Marcus King

keep pretty busy. I think keeps the band really fresh, really tight. But you know, going on the road, you you know, you play for an hour or two and you get all this adulation, then you go back with the same old guys. You can't calm down for hours after giving on all that energy. How do you cope with the cycle? It gets kind of tough, you know. Um can be hard, like you said, to calm down after a show like that, So you really gotta I don't know, you gotta be mindful of that because you

could wear your body out, you know, pretty quickly. And we do like six weeks at a time like this run is two months straight. So you gotta kind of pick and choose when you want a party and try to get to bed. You know a reasonable hour. Rock and roll starts at nine I am now days, well tell me about it starting at nine am. Try to get up early, get to work out in, get some

some daylight, get some fresh air. Um, you know, like today, it's a poor example of that is, Uh, we're at a hotel and somewhere in Virginia just for our drivers to sleep, and then we'll leave tonight at midnight and go to Philly. So we've kind of been turning our our Bara metric like system around because we left last night at midnight. So that's kind of like where everything starts. And today we're all sleeping in all day in a hotel.

But you gotta kind of force yourself to get into this cycle of getting some fresh air, getting exercise, and you know, drinking two or three times a week a week rather than every day. Um. But that's tough to do because it's a lot easier to do it either way. Okay, you say you left it midnight last night from where from Nashville? And why at midnight? Uh, everything's kind of based around the bus drivers sleep schedules, you know, so

we drive I think eight to ten hours at a time. Uh. The buses took us here to Christianburg, Virginia, which I'm not really sure where that he is. And then well we're at least within eight to ten hours from Philadelphia. I know that one because then it will take us there. And we leave at midnight again tonight, so we're there on lowdown tomorrow. And you know you're in a hotel room. Now, hal walten? Are you in the hotel room? Was supposed to sleeping on the bus? Uh? I'd say probably sixty.

We we end up spending a lot of nights on the bus um, which is fine. You know that you kind of get in a little more routine that way. You know. Okay, you talk about drinking and which leads to drugging. You know, how do you only keep it to a couple of nights a week? Well, um, my wife to be keeps my keeps me in line. Uh huh, that's the short answer. Well, can make it make it

a little longer, how I'm happy to. I mean, you know, I'm at the point now where I can I can have a couple of glasses of wine and enjoy myself. But that wasn't really the case for a while. Um, and I think it was really just accompanied with depression and alcohol and drugs stimulants to be exact, uh a kind of short term solutions to h depression. In the long run there really just making it much worse. But

you know, I'm not really as depressed now. I mean, depression something you always struggle with even when you're at your happiest, which is a sad truth. But you know I'm in a much better place now. Being in love is helpful of that. Okay, So are you treating your depression with any medication? Yeah? I am takes in Balton ninety million grans and Balta that day. And you know that's another reason why you don't really want to mix

alcohol with that stuff. I mean, that can be pretty detrimental to your physical health and your mental health on the same. But my goal, my hope is the next time we get a little bit of time off, I think I'm gonna try to go completely holistic, maybe try my hand in microdescence and psilocybin or something from the earth. Try to get off these pharmaceuticals. Okay, so you're on some ball to you on anything else. Yeah, I take medication for anxiety as well, which one, Um, okay, how

often do you take an up? Uh? Just really as needed. Chronic anxiety years old and music is the most helping thing for it, but sometimes it doesn't quite get it. What do you have panic attacks? You? Oh? Yeah, really bad? Since I was a kid. Yeah, you know, I used to do the problem with killin up. And if you're not taking it every night, it's great, but I used to take it every well, it was actually out of them. And then I used klonip In to get off the auta van, but it was really hard. And you know,

there's uh do types of therapy. I used to have panic attacks, so I used to run around with a little bit of out of van And then I read this book by this you know, big psychiatrist, and it cured me of the panic decks. I don't have panic attacks anymore. It was very interesting. You read the book and they say, well, okay, you're here with the doctor. Have a panic, I'm here right with you. And then they talked about a guy who was hit by a train and survived. So the key is, once you realize

you'll hold on the panic will pass. That was a great liberator for me. But uh, is the symbalta and the klonopin a recent thing. The SYMBALTI more recent than the convent I got. Uh. Yeah, I've been either misdiagnosed or diagnosed, you know, on multiple occasions. Uh. I've been diagnosed by polar um and also with depression. So I mean when you're bouncing around from psychiatrists, psychiatrist um, and from therapist and therapist, I mean, everybody has a different

opinion of view about what you're going through. So um um. The symbalta I think started because I don't remember what I was on before that, but I was on something that just made everything kind of numb, which I didn't like. I remember being at my grandmother's funeral. Um, I didn't feel anything. And when I got off of that stuff, it was like a week after that. There was this, uh, this tune that Wayne Shorter did called at Day Area another one Actually I don't it's just like Brazilian tune.

It's really beautiful. And then I just wept for days. So I finally got something that it seems to work for me, keeps me kind of balanced, Okay, and when were you first treated for anxiety and depressions A recent thing or you had it all growing up? Uh, Well, something I struggled with all the time since I was a kid. But it wasn't until I kind of went out and I was on my own healthcare that I

started really delving into it. So I could say like the least three to five years, I started kind of taking it into my own hands, and um, therapy was over huge help. Um it didn't say the last relationship, but I think that was on track for you know, the rocks anyway. But I'd recommend therapy and anybody that's thinking about well, in today's world, many psychiatrists actually don't do therapy. They just provide mids and you see somebody else with the therapy. Is that the way it was

is in your case? Or you seeing the same? YEA, That's how it is. For me. My psychiatrist checks in, you know, every six months or so, and the therapies more of a weekly thing. And for me, therapies more of an opportunity for me to uh speak out loud things that I maybe was harboring because I'm not very good at keeping a journalf tried to keep a journal,

and I just can't keep up with it. So between music and actual talk therapy, it's really helpful because you you end up saying a lot of things and you realize that some of the things you're saying it is just um, to use a phrase, kind of crazy. You know. Well, you know many musicians speak through their music and are not that verbal. Do you find other than the therapist, anybody who understands you, you can talk to other than your wife to be wells? My dad and I have

always really connected, just like he and his dad before. UM. We've always had a really tight relationship, and I think it was in part due to the fact that we're both musicians, so we had that um, that medium to become really was and we've always been more like the best pals. He's gonna be the best man at my wedding actually, and everything you say to him he accepts or does he pushed back? My father was pretty accepting, uh with everything I say. I mean, uh, because he's

a he's a real uh. I mean he's obviously always supported my career, but he's really supportive as a friend too. It's just in his nature, which is uh, that's a good friend to have around, but he'll call you and your bullshit too, which is also another good trait and a friend. Okay, your parents still together? Now. My mom scaped out when I was about four, and that was

actually point of contention. Recently. I did an interview with the magazine, and uh, some some of the family on my mother's side were pretty upset with what I had to say. I was really just telling the truth. And my mother and I have kind of passed the relationship back together in the last you know, five or six years, and she felt really ill and she's on hospice and all this, so it's not it's not good to leave

things unsaid. And uh yeah, in a long, long way answering your questions, now they're not together that they happened since I was Okay, so you were four when she left. How many kids were in the family. Uh so it was me and my sister, my older sister about two

years Holly. And so what were the circumstances. You just came home one day, she wasn't there your face, sat you down and said she's going or you don't even remember parts a little fuzzy, I mean, you know, um, she just kind of blip, and I remember that like early on, there wasn't a lot of uh, the reason I didn't really know, you know, the half of it, because you know a lot of it, you don't. You wouldn't have even understood at four years old to try

to explain why the relationship fell apart. But you know, I think a four year old just I was wondering where his mother is, you know, And that was my situation. My earliest memories of life are crying so hard in kindergarten that I would throw up like every day and get sent home because you cry so hard because you don't know where your mother is. And my father couldn't know how to tell me where she was, you know. And then later on she just really never showed her

any more sports. So we've always had kind of a ah, a rough relationship. And you know, she's always made really interesting decisions with the partners she chose to keep. So did she ever get married again? Do you have any kids? She never, She never had any more kids, but she did remarry to my stepdad. And my stepdad was abusive and um, you know, to her and physically, but he was kind of verbally abusive to me, and particularly to particularly to my sister. So that was that was a

hard environment. You know, once we met, we my sister and I and my mother, oh kind of Uh she tried to you know, start fresh, you know what I mean, when we were like eight or nine, and then we started going down to my stepdad's house, and um, not a great environment for kids. And you don't really know how to relay that to your your other parents. Like my dad, it wasn't really it's how It's difficult to explain, but he just he liked to drink a little too

much Jim Beam. You have a really big bottle of Jim Beam every night drink. I know, I've seen those bottles. He'd have one right out of the kitchen sink every night and he drink about half of it. And then he'd sit there and just be verbally abusive and um, just not a good guy, will put it that way. And he uh, he passed away not too long ago, but before that he actually sobered up and then he uh he started coming around again. And you know, he

was actually a good guy when he was sober. And you can say that about a lot of folks, but he was a good decent man, and I think my mother drove him to the break of insanity the way she's done a lot of others. And my mother's sweeping her own way too. I have to say that. But uh, you know left me with some abandonment issues, that's for sure. Do you know why she split? You know, there's a I think maybe she just wasn't ready to be completely settled down. My father at that time had become religious

and she wasn't religious. Or she would dabble. My mother was raised Catholic and she would dabbled into like the occult or whatever. Um, she just was curious about you know, she had a real thirst for knowledge. She still does. You know, she's a reader. So I think maybe I get that inquisitive side of me from my mother. Um my looks I get from my mother. Uh not my good looks. I just mean that we look like each other. Um yeah, but I think I get there from her.

