Sam Hunt

to Mexico. Now, given the current quarantine conditions, we connected from New York to Nashville, so it was part inside the studio and part inside my living room. Did we get zoom bombed? We got zoom bombed, though it actually came from inside my apartment. Get any of you gotta you gotta excuse my cat. He just decided to join us, one of the two. And that's how Sam Hunt got to meet one of my two cats, Kit as in

kit Cat and Bow as in Bo Diddley. Guess which one my wife named and which one I got to name? And actually this is kind of a trick question because my wife got to name both of them. Sam Hunt, though, is more of a dog person. On the cover of South Side, which debuted at number one when it was released in April. Hunt is standing with Kai, his husky, one of his three dogs, in front of a white clapboard house, and if you haven't seen it, it's pretty

close to a snapshot. It's a six ft three guy in khaki's with a dog on a leash, and there's a truck. Nothing fancy, but the house he's in front of is the one where he was living when he wrote the songs on histeen breakthrough album, Madavello. And since in a lot of ways, south Side is about the distance Hunt has traveled since Madavello came out, it makes sense. And the story behind the picture is apparently that Hunt was on his way home from church one Sunday and

he stopped by there. He sold that place to his brothers since he lived there, and he had the idea that it might work for the album cover. So he got out. The photographer he was with snapped that shot and they were done. I mean, he brought along some clothes that he thought he might change into. They never even made it out of the back of his truck. He did not want to overthink it, and that maybe the only thing about South Side that he didn't overthink.

This album was a long time coming six years, during which time Modavello became massive. Singles like leave the Night On, Take Your Time, House Party, break Up in a Small Town absolutely dominated the country charts and also became top forty pop hits thanks to their careful blend of country pop, R and B hip hop Maybe a Little Rock, gutar kind of whatever You've Got. In February of Hunt followed up all that success with a single that became, up

until that moment, the biggest hit in country history. Body Like a Back Road, spent an astounding thirty four consecutive weeks on the top of the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Now you don't need to be a master marketing guru at a record label to know that that was probably a good time to put out another album. But time went behind it a little more time almost a year, and it wasn't until January that Hunt even released another song,

and that wasn't really a song for the radio. The somber Drinking too Much is more like reading someone else's late night I'm sorry texts. It's Hunt apologizing to his ex girl friend Hannah Lee Fowler, the woman who's now his wife. She comes from Montevello, Alabama, and he begins the song saying he's sorry for naming his album after

her hometown, for robbing her of her privacy. Drinking too Much is a pretty extraordinary song, and it's full of the concrete details that makes Sam Hunt a truly extraordinary songwriter. In this song, he talks about wishing she'd let him pay off her student loans in return for all those

songs that she gave him. About how she overpacked when she came to see him in Nashville and they went to the c m AS together, About being drunk two years later on stage at the c m AS, now that he'd become a star, About being in a hotel room in Phoenix thinking about telling her a lie, and about imagining her lying in a bathtub with her face under the water, crying. I've sat through two hour Netflix

movies with less narrative and character development. Then Hunt puts into the three minute in fifty two seconds of this song. So one of the reasons that South Side took so long is that Hunt was getting his life together and putting their relationship back together. Race in the first few praises for shoe case of small town repression. The body was baptized, so disfriendious I was your favorite conversion. My past was checkered, your spotless records, brobo being jet boody.

Your place in my place is grace, and your grace feel like the same thing I never felt like I was saying. He explained some of that in the first track on south Side. It's called and It's about wanting to put the whiskey back in the bottle, Stop chasing dreams and lonely women. Drive a thousand miles to see the woman he left so he can walk in he walked out. I mean, just about every line of could

be its own song. And when people like me write about Hunt's music, they tend to write about his mix of country tradition and hip hop flow, which is, for real, pretty remarkable, though it's also something that's been going on for a long time. I mean to choose one of many examples Nelly recorded over and over with Tim McGraw in two thousand and nine, and it sure sounds pretty similar to the way Hunt deployed an acoustic guitar and a drum machine on the mix tape that he uploaded

the SoundCloud before he got signed Between the Pintes. But what really makes Hunt's songs stand out for me is those details raised on it. The first song on Between the Pines paints a picture of how he grew up in Cedar Town, Georgia. Here's a few details, snapbacks and Levi jeans, pbr and and c D S three guard at the barber shop, ducking from your ex at the

four way stop. And you've got to admire that last bit, not just the part about exactly how he gets his hair cut, but ducking from your ex at the four way stop is a perfect summation of just how small that town is. And it's also a scene so sharp you feel it, you can see it even if you haven't lived it. The other thing that took so long with south Side is that Hunt has a perfectionist streak.

