It's crazy to think...

and he pretty much runs yee Apparel. At least he's in charge of all the new designs, and a lot of people have said, let's talk to Parker, so I'm bringing him on now and you could hear firsthand. So if you want to hear more from Parker, or if

you have specific questions for Parker, comment below. And I think you guys are going to find that it's interesting to talk to both of my brothers, who all three of us work together and we do so many different things for the same company, and we use our different strengths and playoff of our weaknesses with each other, and that's you know, sometimes it hurts us, sometimes it really helps.

Most of the time, it helps, i'd like to think, but ultimately that's what makes this family run business that we're so proud of. First things first, I got to tell you that by the time you see this on Monday morning, we have restocked a bunch of the merchandise from Ye Apparel from our launch that we just did that was that sold out way faster on YE Day,

So we have those backingstocks. If you check grangersmith dot com or ye apparel dot com or EEE dot com, any of those, you'll be able to see that new merch Also, we have Memorial Day cell and that is May twenty second. That's going to be a massive cell we do throughout the store, and that is basically clearing out everything we have to make way for our big summer launch. We're planning on this being the biggest launch

we've ever done in Ye Apparel. So if you think things went fast at E E Day, I would expect the same on our summer launch. And we're really excited about this. And that is June twelfth. So market calendars, as you know, we kind of have a new system where we don't just keep things on the shelf on the store all the time, we're going to push it all out on June the twelfth, and so we're excited. So my your calendars, and I'm excited about this interview.

I'm excited. You know, I've talked to him a million times, but I'm excited for you to meet him and hear what he has to say. And Welcome to the Grangersmiths podcast. Parker Smith, my brother, thirteen years younger. First time on any podcast. Second time I was on yours, like the second our third episode, Tyler, Oh yeah, yeah, that's right in the bus. Yeah, in wildfire. So most of these podcasts are done in my bus, but it's getting to be with this shutdown that most of them are either

at the farm or at home. A lot of people have been wanting to hear from you, to see what you have to say, because you're kind of the mystery man behind the scenes here at eu Peril, and you're thirteen years younger than me, so you're kind of you your two people. In my mind, you're the little boy.

When I was growing up and I was in high school, I remember when my parents told me at Fudruckers, they brought me and Tyler in and they said, we have to tell you guys something, and we're you know, eating our litt kiddie hamburgers. I was thirteen and Tyler was I guess I was twelve and Tyler was about nine, and they told us that we're having a little going

to have a little brother or a little baby. We didn't know it was a brother, and I was Remember, I was so mad because I thought I thought, oh, man, there goes there goes being cool. You know, I was probably a huge surprise. Huh Yeah, Like y'all thought you and Tyler were set and you had to go. Yeah, for sure, there's no way I thought that Mom and dad now they were planning on it, but there's no way I thought that we would have a caboose in

the family. So you're two people to me. But you're that little boy, which of course, you know, you were like the pride of my life when I was in high school because you helped me get girls. And it was actually I was way cooler with you around because you were so cool. You know, I played high school football and you're on the field wearing the matching uniform

as a three year old. You know, I'm seventeen years old and you're like a three or four year old on the field with little cleats and the coaches let you be on the sideline with us. You loved football. Some of my earliest memories were trying to get mom and dad to buy me whatever because you wore like red jerseys and then black jerseys depending on the game. You had like alternate uniform, so I had to have every different type of uniform based on what y'are wearing

on Friday night. Yeah, and some of my earliest memories were being out on the field pregame with the cheerleaders and getting those pregame butterflies with y'all. Like I I was born to be a little football player. That was just in our blood and our family. So you remember that. Yeah, remember the football field. Literally, some of my earliest memories in life were walking to y'all's football games with mom and dad with like hearing the drum line in the

background and just the smells and the atmosphere. And that's why I just football in Texas is just such a big deal, and we're just the perfect example of a family who just took it so seriously and just looked by Yeah, Dad, Mom just completely decked out in the colors and the ribbons and everything. Yeah. And so then I went to Texas A and M when I was eighteen,

so you were about five. And when I went to Texas A and M, I then went straight from there to Nashville to write songs, and then didn't move back home, or at least back to Texas until I was twenty four. So there was like a six year gap where when we saw each other, you know, Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I didn't live with you and see you every day like I do now and back and like I did then. So that's the new version of Parker was the new

guy I had to meet that was a teenager. And then you were in high school and then you were playing football and I would go and watch the games, and you were just you were a man. You know, you went from the little boy. So it's funny because sometimes I look back and I kind of missed that little boy because it's like he disappeared from my life. I went off to college, and you disappeared and became

