How $5K saved my career

I always enjoy those podcasts. In fact, there was a time when this podcast was really dedicated strictly to answering your questions, because it seems to be an endless amount of information I could throw out there to answer your questions, and some of them are really unique, and I enjoyed doing it, and it's really good to start a Monday with giving you some answered questions about me or what's

going on. I want to talk about this new album we have coming out in September, and I want to talk about the Earl Dibbles truck restoration videos that have seemed to be on a long hiatus on this channel. And I want to cover a couple of a couple of really cool options. Here a couple of questions that

I've I fielded them off of Instagram. I went just a couple of hours ago and put in my story asked me some questions for the podcast, and then I went through and and screenshoted one two about about fifteen of them. I don't know if I'll get to all of them, but those are ones that just caught my eye right off the bat, and it's gonna be a fun episode. So these are good ones. Welcome to the Granger Smith Podcast. Did time and long line down on

back Rangy Coation, Getting right into it right now. First question comes from Chris on Instagram and it says, is there any chance that You're going to go on tour in Europe at some point? And the reason I screenshot of that question is because I saw a lot of them, either they were specific to Italy or Germany, or England or Ireland. And my answer to that is a little bit sad because in twenty twenty we actually did have a European tour scheduled in September and October, and we

had to cancel that probably in April. We held on for a while during the craziness of COVID, so we held on as long as we could. Then found out it was best for everybody promoters wanted to cancel. We thought it's probably best to push that to twenty twenty one, So I would expect to go to Europe in twenty twenty one for a tour Chris, I'm sorry it's not this year. I love Europe. I love traveling to Europe, I love playing Europe. We've done several tours over there.

One in particular was a United States military base tour in Germany and Italy. That was just our riot. I guess I shouldn't use that word these days, but it was so much fun. We had a little bus that we traveled around and went to these military bases and saw some towns that we wouldn't have normally gone to on a tourist route, and gosh, I'd crave it. I crave I crave Europe for beer and coffee and food, unbelievable architecture, history and history buff all the wars. So anyway, yeah,

that's Chris, that's the definitely in the plan. And here's here's missus Ashton on Instagram. She said update on the house build. So it's a good question. Amber and I are going to build a farmhouse out on the property where we have right now, where we're currently living in an RV, and it's been such an adventure I can I'm gonna be sad to get away from the RV at some point because it's really been fun. To have this minimalist lifestyle with the kids and really focus on

each other and our time together and the environment. I mean, when it's hot outside, it's hot in that barn that's where we're living. If it's cold outside, haven't been there yet, but I'm sure it's going to be cold, and we'll just be very in tune. Like today, it's actually sprinkled rained a little bit, and you know, you could you hear it in the whole barn. You hear the rain, and you hear the thunder, and you feel just very

much a part of the land. So that being said, I am going to be a little bit sad and we have to leave that RV. But that being said, we're supposed to break ground on this farmhouse in about a month. So this particular builder who's a friend of ours, likes to have everything picked out, everything done before they break ground. So that means flooring and walls and fixtures and faucets and all that stuff. He likes to have it all done so that whenever we finish that and

hit go, there's no turning back. About a month Ashton, this is a funny one. What made you make the eee'? That's the question. And there's always anytime I ask for questions, there's always questions about that, where does ee come from? Where did you get ee? Why do you say eee? I even tell people in the crowd sometimes I'll say somewhere in the show, I'll say, hey, by the way, if you came to this show and for some reason don't know what eee means, it means live life to

the fullest. And in a nutshell, that's what it means, live life to the fullest. It means that because that's the meaning we gave it. And going back to the origins of it, it came from the very first Earl Dibbles video before it was a music video, before all that, it was called Earl Dibbles Junior. I think it was called the Country Boy Part one or Country Boy Part one.