Maybe she just wasn't ready to settle down. And there's you know, I can spend I can speculate on some other reasons why she may have left, but um, you know, in the in the interest of her and I kind of rekindling our relationship. I don't want to, you know, to fame anyone's character or mismadge anyone's name or anything like that, uh, because we are in kind of a

reconciling reconciling uh, part of our relationship. Again. So if you were four when she left, and you leave home in the neighborhood of eighteen, how much contact did you have with her in that period? Well, it was always kind of off and on, you know, like I think when she tried to she set up camp with Chuck, my stepdad. When that happened, Um, she was kind of playing house there for a while, and she had she went and she got her nursing degree, and I just

thought she'd really kind of turned around. And then and then that relationship fell apart and they got separated, and then she kinda went out on her own with my sister, and that around that was around the time that I started digging. You know, I started digging quite a bit, and I try to bring her money to help with bills and stuff, but uh, she wouldn't use the money for the bills. And then that's when I was like, all right, I'm just gonna hit the road and not

really play on turning back around. But I would come home to see my grandmother because my grandmother, it was really more of a mother figure in my life when I was coming up. Was that your father's mother, Yeah, my father's Okay. So you mentioned that your father became religious. How religious for you if at all? You know? Man, I was raised in a Pentecostal church, So I think it's important to have something bigger than you and remember how small we really are and how insignificant we can be,

you know, at a moment's notice. So uh, for me, I'm really thankful for my religious upbringing and and just if anything, the lessons and morality that it gave me on how to be a good person, which I think deep down you figure those out anyway, but I kind of had a a rush course on this morality, I think with the stories of the Bible, and I had a very good preacher. Someone with that amount of conviction can really I don't know it, just having that presence

in your life is very important. I think. Um, I'm not very religious now, um as Cli said, it sounds a little more spiritual than I am. Religiou, but um, when I had in my heart is good Okay. So before you leave the house gigging. Does your father ever get remarried? Is there another female presence in the house other than your sister. Yeah, So my father remarried when I was eleven, and we moved to UM, one of

the outside uh areas around Greenville, South Carolina. It was Piedmont's Ath Carolina Powdersville to be exact, And I called it Powdersville because they used to store a lot of gunpowder there during the Civil War. On fact, and I went to Pattersville Middle School. Didn't fit in with anybody UM. And he remarried to a woman named Leander. It was still my stepmother, and she had two older boys at the time, who were I think at the time seventeen.

Cliff was and Hunter was probably like twenty three or something. And one had a, you know, a really nasty addiction to heroin and the other one had a really nasty addiction to math and fetamines. So she had her hands full. Man, and my sister comes My sister and I come down as eleven year old and a thirteen year old, and uh, she I think I really wanted to be a MoMA, a good mom to us, but she just was overwhelmed with her own boys. And I don't falter for that.

And you know, later we became much closer, but at the time, it was really difficult to try to establish a you know, a motherly relationship with new kids when your own kids are off the rails. And Mapody said that they're both you know, recovered now and they're good, and uh, there I see him at family unions and all that. But um, and my stepmother and I have become really close in recent years. Okay, prior to moving. Uh, you're a good student, bad student, have friends, don't have friends. Um,

it wasn't a very good student. Uh. And I don't think it was because I lacked the ability to learn. I think it's just I lacked the interest. The interest

level wasn't there. Whenever whenever something becomes I have to do it because you told me to do it, or if I just see something it's just asinine, or just like, you know, why are you making us do this because it it doesn't like remember we'd have to like copy down like information, you know, Um, like when I was in school, suspension like this isn't this is just giving us writers cramp. We're not retaining any knowledge after the first two times we write it down. You know, I

don't know. I just didn't like ass and and things like that, and uh, the authority really got to me when I was in school. So I was not a good student. To answer your question, I didn't have very many friends. I was always a little bit out there. But the friends that I did have, we're all in different circles of school. You know. I hang out with jock's, I hang out with the geeks, hang out with the freaks. I was more of a freak than anything. I reckon, right,

what's your sister up to today? My sister is busy raising two young UN's, my nephews, just I and Malachi. I love those boys. Were just good redneck boys, you know. Uh you show up and they're fighting in the front yard with their shirts off. Um they're good kids, man. And uh, after my grandmother passed, I was able to buy her house, and my sister wrenched that place from me, and uh, her two little boys there and her man Richard.

And you know, my sister works. She's a beautiful young woman, but she she's got a CDL CDL and she's working for like the South Carolina Department of Transportation. So pretty funny to think about my sister out there replacing manhole covers and whatnot street signs. Okay, so you're talking about

middle school not fit again. What happened in high school? Well, middle school, you know, I think I I was kind of flirting with the idea of being a good student, but I always just wanted to play music, and I just always had no other doubt in my mind of what I wanted to do. So it was hard for me to pay attention. And it's spent all my time really trying to, uh just make this one girl laugh. This girl named Halle and sat next to me in home room, and I was just over the moon, man

about the squirrel, really smitten. And she was neighbors with my middle school band drummer Caleb, So they were neighbors. So I spent a lot of time at Caleb's house, no doubt, and uh, hang out with her, and you know, I was a church going boys, so I even did like a funeral for her dog at one point, and we'd run around the woods barefoot. Just really great memories. But you know, Halloween, when we were thirteen, she got in the car with some crazy woman and they wrecked

and she died. So that really fucked me up. It's like the first real heartbreak I experienced. UM, So that really really got me in. I went into high school with that that weight, and that's when I really started putting my full effort into music and realizing the therapy, the therapeutic side to music. Okay, you talk about your mother leaving closing a bandoment issue, So how has that affected you in relationships love relationships? UM, it makes me

struggle really badly with possessiveness or you know, being controlling. Um. You know, I in no way ever want to feel like I'm an overbearing partner or or anything like that. But I just always so damn afraid of people leaving. And you know, it's either at or I'm having nightmares about going to the Map in Philadelphia and nobody's showing up. You know, I'm I'm constantly afraid that, um, something that will come out in my audience will will abandon me.

You know. It's such a deep fear of mine for people to leave. You know. Even if I go out to dinner with my boys here, you know, and everybody finishes eating a little before me and they stand up. You know, my heart starts to race. I get a little aunty or if for all walking somewhere and I got tie my shoes and people don't wait on me. I'll get physically just I rate, you know. Uh. But so what happened with the woman and where you went

to therapy whatever and it didn't work out. I mean I was really fucked up at the time, you know, I was. I just um at that time. One of the first things that really started to pull that relationship apart. I mean, aside from the fact that uh, and this is my last relationship on my front too, designed from the fact that I needed to move to Nashville for my career and I needed to um. You know, I

got sober at that time. That's the first time I got sober, got sober, lost a lot of weight, and you know, I was trying to do right by me, and uh, she just she tried to be supportive partner, and you know, believe in my dreams as much as I did, but her dream was just too surf in places like Australia and Hawaii and Indonesia, and she was always really frustrated that I wouldn't support her dreams. I was like, well, I can't. You know, I'm financially supporting

us in every other way. I can't support your dreams. I don't have time because in order to continue to financially support us, I have to focus on my dream which also happens to be our income and are in my job. You know. It's it's what I love, it's my passion, and I'm really thankful I get to do it. But I can't just support your dreams because a lot of people will just call that a fucking vacation, you know what I mean. So it was really frustrating back

and forth. Um, and obviously, you know, if you're passion is to live by the beach and surf, it's great. I'm not knocking that. But within the you know, within the confines of our relationship, it was really frustrating and I could never really catch a break. So aside from that, I was also struggling with, for the first time, women actually taking an interest in me without me, uh initiating.

