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[email protected]. Now we're going to get into the episode. This is outside the round with Matt Burrill. Also, make sure you guys like rate subscribe, tell your mama and them. And for more details and to get in touch with the rest of the familia, visit razerowdy.com. Now let's get into it. Outside the round with me, Matt Peril. A Raise Rowdy podcast.
Come on.
This is outside the round with Matt Barill, a Rage Rowdy podcast. Yeah.
What is going on, everybody? Welcome back to outside the round. Today a very special episode. You know, it's a special occasion when I got the shades on and it's freaking 1041 in the morning. We have got the man, the myth, the legend. There are guys and girls that are that are personalities in town, that do the music thing, that are talented artists, songwriters, musicians, but they're just vibes. They're just hangs. And this guy is the epitome of that. You think of spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High? You think of Joe Dirt. You think of Kid Rock. You put them all into one. Young, talented, beautiful man. It is this guy right here. Little skinny.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: What's up, Matt?
[00:01:57] Speaker A: How the fuck are you doing?
[00:01:59] Speaker B: I'm doing great. This doing great.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Feeling all the vibes, the attire today, you are just like stone cold pimping.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Yeah, man. I mean, it was cold, and when the cold weather hits, I'm like, oh, this is my time to shine. This is my time to break out the crazy shit. And this is probably not the craziest thing I have in my closet, which is pretty scary.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: Yeah. So we got a coyote on the hat.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: This is a coyote hat. And this is like a chinchilla, which is like a lot of chinchilla, of.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: Course, but a lot of chinchillas.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: That's what they call it on the website. I was just like, okay, I'll just go with it. I think that's probably a Co word for this is mystery fur. We don't know what came from, but yeah, man, I filled out the vibes today. I was like, I don't think I need to go half ass to go see my boy Matt Burrell today.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Dude, I love it. I love all the rings you got on.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Yeah, man. Well, this one's my favorite right here. So this is my razorback ring because I'm from Arkansas.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: Woo pig.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: Woo pig, baby.
[00:02:59] Speaker A: Hell yeah.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: But yeah, man.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: That's awesome, man. So you've been in town for how long now? Because you're a Nashville native of Nashville, Arkansas?
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Yeah, man, I'm originally from Nashville, Arkansas, and I moved to Tennessee about a year and guess going on a year and eleven months ago.
Yeah, we're fixing to go. Yeah, year ten year eleven months. So my two year anniversary be about mid January.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: No shit. When do you know the exact date? In January?
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it'll be like that last weekend was when I first yeah, that's right around my birthday. Oh, shit. It'd been like 2020 1st around there.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm January 23 for my birthday.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: Yeah, so about that time. So I don't know if you remember two years ago when I first moved here, it snowed real big.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: And everybody got logged in their house. So I was here my first day in Nashville, didn't even get to go out. I had to stay in my airbnb. I rented for two nights before I could ever go out. And on the third night I went out, and that's when I discovered Red Door. And everything changed from there.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: Yeah, that was the week that everybody was on Clubhouse. I don't know if you remember that. Everybody was on this app called Clubhouse. And it was like chat room things on the phone where it'd be almost like Ted Talks. And all of us were on that for the week that Nashville shut down because of the snow. And it was like seven inches of snow. It wasn't even like a ton of.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: It wasn't even that thumbs up. We've got that much in Arkansas before in my lifetime. So it wasn't that crazy amount. But for some reason, everybody's just like.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: Dude, that's what they do. People freak the fuck out over the snow. And I remember everybody being on Clubhouse and being like and Nikki and I were talking because this was obviously long before him. And I merged with Rowdy. And I remember him and I being like, so instead of rounds, are we going to do this now? And it was like, what is happening? But then after a week, shit went back to normal.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Is this COVID again? But like, snow vid, what is going on?
[00:04:53] Speaker A: What was your first red door? So that first night that you go to Red Door?
[00:04:58] Speaker B: So what started out was the only thing I knew about was Whiskey Jam. So I went down to Whiskey Jam and checked that out down at Winners, and I met a bunch of people, and I was on American Idol at one point. And so I was actually on there two different times, but I met a couple of people from American Idol. I'm like, oh shit, this is cool.
At Whiskey Jam, they're like, we're going over to Red door? And I was like, what's red door? And that's a crazy question now because I spent my last two years in there. I was like, what's red door? They're like, come on, we'll show you. So go with my buddy and we go down there and we start hanging out. And about that time, jelly roll walks in and he just starts hanging with us. And like, two more American idol people walk in. Three more American idol people, and there's like eight American idol contestants in jelly roll just hanging out in red door. And that's when I stopped remembering things.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: No shit.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Yeah, man. That was my very first night out in Nashville, moving here.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: Yeah. I feel like of all the people that I know that find themselves in just the wildest situations, just from being a good hang, you're on that list of just the rooms and the company that you found yourself in over the past two years has got to be just insane. You must have just seen all you hang out on John Daly's bus all the fucking time. I see you with kid rock, I see you with Coetzel, I see you with jelly, and I'm like, nothing surprises me. If I saw you hanging out with Trump, I'd be like, it's just another day in the life. A little skinny.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: Hopefully that's coming soon. I've been trying to work on that anyways, really. Hopefully one of these days. You never know, man. You never know. I don't want to do too much wishful thinking here, but yeah, man, I got to say first of all is I'm really blessed, man. I live an awesome life and I got some really cool friends. When I came to town, everybody told me it was a ten year town, and it is in a way. And what was cool about that was when I moved here, I thought I had all the time in the world, so I wasn't really looking for try to make big career moves or anything. I was just coming to find friends because I was moving to a new place. I absolutely knew maybe, like, two people in this town, and so I came out here just to find good friends. And it just kind of also making awesome friends, making these awesome relationships. A career came with it. And I'm so blessed to have all these cool hangs and just living life to the fullest, man. It's so cool because I can wake up every day and I have a smile on my face, like, I don't know what the fuck is going to happen today, but it's going to be cool and I'm excited for it. So it's pretty awesome. Yeah.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: So the other night we had butt rock night, and, god, that was our third one. It was nothing but rock volume three. And to me, they just keep getting better and better every time we fucking do them. And this one was extra special. Because usually we have to put a writer's round in front of it or we have to do karaoke at the end of it. This time we were able to facilitate the whole night with full band stuff and a couple of little solo performances thrown in there by Dean and Mikey. But it was fucking wild. And one of my favorite moments, bro, was and this was cultivated previously by us being at the fucking Rusty Nail. Shout out to the Rusty fucking Nail. The rusty fucking god bless the rusty fucking nail. The RFN. Rusty fucking nail. We got to make those hats RFN like the BNA hats. But they're RFN on the back. Rusty Nail. Oh, I would too.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: The fur coat might get Shelved on that for the fur hat. Fur hat might get Shelved for the Rusty fucking dude.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Rusty fucking nail. But you had played Rhythm and Smoke and we were doing covers. And you were like, I didn't even know the song Tomorrow by Silver Chair. I had never even heard it. But you fucking played it at Rhythm and Smoke.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it went down was Joe Hadale started playing tonic or something like that. And I was like, oh, dude, if we're going to do like 90 shit, I'll throw some stuff out.