It was back in twenty eleven and July. And right in the middle of that video, if you go watch that video, right in the middle and I'll link at the top of description, Earle says, you know, holds up a shotgun and says ye yee, and that just wasn't that big a deal. It was like it's like an old Texas cattle call. And there was a couple of other takes where he said multiple ye's, but the one that actually made the video that I edited it was just two yee ye. And that was the luckiest thing

I've ever said. It was Excuse me, it's the luckiest thing Earl Dibbles Junior ever said four me and I remember that I knew it was catching on. We didn't. We didn't think that much of it, me and my brothers. But but people started coming to our shows holding up signs that said yee. They also held up signs and said crack a coal, one put a good dip in. I got a tough schedule that said things to other quotes from that video, but yee was the interesting one

that they held up signs. And I remember, as that video started going viral, I'll never forget one day driving in lam Passas, Texas, and there was a truck dealership and in the in the front windshield of all the trucks in lamp passes, it said yee and every windshield a little sign, and I thought, oh my gosh, this is terrible, this is bad. We need to trademark this right now, because I knew that if we didn't trademark it, somebody else would and then make us not be able

to say it. And this was right during the time. The reason I knew that is because it was right during the time when that video came out. The very first Earl Dubbles T shirt, the very first one, I guess it was the I'm sitting here at the Eye Farm, the headquarters of EEE Apparel, the very first EEE Apparel shirt ever. On the front it said I'm a country boy, and on the back it said I got a tough schedule, I wake up, put a good dip in crack a coat. It was like a list and it had a little

check down the list. Well, just a few weeks after we started selling that shirt, we got to see some distiss see some desist letter from a company I believe it was in Ohio, and the letter said you cannot use the word the phrase country boy. And I thought that was the oddest thing. I was like, we can't say country boy any on a koozie or on a T shirt or any any kind of merchandise. It was

the weirdest thing to me. But evidently there is a company and they have trademarked country boy and country Girl, and they don't let anybody use it, and that's kind of part of their stick. You know, they're the only ones that could sell shirts like that. It's a terrible business to be in if that's your your business plan is to just shut down anyone else that says it so that you could be the only one. But then

no one really buys your shirts. I even I even know for a fact that Luke Bryan when he came out with the country Girl Shake It from Me, they literally shut down the shirts that said country girls shake It from Me because they couldn't use country girl together

on one shirt. So because of that, and it really motivated me to step up with EE and say, oh gosh, we got to trademark this, not so that not so that it's it's it's ours away from stealing it away from the world, but more so that the world couldn't take it and tell us never to say it again or never to put it on shirts. Can you guys imagine if I had let that slip away, where what would this what would this farm be called? What would this apparel company be called? What would what would Earl

Dibbles say? After that? So it was a scary deal, and it was scary because it cost me five thousand dollars to trademark that, and that was everything that we all had combined. We pulled every penny we had together and were able to salvage five thousand dollars for this trademark. And I mean that's digging into grocery money back in twenty eleven, and so now it was scary and terrible

and heartbreaking and gave me so much anxiety. But looking back on it, it's probably the best thing I ever did for my career was pay that five thousand dollars. And by the way, there's also been other podcast that go way more in depth about ye. That's kind of the short story. Next question from Bailey Marshall says, what would you recommend doing in the mornings to mentally prepare for the day. And I think that's an ow some question, Thank you, Bailey. I screenshot at it and I can

answer that in a couple of ways. One, I like to get up earlier than I need to as many times as I physically can. And why I say physically can is because I need to get seven hours And I've done so much research on this and I've I've read so many books about this, and I've studied history so much about it, and you can hear flip sides of the story, Like I remember Arnold Schwarzenegger one time saying, if you want to achieve more in life, you got

to sleep less, and I know what he means. But it's also it's also proven over and over again that if you sleep less than your needed time, then you are going to function at half the capacity, the mental capacity of what you would on a normal sleep night.

