Ep. 245: Luke Combs on the B-Side of Hunting

the tour bus of Luke Colms's band. Correct, we are. We are on the band's bus and they sleep in little submarine Mariner bums. Yeah, which is also great because I feel like this is a prime opportunity to tell them that I've just destroyed their bus. They're not gonna the floor feels a little bit right now as they're listening to this. What has he done to our bus? They won't know until shows start again. Is little like a little funny prank in each bunk that you can't

see here. But we have a lot of great mediator stickers and I'm we'll soon be finding out which bunk my vegan band members sleeps in. And I'll probably just pop this right above it so that every night when he goes to sleep, he'll be looking at it. Uh okay um starting with because that was that was the beautiful, lovely Luke Holms wanta do introsset tone and go as though dealing poker, honest pitelis just regularly here again. Yeah, I'm read isable younger brother of the brothers. H I'm

dan Isbell and I'm a member of the Brothers. And I'm also a member of the Fabbian Eagles, the Eagle Fabian Sea. And then Luke Torque, Luke Torque, Yeah, luketical to whose whose new nickname is just it's just torqu It's it's kind of hard having to Luke's playing a little Torque. Yeah, so just Torque now, I guess we

had to figure out. Like I originally, I was like, oh man, I was like really fighting to be the Luke, and then torqu came along and I was like, damn dude, I wish I was like fucking reciprocating saw or something, you know, like axe or something cool like that. But now I'm not horsepower maybe yeah, horsepower HP. Yeah. The Isabel Isabel Brothers are from born in Tennessee, well born

in born in Jackson, but from Savannah, Tennessee, west West Tennessee. Yeah, right where The easiest way to tell is right where Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee meets with a county above that in savannahs the county seat. But we spent the majority of our lives in Mississippi. Oh so okay, So that's all I was trying to sort out. Yeah, I thought I assumed you were born there, well, grandparents lived there. I

went to Mississippi state. My band like my my my bandmates say country Dan is from Mississippi in the sophisticated Dan, Yeah, from Tennessee. I guess, tell uh, tell people what you do for a living. So Read and I are both staff songwriters at a couple of different polishing companies, and we literally write songs in hopes that artists cut them on records and then maybe singles. That's kind of what

we do. Yeah, yeah, I right, Dan rites for Sony and I actually right, Luke and one of our buddies, Jonathan Singleton, started a publishing company, and I did a joint venture with his company and a company called Big Machine Publishing, And yeah, we We write four or five times a week with different either co writers or artists and and go in with ideas, licks, melodies, whatever, and try to create a three minute product that an artist, you know, like Luke or somebody else will will dig

and can relate to and throw it on the red and hopefully throw it on the radio. So when you're doing this, I mean you're just you get together, like like in the words John Pryan, ten am on a Monday morning just about back then it was that you have to go to eleven am on a Monday morning in like an office early start. I mean, we will now write a song pretty much pretty much. It's kind of like that. Weirdly enough, is it? Is it like like full on music studio. You just kind of like

every each publishing house is different. So like we're Dan's at Sony A TV. They have actually two buildings. One it's called the fire hall, which is an old fire station that they bought. There's a couple of rooms in there that's kind of the vibe of your spots here. And then they have their office that's across the parking lot, which is like two story, newer looking office building where the track guys track guys, but the executives are in there.

They work in that same building, and then there are rooms provided. But it can and that's where you're going into do it. It can be sterile, like going to a college classroom. It can be very sterile. And because it feels like you're working from a cubicle up there, like it's very very plain. Man. I mean, here's the thing. It's like, you're not gonna be in your job or whatever. You're not gonna walk in inspired every day regardless of

where you're doing it. But but you can be inspired in other places and bring that kind of into the room and go, hey, man, my wife told me to wash the dishes this morning, and I got to thinking that's a pretty decent hook. I should wash the car, wash the dishes. But you can't wash my love away from you or whatever really quick because you're just sitting here in a tour bus right now. No. I mean, I'm just saying it can be like a somewhat sterile environment.

But at the same time, when you're in your head and it's you're using the majority of your imgination anyway, it's kind of just a central meeting place to to get it done, you know what I mean. So if you want to break for lunch, you can walk outside

and you're right there. The publisher that you're trying to get the song too is literally across the parking lot um and it's just kind of a central meeting place for I mean, if I walked into the place and it was just a bunch of John Prime posters and Willie Nelson's and they were incense burning in the corner, I don't know that I wud be any more inspired than I am when I'm in a point which totally had that that rooms in Nashville somewhere, like there's a

bunch of and if you were in that room, you beat you on. God, I wish youd get these freaking pictures will the Nelson off this wall so I could think, Yeah, there's no rhyme or reason to how you do it, you know you just as long as you ended end the product that everybody likes and agrees with. Man, you write one in this this bus, You've written We've written songs on you know, outside, We've written songs on the porch,

just kind of wherever you feel like doing it. Do you guys have an obligation to how many songs you're supposed to write per or whatever. Twelve whole songs a year is a standard contract, which sent doesn't sound like very much, but when you're splitting them up three ways, in four ways and two ways, it counts as the fourth of a song or half of a song. You so contractually within the year you're supposed to write twelve. That's that's the normal twelve full quote unquote. But we're

right way, I mean, yeah, we all all three of us. Yeah, I'm amazed at the efficiency when you guys say that you guys can in four or five hours start to finish and have a song. I would say, probably, what Luke, seventy five percent of the time that's the case. But there is that weird where you go, Man, my brain is absolute mush, my dogs pissing all over everything in

the house. At this point, kids, it cool if we break and maybe come back and finish this up another Because some days, dude, especially in like a late like a Friday, when you're just like smoked, after sitting in a room trying to make word a drum for forty hours, at this point, you may just cut it half, you know what I mean? Yeah, I already, like you don't have a clear direction of where that second verse is

gonna go or something like that. You say, Hey, maybe we just sit on this for a day, and if I got a lot of big dudes like don't a lot of big time guys aren't doing Fridays even now, like a lot of guys that are getting because like, the quality of who you're writing with can be as

important as right in that extra day. You know, if you're writing four days a week with you know, if you write with Eric Church and then you write with whoever you know, big time artist writer guys, that's different than saying I gotta go in and write with five people that I don't know, aren't proven or whatever. That's tougher. That's tougher in my opinion, to do. So the bigger guys are they're doing less less quote unquote work, but they're just they have a lot more avenues to success

for that potential song. You know, Um, what is the is part of me? You're saying this, but hand out you guys. See, I know there's a lot of mystique and creating stuff, but it seems like it's a something that I thought used to kind of occur in people's minds are like on their back porch or whatever, like realizing that it's formalized. Is that normal for Is that normal for other musical genres where you're like, like are making it's like you're making a product. I think you

would be shocked. I think what I'm trying to say is that our genre is the most creative. Absolutely, Like you pop out there, you pop out to l anybody, and it is like an assembly line. There's fourteen guys on one song, three guys in a separate room working on lyrics, three guys in a separate room right on the track, three guys in a separate room doing the create, trying to create a signature lick for this thing. And

it's like, after all that's gone, that's nine dudes. They may decide that sampling an old queen song is the way to go, So then you have to slap everyone that wrote that queen song on top of the nine guys that wrote it together. And you're talking fourteen or fifteen dudes are credited with writing that one song. That's what it's really like on really popular music. It's insane. That's even crazy to me, you know, and I've never been out LA to write, but I just from my

experience in Nashville and how we do it there. No, I can't imagine being in a room with that many people trying to get something and then they meet back up together and then they put it all. You know, they might have a little twenty second track thing they build together in the beginning and go all right, here's the basis, and this guy is sitting there humming something. You know, what would be an our name an artist who like a pop artist who's probably unless you don't

want to whose processes like this, all of them? Yea, I would say it would be easy, you're doing anything. The guys who aren't, who like I would say Edge Hearing that he's a pure song he's absolute, but he's also the biggest artist in the Beyonce would be a good example of someone who's probably not they're not literally connected to their songs as as much as like I would say it, Edge Hearing or us. You know, I think Adele is probably one of the more organic one's

out there. But I guess what I'm trying trying to say is like, like they're they're inspired artists right there there, I make this analogy all the time. In Nashville, there's like, I have a guy work with who's like kind of a rock guy, right, so when he comes in, everything he everything he throws out is gonna be his. He has to write his own original ideas, like has to. He can't say anything that isn't true to his life.

So it's he wants to do this, it's gonna sound like this, We're gonna and your job as a songwriter that day is to help him convey the message that he wants to convey. Correct. So then they're guys like Luke who are pretty consistently inspired and have ideas and know what direction they want to go with songs, but are also open to what maybe you've had happened in your life in the past six months, or or some

sort of hook that you tucked back for them. And then you have other guys and and look, I'm not saying any any one of these three people and I'm talking about here are wrong. It's just different ways of doing the business. So this far, this far, this guy over here, he may be just an entertainer and he don't necessarily care what he's thinking about as long as he's on Dancing with the Stars or something, you know what I mean, He just all he wants you to

do is to give him a product. So and for this guy, there would be no real point in me and this other guy getting together write a song for this guy. Right, Maybe not even me and Luke get together and write a song for this guy, even though Luke can do that. And I'll make the statement that the guy he's talking about is not a specific person obviously, but the guy that goes and strictly cut songs is the is the pillar of giving these dudes jobs, because

without those guys, there's no these guys. If all the artists wrote their own songs, there would be no songwriting community. It wouldn't exist because those guys would just write their own songs in their house and put albums out and that would be it. How how big is this songwriting community? So? How many? How many? I mean it? I mean it's been I think in the year like nineteen nine, there were almost ten thousand professional songwriters in Nashville that had

publishing deals. Now I think it's under five hundred COVID records. I mean, it's hard to it's hard to make money. It's the records don't records you don't make. You could get an album cut and not even a single, not get on the radio in the nineties and make a make a good amount of money. Don't know the X amount of dollargic. I gotta I gotta very specific for the situation. So the Shni Twain album that came out in the nineties is double Diamond, which means that album

sold legitimately sold. That album sold twenty five million copies. Right, So the royalty, the predetermined royalty rate per CD sale is ten cents per song to the writer that wrote it. Right, So there is a song on that album that one dude wrote. It's a solo, right, which means he made two and a half million dollars having a song on that album that didn't even get played on the radio nowadays because it wasn't even like that particular two and

never made like a Billboard hit or whatever. But so he gets But like, if me and Dana Reid wrote that song, we'd be splitting that ten cents three ways, but which would still be a tremendous amount of money. But now, if you write a song that's not a single, I mean the revenue stream is just there's nothing there. So you have two different types. It's one of the best selling albums of all time. You know, one should explain single, you say, that's explain the difference between album cut.

