This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you.
Shirtless, severely, bug bitten.
And in my case, underwear.
Listening the podcast, you can't predict anything.
The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for ELK. First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light dot com. F I R S T L I t E dot com. Joined today by Luke holmbs down in Wey, South Texas. Also here is Seth Morris Chili's here and Uh in a very own Chester, the divester who hasn't been on the show as much lately since since relocation.
Yep, Ben in Wisconsin bought a home, fixed it up, had a kid, another one.
Damn Chester, busy d double dipping. What we were talking about before we began was we're talking about the problem of Luke was saying that he's not there yet on losing on his old man, losing his I don't even have the vocabulary for this. Readers needing readers, needing cheaters, needing readers. Yeah, and I was I wanted to share it this, I wanted to share it for the audience in general.
So I told Luke, appreciate that.
I appreciate that, But you know, it's the thing you're not there yet, not there yet, but you were talking about but you now. And then I find myself doing the squinty thing where you're like or like it looks like you're like almost kind of trying to smell something.
Do you head, bob, do you do a little in out?
No?
I don't do any No, I haven't done that yet unless I haven't picked up.
On it when I first realized it was happened to me. I found that over your whole life. Okay, if you go to like pick a sliver out of your kid's foot, or read something that someone's showing you, like a pamphlet, I don't know what the hell someone hands you something to read, your body knows.
Right where to put that son of a bitch.
Interesting because it's.
The same decade after decade, right, So your kid gets a sliver, you know, right where you.
Want their foot right to see it. All of a.
Sudden, For me, it wound up being that I would go to my normal.
Spot and that wasn't what you couldn't see.
It, right, like you're you're sort of your brain hasn't even adjusted to the fact that it happened.
Yet.
You'd go to your normal spot and it wasn't right, and then you had to search for the right spot.
Yeah, that's interesting. I could consider that.
Does your body know now the spot it's better?
It's better, but it changed it for a while there, like forty four years old. Whatever the hell it was changing so fast my brain couldn't a us quick enough.
It makes sense like if I got to look at my watch, there's a.
Certain like, you know, where you want to that I go.
But then you know, if there's you know, there's different stuff on this on the dial that you can look at, and there's somewhere I'm like, what is it like if I want to, like I gotta kind of get it at a certain like spot, if I want to check out the little tiny words on their or whatever.
You know, there's nothing you can do about it. Man, this is going to be like, Luke, you gotta bear with us here. This is gonna be probably this is going to be a test case in uh, how to lose listeners. Okay, okay, you know they tell you don't talk about religion yep. Politics, Well you're you're going to all those places, no religion, politics, and then the finer details of wild Turkey management.
I don't agree.
I don't with that. I think there's I think there's I think there's a very uh you think, very interested population. I think it's I think it's niche. I think it's a subculture. But I do think they're the people that are interested are gonna be super interested. I do. I do think that. Uh. Oh, you know what.
I was gonna do what I want to do to Luke Later when we turned the show over to our intense focus on you, Luke Is, I wanted to bring up with you their day. I was telling you yesterday, I was telling you I have to do it. I'm not gonna do it secret, but I was telling you at some point I need to do the worst thing that could happen to a musician mm hmm is to come to you and say, hey, I got a song idea.
Yes, we did discuss this, yeah, and I didn't do it.
And I can't do it now because in the whole world is going to write this song and it's not that's.
True, But now the now people are gonna wonder though.
Let me throw you a different tidbit right here.
You ready for this?
My buddy Pat dirk and was telling me how My buddy Pat Dirkin was telling me how at his age, when he takes not like he starts to think about if he's taken on a big writing project. He's like, he enters the back of your head. It's like, am I really going to be doing this?
What do you mean?
What you career wise? You know what I mean?
Like at a certain point, like if someone says, like, hey, do you want to take on a like a large project, you'd be like, shoot.
I don't know.
I'm pretty old.
I won't take that on how it's pretty old though, h are.
We talking here?
I don't think he's six. I think he's pretty old.
He just made a comment. This is all build up to the song idea. Okay, it was a different song, different song, multiple He was telling this friend, Well, I can't tell you the ones. It's most I got it. I ran it by Chili Chili.
I mean my first when he said, I'm Mo has an idea for Luke about a song?
No, no, just like an idea.
Yeah, when you first said that, like that's how you started. I was like, I'm not a you know, country music star, but I don't. I wasn't a skeptical about, you know.
Because there was no words or music.
Yeah, but massive challenge and in the world of music for sure.
And then he told told me the idea, and I was like, I've heard a lot worse ideas.
It's a great idea, and but I'll obviously let him.
Usually if someone said usually if you tell you run an idea past someone and they say I've heard worse, that's good.
That means it ain't good.
No good, I've heard worse. I think it's how you say it. I was telling my kids, I'm gonna get to this, but I'll tell him. Recently, we're talking about you know, he's getting of the age, you know where there's like boyfriends and girlfriends. I'm like, dude, when I was your when I was a kid in high school, the worst thing they could say, like the worst thing girls could say, he's nice.
Yeah.
Now they said, if they said he's funny, that was a good sign.
Yeah he's nice. He got nice, brutal like, don't take me wrong.
Yeah.
Like at a time, it was like if someone says like oh, I think you're nice.
You're like, yeah, friend zone.
I feel the same way when someone calls me cute.
At thirty, when a girl calls me cute, No.
That's a good sign.
I'm not. I don't know. I just feel like I could see that. I could see how that could be a mixed bag. Yeah, I could see how you like could go either way.
So here's this hit, this hit, and listen, man, it's not like I haven't thought it through as much. In fact, I had it in my notes something I thought was funny and I don't even think about it it being a great song.
Till et hit, so great song.
Pat Dirgen's talking about bringing up to a friend. I don't know if you want to take a big project on of my age, you know, And his friend said, some weeks I wonder if I should be starting a new trash bag, starting a new trash bag, meaning is he even gonna be alive long enough to fill a trash bag?
Oh god, that's that's real sad. That's not a lot of time. That's like half a day.
I scraped that song. Yeah, I don't want you to. I don't want that song that color the other song I.
Was but who in a pitch meeting, Who in a pitch meeting comes in and starts with the loser?
You came you kind of came to It's like real excited, Like you got into that, Like I knew that when the idea was coming, because your voice got like real pumped about it. You were like, yeah, so he was talking about this, you know, I don't want to do this, and then at my age, we want to start a trash bag yet.
And it's like, oh my god, it broke pitch meaning rule number one, man, you always come in with the hot one. You come in with the You're like, if you find the audience is losing, you're losing the audience, then you start throwing wild ship out there, you know.
But you come in with the refined one.
Luke saying you started a song with a title, so and then you know, I do that trash bag.
No, that's the other song, Yeah, trash bags. All the other songs has Yeah, that's all that one.
That one doesn't even have a title, dude. The other one's at least farther down the line than that, you know.
Okay, now we're gonna we're gonna talk about Turkey regulations and Luke, you've had some observations about turkey regulation.
We're gonna get serious here for a minute.
Because the reason these turkey regulation things are of interest is because I think that we're seeing anyone in the country is interested in turkey hunting. I think this is all relevant to your life. I think we're there's a trend emerging and we've we've touched on this before on the show. There's a trend emerging that that that turkey numbers in America, like when you get into the future, We're gonna look at turkey numbers in America just in
a general America sense as being like this precipitous. No, precipitus always means down or can it be a precipitous incline?
Oh dude, you're that's that's author stuff.
Dude, You're wrong, crowd.
Dude, wrong, crowd A.
If you look at like turkey trends, you're gonna see the nineties come in. We're gonna get to the nineteen ninety, nineteen nineties, and you're gonna see just like turkey numbers just we're talking in one hundred years when they make
a chart showing turkey numbers in this country. They're gonna be like in the nineties with all the reintroductions and introductions early two thousands, Right, it's just gonna be like boom boom, that's of climbing boom boom boom, the roller coaster, and it's gonna hit like the the heyday of turkey hunting.
And I have I don't know Clay Nukelem.
Maybe he'd be able to tell you where he like in Arkansas where he's at. I think doctor Mike Chamberlain would be able to tell you the official like peak moment and then it's down and it'll go down, and I don't know that anyone knows where it's gonna end.
Level. Yeah, I mean we were talking about that yesterday. It's like you like, we feel like it was like man, a couple I don't know, is it set like six or seven years ago? It was like smashing dude. I mean Tennessee you could you could kill four birds?
Yep, No, are you talking this is nationwide?
Yeah, because there's always outlier things. But I'm just saying like, if you like, if you go to some of those areas that became if you go to some of those states that became just like early famous turkey states, you know, like places that always had pretty good turkey hunting but just blew up, like Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, right where
turkey numbers just went crazy. Yeah, and then this whole it's kind of appearing to be like death, a death by a thousand cuts kind of thing, and it's gonna like lower turkey numbers. But there's actually terms for this, and there's terms for this in biology. There's terms for this phenomenon. There's one thing called one guy calls it Founder of Fact. There's other names. But when you bring in a new population of animals and introduce them, they explode.
They explode because they're they're coming in and like they're occupying a niche that wasn't occupied on the landscape that's really good for him. Predators aren't tuned.
Into him yet.
You might be moving in a group of animals that is disease free and they might contract local diseases or become impact about their eases over time. So when you bring something in that it's just like the general truth of it is, if they take, they take dramatically and shoot up, and then predators over time are like, oh, I figured out how to kill these things.
What you do right in.
April, I know, to go look in that brushy shit and it's full eggs, right, And it takes them a while to figure out how to do that, and then all this stuff happens and you lose. So what you're seeing right now is and again, this is just generally what you're seeing right now across the country is like generally game management agencies, generally speaking, tightening way up, way up on Turrey Harvest. So we talked about I gotta put on my spectacles.
Doesn't seem like it down here, thought.
I got a thing on my phone of song ideas.
I gotta pull it up.
It's gonna find that right spot.
Yeah, okay, let me let me find this thing here. We talked about South Carolina on a recent podcast episode during our Turkey Week and uh, let me see here, and got a guy real mad at us.
Here it is.
We're talking about South Carolina, how they have done and this is an nothing that happens in South Carolina. They you used spill to shoot Jakes.
Okay, yep, no you can't.