He followed up the huge success Amountabella with the even bigger success A Body Like a Back Road, and he was still wondering, more than a year after that song came out if there might have been a better way of recording it. So as he was trying to figure all this stuff out his life and his music, he recorded some tracks with Diplo and Charlie Handsome. The producer has worked with Post Malone, Collide and Chance the Rapper, and those tracks haven't come out. But on South Side

Hunt manages to go in two directions at once. Some songs like hard to Forget, which is hooked to a sample of the country classic Web Pier song there Stands the Glass from are more a clear blend of country and hip hop than Hunt has ever made, and others like The Weepy s or Sinning with You are more clearly throwbacks to country music tradition, even if they push

that tradition along in a new direction. Hunt told me about how he wrote Sinning with You Late at Night by himself, the way he first wrote songs before he ever got to Nashville, So in a way, it's a throwback to himself. Here's what else he had to say, Sam Hunt, thank you for being with us, Welcome to inside the studio. Yeah, man, thanks for having me. So, how is how's Quarantine treating you? I I've read you

have a new puppy. I do, yeah, he um, he's been around since Christmas, so um, I've had him for a few months now, but he uh, I've gotten to spend a lot more time with him since being quarantined, and it's gonna get the wrong impression of what being a dog in the hunting. He gets lots of play time right now. I get to run every day and uh, he's he and the other dogs are have been my uh closest buddies here the last two months. How many dogs are it for? All three? Three? And all three overall?

Yeah too, two of the same breed and one h husky. Some dogs in a husky okay, And uh, what's the name of the dog on the cover of the south Side album? That's the husky. His name is Kai, my wife name. I'm glad I've gotten into the menagerie with you. But of course I want to ask you about south Side, uh, what it's all about, where it comes from. But I want to go a little further back than that, and and ask you a little bit about where you come from. And I want to ask you a bit about your

time in college. So you played football at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. You were quarterback. Yeah, but this is also where you started learning to play guitar. Yeah it is. Um, I got a guitar the summer before leaving for college. It was a slow summer between you between high school

and college and just waiting on school to start. Really, I guess camp to start football camp to start, which starts in August, and U I, uh, I didn't know for sure how I would progress because I didn't know whether or not I had any potential or to excel in music. And I was not too optimistic about, you know, how how good I might get on the guitar. But um, a buddy of mine got a guitar, bought a guitar

to pun shop. And I think I got got a little money from my parents, my mom, my parents, you know, like you graduate as a singer, and they gave me a little a little spending money and I just enough to get a guitar. And yeah, I was just but I just fell in love with it. I never could get into video games, and never anything that's card games, board games. I can't. It's hard for me to just sit still in one place in the house and do anything. But the guitar was the first thing that kept me

still for hours at a time. And I was just just so intrigued with with the guitar and and just learning to play so when you were learning to play, how did you go about that? And and what were the first songs that you learned to play? Yeah, that we had a little music store in my hometown, which was you know, it's one of those stores down on main Street where all the shops are have big glass front windows, and everything in the store was like thirty

years old. You know, there's like, uh, the song books with dust on them, and there's like these old instruments in the front front window display. Um. So I found a guitar there and it looked like I've been hanging on the wall for the teen years. And uh, and a in a song book that covered the most ground in terms of learning to play an instrument, and it was it had I think some songs. I think it may be simple Man by Leonard Skinner was one of

the songs that it broke down in there. And when you first learned to play, you know, you you you haven't learned even learned to play chords yet. Chords are kind of boring. But if you can pick out a little introducted like a song intro of of a song like simple Man, it has that little it's a c cord that you just do do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do do do, And you could play those bass notes and that was pretty easy to figure out.

And I thought that was so cool that, um that I could almost sound like the introduction to Simple Man without you know, within two days. And how did songwritings start for you? I think I got bored with playing other songs and um, you know, having a hard time making my guitar sounded like the song I was hearing, uh that I was trying to learn to play. So I just would get off on my own thing and start playing, um, making up chords or combining chords, and um, I used to I used to write quite a bit

during that time. Um, not songs, but just and I wouldn't even call it a diary either. Just I wouldn't call it poetry. I don't know what it was. It's just kind of stream of consciousness, free verse stuff. I would just write my thoughts and and try to create rhymes and and tell stories that and I guess it and I was, you know that they were song esque, but a lot of them would be If I were to pick up a guitar and sing, it would be

a ten minute verse, you know. But just write a lot of just writing stuff down, so and I tried to start just giving it some form. And I think the first two or three songs I wrote were we're songs that were an attempt to make my buddies laugh. I was trying to be funny. Something would have happened to a buddy of ours in some situation that we thought was a funny story, and I would take that story and turn it into a song. And just you know, that was my first I guess attempts because I didn't

want to. I was a little you know, I felt a little vulnerable. You know, I was an athlete growing up, and those two worlds didn't really overlap. In a small town like where I'm from. You either get into the arts or you play sports, and um and so uh. I think I was a little insecure about picking up a guitar and learning to play. So I just would try to be funny with my songwriting those first the first couple of years. You've got a cold and truth and got him, but I got no truth that you

showed up to just my head. So you're looking so good rating me out of mind or you're breaking You had a try out with the Kansas City Chiefs. Right, you were thinking sports was a lane for you, But then shortly after that you moved to Nashville. After college, I had an opportunity to go to the trial with the Kansas City Chiefs, but a career in the league in the NFL was still a long shot. And at that point I, UM I had pretty well decided I

wanted to live in Nashville and pursue music. UM I had been playing for four years on the guitar, and at that point I had written a few songs and I had gone out and started playing. We all hung out at the same two or three little bars music venues, and UM I would get up and maybe do two or three original songs every couple of weeks, and that was a lot of fun. And then I started UH.