A song promoted to radio by your record label is a single? What you're hearing? Song that you're hearing when you turn the pop station on and you hear that justin Bieber song or whatever. His team he's cranking out his own ship for sure on his back porch. I hope that. Okay, he's a big hunter for sure. No, but it's like so that their team is collectively going, we think this is a hit. So there, that's the song they're choosing to promote to radio as their next single.

And so an album cut quote unquote is a song that's on the record that never gets chosen as a single. But it's a part of thee. But I don't want get too deep in the weeds out here on industry stuff. But it used to be that a single was released as a single A side B side. Yeah, that's the you know, when they were doing forty five and you know, and vinyls and stuff, that was what going. That's where it came from this a single song, and then there

was a B side. There's two songs on it. You know, you play the one side, it's the single, and then you play the b's some unknown, which is what another word for album cuts would be B sides. That's the same thing, is a B side. Can you guys take a stab I don't care which one he does it, take a stab at articulating the connection between UH contemporary country music and in in a broad sense, the outdoors, like the outdoors is revered, sure, right, nature and I

don't know about nature. The outdoors and outdoor lifestyles are revered by country music. It's like you you not say bad stuff about that stuff. I'm not exactly sure what you question. I get what I think he's not a question, not a question I'd like you to speak to that. I think he's saying, speak to the correlation of the outdoor lifestyle in our particular genre of music. Oh, God's touchy, isn't it? Is it touching? Well, I just don't think it happens as much as it used to it. Are

you saying like lyrical content? Lyric that lyrical content? Okay, let's say this. I mean who are the toughest guys, you know, the guys that cut logs, the guys that yeah, for surely, yeah, man, I could see him outside. I could see him running, Yeah, probably outdoors? He no way is he really? Is he faster than him in the stage? It's softer, man, tell you, man, I had a bold kind of tough traditional tough like weird ship. All right? Is that now? Perception is reality, right, especially with the

concept of social media. So to me, I feel like as an outsider, I'm a pure what what Nashville would refer to as a launch pale songwriter. All Right, I have no desire. I have no desire to explain that to people. Okay, I go into work, I wrote a song, and I go home. I don't live with that song for the week. And you know what I mean, I write another one tomorrow. It's my job. I clocked you the clock out kind of deal when you take your lunch,

play all the work, right, no performing. I mean, I'll do a Bluebird show every now and then, but nothing. Not not really surprised. I don't want to lose track of It's surprised to me the way you guys use the word artist like you don't regard yourself as an artist. You feel little artist as a performer. I regard myself as the utmost of an artist. But that's not who I hear that's artist to be a performer. That's not what Nashville titles. Well, there's a miscommunication of what artist

really means an industry terms an industry. I mean, Luke is an artist because he's literally developing his own ideas. That's what to me what art is. Yeah, okay, that's what I would define it as well. So I'd say, you're an artist, you're a songwriter. You're an artist. You're a songwriter, you're an artist. You're a songwriter and a performer. Let's so let's say just knock the word performer out

and replace it with artist. Yeah, they're the same thing, because we're saying that at the time, you wanted to be an artist, but now you're a songwriter. Professional about this, Just replace artist with performers. At a time you wanted to be a performer and now you're just a songwriter an artist. Okay, So back to the back, to the back, to the perception's reality. So I'm I think, um, it looks pretty cool to be a big country, tough guy

right to be seen as that. And so if you sing about it now, you back it up with a little bit of social media then before you, I mean, you post one picture with a deer head, or maybe you out there just fishing, you know, or maybe you're do a little trap shooting, and all of a sudden there's a little bit of a manliness attached to the name. And so when that song comes through talking about drinking cold beers on outside under the stars, they can back it up with a little bit of pictures. Like it's

like cred or something country creb, that's what we called it. Yeah, like like you, you're like trying to up your credibility too. So I think it's more almost that because if you were to go listen to the top songs on the radio right now, I mean, I don't think there's maybe not one that mentions the outdoors. The song that me and Dan wrote that's about to go to radio talks about eight point bucks first to cut cornfields. But that's probably the only one. Oh yeah, but it's like, yeah,

I almost guarantee almost about you. And but it used to not. Uh. Usually what you get with pop music is them talking about, you know, their money or or the girl or their boys or whatever in a confined space. But with with country music, it's it's more nostalgia, you know, and and and you right to to a feeling that you're comfortable with, which is which with most of guys like us, we we grew up in the outdoors and

that's and you try to write what you know. And so for me and Luke and Dan Man, we're yeah, we're trying to write music that speaks to people and people can see and putting a little color in there if it's a if it's coke cane shooting coke cans with a bb gun on the creek or whatever. Yeah, like the song I'll play last night the real kids too. I like that to appreciate that. Um that that's that was just out there. Um. But not with you doing it. No, Well, I'll say I can send you let me do it. Well,

that'd be cute anyway. My whole point is that that you gotta think about your audience, right, So, especially as an artist. I mean, let's just go back to Biber.

Biber is not caring his He didn't he didn't care to be represented as an outdoors guy because the people listen to me could give a hot shit less if he's ever shot at duck in his life, as opposed to country music, where you have guys who are are appealing to these people who think manliness associated with countryiness is hot, sexy, cold, or someone that would they'd like to be depending on female kinna. A couple of years ago, I read this book I wish you could remember the

name of it. It It was about Nashville and the sixties because of the history Nashville, but focused on Nashville and the sixties, and reading it, I was surprised that dudes like Whalen Right and people from his era and David Allen Cole comes in and out of it um drug addicts and they it seems that they spent at times in their life the bulk of their time playing uh pinball. But that isn't what the like in describing their life.

They don't describe their life that way. No, they would be like, let's go to Luke and Bock Texas, right, not like let's go um snored a bunch of cocaine music. Dude like shiploads and phat amine and play pinball for days on end. Correct. Yeah, absolutely, because how that's kind of boring, right, j J's market, Right, that's where they went exactly. Yep. Um. I got an interesting story. One of our best friends songwriters, guy named Michael Hady, and

he's from that era. I mean he was. He's had hits in the what sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, early todays, seventies, starts there. Yeah, he's the only one running right now that's hits. And he tells us like five different decades he's had a number. He's awesome. Crutch Man just takes no ship, no lunch pail. So wrote a bunch of those church songs. He wrote George Jones, uh still doing time, that's yeah. And he also wrote Eric Churches drinking My Hands.

So that's how far apart he wrote ten rounds. Yeah, he said some great, great songs. But my point is, so back in the day him Christofferson, I think it was whaling and maybe Merle we're at a cuff Rose, which is an older version of what Sony a TV is now where I work now, And that's exactly what they would do. They would all pile in on the Thursday after they had written for four days and they play songs to each other and they was just two lines of cocaine. And he said, man, we were I

don't think Mammy saying this. We were jacked out of our brains and we went to it was like three thirty four o'clock in the morning, and they went to find the key to lock the door, and that they had lost the keys to lock the publish and coming up to leave. So they're like, well, what do we do? And they're like, I don't know where all we none of us can drive, you know, And they were taxis

back then. So they just all leaned up against the door right like that way if anyone came into steal something, that would knock them all over and they would wake up. So they the next morning when the secretary guy there came in the back door unlocked. It came in and there, and it took a picture of my buddy Whalen, Christofferson and Haggard all leaned up against this glass door, passed out after a night of rocket How cool is that

he's got that picture? Man? But speaking to your point, I think it's also like those guys you're saying, you know, dow lines and then go play pinball, and you can't you can't write songs about Those artists are very in tune and in touch with their fan, the fan base. He's just about to say, it's it's very similar to what happens now because those guys were doing something that their fans would totally have not liked to hear them

sing about. Because at that time, the country fan was even more conservative as far as their religious beliefs and their lifestyle than they are nowadays. You know what I mean. Nowadays you can be more loose with what you talk about and and do this. It's still the most conservative, you know, ethically speaking genre that exists, but way less so than it was in the seventies. And those guys were doing way more extreme ship than the guys are doing now. That kind of stuff doesn't go on anymore

because it just can't. But in the feare of social media, and you know, you just you would be you know, quote unquote canceled in you know, a hot second man, if it were to get out that you were doing that kind of stuff. I mean, the reason I bring that up is and hanging out with you guys. Uh, it's gonna sound corny and hanging out with you guys

for a few days. I was kind of I've felt like, oh, you know, they like they exemplify what I felt that, like, you exemplify the things that are applauded in the genre in a way that I was. I was like would have been more cynical about not cynical in a bad way, but just like like I understand that that there's certain tropes and certain things that are gonna you know, like like that that seem appealing to people going to the river at night to swim whatever, like like agriculture being

like agriculture being good. Um, right, and it's like like certain ideals and like good ideals too that like you when you make a commitment, but let's do a friend and make a commitment to your wife, you commit your family like you stay um and like anyone, you realize there's probably a lot of there's probably a lot of uh bus it gets built into it. But then hang out you guys. If you doesn't like holy ship, man,

these dudes a light country songs as a compliment. As a compiment, yeah, man, I mean that's that's what that's what you want to be, because you know, the last thing I want to do is is try to write a song that that it's fake. You know, to me, you gotta understand we can't take the credit for that. Better, I gotta back up what I'm saying. Better, Dan, what I'm telling. I'm not gonna tell what the story is about. Dan here was telling He'll have to tell you the

story on his own. He's telling me a very funny story that had a way different point but with within the story it touched on agriculture. But within the story he explain, it's an important part of the story that he explains how an evening goes down in his home, and in his home at night before bedtime, him and his wife like to go outside and light a fire and sit by the fire and spend an hour throwing the tennis ball for the dog, in which they have a couple of drinks, stare at the flames, and then

go to bed. I'm like, that's some country music ship right there, man. And he wasn't telling me to be like amsterdamn Country a crazy story that I don't want to tell you, but it was just a detail in the story. And I'm like, man, that's like a country song. Well, I think that that had me going think about how me and my wife by the time we put our kids to bed. Sometimes, man, we just like we don't do the whole fire and everything. We just gotta just

like put the house bed together, go to bed. I'm guarantee you there's nights that they don't go osside and sit around the Every night, I'll walk out. That's not true. Every night and I walk out shirtless and shut the chickens up. That is true, I do. I was about to say that. I was about to say, it's not like we do that, but don't come creeping on me at six am, or you're gonna you're gonna see a lot more than me than you want to because I'm

gonna let them chickens out in my drawers. But I mean, dude, it's just it's what we love to do. And it was never contrived. It was never hey, man, let's learn these things to uh see more country. I mean, our dad and our mom made we ate gravy and biscuits, and uh we listened to skinnered on the way to church. Fishing on the weekends. We went fishing on the weekends off the bank. We we pulled out stripers and pilate them on the bank. And I mean we were never

like had dogs as best friends constantly. It wasn't just I mean we played tennis ball baseball in the backyard is kind of where we grew up. And so it's it's it's a beautiful thing to be able to not have to fake it. And and I think that maybe what makes our uh point of view or or or songwriting craft, if you will, feel a little more authentic, is because that's all we know how to talk about.