And and South Carolina says, no more Jakes. And on the show we kind of laughed about uh. I observed on the show. I was like, if you really want to save like breeding age birds, you'd make it illegal to shoot longbeards. But of course you can't do that because that that's not what anybody pissed everybody off.
No one wants that.
So you're like being like, yeah, no one's you know, that excited about shooting jakes. Maybe we'll make it that you can't shoot Jakes and it'll help when we handled well.
A guy wrote in who is livid.
About our handling of this, okay, says the media podcast came out, they brought up our new Turkey laws and completely fucked up the explanation. They harp on the Jake ban and say our purpose of the Jake ban is to increase breeding, and beat on us that that makes no sense. But here's here's some other things that's happened to South Carolina. They already did change the season dates. They made the season start later, and they made it shorter. They lowered the bag limit. Okay.
In addition to.
This, Tennessee's done this as well.
So South Carolina first one, and so the state wide season now starts April third, previously half the state started March twenty second, and half started April one, so in part of the state and half the state, they moved the season to twelve days later because the thinking is states are killing turkeys too early and it's impacting breeding, and it's like the kind of that we mentioned, there's this kind of emerging idea in turkey management.
It'd be like.
Hunt them as long as you want on the other end of the season, or huntum longer on the other end of the season, and stop hitting them right at the beginning, early, right at the beginning. So he said, they not only did that, there was a recommendation that the entire state should be April ten, but the legislature didn't go for it. Before April ten. Where it is opened early, you're only allowed one bird. They used to run two staggered forty day seasons so that these have
fifty total days of turkey hunting season. Because they managed a state in two chunks, so they used to have a fifty total days of season. They dropped it to thirty one days of season, lowered the lowered the overall bag limit from three turkeys to two turkeys. So point being, I'm still dying you know I was dying when we talked about this, originally from a cough point being they've done a ton in South Carolina to like suppressed turkey harvest.
Yeah, and that's I think that's happening in a lot of places. You know.
Another one we talked about that we didn't get right. This is like the correction section we were talking about in Florida. You know, every state, every no matter where you're from, in every state, you always hate not.
Out of stators. It's generally true.
Yeah, they know no one wants you know, no one driving around hunt wants to an out of state plate.
You hate them, true, you just hate them.
Yeah, maybe that's more of a Montana think. Sounds more Montana.
Well it's Florida big time. I'll explain. Really, Florida they hate him. So Richard Martinez, who I've hunted with in Florida, wrote into correction they were Florida was considering a Florida was considering this new thing where on certain wildlife management areas, so certain public land areas, residents get first cracks. So you wind up having two seasons resident turkey season, non resident turkey season, which again.
That's their call.
Man like I don't even think a non resident has a place to complain about it, because wildlife's manage at the state level. Right, So he says he here's what he says. He says, I want to clarify that the rule banning non residents actually landed at nine days, because public feedback said boning non residence by three days isn't boning them enough. They want to bone them more, three times worse. However, it only applies to five management areas.
Those management areas being over the counter management areas.
That makes sense, yep. If it's a.
Draw management area, that's not saying where you really start losing.
Listen, this is public.
Public management areas.
You can see some dude driving along with his with his wife, right, and he's like, ah, I check out your podcast, you know, and it's getting and now he's like hoping something good happens, and his wife's gonna like settle in, you know. And then she's sitting there, you know, and now we're like, well it was gonna be nine days, you know, it's three days, and it's actually nine days.
And she's like, oh man.
He's like, well, now hold on, that's only over the counter. W M a right.
Now, He's like, two just changed down something.
The limited draw w as are a totally different story. We're gonna get into that in the next half hour.
Like no, no, no, we'll keep we'll keep listening.
Yeah, He's like, just just hang in a minute, you know, because then it's gonna get good. They're gonna start talking. Lou, It's gonna be like, I'd like to offer a few finer points. So he goes on, it's not over yet. This this new staggered turkey hunting season thing. And again,
I'm only bringing this up because this is stuff. This is like wildlife management stuff that will wherever you live, will wind up impacting you because states learn from each other, right Like states try stuff and it's effective and other states pick it up like they don't live in little vacuums, And so in figuring out how do you allocate resources and how do you do things, these are all like little playbooks and this idea of having everyone's familiar with
looking at it rags and being like, oh, I'm a non resident, I got to buy extra shit that's extra expensive, or I'm a non resident, I can you know, have a lower bag limit than a resident, Like I'm only allowed one turkey, but a resident can kill five.
What's up with that?
But to enter it, this new thing, if it's emerging, is oh, I'm a resident. I start hunting on this day. My dear opening date, right is this day? And I got ten days and then the non residents show up. It's like a this will become you know, if it's effective, it'll become.
Where's in Montana. I'd rather have it go the other way.
Yeah, that they got to quit that, Like non residents get like the first two weeks of the season.
Yeah, I he here for just for turkeys or forever everything. Yeah, no, for turkeys.
I'd want the top end.
Yeah, I would want top of turkeys.
But mostly we're picking it now, we're picking and choosing.
Yeah, well here's here. I'll tell you those something this. This will give you a little insight into my inner psychology. Is uh, whenever another state bones non residents, I get a little agitated.
But when you're state excited, do you think do you know this's all speculative stuff, But like, do you think there's ever a point where states are just like no man, no, no, no turkey wise or any any species wise that they'll do what to where they could they could potentially just go we don't. We don't want any non resident hunters at all. The but what unless you're unless you maybe worked own your own land or something. Yeah, if you win for a non resident.
If you went to the if you went to the hunters, that'd be widespread. But from the agency's perspective, they can't because the money, yeah right all there because they they most most states, like this is something that isn't as widely. It's it's definitely not widely known in the public right at all. Like hunters know this, but in the public it's not widely known. Is state game agencies in most states, Uh, the handle everything like like law enforcement, disease prevention, habitat improvement,
all this stuff. Like their money comes from that licenses and stamps. So when they can when they can go and and like you get your turkey license for thirty bucks or something, but then you get all these dudes that are paying hundreds to hunt turkeys, and then hunters like no more non residents. The agency is like easy, dude. You're like, well, we kind of want those guys, like we lose, like we'll lose the you know, we have
no funding if we can't sell non resident tags. So what he's saying here that goes on is there's this place called Big Cypress National National Preserve. I've been down there, not hunt. I was down there with a turkey hunter by didn't hunt Turkey's there. Excuse me, fellows. Uh opening weekend twice as many non residents as residents, partly because it's because you hunt. Osciola's so damn early. I think dudes are like, I can go hunt Florida exeft did this,
son of a bitch? Yep, he's part of the problem, part of the problem. I can Florida and still get home for my own opening day.
Yeah, why wouldn't you.
Why wouldn't you go to take someone else's resources.
Dude, Florida, Texas, Montanza, I open it.
Yep.
So in that one, in that unit where they got twice as many non residents. This is a little hot tip alert. If you live in Florida, don't let seth come on, No, that's not odd. If you live in South Florida, next spring, when you go down to Big Cypress on opening day, you can expect to see a two.
Thirds reduction in pressure.
Wow.
Two thirds reduction in pressure.
I'd be excited if I was a resident.
Now here's another one. I think this is it for Turkey rules. Is there one more Turkey rule?
Oh?
No, there's one more turk. There's turk. This is Turkey dark.
We're covering Turkey dark spots like bad turkey stuff or you know, and then we're gonna get positive in light.
It's like a it's like a U gospel sermon.
You you you break them down to build them up.
You go down, you know, you get in the dark, and then you come out out of the darkness.
Where was I?
Oh, this is we're coming out of the darkness now.
Sorry.
Do you guys remember when Florida had their bear hunt and just got beat up.
By people now wanting a bear season.
Well what happened in Florida is this is it's a great story. Uh we talked about in the past, but like Florida had no bear hunting for a long time, their numbers got real low, and of a sudden it got like many places going to this kind of general trend right now, and I'll talk about turkeys down, black bears.
Up, yeah, up up up up up yep up.
Everywhere so.
Florida does does this quota hunt?
Except you mnd pulling up real quick what you're Florida did their bear hunt. It was some years ago now, very contentious. All the animal rights people just just bent out of shape about Florida doing this bear hunt. They decide to do a quota hunt, not a limited draw hunt, not a not a limited tag draw. Right, it's just like a cap.
Everybody go out and once this many are have been tagged, it's over right.
They and because they hadn't had a bear season in so long, they had no idea about what efficacy rates would be like, and they put in it as they approached the cap. There's a twenty four hour leg, meaning it's like let's say you're like drawing down on a bear at at you know, let's say the cap gets hit at seven fifty am on the second day and had seven fifty two, a bear walks out and you shoot the bear?
Is it like, did you just break the wall? Because there's no way you could have known, right.
So it was opened from nineteen thirty nineteen ninety four. It closed until twenty fifteen for one season, and then it closed again.
And can you pull up what the quota was the story is they way overshot the quota. I like, how much, Like he'll pull it up. The quota got hit and then people had like twenty four or forty eight hours or whatever, and by the time it was done, so half, like I shouldn't say half, people that know a lot about wildlife management looked at this and they're like, man, a lot more bears than we thought.
It must be a lot of bears.
Everybody else looked at it like they killed all the bears right, and it was just done. Public sentiment was like that they blew it, they ruined it. They had no idea what they're doing. They killed way more bears than the quota, and they haven't hundred bears since twenty fifteen.
What are you finding?
I'm pretty sure that happened with wolves and Wasisconsin yees.
So it's we were talking about that last night.
It's broken into four different management units East panhandled, North, Central, and South, and then there's harvest objectives, which is East Panhandle forty North, one hundred, Central, one hundred, South eighty.
And what they wind up with six something or so.
East Panhandle was forty actual was one fourteen, but North North was one hundred actual twenty five oh, Central one hundred actual one forty three, and then South eighty actual twenty two oh.
So they didn't really go over.
Then wasn't even that bad?
Well in some spot they went over to piss everybody off anyhow. You know, I was sitting there one time with a guy I don't want to name his name, but I'm sitting there in Florida, and I wound up in a house of a commissioner who grew up all kinds, did all kinds of hunting, and the commissioners telling me he voted against that bear hunt. I'm like, why, just worried about public opinion?
Right exactly?