a man. And then next I remember, I'd come home and you go, man, whatever happened to that cute little boy? I sure miss him, just a different person. I can't explain it. I know I've said that a lot, and I know I've told you I can't explain it. Man, But I loved that little boy so much. You know, we're inseparable. We did We went everywhere together whatever I liked, you liked, whatever song I liked you liked, and dance to whatever sports I liked you liked. And so I

just loved that little boy so much. And it was a strange feeling when you became a man and you got a deep voice and you became serious. So it's just but to me, it's a huge blessing that then you started working here for us, So tell tell us

that story. Yeah. I went to Texas A and M and graduated, and I was going to do the furthest thing from anything in music or EE or anything, because I had the little brother syndrome and I wanted to go do my own thing and be independent and being a little what you I just wanted to grow up so fast and just be like y'all and just be

a man and be respected as a man. And there wasn't any sort of envy or resentfulness and end, it was just every little boy just wants to grow up and just do the man stuff and play football and be a man. But so I had a job lined up and I was going to do real estate, and then my heart, just my heart just really pulled me toward the job at the time, which was a lot different than what it was now. But I just I felt like, you know, I love to saying, you know,

do what you feel like you would regret more. And so like I knew I wanted to go do this real estate thing and go do something else. But at the end of the day, I knew that if I didn't try working with my brothers, and because you and Tyler just had such a good relationship and I felt like y'all worked well together. And then I've always been a good mediator between you and Tyler because all of

our personalities differ so much. But anyway, I saw I decided to come on board four years ago, and at the time we had ee Energy and so it was like Parker could come on because YE apparel wasn't even

a thing. It was just we also scranger Samith and then we also sell merchandise and then EEE shirts like could do well, but there's not really any management to that and so my job was to get ee Energy in stores, and we tried, and that was that's a whole nother story, but not really my world or my expertise. Did a lot of cold calling. And then I just looked at what some other apparel companies were doing and I was like, Man, we sell these shirts and these

hats really well. If we just improved the quality, make the website look a little bit better, maybe this could be something way bigger than what it is now. And then that is just that's the short story of something that's just evolved over four years. I'm just slowly getting one percent better with it every day into into what has now become the the literally like the pride of

like my life is. I take so much pride in it, and it's it's so exciting and so motivating, and it's I wake up in the morning just so excited for work. I really think, I like, I just love. I love facilitating the brand and the persona and bringing value to people and then dealing with products and then overseeing. It's funny being on this podcast now because I've spent so long trying to get people to listen to it, running ads for it, and and uh, and overseeing it, which

which is is so fun for me. Yeah. So the EE Apparel started in my garage with Amber and I in round Rock. Technically, I mean, if you that's when the kind of the birth of you a peril. Before that, it was just granger with merchandise that I sold at shows. And then we moved into a storage unit in round Rock that was like a ten x ten storage unit. And then we moved into a little warehouse that we leased in round Rock, Texas. And that's where you started.

In that warehouse that we leased, that was nasty. It smelled like rat poop and it was like the worst, like there must have been mold in that building in dust. But we loved it. When we first moved in, we thought it was like the greatest thing ever because we went from a storage unit to that. But so that was your first experience with this, the whole office. Yeah, I remember. I remember being in that office and man,

I had some dark times in there. I'm not gonna lie like people think it's all just like just they see our videos and I was just messing around having a great time. But man, back in about twenty sixteen, like it was just me and most of the time, it was just me and then and then one other person was was shipping for us, and it was just a dark warehouse and no one was buying Yee Energy and I was just cold calling and just getting no's every day, and I was like, man, what what am

I going to do about this? What are we going to do? And then we just we got some momentum. And then now I come to the parking lot and sometimes there's twenty cars and I just I pinched myself. And it's just as you know, and you, as you've talked about on this podcast so many times, it's coming from you. Just you have to go through those and it's all perspective. I'm not complaining about like dark days

or everything. Like first yeah and you and you you learn to love the process, but those days make you appreciate today so much more. We called it the DIP and the acronym was Donnie's Inspirational Palace because really it was a it was a touring warehouse that we could park the van, which we went in there first with the van and like put our gear there and then

on the side, hey, we'll sell you the apparel. And then it's somewhere along the line, it flipped our where we are now flipped from a touring headquarters to an apparel company that has a little touring headquarters on the side. And I remember at that that place it was an industrial park and next door to us was a concrete company, and then on the other other side was a tractor implement company, and so there was just big trucks and dump trucks and gravel trucks and concrete trucks just flying

