New Managers and Iraq Dangers

and we have been all over Canada. We've been all over California and Oregon and that's only been in the last twenty days. So if I haven't done a podcast in a little bit, I have a pretty good excuse. And I promise I need to do them more because it's like therapy for me. And like I said, it's sometimes you need to hear the whole story. And I have a lot of stories. Hopefully there's a lot of you that want to hear them now. Last episode, I

was talking about the year two thousand and seven. I have just written a song called we Bleed Maroon that changed everything for me because it gave me this regional hit that gave me kind of a Catapult and I didn't know it yet, but two thousand and seven was about to go out with a huge bang. If you want to talk about this podcast on social media, just hashtag Granger Smith podcast. That way I could search it and answer any questions you have, kind of keep a

pulse on what you're digging. So I've got Twitter up right here, and I searched hashtag Granger Smith podcast and I found a question from Jesse and Kara, and this is an interesting question. I want to read it because it says who determines and or how does your next number one song get chosen? Do you, as the artist get to pick hashtag gyee nation? So obviously this process is different for every artist. Every musician has a different situation,

different people that they work with. So I can only speak for myself, but the short answer is yes, absolutely, it is me that decides the next single. Now, the deeper question is you might be wondering what is a single like you see it. You see a song on iTunes and it goes up the chart on iTunes, you see it on CMT Countdown, and you hear it on your local radio station. So that is a song that

the artist and the people around him have chosen. They pick one, and the reason they pick one is because you could put all your strength into one song typically right, Because if Portland, Maine was playing their favorite song off your album, and Albuquerque, New Mexico was playing their favorite song and so on and so on, you would you wouldn't get a collective force going anywhere on any of your songs. So the way we saw that is we pick the song and then we'd send it to radio

and we go, this is our single. I hope you love it. I hope you play it. Then it's up to them if they actually do play it. Does that make sense? That's the short answer. And to be clear, I decide the single, but I put trust in the people around me, and so we have big discussions and we talk about it, and I take all the input from all the people that know a lot about this, that have done this for a long time, and I put trust in them. I've built a team around me

of people that I trust. But ultimately it's my gut feeling. So I'll collect that data, but I'm gonna go with my gut. The reason I'm talking about this and the reason I think this is an interesting question for me right now is because I'm currently in the process of launching a brand new single. Here's a front door swing at Jamma's house and a little stream up in the mountains, a shot gun set and an ocean breeze. There's a fairest wheel just spending around midnight moon I shining down,

a red sunset and a cotton dress. You read it every single good time. We're in a press rey ride in my mind, jamp you read it every thought of what could be. All I see is you in me not reading everything. I don't know what the future holds. All I know is girl, You're You're in. It is the next single. And this is exciting for me because one of the one reasons I pick this song is it feels so good on stage. It translates so well

in our live show, and that's a big deal. And that's not always the reason you pick a single, but anytime you're going into summertime and you have something that's just a good country story in my opinion, that has a really good beat, and it translates no matter if you know the song or not. If you're in the audience and we play that song, it just feels good. At least I think so. At least that's my opinion.

So going into the summer twenty eighteen, will be planning music videos and different promotions to go along with it, and I think it's it's gonna be really exciting. I can't wait to see what this does at country radio. It's always exciting. It's always the challenge. And isn't that what life is all about? You know, not knowing, not knowing the result. You could set out with your aspirations and you could make your goals and you could have a plan, but the fact that you don't know what's

gonna happen. You don't know everything's going to completely flop, or if everything is going to line up and you're going to have another number one song. You just don't know. And because of that, I think that's so much of what drives me, the risk of failure. Can I recite

to you one of my favorite quotes Theodore Roosevelt. He said, far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoyed nor suffer much because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. That means so much to me. I have a tattooed on my left arm says dear Mighty Things.

So with launching the brand new single You're in It, I think it's only appropriate on this podcast to kind of look back at my singles that I've had, and most of you probably couldn't guess if I told you right now that You're in It is my eighteenth radio single. Now that's only my fourth national radio single. So if you go back too far, you have to be from Texas and Oklahoma to hear it on regional radio. But