That was he like laid it out, sitting talking to me face to face, that he voted against it because he's worried about public backlash. Not nothing to do with bears, worry about public opinion on him. Right now, Florida's getting ready to take another shot. Florida's getting ready for another shot at a bear hunt. This is from Richard Martinez. You know he does for a living. Take a guess.
I'll take it to throw something out there, and I'm guessing. I'm guessing that I'm not going to guess it probably just musician.
No, No, it's an art mover.
So close that I thought, really.
Like if you buy a really expensive piece of art and you need it ship from the from the where you bought it from to you.
Richard Martinez, so.
He's like like he's runs in a niche shipping business another way to put it. I like that, that's cool. Yeah, it's interesting business, you know.
It is you get to see art, get to handle it.
I think about that a lot. I'm like, there's so many niche jobs that exist that you don't even you wouldn't even think of, Like as a drive into places sometimes I feeling like, look at all the people that live here, Like what all these people are doing some kind of job, Like there's it's not like you think of like think of all the jobs you know in your head, off the top of your head, my kids, there's so many more than you're like astronaut, detective, firefighter,
police officer, restaurant person, and then that's like done. Yeah, that's it, dude. I don't think about like the guy that's like manufacturing like the insulated foam inside of an airplane liner, but like that that's happening.
And then he's got the kind of people that have jobs that they didn't know that was a job until they applied for it. Yeah, they're like, oh shit, that's the thing I'll do that. They're like, yeah, I could pull that off. You know I did meet it. Yeah, that's right.
Chilling. Uh.
At the December Commission meeting, the Commission requested, I'm back to Florida. Okay, this is Richard Martinez telling me about what's going on in Florida. He's a very Richard Martinez is the is the kind of uh, the kind of guy that if every hunter or angler in every state was like Richard Martinez.
We would have any problems.
Mm hm.
Extremely dedicated, very successful, but also very involved in all this kind of stuff, right, and very involved in policy and like making his statements and having his voice be heard and talking to other hunters and like, what are people's concerns, how do we address the concerns, what's how do we prove the resource. He's got a job, he's
got a family, wife, whatever. But at the same time, he like he is, demonstrates like an exceptional level of curiosity and involvement with his area, and he's not one of those they, you know, blaming everybody for everything all the time.
They took our jobs.
Sitting Yeah, he's not sitting all bitter, you know, like he's not sitting all bitter.
Right, they took our toms, dude, you know. Yeah.
So at the December Florida Game Commission meeting, the Commission requested staff to put together proposal for a hunt next season. Staff will present their proposal at the May twenty first meeting in Okalla.
Is that a place.
We're encouraging everyone in support of the hunt to attend.
That's a good way to like make the protesters kind of like you kind of swell the numbers. You know, like the people that come to protest, You're like, well, these guys shut up. They must love they must want the bear hunt to go on. Oh you know everyone that's in support, Yeah the thing is going to attend.
Yeah, like like, look, how many people showed up for this, for this bear hunt?
Due.
Yeah, if you're there, there's no signs. But if you're there for the bear, stand right next to and act like you're with someone that's there against it and.
Yell real loud.
Yeah'd be like those two fellows, right, there excited.
Yeah, man, look at those guys. Those guys are pumped about it. Yeah. Everyone there supports Bears in one way or another. If you're in supportive Bears, doesn't matter which side you stand on, show up to the event. Yeah, come support the Bears.
Last thing I mentioned doctor Michael Chamberlain. He's he's a wild Turkey expert the Wild Turkey Dog. I met him as Wild Turkey Dogs Show.
Yeah, he's awesome, fantastic guy.
He if you go way back in the archives, Chamberlain has been on the show once or twice. He did one of my favorite episodes ever, and he explained when they were doing a turkey predation study in this area where they went in and they wanted to see the whole inner workings of the complex of wildlife, right, so they would put collars on everything they went into this area to do. Like they had all these collar turkeys or some kind of track. I think they glue a
tracking mechanism on a turkey. They glew it to its back feathers and then went in and a collars on like raccoons, coyotes, whatever. They wanted everybody in town to be wearing a thing to see how they're all interacting. And then when a turkey gets killed, when you get a mortality signal from your turkey, you can go in and try to figure out what happened to the turkey, but also you also know where your other collared stuff has been hanging around.
One of the favorite while they've.
Studies that I'd like to cite, and I've brought it up a thousand times, I'll bring it up again now. They did one of these in Alaska one time where they tried to come into town and basically collar everybody. They had a collared moose fall into a crevasse in a glacier. One of the grizzlies that was wearing one of their collars climbed in there to eat on it, got stuck and died in there with the moose. One of their wolverines that had a collar on it got
in there and ate on the carcass and lived. So had this whole collar interaction that you can watch well. Chamberan was talking about when they did. If you go back and listen to this episode, he tells it in great detail. They did one of these and they had a breeding pair of great horned owls come into their area, and he said you couldn't keep a collar alive on anything.
When those owls showed.
Up, they killed everybody, really, you know, they killed everybody, and they'd smoke those turkeys like when spring gobblers. When a gobbler gets up in the kind of half light goblin up in his roost tree, he's got a bull's eye on himrned owl.
I wonder why though, because they're not like eating the turkeys, are they are?
Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah no. He said, they'll blast them so hard.
The only reason I say that is because my parents had a bunch of chickens killed by the owls and they weren't even eating them.
Oh, just kill him for the hell of it.
Yeah.
Anyways, well she didn't like, you know what, maybe they if I remember, I could be screwing it up. I could be screwed up. But what he talked about, the thing that tickled me about it is he said that great horned owl smokes that turkey so hard out of a tree. When you go out there, the turkey's laying way off from the tree, but its feathers running from the tree because he hits.
Him by full speed, like knocks him.
Out blast him out of that tree, Mike Chamberlain. They are doing a so they're getting ready to work on this project, a DNA.
Project with wild turkeys.
All right.
We had a research around the podcast one time. Who's working on a duck DNA program and the duck DNA program to refesh people's memories. The duck DNA program is looking at these kind of like fake ducks that game farms put out in certain areas. I didn't really know this was a thing, but like in the East and certain it's a thing like guys that wanted to have like these little duck hunting spots and they take clients
out they're just raising mallards. I had heard of this, you know, like doing that with pheasants.
Yeah, for sure. I mean that's pretty common.
It's the thing with ducks.
I had.
I didn't even know this was a thing. Someone told me once, but I didn't really Where is it.
Where's it happening?
Like, I know it happens a lot in Chestpeake Bay.
Interesting.
I think they're doing it a bunch of Ontario. You raise ducks in a pen, right, and then you just kind of get them set up in your little area and then guys come out and like pretend to hunt the ducks.
We pretend the hunt, well they hunt them, but they're yeah, it's just like they're just kind of like they're just a round pet ducks.
What happened was one time I was down hunting uh sika deer in Maryland. They were going over a bridge bucket list for me. Oh really, Oh yeah, Well I.
Had plans to do it. I had, so I had we were going, I had a trip plan to go do it. And this was probably in twenty It's probably right at the end of twenty twenty going into I think it was gonna be in January of twenty one, yep, and ended up. I think I ended up like getting COVID or something.
You should take this up with me in a little while. And we have had just a fantastic time doing that. And I have someone I would like to introduce you to.
We got I. We got hooked up through my bus driver. Grew up grew up there, Oh yeah, in Maryland.
So I think it was actually you still got the same bus driver.
Yeah, still gone. Yep. Larry Larry, Yeah, Larry Kuh. He's man, dude, He's a great guy. And uh yeah, so he he knew some he knew some folks that had access from from where he grew up and stuff. So, but I think I think it would have been when you guys went and did that hunt on Meat Eater. It was the first time that I had seen that. Oh okay, and I was like, I got it this before. We had before I had been on the show and we knew each other, and uh. I reached out. I asked Larry.
I was like, hey, man, you know anything about these and he was like, oh yeah, man, he said, we got those things all over the place. Yeah. I was like, do so fair? How do I do that? He's like, just I just called my buddies from high school and you go up there and do it. I'm like, oh, cool it is.
It is one of the easiest eating deer in the world.
Man, really, Oh my god, they're good. You just take the front legs, like you can't do this in any kind of thing. You take the front legs and put it in a smoker and pick it apart. Really, you know, it was we're down there hunting, We're down there hunting seeking deer, and it was the fall, right.
I remember going over a bridge on.
This little slew or whatever, and there's just mallards everywhere under the bridge, and they weren't like laid out, like how mad. It just something was weird about it. And I even said to my buddy, I'm like, I can't believe all these mallards and he goes, oh, no.
Those are.
Release birds because they were just like arranged in the like odd under the bridge and like arranged in the way that just didn't look like what ducks would do. Yeah, So this duck DNA program is these ducks that these guys are putting out are breeding with wild mallards, and their offspring act weird. Their offspring don't know when to migrate, don't know where to migrate, they don't behave right, they get predated on at a way high rate.
They're stupid. And so they're doing this.
DNA project to find out, well, these guys that are dumping these birds out that they're then breeding with wild mallards and impacting all kinds of things about mallard biology.
It doesn't seem like that would be legal.
The whole thing is surprised the hell out of me. It's a big thing for these guys. They big thing for them to be able to want to do it. So they did this this DNA project. Well they're doing they're launching a new new DNA project on turkeys where they're gonna be nationwide. Hunters are going to have a chance to submit. We'll keep you informed of how this works. They're gonna have a chance to submit turkey DNA and
here's what here's what is of interest to them. You know, when you're looking on social media whatever during turkey season, everybody's got all their crazy turkeys and you're seeing dudes that got like wild colored turkeys or this has happened to me. You're like, there's a flock of turkey's going by and there's a white one in it.
Mm hmm.
Or people that will say, uh oh, I like hunting in Kansas because you can kill an Eastern anario mh together.
And you're kind of what the hell does that mean?
Well, doing a big uh, doing a big turkey DNA project where hunters all over can send in a sample and then they can map out because one of the things they're looking at is like all these weird color phases, where are they coming from? And probably like hair like not probably is it like heritage breeds of turkeys? Is it farm turkeys? But the thing you gotta that makes this interesting to think about is a like if you're
sitting there picturing, what is the original? Like you take a cow, okay, like cattle, What did cattle come from? Cattle came from a thing called a wild animal called the orrix or sheep. Domestic sheep came from I think they came from Mouflon's horses came from a Siberian step horse. So now when you see like a horse standing in someone's pasture, you're watching like the Indianapolis.
