Ep. 389: Calling Ducks With Koe Wetzel

looking at down? No, no, no, okay, colder n great body. You know I want to state the Texas State dot Com competition. When I was fucking fourteen years old, you didn't often see you did when drop You need no deep me than that I do. When I come to the day of colling, come walker in the night to do it like the funk are they doing front the turner? They're traveling that creek? Take them, take it to take

What the fuck are you kidding me? Bro? This motherfucker has his face on the goddamn box of the fucking shelves and shooting. I'll keep shooting these twenty gay when you got your bismus fucking face a little will I'm trying to hand you that gum. You kid me every change, we're gonna change the program. We're just gonna say, shoot everybody. We're not gonna do calls. He's because you guys are sucking stopped you bay, We're gonna going I think, honestly, I think if he's got damn the mill of shells

were shooting made either ships. Are you fucking kidding me? Dude? I I hand kiss every one of them bullets. Man, I fucking bet you did every black but we had to live it back at the housing. I'd already had a fraud out would have give I give him a little kissing from that box. Oh my goodness, you know I shot one of them and look what happened. If this is an ad, fucking don't shoot ship check check check. Here you go. All right, let's go around. Let's do

some quick introductions. I'll do I'll do an introduction Join Today by the by musician k Wetzel. Hey, tell um a little about yourself. Man, Uh yeah, I'll play music. Um, you know who else plays music? Chester next to you? A dabbled man, not even close to the scale of what you guys, I want to I want to lay out a scenario for you know, we'll get on with our introductions. Um, I want you to think, Oh, either

muster up a piece of advice. Chester learned how to play guitar a couple of years ago because he wanted to be able to serenade his wife at their wedding. Okay, one thing to let do another. And we did a live show and Chester out up and warmed up the crowd with some singing mediocre. Then me, I'm just laying

out the facts, dude. Then there's a band, there's a there's a musician we've had on um from the band Trampled by Turtles, and they have invited Chester down to Atlanta to open on what's the date, December one, So keep getting six days before the anniversary of Pearl Harbor at the Buckhead Theater. So he's gonna go down his second ever, like right, and he's gonna go down and open and then he's do a set for how many people? How big is that place? It's not huge, but big

enough for me. I think people like, we almost played Bookhead. We're supposed to, Yeah, we were supposed to. Then COVID hit and kind of funk everything up. So what's your advice? Give Chester a great piece of advice. Stop playing music. You know, it's it's a lot of fun. Man, it's just the ground of it is. It's really hard unless you're like super super super passionate about it. Just stay married. And you know, well, I about some kids. I like, he just did that. He's not even supposed to be

here yet, and he's like old yeah Benjamin Button. Oh man, I just like playing music. I do not see myself making a career out of it. So, you know, just once you get a once in a lifetime opportunity to open up for somebody. Tramplin was trampline Turtles trampled by turtles, trampled My dad calls him stampeding turtles. Uh so there's your advice. Just or stop just stop, give up. Also joined today by Max barta good morning, Um I can't remember.

Not related to tread barter, not even spelled the same way, No spelled the same way, but not related to tread barter. Phil Phil got a little testy this morning. Well here's a here's a piece of peek behind the curtain. My I mixed audio for a living and they put me by the front door, and everyone walks in and catches up, talks about their weekend, what they're having for dinner that night. Uh. And I can't hear a goddamn thing, Karen, Uh. JP, tell everybout what you do? JP? Is this my um? So?

I do UM video and stuff for co UM. I'm kind of a creative director sometimes. I've done a few music videos tour with the guy and all the We're just a big family. And are you from a music background? Um, well, a little bit. My dad's a song writer, and so I kind of grew up around it, um and so I guess I just naturally kind of came. I don't know how I got into it, but I just did.

It just kind of worked out that way. Is that row probably one of the most famous wedding songs that would think for like your father, father and father and daughter dances like you look wonderful tonight first? That's cool? Yeah, yeah, I had to. Anytime someone figures it out, will just bring it up in rooms quiet. I'll bust that one

out real quick. Yeah, has that about that song? And it's like someone will either be like, oh I love that song and they'll be like, that's cool, but yeah, Kylie Archer is your first time on the show, Carl, I think second, but the first one was just a I think, just a regular with all of us, just our staff, So first time with guests. Kylie's just a man off the street because she's a cold wettele fan. So we thought we would bring down someone who's been

at the concerts. I appreciate you've got any critiques for how he could do a better concert. No, no, like everything about wasn't like the restrooms and it was easy walk out of this room. No. We were in San Antonio. We were at the Cowboy Hall. Cowboys. Yes, um uh there was a Santa getting a tattoo. I just like that remember so vaguely that was that was read South Hall. Me and him. We did a like two weeks acoustic tour and yeah, we we have a guy that travels

around and tattoos and stuff. And we were sitting like, I think it'd be awesome when Santa Claus is getting his asked at it on stage, you know how well we're up here singing and uh, it was good. It was fun. Mrs Claus probably wouldn't have whatever. Uh, andre know your last name? R O. C H A sir? Yeah, No, No, what's up with We'll tell everybody what you do it, then explain why you're you're hoodie. All right, We'll start with what I do. I'm coach, tour manager. I've been

with him for five six years or so. I was his drummer at one point for three or four years and then made the transition into tour manager. And you guys knew each other back in high school. Yeah, it was hundred ducks in high school. Yeah, and he bought what kind of amil? Would you guys buy twelve nines at Walmart? Honestly? Yeah. But we've been we've been buddies for a long time and we've been working together even longer. So,

like JP said, just one big family. We travel around the world together and have a lot of fun doing it, and you just got to collect the money. I do. I do at the end of the night, sometimes before the even show starts. Hopefully we can have a little more fun. But yeah, as part of the job, one of them many things for sure. And you got a tupac hoodie I do. Now, is it definitively established who

who shot him? No? They say it was sugar Night, but nobody there's I've watched a million documentaries and still I'm I'm obsessed with like the that Biggie Tupac thing that happened. And I mean I've I've watched the movies, the documentaries, to listen to the albums all the way through, and they say it was the L A. P. D. I mean, I don't know. So there's still a question. Mark lingers over. Yeah, I still think about it sometimes he goes to bed thinking about it everything. Uh, did

you guys have fun duck hunting yesterday? We had a blast. That was a lot of fun out. I gotta telling you, like the way just how everything was laid out, you know, the snow, you know, not being able to see him and so they got right in our face. You know it was and my magnificent duck coom skills run a lot of men. You know you're shooting good good State Champion duck caller, Texas Champion. H uh oh hany tight knot. We gotta make a couple of announcements. Just enjoy your coffee.

How don't you know where you're having this? Our trivia shirts available now. I mean, I guess I knew about that. I kind of forgot about it. The hell's the hold up? So the trivia shirt where it's a squirrel riding uh soccer with a flag that says game on Suckers. You get it. It's a squirrel riding a soucker. It's so good right there in the corner the mediator trivia shirt Game on Suckers? Is it like available available? Is a

limited number? It's available today? I mean there is like a limited number, but it's not like really really really limited, but it's really limited. Oh hey, check this out the guy cold. Just so you understand guys right in, people right in and now and then it's something that's interesting, so we share it. You can picture how this goes. Okay, this guy had a guy roll in. He had something called a thoracic syndrome. This plays into a lot of things.

It plays into dogs, plays into bones, cooking, It hits a lot of things that are of interest to the show. He has something called thorastic syndrome. Pretty common deal. The fixes the going and remove the person's top rib because in many cases the two top ribs are impinging on the blood vessels and nerve endings in that area. The surgeon went a little sideways. The surgeon actually cut his frenetic nerve, so he wanted to bud some heavy duty pain killers for a while. But he had asked for

his rib back. Okay, I already know where this is. You read the headline my dog ate my rib and you're kind of like not buying it. But here him out after reading I believe that this dog ate his rib. He wants to rib back. He doesn't anticipate because he he says he's gonna make some jewelry or some sh it out of it, just to be like, check that out. It's my rib part of me. Oh for sure. We had a guy sitting in the chair I'm sitting in right now that had his own amputated arm euro mounted.

