Speaker 1 00:00:14 What is going on everybody? Welcome back to another edition of the In The Round podcast at your boy Matt Rell. And today we've got a very special one, one of the longer episodes we've done in a while with a good buddy, one of the, um, coolest writers, one of the coolest dudes in town, um, and a hell of a ballbuster. Uh, love this guy to death. Uh, it's Mr. Jordan Walker. And, uh, man, we talked about all kinds of stuff, um, all across the board. So y'all are really gonna enjoy this one real quick. Gotta tell you all about our sponsors. Whale Tail Media. You know about Whales and Beezy and Gracie and the whole crew. They're actually looking for interns right now. If you're out there interested in that, hit them up. Whale Tail Media. They even do weddings, whale tail weddings, check them out.
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[email protected]. Find them on all the socials. Uh, Delta eight, T h c. They even have male enhancement products now, so y'all can really go checking out, get all kinds of stuff. Uh, shit, you can eat, shit, you can smoke, shit, you can vape, shit, you can dab, um, really everything across the board related to hemp. Delta eight, CCB D products. Go and check them out. We're gonna get into it right now. Like I said, this one was a lot of fun. Uh, it's my boy Jordan Walker joining us. This is the In Thero podcast. Y'all get ready. This was a wild one. Lots of fun stuff in here. Uh, really enjoyed this conversation. So y'all stay tuned. Here it is. Our conversation with the one, the only Mr. Jordan Walker. I'm the in the round podcast.
Speaker 1 00:02:19 Yeah. So where, where in Texas are you from?
Speaker 2 00:02:22 Um, so I grew up in a town called Vernon, Texas. Uh, it's middle of nowhere, man. I'm in between Dallas and Amarillo. I'm about 12 miles, 15 miles from the Oklahoma border. Oh, shit. So I'm like way up north, shit. Like right before the panhandle.
Speaker 1 00:02:33 Oh, shit. See, that's a, that's a fun. See, that's something I've learned about Texas. There's a whole lot of areas of just nothing.
Speaker 2 00:02:38 Oh, that's like when people ask you, like, they're like, where are you from? And you go to Texas and they're like, oh, Dallas. I'm like, no. And they're like, Austin. I'm like, no, they're like Houston. I'm like, no, hell
Speaker 1 00:02:47 No. No,
Speaker 2 00:02:48 Not Houston. Not Houston at all. Like, they're like, where at? Like, like, are where you at? And I'm like, east Texas, west Texas. I'm like, dude, Texas is so big. I saw this the other day. It blew my mind. You can go, you can go from Houston to Chicago in the same amount of time it takes you to get from El Paso to Texarkana.
Speaker 1 00:03:05 No shit. You
Speaker 2 00:03:06 Can go from the bottom of Texas to the Midwest and you can do the same timeline from West Texas to East Texas. That's how big it is, dude.
Speaker 1 00:03:14 Yeah, that's, I mean, that's why there's so many guys that just stay out there and just, yeah. Or the Texas team,
Speaker 2 00:03:18 Dude. You can make, you can make a really good living. Like when I was growing up, it was, you know, cross Canadian ragweed, Randy Rogers, Wade Bowen, like Roger Crager, Kevin Fowler, those guys, Aaron Watson and those guys still to this day, they could tour Texas and play the same 50 clubs every year and make millions of dollars touring. It's, I mean, it's its own music scene. Like I've had Texas number ones. Yeah. Like, it's wild to say, like, like they don't, I mean the, the money on radio obviously isn't as good as being here, but it's still just wild to me that it's its own like, it's its own thing. Texas is, it's like a country down there, man.
Speaker 1 00:03:54 It is. And the way, that's something I've seen being a merch guy is the amount of merch that you guys buy in Texas like this, the, the appreciation they have for the songs, which as a songwriter, like that has to be really cool.
Speaker 2 00:04:05 It's cool to me because like when you, like you said like when you go and play in Texas, there are the people are just looking at the stage, like they're not just there to like hang out with buddies. Like they're ingrained in the lyric, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like, it's just really cool to see, and like you said, merge like people in support, people in Texas support Texas artists like any artist really, but like, especially like with Trey, like I'm sure you've seen it with Trey. Yes. Because he's got Dick down in Dallas.
Speaker 1 00:04:30 Yeah. But then other songs like a whole lot of nothing and like more of the songwriter shit. They appreciate
Speaker 2 00:04:34 That stuff. Love stuff, dude. Like there's, it's kind of like an underground like Americana thing, but it's obviously its own thing. Like artists, like I remember growing up and like Cory Smith kind of ran the southeast, you know what I mean? Like he was playing Georgia theater and stuff and crushing it and then he would play Texas, but then like, he was like, I kind of just stay in the south. And he goes, you know, the bread and butter's kind of like in these clubs because you're gonna go and play shows and then your target audience at a, in a, for a guy like that is like the 25 to 30 year olds. Because, and I've realized as being on the road, I was on the road for so long, the 18 to 22 year olds, they're gonna struggle to get tickets to the show. Yeah. They're gonna come to the show, but they're not gonna have money from Merge, bro. Yeah. That's why you want the 25 to 30 year olds. Like, you want the people who have jobs who can show up and spend a hundred dollars on a hoodie, a beanie and sign up for a fan club. Yeah. As opposed to me at 19 years old, like going to the show and just being like, I snuck in the back. I don't have a fucking dime to my name <laugh>. So I'm definitely not buying hat.
Speaker 1 00:05:31 That's, that's what we're running into now, man. Exactly. It's crazy going in. What was the wildest college town? Is Lubbock the wildest one you've been to
Speaker 2 00:05:37 In Tampa? Man, I, I,
Speaker 1 00:05:38 There's so many Oh dude
Speaker 2 00:05:39 In Texas.
Speaker 1 00:05:40 So
Speaker 2 00:05:40 Many in Texas. Um, the wildest college town. You know what's funny is I think you guys are going there soon. Stephenville. So like Stephenville, Texas, like Tarleton State, it's the cowboy capital of the world is what they call it. There's a rodeo team down there, like it's a D two school. But man, for some reason Stephenville Texas is ju I mean it's about 45 minutes west of Fort Worth.
Speaker 1 00:05:59 That's, that's co wetzel country. Right? That's exactly what that is. Which makes total sense. It's wild to be the rowdy.
Speaker 2 00:06:03 It is wild out there. Uh, Lubbock was fun. I didn't play Lubbock much after I left Texas. Lubbock is kind of a market that you can get into from Nashville, but I mean, they're primarily Texas artists, you know what I mean? Like you gotta have a true connection there. And we were pretty like the Walker McGuire days, we were pretty Nashville. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:06:22 I would, I mean, I would say so I got to see you guys, which, which when we first, when we first met, I think it was either 2017 Yeah. Or 2018, I think it was 2017, that first one when you guys were doing the radio shows.
Speaker 2 00:06:32 Yeah, yeah. We were that we were on radio tour and all
Speaker 1 00:06:34 That stuff. Yeah. So you do, you do radio tour then play at like a small club in that area, which for us in Jersey was Yanks Club. Exactly. Which is funny because people are like, you mean Yanks like the Jersey Shore, like Snooky and situational, all that shit. And I'm like, yeah, but Wednesday nights it was country Night night. Country night. Dude. People would drive hours on on a Wednesday
Speaker 2 00:06:50 Night, weren't weirds in there on a Wednesday night, dude. Like we had, I had friends who lived up in New York City and they would literally take the transit down Yeah. To watch. They came down to watch that show. Um, yeah man, I remember, I remember meeting you like, like you said, like for a lot of people that don't know, when you go on radio tour, you do radio visits three or four a day and then whatever area you're in, like, you know, when we were up there we hit Jersey, we'd probably hit New York City. We did 'em all in like a day. And then you try to do a couple shows a week while you're up there. Well that show that Wednesday night was like y'all's radio showcase show. Yeah. Boom. We played at Jinx and uh, that club was awesome. Like the garage doors opening up to the boardwalk. Yeah. On the beach. That's pretty badass.
Speaker 1 00:07:26 Yeah. And it's cool too when you're on the stage and you're looking out and it's just, you see the beach.
Speaker 2 00:07:30 Yeah, dude. It's like you see the crowd and then I remember, I remember our front of house guy, Zack was there and I remember looking out and I see Zack and Z is like sitting back there with like a ma tie. Yeah. The beach behind him. He's like drinking a mi I'm like, this guy's living
Speaker 1 00:07:43 Dude. Yeah. It is not something you expect to see when you go to New Jersey. No.
Speaker 2 00:07:46 Like, no, like, I'm gonna be honest, like when I think of New Jersey, I don't think of that at all because I saw Jersey. Sure. Yeah. Like I just thought it was kinda like,
Speaker 1 00:07:55 You think Jersey show, you think Sopranos. Exactly.
Speaker 2 00:07:57 Shit. I don't think Boardwalk Country music shows. Yeah. I don't think anybody does. Yeah. But that's kind of what made it cool. And like you said, there were people who would come from like hundreds of miles away that
Speaker 1 00:08:06 Went. I drove, I would drive. I lived in New York at the time, so I was two and a half hours in New York state. Yeah. So I came all the way down and then found somewhere to bunk up that night. Had a good time. And
Speaker 2 00:08:15 Found some Jersey girl. Huh,
Speaker 1 00:08:17 Dude. Yeah, man, it was, I mean yeah, they're, they're, they're a good time. That's one thing I can't wait for to like with all, you know, with all these Alabama boys. Yeah. A lot of 'em have never been up to the Northeast. I mean, Trey, for Christ's sake thought that Nebraska, the ne in Nebraska meant New England. Cause somebody asked, when are you going to New England? He's like, I
Speaker 2 00:08:33 Love Trey, but Trey's a pretty stupid guy. I'm gonna look at the camera right now. I love you Trey, but you're kind of a dope ass <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:08:38 He's a one of a kind. He's,
Speaker 2 00:08:39 He's, I would say yeah, he's definitely one. There might be another one out there and he's probably like cousins with him. Oh, I'm sure there's not, there's not many guys that are like Trey Lewis that aren't related to Tre
Speaker 1 00:08:48 Lewis. They're cousins and they've probably been with the same girl in some bumfuck town in Alabama. At the same
Speaker 2 00:08:52 Time.
Speaker 1 00:08:52 At the same time. At the same time.
Speaker 2 00:08:54 Um, no dude, I'm, I, you know what's funny? So growing up in Texas, I kind of just like, I didn't know much about Nashville growing up. My mom had come here when she was young and like visited, I had family out in Carolina, so she would always stop and stay with her family in Nashville. And she told me about it growing up. But when you grow up in Texas, you kind of just think like, if I'm gonna play music in Texas, I'm gonna stay in Texas. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, like I was saying earlier, the whole Wade Bowen, Randy Rogers thing, like, I can make a lot of money here.
Speaker 1 00:09:20 And those guys did not come here. No.
Speaker 2 00:09:22 At all. They were No, there were songs, there were songs that they were playing that were coming from here, but they never claimed to be like Nashville guys. And I get it, man. Like there's something about the pride of Texas. But to get back to your trade point, I remember when I met my now wife, she's from Pittsburgh, and I mean I was, it was like 2014, we hadn't signed a record deal yet. We had done some touring, but we hadn't gone everywhere. We had kind of beat up the southeast and like the eastern seaboard, but never kind of been everywhere. And uh, I remember she told me she was from like Pittsburgh and I just kind of thought like, oh damn, like y'all are pretty close to New York City. And she was like, I mean like six, seven hours, I guess like eight hours. And I was like, wait, like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania? And she was like, yeah. I was like, y'all are that far away from nyc. And she was like, yeah, just because I'm above the Mason Dixon doesn't mean I'm like in Manhattan
Speaker 1 00:10:13 <laugh>. But, but at the same time, eight hours up there is feels a lot longer than like eight hours. Like you guys in Texas drive far for
Speaker 2 00:10:20 Shit. Oh shit. My wife always laughs me, like when we go, so we go up to Pittsburgh for Christmas or Thanksgiving and then whatever we do for Thanksgiving, we do the opposite. Like Texas. Yeah. And I mean, I'll drive the whole way. Like Tex back home means like 13 hours. I'll just get in the, you know, the Tahoe while the baby loaded up. The dogs loaded up and I'll just haul ass down 40, hit 30, go down, 82, boom. I'm home. And my wife's like, how do you love driving? And growing up in Texas, like nothing was close. Like if we wanted to go Christmas shopping to Dallas, we'd have to drive three hours. Like it wasn't like, oh, I'm gonna go shopping. I'm gonna go to Green Hills Mall, it'll take me 20 minutes to get there. Yeah. Like that isn't the fucking thing where I'm from.
Speaker 2 00:10:55 Yeah. Like my wife's from Pittsburgh, pa, she grew up in a town called Robinson outside of Pittsburgh. Dude, they literally the Robinson Town Mall out there. It's like the biggest mall in Pittsburgh. So she, her, she was 10 minutes from the airport. I'm three hours. The closest airport to me is actually Oklahoma City. Like I'm closer to k c over this city than I am the de Palace. Yeah. Like, and it's so funny because like, like we were talking about earlier with Texas, dude, like you can, I mean if you get, if you get in a van in a trailer and you're with your van and you're in, nor Texas, which is where we were kind of based out of, and they're like, all right, you're playing tonight in Houston. It's a seven hour drive. You know what I mean? Like, you have to leave that morning to go and get sound checked and everything.
Speaker 2 00:11:31 And like then the next day they're like, all right, tomorrow you're in Midland. Oh, we're seven hours again. <laugh>. You know what I mean? It's not like, it's not like you drive seven hours and you go from Nashville to Chicago, like you're in one state, bro. Yeah. And that's why I was kind of ignorant. I was kind of like Trey in the sense of like, I just thought everything above Kentucky was like an hour away from each other. Everything. Like, oh, Pittsburgh and Philly are here and then like Detroit and Chicago are here. And then Chicago, I mean New York's here and like you can get everywhere in five hours. It's just not a thing. And you learn that. I mean obviously like growing up and doing the whole Texas music scene, I was like, oh, this is kind of like, this is where everywhere is like, everything's so like one thing, like the northeast is just one state essentially. Well, well
Speaker 1 00:12:11 Dude, I mean you can get, you can get from the bottom of New Jersey to the top of New Jersey in about three and a half hours and there's like 8 million
Speaker 2 00:12:17 People living. That's crazy. I mean it's, that's like Tennessee. Yeah. Like whenever we come back from Pittsburgh, I remember driving from Pittsburgh and we were going down to Florida for a, for a vacation or something.
Speaker 1 00:12:27 That's a hell of a trip.
Speaker 2 00:12:28 Yeah. I think we went up there to like get my mother-in-law and stuff. Stayed a few days and then we were coming down to go to Destin or something. Something happened. Maybe it was on, maybe I was on the road. I don't know. I just remember like driving through Tennessee. I remember like being in Tennessee from the northernmost point to the southernmost point. It's like two hours. What's
Speaker 1 00:12:42 One of those east west states?
Speaker 2 00:12:43 Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's six, six hours or seven hours long. Yeah. But I mean, it's just wild to me. Like think about Rhode Island, bro.
Speaker 1 00:12:50 Oh dude. I've driven through it. I've got family. I I I've got family in every one of the Northeast States. So like, you can get, see,
Speaker 2 00:12:56 See you're like the Trey Lewis of the Northeast
Speaker 1 00:12:58 Dude you get from New York. <laugh> cousins and cousins and cousins
Speaker 2 00:13:01 By the dozens. Dude. Cousins by the dozens, bro.
Speaker 1 00:13:04 Cousins by the dozens. There you go. That's
Speaker 2 00:13:06 Literally my, uh, my, uh, family, uh, what's it called? Reunion. That's our slogan.
Speaker 1 00:13:10 Oh no shit. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:13:11 Shout out Walker family reunion
Speaker 1 00:13:13 <laugh>. Hell yeah.
Speaker 2 00:13:15 My mom's gonna love that. Cut everything out. Just give her
Speaker 1 00:13:17 That. Just give her that. Oh, we'll, we'll, we'll clip that for sure. Um, what kind music were you playing when you were doing the Texas thing? Cuz Texas is weird now. We, I mean, not weird. It's cool because you have like the rock stuff, like the, the Giovannis, the cos Yeah, the, the Dylan Wheelers, the Pecos. Then you've got your, your more Western folk, like Yeah. Like Turnpikes coming back, like flat land. Then you've
Speaker 2 00:13:35 Got Turnpikes coming back. Like when that announcement hit Instagram, bro. Oh,
Speaker 1 00:13:38 I think the entire state of Texas went. I think
Speaker 2 00:13:40 Instagram shut down.
