I called the cops on my drummer

forty six. So much fun. Caleb's one of my best friends, so many good stories with him, and probably more to come as more of these podcasts roll through with him. Comment below as as you hear these stories. If you want to hear more of Caleb. The best way to get a hold of me right now, if you want to talk to me right now, you go to Cameo. Get the app on your phone, Cameo orcameo dot com. You can find me on there and I could send you a video message. I could send you congratulations. I

could send you a happy Birthday. I can send you some uplifting messages or some maybe you want me to punk you out, whatever you want me to say. Cameo is a great way for me to talk to you. I can also direct message you. This is actually one of the one of the social media platforms, I would say, the only one that I actually check the direct messages on and reply just me. I'll give you my word. It is just me that replies. No one else has access to my account but me, so I'm the only

one that can reply. I'm the only one that's going to send you a message. So it's a great gift idea, maybe a great thing you want to send your girlfriend or boyfriend or spouse congratulations or happy anniversary, or probably the most common is happy birthday. But I love cameo. It's a really cool platform for me to use to talk to you or for you to hire me to send to someone else. Super super easy. You could do

as many times as you want. Something I have to talk about is this new album coming out next month on August the twenty eighth. That is, if you're watching this podcast real time, that is this Friday. Yes, this Friday, you're gonna get two brand new songs from me, songs you've never heard before that are leading into the album that comes out in September. So you'll get two songs.

You'll get to get a preview of a taste of the album, and on that day we're also going to announce the exact date of release in September, the exact method of release, which I know I've told you guys before, but there's more after September, so you'll hear more about that, and you'll also get the title of the album and the cover. So a lot to be revealed this coming Friday.

Please pageons into my socials. Will be putting it all over my socials on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and TikTok and YouTube, so hang out with us there to hear these songs. You know, technically, whenever any of an artist says my music's coming out for technically, as you know, that means Thursday night at midnight Eastern United States time, so that is I'm in Central, so that's typically eleven pm is when the new music comes out, So eleven

pm Central on Thursday night, new music. So excited. Cannot wait for you guys to hear it. Can't wait for you even just to see the title. The other thing I go go on on is the Earl Dibbles Truck restoring Earl Dibbles old truck is coming together. So I know a lot of these guys, a lot of you guys. You see the podcast and you want to comment below. When's the truck going to be restored soon? Guys soon.

I just left the garage. That's why I'm wearing the EEE Garage shirt right now if you're watching this on YouTube, and these are actually available again that we sold out in the store, but we're back available at ee apparel dot com. But I just left the garage, the EEE Garage and Butcher and Buller in there. We're coming close to getting the cab back. So this whole process is really going to be coming together in September, and that finale of that show is going to also have a

song that is on the new album. Did that make sense? And it's not the ye Nation song on this podcast. This is an older version, but the newer version of this Yee Nation song that we've been playing at the intro to our shows and we've been playing throughout the Earl Trucker restoration is now a full complete song that's on the new album. Excited about that, Excited about the yee Apparel Fall launch on September eighteenth. So there's a lot of stuff to be talking about at the time

that I'm filming this podcast. If you're watching it real time, I recorded this last week for you, and I'm so excited because tomorrow we're heading back on tour. We're going to Kansas and Nebraska, and ioming and excited that there are still places that want to hear live music that can do it in the right way. And I don't think we're going to be going backwards from here, so be looking for us to slowly start touring. I'm sorry if you're in some of those cities that is just

not going to happen in I'm sorry about that. But things will slowly start opening and we'll be able to come to your town again. Then I'm out of breath because there's so many things to be talking about right now, but I really want you to hear these stories with Caleb. If you're someone that is struggling with any kind of loss, or are trying to find your identity, or maybe you're struggling with some form of depression, you're going to want to hear this story because this is a deep, dark

cave of the of the Granger music career. And I've had a few of these caves in my career. This is one of them. It just so happens. It kind of revolved around my drummer. And the only reason I even put it that way, the reason I even bring forth like this is on Caleb is because we're so close, and he knows my heart, and he knows he knows

me very very well. We're best friends, so he understands that we have taken a journey together at one At one point, one brother might be fallen and I know the other brother lifts him up, and then we switch. And then another brother's falling and the other brother lifts him up, and we keep Me and Caleb swap places, and we have for the last decade so. And I'm sure a lot of you guys know somebody like that in your life. Let me tell you the story about

how I called the cops on my own drummer. Welcome to the Grangersmith podcast. Geegee did Charge and du Tis and school long line of five full of husband downed going back range and co evage. Yeah, yoution, Caleb, you are You are part of, uh, probably several of the worst nights I've ever had on tour. You feel proud to have that. That is that's nice to be remembered, but no, so you are the You were the only band member, hopefully forever, that I had to call the

cops on. But not just like a disorderly like we had to call the cops. I had to call the cops to really intervene in my business. And I want to get to that. I want to lead up to that moment, and I want to preface all this by saying that you are today one of my best friends, and you always have been for a long time. Like we never none of the stuff that's ever happened between us ended that you might Actually you might have thought

it did a couple of times. Well yeah, yeah, when you call the cops, I kind of thought, so, yeah, I just kept causing problems. But I got you on this podcast because several reasons. One, me and you have great stories together, and I could sit here by myself and tell these stories, but it helps that you could remember things that I've forgotten. But you joined my band

in twenty eleven, March twenty eleven. That was several months before my first baby was born, and you came in at a time when we were not a very very popular band. Earl Dibbles Junior did not exist. In fact, Earle would come to be born in July of that year.

That same year, so you came on. It's very interesting you came on before Dibbles, which is in a lot of ways before anyone in the rest of the country besides a small select group in the state of Texas, knew who we were musically as a band, me as a musician period. So I think it's worth telling some of these stories to some people that didn't know us

before then because it was a wild time. We were at a van trailer and not only were we not a very popular band, but we were trying very hard to be at that time, and we were acting like we were and so we were traveling far distances. We did it. Your very first run was a West coast run.