I connected with a buddy down in jackson Jacksonville State, and he had a he was in a he he managed some fraternities and book bands for fraternity So I'd go down there like on a Saturday and play for an hour and a half before the football game came on, and did that. I went up to UT and did that. Did that Exmable State, UM I think Auburn. We went down to Auburn one afternoon and now that was a lot of fun. But that, um, that really piqued my interest. I mean, um in terms of pursuing a career in

music in some capacity. And that was before I even knew about the songwriting world. So I just packed up and moved to Nashville kind of with im just hoping to figure it out. So what do you tell your mom and dad? It's like, well, I'm I'm not gonna play football, which might be a bit of a relief because you know, um, I'm not gonna get injured doing that, but I'm gonna go to Nashville and make music. And was there any sense of like, well you could think

about earning a living. Yeah, there definitely was, especially for my dad. Yeah, And I think they thought, you know, I've had buddies who went out and went out west and worked at ski lodges, or or they guided fly fish and trips, or um, they went to Europe, you know other things like that. Some people went straight to work. But um, that's that's sort of a phase an era in life that you get the sense from the adults

in your life said Okay, they're gonna do this. For a couple of years, and they're gonna realize it's hard out there in the real world. They're gonna get a real job, and they'll wake up, and we're gonna even kind of passive aggressively push them towards that so that they do it sooner than later. Let you get this out of your system. Yeah that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah yeah. Even coming back home from Nashville, it's like you get that, oh, you're still doing the music thing, you know, and um, you kind of feel a little offended by that because you get the impression that they don't think that's gonna work out. What was Nashville like for you when you first got there. I mean it was exciting for somebody who had not really lived anywhere, had other than my hometown Cedar Sound and gone to school in Birmingham, which really consisted of going to class

and football practice. So I wasn't really experienced in the city necessarily. Um, but uh, it was like, you know, just having free reign in a new place where there

was lots of live music. Um. I was really really really obsessed with live music at that point because I was learning to play guitar and there was one place in Birmingham where I could go listen to live music, and it was a little bluegrass jam joint that UM every other other Tuesday they would have blue grass jams and I'd go there every Tuesday, kind of sitting the back and just listen and UM. When I got to Nashville, of course, you know there are a hundred places like

that where you can go listen to live music. So that was exciting for me getting to Nashville, UM and getting out and realizing that there were there's a lot of people out here around my age who are UM and and all levels of talent and and and ability out here pursuing this thing. So it's inspiring to see that and to being that kind of community. Tell me a little about that community and how you found your own sound, because that crowds such a key collaborator for you.

And you've talked a little about how when you first came to know him, he was really making beats for for hip hop, and I know we worked with Lacra and others, and he wasn't really versed in country music. Howd that community come together for you? How do you begin to find your sound? I signed my first publishing deal with a producer named Jimmy Ritchie, and he was

producing records like he produced a Mark Chestnut record. He grew up on the bluegrass circuits a really good player and a songwriter producer, and Uh, Jimmy Bowen was like his guy that he aspired to be, and he produced a lot a lot of Merl Haggard records. And my interests were I didn't know what I wanted to do. I loved old country music and I loved a lot

of UH music outside the genre. But being plugged into that little community of writers who were bone country, like that's all they wanted to write, I was like, well, that's good with me, and so I wrote. We wrote those songs for two or three years, and for for some reason, it never felt authentic. You know. I if we'd write the songs, we go demo him UM and UH, I just never quite felt like UM didn't feel very authentic when I would hear the demo. So it just

didn't feel like me. So then UM, I started to experiment with some other writers, and UH learned a lot from those writers I wrote with in that camp during that time. But it started to experiment with other writers and I was walking to the study in a in a published office one day and I heard a demo playing in the other room and I knew the guy who worked in front desk that was listening to the music.

And I walked up to him and asked him who who produced that music he was listening to and he said, Oh, that's a guy Za crowd He Um he worked with Ashley Gourley. Sum. He's a mostly worked in the pop world, but he's made some hip hop music for some local rappers over the years. UM, and I said, can you set me up with a co write with him? And he said, well, he hadn't really written a lot of country music. And I was like, I don't care. I just just set us up and if if, if he's

cool with it, and UM he did. He set us up and we just hit it off that first day. We both it was like I only found another like minded individual who saw the world the way I saw it and UM and we uh wrote a song that day and started working together. And UM at that point I decided, Okay, this is the guy that Uh I'd really like to be a big part of this this production on this music. Also UM Shane McNally and Josh Osborne were good buddies. Connected with those guys about about

two years before. That was a big part of my of making progress towards the um, you know, making the first record as well. But we were just missing we were missing just a little bit of urban influence that those Pops instabilities, whatever that was, and Zach brought that at the table, so it it really rounded the whole thing out, and finally the thing that I saw and heard and my head started to come together and make sense.