And with that, I mean't fake it. Yeah, And and I would I venture to say that if even if Luke wasn't a performer artist or you know, and we weren't songwriters, nothing about our lives, which should we still be doing, We'll be doing the same thing. We'll be living the same way where we're at. But thank you for saying that. I appreciate you saying that. Yeah, I think we bring out the good. Yeah, that's a great

compliment for sure. No, I've enjoyed it. Man, do you guys, Uh, this might not come It's the thing that goes on in the North. We're now and then uh, in the North, people like to just as a joke, Now, and then gosh, here we speculate upon the lives of Southerners the same thing. It's crazy. That's what I didn't know until this. I didn't know that was a thing. I didn't know that you guys went down there goofed on us for four even plant food. We just plant per salmon trees. He does, pity, Oh,

per salmons. You got some per salmon trees up there, you know, per salmon? Okay, but usually two box will come in per salmon. Wait about sex per salmon. You guys not know what you sound like. I mean, it's got, it's nice. You're always told growing up. The reason that you don't realize that you have an accent because everybody on the news does it in like a Midwest accent. When I had to in the news, you know, it's like done how we sound, and so you don't notice it.

I had to take a class um called I think it was all by Roger Gillis, and it was a class called the Structure of Modern English and actually actually interesting and I kidding. And in this class, in this class it talked, it had like all these dialects on the map, and it was saying and it was looking at. It was he was focused for a while. I I can't remember feels him or not, but it doesn't matter.

He was focused at He was focused on three figures, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and Brokaw because it was that era and he was like, what, how did we decide what a normal American? Sounds like? That's pretty interesting and it and it focused on this circle that kind of like included like remember it captured Chicago and it was like the circle. It was kind of like, this is what we've decided. It sounds like, this is the steps

that you go to to represent that sound. And he presented it through like who presents America's news and like that's America. Everything else derivates. Yeah, well, and that can leave people who are from that area probably feeling pretty damn cocky. Yes, and those left out he also uh

in the same class. They got into this notion that if he said that if at the time, I can't, I wish I could be fields the Revolutionary War or the Civil War, if you had somehow made a barrier along the Mason Dixon line, that there was no exchange that by now, which is now then because it's a long time ago, that by now these two groups would

not be able to communicate. Wow. And he talked about because and he looked at the technology g that's emerged, everything to do with automobiles, everything to do with computing, everything to do with materials, fabrics, cultural stuff. It's like it would be that at this point, no way are you gonna say all that stuff was made up North. We wouldn't have had the shared we wouldn't have no, no, not at all. We wouldn't have the shared we wouldn't

have the shared exchange. Talking about how quickly things would drift. Like the point being that it was like the vernacular of the South, um, the a grarianism of the South, the industrialism of the North at that time that it would have been like we we would now we look at like France, two separate. Super interesting. One of our good buddies, Uh, Marty Smith, he uh, he was gutting from North Carolina with a hard draw, right, but he he was he wanted to be in some sort of

broadcasting thing, right. He wanted he that's all he wanted to do was being broadcast. But he says, he has this quote and he says, but you know, you boys know he said, guys like guys that talk like us don't get those positions, said that, and now he's in the ESPN analysts. He works on NASCAR, of course, but he sounds like us started to age que coach or something, and it's it's it's almost like what makes Marty Marty too?

Is that that's his appeal as It's like he's I mean, one, he's very intelligent, but he did start out in NASCAR, so you kind of get the prejudice of like, well, stick the Southern guy in the NASCAR thing. And he does love NASCAR, so I mean, he's very knowledgeable on that subject. So he was obviously the choice. And but now he is mainstream. Now he does college football, I mean, he does everything. Now, he's I would argue, one of

one of the most recognizable personalities. Media decided to celebrate him as opposed absolutely, but I think it took him a long time to get there though. To break down that thing. Man, you don't just don't sound appealing to the entire United States because is of your Southern accent. His personality outspeaks his Southern drawal. And that's why I think that's what ESPN gave into and now it's it's it has become a part of the Marty Smith brand. Is the way I talk, you know, the way he talks.

I'm I'm aware of it. Man, Like it's almost it looks a lot better for me to not Uh, it looks a lot better for me to not acknowledge this. But I think that it's like fair to acknowledge that there was there's a legit. Um it's not fanged. I mean like it doesn't have like strong teeth. There is a legit perception. It's true. Man, There's people like in

the north be nicest ship to whoever. But there's people that when they hear like a southern country thing, it's like whatever that person is saying is less important or somehow less reliable. Dude, I'm telling me, I hate, I hate. I'm they were experienced, but it's like a thing, you know. I've even had good friends of mine talk about like meet like they maybe like you know, meeting an engineer from from somewhere, And at first they're kind of like, how but you get I get what you're saying. How

would you yea? Who are you to tell me about like the instructural integrity of such and such from Bingham Metal under Arrest, Like, like, how would that should you be telling me about corn? Well, I'll be telling you. I hate to admit it, but it's like a thing that you grew up around. We grew up, We grew up on all kinds of other prejudices that I don't really feel like you'ven talking about, but like, it's just

shitty things people say. There's cultural differences and it and there's no doubt a better I probably shouldn't say talk about this, but I actually the dated a girl recently, you know, my past relationship sticky. I don't know if you want to go there, but he was from Ohio, northern't Ohio, and had a northern accent and the and the whole thing. And I would go up there and visit her family and almost would feel out of place. No,

not almost. I felt out of place every time I went, because it was such a different environment that I grew up in and that I knew every day. And honestly, that put a big thing between me and her and and and and we never like it was never a spoken thing, but like the way we were raised in the way you know, belief systems or whatever, like it just something about where she's from and where I'm from

did not match up. Well, I don't think he's I think you're kind of addressing more of the fact that there there was like a little bit of a negative connotation whenever someone spoke just stereotyped. I used to work with a guy in Denver that, Uh, it's kind of like a melting pot. It's like, it's not really anywhere, It's Midwest, it's west. Where is So he was a huge Hispanic influence to man. Yeah, so he was from Oklahoma, had a really strong Southern draw. One of the smartest

people I've ever worked with. And it took a long time for do we claim that Oklahoma? Does the South claim Oklahoma? I feel like it. I don't think so. I don't think we'll tell you what. We'll tell you what South is. That's that's something. But he had he

had this really strong he's crazy smart. But when we were working at at this company, um, it took a while before people would acknowledge that what he was saying was intelligent real and some of the people that were maybe from the Upper Midwest maybe not as smart or good at their job. But it seems like people took him more serious right away because he talked differently. Because he talked differently, I would venture to say that the majority of those guys could give it rats less what

you think. Honestly, he kind of comes with the territory. It's like, uh, I don't necessarily care if somebody thinks I'm not is intelligent because of my dialect. I'll happily walk out there. And because she she used a stomping muddle in that ass and just go home. That's my buddy. I was talking to him about it one day. He was fluent in Mandarin. Nobody we even believe him. I wouldn't believe he would. He would say something he's just choking.

Nobody could verify, like whatever. But I was talking to He's like, no, I'd rather than assume that I'm I'm an idiot and then surprise him then the other way around. You know, Dan, you mentioned jokingly, Uh, well, I heard you say two things that that um I heard you. We're talking about like someone being distinctly northern, and you

mentioned I totally like and I welcome it. But like some things that are funnier often funny because there's they're like there's a like a hint of truth a little bit. So you mentioned like you you joked about pretentiousness, and then you joked about how we You said you felt like we're sometimes that we sometimes, like on this show discussed the South, discussed the South in the way You're like, they talk about it, they don't know what they're talking about.

I just well, it would be like me talking about salmons. You know what I mean. I'm never I'm just kidding. I know. I'm just saying, in order to get the flavor correct of of what you think you're talking about, you got to spend a little time with it, you know what I mean. And I'm not batting it on you or or anybody else. I mean, we make we make a lot of fun people that have stronger accents. But it's not because it's my fa. If I could lay out my favorite things in life, it's my favorite

is listening to you guys. Tell us how we sound. We're pretty close, right, I'm just saying, no, man, I think it's interesting that you said that about that there's some truth. It always see us to be a little funny. If there's a little truth in it, I would venture to say that songs are the same way, if you can find a way to sprinkle in some of your reality into what you're trying to see. I mean, he can speak to this way better than I can. As far as it's probably a little bit easier to seeing

to forty people every night. If it's something you actually

live to believe in, Yeah, I would agree, man. I mean I think for me, it's like there is no need for me to feel like authentic, you know, Like I don't feel that pressure that I think a lot of other performers in my genre feel, you know, because I feel like I'm very open and honest with my fans about you know, where I came from and how I grew up and the things that I did, you know, and the things that you do now right and things that I do now you know, And like I think

there's there's something there's something to be said about, you know, somebody who can just be themselves like fully, and that's me, you know what I feel. You know, it's like listen, man, Like I'll tell you right right on this podcast. Like I didn't grow up hunting. I just I didn't. It's not something that my dad did. He grew up in the rust belt in Ohio, and he didn't go hunting with my grandfather because he was a truck driver, you know, for his entire life. And they lived in a you know,

suburban neighborhood and outside of Akron, Ohio. So it just wasn't something that they did. So that wasn't something that my my father passed on to me. It was something that I gained an interest in after I started doing music as an escapism type thing from the daily grind of my job. So I don't go out and say, man, you know, I've been skinning squirrels since day one, using bones like a toothpick, you know what I'm It's like,

I just don't say that because it's not true. And so you know, I've always been cool with that, you know. I'm just fine being who I am and and just just telling people like it is, you know, And I think, like, yeah, I think you've made I hate You've made it. Um, I think you've made being open about who you are and like verbalizing your flaws or whatever like part of

like your thing, which puts you in a pretty comfortable position. Like, man, I hope the ship doesn't catch up to me, no doubt, and I definitely, I definitely think that that would be an exhausting position. But isn't that what does isn't that what a lie does across the board, if you make this stuff regardless of what it is. And I realized recognized this honestly about what ten years ago in my life that I told you honest, this long way to

get your honest. I said, dude, if you want to find the quickest way back to the truck, you need to follow your boy, because I'm gonna find I'm gonna find it. I'm gonna find the easiest, fastest way back to the truck. And he was like, all right, man, we'll try your way this time, you know, which actually

turned out to be wrong. Sorry, But I mean I decided ten years ago that it it took less energy because because we all have energy, right, you're devoting so much energy towards certain things, right, you only have so much to get, mental energy being a huge part of that, absolutely, And it takes more mental and sometimes literal energy to keep up the facade and sell the lie than it does to just tell the truth and deal with the consequences.