Signature was one of my favorite songs to cover from that stuff. Because growing up back in Arkansas, I did a shitload of COVID gigs. And I was only about an hour from Texarkana. So I would go down to East Texas and play down there a bunch. And I'll never forget right when COVID started, I was playing at a little brewery down in Texarkana. And these people came up to me and they're like, hey, we'd like to book you for our Memorial Day party. I was like, sweet. That'd be awesome. And they were having a big pool party. Well, country shuts down. All this stuff happened to Iraq. We're still having it.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: Yeah, no shit. Woo.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: Pig. Let's go. Well, I pull up and these people had this incredible pad. I mean, great big house. You had to have a gate code. Again. I'll go. Pull up. I'm like, all right, let's go. And I go out there. They're having this big pool party. Well, it starts raining and it starts thunder and stuff. They're like, we're all moving inside. So I'm inside of this great big house and I'm playing in front of their wine cellar. I've put JBL speakers in front of their wine cellar. And I start getting on stool and I start playing stuff. And like 2 hours in and nobody's really listening. Well, everybody starts getting drunk about the third hour. And they're all in. And I'm like, tired by this point. They're like, we'll pay you to keep going. And it's just $100 bills, $100 bills, $100 bills. And I'm like, all right, I'll stay. And so I keep playing. And about the fourth hour, they're like, we want to hear some shit from back narde, play some 90s grunge. And I'm like, oh, God, here we go. So I started playing these songs on Spot, and a few of them actually worked out, and Tomorrow by Silver Chair was one of their requests. So thank you to those people. I played it for other wine cellar for inspiring butt rock night four years ago.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: What year were you born?
[00:10:17] Speaker B: In 99.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: So you were born in 99?
[00:10:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I was born and I as a sign? Yeah.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: Dude, how crazy is it to be to have some good buddies that are still, like, big names like Bob and John and folks like that, but their heyday was, like, before they're into. Yeah, it was like, what was, like, the year that you were born was, like, their heyday. That was when John was ripping darts on the PGA Tour, and that was when Bob was doing Woodstock 99, and that was the year you were born. So are those guys, like, uncles, father figures? What's the relationship like?
[00:10:54] Speaker B: I think a lot of people think of me a little bit more like an old soul, and one of the things that kind of translated that in my life was when I was younger, I was hanging around a lot of old men. So me and my dad had a hunting dog kennel back home, and I was Little Skinny, and my dad's nickname was Skinny. So that's how I got the nickname Skinny. A little skinny.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: We had skinny boys. Kennels and so we had these hunting dogs, and we go train them, and we chased coats is what we did. And so we chased fox during coats and did all these field trials and these competitions. And with being in that environment, I was around a lot of older men, a lot of older guys, so that I just naturally wanted to hang out with guys ten years older or twice my age just because that's where I was comfortable, because I didn't want to do what kids my age were doing. That wasn't fun. I want to do big boy shit. I wanted to go kill stuff, shoot guns, ride around trucks. Let's go do some cool shit. So I think that kind of translated me coming to Nashville, kind of hanging out with some of these guys that had been around, and I learned so much, know people like that.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: Yeah, dude, you got to make a hat that has Skinny's Kennels.
That's got to be part of the Little Skinny merch.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: I have an old shirt that we made to go to this one hunt one time to represent. But I do have old skinny boys Kennel shirt.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm saying that should be part of your merch line. That's part of the brand.
Skinny boys. Kennels Come on. Like, bro, I think honestly, I think people fucking wear it.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: We don't know what this is, but fuck no, dude.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: But that's what fucking works. Like, we put a raccoon on a T shirt and people go apeshit.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: Actually, funny, as you said that, my mom had a fit over that shirt. She saw somebody wearing it downtown. She's like, I gotta have one of those. I think I know where to hook you brought when I went back to Arkansas recently, I brought her that shirt and she was forward. She loved yeah, she's mom's repping the Raised Rowdy Merch at the daycare.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: Well, she knows that. She raised you rowdy.
That's something. And I wasn't around for when this stuff was happening, but when Nick and Jacob Gearden, who was the other co owner of Raise Rowdy until I came in and bought out Jacob's Half. We love you, Jacob. But one of the things that with the early days of Raise Rowdy was Nick UT and all those guys that just started as a group of friends going to concerts, drinking all the beers, being in the front row and knowing every word. To Ashley McBride songs when she was playing the club. To Arkansas. To Ashley McBride. To Cadillac. Three to early Luke Combs, early Riley Green, early Muscadine bloodline like early Hardy. And they were getting in with these artists because at the time, they were in the positions that you're in or that even our friends like Ella Langley or people that are on the come up right now, and the Race Rowdy crew was, like, invested in them going up 1011 shows a year of the Cadillac three or Laney Will. So these people so the parents started taking notice, the parents of the artists. So like mama combs. Riley's mom. Mama duckman.
Mama muncaster. Charlie Moncaster from Muscadine's mom. And they were like, we love this, you're damn rat. We raised them, know? And that was one of the things, was you had the parents of these artists wearing Raised Rowdy shit because they're like, Hell, yeah, we did raise them, know?
[00:14:26] Speaker B: So they are.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And that's and that's kind of one of the early moments of Raise Rowdy growing was that the artists that are all superstars now, when they were all coming up, the parents saw Nick and the crew up in Pittsburgh and they were like, yeah, we did raise them.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: Rowdy shout out to the awesome, supportive and amazing parents.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: Yeah, dude, honestly.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: Understanding, understanding parents. Yeah.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: Because you're young, so you're fucking 24.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: Yeah, 24. Just turned 24.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: You're 24. And you were talking about doing, like, being on Idol young, doing gigs young, I'm sure. Singing in church when I was 15.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it's just that singing and stuff. I started playing drums when I was twelve.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: I'm sure your parents love that.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, man. My first gig ever, my first bar gig, I was 13. I think I just actually just turned 14. I played at Run Boogies on Bill Street was my first gig ever.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Bealed street, like Memphis.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: Memphis. So, yes, I don't really talk about this much, but I was actually a blues artist when I first started. So when I was 15, I was on American Island, actually, to the blues music. I want to be like Stevie Ray Vaughn. I played trios.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: Doesn't surprise me, knowing you the blues.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: Yeah, man. That was my first love. That's basically my roots. Yeah.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: Is that part of growing up in Arkansas, like being near the Delta? Because that is such a huge part of the culture. I've been to Jackson, Mississippi, and we've done shows at Dueling Hall. And we'll stay one that when I was with Gary and Charlie, we got to Jackson the night we spent the night before in Jackson, and there was some little old blues club sketchy as all hell. But you go in there and it's just these old folks of all colors, all shapes and sizes on stage, and they're just jamming. And you're like, this is some of the best fucking music I've ever heard. And you being from Arkansas and having Memphis nearby, having Mississippi nearby, east Texas.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Had a big blues.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: Yeah, dude, that's the world you got to grow up in. So it doesn't surprise me that Little Skinny was coming up as a blues guy.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: Yeah, man. When I was 15, I made it on American Idol and I was doing blues music, and I kind of did that up until I was about 18.
