Luke Combs reveals how his career began with Vine clips and a $200 bar gig at 21, yet he battles "purely obsessional" OCD—violent intrusive thoughts that fuel compulsive rituals—and dismisses SSRIs, preferring natural adaptation. His emotional restraint, unlike award-show reactions, stems from humility and gratitude toward his team, contrasting with peers who seek external validation. Combs also admits fitness struggles, tying self-worth to physical goals like elk hunting for future generations, while Rogan praises his honesty and UFC’s elite fighters, including Jon Jones’ dominance despite personal chaos. Ultimately, Combs’ authenticity and resilience redefine success beyond talent or fame. [Automatically generated summary]
I mean, I think I was really kind of one of the first people who was able to bring something to, like when I got my first deal, it was like, well, I already had a built-in fan base.
And that wasn't really ever happening at that time.
Like as I was on this social media app called Vine, do you remember that?
And it was like, I mean, I wasn't like, you know, mega big on there or anything, but I had enough, enough fans, I guess, where I was selling music that, and I didn't realize that that was weird.
So I got to Nashville and they're like, wait, you're selling how much?
And I'm like, oh, I thought that was, that's low, right?
And all I was doing on there was, I mean, the content on that app was six seconds long.
It was like TikTok, but six seconds.
And so it was like, you would have to pick out what's the most impactful section Of a George Strait song, or of a Waylon Jennings song, or anything I can sing, or of something that's on the radio, a Lee Bryce song, or whatever it was.
And go, what's the singingest-ass part of this song?
And I would get on there and just sing that six seconds on my guitar.
And then put it on there, and people were sharing and sharing.
And then when I put my own music out, I'm like...
Well, obviously I'm going to market to these people that are already like my voice and stuff.
I mean, how many artists that you listen to in your car, you probably wouldn't listen to on a boat?
It's a different thing, right?
Like, to me, it's like, if it's summer, the weather's nice, the drinks are flowing, you know, and, dude, your song's on the boat, That's the soundtrack to like the best time that someone could possibly be having.
So if you stand on top of that building, they owned everything you can see from the top of that building, which is like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of acres.
I mean, it is unbelievable.
It was the largest private residence in the United States for a long, long, long, long time.
They have the chess set in there that Napoleon's heart was put on after he died.
Dude, they imported, and someone's definitely going to fact check me on this, but I believe they imported everything from overseas on this whole place.
Yeah, my dad, you know, my dad's 69 and his two best friends live in Asheville and, you know, they drank beer every Friday and for 25 years, you know, and it's like he moved to Nashville and it's like he doesn't know anybody, you know, and it's like...
So I think he struggles with that a lot, which, you know, is tough for me, too, because I don't want him to, like, not be living his best life either.
You know what I mean?
It's like I love that he's close to, you know, my son and my son's close to his grandparents, but I also want them to, like, enjoy their life.
There is still a very gritty scene, and there always has been, right?
So you've got Black Keys type kind of thing going on in East Nashville.
There's so many bands that have come out of East Nashville that are not part of the mainstream Nashville thing, and that community still really exists.
And a lot of, I think, artists, country artists that people love that would kind of, even two or three years ago, have been considered...
Americana?
I'm not even sure what that means, right?
To me, that's just country music.
There's all these people on the internet that are like, well, Luke Combs, he ain't a real country singer, you know what I mean?
Because he's not Sturgill Simpson or whatever it is, right?
There's always these people who are trying to discredit you.
But there's definitely these two different sects of mainstream and non-mainstream that exist in Nashville.
And there's people that are trying to chase kind of those things separately.
And sometimes when popularity on the not chasing that goes through the roof, then it kind of can transition into the major labels are like, well, maybe we should sniff around this guy.
I didn't move to Nashville to necessarily be like, I'm going to be a country artist.
I just wanted to do music for a living in any way.
I worked a bunch of jobs in high school and college and I went to college for five years, didn't graduate, which I'm sure my parents loved.
I was 21 hours away from getting my degree, and I was like, I'm going to do music.
And it was whatever that was.
Sweeping floors in a studio would have been great to me.
Because I would be around music, I'd be trying to write music, publishing.
I mean, realistically, I thought to myself, especially at the time I moved to town, it's like, dude, everybody that was doing music when I moved to town was hot, dude.
