The future will judge us

Answer some of your questions. You know, this whole podcast started on the back of my bus Wildflower, when we were heavily touring, and I would sit back on that bus and be able to tell stories, tell you where I came from, tell you what my thoughts were, tell you what my fears were, tell you what about new songs that were going to come out. And that was

a cool way to vent during those touring days. Those touring days are temporary halted, right, temporarily halted, And so this gives me a new platform to sit here and talk during this crazy time, this historic time, and on my history buff I love history. I studied history at Texas A and m I'm a I'm a big nerd when it comes to World War two and depression and and of all the bad things that are happening right now.

That one of the cool things is one of the good things, is that we're living in a piece of history, of world history that will will be remembered forever. Maybe not like World War Two was, but but the significance of this will be impacted generation after generation. People will look back on this, people will study this, People will

judge us. It will judge our decisions, They will judge our strength, They will they will find quotes that that politicians say, that leaders say, and those quotes will be put on covers of books forever. And that that's a really cool thing. That's a that's a that's an amazing thing that we're living in such a such a time that will be always remembered. Now, it doesn't seem like it when you when you're in the middle of it.

You know, it didn't seem like that in the middle of World War two if you're living in London and being bombed. But but but when something this significant happens, the world gets a little bit better because it learns from that, and and it we will try our ancestors will try to not make our same mistakes. George Washington said, what separates an American, what makes an American different? Is that an American would rather die on his feet than

live on his knees. And man, what a quote. What if someone said that, now, well anybody, so I know a lot of countries, listen and watch this. What if they said that about you? Would you rather die on your feet than live on your knees? Doesn't that just draw out some kind of passion with you in you? Doesn't that just kind of light a fire inside your heart and say, yes, yes, yes, I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees. So where do you stand with that? Where when you when you hear

that quote, where do you stand? Does fear bring you back in? Do you get? Do you feel? Oh? No, I don't don't want. I don't want. I don't wanna. I don't want to do anything wrong. I don't wanna. I don't want. I don't want to harm anybody or me? Or do you think, No, I'm gonna stand up for what I believe and what I see whatever that might

be right? Maybe maybe me and you have completely different views, And that's okay, that's healthy actually, because if we have different views, then that that that means we could grow, because I could learn a little bit from you. Maybe you could learn a little bit from me, and we could take those little pieces and add it to our own lives and make our own lives better. And it's not about being right. Nobody wins. If you just want

to be right, there's nothing comes out of that. The only thing you get out of being right is you're right and someone else is wrong. That means nothing. But what if when two people have really think sides and you talk to each other and each person actually gets a little bit from the other one and then you move forward. That's how that's how the world changes. That's how the world gets for the better. So the world

changes for the better. It's a it's an interesting thought because when you're making an argument, and I know that there's there's big sides in this whole mess right now.

So when you're making an argument, you got to make sure that that argument that you're making towards your friend or colleague or whoever is disagreeing, you have to make sure that that argument is coming from a place of truth and a place of a firm belief inside you from what you see how you see the world, as opposed to stacking up on the side of your ideology. This is the way this group thinks, and so that is how I think too, and that's how you should think.

That doesn't do anything. What matters is how how do you feel personally? Forget about your defending your ideaology. How do you feel personally? What do you see in the world right now? Not what? Not what do you see on Twitter or what do you hear from a politician or a news anchor. I'm talking about what what are you seeing and what are you believing? And what can you learn from that? What if everyone everyone thought that way, you know, if everyone woke up in the morning and said,

you know what I'm gonna face this morning. I'm gonna face this day with a clean slate, right, I'm going to take what I believe and what you believe and what you see and what the truth inside you that comes from how you were raised and and things that happened in your childhood and things that you learned along your path of life, and so that that builds up

this this foundation of belief and truth. And so you use that as your platform and and you don't listen to garbage you see on TV or social media or news. It's crazy right now, that people are using science, using the word science to defend their beliefs, when in fact science really has nothing to do with any of this because this is all brand new. There's no proof in

any of this yet. Now there will be forty fifty years, maybe even sooner than that, we'll look back and we will go, you know, what that worked or that didn't. But the reality is right now, we don't know because we've never done a world shutdown, and so far during the shutdown, nothing has changed with the disease. Nothing has gotten worse or necessarily better, And no one can prove that.