And so we stopped, we stopped white fudging anything. And I think the interesting thing is, like, if you're honest from the jump in in our genre, I don't I don't think there are any consequences, you know what I mean? Like, I don't think anyone's gonna go that, God, I don't skin Big Bucks. Well, if you don't talk about skinning Big Bucks, no one's gonna say that you're not doing it. So just sing and talk about the ship that you

actually do. That the thing that people need to understand, like they try to come in and fit this mold that's perceived that's really not even there. Man. There's nobody in town going signing a guy and going, we gotta get this guy in a food plot. That's not happening. You know, nobody's doing that, you know what I mean? And so I don't understand why there are some guys who are feel so pressured to try to like fit

in with their fan base. Like guy that does it well is Eric Church just does what he does so unapologetically and is so left of center of what I think the stereotypical the guy that maybe doesn't listen to country music thinks what a country music singer is, he's so left of that mold and so outside of the confines of that particular you know, stereotype. But he's never in a magazine going dude, I'm a big hunter and

I'm out fish and all the time. Like, he never says that, so he doesn't have to try to acknowledge that or back it up with photo evidence or you know, I need to feel like he's cooler than somebody else. So he doesn't do that, which fucking makes him cool. That's what makes him cool is that he doesn't do that, in my opinion, to like it or leave it. Yeah, you know, it's take it or leave it thing. Take me as I am or not. I make music that I like people like it, and I don't make music

for people that aren't going to like it. So I don't care if people don't like it. I like that a lot good stuff. That's a hook I appreciate about I think I appreciate about country is that you can uh embrace things that are becoming increasing like hot for bowl outside, Like you look at a dude, you know, even like actors, who's the who's the Yeah? Well yeah, but he gets slapped in the face every time he

does it. Man. Oh, and he'd like be like, oh, yeah, we killed a lamb on the farm, and then all of a sudden just like yeah, he's got a kind of chill on it, you know, and by the back of the saying like knowledge and I bet other people. I wish I could. I wish I could say this dude's name, but I don't want to just bed be helpful if I could say it, like explaining to me flat out, explaining me over the phone that he's a

closeted hunter and he's got a secret game room. No way a secret game room because he has to hold a certain perception. He had a little thing building. It's serious. There's like people that can't go near it, can't be seen at that. And it's like the fact that that the fact that I'm one hand in America, you could have uh involvement right involvement in media and be in the public spotlight and have it be that you can't and if you do, you gotta lie to have it

be that you don't. But then here's this other like thriving industry. Where were you. It's like how people come and hit me, I'm not just thing late Like people can talk about the polarization of America, you know, and I'm like from the from a media standpoint, I'm super sensitive political media. I'm like very sensitive and very nervous of the polarization of America. Like I don't want it to happen. Man, I'm like very worried about the fabric

or the country. But then the thing I keep reminding myself is every single time I go outside, every time I go outside, nice ship happens around me. I don't have any idea what the dude next to me, the dude next to him, the dude next to him, to due next to him. I have no idea who they're going to vote for. But when I see those guys, it's what's going on. Man, you need help with anything. I gotta be out of talent for the weekend. If you don't mind checking in, I'm gonna go ahead and like, well,

I know you gotta go away. I'm gonna watch your situation. Heads up. I saw the kids over there. They seem to have a gun. Like it's like friendliness with positive interaction. After positive interaction, I go to the gas station. People are cool with the gas station, Like everybody go like someone's cool and with you guys, everybody's cool. But then all we hear about is like the world's falling apart.

But then then I think, like, how could it be, Like you take something like an affinity for honey, Like, how could it be that, Like, if you like this kind of music, it's celebrated. If you're like this kind of music, you gotta hide it. And there's the same and a lot of the same people are listening to all the same stuff, and blow, I can't figure out where That's just like an example of it's just hard to picture that we're all in these wildly different trips.

You think there's guys you think, like that particular guy right for instance, I'm not sure who it is, we haven't discussed, but you think that particular guy has like another Instagram account, like just to follow me either. I don't know, but you know what, that would figure out why he wanted I could not figure out why he wanted to get me on the phone. And I was like, oh my god, this guy was the torch to the phone. So I was like, I don't know what. I had

no idea. I was like, well, I definitely like if this dude calls, you call him, I'll tell you later. All he wanted to do. All he wanted me to do is tell all he wanted he wanted to He just wanted, yeah, some justification. Never heard another word from him. Wow, he just wanted to shoot ship forty five minutes un Yeah, yeah, dude, I can't imagine having to hide them. Man, that'd be awful. I don't think I could just make your own stock with your box box stop box stock on them. You know,

you can't even put that on the boxtagram. You know, Boxtagram. That's gonna be my next Instagram box box. I think you bring an interesting point. The second I get outside, it seems like I go to gas station and people are cool. You know, yeah, you're not like, Holy Cow of the world's falling apart. I went to the gas station and they punched me immediately. I'll take two. Uh. I completely agree with that. I mean, it's just you know,

you get here. I got talking for a second. We got on the bus after we've been out y'all U Northern speaking jokers. We were just like, dude, there's not a jerk in that whole group. We're like, this is gonna be a fun guys were expecting out of eight of us, there be one. You try to like sniff him out, dude, there's more. There's more than at y'all there. I mean, there's there's got a little bit of a

positive hours last night. But I'm just telling you. But I'm just saying, you know, there's usually there's usually one in there, and there one. Man, We've had an unbelievable week. The landowners have been cool, you know. I just I don't know if it's as bad as as they like

to say it is. Man. And I guarantee you based on if anyone listening could see if you lined up all the people here, I feel like it would be a massive spectrum of political, religious, and social belief And there hasn't been one guy that's like, Man, I don't like that, dude. Man, I just don't get that guy. Because we all have this common bond of like being out here and enjoying ourselves, cooking, eating food, talking, laughing and stuff like there's never once been like, you're honest,

who you voting for? What I mean, like, it's just like that doesn't matter to me. And that's that's another thing that's a beauty of of the outdoors is like in a in a world and in a culture that is ever changing. Man, daily outside is a constant you know that that going to hunt a tree, stand sitting in a tree and watching a buck walk out, is that's that's the same, you know, like that's that's a that's a constant thing that you can always escape to.

Bro coming in with those good nuggets right there. I'm with you, and I've been thinking about it. I've been thinking about that idea of the constancy of nature because we've been working on this book. Project um. Not to be confused with our wilderness skills and survival, but Project Ladies and John was preorder. In fact, you can preorderize where can they pre order Steve uh anywhere books are sold.

Anywhere books are sold. UM Boxers book project about kids like having to do with kids in nature and in it. In thinking about this book, I mean think about this idea that uh that we invite kids are kids invite people to like feel we we invite them to all these like forms of community in in life, meaning like your your community, like you know, the little place you live. Um, we are invited to be participants in social media community.

We could be invited to be participants in like being fans of uh Luke Hombs right, or fans of the local high school community, and you feel like you're part of that, and you might feel like you're part of you know, church and you're part of that um. But not doing enough to make not doing enough to invite kids to feel like they're part of an ecosystem, right, or like part of like a nature like something. And so I was like looking at all these ways in which you know you can You can just in your

own yard whatever it is. If you live in an apartment like your balcony, I don't know wherever you are, like you could participate and be like, man, I noticed that the sun was a few months ago rolls over there and not rises over here. When I turned out my water and water comes out, Um, where did that water come from? Like that? It did? It falls rains? Know? How did you get here? Is that part of an aquifer? Is the aquafer? Girl shrink when you flush your toilet? Like,

what is that water's path to the ocean? Right? And you start piecing together that you're sort of involved with the world, the physical world, and you'd invite to be in that community. And I'll think about how it's perhaps really comforting because there's this constant see right, son, all these predictable patterns, And I'm always telling my kids this. Well,

the other day, uh, their day. A couple weeks ago, we look up on the mountain near our house and there's like a pillar of smoke coming out of the mountain and it's like the size. It looks like like the size of a wheelbarrel right burning. By the time I'm going inside and get my spotting sculpe, that's some bitches like over the ridge top the next day burns down. Houses of friends of ours were like under evacuation standby for evacuation order. Small like we saw it like a campfire.

Is that what it was? We saw it so small that we're debating whether the call nine one one or not. No, here's the thing. Two weeks earlier, they have this map that shows all the lightning strikes. Now saw a new firefighter. But I'm like, why do you guys just go if you know where they're at from radar, don't you just go to them all? He goes, because there's the I was and of them, you know, because you can't. I was like, well, if you know there's one day. Don't

you go put it out like good luck. You know, it might be hundreds or thousands. That's that was ended up doing. It hit a tree a lightning strike two weeks earlier, God hit a tree, and it's smoldered inside the tree and underground. Then whatever. One day it's smoldered its way out from the outside. Oh yeah, just smoldered inside the tree. No one knew people, it's right by this, like hiking trail. No one knew there was like a little ember and air from a lightning strike blows up

and like you know, burns eleven thousand acres. Then I'm sitting there and thinking this is like a long digression. But then I'm like, and there's also they're really scary, wildly unpredictable shit about being involved in the natural world, Like it's real consistent, cool, and then all of a sudden, it burns your house down. It burns your house down, man, So it's like a complex relationship with it. I don't even know what I was talking about, what you were

talking about kids, kids. I heard this analogy one time

that was pretty cool. Um Man, I hope you didn't say it, otherwise it's gonna like I'm giving you a like a compliment, and we don't have that terrible but it's it's essentially like if you take himself, if you take a bunch of plastic toys to uh, if we had a gymnasium and we put a hundred kindergarteners in it, you took a bunch of toys and you put them in the middle, and all the kids just flooded and played with them for fifteen to twenty minutes and eventually

would get pretty exhausted. Not COVID safe, not saying in this current we would do that, but okay, and then and then you put them back. You know, you took all the toys out, He took a little bag and he walked there, and you opened the bag and there was a puppy in it, And how many kids would eventually just bam, get right on it. Everybody wants to

touch and everybody wants to see it. And I think I think deep within us, even as as children were born with the idea of of wanting to be connected to that world, it's just we as adults have wrapped work and life and city and concrete around it so much they have to literally fight through layers of existence to even fill the grass under their feet. Man, And I want to make sure that with my child. I

have a new one year old. I mean, we're already taking our shoes off and walking outside and and dealing dealing with with you know, with with figuring out that we are connected to that and how to take care of it responsibly and enjoy it at the same time. It doesn't have to be worked all the time, you know. Shane Mahoney said that on Randy Newberg's podcast, Randy's Podcast, What's Your Luke, this is your first hunt about on the Great Plains. Yeah, impressions, it's great. They are the

Great Plains. Plains are great, and they are plain and they're great. No, no, man, it was. I mean it's obviously drastically different than anything I've I've done, you know, Like I said, I'm not not a lifelong hunter checking in here, so then I'm drawing off the past five or six years of my personal experience, which has mainly been hunting in the South, you know, and in the hardwoods of the South pretty much is where I've hunt

you know, deer turkey. That's pretty much my lexicon of of going and hunting, you know, some bird on and stuff like that, but all in the same environment. So too. It wasn't a gradual move. It wasn't like, oh man, we went to Tennessee and then we slowly pittled out to like Missouri, and then we got into Kansas and it was like, you don't it wasn't working my way out. It was like it went from Tennessee to Wyoming like in two and a half hours, you know what I mean.