That was a big turn of events because 18 is when we finally sold the dog kennel and everything. We got rid of the hunting dogs and I was going to college and realized I had a headline or Co Head on Big Blues Festival. I made like three $400. And I was like, there's no way I won't be able to make a living playing the blues. It's sad. I love it, but I want to do something different. So I was kind of lost. I ended up going to Washtall Baptist in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, which is a Christian school. And there's a highway that divides Washtall Baptist and Henderson State University, which was the state school, the party school. And so there's a highway divided well over at Henderson State University. My very first week in college, they had a concert in the football field, and they put a stage on the track, looked up doors of Bleachers, and they had Coedsell and Whiskey Myers. Noise complaint had just came out with Coedzel. Wow. I paid like ten or $15 for a ticket, walked across the street, went to the concert, had a dorm meeting that I would have got fined, like $300 if I missed. So I watched Coedzel in the intermission. I went back to the dorm meeting, walked back across, bought another ticket, went in. It's all whiskey Myers. And it changed my life. I was like, this is the type of shit I want to do. And so that's what kind of molded what Little Skinny is today kind of doing the country southern rock thing.
[00:18:02] Speaker A: That makes total sense.
[00:18:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:07] Speaker A: That was noise complaint had just come out. That's what then 16 1718.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: Fall of 2018 was when that so I think noise complaint came out like February or March.
[00:18:21] Speaker A: My first time seeing Co was in 2019, christmas, like. Right.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: They're starting to catch some traction then.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: Yeah, harold saw high.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: Yeah, Harold Saw High just got their.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: Boost that had just come out. And we did some shows when I was out with Muscadine, we did some shows opening for Co in Texas and Oklahoma. And that was my first time really getting to meet Co and Dre and the Wild Bunch that is in that family.
I do too. They're fucking great guys, good friends of the program with what we do.
But the first time seeing a Co show, I was like, Jesus fucking Christ.
[00:19:03] Speaker B: It's crazy because when they came to Ascend, I got to go to show, I saw you all walking up and going to the Sin Show and just looking back from seeing it now and looking back when I was at D two football stadium watching these guys just be rock stars over whiskey. Myers it was truly something really cool.
[00:19:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm sure you got some wild stories.
[00:19:29] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, man. I'll never forget when he came to there's, there's a bar kind of like the Rusty Nail, but it was called The Queue. And that was the bar in town. And he came to The Queue and that place just packed out and it had like one of those shopping mall parking lots and the whole place was just full and so know, it was like, oh, COTZ was in town, cows was town. And back then he was known to show up at like frat parties. He'd just show up frat parties and it would start a street parade. Like I know he shut down streets in arcadelia. I know. Went down to magnolia to sau southern Arkansas university and just would shut down streets. And they have like street parades the old 90s days. And I'm like, what artist around 2018 is doing shit like that? It was OG gangster stuff. It was pretty cool.
[00:20:17] Speaker A: Yeah. That is wild. So now since being up here, you've gotten some traction, dude. And looking back, doing the American Idol shit people always have, I feel like there's different stigmas and folks kind of there's like the stigma to the folks, to the kids that come up and have the opportunities before they move to town of Idol and The Voice and different things like that. Just like there's a stigma of people that play out in town.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:46] Speaker A: So what's that kind of been like? Navigating that because there's people that are like, oh, you don't want to play on Broadway, you're going to get stuck on Broadway. But it's like there's great opportunities down there. And then there's the same thing with these competition shows. Like, I have a friend Claudia who's on The Voice right now and killing it. We had. So hunter girl with idol like Caleb lathrop. Caleb Lathrop was on a show. You've been on shows.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: Caleb Lathrop was actually one of the people in that jelly roll story I was talking about.
Yeah. He'd come up to us and start whispering. He's like, I won't be on Idol this coming season, dude. He's like, it's nice to meet you. I remember watching you last season. I won't be on this season, dude. I'm part of the crew. I was like, come on. There's a picture of all of these American Idol people and Caleb's in it. And then now it's cool because he made it on the show and got the American Idol experience. But at that time, nobody knew who he was yet, which is pretty awesome.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you feel like there is kind of like a stigma to it? Like a lot of artists don't want to one of the things, like when I've had label artists on before, one of the things is don't talk about they don't want to talk about their experience doing that. But even look like artists like Morgan Wallen was on the voice, people forget that he was on the Voice covering fucking one Direction in Kings of Leon.
It's been a thing for a long time, but for your experiences because you've had success organically in town, but then you've had done the nationwide thing with those shows, like balancing that shit.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: So a lot of people saw me when I was on American Idol when I was 15 because I got a lot of airtime. But I was actually back on American Idol when I was 21 about two years ago, and I made the top 40. And I learned a lot going through that experience because hear all the horror stories about the contracts and there's all kinds of things that people are worried about with Idol, but to be honest, I wouldn't be here without it. It's basically kind of I would call it rites of passage for a lot of artists because when you're there, it's a networking monster because everybody there on American Idol is going to do something in their career. Maybe not everybody, but most people are going to do something in their career and they're at that point that they're fixing to make a break because there's an age limit. Not like The Voice or America's Got Talent. There's an age limit with American Idle, it's like 27 is the oldest age and then the youngest age is 15. So between those years of age, all these people have a chance of doing something real big if they haven't done it yet. And so that's what I loved about American Isles. I've got friends. One of my really close friends I met on Idol is Mason Via. And me and Mason were on the show together and about three months after we got off the show, he ends up meeting and he already knew them, was good friends with Okro Medicine Show. And he ends up being the codal e singer of Okro Medicine Show. Starts going on tour with them. So it's cool to see people that you started out with on that show that go and do big things because everybody's at that point that they're about to do.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Now, coming up out of Arkansas, was that one of your first times being on an airplane?
[00:23:43] Speaker B: My first time ever being on an airplane was when I was 15.
[00:23:47] Speaker A: Going to Idol?
[00:23:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Going to Idol. Yeah. Going to Hollywood.
I got to tell this story. This is a really great story. Yeah. Take up a few minutes. But I wasn't really trying to be an artist at the time. I was just in love with music. So I started playing drums while I was twelve. I was on the drum line in the high school band and was kind of doing that thing. And then I started playing in a blues band while I was about 1314, hot Springs, Arkansas. It was a Spa City Blues in the schools and Spa City Blues society. And so I started playing in this blues band and our guitar player quit and I was a drummer, but we had another drummers, two drummers, and then we only had one guitar player where a guitar player quit and I was like, well, I'll start learning how to play guitar, so start learning some chords and stuff. Joined the band. My first gig playing guitar. Know grumboge on Bill Street. So I start doing the blues band thing and then been playing for about six months. And we had moved from Nashville, Arkansas, me and my family, to Murfreesboro, Arkansas.
[00:24:44] Speaker A: You're kidding me. There's a fucking Murphysboro?
[00:24:47] Speaker B: Murphysboro. That's where my family lives now. So we moved up.