through this industrial park. There was really no privacy. We had some fans coming up at the time, but the biggest deal was, besides the size of it, we had problems with our landlord. He was just I don't think he listened to this podcast, but uh he was. He was hard to deal with in certain ways. And if we want something changed or something was broken, he always

wanted to Nicklin Dimus. And it got to the point where we were like, we got to find a new place, and we were gee, apaarable started to get some traction, so we thought we could get buy our own place instead of lease and pay a mortgage, go get a loan. And I remember going through real estate and the plan was really to buy some land and build some warehouses. And never was the plan let's find like ninety acres, you know, outside of town. It was more like, let's

get something on the interstate convenient. And I was looking through real estate because I was thinking differently. I was thinking, let's get out of town and out in the country, and that would just be such a peaceful place. We could shoot guns and we could, you know, go four whilling. And so I found this place, and to me, it was perfect because it was an old drilling company selling it. So it had this like office building and it was

really bland and super ugly. Hm and we brought our uncle Johnny in here to completely redo all the offices and paint the walls, and we ripped up all this nasty carpet and just just painted the I remember when we moved in and Tyler and I were walking through it, and at the time we still only had one employee, and we just we moved into this place just expecting the growth. And I remember moving in here and Tyler was walking through, He's gone, that's that's where the videographer

will be, That's where the marketing guy will be. This is where the finance guy will be. Over here will be like the front station with all the shippers that we're gonna have. And in my mind, I'm like, you think we're gonna fill this whole place up and now I'm gonna be old here we are. I thought that too, and we need to get Tyler on the podcast one of these days. But I thought the same and he

still does that to this day. He's like, this is the field where we're gonna build our new management headquarters. Then this will be exclusively shipping, and I'm always like, okay, you need someone like that in your business. And then and then I feel like I'm a little bit more I don't want to say realistic, but I just am a little more conservative and I like to just run

things efficiently and according to a certain plan. And then Tyler is the one that just throws a wrench into everything and like blows everything out of the water, and everyone goes, oh, maybe we you think he's crazy. At first, anyone's like, maybe this guy is actually maybe this is actually gonna happen. Yeah, And then I'm the guy that's like, hey,

look there's an old empty mud hole over there. We should turn it into a nice pond and put bas Yes, yes, and what yeah, and then we joke because Grangers we're over here doing this, and then Granger's over there filming himself with a worm farm, and then with chickens, and then just thinking of building a dam of rocks, just like I've always been a little bit like that. But so now I'm building my office two doors down from you. That is the next podcast episode will be in there

to see it. This is Parker's office. We're sitting in this Parker's task So because of not touring and because we're moving, I'm going to lose my office at home and we're moving into a piece of land with just a barn on it, so I'm going to lose the office. So I'm going to start doing these podcasts from here at the EE Farm, which I would do in the back of Wildfire if we're touring. So I'll be two doors down from you if you don't mind, If you

don't mind, a little podcast in singing. Yeah, this will be the It was the traveling podcast for a while and now you're stationary for a while. So tell us about how we've kind of transitioned from Walmart mentality of let's keep everything on the shelf as long as we can to. Let's not hold inventory. It's, first of all, it's too expensive for a small business to hold onto a lot of inventory and just randomly have every shirt

you could want in any size. To the mentality now that we're doing these launches, which is your idea right to break our year up into five or six things. Yeah, So for a long time, we just kind of had everything on the shelf and we were just pushing it, and it was like buy ee apparel. And then you know, the more you know, we always have the same model and modify, and so we just look at what a lot of the top people are doing. And as we began to actually turn into a legitimate apparel company, we

were like, look, what do big brands do. They have seasonal launches, They don't just release stuff at random times, and so we're like, So that evolved into okay, let's do a fall collection and then a spring collection, and then a summer collection and then you brand it and

and you're good to go. And then we did that, but then we were still holding on to this stuff for too long, and we just weren't hyping it up enough, in my opinion, and so that evolved too man, let's just keep Let's just keep a few of the best selling items in the story year round, and then let's really hype up these launches. And I mean, let's do

it to the second, which is what we did. I think we've done that for two launches now, and we'll shut the store down, have a countdown timer to the second. Tell folks, look, we didn't order that much stuff because we can't afford to. We just have we literally stock the shelves with whatever we can afford, and then we're out of money. So like it, trust me, if we could have if we were Walmart. Yeah, yeah, And so