So if you think you're going to get ahead in life by sleeping four hours and getting up early every more, like maybe you go to bed at midnight and wake up at four, and then you think you have more of the day, it's not technically right because you run into this sleep deprivation problem where you're only functioning at fifty percent of your brain or less. I mean, it's proven that you're worse off than being drunk when you

sleep deprive yourself. That being said, everyone kind of has their time that they need, and I have figured out that seven hours is my minimum time to sleep. I could sleep seven to eight. If I get anything over eight, that affects me negatively too. That kind of makes me groggy. I feel weird after eight hours, and I feel unproductive, So I try to get right at seven. And the reason I lead into that is to go to your

morning question. Is I like to get up earlier. If I can an hour earlier that I need to is great. So if I have if I have a meeting at say eight o'clock, and I have a phone call at eight o'clock, and I need to do like the normal morning stuff like wake up, like the sleep out of my eyes, take it, you know, take a drink and brush my teeth and all that kind of stuff. Get dressed. Sound like Earl divils now. So if that takes thirty minutes,

then that brings me back to seven thirty. That means I need to get up at six thirty to have an hour between six thirty and seven thirty to do my morning routine. That consists number one of being absent from my phone. So I learned a long time ago that I can't. I can't wake up and pull up my phone and start checking emails and checking text messages, going about oh good God, forget bids social media. I cannot do that first thing the morning. That just puts

you on the wrong path. So I like to have that that hour to do some reading, to have a little little very primitive journal that I'll write in just for exercise sake, that I could I could write what's going on in my life. Not nothing detailed, nothing poetic, just heading heading on tour to the Northwest tomorrow, early morning flight. Lincoln played baseball with me last night. Just primitive stuff because that helps me a lot to be able to journal. And so reading, journaling and having some

quiet time. You know, I love I love the mornings. It's my favorite time. So if I could have a cup of coffee and be outside with the birds and with the sunrise, watching the sun come up, that is such a such a key factor in getting my day going in the right direction. After that, I always work out, So if I'm going to have a long workout, I also have to fact that a factor that into my morning routine whenever my day's supposed to start. So that usually text me about an hour forty five minutes to

an hour to get a good workout. I usually do strength training at the very least get a good sweat going. So if I could do all of those things I mentioned, before that phone call or meeting or whatever is, whatever it is to start my day, I am just a lot better off. I'm a lot better after in the day. And Bailey, I hope that kind of answers your questions.

But I could say if you could do anything that I just said anything, get your required hours of sleep and don't get your phone first thing in the morning. Next question, what's the hardest thing you've ever gone through being a country singer? And that question, I'm going to stick with the business side. And I'm assuming that you were talking about because you put in country singer. I'm assuming you're putting you're talking about the business side, not

the personal side. Like you didn't say what's the hardest thing you've ever gone through as a human being? You said country singers, I'm assuming you mean business. So if it's business, There's two things that come to mind. One was, well, I mean, let's throw us. Let's throw us side COVID

because COVID wins. That wins that battle every time. Because the hardest thing I ever did as a country singer was shut down my entire tour, tell my band they don't have a job, and scrap for the last six months, so that that throws everything out of the out of the wall, out of the window right now. So besides COVID, it would be one of two things. One and falling off the stage and breaking ribs and puncturing alung and

then having that setback of recovery. But I don't think that was as much a big as much of an ordeal to me as when I lost my voice. And I lost my voice just screwed around with one of the guys on the crew. We were kind of horsing around wrestling on the bus in front of everybody, and he put me in a chokehold with his forearm and it caused swelling in my throat in my vocal cord. And then I sang that night at a show and burst that blood vessel that killed my voice. It completely

went away. I had nothing but a whisper, And that was the hardest thing I've had to go through as a country singer, not being able to sing. I did a whole podcast about that crazy day and that crazy night and the recovery it took after that. It definitely put a lot of things in perspective for me and taught me a lot about myself. Taught me a lot about uh, the value of myself and how grateful I am for just a normal day of being able to

use my voice. Judith Rose asked me, what do you think are the most important qualities of being a good husband. It's interesting that Judith, a female, is asking me what I think the most important qualities of being a good husband are. And I hope that I hope for a couple of reasons. Students, I hope you're not either judging your current spouse or I hope you're not going to use my advice to decide who who you like or

not to marry one day. And as anything on this podcast, you cats can't take, can't take my word for gospel. I'm just giving you what I think, and so what I think the good qualities are are what I've experienced with Amber, and that is honesty. It's got to be

number one. And number two is forgiveness. And a lot of times with Amber and I that forgiveness starts before a fight or an argument even happens, meaning she could do something that might be annoying or something I don't believe in fundamentally, but I know quickly that it's not worth it. It's not worth what that could cause if we if I start a disagreement, especially if I know

she's passionate, passionate about it. And the truth is we've both learned how to forgive each other before the problem even starts. So that's a different than getting in a huge brawl and then at the end of it then I forgive her right, So before that even happens, I look at her and I just go, you know what, She's a human being, like I am, very smart human being, probably smarter, not probably a lot smarter than I am.