You've also talked about how when you first started playing out you didn't have money for bass player or a drummer, so you were using a drum machine. And so how did that all come into the sound of those first records on Between the Pines, like things like raised on it that feels like a manifesto, Like the lyrics are about a very specific place in world, but the music is pointing to almost a new place. Yeah, you know, I wasn't a great guitar player when I came came

to town. I got better over time, and writing was a little more difficult to write on just a guitar. I wrote songs on just a guitar and we write. For the first two or three four years, all we did was right with guitars. But when I got in a room where somebody could pull up a drum sound and we could throw music down and I don't have to every time I want to, like um, so, hey, what about this line, I don't have to pick up

the guitar and sing it. And you might in a moment of inspiration, you might sing a melody if nobody's recording it. I mean, it's gone out of my brain, and I might forget it ten seconds later. So the good thing about working with Zach and since then the town has gone that direction with with producers in in the room during co writes, because you can capture, you can have a microphone recording, and you can go into the booth and put down put down the lines as

placeholders as you're writing the song. So that was really helpful for me because I my my it's hard for me that my brain is not quite as organized and some of the other writers in town. So I need to get it down as soon as it comes to comes to my head, and that was really helpful. So but but also I was inspired by those drum sounds that were Um, that were a little more urban. I guess you could say, looking so good, shot me out

of my mind, all you're breaking. You mentioned that the town works a little more this way now, But but that kind of working method very typical for pop or hip hop, you know, like one line at a time. You know, Little Wayne used to talk about how he would just leave phone messages for himself back home, like just yeah, a couple of lines into the into the

into the answering machine or something like that. Yeah, that's I do the same thing, and I know a lot of people here intil do the same thing as well. But that there's also that you know, I think in that world you see now that I'm a little more familiar with it, you see guys who will get up on on the mic and just I mean cause you could call it freestyle, but just sort of sing melodies and and lyrics just off the top of their head, and a producer can capture that and start to piece

it together. And that was something that that really did well. So I would um a lot of that first record was the bones of those songs were just um, like the stream of consciousness off the top of the head in the in the booth. So he'll play a track and that inspiration when it hits you gotta jump to the mic. Quit because when it goes away, it's gone

and only last for a few minutes. But if you can just sing out everything that you hear and think at that moment is actual really good at capture and all that, and you know, staying this melody you sing here, it feels like a great verse melody. And what you did here in the chorus, even though you kind of were just mumbling a lot of the lyric. Once you get that structure in place, then you can sit down with a pen and pad and fill in the blanks. So that was like a new something that Zach brought

to the table. That was really helpful for me. And when you see the first record, are you talking about now between the Pines or yeah? That that one of those songs which a lot of those songs were also on Mona Vala, but mainly but Mona Valo. The songs that were on Mona Valo a lot of those songs. So that record comes out and it really tears up

the country charts, phenomenally successful. It does well. Yeah, and I think a lot of that had to do with you mentioned Between the Pines, I put out an acoustic we caught it a mix that it was just acoustic songs that we put up on SoundCloud for free. Um, the summer before I don't know, is that you was it the summer the year before put out my develop At that point, a lot of people were finding their music on the internet. You know, that was before Spotify,

but SoundCloud was big. Um, people found artists on YouTube. So people were digging around on the internet, especially like pure music fans, and those are the fans who who really dig and find like up and coming artists, and they are the people that really kind of the trend setters and taste makers. They'll go tell that they'll they'll tell everybody they know about something they're excited about. Unfortunately, we were able to get some of those people on

board early on and they they drive. We got in a van and started tour and you know, even before the record came out, and they would you know, there'd be people from two states over showing up for the shows. And that was when I started. It just started blew in my mind that people were that excited about the music.

But they would tell me stories about finding the music, and then they'd have a group of buddies who would say, yeah, my buddy or my girlfriend found this music and we've been listening to it and telling all our friends about it. And it just slowly grew that way. And that was before you know, radio or or the record level really got involved. But I think that helped that first record.

It built the foundation so that when we did put out Mono Valo, there was even though the record label didn't have a they couldn't figure out why it was it was having. You know, they read the charts and do the research, and they can't figure out why this record was doing well. And I don't think the towns or industry was quite yet onto the fact that the Internet was a really powerful tool for upcoming artists in

this in this era. Right. But but you've already been out there and you've encountered, you'd seen firsthand that there was an audience who who was craving to hear things the way you heard things, right, And that really um excited me just about a feeling like I had a place, because I started to feel like after the first few years, like maybe there's not a place for me in country music.

Maybe I just need to try to write for other artists and not let my personal tastes or interest or the way I would say it if I were an artist. Let's kind of put that aside and just try to write for the voice of artists who are existing on radio now. And but fortunately, those those people who were coming out of the shows, they you know, that opened my mind and get me some optimism in terms of like a whole another market out there who were They may be country music fans, but they were open to

a different take on music. Absolutely. So this record is is so massive, and then you begin to follow it up with a couple of songs here and there. But body Body like a back Road, of course, which which sets a record on the Billboard Country Charts for the longest longest running number one. But then it's like five and a half years for us to get to south Side. Yeah, and I could ask you what took so long, but you're pretty upfront about it, Like the first song on

the record, Steen, You're you're pretty clear it took a minute. Yeah, that that pretty well explains kind of what was going on for the most part. Yeah, So I was just sorting a lot of things out trying to map out the next five teen years, which is something I had not really paid much attention to up unto that point, I had really just I was living day to day, a week to week, you know, um, enjoy all life

and just everything that was going on. But I needed to do a little I need to make some big decisions. I was at a point in my life where they were crossroads finally showing up, like not many I had not really really had to face any crossroads yet that had um long term implications, you know, as far as