it doesn't take a lot. If you guys, if you know nothing about selling T shirts, which is not complicated business, but just do some math. A shirt costs US X amount of dollars. A graphic designer that made the design and print cost x amount of dollars. Printing it yourself cost x amount of dollars. So you want to do that. Say you get five hundred of them, so you get one hundred larges, one hundred mediums, one hundred xls had those that's a lot of money and you have to

be dang sure you're gonna sell it. Otherwise you're sitting on a lot of debt and our accountant's breathing down her neck. And so this has been that this has been way easier to deal with because we don't generally, our business model doesn't generally believe in sitting on a whole lot of debt, especially during this crazy economy. So it makes us sleep a little bit better. No One, we're gonna wipe out the warehouse in there, and then we're gonna be okay again. Yeah. This this summer launch

we're doing on June twelfth. So we did EE Day on April seventeenth, and we sold out in less than fifteen minutes of everything, and so there was a lot of people who were upset, unfortunately. But I will say this summer launch, we ordered about five times as much stuff, So we should we should be able to last longer. I remember the first time I sold out a show. There was the line out the door and there was people that couldn't get in because it sold out, and

I was freaking out. I saw social media and I saw people tweeting so disappointed. I've been wanting to go to this concert for a month. Came here today and it sold out. I'm so upset, and then that made me upset. I was like, oh no, oh no, those poor people. You know, they drove or I drove two hours and they got here and it sold out. Like I was distraught about that. I was so distressed and people had to calm me down and they're like, man, hold up, hold up, you just sold this place out

and now they're tweeting they couldn't get in. That's great marketing for your next show, so that it kind of shows people that, hey, this show is popular. If you want to see it, you might as well get a pre sale ticket, which is back then was not a concept at all for me. So that's kind of similar to this when we've done We've on a few of these launches now and it sells out faster than we think and people are really upset, and that makes me upset. I'm like, dang it, this amber works so hard on

these designs or whatever. I was so excited for people to get this hat and that they don't get it, and I feel terrible. And then even our friends are texting, they're like, hey, man, you got any more of that whatever hoodie? Because I wanted one, but they don't. They're all send sold out, So do you have a few extra And we're like, no, we don't have any. So it's definitely a learning curve of just mentally getting over that and knowing that this is allowing us not to

hold a bunch of debt and build the hype. And like I always say, when I start talking about this stuff, it's like, and this is a testament to you guys. It's a testament to people that watch the Smiths, people that watch the truck Restoration, people that listen to this podcast, follow Earl Dibbles, Junior, all the above, go to concerts. This is a testament to you guys actively going out and supporting our family run business. And it's it's like Parker said, you drive in here in the morning and

it's like it's really like a dream come true. And I ask you all the time, is the apparel company? Can the apparel company live without music? And you'll you've said, You've always said yeah, I can. But that's always like I've been in the back of my mind, like what if I stop touring, could we still sell T shirts? Well, but that's we're living that now. Yeah, I think the last two years have have made that a true statement. Thankfully, as we've grown, I think we're finally we're stable. Well

obviously because you're not toring. I'm not touring, That's what I'm saying. Yeah, And I would love to get to a point where I don't I'm not forced to tour, because these last several years, I've been forced to tour because we and we do well, you know, we do very well in touring. But if you do, the better you do, the more people you hire, and the existing people you have, you give them raises are bonuses, and then you get nicer stuff, and you get cooler lights,

and your bus travels a little farther. And so it's what Tyler calls it the income creep. Somebody calls it. I think. So we're so your your margin of actually even being able to pay the bills get smaller, and so that forces me to have to take more dates and it's not that's not good, you know. And so this is kind of what this whole shutdown has taught me, is that hey, we need to cut back in all

the areas. You know, we don't have to have perfect lights and smoke and new guitars and having much more of a minimal minimalist mentality on the road so that I can go, you know what, We're gonna take the month of October, take half of that month, and I'm just gonna hang with a family, and We're not gonna worry about the county fair offers that came in and Yee Apparel is all part of that for me, for sure, this whole quarantine has really been the resurgence of Earl

Doubles too. Yeah, we made the most of it. So do you remember how old were you when Earl when we filmed their original Earl? I was a junior in high school, Okay, so I was like seventeen. Because we have got If you watched the outtakes of Earl Dibbles Junior country Boy Part one, which is the original before the country Boy song that's Parker, you could hear Parker and Tyler and your voice is so much higher that it was like I hadn't changed it. It was my prime.

