Jamey Johnson

Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast. My guest today is the one and only Jamie Johnston. Jamie, you just put out a new album, Midnight Gasoline, your first in fourteen years. But what's the break.

About a lot of different things? I guess, Uh. One, I'd just been on the road, uh, seemingly NonStop and just didn't have time to write, didn't have time to record. But there's also writer's block, and writer's block came in, I guess from a head injury.

So tell me about this head injury.

Yeah, I was walking out of the studio one night. Tw and I were leaving, uh, my studio and stepped out onto the asphalt and it had frozen over while we were inside working, And as soon as I took a step on the asphalt, both of my feet came up and broke the fall with the corner of my head and I hit so hard that blood shot out both nostrils, and of course we got cleaned up and went on to the bar.

Okay, you went to went to the bar. Did you ultimately go to the emergency room or see a doctor.

Yeah, it was a couple of days later, and i'd had a concussion.

Okay, so the blood you were bleeding, but you didn't have like a brain bleed, which could kill you.

What it didn't?

So you know, I know, and I haven't had a concussion myself, but I know people who have. So you're after effects went on for a long time. How long did the after effects the concussion last?

Years? I think the first time I really addressed it, I did this program out in Scottsdale, Arizona. Back then it was called brain State Technology. A man named Lee Gertis came up with a technique of basically playing back your brain activity in your ears real time, and it's like your brain can detect itself and fix itself in certain ways. I remember Lee telling me, he said, I don't have to know exactly how the brain works. The brain knows how it works, and it knows how it

Okay, so when did this fall happen?

It's two thy ten?

And do you think you're fully recovered? Now?

I don't know what to think now, but it's a lot better than it used to be, but it's still not like it was before, if that makes any sense.

Yeah, sure there's improvement. When it was bad, what was it like?

Everything seemed to put me in fight or flight. It was like I was walking around nine point nine out of ten almost all the time, and you and I could be having a conversation and you'd say one thing that triggered me, and it would absolutely infuriate me to the point I need to separate myself from you. Different things like that. It was like parts of it were uncharacteristically angry about things, and the other parts were there. You know. Songwriting used to be something that was an

Okay, in this period of years when you were having the after effects of the concussions, were you on your own or was there continuing medical treatment or did you have a significant other orho was helping you? What was going on now?

I never really had any help with it. If I ever did anything to treat it, it was, you know, suggestions I would get from a friend here or there, and things that I would try out well that didn't work, and then just go back on the road. It's not easy to get any kind of medical care when you're constantly touring.

So if this lead date, do you believe your ability to write songs is fully re establish itself.

I feel like I'm able to do it now, and that's something that I haven't felt in a long time. And I never really did quit. You know, I tried and I but my productivity level suffered as a result, and it was more important to me over the past. Ever, how many years that I tour, you know, that's what was paying the bills.

So despite all these after effects, you could play and you could go on the road. Yeah, how difficult was that for you?

I wouldn't say it was difficult. It was you know, touring is the road trades everybody the same, you know, it's it's the same level of stress and struggle that everybody else has to go through. Those of us who travel understand it doesn't It doesn't trade anybody any differently. So I can't say it wasn't some kind of work, but I don't think the road was any more work as a result of a concussion.

Okay, Willie Nelson legendarily got home and still slept on the bus. And there are different ways to travel. At the other extreme, there are acts the play stadiums where they are in one location and they take a jet to each gig. So you know, although all roadwork is stressful, depending on the income, it can be more stressful. Would you say that.

There's all kinds of ways to do it, and I've done it most of those ways. But yeah, there were a lot of years there where I just lived on the bus. I remember one year I went six or eight months something like that and never even saw my house.

And you know, some people that are on the road because they have to make a living. Other people, I know they're on the road because they just have to play.

What's it for you, I'd say sort of both. I could never come off of the road altogether and just give it up. That's not in me. I'm more like Willy in that regard. But I am getting to a point where I don't have to be on the road three hundred days a year anymore.

You know.

I've got a you know, Fyonce, and had to get married, and so I'm looking for more of a lifestyle.

Well where'd you meet her?

We met at the governor's inauguration in Mississippi in twenty twenty.

Wait wait wait, wait, hey, what were you doing at the inauguration? B how'd you meet her?

Well? All good questions. I got an invitation in the mail to go to the inauguration from the governor's brother, who is a friend of mine. He supports our annual NICKI Mitchell golf tournament every year. And I remember when when Todd and I first became friends, his brother was the lieutenant governor. Well, I didn't even know he was running for governor. We just don't talk about that sort

So? Was it an instant romance? Oh?

I can't say instant, but on my behalf it sure was.

So who pursued who?

Oh? You kid? And I chased her all over the place after that. If I wasn't on the road, I was making my way back to Jackson, Mississippi.

And how hard was she to catch?

She's nearly impossible. Took some doing.

So what sealed the deal?

Well, you know it ain't over yet. This is that wedding, ain't till May, so there's probably still some room. I don't know. I think I must be that kind of guy that she never thought she would meet. And she's certainly the kind of woman I never thought I would meet.

And what's her life about?

Well, she's an attorney. When I met her, she was working with the State Supreme Court. She left that job and got a gig working for the Attorney General. And when she left them, she went to work with Morgan and Morgan oh so, but she is incredibly smart, incredibly beautiful, and she comes from the coast and I believe the term is coon ass, but she's just a gorgeous coon ass Mississippi lawyer.

Okay, you're a musician who lives his life on the road, So what's it gonna look like when you're married?

Well, I guess that's what we're trying to carve out right now. I can't stay on the road as much as I used to, and I don't want to, you know, I want to come home and have a have a better version of a life with her.

And does she plan to continue to work? And where do you plan to live?

She is definitely going to continue to work. We're probably going to have house, a house in Nashville for my music business, and probably a place down in Mississippi. And her whole family's from m Kill.

And so you're going to have children?

Oh, I don't know. We'll find out.

Okay, you're forty nine. How old is she today?