Know what do they call that thing?
Big horse race Derby, Kentucky Derby, you know.
Kentucky Derby, And you're like, what is this animal? Like I've looked at that horses my whole lifef you ever ask yourself, well, what did it come from? Sure, it's an animal like the Eurasian step was like that animal. When you look at cow's and all the breeze of college, you're like, what the hell they come from? It came from a wild animal called orcs. All pigs like all pigs,
a big pink farm pig. They're all called SEUs scraffa s u s s c r o f A sus scraffa is like the like the the why the ancestral wild pig. All pigs came from the ancestral wild pig. They're all still called sous scrafa. It's all one species. What's cool about turkeys is Turkey's is a rare thing, is a rare domestic that if you went to poland just pulling that out of thin air. If you went to Pole and then there's some white turkey standing there,
that turkey is a descendant of our wild turkey. Like when the Spanish came and you know, quote discovered America, they got wild turkeys which had been domesticated by indigenous people, brought wild turkeys back to Europe, turned them into all these crazy turkey breeds, and then brought them back here again, right right, So like all turkeys on the whole planet come from here turkeys. So they're trying to you know, maybe puts together some map of how this all went down.
That'd be cool.
Yeah, that'd be neat.
So we'll keep people, keep people focused.
He might be on the Meat Eater Live soon, right, the Turkey doc.
I think what's coming on maybe he's gonna talk about this, Luke. You know how in.
Like I don't know, certain disciplines we're talking about having all kinds of jobs for certain disciplines. Uh, work will interfere with one's ability to do their hunting and fishing. Yes, Like a friend of mine, Uh, he's a MLB baseball player, right, and there's a thing that happens, like if they don't make the playoffs, it's a game on and if you make the playoffs, you're screwed. But I hope you don't make the playoffs so.
You can deer hunt.
And he says, no, that's not a thing that I hope, Like, you don't, You don't. It's like a it's sort of a it's not what you want to happen. But if when your season ends, you do start deer hunting, But you never hope your season ends to go deer hunting, because that would mean you weren't right, probably an MLB.
Player, right, right, right?
Right?
You were something different? How uh in your in your world? How do you do you do you try to line up tour? Like are you aware? Are you like man, I can't tour during deer season or do you just do work first and then pick up where you pick up.
This This this current calendar year is the first year I've done that. I was supposed to do a set of shows I won't say which, a set of shows in November that have now already been completed, because I was like, I don't want to do that in November.
Really, Yeah, did you tell people what you were thinking?
Oh? Yeah, I mean I just literally told him. I was like, No, that's the middle of deer season. I'm not I'm not going to do that because I haven't had a really great deer season, and I mean six or seven years, because we're because we're always because we're always touring heavily. So it hasn't it hasn't been as bad the last couple of years because you know, we've
been playing in the NFL stadiums. Obviously you can only really do that during the off season, and obviously NFL is really kicked up in the fall, so you can't play those venues in the fall because they're not they don't do anything other than their stuff in the fall, usually barring some weird scenario or something. But so, yeah, we hadn't had to worry about it, and this year it was like, hey, do you want to go do
this international stuff? So it's not only it would be different if it was like, hey, man, do you want to go do like, you know, three weekends in November and do shows on Friday Saturday. It'd be like, sure, that'd be fine because you know I could go you know, I can hunt at home, or I could go hunt somewhere for a few days and then go back on the road or something. But it was going to be, you know, it was gonna be overseas. So it just like miss the whole deal. And I was like, at
this point, I'm just not willing to do that. Now the shows have already been done. We did the shows, we just moved them to a different time, and so it was it's not really like I've never canceled any shows to hunt, No, and I never would.
So do you look at it if you if you start to if you if you start to manipulate your if you start to like manage your music career around your desire to be outside, is that a sign that like, is that a sign where you're like, man, I've like arrived that I can actually start to manipulate my thing, or is it that. Man, I'm just getting of the age where I'm starting to recognize what my limits are and what's important.
I think there's a I think there's a bit of both in there. I mean, I think obviously it's a super luxury to be able to do stuff like that, and it's not. It's not something that I have ever. It's never even been in the conversation until a year or two ago. It's like, well, how do we you know, because it felt like every year we get the season and it was like, oh boy, like we're not gonna get you know, we're not gonna get to get to
do the thing. I think the difference was, you know, before it's like now I kind of have some of my own spots too to go do some of these hunts that I want. I want to do, you know, because I that's something that's been in my my grander plan for you know, spending time with my kids too, right as to hopefully, you know, hopefully they fall in
love with it as well. So I wanted to have spots where I could take them and not have to be dependent upon somebody else to invite me somewhere or you know, let me go somewhere have access to their you know, resources or whatever it may be. So I have my own places now. So I wanted to work that into my plan of like, Okay, well eventually, you know, this is something that I want to prioritize because it's something that I enjoy and it's an activity that I
want to you know, do with with my kids. So yeah, I mean, I think it's just it's just part of of of growing right and evolving as a person in a phase that I'm in at life now is completely different than it was five or six years ago. Years ago, you know, my career was you know, really really on the insane roller coaster to the absolute top, and just now it's more like now you're kind of at cruising altitude, right, and all your and all your work is to like
maintain where you are. But it's the same amount of work, but there's not really much like there's not really anywhere else to go. There is no more like it's like an airplane can only go so far, you know, it's like kind of reach the max altitude and then it's like you can't really you can't really climb anymore. You just have to maintain, right, So it takes the same amount of work that it did to get there as it does to just stay where you're at now, you know what I mean. And so you have to kind
of evaluate. We were talking about this last night sitting in the chairs. It's like, you know, when you when you have kids, right, like, you only have so much bandwidth to deal with things in your life with everything that's on your plate that you want to achieve or things that you want to do, hobbies, career, and then you you know, you throw your kid once you have kids, you throw that in the mix. You know that that to me, occupies a ton of space in a good way.
Right It's like, you want, I want to be there for my kids. I want to be involved parent, I want to be around and help take care of them and be their dad, and so that eliminates a lot
of other stuff from that. You don't have the bandwidth for now because all the space that you had before is now almost cutting half man, you know, so now everything else has to fit into the half slot, you know, and that's your job, and that's hobbies and things that you want to do, priorities that you have, Like you have to kind of reprioritize where everything else sits because the kids and the family come first. They have to come first, you know, and then job for me it
has to come second, you know. So I have to just and that might be forty to fifty forty forty five percent of the of the one hundred percent, and family's fifty, so you're left with five percent, you know, and you're like, man, what do I you know what I mean, like.
I had my pie out quite so carefully. That's a good that's a good way to look at it.
But you're going like, well, so then I begin to think, you know, with the hunting stuff as well, how you know something that I love and you know, something I hope that my kids love and the hope to get them involved into. But we talked about it last night, like, is it this inherently like selfish practice to want to get your kids involved into the things that you love?
Yes, it is, but it's but it's it's done.
But it's good though, Yeah, for sure, it's great.
It's it's dual purpose.
Yeah, it's dual purpose. Right. It gives you then then some of your bandwidth for family time and time spent with your kids can also be you know, it doesn't have to necessarily come out of the five percent that's left for you.
Hm.
It goes into the you're kind of you're getting two birds stoned at once, as I like to.
Say, And uh, do you remember what PETA PETA like people for the ethical treating of animals. They're trying to like get people to stop using expressions like kill two birds and one stone. No, it was, and it was like they're offering up alternatives, but they would have loved that one.
Yeah, get two birds stone and want birds stoned at once.
Yeah, they're like trying to put a instead of like, oh, you got your cart ahead of your horse. You know, well that implies the horse has to pull a cart, which is mean, so you should change it to like whatever. Yeah, hell, you did a better job they did just sitting there right now. I just take that one. Uh you know you know what, you know what I when you thought about is it selfish to yeah, you know, like, is it selfish to want to get your kids into hunting
and fishing if that's what you like to do? And I've thought about that a great deal. And I don't think that I don't think I'm like overdoing it, right, I'm having a hard time talking right now, Like picture that you're trying to rationalize buying some stupid vehicle.
Oh, I don't have to picture that.
No, yeah, And you're like, come up with crazy, crazy shit, right, you come up with crazy shit. You're like, wow, and you know, really what I needed for is picture that there was a lava flow, you know, and and and like we got blocked in by a terrible lava flow. Well, now you know this vehicle would write and you come up with insane shit to try to justify impulses you have. I don't think that when you go like, well, I want to get my kids in the hunting and fishing, is that selfish?
Because that's what I want to do.
It's also super like healthy thing.
It's like sing it.
Is so there's so many things. Is that in this world that people are into themselves at getting your kids into it probably wouldn't be as healthy as getting your kids outside, no doubt away from screens.
Yeahn't necessarily bad, Like there's some there's really it's really like self serving, Like if all your kids got way into the hunting, if it's like all of them in the world, exactly.
You're being a good would accomplished.
It doesn't mean you're not being a good parent. You're still being a good parent.
Yeah, you're doing all that. And like there's even another one. I try to make the list of all things like physical activity outside all this right, like learning about your environment, learning about seasons, like being exposed to you know, life and death on the farm, right, all these positives. I also thought of this where I was thinking, whatever is your whatever your passion is, I think it's productive to
expose your kids to like intense and the asm. That's a good way to look at it, Like to expose your kids to like what is it like demonstrate to them what it's like to just like love something well and not just have it be the world is just this sort of.