But I remember when Sirianni came on on the big jumbo screen in there with the tears coming down, I was like, this is like, this will never be a moment like this again.
Like, I'll never be present for a moment like that again.
It was beyond a hobby for me, but I didn't even realize that.
So in sixth grade, right?
So I'll paint the kind of how these things happen.
It's like in sixth grade, the first year of middle school, right?
What they did in my middle school was it was like these six-week grading periods.
And so in the first year of middle school, they made you take every elective.
So you would take gym class for six weeks and chorus for six weeks and band for six weeks.
Actually, I think you got to choose chorus or band, but you had to do one music.
And then you took art and you took home ec.
And so during that sixth grade year, you try out every elective they have in the school.
And then seventh grade, you pick what elective you want to take.
So you get one elective per semester.
So you could have two electives in your seventh grade year.
So there was an option for chorus that was a one semester of chorus.
Or you could try out for the advanced chorus, which would be both semesters.
So I liked chorus a lot.
And so I was like, well, I'll do the one semester chorus and then I'll do gym or whatever, you know?
Because, like, I like it, but I don't want to take it that serious, right?
So I do my first semester, I'm in chorus, and my teacher, Ms. Rayburn, she comes up to me, like, last week of school, and she's like, will you please change your elective and be in advanced chorus with me?
And I was like, yeah, I mean, if you really want me to.
Like, I liked it a lot.
And I was like, man, I wish I could do that in gym or whatever, you know.
And so I did.
I switched it.
And so from seventh grade until I graduated high school, I was in chorus class every day of school for six years, you know?
And then I got to high school.
I get to high school.
My chorus teacher, Miss Bryant, was like, I mean, she was like my mom at school.
She was like my school mom.
Me and her became super tight.
I mean, I was her teacher assistant my senior year.
I was in her class.
A fourth of my entire high school career was spent in her classroom.
And I was in every musical every year.
So after school for half the year, I was doing the musical.
And I just liked it.
And I didn't realize I was even any good until like ninth grade when Miss Bryant was like, hey, you're like...
You're, like, good.
You're really good.
And I was like, oh, cool.
That's nice, you know, because I like doing this.
That's fun.
And I remember I was transitioning to go to college, and she said, I asked her, I was like, hey, should I do music in college, you know?
And I remember her telling me, don't do music in college if you can see yourself doing anything else.
So if you can imagine yourself doing anything else other than music, you shouldn't pursue music in college.
So in my brain, I'm thinking, okay, well, I only thought the only option was to be a music teacher.
In my head, I'm going, well, that's the only option, is to be a music teacher.
And I don't want to be a music teacher, because I'm really bad.
Like, I can't read music.
Like, I can't do math.
Like, I have some sort of, like, I just can't learn it.
He taught advanced placement music theory, which was a new class my senior year.
I took that class and got a D. Because it was like all these, the kids that were the best at band and the best at chorus were who was in that class.
There was only like eight students in the class.
And all it is was advanced, like here's the notes, here's this.
I tried out for Allstate Chorus three years in high school and didn't make it because you had to be able to read.
You had to do a sight singing audition, which is where they would hand you a piece of sheet music and you had to sing it just by reading the notes.
On there, right?
So it was a combination of what your voice sounded like and your ability to keep up with the Allstate choir teacher, whoever that was picked out to be.
And I never made it because I couldn't read the music.
It's just something about it doesn't make sense to me.
Like, to my brain.
Like, I get it.
Like, if I sit there and, like...
Plink it out really really slow.
I mean I could figure it out, right?
But it just doesn't it's just such to me.
It's such an instinctual thing You know and so I was in an acapella group my freshman year college for a year I enjoyed that, but again, it was just like an after-school kind of activity thing with other people in college, you know?
Excuse to have people to drink with, really, you know, people with common ground or whatever.
And gave that up my beginning of my sophomore year, really.
And then didn't do music.
I played rugby.
I got into playing rugby in college.
I did that.
Loved that.
And I was just the guy that would like sing at parties or whatever.
Like my buddies that played rugby with knew I sang.
They'd be like, dude, sing for these chicks or whatever.
You know, it was kind of like, I was like party trick guy, you know?
And then after my junior year, I moved home to Asheville and I'd always moved home every summer up to that point.