She's thirty three.

Okay, Well, the reason I asked is, you know, in terms of having children, age can make a difference. Let me go back a step. You talked about the governor's brother going to your fundraiser golf tournament. Are you a golfer?

I wasn't until Willie, and golf ain't even the worst thing he got me hooked on when I had quit drinking in twenty eleven and I kind of needed something to pour all my time into, and Willie invited me to go to his He called it his first annual Fourth of July golf tournament, what turned out to be his only annual fourth at golf tournament. And I learned how to swing a club and hit a golf ball at Willy's course. It was a burden Aalics country club,

Okay, so you got sober, Willy invited you, you went to the event. How much have you played thereafter?

I guess for the first few years after that. I took it on as an assignment. And I mean I was out there on the course every time it rain or shine. It didn't matter, man. I would turn around, get out there and go spend hours out there, hitting about a thousand balls a day, that sort of thing, especially after Alice Cooper told me that that was really what kept him off the bottle for a while. He said he leaned on golf too.

So how much do you play now? And how good are you?

I'm not good at all. I do enjoy it, but it's not one of those things that ever registered with me. I still can't go out there and you know, put one right up the middle every time. I have to go out there and figure out what am I doing wrong today? But I enjoy it.

But how much do you play now?

I probably four or five times a year. I just don't have a whole lot of time for it anymore.

Okay, how does Jamie Johnson from Alabama country musician meet Alice Cooper?

It would have been at one of his shows, and he was opening for Rob Zombie. And I remember that night pretty well because we went back and forth. We went and saw Alice's show first, and then we drove from that venue to the Rhyme and caught Don Williams set, and left Don Williams and got back over to Alice This show right about the time Rob Zombie was on his second or third song, so we got to see all three of them in one night.

Okay, you happened to look a little bit in terms of you know your hero or whatever like Rob Zombie. But what were you doing there to begin with? You were Rob Zombie fan?

Well, I had definitely heard of him because back then, before my hair turned blonde and gray and everything else when it had some color in it, I was constantly getting confused for Rob Zombie. And when I met him, I told him my name, he said, oh, you're Jamie Johnson. I now looked at him and I said, yeah, well, I see it now too. But I wasn't very familiar with his music until that night. But man, he is

Okay, how did you meet Willie.

H through Pooty?

Okay, tell me that story.

Well, Pooty Locke was one of Willie's old friends. They went, they went back a long time. Pooty's business card with Willie said he was the vibe coordinator. That's his role on the Willie Nelson to her back then, Well, I met Pooty at the exit in in Nashville, and all I knew about him that night was everybody kept saying, that's Pooty, he's with Willie. Well, I went and introduced myself. We shook hands, told a few jokes. I bought him a beer, he turned around, We traded numbers and just

Okay, you played farm Maid. How did you go one on one with Willy? And were you instant friends? What was going on?

Yeah, that was pretty well immediate. I had met Willy, but it was in nineteen ninety seven at a show he did in Auburn, Alabama, and it was brief. I just got in a line of folks that were hanging out outside his bus, and of course I had my guitar and just like everybody else, hey would you sign

Are you know? You talked about introducing yourself to whody. Is that your personality that you go up and introduce and me connections?

I did back then, but I was also kind of the new guy and the music business and was still kind of in a mode of network and I guess at the time. Now I don't hardly ever go out the bars, but uh, but back then, it was it was my It was normal.

Okay, But you've been in the business for decades. Are you the type of guy who knows everybody or just the people. No.

I know who I know, And every now and then I might meet somebody that walks up and introduces themselves. And I meet people all the time that you know I probably should.

Know, so generally speak you know, some people I know, they're on the road or they're home. They're on their computers, they're sending messages to all these people they know. They may not even see them for a while because they're on the road. Are you the type of person who keeps contact with your friends.

I try to. I try to keep up with people I love, and sometimes it's possible and sometimes it's just not. But I feel like I surround myself with the kind of friends that it's all right if you go go awhile and you're not able to catch up. But I mean I have to these days. It seems like I have to schedule time to think about something.

So are there one or two people that you can really rely on?

I've got way more than one or two. I'm a very fortunate man in that regard. I'm surrounded by people who love me.

And are those people from people you grew up with, people you met in the music business, People you just met in passing.

Some are everything, you know. I've got friends that I've had since Man, there's a family of them down in Montgomery I've known since I was three or four years old. You know, the Walley family. But I've got some other friends from elementary school, go back to first grade. And I've got brand new friends that that I love just as dearly as if we have known each other for twenty years.

And I mean, I realize you're on the road so much, and after you're on the road, if you're home, you don't want to leave. But generally speaking, are you the kind of guy who if I say, hey, Jamie, you know we're gonna go to this guy's house, there'd be some good people there, you're gonna say no, or you're gonna say yeah, that sounds good.

I'm gonna say no, and I'm gonna be overruled by Britney. Who's gonna remind me you're supposed to be getting out and mingling with people and getting to know people.

Let's go, Okay, that's good.

I'm an introvert. I like to stay home and reach charge the battery when I can.

So you're still sober, right, Yes, sir, So, how do you fill your time when you're home or when you're on the road not performing?

I would say I feel most of it writing songs and recording in the studio, and I read a good bit.

What do you read?

That depends?

I mean, I'm a big reader. There's magazines, there's newspapers, there's fiction, there's nonfiction.

Yeah, I've read all of it. Uh. I like the classics, like a good Stein back Okay, I like JD. Sallenger. He didn't uh, he didn't write much, but man when he did, it was easy to get locked into his writer's voice.

Absolutely.

It just kind of puts you puts me in a in a mode. I don't usually pick up a Sallenger without reading every single one of them back to back.

Uh.

Here. Lately, my my book of choice, oddly enough, has been the the Bible. I started from Genesis and I guess it's been about almost two months ago and right now I'm finishing up Jeremiah.

Did you study that stuff as a kid or is this the first or second time around or what?