He can walk around his own arm. I mean everybody does. But what I should say, what I should say is he could walk around without his arm or bring it with him. So he's got this rib and it comes back to him in a presumably alcohol. It comes back to him in a fluid and he says he was expecting it all to be cleaned up, but it's not clean. Still got a lot of meat, on it. No. Later, he wants to dry it out so he can scrape it up and puts it in his oven. Okay, this

isn't some stupid joke. I don't know. We don't traffic in that kind of stuff. Um lives with his mom and dad. I forgot to mention that he puts in the oven to dry it out so he can scrape it clean. And he says when his parents came home, they thought it smelled good in the house and asked what was cooking. He showed them the rib. They weren't that happy, but he said after a little scraping, it came out bright white. At one point, as he's cleaning it, he leaves it on the counter and his dog got it.

It's gone. Now goodness. How old was this guy Nashville, Tennessee. Well that also kind of brings it home. You gotta get him out to the show. Yeah, I know, but you'd want to have him bring his rib, but he can't co Would you do something like that? Uh No, probably, honestly, you know, I goes beards depending on how drunk I was, probably so yeah, exactly the type of thing that you would do. Another guy rolled in with the ethics question. This is a good one. I love at Washington State.

There's two Washington things coming up here. Uh, there's a Washington State where I'm lucky enough to have many acres of state BLM and d n R property very close to my home. Recently, I was scouting a piece of public land and came across multiple illegal bait sites for blacktailed deer. This gentleman is very liberal with upper case letters. So super liberal means no, I mean he uses upper case letters a lot where they don't belong. There's a thing and I want to do a seminar at it

at this company. There's a thing where people think that if you're writing like black bear, you upper case black bear, you'd only upper case English sparrow. The e would be upper case because which is a proper noun. But you'll see where people like bighorn sheep and they capitalize it just kills me, you know, uppercase blacktail deer. Uh, multiple legal bait sites for blacktail deer. We have both a gallon limit and proximity limit of base stations in my state.

They got salt licks and feeders. Okay, and he makes a note of it. Here's this question, knowing that someone else is illegally baiting the area, does that make it unethical for him to hunt that area? Ethical? Unethical? I would say no, I think if he I think if he were hunting the actual bait station, that's a no no get away from there. And I mean, you didn't set those up, you have, yeah, that I'm just we've heard of people getting busted for for not realizing that

they're hunting where someone's been baiting water. They just think it's like a great spot and ducks are pouring in and then it's baited and no one, No one cares to hear you talk about whether or not you did it, knew about it, whatever, Like you are doing it. You're hunting over bait and that's it. So if he's talking about ethics, let's say you have a spot you hunt and that's where you hunt, and you go there before work and some guy comes and makes an I legal

bait pile. So he's supposed like not hunt now, of course not. But a game warden might not want to hear a whole lot about who did what, you didn't do it, but you're just sitting there shooting, dear. I would I would just call the authorities and let him know. Be like, I don't want to stop hunting, so I'm hunting little ways away from these but heads up bait piles out. Yeah, yeah, that's probably the right thing to do.

There was this on public. I met public and he's even saying, is it wrong for me to hunt someone else's bait site. I feel like he's already hunting the bait stick came from the stand. That sounds like a master plan. I think he's confusing ethical with uh, legally prudent ethics and legal prudent ethical Situationally, I would say, yeah, you can't like be someone else doing something illegal. Shouldn't

make it that you can't go about your business. But at the same time, no one's gonna care about your version of the story when you get caught sitting over in a legal bait station. That was easy. Now here's another one that guys wanted. Okay, a guy wrote in kind of bent out of shape by how he was treated by some game wardens. He was driving home. He's in Washington from an unsuccessful hunting trip with his wife

and kids. It was after dark. We drove up on a good sized buck standing perfectly still a few feet off the road. I stopped so we can look at it. It looks very real, and he did that like trump, where all the letters are up the case. Very real, but it's standing soul still. My wife and I debate whether it's a decoy. I get out of my truck and throw a small rock toward it, trying to get it to move. As I do, it turns its head. I'm convinced it's real. Suddenly I'm blinded by a spotlight

from behind me. I hear a voice yellow, keep it moving. I add that inflection, but there's an exclamation point. I was trying to bring it home. Keep it moving. I look around, confused at first, and suddenly realized it's a robotic deer, and there's a game ward and controlling it, trying to catch people shooting after dark. I related this to my wife, and after a few more seconds, I hear again, more angrily, keep it moving, Get out of here.

I get in my truck and keep driving. Around a corner about a hundred yards away, I see a second fishing game rig. I stopped and rolled down my window. The agent confirms that it is a decoy, and he shows me the controller he uses it to make it move. I guess you have two questions. Do you have any insight into the legality of this practice? Lots of It's very common practice, kran If you go back into there's

a deep cut, get that reference deep cut. There's a deep cut where of this of this show where we had on head Warden and Idaho named Eric Crawford. You want to do a quick scan here Eric Crawford, and he laid out many adventurers using robo deer in robot turkeys and lays out all the legality and all the entrapment stuff. Oh is that episode fifty two real deep cut? Yeah? Wow? What was it called? That's like way back when we didn't really have good titles for the shows. Sorry, it

just says Uppard, Bitter Root, Comma Montana. So it's just like a place name. Yeah, it's like you Yanni and Remy six we get into the whole robot dude. No, it's been litigated so much. It's definitely not entrapment because it is a very common practice. And uh, he explains why it's not entrapment. Isn't that kind of like like with undercover cops, Like if you're just masquerading as a drug dealer seller. It's like somebody could be in your

place who wasn't actually undercover. So it's like hopefully driving down the road when it's pitch asked dark, you know that, shooting lights over so you know what they you know what he you know what? As I recollect, Um, it's one of my first memories, like you have your first memories around six. Yeah, one of my core memories is that game Warden on that episode long ago explaining that

the entrapment question they don't use booner sized deer. Oh okay, like you can't put on the side of the road because the judge will be like, well yeah, but I'm never gonna explaining that. It's got to be like you definitely would want it, but it's not so crazy that it would bring about Yeah, it's been heavily litigated. It's not so insane that a normal person wouldn't be able to resist the urge to shoot it in the dark.

You know. Yeah, he lays all that out, so I suggest this listener, um, go look on that, and then he wants me to opine on the behavior of the game ward Maybe I'm overacting, overreacting but it soured the experience quite a bit. If I'm on public land, I should be able to stop and look at animals whenever and wherever I want. And I don't like the idea of the woods being filled with robotic deer. Filled with robotic deer. There's one there. There's one on the side

of the road for like a couple of hours. So I don't think it's legs moved, just his head probably. I don't know that the woods are filled. But um, the law enforcement yelling at me, um, you know, late at night, just felt him a little off. I agree. Why do you got to be like I think it seems to be like polite as ship, Like here's a guy. He's like, oh, there's deer. He's not shooting at it. You think you'd be like, oh, hey, partner. Um, I know it's a confusing as hell, but that's a robotic deer.

We're trying to catch poachers. And if you don't mind, yeah, Like it's like, I don't know why I get testy with like that one was he was he was there to get somebody, for sure. I just don't see why you get tested. I like how he got out and like picked up a couple of just gonna make sure, okay, I don't. I have one friend that stopped to look at a robot deer one time and they're looking out the window and all of a sudden scared the ship out him because someone's tapping on the other window, and

they just asked him to move on. But then he get testy yelling at a bowl order. He's probably the come by. It's probably just like I gotta catch someone soon. Yeah, And he might have had it out for some defarious folks that he knew we were gonna be rolling down that road any minute. Now, someone out too. But still you could just be real, just like use your use your use your bedroom voice. Yeah, anybody you want to

creep the guy out there? All right, So you guys yesterday this for this question for co and Dree, I want to get back when you guys are youngsters. You guys grew up in a only caught a portion of this. You guys grew up in a um chicken raising area, Chicken Capital of the World, Pittsburgh, Texas at one point, I don't know the end up setting out. Yeah they got yeah, I got bought it about Tyson back whenever. Probably we were in middle school or high school. But yeah,