You could take all these cities and you could say this city did this, and this city did this, and this city did this, but there's no evidence that any of that stuff changed it. So then you have to lead yourself to go, well, the one thing we do know is a shutdown has destroyed many lives, livelihoods which leads to lives. We know that that's not even science, that's just a fact. Look around at that. That's not what today is about though, That's not what this podcast

is about. This podcast is answering your questions, and I fielded them from Instagram. I just asked all my story, I said, ask me questions for the podcast Monday, and so I have screenshoted some of them, and I haven't taken any notes. I haven't looked at any of them except for just oh that's interesting, boom screenshot. Didn't think about it, know in depth notes. So I'm going to go just spur the moment, read some of these, shoot them back to you. Welcome to the podcast, episode thirty.

Here we go. I have been writing a lot of music during this time home, and the thing that I found most successful so far in the writing technique is and there's really something I haven't done, at least consistently ever in my songwriting process. And over the last couple of decades, my songwriting process has kind of gone and ebbs and flows on the way that I do it. Sometimes I'll just do this, and I'll stick with this routine, and then I'll get into a new routine and stick

with that. So I'll tell you what my current one is, because that's kind of what I'm doing consistently now. So I've been collecting ideas or title or things that I want to do, and then I've gone to some of my three or four or five favorite co writers that I've written a lot of songs that you guys know from or with, and so I've been going to these guys like, hey man, I've been writing a lot of songs. What are send me some ideas and they're like boom, yeah,

you got it. So they'll send me three or four thoughts. Sometimes it's a title, or sometimes it's like here's the scenario, this happens, and this happens. What do you think? And then I'll go through there three or four ideas and I'll and then i'll take one and I'll drive around in my truck and I'll be going after the farm, and i just go through these melodies in my head and I'll go that melody matches this thought. And then

I'll put together like a verse and a course. And sometimes it's a verse and a course, it's pretty complete. Sometimes it's a verse on the chorus that has a couple throwaway words in it or throw away lines. And then I'll print that and send it out eat text it to my buddy that send me the idea, and I'll say here, there you go, and then he'll go great, and then he'll say second verse, and he'll throw out three or four lines for the second verse, I'll add that.

Then we talk, we text about a bridge, I'll add that. So basically, I'm constantly recording a little version of the song, texting it to him. He texts back with some thoughts. I go back in with this mic in this chair right here, exactly like this, and I'll sing a few new lines, and I'll change another one that I just heard, and then five or six times back and forth. There's a song. And I'm actually really happy with the direction

of these songs and where it's all leading. The main question I keep reading from you guys is when's there a new song? Whin's there a new album? So I have probably three things, three songs out right now with three of my different producers that I use, and they're kind of working on drums, bass, stuff like that, and then they will send me those and then I'll go in here to this room and sing them. Long story short, I think you you could assume to hear a new

song from me pretty soon. I would say maybe within the next month and a half. By the time we finished recording that, it's got to go. You turn it into Spotify and Apple Music and all that. It takes like three weeks to do that to get it all turned in, so a month and a half, i'd so you'd hear something from me, and then I already have probably six or seven done and ready to ready for an album. So I would say this next album will have twelve to fifteen and it probably come out this year.

The writing and making the songs is easy. It's like it's all the logistics of getting it all, you know, turned in and sent off and to all the different platforms. That's that's the long process. So I'm I'm really excited about that. I'm super excited about that. I've also been making a lot of videos, as you know, a lot of Earl have been restoring Earl's truck, which is it's just been taken off. For me, it's been crazy to see the engagement in remaking this old nineteen seventy four

GMC with my two bus drivers, Butch and Bull. And the crazy thing is we got in there, we're just going to get it started. Then we're just gonna change out a head gasket, ended up taking the whole truck apart. It's all the way right now. I think we have put out eight episodes we're all the way down to

the frame. I mean there's nothing, there's not even wheels on it, nothing but a metal frame, and it has a gas tank attached to it which might come off too, So we're literally scraping down the frame and we're about to paint it. To paint the frame. So what started with it, let's get it started and get the head gasket changed out, has turned into a complete bolt by bolt disassemble and reassemble paint of the entire truck. So watch that if you haven't. That's on this channel, Granger