So I wasn't I wasn't being unfaithful physically, but like I would certainly entertain you know, uh, flirty texts or flirty messages or whatever, and that's so just not okay in a relationship. And you know, I feel really bad for how I behaved in that relationship, but you know, she was the one that told me, like, you need to get into the happy or I'm sucking leaving it. I was like, all right, So that's I'm really thankful for that aspect of the relationship because I did get

in therapy and now I don't. I don't crave or seek the attention of just random females. I mean, in therapy, I realized a lot of that had to do with the abandonment from my mother and you know, losing my first love and all that, and um, craving and seeking that attention was just uh, just another cry for help like everything else. But that relationship just kind of ended up implode. And I say, my substance abuse contributed to it, for sure, but then the end of that relationship also

in turn contributed to my substance abuse getting much worse. Now, someone with an abandonment issues end of a relationship must be very tough. Yeah, I mean it was tough. I mean we we broke up, like anywhere in the neighborhood of Baker's doesn't you know, we break up all the time. And then I beg her to come back. Ah, I would give her. You know, an engagement ring is an empty gesture because we both you know, it was such just a toxic relationship. Passion was very high, the passion

was very heavy. But um, you know that's all we had was passion. Um, there was no real roots to the relationship with still if wind would blow it over. So I beg her to come back from Hawaii, should come back, and then you know, the passion would be great for two or three days and then we'd be right out of each other's throats again. Um. But the last time she left, she went to Indonesia to start a bathing suit company. Yeah, I don't think it worked out,

but she left and I just it really hurt. I was like, I just don't come back, you know, I don't. I can't do this anymore. And she stayed, and you know, like I always did, a few days later, I beg you to come back, and she said, nah, now we're really through. So then you go through after you live with somebody for four years, you know, it's not like in the movies. It's not just like I'll see you later, you know, then you go through the process of trying to get all of their ship out of your house,

and then you put it on the storage unit. And then after a while you're like, hey, and I don't want to pay for your storage unit anymore. It's only your stuff in there, and uh just gets really break ups are ugly and bring out the worst in people, certainly her. So since that relationship ended, did you take advantage of any of the perks on the road? H I think I was, you know, just just the fact that it's suicide prevention month or awareness month rather. Um,

I think it's important to say that I was. That was a heartbroken and just so lonely and just so devastated. My grandmother had died at that point. She was gone, And UM, I wrote a tune. It's actually gonna be on my next rack. It's called Cadillac and all about you know, my old Cadillac. And you know I bought a house with a garage for the reason of, you know, killing myself that way. That was my whole plan, if

you want to call it a plan. Um. But then I had a tour I had to go do, so I figured why not go out doing what I love. I can just I can drink and drug myself to death out here while I'm playing music. It's a win win, you know, I achieve what I'm setting out to do. So I was too fucked up really to take advantage

of any of the parks on the road. Really, I mean there was probably a a couple of drunk you know, uh escapades, but nothing really ever failed a void and I was just really oh, I mean put light on the subject. There's this movie that John c Riley did called Dewey Cox Walk Hard. It's just like, this is such a dark fucking period. It's like that was mine. Um, but in that dark period, I met uh Briley while

I was in Raleigh, North Carolina. I met Briley and uh, you know, she just seemed like this light at the end of the tunnel and she's really sassy and she calls me on all my bullshit and she was you know that night too, just like yeah, because I invite her backstage, and she's like, what do you expect is gonna happen? You know, I'll bet you invite everybody backstage.

It's no, you're special, You're special. And she is so uh I'm glad she came along right, right, And but you're she doesn't come on the road with you, right, she does. Yeah, she comes on the road, so she's there with you. Now. Well she's actually she went home to see uh, her mama and her parents and bring our little dog so they can watch her because this is kind of a long run. So she's went home and she's gonna meet us in Philadelphia tomorrow for the

first stop. Wow, that's cool. Okay, So when do you first pick up the guitar? Man? I think that's about three three or four, as soon as I could hold one. And what was the inspiration? My dad, my grandpa, my uncle's just seeing how elated everyone was after you know, the family reunion or maybe thanksgivings. We'd go up to my great grandfather, Morris King's house and he had an old moonshine and still he'd show us the moonshine and still at the back of the cornfield, and then everybody

would pick on the front porch. And the joy that you could see on everybody's faces, the spectators and the performers are all alike. Uh. I was like, I gotta get in on that, you know, because even at a young age, you you don't really understand a lot of the pain, but you understand how to not feel it. So music was something I really I really wanted to grasp ahold of and then it grasped ahold of me. And never take any lessons just from my dad. I

didn't take any formal lessons that along at a young age. Um, a lot of my lessons. You know, my whole family all learned how to play music, you know, by ear no formal training of any kind. My grandfather was a really really uh you know, worldly educated man. You know, I think he probably only had up to an eighth grade education if that. But he's a really smart guy. So he would he would write out you know, now

I think you'd call it tablisher, but he was. He was pretty much he would draw like a He would trace my hand and then he'd draw the neck out, and then he would draw circles where my fingers were supposed to go. So it is tablisher actually. But he was doing this in like the fifties when he was teaching my my dad to play. So, um, seeing them play really made me want to get into it. Okay, it's a kid, what music we're listening to other than the music you were playing with your family. So yeah,

I keep mentioning gospel music. And I was in a Pentecostal church, so, uh, the Mark what Mark Ward the musical director there. They they would always do a lot of Kirk Franklin and that kind of stuff, a lot of contemporary gospel that was on the radio then. Um, and you know, whatever my sister was banging around on the radio wasn't really doing it for me. So that's when my my dad's music collection came to play, and he had just had all of his tapes and records

all digitally transferred to CDs. CDs were a big thing, so I was able to really rifle through those, a lot of a lot of Muddy Waters, Allman Brothers, Elmore, James um Early, Leonard skinnerd H. Marshall, Tucker Band, God, that was a big one. And I just sit and listen to these records and try to learn everything I could, absorb everything I could from And when did you decide music was something you wanted to do for a career.

So I've answered this question before and I've always just kind of said that I never thought otherwise, which is really the truth. And you know, just to expand on that, when I was in sixth grade, I, um, we did this test that was kind of like what are you gonna be when you grow up kind of thing, and my test results came back and said I was going to be a small set director, which is the guy that you know organizes the mannequins in the mall, And uh, miss Austin, I don't think I want to do that.

I actually really like playing music. Well, you gotta be good if you want to play music professionally, right, all right? And I also got denied being in the school choir that same year, so I had a you know, a lot of proof. I guess miss Adams and Miss Alston if you're listening, but um, yeah, I just never thought really otherwise after that point in my life. Sixth grade, I was like, music is it? And when did you start playing in Ben's And when did you started playing

for money out? By the time I was eleven. First time I played on stage, I was eight years old, played on stage with my dad and my grandfather. I think that was the only time I got to really play with my grandfather because he got really sick after that and he passed when I was about fourteen, and it was one of a few times I got to play with my uncle on bass because he passed when I was about fifteen. So, uh, that is a really good memory for me to have played with like all

the family. You know, those a couple of occasions. But when I was about thirteen, or rather when I was eleven, that's when I did my first record on my on my dad's record. That's when I did my first studio session. Uh. And he did a record called Huge in Europe, which is just meant to be a joke, like nobody knows is here, but we're huge and Europe kind of um, which now it actually does get it does sell some

copies in Europe, which is ironic. Um. So that's the first time I was in the studio, and then I started playing with his band for a few years, and when I was fourteen and a half, I was able to get my license and or my learners permit. So then my goal was, you know, with this learners permit, I can drive with a license driver in the car, and you know who's gonna turn down a gig where you can drink as much as you want. I'll drive you home. I've got the p a, your rig, my

rig all in the back of the car. Let's go. So I started working with a student of my dad's actually, who was taking bass lessons from my dad because my dad gave basin like guitar lessons and Anthony house John a band. So he was like eighteen and I was about fourteen and a half fifteen, and my drummer. We went through a handful of drummers at the time that

we're all like grown men with families. So I'd keep us working like four or five nights a week, and over the phone, you don't know you were talking to a fourteen year old. So I'd call and and book us in all the surrounding areas, or I'd send emails under a fake name to make it seem like we had representation and we didn't. And then we just tore around him a minivan. We'd go no more than four for four or five hours outside of Greenville so I could get back in time to go to school next morning.