And she feels that way or she does that or she thinks that way, and she's entitled to that, and who am I to tell her otherwise. And if it's a fundamental disagreement, as in disciplining kids or something like that, then we both approach each other in a very civil way, like you know, but instead of saying, instead of putting it on her, like you know what you should do, instead of doing that to London, I'll approach it like, how either how could I help you with that problem

you're having with London? Or can you let me deal with her? You let me deal with London? In this I have an idea on maybe how to how to make this outcome better. It might not work, but can I try that? Can I try that on London? Instead of saying, Babe, you're wrong? Why would you do that? You're wrong? That's that's not the right way. There's nothing that's going to come out of that, nothing besides me being right, and that's not fun. Me being right means nothing.

That doesn't change anything. So, Judith, I hope that helps you. Next question, that's funny, that's funny. Literally the next question, how do you discipline your children? My son likes to say no a lot and he's almost four. Brandon hashtag ye yee Brandon. First of all, as you know, I don't have to tell you, buddy that if your if your son says no a lot and he's three years old, that's natural. That's totally normal. And we both we both understand.

It's like it's like the puppy theory. When you see a little lab puppy chewing on the corner of the table. You know it's cute, but you imagine him as a full grown dog doing that, and that's not cute anymore. You know, that's trouble. That's a bad dog. So it's the same thing when I when a little three year old is talking back and telling you know all the time.

At some levels, it's cute and it's understandable, but in the back of your mind you're thinking, now, I don't want this to turn into a teenager that's doing this to me. My mother used to always tell me, you have to break their will, but not their spirit. And there's a big difference. There's a big difference, and you need to you need to curb, curb them and and break their will and show them the right way without tearing down their spirit. And in so many ways you

could you could accomplish that. One. You gotta just really praise them for the things they're doing good, Like if they do something good, you got to praise them a lot, like good job, buddy, that's so good. Your that is so good, You're such a good boy. That was great. And then on the flip side, if they do something wrong, instead of instead of a personal attack, even with a three year old, it works with three year olds all

the way up. It works with adults. If they do something wrong, you don't attack them personally, you don't attack their spirit. Instead, you just attack the action like, buddy, you are a good boy. You are a good boy, but that was not a good decision. That was wrong. You do not do that. You're a good boy. You know better, you know reinforce that. Hey, they're smart, they can make their own decisions. That can't because there're three, but you could reinforce that they can and it helps

grow them up that way. To more specifically answer your discipline question, our kids, you know, all three of our kids are very different and they're in the way that they take discipline. Lincoln, he responds very well to a spanking, so I could I could spank him in the right way where I know that it's it's just enough to get his attention, not enough to hurt him, and and then he focuses on me, and then I could focus on fixing it by saying, buddy, you're a good boy.

You are, you are a smart boy, but you know better than that, you know better than to do that. And with London, it's totally different because I have spanked her a few times and she she only responds with aggression, and so that doesn't that doesn't if she If your kid responds to to spanking with aggression, then The answer to that is not another spanking. That's harder, right, So with London, and you just got to learn what it is that hurts him, and it's not doesn't have to

be physical. So with London, it's taken something away. So if she's responding with something, or if I'm responding with some with some kind of discipline due to her bad actions, it's easy for me to say, Okay, I'm taking away, making away your doll. No no, no, no, no, please one, nope, nope, taking it away. You'll see her in the morning. And I could take away that doll and I could hide her till the morning, and that hurts her so bad. That really helps drive home that she was in the wrong.