Pilgrim's chicken, uh bow Pilgrim. He's from Pittsburgh. Um, A lot of the a lot of the chicken houses. I mean pretty much all of our friends owned chicken houses, you know, so so they produced chicken for this chicken producing outfit. Yeah, and just you know, distributed all over the world and ship but chicken. Yeah yeah. Yeah. You you come into Pittsburgh and you smell chicken ship, you know, like like, oh I love it. You know. It's it's like you live there your life. You're like, oh, it's

just another day. Everybody else comes in and like what the funk is going on in this? I get that with the dairy farms and the same thing. Yeah, but that gets like a well, all that too much of that ship allays that ammonious smell, man, you know what I mean? Yeah, I kind of like it. Though. You go back and you're like, I'm home, and you are you found some work in the chicken business A little

bit like assassination worker. My granddaddy he worked, uh like he was like electrician electrician, so he would go whenever either they were tearing down or build a new and he will go in and not all the electricity and then whatever. They would take out all the chickens. You know, they'd be ten or fifteen of them left that had

no a broke foot or you know. We would just he would take us to go pick up dead chickens and then we get there and they'd be a couple of them love and he's just like, go have at and sell me have my buddies. You just go around and I don't know, and it's such a normal thing, like you It wouldn't be like we got a buddy that we both grew up with, Lee McCollum. We'd go to his dad's to get some money because we needed some money for something, and hey, boys, come over here,

pick up a couple of dead chickens. Yeah, I'll give you. Were like all it was just kind of normal girl t to clean out the dead chicken or something, you know, whatever it was that day, or move these move these bags here from here to there. Whatever. But it was just normal. I mean, we had a lot of chicken

growing up. That's what held me. The next question, even though you're living around that and smelling that you're still eating those and like most people will be like, oh, you know, I could never do it after seeing all that. But oh you know, I see a lot of worse. I guess eat a lot worse. Uh, how do you guys cook ducks? We just breast them out. I cut them in a little nuggets now from up him. How Uh just batter them and throw them in a little bit of a little bit of old man. Just make

a fried wild like wild duck fried duck strip. It's like a chicken fried duck. I'll I'll put them on the grill before and the him like put them like tacos. Yeah, I'd like to have them like you're talking about, Like I never saw that, Like I've never I've never had a drum before, never had before. But like we said, like y'all have, I've never seen that much fat all before. So back home, I think we talked about it. Like I think by the time they get to Texas there's

a war out, like they've already stut fits today. I'm fat on them yesterday, you know. So I think if we if we did have birds like that, we probably would cook them that way. But it's not a whole lot of I hunted last winter down not in Texas, but down in South Louisiana, and I couldn't believe that birds weren't like they are where they got all that fat. But when we get them, when we get ducks, so our youth duck season is it's like I think, late September. Yeah,

late September is youth duck season. And at that point there's nothing. I mean, it's like paper mache. Their skin full of pin feathers, no fat, real thin skin, and you just brought will breast and take the thighs by now though, like you said, man, they got three eights of an inch of just beautiful fat on them. And so at that point I like to cook them like that because I like the fat on that ship. Hey, Steve, for our listeners, can you let them know what like

that is? Like? How you cut that out? Oh? What what coal is referring to is? I actually stole it. I stole the idea you from when I was in I went to University Montana and for some reason they came out with a University Montana Wild Game Cookbook because some guy that ran the cafeteria or something was into I don't I don't never understood it, but I had the book and I made some things out of it. There was like a rolled meat loaf of spinach and pine nuts and ship in it that I liked a lot.

Then there was a uh way that he liked to cut his ducks. And you plucked the duck. You don't pluck the back. You plucked the breast kind of down to whereas bat kind of squares off. Now you don't need to go all the way to the spine, but you plucked the side down and plucked the drumstick down. Then you go to like breasts out, but you're taking the breasts up with the skin on it. And then you go down and pop his ball joint at the head of his femur, and you wind up with a breath.

This isn't all of our cookbooks we always show it. You wind up with a breast with the skin on it, the thigh and drums the drumming with the skin all the way around it, and they're held together by the skin. And it's a beautiful little package. People to look at it like want to eat that ship when you get it cleaned up, nice beautiful. And that's how I always always like ducks. This time you'd have a lot of fat. I clean them one way and I cook them one way.

You said, what do you you say? You pans serum getting any thumb, and I get. I turned my oven on four. I get a pan ripping hot, like a cast iron whatever, cast iron pan, let's say, ripping hot, a little bit of oil on it, put salt and pepper on both sides, and I put it skin down on that pan, and maybe five four or five minutes or whatever, just I keep checking it. When it's gold and crispy, I flip them skin side up and stick

them in my oven. And I put them in my oven, not even nowhere near ten minutes, pretty rare, right rare in the middle, crispy fat. Then we serve it with like like last night, Well, there's some where my kids made. They picked a bunch of raspberries and they make a recipe which is basically raspberries and ship loads of sugar and they call ice cream topping. It's pretty good. Anyways, we serve that stuff they made with the ducks last night. Everybody likes ducks like chut knees. I was trying to

explain shut to my kids last night. Is it like a glaze it's just like no, I just just yeah, just spread it out a little bit, a little bit on it. Sweet is good. You know. I was trying to explain shot it was someone's like a growing up jelly. Yeah, I'm gonna try that. Like like in East texts, we fry everything, So I don't think. I don't think enough people that we grew up hunting with knew how to cook it that way. That's why we would always cut the breast out. And I've never even heard of that.

So when you said that, we were like, that sounds great, and then you explained it definitely, definitely not. I'm sending three home with you. I brought him to work today, got the ducks from yesterday. He's already got I really wish my kids hadn't gotten sick, because I was looking forward to having you guys for dinner, cooking a bunch of ducks last night schedule. Um, that's a good way

to eat ducks. I would do that. And then when I was little we had them, we would sometimes breast him out and fry him in a deep friar, But the main way is we would pluck the whole thing. And then my mom had caught up apples and whatnot and stuff them, put foil over, put them in the oven,

take the foil off in the end. We ate a lot of ducks that way, especially wood ducks, stuff with like apples and what else is she putting their never never sit Remember remember remember that salad that like if you went to a church pot luck when you were a kid, would be like the main thing everybody brought, like apples and mayo and ray sasons. You know what I'm talking about, Like marshmallow, isn't it. I thought it

was like like green and cherry jello. When you were down to Twin Lake United Methodist Church for a potlock, there was like some things that were probably gonna be there. A lot of people are gonna bring deviled eggs, a lot of people are gonna bring jello with marshmallows and cut up grapes in it. And a lot of people are gonna bring apples smother than mayo with walnuts and raisins. So my mom would basically make a Waldorf salad minus the mayo and it was good and stuff the duck

with it. We had a lot of ducks like that. So there's marshmallow, no, no, no no, marshmallting Abrosia. I didn't know what to twin Church Ambrosia. Yeah, that was a very powerful their dish and I was a kid man. It was just coming off of like like my Grandma Rose would make a dish that I still don't understand. It was jello and in the jello was minted up celery and walnuts. Interesting, it was like national lamps, like like the like the cat and the kibbles and ship

or whatever in South jell. So what the hell are we talking about eating ducks? Well, Dre when you talk about air frying the duck, like, I'm still not checked out, what does that mean? Even mean? I mean, I'm a big fan of the air fried just because on the bus we don't have an oven because you gotta live on a bus. Yeah we we we live on the bus.

But I've got so used to it that I bought one for the house and now like anything you can cook in the oven or like smaller stuff like I'll buy like I got their steak in it the other day it went bad and then um, I cooked chickens the best chicken I ever made, Like I cooked it in their friar. I'm just you can do anything in there. It's eating salt pepper. Throw it in there. However the heat and then boom you ever put like a piece of deer meeting there. Not yet there, I'm not fully

convinced on there far yet it's misleading. It's it's just a little oven, just a little bit of them. He's it's like a little convection of it. Right, it's got like perfect sounds better. I got one. I should have called. We should have had Dave Williams on to ask Dave Williams this question. Dave Williams is lawyer, buddy of ours. He's like a real specialist in fishing game law. Here's a great question we encountered yesterday. These boys live on

a tour bus. So you clean ducks, right, and to transport ducks, they're supposed to have a head or a fully feathered head or a wing still attached, but they live and eat on the bus. So right, so here you are crossing state lines, but your ducks are all cleaned out. Would be a great case if you got caught in boss that and then got exonerated based off the fact that you live on the bus and it is your house. It's home. It's like where you brought it to, where are you plan on eating it? But

that thing just happens to move. And to add to the argument, his name is legally on the bus, like the the titles and stuff, so like he like, legally he could drive the bus. Not that we whatever want that situation, but it's like I came from you buying r V. It's under your name. You can drive it because you are the owner and you're you're on the title of the vehicle. So you would win that case hands down. Similarly, let's say you move, so you take your freezer and put it in a moving truck and

move it across state lines. No one's gonna no one's gonna bust you for moving waterfowl across state lines. How often do you think your buddy that's attorney deals with that kind of like those cases where like you could there's two sides to it. Uh, we bring up a lot of really esoteric violations to him, and he'll point out that no one. I don't want to put words in Dave's mouth, but basically these aren't commonly used things.

