I'm a Fan

one of my favorite places to be. I'm a Texas boy and I didn't know much about Iowa until I started touring, and for that matter, it wasn't until probably about twenty thirteen before I finally got to Iowa, before we had enough fans to get to Iowa. So that brings me to today. Got three Center Iowa a plan to do these podcasts wherever I am, which is usually on tour. So the first one is right here at Guthrie's River Ruckus Festival. I'm sitting in the back of

my bus Wildflower. I'm looking out of the window. The blinds are open. It's an empty festival yard. Rolling hills of Iowa, which most people think Iowa was flat, but it actually has some beautiful rolling hills, a little slice of heaven and today is a blue sky afternoon, so I couldn't ask for a better day to start this podcast, which leads me to my point. Let's get started. I want to talk about how this whole crazy journey began. You know, my very first memory I was three years old.

When people think I'm a little crazy because I can remember being three, and I don't remember complete thoughts, you know, stories. I just remember this one very specific memory. And we were living in Carrollton, Texas. We moved away from there when I was four. That's how I could kind of narrow down the timeline of this thought. We were living in a little house that had a sunroom, tile floors,

a stereo, and a couch. Besides that, I could remember a window that looked into the backyard, so off into the distance. Through the window, you could see past the backyard, over our old wooden fence that we had, and there was a hill and you could see a road, a highway off in the distance, and so on a clear

day you could see all the cars, right. And so my memory is three years old, waking up in the middle of the night, and I would go to the sunroom and I would lay on the couch and look out through the window, out into the distance to this highway, and I would see these headlights and these tail lights back and forth the middle of the night. My parents are asleep, my brother is asleep, and I remember very specifically.

The part of this memory is that I'm thinking, where are these people going in the middle of the night, driving And I wish I could do that too. It wasn't because I wasn't happy. Actually, nothing to do with that. I had a great family. Strange. I know it sounds weird. I'm three years old. Sounds weird, but that that has never left me, and that feeling is still, It's still in me. It's still I have a little, maybe a little fomo, a little fear of missing out and when

people are going somewhere I want to go to. I'm not much of a homebody. I guess you could say. I like to keep moving. And that's why this business was perfect for me, the music business. And the first time I jumped in a pickup truck and hooked up a trailer and we headed out to San Angelo, Texas, which that was my first road trip ever from college station. And that that first trip was freedom. It was like, man, here we go we're heading west. We got guitars and

amps stacked up in the back. It's we're off on an adventure. We don't know how this day is going to pan out, how this is an adventure, and I can't wait to find out where it leads me. And that feeling is every day still today. And what I want to talk about on this first podcast. And I've done a little thinking about this, and by the way, thank you for listening, thank you for tuning into something like this, because I can't imagine a more personal way

to reach people than a podcast. Me sitting here in the back of my bus with one microphone. I'm the only one in this room. I'm the only one producing this. It's just me, and that means a lot that anyone would w would want to engage in that. So what I wanted to talk about was how I became a fan. I'll talk about how I played guitar, how I started

singing on stages. I'll talk about all that stuff at some point, but this first one, I want to talk about how I became a fan because me becoming a fan is such an important part of my story and such an important part of how I live my life. As a musician. Now it's all reflecting upon when I became a fan and how passionately engaged I was on that front row. It was Garth Brooks for sure. In a lot of ways, that was my first musical love.

I listened to, you know, all kinds of crazy bands as a kid, like Poison and Doctor Dre and Vanilla Ice, Bobby Brown, The Eagles probably the first band I ever sang to. That's another story for another time, but I think when I really started feeling what the passion of music was, it was Garth Brooks. Sometimes late at night I lie awake and watch her sleep. This song If Tomorrow Never Comes was released in August of nineteen eighty nine.