I can't say I studied it, but I did hear all the stories. And you know, I like to say I read it, but I read it with a young mind and I haven't read it since. And the things that I have read I probably read twenty five years ago or so, and this is my first time reading them at this age with a little bit more life seasoning, and the stories kind of hit different.

So what inspired you to pick it up?

It's hard to say. There's probably a lot of different factors playing into that.

Okay, are you a religious man?

I think we all are to a degree, and I'd say right now my degree has intensified over the past several months.

Was there a reason it was intensified?

Probably a lot of life change is happening at one time. It's a first record I've put out in fourteen years. It's also getting engaged and having that wedding day coming. But it's also some friends passing away and that sort of thing.

Friends died before their time.

Yeah, that's happened a lot. You know. I've had a lot of friends asked away, way to you.

From misadventure or illness or accidents.

Well, some of both, some of everything, you know. Some I had one of them that overdosed, one of them that died from type one diabetes, one of them got shot in the head.

Tell me about the guy being what were the circumstances that he gets shot in the head?

Well, the best I understood it was he was smoking inside a bar and the bar owner didn't want him smoking in there. And uh, I don't know what was said back and forth, but Wayne was the kind of guy that had the innate ability to absolutely uh infuriate somebody with his words. He could make you so mad with just a pointed comment. And he wasn't the kind of guy that went around looking for trouble. But it definitely found him that night.

The guy shot him in the bar.

Yeah.

Did the guy pay at the price for that, go to jail or anything?

Yeah, he did. He was convicted and I think he might still be in jail. And do you want a gun, Yes, sir, oh quite a few.

Are you type of person who has it purely for defense or are you a hunter or target shooter?

Well? I grew up in the country, and you didn't necessarily have a gun out in the country for people. You had it because if you were going to be walking around anywhere, it might be a snake, it might be a cootie, could be something dangerous that you needed protection. From it probably wasn't going to be a burglar breaking in your house. So I grew up around guns, and uh,

So when was the last time you fired a gun?

It's it's probably been a couple of years now. No, I can't say that I killed a I killed a nail. Last year I went up to Saskatchewan, went hunting with a buddy of mine up there, and left everything up there. I didn't bring a gun in there. We used one his and I left all the meet up there with him.

What inspired you to join the Marines? And you don't seem to me the type of guy who wants to color between the lines and take orders from other people.

I knew from the time I was a young kid that I was going to be a marine. And I don't know where I got that from. I just always knew. And I had a free ride scholarship at Jacksonville State University, and so I went up there and did a couple of years learning music theory and all that kind of thing. And when I was done with that, and I may not when I had gotten my degree. I don't mean I got a degree. I was just done with it. I went and found a recruit we were in Montgomery, Alabama,

Now.

They offered me a spot in the Marine Corps band and I remember laughing at the recruiter and I said, I'm not going to be that kind of marine. He said, all right, he said, well, you you scored pretty well on the as fab test. We don't we make you a mortarman. So I became a mortarman in the Marine Corps.

And so what did that actually involve?

Doing a lot of yelling, a lot of go a lot of going deaf, a lot of a lot of shots fired out of a tube that sat right next to my ear For about eight years. It was fun and you had to love it and hated all in the same breath. And I learned that love and hate were the same emotion. They both come from the same place.

Okay, so if you were doing it for eight years, you weumped.

Now when I signed up, they weren't offering any four year contracts. They were only offering eight year contracts, and so the one there were some guys that could do four year active and four inactive, and then the one that I did was called a six and two. I'm also still kind of a control freak, and I was back then too, and I didn't like the idea of having to go to Okinawa and places like that, you know,

Okay, was the reservist only the last two years of the whole time.

It was a whole time.

Yeah, So when would they call you up and say, hey, you got a report?

Well, there was you know, your one weekend a month that was always on the schedule. There was two weeks over the summer. And in addition to that, if you wanted to take different classes and courses and that sort of thing, you could you could sign up and you know, go to San Diego for a couple of months, train at Camp Pendleton and be studying a specific kind of thing for a couple of months, and leave that and go go do something in Jacksonville, North Carolina, or wherever else.

So if you had to do it all over again, would you have joined the Marines?

Oh? Hell yeah?

So what exactly did you get out of it?

I got a nice scar on the outside of my right knee over here, got a bad case of arthritis. I got some really cool camouflages closed I keep in a closet because they're all too small. I got a bunch of loud, long lasting friendships with guys that are so close I don't even think the word brother would be accurate enough to describe them. I've got some friends from that generation of my life right there that you know you can count on when everything else goes to hell, the Marines come in.

So you never saw any action or anything, no, sir, And yeah there's a camaraderie. How about all the discipline and you know, were you down with that?

Yeah? But that's been there all my life. That didn't that didn't even start with the Marine Corps. Uh. That started probably from my mother more than anything her. Her mother was a marine, so I knew how to make a bed by God.

So you see group in the country exactly where, well, that's.

Spout what I'm thinking of when I say that in the country's way out in rural Montgomery, Alabama. It's uh south of the city, and it's on the road that uh uh Stay Young wrote that song about the seven Bridges road, right, the one that the song that the Eagles recorded, right, But he wrote it he grew up out there in the same place that I did. And he called it the seven Bridges Road because if you left Montgomery going down that road right there, you crossed

So how far from downtown was where you grew up.

It was thirty minutes if you drive slow in fifteen minutes if you drive normally.

Okay, what'd your parents do for a living?

My mother was a paralegal, and my dad was always in retail sales in one way or another. When I was born, he was managing a super Rex drugs down in Troy, Alabama, and he did everything over the years. He managed Wilson's and helped them trends what's the word transfer into a service merchandise. He worked for Circuit City for a while. He managed a warehouse for a furniture store, all kinds of things.

And what was your relationship with your parents then and now? Were you the type of person who was testing the rules? Your type person who's dying to get out of the house.