But when you've done something real bad and they want to really cook the books on you, so that when you plea it down, you're still screwed. Then they start coming in with all the like esoteric, Oh and you did this, and you did that, and you did this, you do that, and then you got like twelve counts out when you have ducks like yeah, And then he said, that's when a lot of that stuff gets utilized. You've been up to something no good and they really just

want to make the stack. Yeah, then you get the violation stacked on you. How'd you guys meet because you I heard you. He met you because he wanted to meet you because you partied a lot. Well, it was like, yeah, So I had a bunch of buddies that were so towns in these Texas, they're so close to each other,

you know, and pretty much everybody knows each other. And usually whenever Pittsburgh will go to a mel pleasant or pleasant go to Pittsburgh, or if you went outside of your town, you're more or less gonna get into a fight. In high school, you know, And uh, I was gone for something for the weekend or something, and he came down to Pittsburgh with a bunch of his boys, and my buddy was throwing a party and uh one of his buddies was about to fight one of my buddies,

and Drake come up to my guys. He's like, hey, let's I'll know some some ship's about to go down. Just had a little heads up. I appreciate it, and she as ship did. And uh, they come back. He's called Monther. They're like, dude, you gotta just cat dre' school as fun. You know. He he told us about you know what was about to go down, and he's a dog man. I was like, hell yeah then, so we got just after that, we got to start hanging

out man, and he liked to hunt. We all hunted together, so and you guys were into music and hunting at that time. I remember seeing another another reason this was when either my into my Space or early Facebook, when whenever you shot ducks at the time, he'd be like for wood ducks and had a great duck right you posted every Saturday because you don't have school, what did your Friday wake ups already to go duck hunting. His buddies would always have the post of all the ducks.

And I was like, man, this guys the party that get up and kill ducks. And and I was like, I gotta hang out these guys and man they had killed today like me and Hammer. One of those guys I'm talking about Taylor. We're both in his wedding a couple of months ago. Like, we still all hunt together once a year. We go down to a Maila and hunt with my buddy Toby, and I mean, it's just pretty cool that we all it started from duck hunting and fifteen years later we are we're hunting in my space,

that's right. But what kind of wanted was at the time. I remember Tom was one of my friends, So what a duck? What? What? What was like a typical duck hunting scenario for you guys back then? Uh, usually walk about a mile or two in later in mud up knees into just uh, we would hunt. We would hunt like flooded fields. Yeah, a bunch of lose a lot of you know, not a whole lot of saying it like flooded timber. But um, when we found it whatever

we did have flooded timber, we get into it. But I mean we would go we hunt les a lot as well. Becare's so many legs around these Texas. I mean we would get done with a football game on Friday night, get all the gear, put it in the boat, drive out to the spot, because you know, everybody wanted to get there like three or four in the morning.

And we would put out our spread, you know, and sleep in the boat overnight and then wake up Saturday morning so people wouldn't get into our spread, you know. And oh, dude, we're mad at him back then. You know, like we're not as mad now, uh as we worry back then, but yeah, we were. It was hardcore. It was. It was kind of you know, you duck hunt in the morning and then uh go sitting a deer stand during the evening. So did your dad hunt? Yeah? Yeah, big big hunter. Man was he got He got you

into it? Uh yeah, not so much duck hunting, but deer hunting for sure. Yeah, he's a big deer hunter. Uh yeah, man, always been about it. I saw you my mom. You're like, so your mom doesn't like huting. It's not that she doesn't like hunting, it's just like she just doesn't like she's uh, she's more like go to the beach and drink a couple of pens lots, you know, are your mind? Dad's a little together yeah. Still,

and where do they live? So? Yeah, So I have a construction company up in Lubbick that my dad runs, so he moves back and forth from Lubbock to Pittsburgh back in Ease, Texas. And my mom still works for the school in Pittsburgh. Uh and you pointed sandhill cranes up by the love Yeah. Yeah, that's good time right by the sky. Yeah. Do you fish much? Yeah? I do a lot of fishing, man, a lot of fishing. We did, Uh, we were just up here actually, I

was telling Karim we we did. We're supposed to fish the Gallatson, but I think we ended up fishing the Madison because then you'll have that the big the flood, the big right and run off. So the water was kind of shitty, but I mean we caught caught some good browns. Uh. But yeah that was what to two months ago? Two or three months ago? Yeah? Yeah, fishing. But uh, did you like that or did you find it a little a feat No? I love fly fish. I've been doing it for I got into it probably

five or six years ago. Like I'm still nowhere near you know where I'd like to be on it. But fought fish is just not the biggest thing in Texas. You know. Uh, it's more about you know, largemouth bass and going off into the cold gulf and uh stuff like that. So you know, you know you should do down in Texas. Man, I should introduce you. You should go out with you should go out fishing, uh redfish and and trout with Gt. Vans And you ever met him,

you guys probably hit it off absolutely. Where's he out of He fishes out of Rockport? Rockport? Yeah, my one of my guitar players, his wife. Um, their family owns. I don't know if they own to just me and them on a play. I know they got a boat down there. Yeah, I think they have a closer close to Rockport, but YadA cod fishing. Yeah. JT is fun to be out in the water with because he's like a real student of the water. He's one of those guys who knows everything about fishing like that. Yeah he

Um doesn't he have girls too? Yeah, he's got he's very good fisherman and uh, he's like a real cheerleader for the area. But then he gets a couple of cocktails and then he gets into like what's not right about the area, So you get a real. Well you get you get all the love and in the evening you get all the fear man. So you get the full package of you get the full package of the Gulf Coast. You get like all the things to celebrate and then all the things to be worried about. Um,

so it's a complete tour hanging out there. I like to just do it already. Did you know Chester that Um remember the Remember we had the cody from Whiskey Myers. These guys are talking about him, sending out like, uh, what's he got a new He's got a new lure. Yeah, he's got uh, I can't remember what it's called. You guys got a bunch of top water frogs and he's send a bunch of it out to the house to day. Yeah he's he's a big time and he's a big hunter fisher, but he he spends a lot of time

on the water. Um. And yeah, he just come out with a prototype. It's actually really good. I was telling you I was just throwing it in my pool and you know, working it like they have coady. It's pretty good, pretty good frog. But those guys sponsor some like elite bass guys or a elite bas Gut Whiskey Myers. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, they fished a lot with Jason Cohn on on fork, same guy. We uh we run around with two. So yeah, forks, have you ever fished fork

like fork in Texas? No, it's it's the lake, that's that's the hammer there. Bro, when when did you when you were growing up and you'd like to hunt, Um, tell me about how music became right, like how it became more than I don't know, no, like how it became like, holy sh it, you can do this for a living, right? Uh? That was probably like No, I guess around high school like I've been on stage, That's how I was sick a pageant kid, Yeah, I know, uh,

just like my mom. She uh she toured around a little bit, played like old all prey houses and ship with like with a live band. Yeah yeah, she's singing her ass off. Man, she sings better than me, seriously, Oh yeah, she kills it um. And so like I was a little she had a kid like running up and down the owls people were performing and you know, annoying the band and ship. So like I was always around it. And then I got in high school learning

guitar and stuff. Started writing a little bit and I would play, like, you know, a little bars around my hometown. But it was always, you know, it was never a thing that I thought I would really pursue. Uh. And then I got into got into college what to Tarlton State on the football scholarship got up there, and I was like, damn it sucks. You know, like I could be out playing and you know, partying and living it up.