And what kind of music were you playing? And what kind of joints were these? They weren't particularly the kind of joints you wanted. Fourteen or fifteen year old of your own go to Uh. My dad just had a lot of confidence in me. And you know, I got it in a little bit of trouble while I was doing that, and but nothing really crazy. It was all pretty harmless fun. But my dad trusted me. And you know, I'd always bring a drummer along, like I said, to

be kind of a chaperone. Um. Tracy little John was my last working drummer actually, uh before Jack joined a group. And Tracy was from Spartanburg or actually Tracy from Gaffney. So Tracy little John was not the type of dude you would want to suk with. And he's passed away now and got rested soul. But he'd have a gun and his stick bag at all times. And I give

the cous for behind us. He tell us all to put our put our little stash and his drum bag because he's like I could take a pinch and um, you know, he wouldn't let anybody mess with men on the road. Uh. I missed that guy a lot, think about him often. But um, the top of music we were playing, you know, we we try to. We had

a throwback sound and when you're in the Carolinas. You can get away with playing you know, like uh like Willie t anything that had a shuffle to it, because people can shag anything that's kind of like beach music. And we get away with playing like some old country, some Little Feet, Almond Brothers, that kind of stuff. So people just ate it up and we slipped original material into the set, and then it just started to grow

and it started to expand. And when I was seventeen, I said, I've had them bet enough of this town. I'm I'm leaving. So that's what we did. Okay, so you're playing these gigs, how many people were there? How much money you did? You get paid? So you know, I remember when I was sixteen years old, UM, one of the many runnings I had with a club owner. He's a friend of mine now, Ben Dixon owned Chakora Alley. Um, they said three dollars, you got a four piece group,

play three hundred dollars. Don't play this Saturday, And they'd be like two hundred people there because people would turn out to watch the football game or to watch anything else that was on. So I at a young age realized people are coming to drink, and they're coming to watch the game, and they're coming to hang out with their friends and you are a lot of noise in the background. So how do we engage them and make them want to hear us and make them come back

to where we're at the top of that priority list? Right? So having house gigs agreeable at that young age. It was in Asheville. I'd have like three or four house gigs a week where I got to really you know, I had a firsthand lesson and like how to read an audience and how to really engage them and how to keep them engaged, you know. So I'm really thankful for those early years. But will you get paid like three dollars? And one week I remember a keyboard player

couldn't make it. He was like, I'm not giving you the full three because I only pay seventy a man. I was like, no, it works out at seventy a man, but the deal was three d you know. Uh. So they always try to get one over on me, And one time they tried to do that in Spartanburg at this place called Decades, kind of bar that you only know it was there. If you knew it was there, it's like behind like you know, uh, like a place where you give blood, like a lab corps or some ship.

And on the other side of it was a police uh uh, not a police station, but like the people that answered the phone, so like a dispatch station. So they are all the people at the despatch station outside smoking cigarettes and stuff. And I had this drummer we meant at the time, who I later found out was uh selling large amounts of weed, so his van was

weighed down. And I said all that to say, in this particular evening, we were playing too maybe two people, and they happened to be dating the members of the band, so there was nobody in the club, and the sign said we played till one, but our agreement was we played until twelve, so we got done at twelve, and they said, well, we're not You know, we're not paying you because sign says you played to one, So get your aspect up there and finish your set er. We're

not paying you. So I took my grandfather's advice. On this particular night, I had enough. Um, we gotta get paid. So what we're gonna do is take your p a and we'll pawn it and we'll get paid close to what you're gonna pay us, and that's fair, and that's fine. We don't mind loading it out, so we'll just take it out this store. And uh, you know that's what my grandfather told me to do. I was like, I gotta pay my boys, so we're gonna sell your ship

because you were supposed to pay us. And then out of nowhere, all these big dudes just started coming out of the walls. It seemed like this barb brawl ensued that was instigated by fifteen year old meat and just this fight started happening, and they jumped on the back of Leo, and the people that were watching is the audience is the dispatch unit smoke break, so they're all out there smoking. So all they gotta do is go

in and let somebody know what's happening. So all of sudden there was six police cars all around us, and uh, my drummer at the time, they jumped in and rolled his ankle and he's like, I don't want to press in each others. I'm good, I just want to get out of here. And I never really really understood that until later I found out he was, you know, moving around a lot of weight. But that's the kind of shenanigans. We'd get into just trying to make a few dollars,

not get not get fucked with. Okay, you drop out of high school, music is your career? In retrospect, say I paid my dues ten thousand hours? What was going through your head? You say, this is it where my dream is X? Or what's gonna happen? Um? Man? I just I just had like I've always kind of looked at it like a like a pit bull mentality. You know when the pit bull gets his jahas lot doing something that's like it's not letting go, it's a death grip.

And that's where I was just you know, I would be so just astonished at the people that didn't believe that this was gonna do something. Like my bass player's dad, for instance, back in those days, it was like, you know, Anthony, you need to go finish college and you know, become a peuter computer programmer, and you need to you know,

get married and settled down. And just like when he told me he couldn't do it anymore, he's going back to school, I was just like, what, like, just I was taking it back because there's no part of me that thought this was gonna fail. And for me, that's that's how you make it is one no safety now, you know, because I knew guys that would be on the scene playing three nights a week and then they'd go to school to be a doctor or whatever the hell.

I'm like, it's not gonna work. Is at a certain point that's gonna pay a lot more in the short run and the long run, I guess. But you gotta have faith in yourself. So we just went after it and never turned back around. Yeah, okay, so you're doing it, you know, and especially in today's era, everything moves very slowly. What were you doing to move further down the board. Did you feel like, oh, you just had to play the right gig or you had to play more gigs.

You're right, you had to write a right song, you had to record a song, You have to meet the right people. I realized very early on that I wasn't going to get a song on the radio more than likely, um, because everything sounded to throwback what I was doing. And you know, it's come around a little bit, you know, like people are putting out not these country songs and gett a hit with it. Um. But at the time,

throwback just wasn't really it. So we get a lot of love from fraternities, um, and those were the money gigs, so roar, are excuse me a fraternity gigs? Those would cover the bills for a little while, and then we can get on down the road and we can play more of our music and we can start to accumulate a following on the road. Because I do two things that weren't gonna get a song on the radio, and my looks weren't gonna do it for me. So I said, the only way to do this is to build a following.

And if we just started circling this country and we just started hitting him from every angle, and I ain't gonna be able to say no, you know. I mean they can say no, but we're here. So when you plead a fraternity at that time, what songs did you play? And how much money was that gig worth? I don't remember the exact amount of money. I mean they passed like two grand and we'd be like, we're rich. You know, we're finally going to get the van fixed, so we

don't have a worry it's gonna break down every few miles. Um, And everything back in those days was very much so um, everybody all for one, one for all, that kind of feeling. And it's still very much that way on the road. Um. The dynamics shifted a little sometimes, the one that kind of put a lot of the weight on my shoulders. But in those days, we go playing fraternity and we'd play I mean, we would play obscure Ship, we played really whatever we wanted as long as we were jamming.

You know, they didn't care because they just they all loved widespread panics. So we get away with playing like compared to what by less McCann and we jam jammed out for thirty minutes and cool. Okay. At that time, who was booking the band? And how far away from your home base would you go? So I was booking the ban up until the time I was eighteen, and we at that time, we're only going as far as you know, we'd go to Georgia. We're touring the Southeast predominantly.

That's about it. Uh. And when I was eighteen, a buddy of ours, Bill Hahn, said he wanted to put a little money into us. So he said, he flies out to California to maca record, and that's what we did, and when we got back, Uh, he had set up a meeting for us, because Bill went to the citadel and those boys all look out for each other. And as it would turn out, one of his Citadelle brothers was a writer by the name of Jamison Clark. And Jameson Clark used to be a big writer in Nashville

and had since retired and moved back to Greenville. And he said, Marcus is gonna need an agent. I know just the guy. So he put me in touch with Brandon round Tree at William Morris Entertainment in Dever. Excuse me, he used to just be wearing us. And my grandfather's name is William Morris King. So I said, hot hot dog, that's what I'm supposed to be. And that's still my agent now. So uh we went there very fresh faced,

and he gave us a meeting. I mean he met with us in the the lobby where they sell coffee. He didn't take us up stairs, but he gave us the chance. And the first gig he booked for us was Sea World, and uh, we had a gig at sea World all day and then drove twelve hours back to make it to a late night gig in Simpsonville,

South Carolina. So um, from there, he just started booking us and continuing on that pattern of just hitting every market as hard as we could, I mean as far as we could go in a van anyway, you know. And then a little more after that. So what were you doing with the record? And was that a significant thing? So I self released that record. Um, but you was at we put it out. Um. But for me as I was never really interested in, you know, putting out

a record. I mean I knew it was important. I know it's an important thing, but I was like, where our money is coming from and where our following is gonna come from is from the live shows. You know, we need something to sell. We need a record to sell. Um. And later the studio became more of my my friend and more of a place where I could express myself differently than I could on the stage. So I have much more, I put much more stock, much more value, appreciate it more now than I did then. So we

self released it. It's called Soul Insight, Uh, my clever little name that I came out with. And then you know, well, to say what I'm about to say, I'll go back a few years when I just had a demo in hand that just said Marcus King and Sharpie on the front of it. And uh, I was trying to sneak into the Orange pill in Asheville, North Carolina to get a copy of this to Warren Haynes from the Olman Brothers Man and uh, I made it in. I snuck in with the caterers and they you know, I made

it in. I have my CD. I was ready, but I didn't. I didn't know the layout of the building. That was the only problem with my plans. So they found me out, kicked me out. They tried to put me in jail. Um, thank god they didn't. They just called my dad and my dad said, don't lock him up. He's just trying to get his music with somebody. And as fate would have. My buddy, Rocky Rocky Linsley, um songwriter from Asheville. He just passed away not too long ago, unfortunately.