Speaker 1 00:13:42 I mean, the whole world and the whole country community went crazy
Speaker 2 00:13:44 Everywhere. Um, man, what were you guys, the music we were doing was very, very Texas like very, just down the middle. We were a, we were a four piece band. You wearing
Speaker 1 00:13:52 A cowboy hat?
Speaker 2 00:13:52 No, no, no, no. I, I've always been a ball cap kid. Okay. Um, uh, it was like, you know, we had the acoustic electric bass drums. That was it. Pretty cut and dry. Pretty standard for down there. But like my brother, he's uh, my youngest brother, I'm the oldest of five boys. My youngest brother is a senior in high school and he's still got these old fucking CDs of like my Texas stuff, dude. And the other day I was home for Christmas and um, we're like driving out to the lake or something and he starts playing this shit. And dude, I am like belly laughing cackling at these fucking songs. Like songs like, I had a song called like Swept Away and the hook was like, like a Texas tumbleweed. I was swept away, bro. I mean, had one called Empty Seat. And it's like, I look over and I see that empty seat, like you're, it was just, I mean, I was 17, 18, 19 years old writing these songs by myself. So I mean, they weren't, they weren't bad. I mean, looking back, they're bad, but like back then, dude, like that was kind of the thing. You just kind of, it was like raw. It was in your face. It was like, Hey, I wrote this song last night. We practice it at soundcheck, here we
Speaker 1 00:14:55 Go. And so much of it is the how it sounds sonically so people dance to it. For sure. That's what you want. You want motherfuckers just dance.
Speaker 2 00:15:01 You want, you want around, you want boots on the floor, bro. Yes. You know what I mean? Like, you like, it's not like we were talking about like the difference in scenes. Like you go play it third and lens here, or even listening room here, it's seating room. Everybody's eating, drinking. It's kinda like cocktail hour. They're listening, they're conversing. In Texas, you want people at the stage, you want people dancing behind them. You want people at the bar turned towards you looking at you like that is your, that's your demographic. That's what you want. And so yeah, getting like the, getting the sig l on guitar, right. To where right when the song starts, the guy grabs the girl and walks to the dance floor. Yep. That's it. Dude. Like I remember being at, there was a little bar in my college town called Outskirts and they used to have, I mean there's probably probably a 500 cap room.
Speaker 2 00:15:41 Um, and they used to have pretty good size Texas bands come through. Like, I mean Casey Donahue, Randy Rogers, Wade Bowen, they'd all play it. And I remember we'd be sitting at the bar watching and like a Sig Lick from a Wade Bowen song would come on and everybody just jumps up, leans their chair against the bar, like, Hey, somebody's sitting here, but I'm on the dance floor, homie, grab a girl, go dance. Come back four minutes later, sit down, have a beer. Oh, two songs later, another cool song, boop, back out there. Like that's just what it was, dude. Yeah. That's just kind of thought how I thought it was everywhere. And then you go play venues with like, you know, big venues, big theaters big, just like packed in crowds. And like, we opened shows. I mean, dude, we played, we played for like probably 30,000 people at Lake Shake.
Speaker 2 00:16:23 No, true. And I remember like being there and like it was the Night Tim Headlined and that was probably the, one of the coolest shows like right there in Chicago. Have y'all played that yet? No. Okay. So there, it's right there on like right by Soldier Field and there's like a marina right there where all these high dollar boats are, where there's just massive parking lot where they just throw up a stage and they put on a show. And that night we played, dude, it was Tim Brooks and Dunn, Reba, Martina McBride, John, part Charlie Worsham, and us
Speaker 1 00:16:51 Christ. Dude. It was nineties day
Speaker 2 00:16:53 Fucking, it was nineties night and it was fucking awesome. Best. Yeah, we got to sit backstage and like drink wine with Kicks Brooks. I got to see Tim McGraw walking on stage. He ripped his jeans, bro walking on stage. Looked at his tour manager, his tour manager got in the talk back and was like, told the band like, Hey, just play the intro like five more times. Tim has to go change jeans. That's how tight his fucking jeans were. My buddies were giving out Copenhagen Dips to John Fox, who was the head coach of The Bears then. Yeah, it was just a wild fucking time. That was awesome. Now Lake Shaik was probably one of my favorite shows. We did Stagecoach, which was great. But to get back to it, man, growing up in Texas, the whole demographic of a live show was completely different when I moved
Speaker 1 00:17:32 Here. How do you think it got to where it is now or where you have some like Nashville influence with guys that you are close with, like Colby like, like Chris Colston, like guys like that, that are doing the mainstream thing. But you still have the rock thing and you still have the Western thing. Like how did it translate into,
Speaker 2 00:17:47 I don't know man, the transition was like, I think it took, I think it took longer than it looks like to the average fan or the average consumer. I think a lot of people just think like, oh, Kevin Fowler, Randy Rogers, Wade Bowen, I keep bringing those guys up cause that's who I grew up with. They were like, those guys are just true. Blue Texas never left the state. Dude. Check the song credits, man. Like those guys were getting songs from Nashville. Yeah. And it, it sounded cooler back in the day for those guys to be like, fuck Nashville dude. You know what I mean? We're from Texas. Yeah. It sounded cooler. I mean I bought it. Everybody bought it. And but then you look up and you start seeing the difference, like if you, you can make a living down there playing music and writing songs by yourself and you can do very well.
Speaker 2 00:18:28 But I think you can also do so much more financially for your family and stuff if you make the leap and not make the leap and move here, make the leap and just come write great songs. Because to me, I got what those guys are doing. Exactly. You're seeing that first day. I got told exactly. I got told when I moved here, uh, right before I moved here, I came up in like 2011 and uh, I moved here in 2012. It'll be 10 years next month, which is fucking crazy. Congratulations. That's fucking awesome. Can't believe I made it, dude. I thought I'd be gone after a year. But, um, no, uh, I, I came here in 2011 and I remember meeting, uh, a guy, one of my songwriter here was a guy named Tony Lane. I mean he wrote Run legend, like Legend Hall of Fame songwriter.
Speaker 2 00:19:07 Yes, legend. We got a Trace Atkins cut, which is like one of my favorite cuts I've ever gotten. Cuz I wrote it with fucking Tony Lane, bro. Yeah. Um, and Tony looked at me and we were talking and I go, dude, what, what's your opinion on like, the whole, cause Tony didn't move here until he was almost 40. Like Tony was like 38, 40 years old before he even moved here, bro. Which is just like, that's a whole nother conversation. Imagine having a family, having a job and just being like, fuck this, I wanna go write songs. People are gonna look, people looked at me at 22, like I was an idiot. Imagine being 40 fuck dude. Giving up, giving up a career. Giving up a career. I had a buddy that like, I won't say his name, but he was up in, he was from Baltimore and he moved down here and he was up there and he was like a, like a corporate salesperson making a couple hundred thousand a year, moved here and didn't get a pub deal for like four years.
Speaker 2 00:19:50 Like, literally told his wife like, I wanna move to Nashville and write songs. She made great money. So she was like, okay, let's go. And they're still here. God bless 'em, they're awesome people. But like that just takes a whole nother size testicles to move here in 40 fucking years. Brass balls, you gotta fucking go for it. But anyway, Tony told me, he was like, man, he goes, you played sports going up, right? And I go, yeah. He goes, you played baseball? And I go, yeah. He goes, if you wanna play baseball, where do you gotta go? And I was like, uh, the ballpark I guess. He goes, well Nashville is the ballpark for songwriting. If you want to write and play with the best of the best, this is the fucking place to be. And you know, at a 21 year old, I was like, oh my God, that's all I needed to hear.
Speaker 2 00:20:31 I moved here that February, that next year and like I said, been here almost 10 years. But that's, that's what I tell people. Like, I remember when I first met Colby, um, I was still writing at Combustion, which is the publishing company here in Nashville, um, that Colby writes for. Um, and Falcon, who was the creative director over there, the vp, he was like, Hey dude, I'm going down to Texas this weekend. I'm gonna watch this new kid, Colby Cooper, uh, do you wanna go with me? And I was, I had something I was maybe I I had just gotten off the road so I wasn't on the road. I had something come up and uh, I was like, I can't go this weekend. I was like, but try to get him up here. I'd love to meet him. And then I met Colby and we hit it off. Dude, he's just small town Texas kid just like me. We started writing songs and honestly, dude, in the 10 years I've been here, I think Colby is probably top three of guys I love riding with because, and
Speaker 1 00:21:15 He's so wise above his ears. Oh dude, like you do not think that kid, you think he's like 30, dude,
Speaker 2 00:21:19 He's like 22 years old. He got married when he was 18. Yeah. Like he just, the, the number one thing I think, and I, I speak for myself, but I think I speak for other songwriters that have been here and kind of been through the ringer. The number one thing you want as a songwriter for an a new artist that you're writing with is just know what you want to say, man. Just like, know who you want to be. Don't walk in the room all bright-eyed writing with guys who have hits and be like, whatever You say, oh that sounds good cuz you said it. No motherfucker. Tell me what you wanna say. What are you gonna feel confident saying on stage? Like if I, if I could sit down and write a song with anyone about anything, but if they don't feel comfortable singing it on stage and it doesn't come across believable, it's just another song, bro.
Speaker 2 00:22:03 Like when we wrote, whenever Colby and I wrote two words, he had text me like two weeks before and he was like, dude, I wanna write a song called Fuck You. And I was like, uh, okay. Um, I don't know if we can call it, fuck you, but uh, I'm down. Well what's the idea? And he was like, it's just basically like about a girl. And it's like, look, we're through. That's the only way it's gonna come across. Fuck you. And we walked in one day, we sat down, me and him a couple guitars and we wrote this song. They ended up calling it two words. They ended up blowing up and people loved it. But it's so funny because like, no, no else at 20 years old at that point it's gonna be like, yo, hey man, I know you're an established songwriter. I wanna write a song with you called Fuck You <laugh>. Like nobody has the balls to do that. Yeah. And that's why I love the kid. Like we've written probably 20 songs together and I feel like he's one of those guys every time I walk outta the room, I love what we have on paper. And
Speaker 1 00:22:52 His live show is fucking fucking awesome. Impeccable the team. He's got around him, he's like Jared and all those boys. Oh, they're badass, man. They're, they're good folks.
Speaker 2 00:22:59 Good guys, man. I've, I've been to a few of the Kobe shows. I actually got to see him at Billy Bob's the first time he headline Billy Bob's, there was probably 4,000 people there and got to watch him sing backwards. And that's like the pinnacle in Texas, bro. Like, that's like the dream venue, you know what I mean? Yeah. That's like our Madison Square Garden. Um, and I got to see him, see him play, uh, Billy Bob's, he's playing it again coming up soon. I might go down there again
Speaker 1 00:23:20 February. Yeah. So like, he's got a full tour schedule. Man, that kid is about to go all over the
Speaker 2 00:23:24 Place. Mean, so he, he like, I like we were like where this all started was talking about the transition Yes. From Texas to Nashville. I just think there's uh, there's like, like I said, this is to me the pinnacle of songwriting. Like the best in the world for what your genre is are in Nashville. And I, and I think there's great songwriters across the pop world here, like rock world here, like the music row area. It's not called Country Music Row, it's just called Music Row. Cause you can go down there and write it whatever the fuck you want every day. Yeah. Um, I think there, I think Colby kind of saw, kind of saw like the, uh, what's the word here? The, um, the quality of song he was writing by himself, like he was writing cool stuff and he was getting reac reaction from like the college kids and That's awesome.
Speaker 2 00:24:05 But it goes back to our first topic. Yeah. You want the 25 to 30 year olds. Yep. You want those guys to be in the crowd and you want them to buy the tickets. So he was like, I need more mature content, more crafted songs. Uh, Colby and I wrote a couple songs. We wrote one with Ray cald, I still had it. And I remember Colby put that out and it just kind of like popped and they thought about going to radio independently with that one for a minute. And then it took a while. He ended up signing a record deal and they've kind of like, they've done the record deal thing where it's like, we want this to be perfect timing, da da da da da. Yeah. So I think he'll have a single coming out this quarter, which will be awesome. Yeah. Because hearing him on radio would just be so refreshing. Dude.
Speaker 1 00:24:41 It'd be awesome. Yeah. It's, yeah. It's, that's what's cool too, is seeing, I mean there's like the new crop of like what they say like the, the, the, uh, hot country artists to watch, which I know a lot of that's politics and Oh, for sure. Who, who's got the bigger checkbook? Who's got a suck? Who's dick? All that stuff. But seeing a guy like Colby on there. Yeah, dude,
Speaker 2 00:24:57 It's awesome.
Speaker 1 00:24:58 I wanna see him on on those fucking awesome dude festivals. I wanna see him like as a kid from New York. Like I want people up in the northeast
Speaker 2 00:25:04 To know who he is. Well
Speaker 1 00:25:05 Experience a Colby Cooper show. Oh dude, it's awesome experience. A co wetzel show experience that Texas country, but country rock stuff too. Yeah. Like that cross Canadian ragweed style.
Speaker 2 00:25:14 Oh, that was the shit, bro. Well that's what
Speaker 1 00:25:16 I love that. I think that's where that like Co Dylan Wheeler for sure. That style.
Speaker 2 00:25:19 Those guys are my age. Like the, the, the co those kind of guys, those guys are my age. So Cody Canada from Cross Canadian, bro, he was a god for like a decade in Texas. Like everything he did and then that band disbanded and he started Cody Canada and the Departed Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:25:34 Still touring a lot. Still
Speaker 2 00:25:35 Touring. Still touring. Like he is like the godfather of like red dirt like to me. Well, I mean they, people would say Robert o' Keenan, people would say Pat Green, but like to me, the guy I wanted to be bro was Cody Canada. Cody Canada was fucking sick, dude. He be like smoking a joint and he'd have it in like the guitar neck playing shit. Like, dude, he was just so
Speaker 1 00:25:52 Badass. He took, he he blended Texas country with rockstar
Speaker 2 00:25:56 Shit. It was like, it was like Kurt Cobain playing country music. Yeah, that's exactly what it felt like,
Speaker 1 00:26:00 Dude. Which, which you get people talk about how, how like that style now is like that grunge factor.
Speaker 2 00:26:04 Yeah, it is. Dude. Within
Speaker 1 00:26:05 The Texas
Speaker 2 00:26:06 Rock and like, like you were saying, like those guys getting up to the northeast, like playing those theaters up there and like, there's just something people like about the unpolished. Like not, I had this conversation yesterday with a couple guys I was riding with like when I moved here in 2012, this was, I laughed so hard yesterday talking about this when I moved here in 2012, every artist I saw coming out was a fucking Calvin Klein model. Yeah. Like I remember being like, these guys are so good
Speaker 1 00:26:30 Looking bro, country, baby
Speaker 2 00:26:32 Bro, country bro. Nonstop. And a couple of 'em are like my good friends. Like, yeah, my buddy Chris, like Chris Lane, love Chris. And like, but every time I look at Chris, I'm like, dude, you are so good looking.
Speaker 1 00:26:40 Fucking Ken do. Yeah
Speaker 2 00:26:41 Dude, he's so pretty. And I'm like, and then, but then when you hear him sing and you learn about his background from Carolina, guy grew up mowing yards, like played college ball. Like he's just a dude's dude. He's just very good looking. Yeah. But then they're like, they polish people up and they like give him the same haircut and they trim the beard and they like, they put him in these like tight shirts and like the Deep V-neck. Yeah. They're the Deep V and the fucking like Chelsea boots like Yep. That zip up on the side. And uh, we were talking about this in my right yesterday and it was just like, dude, there, there was just a certain stigma like, if you don't look a certain way, then you can't, you can't be in this town. And then I met a kid from Carolina.
Speaker 2 00:27:20 Yep. And Ray introduced me to a guy named Luke Combs and he was like, Hey dude, you need to meet this guy. He's a singing motherfucker. And I was like, all right, yeah, I'll meet him. You know, so we met at, we met at Losers, had a couple beers and we were like, yo, we should write, we should write some time. You know what I mean? We were all green, new to town. I was in town a couple years at this point. Ray had just moved to town. Luke had just moved to town. And he was like, I can write tomorrow. And I was like, okay, yeah. Why don't y'all just come over to the house tomorrow, we'll write a song. Well, Luke walks in, mind you, I'd never heard the kid sing, never seen him play guitar. I just saw this. I heavy set ginger beard guy from Carolina probably with a spitter in this, spitter in his hand box on his feet.
Speaker 2 00:27:59 Miller Light. Like just that guy, just who the fuck he is. Yeah. Which is, so anyway, we uh, show up at the house, they show up at the house, we're sitting in the front room. I was living with another songwriter in town, Andy Albert, who right now is in the middle of a six week number one. Congrats Andy. Yeah. Um, and we were living there, uh, right there on 14th and Hawkins on the corner. And uh, Andy was in the back room, room about this size. And he was, had a little tracks rig over here and he was working on demos. So I was like, dude, do you wanna jump in on this? Right. This new guy, Luke Combs and my buddy Ray. And he was like, dude, I really gotta work on these, these tracks, these demos I'm gonna pass. And I was like, all right, cool.