Smith channel. And I'm just excited as anybody could possibly be to see this last episode on how it's going to look, and I don't know how many more episodes it's going to take to get there. The other thing I have is ge Apparel, and I talk about that on thirty different podcasts, including this one. Gee Apparel is my main gig right now without touring, and it's been

incredible to see the support through that. We were able to give five thousand dollars to Meals on Wheels on this last launch last week, and it really feels good to be able to to cut a check and get it get a get a really good organization like Meals on Wheels a little bit of cash, and we'll do it again on our next launch, we'll pick another charity. So comment below if you have a good charity besides the River Kelly Fund, which we'll we'll probably we'll probably

do something with that too. And then there's there's a River's Law that we've been doing, and I want to get to some of these questions. I don't I don't want to to get too much into River's Law because I'm about to do an instant post about it. But River's Law it has been really something that that Amber championed just a few days ago and a lot of radio stations had picked it up. But it's a petition that could go to Congress if we get one hundred

thousand signatures on this petition. But it is to protect swimming pools all across the United States to have a four foot four sided fence with a locking gate and a pool alarm. Now we had in our last house, we did have a pool. We had a four sided, four foot gate with a lock, no alarm. So there's many layers to this, but this could be and probably will be its own podcast at some point. So I don't want to get too deep into that, but that is a multi layered problem, and it is a multi

layered conversation that I would love to have. But let me get into some of these questions, all right. So I have fielded these from Instagram and here's here's the first question says what has been the hardest thing about quarantine? And I don't know about you guys, but I've really made an adjustment lately from going from oh no, this is crazy. The world's caven in two Now you know what we got this It's not that bad. I'm not touring. I don't have that touring income, but we're gonna be

all right. This is kind of where I am where in my head is now. So the hardest thing about it, hands down, period, has been, uh, we're not touring, and touring is not only uh my big financial piece of my business, but it's you know, it supports that's what supports all the families that work for me. And I say families because all the guys support somebody or a group, I mean some of them. I'm up to five. Yeah,

my tour manager has six people in his family. So that's been the most difficult thing is is is looking at them and saying, guys, I gotcha. I'm gonna support you. You've been loyal to me for all these years. I'm going to be loyal to you. I gotcha, and not knowing how long I actually gotcha. It has been. It's been tough. Another difficult thing is this goes for everybody, is just looking around and seeing so many people hurting, and so many people fearful of an invisible enemy that

we don't even know. Is supposed to be taken serious or not. Now there's a lot of people that say taken You're supposed to take it serious. And and it drives me crazy when people say, if you don't take this serious, blood is on your hands. If you don't think this is real, if you don't follow the orders, then blood is on your hands. Really is it? Is? It is that cool to say? Because do you know that? Because I don't, and a lot of scientists don't, a

lot of doctors don't. We're doing the best we can. Not we but collectively they're doing the best they can. It appears to come up with a vaccine, to come up with new techniques, you know, this whole mask thing, do you guys know that doesn't work. Like a lot of people have said that, really smart people like it doesn't work. Now, am I saying go out there without a mask and freak everybody out and say Graander Smith told me not. No, I'm not saying that, but it's

worth the question, like people were. I went. I went to a restaurant today for the first time. Me and my two bus shards. We went to a restaurant for the first time. It was amazing. I was twenty five percent open. I live in the State of Texas, and in State of Texas, today was the first day they opened back up restaurants to a twenty five percent capacity and it was awesome. Sat down, had my tea, got my meal. I love I love going to lunch with my buddies. I love that. But the wake staff has

to wear masks. And it's funny like watching them in the back and they wear these cotton masks and they're like they go to the back and they take them off and they you know, talk to each other and they put them back on and they deal with their food. Well what they're doing with that is they're constantly touching their face. Putting my mask on and off, and it's like a cotton mask. Guys. Now, I don't I didn't go to medical school, but come on, that's not stopping