But he sat waring down and his wife Stephanie and his manager uh and said listen, sit down and listen. They kept telling him like, oh, we're gonna check it out. We're gona check it out. And this was so inside that they played him, so, um, they listened and they heard me. So then we rereleased it on Evil Team Records and I started working with hard Head Management right then.

And that was such a huge leap for me to be able to have Warren Haynes's stamp of approval because that you know, kind of grandfathered us in to that Allman Brothers family, that community, and that's a real thick community. So they really welcomed us with open arms. And you know, that relationship didn't last unfortunately, and that wasn't my you know, my choice, but I am really ain'tful to them. Why

did it not last? Well? Came in time to make change in management, and uh, you know Warren's management manager was my manager as well, but it also happened to be his wife. So you know, when you mix business and family, and I had to cut ties. Um, that friendship that was there and I looked at stuff like a mother figure. She looked out for me. But when I cut that tie, they really really turned on me. And that really broke my heart into a million pieces. Um destroyed me. But uh, it was time. I had

to make a change. And you gotta do what's right for you business wise. But you know, I haven't talked to one since then. And what were you looking for from new management that you weren't getting? It? Needed somebody to focus on me. I needed somebody that was you gonna help me get out from under the heel of the southern rock thing, you know, because we're very much typecasted.

I wor a cowboy hat everywhere I go, for God's sakes, I mean, you know, I am a I'm like a cartoon depiction of like what a loud American is for the most part. And I wanted to be more than that. I wanted to be able to do whatever kind of record. And I didn't want to just be stuck in that jam community because there's a ceiling there and you're never gonna be bigger than fish or a grateful death, So what's the point in trying. And I'm more concerned about

the songs and the lyrical content. And I love a jam band as much as the next guy, you know, but I want to be me and I wasn't getting the attention that I needed um and when I was, it was is placed. So I had to go and I found a new manager that you know, heard me, and it's been going pretty well, how did you how did you find the new manager? Well, that word spread pretty quick, uh that I was making a move, and we had we kind of lit a fire for ourselves at that point. So that word spread and I had

about five meetings. I did them all in person, and those meetings varied from like taughting one guy who's actually a good buddy of mine Nashville Fella spoke to him next to our van in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And you know, another meeting was held in a King's suite in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the Flamingo Hotel and they had an easel and uh, you know, power point presentation and all this. Uh. But my manager, Aaron, and I sat down and had coffee in l A and I was like, I like your style, man,

like the cut of your jib. Let's do this. And you know we're still working together. Then what did he change? Well, that's a hard question to answer, really because there wasn't much broke that needed to be fixed. It was more a matter of expanding us into new markets and allowing us to be you know, available to you know, a younger crowd, more diverse crowd. Um, what's been really helpful

to me as an artist has been. If I do what's completely me and what's true in my heart, I just need somebody to push it because I'm not good at telling myself. You know what I mean. The only thing I could say about myself and it still comes across to me is eager to to go as that. Um, whatever I'm gonna tell you or whatever I might perform is gonna be honest. If you don't like it, it's fine, but it's honest. It's true. Um, whether it's good or not,

I don't know. But I can only assure you of what one thing is that I'm not gonna bullshit you. So how does it go from the Marcus King bend to just Marcus King? So that was really just a decision of marketing because Marcus King band is who's on the road with us right now. That's my boys, Um,

but work with the producer like our back. He's got this well oiled machine where he's just he's just got a couple of guys from the Memphis Boys, Bubby Would and h h Gene, Bubba Christman, and he's got um Billy Sandford on guitar who wrote riff for pretty Woman his second day in Nashville. So he's got a thing and I was like, well, I guess it's just a market King record because my band wasn't on it. It

was really that honest of a decision. And then the next one was the same situation, just with different guys. So I was like, well, when we're touring with a Marcus King band, but it's just Marcus King. But then all the press start to say Marcus King's first solo record, and I was like, oh, no, well, I guess that's true, but it wasn't because of that or this, and you know, it was just a misunderstanding. Really. Uh, we still sell

Marcus King band t shirts at this at the shows. Um, a lot of people ask big questions on Instagram and stuff. I'm like, just come to this show man. All your answers. All your answers you'll find at the show. So the people you're working with, now, how long you've been working with them? Uh? Shoot, when was that? I think since

twenty nineteen, so few years. Okay, there's a video of you with the Capital Theater earlier this year and you're doing the Marshall Tucker band Ken You can't you see, and there's you know, just like old school uh double drummer things. There's a percussionist, there's a drummer, there's a floutist, there's a woman who's playing guitar. Was that just a one night or I mean, how many people do you

normally go out with? Mm? Hmm. So our man usually we have uh so that yeah, that particular night, that was our friend Hannah Wickland sitting in with us, who was opening for us at the time. Uh, And usually we have it's a seven piece band, including myself, So that's every night. Okay, needless to say, the Allman Brothers were six. Let me put it in a different way, how do you split the money? Well, it's a fine question. I put my boys uh salary because that's what they

wanted to do early on. Not to get too uh too far into the business side of it, but um, around the time we were doing Carolina Confessions, UM, it kind of came a time to put up or shut up or get out. And you know, it was kind of a decision of who's going to take the financial risk here, who's gonna sign on the dotted line? When the label came to sign a deal, they asked me for a signature. They didn't ask for six signatures, they

asked for one. So that record deal came to me. Um, I'm the one that put all the financial risk into the band, and I gave everybody the opportunity to do so. And they decided that they wanted two play it safer and and do more of a salaried employee more of a hired gun kind of situation. So we have an employment agreement with each other as their employer. I pay them fair wages and I take good care of my boys because they are my boys. But what do you

do over COVID wouldn't goodn't work? Well? Luckily enough, we had enough in that Randy Day fund to keep everybody on salary for about six months. And once that ran out, Uh, we got a little bit of government cheese that let us go a little bit further. And you know, once the money went away, as like, I don't know what we're gonna do. So we started, you know, trying to work anyway. We could, started doing drive in shows, um,

socially distanced concerts, uh. And we'd even do like live stream shows, just anyway to try to create some revenue and get the boys paid. Uh. And I always make a real effort to take care of my guys because you know how loyal is a hungry really you know, your dog will eat you if you're stuck in the house for over many days. Well for those who for those have been in the business, you know for a long time, the more musicians you take, you know, the

costs starts to spiral. There's not only salary, there's equipment, there's hotel rooms, there's busses, there's uh trucks. Are you just saying you're investing in your career. Are you making any money on the road? Yeah, man, I mean there's a lot of overhead. So that was you know, kind of that decision. Was that the financial risk that I referred to as, like you said, there's seven office, there's two buses out here. You know, we go and do tours um in Europe where when in the red, we're

pretty deep in the red. And you know, the band they don't see any of that hit. They get paid no matter what. I don't get paid, no matter what, you know, I find it to be the best. When the leader eats last. I want to make sure that my boys are fed first. So take care of the crew and I take care of the band, and you know, we make decisions like just like back in the day when we would do a fraternity party, you know now, I mean how I still do fraternity parties. I don't care.