And what position did you play? I was a linebacker? Linebacker, And I was like, you know what, I'm not gonna make it to the NFL, but you just knew that I can get some free beer down the street, you know, and a case of free beer and singing a couple of songs and you might get a kiss on a girl later on that night. So I was like, then screw this, I'm out. So dropped out of school. Actually I didn't drop out. I got I got kicked out

of school. And then they were like they're like, they were like, you you go you go to this like when you got kicked out, I got quit. Okay, this brings up a co I had to go to a junior college for a semester to get my grades back. So I could come back, and so you started doing bad and great, yeah, and then so they put me on probation. Had you go to a junior college first semester. I walked in the classroom and looked around, was like, you know, I screwed this. I'm not even gonna do it.

So that was it for college. That was it for college. And then we really hit it hard as far as gigging and stuff, like a couple of years not frog gigging, no show gigging, road dogs, hitting the road over Texas and who's we Me and a couple of my buddies from back home, and then uh, I think, now I have I have two guys with me that have been with me for damn there ten years, my guitar and bass player. And then um Dre was actually playing drums

from my cousin at the time. And then they started slowing down on gigs and stuff and I was doing a drummer and I was like, dude, you just want to come on the road with us, and he was like, hell, yeah, let's do it. So we picked up I think I pulled up to this. I was like, actually, our buddy had an internship in Austin and they were paying him.

They were paying all of his rent for a one bedroom apartment in Austin, and he was likensip it was as construction company, and he was he was you get an internship at a construction company that puts you up in an apartment Texas is wild. It was part of a deal. It was kind of part of the deal. Yeah, but uh no. So he was like, no, one, why don't you come and live down with us in Austin

for you know, six or seven months. So I load it up, I go pick up dre and I pulled it to his house and he's got his drum set and like a trash bag full of clothes. And I'm like, is this everything you have? And he's like yeah, he's got like tw years old down as he never left. How pleasant. I was crying and we you know, we get on the road. You're crying about leaving home. Yeah, I've never left a whole lot. Born born in that house, not in the house, but hospital, but came home in

that house. And I thought he was so full of ship and he's like, dude, we really want to do this. And we were like we're in the middle of recording no one's complaining, I think, which is the album that you know, kind of set everything off for for Co and the guys. And uh, he was like, let's we're moving Austin free rent one bedroom and it sounded like you mean you're gonna move because you're playing on moving into the construction dudes. Yeah, one of our best friends.

But with our thoughts were Austin is like a bigger city. We live in a tiny town. We can get more meet people, music every every d Yeah, there's a couple of booking agencies and managers and we needed some kind of direction because we're really gonna do this. Well. Then he shows up my house and I'm like, oh, ship, I don't have a suitcase, Like I don't own a suitcase. I've never really left. And he picks me up and

we're getting in the truck. Like you said, I'm like tearing up, like texting my mom like I think we're really leaving, and she's like, oh, yeah, we went to Yeah crying in Spanish, how that sound? Yeah, Like I think we had enough money for it. It's like getting down to Austin and like we're about to get on the interstate and he's being real quid. I was like, dude, what's wrong with you? He's like, that's gonna be a lot had a problemise, And you guys weren't like packing down.

You didn't pack down like you're all you're like, you weren't moving moving no, I mean just going for a while. But like, we didn't have a lot of we didn't have I think we had like a bad I had a couple of suitcase is and a couple of guitars, and he had his set and a couple of duck decoys. Has a couple of duck decoys. All our guns and uh like I said, and like I said, this is a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment. And we're you know, we're not We're not small, man, We're pretty big dudes,

and our buddies just as big as we are. And uh so he would be gone at work all day or and we would just sit there and kind of, you know whatever, waiting for a little bit of this noise noise complaint money that he hit and finally it did.

I think our first check was like four hundred bugs and we went to Top Golf to night and spent three So we're back to Square one were we know, we thought we were on the top of the world, all right, next three months wrote some damn good songs in that apartment though, So, like, did your so what did your so? Your mom was in the music business, dad was in construction. Were they pissed when he failed out of college? Oh? Yeah, you're man, Oh yeah, absolutely.

Did they tell you can't be a musician? Uh No, that was never that was never a thing. Like they always been really supportive of you know, like once I actually wanted to pursue it and I was like, you know, this is something I'm gonna do, they were really supportive of it. So, um, I never really had that problem with him. They've it's kind of whatever I've always wanted to do there, They've been really supportive. So that's good. Yeah, that's a hot tip for parents, man. But no, they're great.

Um yeah, I don't know. But like like I like I always say, like, had I not done that, I'd be back in East Texas working road construction, a couple of kids, you know, my mom and she wants a grand baby so bad. My sister is getting married in December. I'm like, hey, as soon as this fine lives let's get to work. We need some grand babies because I'm tired of this pressure on me, Like I'm the oldest

someone mom wants a grand baby really bad. I'm like, huh, probably got a couple of them run around out there. But I don't know about when you were. When you were when you learn how to play guitar? Uh, Like when I was a kid, guys in my area, all the guys in my area to learn how to play a guitar. We're learning because in order to play like two songs and they all learned the same Gordon Lightfoot

and like a John Prime song. No, you learned how to play fred Bear my uncle ted Um, that'd be like a big one you'd want to learn for trying what else? Like, it's just everybody would know how to play. That was kind of like that inspired so many people to get into guitar. Damn what's that song? Yeah? Like when what? At what your age? What were you guys trying to learn how to play? Actually posted a picture that so long ago, my set list from high schools

that I would go to bars and play. You know, I'd play three or four hours set, so I would play a lot of covers and then try to sneak can songs I wrote or my cousins that wrote, And that's a lot of songs. Dude. Four Oh yeah, yeah, you played for an hour, you get like a ten minute break. He played for an hour, you know as hell make I'm worried about playing for forty five minutes.

But like, like looking back on it now, like I can't remember half the half of those songs because you know, we've been playing all hard music for so long now, and they all they don't play covers anymore. So, um, we'll give me, for instance, like an early song that you'd love to play O Man Friends and low Places. You know you were born in nine Yeah, for sure. I was like an old man when that song came out.

I was washing dishes at Steiner's point. Yeah, just like the crowd favorites, you know, like I don't know Garth Brooks anything or anything not George just like boy George, George George straight Yeah, culture club think covers, but we've covered funny you say that though, back to the original thing about learning guys how to play around the uh, like two songs. I don't think most people pick up a guitargo and this thing right here is going to

change the rest of my life. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna write my own songs, play them, record on people by them, and I'll make a living. Like I don't think most people. I've thought about that before. Like I think most of us, the most guys, including myself, was to pick up chicks or play at bonfires around like Partester learn he was trying to pick up his own white I mean, seriously funny, funny. I mentioned Whiskey Myers. The first song I ever learned was a Whiskey Meyer song,

Broke the Windows. It was two chords and see and eat, and I learned how to play it. And to this day, if Drake gets gets hard as that's the only song pay fourteen miles kind of a minor and there's kind of hard for me other than that. But seriously, I think that's what most people start doing it for. And like like for your in your instance, like now you get to go open a gig. It what's a pretty badass. Yeah,

that's I mean, that's good for you. That's cool. Yeah, And I know I've said this before, but like I picked up that guitar being like, my number one goal is I just want to try and get through this song at my wedding. What song was? It was Tyler Childer's song Lady May. And then people I didn't like clarify, Oh this is a good story. My aunt uncle were crying and people were crying and they're like that, I cannot believe you wrote that. I should have kept going.

