Why can’t I remember?

Tuesday and Thursday. We do restoring Earl Dubbles Junior's old truck. We do live at the EEE Farm, live stream shows with the full band. We do a Rise with Amber every Sunday morning on the Smith's YouTube channel, and that's just that's just the stuff we do every single week.

So I do this podcast on Mondays early Mondays. And I'm grateful for this because I get to sit here and really dig deep into some stuff that I that I can't I don't have the time to do on a radio interview, and I don't have the time to do I'm the Smiths, and so you know, I want to thank you guys for even it indulging in something long form like this, like a podcast. Maybe some of you are driving, maybe some of you spend time with this watching it on YouTube. Either way, thank you for that.

I actually met a guy at the gym today and we were walking out and he said, hey, man, and you stopped me and I've never met him before, and he said, I just want to tell you I listened to your podcast. I'm on episode eleven, and I'm going to turn my wife onto it. I'm going to show her, and man, that just means it means so much to me.

It's one thing for someone to say I love her music, and I hope that it starts with that, and it has evolved now into different things like I love watching the Smiths, or I love listening to your podcast, and that just makes me feel so good. It makes me feel good because here I am at the EG Farm, in my in my office, in my studio, all by myself here right now and talking to a camera and a dead microphone. And it's nice to know that there are a lot of people that actually follow this and

follow the journey along. And if you haven't gone back and heard some of the earlier podcasts, maybe you're a brand new listener. I encourage you to start all the way back at episode one, and the reason it started was when we were touring like crazy. I was on the back of my bus Wildflower, and I wanted to tell everybody in long form the story of where I came from. And that started with so many times doing interviews and media and TV and radio where they said,

tell us a little bit about yourself. Where'd you come from, how'd you get your start? Where are you from? And that then answering that question kind of gets exhausting because I have to answer it in short form, right I have to say, well, you know, from Texas and I started a band, and you know, I have to speed

my way through it. But if you go back to podcast episode one, you could actually feel the whole journey throughout and now here we are every episode thirty eight and this episode, like so many others, is brought to you by EE Apparel, and I want to talk to you just for a second about YE Apparel and my favorite thing about this company that my brothers and I run together, and that is our Shirt of the Month club. This is something we started this year. It's become a

huge passion project. For me and my brothers alike. It is a new shirt that we put out once a month, exclusive to this club. Right, so, if you sign up for this club, you're going to get shipped out automatically in your size a new shirt the first of every month, and that shirt cannot be found anywhere else. We're not going to sell it. We're not going to sell it

on the road on tour. And we handpick these. We design these and put a lot of work into these designs so that they are all a little bit different and are all very exclusive, and I love them. I wear EE Apparel every single day. It's pretty much all I have in my closet. And some people have asked me if I wear it just because it's my company. Not really, I mean kind of, but I really wear it because I love the stuff. I'm biased, but it

fits really good, it feels really good. And so my brother Parker sent me a little promo for you guys today on this podcast for the member's only Shirt of the Month club. You could sign up between the first and the twentieth of every month, use for this podcast, use the promo code Shirt of the Month, and you're gonna get your first shirt for just ten bucks with free shipping. You can cancel it anytime, and that sounds like a really good deal. Sounds like a really good deal.

We are still plowing through the state of the world right now. And if you're listening to this podcast years from now and you look on the ticker and it says that this was two years ago or three years ago, Man, I wish I could talk to you, the person in the future. I wish you could tell me how this all pans out, because it's still crazy. The world started getting so much better and then it started getting worse

all at the same time. So we started getting these tour dates coming in and then now everything is kind of unknown again. We still have several dates in July, including July fourth, and that's in Round Rock, Texas, and then we have like Nebraska in Iowa and South Dakota something like that. We have a run up that direction in July, and in August there's more. In September there's more, and God, I hope they stay. I really do. It's my whole livelihood. Touring is my livelihood, and it's more