It's funny because it's like the same voice but just higher in the video. And you you filmed Earl really right. I mean Tyler was laughing too much. He couldn't deal with it. Yeah, I mean I mean, I pressed record. It was just on a tripod most of the time. But yeah, Tyler would have to Tyler would have to leave because he was laughing too hard. I think a lot of times we both just went around the corner because it was too funny. Which is cool that you work.

You know that you what's your title? We just talked about this today. What's your title? We're trying to figure that out. Tyler's owner. I'm CEO? What am I owner? Okay, so you're the CEO of ee Apparel and you were. It's cool because all three of us were there when that word was first spoken in the field at mom and Dad's, you know. And I went back and saw that videos on my phone because it synced my photos

synced with my computer. So I have that file the first EE and it originally it was and then for some reason did that take that we use was just two of them and that that too, I know, it wouldn't have been EEE apparel isn't on your hat. So just an act, you know, an act of God, was that it cut down to two and that's the take

we used. And you were there, You're standing right there, So in a million years would you have guessed junior in high school standing in that field and it was about a hundred It was over one hundred degrees out there, freaking hot. Would you have guessed standing out in that field and the chiggers watching me make a fool of myself? But that moment right there, that moment would lead to your career as your CEO of a company. People always

ask that. People always ask that too. I listened to a lot of podcasts, so that's cool to be on one, but they always say, did you know back then that that you were going to be successful? And they always go, oh, yeah, I knew. I knew. It's like, no, you didn't. You had no idea. Man, you and I talk about this all the time. You can't set goals because all you can see is what you can fathom right now in your mind. It's like, you have no idea where you're gonna be at if you keep improving every day in

a year, five years, or ten years. So I didn't eve think anybody was gonna watch the video. I didn't either. I didn't either. I mean, yes, you and you're right, it's impossible. I didn't know either. I thought when I went back and edited it that night. I thought, this

is funny, This is funny. But of all that I didn't look at surely that I didn't look at ye yee and go, oh, there we go, baby goud the trademark that little like that's gonna lead to a gee farm and a eeee apparel and we're gonna have Eee day and so a whole bunch of yee hats and yeee shirts. Like No, that that didn't happen, so but I'm glad it did. It was a It was an intentional accident, because that's what I say about Earl. That's the phrase I use because people were always like, did

you know Earl is going to blow up? Or did it just it was just an accident, well a little of both, because you have to say that we weren't out there just for fun, like we weren't bored. Hey let's go shoot a video because we're bored, or let's go try to make people laugh. It was intended to go viral and cause something. That's the reason we went. So it was an intentional accident in a way, at

least that's why I look at it. So before we end this podcast, Parker's single so we were speaking of ee we're looking for we're looking for a Ye's sister. We went through this with Tyler, but he's too picky. It didn't work. So comment below. If you're watching this on YouTube, comment below if you you are a Ye sister that you could marry into the EEE, or if you know of someone or your daughter or your sister, or just just put that in your do what you

think about that? Uh? I think you probably want me focusing more on work. He's already thrown it out. I just want some nieces and nephews. Is that too much to ask? London and Lincoln need some little buddies, So we need some little bit more kids running around at Thanksgiving. I guess hit me up. We'll see. Also, I'm not traveling outside Austin though. Okay, you heard it. He's not traveling outside of Austin, so you got to come here.

So common below. If you have questions more questions for Parker, we can get into this again. That would be better if we did a Q and A. That would be cool. Yeah, behind what people want to know? Yeah, and maybe we should bring Tyler too, So common below, Q and A Parker or specific questions you might have and I might post out on my Instagram and you can post it on your Instagram, which is what's your Instagram? Parker double Underscore Smith. Okay, and also hit us up on EE Apparel.

We're on that every day and it's so cool. Good Facebook. E Nation Facebook group is absolutely nuts. And then E Apparel on the Instagram. It's so fun to see everyone interact with the Instagram and we have so much fun posting memes and pictures and stories about people who are living the EE life and it's it's just amazing. That's cool. Yeah, So say coming on there if you want to see more of this hashtag Granger Smith podcast, so that we could search on there and find it quickly. Thank you

guys for watching. I seriously appreciate you guys. I'm so grateful for this podcast and that people actually care enough to listen to two dudes sit at a desk on a farm and talk. But we'll see you next week. Love you guys. Be safe, it's safe up here, Safe up here. Two