Very I believe our first stop was Albuquerque. Yeah, our first stop was Albuquerque, and then it was like Albuquerque, we ended in Amberillo, I think, because right after that was winter Duck was on the way back was one year Doug. Okay, so we got to tell the story too. So you came on with us, really you auditioned for me, and then how long did we take off after that we I had like seventy two hours to learn the twenty six songs, okay before we left for a four

day run. And it's not like you're playing guitar or bass. God bless those kind of people. But drummer in my band has to play all the drum parts, which is difficult in itself, and then also run our click track on a computer, laptop, computer, which you were not that familiar with, so you were multitasking the same thing Dusty does today. It's the same system Dusty plays drums for me today you were doing in twenty eleven and seventy two hours time, and it was different. It was before.

It was before everybody had click track. So were Mike when you guys brought me on. You said, Mike was tapping on the mic to give everybody click. Yeah, and so it was start stop me, start stop, get everybody on the click and then lead them into the song, and then lead them into the next one, select you know whatever on the laptop. So yeah, Actually, one of the proudest things I have is trying to push to

get everybody on click track because that made my job easier. Yeah, so that everybody could see the going into The next song was a lot easier if everybody had click track, because some people don't get along. Before we get too deep in stories, I feel like I also have to say that a lot of people probably know you from those dates playing drums, and maybe even more people know you in EE Nation because you're the warehouse manager of EE Apparel and so you're in a lot of random

Smith videos. You're in a lot of like truck restorate, Earl's truck restoration videos. You're actually out there working on it today with me close the camera. You might've got like a hand of you in there, like a shirt. So you've been with me for nine years and different capacities, pretty much pretty much NonStop, minus a few months here and there. But you you're an amazing warehouse manager. We could we can get into why you're not the German anymore,

but there it's all great stories worth telling. I think I want to start by this. And I asked you just before we turn this camera on if we should go here or not, and you had a great answer to that. But looking back at twenty eleven version of myself, not not a lot of loss in my life, not a lot of understanding about grief. I was at that point. I was three years away from my first big battle with grief when I lost my dad. And when you came on, you auditioned for me, and I asked you

about your tattoo. Hm hmm. I said, ah, you know, it's like a casual conversation. Hey, what's uh what's that tattoo mean? He said, I lost my brother. I was like, oh, man, that's that's tough. I have two brothers myself, and then on your other arm, you lost another brother and that's that's rough. And I didn't It's hard to say, and you know what I'm trying to say, but I didn't comprehend the loss of two brothers fully. I just comprehended it as if anyone else would think, Yeah, man, that's

that's gotta be really bad. And the kicker to the whole thing was you lost Levi to a battle with cancer two months before that conversation, yeah, two months before, two months before the audition, and then six months before that lost Noah. So it was lose Noah who as we go by numbers, I'm two of five boys, so we lost three of five, and then six months later we lost four of five and then two months later that conversation between the two of us. How about that.

And during the times that I've had rough times that I've had, I've often thought of you in that numerical sense of sixty days after a major loss. This is when Caleb was auditioning for me, and you did that well, partly out of necessity. We got to work. You're a drummer, You got to work, and we were about to get evicted from the apartment. Actually you literally had to work because you're going to get evicted. Yeah, So it didn't matter what the music was like or how you guys were.

I was going to take it for work. Just so happened that you guys are absolutely amazing and you turned into one of my best friends. So that wasn't plus so I meet neither me or the rest of the band and crew really grasps the fact that we were taken out a drummer that two months before had lost his second brother within a year. Yeah, and not that maybe I would have done anything differently. I don't know

if I could have. But you were coming on more or less with baggage, and you're gonna leave your wife and two children at home to go on the road and expect to get a paycheck and expect to be quote unquote normal dude on the road and abnormal vocation. Yes, and in a van where there's no escape, there's more escape than a bus. In a van, you're just right up on top of the binch is taking turns driving. And this this recipe led to a bunch of crazy stories on the road. It led to eventually me calling

the cops on you. It also led ultimately to an understanding of grief and loss and coping with it that I would have to return to and try to take notes from. And so tell me that that first show in Albuquerque, are you thinking about the brothers the uh yeah, yeah, because I think they would have been I think they would have been really really happy for me. They always wanted to see me do that. They or they saw it, they saw me play, but to do it and that

be my job. They would have been super excited. I think that that's something anybody who deals with losses, from the loss of that point of that person on you're you're you're robbed of those shared memories, you know, to where you can say this person would be happy or call them up and say, hey, you know, look what happened. Guess what happened? You know, yeah, exactly. So yeah, every single time we played, I was I was thinking about them especially and yeah, so yeah, they were always you

want to go there, you want to go to flags. Yeah, so I think the first time, and I'm sorry, I didn't really think this story was going to go this way, but it kind of really helps. If I don't tell this backstory, then you're just a crazy dude. But the first time we all noticed that you were dealing with demons was and and a lot of it with you

came from alcohol. So it's and it's hard for you because, as I've come to understand over nine years, you're very you have very too strong lines of descendants Irish and Mexican, both very proud cultures, both very family oriented, both very society relationship oriented, and both really involve alcohol as a part of communion with family and friends. So you sit down, you have a beer with your buddies, and you feel normal.

So you knew that alcohol and you're not an alcoholic by the way, No, no, we just it just amplifies certain things that you're dealing with. In my opinion, So you knew that you didn't. You weren't an alcoholic. You're not You're not chemically addicted to the substance. So a few beers with your buddies would make you feel normal again. It'd make you feel like you're on a path of being in the perfect respect and remembrance of your brothers and doing what they would want you to be doing.