And then my mom goes, because I was sulking because all my buddies that year, they all stayed in their college town for the summer.
I was the only guy that moved back.
So all my friends are gone.
They're in Raleigh.
They're in Charlotte.
They're in Chapel Hill.
They're in Boone.
They're in, you know, Collowee and all these different schools.
So I'm working at the same job I had when I was 16 at a go-kart place with a bunch of high school kids.
I'm 21 years old.
I got nobody to hang out with.
I'm living in my parents' house.
I'm not doing well in school.
I don't know what I want to do with my life at all.
And I'm sitting on the porch.
I remember sitting on my parents' carport, and it was like my mom come out, and she was like, what's wrong with you?
Like, what's...
I'm an only child, too, so...
She's like, what's going on?
And I was like, I don't know, Mom.
I don't have any friends here.
Like, I'm working at fucking go-karts, you know?
Like, what am I doing?
And she's like, well, you know, you know what, Luke?
Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw, they didn't even learn to play guitar until they were 21 years old.
And I was 21, right?
And so my parents had bought me a guitar in seventh grade that I never played.
I did two guitar lessons and hated it because my parents wanted me to do it.
You know what I mean?
Like anything your parents want you to do, you don't want to do, really.
And so I went in the closet and I got this, oh, it was like an Ibanez, like $50 acoustic guitar, you know, just horrendous condition.
But I didn't know that.
Didn't know anything about guitar.
Didn't know what a good guitar was.
Didn't know nice guitars even existed.
So I taught myself all summer.
I just sat on the porch when I wasn't at work playing, playing, playing.
Because I knew I loved to sing.
And I was like, well, I'll just learn how to play and then I can sing at like parties for my buddies or whatever.
And Taught myself all year and then just kind of became obsessed with learning how to play.
By the time I was 22, I'm back in school.
I'm in Boone, hanging out with my buddies.
I'm starting to dabble around with writing my own songs because I was like, well, this would be cool.
I like this.
Then I wrote my first two or three songs.
I booked a gig down the street, just like at this bar my rugby team always hung out at.
Because I figured that guy would, you know, he was like the coke head, like wild card, like he'd give me a show or whatever, you know.
The guy was awesome, you know.
I was like, this guy will give me a show if I want to do a show.
So I borrowed my neighbor's guitar because mine wasn't even acoustic electric.
It was just a straight up acoustic.
I sat on a stool.
My other buddy let me borrow his PA speakers.
And 200 of my friends came out and paid a dollar to see me.
I made 200 bucks that night.
That was more than I made at both my jobs that week.
And I was hooked, man.
I was like, dude, this is awesome.
Like, I love doing this, first off.
I'm like, I love doing this anyways.
And I'm having a great time.
I'm like having drinks with my friends.
Everybody's psyched to see me here and stuff.
And I was like, it just made sense, man.
It wasn't one ounce of hard work in my mind after that point.
I love those stories because it gives other people hope, too.
I guarantee you there's someone listening out there that's in that same state that you were in when you were 21. They're like, what the fuck am I doing?
And I didn't get into hunting until I moved to Nashville.
I didn't grow up hunting.
My dad's from the Rust Belt in Ohio.
Like, steel mill.
You know, his dad was a truck driver.
Like, they didn't own land, you know, kind of thing.
So he didn't hunt.
That was just not a part of my upbringing, right?
I used...
Hunting and like inherently the guys I started writing songs with and the guys I connected with all love to hunt, right?
So started out as like, okay, well cool.
These guys will take me out.
That'll be super fun.
And as I fell in love with it as my curse because my career was taken off at the same time, right?
And so life became more and more and more hectic and it became this cathartic experience of like being able to process some of what was happening to me and And just enjoying that hunting was the opposite of everything else I was doing in my life.
It was like this pursuit of this thing that was so pure.
It's calm.
I'm in control of what's going on out here.
Obviously not the animal, but just being here and being present and not having my phone and not worrying about posting an Instagram or whatever it is.
And I fell in love with that rapidly.
And so as I begin to go, well, dude, I want to watch this on television.
You know, I want to see this.
So I start watching stuff, and I'm like, dude, some of these guys are brutal on here.
Like, it's just not for me.