And so you come out and it's like I remember thinking the first day that we went out, when me and you went out, and it was like, you see this animal that's eight hundred or a thousand yards away from you. It's cool to be able to see that. In Tennessee, it's like a it's a glimpse. It's a glimpse. Like they come out in an open spot and they might be out there for five minutes tops, and then

they're back on the other side of the woods. You know, they're passing through or they're coming in to feed for five or ten minutes and they're back in the woods like they're safe places where they want to be, and there kind of is no safe quote unquote safe place for an animal to be in that sense. Here, like, there's not a lot of cover, there's not a lot of you know, places to like, there's not a lot

of holes and crevices to get in. When we saw that saw that mule deer, you know, pushed up against that cliff face there, it was like, where where's he gonna sit out in the middle of the you know, thousand acre field, very hard to find little spot where something couldn't see him, And here we are, you know, ruining his spot, you know what I mean kind of thing. But it was so different, man, And it was so fun to to have like the challenge of getting to the animal. I think was my favorite part of it

in a way, you know what I mean. It's never to me, it's never been about killing something that's not you mean, all the snaking around and going around man, like that was the neat thing and like and like obviously a huge part of it has been, you know, learning from you. It's been time with you out there was also you know, really awesome for me as well.

That's not normal and a hunt obviously we're not gonna be hunting together every weekend, you know what I mean, So like that was neat, and I took that in as well. But it was like going with someone who knew what they were doing was huge for me. Like it wasn't like, all right, well we're gonna park the truck and there's one over there on the side of the road. It was like, you know, good, just get out and we'll get it, and we'll drive the truck up there and go get it and then I'll be it.

It wasn't that, you know, and I would never have wanted it to be that. So going down and hiking down this huge you know mountain for lack of a better term. I mean it's not you know, Mount St. Helens or something, but it's definitely not a hill either,

you know what I mean. And so going down that and going back up and you know, getting spotted and then you're like, well that's not gonna work, and just trying things and then finally when you get there and and it all works out, like being a part of that, like that doesn't happen in Tennessee except for when you're turkey hunting. Which is why I love turkey hunting and

Tennessee so much. Is it is Casey kept telling the Casey's the landowner, I believe, But he kept saying, all my buddies called turkey hunting poor man's elk hunting, still calling back to you, you're trying to find you know what I mean? Like so, and I think that's a really solid analogy, but I think it was a little bit. It was everything I loved about turkey hunting on a way more grandiose scale, minus the you know, the calling

response element of it. You know, you're trying to stay hidden, You're trying to figure out how you're gonna get there. Where do we need to set up, how do we approach it? I don't know, it's just there. There's something you can really get lost in that moment, you know. And my job can be so insanely chaotic and like over over sensory, you know, deprivation is like doesn't even begin to describe, you know, being in like a television studio and it's like, all right, three minutes, we're doing this.

In two minutes, We're like down to the minute of what we're gonna do, and just sitting there for an hour waiting for somebody to waiting for something to walk out on top of a mountain with people that you like hanging out with. It's just I mean, it's pretty refreshing. You can't even put a price on it in mind. But you know what I mean, you know the thing I was explaining to it's a loop. Now they need

to explain this to him. But we're just I guess it's more we're discussing this is and the there are very few trees here. I mean usually you can't see a tree. Usually they're like most places you go and this area in Wyoming, there's you can't see any vegetation that would be higher than your calf. Like most of the time that's the case. It might be like a scattered bit of junipers or something, but like typically within a thousand yards of either be like no thing higher

a new calf. And I was saying that it creates the illusion because you can see so damn far. You always see something out there in antelope or whatever. It creates the illusion of there being a whole bunch of stuff like man, because we're like being like, oh my god, there's some over there, and so they're all these animals. By saying if you took every square mile section and took all the things that lived there and put them in a pile right in the middle of that section.

It would be small little piles, and there would be a lot of sections that the pile. There was nothing to put in the pile. And if you went down to Tennessee and farmland in Tennessee and took all that square mile and put it in the pilot, you'd have a heaping pile. The pile of like a pile of all like a tour bus. Yeah, like a crew bus. Crew bus. Second to like a jungle even I feel like only second to like a true john you know,

like actually don't have that much life. We've come from and you've heard a lot of vegetation, never two of the congo. So we have the early explorers that went and dit trips had that same thought and went down there and got their butts in big trouble because they just thought it was gonna be fish and just game everywhere. I think moment just until are really interesting Southerners here we are um I Tennessee. You can just support a lot more that, you know, the habitat can just support

a lot more animals. We're talking about cows per acre and uh Casey's father here said that it takes roughly was it acres to support a counter calf for a year? And then uh Dan was saying that back in Tennessee, you can do that on one water. Yeah, makes them difference. And they were saying that, oh he said, well we consider that irrigated. And I was like, there ain't no piping water coming to my stuff. He was like, no, no, it's like rain. That was like irrigated by the rain. Good.

I think A good A good uh you know, A good thing to get into to describe what we're talking about too, is off the camera on this time that we've been here. I shot got to shoot a turkey and we opened up that pouch. You know, dude, how vibrant was that? Open that thing? And you were like, so keen on, like what's in there? Didn't one of the camera guys just throw that on his plate? Left? But it was just grass pretty much? What was that of the Russia non native plant? Again, a non native plant.

Sure that is spreading like Russian Russian. But when you go to Tennessee, man that you cut that thing open and it's got everything under the sun in there. Man, I mean there's corn in there, say corns in there's grass in there, and there's you know, I mean the bird seeds remnants in one of my turkey's crawls. I like that word craw I don't know what you'll call it. Not a crop, crop crop, it's one of them them Yankee Yeah things man the border, Mason Dixon, you know,

crop did us? We can communicate, Uh what's your you guys could explain what you guys cooked to us there at night cooked for us. Last night we did a we had antalope backstraps called country fried an country Yeah. Yeah.

We we do a dredge of of milk and ah buttermelon buttermel I'm sorry, don't give me no egg wash and and just cut cut and a little backstrap to to to finger with and and we scored it last night because the antelope hadn't had a ton of time to to break down those muscles and be super tender. So we scored all the pieces and went into a buttermilk dredge, and then we went into self rising flour

with a little tony saturies mixed in with it. Little kick, yeah, a little kids, and you throw that into a pot of uh of canol ol. That's that you've got heat it up or vegetable or whatever. If you're a fan, you not, you better not use that without us. By the way, I'm be super pists artists. I'm going full artists. Dang artist night. Um and then uh yeah we we but shallow fry. You don't. You don't not like yeah, you don't always submerge, you don't dunk them in there.

It's a flip fry. You know you're you're you're gonna flip halfway through it. Um, we had that. And then to top it off, we've made a little sawmill gravy that uh that was passed down from Mimmy Mall to my dad and down to me and right p man and I told the camera last night, like every time, you know, we would show up at my grandmother's house, my Mimy mass house, you would either smell one of

two things. You either smell um chicken and dumplings that she that she made, or Pall Malls that all you're always smelling that. You're always smelling that um chicken and dumplings, or a big thing of gravy and biscuits and and sausage and bacon and uh that's what we had last night. We just had a little Southern fried antelo with a little saw mill gravy and and biscuits. Gray, do you guys feel that you um like day in day out? Do you guys feel like you're like, uh that you

eat southern pretty much? I don't know, Man's taco bell southern? Consider that southern Southwest. We definitely grew up everything was fried. Man, we're growing up. I mean we dude, we've fried our chicken, our fish, you know. But but now, man, I think we've we've branched out a little bit and they're trying to calm the old cholesterol there a little bit. I don't do you, I mean, do you consider that the only way for a country meal to be made is fried? Like?

I mean, I would say, just like even eating country is is a lot of chocolate pie round. I'll admit that. Yeah, Man, there's I mean, there's there's some Southern things. Yeah there's Yeah, there's a buch southern thing. Chocolate pieus southern. I mean I would consider that pretty pretty Southern pumpkin pie for sure. Yes. Correct, let's say correctly, how do you say it will be? Or Ellie, that's how we said it, I thought down South to ye, I'd say both. Sometimes it's kind of

back and forth for me. This gets me into a whole another segue that's very important. Oh please, man, I was gonna ask you more about southern food from all of our friendships, but we were talking about how we all didn't ask each other different things. But this is one thing I will be judging all of you upon. I'm just gonna go. So let me let me paint the room for you. Here, we're in my bus, I'm sitting on a nice love seat and Mr Patellis is to my left, Reid is to his left, Dan Steve

torque clockwise, circle clockwise. So I'm gonna start with Johnnie and go crappy or croppy, crappy, cross crappy, crappy, crappy, crappy. Brutally, we can't just like that, do you, Okay? If you go to the room, you take a crap or a crop crap? Right? It was, I mean there's two there's not two peas and crap, and heard is not a fish? Sure? Also, so how does the Steve's an English guy? How does the second pee change the vowel sound of an of the a to an awe. Okay, Yeah, you put an

E on the end of the word, it would be creepe. Mhm. If you put a P, it's crop two crop, two pieces crop. That's not know, that's not true because c r O P doesn't have two piece. I don't really, I don't know. I would like to know, sap jokes. I don't know that. I don't know that there's it's I don't know that this question is I don't think it's rule. I don't know that this is like rule dictated. Man. I don't know if it's a rule for it. Yeah, I don't know if there is either. You guys called crappie.

That's what we would joke about. You guys call them. So this is a separation and even the Southern situation because this is like this is like this is like like oh miss Mississippi State. Yeah, yeah, this is like like Florida Georgia game. Wait, where did your record come out? Which one crappy? I'll go with crappy. I'll swamp right there, right, yeah, you know better together, it's not really no, I think

it's crappy. I think it's I think we'll just pull and if you're listening to just cut and pull that one crappy it is. Uh, tell people about this, Tell people about the process of like how you guys, you guys hang out, You guys are like really good friends, right who us? Yeah, it's it's just your it's just your first Um, this is the first single, is that right? Our first single together? Yeah? Um? Where? Who? Who? Where? Where?