And then once again I just reinforced that she's a good girl. Today. Just today, right before this podcast, we were playing baseball in the yard and we were doing this just fun game where the kids were throwing a baseball at the barn and then fielding their reflection of the baseball as if they were in a game, and they were kind of competing against each other, the two kids, and London was doing good, she was doing really good fielding the ball, and then she asked me to start

filming her. So I started filming her so she could show her mama, and she missed a couple of the ball at the baseballs. While I was filming, she got so mad she threw her glove on the ground and started storming off. So I grabbed her and I I said, nope, we're not any like that. No, I'm not. I hate this game good. So I grabbed her. I said, no, do it again. No, I don't want to do it again. I said, do it again. We're not going to leave till you do it again. You're not, she said, but

I don't want to. Why are you making me do this? And I said, because you're mad. It's not because you're bad at baseball. It's because you're mad, and you can't end a game mad. So do it again. So she did it a couple more times, finally got it in her glove. And then when she got it in her glove and then her face lit up, and then I ran. I grabbed her and said, perfect, you see how much better that feels. You see how much better that feels? And it was great. It was really really awesome because

she had a huge smile on her face. And then she started leaving the field going back to the barn, and she said thank you, Daddy, and I was like, oh man, just that thank you Daddy was this little, this little beautiful moment inside me. And I was like, man, that was great. Anytime you could actually do something in parenting and feel that reward, it's pretty awesome. So I got it. I got it this morning. I hope that helps you. Brandon. I'm gonna take a quick break, reset

this camera. This podcast is brought to you by Raycon, and I've talked to you about Raycon earbuds before. Whether you're working for home or working on fitness, whatever you're doing, whatever you're listening to it. For me, it's been this new album. Working so hard on this new album. I love to grab a mix, go get in my truck throwing the Raycons and it's a really good way to get a proper interpretation of these new songs and a new mix. Everyone needs a great pair of wireless earbuds.

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wireless earbuds. Buy Raycon dot Com slash Granger that's g R A N G E R. Use that promo code and get them and then let me know what you think you can get that fifteen percent off. So many questions have been coming in about this new album, and it's hard for me to answer it right now because I know a lot about it, and I can tell you a lot about it, but I'm kind of have my hands tied a little bit because we're going to

do some official announcements as they come. So I can tell you this it's coming at the end of September. I could also tell you and I'll drop this information on the podcast, and no one else knows this information. Okay, The only time I'll say it is right here on this podcast. You ready, There's gonna be more after the September release. Okay, So the music's gonna come out the end of September, but that won't be the end of it. You're gonna be getting a lot of music from me

this fall. We'll put it that way, okay, And I'm very excited about it. We'll say that too. Here's a question that says, what's your favorite muscle car? I like that question because I would say nineteen sixty nine Charger. I grew up watching dukes of Hazard. I've always loved that car. And guess what, I've never driven one, and

I've never driven a sixty nine Charger. So he if any of you guys have one out there and you want to let it come to the EG Farm, drive it down the EE Farm, we'll do a video, we'll do a podcast, we'll talk about what it's like to drive a sixty nine Charger. I would love that. Another question about the new have you rehearsed any of the new songs for playing live yet? Yes, buddy, we have. We just started as I get together with the band, either one of these live at the EE Farm sessions

or these little tours that we've been running on. We've been kind of getting together and a lot of these guys played on the album, so they already know them pretty well. In fact, Phish, my guitar player on my right side if you're looking at me your left side on the stage, he produced a lot of songs with me, so he knows them backwards and forwards, and we can't wait to God, we cannot wait to start digging in and playing these And I can tell you something else.

Here's another nugge I'll drop on the podcast. You're gonna get your first taste of it this month. Okay, you're gonna get a taste of it this month. It might be the end of the month, but just saying really really exciting, Dylan says, any advice for someone trying to follow in your footsteps. You're my idol and want to be in our art. Yeah, buddy, let me just let me say, first of all, to your question, I don't like that word idle. Man. I don't like that word idol.