I can name them. I can go backwards. You're in It happens like that if the boot fits backroad song, bury me in blue jeans, if money didn't matter, silver oda, bench seat, miles and mud tires, we do it in a field. I'm wearing black, sleeping on the interstate letters to London five more minutes. I almost am superstitious. Seventeen Gypsy Rain, don't listen to the radio. And my very first single, exactly ten years ago summer two thousand and eight,

was Colorblind. I want to be color blind, and I would never think about your soft green eyes, sweedln here would never cross my mind. The beano black gown you slillp into and night. Maybe I'd forget about your round skin and stop dreaming about the taste to sounding I wouldn't be heard now and listen you. I would know a single thing bound you. The Colorblind peaked at number nine on the Texas Music Chart, and that was a

really big deal for a nobody guy like me. Now, that time period in my music career, that short period

right there was critical in my music development. So besides releasing my very first radio single, learning about how a single works, and how a radio tour works, and how I could get my pick up and travel around and meet different radio personalities and get to know them so that we had a personal relationship, so that if they were thinking about playing my song, if they knew me, it would be a little bit easier to say, I'm gonna play my Buddy Granger as opposed to some kid

that I have no idea who he is. Now. The major thing that happened in two thousand and eight for me had to do with my manager. You see, that year I left a huge music management firm called Red Light Management, and that was difficult because I left what was a pretty good thing. You know, they had huge power and I was a nobody artist and I was lucky to be on that roster. But I left them

for something much more risky. And it kind of goes back to that Teddy Roosevelt quote, dare mighty things, And at this time in two thousand and eight, I was definitely daring mighty things. If you're new to this podcast, I got to tell you that my sponsor is EEE Energy. Now that's not some big corporate sponsor. That's actually my energy drink that me and my brother's made. Now I'm very biased because we chose the recipe and we were hands on and making the cans and the boxes and

all the way that it's marketed. It's all done right out of our farm in Central Texas. Now you can get it on Amazon Prime, grangersmith dot com. You could also get it on tour, which is the coolest place to get it because you could watch my show and drink ee Energy In most places we play sell it

right there at the bar. It's perfect. Now to find me on tour, go to Grangersmith dot com, Forward Slash Tour We're going everywhere this year, fifty States, Canada, Australia, and through all of those shows you could actually get a vat pass where you could meet me. Now, that's one of my favorite things about touring is getting to know the fans that are coming to the show. So go to grangersmith dot com. Grab you some merch, grab you some tickets, grab you some EEE energy, and I'll

see you down the road. I want to call my brother Tyler on the phone here. Please enjoy this Verizon ringback Joon while your party is reached. Hey, what's up? What's going on? Govin? What's up with you? You busy? Right now? All right now? I'm looking at what chicken rest I'm going to get at the grocery store. I'm making a podcast. Yeah, you're actually on it right now or I'm recording. I'm talking about two thousand and eight, and the biggest thing that happened in two thousand and

eight was when you became my manager. I mean that's when everything happened right pretty much for whatever the reason, but you were behind it and so color Blind, which, by the way, it's been ten years since we released color Blind. The summer of two thousand and eight. It's cool to be talking about a new single and you're in it as number eighteen since Colorblind. But this all started when you became my manager and I wanted to

talk about eighteen. Sorry, that's hilarious, like George Strait over there, eighteen singles. Yeah, I mean I could tell the story, but it's better if you tell it. What were you doing and why did you decide to manage me when there was really no money to be made at all? I wasn't really getting paid and you know, even to this day, I'm blessed to be able to pay the bills. But it's this you make more than me right now. No, that's not what I'm saying. Is it's great, it's fun,

but it's not about the money. Yeah, I know, I know never has anything you do. You know, it's never been things obviously have changed. I don't know if I should be talking like to you, obviously to them since you know all this, right, how does that work? Yeah? Just talk to me, but just like you're doing, tell the story. I was working at Compass Bank, uh, doing underwriting loans for commercial real estate, so that's what I

thought I was gonna do. You kind of had your own music thing going, and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I just got done playing football, wanted to go to the NFL. That didn't happen, So I was trying to figure everything out. And pretty much from day one at the bank, I absolutely hated it. And so I literally talk to Dad and I said, WI should I do? And he said, basically, give them a year. You committed to it. You got to be loyal.

So during that time, you know, I have my little cubicle. You know, each time my boss would walk by, I would change screens real quick because for the most part, I was on MySpace working on your stuff, you know, getting it together, and I think I was. I was booking you know when I could. But basically it got to the point, you know, when I realized what I wanted to do, when I realized that you were with

a huge management company. You you know, you had good people on your team, but nobody was doing anything for you. And you know, I basically said, screw this. I'm going to jump in full time with music. I'm gonna go sell your merch, I'm going to book you. You know, I'm gonna tour manage you. I'll drive the van and they basically manage everything from top to bottom. And so that's what I did. When I turned to my two weeks, it was like I never sent music business and has