[00:24:50] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:24:51] Speaker B: This is a wild story. So we moved from Nashville, Arkansas to Murphysboro, Arkansas. And we got a big place with about 50 acres, big three acre pond, all this stuff. And me being a redneck country shit, I was wanting to fish this pond, but I didn't have a boat to fish it. So I'm looking for a flat bottom boat. So I go driving around and I found this old man right down the street that's got a flat bottom boat for sale for $300. And so I'm like, all right, I got to find $300. So I go to my parents like, hey, there's this flat bottom boat for sale down the road. We really like to get to Fish Pond. And I'm like, no, your fifth team. We want to start teaching you a lesson of, hey, you need to work for what you want, work for what you should get. So I'm like, okay, so back to the drawing board. What's the easiest get rich quick scheme that I can get? This flat bottom boat and. Get $300. So start looking around. And over in hope, Arkansas, which is actually where may esses is from, we grew up 30 minutes from each other.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: Over in hope, arkansas, there's a watermelon festival and there's the hope watermelon festival. And they had a talent show called watermelon idol.
[00:25:56] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:25:56] Speaker B: And so watermelon idol, if you made the top five, you got to compete for $300. And the winner got $300 cash prize and you got to open up for Sammy Kershaw. And so I was like, this is in. This is every redneck's dream. So let's go try to win this competition. So I go on Tuesday. There's like 2025 people there. And so I start playing my song. I'll do can't you see by Marshall Tucker band. I start playing this song and I go up there. I get off stage, everybody's, oh, you did great. There's no way you didn't make it.
They come out with the results. I don't make the top five to come back on Saturday. And I am pissed. I'm like, here we go. I got to go work, do some.
[00:26:35] Speaker A: I lost the damn watermelon idol.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: I lost watermelon idol. How in the hell am I going to get my flat bottom boat now I got to go work for a couple of months and get $300. It's going to suck. Well, mom comes up to me after it's over and she goes, hey, I know that I thought you were going to have plans on Saturday because I thought you were going to make it. But since you didn't, over in little rock, they're having American idol auditions. Won't we go try out for American idol? Said, mom, if I can't make a watermelon idol, how in the hell am I going to make American idol? She says, I believe in you. Let's go do it. So we go and we get there like 09:00 a.m., which if you ever do one of those experiences was way too late. You need to be there, like right when the sun comes up because everybody's lining up outside the arenas, which since COVID they've went full zoom. So that's not even a thing anymore. But you used to line up in front of the arenas, do the cattle call auditions, and they had eight tables. And you go up in pairs of two and go, actually, it was lines of three. There's three people. And they'd like kind of mock American. I was like, two of y'all step back when y'all step forward. All right. The ones will step forward, come with me, go on the next round, kind of do this thing. And they started out that and they would kind of mock film it. Well, I went down there and I went from one table to the other and went to another round. And then they asked me to come back the next day. So we drive all the way home from woodrock and go back the next day. They're like, hey, we want you to come audition for us in front of the celebrity judges here in about a month. And so Jennifer Lopez, Harry Connick Jr. Keith Urban all came to Little Rock, and I auditioned in front of them. They're like, you're going to Hollywood. So this is where the airplane thing comes in. So I go to Hollywood, and me and mom go up to Little Rock Airport and we're sitting there and we get on the plane, and one of my best friends now is Trent Harmon.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: And he's sitting next to Trent Harmon.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: Love that guy. And that's when me and him kind of connected. And we're on this plane, my first airplane experience ever. And we fly. It was just connect flights. So we're going from Little Rock to Dallas Fort Worth to Dallas Fort Worth at Lax. So we fly down to Dallas Fort Worth, and it's early morning, like six, seven in the morning. Like, sun's barely coming up. We fly out and there's a thunderstorm happening. And we're riding around. I'm like, oh, this is fun. It's my first time on airplane. This is great. And I'm steadily doing this thing the whole time. And the flight attendant comes and sits by us, and she's sitting over here like this, and I don't know what's going on. And we finally land, and me and Trent's like, hey, are you okay? She's like, I flew on thousands of flights, and that was the scariest flight I've ever been on. And I'm like, sweet. That was a great first flight I've ever yeah. And I have not had a bumpy flight like that since. But for my first one, the flight attendant said that was the scariest flight she had ever had. So I guess that just was setting the tone for the rest of my career.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: You should have that in your Instagram bio.
Watermelon idol. Reject American Idol contestant.
[00:29:39] Speaker B: I will update this.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: Honestly, bro, I think that is fucking awesome.
[00:29:44] Speaker B: Yeah, man.
[00:29:44] Speaker A: And Trent Harmon. Great fucking guy. I've gotten to know Trent was when I was doing the radio thing because that's my background was I was a college radio DJ and then involved in the New Jersey New York scene whenever artists would come through. And it's funny looking back because you'd have, like, baby Morgan Wallen playing at Jenks Club where they used to fist bump and do film. The Jersey Shore. We used to have country nights there every Wednesday. And we had Wallen as one of the guys that came through there, like, epic night, baby. Florida Georgia Line baseball jersey with a fucking flap rim hat like looks like he did. Now, his hair was a little bit longer than it is now, but I met Trent Harmon around that same circuit because he had come up and played a show in Asbury Park at a venue near the Stone Pony called the House of Independence. It was always such a nice guy. And then I got reconnected with him recently through our budy Anthony Mossberg, which.
[00:30:40] Speaker B: I'm sure you know, Anthony Anthony and.
[00:30:42] Speaker A: We'Re close friends talk about just an underrated, dude, mossberg can fucking sing and write, and he's one of those guys, too. And this is something I can definitely talk to you about, a conversation we can definitely have.
The social media thing, bro, it's so interesting. There's so many different ways to kind of invent the wheel and have success, and everybody's definition of success is a little bit different. Like, obviously you want to get shit going in town.
You want to have those.
[00:31:16] Speaker B: You want to have it happen immediately.
[00:31:19] Speaker A: Well, you want it to happen immediately, but then at the same time, you also want there to be success out of town, because you can be the biggest thing in Nashville. You could be the biggest fucking thing at music. Robe have all the buz about you. You can't sell tickets, and you're not getting streams outside of Nashville. You ain't worth the fuck, honestly, dead ass. And then there's people that don't have as much buz in town but have over 100,000 TikTok followers but don't even have the music out yet because they.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Don'T they're nothing in town that medium.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: It's so weird.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:53] Speaker A: Which that's what excites me about you, is that you're going out and starting to do shows out of town, and it's not even I would say, but it's just people love being around you. And I'm not trying to gas you up too much right now, but when you walk into a room, it's like, fuck yeah, skinny's here. There's just energy and positivity and good vibes. And even if you might not be having the best day, you make everybody.
[00:32:17] Speaker B: Else want to show that, bro.
[00:32:19] Speaker A: You make everybody else around you feel like a million bucks just because you're there and smiling and being you.
It's awesome to have that in that aspect. You have the buz in town, and obviously you signed some papers that have changed things a little bit and getting ready to your career, your solo career is starting to take off in directions that you want it to, which at 24 is very impressive and great. And now it's how do you take what you've created and cultivated here in Nashville, Tennessee, that started in Nashville, Arkansas, that's now in Nashville, Tennessee? How do you take that shit to the world?