Speaker 2 00:28:36 So I go back out there, I get a cup of coffee, I go back, go back out the living room, and I go, all right, cool man, well what do you have going on? You know? And he goes, well I just, you know, I wrote this song with a couple guys. It's called Hurricane, uh, we're gonna try to, uh, we're gonna try to get it on like the highway. This was before all this shit, man. He goes, we're gonna try to get on the highway. He goes, I should be getting a mix back on on it soon. He spent like his last like fucking 400 bucks to record this song. Anyway, we're sitting on the couch and I go, anybody got any ideas? We throw out ideas for 20, 30 minutes and Luke goes, man, I got this idea. It's called When It Rains it pours.
Speaker 2 00:29:08 And it's basically like, he goes, I think it's pretty cut and dry. Like your girlfriend breaks up with you, you walk outside and it's raining <laugh>. And I remember remember being like, I love the title. That idea is depressing as fuck, bro. I was like, we can't, we can't write it about girl broke up, pour down rain. Like you can't do that. I was like, you know what we should do? We should try to write a Brad Paisley song. We should try to write. I'm gonna miss her. You know what I mean? And uh, I was like, so tell me what happened. You know, let's talk about this. Let's figure this out. And he goes, all right. They were bought in on the idea of now making this a good thing. Like when it rains, it pours. Like it's the greatest thing ever. And he goes, uh, he goes, man, I came home like early Sunday morning, late Saturday night.
Speaker 2 00:29:50 And uh, she was just like so mad I was drunk, she was pissed off. Like they were living in an apartment out here in Hermitage. And uh, I was like, why don't we just say that dude, like Saturday morning, Sunday morning, Saturday night. Like she was pissed off, dude. He grabs his fucking guitar, Bri and he starts strumming and he knew like three chords, bro. So he just hangs on the G and he goes, Sunday morning, man. She woke up pissed off and I was like, I don't know if we can say pissed off, but like, I like where this is starting. Then all of a sudden we're on it, you know? Yeah. Fighting mad. The whole thing starts running about 30 minutes into this fucking thing. I'm through a cup of coffee and we're just about halfway through the course, I go back into the room where Andy is and I go, bro, you gotta come here.
Speaker 2 00:30:33 This motherfuckers sing, dude, you gotta come here. This dude, this dude is a singing bull. He's like, yeah man, I heard him. It sounds good. And I was like, come help us write this course. Get on this song. And he goes, bro, I gotta, I gotta fucking work on these tracks, dude, still to this day, he says it's one of his biggest regrets. Cause oh, I believe it. We wrote a three week number one right there in the living room. And the best part about it was I was up on stage at the number one party. All my friends flew my family in from Texas. Big thing. Andy was in the back of the room drinking a beer at bmi. Ray do, Luke does his speech, Ray does his speech. I get the mic, I do my speech. I thank everybody and at the very end I go big shout out to my buddy Andy Albert for not joining us that day because a three-way pays more than a four way. And he was in the back just going, fuck
Speaker 1 00:31:16 Me. Oh
Speaker 2 00:31:17 Man, I love him the day. He's one of my best friends. He was in my wedding. Awesome dude. Yeah, but he, uh, you should, next time you should have him on this. He's a great songwriter. And he'll tell you that story. It's, he, every time I, every time I meet somebody new, they're like, dude, you used to live with Andy Albert? And I'm like, yeah. And they're like, dude, he told me the Winter Rain story. Like, he just like, he's like, motherfucker. But it's awesome because like, when we lived together, bro, he had just signed at Downtown Publishing. I had just signed at Combustion. I was just about to sign a record deal and a production deal and the whole thing. And we talked about like, ain't gonna be awesome. One day when we, when we have number one songs like me, him and Mitchell, Tim Penn used to write together and we'd be like, dude isn't gonna be great. And now you look up and we all have number ones and it's, yeah. It's, that's kind of what this town's built on, dude. It comes in like three and four year waves where when you move to town, you have your like crew. It's kind of built in, you know? So yeah, that was pretty cool. So,
Speaker 1 00:32:04 So going back to those days, uh, what was it like doing the artist thing, but then writing for cuts as well, like writing for outside cuts outside the Walker McGuire
Speaker 2 00:32:13 Project? Yeah, dude. Um, so like, when I moved here initially in 2012, like my whole fascination with the business was just writing songs. Like I had a band down in Texas and it was fun and I loved entertaining. And I was, I mean, I was relatively good at it. I, you know, I could, I could sell tickets, but to me, sitting down with a guitar and an idea and crafting it into something that people were going to react to, that was, that was the goal, dude. That was the, the dream. You know what I mean? Um, and so when I moved here, I started writing songs with anybody and everybody that I could, you know what I mean? I thought when I moved here, I was like, I need to write with everybody in fucking town, everybody. And then I realize now that I've been here 10 years, like you really need to find like a core of like 10 dudes.
Speaker 2 00:32:56 Gotta find your crew, find your guys, bro. And if you write great with these 10 guys, like guys like Colby, guys like Jacob Davis, guys like Tony Lane, guys, like, I mean, those guys like Trey McKinney, like those guys that that you click with as dudes. And you know, when you sit in a room like this, you're gonna, you're gonna f fight it out, argue it out. But at the end of the day, you're gonna love what the fuck you got. That's the guys you need to write with. You don't need to, you don't need to write with every fucking Tom, Dick and Harry in town, dude. You just don't. Um, but yeah, writing, like, there was a, there was a time where it felt like a blink of an eye that I went from moving here to meeting Johnny to publishing deal, to record deal. And I felt like I like woke up one day and I was like five years into town and I was like, what the fuck dude? Like, what, what is going on? You know? Um, I met Johnny his first night in town. No shit, it was my fourth month we were playing, uh, I had went down to, uh, oh, what's it called? The Commodore on the bottom of the Holiday Inn on West 10th. Oh
Speaker 1 00:33:52 Boy. Everybody's, everybody's
Speaker 2 00:33:53 The, that's like, that's it, dude. It's like the networking place for new writers. Yes. New musicians. So Debbie Champion puts it on, I think it's still going on. It was, it was a pretty big deal when I moved to town, I think. And I think it's still a big deal. I think it's still a big networking tool for new guys. So if you come over to town, listen to this, go to the Commodore. Um, but, uh, she does like a Wednesday night, Thursday night rider's round. Well, I had played it a couple times my first few months in town. Cause like when I moved here, I was bartending at Longhorn Steakhouse. Oh shit. I was like, did I move? My dad moved me up here. I was da There was a girl I was dating from college who moved up here with me. Oh
Speaker 1 00:34:26 No.
Speaker 2 00:34:27 Yeah. And, uh, she was here about eight months. I ran outta fucking money and she was like, I'm gone. So she left, ironically enough, she now lives back here and she's married to some guy here, so she still lives in town, so That's hilarious. But anyway, let's do that. Love it. Dude. Nashville's a good place to live. It
Speaker 1 00:34:41 Is. It's,
Speaker 2 00:34:42 It's, but um, man, we, uh, it was like my fourth month. I had played the Commodore a few times. Um, you, you walk in, you sign up, you sit there for a few hours, they call your name, you go up and play one song. You meet people, you swap numbers. Hey, let's write sometime. That's just what it is, which is an awesome networking tool. So this night I go down to the Commodore and I just wanted to go watch music. I didn't have, I didn't bring a guitar, I didn't wanna play. And I sit down, I'm having a burger, a couple beers. I get up to go to the bathroom. I'm in the bathroom. About an hour later, I'm sitting there watching these guys play and I hear her go, okay, uh, in this round we got da, da, da, da, da da. And she names the people, uh, in the next round, just so you can get ready.
Speaker 2 00:35:23 We have Johnny McGuire, Jordan Walker, and Burning, <laugh> Burning, like, like the fire. It was a name of a band, like a duo. And I go, I went up to her and I was like, Jordan Walker. And she was like, uh, yeah, your name's right here. And I, I looked, and it was my girlfriend's handwriting when I went to the bathroom. She had signed me up. And so I was like, I walked back to the table and I was like, I don't have a fucking guitar. Like, I can't, what do you mean get up there and acapella this thing? Like the Temptations, like what are we doing here? And she was like, no, I'm sure somebody over there. I'll let you borrow a guitar. So I'm like, all right, so I'll walk over there. Johnny's getting tuned up. These fucking 50 year olds from, from Los Angeles, the band Burning, they're getting tuned up.
Speaker 1 00:36:03 Let's
Speaker 2 00:36:03 Go. Dude, they were incredible fucking, I I, I want to, I want to Instagram and see if they're still a band, because they were the best and worst thing I've ever heard in my life. Um, and then I look and there's this guy named Justin Adams, who I had met a couple times before. Still an artist, singer, songwriter in town. I said, dude, can I, can I borrow your guitar? I, my girlfriend and my roommate signed me up and I've gotta play here in a minute. He's like, yeah, dude, no problem. So I get up there, I play this song, Johnny plays this song, this <laugh>, this burning group plays this song. And I remember like, we walk off stage and these guys from that group are like, dude, we should all get numbers and write. Like, they were long hair rocking. They
Speaker 1 00:36:38 Were ready to go.
Speaker 2 00:36:39 They were fucking ready, bro. Like, we should all get numbers. We should write songs together. And I remember being like, I looked at Johnny and I was like, I wanna get this guy's number. I don't, I don't know if I ever wanna see you two again. You know what I mean? And, uh, so anyway, Johnny and I swapped numbers. We wrote a song like three days later. We just started writing songs, man. And like he worked a nine to five. He like was on a marketing team or sold analytics or something downtown. Lived downtown in a condo. I was living out in south of Nashville, uh, working at a restaurant. So basically our schedules never lined up. Like I would work till midnight. He would go into work at 7:00 AM So we would just kind of find Windows to write songs. So we probably wrote 25, 30 songs in like a year. And um, there was a guy named Phil Jones who worked, was on the board at bmi and Johnny knew him from Kansas City. Well, Phil ended up giving us like a, I guess a salary was like, Hey, I want y'all to just write songs. So I was able to quit my job. So
Speaker 1 00:37:38 Kind of like a draw in
Speaker 2 00:37:39 A way. Kind of like a draw.
Speaker 1 00:37:40 Yeah. Without it being considered a pub deal or
Speaker 2 00:37:42 Something like that. Well, it was a pub deal because he took percentages, but it wasn't like a full blown, like, it was kind of just like a buddy buddy thing. He was a family friend of Johnny's. Okay. And he just was super well off. And he was like, Hey, I wanna help you guys out. I believe in what you're doing. Which was awesome. So we, you know, we signed this pub deal and uh, Johnny quits his job. I quit my job and we kind of were like, let's just keep writing songs together. We weren't like a band yet. Like we were playing on Broadway. We used to play the 10:00 AM slot at Paradise Park on Saturdays.
Speaker 1 00:38:11 Oh, throw back man. I love Paradise. Throw
Speaker 2 00:38:13 Back. Yeah. Paradise Park was the shit. Like if, for all these people that don't know, it was like a frat house, man. They had turf and it just smelled like rotten beer,
Speaker 1 00:38:20 Cheap ass cheeseburgers.
Speaker 2 00:38:22 Oh dude. Like, and the burgers were so good. They were, anyway, so hadn't cleaned the grill since like the sixties. It was so fucking clutch
Speaker 1 00:38:29 Married Paradise marinating
Speaker 2 00:38:30 Right there. Oh, it was so good. So anyway, we were just writing songs. We end up, I ended up meeting the cat. Uh, I ended up meeting a lady I was working with like I used to work with. Her name was Deb Cotton and she had a husband named Gary Cotton. And Gary was a songwriter who did very well for himself throughout the nineties and early two thousands. And they had bought a place out in Ashland City and he had a little basement recording studio. Well, Deb was like, Hey, my husband's looking for like a younger country vocalist to sing his demos at the time. I'm 23. I'm like, okay, I'll send you some stuff I've done. If he likes it, I'll come sing it. Well, the next day she calls me and she's like, Hey, he loves your voice. Why don't you come on out?
Speaker 2 00:39:05 So I, uh, I go out and I start singing these songs for him and he is like, well, play me something you wrote. So I playing this song that I wrote with Johnny and he's like, play me another one. Play him another one. Play me another one. Play another one. And he goes, who are you writing these songs with? And I go, I'm writing this guy from Kansas City. This guy I met at a writer's round we're like playing out on Broadway once a week. And like we hang out, probably write three or four songs a week. He's like, is he the only guy you're writing with? And I was like, yeah, for the most part it's just me and him a few days a week. And he was like, bring him out here. So the next time I went out to Gary's, I brought him out there and uh, we sing and we really did have a cool sound vocally.
Speaker 2 00:39:42 Yeah. Our voices went well together. I would, I would agree with that. Yeah. Yeah. And like the more I listened back to the old stuff, like it was cool. It was a good match. Um, cuz it's kind of hard to find a guy. He, I kind of had the high tenor thing and he was like low and gravely and he's a great, one of the best harmony singers I've ever heard in my life. Yeah. Um, but he, uh, we go out there and we hang out with Gary and he, uh, we probably do this three or four times. So at this point we, Johnny's known Gary a few months and uh, we're sitting at his kitchen table one day and Gary looks at us and goes, y'all boys should be a band. You know it. And we're like, yeah, maybe. You know, we're kind of just like writing songs.
Speaker 2 00:40:18 We don't really know if we wanna like hit the road with it. He's like, nah, you boys are a band man, y'all need to be a band. And we were like, all right, well what should we call ourselves? You know? And he goes, man, fuck. I don't know, but Walker McIntyre sounds like shit. And Johnny looks at him and goes, McIntyre, who's McIntyre? And he goes, you Johnny McIntyre <laugh>. He goes, Gary, my name's Johnny McGuire, dude, I've known you for like four months. And Gary goes, oh shit. And he always cigarettes. He goes, oh shit man. Walker McGuire sounds good, man. <laugh> and boom, we started this damn band. We started writing songs. Shit, shit. And like I said, shit, it felt like a blink of an eye dude. And it'd been five years, but I had always loved writing songs. So like 90% of the time I was in the room, I was trying to write for my band.
Speaker 2 00:41:03 Yeah. It was Duo. But then there's that 10% where it's like, I just wanna write a great song. Like I don't, I don't care who cuts it, you know? And then luckily before Johnny and I really started the band, I had written the Combs thing. Like, that thing was like done cut. Well, on its way. Cause I remember that being in the set. Yeah. When you guys, when I saw you guys up in Jersey. Yeah. So we like, so whenever we first wrote it, we love the song like Walker McGuire. And we're like, Hey, we're gonna put this on our set. And then all of a sudden Luke cuts it on the record and then like, Hey, we're gonna s single it and then it does what it does. And it's like, it was a life changer for me. And it was really good for our set because it was cool to be like, Hey, I wrote this. Obviously the energy, the crowd knew it, it was the number one. Yep. So, uh, man, it was kinda like a 90 10, like 90% of the time I wanted to write for us, but 10% of the time I was just trying to write great songs. And now kind of free from the band, just doing my thing. It's just every day it's just wake up, write good
Speaker 1 00:41:50 Songs. Yeah. How many It's been what now? Three. Coming up on three years.
Speaker 2 00:41:52 Coming up on three, man, I walked away in February of 2019. So yeah, it'll be three years next month. So I got married in November of 2018. Um, met my wife in Key West in 2014 at, at the song, at the songwriter festival. Wow. Yeah, she was down there on vacation. I was obviously down there playing the songwriter fest. Um, <laugh>, this was hilarious. It was the kickoff party. It was a Wednesday night kickoff party that they have every year. And Johnny and I were playing at the smoking tuna and uh, and our, and I remember sitting on stage and I remember like, it's packed dude. And everybody, everybody in Key West during that week, if you've never been, they're from Nashville, it's,
Speaker 1 00:42:29 It's losers. But for like
Speaker 2 00:42:30 Four days, hundred, it's like losers and fucking bikinis. That's what it is. So we walk in and, you know, 99% of the crowd, well I see these five girls walk in and I don't recognize any of 'em. So I'm like, oh. And I'm single. And I'm like, I look at Johnny and I go, bro, that brunette over there is fucking smoking hot dude. And I'm talking about my wife. She'll like, oh, that's so romantic. Tell everybody, but that's what I said, I'm not a liar, you know? Yeah. So anyway, sitting there and uh, I'm like, I'm gonna talk to her after this show. Well, my wife loves to have a good time, so she's walking in, trying to party. She goes straight to the bar, meets these dudes, starts doing shots with him and her friend, I'm not gonna say her name. Her friend was like, yo, Annie, which is my wife, you need to come see this guy on stage. He's really cute. This guy in the hat. And Annie looks at me, looks at her friend and goes, yeah, he's pretty hot. You should hit on him. Tells her friend this.