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Like, this hunting, like, oh, we're going, if it's brown, it's down and fucking kill it.
So then I turn on, I see this show Meat Eater on Outdoor Channel, and I'm watching it, and I see the intro where it's like, I'm Steven Rinella, and hunting's not just about the pursuit of an animal, and I was like, okay, that's different than all the other shows that I've seen.
So I watched it, and then there's this mega-intelligent cat on there.
And he's cooking, dude.
And he's like a wealth of knowledge, right?
And that's the thing that gets me.
My dad's a big thinker, you know?
And he's always been interested in just learning about new stuff.
He's always just...
Taking in information and learning things and so I think I kind of inherited that from him and so then I became kind of Obsessed with like this show this meteor show so I started watching an outdoor channel and then it comes on Netflix this new the new kind of version that comes on Netflix and I'm like Dude, this is like earth shattering for me.
This is like it's marrying the intelligence of what this is.
And it's exposing people to, in my opinion, what's the right side of hunting to be on.
The thing that I love about it so much.
So then my career is starting to go and go and go.
I saw you on there.
I was like, man, that's cool.
He's having guests on.
That's pretty sick.
And all his buddies were wicked smart and knew everything.
And they do all this to go to Alaska and all these incredible places, dude.
So I just had my PR team.
I was like, just reach out to this guy.
Like, please, how do I get on this show?
I want to be on this.
I want to meet this guy and be buddies with him and stuff.
And it took like two years to finally get like, okay, we got a time.
Because he's the kind of guy that's so well-read and so articulate that he can have a conversation with someone who has a completely opposite opinion of what hunting is.
And at the end of it, they come away with just a much more comprehensive perspective of what it's about and what conservation's about and why he loves hunting.
Because it was in the middle of the rut, so you just clack and clack, you take the fake antlers and you rack them, and then these deer just come sprinting in, full clip, looking to fight and fuck.
Yeah, it's like a week or two week max where it really, really works.
And otherwise, they're like, why is that going on?
It's not supposed to be going on.
I'm not going out there.
That's weird.
Deer are interesting, man.
They're interesting animals, man.
The more you watch them, nothing makes sense to me with it.
The more I watch them, you know?
The things that are supposed to happen often don't, I find.
You know, like you're thinking, this is gonna be, you know, I'm hunting the wind, I got the stand, I got the access, I got the wind, I got the spot, I got the stand.
I got the food plot.
You know, like in Tennessee, you can't hunt over bait, so it's like, you plant the food plot, you know, it's knee-high by July, and the corn, and it's like, you got it, everything's right.
And then it's like, it's rut.
And it's just nothing.
Sometimes you go out there and you're like, how is this possible?
I had a heartbreaker this year, man, a whitetail trip.
I went to Oklahoma for a week, and it was like, it was jam up, man.
It was like, there's gonna be deer, like...
You know, it just felt, everything's right, right?
We got this guy taking us out.
He was awesome, man.
He was stuff, like, killer guy, you know?
And it's like, we're going in.
Me and my buddies, we're going in.
So as I went with Dana Reed, same guys I did Meteor with, we went.
And we're like, dude, we're tagging out first night, dude.
They're sending us all these deer picks.
And we're like, man, this is going to be great.
So first night, don't really see anything, right?
It's like, oh, great.
So morning, dude, we'll be tagged out.
And it's for a reason.
So it's archery only.
Oklahoma's only got a two-week rifle season, I think.
We're doing archery.
Morning comes, nothing.
I'm like, man, like, not really seeing, like, a ton of deer and stuff.
And we're still like, we're good.
Tonight's the night.
You know, we got five days to be out there.
And we were thinking, we're going to be going home early, dude.
Like, we're going to be here the first night we're going to tag out and be, like, trying to spend two days just hanging out, you know, or something.
And so about the third day, we're like, well, let's all switch.
We'd all been in the same spots, you know, different stands, because they had a few different leases kind of around this area of Oklahoma, so we were all going to different spots.
And I'm like, well, let's all switch up, right?
So I get in this tree in the afternoon.
I'm sitting there.
My buddy Dan, he's like, he's probably 500 yards away from me in another tree.
And the grass is kind of like really soft rolling hills.
Like it looks flat almost if you're in the car and then you realize there's a little bit of elevation change going on.