Did what was this? Tell the song and then tell what the seed of the idea was, and so the song is called better Together. Um. It was written in the summer of two thousand eighteen. I believe in in Boone, North Carolina, on a writing retreat, so I specifically going to write, specifically going to right. That's usually how operated. I'd take two weeks at a time, probably four weeks a year and go and write the majority of my stuff. So I'm not quote unquote a lunch pale rider like

these guys. And where do you go to do it? Uh? Sometimes I go to Boon, sometimes I going to Florida, sometimes at my house sometimes. But you clear the deck and that's what's going on. That's it. There's no other there's no press, there's no interviews. It's different guys. So when I first started doing it, I would kind of do so like, let's say I bring Stephen Torkin. That'd be a good move, man, because I got some I got a couple of you. Okay, but give us a

little bit of uh, you can't work with. Oh it's a little it's a little hook I came up with yesterday. I had nothing to do with that. Thanks man. I thought I didn't know what a hook was, and then you explained it. So and I was, I said, I was. I was yelling at the flip pop flash or about something. I feel like, Yeah, I think the flip Flop Flash was lamenting that seth. Yeah, that's awesome. It was lamenting. We're skinning an antelope, and I feel like he was

lamenting not having something close right. No, he had gloves. I thought the back half he did a tool of some sort. Oh, no, you know what it was. He was lamenting halving to do with me. That's what it was. I wasn't holding up that. I wasn't doing enough. You weren't holding the was I wasn't doing it right because I was talking with you, and I uh said to him, I want to get this right because it's like a pretty good hook. Think about it. I said to him,

you gotta worry. You gotta work with what you got, not with what you wish you had, out with what you wish you had. You So I'm developing this into a hit. Well, it's not that I was hoping it would be more of a country hip snap track. You guys are kind of taking in a wild direction. You gotta work with what So that's a hook? So who um oh? Anyway, so yeah, so so you said, I want to get to the hook. I want to going

through the whole damn deal fishing. There's a hunting and fishing reference and there is there is the first thing in it, the first thing in it. This is an everything I want to get into. How did you guys know that the engine should be a Johnson because we know, dude, come on, because it wouldn't have it can't be. It's a hot sue. We don't have. We don't really have. I mean, nobody really uses tots. I was pleasantly surprised.

It's like when you're watching, um, this guy's selling a short man, I'm I'm coming for D H. P. Johnson. If you've got a flat bottle boat to the South. You gotta evanud Johnson on that bitch used to well if you're if you're making you still got one on there.

You got about That's what I'm trying to applaud, meaning um uh now and then I do want to get back to the song, but I want to like applaud the choice because uh lyrically, I thought it was a stute because and I'm just curious, like where this stuff comes from because now and then, like I might tell me how much like carm McCarthy, the writer karmacarthy, because he does his homework right when someone has like when when someone like has a firearm or something, it's like

it's the firearm that they would have, and like it makes sense. So every time he references something, um whatever, like something about someone's footwear, something about whatever, like some detail like God, that's exactly like that's exactly right, um and having a Yeah, I thought that the inclusion of that it was a Johnson outboard. It was like listening the Johnson I like, but I wasn't even there, but it hasn't been all these Southerners run them damn Johnson.

But it's like it's sort of you hear like if someone having a Johnson gone and it's like, right away, it's an old ass engine that someone has putting a lot of effort rebuilt the carbs at least eight times. It's like it's not running by accident anymore. It's running because someone had to keep it running. So the inclusion of having to be that, um I thought, I was like, IOK, IOK. It helps sell the authenticity. It set me in the right place. It's set me where I felt as though

I was in good hands there. You that what you just described is what we as songwriters works so hard to craft, is something undeniably honest, but pictures that not only you can visualize, but tap into a little bit of of life. You can go back to it. If we can accomplish that and we can convey that. I mean that to me, that's that's the bones of a successful Would you have been less there? If it was an evan rude good question, it would have been nothing

would have occurred. I wouldn't have Uh, I wouldn't have took note because it's more prevalent. No, I just would have been like, uh, it feels more buzzworthy. It was just like I wouldn't have, it wouldn't have brought me like, you know, there's that little bit the delight that occurs when something's perfect. Last talk about the book, Um, I'll take that I was telling you about. There's a great book about the great planes called Planes in the Great Plains.

The writer Ian Fraser describes a redtail hawk sitting on a power line and he talks about that it would fan its tail and he mentions that, uh, somehow he draws as similar between someone working a deck of cards. Right, that's so beautiful. It brings like it's like there's like a delight that occurs. It's a split scream and you got to see him easily. So you know, had he said some other anally or some other metaphor or some

other simile, it just wouldn't have clicked. So if you had said, Evan Rude, I don't know, I've just been like I would have been like, I wouldn't have thought. Honest is a bit of a songwriter. He critic to tell me about it days. He did dance me around the flow Latvian dance to me last night. That's one

of the songs I wrote. Numbers number um back to back to the song so that I digress, but saying like, I took note of the Johnson mentioned, and I was just pointing out that there are some like there are some outdoors references in the song. And so you go to the writing retreat. Yeah, go to writing retreat. We're in Boone and Dan was there on that particular day,

and our buddy Randy Montana was there as well. That his birth name, no it's not his birth name, um, but that's the moniker that his dad is a Hall of Fame songwriter who went by Billy Montana, and so he, you know, assumed that pseudonym once he went into songwriting. What do you guys think about went with Steve Fever? Steve what Steve Fever? Fever? Steve Fever. It would feel a little mushy stever. You know, like it would tell like you were staying Steve Ever. Leave it to Stever

like that fever. Yeah, leave it to Stever. Um. But now anyways, we're up there and and I think we wrote the chorus that day and the first verse, so that's what you start with. Of course we wrote course first and no, it's just it depends on the day. Can you tell me the course of course can Yeah, you know, some things just go better together. If we're gonna see it, we're gonna see it seeing it, man. But it's like we can listen to the song on

your local streaming service. Dan with like a d. H. P. Johnson on his but but it's but that's the the idea was like it was about things working in in correlate and kep talking about that? Who was that? Where was the beginning of that idea? Yeah? Who said? How about it be about this? I do know this? So Randy Montana said, man, I got his hook and that's we said, okay, what is it? He said, I got this hook. It's just like we go together like good old boys and beer. That's a bit much. What what

is what is that? As the chorus? Correct, that's the hook of the song. Oh, to find a hook for me? I think I misunderstood, man. So there's a conceit upon which it's built. Not necessarily, there are many. It's consider a country song a bit of a trot line. So you have multiple hooks. The hook that got you forty h. P. Johnson. Oh, so you try to sprinkle those in now the main

hook of the song. If you're talking about that. That is the ending Essentially, the ending line of the chorus good old but like good old boys and beer and me is long as you. Right. So the thing that hooks in the chorus, and this thing that hooks you is that up to the entire song, you have no clue what we're talking about until the last line. That's the first. That's another thing. That's another thing that I found pleasure in you some chill. We're talking about the

song I thought was very flawed. No, who's that talking about the flawed song with I didn't want to have to be a friend you guys and then make it it really doesn't matter. Oh you're talking about that is uh? I think that's my boy? Okay Campbell, No, no, no, you're talking about Elvi Shane. That's my boy. Where is it the one where he's a step father? Now? No, nope, no, I'm not exactly that's boy, And that's not the same

thing in the first verse. In the first verse, that's that's it's like the high school football game and his kid kicks the ship out of some other kid and he stands up in the bleachers like, that's my boy that I described. How do you guys that know what I'm talking about. I thought you'd pay attention to everything. Man, No, I mean that, I mean all country songs. I mean

we only like, yeah, I probably just dissed. It was the only thing being there's a there's a There's no redemption in the reason I bring it up because I never to the whole song. I'm waiting for the hook to the whole song. I'm waiting for the payoff, right, and there isn't. And I feel that the payoff is gonna be that he's painting the picture of this kid. There's his dad, and his dad is like absolutely loyal to his son. He want his son, his son's wrong,

he's loyal to him. I'm expecting at the end of the song that it's gonna be something like he the boy throws himself on a grenade in Iraq to save his buddy or whatever which is or does like, and he'd be like, oh, yeah, man, this dude like he's like, that's my boy, right or wrong, that's my boy. To the verses is his kid goes down and and takes a twenty two and whatnot, and goes down and shoots up this other guy's property and all the kids come home and the old man comes over. You know what

I'm talking about. The old man comes over and he says, one of these kids shot up my property. And he's like, yeah, that's my boy. So I'm thinking in the end, the kid's gonna do something like the heroic and payoff. That's my boy. That's what I'm saying, man, that's my boy. But in the end it never had. The kids just kind of steal an asshole and the song it's like so when I'm it leaves as a listener. It led to so much disappointment that me and mo families topic

all the time. Every time that song came on, we'd be like, it just leaves me being like, but like we thought that someone screwed up and they and they left the verse off the track. Can we get back to talking about Mars? Because here's the thing. I I got the pleasure, the pleasure that was denied me. You got a bow. And that was when you're doing all these like, uh, you're like all these things that are like the match up, Okay, all these things in life

that match up makes sense. I'm like, okay, whatever things in match up makes sense. And then also I'm like, oh ship man, like a like this dude and this woman the country love so yeah. And so when you finally go like, why is he telling me all this? Why is he telling me all this stuff? That goes together?

And then I register again that delight. If Stephen Ronnetto was a trout and I was, and we were fly fish and we're just back four, back four, we just lofted that little fly out there strimping in a little bit and I sipped it, You sipped it. I just got you. We got you with forty H. P. Johnson. So I liked it. Thank you? No, I like like lyrically like it's I like that it delivered me a product. And as a songwriter, you want that hook to be

that aha moment. You know, that's where this is all going. Yeah, And and that's even in the room. You know, if somebody throws out a hook and and you want to say, well, what's that, what's the twist on it? Like, what's the spin on it? What's it? What's gonna grab them? How do we make that that aha moment? And there are many different ways to get to that, sure, there are many different approaches to get into that aha moment, and

it doesn't always have to be this whoa. If everything was you know, it was the Butler moment, then you it was Colonel Mustard in the study it man would get pretty annoying, right, So I mean it's okay. Just don't be afraid of songs that don't have the it was the guy behind the curtain all time. I'm not. I'm not afraid of it. In fact, um, I want to get back to you all this process. But uh, I like the films of David Lynch and what David Lynch toys with you. It'd be good to listen to.