I was just a kid, but it is crazy the impact that this song made, And this was my first understanding of the power of music. My granddad was very sick with lung cancer and he was in his last day. He was a very quiet man, very hard worker, very traditional, raised six children, loved his garden, worked construction, slow Texas draw hero from World War Two in the Pacific. You get the picture of who this guy was. Very typical of what we like to call the Greatest Generation. He

was not very affectionate with his words. It was very rare that he would say I love you to my grandmother or to his children. And when this song came out in August of nineteen eighty nine, it spoke to my grandmother so much, and even more interesting, it spoke to my grandfather. And he was so affected by that song that he felt that compassion of those lyrics and told her how much he loved her, which is exactly what the song was written for. If tomorrow never comes,

will she know how much I love her? This was obviously the very beginning of Garth's career, and he came to College Station, Texas for a show at a place called the Texas Hall of Fame, and that day he went and did a Walmart meet and greet. People did this all the time back in the nineties. You would go to Walmart and meet your favorite artist and get their autograph and such a cool one on one experience you could have. So she went and waited in line, and she met Garth and she told him what that

song meant to her. That might not be that big deal to most artists, but knowing the stories you hear about Garth, I'm sure I'm sure he listened to her. If tomorrow never come, will she know how much joy you're not trying every way? Show every day? And she's my only one. Three months later, November nineteen eighty nine, my granddad passed away. It was tough on everybody in the family, but there was a There was a piece about it because he was able to say how much

my grandmother meant to him. Thanks a lot to Garth for that and the power of his music, the power of the song. But the story doesn't end there. It meant so much to her that she wanted to include that song on his gravestone. I called her just now to tell me exactly what she had written on that stone. He said, if tomorrow never comes, I love you now and I always wil Gouse, You're my only one that did. And she chokes up. And it's been thirty years since

she had those words put on his headstone. I was just a little kid, but that's the first time I felt the power of country music. Unbelievable. Looking back, Ah, the memory the dance wee Shire to meet the stars. Why did you decide to put Garth Brooks on there? Because when doub was sick over it temple that I want to see God. He came to Walmart and it is one the first time you'd ever been there. He's gonna be thenner of one hour, but then so many

people came in backing the state. He s take two hours. Then when we went out to the twelve that night to be, threw a note of film that stays that my mother's here. He loves you and would get played than Tama never comes. Hey, my white a white bag, and everybody in that we're looking at a million out of the groom. I love that guy. So I'm sure a million people have a very similar story with Garth. He just has that kind of legacy with his fans. But you know, the reason I'm talking about it in

my podcast is because I'm an artist now. I make my living on the road. I make my living because of fans, because of community, and gosh, is there anything better that you could possibly learn than this from Garth? And I was a kid, you know, And that's the effect that's having on me, and that now it's part of my story. That was my grandmother And she's still little cries about this. She still laughs about this, ninety two years old. That's crazy to me. So the podcast

is brand new. Obviously, I don't have any sponsors yet. I don't even have any listeners yet. Actually, but hey, I can't talk about one thing. Ee Energy. It's not really a sponsor because it's my drink. Me and my brothers made it. But people always say, oh, Grangersmith, he just aligned himself with some energy drink company and then stamped his name on it. That's actually not what we did. We actually started from scratch and built an energy drink ourselves.

We got several different companies from all over the country to make these recipes and they would send them to us and we would taste test ourselves, me and my two brothers. We would decide on what we didn't like, a little too sweet, little too tangy, and we would send our results back until we finally got what I think is the perfect tasting drink. So if you haven't had yee Ye Energy, go to my website Grangersmith dot com. Go to yee Energy dot com. You can get it

on Amazon right now. However you get it, I just I hope you try it and let me know what you think. And that's my shameless sponsor plug. So there. I was a kid in the nineties, deeply and directly impacted by songs. Country music was alive and well in my family. And by the way, there was this brand new thing that everyone was listening to music on, and it was called a compact disc. Don't Rocks, Ju Fire's Jon.

I had all kinds of CDs. I collected Alan Jackson, Clinton Black, Vince gild Tracy Lawrence, Neil McCoy sent me Kershaw, Steve Warner, on and on. But it wasn't just CDs I was listening to. We were watching music videos on CMT. They called it country music Till the Cows Come Home back then, and we didn't have cable at home. But my grandmother Manye, who I just talked to on the phone. She introduced me to music videos and would record them

on vhs. And every time I would see her, she would have a brand new tape labeled that she had written on with hundreds of music videos that she wanted me and my brother to see. It was this way that I found Mark Chestnut. In sports. Last night in Oakland, Nolan Ryan pitched the sixth no hitter of his career, Boy Oh Boy, Nolan's hot isn't he talk about hot?