I wouldn't say I tested the rules. I'm not one that kind of just pushes to see how much somebody can take, you know. But I do appreciate a good amount of freedom, and I felt like they gave it to me when when I was young, I learned that if I made good grades, that the answer to whatever I wanted to do was yes. And so I studied hard and I kept my grades up and made sure that I had enough leniency when the time came.

How many kids in the family.

I had three sisters, so there was four of us.

And where are you in the hierarchy.

Number two?

And did your parents treat you all equally? Or because you were the boy, you were the fear heard son.

Well, from my perspective, I thought we all got everything equal. But you listen to my sisters, you get a different take on it. I thought it was I thought it was fairly equal. All of us got some.

And then you were good in school? Were you like number one in the class?

I know, I wouldn't say that. It was always somebody in there smarter and made better grades. But I was an age student. I hated getting bees. I hated missing one if I knew I could get them all.

Right, Okay? And what about friends in sports and other activities? Yeah?

I played enough sports I did. I played soccer a lot, I played some football, some baseball. I wrestled one year. I tried just about everything. Just I was good. I was a good fast runner, and I was always strong as far as my size and my body weight. You know, I never was a real big guy. I was a guy that could hit the pull up bar and real quick knock out twenty wow.

So you were still getting these in high school?

Oh yeah?

So what if I talked to high school Jamie Johnson, what would he have said his future path would be.

I'd have probably said something along the lines of engineering or architecture. I always saw myself as getting into building science or something like that.

You know. So how did it switch to music?

I'd say that switch happened in Nashville. I had a construction company do an insurance restoration. I was a general contractor. We came in and rebuilt stuff that had been burned in a fire, blown over in a tornado, and that sort of thing. I wasn't a good business man, or that company would have survived. But uh, I really didn't do well in terms of business. I did did good work,

Okay, let's really buy a couple of steps. You got this free ride to college, you're an e student. How'd you decide to drop out?

It was about money. I was tired of working like crazy to pay a rent and only these utilities and everything else, just to live this subpar kind of lifestyle where you never had money to do anything. I mean, I never had money for gas putting the car, and I was delivering pizzas at the time, so it just got to be a little too much of a challenge. Even with the full ride scholarship, it was hard to keep up with bills.

But you were taking music courses there.

Oh yeah. I was taking all kinds of music courses, including applied science on French horn, and I think I had gotten to a point where I felt like I wasn't learning much. I was just practicing all the time.

So how did you end up in Nashville.

Well, I always knew Nashville was in my future. I just didn't know when. When I decided to leave Montgomery, I had already had a job at a cable company where I was making all kinds of money going door to door and signing people up for this new cable company down there, and I realized I really didn't want to be in sales for the rest of my life. And I also realized that my writing, as far as songs,

Okay, let me kind of get this street we're and when did you have the construction company?

Well, the construction company was about my third job in Nashville. That fast science gig lasted me, I guess until about October that year, and I had to resign my posts when I went to help this guy figure out the color scheme for his restaurant, only to find out that I couldn't help him at all, and he couldn't help me. At all. And he kept asking me what color do you think this ought to be? And what color do you think that ought to be? And I finally had to tell him, right, I can't help you at all

Uh.

And they also dewatered rock quarries and mines and all that sort of thing, so we're bypasses whatever anything had to be bypassed. They had a pump and a plug system. And I loved that company. I loved everybody I got to know there. That's where I was when nine to eleven happened. By the way, I was sitting in their conference room in Carbondale or Carterville, Illinois. That the owner and I, well, he sold the companies since then, but he and I we still talk and try to try

So do you think you were a bad businessman because you were essentially an artist?

I think I was a bad business man because I legitimately couldn't give a rat's ass about money. I don't care about money. It's the least valuable thing on the planet, and I just refused to ever learn anything about it. The first time I ever had to dive in and learn something about the principles of money, it was when I first got to Nashville. I started listening to a program on the AM RADI the Dave Ramsey Show, right, And I remember listening to Dave Ramsey and starting to

Well, the music business is femous and raife, with even the most successful musicians being ripped off. Since you weren't an expert in money, have you've been ripped off?

Well, if you're not an expert in money, you can't say that you got ripped off.

Excellent point. There's the A level student.

Okay, you have to pay attention. Money cannot wait to get away from you. And if you're not aiming it in a direction. It's gonna go whatever direction seems like the least resistance.

Okay, when did you first pick up an instrument and when did you decide you wanted to write songs.

I'd say the first time I picked up an instrument would have been a guitar. I mean picked it up with the intent of learning how to play, not just banging around and making a noise like you know sometimes kids will do. And for me that probably would have happened around five or six years old. I remember my dad would play songs on his guitar and he would strum some chords and the songs that he were playing and I didn't know about you know, some people wrote

Now, other than your father, were you listening to the radio you were born in seventy five, MTV hits in eighty one, What music were you listening to and where did you find it?

We didn't have MTV. We had those rabbit ears on the TV that picked up the three channels for free. Music for me would have been what we heard on the radio. I remember I was a big Buddy Holly fan, and it was like the first two or three tapes that I ever bought were Buddy Holly, and I remember when I found out that Whalon Jennings had played bass and Buddy's band, and Whalen was also the guy on the Dukes of Hazard, and that turned me into the

So you were listening mostly to country music. Did you listen to any rock music?

Probably, but I didn't know there was a difference. To me the Eagles. That wasn't really rock, you know, the main heaven. It fit just as good with our country music as it did anything else. But that would have been the version of rock and roll I listened to. My sister was down the hallway with her Madonna records and Prince and she even had that Guns and Roses record when it came out.

Did you like Appetite for Disruption?

Not? Probably? Not at first. I mean, down on my end of the hall, it was still Vern Godzeden and Merle Haggard.

Okay, So if you pick up a guitar at age five or six, when you're in high school, are you known as the guy who plays a guitar. Did you play any gigs, form many bands anything like that.