I know what you mean. I appreciate it. I'm grateful for you. At the same time, no humans or idols, because humans are just gonna fail you. So you put too much hope in one person and one human eventually they're gonna do something that you don't like and what that kind of that kind of hurts. So make God your idle, buddy, because I'm gonna mess it up for you. Dude, I'm gonna mess it up for you. My number one advice is wherever you are doing, whatever hometown you're in,

stay in your hometown and play the music there. Play to your buddies, play to your friends, play as that group grows and builds out and builds out and out and out, and and write songs about your hometown, and write songs about your buddies, and write songs about right there, what you know. If you don't write songs, that's another piece of advice. Write songs. If you don't know an instrument like a guitar or a piano, learn an instrument.

YouTube is full of great tutorials now, but learn an instrument, write some songs. But stay in your hometown. Don't go to Nashville or La or New York. You don't need to do that anymore. And it's just a seth pool of corruption music corruption. There's so many good people there, but the collection of the good people starts making bad things happen. And you don't want to You don't want to throw away all your time doing that. So stay in your hometown, crank it up. Play in your local bars.

If you don't, if you don't have a gig at the local bar, go to your local bar and asked if you could host an open mic night. Obviously it's a weird time right now with COVID, but eventually host an open mic night and just tell the guy I went to this place when I lived in College Station, Texas, and I just went in there. No one knew who I was. The owner didn't know who I was. I

just say, Man, I'm Graing Smith. I'm a singer. I know you don't know me, but would you let me come in here on Thursday nights at seven pm and hosts and open mic night? And if you let me do that, could I play some of my original music in between guests? And he was like how much? And I was like, I'll do it for tips. You don't have to pay me a penny. I'll do it for tips.

And he said yes. And that grew and grew and grew in pretty soon we had a pretty good crowd there every Thursday, and I built a band and then we started playing. The band started playing there. It's like I had a gig every single week right there. So and it doesn't have to be a big place either. Timothy says, what career achievement, What career achievement has meant most to you? And man, that's that's that's another tough

question about music business that I would say. I would say getting a number one song on Billboard and media Base. Having that was the greatest achievement. It didn't last very long. It only lasted you know, that week what we were number one, and then it was all about the next single and the next album and the next tour. But during that moment, just relishing that moment was amazing. And being able to hang the plaque on the wall that said number one song in all the world, you know,

that's my biggest career achievement. Another music question, I'm dying to know your writing process. Do you write all the music parts? So my music process, and I've talked a little bit on this podcast about it, but my writing process could come from different places. Sometimes it can come from a title or a first line or a line

in the chorus. It could also come from just a melody that I'm humming in my head, and I have some kind of melody in my head, and I take notes on the lyric things on my little phone here, and then I'll sing the melodies on my voice memos on my phone and record those. Sometimes the whole song

comes together as a package in my head. But most of the time they're separate melodies and lyrics, and so that I have to If I get a really cool melody in my head, I pull up my notes and I flip through the lyrics and I see if anything sounds like that, does anything match that musically, and vice versa.

If I get a really cool lyric and I think I got to write this title, then I'll start flipping through my voice memos and listening to me ridiculously hum a melody or play something on the guitar, and I'll see if any melodies match that lyric. And you really know right away when a lyric matches a melody. It's like, oh, that's it, or no, that's definitely not it. You just kind of know. And to your question, do you write

all the music parts? I do, but I don't write them in a sense of musical graphs, Like I don't have to get a music graph and draw out the notes. I could just write a music chart, which is a number chart, which is just chords, and then I could record that, and then when I bring people into record an album, they could play off of what I did on my work tape. My original work tape, and luckily I do all my own recording, so I'm right there with everyone when a guitar player comes in or a

keyboard player comes in. But I also trust heavily on the musicians. So I have a couple guys that I really trust. I could keyboard or guitar, and I could sit down and say, hey, here's my idea, but you do what you do, and they hear it and they go, oh, what if we tried this? And here comes this beautiful piano, keyboard, whatever part, fiddle, steel, and it just comes flowing out and a song is born that way. Here we go,

switching gears a little bit. Mollie says, do you believe in baptism in addition to asking God into your heart to be saved? And then suddenly the podcast took a turn. Let me read that question again. Do you believe in baptism in addition to asking God into your heart to be saved? My answer is a definite no. I do not believe in baptism in addition to God to asking