[00:32:56] Speaker B: How do you broadcast that 100%? So that's why I'm trying to do right now, because I grew up as a live performer before I started doing the social media and everything. And that's kind of what I feel like handicapped me a little bit with the big experience I got on American Eye when I was 15 is I didn't know how to do social media and just didn't really care. So I kind of missed out on a big opportunity to kind of start a fan base really young when I didn't know what I was doing. And so that was one of the key things of learning. Hey, I need to start posting. I need to start building a brand. I need to take it right now. And I made a commitment to myself when I was 15 or 16 of Ethan, because that's my real name.
[00:33:35] Speaker A: Breaking news if you don't know Ethan.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: Yeah. I was like, Ethan, what are you going to do with your life? Are you going to do this full time, or are you going to go to college and do something else? And so I made a commitment to myself at 15. It's like, I'm not going to have any serious girlfriends. I'm not going to get married. I'm not going to have any kids. I'm going to devote myself. I'm going to start a little skinny. I'm going to start this brand right now, and hopefully by eight to ten years, I can make something happen. And so we're at eight going on to year nine of starting from that point, I just had to make a commitment that early and stick with it. And that's kind of what's kind of happening now.
[00:34:15] Speaker A: Full circle. We talk about you were talking about before. People say it's a ten year town, and it is. It might not even be a ten year town.
[00:34:20] Speaker B: It might be in town.
[00:34:22] Speaker A: It could be a ten year process.
[00:34:23] Speaker B: It's a ten year process. And that's why I tell everybody it doesn't have to be here in this town. Doesn't mean when somebody does move to town and something blows up for them, doesn't mean that there wasn't a lot of preparation that you didn't see before that.
[00:34:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
What are the big differences between little Skinny and Ethan? Because a big thing that people need to find and to be successful is, in my opinion I mean, Nikki and I talk about it all the time. We say our four things that really make an artist right now. The distinct voice, when you know it's a guy or a girl, you know who the fuck that is. You know it's Luke Combs, you know it's Morgan Mullins, you know it's Lil Skinny. You hear that sound? The songs, obviously, it starts with the songs. Without the song, you don't have a fucking thing. And then having a bit that makes them different from everybody else. Like an authentically to where yes, a brand. Exactly. Having that. And then the viral moment or the big kind of moment, which you could look at Ashley McBride with the Garth Brooks and Eric Church stuff that happened. Obviously, Wallen's had those. Combs has had those.
[00:35:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:29] Speaker A: Stapleton. Yeah, of course.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:31] Speaker A: Just having that big moment, whether that's on TV or that's social media or whatever that's captured. But the branding. And there's so many artists and so many just people in general that are like, that NPC, that non playable character that's like in Grand Theft Auto or in Call of Duty that's just kind of chilling off to the side that doesn't have that energy or have that thing that separates him or herself from.
[00:35:57] Speaker B: They could be one of the most talented people. But own it.
[00:36:02] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't want to say names, but there's a lot of guys and girls that come to mind that have great voices, great songs, but there's nothing that's like there's nothing there. And to me, that to me is one of your greatest strong suits is you're like, this is me. I am little skinny. This is who I am. And you have this energy about the what's the difference of like, what's the.
[00:36:31] Speaker B: Difference between skinny and man? So so Ethan, before I even kind of start building a little skinny brand, because I've got to thank my mom for that because she kind know, showed me the way of a bunch of the guys I idolized growing up. Like, one of my biggest idols was Stevie Ray Vaughn. If you ever see a picture or video of Stevie Ray Vaughn, that man is decked out in the coolest ghetto ass, just cool suit, swagger, swagger. He had the thing going, know? And so that was one of the things, like Ethan was lacking. Like, man, I was cool with putting on back in Arkansas a houndstooth T shirt, like a cabela's bass pro T shirt, like long sleeve, some blue jeans, some boots, and maybe not brush my hair in two days. And I was content. And so I was know all about just hanging out, going out, doing my thing, but not really kind of dressing up and being a brand. So seeing my mom pointing out stuff about like Steve Ray Vaughn and those guys like that, that had this whole picture of every time you saw them, they had some kind of look, some kind of charisma, some kind of theme for that day. And so I thought that was really cool to kind of take in light and used it as inspiration of building your own character. So, like, when you walk in a room, they don't forget you when you walk out. Yeah, dude.
[00:37:48] Speaker A: And that to me is, again, even before you and I really got to know each other, we're boys, you're family. When I think of artists that I'm like, that guy's, my fucking boy.
And the fact we live nearby each other out here east of town and Hermitage and all that. But even before then, I felt like I knew you through what you were posting and through our minimal encounters that we would have at Live Oak or losers, like, you would just pop in.
And that's the thing too, dude.
Midtown is an interesting place to fucking navigate. And it's changed in the fucking last six months. It's changed in the last year with different things that used to be there.
[00:38:34] Speaker B: That are just three weeks. I mean, it's constantly changing, bro.
[00:38:37] Speaker A: Yeah, it's navigating midtown. It's exhausting. That's why I like being at the Nail. I love what we do at Live Oak, and we do between six and eight events a month at Live Oak right now. I know you have your event there as well. Little skinny's rowdy shit show, which we love. We're big fans of what you do over there, brother, and especially being on a Tuesday night, making Tuesdays, like, one of the nights at Live Oak. But one thing that I like about the Rusty Nail is you don't have to have the hey, how are you? Midtown conversations that we have. And especially me being sober. I'm California sober, so I used to have a really bad habit of seeing how much caffeine I could drink and how much THC I could intake before I went out and I was just floating.
And then you'd get paranoid, and then they're this, and then you bump into that person at Red Door that you're not mad about seeing them, but you're like, fuck, I don't want to spend 20 minutes in this conversation. Yeah.
[00:39:39] Speaker B: Then you make an awkward dip and jump the patio and take off right down the street.
[00:39:44] Speaker A: Oh, I haven't done that.
[00:39:45] Speaker B: I've seen people do that. I'm just assuming that's kind of the combination they had going in their system.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: Yeah. What do you think has changed a lot about Midtown here in the last three weeks?
[00:39:54] Speaker B: Well, man, I think it's kind of changed. I feel like I kind of miss the community that things like whiskey jam brought down there.
It's kind of taken a different turn. And I feel like on the weekends, if you go down to Midtown, it's almost like a second Broadway.
[00:40:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Losers isn't losers on a Monday. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, even. Thursday is a little borderline. It's different than a Friday.
[00:40:18] Speaker B: It's different, man. It's like half capacity, cool vibes, not dead, but not too many people. You can't hang and have a good time. But when, man? About Thursday is at turning point, thursday nights getting kind of packed. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, it's blown out of the water, and it kind of turns into that college Broadway type atmosphere. So I feel like that's a big culture shock, and I'm hoping it doesn't happen full time down there.
[00:40:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm hoping it doesn't happen with Dumumbrian either.
[00:40:47] Speaker B: Right.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: 100% dummbrian. Were you ever a Tin Roof guy or not? Really.