very much. Maybe that stops like twenty percent. Maybe, so this is not much. Eighty percent of your breathing is still happening. That's probably a guess, and I'm guessing it's actually way more than that. Look at me. I'm off on a dad gum tangent. My planning for tonight is to finish this. It's right now as I'm recording it, this Friday night at seven thirty. My internet is terrible in this house, so I have to take this camera, take the footage, and go to my brother's house, which

is like thirty minutes away. He's gone to see my mom, so I go to his house and upload. So that's that's. Uh, that's my night. Next question, would you ever come back to Spokane, Washington for a tour? Guys? Yes, yes, I will be. I've been to all fifty states in many countries, and I will be back to all of them, especially Spokane, Washington. I love Spokane, I love the fans out there, So yes, you bet, you bet you I'll be back in Spokane I'll be back to everywhere. We'll be back to all

fifty states, hopefully very soon. I kind of see, do you remember when there was a time during this craziness when every day we woke up and it seemed like something got a little bit worse, or many things got a little bit worse. And right now I feel like we're living in a time where we wake up every morning and everything's getting a little bit better. If someone tells you, it's not reject that things are getting better.

Things are getting a little better every single day. And so I mean, hey, I ate at a restaurant today, it's pretty amazing. But the way I see it getting better for touring wise, as I see us having a lot of conversations right now with my book an agent, and my brother Tyler, my manager Chris Lee, different radio stations, and we're talking about how to slowly start coming back

on to touring. We've been talking about doing an online concert at a venue probably around here in Georgetown, Texas, where we'll stream that concert, but inside the venue we'll have like twenty or thirty people in the venue and it'll be mostly family and friends. But that'll be awesome.

I've been hearing a lot of talk. We're trying to plan a parking lot concert where you actually drive in in your car and you watch us play, and you turn in, you turn your tune your your FM radio to the station that's streaming our concert, so you listen to it either through your car, you blow down your windows, sit on your tailgates, sit on your hood. I think that'll be pretty cool, and I foresee that coming up pretty soon, pretty soon. Here's a win win. Will the

new song be released? Yeah, yeah, I got you. When when things start opening back up the concerts again, how nervous will you be, that's a pretty good question. I probably will be a little bit nervous. It's been I feel rusty already. Guys. You know, there's times when I'm touring, when we're playing to a lot of people every single night,

and you get really good at it. It's muscling, and and sometimes I'm thinking, as I'm doing these like big festivals in the summertime and it's back to back to back to back nights in different states, and I'm thinking, man, we're good right now. And it's a it's not an arrogance thing, it's just a it's a repetition thing. You know. It's if you do anything you uh, you tape boxes, you know, cardboard boxes, enough times, you're gonna get really good at it. So that's the same thing with tourying.

Walk on the stage, I, you know, have the same kind of walk, and I have the same kind of talk, and I have the I know where to hit all how to hit all the notes, you know on the songs, and I love that feeling. And right now I am the opposite. Man. I feel like if I walk on the stage, I had, first thing I do is trip and fall, and then I would start talking and I I would I would mumble over myself, and then I would start singing and I would miss all the notes. So

that's that's kind of where I am. Now. That's not good, but yeah, I'll be a little nervous. I bet. What do you recommend for people who are over thinkers to ease and calm their mind? Man, that's a great question. And I deal with this myself because I'm an overthinker. So a couple of things. You have to incorporate meditation into your life, into your every day, and I am guilty of skipping days, but the days that I don't skip. I'm much better. And when I say meditation, sometimes that

word sounds like super hippie or mystically Eastern spiritual. It's not. It's not religious or spiritual at all. It's not hippie at all. It's calming and practicing. Mindfulness is not clinging to every thought, trying not to cling on every thought, controlling the the impulse to cling to a thought, right, And I shouldn't even use the word control. Control is a bad word to connect with meditation. But the proper

way to look at it is observing the thinker. So you let the thoughts come, you let the the bodily sensations come, and you observe them as a thought. So you you start freaking out in your mind and you start thinking what am I doing tomorrow? And then you observe, oh, I'm thinking about tomorrow, feeling a little bit nervous about tomorrow, a little anxious. And when you could stop yourself and realize what you're doing, and that a thought has no