They're fun. Those are fun gigs. Those boys always take carrying me down Tuscaloosa and uh wherever else. But now we'll go and do a corporate function or something that pays pretty well. And that money will, you know, make up for the loss that we had on a West coast tour that didn't you know. And it's not that people aren't coming to these shows, it's that the travel and all the other overhead is so much, you know,

especially after COVID, ma'am, and cost of fuel. Everything is such a such a pitch right now, and um, traveling with seven people is not cheap. Okay. Now you will talk about being pigeonholed in the gam bend circuit. How did you get out of that? And to what to grieve? You decided to only play headline dates. Well, I remember seeing uh Crongben. They were playing on jam Cruise And first time I saw Crongben was four or five years

ago at the Williamsburg Music Hall. Me and Chris Robinson went to see him, and I was a fan of theirs before that, and they have blown all the way up, which I love. But you know, they would only play like one quote unquote jammy event a year because they didn't want to get in that same position that we were trying to crawl out of. So I said, well,

work for them, maybe that's what we'll do. And I saw Jason is what kind of doing the same thing, uh, because he wanted to be considered more of a writer m less of a jam band because he can from the drive by truckers. So I'd only see him at you know, Locking every year or something like that festival that's more jam in nature. Um. So that was kind of the attempt. And I also I felt a lot of pressure as a jam band because sometimes I don't feel like playing this song for thirty minutes, you know

what I mean. The energy comes from the crowd, it's a it's a back and forth for me. So I'm not that song is three minutes because that's what's written, that's how it is on the record. And I'm not getting any reciprocation. I'm not feeling any love um, sometimes just gonna be at a minute song. And I started feeling pressured to have to extend and jam everything out, and also pressure to not repeat songs on a run, you know. I was like, this is a great opener.

Why wouldn't we open with it again tomorrow? I'm trying to put on a show. I'm trying to put on a show, and this is really tight, um. And I'd catch a lot of flat from tapers or from you know, people that weren't even there. They're like, soe Ler's starting to look kind of similar. I'm like, yeah, because it's tight. It's a tight set. So we're running the songs that are on the record that we're promoting. I don't know that part of it just always didn't make sense to me.

So uh, a lovely jam community. However, so to what degree will you open other than festivals? Or you would just want to headline? Um? I mean I'd just like to play. I'll play to anybody that will listen. You know, I've I've drunkenly sang in many hotel lobbies. Anybody that will listen, I'm happy to do it. So I love opening for people, especially a crew like Chris Stepton's crew, who took such good care of us. Uh, Festival dates

are always fun. I mean headline shows, that's that's my bread and butter, because there's complete freedom to do what we want, you know. For example, I mean, we have a comedian with us on this run, and that's something I've I've always wanted to do because I watch reruns of you know, Midnight Special with my grandfather and you'd see Cosby or Prior or Carlin or Robert Klein going on before Steely Dan or uh you know Red Bone

or somebody like that. Uh. I just you know, James Brown had a comedian that would travel with him and MC that would kind of open the show. So we have a comedian in on the road, we have uh first of three, Ashland Craft, who's an incredible up and coming artist in Nashville. When we have Neil Francis opening for us, So it's kind of like a variety show in a way that we're taken around and you really only get that kind of freedom when it's your your

headlines show. Okay, how did you end up working with DNA our back man? Um, I'm just I've been I say, yes, you know, I've always made a habit just to say yes. And uh, you know, in this industry, you're gonna you're gonna get fucked, And I think it's an inevitability. You're gonna get fucked, you're gonna get your heart broken sometimes at the same time, So just say yes. If somebody wants to steal your publishing, um, well, let me rephrase that.

You know, nobody's trying to steal your publish it. If it's in their hands and they know what they're doing with it and they have the incentive to use it or do something with it, it's probably better than me according it. And I don't know what the hell I'm doing with it. I don't know. I don't know. That's a tangent for for another day maybe, But um, what

was I saying? Oh? Yeah, So I was playing a gig and we were in Phoenix, Arizona, playing a festival, and we had to go on right after White Denham, which is always and a pretty big undertaking. Um, because we actually talked about taking White Denham on the road with us once. I was like, they scared the ship out of me, let's do it. That would be sense

of intimidating shell every night, but um, I digress. I got a call that next day from my management at the time that said Dan Albert wants to get together and right, so I said, well, you know what to do? Change my flight, So I'm going to Nashville. I lived in South Carolina at the time, and I was meant to go home to Greenville for three days and then fly to France. So I, uh, I said, I'm going to Nashville. And I went there and wrote with Dan for three days and we just instantly hit it off

and became friends. Um. Then what happened I think the end of I ended up moving to Nashville and uh, the start of twenty nineteen, we recorded El Dorado. Okay, you mentioned Chris Robinson earlier. You know, you talked about a relatively lonely upbringing. You know you've obviously met all these people. Are you friends with these people or they're just part of the scene, like you're part of the scene. Yeah.

I mean Chris and I we we've always remained in touch. Um. Being on the road with him was all was a real roller coaster. Man. It was really cool because I think he's one of the most charismatic front men. Um. You know in the last thirty years for sure. So I had just uh a boot camp of rock and roll Royalty on stage with me oddly freed, you know, Andy Hess and uh, I'm really thankful for those moments that we had. But I saw him at in front of ours wedding not too long ago, and he seems

to be doing good. Right, Okay, So how long did it take to do El Toronto? Three days? Were the songs already written? Yeah, So the writing process um was collectively like two weeks over like a three month period. UM would kind of be touch and go because Dan and I were both pretty busy, um and we wead

a tune. You know. I think that Dan was attracted to Nashville for the same reason I was, which was, you know, you don't feel rushed, but everything gets done quickly because everybody's so good at what they do, and writers come in and you know, what are we talking about? You know, and then you got verse, verse, chorus, lunch verse, you know, and then you go on. So the songs just talking about me leaving home when I was seventeen, and we had a theme for the record and we

just chased it. And the band that I mentioned earlier. I mean they listened to the demo tape. Dave Row who was Jerry Reid's based player and son in law. Uh would write out a chart. They'd make eight copies or how many people are in the band had him around and you know that was that would do one maybe two takes something. Well, it's your record. They're getting paid for doing the session. Were you just letting Dan steer?

Would you ever see? Man? I want to do that again. Man, whenever I'm in a studio with Dan, I've I've got such confidence in him as a producer, and I always did, but um, it wasn't I really excuse me. I started feeling even more that way when I realized that he produced Luckdown by Dr John. When I realized that, I was like, I'll never have to ask him another question, man,

that record is perfect from talking about him. So we're in the studio, there's a mutual respect for one another that kind of allows for him to be in full production mode and for me to be in full artist mode at all times, and there's very little that we have to tell one another or critique in one another as artist or producer. And you know, he's such a

calm energy too. He's got a very nautical like Captain Ahab kind of presence behind that that console, and you see him and you just know everything's going the way it should be going. Okay, you talk about Dan tracked you down, does anybody else tracked you down to work? Yeah? So, um Rick Rubin actually uh towards the end of but let's let's hold that for a second, because that couldn't down later. From an external viewpoint, the breakthrough is El Dorado.

Would that be accurate from the inside? I think so, man. I mean, that's the most I ever pushed myself musically stylistically. So I just I want to because I love my band. They pushed me every night musically. But we know each other. We're almost two in each other's heads, you know, musically, so obviously like really great ideas or birth from that. But I wanted something different. I wanted something completely fresh. It wasn't gonna have any you know, it wasn't gonna

be derivative of anything I've ever done. So when Dan and I first first collaborated, I was like, I think this is it. So it was a breakthrough from me personally as an artist, and you know, I mean, like you said, it was the breakthrough record, you know externally as well. Did you know it was going to have the impact it did? Um? I was, you know, hopeful. I think any artist would be. Um, there wasn't much about it that I felt like cringe e about, you know.

And like I mentioned earlier, I was. I was completely ruthful on the whole record, so um, and on anything I do, I won't I won't say something that I think it's bullshit on record or sounds cheesy to me. And thankfully Dan didn't asked me to do anything like that. And UM, I just felt confident in the record. You know, Okay, that record comes out on Concord. Now you're with Rick and Republic what went on there? So that was kind

of like a timing thing. So I was with Concorde Fantasy Records actually and Margie Fantasy such a swell human being, just fantastic. And my good friend Joe McEwen, who was my first day and r guy I ever had. He uh, he was there and he was the only reason I was gonna stay at Fantasy. And Rick came up because at the time I was on Bicycle Publishing and that contract ran out and American Songs. You know, was interested

in my publishing to do a co publishing deal. So Rick Rubin called me after he saw the Grand Old Opera performance and we just talked. You know, I gotta feel for one another, um, which I which I really admire because he owns American Publishing and American Records American Songs, excuse me, um. So I saw him publishing with him.