been ever since then. So the thing that happened around that time that changed everything besides booking, because you were booking shows and you're booking a lot of shows for the first time ever. I was playing Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturdays. Dude, speaking of I found the Holy Grail. I was moving yesterday, you know. Yeah, and I've been looking for years from my booking bible that I had. It was a little

spiral notebook that had all my notes. Oh my gosh, I found it, dude, and it has like this guy answered, This guy didn't. He told him to call back at five pm on Tuesday. This guy doesn't want to give us any money, but he said, if we can come play for free and so merch and then like all the guarantees were like five hundred bucks. Anyway, it's awesome. Wow, you should frame some of the best ones in there. Yeah,

you were booking a lot of those shows. But we were going to those shows and no one, there was no crowd. Yeah, so we were playing a ton but no one was coming. So that's when I think we kind of had this idea that we could either work our asses off touring like this and it would take twenty years to build any any or we could start working on videos and trying to get some viral videos

on social media that people could share. And we realized we could reach thousands and thousands of people compared to forty five people on a Saturday night in a dance hall. So that's kind of where the video ideas started. You know, you're right, and we did realize that we're spinning our wheels.

But at the same time, we were forming relationships, and you know, I would go talk to the owner and nobody would show up, but I'd go become best buddies with him and he'd be like, you know, you didn't when I call back, you know, he'd be like, I know you don't bring anybody, but I like Tyler, you know, and you know, the guarantee might be three hundred bucks instead of six hundred, but he'd give me a Saturday night and we'd go hustle and so merch and yeah,

I wouldn't trade those days for anything. It was. It was a huge part of my learning for sure. And uh, you know there was before that I hadn't really done consecutive tour dates where you actually go out of town and stay in a hotel and get up, you know, like there's rats in the hotel room and you go out and your trailer tire's blown and you got to find a new tire and some no no man's land town. And it was a huge part of learning for both

of us. Yeah, And that's where contracts came from, remember, because we would show up sometimes and if we didn't have a signed contract, then they wouldn't even know we're playing sometimes and so we had to learn how to advance shows and get get signatures or if there was a problem in the contract that say we need to go talk to this person. I'm be like, dude, I

wrote the contract. You're talking to him. It's changing right now. Yeah, remember Arizona, you and me were having that argument with him but changing something on the contract, and he's like, I got to take this back to Tyler, And I was like, I am Tyler. I wrote the contract. Oh my gosh, yep, all right, I guess that's all I got for this podcast. Okay, cool, sounds good, all right,

all right? So I took a huge risk and I left a big management company and I went with my brother, And there was a stigma that went with that, where, you know, it was like people looked at me like I was failing, like oh, you're got your brother, or people would say who's your management and I would say, you know, TS management and they would say I've never heard of it, and I'll say, well, it's my brother. And then instantly they would feel like I was a

nobody because I had my brother as a manager. But then over years people realized the dude's actually one of the best in the business. And uh, you know, I'm better because of it, because who better can you trust as an artist than your brother When he's out there fighting for you and he's out there trying to do the best things for your career and your name. Who

better to trust than your brother. Now we've had our fights over the years, no doubt we've had We've had some brawls on the road, but it has been so worth it, and it was the best career move I've ever made. I just got a text from my wife and she just opened up a fan letter of mine at home, and I should read it to you. It says, dear Granger Smith. Hi, my name is Emily and I'm in the fourth grade. I love your music so much. My dad and my mom have been divorced since I

was one years old. I usually listen to your music just to clear my head. I almost know all the words to all of your songs on the Remington album. Every day I listen to your music, and I go to sleep listening to your songs. I love you and keep on writing awesome, amazing and spectacular music. Love Emily, your biggest fan. Man. That's something. Those are Those are the things I need to hear. Those are the things that remind me that we're doing something right, that people

are listening, and that it matters. So thank you, Emily. Your letter means more to me than you know. We've been lost in streets and me on and concrete creep then and somewhere up there is a sky full of stars, but we can't see how easy enough, let's pack up in point this truck. So around this time, I have a new manager. We're making videos like crazy, putting out all kinds of content, and something else really happened, though, that changed me and changed the course of what I

would be doing in music forever. See. I went to Texas, A and M and I was in the Core Cadet stre. I had a lot of buddies that went into the military, and they went overseas, and I felt guilty that they're overseas on deployment, ensuring the freedom that guys like me get to enjoy and pick a dream like music for a living. And I'm not going to lie, it bothered me. I felt very blessed. I'm very lucky to have fun

and go to bars and play music. And my buddies were in the desert going through hell, and so I made it a mission to do everything I could to go over there and to play music and to bring a little piece of home to them, to my buddies, but ultimately to everyone deployed. And people ask me, how did you get those entertainment tours in Iraq? I don't know, really. The honest answer is I emailed every single person I knew in the military and I said, my name is