If you don't do that and you're like pulling, you're not gonna touch alcohol, You're gonna avoid all these situations, then you're living a life of that's absent of normal in a lot of ways. Yeah, probably what you're thinking, right, And you don't feel normal already because you it's not normal to lose two siblings in a little over six months, so you already feel a little normal abnormal, and then removing something else from it just it all feels. It

all feels weird. But when you can just sit there and be like, I'm just gonna have, you know, a couple of drinks and just relax and be happy and enjoy life the way they would want me to, that was always the goal. Yeah, you know, it's just to be normal, to enjoy something. So you I remember Vlugerville Texas Graham Central Station. I believe this is the first time, right, Yeah, that was probably the big one. Yeah, for some reason, I had the hospital on my mind that night. Okay,

so we had a few drinks after the show. Very normal, very casual. And I'm just thinking for you. I'm speaking for you. You probably think a beer, two beers, maybe a mixed drink. We had a great show, friends and family came. I feel normal, I'll have another. Let's let's amplify this feeling of normalcy. And I don't know after that point, it wasn't a lot. You didn't have a lot. You like, you weren't stumbling. No, no, it it I

mean it's all bubbling there by the surface. Yeah. It never really takes a lot for it to kick off. So someone comes and tells me, Caleb, you gotta go get Caleb. He's outside in the trailer and he's having a meltdown. It's like, okay, new guy, you know what's this about. Go out there. And you were in the in our trailer, an empty trailer, punching with your bare fist a three quarter inch plywood wall. Yeah, and and and I see I see two things. And this happened

this is gonna happen in every other story. I see two things when I see my buddy having a meltdown, too, I see my drummer breaking his hands on a three quarter inch plywood wall. Yeah. I don't know what. Uh yeah, it was just just rage and loss and uh it always crept up, I'm sure to you guys, it was like I thought everything was going good. Yeah, I thought everything was fine. You know, I thought we were having

a great night. It was always like that. It was always this story, We're having such a great night, and then and then something happened. But you know, from what comes out of left field to someone is never it's just right there constantly. So unfortunately, you know, like like you said, it was a kind of a constant theme that it seemed to come out of left field. So tell me what you told me before we started the camera about why you even wanted me to bring up

the brothers. Well, first, I love them and I love talking about them, but I think I think it gives gives me a chance to talk about why, you know, why that kind of happened. I believe there are reasons and their excuses. You know, there can have you can have reasons that you do something that that doesn't excuse why you did it or doesn't give you a pass. So I had reasons, but not excuses. Excuse is kind

of give you a pass for what you did. I had reasons, and the reasons were the loss of the brothers. And then you know, like what we were talking about was that was my first impression to a lot of different people, and it wasn't my first impression to you guys, but it was not too far down the line that you guys saw this crazy individual having the outdown, breaking down, breaking stuff, you know, breaking knuckles and things like that, and it that's my legacy to unfortunately a lot of

different people. And I know there's other musicians out there who were If you're not struggling with the substance, you may be struggling with something inside. And the substance is the catalyst. It's the straw that breaks, you know, the camel's back, and it's just the fuel to that fire. And it's unfortunate that a lot of musicians, I think a lot of artistic people have that because you feel so deeply, you know, you go through high as you

can be the happiest person someone's ever seen. And then obviously you can be, you know, the saddest person that someone's seen. And I got to say to that that you are. It might not come across on this podcast because of the subject matter, but you are one of the top three, if not the funniest guy I know in my life. You're witty, you said the funniest jokes. You're just a hilarious dude, always have been, still are today,

and you were back then. And so that was like what you said where we just thought, oh, I thought this guy had all his ducks in a row. He's so funny. He was just laughing two hours ago with us telling jokes that that. Actually that was part of what would set me off, as oddly as that sounds, being funny someone telling me that I'm funny, because Noah was the funniest person that I have ever met, that a lot of people have ever met, and so making

people laugh would remind me of him. And then people telling me that I'm funny or someone telling me that You're the funniest person I've ever known was a compliment coming from somebody, Yeah, but to me it redirected. You know, it's exactly right. So it it would seem like a compliment. We had many moments during dark We had dark moments where I would be like, Caleb, you got so much going for you. You got your family at home, You're with the funniest guys I've ever met, And then boom,

you'd say, I'm not the funniest guy. You should have met my brother, Noah, he was funny. I'm nothing. And I'd be like, oh, gosh, bad thing to say the same thing with the nicest You can be such a nice guy. And then you know, I'd be like leive, I was the most compassionate person. Yeah, it was what would be a compliment coming from you, guys. I didn't take it that way obviously, because that wasn't what was on my mind. I mean everything set of Flagstaff was

in the mountains. Yeah, so you're for your Colorado boy, Yes, Colorado Springs, Home of the mountain, home in the mountains, and uh, Colorado you are. You are very They have a lot of pride for Colorado, man, So shout out to all the Colorado people listening you. You moved to Texas for several reasons. Music was a big part of that, and your parents, your folks are still in Colorado and one brother two bas Dias is back. Amos is back now, Okay,

so yeah, two of the remaining tour in Clora. So a big part of of what we're doing with this podcast telling stories, two buddies telling stories on the road. But also I'm gonna tie in a little piece of this to anyone that's listening in two parts. One, someone that's listening that struggling in life with some kind of loss or depression or grief, and I'm showing this as the light at the end of the tunnel, the other

side of the fence. And I'm also presenting this to friends and employers and buddies that have one of these kind of people in their lives that to showing them that there is another side of the coin, There is a way out of this. If you apply the proper pressure where it needs to be, you could stop the bleeding. And you're my example in my world of a guy that was written off as lost in a lot of ways, and now you're one of our most valuable employees at

EE Apparel and still one of my best friends. And I'm grateful that for all that, I'm also grateful that we get to you get to relive twenty eleven twenty twelve with me a time there was a big transition before he became a band that people cared about, and I like to hang on to those memories and you kind of keep be grounded when it comes to that kind of stuff. Lots changed, yeah, and a lot has

changed on the outside. On the inside, we're still it's still me and Tyler and Parker, you and and you know. So there's a lot that's the core of it is still the same. Yeah, it's the the nuts and bolts, the main ingredients. There's a lot of extra extra stuff on it. But the I'm always impressed at the hard work and the innovation that comes from you smith boys. It's just no ground. I always say, no grass grows underneath your feet. It's constantly moving, so which is just amazing.