than a paycheck. And I've said this many times, but I'm okay. I could pay the bills. I have multiple ways of paying the bills, whether whether it's cameos, which I do these cameos where you could sign up and get me to give you a shout out at birthday or anniversary or send someone a personal video message. I do that every day on cameo dot Com. I have this podcast, I have Dismiss, I have my songwriting company, I have Ye Apparel. But what really messes this whole

thing up is my band. You know, you know, you look at my guys, and just the way that this is set up and this is with anything, is like I can't constantly support them and all their families and their health insurance and their entire livelihood. And we're talking fourteen people here, and so this whole shutdown has really affected the band members more than anybody. And I know,

I say more than anybody. I know that there's bar owners, and there's venues, and there's theaters, and it's just it's got a lot of things messed up, and we could just the best thing we could do is I could keep making content, and we can keep trying to, you know, do live stream shows and getting tips. But the most importantly we just be patient, and this is a little bit. We're in a little bit of suffering right now, and suffering suffering, as Paul says in the Book of Romans,

Paul says that suffering leads to perseverance. Perseverance leads to character. Character leads to hope. So that's where we are. And I don't mean to get that deep with something like this, but it really is. This is something that keeps us up at night. And it's been months and months of this. So that's that's the state of the world, and that kind of ties me into my guest today. This is a I would say, a dear friend, and that is honestly, that's saying it lightly. I'm going to bring on Mitch

Connell uncle Mitch. For some reason a long time ago, I started calling him uncle Mitch, even though he's not family relation. But he's as good as family. Family is not. Family is not exclusively blood to me. I don't feel that way. I feel like I have a bond with many people that I consider family, and Uncle Mitch is one of them. I've never known anyone on this planet that's ever met Mitch that didn't love him right away,

that didn't become friends with him. He has more friends than anyone I've ever met, and you'll know exactly why. He's just salt of the earth, one of the nicest guys on the planet. He's a really good businessman. He's had car dealerships in Colleen, Texas his whole life and it will continue to pass down through his kids. And he's an incredible musician. And that's how I originally met him,

because he's a keyboard player. And I met him through the band I was in and they brought him in and he started playing keyboards just I mean, the most beautiful stuff you've ever heard. I started recording all of my studio albums from two thousand and four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, all of those is Mitch Connell on keyboards twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen. It keeps going after that and assaulted the Earth guy, amazing musician. I can't even come up with

better words for this guy. You're just gonna have to hear it from him yourself. It's an honor, guys, to have Mitch Knell on this podcast. Sit back, relax, Thank you for listening. Welcome to the Greater Smith Podcast. Did time and longline fo up and down, going back, rangey colation. A lot of times on this podcast, I've talked about old band stories. Oh god, a lot of them have been off the top of my head, and I have forgotten a lot of them too, and you Mitch seem

to remember them all. Oh gosh. You guys ever have that friend that when you get back with him and he starts reciting some old stories and you think God forgot all about that. You don't forget those stories. No, They're fun stories though, And I wanted to bring you

on here partly because of that. We could tell some of these old stories that possibly I've even forgotten, and then also talk about how you've been in since the very beginning of the Texas version of my band and not only touring and being part of my first intrastate touring, but also part of those early albums that I was recording at my house. Yeah, those are That was a lot of fun. So if you heard any keyboard at all on any of those early albums, four or five

of them, that was all you and singing harmony. So something I thought about when I was coming in here today, Bug Eye and Trick Gosh, I wasn't in a real good mood when that deal started, anyways, because little Asa and I had ridden our motorcycles all the way down there in the rain. It was a rainy I was wetter than I've ever been. It was Asia's first motorcycle ride. And and by the way, you might not remember, but he had just gotten his black belt in karate. I

did not know that. And bug Eye and Shrek had decided. So if you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about, let me back you up a little bit. Two thousand and four, I moved from Nashville back to Texas. I moved to College Station. I formed a little band based on my uncle knew a drummer. This sounds like a bad story already. My uncle knew a drummer that had a band. The singer had just moved to Florida working