Jester had a solid writer version of Stolen valid. I was like, I didn't write that, thank you. Yeah, that fact. I can't believe the song Chester. I mean, there's a video. We have a video of it, which is pretty funny because there's like pan of the crowd a few times and people are like wiping their Did they go viral on TikTok? No, there's another guy that did the same thing but to a different song. Then I've seen it. He was like, I just learned how to play this

this song. Like last week, I just made a fun on the wall the people leaving the wood, Like damn. He was such a great songs going through Who's Who's Lady Man? We'll go with it. Were you guys, did you guys start bow hunting his kids or only later? Yeah? I started boing when I was eight years old, because like what brought you into that? Yeah? Yeah, my granddad and they, you know, they came to bow hunting and it was an extra month of the hunting. So I got into it. I didn't kill my first year with

the boat, so I was like probably tiena e Levin. Uh, but yeah, it was. It's I've just always been addicted to it, like everything about it, you know. And then once I got into high school, Uh, I kind of just went full archery. Like I'm not hardly ever rifle hunt unless you know, it's you know, somebody wants me to or you know, however it is. But yeah, I mean I mostly just both hunt. Now, well, you I just got my first bow like six months ago. I haven't trying to get him into it like five years,

and he just said, thought about it. My jps like been bow hunt for a couple of years. Yeah, Well I started with the recurve. So it's a little bit did ye all natural? Ever since I was a kid, I've I've always shot rabbits and stuff. I never never went for deer because it was just my dad didn't hunt a whole lot, so I didn't know how to do it at all. Um, but yeah, I have a recurve bow and I love it. And then I was like, you know what, this is a little too hard right now,

So I went, you know, backtrack. I guess I don't know. I got a Matthews and started shooting it last year and killed the dough and I was like, this is really addicting, so fun. Jesse used to make recurve bos. Really, that's sick. Slice my finger. When I was looking at I was like, with shot a dough with the recurve or a long bow? I built nice? Slice my finger? You know? Like? What song I keep thinking about Chester when I think about you and your guitar? Is that song? Um?

That one guitar just blew him away? I don't know he yeah, he beat up six the second hand. I didn't know how to play it. I'm gonna rewrite that for about Chester. Are you gonna hire Steve to be a backup singer? Sure? So we should be writing about Chester, man, it'd be so funny. Imagine imagine that that article Steve goes on the tool Dude, I just you know what it is. It's um jukebox hero, It's it's called wedding hero,

and we rewrite the whole thing. It's it's juke by, it's chest It's wedding hero, set the jukebox hero, and it's all about chester O God that one good time. He's away, but she's got stars in her eyes. Now he's got She's a wedding hero. He's a wedding hero. She's got Stop. And there's that a little bit like tonight, what's gonna happen tonight? I mean, I don't know what happened on your weddy night. I don't want to venture

to guess interject when interesting hunting stuff comes up. But so you're running around playing, You're like living in this this apartment, writing songs, doing covers, making fifty bucks? Is it like in the I recently watched The Weird al Um. The Weird al You're like Weird Al Yankovic did a spoof on music biographies, you know, all the tropes and

music biographies. And one of the things I was reading an interview with them about making the movie, and you talked about when you're watching music biographies, like all the major ship happens in one night, like they get an amazing gig. The record company guy comes backstage. You know what I mean, it's like in one night, it's like every Yeah. So, uh how long did that play out? I mean it could't have played out over excruciating long

period of time. Did you not that old? I mean, so we started hitting the road pretty hard, like in thirteen twelve, thirteen fourteen, and then um, like I said, man, I mean we did that forever. Dre was actually he was playing drums force and booking our shows and uh, what was your? So we come up with the name for a book because we didn't have a book in Asia, and Dre made up a fake name to email bars and stuff and was like, hey, I'm with Cowutzel. What

days all I have? You know? What was you? Andy Weskers? Because we were drinking soon was whiskey at the time when we get drunk, like you got any more that Waskers and so like that became his nickname. And uh so you were an email as an individual? Yeah, you just I mean think about it. These bars were getting a thousand kids that guitar or you know, I want to come play the bar, and they all promised that

their hometown they're they're from there. My all, my family will come out and all the bars interested in making money. I mean, they want to help the artist. But my thoughts are they've never heard of probably Cowtson. If they have, they don't know anything about them. So on our website put booking agent contacts. Andy Askers made an email. Still use the email to today. I'll see you an email sometimes so you can see Andy Asker's still a signature. And here was w A s k e er. What's

w know? Yeah, yeah, w h A as like whiskey, but Askers Yeah, and I would just I had like this little copy and pasting that said, hey, I represent Cowtzon many uh, you want to come play a show. And sometimes you have to like I have to like like find like a happy medium because they're like, I don't know who you are, but I'm never where's your website,

where's your address? This isn't legit, but they but once we showed up and you know the crowd, that's kind of when we started getting some momentum, they were like damn. And I'm pretty sure Andy Astro went through the industry of actual legit people like who is this guy? And then I meet these people in there that's you, like and we pulled up the college Stay show all the time, and it was like we hadn't put out no it's complained, but we were still pulling pretty good crowds. And up,

what's a good crowd in those days? I mean two hundred people? Which which are you talking about a bunch of drunk college kids? So like it felt like two uh. Guy goes up, he goes hey, so where's where's Andy at? And I'm like, oh, he's like Andy West because like shit, like right here? And he was like, aren't you the drummer? And he was like, you know what's going on? And so we tell them this toy and we still laugh about it to day whenever we get to see him.

But Chris box from But yeah, it's back to what you were asking. Like, so at the time, we're living in this apartment, I'm booking these shows. But like when I when I say like, and I've said this before, like if we didn't book shows or I didn't book shows, we didn't have any money to do anything, and that includes eating food and we like to eat food. Yeah, so I would book a show and like in that show contract, I would put most importantly a bottle of

Jack Daniels. Food was this pizza and it was like six of us traveling. At the time, we didn't have we didn't have a lot. Guy. Now it's thirty of us traveling together. But the time he was six of us, one van or my mom's car, his truck, you know whatever. Um so I would put like a pizza or like you have to supply dinner and I don't. We didn't care if it was McDonald's or pizza hud. It was part of it. So we started gaining a traction that way. And the kind of snowball from there. What's that, Kylie?

We've dealt it? Like, what's that when you do live shows? There's the Yeah, I just had to do that. What's in your writer? Then? Uh, it's not much. Let me let me make one to send it to you. You can send you have hotel for you and six boxes of pizza. Well, I just didn't know what to put down. I was like, maybe a couple of light beers. Yeah, ours was, oh yeah, I could walk ours, and then they go overboard and you feel it. Bags is all that they're probably too much ship. Oh maybe I want

a little half and half of my coffee. Then you go there and there's a gallon of that, and you know it's just gonna wind up in the trash. I just thought about this but that all the time. We played in Houston Fire Else to Learn, and we go to get paid and the guy was like, what are you talking about? Like, where's our where's our showing money? He's like, you owe me two hundred dollars and I was like wait what There's like four people in the bar and he's like, yeah, I need two hundred dollars.

I was like, well, we don't have any where do we have money to get back home? Like what are you talking about? He's like, well, your guys drink way more than that. So like eventually he turned it down. He's like, made us only pay like a hundred bucks. But yeah, we had to give them a hundred bucks to play at their at their venue. So yeah, it was just ship like that did uh? How like how

does it go that you? Because if it's your first album, it's not like someone commissions you had you know, it's not like someone like does an advance on a new album because you haven't proven yourself yet, you know, so how does that work? Like you make it? You promote it, it gets out there, and then all of a sudden, someone wants to not publish it, but someone wants to

distribute it. Yeah, so I guess kind of for us, it was just it kind of spread like wild wildfire for in Texas, and then once it got in Texas and kind of blew up there. I went to Oklahoma and Arkansas is you know, you know places you feel it spread like geographic like, yeah, it was just all Twitter, straight fan base. Yeah, like people started sharing it, you know, and uh, we didn't have anybody doing any of that

for us. So once we started getting that momentum and playing all these shows, uh that's when book and ages started, you know, hearing about us and other people like that, and and we didn't want management or anything like that. We just wanted somebody to book shouters for us, just so we could play in front of people, you know, wanted We wanted to be playing the two shows a year. You know, that was a deal. And hell, we did it for three or four years, and I just slowly

started coming down because we didn't need to anymore. But uh, yeah, man, it was it was crazy there for a while, and it kind of happened really quick, but we followed it up a noise complaint with uh. It was like two or three years later, and I've been very blessed. Man were just just, uh, the fans like they've done everything for us pretty much. So yesterday we were hanging out.