That's why people are looking towards you guys, especially during this time, because it's not just music that you have. You know, you've got all these finger in a lot of different pies. You know, it's a lot of different things going, which is impressive. And no grass grows in Texas at all. Right, now, that's true. It's too hot it's all it's all dead, five degrees outside. I'm gonna take a quick break, and then you want to go to Flagstaff, Arizona with me? When I called the cops

on you, yes, all right, be right back. So we were rolling to the van. We got a little run. We're going to Arizona. We're going to Colorado. It's like a Utah stop in there in Mexico. Maybe, or maybe it started with I don't know. Well, the day after well, right after flag Staff, we went to Grand Canyon, Okay, so we have a little Western run with the band. And this was in twenty eleven. I think that, Yeah, we go to Flagstaff, Arizona to play the Museum Club,

small music venue, a really fun place. And the day starts when we arrived. The day start with me, you and maybe Tyler, Johnny and Tyler because we were training for the bootwalk. Johnny and Tyler were training for the one hundred mile bootwalk that we were doing without the first year of it. Maybe that was the second year, because you guys did the first year right before it and then and then I was happy to join, Okay,

the second year. So we were in this in this little routine of getting to a venue, and during our off time, we would put on combat boots and walk to try to get our legs acclimated to walking long distances and breaking boots and breaking in boots. And we start walking in Flagstaff started the venue. We just start walking and our only reference was the mountain that was there.

It was like a big mountain there, Like, let's walk to the foot of the mountain, thinking like, maybe there's a stream there, really cool path we could path, and then maybe we can get up into the mountain a little bit, maybe there's some kind of trail. So we start. We didn't know this, but we we go right into a Navajo reservation. No signs, no signs, We just walked straight into it. And what we also didn't know was

it's not good to walk into a Navajo reservation. Yeah, it's not very it's not very wait, I mean, I imagine it's probably nicer if you're invited. But we just started walking and that's when we saw that older gentleman on the backside of that store. Yeah, he was like, no, we thought he was I don't know what we thought he was on or something like that, but it looked like he was trying to get our attention at the

like a grocery store. It's like behind the grocery store, there was this man and evidently that was the entrance to the reservation, like that next street was going to start the reservation. We didn't know that. And there was this old man. We thought he was homeless and drunk. He was yelling at us to tell us to stop, stop, stop, and we thought he was like gonna say stop, my cars broke down and I needed some cash, you know whatever. So we ignored him as we would just a bum

asking for a dollar. We just just keep just keep your faith straightforward, just keep walking. So then we enter the reservation unknowingly, and things started happening around us. Our faces were turning towards us, everyone's eye on us. So then the two dudes, Yeah, they started following us, and uh, we're yelling at us, yes, and we were like all right in their language, yeah, obviously where we're not where we're supposed to be. Uh, but you know, it was

an accident. You know, we wouldn't have done that. But yeah, it definitely started to get a little intense, you know, just kind of yelling and stuff like that. And as

we're walking. I remember walking back through like that little we wouldn't call it like a common area, but it was like a there was like a playground there and sidewalks, and they were like really yelling and they're like come in, you know, kind of getting closer to they got they got together and started following us again, and yeah, that was a they're gonna jump us. And we didn't know that. We didn't know where we were. And if we did know where we were, I don't think I would have known.

It was a bad deal for four white dudes to just go trespassing through a Navajo reservation uninvited, because that probably looked like we were looking for trouble, yeah, or like we didn't care. Yeah, we didn't. We didn't respect. Yeah, told we'll go where we want. Now, we wouldn't have gone there. We would have totally respected. We just had no idea of where, yeah, where we were, so that we never made it to the foot of the mountain. Instead, as soon as we figured out we were in the wrong,

we made our way out of there. Luckily, there was not a confrontation. We met our way out and started heading back to the venue. But we're kind of amped up about that. Like, we went back to the crew. I said, hey, guys, don't don't walk towards the mountain. That's the reservation. It's uh, you don't want to go that way. We had guys yelling at us. It was a close call, I mean, was we were scared. Adrenaline pumping.

We had adrenaline pumping. So that kind of set the scene for the night that was going to come for us. And we go. We play the show and it was a great show. Yeah, I had a blast. We had a really good time, great crowd for a band like us that was relatively unknown to be all the way in Arizona and play a show with people that were really interested in it. It was a great It was a great night, and it was a worthy It was a worthy night of a celebration of some sort. Yeah.