the decisions I was gonna want to make. And um, I was at a point in life where Okay, now it's time to commit to some things that uh are going to really be important decisions looking back, you know, ten, fifteen, twenty years from now. So uh, they kind of freaked me out. So I took a step back and and said, Okay, let me make sure that I'm in a in a in the state of mind and spiritually in a place to feel connected enough to the guiding like so that I make sure I make these right decisions. So you

mentioned big decisions, you mentioned commitment. Uh. One thing that happened in Seen you got married. Yeah, congratulations, thank you, or as we say here in New York muscle time, I appreciate it. So what other big decisions, what other things we're factoring in that five to ten year plan you just mentioned? What other things were you thinking about, because because that's a big one, that's that listen, I would take some time off just to think that through

truth be told, I did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean that, you know, the doing life with one person and spending and spending your life with one person is a big decision. And then along with that family that you want our kids, something that I've always wanted kids, you know, growing up in a small town. That's something that I always just naturally felt like, Yeah, I want to be a father. One day I felt closer to the stars. I felt forgiveness in my heart. Are you I saw the light

in the dog? You feel like fly take me down? Whether it is I wasn't. I I never felt like I was saying you. Always felt like I could talk to God in them. And I never really put a lot of philosophical thought into what I was getting into when I got into music, in terms of how I wanted to spend my the next twenty years, Like how what I wanted to what I felt like I had to offer to the world, and and whatever tools I might have and how how could I put those to

the best use? And I chose music because that seemed like it was fun and I didn't want to get a real job, you know, when I was twenty two, and UM, I needed to think about it a little more than that, just trying to decide what success looked like within within choosing music, you know, um, what what where? Where would I be? Where will I be happy and content? How much tour and how many records I need to put out? What? What's the music need to look like? Um? What? Um?

What type of venues do I feel like? Um? I'd like to play based on that? And um So those were decisions I was I was making as well. But UM, I realized also during that time I might be over overthinking it and just to try, you know, I was able to control it so well up until the point that it just got out of my control, and that

that freaked me out a little bit too. It's like, Okay, I really had my finger on the pulse of this thing, and I could I could press the gas a little bit, and I could feel it speed up, and I could let off and I could feel it slow down, but it got to a point where it just it took off out of my control. So, um, I couldn't I couldn't, you know, I don't know. I couldn't control it quite as much. And that freaked me out a little bit.

The thing that happens to a lot of people is you're chasing after music, you're chasing after success, and it looks from the outside like you're chasing after something like fame, but you're not really. And when fame catches you, then who's in control you or the fame part of it? And and that can be confusing, right yeah? Um, yeah

for sure. And and it changes the dynamic of basically every situation that you're in every day at all times, whether it be even going back home to a family function or a family get together now, something that I've done for twenty seven years. If it why does it feel different? Now? Wow? These conversations are different, the way taking pictures with relatives feels strange. Yeah, because you got a song on the new record breaking up is Easy

was easy in the nineties. You're talking about the pre pre Instagram era of breaking up, right, but also family reunions were easier before Instagram or just being out in public. You might say it might have been easier, right, It applies to the whole of your life, right, Yeah, I think so. And it's and it's you know, it's it's really cool. I mean, being coming from a small town, if somebody from my hometown had success in the country

music industry, I want to know all about it. I don't want to like ask all those questions tends and get the scoop on what it's like. But I like talking about you know, Um, I mean we're having a conversation right now about like my experience over the last few years. But typically in a conversation, I like to ask the questions and and like I want to talk about other people and what's going on with you, you know.

But but for the most part, you end up having a lot of conversations about yourself, and that's that can feel a little funny. And so, yeah, fame is something that is it's not really really natural and I don't want to complain or seemingly grateful, so I try not to talk about it too much. But um, it is something that has a psychological effect on on your brain.

I think, um, even chemically, I bet if you know, I don't know that we we haven't studied people who have been exposed to fame for years and years and years. I don't guess, because it's not a whole lot of people, but I bet it changes. You know, that much um

stimulation affects your brain in some way. And that's something that I was kind of scared of because I met a few people who have been famous for a long long time, and I was like, huh, is this something that is inevitable if you're exposed to this this this much stimulation over years and years. So that scared me a little bit too. You were just saying during that time between records, you you were taking some time to to think about things you'd never necessarily approached it philosophically.

And suddenly I remembered, you did study philosophy in college, and you're gonna shrug this off a little bit. But I found an old interview where you were talking about how when you made the video for Downtown is Dead, you went off to Mexico to film the video and you were reading Nietzchi Oh yeah, yeah, UM, so intrigued by like those those thinkers, Like I can't reach that level of thinking. But that's that's the way that I think,

you know, questioning everything. And yeah, but the philosophy classes. I don't know if that was the best or worst thing that ever happened to me. Well, if you're the kind of guy who takes Nietzche to Mexico, I I gotta say maybe maybe it was a good influence. I don't know. Yeah, it um, reading those guys for some reason just brings a piece to me to give me. Um. And because of those guys are a lot of that stuff over my head. But but I am really intruded