And then I was thinking about maybe making a move from my current label to something a little bigger, and there were a lot of names on the table, and uh, I decided I was gonna stay just because Joe McEwen was such a close friend of mine. And then I found out through the grapevine that he was actually retiring. So I was like, all right, I think it's time for a change. And Rick offered me the best deal that anybody did. So I signed on paper in Malibu

and here we are. Okay, so you're dealing is done with Fantasy Concord. Yeah, there was no you know, I called Margie directly, I spoke to Tom Wally directly. I mean, there was no hard feelings on my on my part. I'm sure they were sad to see me go and everyone I worked with there are still friends and no hard feelings. It was just a timing thing. And she was like, I get it. It's a step in the right direction for your career, so we're happy for you.

So I thought that's great. So did Rick have any input into the new record, which certainly is hard ridged? And how did that come about? Um? So Dan, you know, and I really had the idea for this record. Um. And you know, again, I've been really lucky, really blessed us too, have the confidence um, and everyone that I work with, like for Rick for example, he's like, we have confidence in you to do what you do and we know it's gonna good. It's gonna sound good. So

thank God for that. And me and Dan decided we wanted to do this great, big, arena rock sounding record. But when I say arena rock, a lot of people think Rat Poison, Molly Crewe. But I go to you know, Cream at Royal Albert Hall or Jethrowsull, you know that kind of sound at late sixties arena style, like huge custom cabinets, huge orange cabinets, you know, across the stage.

That's what I want. A grand funk railroad. So me and Dan were on the same page there, and the breakup just happened to be just before we started writing, so I was able to say a lot. I had a lot of lyrical content. Okay, this record is done, it's relatively new, and it's released cycle next time around. Would you just stick Dane or would you entertain other options?

So it's funny you mentioned that, because you know, I've I've actually got like eleven tims in the can that I've been working with, uh, someone else on UM for about a year, just because it's kind of like my pet project. I go back to it and uh, it's it's more or less like a prequel to Young Blood. It's Uh, it's a collection of songs about mental health primarily and you know, the suffers of a relationship with someone in that state of mind. So, uh, I think

that might be my next work that comes out. UM. There's also another record I'm working on, and I'm really excited. This is actually gonna be the first place that I announce it publicly UM, which I hope is not pretty mature because everything is not you know, confirmed yet. But Paul Riddle and I Paul Riddle, the original drummer from the Marshall Tucker Band UM one and only original drummer. UM. We started working together, uh with Hotel Burbridge as well,

and UH then Skills involved. It's a project that's pretty much, you know, our Southern response to Deaden Company. It's it's our opportunity for us to get Marshall Tucker's music out where it needs to be and appreciated once again. So I think the name we're going to potentially go for his Tucker and Company if we can make it happen. Okay, how'd you end up working with Zach Brown? He called me? He called me one day. It seems to be this pattern in my life. I remember I was in Santa

Cruz on a day off. I was horrifically hungover, potentially the most hungover ever been in my life. UM, I got a call from a Georgia number. I this is, but I'm not answering. I got a text message and he sa, hey, man is Zach Brown called me back? So I called him. I called him back and we just shout the ship for a couple of hours, and UH, come to find out, I guess he was just feeling me out because he was getting ready to write for

uh uh come back. So um he asked me to come right with him and uh Ben Simon Eddie in Southern Ground in Nashville, and uh then we just we just quickly became really good buddies. You know. Zack's just the kind of guy. I was out in downtown Nashville or midtown at the uh the Red Door saloon. I met a bunch of college kids. Uh they recognized me, so we just started partying together and the bar closed. So I was like, man Zack, Stude, I only meant Zack one time prior to this. I was like, man

Zack studios around the corner. Let's just go over there. I know they're working. So we just went over there, and I told him. I was like, I got like six college kids with me and from how to Study's all right? He said, yeah, man, bring them all. So we just went over there. That's just the kind of guy he is. Man. He loves family, and he is a sweet fella. And uh me and my wife to be actually spent Easter with him and uh his wife to be this year. UH really blessed to have that

man in my life. He's a good, good boy. Needless to say, things were different in the hey day of the Almond Brothers, skinnerd and Tucker, where you know, you had an album every year or two years, where now you can do whatever you want now. You said earlier that originally you were less into the records. How into the records are you now and to what degree do you have to space out the records or you know, hey, one of these records that don't come out four months

from now. I think I like that question a lot, man. You know, for me, I'm I have a lot more freedom in studio. You know, I'm allowed, I'm allowed to play with more ideas. Um. And that's certainly the case with a lot of stuff I've been doing very recently. Um, because I was actually putting some you know, final touches on the next record on the day that Young Blood came out. So I like that. I like to always

have something ready to go, ready to be released. Um. But this next record after young Blood, I think it's gonna be a little different than what people are used to hearing me do. So for that reason, I want to have a live record in the chamber, ready to ready to pop, or like the Marshall Tucker tribute record. I want to have that ready to go, because I never want people to only have something new from me

and they don't like it. I want there to be like I don't like this, but there's also another new thing from him that I do like. I understand that. Believe me, there's options. Who did you work with on this new record? Uh? That's something Rick and I did, um, just the two of us. And I haven't told anybody about that, so I don't I don't know. Uh, my, my publicists and all that are gonna you know, get on to listen. In today's world where it's hard to get any message out, it's like if you say it,

the more people, it's hard to reach anybody. Yeah, okay, why do you use an orange amplifier? UM? I just always thought they looked cool, man. I mean, that's that's the shallow answer. But also they came to me, um, they they approached me about making an app. UM. Well up, here's some backstory. I used to use this bootique amplifier UM by this fellow who made him in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and he would put wax in them and stuff so

you couldn't dissect the schematics in the amp. And they would break all the time because they'd ride around in a trailer and they're beautiful, just amazing sounding tube amplifiers. And I won't say any names just because the story takes a dark turn, right. So he it was very particular about who could work on his amps, and he didn't want anybody to be able to open him up. Yeah, I'd be on the West coast. He'd be like, ship it to me in Hershey, Pennsylvania, I'll fix it. And

they just always be broken. And I had no you know, no spare and no you know, no options really. So when we'd go overseas, Orange gave us a deal where they'd let us take out base cabs and guitar caves and all that on the house, just because they wanted us to look like Orange investadors. So when I came back to the States, I was like, that's the move. Orange is really giving us a lot of free amplifiers. They've helped us out, let's scratch their backs. So I

switched to Orange Amps, and I'll never forget. We're playing a crawfish festival in New Jersey, which sounds like a weird fever dream that doesn't make any sense. A Crawfish Festival in New Jersey. But I remember the guy came out and he just saw my Orange jamps up there and was like, what the fund is that we had a we had a handshack agreement. I was like, don't ever approach me like that on my way to the

stage again. I'll knock you on your ass because that is a meditative state when you're walking onto the stage. For a little ship to come up to me and start trying to get violent with me in that moment, that's you know, you know, not not good. So it was at that time that I've been using Orange amps, and then they wanted to make a custom amplifier and I said yes, and I was really honest with him about what I didn't like, what I did like, and MK Ultra is what was born from that. Okay, you

know all these cm sound different. Why you know, a marshal of Fender, etcetera. You know, Orange has a sound, and they're making a special one with you or you just not that particular. As long as it's got any EmpId speakers, You're cool that. There's a lot of truth in what you just said. Really, but I mean, I've always been of the sound mind that if you play it right, it's gonna sound right. You know, orange amp looks cool, and I was like, just don't overthink it, boys.

You know, for my money, the best to amplifier that you can get is mid sixties black face Fender Amp. That's because it's simple, man, It's meat and potatoes. You open up the back of that thing and I can figure out how to fix it. And if I know how to fix it, there's not a lot of thought put into it. It's just it's simple. They didn't overthink the process. It just sounds great. Um. So I was like, that's the approach we're gonna take. But I wanted to

have the power of a British amplifier. So we made kind of hybrid of sorts of my favorite simple builds. And it's just got volume base trouble. And I'd have even less on it if if if I could just a volume now like an old Fender Champ. And what about effects pedals? I love fuzz pedals man. And uh, this old boy in in Maine Teddy with truth I pedals. Um he I saw his pedals and I thought they looked cool. They look like the old soapbox poss pedals.