I was asking you about the role of Austin and being a Texas musician, and I thought it would be that it was you know, I think I oughtn't remember what I said to you, but I said something like, I assume you had you know that you had to spend all this time in Austin, and that's kind of your main proving ground and where you know, you when you're working on new material, you know, and Austin doesn't like in for you as a Texas musician. Austin doesn't

hold that well. Austin's has so many different genres coming through of music, so it's not like like we play. When we started, it was like there's Texas country music, there's red dirt music up in Oklahoma, you know, and those two kind of merged to become like a genre of music. And so, uh, I don't know, like I said, Austin just has so many different styles of music, And uh, I don't know, there's a place that we do really good in Austin, but it's not like for like Fort

Worth was like approving ground for us for Stephenville. All the college towns, you know, East Texas would big that there's a lot of not a lot of places of play in East Texas and not a lot of artists that come out of each Texas. But h yeah, mostly we were just hitting college towns and we were pretty much just a college bar that you know, I was writing music and we had a more edgy sound than what Texas country was kind of brought up on. So I feel like that connected with the college kids a

lot more. And uh, I don't know, but same. That's kind of the reason we moved to Austin. Just like you thought Austin was that hub that's we thought so too. We're like, we live in a town where there's one bar and it's all the old people smoked cigarettes in there and play you know, and and just listen to Yeah it's funny. Yeah, exactly right, because we thought the same thing. We're like, if we moved to Austin, it's

like our quote unquote like our Nashville for songwriters. We can go up here and and it's gonna be our ticket. Somebody will lists or find us. And it's actually as we started getting gaining that momentum that I mean, I was collecting money at the end of the night and uh, I was like, I don't know what to do with this cash, Like they're gonna ask for w N. I don't even know what that is, do you know what? I had no idea. But I also I didn't want to get taxed at the end of the year. And

the kid, yeah, back with you. But that's kind of how things snowballed for us. But I mean, coach nailed it on the head. It's it was the college town at the time we were. I mean it's been seven eight years ago. We were more in college age. So like those college kids, I think that we came in at the perfect time where those college it's like, really needed somebody to be like, those are the guys I want to go watch. I mean, we drank a lot. We partied with him, and yeah, it's like, I don't

mus a kid. You know, it's about party and having a good time, you know, the ship that college kids do. So they we were they related with us a lot, you know, and I was, you know, around that that time, we were the same age, and I was doing so well in college and uh yeah, So I think we're just really relatable to all the college crowd and stuff,

and it's kind of what helped us, you know. And still to this day, you know, we'll go to college towns and I like, I keep telling everybody I've been I've been in college for ten years now, you know. So I remember you said that yesterday. I didn't know what you mean. I'm still going strong, mom dad. And then I told him, I was like, when you're not a doctor, He said, uh, you know, I keep wanting to ask you too. And this isn't in any kind of order. Does your family trace their lineage to um

Lou Wetzel The Death Wind? You ever hear Lou Wetzel? No? No, you hear the Bear Grease podcast, You'd be very wise to go. It's on our podcast Network News Podcasts are Clay New come out of Arkansas and go look up his episode about Lou What the Death Wind? The Death

Wind Long Hunter Sociopathic Murder Ancestry dot Com. After this and Lou Wetzel he for he was you know, he was from the borderland, so the you know Ohio River between West Virginia and the Ohio territories and stuff, and then wound up down in Louisiana to wind up down in jail down there. Um, hey, we might be yeah, you might trace him back to the same jail. Uh you shouldn't. You should read up on Lou Wessell. Here's

my other question. But but listen to listen to Clay's episode about Lee Wetsel, and I'll point out, Uh, I had to lean on him very heavily because here's the thing. Do you do you know LeWitt, No, No, he was alive in the Hunters. He he was. Lou Wetzel existed in that he existed in that time, um, around the

American Revolution, in the in the Indian Wars. So we one day had a historian on and the historian specializes in the long hunters like Daniel Boone and other guys that hunted commercial hunters, the hunted the the the Kentucky Tennessee area. Um. He mentioned how back then there were some real bad such as like some bad people such as Lou Wetzel and Sam Brady. And I said, I

never heard of Lou Wetzel. Then my body Tommy Edson, the blue collar scholar, chastises me over text meith stage of how could I not know about the Death Wind? So I did some research. Then I strongly suggested to Clay that he do an episode about the Death Wind, The Death Wind Episode sixty. I'm gonna hit you up like you're not gonna be leave this ship. Actually, here's my next question for you. Make a note to yourself. There's actually a whole the Wetsel Boys, whole bunch of them.

Uh sound like, so if you came up so in your business, you come up very grassroots, like, very elbow grease right like like outsiders. Um, what were like? What does does Nashville like not need to exist for you? I mean, is Nashville a thing or is it not even a force for you to reckon with? I mean at this point, no, not really just just because like

and nothing against Nashville. It's just we're we've kind of made it a point to just kind of do whatever we want to do and be authentic and in ourselves and and you can do that in Nashville. But um, going back, I want to said earlier, like everything that we have is because the fans and the way that they have you know, blown us up, you know. So, um, we don't need Nashville and they don't need us, you

know necessarily. So um, you know it's just uh, I don't know, man, it's we kind of do whatever we want to and that's kind of how we've always wanted wanted it to be. And uh and not saying that Nashville won't want to allow you to do that, but um, I'm starting a new country project. Uh in January we'll start working on and uh, I'll probably hitting up Nashville like, hey, please let me know. Um what what door do I knock on? Yeah? No, I love Nashvi. So man, we

go there. We go there probably five six times a year, and I got a lot of friends up there. But and you'll pull you'll pull a good audience there. Yeah, yeah, we pull you know, we pull really good audiences in Nashville.

But um, yeah, I don't know. It's it's just a it's a different world, man, you know, Like it's a songwriter world, you know, And um, I don't know, it's hard for me to write with other people like so I have to It is yeah, like, uh, I don't know if I can't if I'm not feeling what another person is, you know, like or if they're not feeling the same way I am. And it's just it's kind of pointless. Like do you ever bring your stuff too? If you get stuck on something, do you have people

you bring it to? You just work it out? Yeah? Like, well, like I'll write like a half a song and then you know, say that and then come back to another song and either combine them or you know, to where it makes sense. Or I'll hit up a buddy and be like, you know, see if you can help me out with this. But uh, yeah, sitting down and co writing now, I've I've I've done it twice, I think, And uh it's not that I don't like it, it's just it's just really hard for me to do so.

Um but yeah, what what what would be the closest thing to a normal way that you'd work from from a writing perspective? Um, Usually I start off with melodies, honestly, Like, I'll have a melody in my head and then I mean, I never saw in my life, but I don't picture it that way. Yeah, Kurt Cobain and he was like, melody first, layer, second and so, um, how I do it? I do it like uh Chester, then I go jukebox hero, then lady may no, I'll go melody man and then uh,

usually I don't know. Is this annoying for me to ask? How like the melodies in your head? No? Like how does it occur? Like not how does it decurdy? But how is it? What is it sound in your head? Are you here to performed? Are you just hearing it? Like your hommy? It? Like? What the hell is it? It's either I mean, it's just like I'll whistle a lot, like I'll just be like, I'll yeah, I'll be whistling a Lot's somebody like what is that? I was like,

I don't know. If they're like, it's not bad, and then I'll just go to a guitar and try to play it and seriously yeah, honestly yeah, and uh and then after or I mean, I mean, sometimes I'll just I have a thought in my head or I have a line, I'll write it down, I'll come back to it, and then sometimes I'll write this song before I put the mild to it. Man, it's just kind of what but you know what it is, and he's got to

figure out where it's gonna for sure. Also, whenever I'm whenever I sit down and try to write, hardly anything ever comes out, you know, but like I'll just be drinking a cocktail or something and I'm like, man, that's really good, try and put that down. Or I'm just making a note on my phone and then come back to it and you know, have it, have it wrote down? Yeah, but some of my best in your phone look like, oh, you don't want to know. It'd be like a couple

of words. Yeah, it'll be like just a line or out all of a song or you know, I don't know. Like it's cold as ship outside is snow and I'm here with Steve Ronillo. You know I can. I've seen time blowing sounds. We'll be talking. This could be four in the morning, drunk or or on a road trip or something. Or it could be two pm sober, watching TV and somebody will say something and co would just walk off without and you see him like something bad happened,