Well me and my me and my wife are discussing this one night, you know. You know, being a musician is such a like fickle business, you know, and you know eventually everything that goes up comes down in the music business, right, whether it's just the constraints of time where it's like, you know, a new generation of listeners is coming in and they're like, oh that guy's old er, whatever, we don't listen to that guy anymore, you know what I mean, Like you eventually, you know, you become like
kind of a like like legacy act. That's kind of the term that's used, right sure, So me and me and my wife always discussed and I'm like, you know, sometimes if I'm having a tough day, I'll be coming through the house. I'm like, oh, I'm just I'll just be done, you know, like I'm stomping around like you know, like I've burned my egg and the skillet and I'm like, wow, I just quit music. And she's like, what are you
talking about? You know, and it's like joking about it, you know, and we're sitting down talking kind of about it in a more serious way. One night after we had put the kids a bed and had dinner, and you know, as I was almost like she was almost just kind of letting me vent, you know, and I was talking to her and I realized, I'm like, man, like, you know, like one like, what would I do if I didn't you know, what would I be doing anyways? If I didn't do music, you know, I'd still be
just I'd be doing music. I should be doing it at home, okay, instead of you know, I would still be doing it in some ways. One but two it's like true, I do have a song about that, and my kids are like, you know, my son's are two and a half and one and a half, you know, as at the date of this recording, you know, and it's like they've never seen me do my thing ever, Like they don't know. They don't even know, dude, you know what I mean, Like they don't even.
So I like.
Because like I don't want that. I don't want, you know, their dad, which is me, right, Like I don't want their dad. Like for them to know me is like essentially like a retired guy that's like what does your dad do going up? Oh, he didn't do anything, And like what do you mean, well, like I don't know he had a job like before we can like remember and stuff, but he doesn't it doesn't work now does not even really that you know, he can't even really do that very well. You know, Yeah, he gets it
stuck on the cast iron. And when he doesn't when he gets too impatient to preheat it right, you know what I mean, he doesn't let it heat up slow enough. But it's I And so that ultimately was my conclusion, you know, to my own kind of mental conflict was like, well, I don't want to, like, I don't want my kids to know like me as like a lazy guy who doesn't do anything. Like I want my kids to see me do things at a really high level and pursue the things that I set out to achieve. And I
want them to see me enjoying doing that. I want them to see me struggle doing that, you know, Like I want to expose them to all the gambit of emotions, you know, And because you know, I watch I watched my parents go through that stuff. My parents just weren't
successful musicians. You know. My dad was a maintenance man and my men and my mom worked at the bank, and so it was like they you know, they worked so hard at a at a job that they didn't even love, you know, And that taught me so much about you know, that led me to where I am. You know, my parents always pushed me to have a job, that have a job that you love, because we did it,
you know, and like you can. It's such a such a life hack to have a job that you love, you know what I mean, It's one of the biggest life acts out there. Man. You don't have to hate your job. And I think, as a kid a little bit, I thought that a little bit because my parents didn't love their job. You know, they did't hate it, but it wasn't like, you know, Mom didn't wake up and go.
God, I can't wait to, you know, get down to the bank.
Get down to the bank today and sit at the desk all day and deal with people's mortgage paperwork. You know, that just wasn't something she was excited about. And so I remember thinking, even when I went in to go into college, I'm like, well, I better get into business because I hate that, you know what I mean. It's like, you know, it's like I just think there's kind of this like little falsehood where no one really tells you, like, hey, hey,
you don't have to like hate work. It's not something they tell you in school, or at least from my perspective, it was just like, yeah, man, like parents just you know, parents come home and they bitch about work and work sucks, and you're gonna have to work one day, so get ready. Enjoy your time while you haven't, but throw your freedom before you get in the suck of like having a job every day, Like you don't have to have a
job you hate, you know. I wish people would have told me that earlier on, But I learned that by by watching my parents.
I wonder if that was like a sort of like a generational thing too. Like I feel like a lot of my parents' friends have all these jobs that you know, they don't necessarily love doing, but they just did it because they had a family, and like maybe it wasn't as easy to go do something you love back in the day.
No, So I mean I think a lot of the a lot of the reason that people do just because they have to. Yeah, they do it for their kids, you know what I mean. Like my dad didn't want to strap up or my mom didn't want to strap up and go in like, but they had to because like you know, they got to like buy groceries, and you know they're doing it. I mean, it's a it's a thing. I think a lot of times, you know, at least if you're if you're trying to trying to be a good parent or raise your kids, right, you
do it out of love? Right?
Did your parents have a lot for you?
Did your parents have a lot of uh, did they like explicitly express love for you a lot when you were little.
Yeah, for sure, my mom did, for sure. You know, I mean my dad was a little more tough exterior guy. Like he wasn't like big cuddly like. He wasn't like it wasn't like best friend vibes. You know. My dad wasn't like, come on, little buddy, let's go down to the fishing hole and you know, throw baseball. He was like, I work and on the weekends, I work at home because we you know, we got to mow the grass and we got to weeded, and we got to keep the house nice. And like he was like you know
my mom, I mean he was. He always told me he you know, loved me and was proud of me and stuff he did, so there was never any question about that. But it was very like it was just kind of stern, like, you know, you need to do your stuff. You need to you know, make sure your room's clean and make sure it help your mom with whatever she needs in the house. And then you know, mow the front. I'll do the ride and mower and you know there's stuff to be done there, things to
be a pomplished, yeah what I mean. But yeah, dude, it was very It was very kind of like healthy and normal in that sense.
Of do you have a thing where well, I'll tell you that I do, and I'd be curious to get your thoughts on it, just because on parenting, I've tried hard to.
Like it's kind of hard to explain.
I've tried hard to demonstrate like a level of humility to my kids and a level of presence to my kids by by making sure that they see me all the time doing like the mundane shit that needs to happen and running.
A household.
Right that like no one's above it, no, do you know what I mean? And so I want them to like especially when they're little. Man, I was like, I it needs like someone need to do what it needed to happen. But I was like, I want them to see that that you come in with a plan at a time and like you prepare dinner yep, and like they sat at the table, they helped clean up. It's like no one is above any of this shit.
No, definitely, and we have I mean, we're even doing it. You know obviously you know two and a half and one and a half, you're limited with what you can do. But I mean we even now, like the kids. You know, we we live in a two thousand square foot house. Man, it's me. It was two bedrooms. Me and my wife have a room and then the kids at the boys share a room. So it's not like you're never we're always close together. We're always tight in there, you know.
With the living room is the playroom, so all the kids toys are in there and so and you know, they got all kinds of stuff that grandma and Grandpa's bottom and you know, aunts and uncles and friends and stuff like that, and they play in there and destroy I mean, we let them just i mean destroy it. But it's like every night, it's like, all right, we're all cleaning up now, and mom and dad are cleaning up.
But y'all, but y'all are like to the extent that a one and a half year old, you know, he'll he'll get a block and bring it over and you know he might only pick up two things. But my two and a half year old now, like he can actually make he can make a five percent dent in the cleanup. And he understood. But he understands, dude, Like that's what we make it a point to go, hey, man, like you need to help us with this stuff. This is this is your You make a mess, you got
to clean it up. You know, if he spills his milk, we give him a paper towel. He can't really do anything. He just smears it around, and you know, we go back behind him and actually clean it up. But you know, we make him go and you know, he dabs the paper towel and it soaks a little bit of milk up and he throws it in the garbage.
And that age, they don't even realize it's a chore kind of right, They're.
Just like, oh, yeah, I get the help. That's that's pretty cool. But like, yeah, reinforcing those things all the time, you know what, I think. We we're also discussing this
at some point yesterday, the three of us. But my life is so like it's so normal outside of like when I'm playing shows, Like I really don't do a whole lot of anything other than I go play my shows, and I come home and I spend time with my wife and my kids, and I do whatever work stuff I have to do when I'm home, whether that's writing songs, which most of the time I'm doing at my house.
You know, with my friends and stuff, and I'm just there, dude, Like I'm just I'm basically like in some ways, like at like another form of a stay at home parent, when I'm when I'm not when I'm not on the road, and even at you know, when we're touring the stadiums. I'm only gone three days a week, so I'm home four days a week every week, like full time, like sun up sundown most days, like getting the kids up, changing diapers, doing baths, cooking dinners, cooking lunches, cooking breakfasts.
It's like, but I want and that's that occupies a lot of my time. But that's what I want. I want my kids childhood to feel as normal as it can given the very strange circumstances that it will ultimately become.
That's pretty cool that you can, you know, get where you've been at and are at and can still do that.
Yeah, but you have to you know, that's a that's a choice you have to make, and you lose a lot of things with that, in the sense of like, there's so many cool opportunities that I have that may be, you know, would be really not really beneficial, but cool experiences are beneficial. In my career that I pass on to do that for my kids and my kids stuff that my kids will probably really never even know outside
of maybe if they see this one day. It's not something I'm bragg like I'm such a good dad, you know, Like it's not that it's just that I say this all the time. But like, my kids didn't ask to be born. I made the choice to, Like it was my choice to bring them into the world.
Right, So a lot of dudes, a lot of dudes don't put that together like I would want it, Like I want to sit here at My impulse here is to sit here and like talk about how commendable it is that you have the philosophy you have. And one time I was my brother Danny. We were talking about someone saying him saying, how weird it was that people would routinely express, almost in a surprising way, he's such
a good dad. He's like this exception where it's like worth pointing out that people are like are pointing out good dads. He's like, wait, you mean like you mean I'm not sociopathic.
That's great, You're saying, we're having a dad crisis right now. We're in the midst of a dad Christ That's what he was.
He was like, he just was kind of just in this moment of like somewhat levity. He was kind of saying that it's funny that the bars seems to be rather lower to become celebrated as just a dad.
That's what he's supposed to guess.
People aren't getting married early enough.
Yeah. Yeah.
Before we began the show, we're talking about a dear friend of mine who sends me articles all the time pointing out that people are waiting till later, putting off getting married. You know, like it's distressing to him. He has four kids, it's distressing. Yeah, yeah, like the sons of bitches they're getting away with somebody. I had him young by God, and yeah, you know that's the way it auto. But it is, man, It's like, uh, it is. It is cool they do that. And I think that
it'll be an interesting trip for your kids too. It'll be an interesting trip when your kids start putting together this other world. Did they think of you as like some dude like now and then he's gone, he's always always here, he's just whatever. And I remember with my own kids. I remember with my own kids they were
not that old man. It used to really bother them, maybe like at five, six seven years of age when they started putting together that we'd be in the airport or something and someone had come up to me, right and and uh, they didn't like it really. They were like defensive. They're like they were territorial. Now they're don't
you know when it happens. You know, when when it does happen, and if we go somewhere as a family, you know, we're like to have a layover toever they're used to it, it'll be a little bit and it doesn't. They just state that it doesn't even register with them.
Yeah, they're just like it's part of the thing. Yeah.