No, most people didn't even know I did anything of musical, I guess until about seventh grade. And that's but I also kept to myself. You know, I didn't have a whole lot of friends. Well, we lived so far out in the country. Wasn't like I would get home from school and hop on my bicycle and go visit friends. We just didn't have neighbors like that. I kind of grew up on my own, So even if I did learn something on the guitar, it wasn't like I had

So okay, that seventh grade people learned you played the guitar. How did they find out?

Well, it wasn't guitar at first. It would have been that French orn that I was learning in the beginner band. And I didn't stay in beginner band for very long. I practiced so much, and I had already learned how to read sheet music. My dad taught help me on my hand growing up. You take your five fingers right there, and they represent the five bars of a staff and if it's a line, it's every good boy does fine.

Okay, then what happened?

I got into Drumming Bugle Corps. After that, this old drum and Bugle Corps had well, they had a couple of years back in eighty and eighty one, and then they were just kind of coming back out. It's called south Wind, and they had some auditions and I went an auditioned for them and got into that where I could travel during the summer. And I guess since it's been since I was about twelve thirteen years old, I started spending my summers out on the road traveling with

Okay, so what are you playing in the Drumming Bugle Corps.

Well, they called it a soprano, but it was a soprano bugle, which is akin to a two valve trumpet.

Okay, okay, you started with a French worn your father helped you out. You would greet how'd you get into the bugle?

That was it. I heard these guys were taking auditions and trying to put this corps back together. I went and auditioned, and uh, and became became one of them. And uh, that's also kind of what started me down that path of I guess you'd call it discipline, but you had to have a good degree a discipline to be successful in the drummer bugle corps.

Okay, are you the type of person that you can pick up and play any instrument?

I wouldn't say that, but I can figure it out, you know, I can. I can usually get some some kind of tone out of anything.

So you're in the drum and bugle cort and you're traveling during the summer, where you're going.

All over. We would travel, Uh, you'd stay at high schools. You know, most of us had a little sleeping bag or a bedroll or whatever enough closed to get you through the summer, and did our work out on football fields and that sort of thing. In fact, that's where our shows were were in some of these uh big old high school and college football stadiums. So that was the kind of places we'd travel. We didn't stay in hotels. I learned to sleep in a luggage rack on a bus.

Well, I mean, you're in Alabama. How far from Alabama would you go?

Oh? Hell? I remember seeing Niagara Falls for the first time. Oh wow, about thirteen years old. I mean we got out. We did some sure enough, travel up New York, Maine, Kansas, Tennessee. I mean just we went everywhere we toured.

Okay, in the world of drumming google cores, was this like a known good? I mean, is there a hierarchy of drumming and bugle cores? Oh?

Yeah. Ours wasn't necessarily one of the best. It was a smaller cores. Back then, they used to have this division. It was called Age sixty I think it was. And all it meant was you didn't have as many members as the bigger cores, and we didn't. We had a very small drummer bugle corps. But for our size, we were really good.

And how many summers did you do that?

Oh? I did probably two summers traveling with those guys. But I probably did winter camps and that sort of thing four years or so.

So how did it end with the drum and bugle corps.

Well, you age out at twenty one, but I didn't get anywhere close to that. I did it up until I got into high school, and by then I was already working during the summers and didn't have didn't have time to do it anymore.

So when did you start playing guitar and writing songs to the point where other people heard you perform?

I guess by the time I was in tenth grade or so, I was already sharing songs that I wrote with some some friends, you know, some guys and gals I was hanging out with aside from school, but not to the point where I was bothering people with it. Are you know, purposely pursuing Hey, check out this song I wrote, just you know. But by the time I was a junior in high school. I remember then there was a group of kids from my church that really

And did you ever play high school talent shows or you know sweet sixteens bar Mitzvah's anything like that.

No, I never got into that sort of thing. I never saw music as a competition, and I just saw it as a something I really wanted to do and I wanted to do it well, but I didn't. I didn't get into the competitive stuff with it so much. And I did some of that. You know, the drum Corps thing was a competition, but I really didn't care how we did. I was in it more for the getting the summer away from the house and getting to

Okay, you grew up in Alabama. Even at this late date, the North in the South are very different, and you've also traveled around the country. What do people who don't live in the South, don't live in Alabama, what don't they understand about Alabama.

Well, that's a tough one. I guess it had a perspective comes into play. Being from Alabama is the only perspective that I have, So I'm not real sure what somebody else's perspective of Alabama would be. I am aware that there's a lot of things that we considered normal down there that that other people would consider taboo, like putting cheese in your grits. Uh. Some people you have

We're in wind in this scenario, did you meet your first wife?

I met Amy. When I first got to Nashville. It snowed fores well for me, being from South Alabama, I've never seen that much snow in my life. And I had a couple of dogs I had rescued from this

So, hi'd you meet her? And how did it become a romance in marriage?

So they invited me to do to go to church, and I started going to that church. It was it was Two Rivers Baptist, and it was the biggest church I'd ever seen in my life. It was a big, old, massive building and it kind of helped me, you know, meet some people and get rooted and get established in Nashville. So, oh, I guess for me, Amy goes back to the very beginning of my time in Nashville, which has been twenty five years now. She wouldn't appreciate me mentioning the number

How did it end with Amy?

Willie says, you never have an ex wife, there's only additional ones, So there is no end. Amy and I are still wonderful friends today and we have a twenty one year old daughter, and there's no end to that. Relationship. It's just it's morphed into a beautiful friendship over the years.

Well, who wanted the divorce?

You know, some scabs are better left unpicked at up.

Okay, Well, let's just put it this way. You're great friends now you were married before? Were you always great friends? Or where there were some bumps in the road before you became great friends?

I like any good friendship. We've had some bumps in the road. We just chose not to dwell on them longer than it took to put them away and move on and forgive and forget.

And what is your twenty one year old daughter up to?

Whatever she decides is the correct answer. She's a very smart young lady. And I mean she's got a brilliant mind. She's got a wonderful discipline and a great disposition. She's smart enough to do anything she puts her mind to, and she knows that, and she's very selective about what she will apply herself to, and when she does, there's

And did Aby ever find somebody new?