Speaker 1 00:43:24 Whoa, <laugh>. So,
Speaker 2 00:43:26 Cause I found this out obviously months later. Yeah. Um, after the show, I go upstairs, we're staying at the band house upstairs, and I'm like, gonna shower, clean up. It was hot. I, you know, sweated my ass off playing the set. And uh, my buddy Ryan comes upstairs and he goes, bro, these girls downstairs, they wanna meet the band bro. They wanna meet the band. And I'm like, who dude? And he's like, these girls right here, like, look over the edge. And I looked outta the balcony of this down into the bar and it was Annie and it was her friends. And I was like, oh shit, these, that's the girl. So I'm like, deodorant, cologne, lotion. Like, I'm getting ready, you know, get downstairs, they're gone. Of course they're fucking gone. And I'm like, damn it. So I'm like, dude, fuck it. We'll just go out to the bar.
Speaker 2 00:44:05 We'll have a good time. The island's two miles wide, we'll probably see 'em again. Yeah. You know what I mean? Sure enough, walk outta the bar. I'm going to this place called Hog's Breath. And I see Annie and her cousin walking across the street and, uh, I'm drunk and I'm like, Hey, hey, do y'all, do y'all have fun at the show? You know, like, hey. And he turns around and she goes, she comes back and she goes, Hey, I've been looking for you. And she was saying this now, knowing she was saying this, this cuz she wanted me to meet her friend. She goes, I've been looking for you. And I said, I've been looking for you too, sweetheart.
Speaker 3 00:44:36 <laugh>. And it's the dumbest cheesiest shit.
Speaker 2 00:44:41 And now we've been married for, you know, three years. Got an eight month old baby girl. Hell yeah.
Speaker 1 00:44:45 Um, what's dad life like? Oh
Speaker 2 00:44:47 Dude, it's the best. It's, it's the best. I mean, that's the only word to describe it. I get to, I don't know man. It's just like, I grew up, like I said, in a big family. I'm the oldest of five boys. My mom was the oldest of six I think, or maybe five. And like, I always had just tons of cousins and I've always just kind of had this, it wasn't like a dream, but I've always just kind of had this like, I'm gonna have a big family. Like, that's just my thought process. Like, that's just who I am. And uh, you know, dude, there's a lot of things in life that I've done that are really cool and I like to talk about. And it's fun to talk about and reminisce about dude being a dad's number one. There's no doubt about it. Like, and they always say like, oh, you don't know love till you have a kid.
Speaker 2 00:45:29 And we're all dudes. Yeah. And we're like, whatever, dude. We'll see, I'm telling you dude, when that, when that doctor handed me my baby girl on May 3rd, I was like, this is it. Life started over, bro. Yeah. So it's uh, it's pretty incredible man. It's been, it's she's, you know, just over eight months, she's already hell on wheels, man. She's going outta this little walker. She's taking off. She's saying, dad, dad, dude, it's crushing me. Like I can't, like the other day I told my wife I was sick and I'm laying in bed and I get on Instagram and I start scrolling on these fucking reels. And I keep liking the ones of like the daddy daughter stuff just cuz I'm kind of in it, bro. I look up and I'm fucking crying. Like, I'm like, I text my wife and I sent her a picture of me. Yeah. And it's like me, like with a tear. And I was like, I am soft, dude. I have gone soft. This little girl is just, she's taken over me.
Speaker 1 00:46:17 It's like the Tim McGraw song. My little girl dude. Or you're gonna miss this trace acting. It's like all that shit, you're
Speaker 2 00:46:23 Living it. I'll, I'll tell you, when it, when it really hit me, like obviously having her in May and being right in the middle of like, the newborn phase was incredible. I remember dude July, it was like late July, I was mowing my yard. I'm on my mower, I'm mowing my yard. I've got a nineties country, nineties early two thousands country mix, mix on. And uh, that's what it's all about. The Brooks and Dunn thing comes on and he is like, uh, the second verse says like, uh, you cry, she cries and you fuss and you can't cuss. Cuz she'll say it, she'll say it too, and da, da da da. You smile, da da, you, you're happy, you're sad. And she smiles and says, I love you dad. I'm on my mower, bro. <laugh>. And I'm like, I had to stop, turn the mower off and be like, bro, get it together. <laugh>
Speaker 3 00:47:08 Like, fucking get,
Speaker 2 00:47:10 Like, mow your yard, weed eat edge. Like go take a shower, drink a beer, be a man. You're being a total pussy right now. Yeah. That's just where I am though. And I'm fine with it. I'm comfortable with it, dude. Yeah. I'll tell anybody, like, having a little girl as opposed to a little boy has been a massive blessing. Like, first off, they teach you patience. They, they teach you love, man. They teach you just how to be gentle, how to be, you know, how to caress and hold. Like, that's just what it is. But it's so funny dude, cuz I think if I had a boy, I mean, being the oldest of five boys, it would've just been like, whatever, all right, here we go. That's my little boy. What we're just gonna, you know, go for it. But having a little girl, man, it just makes you soft.
Speaker 2 00:47:46 Dude. Jacob Davis, my buddy, he's got three of 'em, three little girls. And you know, obviously he has dudes. We all want boys. We wanna grow up throwing the football, like help him throw the football, swing the back, go hunting, da da da da. But dude, he is the ultimate girl. Dad, my best friend from college, Kenny Weeks best man in my wedding. He's got two girls. And it's just like, you just like, you just realize like, hey, I, I'm comfortable right now knowing if I have four kids and they're all girls, I'm gonna be just fine. Yeah. And I would love to have a boy, but obviously if I have all girls, it's all good, dude. I'm good with
Speaker 1 00:48:15 That. Yeah, that's awesome man. That's,
Speaker 2 00:48:17 That life is incredible. Thanks for asking. It's awesome.
Speaker 1 00:48:19 Yeah, of course, man. I mean, it's cool that you think now 10 years of being here and you've gotten to go out on the road, do the artist thing. Yeah. You've, you've had success doing the writing thing. You've met the love of your life now you got, now you got a kid, you've dude crazy lived, lived to different places. This
Speaker 2 00:48:31 Town, this town's been good for me, man. It's been a, you know, whenever you move here, if and when you move here, if you're listening to this and you're thinking about it, it's nerve wracking, man. Like, I moved here and the only person I knew was the girl I moved here with and she was, had nothing to do with music. So I was like, I'm just taking a leap of faith here.
Speaker 1 00:48:46 So there were Nobo there was nobody else from like Texas that was out here.
Speaker 2 00:48:49 Like, I mean, there probably was, but I didn't know 'em, you know what I mean? Like, I moved here, I remember going home for Thanksgiving in 2011, dude. And I was home and I told my mom, Hey, I'm moving. And she was like, okay, like what part of town? Like, we'll help you move. I was like, no, I'm moving in Nashville. And she was like, all right, fuck it. I'll send your dad up there with a horse trailer. You can load your shit up when you wanna move. She was all in. I was like, I, you know, my favorite number's two, I was born at two twenty two in the morning. So I left my town on 2 20, 2 20 12, February 22nd took off. And it was, it was a leap of faith. And I'm not the only one who's done that. There are, there's hundreds of people that do that weekly. But it is nerve wracking, man. It takes a lot of, like you're saying, brass balls, dude, to just say fuck it, let's
Speaker 1 00:49:29 Go. Where was like your first place? Like you were talking about like the Commodore, where were some OG spots? Like was revival going at that point?
Speaker 2 00:49:35 Oh yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Whiskey Jam.
Speaker 1 00:49:37 Like what was going at that point?
Speaker 2 00:49:38 Whiskey Jam. Man, that's so hard to put a timeline on that because
Speaker 1 00:49:41 I think Whiskey Jam, looking at the poster right there, 10 years, 20, 21. That was
Speaker 2 00:49:45 2011. Yeah, that was it. 2011. Yeah. That was going, that's it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it was going, it was it, I mean it was new. Like that's, that's July of 2021. That's 10 years. So yeah, that would've been, it would've been going on for like eight months when I got here. Eight, nine months. Um, the, uh, yeah, the Commodore was obviously one. I got to play the Bluebird pretty early on, which was badass. Yeah. Um, and then, um, doing, uh, so the listing room used to be, it wasn't on Second Avenue. That wasn't the one when I moved to town, it was in Can Rowe? No, no, no. Uh, yeah. Fuck. What's the play? The Red coming station. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So it was over there in Cumming station and the room was like probably the size of this house. Like you can maybe put 20 tables in it. And, uh,
Speaker 1 00:50:23 So it was really intimate,
Speaker 2 00:50:25 Really intimate, really badass. So Chris Blair, the guy who started it, and Chase Armstrong, who was the GM that just left, loved those cats. They've been really good to me. Um, but they, uh, they started this thing because they were like, there's no true cuz Chris was a songwriter. Like it's, that's what he wanted to do. And uh, still does. He is still a good songwriter. Um, and he was like, I just want somewhere where you can go and play original music and just like be a pr as opposed to just the Bluebird or Third and Lindsay, like the ones that were established,
Speaker 1 00:50:48 Diversified a little bit. Exactly. Bring some new blood.
Speaker 2 00:50:50 Yeah. So then it moved from Cummins Station to second half. Which, how long you been in town?
Speaker 1 00:50:55 I've been here since 2018.
Speaker 2 00:50:57 Okay, so was it still there or was already on fourth?
Speaker 1 00:50:59 It was already on fourth. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:51:00 Yeah. So then it went to second half and it was there for a while. And then they're, they were leasing the building and then they just got told like, Hey, you got 60 days to get out, we're selling this to the condo building next door. And they were like, fuck
Speaker 1 00:51:13 Dude. All them tall and skinnys, dude. They were like, everywhere, what
Speaker 2 00:51:16 The fuck are we gonna do? And then luckily they found the place on fourth, which is actually a bigger room. Great room. They set it up. Yeah. Um, but I mean, dude, for the most part, like your Whiskey Jam was cool and Whiskey Jam, when it first started it was, it was a lot of acoustic stuff. Like, and then they started putting the drums and then obviously they had the parking lot concerts and shit.
Speaker 1 00:51:33 Well, what was that tin roof to start? Like the, the original ones were at Tinder and then it's like Winters at the time. You've gotta be like, how do we put a full band on there? Yeah, dude. Ward's perfected it.
Speaker 2 00:51:42 Oh. And the best part about it was like, winners now, bro, there was no outside patio. No,
Speaker 1 00:51:47 No. You were smoking everywhere.
Speaker 2 00:51:48 Smoking dude. Like, it was just one way in, one way out. One door in there wasn't a garage door on either side of the stage. Like it
Speaker 1 00:51:54 Was ha it was haggard, it was country,
Speaker 2 00:51:56 It was country as fuck. Um, but man, those places, which Ward has built that thing into an empire now. It's
Speaker 1 00:52:03 So awesome. When did you guys probably played it quite?
Speaker 2 00:52:05 Oh yeah, we played it, we played it like 20, probably 2013 and then again in like 15. So we probably played it three or four times. We played one of the outdoor ones, which was awesome. Yeah. Um, that was a great man. Ward's built that thing into something awesome. It's good because it's fun for new artists and local artists to get out, but it's got, it's grown so much that like even tourists now know about it. Dude,
Speaker 1 00:52:24 The Thursday whiskey jams are more packed than the Mondays. It's not. Cause the Mondays are like the industry nights cuz we're all off the road and like here. Yeah. But Thursdays when all the, all them bachelors coming, everybody get to town. Wednesday to Sunday, baby, that's when they come in. And then those Thursdays, if you're looking for a girl at Midtown, like that doesn't live here. That's true bro. Which as a single guy, those are the best kinds. Yeah. Um, they, that went Thursday night. Whiskey Jam is the place to go. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:52:46 Dude, it's uh, this town, it's, it's nuts. Being here almost 10 years now, dude, like I've seen so much change. I can't imagine growing up here and like being here 30 years now and being like, cuz dude, in the nineties I said Broadway was like rough.
Speaker 1 00:53:00 Yeah. You used to go to Music Valley, like scoreboards in the Palace and that
Speaker 2 00:53:04 Was it. Out the Opry.
Speaker 1 00:53:05 Yeah. That was where you would hit like the Music City Inn or whatever that is. Yeah. That, that, that dive bar in the back. That was like the spot to be.
Speaker 2 00:53:12 Yeah. So check this out. This is funny that you brought that up. So right before we signed our pub, pub deal, Johnny and I, I quit the job at Longhorn. I went to work at Fucking Macaroni Grill at Opry Mills. Okay. Oh shit. So this was like, this was like in October of thir or 12. And a guy came in to Longhorn, I was bartending and he goes, dude, how long have you worked here? I go, dude, I just started in February. Like I came in here for a st my dad bought me a steak whenever he dropped me off in Nashville. I applied for a job. I started two days later. He's like, oh, so you're not like a lifer here? And I was like, no dude. I moved to Nashville to write songs and he was like, uh, do you, uh, how much money do you make a night?
Speaker 2 00:53:49 And I was like, I don't know, good night. Maybe a hundred, 150 bucks. He goes, dude, come to Macaroni Grill. It was the manager of Macaroni Grill. He goes, come to Macaroni Grill work through the holidays with me. He goes, you can make $300 a night during the holidays cuz you're at the mall. And I was like, all right, fuck it. I called, told my boss, yo, like you got two weeks. I'm fucking outta here. Went and started working at Macaroni Grill and they used to have, they have service industry night at Scoreboard, like on like Wednesdays or something. Yeah. So dude, we would fucking work at Macaroni Grill, I'd bartend, I'd wait tables, make a killing during the holidays and then we would bounce the scoreboard. So I found Scoreboard. It had nothing to do with music. Now at Scoreboard, Nashville Palace, those things have turned into like the cool hangs again. Like it's the nineties again. Yeah. But like when I moved to town, bro you didn't, you didn't go out there. I only went out there because I worked. There
Speaker 1 00:54:38 Were people going to Broadway that like back
Speaker 2 00:54:40 Then. Yeah. Yeah. So when I, when I moved here, Broadway was, was coming up. Like it was, it
Speaker 1 00:54:44 Was like Honky Tonk was big.
Speaker 2 00:54:45 The state Honky Big Tonk was the bar bro.
Speaker 1 00:54:47 Like, and Crazy Town.
Speaker 2 00:54:48 Yeah. No Crazy Town wasn't here yet. That
Speaker 1 00:54:49 Wasn't even
Speaker 2 00:54:50 There yet. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Because
Speaker 1 00:54:51 That's come and gone. Yeah. And since you've been here,
Speaker 2 00:54:53 So. Oh yeah. Crazy Town's come and gone in the last five years. Um, but I'll tell you this. When I moved to town, obviously like places like the Stage Paradise Park, uh, Tootsie's Legends, rips, um,
Speaker 1 00:55:05 Rips used to be a spot, right corner was Corner right by the arena. Right by the
Speaker 2 00:55:09 Arena. Crime location. But the thing dude was, cuz when I moved to town, the convention center wasn't even there and the Omni Hotel wasn't there. Like that's, it's nuts dude. Thinking about when I'm moved town, like I said, I couldn't imagine living here being born. I was born in 89. Imagine being born in 89 in Nashville and seeing the last 30 something
Speaker 1 00:55:24 Years seeing a football team of hockey team c
Speaker 2 00:55:26 Everything changed in that nuts just come here like, um, but uh, honky Tonk Central was like the first three story outdoor windows. Like holy shit. This is like Vegas.
Speaker 1 00:55:38 Vegas mixed with Nola with the Exactly. The balcony thing.
Speaker 2 00:55:41 Exactly. And so, um, it's nuts for me, like I said to see And then obviously like you got like the uh, the arcade they just put in down there on the fifth and Broadway thing. Um, and then all the artist bars
Speaker 1 00:55:53 Als. Yeah. I like, I I worked at Whiskey Row for my first year in town and see that
Speaker 2 00:55:57 Was one of, that was one of the earliest ones. Like Fgl House and then Whiskey Row was like one of
Speaker 1 00:56:01 The Yeah, yeah. And then Al Deans and Luke's came in after Al
Speaker 2 00:56:04 Jackson,
Speaker 1 00:56:04 Blake Shelton's, which was more Blake Shelton's does a nice shirt, nicer establishment that's owned by the Opry group. So
Speaker 2 00:56:09 Exactly. Yeah. They keep
Speaker 1 00:56:10 It a little cleaner. Keep a little
Speaker 2 00:56:11 Cleaner. Not as much. Keep the riffraff out.
Speaker 1 00:56:13 <laugh>. And they send them the whiskey. They sent them where I was, they were all dealt with all kinds of shit, bro.