So we have a few drinks. And this was long after Flugerville, Texas, where me and you had had many conversations like I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm good. Yeah, I can control this, but I need to have I need to be able to have a drink with my boys to feel normal. Cool. Can't argue with that. And we were in the mountains. So we were in the mountains,

which it felt like Colorado. Yeah, so I should I should have known right then to be like maybe maybe, don't you know, because you're everything's close to the surface, you know, it's it's always closer than you think. The uh that side, the dark side, the dark side. So do you remember what our keyboard player said to you to set you off that night after a few drinks. I love him to death. I don't know if you'll say his name. Listen to this podcast, all right, well

we'll call him Derek Herrera. And the poor guy, it wasn't his fault at all. He was just trying to get us a load up. It's very you know he does. He did his job trying to get things on and off stage very good. And there was nobody following us, so I wasn't in a hurry. No other band playing after us. Yeah, so that was it, and we had time to take our stuff down, So I don't know

what the hustle was. And I had already had a handful of drinks and uh so I'm kind of loading up, and uh, the the encounter we had and being in the mountains and uh, the time of year, and just the fact that it was all bubbling under the surface. You know, I kind of kept asking me and kept asking me, and then uh, and then I just I just remember dropping drum gear, and then I don't really I do remember, uh, punching a suburban out outside of of the venue with this hand and doing quite a

bit of damage to that hand. But I broke your hand. Yeah, broke my hand. And we had three shows left to go. Yeah, I remember that because I remember calling my dad and telling him. Then He's like, you're gonna play those shows? And I was like, I know, and he goes, no, you're gonna play those shows. I don't care if you have to take the drum stick to your hand, You're going to play those shows. So and I did. But yeah,

that was a I don't know what it was. I should have known that it was that, not that I could tell how far beneath the surface that was, but that the fact that I couldn't tell should have been, you know, a warning. I think when you're walking through grief, it's like imagine walking down the middle of the road. You have days where you're walking down the middle of the road and on the left or is a good day or a good night, And on the right is

a bad night. That's on a good day you're walking down the middle of the road, and then on certain days you're walking down the middle of the sidewalk. And on that night, I was walking like the down the blade of a knife. So that's how it could have gone either way. And it very quickly went bad. You became hide. It was truly as Lincoln watches The Incredible Hulk. It was truly you turned into the green Man, and you couldn't go back. And the green Man he doesn't

like Caleb. No, no, he wants to destroy everything that guy has. So I come outside and you were punching the back of a suburban, the glass as if it's a padded couch. You're just slamming it with your hand and you're breaking the bones in your hand. Couldn't feel it, didn't care. So I run out with Tyler. We stop you from hitting the suburban, and luckily, luckily we didn't confront you because you were ready to fight anybody or anything. You would have fought your own family if they were there.

You wanted to fight anything. You would have fought God or your dad or any or the Angel Gabriel. It didn't matter. You wanted to fight. So when Tyler came out there to break you up, to break it up, you turned on us like, Okay, let's go. If you don't want me to punch the suburban, I'll punch your face. Basically, in a bunch of words and hours of conversation, we instead of antagonizing you and getting mad, luckily we recognized

that you were not Caleb. It was the first of many times when I realized I'm not talking to my buddy Caleb right now. I actually called him. I gave

him a name Kalib, and named literally not. So if you're listening to this podcast and you know of this kind of situation, maybe it's you, maybe it's a friend, maybe it's a family member, made it's a brother or sister, you could recognize that they turn into the Hulk, they turn into hide, they turned into Kalib, and they you can't reason with that person, and you sure can't confront them or fight them, because there is no winning that fight. It's gonna turn out to the the end result of

a true fight. If we were to have fought, as you've mentioned it several times, hey, I might not kill you. You might beat me, but in the end you're gonna be missing an ear and half of your nose. Your eye is gonna be gabs up. You're remember, you're gonna remember from your deformity that you have from this night. That's basically how you put it. And luckily Tyler and I realized that we diffused the situation and we talked you into going to bed, Like, stop, we still have

things to load in the trailer. We're gonna load it. The hotel is attached to the same parking lot as the venue, So here's the hotel. Key, buddy, you just go in. I'm so sorry you're having a bad night. Just go in there and sleep it off. Which didn't work, No, now it didn't. I was gonna go to a mountain. You go back to the hotel and you basically decide that, yes, you recognize there's a problem. You recognize you're not yourself, and the only way to reconcile this problem is at

the top of the mountain. Yes, so you're going to go to the top of the mountain. We remind you that there's a Navajo reservation in between you and the mountain, and then you quickly acknowledge I'll take on the whole Navajo tribe, yes, which is not a good idea, and I wasn't in the right frame of mind at all. I was. Yeah, my goal was to go to the top of the mountain. I remember saying to you, to

the top. Yes. I sure hope that no one listening actually thinks that we're talking bad about the Navajo tribe. It's not that at all, because you guys are just a if you're listening, you're just a really unfortunate side effect to this whole story. But it had nothing to do specifically. It could have been it could have been any group of people that didn't want to be imposed upon, could have been Saint Mary's convent that was right next door. Yeah,

so the circus just came in town. Unfortunately it was right next door in your mind, because I know you very well, So in your mind, you're thinking, I'm gonna reconcile like Moses on the top of this mountain, and God's gonna speak to me in a burning bush. But in order to get to that burning bush on top of this mountain, I'm gonna have to go through the enemy. And knowing what happened earlier that day. It's got to be ten times worse in the middle of the night.

And I will welcome that adversary. And if I die in a fight against the entire Navajo tribe, then so be it. That's probably better than the current state of my life. That's about as much sense as it made in my mind. Yeah. Yeah, And you know, like you said, it could have been anybody wasn't. It was just any adversity, any fight, any pain, any bad situation, any fight that was in front of me was more than welcome at that point. And you were not adamant about going alone.

You you were welcoming us there. The open invitation was there to, hey, you want to go with me, We're going on the top of the mountain. Yeah, it would actually be better if you fought the Navajo tribe with me instead of just being And so nobody said yes, no one, No one agreed to that one taker I didn't want to go. It was like probably two o'clock

in the morning by this time. Yeah, right, yeah, it was yeah, because we had done, we had played, and then everything was either getting loaded up or loaded up. Thanks to whoever loaded my drum kit. I think it was Frank. So there's an X factor to this story. Thus far you are and where back then an avid to a supporter, constant, constantly carrying, and we knew that you had a on you. You always had I guess

that was your sig. You had your sicklock, you had your glock on you, and we knew that you were going to go to the mountain, to the top and go through the reservation, and you always had a glock on you. This is not a good combination with you alcohol, your hide, your kalibe, you have your pistol in your in your pocket, and you're going to go through a hostile group of people. This is bad, a bad recipe, bad.