for the DEA, right, right, something like that. Now, what's awesome is if you could put a if you could have a band that's already used to playing with each other, that's half the battle. Then all they have to do is learn the new songs. Now, the huge advantage I

had was you guys were also older than me. You're what fifteen twenty years older than me, all of you were, so that also brings fifteen twenty year years of extra experience, which, by the way, you were as old as I am now, Ben, which is funny, right, right, So you bring ten years, fifteen years, twenty years of experience on the road and in the studio and playing music in what walks. Mitch Connell a car salesman. You own several dealerships in Central Texas.

That has allowed you and you've done that your whole life. Your daddy did that, right, That's always supported my music habit exactly. So that allowed you to own these dealerships and free up a little time and to drive from

Colleen to college station or wherever we were digging. All of these things were incredible for me as a young musician because young musicians are used to dealing with bands that can't get off from working at the fast food shop, they can't get off from delivering pizzas, or they're in school, are there going through a divorce or something. But you guys all we were okay to say Friday, leave at two pm. I'm down, yep, and even better, not not as good as you're playing but a little bit close

to it, which you had an RV. You had an r V, yes, And we got to ride around an RV uh and pretend like it was a big old tour bus, and to us it was. It was pretty big. We had a coffee maker in the morning that was replaced by Margarita blender Friday afternoon. And I you remember the smell, yes, the stink bush. Yeah, oh yeah, that's It's not a true RV unless it has some kind of strange sewage smell. But but needless to say, I

was having so much fun. And I like to talk about this a lot because it's fun in the music business and gratification, and it's all relative to where you are at the time. Right. What I mean is, I'm not having any more fun now than I was then. It's all relative. We had a good time, so good, so going to bug Eye and Shrek. Okay, Well, we played a gig and somewhere on the coast, and I'd ridden there in the rain all the way there, and then we got to the venue and we set up

and did our sound check and everything was fine. It was a pretty good It was awful terrible, but I was in a good mood. We're about to play some music and that always makes me happy. And uh so we start playing and there's a guy in the audience it's not amenable to the choices of songs that we're playing, which is, you know, a nice mix of George Strait and my originals right right. And finally, and I've never

seen you get upset with anybody. And finally that guy listen, I'm gonna give you my website and you go there and find out where I'm playing, so you'll know where not to go. Well that upside. Yeah, he was the brother in law of the club owner. That was bug Guy. I said, my website is graterspit dot com. Go there and find my tour dates, so that I could make sure I'd never see you again, right ri the microphone,

yes to all fifteen people that were there. Well, the guy got mad and he his brother in law was Shrek, the owner of the club, and Bug Eye and Shrek decided they were going to team up on us, and they quickly got nicknames from us. And that's what they look like, bug Eye and Shrek. Yes, yes, anyways, so at the end of the night, when we were done playing, Uh, Granger comes up to says, hey, owcle man, they're not trying to pay me. I'm going what So I just walk over next to him, next to Shrek, and I

crossed my arms trying to look like mister clean. My son is about this tall, but he can kick your button nine way from Sunday and nobody ever even suspected that from him. So uh, I sit there and cross my arms, and the bug guy decided to go ahead and give us our money, and we got out of there with the quickness. I believe it was five hundred dollars. Might have been found right, might have five or six, five or six hundred dollars and I and that was

average for me. It was. There was five of us in the band, or six of us in the band, maybe those five of us five total, and we typically got about five hundred bucks. Now you can do the math quickly that that doesn't hardly pay for lunch and dinner and fuel on the way there. I got to hand it to you, though. You you made sure that we got at least one hundred bucks. Yeah, yeah, I left you was nothing. That That's the way it was. But a lot of times it left me with nothing.