Speaker 2 00:56:17 You don't lie dude. You applied at Old Red and they were like, fuck this
Speaker 1 00:56:19 Guy. No, I,
Speaker 2 00:56:21 They were like,
Speaker 1 00:56:22 Fuck this guy. I mean at the time, probably <laugh>, but that was my, my in my buddy Dave who actually, funny enough, Dave Hangley, he was a local guy to Jersey. He opened up I think both of your shows though. Oh really? Yeah, he was like the local opener guy. That's awesome. He moved down here to write songs and he's still down here and doing his thing. But he was working at Whiskey Row and that was the job that got me to move here was bouncing no way. Bouncing on Broadway. So
Speaker 2 00:56:44 My old drummer, do you remember a guy named Ron Dillingham? Yes. So he was bouncer at htc. Oh shit. Yeah, like honking, like whenever we were like he would, he wanted to make more money than just show money. So he would bounce during the week. Yeah, you
Speaker 1 00:56:55 Make a lot of money doing that
Speaker 2 00:56:56 Dude. He would make, he would bounce during the week, play shows on the weekend and then like dude, we'd get home on Sunday and we'd roll in the bus roll into the fucking sound check over here. We'd all get out and Ryan would go straight from there to bouncing.
Speaker 1 00:57:09 That's what I used to do with Muscatine. Yeah. I was doing that thing with Muscadine during the week. I was, I was at the front door, it whiskey row on the week weekends I was, I was out selling t-shirts and coozies all the porch swing angels stuff's. Fucking,
Speaker 2 00:57:18 It's, it's nuts because like bouncing is a pretty no offense, pretty idiot proof job.
Speaker 1 00:57:24 Oh trust me.
Speaker 2 00:57:25 As long as you stand there. I worked with. Yeah, just fucking stand there and if something breaks out, you go yo fucking chill. Or put somebody in a full nelson If you can do that, you're hired bro. Dude, I
Speaker 1 00:57:34 Worked, I mean I never, guys
Speaker 2 00:57:35 Like Trey Lewis should be bouncers.
Speaker 1 00:57:37 No, I mean guys, guys like Big Dick Terry should be bounce be Terry baby. Probably, maybe not cause he would kill someone, but, um, what it was, I never, I never bounced the day of my life. I went from being like the street team guy doing the radio stuff and being like the guy sitting behind the microphone on like bullshit hours overnight on the radio to bouncing on Broadway.
Speaker 2 00:57:56 But the best part is like, you look like, no offense, but you have the look of a bouncer. Like you have like the Jersey beard thing, like wearing the Yankee sad dude. Like fuck you man. Like that's you. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:58:07 The problem was is I, my, the j jersey New York would come across and it would create confrontation down
Speaker 2 00:58:13 Here. The fuck outta here
Speaker 1 00:58:14 Because you get Bubba GOs from
Speaker 2 00:58:16 Bubba go
Speaker 1 00:58:17 From Mississippi, Louisiana. Like we had, there was one, there was a Turkey hunting convention here a couple years ago.
Speaker 2 00:58:23 Oh dude, I remember that
Speaker 1 00:58:24 Bro. We don't let knives in the bar. We had a bucket full of fucking
Speaker 2 00:58:28 Oh people walking in like fuck
Speaker 1 00:58:29 Fucking Shaws and all that. And like you tell some guy from Mississippi to leave. Oh, I can't carry in New York. That's
Speaker 2 00:58:35 My goddamn grandpa's now.
Speaker 1 00:58:36 Yeah. And your New York comes out and you start talking with your hands. They're ready to go man. And you deal with all the fan bases that come in to play the Titans. Oh yeah, the
Speaker 2 00:58:43 Bear dude. The Bears are the worst.
Speaker 1 00:58:44 Oh, Patriots and Eagles are really best for
Speaker 2 00:58:47 Me. Be
Speaker 1 00:58:47 From New York. I hate Massachusetts.
Speaker 2 00:58:48 See, well lemme say this, I'm a Packers fan so Bears are the worst
Speaker 1 00:58:51 For me. But Vikings fans can be a little rough too if you
Speaker 2 00:58:53 And the bad thing about the Vikings fans dude, and I hope there's Vikings fans. Listen, this, you guys haven't won a fucking thing. Yeah. You have no reason to be talking shit. Your trophy case is just bear like, I like you have nothing way. I
Speaker 1 00:59:04 Don't And, and the had Dante Kohl Pepper and Randy Morris and, and Chris Carter and even further back the the Purple people eat, they still
Speaker 2 00:59:11 Randall Randall Cunningham like they
Speaker 1 00:59:13 Do. Still didn't win anything.
Speaker 2 00:59:14 Fuck. Damn. They're so fucking losers.
Speaker 1 00:59:15 Yeah. You think your packers can win it all? What are you gonna do? Packers, Titans, how much shit are you gonna talk down here?
Speaker 2 00:59:20 Man, you know what's funny is that's my dream scenario. So like I'm a Packers fan and I, and I love 'em. They're, they're my team. I like, I like pro football more than college football by a mile Pro sports over.
Speaker 1 00:59:30 Is that, is that cuz of how UT is or No, no.
Speaker 2 00:59:32 I mean ut I mean they, they, they, I mean they, we've had, we struggled the last decade but like for dude, for a decade before
Speaker 1 00:59:38 That, that long history. Yeah. For
Speaker 2 00:59:39 A decade, for 30 years before that we were
Speaker 1 00:59:40 Great. Was it Brett f for you that sold the other
Speaker 2 00:59:42 Brett Fab did it Man, Brett Fav did it. Um, so just been a huge Packers fan. I go up to a game every year. I went up to a Monday night game this year and I'm a, I've also already got hotels, flights and tickets for the NFC Championship. Knock on wood that we go. Um, and if we do go, I'm really hoping that this sounds bad, but I'm just gonna say it cause that's true. I'm really hoping that they don't let the Super Bowl happen in LA because of Covid. Cuz they're talking about it and they're talking about moving it to Dallas.
Speaker 1 01:00:08 Yeah. Which would be the ultimate. Which
Speaker 2 01:00:10 Would be fucking, we won a Packers won a Super Bowl there in 2011. They beat the Steelers. But the, my buddy Tweeter, he lives down in Dallas, he's like, dude, if the Super Bowl's here, we gotta go. He goes. And I honestly, I I'm never crazy confident when it comes to playoff time. I think anything can happen cuz it's, it's the NFL dude. It's any given Sunday, anybody can win, anybody can lose. This is the most confident, I've been in a Packers team in a long time just because of how deep we are, how well Rogers is playing, how well Devonte's playing. Like our, our defense is a top 10 defense. I think, and I don't think I'm stretching, but I, I think we're the team to beat. Like I think, I think like obviously the Chiefs are still in it. Brady's still in it. Um, you could argue the Titans being the one Cedar good, but like if you look at overall team, if you know football and you see the 14 teams in the playoffs, the packers of the team
Speaker 1 01:00:55 And getting some of your guys back, oh
Speaker 2 01:00:57 Dude, sari Smith coming back, Jay Alexander coming back, BAK Tari and Josh Myers. Dude, we've played at some point 16 games without, you know, three or four all pros. Like we lost Sari Smith week one. We lost Jer Week four we lost, we BTI hadn't played all year till last year. Those guys are all, all pros. Elton Jenkins was an all pro last year. We lost him like week six. Like all these guys are getting healthy now. Jenkins is out with an acl, but all these guys are getting healthy and we already have a top 10 defense. We add back probably our two best defensive players. I just think we're the team to be. And I, and I never fucking say that.
Speaker 1 01:01:32 Now what's wild is you go back to around draft time this past year. Yeah. Uh, when everyone was like, where's Aaron Rogers gonna go, Aaron Rogers saying, I want to get the fuck. I wonder if deep down he was like just trying to kind of stir shit to bring everybody together. I wonder if that was the thing.
Speaker 2 01:01:46 First off, Aaron Rogers is way smarter than anyone gives him credit for.
Speaker 1 01:01:50 That's what I'm saying. Like, he's a very bright guy. Very,
Speaker 2 01:01:53 Very calculated. Everything. He says
Speaker 1 01:01:55 He went to Cal, like he
Speaker 2 01:01:56 Went to Berkeley. He's a smart dude. Yeah. Um, but he, uh, dude, the funny thing about all that shit was the morning I woke up and they were like, Aaron Rogers might retire. You know, if the Packers don't start listening to him, obviously my phone blows up. All my buddies calling texting. Dude, Rogers is done. He's requesting a Trey. My buddy Teddy's a Broncos fan. He is like, he's gonna
Speaker 4 01:02:14 Come to Denver. Like, dude, he is going to the fucking Vegas Raiders.
Speaker 2 01:02:18 Like he's going back to San Fran and I can't wait. I am hoping to God we win the Super Bowl cause I've got all these messages and these receipts just screenshotted ready to be like, all you guys are fucking idiots. All he wanted was some say he obviously the Jordan Love Pick probably ticked him off. I get it.
Speaker 1 01:02:35 But it's so similar to what happened with Brett Fre and bringing him along and they're just gonna let him sit in the wings and they
Speaker 2 01:02:40 Have the guy that's, that's, that's why. Exactly. That's why, that's why whenever he got mad, I think he took a step back after it all said and done was like, I'm getting mad at a kid who was in the same shoes I was in. Because like when Roger showed up, he was like, me and Fv weren't the closest guys. He goes, I wanted to be buddies with far from, from day one. And they weren't. And then he said something that like after a couple weeks of all this bullshit, he was like, I, it's not Jordan love's fault. Like I can't be mean to this kid. Like he's just a kid trying to live his dream play quarterback in the nfl. And I think right then his mentality changed and he was like, look dude, I just need to go out here and play football now.
Speaker 2 01:03:14 There's a guy named Andrew Brant who was Packer's, uh, gm whenever they signed, uh, they traded for fav and drafted Rogers. And uh, he was like, he helped him out, you know, he was part of the team. And he goes, uh, he goes, think about this man, the Packers draft Jordan Love because Rogers had a, a decent year in 2019. They drafted Jordan or 2020 and they drafted Jordan Love. And they were like, okay, well like, you know, if you have another year or two that's decent, we'll move on. You know, you're 37, 38 years old. All it did was lot of fire under Rogers. And guess who won the Packers? Yeah. Like they're, they're in my opinion, they're gonna resign him. They're gonna franchise tack Devonte, they're gonna resign Rogers for three more years. So basically we'll have Rogers for four more years. And Jordan Love, I feel bad for him because he'll probably get dealt and go somewhere else. Cuz I think the kids got talent. He's just, Rogers is the first battle hall of famer you don't get rid of right now. And I don't think they will. Well
Speaker 1 01:04:07 It's like the Jimmy G situation with Brady. Exactly. It's the same thing. But Don come wood, something does happen to Rogers, then you have more. But then we
Speaker 2 01:04:13 Have Jay love, like that's, it's like the Andrew Brandt, like I said, I quote him again, he said something that resonates So true. And it's true with 90% of the organizations, the worst time to draft a quarterback is when you need a quarterback.
Speaker 1 01:04:25 Yeah. Well think about that. I'm a New York Giants fan. Trust me. You fucking
Speaker 2 01:04:27 Know,
Speaker 1 01:04:28 Bro.
Speaker 2 01:04:28 What the fuck are y'all gonna do?
Speaker 1 01:04:29 I don't fucking know. We have two top 10 picks. Yeah. We're about to get a new GM and a new coach. A new coach. I like judge though because I like the New York mentality of talking shit. See, I liked
Speaker 2 01:04:38 Him. I like, I like I would love Joe Judge to be the Packer s team coordinator. Yeah. He, I think, I don't, I don't think he's a head coach, man.
Speaker 1 01:04:45 Well, well, yeah, you need your special teams coordinator needs to be kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 01:04:48 Yeah. Like the hardball, which like
Speaker 1 01:04:49 Hardball. He's like the, the crazy middle linebacker from the Replacements movement. Oh, the cop that
Speaker 2 01:04:55 Sch was the, who was the fullback for West Virginia that busted
Speaker 1 01:04:57 His Oh, in Schmidt. Yeah. Did you guys ever play at Schmitz? Was it Morgantown, West Virginia? He owned a, we
Speaker 2 01:05:01 Never played Morgantown.
Speaker 1 01:05:02 He owned a club in Morgantown that had since closed. I was actually talking with Rob and uh, Rob and Kurt about when Luke went through there and played.
Speaker 2 01:05:09 Yeah. We never played Morgantown. We never played Morgantown. Morgantown is a badass college town
Speaker 1 01:05:13 That, that crazy motherfucker owned a club that booked Nashville Acts. Dude,
Speaker 2 01:05:17 I remember, I remember watching like the, like he was playing it was West Virginia versus like Virginia Tech or something. Yeah. And he bust his face open to the point where he couldn't even play the game. Yeah. Like they had to take him and stitch him up and he had like a bandage over like his whole
Speaker 1 01:05:30 Fuck. Yeah. Back in those gold rush jerseys with Steve Slaton dude,
Speaker 2 01:05:33 Pat White, pat No Devine. Pat McAfee was on that team.
Speaker 1 01:05:36 Yep. Yeah, they were, they were good. And I'm a, I'm a big, I grew up a big Virginia Tech fan. We've struggled since Frank Beamer left and obviously we're an SCC country Beamer Ball baby. How's it been with all the Georgia fans? Oh, saying shit to you.
Speaker 2 01:05:47 I, I honestly, dude, it's been way more cordial than I thought it would. I thought these motherfuckers would explode
Speaker 1 01:05:53 Matt McKinney. Oh
Speaker 2 01:05:54 Fuck yeah, dude. I mean, who's,
Speaker 1 01:05:55 Who's, who's the, who's the, who is the Georgia fan that talks the most? Shit Matt
Speaker 2 01:05:58 McKinney. No doubt.
Speaker 1 01:05:59 That's who I agree
Speaker 2 01:06:00 Is so, so lemme lemme tell you this. Like my buddy Ray Fulcher, Jordan Rowe, Cole Taylor, Jordan Reger, Langston Denning, all those guys that are Georgia fans. Good for them, bro. Yeah.
Speaker 1 01:06:10 I texted him. Hey, congrats man. They're like, thanks man. Like, love this
Speaker 2 01:06:13 To McKinney. Fuck him, dude. I, Matt McKinney's, Georgia football takes, or Georgia sports takes in general are just exhausting.
Speaker 1 01:06:21 The hawks the blame.
Speaker 2 01:06:22 He, he makes me hate everything. Geor like, bro, I'll say this dude, fuck dude, I'm about to get fired up. I'll say this. Listen, when I moved here in 2012, I had no nothing wrong. I had no opinion on Georgia sports, the Braves, the Hawks, the fucking Georgia, Texas. I didn't give a fuck. I didn't care. You're
Speaker 1 01:06:41 A Texas guy. Why the fuck would
Speaker 2 01:06:42 You, why the fuck would I care? Yeah, dude, I moved here and over the last 10 years I have developed a deep like guttural fucking pain for all things Georgia. Like, I just fucking hate 'em. I like, and, and I, and it was like, it, it's, it was a slow build and slow burn because those guys now, they just won the NA championship. Congrats.
Speaker 1 01:07:01 And they won a World series
Speaker 2 01:07:02 And they won a World Series. Fuck. I don't
Speaker 1 01:07:04 Think they, they ain't getting a Superbowl anyway. I'm seeing that some good
Speaker 2 01:07:07 28 to three was great, but like, they just talk as if they had, they were the best team in the country for the last decade. Like that's just how their mentality And like Matt McKinney, dude Matt fucking McKinney, that fucking guy. Dude, I don't even want to get into it. He's such a piece of shit.
Speaker 1 01:07:22 Such shit. Love him. Great writer, love him. Good,
Speaker 2 01:07:25 Good buddy. Piece of shit human.
Speaker 1 01:07:27 And it comes to sports. Fucking idiot
Speaker 2 01:07:29 Talking. Lemme tell, lemme tell you my favorite McKinney story
Speaker 1 01:07:31 Dude. How, how, oh, how'd you meet? What was the first time you met him? Did you meet him after, after he signed
Speaker 2 01:07:36 No, no, no, no. It was right before he signed. This was actually hilarious. It has to do with Trey actually. Um, I was, when did Dick Down come out? I was like right around Christmas buddy.
Speaker 1 01:07:45 December 1st.
Speaker 2 01:07:45 Yeah. Okay. December 1st, 2020.
Speaker 1 01:07:48 2020. Yeah.