power over you, no power. A thought is nothing. It's just a little cloud in your brain. It's not your brain. It's a cloud in your brain. Your brain is the sky, you know, your brain. Your brain is is open and endless, but but the thought is cloud and so you get caught up sometimes in the cloud. And a great way to do this, guys, is through an app, through a guided meditation to an app, and there's there's several. I use ten percent Happier almost every single day, and I

use Joseph Goldstein on that app. So if you go to that app and you find Joseph Goldstein, you'll know exactly what I personally do every morning. He has many meditations. They are not religious or spiritual, or they don't They actually don't lead you any emotional direction at all. It's just guiding you in a way that's like sit. No, you're sitting in an erect but not stiff posture. Close

your eyes, observe the breath in and out. If any bodily sensations come up, like a tingling or an aching, or a burning or a itch, then that becomes the focus of your meditation, and it focuses your all of your attention on the present moment. If you start daydreaming, as soon as you realize you become aware that you're daydreaming, you mentally note thinking, remembering, planning, daydreaming and then you

return your focus to the breath in and out. And it's definitely something that the more you practice, the better you get. You can't mess it up from day one. You can't mess it up. You can't be bad at it. You know it's but I promise you, if you go through five there's one minute sessions, so it doesn't take any time. There's one minute, there's five minute, there's ten minutes.

And if I do a ten minute session with Joseph Goldstein on ten Percent Happier, by the end of it, I opened my eyes and I'm like, oh, I feel good. I felt like I just slept eight hours. That's how clearing. It just clears out all the dead wood that's rolling around in your brain and it feels good. Calm is another app. There's many, many apps, and I don't really think there's a bad one. So all these I mentioned above, usually they're like a subscription that you have to pay

per month or per year. It's like, I think Calm is like twenty bucks a year, and I think ten percent Happier is similar. But they all have free sessions for a long you could do like so many of them for free, so it doesn't cost anything to get started. That is the answer to that question. Buddy. Let's see what else we got. What was your favorite most touching song to write and perform? That would be Tractor for me. Tractor was when that song started coming out of my brain.

And I wrote that song in Lawrence, Kansas, walking from the venue We're playing the Granada, and I was walking from the venue to the University of Kansas and walking through the green grass out there. It's a beautiful campus, and these lyrics started coming. I was recording them on my voice memos on my phone and as the words started coming, man, the tears just started rolling. It's about my dad. It's about losing my dad. And that song was difficult to write but so freeing at the same time.

It felt so good coming out. It hurts so good coming out, really, and then when I sang it in the studio, I was crying while I was singing it. And so if you ever listened to the song Tractor, just know that with those words you're hearing, the vocal performance you're hearing was usually coming right after I would cry and stop the tape and straighten myself up to enough to sing another line. So that was that was tough, and I've sang it several times. It shows, and it's

always been difficult. It shows, and it's a very special song to me, so I can't always sing it. Just sometimes I'm just on the mood to sing it, or I'm not up to being that brave to sing it. How long do you know about a tour before it's announced to the public, And I like some of these questions like that, I think that's probably a good question because I realized that maybe you guys don't know how

that works. But there's several different kinds of tours. There is like I'm on a Luke Bryan tour that's called a support tour for me, so I'll find out three four, five months before that happens, and then before you guys know. And then there is a a tour that I put together, like that's called a headlining tour, and I'll know that as that starts coming together six months ahead probably, and and we'll know who we're gonna take with us, and

then then there's everything in between. And those are the the mini tours that we do all year. So those are like what that means is say we get we'll use Spokane. We talked about Spokane. So say we get a festival that's called Country Jam and Spokane and that that comes in nine months before we go there, and it's good money. Sometimes the really big festivals are good money. So we'll look at that date and we'll go, Okay,

that's good money. So we're gonna we're gonna book Country Jam and Spokane, and then we have to figure out a way to get out there and a way to get back, and so we'll book our way out and then we'll book that's that Spokane date will be the anchor date. So then we'll use that as the anchor and we'll book out there, and then we'll book around it and we might stay a week, we might stay

two weeks. Depending on the dates that come in and the dates that we get in around it will be worth money wise, they'll be worth sometimes a third or a fourth of the money that we get at Country Dams, Jam and Spokan. I'm making this that date up and so those are all the little dates that connect to the anchor. So sometimes those are clubs. Sometimes they are like small town county fairs, but those happen, and those are always being built like they're always currently in the works,