And then occasionally we would play like a wedding and I'd get fifteen hundred dollars or something, and I'd get to burn a little bit of that myself. Oh yes, but that that night with bug Eye and Trek, that's that's a typical night. And those were we never knew what we're getting into. Tyler was booking these shows, these dead end bar gigs with no one there, but we were grateful to play and we had fun even though no one was there. We had fun within ourselves on

the stage. We had a good time. We had a good band. We did. It was it was. I was very lucky to have a band that was far above my musical knowledge, and so I had to quickly learn to keep up. You did. That was the story of my life back then. And I could let you guys vamp around or play take solos. I can go to

the bathroom and you could sing and uh. Because a lot of times we were playing long sets and and the nights like that, when we found out the guy I was chewing out on the microphone was the owner's cousin, they could easily just decide, you know, I'm not I'm not gonna pay these rug rats I'm not gonna pay them anything, get out of my bar. And and that five hundred dollars was there's a lot of money. Oh yeah, even if you had stay in a hotel that night,

exactly exactly. That reminds me of another time b Beeville, Texas well, that was was that the worst hotel you've ever even heard of? It was either that one or the one in Oklahoma. I forgot the name of the lot of bad ones in Oklahoma. Anyways, we wouldn't stay at the one in Oklahoma. We went on to Oklahoma City. Rather.

Have you ever decided to I'm speaking to the listeners here, have you ever decided that sleep is not worth the bites and the bugs that you're going to get in the bed sheets, so you might as well just skip asleep that night. Yeah, But we stayed in Beeville, in or Belleville or Bville or whatever that place was when

that was awful place that was awful? It was it was there was I I attribute so many of my my I guess the fortitude that we have now as a band when we run into problems now, sometimes the guys will come to me and go, well that they're asking for this, and they're saying we can't do this, And I kind of go back to those old days in my mind when we thought we thought we had problems, and we think we have problems now, and how relative it is, and how really in the end, we're all

just out trying to play some music. That's all it is. That's all it boils down to. That's what we love to do. Yeah, And the cool thing about you mentioned is that, besides you have sold pretty much everybody in my band a truck or including my brown truck I still drive. And You've had a thing about ten years or so. I've lifted it twice. You've lifted it twice, You've put tires and wheels on it. You have, You've tried to get me out from under it many times.

Get me in a better truck. Yeah, he won't go truck. One time you said a man of your status needs to drive at a better vehicle. Remember when you tell me that I was referring to a Ram instead of that other off brand model that you choose to drive. Well, well, I want to get to your dealerships at a second. And and how you have you pretty much made a living with with veterans at Fort Hood. Yeah, I live near. There have been. They've been your lifeblood and you have

been theirs. I think it's a mutual feeling there. It is, it is. But what I wanted to say too, is said, how you saw the You saw our rise from absolute nothingness, from a literal open mic night at Bourber Street Bar and College Station two to sold out crazy shows. Yes, yes, I remember playing for twelve thousand people one time. And I remember playing for the bartender at the San Antonio Rodeo.

It was so close, it was so cold, and it was it was an a tent and it was so cold my hands wouldn't move, and the bartender was in there. It was just him and us, nobody else in the entire bar, no or tent, tent, but one bartender. It wasn't even a bartender. It was a beer tub tender. Beer tub tender, that's what he was, right, So did you see it? Did you know that we would be playing pack shows in those beer tub tender days? I

always knew that you would get there. Someday. It might you might outlive me before you did it, But by god, I knew you were going to get there. I knew you had the talent, you wrote a good song. I knew you. I always knew you were going to get there. You just saying that because this is my podcast. Oh no, I said that to my mom way back then, who, by the way, thought it was we wi instead of ye yee. I'm much happy with ye than we Wei.