Speaker 2 01:07:49 Okay. So yeah, dude, that'd been about right. It was, that was right before Christmas break for us, which is mid-December. I got a call from my publisher over at Sony and I won't say who it was, but the person goes, yo, did you write Dick down in Dallas? And I go, no man, I didn't. They're like, okay, we just wanna make sure like it wasn't you under a pseudonym cuz it sounds like a Jordan Walker song. <laugh>. And I was like, I'll take that as a compliment. Thanks man. And I was like, why are you asking? They're like, well, we're just trying to figure out who wrote it. Make sure there's nobody using pseudonyms that are on our roster. And I was like, no, I don't. I was like, I don't know anybody that wrote it. I was like, I don't even know this Trey guy, you know?
Speaker 2 01:08:29 I was like, maybe he wrote it, call him. So I guess I got a hold of Trey. Trey was like, no, didn't write it. Here's the writers. So Sony team meets McKinney, I guess they're talking to about signing him and uh, my first ride with him, he drives <laugh>, he drives out to my house. Um, him and Joe Hutzel who plays guitar for Swindell. Yep. Um, they come out to my house, we set up in the man cave room. We write a song called, here Goes Nothing. Colby Cooper Cuts that song. So it was awesome. We wrote this song, Matt and I wrote it the next week. We're writing with Colby. I play Colby's song and he goes, I wanna record that. And he had just signed a record deal, so we were like, fuck yeah. He just cut it and we, I just heard the cut.
Speaker 2 01:09:06 It's great. They crushed it. Well, the best part of this whole McKinney story was like a couple weeks later, I'm riding with him and Jacob Davis over, over at the fire hall at Sony. And um, we show up, we get a cup of coffee, we sit down about 11 o'clock and Matt goes, Hey dude, um, I gotta bounce at like two 30. And we're like, okay, cool. Yeah. Like, and me just making conversation. I was like, why do you gotta leave? Like, what, what do you got going on? And he was like, I'm going to Martin to watch the uh, Tre Lewis
Speaker 1 01:09:37 Show. Oh no.
Speaker 2 01:09:39 So listen, listen. No, no, it's, it's better than you even fucking think. Cause I know what you're thinking. But listen, he goes, we're going to Martin to watch the, I'm going to Martin to watch Tre Lewis show. And I go, oh. I was like getting Martin like just a few hours away. A couple hours away. And he was like, yeah. And I was like, what time does he go on? He was like, not till like 10. And I was like, why do you have to leave at two 30? And he goes, I'm, I'm riding in, I'm gonna ride in the van, I think. And I was like, oh, okay, so you're gonna ride over with the band? He's like, yeah, either that or um, the Ray rowdy crew there going. And I was like, okay, cool. I was like, do you, cuz at this point I'd known him for a few weeks and he had been to probably five or six shows at this point. And I get it, it was a big song. He wanted to go watch it get performed, it's, there's no better feeling. And I go, do you go to all the shows? And dude, I I, I'm not even joking with you. When he looked at me dead my eye, he said this. He goes, yeah man, I kind of gotta go to all the shows. I sing harmonies on two songs. Oh my God, dude. Oh boy. <laugh>. And I almost fell out my fucking
Speaker 1 01:10:38 Why he gotta love you music man.
Speaker 2 01:10:40 Dude, I almost fell outta my fucking chair. He goes, yeah, I kind of, I kind of got to, you know, like basically like I'm in the band kind of. He was like, I, you know, I fucking, I sing harmonies on two songs. Well I give him shit the whole day, bro. Like, oh dude, don't forget, don't forget you gotta sing harmonies two songs. Like we got, you know, we gotta get outta here. Well then that night I'm at home sitting at home with my wife and I get a FaceTime and it's McKinney and it's 10 o'clock at night and I open the FaceTime and he's bleeding and he's busted lip and his wrist is swole up. And I go, what the fuck happened? He goes, I
Speaker 1 01:11:16 Fell
Speaker 3 01:11:16 Off the stage <laugh>. I go, what? He goes, they moved the fucking like steps and I fell off the stage dude.
Speaker 2 01:11:24 And just like that moment I remember being like, man, I want to hate this guy cuz he is from Georgia but this guy is just, he's just, he's pure comedy. Yeah. I gotta keep him around. Yeah. I mean he's six fucking 12. He's just a big, he looks like Lurch. Yeah. Like he's just a fucking piece of shit. I love him to death. But that day he was like, I kind of gotta go dude. I sing harmonies on two songs. I wanted to be like, you're a fucking Chode
Speaker 1 01:11:47 Bro. He filled up three solo cups of blood.
Speaker 2 01:11:50 Yeah dude. He kept spitting, he spit
Speaker 1 01:11:51 A hole through his tongue. Oh my God. And that was before the show. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So people thought it was part of the show that he saw. Yeah.
Speaker 2 01:11:56 Lost like Matt said,
Speaker 1 01:11:57 <laugh>, the crowd went nuts. Matt
Speaker 2 01:11:59 Said he went to walk across stage and they turned the lights down.
Speaker 1 01:12:02 Yeah. Cuz the show was about to start. He
Speaker 3 01:12:03 Fucking
Speaker 2 01:12:04 Knows do dude.
Speaker 1 01:12:06 Yeah. And it wasn't like a bike rack, it was like a, like a renaissance like wooden berry can thing. It was imperfect.
Speaker 2 01:12:11 Didn't like break his wrist or something.
Speaker 1 01:12:13 Wrist rib. Put hole his tongue.
Speaker 2 01:12:16 Dude, he FaceTimed me his arm. I still got that picture saved. He had his fucking, obviously it was in the height of Covid. Yeah. He had his red bandana on. Dude. He was, he looked like fucking John Dutton. It
Speaker 1 01:12:25 Was wild. He got up on stage and chugged the beer he got on a knee and chugged the beer without outside.
Speaker 2 01:12:30 Did it come out? Like threw the hole in his tongue,
Speaker 1 01:12:31 Bro? It was, yeah. It was feeling a little, but, and he's still sang his harmonies on his two songs.
Speaker 2 01:12:36 <laugh>.
Speaker 1 01:12:36 He was fucked up. But he still got, he was up there with his arm like this dude,
Speaker 2 01:12:40 He's he that day I remember. And the great thing about that whole day was that day, me, him and Jacob wrote a song that Jordan Davis ended up. Yeah. Yeah. We ended up so like it was a good day. It was a good day. So like, man Matt's he's a good dude man. He's, he is a good songwriter. He is a good, I can call him a kid cuz he is younger than me, but he's funny man. He fucking makes me laugh. Yeah.
Speaker 1 01:12:57 Well, yeah. What's it, what's it kind of been like now being one of the, I mean, you talk about guys like Tony Lane, like oh geez. Yeah. But you've been in town for a minute now. You've, you're on, you're on like you've done a few pub deals, like you're writing with the next kind of seeing this younger crap come up. Yeah. What's what's that like now being the older guy in the room?
Speaker 2 01:13:14 Yeah, dude, thanks for calling me old. That's sick. Um, the,
Speaker 1 01:13:16 The better the crafty veteran in the room.
Speaker 2 01:13:19 No, um, man, it's cool dude. Like I said earlier, this town's been really good to me. Uh, I'm on my, I guess it would be considered third pub deal when really it's my second. Um, but I was at Combustion for, you know, five years. Um, been at Sony for coming up on three, um, two and a half. Um, man, it's, it's good dude. I just, I just love writing songs, you know what I mean? Like, and I love seeing, like we were talking about like the cliques, like the, every four or five years there's a new
Speaker 1 01:13:46 The high school class.
Speaker 2 01:13:47 Yep. Yeah. Basic class of classic. Classic. Yeah. So like, that's what's crazy to think about is like there are these new kids coming to town that when I moved to town, bro, they were in fucking fourth, fifth grade. Like this was 10 years ago and these guys are 22 years old now.
Speaker 1 01:13:59 There's, there's, there's a young crop of under 25 year old for sure right now that I see I, that's what I love about doing the rounds. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I'm getting these
Speaker 2 01:14:06 That's awesome right now, like your round, I know I give you a lot of shit about it, but your round's awesome man. Oh
Speaker 1 01:14:10 Dude, I I love that you give me, give me shit. Cause I have, I have buddies like that too. Like I'm a ballbuster, you know, it make,
Speaker 2 01:14:16 My favorite thing to tell to you is to get off the fucking stage. Yeah. Because that, that, what was the, what was the show when it got rained out? So that,
Speaker 1 01:14:22 So that moment by the way, the one that you person you were thinking of. So I was standing on the side of the stage by DJ Silver. I didn't go out on the catwalk. That was our content guy, Trey Bonner. Oh. Out on the, and that's our content guy. Follow with the camera and then Trey and then Trey Lewis of course fucking Falls in perfect. Trey Lewis fashion
Speaker 2 01:14:36 Wasn't, it wasn't, okay, so hold
Speaker 1 01:14:37 On. All all I was um, rock the South.
Speaker 2 01:14:40 Yeah. And it y'all set got rained out,
Speaker 1 01:14:42 Got rained out and DJ Soer was like, fuck that, fuck
Speaker 2 01:14:44 That we're, you're gonna come out and sing Dick down,
Speaker 1 01:14:45 Come out and play. Like, and Trey had his pink shirt on and went out and played it and ate shit right before Miranda Lambert went on. Yeah.
Speaker 2 01:14:53 Yeah. So that was whenever I saw Bonner on stage and I thought it was you.
Speaker 1 01:14:56 Yeah. And you commented
Speaker 2 01:14:57 Christ. And I said, God, I said Christ for real. And
Speaker 1 01:14:59 It's off a thing now on the real
Speaker 2 01:15:01 Get off the fucking stage for real.
Speaker 1 01:15:02 Everybody says it now. And it's like, now I'm to the point because I'm starting to learn more about this TM thing. Like I'm starting to do more than I still, still get mine, the merch table and do all, do all that stuff. But like learning like, oh shit, if this isn't working, like I'm starting to pick up. Yeah. Yeah. So now like
Speaker 2 01:15:17 Now you have to get on stage but
Speaker 1 01:15:18 Trail still look at me like get off off the fucking stage man for, it'll be like in between a song, he'll look at me like, what the fuck are you doing?
Speaker 2 01:15:24 It's like, that's my favorite thing. Like he'll Trey will just randomly text me like once a week and he'll just say, Christ bro, I'll get off the fucking stage. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's the best dude. Like it's my favorite thing. Like, and then on your round the other day we were playing it and I walked in, of course as I walk in you're on the fucking stage. Yeah. And you're like, Hey, y'all walked me in the round, blah blah Delta eight. Yeah. Fucking idiot. And you're saying what you say. And then I walked up to him the first thing I said, I go, Brill, if you get on the fucking stage again, I'm gonna punch you in the face. <laugh>. And Trey just died laughing. It was so good. It's just like an inside joke at this point. Yeah. Because my old uh, tour, our old tour manager, Scott Buchanan, he was great man. But he was like, he would, he would sit side stage and he never, he didn't like the, not saying you do, but he didn't like the spotlight. So I'd always be like, Hey Scott, come out here. And so it was like a running joke that he wouldn't get on the stage. Yeah. And this motherfucker, he just wants to be on stage. Dude, look at him. Just a piece of shit. Just
Speaker 1 01:16:12 Jersey boy. Yeah. Like we played, uh, we played that scoreboard New Year's show. And for that one we had, uh, that was just a, a shit show. Fun, fun kind of night. And I was up there filling Terry's uh, filling Terry's fucking solo cup up with Fireball. We usually put him on a two drink max before the show. Yeah. Um, but I was just feeding Terry Fireball that night.
Speaker 2 01:16:31 I remember that night. I remember the night the first time I saw a, a
Speaker 1 01:16:33 Trade show. Lebanon Cahoots.
Speaker 2 01:16:34 Yeah. Cahoots dude.
Speaker 1 01:16:35 Not Yeah. Nice and close. Close to Mount Julie's.
Speaker 2 01:16:37 Yeah dude. It was like, it was like a 10 minute drive from here on eight.
Speaker 1 01:16:40 I want to go back, I wants to go back there. Cause that room,
Speaker 2 01:16:41 That club's awesome. That room
Speaker 1 01:16:42 Was rowdy.
Speaker 2 01:16:43 Yeah. That, that room was awesome. And that's when I kept telling you, by the way, where the fuck's my hoodie.
Speaker 1 01:16:47 Yeah. And now we like
Speaker 2 01:16:48 God like still
Speaker 1 01:16:49 One. No, you still don't have one.
Speaker 2 01:16:51 Trey text me like two weeks ago and was like, what size hoodie? And then I saw Trey at the fucking fucking round and he didn't bring it. Yeah. And I wrote with Trey the other day and he didn't bring it.
Speaker 1 01:16:58 I would've known I would've fucking had him. I wouldn't Here
Speaker 2 01:16:59 You guys are, you guys are fucking worthless man. Well
Speaker 1 01:17:01 It's cuz half our shit's in Alabama. Yeah.
Speaker 2 01:17:03 Why we're
Speaker 1 01:17:04 We're, we're a split crew. Cuz that's just where the shit is, is
Speaker 2 01:17:06 Where we're So hold on, we got
Speaker 1 01:17:07 Our drummer up here now. How
Speaker 2 01:17:08 Many guys do you have on the road?
Speaker 1 01:17:11 Uh, we have like nine. God damn. Yeah. We have a, we have a lighting, we have a
Speaker 2 01:17:15 I know the lighting guy. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so hold on. How many live here?
Speaker 1 01:17:19 Um, everybody but Terry and seven.
Speaker 2 01:17:22 Okay. So, but Terry's got like a family, right?
Speaker 1 01:17:24 Terry's got a family but he's a music man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He goes out does
Speaker 2 01:17:27 It? No. Terry wrote whole lot of nothing. Right? Yes. So that's, that was really cool. I remember when I met Trey, obviously the first time you meet Trey you're like, yo, Dick Dun Dallas's. Hell yeah. I remember whenever I heard Dick down, me being a songwriter, I was like, I wanna hear what this guy's got besides this fucking song. You know? So I listened to a whole lot of nothing and I loved that song. I was like, this sounds like my hometown. That's what I told him that night at Cahoots. I was like, Hey man, I just wanna let you know I'm here to watch the show, but like, I'm not just here like these fucking kids just for Dick down. Like I wanna hear your shit. And I was like, I love Hole Out Nothing. And he was like, oh, rode with that guy and Terry's over here just
Speaker 1 01:17:57 Like, yeah. That was before the two drink Max was like Yeah, they they they they got so
Speaker 2 01:18:02 What is it Two drinks max pre-show
Speaker 1 01:18:04 Pre-show. Yeah. Yeah. But it's funny too because Trey's sober and he has the moment in the show where he talks about his sobriety and all that. Yeah. We got a, we got a handle of Fireball in a case of Miller of Light on the rider and it gets used. I mean we've stopped piled so much. I don't drink either. Yeah. But the,
Speaker 2 01:18:18 That was our thing too, man. It is like whenever you learned, you learned
Speaker 1 01:18:21 That What was on the Walker? McGuire Rider. Oh fuck. What were you guys
Speaker 2 01:18:24 Drinking? I mean it was mostly like, we, we didn't, we don't do Fireball Fireballs. We were like, we're like, we usually did a bottle of Jack, a bottle of Titos, some mixers, whether it just be soda, red club, soda Red, red, yeah. Uh, LaCroix's, whatever. And then like we did like a meat and cheese tray and then obviously like dinner. Like it was just that easy. Um, but like the thing that's awesome about like as you grow and as Trey gets more songs out there, like the single again thing coming out, dude, I guess
Speaker 1 01:18:51 Dude, I'm ready for when it come. I'm ready for fucking Hate this Town. Oh okay. I like that song a lot. Are
Speaker 2 01:18:55 Y'all playing it out yet?
Speaker 1 01:18:56 Um, I think all the dude shit's gonna start getting worked in cuz he's
Speaker 2 01:19:00 Got coming. He sent me the mix to hate this town.
Speaker 1 01:19:02 Sounds
Speaker 2 01:19:02 Great. That fucking sounds so good, man. They crushed it. Um, that was actually a really funny story. We were talking in the right that day about like our hometowns and I was like, you know, my hometown's not near the size of Birmingham. I was like, but just depending on how you, how you process and depict your hometown. Like you could be from fucking New York City and still think, man, I fucking like I I stay in the same six square blocks. Fuck this place. You know what I mean? Yeah. It doesn't matter where like, it's not about the size of the town. Um, we started talking about it and we just hit it off talking about that and I was like, man, I had this thing called, I hate this town, but like, how do we make it like not sound So like fuck this town. And uh, Trey was like, well dude, I actually love going back home now sometimes. And like seeing family, seeing friends, going back to the bars we used to play. I was like, what if we just spin it like, hey, can't believe I used to hate this town man. And we wrote the shit. It's one of my favorite songs I wrote last year. And uh, they cut the hell out of it. Sony just flipped out about it was calling us. We played it till night at your thing.