Granger Smith. I'm a musician. I want to go to ira I want to play music for the troops. Do you know anybody, and most of the time nobody replied, and I think sometimes people forward it to a commanding officer, And eventually one day I got a call from a military entertainment company and they said, do you want to go to Iraq? And I said, my bags are freaking packed. There's a flag that I fly in my yard. I know the price paid for those stars. It's a flag

made a fly high and the wig. Yes, the that's what I do with it. I've been along and afraid, I've seen the dog. I've made it through. Okay, I'm better for my scars last the wheel at it fall. I want to know how to supply for a chance to swing for the fence. So when the fitch jumps

going in, that's what I do with it. I ended up taking three tours to Iraq, and all three times I was just I could not believe that music got me there, first of all, but my intention was to go bring a little piece of home to these men and women, and I had no idea how much I was going to get in return. It gave me such perspective, not only that music is a gift that I'm responsible for sharing, but how precious life is and how valuable freedom is and how blessed we really are to have it.

Each tour was about two weeks long, and every day we would travel to a new location, a new forward operating base. We would play two of these a day, traveling by helicopter. And it was my choice to play the smaller fops, the places that are farther out there, the places that don't see the Dallas Cavloy cheerleaders you know, every six months, The places that have never seen entertainment, the places that don't have running water, have toilets, you know.

The best food that they have is cold ham sandwiches out of a cooler. Those are the places we wanted to play. And those are the places where a little strip of concrete was the stage and the bleachers were a tank, and they would climb up on the tank to get a good vantage point. No one knew my songs, no one knew who I was. It didn't matter. They just wanted to hear some American music. And I learned then that music can transport you three minutes at a

time to another place. You could forget everything, and that was a valuable lesson for me. Now, for the record, I did see some of my buddies from college, and we still joke to this day that I'm the best friends they have because I was the only friend that actually traveled to go say hi to them. When people ask me, what's the craziest show you've ever played, it's always those shows. Before the shows, we would have to find out the bomb shelter was, which is usually some

concrete blocks because you never know what's gonna happen. You can get incoming fire on the small base and we would have to go and hit the ground and take cover, and then the quick response team would have to take off and go do their job. We had helicopter rides that we got engaged by the enemy and we had to take evasive maneuvers to get away from that. It was a constant adrenaline rush. It's something I'll never forget.

I count the days so I get to return to Iraq or Afghanistan because those have been the most meaningful times for me in music, hands down period. When I got back, I felt like there was more to be done.

I felt like I had seen and learned so much of it there, but I wanted to share that with civilians back home, and so that's when I started my one hundred mile walk, and I would walk one hundred miles from South Austin to Fort Hood over the course of five days in combat boots to raise money and morale and patriotism for those soldiers turning home, because we can never forget that we're still a country at war to this day, and most of us are so busy

with our lives that we forget that the freedom we're using, that we get the privilege of using, is being currently paid for by men and women who volunteer for that right. It's unbelievable. So if you're wondering right now what happened to the one hundred mile walk, I did it four years in a row. But I've got a big surprise something that I'm so proud of that I've been working on, that we've been working on for over a year and

a half. Now. I can't say it yet, I can't tell you what it is, but there's something coming soon that I'm very proud of, and I can't wait to share that passion with everyone. It's almost time for me to go into soundcheck here in Charlotte, and that's almost the entire year of two thousand and eight, which was crazy.

It was a very important year for me. My brother Tyler and I. We found on eBay a van, a fifteen passion or van that we desperately needed to replace my suburban, and so we flew up to New Jersey from this shady, shady dealer and we bought this van for ten thousand dollars and we drove it back and everything was great. I actually named it Blackhawk because naturally I was obsessed with the Army Blackhawk helicopters we had been writing in, and to me, that was the ultimate transportation.

You know. The one thing I didn't mention is while all this is going on, I was currently writing and recording a brand new album, the album that would become Don't Listen to the Radio, arguably the most important album of my career ever, because it was that first single, that first song that I met my wife Amber in the music video. And that's a crazy story and it's probably going to need its own podcast. There's many more stories to count. Thank y'all so much for listening out

of the scat you last. Yeah, when it happens like that, nothing to youse turns right into you. Julie or you can do just to keep her around until the moon goes down in her back into your house. One thing we do another you love at each other. When looking, you never look back. It happens like that. This podcast is brought to you by EE Energy. Come find us on tour grangersmith dot com, Forward Slash Tour, See you down the road.