So there's like this draw in between me and Dan.
I'm there and it's freezing, dude.
Wind's blowing 25 miles an hour.
I mean, just hammering.
But the wind's perfect for where I'm hunting at, right?
Because it's kind of like this grove of like cedars, you know, and that's where all the deer are because everything else is just ag fields around.
Sitting there.
I got these three does.
I watch them come, like, off this hill.
They come through the cedars, hop this fence.
Dude, they're 25 yards in me, like, right on me, dude, you know?
So I'm already, like, kind of standing up because I'm not, you know, we're not even hunting a doe at this point, you know?
And all of a sudden, man, behind this kind of berm over to my left, there's, like, a little pond.
We just had a friend that put us on to this guy and he was like, man, this guy's great and he knows his stuff and he's eager and He's excited to have you all down.
I was like, cool, man.
You've got to think, man.
I'm hunting Tennessee, dude.
A big deer in Tennessee is a 140-inch deer.
I killed a 155 in Mississippi and thought I killed a Tyrannosaurus Rex, dude.
When you're going out west and seeing these deer, it's unbelievable to a guy like myself to even see that.
Growing a 145 on my own place would be Deer of a lifetime for most guys in Southeast.
Yeah, it's the wildness, the fact that you're engaging with a wild animal.
Yeah, the people that, they feed them with feeders, and they have a high fence, and it's only 500 acres, you know, where they all are, they can't get out.
Right, so do you want to shoot Ricky, or Johnny, or Greg, or which one, and they just go, and they're like, that's Greg's whistle, he'll come out on that one, you know.
Yeah, he got the rights to that, luckily, and now re-released it with his audio.
Because when he first sold it, they had an actor read it.
You know, like some voiceover actor.
It was terrible.
Yeah, so he re-recorded it in his own voice, which is amazing.
Yeah, but that's a thing that happens with a lot of first-time authors.
Is they don't trust you to read it.
They want to get someone who's some sort of a professional.
He lost that argument and then as time went on and he became more prominent and famous, then he was able to acquire the rights through Meat Eater and then re-release it, which is excellent.
I remember him telling, like, they were telling us that part and he was, yeah, I hit this bear and, you know, everybody's kind of laughing and he's laughing and stuff.
And then, like, right when the story stops, he looks at me and goes, I think about it every day.
Yeah, because someone comes along and catches them and they're interacting with reporters and they just say, you're going to kill these fucking people in front of us.
No, she's trying to figure things out and then expose people to information that's otherwise unavailable.
You know, she found that there was LA cops that were selling drugs to the Mexican cartel, excuse me, they were selling guns to the Mexican cartels.
So they would confiscate guns from criminals and then they would fill up a trunk with AKs and ARs and pistols and then they would drive to Mexico because to get into Mexico is easy.
Coming to America is where it's difficult and they check you.
But get into Mexico, you just drive right through.
So they were driving right through with trunkfuls of confiscated weapons and they delivered them to the cartels.
It's wild that we think about all the different things, the conflicts that are happening overseas, when one of the most wild conflicts is happening right south of our border, and you could literally walk over there.
Yeah.
I'm sure you heard about those folks that got killed, where these people went down there.
I think the story is one of the women went over there for plastic surgery.
I think she went over there.
They crossed the border.
I think she's getting a butt lift or something because it's like cheaper in Mexico.
So they came from Lake City, South Carolina to Matamoros to Malapas, just south of the U.S.-Mexico frontier.
They arrived in the border city on the 3rd of March, but never made it to the clinic.
Members of a violent drug cartel that controls the area mistook the group of Americans as rival traffickers, killed two of them, and kidnapped McGee and one of her friends.
McGee and Eric Williams were rescued within days, and the bodies of her cousin, Shahid Woodward, and friend Zindell Brown were later repatriated.
On Thursday, five men who allegedly carried out the attack were dumped on a Matamora street, along with a surreal letter of apology purportedly from the Gulf cartel.
We asked the public to become the letter said in Spanish.
We are committed that the mistakes caused by indiscipline won't be repeated and that those responsible pay no matter who they are.
It's a sketchy place, man, and it's fueled by the fact that drugs are illegal.
That's what's crazy.