[00:40:50] Speaker B: Yeah, man. I've bumped around in Tin Roof a few times. I can see if you can get in there on a weekend night. I prefer to hang in Tin Roof, but those lines are way down the street.
[00:41:01] Speaker A: But they haven't been recently. Right?
Because Barstool opened up now.
[00:41:06] Speaker B: Barstool?
[00:41:07] Speaker A: I still haven't been there, dude.
[00:41:09] Speaker B: You haven't been there?
[00:41:10] Speaker A: No. Well, dude, we got to think. I first moved to town.
Have you had jobs outside of Music since you moved here, or have you been able to gig enough.
[00:41:18] Speaker B: I've been blessed enough to gig enough full time. Actually.
This is a funny, fun fact. A lot of people don't know this about me. When I first moved to town, I couldn't get music gigs because the music competition was so high. But I could get acting gigs, and I started acting. And so when I first moved to town, and for the first four or five months, I'd acted in different music videos, TV shows. Really? Yeah, man. So my first gig, I end up our budy. So Vaden nicknames me Skinny Gump because I'm like Forrest Gump. I keep walking into shit. He's like, well, here's skinny. He had to go to the White House again. He's like skinny gump. So this is one of the Skinny Gump moments. I've been here for maybe a month, going a little over a month, and I end up winding up being a background actor in Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran's music video.
[00:42:11] Speaker A: Really?
[00:42:11] Speaker B: Yeah, man. And so the Joker and the Queen, if you go look at I'm like, throughout it, I'm in party scenes. I'm playing bass in a band, like a high school band room. Like, I'm playing bass in it throughout this music video. And then I started picking up other ones. Adam Doliac's music video the Taylor Austin Dies. I did hers.
That was a little bit later. I was J. Michael Adams and rest in peace.
[00:42:38] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:42:38] Speaker B: And so, yeah, man, I just started doing acting stuff, and I was able to make three, four, $500, you know, a gig. And that's how I started hustling that thing and started surviving. And then I finally started getting gigs. And then I think about four or five months in is when I finally get my losers gig over in Midtown. And that's kind of what set me as a Midtown staple, so to speak.
[00:43:03] Speaker A: Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. My first gig in town, so I've been working in radio and doing that back home. And the plan was to come down here and work in radio, but kind of parlay it or pair it with bouncing on Broadway. My first year in town, I was a door guy at fucking Whiskey Row.
[00:43:24] Speaker B: Oh, shit. From scenes a thing or two, bro. Yeah.
[00:43:27] Speaker A: My first weekend, I actually just celebrated my five year nashiversary, if you will. Nashiversary I moved down here Halloween weekend of 2018.
[00:43:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So this past weekend.
[00:43:37] Speaker A: This past weekend, bro, which was crazy, because last week we had four events in town and we were running and gunning. We could talk about that in a second. But my thing is with downtown, and I'll enjoy going down there every once in a while, but that was all that I knew when I first moved here. Bro. I couldn't go to Whiskey Jam on a Monday night because I was checking IDs at Whiskey Road till three in the morning. I was friday, Saturday, Sunday day shift.
Yeah, it was Friday. Saturday Sunday day shift, which was like 09:00 A.m. To about 07:00 p.m., sometimes 09:00 p.m.. And then Monday, Tuesday I would do the night shifts and then I'd be off Wednesday, Thursday, and sometimes I'd work Wednesday, sometimes I'd go seven days in a row, bro. I was doing like it was fucking nuts. So for me, it's like going to bars downtown.
It's different.
It's a different vibe.
[00:44:32] Speaker B: Especially when you're sober, especially when you've worked in it. I played a few stages down in Broadway. I was really wanting to make a go of staying in Midtown.
[00:44:40] Speaker A: What circuit were you doing on Broadway? Because people don't know this too. There's the different circuits, the circuits of like the Tequila Cowboys circuit, the Tootsie circuit, the bars on Second Avenue that are co owned by different people.
[00:44:54] Speaker B: Circuits only let you stage monitors. Some circuits only make you do in ears. And it's crazy because a lot of people don't know.
[00:44:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Where were you gigging at?
[00:45:01] Speaker B: So Losers had a location downtown.
[00:45:04] Speaker A: I played there used to be called Swinging Doors.
[00:45:07] Speaker B: Swinging Doors. And when I moved here, it just changed. They just bought it. And so yeah, man, so I was at Losers Downtown quite a bit, doing acoustic gigs, and then I started doing like the Bootlegger circuit.
Bootleggers. And I would start just kind of doing band gigs down there and just kind of keep my chops up.
I've played a couple of others just kind of once, but I played Old Red a couple of times. Acoustic.
[00:45:33] Speaker A: That to me is just a different vibe.
It's a family vibe.
[00:45:37] Speaker B: It's a family vibe. And they're cool about doing the artistry thing, too. They're not 100% cover type venue, which I love.
[00:45:46] Speaker A: Yeah, like getting to play originals and things like that.
[00:45:49] Speaker B: 100%. And they want you to kind of they like bringing in name brand artists that are trying know, go outside of.
[00:45:57] Speaker A: So, yeah, if you have a friend coming into town, three places, you take them in.
Okay. We'll do different friends. We'll start it out. Mom and dad come in.
[00:46:08] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:46:08] Speaker A: Mom and dad come in. Where are you taking them? Three places. Restaurants, locations, whatever. Three places.
[00:46:13] Speaker B: So I think one of my top places I'd take them was we love walking around Marathon Village. So, like, we go down to where the American Pickers and stuff, their store is like HBC. We go around there if I was going to take them somewhere to eat.
That's a tough one, man.
[00:46:34] Speaker A: There's a lot of fucking restaurants out there.
I've been starting to go to like, nicer restaurants. You know Aaron really well. My girlfriend, ever since she's turned me into a fan of the Gulch and Twelve South. Two places I did not know very well prior to our relationship, getting the relationship in the spring.
[00:46:53] Speaker B: 100%, man.
[00:46:54] Speaker A: There's a lot of good restaurants down there, but I feel like there's a lot of good down home restaurants and.
[00:46:57] Speaker B: Just random places in random places, too, man. One of our favorite places we love to go is the Elston Place Soda Shop. Yes. It's got a good vibe.
Chess Pie Man is out of this world, dude. It's just old school. Good vibes.
Another place we like to go is I can't think of it. Barbecue Place.
[00:47:20] Speaker A: Edley's?
[00:47:21] Speaker B: No.
[00:47:21] Speaker A: Martin's.
[00:47:22] Speaker B: Martin's. Yeah. So but we like the Martin's behind Ellis'place. The one on because that one's never packed.
[00:47:28] Speaker A: The one on Charlote.
[00:47:29] Speaker B: Charlote. Yeah, man. That one's killer. Yeah. So we go to that one quite a bit. But if I was wanting to go sit down somewhere really nice, like really fancy, I would do something like Hollis Chop House.
[00:47:43] Speaker A: I went there for the first time this past week. It's good, dude. Best steak of my fucking life. I'm glad I didn't have to pay for the bill, which was very damn.