So I'll find out about those. Sometimes I'll see the anchor date nine months out. I won't even know the support dates that are going around it until sometimes thirty days out. How do you maintain a good diet that is hunter, that is that's disciplined, my man, Easier said than done. But I try to look at maintaining a good diet. I eat. I try to eat good six days a week, and then one day a week I just don't even care. I'll eat whatever, and and so

during those six days, get them remy. During those six days, I try to look at the how am I gonna say this? I try to base my eating on how I'm going to feel after I eat it instead of how do I feel while I'm eating it? So you guys know that if you're eating a cupcake, you feel amazing while you're eating it, it's amazing, but you feel terrible an hour after, whether mentally like why did I eat that daggum cupcake? Or because you got a stomach ache because it's so much to get a sugar rush.

Then maybe cupcakes a bad example. Maybe it's like one of those big cheesecakes a cheesecake factor. You know, while you're eating it, you're like, this is heaven. This is the greatest thing I've ever done. To eat. This cheesecake is incredible. All your endorphins are going on. But then an hour later you definitely feel like crap, and the guilt and the stomach ache and the grogginess that that

come from that cheesecake are terrible. So I try to base the meals on the six days on how I'm gonna feel after, because if I as opposed to the cheesecake, if I'm gonna eat grilled chicken and some green beans and some rice and you know, the sweet potato, it's it's kind of boring, you know, while it's going down. But a couple hours later, I feel good. I don't I don't feel guilty, I feel I have energy, I'm a sleep better, my body just feels better, just operates better.

So that so I try to base it around that. Okay, And that's discipline and it's just repetition, and it's it's sticking to that routine. And the hardest part about it, the hardest part ever, is when you're around the food that you don't want to that you can't be eating, and so you have to try to get away from it, Like you can't put it in your cabinet, you can't your your girlfriend can't bring it home, you know, she can't stop with the you know, get a burger and

bring it home right in front of you. And when I'm on when I'm touring, and the guys will get pizza almost every night they'll get a giant pizza and it smells incredible. I mean, it smells like heaven. And it gets so bad that I will literally try to go to bed before I know that pizza is coming, because if I start smelling it, it's really really hard not to go get a a slice of it. If you could live in only one place, would it be woods,

mountains or meadow? And I have got I got like three of these questions on the same same Instagram posts, so I should probably answer it. But my thing, man, my thing is mountains. I'm a mountain guy. I love I love the beach, I love the lakes, I love meadows, you know, open wide open fields. I love the woods. I love all things outdoors, but the mountains is the one where I feel close to God and I look up and I just go, oh, my God, I can't

believe what my eyes are seeing. Like I don't say that when I'm in the woods, and maybe California Redwoods I've said that, but it's it's always all inspiring to be in the presence of God outdoors like that in nature, but I feel it me personally. I feel it most in amazing mountains. Man. There's so many questions, so a little time, I don't have to go back to some of these. What's your biggest fear as an artist? That's probably a good one. What's my biggest fears an artist? Man?

I think my biggest fear is an artists, especially over the years, has been lately it's been don't lose sight of where you came from, Like, don't lose sight of what really matters. And what matters to me is family and God and and knowing knowing my true self and feeling content and feeling satisfied and grateful and maintaining integrity and not sacrificing my soul for the dream because the music chasing dream is dangerous and I've lived it for a long time and I've seen that it could lead

you right off a cliff. And I've almost chased it off that cliff. Maybe I have a couple of times, but it becomes it becomes a passion, and it becomes an obsession, and it becomes a little dangerous. It could head you down a path that that you look back and you go, how did I get far this far down this path chasing this white rabbit and the rabbit

doesn't even matter. So that's that's that's my fear going going too far, losing myself, And so I'm constantly trying to set up people around me to to keep me grounded and to keep me remembering who I am and what's important. And maybe that's maybe that's just what this whole quarantine has done. It's really helped a lot of us with that, it's kind of slowed us all down on purpose. So yeah, all right, I'm gonna get to some of these later. But but thank you guys so much.

Cannot be more grateful for uh, for this platform and you guys even listening. So be safe out there, smart safe, smart safe, love you guys. See. Yeah,