Oh? Yeah, she got married probably four or five years ago. I want to say it was during the lockdown with COVID. And he's a good he's good to our daughter, and he's great for Amy. So I like him a lot. His name is Keith.

Okay, So you move to Nashville because there's a job with the sign company. You ultimately get into construction. We're in this narrative. Do you say I want to make music my career.

I think the whole point of me coming to Nashville was about making music my career. I guess I got really serious in it, and it took me a while. I had to I had to grow a business in singing demos, and that started just about from the beginning too. When I got to Nashville, I guess it was within a couple of weeks. I had met a guy in one of the bars down on Lower Broad UH named Greg Perkins. And Greg was a fiddle and steel player. Uh.

Okay, so you meet Perkins and he says, come sing on the demos. What happens after that.

Well, I met some other folks, and you know, once they start passing around these songs trying to get somebody to cut these songs, your voice is going around with them. One of the first things he had me do was a duet and with a singer I didn't know at the time. Again, I'm new to town. Everybody's new to me. Well, this gal comes in and she's about twelve months pregnant and she, I mean, you know, that turkey button was

So that was before her redneck woman hit.

Yes, sir, and she she pretty much taught me what it was like to walk in a studio and deliver a vocal performance. You know, you could lollygag around in there for three hours and get something that sounds like crap, or you can you can walk in there and just pour the coals to it and be done in ten minutes and you make a make a good sized check.

So, so what is the trick?

Open up? Don't don't be so reserved with it. Don't be in there humming around trying to figure out you know, you got to go in there with everything you got, let that personality come open, and then try to reel that back in if it's too much. But uh, that's what that's what I learned from watching her do it.

Okay, you're selling point for these demos, Perkins or somebody else. Immediately realized you had a signature, very unique and great voices. That what made it happen.

I would say, it's what God it started, you know, But once people start hearing your voice, after that, it's like that, it's how many times do they hear your voice? If every time they hear a song and they go, who in the hell is that singing? And it's your name that comes out, they go, man, that guy, and

And at the time, will you pling out it all? Or its all like recording?

I was always playing out in the bars if I could, and I was also doing writer shows. Anytime I could get out in front of a crowd, I was, I was going to I played a writer's round one night. A buddy of mine that was he actually produced a record on me, Dave Brainer invited me to do this writer's round around two thousand and one, and I remember that because it was about a week after nine eleven, and uh, I went and played this writer's round and on the other end of the round from me was

Okay, so you know you ultimately had a couple of huge hits like Hockey Talk Badonka Donk. When did you start writing songs that were circulated and how did that happen as supposed to just singing on demos.

I was already working on an album in two thousand and one and with with Dave, which we released it on my own and uh May of two thousand and two, so that that would have been the first stuff that I put out there. I put it out. It was a record called They Called Me Country and even at the same time then I'm still singing demos and singing singing songs for everybody else as a songwriter. That that would have been the first stuff. Uh, but donka don't

So you were hanging with Luke Bryant before he had a deal.

Yeah, yeah, we were. We were all kind of yeah, just good friends back then. You know, there was a there was a group of us that hung out and the bars together, and we all knew each other from the writers rounds and from the from the various things that we were all getting into. Yeah, Randy uh Howser is a good friend of mine. Jared Nehman, Dallas Davidson, Rob Hatch, we were all friends back then and supported

The people who had success of a grander scale, like Luke Bryan. Did you see that in advance? Were you surprised?

Oh? I wasn't surprised, but nobody. You couldn't predict that stuff back then. You know, I couldn't look over that group of friends and decided in advance who was gonna hit one over the wall. And you know, I knew every one of them was capable, and still are. You never know what to expect out of those guys.

Okay, so the first album, m I paid for it.

No, I paid for the first one. Actually, I'd have to correct myself on that. Mister Garner paid for the first one, John Garner. I paid him back though, if that counts.

Do you remember how much it was?

If I had to guess, I'd say it was probably about thirty thousand dollars something like that.

Okay, you cut the album, what happens after you put it out?

You can almost hear yourself going broke. It's a it's the sound of going broke. You play in your own album, in your own truck, going up and down the road. It's not like any kind of there's an immediate change, and suddenly I'm, you know, hearing the sounds of registers ring in the background. I think I printed two thousand copies of that album, and we probably sold half of them, and I gave a bunch of them away to the

So did the first album? Did it lead to something? Did it cause a certain success?

I guess you have to look at it like it was a business card, and it made its way around to a lot of offices, and later on a lot of good opportunity came from that. People who wouldn't have taken a meeting with me otherwise, but because they had this CD sitting on their desk, you know, they had something that was at least somewhat representative of what I can do. I wrote just about every song on there with the exception of a couple of cover songs, and yeah,

Okay, but you did make a record for BNA.

Yep, it's called The Dollar And how did.

That come to happen? What happened in the week of that coming out?

Well, I guess the record would be an A. At the time, I kind of had a buzz going around town and there were some opportunity at some labels, but Joe Gilani was the first one to make me an offer and and put a record deal together, and I took the opportunity. It seemed like a It seemed like a great deal to me at the time. And you know, if I had it to do over again, I'd still do it. I probably would have done some things different, but I got to put out a a Buddy Cannon record,

So how is it in with BNA such as you get on Mercury.

Oh, I was kind of a problem child for Joe, and I've apologized to him since, so I could. I think it's all right to tell the story, But uh, I don't know. Like like you said about the Marine Corps, that discipline only goes so far with me. And I guess when I got my opportunity with bn A, I was done with people telling me what to do and what time to do it, and uh, it just kind of it didn't set well with me, So I stayed

Okay, we're in this scenario. Do you give up your d job.

That would have been before that BNA record?

So what happens first Mercury is interested or BNA says we don't want to work with you anymore.

Well, Mercury didn't come until after BNA. But even when I did that BNA deal, after Joe had made me the offer, I still call Brian right and told him, man, just bring me an offer.

Well.