[00:47:55] Speaker B: Halls is really good. And there's a new seafood place that opened up that if you want the steak. This is the surf and turf thing, is Joe Mirror. Where's that?
It's kind of, like, off the area. Can't remember. I was riding the Uber when I was going there. I can't remember exact spot of town, but joe Meir. Joe. J-O-E-M-U-E-R. Seafood.
[00:48:19] Speaker A: Okay, killer. Now three friends come in town that are looking to get rowdy and party. Where are you taking them?
[00:48:27] Speaker B: Well, if they haven't seen Broadway, I got to take them to Broadway. It's kind of a bright and now.
[00:48:32] Speaker A: Do you start at the top of the street and work your way down? I'm straight to Kid Rocks. You go straight to Bob's?
[00:48:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I go straight to Bob's. I got to support my go. We go straight down to Bob's, go up on the Mezzanine, and just let them get the whole Kid Rock experience, because that's some of the wildest, coolest parties I've ever had, has been in that bar. So it's just kind of a nostalgic thing for me. It's like, hey, this is one of my hangouts, if I'm not hanging in Midtown. And then, of course, we'll transition and do the Red Door Losers local live oak thing. Start from Tin Roof Down and just kind of end it with a nightcap at the local or something.
[00:49:07] Speaker A: Bob's has to be the loudest bar in town. It's got to be, like, 120 DBS.
[00:49:12] Speaker B: Oh, dude. It's crazy, these stories and things. I've seen a bar pretty what was.
[00:49:18] Speaker A: Your first time in there like?
[00:49:20] Speaker B: Actually, the first time ever. I was, like, 15 visit or not 15 during 1718, during the day, visiting in there, and that's when I kind of was like, whoa. And it first opened I remember when it first opened, we came in, me and mom made a trip to Nashville, and I think Mom, dad, and brother always came out here.
We went down to Kid Rocks for the first time, and I was like, this place is going to be epic. Did I know that five years from now it's going to be like one of my friends bars and I get to hang down there? No, I did not know that was going to happen. But it's kind of cool seeing how it starts until what it's turned into. But yeah, man, just some wild, great times.
[00:49:59] Speaker A: What was your first time, like meeting?
Was that through John and just Losers.
[00:50:05] Speaker B: Connection or how did that completely different connection? That was actually a Vegas connection.
[00:50:10] Speaker A: So I don't know if vegas?
[00:50:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:12] Speaker A: I didn't know you've done things out.
[00:50:14] Speaker B: In oh, so that's really how I've gotten all my success here recently was from a Vegas trip, so Losers sent me out. They acquired several different venues. Losers has a venue in MGM Grand in Las Vegas that a lot of people go play. But I'd end up not playing at the Losers. But they sent me out there for ten days during the National Finals Rodeo.
[00:50:36] Speaker A: Oh, for NFR.
[00:50:36] Speaker B: For NFR. We went out to NFR back last December, and that's when my whole life changed. I went out there for ten days. We played, me and Chris and Ruchi.
[00:50:45] Speaker A: We went out there four and Wallen.
[00:50:47] Speaker B: Yeah, Four and Wallen, my dog. We went out there and we played 4 hours a night for ten nights straight. 40 hours of singing in ten days.
[00:50:55] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:50:55] Speaker B: And so we went out there and just straight went on to party. And that was probably one of the coolest trips I've ever been on and probably one of the most productive trips. I made so many great friends, and that's how I end up getting signed. My artist development deal with Drop Time Music was through a connection to one of my best friends is Rocker Steiner, and he's a bareback rider. And he was actually competing in the first year in the National Finals Rodeo that year. And he came out to my show and me and him just hit it off and me, him and Cowboy Serone, the UFC fighter, went bumping around MGM and just became homies. And it was one of the coolest experiences, like the 6th night of the NFR.
[00:51:35] Speaker A: So who's the most famous person in your phone? This is a common podcast question. I haven't done it in a long time, but with you I feel like I can do it.
Most famous non music person.
[00:51:45] Speaker B: Non music person.
[00:51:50] Speaker A: You don't have to call them or anything.
[00:51:52] Speaker B: I'm just trying to think. I'm just trying to think who's in my phone and who's not.
[00:51:57] Speaker A: Because a lot of people with social media, you don't even need phone numbers anymore. Like, you just do Instagram, DMs and stuff.
[00:52:07] Speaker B: I think probably one of the most famous would be between John and John's. Probably like John Daley. John daley yeah. So JD probably he's on my favorites list because he calls me a second son.
He. Calls me a son.
[00:52:21] Speaker A: Now, does that have to do with the Losers and his passion for music, or you think it also has to do with being an Arkansas?
[00:52:27] Speaker B: Arkansas.
[00:52:28] Speaker A: The Arkansas thing's got to be huge with John.
[00:52:30] Speaker B: Yeah. So I met John out here at Losers one the first time we actually met. But one of my close friends, Sally, he's passed on, but Ryan Mallett, the famous oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:52:40] Speaker A: Ryan used to come to Nashville.
[00:52:41] Speaker B: Yes. Ryan was one of my homies. And so I was kind of one of the guys that showed Ryan Midtown and started bringing him around. And so that's why he started bumping into local Losers live Oak. And so he had just kind of randomly was wanting to get off Broadway and walked in the dog house. When I was first playing. I've been there for, like, four or five months on a Sunday, and me and him went down and just got shit hammered on a Sunday evening.
It had an absolute blast down in Midtown. I kind of started showing him around, and me and Ryan became close friends. Well, he took some videos, and he sent some videos to John Daly of me. He's like, dude, you gotta check this kid out, bro. He's awesome. And what a lot of people don't realize about John is he does drink a lot, he parties a lot, but he's one of the sharpest minds I've ever been around. Even in that environment, he remembers everything. Like, he could be three bottles of Belvedere in, and the next day he's going to be like, man, dude, that was fun last night. Remember when we did this, this, this? And he's gonna remember all of pretty it's pretty incredible.
And so yeah, man. So I bumped into John at the first time I saw him. I was in there playing when he came in. And he goes, hey, Ryan Mallet sent me some videos and remembered everything and was like, dude, come over here to my table. And for a while, he couldn't get my nickname right. He called me Sticks.
He's like, hey, Sticks. Sticks. Come over here. Sticks. And then from then on, he'd just bump in from time to time. Get up. We jammed together, and we just kind of started jamming. And then me and his daughter became really close, and she's like my sister, shy daily. I love them, and they're like my second family. And so that's when we started to kind of develop, know, a really close friendship. And that's kind of how it kind of all played out. Meeting john was no shit. But yeah, man, but the Vegas trip. So when I met rocker Steiner before they left, they called a producer named Jimmy Ritchie. And that's how Jimmy ended, know, introduced me to katino, and that's how everything started working with Drop We're. That's what's cool, is how organic it happened, just know, playing a bar gig out in Vegas meeting a friend that I had no idea who he was, that was riding horses for a living, which was really cool. And we just developed a bond and had a great friendship that ended up setting up a really cool career for me so far. So I'm excited for the music we got coming out and everything.