to those to those things. I want to get back to south Side and UH ask you a little bit. Just let's start with the album title south Side is is it is? South Side? Are you thinking? Is that a place? Is it an idea? Is that a culture? Because I mean the first thing I think of is I vibed right away on that Goody Mob song from Dirty South. Yes exactly. Yeah, all the things you mentioned captured I tried to capture with that that album title. Um, but um, yeah, it's all those things the south side

of town. It's it's when you think of the south side of town, you think of this melting pot of of culture and people and and um Tyson music and and just a lifestyle and mindset and um there's a

grittiness of toughness typically with those people. Um and uh, I just really relate to that all of that and and uh the place that I grew up even though it's a really small town, you know, Um, I didn't necessarily grow up on the south side of the little town that I grew up in, but it felt like our whole town was the south side of a place, you know. Um, So um, yeah, it just it just felt felt right for this record. You're talking about melting pot,

and that I think really brings us too hard to forget. Yeah, you know, when when I heard this song right away, Now, this really makes good on that idea that's talked about a lot when people like me talk about you of mixing country and hip hop, because it's hooked to this classic country song, this web Pier song there stands the Glass. It's from the fifties. Web Piers, a classic country singer,

but you deploying it as a hip hop style sample here. Yeah, that was I think that was The conundrum I was in when I first moved to town was that I love this traditional country, but also I love this other genre of music and this other style of music. And I kept going back and forth, and I was like, well, is there a way to just kind of draw out my favorite parts of both? And a lot of a lot of times that doesn't work, Um, just kind of let them be. But but sometimes I think it can work.

And I don't know. After Mona Volo was successful, I think after experimenting a lot with different styles of music, I think when I landed on in that lane, it was like, Okay, this is where I feel like I can live and be successful and this this feels like meat, you know, this feels authentic and so uh, I think I'm just building off of off of that, and Hard to Forget was the most obvious version of of that thus far, taking a song from the nineteen fifties and

putting the be behind it and writing to hold you song to it. And I wanted a sample of song for a while. Obviously that's been done. You know, people have sampled UH music for for years, um, and I've I've wanted to try that in country music. But he just hadn't been able to find the right song and

I didn't want it to do. I didn't want to do it just as a trick, which has been happening long enough now that I wouldn't call it a wave or a trend, but it's it's something that's effective I think in music, and um, I've heard an artists from other genres do it and do it well. So I wanted to do that for a while. And I can't take credit for that song. I heard that song after walking into a co write with a buddy of mine, Luke Lair, who Um, he and I share tasting music

and uh he had made that track. Um, I think knowing that I would be into it, and he was right. He played that for me and U and uh that I knew that was the one, you know, if I was going to sample of songs that after like to writ. You know, it's really interesting too that it's a web Pier song because if you know a little about web Piers. Yeah, he was a classic guy. He was a flashy guy. He had these pimped out rides, these cadillacts done up

with silver dollars. He wore the Nuty suits which came out of l A and you don't see country singers wearing those kind of things now, but you see post Malone dressed up like that. Yeah, you don't get the sense that he was like a hardcore traditionalist um for that era. You know, looking back now, we associate that with traditional country, but at that time that was pretty progressive in terms of being flashy and in a conservative genre.

And it gets into the idea that that there was this dynamic of people pushing the boundaries or working outside the rules for a long time. That's a big tradition. You could go back to Buck Owens, you know, an we think of him now as classic country, but he took guph for being too rock and roll. Black and white culture, you know, has has overlaps in country music forever and I love it. I think it it has been an important part of the progress and the relations

race relations over you know, over the decades. That Kim Burns documentary does a good job of making that point. And I would really impressed to see that and really excited about what Kim Burns did with that documentary because it makes that point pretty well. You talked a little bit about the thought process that went into this and the sense if I know you recorded some with actual hip hop producers, Um, those cuts didn't really make the record. But but this is a record you've been it's been

a long time, justest dating. And if I go back to you told bill Board at some point you might want to make a record that's more purely R and B, but you might also like to make an acoustic record that's more traditionally country. And if you listen to south Side, it feels like you did do both of those things with this record. Looking at it now, I don't think I was necessarily consciously doing that. I think when I stopped thinking that just it just naturally overlaps and blends.

And that's kind of what I did with this record. I think for a couple of years, I was trying to compartmentalize everything and really control it too much, and and and you know, either make a country record or R and B record, And I got to a point where I was like, I just need to make a record, and so I stepped back and just wrote songs without

thinking about it too much. And of course, naturally what comes out is kind of a blend of the two worlds, and that's what happened with south Side, And how did the process change for you in between Montebello and South Side? Because I get the impression you're a bit of a perfectionist. I guess you could call it like a control freak. I'll try to control the process a little too much.

And I think with um that first record, you know wrote those songs, you know a lot of that stuff out of your control, like you know, the ideas, So where did this idea come from? Where did this melody come from? This? This magic, this whatever, this happened in this room today, and you kind of want to take credit for it. You want to feel like, oh, yeah, I did that by moving this over here and moving this over here, and then it became what it what

it is, But you can't really control it. You you kind of have to just put yourself in an environment where you can be creative and just hope, hope a little magic comes from that. And I think I tried to control a little too much and also tried to make every every line just perfect, and UM got in a way by myself a little bit. So UM, I had to step back and kind of let this record just happen. And UM, I learned a lot how to kind of relearn how to make a record because it's

been so long since I made that first record. Again, I'm just flashing back to that interview that I mentioned stumbling across. You were talking to Bobby Bones and and you're promising, Oh, I've I've got this song that I'm gonna put out and it's gonna come in like, oh, maybe a couple of weeks, maybe months. Took more like two years. Yeah. There there was one song nothing Lasts Forever on this record that I had at that time and planned on putting putting out. But the single that

we put out Downtown is dead. It didn't quite have the mad it and I was like, I need I gotta.