Speaker 1 01:19:56 Yeah. The harm. That was what was cool too. Hearing you guys Yeah.
Speaker 2 01:19:58 Hearing you guys. So I cut the harmony on the demo. I didn't, I think Maxwell's saying the harmony on the record, but it's it's fucking good man. It's uh, they sh y'all shot the video for it. Like he shot video for it down in Birmingham.
Speaker 1 01:20:07 Yeah. Yeah. He shot, shot some content for it and it's That's awesome. It's, it's really, it's cool to see like all this stuff that's coming. Cause I met Trey playing kickball shit. That's how I met Trey, Matt, McKinney, Maxwell, that whole crew I met, I'd gone home. We, I was out with Gary and Charlie.
Speaker 2 01:20:21 Just like a Nashville Sports League or something. No,
Speaker 1 01:20:23 It was, so I had Dawson Edwards and Steven Paul each on the podcast and they were part of that crew that, that no hits crew. And Dawson was like, Hey man, I know you're from New York. You probably don't like nascar, but if you wanna come over and watch some nascar, we drink beers and watch
Speaker 2 01:20:35 Dude Dawson is the NASCAR guy
Speaker 1 01:20:37 Here on Sundays. We drink beer and eat pizza and watch nascar. And I'm like, hey, I'd love to do that. So I picked up some bush light non alcoholics and there you go. Came over and I was over at nascar, so, and Maxwell was like, Hey man, you should come play kickball. And that's how I met Trey. McKenzie. Yeah. That's how I met that whole crew.
Speaker 2 01:20:51 That's a good crew, man. And like, like we were talking about, like the, the clique thing, the niche thing, like finding your guys, um, that's a good core of dudes.
Speaker 1 01:20:58 And they're, and a lot of 'em are in that Sony family now. Yeah. Which is what's really cool. Sonny's like, they scoop that crew
Speaker 2 01:21:03 Up. Yeah. Man sign. Kind of seeing, like, like I said, I was over at Combustion and I was gonna sign it, this music, which Rusty Gaston ran. Yeah. And then he took over Sony and he brought me over to Sony and like seeing kind of how he's shaping the roster, because I mean, we all know it. In the last two years there was like a TikTok boom. Yes. And like, they wanted to sign TikTok writers, TikTok artists, TikTok. And now these guys that are, are slowly, they had their 15 minutes and they're getting dropped. And publishing companies all around town are signing real artists. Real songwriter. Yeah. Real songs are back dude. And it's great. Um, so seeing how they kind of, they've been signing, you know, like even like Ella and
Speaker 1 01:21:41 Ella enjoy Ella and enjoy Beth together. Dude, that is a, they're great bad. And they're, they're 22, 23.
Speaker 2 01:21:47 Yeah. That's like, it's like, man, that's just what this town's about, dude. It comes in waves. Like you find something young and green, you help polish it. Help
Speaker 1 01:21:54 Who's, who's somebody on the younger side you're really excited about that. You've been wonder coming
Speaker 2 01:21:58 A little bit
Speaker 1 01:21:58 Or whatever coming
Speaker 2 01:21:59 Up. Obviously Colby, Colby, Colby just signed a record deal. He is gonna have a single coming out this year. Colby's probably my number one just because of how much
Speaker 1 01:22:05 Anybody here in Nashville that's like,
Speaker 2 01:22:07 Uh, Connor Smith, man. Yeah. That kid's, that kid's really good. I've only written with him once. We wrote a song called Boots and The Bleachers with Ben Hayslip. I feel like that kid's a star. I mean, yeah, Ella, like, Ella's a fucking stud. Um, you just, I mean, Noah Hicks, he cracks me up, but he,
Speaker 1 01:22:22 He's a funny little motherfucker.
Speaker 2 01:22:23 He's got so much energy, man. Like to me, that kid, that kid, I would love to go watch his live show. I just feel like it's a ball of fucking fire.
Speaker 1 01:22:30 Yeah. First time I saw him was in his hometown at Carrollton. It was two months before he moved here.
Speaker 2 01:22:34 I'm Carrollton Jordan. Yep. Carrollton. Jordan Goog.
Speaker 1 01:22:37 Two months before he moved up here. He was, he was the first of three. It was him acoustic, then Drew Parker, and then Muscatine, the Little Town Square Hampton.
Speaker 2 01:22:44 That's another one. Dude. Drew Parker. I've, I've, I've got a song that he cut of mine. Uh, I've known Drew since he moved to town. Like, I think I met him like the week he moved to town.
Speaker 1 01:22:51 Yeah. One of the nicest good old boys you'll meet. Fucking
Speaker 2 01:22:54 Awesome kid, great singer, great writer. Um, about to have his third number one. Yeah. Um, he's freaking awesome. Um, in that same vein, Ray Fulcher, I mean Ray's been in town a while, but
Speaker 1 01:23:04 He's got a record deal now. He's getting his shot.
Speaker 2 01:23:05 Yeah, he's doing the artist thing. Um, obviously for people that don't know, Ray's got four number ones on Luke, like he's just crushing it. He was in my wedding. He's one of best friends.
Speaker 1 01:23:12 Yeah. And he puts on a good live show. Yeah. Fun. He
Speaker 2 01:23:14 Was the first, he was the first of three on that dude. I went down and saw him in New Orleans and then we had an off day and then we went to Dallas and uh, Ray did a great job, man. His band's killer. They run awesome tracks. They good crew guy's got a good front of house guy named Joe who's from, uh, Memphis. Good kid that's just kind of thrown into the fire of arena shows, but crushes
Speaker 1 01:23:32 It. Do you miss the touring thing as an artist at all? Or do you get to do it enough now where you have friends that are doing it's you get your fix?
Speaker 2 01:23:37 Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna say, man. Like, I thought, just like anything, dude, it's like whenever you do something every day, there are gonna be, if you and you walk away from it, there are gonna be days like it's rec, like I guess retiring would be the word, but like, it's like a pro athlete retiring, like far said it this week on XM Radio. He was like, I don't really miss football, like miss playing football until the playoffs. And then I'm like, damn, that's kinda like me. I don't really miss playing shows until like festival season. And then I'm like, damn dude,
Speaker 1 01:24:07 It'd be really cool to be at Tortuga. It'd be really cool to be,
Speaker 2 01:24:10 I'm water. It'd be bad stage coats, like watershed. Like I got to play all those like leg shake, like, like, uh, C Wendy
Speaker 1 01:24:15 City, Wendy City, smoke. Yeah, exactly. All those
Speaker 2 01:24:17 Things. Exactly. Um, but I'll say this, man, I had a pretty big moment of clarity right before Covid hit, like in February of 2020, I went out on a bus run with Jacob Davis, with Jordan Davis. And, uh, his brother Jacob was there and Josh Jenkins was there. And we went out to write songs and we were in Minneapolis and then back-to-back nights in Madison. No, Madison. Back-to-back nights in Minneapolis. And I remember driving to bus call at a Home Depot out in like Donaldson. I remember getting on the bus, having my bag, my guitar, and just like the energy of like getting on the bus. And I was like, this is fucking sick dude. Damn, I missed this. You know what I mean? Getting on the bus, we leave that night, we're drinking whiskey, get in the bunk, sleep, wake up, you're in Minneapolis or Madison, where we were.
Speaker 2 01:25:07 And it was sick. Played the Madison show, wrote a song the next day, driving to Min, driving to Minneapolis, wrote a song the day after in Minneapolis, played two shows. Jordan played two shows back to back. We get back on the road and we head home. And um, I remember getting home, stepping off the bus and seeing all the guys go back to the trailer and start grabbing gear and loading it and unloading it and putting stuff. And I remember looking back and going, I don't miss that dude. You know, like the whole, the adrenaline of getting on the bus, Hey, wheels up here we go. Are we a bus? Let's hit the road. Awesome. The rest, like, that's what people don't realize is like for 90 minutes a night when you're on the road, you're a god. Like you're on stage, you're living your dream.
Speaker 2 01:25:55 Dude. There are 22 and a half hours of that day that are either dragging on or just full of bullshit or the bus is breaking down or the fucking snare mic won't work. Or Oh, my fucking guitar pickup. Oh, I broke a string. Yeah. Oh, this tube just went on, on this amp. Oh shit. Well they didn't give us our buyout yet, so we can't go get dinner like that bullshit made me just wore me the fuck out, dude. Yeah. And I just kind of like, and, and Jordan said it best. I'll say what Jordan told me. He said, Nashville is built around two kind of people. There are the people that just wanna wake up every day and write songs, drink their coffee, go home, kiss their wife, go to bed. That's me, bro. He goes, and then there are guys like me, like Jordan Davis who love being on the
Speaker 1 01:26:38 Road, dude. Yeah. That's who
Speaker 2 01:26:39 Love the shows,
Speaker 1 01:26:40 Dude. That's where I'm at at 26.
Speaker 2 01:26:41 See that's what I'm saying. Like, that's what I
Speaker 1 01:26:43 Want to do
Speaker 2 01:26:43 Deal with. And that's where I was at 26. Yeah. But now I'm 32, man. And I've been, like I said, I've been married for, for, uh, almost three years coming up on three years and like, just, no, I guess it's already been three years. Don't tell any of this <laugh>. Um, three and a half, three and
Speaker 1 01:26:57 A half years. And, and having and having the little one at home and all
Speaker 2 01:27:00 That. Yeah. Man, it's just like, like, like if I go out, let's say this, like I went to the Ray and Luke, the Luke show that Ray was on, and Asher McBride, if I do one bus run a quarter, I'm good, bro. I get my fix. You know what I mean? I get my hit. I'm, I'm back home for three months. Yeah. Um, I just, I just, I got beat up doing, you know, bus call Thursday morning, get home Sunday morning, do radio Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, go meet, like be in LA doing radio Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then fly to Boise and meet the bus on Thursday. Play Boise Mountain home, Idaho Grand Junction and Kansas City. Come home, do laundry. And like, okay, now we're gonna go to Jersey <laugh>. Now we're gonna go to New York City. Like that just, it just wore me out, dude. And I, and I, I loved it. I don't regret a minute of it. I got to see the country. I got to see overseas. Like we played shows in London. Like we played shows in Germany. Yeah,
Speaker 1 01:27:50 You just the C to C thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 01:27:51 It was fucking sick. But, um, and I'm glad I got to do it. It's, it's a notch in the belt. It's something I'm, I'm proud to say I did. We had a lot of fun. We, we had a lot of success. Um, but dude, the fact that I could show up here today, drink a cup of coffee bullshit with you guys, and I get to go home after this. I don't have a photo shoot, bro. I don't have to go see my stylist. Don't
Speaker 1 01:28:14 Talk my publicist. You, you don't have a label meeting, don't
Speaker 2 01:28:17 Have, have a fucking label
Speaker 1 01:28:17 Meeting. You don't have any of that stuff. Like you're able to do it. What song do you miss singing the most? What was one of your favorite ones to sing? Cause I, cause I, I enjoy, I enjoyed y'all set.
Speaker 2 01:28:25 Yeah, man. I appreciate it. Uh, shit.
Speaker 1 01:28:27 And the streaming numbers are still high, bro. Dude, that's what's,
Speaker 2 01:28:30 My mom texted me last week. We still have 300,000 monthly listeners.
Speaker 1 01:28:33 Yeah. You guys pop up. It's funny. I I Cause I see all Treys Spotify for artists and like, I, I do some day-to-day stuff with 'em in addition the TM thing. So it's like, I look at all that and it's like the, the similar artists. It's like you pop up on there, Colby pops up on there. Yeah. Like it's seeing all that stuff.
Speaker 2 01:28:47 That's awesome, dude. Yeah, I think we still have like around 300,000 dude. I mean, we still stream. Well like, I mean, I think, I think on Spotify we've got a hundred million streams between our songs, which is just fucking nuts. Um, man, the song I miss performing the most. That is a great question. I think Best kind of bad.
Speaker 1 01:29:01 Yeah, that was a fun one.
Speaker 2 01:29:02 That was always the show closer. Yeah. Um, and, and that was from the original Walker McGuire days. Whenever we were on Big D and Bubba, um, we played that one acoustically on a syndicated radio show and it just popped and then we went and recorded it. Um, we wrote that one with our buddy Brian Harper. Um, and that was like the first time that we did like the call and answer like, it's kinda bad Wrong kinda Right? Me and Johnny back and forth. And, um, I think that one man, I think that one was the, it was the most fun just because it was like the show closer. People were fucking nuts. I got to throw water on people,
Speaker 1 01:29:31 I guess. Yeah. What was the, was it a tequila song or a Mexico song back in the
Speaker 2 01:29:34 Day? Yeah. Oh, what's her name? Dude? Yes.
Speaker 1 01:29:35 Oh, what's her name? That was a, I remember that one in Jersey. That one was well received on the beach.
Speaker 2 01:29:40 Yeah, that was really funny there. But I mean, like, we, uh, we, uh, we shot a music video for that on in Key West. Um, we were down there in January of 2014, right before I met my now wife. And we had this song called, oh, what's her name? We're like, dude, we're gonna be at the beach. We're gonna be drinking. Let's just find random girls, dance with 'em and then we'll put 'em in the video. And now there's all these random girls that are Walker McGuire fans that are in this video, you know? So that was a good one. That was, uh, that was me, Johnny Brian Harper and Trey Matthews wrote that song. Couple, couple old school cats that are in town. That was fun, man. That was, that was the early days. And those days are awesome, dude. Like when I look back and I listen to some of the stuff I wrote between 2012 and 20, shit I gave even last year. Like, you look back and like, these songs are like your babies, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like, they're like, I'm gonna cut 'em, record 'em, and put 'em out in the world. And hopefully they do good. Yeah. Uh, oh, what's her name? What's the fun one?
Speaker 1 01:30:29 Now? A hot take real quick. Oh, okay. God. For, for you with your, with your, uh, with, you were talking about like stuff and like songwriting in town and whatnot and something you've, like, we've seen with like Instagram. Yeah. You put something up about a month ago or a couple weeks ago mm-hmm. <affirmative> is, I mean, it's it with country music, there is a, there aren't a lot of like, sonic similarities. Yeah. But do you, do you feel like now just as time's gone on or like there's, there is a lot of that? Or has there always been a lot of that? It's been similar sounds, and
Speaker 2 01:30:59 I'll say this there, there's no way, like with it being 2022 and music being created so long ago and being recorded so long ago by so many different artists and so many different genres, there's no way to be a hundred percent original. There's no way. You know what I mean? Like, you're going to stumble upon ideas that have been written, written, you're gonna stumble upon melodies that have been written guitar parts that have been written and played and recorded. But to go the other way, when I'm in a writer's room and I'll, and I'll, I think I speak for 99, maybe 95% of Nashville Music Group, maybe 92%. Hell it might be in the eighties. Who fucking knows <laugh>. Um, whenever you're in a room, dude, and you start singing apart, I did it yesterday. You go, I shit, are we on, are we on that? Do you remember that song, that Allen Jackson song that Jamie o's
Speaker 1 01:31:49 And then you're looking up titles and,
Speaker 2 01:31:50 And you're looking up titles. You listen to it on Spotify and you're like, Hey, we're kind of on this. I did it yesterday. I was writing with Adam James and uh, Joe Clemons, and we go to hit the chorus melody. And as I sing it, I go, I've heard that before. What is that? And I stop and I think about it and I do it again. And I go, oh, I can't write that melody. I wrote that melody with Colby Cooper last year. Like, it's natural for me to sing it cuz I, I wrote it. So for people to, for people to just blatantly, in my opinion, steal because like, at a certain point, man, what we're doing as songwriters is we're, we're paid to be creative. If you start stealing our creativity, our product, it becomes worthless. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, it would be, it, I mean, it's just like anything else. It would be like somebody getting the recipe from Mountain Dew slapping a new label on it and selling it for 50 cents cheaper. Mountain Dew would be like, what the fuck? What are we doing here? Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, there's just a certain point where you can't, if if creativity is all someone has like me, like a songwriter, that's, that's my job is to be this.
Speaker 1 01:32:54 Yeah.
Speaker 2 01:32:55 If somebody can steal that and put it, put their name and face on it, then what I'm doing just becomes worthless. It becomes recycled. And it just, it it drains this business. Like they said back in the nineties, there were over 2,500 published writers in Nashville. Dude, there's, I don't even think there's 400 now just because it's so hard to be original. You know what I mean? Yeah. If you find people that can be original, you invest in them. But back in the day, whenever, first off records were selling, you could sign more people and let the, let 10 guys kind of write the same thoughts and styles and da da da da and just pick the best song. Nowadays it's like, well I already have a guy that does that. I already have a guy that does that.
Speaker 1 01:33:34 I've already got a track guy. I've got this guy. Exactly.