And so when I realized I couldn't stop you from going to the mountain, my next my next line of thinking was, Okay, I can't stop Caleb, but what I can do is asked to take his gun from him, so then if he goes, at least he's not going to kill anybody or get killed. Yeah, yeah, or just yeah, that's my thinking. Three am, Now yeah I did's It was a long time, probably probably ours of awkwardness, but yeah, that was my plan was to kind of go to the top of this mountain and just go there. So

I was going to stay the night. So I realized because you played the show, you didn't play a show with gun on you, because we played at a bar, So you had it in our trailer in the center section of our trailer that had a separate lock and key. So as I'm putting this together in my head, I realize, I'll take the key from a trailer and I'll go hide it. So that way I'll say, Okay, buddy, you're free to go. I can't stop you from going to

the mountain. I'm not going to go with you. I hope you're back by seven am when we leave to go to Colorado Springs, which is ironically when we were going to your hometown the next day to see your dad. Well almost we were going to the Grand Canyoneah went and then to Colorado Springs, but we were having an off day in the Grand Canyon. So I take the key and hide it, and I say you're free to go. Right I'm tired of arguing. It's been hours of going

back and forth. So you go, just like I predicted, to the trailer to get your gun to go into the Navajo reservation with your gun. You realize it's locked and there's no key, and I was totally cool with that. Or wait, I was curious. That's right. You came back as if as if your your Second Amendment has been violated by democratic government, which it probably needed to be tempered a little bit. It probably needed to just be like, why don't you take a break from from it for now?

That was a really that was a really good idea and a good call on y'all's part. So I was Hillary Clinton to you, Yes, at that moment, Yeah, you really couldn't have done anything positive that I was going to be on board with at that time. You could have. You could have given me a million dollars and I would have found some reason to be angry. So then the plan no pun intended backfired on me because as

I'm just thinking, I'm gonna forget it. I'm gonna let him deal with this problem of being locked out from his own gun. I'm gonna let him deal with this, and I'm gonna go to bet that was wishful thinking. So I go to the hotel room with Tyler. This is back in a time when we had one or two one room or two. We had two rooms with everyone. Yeah, and it was two guys to a bed. Okay for the most part. In our room, I was Yeah. So I go back to my room. I've got Tyler in there.

I've got Eric or Derek excuse me, you said, our keyboard player. And I go in there like I'm wishful thinking I'm gonna go to sleep, and you come and find me. And you have made up your mind that that gun and this trip to the mountaintop is bloodshed with your band brothers, and you have made up your hide has made up his mind Khalip that I will fight you until you until you submit to give me that key or tell me where it's hidden. Yeah, the

hide is persistent. If nothing else, just I you know, when you meet somebody, and I'm sure people who were watching this podcast is know somebody who like, there's no reasoning with a person like that once they have something in their head, whether it be I need to get this back, or that person said something, or that person's looking at me, none of it makes sense. But you're trying to talk to a crazy person. At that point, we were thinking, should we zip time to the shower,

let him sleep it off. That was like an option. So I'm gonna take a quick break and I'll tell you how I finally call the cops. So this all came to a head when you you basically during the conversation in the doorway of the hotel, I'm saying, sorry, buddy, I'm not going to give you the key to the trailer to your gun. You're on your own, and you stuck your foot in the door yes, and said, here's the ultimatum. Did either you tell me where that key is so that you can give me my property back,

or we're all going to fight. And I realized that I'm taking on all of you, and I'm okay with those odds. I'm okay with the consequences of the bodily harm that that might cause me. Ye, which is the

same thing you thought about the Navajo tribe. It wasn't really worried about It wasn't worried about what happened to me, you know, because it was just needed to get uh to something, and uh, I think maybe even a little bit of accomplished something, yeah, you know, like get a get a victory, yeah, you know, because it didn't feel like anything was you know, it would have been not to achieve something where it just seems like everything's kind of going, you know. I'm sure that was part of it.

Mainly it was because I had my mind set on it, and you can't tell someone you know, who's that crazy right then? No, or you know, it's just you're dealing with a crazy person at that point. So so I've pretty much left with one choice in my mind. Do you disagree with my one choice? No? No, I only had one option. No, Yeah, that was that was That was all you all you could do. I said, all right, man, I got one card to play one only. I got to do what is probably going to be the most

embarrassing moment of my personal career. I am gonna have to call the cops on my own drummer. Please, Caleb, don't make me do this. Don't make me live out a terribly embarrassing moment in a relatively small town where we call dispatch and they come to Museum Club. They're gonna know who the band was that played there. They're gonna know me. Yeah, Please don't make me do this. It was a huge town, a lot going on. Yeah, please don't make me call cops. Please, don't make me

do this. But you're but you're only leaving me one choice if you don't back down. You stood there with your foot in the door, stared me right in the eye and said, I'm willing to accept that consequence. Yeah. Wish I hadn't been so so persistent. Yeah, that's a that's the thing. That's an are stating it. You put your persistency when you're high at or khalib Yeah yeah, hide he and khalib he he just he doesn't give up.