I made a decision at that point to stop just putting out singles, which is what I thought I could do for a little while, and I realized that I needed to dig in and get a full record out because it was I felt like it was a little unfair to the fans too, who wanted to hear more music for me to continue to tour at a at a pace that kept me from digging in and making a record, And um, I I felt like at a certain point I realized that I owed it to the people who put me in the position, and I was

in to step back and put some TLC into a record put it out. So with this record, was there a concentrated moment where you you went in and thought, okay, we gotta finish now that it was the clock ever on? Is what I mean to say. Yeah, I would say

two thousand nineteen. So I came off the road with Luke Luke bryant Um in September of two thousand eighteen, and I decided at that point I was going to write for twelve months and put whatever came of that out, And two or three of the songs were around, and ended up making the record that it existed before that September, But the clock basically started ticking that September, and uh, it felt like it started ticking faster about September of

two thousand nineteen. You write the record, and you think you got the songs, and then you get in the studio and start producing it, and then you get you start falling into that same trap of trying every instrument and every different variation and then okay, we gotta just if it feels good, go with it, and so that's

what I did in the ninth hour. It was like just roll and I learned, you know that, Uh, the ninth hour is like a cure for a d h D. It's like it there's something about like a clock ticking that makes your brain focus and you can really get

a lot more done. But it was amazing how without that clock I could just sit there and not really have any ideas as soon as that clock tick was ticking like those a few of those songs were written like the week before I turned them in or finished, you know the verses, after spending a month trying to figure out how to you know, finish it, and then all of a sudden, Okay, in thirty minutes, you write the verses and turn it in because you have to.

That deadline brings some clarity and there are people, great people who work that way. You two used to talk about this all the time, that they would have like fifteen versions of the song and then like right before the deadline to finish the record, the fourteenth would emerge and that's the that was the classic one. Or Kanye is the great example. He's gonna basically run it like a basketball game. He's gonna run the shot clock until it's out, and with him, he's gonna keep mixing, remixing

the records once they're out. Now, yeah, that's true, and you can, you can definitely suck the life out of a song because that thing that you know you want to take credit for that it's hard to really take credit for. What you think about it is that it is the inspiration, which is which happens. It's a fleeting thing. But creativity in that context really um is when you're when you're you're most creative is when you're inspired and

you just gotta let go and let it happen. And typically those are those are the best songs, the ones that you you don't overthink. I know what it feels like crossing the line, but I never felt shamed, never feel sorry, never felt guilty touching your body as long is your for me, as long is I'm for you? Good? So, which ones were the ninth hour songs? Here? And I

think you said that Ain't Beautiful was one of them? Yeah, that was like a voice memo, that was just a voice note of lyrics that that I just sang down one time and yeah, it was done last minute. I don't. I wouldn't say it was done last minute, that it was actually written or I recorded it over his acts like two and a half years ago. But he played

it for me and I've forgotten about it. He was like, remember this thing, and he played it and it hit me and I thought, and I forgot about that, And I don't even know what headspace I was in at that time, and I so I can't. I feel like it's not finished and it needs a better chorus, and it needs a third verse. It I don't. I can't tap into that state of min because I don't remember what I was thinking about when when that was written. So we just put it out as it was and

then uh breaking up in the nineties. It was another one that that chorus. We had that chorus and idea, but I didn't didn't have the verses and so um, I had to write the verses pretty quickly, and um, yeah, those were a couple. I'm trying to think they all. I mean, we I remember the last week just making at least a change, so about every song on the

record except for one or two. Again, I'm reminded of that Bobby Bones interview from twenty team where he asked you about Body on the Back Road, and you respond, I was listening to it last night and I thought, well, maybe the drums should the guitar should have kept going, and the drums should have and I was like, this song is the biggest song in country music, and here's this guy going what we could have done better? Yeah,

I mean that's amazing. Well, that's the thing about success that is, well not success, but uh, everything subjective with music, So nobody knows when it's finished. Who's like when it when it feels right? I mean, you just you just gotta say, at some point, this is it. So Sam, I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a clue to when it's finished. When it is one of the longest running number one songs on the country chart, it's pretty much done. Then you're still thinking about oh yeah, yeah, you're still

thinking about how it could be better. So, yeah, it's perfection is undertainable, that's for sure, I guess. So I guess that's right. But I mean music maybe, well, no, I think in most things, let's let's face it, we're we're just men. We're not God's you know, that's for somebody else to deal with but but but there are these guys who work at it that way. I just

mentioned Kanye. But the thing I really think of is these stories about Bruce Springsteen making Born to Run and spending like five days arguing over what you should sound like. You know that kind of thing. You know that that level of perfectionism is it can yield some interesting results. Yeah, yeah, you. I don't know if it's it's if it's the desire to be perfect, or if it's a fear of messing

up something that it could be better. So so so like an anxiety about getting it wrong right, That's that's the biggest thing I think is like an anxiety about messing up. You see the potential of something this has, this has a lot of potential, this idea or this this sound on this song, man, I'd hate for it not to live up a potential because I didn't do my due diligence. So um, I think that's what it is, more than it is trying to be perfect. One last song,