It would be good to watch as a songwriter. Might be good to watch David Lynch movies because what David Lynch messes with you often is your The whole time, you're like, okay, where is it all leading? Like what's the point? Whereas all leading? What's the point? And the movie ends and you're like, damn me for thinking. They're like, yeah, oh yeah, but I think that's what he's showing you. He's like showing you and does the same thing to the whole book. You're like, I can't wait till this

super evil guy gets his never happens. The book just ends like the evil guys fine, like all the good people are dead. Evil guy drives off into the sunset. Do you think he's Do you think he's doing that for your own imagination to continue the that process of se I don't want that. I think he's doing it to mess with you. He's doing it to show you that you're a sucker. I want to bow on my books or bow or my movies. Man, Yeah, and wrap it up, you know what I'm saying. I will be

left hanging out like loose Malone. Remember the Remember at the end of No Country for Old Man? I do remember that. Yeah, he goes, there's like the one person left, the beautiful sweet girlfriend, but there's a bit of a house, and like hes out and checks the bottom of his boots for surely to see if her bloods all over his boots though he promised her he was gonna do it. Wasn't the end of the Sopranos like that, Like people were all up in arms, like it was like this

guy comes into that. They're all sitting around the table at the restaurant and this dude comes in and it was just like you're like, oh, man, something's gonna happen. And then it was just like and that was just the end of the whole series. I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't like to completely that

feels lazy to me. There's gotta be a certain enjoyment for the creator of that, though, would be like, yeah, that's why kind of the slot to the fence there, because like I like to I like when that sale Sopranos, that thing goes down. I like to imagine what happens, you know what, But isn't it your job to tell me what happens. I'm not watching your movie to imagine something. I'm watching it to see what YE like. If I wanted to do that, I would have just done it

from the start. There's a cool story. I just thought of, Man, what a great ending story. When Dan told me the story earlier that I can't I don't want to tell the details about. But he told me the story that included that happened to include his his night at the camp fire with his wife, my joy in that story, it was primarily how excited I am to tell his story. I'm like, I'm gonna tell the ship out of this story.

Every time the subject comes up from this guy, I got a right j I've got a Randy Montana into North Carolina at the right trip. Yeah, he says that thing, and then that eventually works too. We're discussing I remember this, and you're in the room or not. Yeah, we're actually sitting on a deck of a house in the mountains looking over Grandfathers seven seventy degrees every day in the middle of the summer. There rainstorms three every day, but

it's it's awesome. So we're out there. Everyone's holy guitar, presumably just one guitar, probably just one. Honestly, you know, it kind of gets to be a bit of a town hall meeting if there's more than If there's more than one, everyone people you know what I mean, And you're like, okay, can we get some focus here? But anyways, I remember and I still have this. We sat down ut a real crop. Sorry, who's holding the guitar? So you don't get the hold it loop Sometimes it's ever

changing mmineering over. It's not no, it's more like I'll be like and a lot of the times there's nothing happening on the guitar. It's not like Dan's just sitting there playing for three hours, four hours. It's like it's like I'll sit there and I'm like, hold on, let me get that real quickly, you know what I mean, Like he'll pass it over to me. I'm sussing out something in my own head. But I explicitly remember Randy

had that idea. We were discussing it and had landed on the better together thing, and we were like, what's the best avenue to approach this thing? And so I sat down, I had my pen and paper and I just wrote out a bunch of stuff that I felt like I went together really well Johnson for in the Flat Bottom exactly. It was all these different things and it was a list, you know, it was ten or twelve lines long of just different things that I felt

like work together really well. And it was like, how do we, you know, in a in a in a clever way make all these things? Not maybe these explicitly, but this is I was writing with a guy named Charlie Worsham this past week and he had a great analogy for it, as he says, I have to just say these things and for everyone to hear him, because he refers to in his fertilizer. It might be ship, but sometimes the ship is the fertilizer leads to the growing of the common goal. And it was awesome, and

so he throws it. I'm so I'm throwing out this fertilizer, you know, of these different things, and then we're all going and then it was almost like an explosion of like, oh well this and not and and this this and and you know we how much times of laps at this point a couple of hours, probably two hours maybe, you know, there's a lot of coffee drinking, and you know, just kind of shooting the ship. And I do remember specifically in the second verse, if I could take this part.

I remember looking at Luke and being like, man, I feel like this is the point where we start, because we've cats out of the bag at this point where on the girl being I said, well, why don't we give the second half to them? And I said, is there anything specific, like do you feel like you and the cold dude that's kind of just very specific to your relationship and he was like, no, ship, he goes, man, you know, whenever we go to town, she put your

license into my wallet. That was a great detail. And whoa whoa. We were writting that down. I don't know how we're making that fit, but we're making that fit. And immediately was like, your a license in my wallet when we go out downtown. I said, anything else, He goes or lipsticks all over my coffee cups. Next line goes your lipsticks thing. Every coffee cup that I got in this house I ought to put in. You always move in my ship, in one cabinet to another, So

please stop. Your mother, for some reason, takes my really good night. It cuts my kids grill cheese sandwiches in a pan in a pan in the pan for some reason, for some unknown reason. But I think my favorite spot of any song and I think, uh. And I don't want to sound like I'm too my own horn here, but I I feel like my strongest points in my songs are the bridges. The bridge of the song is that's it's it's different from the verse in the course.

You have your verses in your course, and you have the spot that sits on its own melodically, structurally and lyrically from the rest of the fort. You wrote this by yourself, did you? But no, we wrote it in in uh in the fire just educate people on this because this is something that this is a concept I get,

but I don't get. Can you take a well known tune? Okay? Sure, take take whatever song you think most clearly exemplifies, and do you want your own or whatever the hell I mean where you're like, you're like like layout the like how like how how a song could be structured? And what function the bridge has? So I don't get that, Okay, So typically, for example, and better together the song we're talking about, just for clarity, great, we'll do the first verse is the forty h P. Johnson on a flat

bond a mental boat. And then that's the length that it is. It's four lines or something. That's verse one. Normal structure is that's first one. Then you're usually right into a chorus. Of course, don't bore us, get to the chorus, as we always say. Then you write your chorus, which usually stays the same throughout the entire song, so each time you're referencing back to that chorus, it correlates

with a verse, universal course, universal chorus. Then you're going into verse two, which will be the same length and melody as the first verse. They're identical in that sense. Just the words are interchangeable, right, And so then you hit your second universal course. You know, so you've got you've got two minutes or two and a half minutes of your song about at this point, and so then you're probably going to go into there's there's one or

two options here. You're gonna go if you feel like you've said everything that you need to say and in that amount of time, you're gonna go with a straight up solo. Tors on the strat, you know what I mean, working the fingers on that thing, dude, get in there, and then you're back to universal chorus. His weather, g his weather, the guitar, stranded, fluted neck on that thing,

you know. And and so if you feel like you've said everything you need to say in that amount of time, you're going back into a chorus after that solo, and then you're out. So the chorus sits in for the verse. What No, Well, there's not another verse because the verses is where you're saying lengthier, wordier things describing what you're talking about in the chorus generally speaking. And so if you feel like you've said everything you need to say,

you do another chorus and the song ends. Because there's nothing sure, usually because you're trying to stay, you're trying to stay usually in this three minutes, certain three to four minutes, like three even getting smaller. Now yeah, now it's getting That's that's what their mark is right now.

When I first came to down, it was three forty, and then it went three thirty, with three fifty, it with three minutes, and now we're sitting about to who decides this number listener radio radio, just because fous Yeah absolutely, but so anyways, but if you haven't I said everything that you want to say this after that second or us, you usually go into a short solo section, like a half linked solo section, and then you'll go right into what is we refer to as the bridge of the song,

which is I'm not sure why it's called that different. The bridge is the gaps from it's supposed to be a bit of a departure from a departure of what you've listened to. Exactly, that's the bridge, right, nobody knew what you were talking the bridge. But so essentially you want a completely different melody, completely different lyric structure in that small section of the song. It could be two lines, it could be four lines, it could be one line,

but you wanted to contribute to the story. Absolutely, they would not have any bridges in his songs. Yeah, because he leaves your hanging after the second chorse. He just rolled it around and be out of there, and you'd be like, oh man, I feel like he was gonna say, did you say carmack er Paul Carmack? I said, Paul mccar that's Paul McCartney's that's it. Yeah. But anyway, so

the bridge in Better Together. It's a normal structured tune verse one chorus, verse two chorus, short piano solo section because the song is just me and piano, and then it goes into the bridge, which is so sometimes we roll in water, but I wouldn't have in any other way. And if I'm being on this your first in my last night, would you sound better together? The course? You

know what I mean, it's like a different thing. And then it takes the song just from like, oh they're a cute couple to like, hey trying that was I gotta admit to you, I didn't get that until right now. I thought he was saying like that he felt at a time, Yeah, I didn't know of it was that he had he was advancing and like now he's like one like seal the deal. Yeah, absolutely, I thought you said, like, you know, I've always liked it and that's the way it is. I didn't know he meant like I sure

would like this to happen. Yeah, And my thing, I think delivers. I think that, and I think that maybe triple deliver is like the juxtaposition of all the things that go together. And then when you say sometimes we're oil and water, like we sometimes we don't always get along like we're not. Sometimes we have those moments where we're very contentious, and but we wouldn't have it any other way. Like you have to have that in a good relationship. In my opinion, you have to tune starts

to make its own grave. Here's the thing. I pride myself on sniffing the gravy out and I was missing some of the grave. Only heard it one time and the full version, you know, and like outside, you're not getting the voice projection in the in the I didn't catch the oil. I didn't catch the oil and water. I thought you were a bridge guy. I'm Richard. I was getting hit. I was getting inundated stuff some roll song. No,

I didn't catch that that lyric. I feel like there's some famous rock and roll song where they actually call out bridge and then it goes into that's like tenacious. I think that they do that. Yeah, I'll say this, that song it seems to connect so well with and I kind of guts some kind of tip my own forward here. But uh, a lot of it has to do with the delivery, right, It's kind of a heartfelt delivery, especially on the album I played it for You Yarnest.

Me and Yarnest were riding around listening to Spot Mantelope and I actually played it for him. But it was a piano ballad, right. And uh. The last show I saw Luke play before Pandemic was rupp Arena in Kentucky. Biggest show ever done there by the way, broke Paul McCartney's record A very good. It was good guessing. It was guessing to the level of hosting. So in the midst of him playing that song, which he anchored with when it got to the bridge, sometimes we're alling water.