I'll get that to although I wish he would, you know, like would have like found a really hard crossword puzzle knitting pattern, like, don't give up, hide, work on that puzzle, but you can get it. You'll finish that sweater. But no, it was always destructive, so stuff. So as if I was living in some old Western movie. I decided to count the ten count down from ten. Yeah, with my phone in my hand, nine to one one dialed, I start. I begin a slow countdown from ten, because if that's

going to change your mind, yeah it was. It was a bizarre, bizarre, drunk, crazy New Year's Eve countdown hotel's doorway. So start at ten. You don't budge, you're just staring me, just staring me down. Just glass, were just staying right through me. Nine eight seven. You're just not budgeting. Your foot's in the door. You have to get your gun. Nine one one dispatch And it's like, good the evening. It's about four o'clock in the morning. How are you I need an officer to come to the so and

so hotel outside of the Museum Club. One of my employees has had too much to drink. Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't remember. One of my employees has had too much to drink, and he is wanting to put himself in a dangerous situation with threatening us. Does he have a weapon that's the problem. No, he has a knife, he's not using it, but he's wanting to get his handgun. Where's the handgun? It's locked away and I have the key that's trying to get it. So

I basically explained the situation. Okay, officers are on the way, and they kept asking me like is he in possessed where's the knife right now, like to his pocket? And he's non possession of any other weapons, which is you know, legitimate questions they're putting officers at risk sending them at four o'clock in the morning. Yeah, they don't know what they're running into. So they arrive the it commences the

most embarrassing you know sequence. So thus far, I've had more since then, more embarrassing moments, like getting naked on the table after breaking two ribs in the hospital in New Jersey. That was terrible. You Khalib switches off as soon as the red, red, and blue lights arrive. Khalib, as it turns out, is a big fan of law enforcement. He's a he's a staunch supporter of law enforcement and the military, and he typically calms down when he's talking

to law enforcement. I don't know what. He's got a lot of bad qualities, all right, to the bitter end, Khalib is a law enforcement supporter. Yeah, uh true American Patriot thanked him. Talk to him about that. Yeah, they were super cool. They were really nice. Well, but when they showed up, Yeah, like you said, Kalib, all of a sudden turns and it's just talking to them. You met them in the parking lot. Yeah, they're like, where's where you know, where's the guy we're dealing You're like, oh,

that's me. Yeah, Yeah. They're like, all right, we're looking for that's me and they're like you and I'm like yeah, and they're like all right, let's uh and they're kind of looking me over. They were super cool. Uh. So one one comes up to me, is like typically what they do, Like if two cars came and one branches off and goes straight to me and he's like, where's the firearm. It's like it's in this trailer over here, and he walks over there, it's checks the lock. Okay,

keep it secure. And you, meanwhile, were talking to the other officer. You're telling him the story and it basically comes It actually solved the entire problem because you weren't you weren't intoxicated enough to be taken in, and you weren't causing a disturbance currently. You were just threatening to yeah, and they were you know, I wasn't going to I wasn't going to get my gun and shoot anybody. I was going to get my gun, which was just in a drunk DDE doing that and wanting to go climb

a mountain. It's just a bad idea. Yeah, I believe that is just a horrible idea. You're right, you want to don't know what would happen. Yeah, So so just the fact that I wanted to do that was a bad idea. But you fundamentally, it all boiled down to you have a Second Amendment right to carry, and no one was going to take that right away from you. That's pretty much what the entire thing boiled down to.

It wasn't about I'm gonna go hurt somebody or I'm gonna kill myself or anyone else or shoot anything, or you just wanted to have it on you because I wasn't letting you. Yeah, and that was a problem to you. Yeah, that was it. Like I said, you know, you get a really really intoxicated person with one tunnel vision goal in their mind, and it just that had to happen for some reason, or that was my goal at least.

So they basically told you and me go to sleep, and you listened to them, Yes, well kind of sort of sort of. You listened to him in terms of leave the gun alone. So then you went to bed and we went to bed, and then you got back up, yes, and went to the mountain. Yes, I did, And I didn't get all the way up to the mountain, so I went towards the mountain. I stopped in the middle of that big like common area, that area right there in the beginning of like the village area, and just

screamed and invited whatever was gonna happen. I don't know, a fight or whatever. So but by that time, it was at like three o'clock in the morning, some random dude screaming in the middle of that little park area. I wouldn't have gone down there either. It was just a little bizarre. And then I fell asleep up against a tree in that little park area right there, only for I don't know, it could have been just a handful of minutes, and then went back. You made it

back by role time. I went back to the hotel room. I slept like in the closet, I believe, and then we got up and rolled. We got up and went to the Grand Canyon the next day. You that's when you realized you had a broken hand, by the way, Yes, I was on time for roll, by the way. Yeah, to all you guys who deal with time, Yeah, at least I made it to that. You're on time for the role. You realize when you became sober you had broken hand. Yeah, And we went, of all places to

the Grand Canyon. It was all of our first time. That goes at your first time, so all of us it was our first time to go, and it was incredible. Side note, if you haven't been to the Grand Canyon and you're wanting to travel internationally, save that first and go to the Grand Canyon because it's incredible. It's like a worldwide spectacle. You can't explain it. Pictures don't do it justice. You have to see that chasm, the depth

of that. You have to see it with your own eyes, which is very ironic to go to a place like that and experience the wonder of the earth, of the planet and the depth of the planet and the space while you're dealing with what then become small problems amongst a couple friends. Yeah, and we wrote. We walked through the canyon, didn't say a word, no, started off walking together ish and then very quickly I was alone. But

I wouldn't have hung out with me either. I would So I'm walking up and down the Grand Canyon out of brass because I'm hungover, uh and and just just tired and nauseous, and my hand's broken. So I stopped. There was snow there at that time, I stopped and I'd stick my hand in the snow and just sit there, and people were like walking by, They're probably like, what in the world is this guy doing, reeks about still he's just sitting on this rock with his hand in

the snow, and uh. Yeah, I went down as far as I as far as I could, and then uh and then walked back up there. It's such as a bizarre I don't count that as my my Grand Canyon trip. I always tell I was told we should go see the Grand Canyon and then you know, they'd be that'd be cool to go see that together. And I don't count that trip as a Grand Canyon trip for me because hide went, I didn't really go, and my hand was broken, so it wasn't like a really good experience. Yeah,