I don't. He goes, what are you laughing for? And I said, hold on, when I get done laughing, I'm gonna tell you yee yee, not we we. So you saw, you saw the part. Because you played with a lot of bands and a lot of people, you still do. Yes, Yes, I've played for people who been nominated for Grammys. And is it just because I've I've I've always been real nice to you. Well, you've been nice. It was a

nice guy. But I remember, uh you may not remember this, but we had found a hearing test, a relativity test, yes, online, and you and I both took it, and Manny took it, and I think Mike took it as well. And you know I pride myself in having the best ear in the band. Yeah, well, I mean I scored way up there, and then you took the thing. And you've tied me. Was that a rhythm test though it was a it was a hearing test because you was a rhythm test later,

and you tied Mike in the rhythm test. I'm going, well, it's not fair. It's not fair at all. I know I did good. I remember taking that test. I know it did good on it. But you still have uh you call it perfect pitch. I call mine relative pitch, relative pitch. That's right, that's right, And they're you know, I was hearing some guy talk the other day. There is no such thing as tone deaf. We we tend

to throw that around with humans. But if you're actually tone deaf, if you think you are, you wouldn't be able to recognize your mother's voice on the other end of the telephone. That's out. That's what true tone deaf means. There are people that are tone deaf, but you are. You have relative pitch, meaning you could hear a note or a song and you can say that is in the key of F. Yes, I can do that. I

know you can. I've seen you many times. Remember that time at the astronm Yes, yeah, but we had six so there we had. That was one of the biggest gigs we had ever played. It was at the old Astrodome and we weren't playing there because we were selling a show at the Astrodome. We were playing it's called the Hideout. It's part of the Houston Rodeo, and we somehow got lucky enough to get into this lineup and be one of the bands that was like a dance

hall band that played. But it was still it was our first arena no matter how you look at it. Even though we were driving a suburban. I had my motorcycle and they lined me up a path to get right up to the stage. I rode my motorcycle to the stage and parked it and walked up the stairs on gun on the step. I felt like Mick Jagger that night. So the biggest night of our career, you felt like Mick Jagger. And I go out there to

one of our songs is called Mockingbird. Road played it in a long time, by the way, but I had my capo one frat too low, two fret too low, one fret too low, to one fret too low on the guitar, and I started the song that is devastating to any of you that might understand what I'm saying, this is an absolute train wreck waiting to happen in front of a lot of people. But Mitch instantly heard the He that I was playing it in, which is damn near impossible to do. You have to have step off.

You have to be really good to catch a half step off. Our bass player didn't shout out to Manny, but he didn't catch it. But he has relative. He caught you when you brought your organ in a lot of people that might be confused. But luckily they sum it up for you. It would have been really terrible. Yeah, well I had run. I ran to the the talkback Mike. I said, he's playing it NAF sharp. You gotta have to play it half sharp, G sharp or whatever. I

can't remember the key we actually did it in. But everybody, Uh, well, you stopped and just moved your KPO. You stopped and moved your before the train wreck happened. We'd have to we'd have to find that little tape. Yeah, but you caught You caught it before I saw it, before the bass player saw it. All's well, that ends well. Show. The show went well. There was a trace Atkins was playing next door Reliant and how we got six thousand people with him playing next door I'll never know. Yeah,

and then later on Tracey and I became record label mates. Yes, he's got that nice due voice. I could do a whole podcast on that guy. He's he's a very interesting fella. So what are you doing these days? You're you're selling cars? Still, you're still playing in bands. He's still playing with my old band we have. We had a cover band. We retired, but we still the three of us get together and play. We did a jazz gig. We played with a Caribbean

pan drummer, you know the steel drums. Yep. We played a show with him one time and we had set to go to the Caribbean to go play with him again, but the poor guy crashed his car and got killed in the crash. Well we got a chance to do it. But man, that dude could play. He was the Mick Jagger of the Caribbean. He was the man to go to on the steel drum. How much time do you get to go get off and from cars and go

play keyboards? Well, since we've all been shut down, Uh, there's been no live music until recently, and I haven't played a gig in Yeah, three or four months. I was supposed to play on this Friday, but I put it off. There was ninety six days in between my last gig to the one we just played. Ninety six. That's that's the longest I've ever gone without playing on a stage since I started when I was a teenager, right,