God into your heart to be saved. So she's referring to Molly as referring to Christianity and a major a major turning point in Christianity that happened about five hundred years ago after the Roman Catholic Church. So just a quick recap of the history of Christianity if anyone is wondering started. It started with the God of the Jews. So it was the Jewish faith and everyone that believed in Israel, that believed in the God of Israel, the

God of Moses, and the God of Abraham. They were waiting for a messiah that was prophesied to them through the Old Testament scriptures. So they were waiting on this messiah in steps Jesus. Most of you know Jesus, or at least the story of him. Jesus came to the earth born of a virgin and came in a way that it was prophesied exactly. But most people were expecting a big, powerful king that would come in and free the Jewish people of all their bonds that they had

to the Roman Empire at the time. And here comes Jesus, a son of a carpenter and a very modest preaching love and talking to children and mingling with the poor and prostitutes and thieves. And he was preaching to them, and a lot of people could not understand that that was the first division of Christ verse Judaism. So then

the second division comes soon. To help your question, Molly, the second division comes literally five hundred years later, when after g Jesus is gone and he's not on earth anymore, the Roman Empire gets taken over by the Church. And that is a long process of how that happens, but it happened with the emperor at the time becomes converted to Christianity when they found out truly that Jesus's message was if you believe in Me, you will be saved through faith. Right, so faith in Me will grant you

my grace and the keys to heaven. So it's faith by grace to eternity. And it's so simple, that's the easiest idea. But that's what he preached, and that's what all the apostle preached. All the apostles preached. But when it became a government soon after a few hundred years later, there was a huge worry that the people would start living in terrible lives if all they had to do was was believe, or as Molly says, ask God into your heart to be saved. If that's all it took

to be saved. Then they worried that people would live crazy lives and it would be it would be chaos. So they wanted to add a bunch of things. The Catholic Church wanted to make sure that you needed to do this and this, and then pray to the Virgin Mary, and make sure you get baptized, and make sure you go to Mass, and make sure you're a good person, and put all these things on human virtue. When Christ preached that human virtue is never going to be enough.

It's never enough no matter what you do, no matter what sin you have, no matter how good you are, that's never enough to get in heaven. Only truly faith in Him would save you. So about five hundred years after Christ, the Reformists come in, guys like Martin Luther, and they came in and they were looking at the Catholic Church, who was making you get baptized, Like if you don't get baptized, you're not going to heaven. Guys like Martin Luther said, Uh, guys, I don't think that's right.

Like where in the Bible does it say you have to get baptized or you're not going to heaven. Where in the Bible. Does it say that we need to ask ask forgiveness from the pope and then or a priest, and then the priest would give us forgiveness. Where does that say that? I thought it was supposed to be all about Jesus. So that was a big, really big deal, and it was the official split of Protestants from the Catholics. Long story short, this has been a huge tangent. But Molly,

I am a Protestant. I believe that through faith a lie, are you saved? And then we switched to will there be a pre order to the new album? Yes, we will. There will will be a pre order to the new album, and there will be a pre order. I'm almost sure breaking news on this podcast. I'm almost sure. At the end of August, Ben says, what drew you to music as a kid, especially George Strait and how did that

shape you? Man? I think Ben, I think it was all about girls, honestly, because I saw there were some friends of mine that played guitar and they were you know a lot of girls like that, A lot of girls like the guys that played guitar and the guys that sang when they played guitar, and I just remember thinking like I want to be one of those guys.