Like what are you doing? Like who is that? Now? I to write something in my phone and I know that's what he's doing. It's already even asked, Yeah, and I go to the back of the room of the guitar and shut the door. You don't y'all see me for like an hour. I'll come back and like we'll here times. Yeah, but uh yeah, man, that's fun. I like, I like putting together stuff like that, and being in

the studio helps outtle up. And we recorded our last record and hell Pass and and that's you know, it's funny. My next question is why why is it hell Pass? So? The studio it's called Sonic Ranch. It's into r Neo. It's about forty five minutes outside of El pez So. But it's on a thirteen thirteen thousand acres. It's up a complant like a pocon farm. You hunt it while you're there, No, I want to do. There's so many dove and damn squirrels. I'm getting in pretty good with

the owner, so I mean maybe maybe next year. But no, it's like it's a mile from the border. Like the wall like runs right next to the studio. So once you're out there, I think there's a family dollar and a liquor store and a family dollar there. So once you get out there, yea liquor but it's like it's it's honestly like a resort studio, but it's in the Millino where there's no distractions. Like you wake up, they feed you breakfast, lunch, dinner, get out there. Man. It's

just like and it's for this purpose. It's yeah, it's a it's for songwriting. I mean there's there's eight studios there. Every they've got lodging everything. Manu. It's so once you get out there, you're out there. I mean, wake up, e breakfast, record, eight, dinner, go to bed. It's like the only Budgie thing about it is all the gear. Yeah yeah, yeah, it's not yeah, and it's nothing. It's not like super fancy or anything like. It's it's beautiful place.

It's it's awesome. But but you guys get a mighty thirst at night, you'd like to go out to bars? What do you do with Yeah, well that's what I'm saying, Like we'll just sit there and uh, we'll drink a couple bottles of wine and and don't get me wrong, on the weekends, will pump into hell pass. I found myself like probably two yards from where the war is. That's the next time I went with one of the engineers from the place, and I was he was like, man, I got these girls in town. Let's go. And I

was like, all right, let's screw let's go. So we get there and I'm like, where the funk are we at? Bro, And he was like, war is right there. I'm like like right there. He's like yeah. I was like, let's get the funk out of here. What are we doing? Man? Like, no way, I'm being the morning news man. Give me out of here. But uh no, it's it's it's right man. And we're going back in January. We'll be there for probably there for two months, uh, to do another album. Yeah,

I'm I'm I'm starting that country project. But I wanna I just want to get out there and, right man, get away from everything and you know, dry up and just kind of get get reset. And uh we've been on We've been on tour for damn near all year. So the guys will get two or three months off and I'll get some time just to be alone, get out there and write and record again. So dry up, like dry up on like just clean clean, yeah, just uh, you know he's up a little bit. What's the country project?

Um Man, it's just I've I've always wanted to, like I've people consider me a country artist, but our music's more rock. I feel like, yeah, yeah, we thrown in that genre, but I mean it's where it's rock music, mad alternative. Me and me and Seth roam at earlier, me and him listening to hell Pass so continuous loop for six hours, driving driving from driving, from Ketchum from catching the Bowsman nice and we got the balls and

I'm like, it's not a country record. Yeah, And then that, then that then I got to look at how it's like I'm not the first guy who observe this. Oh people get so pissed or like this is a country music what's wrong with him? I'm like, oh, this new album, but uh no, so like yeah, I'm I'm gonna put out my first actual record country record, you know, like, um oh, but what's go do you mean? What do

you mean? Tell me what you mean here? Like some like some some fiddle, some skin guitar, you know, going you're in a stick with your but you're tell me you're gonna stick with your normal subject and that that that's a deal. That's like the plan, Like that's why I'm spending so much time out there because my goal

is to write two records. I want to write a country record, and then that's the I might get out there and can't route a country record and then go back on the music that we had been creating for the last you know, ten years. But lyrically, here's what, here's what I need to tell me. Lyrically, it'll stay constant.

Oh yeah, it'll just it's gonna be raw and really like what's gonna be like, yeah, you're not saying something yeah, no, no, no, I'm not gonna no, no, shot I'm I like talking about like feelings and uh like real world ship, you know, like it's and not people not distant people that talk about you know, going down the back road drinking a cod beer and with my grandpa shot gun rack and all this. Like, No, it's not gonna be that kind of country. It's gonna be like like an old like

old school you know, just chicken shit. I mean real chicken, real honestly real chicken ship stuff. But no, just just honest true ship, you know. Uh not I'm not sure every day you man, let's put on cambo and drinks coal whiskey, you know what I mean, but you don't mind doing that. I don't fucking saying I don't get me wrong, I will do it. I'm gonna send you, I'm gonna send you the record, and you're gonna be like you line, son of a bit. I'm you think

it's gonna be tough for you go that route? Uh, I don't think so. Honestly, man, I've I've, like I said, I grew up around it. I've always been around it. I still love country music. Um So, I don't think so. I think more or less just just because we have been making this sound for so long of kind of kind of country rock. I think that'll be kind of the harder part of getting back into like the melodic, like the melody part of it. Um, but that's it. Like like I said, I might get out there and

may and it might not happen. But um and if that does, I apologize for I've been waiting on a cuntry record. You know my favorite parts ball Hell passed. So was the interludes where you dressed the audience. Yeah, that's good ship. Did anybody try to talk you out of that? No, that's that's uh. We were we were in there and we were whenever we're in the studio, we we drink pretty heavily and uh and you got

you were a little flamy that day. Oh dude, you have no dude, but uh yeah, especially during vocal day, I'm drinking a lot of whiskey. Um. But we were so Kimball likes to keep the microphone on just in case, you know, just to catch you know, stuff that like damn, I wish would have caught that. So, uh, that was kind of one of the deals. We were just talking

and I was like, it's a microphone on it. He was like yeah, and I've had that going on in my head for a while, Like now that I've got cells attention, I forgot what it was I was gonna say. And I've honestly forgot what I was going to say at that point. So he was like, I really like that. Let's put that on the beginning of that the record. Yeah, it's nice. Get you're getting like addressed by the musician, but you're listening to the album for sure. Uh, okay,

we are you willing to play us a tune? Yeah, I'll play you really eight kind of half to you. Actually, how's it gonna go down? Um? I don't know what you don't want? You play guitar? The yeah, I think it's tuned. Uh, step down so I can read and there's capo. Okay. Before before you leave, I have to ask, did you ever find someone a damn it? Uh? No, I spent like three days in jail. Probably he was a sound like ships because the Cowboys lost one day and uh we had two good of a time at

the Cats pop the Cats party story. What's the Max playing there? Do you guys lose some money in poker? Mm hmm, I'll play one off of the new record Yellow Bull Shrug I do with my phone, sat on long. It's talk anybody these days. Let should probably go home. Let's see my friends. I ain't seen the poet treats the slash crib Smiths and I'll be down to if the sun rang on, I wanna go home. I'm seeking home and tell me you why I'm feeling this a way hometown, he wrote without the Cake, just to poor

motherfucker that grew up on Gellibut show. When my grandpads still look at me the same, and I feel bad when I tell them, Mama kay, get the people in this town say I'm too far gone. Well, I'm du to them most and worst than others. Eyes say, and I'm way to bless the pitch today. Yeah, sick, tired of trying to clear my head never works, so I just strain canst it and keep telling myself that it helps, but it really don't. Everything I've ever won't here. It's

in the palm of my hand. But the trash treasure. Then I'll be a blist to give it to another man that I can tell me you are I'm feeling this away hometown. He rode without the cake just to pull motherfucker that grew up on Getabu and stroll. I talked to my parents with nothing to say. They told me everyone I was doing okay. They just couldn't believe

that I'm singing on the radio. But I'm better than most the worst in others eyes say, and I'm way to bless bitch today, So tell me you are I'm feeling this away on town Here rode down the kate just to put motherfucker and grew up on yellow boot and show. I talk to my parents or nothing to say. They told me everyone was doing okay. They're saying the fact that I'm us and no lady O, I'm did than most and were signing other signs say yeah, I'm dida than most and worse sin othersigne saying and wait

to bless. It's a bit too Hi you killer get cats Paul all week All right, man, thanks so much so I really appreciate you guys coming out for sure, co JP Grey thanks a lot, Man, Thank you for having you guys. You guys are great to having the blind about laugh. Everything was great, good stayed appreciate him. Yeah, thank you all for having all. Thanks man, sp