I want to ask you about Sitting with you. You've talked about this. You said that it was it was written more in a late at night kind of vibe and more like when you were first learning to play the guitar, and that that's something we started off talking about. So I wonder if you could tell me a little more about this song than where it came from. Yeah, that was Um. When I was writing songs before moving

to Nashville. UM, it was all emotion. It was just pick up a guitar and playing a minor chord, feel something and whatever comes to your brain. You know, Brian just starts saying the words, singing the melodies, and UM, don't get caught up in structure too much, or is this something that would work on the radio, or what are all the different ways you could write this title?

And instead it was like writing when I first picked up the guitar after moving to Nashville and sitting in rooms with two or three people and talking it all out and looking at it from every angle and and doing the whole process. Um, you learned the process and how to craft a song. But then but that song was more just just let it come out. And so that was that. First I had the first person chorus finished and or or up most of the chorus finished.

Um that night. Then the night that I was just messing around the guitar and then I took it in the next day, uh through with a couple of buddies, and we finished it. So that was legit one that that started at home with just you late at night,

pouring your heart out to yourself and your guitar. Yeah, and I should go back to writing that way more, and I probably will going forward, But a lot of times it's I'll only go as far as getting a title or a concept, and then I'll wait till I get in the room with a producer or find the music and get up on the mic and really sing and explore which direction to go, and you get in an emotional state to be when you're inspired in the room. But also it's a little more professional. I guess it's

it's that's that's the best way to put it. It's a little more of a professional approach as opposed to um at home, where you're can be vulnerable enough to say a line that might be a little too true. You might not say that out loud, and CO write, it's the song this right so long, why I did

never feel like sing? Co writes for for folks who don't know that that Nashville way of doing things, someone might come into the room with a concept or an idea, and then you spend time flashing that out and and and and it happens in a sort of more regimented than free flowing way, like you know, five o'clock you might be done. Yeah, And I've gone away from that approach over the years, just because I'm not great in

that environment. Some people are. They put the songwriter hat on and there, well, this is how you write that idea and turn the nuts and bolts and get the song finished. And a lot of cool songs are written that way. But that's another thing with with writing for me is what it's hard for me to write some people because you develop relationships with the people that you're right with, and um, you kind of have to have that relationship to be a little more vulnerable in the room.

But it's funny you you talk about how you're not necessarily good at at writing that way. But when I was listening to and you said, this was not a song where you were trying to be songwriter clever putting it together, but I was like, every single line in this song could be a country song. Like if I walked into the room and said, hey, I've got an idea, let's put the whiskey back of the bottle. We could write that song. I came into the room and said, I wish I could put the tears back in her eyes.

We could write that song. I came into the room and said, hold on, I gotta take some girls off of my phone. We could write that song. Like that's almost like three different songs. Yeah, that's interesting that. Um, most of it was written the same way. Sent him with you was at least conceptually. Then you go back like a puzzle. Once you get the the corners and the edges together, you kind of go back and then

start the paces and at all. But yeah, that that one, I would put it in the same category of standing with you well amazing. Um and and and and the last thing I wanted to ask you was you talked a little bit about on the first record your wife and that was your girlfriend then and your ex girlfriend your wife. You talked about how you ran the songs by her. You wanted her to to know what these songs were saying. Was that something that you did in

this process as well? Yeah? Yeah, I did that. Um, any song that that that I put out that was told a little more of my personal story. Uh yeah, I'll always run those by her. And uh, she's kind of my spiritual advisor in that regard, like she can kind of she feels when something is like all or something doesn't need to be put out, or or if I'm saying something the wrong way. She signed off on two. And then even the song that I put out a few years ago called Drinking too Much, she signed up

on that one as well. So, but yeah, I always run to run the song by her, and I run a lot of songs by her, but especially the ones that maybe uh a little more true, I guess you could say. But but she didn't just sign off on Drinking too Much? Didn't she play some piano on it as well? Yeah? She did? Um, yeah, I wanted I wanted her to just have her energy on it. If for a lack of better way of putting it, so, your spiritual advisor blessed you with a little bit of

a spiritual or gospel song on that track. Yeah, through playing how great they thou art? Right? That's right? Yeah, just a little little soft piano melody at the end. Is there any chance, because I know you must have recorded a lot of music for this record. Is there any chance, Drake Style, you're gonna sneak up on us with a demos record at some point. I've thought about it. I've I've definitely kept kept um. I wouldn't gonna want to call him stragglers, but the the Misfits, I keep

them in a pile. So we'll see. Maybe maybe there there'll be a time when here's your album title right there, misfits right, Uh, yeah, we'll see. I'm I do. I am hell being on putting out more music going forward because uh, you know, five years was too long to go without putting out music, and so I'm gonna try to make up for lost time over the next five years. Well, we're looking forward to it. Sam, thank you so much for being here. Thanks man. Good chat with Inside the Studio.

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