It's hot everywhere here at Southeast Texas. So here's Mark Chestnutt and his music video for two Gold at home, and he's driving in his pickup and he goes and he visits this little single wide trailer that obviously his girl left him in and he's alone. You better he's up around seventy percent and give us a feat of nuts in about one hundred and ten at tonight. And so I'm locked on watching this country boy another muggy night on the bayou with lows in the eighties, man

own mad old man. Well, like they say, you can't do nothing about the weather, So let's get back to more music. The steel guitar leads the song in he steps out of the truck, walks into the bar to grab a cold beer, and I'm thinking, can I like this guy? Well, it sure feels good to come in. So it wasn't just the music now, it was the video. It was the visual that starts moving me and drawing me in. I became obsessed with music videos and I watched this one over and over, wore out that old

vhs that many gave me. This is my favorite part right here oh, well, work. He looks at the bartender, he says, well, I gotta go to work, and he gets up from the bar and then he's with his full band and they're playing in the honky tonk and that's his job. And I'm thinking, that's his work. I want to do that, And just like that, the honky Tonk seeds are playing it. Inside me, it's so not care.

It was because of these music videos that my brother Tyler and I first started messing around with the camera, and we re enacted music videos a lot of them. We would just set the camera up, either me or him, and we would play a song on a stereo, and then the other one would kind of dress up a little bit, maybe put on a cowboy hat, and act out like we were a country music star. The truth is I had no idea who I was about to discover that would drastically change the course of my life forever.

I don't remember how or when or why, but I know the song was Ocean prompt property that first led me to George Strait, and then it wasn't long before I found a Maillo by morning by morning up from the sign and tall. I loved it. I still do my favorite song. It was my good luck song. I felt like every time I came on the radio or through speaker, the rest of the day would be good.

And that's sun Side in that Texas guy. So his Greatest Hits Volume two with Oceanfront Property then took me backwards the Greatest Hits Volume one, and then I found Straight Country, and then straight from the Heart, and then right or wrong? There's forward ever crossed her mind? Something special. I was a George straight junkie and had everything he put out. But apparently I wasn't the George Strait super fan yet that I was about to become. Amy Haynes,

that was her name. She said, Hey, I'm having a bunch of people come to my house and we're gonna watch Pure Country together. I say, what's Pure Country? She looks at me like I'm crazy. That's George Strait's movie. What George Strait has a movie? How did I not know this? How in the world did this get past me? When did you star? Mean? So? I watched it, and I watched it again, and then I went and bought it, and then I watched it over and over and over again.

I'm talking so many times that I memorized every single word, and that's exactly what I did, freakishly. I didn't watch any other TV only that movie. And right around the time when this obsession starts to become unhealthy, it gets worse. I joined his fan club so I could find more people like me. And guess what, He's coming to San Antonio, Texas on tour for the George Strait Country Music Fest.

And yes, I gotta go. I'm fifteen years old, and my amazing dad takes me and two other buddies on a four hour trek from Dallas down to San Antonio. On the way, we even took a pitstop in New Bronfles so that I could walk in Green Hall, the place where George took the pictures for his first album, Straight Country. The concert was unbelievable. I screamed like a little girl, I'm sure, and all I wanted when it

was over was for there to be more. I look at his calendar and he's coming to Dallas in the summer, and by then I'll be sixteen years old. You can't write this script any better for me at this point. Now, I have a green nineteen seventy four GMC pickup truck three in the tree, and you damn right, it could

get me to Texas Stadium. The interesting news is, since I'm a fan club member, I could spend the night at Texas Stadium about a month before and get fan club exclusive seating, which just happens to be second row center, second row in a stadium. You know how amazing that would be. And so my parents, bless their heart, allowed their sixteen year old son to go to Texas Stadium spend the night with a bunch of other crazy George

Strait fans. And when the sun came up that morning, you better believe I was second in line at seven am when they opened the ticket office, and there it was like gold in my hand, a paper ticket that had second row smack dab in the middle. I got there early, the gates opened at noon. I saw a bunch of great bands like Asleep at the Wheel, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, and then it was time for George. The show started exactly like the movie Pure Country, Lights Down.

