant artist. Sometimes it's even more so because just because you're having radio hits doesn't mean that your music because that radio plays one type of record. Records that are gonna work for the masses. Someone could be right. Case in point, when you know there's there's rock artists who have written symphonies and they you know, do they

hit a water audience? Of course they don't. And I always always go back to an artist that I loved working with, Bruce Hornsby. Bruce keeps up with Joe and Butch and I. We were there when Uh. He had a tremendous record called The Way It Is and three other hits on that album. And Bruce is a unbelievable musician, unbelievable. He's one of the smartest, most brilliant musicians. His albums, if you follow them, are some of the most musically

sophisticated records. He's still putting out these albums that will never get typical terrestrial radio, but they're brilliant masterpieces because he goes out there and does art, and he's still tours and does great but he has written classical pieces, he's written soundtracks. He's UH, and he is having an unbelievably successful career producing the art that he is there to produce. He's happy with that, happy with it, and he's still practices his piano two hours a day. Two

hours a day. The man practices. That's crazy serious. Okay, have three more questions for you. Okay, what does the music industry mean to you? Everything? I just love it. I love it. I think of my family and the music industry and my friends are one big thing. Because there, it's I've never known anything else. And I just love the people in the music business. Their characters. They're smart, they're creative, their geniuses, they're shysters there, hucksters, their comedians. There,

it's like a Faulknerian type thing. It's just fantastic and I and I love it, and I doubt I'll ever do anything else. And I love songwriters. Oh, I love songwriters because they're there. They're like Picasso and Monet and Renoir. They're there creating their art and I just love them. Um. So that's what the music business means to me. It means everything. How would you describe God? Well, God is that's a that's a crazy question because I'm a deeply

spiritual person. Uh. I believe very much. I have a very deep sense of faith, and God is a force of goodness and light and love, love being the operative word there. I think that the feeling of true, unquestioned love is as close to you can get to touching God's face, the love that you have for a child, the love that you have for your friends and family, the love that you have for that you would give your life for something because you know that there's something

beyond it that's touching the face of God. And and I love talking about the fact that sometimes you can see what I call the tangible touch of God's love. And I don't think God is an old white man sitting up on a throne where with a beard, you know, calling the shots with a scroll of who's right and who's wrong, because I think that I think that the you know, the Jewish faith, and the Catholic faith, and the Baptist faith, and the Muslims and and the some

of the Eastern religion. I'm fascinated with a religion called Caldai, which is a modern um Asian religion, which is fascinating. But if you look at them all, it's kind of all about this. It's all aimed at a force, a force which is love. Why do we have to suffer? Because that's life? Life is is real. You know, our bodies are real. You know we're not perfect. Our bodies aren't perfect. We that's why we This is a shell and we decay and we fall apart. And why do

some people get sick? Because it's life. It's it's it's this time. It's what you know. It's like a beautiful flower that wilts. That's what happens. This is just what life is. And and there's pain. Pain is very much a part of life. And then there's happiness. And if you believe in love and the power of love, it starts to overtake you and you start doing the right things and you start realizing the power of of of believing in loving others and loving other people and in

this powerful word called respect. That you know, you look at someone and so it's so easy to judge, and you don't judge, and you find out that somebody, my grandfather, who was the smartest man I've ever met in my life, loved him. That's his portrait over there. You can't see it on camera, but he looks over my desk. He was the president of a college. He had a PhD and divinity and a PhD in theology. I don't know

the difference of the two. Genius, eccentric genius. Well, I don't know if I got quite that far, but he was a very very smart man. He was also the mayor of the city and he was so smart. Uh. But he always told me, he said, you can learn something from everybody. And he said you need to listen. And he's I remember he he lived in the President's house on the college campus, in this beautiful home, and my grandfather Pop would love to sit and talk to

the to the people that worked in the garden. Then there was an old African American dude that sort of had a cot and everything in the basement where he need to live there, but he had his own room, and my grandfather would go down there and sit for hours and talk to him. And I want to said, what, Dad, why do you always talk to I can't remember his name, Clarence or Amos one or the other. And he would say, because you learned something from everybody, he said, he's so smart.

He has so much wisdom, like everyone does. They said, you need to listen to to everybody's story because everyone, as wisdom, has something that they can offer you and you can learn from. It was great and it's true. Okay, So one more question on this topic. And then I'm wrapping up why are we here on this earth? Because you're very smart, well for one reason, to break records, to break artists wide open and bring joy to the

world through music. Because I know that that's a little bit of a joke, but I think that we're here to identify what we love and what we find our joy in, and to make the world a better place, and to create as much positive energy we can and move on to the next level, and to teach our children. Crosby, Steels, Nash and Young. Okay, so leave your light. This whole interview has been inspiring, but I like trap up, but leave your light. So leave some inspiration of how you

would like to inspire people. Um. I think the only thing that I could really say is open your mind, question authority, love the neighbor, and search for peace and remember the emotions of of of hatred and the emotions you have and when you get angry is just you being a human person. And we're again we're inferior beings. I mean we we we we come and we go.

You know, our time on this earth is short. Even though it's when I let I pick that back, it's kind of long's it's long and short, but you know the real is it's it's a it's a rotating wheel. And enjoy your time on earth and make the place a better place, and and just be kind to people and respect them, and it just it pays off in spades. I don't even know what that means. I don't either, But is it kind of like whatever you put out you get back? I think more so. Yeah, Oh my god,

O lord Caral's the Queen. I hope you loved all of the adventurous, wild, colorful stories of Skit Bishop. He is such a character. I love him so much. Next week, I'm super pumped. I Adam Wakefield joining me. He was the runner up on the Voice for season ten, and he talks all about that journey, what it was like, who he is as an artist, the whole process of being on TV. It's so interesting. And then I have American Young joining me for the second half and they

are a duo signed to Curb Records. They're both incredible songwriters and musicians and their own right, they've written some awesome songs. John Stone wrote Me and My Gang for Rascal Flats, Seven Days for Kenney Chesney, he wrote kiss my Country, asked for Blake Shelton, A Woman Like You for Lee Bryce Um Only guy could love you more than new song out by Jared Neman. Christie wrote Cheater Cheater for Joey and Roy when my all time favorite duos,

and she was also in a duo called Bombshell. She had singles on the radio called Fight Like a Girl, nineteen and Crazy. They are both so talented and this interview is so funny. We did it at the end of the day and so everyone's feeling a little loopy, so we have a lot of offs. So you guys make sure to tune in next week for Adam Wakefield and American Young See y'all then Bye. M