I remember, were just walking and we were alone. We weren't with you because we separated just naturally. But we weren't really talking either. No, like me and the other guys weren't talking either because everyone was A we didn't get much sleep, and B we were tired from walking and cold. It was really really cold that day in the Grand Canyon. Yes, in the in the teens, I believe or lower and and we just had a lot on her mind. You know, it was a lot to take in. It was a lot to think, well, how

do we move forward as a band? Like are we ever going to be the same? And a gig again, like is Caleb gone? Is he quitting? Should we fire? Is he gonna? Is this? Is this even smart in any level to continue on? So there's a lot of stuff kind of rolling around in our brains and as if, as in so many other times in music with me,

what ultimately healed that was the first show back? Yeah, because then you reunite in making music together as a group, and each person does his part collectively for the song, and without your part, there is no song. Without any of the five parts, there's no song. So we come together collectively and contribute our piece to the music, and that naturally heals the damage that was done that night

in Flagstaff. Yeah, you get to write, to work back together, and especially creatively are basically you're you're doing something creating with another person. And uh, that was always kind of therapeutic, at least for me. You guys had to play with me, so you know what I mean, Like at least for those shows. It was like we had to at least

get along on stage. So, but you guys are always so more than gracious, enough, more than more than I probably would have been, And it was it was nice to to get back to that any any any kind of normalcy. So playing on stage was good, even if my hand was broke and I could barely hold that drumstick so kind of did a tape job to hold it on there. It was nice to be back with you guys. You know, like I said, you guys were never really you guys never like shunned me or anything

like that, which was which was really cool. It was just how could you guys at that time, How could any of you guys understand you know at that time? Yeah, what what was causing me to be so uh so crazy? What was your what's your dad say? Because we went to the next day after Grand Canyon, we went to Colorado Spring to play that show. What did your dad say when he saw you? Uh, he asked about my hand. Yeah,

he was like. I called him right after, right after the next day and told him and that's when he was like, you're you're going to play these shows? And I was going to play him anyways, but he definitely made sure that I knew that I was going to play the shows. And then when I saw him, you know, he asked about my hand, and uh, you know, he's he he always he calls me Cabe so and uh, you know that you call me Cape and he's like Cape,

I just what are you doing? You know, and this isn't the way, and and uh, you got to stop doing stuff like this, and so yeah, it was really it's really unfortunate because they they got to see Hide too on a couple of different occasions, which hurts because it's it's your family and not only they understand, you know, they knew understood the loss of Levi and Noah. So it doesn't make any sense. You're you're terrible to whoever

you're around when you're when you're like that, unfortunately. And that's one of the main things that I want to tell people who are going through grief or or or whatever you're going through in your life where you're not yourself, is that you might not be able to make it better immediately right now, but one of the best things you can do for yourself is to not make it worse, Like I made it worse. I didn't have to make it worse. My life could have kept going in a

direction and slowly climbing up the hill. But so many times I'd get up a little bit, and then I would make it worse. Jordan Peterson's says that no matter how dark of a hole, no matter how the depths of hell that you have created for yourself, no matter where that is, it always could get deeper. And humans have a great way of finding a way to get deeper in the hole they've already made. Yeah, it's one hundred percent correct, and that if you would just wait.

It's hard to do that at the time, obviously, but if you would just wait, things would get better. Or like when I tell people about grief, I go, it doesn't get better, it gets different, And sometimes different is the answer to prayer to what you're dealing with at that time. Just wait, don't make it any worse. That's one of my main goals in life. When I talk to people dealing with stuff, it's just that that's my That's why I tell them, don't make it any worse.

You know, you know, the only thing, the only thing after river that I could tell you at that time was I don't know how to make I don't know what to tell you what to do, but I obviously showed you what doesn't work, you know, And that was that was the only thing I could tell you. And I'll never pretend to understand what that loss was like, but that was the only thing that I could say.

But I remember that you saw. I don't know. I never knew what to tell you how to go forward or to do this, but you know, unfortunately I showed you. I remember what. I remember that conversation. What's crazy about your story? What the flag Staff story? And people there's

a lot of people that probably understand it. There's a lot more people they're probably thinking, wow, that's that had to have been the worst thing that happened between those two, But it wasn't because something else happened later that ended up ending your drumming time with me. It was technically worse than flag Staff and that ended our relationship, me being singer and you being drummer. It's spun off into

where you are now. I don't want to get into that now because I think we should do another podcast about that, and if you guys want to hear how Caleb and I got to hear comment below if you're watching on YouTube. But believe it or not, we were temporarily healed in Colorado Springs after Flagstaff, and we did get better and we played a lot more shows, and we traveled a lot more. Yeah, and then it got worse again in a different way, and it ended up

being the destruction of us on the stage. And then the introduction of Dusty Saxon, who's my current drummer, who introduced me to you this first. Yeah, Dusty introduced me to Caleb, and then Caleb replaced Dusty when things got worse again. And that's a whole different story and a really good one, and a whole different podcast and a

whole different form of grief for you. And I want to also say that through all this, I've trusted you with me, me and my life, and I've trusted you with my family because you and your wife now have been I have spent much a lot of time with my family, and I trust you as as my own brother. And people are probably just scratching their heads right now, going how did the worst relationship? Yeah, I don't, I don't.

I think that's I think that is probably funny. To some people, it's like, what does there's no there's no explaining explaining, you know, because you don't get anything from me other than our our friendship. Like I can't do a lot for you. No, you're a great warehouse manager. Well you're really good at it. Wow, thank you. I have an affinity for corrugated paper. If you guys want to hear more from Caleb, comment blows say we want more Caleb, and we'll do another podcast and explo plane that. Uh,

there's more. There's not the rest of the story because there's more and then there's more layers and it's fascinating. But thank you, dude for being the onion of a man. I think you've got management to do in the warehouse. So working, Yeah, yeah, you're working all right. See you guys, love you. Mm hmmm