It's like our idea that we're gonna, you know, keep people safe by making drugs illegal is propping up an illegal enterprise worth Untold billions of dollars just south of us.
I mean, most of the time they leave those people alone because there's a lot of revenue and tourism and they don't want to fuck that up and they also don't want to bring heat down on them, which is what happened when these Americans got kidnapped.
All of a sudden the world is aware and that can be very dangerous for them.
We're like, oh, we're down here writing songs, whatever.
It was really funny.
My buddy Dan, he goes, so we start talking to these people, and they're like, yeah, we're retired, and our kids are in college, and we come down here and live just for the summer or whatever, winter or whatever, and stay down here.
I was like, oh, that's cool.
You know, we don't have these people at all.
And my manager's asleep, so it's just me and Dan and Jonathan and Ray.
It's got to be until 11 o'clock at night.
And so he's talking to my buddy Dan starts talking to this guy.
And he's like, yeah.
He's like, I'd love to, you know, get some grass or whatever.
You know, this guy said something about grass, but he wasn't talking about weed.
And then my buddy Dan was like, yeah, I'd love to get some grass or whatever, you know.
And he's like, well, I got some back at the house.
Why don't y'all come over to the house?
And we were like, that seems kind of sketch, right?
And I'm like, damn, we're going, dude.
We're going.
And he was like, dude, this is a lot of pressure, dude.
He's like, Cappy's in there, dude?
Like, we're about to walk off in this fucking town, dude, in Mexico.
Like, sand streets, dude.
Like, I don't know where all of these people are at.
So we go down there.
We walk down the road.
We go in there, dude, and it's like just this kind of old, like, cool-ass biker guy and his wife, dude, and just rolls this one up, dude, and we rip with these folks, and we're walking with him and talking, and he's like, yeah, you guys like country music?
You know, my buddy Dan says that, and he's like, yeah, but I don't like any of them new guys.
You know, they're all sissies or whatever kind of thing, you know, and My buddy Dan's like, yeah, there's a couple guys that are pretty good, though, and stuff.
So we get in there, hang out with them, and we tell them we're riding ATVs the next day.
And they're like, well, we'll show you guys around.
We start ripping tequila shots.
It's just me and my buddy Dan and these 60-year-old folks hanging out.
And it comes to this point where my buddy Dan goes, he goes, dude, I've got to tell them, man.
And I was like, what do you mean?
He's like, tell them what?
What do you got to tell them?
He's like, I've got to tell them, dude, because I know their grandkids are probably like...
Like you, dude.
Like, their grandkids probably think you're cool, dude, and they're not going to know.
And he's like, imagine, he goes, dude, he's like, get it together.
Dude, we're like, we're zoinked, dude.
We're taking tequila shots like smoking J's with these old folks.
And he's like, dude, imagine if these people were in their 20s, and they were hanging out with George Strait, dude, and it was their grandparents hanging out with George Strait, and they didn't know that it was George Strait or whatever.
And I was like, dude, I'm not George Strait, though, dude.
Like, what are you talking about?
And he goes, man, this guy's name's Luke and everything.
And they're like, oh, cool, you know?
And we took a picture with him, and the guy rolled us a J for the next day.
And we take off out, and we're like, okay, mission, get back to this house, right?
We get out in the street.
There's no street lights, dude.
There's one light on this one house and it's just kind of illuminating this road, this like sand, clay kind of road in front of us.
And we walk out and I just hear this like cling, cling, cling.
It's like a bell.
And all of a sudden, dude, these two huge steers, dude, walk out.
Like bulls, dude.
Walk down this road.
And, like, I'm staring down the barrel, dude, of these two massive bulls, dude, on the beach in Mexico with Dan.
We're baked.
We've been hanging out with these old people, dude.
We're halfway lost trying to get back to this house.
And we're, like, hiding behind this dumpster.
And I'm like...
Is this real?
Like, where are we, dude?
What is this place?
And we get back.
We get back to the house.
The bulls pass.
We make it back.
And it's got to be 2 or 3 in the morning at this point.
Get back.
And we open the slot.
We're trying to sneak in.
Everybody's in bed, dude.
And I'm like, I feel like I was sneaking out of my parents' house or something again.
But I was like 24 or 5 years old.
Open the door.
My manager, unbeknownst to us, is sleeping on the couch outside.