But I wouldn't have it any other way. I look around me and I see multiple dudes dropping and I saw six couples get engaged. From where I was standing, there ain't no telling. I mean he saw no picture. I took pictures with them. So they're like, they've come in preparation, but you haven't had the song hadn't released, so the problem was out and that song was out into the world. And he's like, in case he does this song, and I have no reason to believe he will. True,

that's very true. That's very true. My buddy leaned up. He goes this guy wrote that. They're like, can we get a picture? And I was like, I guess all right, So let's get back to the creation of the tune, because how how did is Randy on it? Yeah? Yeah, so he's one of the co he's one of the writers. He's one big family by the way. Yeah, so he's in on it. Luke, you're in on it, Dan, you're in on it. Anybody else get in there on it. Unfortunately, No,

he's not. Even if he was more if he was more like Machiavellian, he'd be uh, he'd be like taking little swipes. He'd be like, yeah, really the song, I mean, you could have improved greatly with you know, it should have been It's a hot super in that moment when you guys are like, well, onto this idea and the lyrics are coming and you've written down all the things that go better together. Has music been introduced yet? Yeah? Yeah, cost core us was done already at that time, I

would say, and you can absolutely smash this. I'm not trying. I'm not trying to give myself credit in any form of fashion, but I think my natural progression towards songwriting comes from like a bit of a storytelling basic chord structure, which is extremely simple because I'm not a great guitar player, right, So literally we were just going one for one four and that's and if if, if I'm gonna be a part of a ballad, I'm gonna try to push that

simpleness onto the tune and onto the code writers. Does that make sense? So the course was already done, and I think I think I was just kind of like, what if we kept it extremely basic and let the Grizzly Bear vocalist smash it? Yeah? The Grizzly Bear vocalists. I mean, in my opinion, he sounds like a damn giant line on stage, not a Grizzly Bear or grizzy bear, depending on what continent you're in, you know, to me it would be a grizzly bear, leslie Bear, Apex, apex

predator for sure. Man, you mean you can't listen to what you listened to last night and go that's probably the best vocalist I've said ever. Set in front of CHESTERRK, I thought Chester did surprisingly well. Yeah, you know what, here's he hasn't even know the best part of it. I gotta tell listen real quick. So the Chester, the lester, he cut that out? What's his name? Phil Chester? Whoever? Chester just got married? And Chester sang a song at his wedding, and he just sang a love song and

didn't didn't properly intro it. So they generated some confusion on part of the attendees who then a rumor spread how Chester wrote that song and I would write the song he role was and they made everybody cry, And I can't believe Chester knew how to write such a beautiful song. And Chess just got up and failed to say, like going by the way, this is a little number written by so and so. So then he had to

go around, He had to go around like clarifying to people. Yeah, so in all honesty, you know, and last night Seth said, Seth told me or no Jester told me that. Seth said to him, six months ago, would you have believed that you'd be singing a song next to lout or playing your guitar and singing next to Luke Holmes? And Chester said six months ago, I wouldn't have been able to told you that I knew how to play a guitar.

It's pretty cool because he learned just too, like he had to learn just to like at his wedding, which I think it's like the cutest, sweetest thing in the world. Literally said that. I want to go on record here and say, if that guy has been playing guitar for six months, how incredibly impressive that that was? Daggeringly impressive. It was. I'll say this, It was as impressive and as as pressurized as me and you and Red cooking

dinner in front of these jokers. Man. I felt that the night before, like why they were standing there whipping up gravy biscuits and antelope and Steve's got his hands in his pockets looking over the thing. I speaking a little dust and then he goes too early, not ready and I mean it's the same kind of pressure. Chester gets up there in front of a guy that's got nine number ones in a row, the biggest, hardest and

coaching music. Give me that guitar. He's like, I'll take a swing at her and knocked it out of the park. That was great too, It was it was so cute cut and again the reason I was celebrate like celebrating him and is like instead of trying to be mr like detached and can't be bothered the old lady right, yeah, just to hang it all out there serenader at a wedding be like, oh, I don't know the old lady one to have a wedding. So I guess I showed up. But we had a bit of a plan working all

day long to try to convince Chester to sing that song. Right, did you hear? You probably heard. We were in the truck together with Chester. I was laying the groundwork to ask him to play. But it was it was really easy. I mean it was kind of like a circle hook like the kids looked himself. All I had to do was really man and He's like, yeah, I'll play one if you guys all that. I'm sorry I'll play one

if you guys will let me. I was absolutely chester we would love to hear and heard you play Lady Maid. And he was like, well, I know what couple it wasn't It didn't take much convincing that he was in. He was ready. That was really cool to see. I'd like to formally extend to thank you to you guys for having us. Uh, next time, maybe pair we with somebody a little slower, um, less athletic, a little less honest. Uh,

I'll take you honest every time. He's a classic guy and uh man, I'll miss it down and look with that guy all day long. Appreciate you having us. Great, you got Dandalope someone calling uh the nor need to We don't need to tell people how to find Luke holmbs. No, just papagoo on it. Just hit scan and wait five minutes. There is you'll find it somewhere in the in the amidst the air waves. But uh, brothers hunt Isabel Brothers,

laid out, laid off people to locate you. Yeah, we got a We're mainly probably based out of our instagram right now on Facebook and you can go check us out just Instagram. The Brothers Hunt, or Facebook the Brothers Hunt and tell people of the Brothers Hunt. We've been

talking about the songwriting. Yeah, The Brothers Hunt started actually on a porch at our deer camp in West Tennessee, and and we were sitting there just kind of talking, um, kind of going over the scenarios of of what we do and and and how we're This affinity for hunting out west is becoming a thing for us and and our our dad. You know, he's such a fan of staying home and hunting the white tailed deer. It's his favorite thing. He has no passion about coming out here.

No no, uh, um, what am I trying to say? No want to come out here to the West and hunt. And so we were we were sitting on uh, sitting on the porch just kind of talking about it, and decided that, you know, if we were gonna go for for this thing, that we were gonna go all in. And uh that was probably what five years ago, four or five years ago, and since then the Brothers Hunt. Brand Is is kind of always thought I was gonna have to choose between songwriting and maybe the Brothers Hunt

one day. But tell Steve how many girlfriends you've lost over hunt. Yeah, every one of them except this one hopefully. Yeah. I mean literally two seasons gets them. Yeah, they can make it through like a turkey season because you're kind of in and out during the day. But then when a fall comes, they would always they would always break

up with raid. Yeah for sure. Um. And so we we started talking about the idea of of this thing, and it got to the point where we wanted to, you know, showcase hunting in in an ethical way, in an ethical light, because we thought we were seeing a lot of hunting portrayed in Ah, the gripping grand we conquered this animal man and and and you know, we we we deserve to do this, and and we feel a different way and and the way we hunt more

privileged rather than deserve it. And uh, honestly a lot of that was birth from being in the riding rooms. I'll never forget the prime example I have in this. We wrote with a guy from Australia. He's a good friend of mine, wouldn't mind me saying this. His name is Lindsay rhymes and uh, we're riding with an artist and the artist was just tripping over what he wanted

to do. And I just could not get out of his own way right, And so finally I was like, all right, man, I'm gonna grab some lunch out of the out of the refrigerator in the in the break room. I'll be right back. And when I walked in, Lindsay was in there, and I broke out a little baggy that had I dice to tender loin and grilled it and so it was a little nice, neat little circles of dear tuner loin. Then when I broke it out, he went, oh, cookies and I was like, no, man, no,

he's he's British. Well he's Australian. Was that no? No? No, that was good all right? So he goes, uh cookies and I said no man, I said, dude, this is dear tunlin. He was like, hey, go cookies. A yeah. He goes oh. I said, would you like one? He was like, no, no, mate, I buy my meat from the store. And so he didn't understand the concept of how you could take your own me eat and with a rifle or a bow and convert that into a meal that you might eat the next day at work.

It didn't even compute. He said, I like my meat from the store, you know, and and reading I, we're talking about that you know it's safe, yeah exactly, And so reading I, we're talking about what we were like. Man, there are many people that we come into contact with that uh that don't understand, even even in the country music industry, that don't understand how how hunting translated lates

into food. And once we said well maybe we can have we can use that platform, whether it be through our artist friends or just the success that we have and kind of helped turn people towards a more ethical and responsible way to enjoy the outdoors and to enjoy hunting specifically, UM and and and try to paint a little more accessible light on uh being able to to turn your fashions and you're and you're hunting into some some pretty damn nice table fair and and through that

and through that filming that we were doing, and we started filming all our hunts and out west and putting them,

you know, into thirty minute YouTube videos. We were doing that to to you know, what Dan's speaking to, but it turned into us getting comments on YouTube and messages on Facebook or Instagram about guys who who have lost touch with her brother or or or hunting buddy or a dad and and they loved watching me and Dan, you know, communicating the way we you know, we hunted together, and that the camaraderie that we had in camp, and

we we just started getting tons of messages of guys going. Man, just from watching you guys, it's gonna make me reach out to my brother and and I'm gonna I'm gonna reach back out to him and I'm gonna try to get a trip because his balls and two years. Yeah, probably that's a lot of it. You have seen it. Man.

We're pretty rough on each other, but I mean it's it's all I love and yeah, yeah, And that's that's become the coolest part of the us for for me is is being able just to do what we do, but but being able, just like a song man, to to speak to somebody you know, and and and try to try to maybe inspire someone to to get out there and do it a little more often, maybe do it with some some people you love. Uh. And then if they want to hear this is the hard part.

That's the hard because you're a songwright and know people do you guys stuff, How do they hear? What if they want to go hear you do something. I mean they catch a show. Otherwise we kindly keep it locked up. Lunch pail man, lunch pill, lunch pilch Papa. Al Right, guys, it's fun man, than I've had such a good time for sure. We haven't laughed as much on a shoot

and uh quite some time, long time. Yeah, we were talking about last night and you always coming into these camps or hunts, you don't know what to expect because you've never met these people and who you're hanging out with. And me and Toork talked about it, but there's not been best friends. But what's pulled apple? That's how five right now? They've been high five in a week because we'ven killing ghats with each other all week. I was tell him, I don't know, this is my this is

my final concluder. Uh, I was tell him. I think I was sharing this with Luke the other day. I was saying, like, if Americans like one story, if they like to know what an asshole of celebrity is, the second favorite stories when they learned like how great celebrity really is that order. My wife's like, what are those guys are? Like? I said, man, these guys are great. Yeah, said She's like really like she was glad to hear it. She she wasn't like, oh, dude, I have to say,

I have to say. I want you to tell me a story about the horrible Luke homes. She was really loves you, dude. Oh good, she loves the show. Shoot me your number. Man, She's gonna finch big fans. Man. I mean this is so cool for us, Dude, we're it's kind of kind of out of I can't. We

kept saying that the whole way over. We were like, yeah, man, it it's almost been like a little shell shock because yeah, about Steve being a hardass when he came Dan Steve, Steve, they were like ghosted us us, he artists us for sure to work on manform. Listen, man, I I view it that you were guests, that we're trying to lay something out, and I was immediately very interested in just making getting the land land and everything's everything's good and lined up. It was so I got that, Okay, this

is cool, everything's cool. Then I was I was ready to tell you about the southan what's really going on in the South. Great, I've had a great time on this trip. Last time, I was on the what was it the expensive podcast? The name of it when we announced the weather Be Media exactly, Yeah, and it was awesome to very expensive podcast, very expensive podcast episode. Yeah. So hell of a rock which and now a couple of months later, you guys all using that rifle down

some great animal phenomenal ride for fun weeks. Dude, I'll hunt with that rifle for thanks for sending them to us. Appreciate you, Thanks for everything. Weather Be six five Media Edition. Drop a goat. That's tracks the third time? Read did it? That's right? Airball challenge dude? Read one, Dude, I shot dance gun. I was shooting high. It was shooting huh but my alright, let's go eat some Mandlodle's man. Thank you, hey, thank you guys for guys head blast