The track started, his son Bubba starts singing Heartland in time. A video starts playing up on the big screen. It's from Chevy Trucks and it's this gorgeous, brand new pickup truck traveling through the Texas hill country and everyone is fixated on it. The lights in the stadium are off. I mean it's black besides the video. I'm looking around and it's kinetic energy, like crazy. People are losing their minds. Sixty thousand people in the dark together and I'm taking

the bait, put line and sinker. I'm scanning the stage. I've got incredible second row seats. I could see footsteps rushing around, and I could see lighting, guides and security and band members and tour managers. And I'm thinking, if I could just be a part of this, nothing else matters. I have found my calling. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life. The energy raises, there's a stir in the crowd. Cameras are up, people are looking left, right, up, down. They know he's close.

I know he's close. I could feel it. There's a place where and like a light from heaven shining on a white cowboy hat, and you feel the mother nature walk along. The spotlight illuminates them, ladies and gentlemen. George Strait ten feet away from my house, rush hands, my job, rops sing the Sun about the Heartland. Would you believe me if I told you I walked away from that show, getting to shake his hand from the stage, getting one of his guitar picks, and getting his entire band's autograph.

I guess after everything I've told you, you probably would believe that I was a crazy fan. It definitely didn't end that night. I mean, I guess you could say that was the beginning. I started following his tour everywhere. Sometimes I had friends with me, and then sometimes I just went by myself. I learned all the intricacies of the entire show. I even knew the routines of the

security guys, and they even told me. They said, hey, you could rush the stage whenever they bring the big concert cameras down, and of course I knew exactly what song that was, and I would leap over the front row and boom, there I was on the foot of the stage with a thousand teenage girls pushing me up against it. So, hey, George, it's me. I was that kid on the front road for all those Texas shows in the nineties. You know. I even went as far as going to the back of the arenas where all

the buses were parked, and I knew George's bus. It was a big white one, and I would wait in the closest spot by that fence so that I could see his bus, and I would wait for George to walk out of the dressing room, and usually he would walk out with his wife, Norma, and during that little moment, during that time, I would yell out George, George, and

he would kind of look over and wave. And that wave doesn't matter how many hours I waited by that fence, just the acknowledgment that I was another human being on the same planet as him made it all worth it. Okay, I know what you're thinking, and this is not the George Strait Fanclub podcast, even though I could do a pretty damn good one, but it would probably be about

four hours long and very boring. But the reason I'm saying it, and the reason it's part of this podcast and part of my story, is for me to tell you that I was a crazy fan, right and I believe with all my heart that me being a crazy fan allows me to understand them. And there's not a single night that goes by that I don't as an artist scan that front row and look for that boy or girl and look for that fire in their eyes

that I recognize so well. And if I could give them a guitar pick or shake their hand, then I get it. I know what that is doing. I consider myself a fan first, VIPs, meet and greet shows. That's all allowed by fans. And this is not all going to last forever anyway, It might not even last the next few years. I hope it does. It's not up to me, it's up to the fans. So every day when I walk out on that stage, it's a blessing

for me to live my dream. But you know, it's also a responsibility for me to give back to those fans because they deserve it. I felt like I deserved it, and George Strait gave that to me. And I'm never going to compare myself to George. But don't you think it's my job now to pass on what I saw, what I experienced, what I witnessed, especially now knowing what I have the ability to share. Don't you think that's

my responsibility? I do. There's so many more stories to connect these dots, like how I started playing music myself, and there's plenty of time for that. I can't start boring you too much on episode one. Plus, I got a show to play in Iowa, and there could be that kid night on the front row and he needs a guitar pick. So, as Mark Chestnut said, I gotta go to work. Thank you so much for being a part of episode one. There's more to come. I promise it happens up that out of the blue scat lost

in her blue glass. Yeah, when it happens up that nothing to lose turns right into you, Julie, or you can do just to keep her around till the moon goes down in her back at your house. One thing is to another. You love each other when you can, you never look back. It happens like that. This podcast is brought to you by EE Energy. Come find us on tour grangerspid dot com, Forward Slash Tour, See you down the road.