The reason I couldn't get an offer from Mercury at the time was because James Stroud had joined Lewis at Mercury and he had had a policy that he was going to be producing any new artists that were signed under the umbrella for that duration of his tenure there. Well, I already had a relationship with Buddy Cannon, and I was determined he was going to be the guy producing my record and I didn't Uh, I didn't see the need and it would have felt like a betrayal to me and I couldn't do that.

Okay, So how did you get involved in writing give it Away? And Ladies Love Country Boys?

Well, ladies love country boys? It was uh, kind of a nod to Ladies love Outlaws. That's been so long ago, I can't hardly remember.

I remember.

Very little. I can't e I can't even remember writing that song though, that's been a quite a while back. Now, what other one did you ask me about?

Give it Away?

I would give it away? Well, give it Away was kind of was written after the BNA deal, and that was my first time to write. I think it was my first time to write with Whispering Bill Anderson. Buddy had called me in and said, hey, you need to meet Bill. So we came in to write, and I had written that idea, but I didn't expand on it

Had?

I had to back up the tape and play it just to find out what all I had said, and I wrote it down the way that it came out. She was storming through the house that day and I could tell she was leaving, but I thought, all hell, she'll be back. So that I remember we were sitting there talking about putting the mellow to all those words, and Buddy said, why don't you just let it be a recitation? And I remember hearing Bill Anderson go a recitation that's brilliant. The I learned a lot right with

So how long after you've that afternoon did he get to George Street and it came out?

It didn't happen the afternoon wrote it. We put together a work tape and and I mean, I don't know how many times I even had that song demos over the years. I'd say within a couple of months. Though. My manager at the time was IRV Woolsey, and IRV was also George Strait's manager. And I remember I was in Myrtle Beach. I was working on one of the shows that I had booked, and I got a call from IRV and he said, George just cut your song.

Okay, what about what it became a huge hit. He went to number one.

It felt in a lot of ways like redemption. It felt like I think I described it in a song. It felt like I'd been forgiven for all my wrongs. And it really put me back in the gear of writing songs and looking to record again. It's like George decided country music wasn't done with me just yet.

Okay, you make a deal with Mercury and Luke Lewis and you make an album and Dave Cobb is the producer. Dave Cobb is one of the hottest guys in Nashville today and has been for like a decade at this point. But when you were working with him, it was at the very beginning. How'd you get involved with Deve Cobb?

Well before Dave, I had already finished that album. I had already written everything I was gonna put on it and recorded everything I was gonna put on it. We were in the studio working on the mixes, and Shooter had introduced me to Dave before that, and Shooter Jennings and Shooter keeps telling me, and I mean now he's calling me every other day going, hey, you got to come work with Dave and I said, well, Shooter, I've already I'm already done with this record. You got to

You made him a full time producer.

No, I literally stole his band. I took his drummer and the guitar player Raddy Cope, and I put him in my traveling band and took him on the road. And they've had to move to Nashville to steal them back.

So you know, on that record and on the new record, another producer credited is the Kent Hardly Plea Boys, And obviously that's a joke. Knt Hardley Plea Boys, is that just basically.

You No, No, that's my old demo band. Those are the guys I used to make a living with We were kind of we were just a squad of hooligans that figured out a niche where we could make a living, get the bills paid. All we were doing were cutting demos that for songs that other songwriters had written. You know, we'd get in there and chart them up, get a lyric, put them all together, tw do all the mixes, and

And you're still working with those guys today on your new album.

Well, work is a strong word for it.

But yeah, it's a strong word because you don't consider playing music work or there is something about the guys. What do you mean.

It ain't work. We get together and hang around and somebody will play a work tape and next thing you know, we got the headphones on and we're laying it down. That ain't work. That's just loving what you do.

Okay? On that album in color is on that did you realize that would have as much of an impact as it did.

No and color came around after a BMI award show. So let me back up completely and tell you I'm color.

Blind, right, Well you said that. Yeah.

So they were playing some photos on the back wall of the BMI that night, and I really didn't gather until I saw Lee Thomas Miller. I ran into him on a sidewalk out in front of B of My a few days after that, and he was telling me about those pictures. He said, did you see at the b of MY Awards the other night those old black and white pictures they were playing on the wall? And I did. I was sitting there looking at him, but it didn't occur to me that they were black and white.

Okay, stopping for a second, did you do a lot of those writing sessions still do? Okay? And the record was a huge critical success in commercial success, how did that feel?

Everything got busy, I mean busier than you can ever imagine, Like you can't keep a calendar. You have to have somebody nearby who has the calendar, You have to have somebody else do the drive, and you got to have somebody else that can get us past security in these places because you're in a hurry. You know, you got a lot of things to do and very little time in the day to get them all done. So that

So after that cycle ends. To what degree did you have pressure from Mercury to have another hit.

I don't know that there was ever any real pressure. I know that they had a high cost of living that they sent out the country radio and it was immediately rejected, And there was probably some other songs that we sent out there, and if there was a pressure, it was one that they didn't pass on to me. But over time I kind of recognized that country radio was never going to play my songs and it seemed like a big waste of financial resources to keep going

Really, So how did it end with Mercury.

Well, it ended when Luke Lewis retired, That's what I figured, and I just really didn't want to make another record after that. You know, I was by twenty ten, I'd already had that concussion, and Luke retired. They brought in Mike Dungan, who was nice enough to let me out of my deal. But when when Mike and I first met, I I told him my heart just wasn't in it anymore, and uh, it was it was time for me to step aside. And uh, he was nice enough he let

Had you known Chris before?

I didn't know him. I knew his wife, Morgan. Uh. We were both demo singers together, and she was also on B and A the same time that I was, and uh, she and I did some demos together back in the day. I knew of Chris because he was one of those voices that every time I got stunned listening to a song and asked, who is that? My God, that's Chris Stapleton. Jesus. He was one of those guys. It was just every time I heard his voice, it was distinct, it was as real and just as man.