And when we click the door open, he's like, oh, God!
I just pull up a folding chair and just stare at the car.
There's just something about those things.
I mean, that's when I was born.
I was born in 67. And I feel like there's something about that, about going to high school, like when those cars had, you know, like you could kind of acquire those cars when you're 18. And it was, you know, because they weren't really that valuable back then, oddly enough.
And it was just, there's something about that era that, to me, symbolizes the shift in American culture.
The American culture that shifted from the music and the culture of the 1950s to the 1960s.
The Vietnam War and just the change of the society.
The zeitgeist shifted and the drugs and the rebelliousness and the hippie movement and the anti-war movement and just the rock and roll was undeniable.
It wasn't like, no one was thinking about it in that sense at that time.
And maybe I'm insane for thinking that, but it just, it feels like that someone who wasn't even born then, who goes back and listens to that music, it has this like, Grit to it that just doesn't exist much.
Yeah, but it's like, I guess I don't even think it's that.
It's almost like it's a chemical thing for me.
And like, I hate that so much because I did enjoy it so much.
And it was like, it was such a great thing for me.
Like, creatively or like...
Just to relax, dude, or have a great time with my buddies, dude, and it's like, I hate that I can't enjoy it anymore because I see other people enjoy it.
I know, but it gets to this point where the good outweighs the bad, dude.
Even if I'm with the right people, though, it becomes this thing where it's like, I suffer from really bad, really, really, really bad OCD. Like, horrible.
I had a friend who was, he had that, and he would get these thoughts that he couldn't stop, and he didn't know why, and he would have panic attacks.
And he's a comic, and he was doing warm-up for the Cosby Show.
You know, warm-up is, you're kind of like telling kind of mild jokes, and you're explaining the scene, and you're just keeping everybody engaged, because the process of filming a television show is pretty, it's pretty arduous.
Yeah, there's a lot going on, you know, and sometimes there's downtime.
And during that downtime, he would, you know, do kind of stand-up for the crowd and work.
And he gets this thought in his head that says, don't say the N-word.
I'm not going to, but if I wanted to, I could, and I might, and that's okay.
But I can't even explain to people.
Because it's so weird to imagine...
If you had a thought of, I'm going to reach across this table and just deck you one, and I don't want to, and I'm afraid of that, but if I go, you know what?
I could, and I have to be okay with that.
It's almost like a paradox, right?
You're almost tricking the disorder.
Because then if you don't care about it anymore, then your brain stops sending the thoughts.
Because the thoughts are what's distressing.
The thoughts coming in continually are what stresses you out.
Because the more you have them, you're thinking, well, that must be who I am.
I must be this violent criminal, or I must be this, or I must be that, or whatever.
I must not love my wife.
It's all these things that can never be answered.
It's not like, what's two plus two?
Well, we all know that's four.
These are all questions that really, there is no answer to them at all.
So it can become a weird slope because reassurance seeking from other people.
Like if I told my best friend, dude, I just had this thought about shooting this guy.
Like, tell me I don't want to shoot this guy.
And then he goes, dude, you're not going to shoot that guy.
And I go, oh God, thank God.
Then you get addicted to the reassurance seeking, which then makes the thoughts come more and more and more and more because you're giving them attention.
You're giving them attention.
You're giving them attention.
And it's so strange, dude.
And it's like, I know, dude, that there's so many people that struggle with it and no one would ever know.
I could be having them right now and you'd have no clue.
I always wonder with people that have things like that that are also great artists, I always wonder if there's something that contributes to the depth of your art.
Yeah, I've heard people talk about Zoloft specifically in that regard, where it just like it numbs them or nothing bothers them, but nothing excites them either.
And I feel like it's a subconscious, like, almost defense mechanism of, like, having gone through, like, just these different things of that.
And that's bothered me a lot over the course of my career, too, because I... Sometimes I feel really guilty about not feeling the way I feel like I should feel about certain things.
When I watch it, like, I watch someone win an award, like, Male Vocalist of the Year or at the CMAs or whatever, and go up and accept the award, and they're, like, almost in tears.
Like, I don't feel that way.
And that makes me feel really, like, guilty and, like, that something's, like, wrong with me.
You know?
Does that make sense, what I'm saying?
You know?