You'll notice a pattern with me and something looks cool, I'm gonna try it and and wait for the results. So, because I've never been a gear head, I like I like the aesthetic of some gear. He had, uh, these big orange soapbox fuzz pedals, so he sent me one and then I started talking about him in all these magazines. And because I don't know anything about gear, I didn't realize he was relatively new company, and I kind of blew him up to the to the gear scene and

everybody started ordering. So now he sends me all of his new products. I didn't realize that I did that, but I'm glad I did. Um. So I used the fuzz pedals and I have like a like a Univibe style pedal, so you can get that Robin Trauer kind of Hendrix. Just I like space and I like fuzz um, but not much beyond that. Really, I like the amplifier to really do the talking. And how did you end up with your own gibbs in e yes? So that

was kind of a journey. Um Jim Lillard and Mike Volts at the Gibson Memphis factory when it was still up and running and they had all the big green machines from back in the day in Michigan. Kalamazoo Um. They took me on a tour there, and that's those are the first guys that gave me a guitar to use on the road because the way I was traveling,

I had my grandfather's guitar with me. The three I remember being on the subway with that massive road case, and you know, being in New York City with that guitar. And this was my first time up there, so I didn't have much confidence in in the and in human kinds, especially with that guitar. So I take that guitar into these little bathrooms with me, and you know, I just never left my side. So that was the first thing I asked Gipson about, was something I attack on the

road that didn't have the sentimental value. And then after a couple of years, Uh Jim Lillard uh took my original sixty two that belonged to my grandpa and he just completely went through every nook and cranny on that guitar.

I'm I'm convinced that he slept next to it now because he presented to me the first prototype and it's not very often that you're like, he did it in one shot, that's it, you know, And there were some little changes that had to be made, But the first prototype he gave me is the one I play every night. You know, so Big Red lives again. And what about you know you're oftentimes scene with less Paul. I like

heavy guitars. I guess I'm just really I want to have bad problems when I get older, because that's what's gonna happen. I like, I like to fill a chunk of wood man like a tree limb as well. I had to carry around on on stage because gifts and has been on this pilgrimage for for years to make a light less Paul. And I'm like, why would you do such a foolish thing. I want to feel the guitar,

you know. It's like, uh, it's like when you're trying to replicate the sound of a Leslie right, it's physically moving air. You're not gonna be able to replicate that because it's moving air around the move around the room phial. So how many guitars do you have? Too many? As my wife to be says, But that's in the neighborhood of about forty or fifty and what how many less palls do you have? And do you have any good ones? Really old fifty nine or whatever. Man, I don't have

a fifty nine. I'll tell you a funny story though. Um, I've got a sixty nine, which is the same wood and the same pickups. Basically, when they did all those Black Beauties in the late sixties, it was kind of leftover parts from all those uh bursts that are so sought after. Uh kind of a trick of the trade there. And I love that guitar. His name, her name is Gizmo.

So I was gonna buy nineteen fifty nine Gibson Last Paul um from Carter because they had what is actually a pretty reasonable deal for that guitar um And I was thinking about it, thinking about it, and then I get a message on my phone from one Dawn our back. It's just a photo of the guitar, and I was like, no, please, no. And then the next photo he was in his car, and then the next photo it was on the couch in his studio. So I was like, all right, I

guess I'm gonna buy my first house instead. And who's the best rock guitarist according to you, Oh, best rock guitarist according to me, Man I go Clapton. I think I'm pretty pretty Clapton all the way. Just he created a sound, you know. But but then again, oh, that comes from the amount of influence that they had on all the players after them. You know. Jimi Hendrix is gonna be one that everyone looked too because he changed the whole game. But Clapton was kind of doing the

same thing as far as changing the game. I mean, between those two guys, you'll find everything you need the rock guitar, that's for sure. And you said you were like your mother, you were a reader. What do you read? So? I like to listen to books when I'm out here on the road. Right now, I'm reading this book called Chaos. It's about um, It's about the Manson murders and m k Ultra and how it's all kind of tied together. Really interesting read to get up on my conspiracy theories.

I'm a novice. I mean, you know, I'm not you know, I'm not on Info Wars every day or anything like that. I look at it kind of like Greek mythology. It's interesting to me. So, uh, I read that, and I'll read like, you know, the secrets of you know, uh wow, like relationship values. You know, I listen to relationship podcasts or sometimes just something funny, something you know, lighthearted. Okay, you're from the South. You know, the South is, as

we say, politically read. So where do you fit in on the political spectrum and what do you think about the future of our country? Man? I love this country so much. It's so beautiful. I just spent a couple of weeks in Italy and on the Tuscan countryside and it's so gorgeous. But then I came back home and I went fishing with a good buddy of mine on a lake by my house and the sun was setting and you know, that's the view that's five minutes down

the road from my house. And just the views that I've seen, you know, the Roaring Waters in Montana, you know the Redwoods in California. I mean, it's all just so overwhelming and astounding to me. And you know, whichever way you lean, just take care of this beautiful country, because it really is beautiful and I would take it over any other view in a heartbeat, you know, But politically I ain't worried about all that mess. Man. I just I just like to play music for anybody that

will listen. And if you if you love your fellow man and you think peace is school and you can come behind the show. We just don't like violence. Okay, we were talking earlier, like when you're remember you're bend went back to school, putting your head down because you knew we were gonna make it. Needless to say, you've

made headway. What's the dream now? Man? You know I came from a broken family, So my dream is I just want to have a great, big family, and I just I'm really excited to be a husband and a dad and have some kids running around. But comfortability is really the primary goal for me, because you know, I've been working and working to get to two buses so we're not all crammed into one. And before that, we were working and working to get onto a bus and

out of a van. So now the next step is to have a bus just for me and my I'm like, and you know, in a plane or whatever. We just I don't want all this glitz and glamour or whatever. I just want comfortability to be able to do what I love and do it well without having to overthink logistics, you know what I mean, and being able to have the best crew because we have the money to pay for the best crew, and having the best security because we have the finances to be able to do it.

So it's not about making a lot of money, but you need money to have the quality that you you know, deserve. And if I'm gonna have my family out here, I'm gonna have the best crew. So right now I do have really good crew, but I just want to expand on them. Okay, So what do you think of the

musical landscape today? You said earlier you said, well, you know, I wasn't gonna get on the radio, and you know, if you look at Spotify, it's mainly hip hop, some pop. There is the gym being in world, which is not based on recordings. What do you think is going on in the recording world and where you are in it? Mm hmm. I think, uh, I think there's some really great stuff, you know, and it's really Broadley that puts me on newer music a lot of the times, because um,

I forced myself to listen to new music. I mean, um, because I find a lot of things that I really love and that I get inspiration from. I've been really into Phoebe Bridgers recently and for me, like you listen to Phoebe bridgers first record, Stranger in the Alps. There's a lot on that record that just why is she not Americana? Why is she not country? Because she says fuck? Is that why? I mean, where are these lines? And who creates these lines at the recording Academy or what?

Because I'm like, Phoebe Bridgers is uh like pop folk. But you know there's tunes on that record that also sound you know, just the country as a man of Shires and a man of Shires is in you know, the Americana category with me and Phoebe Bridges on the pop charts. So these just these lines are so fine. Uh. It's just you just gotta make your own sound and let people call you whatever the hell you want they want to call you as long as you're being you.

But I've got a lot of hope for music because there's new voices that come out all the time, and you know, people like Megan the Stallion and Doja Cat. It was a really unique voices in hip hop and really uh really big champions for you know, women's empowerment. So we've got a lot of hope for the music industry. I'm glad to be a part of it now. You talked about growing up on your dad's records. When you have kids. What are the two albums you're gonna give them?

Is it influence? Man? That's a great should. Uh let's see uh Robin Trower's Bridgish Size. Wow. Yeah, that was my first record I bought with my own money when I was eleven, So it's the first one I put on my turntable and I bought at the flea market because I like the cover. It looks cool. I didn't know Robin Trout was really because you know, I was

big fan of twice Removed from Yesterday. When Procol Harum you know, went in his direction with Home and the album after that Broken Barricade, I was into those much more than the earlier sound. And you know then I went into it, you know, even he went in seventies six almost kind of uh disco in City Dreams. But that's a great record, Yeah, that that one. And I'm gonna have to throw pet sounds their way really just

so I can grow on them. Yeah, man, I mean, that is the musical mind of Brian Wilson at work. It's just so overwhelming. I mean, every time you listen to it, ors something new that pops out at you, you know. I mean, there's the hits on it wouldn't it be nice? But I think God only knows. It's probably just about as perfect as a song could be. Or I mean, hell, I could go on for hours about that record. Its just any emotion I'm feeling, it can amplify that emotion to where I needed to be.

If I'm feeling sad, cheer me up or vice versa. I mean, it's just it's damn near perfect album. And why the cowboy hatted every gig? So when I was a kid, I said, people might not remember me, but they will remember these pneumatic devices that I'm putting out there. I used to wear red shoes, a big cowboy hat, I played big red guitar, and you know, to the two of those still remain, the big hat and the big red guitar, and people can take those things home

with him up here. Okay, Marcus, I've loved talking to you. You're very intelligent, very insightful, probably too smart for the game, which is leading to whatever psychological issues you might have wrestled with. But I want to thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Hey man, thank you so much. It's been a real tree. Until next time. This is Bob left Sex six