So it ends with Mercury. You've had the concussion. Do you think you're never going to make another record? Are you depressed? I mean, what's your state of mind? Then?

No. I was absolutely convinced I had made my last record. I just knew it. I didn't have it in my I wasn't inspired anymore. You know. I'd made all of these records or recorded all of these songs, and I had yet to have any kind of financial success in the and the record business. In fact, somebody else owned my publishing and somebody else owned my masters, and it was one of those things. It was like I didn't get anything out of it. You know, radio never even

Okay, but in that interim, you were continuing to work live. Yeah, But were your numbers going down because you had no record in the marketplace.

I don't think so. I think it was quite the opposite. Brian Wright tells me all the time that those records are still type performing records at their label. The thing that happens is after you, when you're not on a major label, there's no more of the parties where they celebrate you now have a gold record, or your gold record's gone platinum, or now you've gone double platinum. And it wasn't until I put out another record where they are I aa uh, I think that's what it's called.

And you know, you rent up a lot of costs going to radio whatever. Do you make any money off the records?

I suppose I've made a nickel or two. Now I don't know what all's recouped and what happened recouped. I think that's that's something for the lawyers and the CPAs to sort out.

So how did you end up making a new record with Warner.

It started with Brian Wright again when he and Stephanie left Mercury. His wife Stephanie that they left Mercury and I told him, I said, well, I guess we're making another record. He didn't have anything, He didn't have anything else to do, and I really didn't either. But at the same time, Chris Lacy, Chris and I pretty much started our careers running the same time, and We've been

So how long to go did this process begin?

I'm trying to figure it's twenty twenty five now. I guess this would have been uh as far as the record goes, probably two or three years now. As far as the writing, Chris and I really started writing together, I guess around twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. We'd written some songs together back back around nine twenty ten, but I mean we really got to, you know, working together, around eighteen or so.

So the album's been out for a while, you can reflect, what do you think about the experience having done it?

I thank God every day that he put friends around me that loved me enough to remind me what my purpose is. It would have been easy for everybody just to leave me alone and that would have been the end of it. But I have all these people who love me in my life enough to make me get up and do it again. That wouldn't leave me just sitting there.

And now that the project has finished is Warner, and everybody's still excited as excited about moving forward.

I hope so I have an answer. I haven't checked the numbers lately, but I don't I doubt that even if it didn't perform well that they would give up on me. They seemed like such a great team of people over there, and you know, I really enjoy making records with them, and I really never thought i'd enjoy that aspect of working with a label. I always kind of looked at the at the labels and thought, man,

So how did you get sober?

Well, that's a long story too. I got tired of waking up surprised I would. I was a heavy drinker and I wasn't a social drinker. It wasn't like I was gonna have two or three after work and then go home if I If I had one, I had just decided how the rest of the evening was gonna go. So drinking wasn't one of those things that I It's not like I didn't have the ability to stop. I didn't ever, just said that I didn't have a reason

What were the triggers to stop drinking and to stop smoking pot?

The main trigger to stop drinking drinking would have been my daughter. She was at the time seven years old, and was you know, you're being an example one way or the other, and up until that point in her life, I'd been a bad example and I was adamant about correcting that. So she she was a driving factor and quitting drinking. Pott was not really something I felt like I ever had any kind of issue with. I was always kind of, you know, take it or leave it.

Going back to drinking, when you stop drinking, you have to change your lifestyle because you're not going to the bar and your friends always say, oh, let's go out for a drink. What's wrong with you? How did you actually stop drinking? And how hard was the transition?

Well, you're gonna have to change a lot of things, and that is one of the things I had to change was my entire social life was happening in these bars, and it wasn't much of a life to begin with. If I'm being one hundred percent honest. People tell you had a good time, but if you don't remember having a good time, did you really have a good time? So it wasn't doing me much good to begin with, and it was starting to damage my relationships beyond repair.

So did you go to rehib did you go to AA? Did you just cool turkey?

I'm a very stubborn man, and all I had to do was rewire the drinking into that part of my mind that makes me upset. And once I had it wired in there correctly, it was one of those things that I knew I didn't need any more help to deal with I'd already dealt with it. I realized that that sort of thing doesn't work for a lot of people, and so I don't advocate for that style. But if I tell you I'm going to do something, you can

Okay, something you said at the top was you're an angry guy. Now, needless to say your regular demeanor in talking that doesn't come cross. But tell me more about your anger.

I wish I knew more about it. It's it's not there always, And I don't know that I would describe myself overall as angry. I think I would describe myself as it was more like high blood pressure. It was like being being always at the at the brink of stress. You know, when your stress is at a perfect ten and any little thing can tip you over the edge. And I think that's what the concussion had done to me. It it had raised my stress level to a permanent level.

I'm not sure. But the anger do you feel separate from other people in society and do things frustrate you? Is it that kind of anger? Or you're out with some people and somebody is just talking and you're saying, men, they just can't handle this anymore.

No, it's not a It was more personal things, you know. It was more things that I had to deal with. I guess over time. I think the root word that I've been learning in the Bible here lately is forgiveness, And what does that really mean? To receive forgiveness means you have to admit having wronged somebody and you received the forgiveness as a gift, but you first have to repent and you have to do your best to make the thing right. And it's not a skill that a

Well, that's good to hear, and I think, on that note of insight, we're going to leave it at that. Jamie, been fascinating speaking with you. I want to thank you for taking this time with my audience.

You wrote such a wonderful column about my show out in Los Angeles one year, and I want you to know you put a smile on my face and made my heart beat a little bit prouder. And I appreciate all of the words of encouragement I've gotten from you, Bob over the years. Thank you.

Well, you know, I remember it was at the Wilter, and I remember exactly where I was standing. I was a big fan and it was a great show, and it's great to finally pluck your feast to face.

Thank you so much that it was the biggest pat on the back for me. It meant so much to me and I still wear that like a badge of honor. Thank you.

While you're leaving me speechless with a smile, my thieves and I think we're going to leave it at that till next time. This is Bob leftstis