[00:55:06] Speaker A: Yeah, dude. And Jim Catino, for those that don't know, as the dude that's been a part of kind of shaping the music industry here in Nashville over the last two, three decades, him and Jimmy Rishi both. Yes, they've both been around for a very long time. And we have some other friends that are involved within Jim's family. Guys like Dalton Dover, like Alex Maxwell, like Joy Beth Taylor, obviously very tight with Kane and all that's in the first two stuff and things going. And so that's a great place for you to be, dude. And that's got to be a big validation thing for you, too, to have folks that could really be working with anyone in town and have worked with everyone to say, we want to work with you, Little Skinny, we see something in you. And from fucking nine years ago as that 15 year old kid not making it through Watermelon Idol to flying out with all these people out to California, that crazy flight to now, you've got music out as Little Skinny. You've got people that want to hear what you have to say. You've gotten to open up for some cool people. You're getting out there to do your own damn shows. And it's got to be exciting, man.
[00:56:18] Speaker B: Yeah, man. It's awesome. Yeah.
We released my first real single in eight years a month ago, which was cool is I worked with three different producers, did three different productions of my own original stuff. And I never was happy with it. I would just throw it away. Just didn't use that. Spent and wasted a shit ton of money working with different producers.
And I just didn't feel like it was time. I didn't feel like it was right to put out music.
And it was good music. And I made good connections. Like, one of the producers I worked with I still love to this day, is Kent Wells. And that's how I ended up getting to sing on Dolly Parton's record. So I got to sing background vocals on Dolly's new Rock and Roll records coming out this month. And so rock star and so I got to sing backgrounds of Purple Rain and all these we are the champions.
[00:57:08] Speaker A: You really are fucking skinny, Gum.
You really are. You just fucking pop up, dude.
We're going to look back.
People are going to be watching videos like 20 years from now and be like, oh, shit. That's a little skinny in the background of that.
[00:57:28] Speaker B: Yeah, man, it's it's crazy how you.
[00:57:30] Speaker A: Find yourself in the weirdest fucking the coolest situations.
[00:57:33] Speaker B: Yeah, man. My dad gave me some really cool advice. And I and I took it to heart. He told me, he said, son, if you hang around three junkies, you'd be the fourth one.
Hang around three millionaires, be the fourth one. He said, you are who you hang around with. And if you hang yourself around I'm not saying you need to hang around millionaires all the time. But he said if you surround yourself with good people and successful people, he said the rest will take you to places you'll never know.
[00:58:02] Speaker A: Amen, dude.
That's a good spot. And I think a good place to kind of wrap up from the words of wisdom from Big skinny little Skinny. What do we got going on the rest of this year? So we're into November. This year is fucking flown by, going by crazy. What do you got for the close out this year? And then what do we have to look forward to? I'm guessing we got some fucking music coming, boy.
[00:58:28] Speaker B: Yeah, man. So yes, we just released the first single. So we got let's have a ball out right now. My next single is Red Dirt over Black Top. It'll be coming out December.
[00:58:35] Speaker A: Love that one.
[00:58:36] Speaker B: Yeah, man. December 15. Wrote that with some boys there kind of in the camp as well. Dan Reed is bell, guys. Yeah, man.
We got that one coming out December 15. We're hoping for my AP to come out end of February, early spring, starting in March.
Having my EP from Nashville to Nashville come out.
[00:58:57] Speaker A: I love that title.
[00:58:59] Speaker B: Nashville.
[00:58:59] Speaker A: To Nashville.
[00:59:00] Speaker B: And so that's kind of what we're looking forward to. Yeah. This weekend actually tomorrow where I'm fixing to after I get done here, I'm fixing to go pack my bags and head down to Texas. Can. I'm opening up for Priscilla Block tomorrow night. Hell yeah.
[00:59:14] Speaker A: This podcast is coming out tomorrow.
[00:59:17] Speaker B: Oh, cool.
[00:59:17] Speaker A: Yeah, it's coming out tomorrow noon.
[00:59:21] Speaker B: Yeah. So tonight I'll be opening up for Priscilla Block in Texas. Canada.
[00:59:25] Speaker A: You got to get one of those traffic controller vets. You should walk out because I'm sure it's going to be cold as fuck.
[00:59:33] Speaker B: It's going to be like 45 degrees in texture Canada.
[00:59:36] Speaker A: You should come out wearing the jacket.
Maybe the coyote had to. But wear that with the traffic vest.
[00:59:45] Speaker B: Over that bro, that's so 99 on me. That'd be so awesome.
[00:59:50] Speaker A: And then that's how you get in with Prissy.
I don't know if you know Priscilla or not.
[00:59:55] Speaker B: Seeing her out at Losers a couple.
[00:59:57] Speaker A: Of times, she's bought her kara. They're great people. Very close with that camp. That's a good crew.
[01:00:03] Speaker B: It's going to be a party.
[01:00:05] Speaker A: You're going to have a ball, no pun intended.
[01:00:07] Speaker B: Oh, 100%. There'll be some bush light drag. We're going to have a ball.
[01:00:11] Speaker A: Hell yeah, dude. Now where can people go to find you on social media and all that shit?
[01:00:15] Speaker B: Yeah. So social media all the way across the board is li l underscore Skinny underscore music. But if you just put Li l Skinny and it'll pop up and you.
[01:00:24] Speaker A: Got music out on Spotify.
[01:00:26] Speaker B: Yeah, man. Yeah. Especially go follow me on Spotify. That's the key thing right now.
[01:00:30] Speaker A: Hell yeah, dude. Well, Little Skinny, thank you so much for joining us, brother. We appreciate you. You all be sure to follow our boy, Little Skinny, and be on the lookout for Nashville. To Nashville coming out in February and he's got the new single out right now. Got another single coming, hopefully you said before, December 15.
[01:00:48] Speaker B: December 15. Red dirt over black top.
[01:00:51] Speaker A: Red dirt over Black Top coming December 15. And one of our favorite dudes in town. So you all do the right thing and give them a follow. I appreciate all you all watching and listening to another edition of Outside the Round. Shout out to our friends from Big Friendly Productions, Saxman Studios, our boy Mitch Wallace with the Digital Marketing Agency, and of course, Whales with Whale Tail Media. You all want to know more about us, visit raisedrowdy.com. Got a bunch of merch. Got a bunch of shit going on. And also, I'll mention this on here and to you. December the 13th. Yeah, it's a Wednesday night. We are doing our first ever raised Rowdy Christmas party. And it's going to be at the Rusty Nail. It's going to be open to the public BYOB bring your own beer money.
And we're doing a special to benefit Toys for Tots. You bring a toy to donate, you get a free draft beer. So bring a toy, get a free beer. And we're going to be doing karaoke and all that shit. So, December 13, you all mark the calendar and of course, our normal rounds and events that we do well. Appreciate you all tuning in. Make sure to like, rate, subscribe, all that shit. We will see you next time. This has been outside the round.
You, come on.
Never been the kind for stair one place for too long. I never been the best at this.
[01:02:39] Speaker B: I love you.
[01:02:40] Speaker A: To a girl I love. Only got a couple tricks on my sleeve. They usually do.