But I never went that long. When when when I was with y'all for five years, we hardly ever went I don't think we ever went two weeks without playing a show. No, no, So tell us tell me about your where your dealerships are? Which ones I lose track? Well, I just combined the Dodge Country with the Freedom Jeep and now it's called Freedom Country. And I built a new Jeep store in Colleen. It's on the main drag Highway one ninety or Interstate fourteen. Stop wanted Cameron, Texas,

I do. I had one out there. Matter of fact, I just bought my truck from out there. They had the right color and everything, So I just bought me a new truck, all right. And those are the only three. That's it. I can't keep track of you. So maybe the most interesting thing that we have in common, it's not. Maybe it is I met my wife at a music video shoot at your house. We all met your wife at a music all that was. That was the song

Don't Listen to the Radio. If you watch that music video, that's where I met Amber, And that is at Mitch's house in Harker Heights, Texas, right, Belton, Belton, Texas. And it was it was just finished. It wasn't even finished yet. It wasn't were you living there yet? I moved in. The pool area was not finished. It still had still didn't have any time for sticking up out of there. There was no landscaping. I don't know why you chose to do it there. Yeah, I'll link that video at

the top of descriptions. So go watch Don't Listen to the Radio. You will see an unfinished landscape job in the backyard. But that is Mitch's house and unbelievable grand piano so cool that that I'm playing in that video, right, And it's actually Mitch that that played that actual part on the album, right. So there's this weird connection with us that if you had to come over join the band, if you hadn't have played that part on Don't Listen to the Radio, if you hadn't built that house, all

those things. I might not have ever met Amber, and I'd just be miserable. Pilo Junk. We all would be, I think, because she is a light. She is a bright light that shines on us all. But can you imagine my teenage son coming home from school, going into his bedroom to find it Amber in there with nothing but a t and he's going, oh my god, have I died? Is this seven? I didn't know that story? Yeah, he was thrilled, say the least. Okay, I'll have to tell ever, I'm sure she knows. I'm sure that seems

like a lifetime ago, now, doesn't It was? It was eleven years ago, two thousand and nine, I believe, or eight? Was it eight? I don't remember when we filmed it. I know it came it was eight because I moved into the house in October of two thousand and eight, and it was just I just read in awesome. Yeah, but that was a fun time and I had to work late that night and I didn't get there until just about y'all are just about finished. Yeah, but it was cool and I'm going to look, there's my house.

We'll forever have that connection. And then if you guys, if you're ever digging through some some of my music, songs like five more Minutes iconic because of you. Yes, don't listen to the radio if money didn't matter. This just off the top of my head. So iconic piano stuff that you that you made really me and you in one of my bedrooms in some point right that it was the first time I'd ever actually been given that kind of a platform. And boy, I tell you

what those are? You know, some simple riffs. Okay, Uncle, noodle and D and I'll just turn the mic on and I started noodling and D and that happened. That became the intro to five more Minutes. That's right, that's right. And uh that also reminds me that that we're not related as far as we know. But for some reason along the line, I started calling you uncle Mitch, and then I cut down to unk yep, So I started calling you unk so and now I think you're kind

of open to anyone calling you uncle Mitch. I got a lot of nieces and nephews out there. So what's your uh, what's your social media platform? Uh, it's Uncle underscore Mitch on Twitter and Insta, and it's Mitchelle at Facebook. Fascinating guy. I've never met anyone that didn't like you or had anything negative to say about you. You're the

nicest guy. The only time I've ever seen you even mildly flustered, and it wasn't really was when the whole virus thing hit and and you were you were so frustrated because your whole livelihood, whether it was music or cars or anything, was being taken away from you. But other than that, yeah, I didn't want music to become a have to. I wanted to always be a want to anyway, you guys look him up, Uncle Mitch, thank you for being on here. You too, man. We'll do it again sometime. I'm buy