I want to have that edge. So I learned the guitar first, I learned to sing so second, and then I saw George straight third, and those sequences of those sequence of events heavily shaped me and drew me into music. To answer your question, Ben, here's a question, how's Earl's truck going? Man? I think that's the most popular question on my YouTube page right now. And we've been on

this hiatus from fixing Earl's truck. We're doing the series called Restoring Earl Dibble's Old Truck, and we've been on a hiatus because we finished all of our parts. We took the truck all the way down to the frame and we finished that, and we took the body to the to the autobody shop to put a new roof on. That was ruined, so we had to put a new roof on the body. And as we took it there, a massive hailstorm hit the state of Texas about two

months ago and swamped the autobody shop with work. So they had to stick with all that real money coming in before they could take on a fun project like ours, and it put us on the back burner. So it's hugely disappointing. I'm very frustrated about it. I understand where they're coming from. They got to they got to chase the money, they got to do that. But they keep telling me that they're going to get on it. So I'm expecting a new episode of Restoring the Truck very soon.

I might go film one tomorrow and and then after that we should get this this uh, this cab going at the auto body shop. So I'm sorry to everyone that's that's waiting on it, and I just got to tell you that I'm just as frustrated as you guys are, for sure. Here's one from Dirk. It says, what do you do when all the band members do not agree

on an issue? And I think it's a great question, and that's why I screenshotted it because it could kind of relate to so many things in life and anyone else that's that works with the group of people, or has a group of friends or a family, or we're just gonna have disagreements. We just are. In fact, this last tour, we had a pretty pretty deep disagreement and it was it was a crew two crew members verse pretty much everyone else, And my first and foremost I

like to hear everybody out. I don't like them to I don't like them to be rude about it. I don't like, you know, I don't like anyone to be called out or or put down personally personal attacks. But I like to hear them out. So I want to hear them out personally. First, hear what they got to say, and hear their their are, their best argument for whatever they want, whatever their disagreement is, and then I like

to get everybody together. And if it's not worked out by then, then when everyone comes together, I can kind of become the mediator and say, Okay, here's what this person thinks, and here's why they think it, and here's why I think that they have a good point, and here's why I think I could see why they're wrong. And then everyone else kind of chimes in and we essentially have a big vote. So we'll have half the

crew saying, man, is this is crazy? I don't, and then these guys are saying, well, have you thought of it this way? And almost every time when we do that, people start putting themselves in the other person's shoes, and it really diffuses the situation. So if we get in front of each other instead of texting or the worst thing that could happen is two little groups start texting each other and then this group starts texting each other and then they come to me and they're like, do

you hear what that groups saying? And they're like, yeah, don't listen to that group. They're lying to you, they're kissing up to you. Whatever. That seems to be a popular thing to say. So, but once we get face to face and we get everybody on the bus or everyone you know that we did this in Wichita, Kansas literally last week, can we stop the bus? And I said, all right, I want to have a meeting. We have a lot of meetings. And we all get out, we get outside the bus, and I kind of lead it

like a courtroom. It's like, Okay, here's this here's this case, and in respect to this person, we're going to modify what we're doing a little bit because they feel so passionately about it. But in respect to this person over here, you need to settle down a little bit. And then what I love to do is if anyone's called out or or or put down, or there's a personal attack

going on. I always love to hear a public apology in front of everyone, and I require it so that person has to get up and just say from the heart, guys, I'm sorry for overreacting on the group text or the email or last night. Sorry for yelling I was out of line. Shouldn't have done it. I wish I wouldn't have sent that text. I now see things a little bit differently. I still feel passionately about this subject, and then every time that happens, everything's diffused, and then people

just it becomes not that big a deal. It's that old saying, is this the hill you want to die on? And it usually becomes not that big a deal. Last question says when can we expect some previews from the new album? Man, I'm so excited to show you guys this new album. I'm so shy excited to show you some previews. We're kind of filming some music video stuff right now. So I would say the same answer I've said three times on this podcast so far, the month

of August. Expect in this month might be the end of it, but expect this month you're going to start getting previews or samples or teases but you'll definitely get You'll definitely get some stuff this month. You're gonna have the full album in September, and then that's not the last thing you're going to expect from me this fault, So a lot of really cool stuff coming. If you have another question, comment below. If you're on YouTube, comment below and we'll try to get to that on the

next time. But love you guys, thanks for listening, thanks for watching. I love this platform that I get to sit here on this podcast and talk to you guys, so appreciate you so much. We'll see you next time. Ye