But at a time I remember they were like, there's like a like as this was coming clear to them that there would be people that would like like the like that their dad made something or wrote something and people liked it and would come up unannounced, they brought out in them like a territorial in stan that's interesting, Yeah, to be like, don't their kind of tendency was like like like yeah.
Get away, you know what I mean? They just like that shit.
Sure, they wouldn't even have been able to articulate it, but just how they physically responded to you, right, I.
Often wonder, like, you know, I've discussed with some other artists buddies that have kids, you know, and that some that's whose kids are a bit older than mine, you know, And I'm like, when do you When do you like, is there a definitive moment where you have to like have the conversation with them, like, hey, let me explain this to you and so, but like, let me explain to you what's going on. And the reason I say
that is because I've had a few artist budies. It's like, well, you got to tell them as soon as they're able to understand or someone else is going to Oh, they're going to learn it from someone else, and you want to learn it from you. You want them to learn it from you, kind of like you don't. You don't want them showing up at home one day and going, well, what is why do all my my friends I think it's cool that you're my dad? Why are you different
than everyone else's dad? You know what I mean? It's like it's an interesting I mean, it's obviously a niche problem, right, Like, there's not there's not any books written on you know, how to how to tell your kids that you're a famous musician or whatever it may be.
You know, there might there may be should be one, but I don't the audience would be small. But I think that it's what winds up being what winds up being hard on them.
And and and.
This is like for me to be talking about this issue. We're talking about like a like a like a like a D list whatever, like whatever. The lowest level of celebrity a person can have is like where I'm at right, and then you're like way like you're like way up
the ladder. But there's a thing that that even no matter what what winds up having to the kids, is there there's a thing where it's like among peers or people around there's this kind of like a little bit of like you ain't all that, meaning that they'll encounter.
Right resistance from other people.
They'll encounter like you ain't you know you think you're all that, or like you ain't just because your dad right, And they may not think that at all, but to other people it'll be there. And the point I'm making about if you sit down and talk to them, they're seeing things in forming impressions such a fast from like
ambient things, ambient clues and cues. That is way faster than would be their ability that that that that happens, that influx of inputs about what's going on in the world happens earlier than it then would be the ability for them to understand what you were trying to explain to them, Meaning if you waited till they were Let's say something happened you in the past and you were able to like and you lived a reality that was totally outside of your past, and at some point you
need to say, hey, there's something I need to tell you about a thing that happened to me a long time ago. Right, like a long time ago, this crazy thing happened. At some point you might become aware of this and I want to explain it to you. In that case, you might be able to wait until you
could have a rational conversation with your kids. Right but if something's actively ongoing now, they're already on it before you'd be able to explain it to them, Meaning all their buddies like travel a certain way, and it'd be like, well, I get the feeling, we can't really travel that way, like it's kind of risky, and so we traveled this very different way.
You know, they're on it, man.
Like, no, for sure, they're on it way ahead of their ability to for you to sit down and talk to him about it. They've already like put together in their head that like there's something different when we.
Go somewhere, Oh for sure, And I think that, but why don't we go to Chuck E Cheeses.
Yeah?
Well, there's also like this inherent like innocence though, or like the situation that they're in is like they're normal, and they almost think that everyone's situation is is that
too in some ways? Like I've I had an artist buddy who I'm pretty close with, and he was telling me about one of his kids being at school and they're younger, you know, like you were talking like kindergarten ee, like first grade or whatever, you know, and someone was they were talking to another kid, and this is like a conversation that the teacher had I guess with him
or something. And I don't remember those exact specifics of how he heard about it, but it's like someone was talking one of the kids was talking to his kid about something, and his kid was like, oh, well, what song does your daddy have on the radio? You know? And it was like and the teacher kind of thought that maybe the child was like trying to slight the other child or something, but like it was really just like this. She just thought that everyone's dad was like
sung on the radio because like her dad does. And my kids like they'll see me on or they'll see me and my wife, you know, like on an award show or something like. You know, like because when we go like to the CMA Awards or to the Grammys or something like, you know, my parents or whoever will let the kids stay up and like watch because they know, you know, dad is going to be singing on TV.
You know, awards does your dad have? We got of the Month And.
I had another buddy who's a songwriter and and he was like he said, you know, I had been over and like met his kids and stuff. We ate or whatever at their house. And remember him telling me this. We were on a writing trip and he was like, dude, my kids like they know that like me and you were like, are friends that I that I know you and stuff? And I was like, yeah, it's like and he said, so the other night we're having dinner and like it's like his daughters and it's like, well, dead,
can we have Justin Bieber over for dinner? And he was like she just thought I knew every famous musician that I could just call any of them and just have them over at any time because I know you. Like, so it's it's such an interesting So they also like they only understand the world in kind of this like tunnel visiony, like whatever their surroundings are is how they kind of perceive everything at that at that age. So it's interesting too, like how that factors into the way
things will become. And I'm worries. I was like, you really got to steer you really, it's like it's my job to kind of open the that worldview up to like, hey, this this thing isn't normal, you know, but it doesn't it doesn't make you better than anyone else.
Yeah, you're doing a way better job of explaining what I was trying to get at when I said that there's there's no aha moment. No, there's no moment when you come in and go like, hey, you know before you find out I want to explain that I'm kind of like a music like a famous usang, Yeah, because they're they're already doing a thing, and they're already doing like there's gonna be no note. There's not like a no ship moment for them, because they're they're just assembling
it all. And I think that what I was trying to get at when I mentioned exposure your kids to just doing all the mundane stuff is later, if they'd be like later, if they'd come to some realization that there is something weird, you know, that their dad like makes TV shows, or that their dad you know, writes books and other people read the books, or whatever it does,
does these kind of like seemingly unusual things. I just kind of want them to be to think like the guy that like unplugs the toilets in the house and like no one else will do it, but he has like the like the guy like Mom's not going to do that, and she'll wait, and Dad's gonna.
Do that like that guy.
Like that's the feeling I want them to have later, is to be like the guy crawling around under the sink trying to figure out what's going on with something.
Yeah that dude, Yeah you guys want a picture of that guy.
Yeah that it's just like that's a thing I'm and maybe it's just only a problem I've created only in my head, but I just don't want there to be any sense of I don't want it, Like I hate to have to think that your kids would develop a sense of exceptionalism.
Yes, that that.
Worries That worries me and my wife a lot too. You know, we want to make sure like it's really like, you know, we don't want we don't want them to be a product of their circumstances in a negative way. Yeah, you know what I mean. Worry about you see that all the time.
You know, we'll make it when we eat out.
We'll make our kids, I'm not kidding you, man, We'll make them get down under the table and pick up if they'd like dropped a bunch of French fries and stuff. Yeah, or like they police the area and like getting off a plane, they police the area and be like you, this is not someone's responsibility, dude, Like they're gonna they'll come and pick off the plates and stuff. You are not leaving that ship on that booth.
All the things you guys are talking about too, though, Like even for just Joe Schmoe, Dad, you know, it's like everyone's responsibility, any anybody, no matter who you are, Like it's I'm trying to articulate, right.
Yeah, like why it's like everyone should be doing Why wouldn't you do all that?
Right?
But exactly, I don't know.
It becomes it's like a I guess it takes on like a sub I guess it's.
Probably we like someone in in our particular situation would worry that it would be easier for them to fall into just being a complete dirt bag. Yes, if left on check, I guess that would be easier for them to be like, oh well this is someone will come and get my coffee. When I'm done, someone will pick that up. You know, that would be easier for them to end up at than it would be for like
if your dad worked at a factory. You know, you're you're closer to that finish line of being you know, us going back pretty much like you know.
Yeah, if you start off was a way you could maybe there's a way. You know what it is, And dude, you're trust You're making a great point, Like why would what we're talking about like that should apply to everybody. It should apply to every kid and every kid in America should like tighten up their spot when they leave a restaurant and not be like, well, they'll get it.
No kid in America should do it.
I guess what I worry about is what I would worry about, is there's probably a way it would for people of like people in a certain level of like financial stability, a certain level of connections, a certain level of a really good role of decks, a certain level of like parental support, like, oh, you want to do an internship at such and such place, let me make some calls, right, nepotism, Yeah, nepotism that you'd be like, there's a pathway for your kids to think to realize
one day that they probably could get away with that ship.
Yeah, cheat code.
Yeah, they're like, you know what, I cannot clean up my area. I cannot show up to work at seven am. I cannot mow lawns, and I can skip all that junk, and I'll probably be able to pull it together because my old man knows a lot of people. M he's gonna he'll he'll he'll figure that. My parents will figure it out.
He'll they'll bail me out.
Ye, they'll figure it out. The college shit like I'll get I'll get letters of.
Recommendation, right, or or Dad could donate enough money to the scholarship fund or whatever it is. You know, so you have a sure they're going to be like they're going to expect those things, expect you to do things for them, cleaning up my boot. Yeah, but yeah, that
is where it starts, though. You know that stuff leads into you know, like privilege, right, like you're you know you you think that you're you know, you're almost entitled to Well I should Dad should just call and figure this out for me, you know, I expect that to happen.
Is it like kind of like a constant battle though, like cause, like obviously with guys like in your position, like you guys are exposed to some things that are not normal whatsoever.
So like is there like a.
Like a inkling to like expose your kids in a way like this is really cool, but like you don't want to like overdo it kind of thing. Does that make sense? This is like do you guys think about that? Like, yeah, like you guys are have some like really cool opportunities.
I think there's I think there's unavoidably some of the stuff some of that stuff you have to do, Like I think about it every time, Like, you know, my kids haven't you know, they haven't been through like the
regular airport, m you know what I mean. And obviously they wouldn't even remember it if they did anyways, but like, and they haven't flown a bunch, you know, but we've gone down you know, we've you know, chartered a plane to go down to Florida or something, you know, And it's like that that to them is normal, and so it's my job to explain to them that, hey man, this is not a normal thing, and it's a it's super privileged to get to do this, but it's not
something that you are necessarily entitled to. It's not something that you should feel like this is the standard, and it's you know, it's beneath me to go to the airport or you know, so you have to like inherently your kids would be exposed to those things, sometimes not by choice, right, but the cool opportunities too. It's like
I do ride the line. And I was thinking about this before you sedatives, like when when you were talking about Dad's got this cool Rolldex and you know he can call this guy or that guy, you get to the you get to the line too, where like you try everything you can to make sure that your kids turn out to be decent, you know, humble people. That's the goal for me and my wife with our boys, you know, just to make them respectful and and we
want them to just ultimately be good people. Right. But as the dad, your dad instinct comes into and you're like, well, you know, I really I want to give him every advantage that I can, because that's also a fatherly instinct as well. So I think there's a trap built in a little bit too where you could go, well, I've got to you know, I've got to call that school and see if I can pull some strings to get my kid in, because I really, because I'm their dad.