Speaker 2 01:33:37 I've already got McKinney who's just a piece of shit. You know what I mean? Like, I don't need another McKinney. You know, so
Speaker 1 01:33:41 All those words,
Speaker 2 01:33:42 Man. I know, man. I think there's, I think there's a lot. Yeah. That motherfucker loves words, dude. He puts more words in his songs than fucking
Speaker 1 01:33:47 You have a country bullet call God,
Speaker 2 01:33:49 Dude. Like no. What's the, uh,
Speaker 1 01:33:50 What's I love, I love the songs though. Like, they're cool songs.
Speaker 2 01:33:52 Okay, hold on. So on that, um, on the, what is it, uh, whatever happened, that one he wrote that one, right? Trey cut it. The second verse when he is like, pcb, but, but D I'm like, why did you do that? You didn't do that anywhere else on the song and all of a sudden you just went Eminem for a bar in the second verse. Like, McKinney's a fucking clown dude. Um, anyway, I just had to say that. Um, I don't know. McKinney cracks me up. Um, but yeah, dude, there's just, there's certain, there's certain things in, I mean,
Speaker 1 01:34:22 It was, it was going on. Like when, when that timeframe, you talk about when you first moved to when you like that 20 12, 20 13, 20 14. I remember there was that famous YouTube video.
Speaker 2 01:34:31 Oh. And the guy like mashed em all up.
Speaker 1 01:34:33 He took like, it was, it was Del it was Thomas Red, it was fgl. I mean, but at the same time, I look back and it's like it's, those were like the same writers.
Speaker 2 01:34:40 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like she shell so, so, so as a guitar player, as a, as a Nashville musician, there's a number scale and the, you know, the chords are one through seven. Well, there was a chord progression back in the day called 41 65. It was 41 65. And dude, I swear every course for like four years on radio was 41 65. Like, you know,
Speaker 1 01:35:00 All these, that was just it. That
Speaker 2 01:35:01 Was just it dude. And so that's why you could mask them up like that. But there were man, I mean like there was a lot of stuff that you would turn on the radio and you could play 10 songs. And there were 96 bpm, 40, 41, 65 Kia G and until they started singing, you didn't know which one it was. Cuz the intro sounded the same. Yeah, same guitar, same song.
Speaker 1 01:35:21 I remember. Cause I was doing radio at that point. Yeah. I remember playing him on radio songs,
Speaker 2 01:35:24 Just being the same fucking thing. Dude. That's what I love about now is like, and, and a guy like Luke Combs, like, he helped, he helped got it
Speaker 1 01:35:30 Back, dude. He changed things. A guy like Riley, a guy like, like that, that crew.
Speaker 2 01:35:34 That crew And even Thomas Ret, like when he just put out country again, man. Like, like that's so true, man. Like, I remember going to Thomas RET shows when I moved to town and he was wearing flannel and square toe boots.
Speaker 1 01:35:42 You're with Jesus.
Speaker 2 01:35:43 Yeah. And then all of a sudden he was Thomas Rett and the Yeezys and now he's backing like his Red Wings. Like it's, it's all dude, you ha like music. It, it's cyclical dude. It's all gonna come around. Like, don't get me wrong, dude, in the 20 13, 14, 15 I was riding bro country. Yeah. Cause I was trying to be on fucking radio.
Speaker 1 01:35:59 That's what, that's what it was. That's what it was, dude. And then before that it was, it was a lot of the two thousands countries sounded the same. The nineties country sounded the
Speaker 2 01:36:06 Same. Yeah. I mean it's all, like I said, and, and it, what's what's crazy is the thinking 10 years, bro. Country's probably coming back, bro. Yeah. This is what it is.
Speaker 1 01:36:12 You know, or, or more of that two thousands
Speaker 2 01:36:14 Or more. Yeah. I, I mean I hope it doesn't go back to bro country, but I mean, or
Speaker 1 01:36:17 It's gonna go fucking pedal steel and fucking go nineties and swing and people would die. Texas just goes around the country. Texas
Speaker 2 01:36:24 Dude. Just, just all Texas, all day
Speaker 1 01:36:26 Is Western. What's something you wish, uh, you knew back when you first moved here?
Speaker 2 01:36:30 Oh man. Wish was something I wish I knew. Or
Speaker 1 01:36:33 Wrapping up questions here.
Speaker 2 01:36:34 Yeah, dude. Um, something I wish I knew. I wish I knew how, I just wish I knew the process cause I was very uneducated on it. I didn't know, I'll say this. There were a couple guys in this town, just like in any business. It's not just a music business that took advantage of me. Johnny. Yeah. Like financially, um, kind of entertainment wise, um, talent wise, they were guys that kind of had both hands in the cookie jar kind of thing. Um, and you, you move here, you meet someone and you see their credentials on Google. Like, Hey, I'm gonna Google this guy who just, I just took a meeting with. Oh shit, he's done this, this, this, this, this, this, this. I should trust him. That's not the way it works, dude. It's like any other business, bro. There are snakes in every business. Um, and there's a couple guys in this town and I obviously won't name names. Yeah. I'd rather fucking shoot than look at. Um, I mean there, there are guys that, that really, I don't know if set me back's the word because I've never really, they just kinda, they kind of made me doubt this town, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 01:37:42 Made you a little, made you a little jaded. Jaded.
Speaker 2 01:37:44 Yeah. Like made me like, and I, and that, and that is another point I get why people who have been here 20, 30, 40 years are jaded and they hate music row. Because like I said, it's called the music business bro. It's not called the music fun. It's called the music business. And in every business there, it's the only color that matters is green. That's it. And these fucking cats they saw, you know, like, and that's what, that's what I tell people now. Like even telling Colby, like talking to Colby. Like we had, we hadn't, we had sit downs after riots. Like we go sit and have a beer and be like, he'd be like, dude, what's going? Like what do you, what do you know? Which is why I love Colby. He just wants to know man, kid wants
Speaker 1 01:38:19 To, by the time that kid's 25 30 superstar, he's gonna Yes.
Speaker 2 01:38:22 Superstar man.
Speaker 1 01:38:23 He's gonna be running his
Speaker 2 01:38:24 Own fucking, but, and that's the thing I love about Combs is Combs found his crew, his fucking day. One crew before the labels came along and he's had those same motherfuckers in his corner. That right there. Loyalty is everything. Trey's the same way, dude. Yeah. It's Trey's a loyal mother. He should have fired you a long time ago. <laugh>. But he's a loyal, no, he, uh, Trey's a good, like as long as you're loyal and you know who your people are and you don't let, you don't let money cloud your vision. Like I, we had guys telling us like, Hey, you're gonna make this much money. Like you need to go do this, this, this, this. And all it did was just waste our fucking time. You know what I mean? We weren't being authentic to who we were
Speaker 1 01:38:58 When you could have been writing songs or having those experiences Exactly. To write the better songs.
Speaker 2 01:39:01 So I wish, I just like, I think the thing that I wish I knew before I moved here is I just wish I knew the process and like how to navigate it as like an unsigned, untrained artist. Yeah.
Speaker 1 01:39:12 I think that's, yeah. Best, uh, best kept secret food wise in Nashville.
Speaker 2 01:39:15 Oh dude, you went there. Joey's Joey's house of pizza
Speaker 1 01:39:18 In mind bro. That, that shit was very good telling. You know me, I was back home on my, I did my Yeah, your pizza tour, which I didn't intend on doing that. I put up, I put up that one slice with the, with the past on and everybody went ape shit. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I'm like, fuck it. People are replying to stores. Yeah. I had chicks sliding in my dms over pizza slices, dude. I was like, fuck it, I'm gonna keep doing this thing when I'm home. My mom's like, why are you eating so much pizza, Matt? And I'm like, I, I don't, I'm just doing it. I'm getting babes
Speaker 2 01:39:40 Mom. <laugh>. No. Uh, so,
Speaker 1 01:39:42 But I'm pounds baby dad thigh.
Speaker 2 01:39:43 Yeah, I've been uh, I think I've, I think I went to Joey's the first time like six, seven years ago. The cool thing about Joey's is the people are from up there.
Speaker 1 01:39:50 Oh, they're from Brooklyn. They're from Brooklyn. Yeah. Mama's from
Speaker 2 01:39:53 Brooklyn. Yeah. So it's open 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM or 3:00 PM Yep. Like it's a lunch spot only there are people lined up around the building at 10 o'clock. Yeah. Like that's how good it is. I would say for pizza. That's the spot. Um, there's a Italian restaurant or I'm sure you're a big Italian guy. It's called Cafe Nona. Have you been?
Speaker 1 01:40:09 Yes. Um, yeah. Very good.
Speaker 2 01:40:10 It's all made from scratch. The place is not much bigger in this fucking room. Yep. It's over by McCabe Golf Course. That's really good. Um, for burgers. Jack Brown's bro. Yeah. You
Speaker 1 01:40:19 Can't beat it.
Speaker 2 01:40:20 So good. Can't beat it. And then, uh, everybody, all my family, like when they come to town they're like we gotta go to Hattie Bees or we gotta go to like fucking party foul. Dude, you know what my favorite hot chicken in town is? The row, that restaurant over there off
Speaker 1 01:40:36 Lyle, I've ever been in the row. I have a lot of friends to play
Speaker 2 01:40:38 Those. Yeah, there's like rounds. So next time you go, when you, first time you go and you go watch music, they serve their hot chicken on like a corn meal patty, like a corn pat pancake basically. Oh shit. With like bacon, mac and cheese. Dude, it is so good,
Speaker 1 01:40:52 Bro. Sounds really good.
Speaker 2 01:40:53 So that's like my favorite hot chicken in town cuz that's Nashville's thing is hot chicken. Um,
Speaker 1 01:40:57 I'm Mexican cuz that's something I learned in the south. They love their fucking Mexican Mexican restaurants.
Speaker 2 01:41:01 That's what sucks. That's what fucking sucks to me. Well you're from Texas. Single de Mayo is great. Don't get me wrong. I love single to Mayo. But being in Texas, dude, like that's Mexican food dude. Like, like we would go to Houston. Like I used to show pigs when we did stock shows. Like we go to Houston for stock shows, bro, you could find a 400 square foot Mexican restaurant in a strip mall. And bro it was real Mexican food dude. And like people are like, oh I love Chewys. I'm like, fuck Chewys dude. Lost Palmas is good. Yeah,
Speaker 1 01:41:28 I
Speaker 2 01:41:28 Like Lost Palm a lot. Single de Mayo's. Solid Margarita house out in Mount Juliet. Um, there's another place that you would probably like, um, my wife loves it. It's called El Al. It's on uh, the corner, uh, Mount Juliet, north Mount Juliet Road, dead ends. The Lebanon. Lebanon Pike. Yeah, it's right there in that strip mall. Like it's right by like a fucking
Speaker 1 01:41:46 Strip mall Mexican place Born
Speaker 2 01:41:47 Theory dude, I'm telling you, Los Palms, like you find those in strip malls. Um, that's probably the best. I mean you can find good Mexican like taco trucks around here pretty solid. There's a taco truck in South Nashville.
Speaker 1 01:41:58 Old them Antioch Taco trucks are great
Speaker 2 01:42:00 Telling you bro. Like those dudes are, here's the thing, dude. Here's the number one thing I've realized. And my dad taught me this a young age. If you walk in a Mexican food restaurant or you walk up to a taco truck and there are Mexican people eating there, you're
Speaker 1 01:42:13 Good bro. It's gonna be very good.
Speaker 2 01:42:14 Walk in into Chewy's. You don't see no Vatos in there bro.
Speaker 1 01:42:17 No, it is. You don't it is just, it's batch the rat.
Speaker 2 01:42:20 Oh you know, it is. And it's fucking music industry people in there with like the fake guac and the goddamn green jalapeno Ranch <laugh> walk into a lost Palmas. Dude. There's not a lot of English being spoken. Yeah, I'm in. It's good.
Speaker 1 01:42:31 That's in, it's, it's good man. Well, well bro, I appreciate you coming on time man. That's one of the longer episodes I've had. I figured it'd go wild with
Speaker 2 01:42:37 Yeah dude, I gotta get a haircut here in like 45 minutes. So this is the perfect time to wrap up. Hell yeah.
Speaker 1 01:42:40 You still get, you got your haircut at soundcheck still?
Speaker 2 01:42:43 No scalps.
Speaker 1 01:42:43 There's a lot of people do that shit. Really? Yeah. A lot of people that I know go to soundcheck and have the music have the chick that cuts at like the festivals.
Speaker 2 01:42:50 No shit. I didn't know. I never got one there. Did you, did you I got my hair cut out at festivals.
Speaker 1 01:42:54 Yeah. By the, by the, the lady. I forget her name.
Speaker 2 01:42:57 So she works at Soundcheck? Yeah,
Speaker 1 01:42:58 She has her own shop at Soundcheck. I don't go there personally, but like I've been meeting a lot of people that are like,
Speaker 2 01:43:02 I got my hair, shit. You know where I go? I go to scouts,
Speaker 1 01:43:04 Scouts is good Scouts.
Speaker 2 01:43:05 Scouts is very good. They opened the one in Germantown when I lived in Germantown and I went to that one for like two or three years and now I go to the one off Wedgewood.
Speaker 1 01:43:12 Oh, closer. Yeah.
Speaker 2 01:43:12 Yeah. So go right. I usually go and I'm off today so I'm gonna go get my hair cut and then I gotta go call a guy about some concrete and then I'm fucking just dad out today. Dude. There you go. I appreciate you having me man. This is awesome
Speaker 1 01:43:22 Bro. Well we, we really appreciate you, you being here and uh, and dude, you for real. I remember it's cool watch thinking back four or five years ago. Yeah man. Watching you on a stage to now becoming buddies with you. Well
Speaker 2 01:43:34 My damn, I wouldn't call us buddy. We're acquaintances.
Speaker 1 01:43:36 Acquaintances, acquaintances. We got, we got some mutual friends. We got some mutual friends.
Speaker 2 01:43:40 No, I appreciate it man. This is awesome. I love what you're doing with the, with the podcast and with the round and stuff and uh, I think Trey man, I think he's gonna do it dude, once he gets the record deal, I think you guys are gonna get busy as fuck. You'll probably just be a full-time merch guy. He'll probably hire me as a tm, so that'll be good. I'll be your boss dude.
Speaker 1 01:43:53 You you as a TM would be wild.
Speaker 2 01:43:55 I'll
Speaker 1 01:43:55 Be your boss dude. You could have, you could have all the guys in the band's locations on your phone. You could babysit IMing. This guy and Terry.
Speaker 2 01:44:00 I'm my, what is my first order of business as Trey Lewis's tm? It would probably be, I would make you get your cdl. I would fire you from the merch booth and you would drive.
Speaker 1 01:44:10 That's it. I mean, I drive the, I drive now.
Speaker 2 01:44:12 Yeah, well get your CDL dude. We'll pay you more if you get your
Speaker 1 01:44:15 CDL three. I gotta pass a test for that to grow.
Speaker 2 01:44:18 Bus drivers. Bus drivers make the fucking,
Speaker 1 01:44:20 I money know, but I I I like to smoke and not the stuff that bus drivers smoke and I gotta pass the other test. We
Speaker 2 01:44:25 Used to call it trucker breath. Dude. My old guitar player, he'd smoke cigarettes and drink coffee. That's
Speaker 1 01:44:30 What I do. Truck her breath, dude. That's what I, that's what I do. But I'm saying the, the stuff, the the
Speaker 2 01:44:34 The green stuff.
Speaker 1 01:44:35 Yeah, the, the Delta eight, the Trailside cbd.
Speaker 2 01:44:37 The ones that they, they test you for. Yes. They get you dude. Yeah, you can ride in the trailer. We'll figure it out. We'll find you a spot dude.
Speaker 1 01:44:42 Put me in the big merch case. We'll find you a spot. We'll be in the
Speaker 2 01:44:44 Me. No, I appreciate you having me
Speaker 1 01:44:45 Man. Awesome man. Well y'all, um, thanks for checking out another episode of the Other Round podcast. Make sure to uh, follow our man Jor Jordan Walker two. You still got
Speaker 2 01:44:52 Yeah, number two. Somebody took one in the original motherfucker. So I'm Jordan Walker. Two on Instagram.
Speaker 1 01:44:57 Was that, was that not a baseball number?
Speaker 2 01:44:58 No base. It was my baseball number but I mean, I wanted to be just at Jordan Walker but I was too late. I was late to the game on the game. Walker two. Number
Speaker 1 01:45:04 Two. So make sure you follow Jordan on there. Uh, check out our sponsors, Saxon Studios Whale Tail Media Trailside, cbd. And uh, we will see you all next
Speaker 2 01:45:11 Time. And fuck McKinney. Fuck McKinney. <laugh> definitely. Fuck McKinney. Fuck
Speaker 1 01:45:14 Matt McKinney. <laugh>.