So that's like it's like you ride that razor's edge too, of like you don't want to, you don't want it to turn into a nepotism thing, but just your fin botherly instinct is just to do everything you can for your kids. And would everyone else not do that as well? Would everyone else not go well if I had, if I thought my kid was right on the line and getting into Stanford or wherever it is, some ivy league school.
Obviously they're you know, they're not gonna get if they got a two point zero grade point average, they're not gonna get in. Or but if they're right on the line anyways due to their own achievements, do you, as a dad call and go, hey, what can I do to help my child? Is there something I can do?
Which your chance?
I could pardon them for federal tax of asion and weapons charges, But then I.
Was as a dad, right, But then, but then I wonder too, like what if you what if your kid found out later on down the line, Like let's say you you decide as a parent, I'm not gonna help them at all with this, which I can on understand. I can understand you going, no, dude, it needs to be a merit based thing. And I get that, and it should be, I think. And then they don't get it and they're crush dude, and that like that's the that's the meteorite that like knocks the ship off course.
And then they go, my dad could have called and done something for me, and he didn't do that. But then we're getting back to do they expect things that they shouldn't expect? So It's like, it's kind of like that, but that's just being a parent, dude. Being a parent is just you're making the best decisions that you think you are making for your kids, and that's all you can do. You know.
It's really easy to worry about all that stuff, just like just try to do the best you can.
You know.
Yeah, we're now into the Turkey regulations of parenting.
We die very deep, Chilie. I want to.
Answer the question you asked about, like presenting with opportunities, and I catch myself doing a h.
A combo deal, Like a definite combo deal.
Means you keep track, no no meaning this Like, just let me give you a snare that hasn't happened. Let's say I met someone and they're like, hey, man, you know, my cousin owns an island in the say Shells, and no one's ever there. You guys should go spring break on this private island and say Shells, And in fact, his cousin has a little charter business and they'll fly
y'all out there. Okay, h uh do you go like, damn it, I'm not taking my kids that island and the same shells because I don't I don't want them to like, you know, that's not available to anyone, right, so I'm not gonna. I wouldn't do that. I would have that in my mind. I'd be like, man, you know what we should do. I'd go say to my wife like it's gonna sound crazy, but we can go
to this like island and say shells. But this dude has his place and no one's there, and he said we can go hang out there, so we would go. But when we're there, I would be we'd be like eating shit that we caught out of the rocks, do you know what I mean? Or if there was like a lime tree or you know what I mean, we'd be like, man, we're gonna go out. We're gonna get those limes. We're gonna squeeze all the lime juice out of them. We're gonna catch some crabs down there, and
we're gonna do you know what I mean. We're gonna like make stuff and do hands on stuff, and you're gonna see the process of going from nothing just like what's here.
So we're gonna have.
Like a little meal and so it doesn't meaning there's like practical skill and element to it and like getting a little bit uncomfortable. But I wouldn't be able to turn down totally the thing. And so when I say like a combo deal, it would be that like we every spring break, you know, we go down to the beach and Baja every spring break for when we make lunch, we're making fish that we shot because we climb in
the water and go spearfishing. It's it's very luxurious, but it's like there is a little bit of element of scrappiness. We build a little scrappiness into.
It, built in adversity, build in a little like a little something that kind of needs to be paid attention to.
And it's a little dicey, right, and you know whatever.
It's so, but I can't I can't say that I turned down I can't say that I turned down sort of opportunities that would show them whole parts of the world or parts of global experience. I don't go, like, I'm not going to show that to you. I don't want you to feel like you got a leg up, you know. But I'll take them there. And when I take them there, I try to, I don't know, man like, like I try to keep the experience grounded and respectful and real and also try to point out that this is exceptional.
And hopefully they realize though, how they got on that vacation in the first place, because you guys got you guys worked hard, very hard to get into the positions you're at. And I think kids might realize that, you know what I'm saying, Like.
I would never ever like I would that they got to pick up on I would never say that.
Right, but I think they do pick up on that.
Yea that I think to say it, to articulate it. You know, I worked hard for this, right, Like to articulated I think it is too there's too much chance of backfire. It's like they I kind of trust they have to just see it. I hope that they notice. You know, I can't picture how you bring it up, but you're.
Also trying to, like, you know, we talked about this touchdown a little bit earlier. It's like you want them to see you working hard, you know what I mean, Like I want, you know, like I want my kids to you know, come to the studio and see It's like, oh, well, the records don't just it doesn't take five minutes to make the records, you know. It takes a year to make them, and there's a lot of other people that
do a lot of hard work too. It's not just it's not me, me, me, like my face is on the CD, but there's an army of people that make this possible. You know. There's a lot of people with a lot of skills that are a part of everything that I do, whether it's on the road or in the writing room or in the studio. Like I am just a small part of the thing. There are so many more incredibly talented people involved in what I do
other than just me. I want my kids to see that too, you know what I mean, because you know that you hear the whole. It takes a village thing. I think life takes a village too, right, Like your own life, not just raising your kids, but your own life too. Like appreciating the people that you have in the journey with you and how much they contribute to your success as well. And you have a great team around you. Man. I think that's what I love about
being out here. It's like it's always the same guys, and that says a lot about what it is. There's not a lot of turnover. M I've been out and done a lot of stuff with you guys, man, and it's like it's always the same guys. And that's the way my thing is, you know, for the most part. I mean I say, there's very very low turnover in in my world, and that's very rare in the music business. Remember.
One of the earliest things that struck me when I met you is a that you. I was like, Man, this guy has a lot of loyalty to his bus driver. Love love, like it's like your best friend.
He's the man, dude. Yeah, but I mean he drives. My life is in his hands while I'm asleep. Dude, you know what I mean.
You respect, Yeah, I can tell it you appreciated.
Appreciate what he does. And you know, I think that's the cool thing about you know, being in you know, the position that that I'm lucky to be in is you know, you can impact so many people in a positive way, man, you know, like you can bring everybody
along for the ride. You know, like you can improve improve so many people's lives if you give a shit enough to do that, you can easily do that, you know, And I mean, you know a lot of my friends, man, like we're along we're in this thing together, man, And now a lot of my buddies are really successful, not just with my thing, but with other things now because we all we all went through the door together, man, like the success door open for all of us. Yeah.
When I got you know, when I got my deal and my thing took off, like I wanted to help my buddies, like, let's all get in here and do the thing man, you know what I mean, Like, I don't want to just go through myself. Like, imagine having all the success and nobody to share it with. You know, what fun would there be in that. I can't imagine going on the road and not caring about the guys in my band. But that happens. There's guys that they're like, oh, well, yes,
this guy, yeah whatever, he played the guitar. Great. I don't hang out with him. I don't I don't know him, don't really care too that much. Yeah, But that that's the thing that happens, which is baffling to me. You know, I can't image because I'm such a I'm such a people person. I'm such a friends guy. I love being around people, interacting with him, and you know, obviously I want it to be, you know, people that I like, genuine folks, you know, I would say, but that's so
much fun, dude. I mean, you guys have fun on these trips. Man. There are work trips, and there's times to you that I'm sure it feels like work coming out here and doing these things. But ultimately, you go, if this is the worst day, if you had the worst day you could have on a meat eater trip, it's better than the best day for a lot of people. Oh and that's and it's mostly because of the people.
Imagine if you were stuck here all day it's raining all day on the turkey hunt like it is today, and you couldn't do anything and you hated everyone that was out out here too. At Least here you could sit around and joke and laugh and you know, eat food together and tell stories and just enjoy each other's company. But there's guys on the road who maybe they have a bad day on the road and they don't even
have any friends out there at all, dude. They just have people that work for them that are around, and they're just out there by they're lonesome, just being miserable. I couldn't imagine what that's like, because when I have tough days, I at least have people that I can turn to, you know, and and talk to about it, that understand and that actually care to listen to, and they care about how I'm feeling or I care about
how they're feeling. You know that that atmosphere I think is so important, you know, and you guys have that. So that's why I like, That's why I like being around you guys. You guys have that too, at least from the outside perspective, it seems.
Like you do, you know, which is neat Thanks man, Yeah, I appreciate it.
Yeah, you're ready to wrap up? Oh go ahead.
You got any new records or anything that you can talk about that I don't.
I don't.
I really don't.
Man.
Where are you at in the cycle? Where are you at in the cycle?
I'm at the I'm at the point now like we're I'm about to go in the studio for the first first session on cutting my next record. So we're trying to cut probably anywhere from like in a worst case scenario for best case.
Six and how many do you have how many do you have the seed for? Like you know, like some weeks I wonder if I should start a new trash bag, like at least that far along.
Oh like how like how like how many how fools the trash bag? Right, I would say, right now, I mean songs that are in serious contention to make the record. I mean forty to fifty.
That are like, really, you gotta whittle let down.
You gotta whittle it down. And then you're getting and then you're making a calendar and then you're getting in like heavyweight like you're getting it. It's like heavyweight fights because all the songs like you really like all of them.
When you're sitting on a pile of forty to fifty.
Oh damn it.
Listen, I thought you'd say fifteen.
Twenty fifteen would be finished. We're done.
I thought you like, you got to get rid of a few maybe you know.
Well, I think you know. I think now people are putting out bigger and bigger records. That's been a trend, you know, as as streaming economy has taken off, all that's bigger. It's oh for sure, that drives more to well, it's driving you know now because you're instead of selling a physical CD right like back in the day, you were limited by how many songs could be on a CD.
And so then you know, you're if you start putting out a double CD back, then you got to start charging people double because now there's two discs in there that you've purchased in packaging and special cases and all that stuff. So you don't want you feel like that will impact sales because the consumer goes, well, I don't
want to pay twice as much for this album. So that limited people from putting too many songs on their record because they didn't want to risk not selling as many by having too many songs, because then people had to pay twice as more for it.
Yeah, like now you can use your illusion one and two right.
Now you've got And I think country is the first genre that has really started putting out these big hit records where there's a bunch of songs on them, you.
Know, like Morgan's records have been.
Yeah, his next record was thirty seven, I think thirty seven songs, thirty seven, and then Zach Bryan, I think did thirty six, you know, and those guys are that they and it's I mean, it's a brilliant strategy, right because your album sales are you know, it's based off of its stream equivalent.
Yeah, I guess that.
Yeah, that's a great point that I never thought about.
Man, as you're talking about like, uh, because you strip away the physical component, you.
Strip away the physical components another stream equivalency. Right. So I think someone's probably gonna crush me for the statistic, but I believe it's one hundred thousand streams to count for one physical sale of the album. So the songs over the aggregate of the entire album, every one hundred thousand streams equates for you paying twelve ninety nine for the CD.
So if you went from twelve listens used to wreck up a sale, now it's all right.
So I got a long way to go.
But I think the wild thing is soon here's record yet, here's where you get Here's here's where you get to you know. The question of okay, so now is when you think about it that way, if every one hundred thousand spinds is a record sale, right, Well, if I put out a record that has twelve songs on it and it still takes one hundred thousand spins to get a sale, or if I put a record out with thirty nine or forty songs on it. I'm gonna get
a lot more I'm gonna get a lot more listens. Yeah, don't understand.
Yeah that makes sense.
And I'm going to sell more more albums. You know. There may be the same amount of hits on the forty song record as there is the twelve song record, but the forty song record is going to sell more just because more streams are people are consuming all forty songs as opposed to twelve. Cast casting a wider net, right, So it's a it's a brilliant strategy, you know, but it's a strategy. Dude.
Like, I'm like oblivious to this man, And it's like it kind of demonstrates my age because I remember, like you said, like I just like came of age during the time when you came of age during the time when you just bought like when people like operated that way.
You know.
I always tell people so funny, man, I remember being in speech and debate in college, like my third year of college, I was in his speech and debate class. And I'm not shitting me. This is like I remember a kid doing this. He had to do a persuasive speech. You know what his persuasive speech was what that you should give up on cassette tapes and switch to CDs. He was right for me to be like, how many
songs around an album? You can kind of tell like you got to date me, because like, yeah, I just think of it as being, you know, like an album's like ten twelve songs.
Well, I wondered too, like and I'm again, I'll probably get roasted on this one too, but I'm not certain at least that there wasn't previously to my knowledge, really a cap on it. Like there isn't a cap on it. And to some extent that will become an issue because what if I put out a song with a record with one hundred songs on it? Is that still one album?
Yeah?
Like where does it end? Like there has to be.
Like yeah, because you'll hit the most streamed album and someone like dude, cause there's two hundred songs on the some bitch.
Exactly exactly right. But and it's like you can't slide anyone that's doing it because it's you're You're just you figured out how to play the game the best, right. It's no different with than like the wildlife regulations. To some extent, it's like you're talking about the bear hunt, right, it's like everybody did the well, we just did the thing, and we did it really good and we did it
too good and oops. But like right now we're just kind of in such a like it's such like international waters with like the streaming thing, because all the litigation and policies are like super outdated, from payouts to streams to converting those to sales, Like they just haven't figured out how to like quite make it line up yet because it's all still so new to everyone, you know, and so now people are doing you know, are doing their playing the version of the game that's best suited
for where we stand right now, because nobody's like, hey, you shouldn't do that. No one said you can only have twenty four songs on an album, So why not put forty or why not put forty five? Or why not put fifty or why not put seventy five? I don't know. I mean, I don't know. That's the thing is like will there ever be an end to it?
Or won't there be? I don't know if we'll ever know the answer to that, but I would think at some point there kind of would have to be you know, there's a point where you're going to burn out the consumer too. By if you put out one hundred song record, people are gonna be like, how do I even listen to this?
Who makes that decision?
I mean the artists usually.
Like, no, like it if there was put on it.
I mean, sometimes it's the government. I mean, sometimes it's the streaming services. Sometimes it's the labels. I mean there's all sorts of you know, there's lobbyists like there is for anything else, right, you know, people getting together and going well, I think there should only be you know, showing me twelve songs on the record. That should be it, you know, And I don't know. You know, I'm not I'm not smart enough to know that stuff. I don't I don't claim to.
But you know what winds up being a governing function. Now we're losing another extreme of the listeners. Now we're going back the guys, the guys that are way into turkey, right, you know, the publishing and record business is not interested in me. But remember I was you were talking about the you were talking about the like what Grammy's mean, right,
how that system works? And I was telling you another system that's just not the way people think it is is the New York Times bestseller list, and I've like benefited from it, I've been screwed by it. But it's it is not a count up of what sold. It is not a representation of what sold best right, correct, There's all these value judgments based.
In weighted like weighted scoring and stuff.
Weighted scoring, directional value judgment, vengeance on the part of like traditional media vengeance against new media right like levels of hate, levels of animosity between you know, one world and then and then like online booksellers.
Right, it's like pseudo politics. It is like really like it's its own political thing. It's very intricate, you know. But unless you're in that business, you know, from the outside looking in, you just have no clue, you know.
Yeah, And when you talk about a governing like who would govern it or seth asking like, well, who would ever say what's okay or not okay? The list still matt like the New York Times Bestseller List still matters, and you can have it be like, well, why why not just do whatever you want? When it comes to publishing, you need to approach certain projects. If you want to make that list and benefit from being on that list, you need to approach projects in a certain way to
hit like, so is a is a book? Is an audio book? What they regard to be an audiobook? Or is it something different? Right, So you go like, well, why would you ever need to conform to a certain protocol? Is you can get too far outside of the lines.
And then and then.
These these independent parties that legally obviously they can do whatever they want. Is they invented the list, you can do things that put you not able to be captured by the list. And it's good to be on the list because if you get on the list, people.
Other bookstores order the book. Yeah, right, it gets traction.
Sure.
And so you could go too far out there in some direction like format wise, or how you sell it, how you distribute it, and you get it where you're no longer relevant to that thing and that thing matters. So it winds up being like a little bit of a gravitational pull, right to be like to conform to some set, you know, industry standard. And you're saying that, like if you made an album that has two hundred songs on it, somebody like that might say that's not an album.
I don't know what that is. But that's not an album.
Right, and you're not that's not eligible to win Album of the Year because it's not.
I guess what I'm saying is that set of rules doesn't exist currently. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. There is no right now. So you've got people like kind of forming the rules and you know, and I mean ultimately it's up to the fans, dude. I mean ultimately whatever resonates with them is what people are going to listen to, you know what I mean. So it's really it's really interesting, you know, It's like it's it's interesting how all that stuff works, you know, and the record business is wild,
you know, music businesses wild. There's so many intricacy's sure, Like the publishing world is just there's so many things that you would never think of, you know from outside perspectives. You write a good book and then put it out and that's the Then it's a good book and people like it. But it's not that it's not that a symblem and record businesses like that as well, you know what i mean.
Like then I think the found that you can get around that, but there's just a lot of other stuff late on top of it, right.
Yes, exactly. Record business is the same way. You know, great records will you know, ultimately people will discover and listen to them, you know what I mean. A great record is a great record, and you know that's it's all. It's all subjective too, right, Like, what what do people like? Right? A great record, great country records, some people are gonna
hate it because they just don't like country music. You know, a great record is a great record, and you can just tell, you know, and I'm sure books are are no different.
Would be an interesting number set of numbers. Two numbers would be like what percent of great records aren't recognized and what percent of shitty records are overrecognized?
Sure there's some of them. I'm sure there's some of that for sure.
Yeah.
But then it's like those if those if those quote unquote shitty records are huge, are they just shitty records to you? Yeah? Exactly? Someone else their records highly subjective. Same with books, right, Like I'm sure there's all these incredibly underappreciated books out there that you know, if you're you know, if you're a literary guy, that you're like, well you have to how do you not know that book? You know? I'm sure there's those.
Right, you know, there was some of we gotta, we gotta wrap this up and get see this buget outside. But do you remember do you remember the musician He's from a while ago, but do you remember the musician Elvis Costello?
Yep, okay, I remember.
I think it was I fear as like David Lee Roth or someone that said this, but he was like, like Elvis Costello was always like a critical favorite.
Mm hmm.
The critics always loved his albums, and davidly Roth was observing that. But rock critics all look like Elvis Costello. It's like the level of bias. Yeah, they got the same style, you know, like Elvis Costello like had those big like glasses and stuff. He's like yeah, but they like him because they look at him like that's some bitch looks like me.
Yeah. Yeah, it's like, uh, it's like it's an album like made for those kind of guys, right, exactly exactly.
He made for the dudes that write articles about albums. Yeah, there's a lot of us just listened to them.
All right.
Well, Luke, thanks for coming on the show as usual.
Man, absolutely thanks.
For having I appreciate all that but I especially appreciate what you what you shared about what you shared about raising kids. Yeah, I'll tell you this thing. This dude I know in New York.
He's a.
He had spent his career working in family law, like the kind of family law of family's breaking up.
Sure, that's tough business.
And he probably doesn't even remember telling me this. It was so long ago. And when he told me this, I didn't even have kids, but it stuck in my head. He was just talking about all the awful things that he's encountered in his career, you know, of like dissolving families, sure, custody battles and stuff, and were somehow talking about things
that screwed kids up. And he said so, speaking from a level of expertise, he said, I'll tell you the one thing that screws him up is the day they figure out that no one gives a shit about them. And he's like, that is the thing, oh man, more than any other thing. Yeah, you know, and what better to bring that out than splitting up parents who are not trying to suck them in, but splitting up parents who are trying to get.
The other get clear them. It's like, yeah, get like parent.
Imagine that when you put together like talking about how perceptive kids are, when you put together like, oh man, wait a minute.
They're both trying to get to pull.
Away right and not come in.
You know you picture you'd want to be in there, your parents throwing punches, trying to get you.
It's probably not greaty, probably not yeah, probably not healthy, but legal throwing legal.
Yeah, thanks, coming on man again.
Absolutely h