Like, I think you watch movies your whole life, and you feel like this is the way that people are supposed to feel about things.
I appreciate the scope of what's going on and what it means to me and my team.
I'm so insanely proud of all those accomplishments.
Insanely.
This is why I do this.
To have achieved all of these great things.
But in that moment, it's not this overflow of joy and tears.
And I feel like I miss out on a lot because of this disorder, because of the way my brain works or the way that it's defended itself or something.
And there's probably a bunch of science that says I'm dumb or that I'm just like an emotionless weirdo.
I feel like I've been robbed of that, of all these things.
And maybe they all just seem trivial because of all the shit that I dealt with for so long with it, like the battles that have fallen inside my own head.
And the next year, somebody else wins it, and they get up, dude, and they're pouring the tears, dude, and they're, like, having this big, like, emotional outburst about winning this thing and how much it means to them.
And then you're going, why didn't I do that?
Why didn't I feel that, like, rush, like, was I robbed of that rush of emotion?
Like, I often wonder that about myself.
Like, when I see my colleagues win things that I've even won, And they can barely even talk to get through the tears.
And I'm up there like, hey man, this is so great.
I love my wife and my team and everything's great.
And I feel like that, because that's wasted energy.
And I feel like that kind of celebrating is like, come on man, you know what the fuck you're doing.
You've been doing this forever.
This is what you do.
Yeah, it's a great show.
That's fun.
It's nice to have a great show, but that's not what's important.
What's important is the thing.
This fucking untold how many people, million people that are into what you're doing.
Like, what you got to do is get back to work.
Like, I have a massive responsibility to continue to create and to do the best I can, whether it's with podcasting, Or whether it's with doing stand-up or whether it's doing UFC commentary.
I have like this massive responsibility to just do the best I can.
So that's all I think about is like the thing that I can control.
It's like I know that I'm the person who's in front of the keyboard who came up with these ideas and who write it down wrote it on my phone and I'm the dude who's pacing around the green room trying to figure out which way to set it up and Should I chop this part out or let me just get the bullet points and then just talk to these people and tell them what I think about this thing and the comedy is gonna come out of that.
Well, if it resonates with me, it'll resonate with someone else.
That's what I've found.
As long as I'm honest about my approach and as long as I'm like, what the fuck?
If I think it's funny and I start thinking Like, about what's funny about it, then the thing is just figuring out a way to get that into people's minds the smoothest, cleanest, funniest, sneakiest way.
You know and it's a process so the process is what's very exciting because the beginning is Usually a little clunky because you're not exactly sure how you're gonna say it and maybe I said it right last night But I forgot how to say it right tonight and I fucked it up and then I have to live with that and then the next day I have to start all over again and then I go over the notes and I go over the fucking recordings and But it's always the thing.
It's never like, look what I did.
I fucking did it.
I'm crying.
Zero.
I get zero of that.
Even when I film specials, even if I film a Netflix special and it fucking kills, I'm like, okay, we did it.
And you see them, dude, I've had many, many, many nights where it's like, I have one song in particular that's called Even Though I'm Leaving, and it's a song that essentially starts out with a dad talking to his son, saying like, oh man, you're scared of the, I know there's not any monsters under the bed kind of thing.
Like, I'm just down the hall, you know, even though I'm leaving, I'm not going nowhere, right?
And the next verse is, then it's the son, and he's going off to war, right?
And the hook changes to, you know, even though you're leaving, I'm not going nowhere.
You know, I'll be here when you get back, kind of thing.
And then the last verse is the dad passing away.
And it's like, hey man, like, even though I'm leaving, I'm not going anywhere, you know?
And like, There's been many nights where, like, you see that person that's connected with that, like, that's lost their dad, right?
And they're there, and they're right in your face, man.
And they're just like, there's three or four people on them.
It's like there's a team, and I'm sure you have a team of folks that propel your success because there's not enough time in 10 lives to do all the things that's necessary for your stuff to go on or my stuff to go on.
Like, there's so many folks involved in that, you know?
I'm just—I'm really grateful for, like, having an, like, awesome group of people to, like, work with that, like, don't just tell me yes to everything and, like, that are willing to challenge me on things and, like, say, hey, man, is this the right decision?
Or I don't love this song or, like— Why would we do this thing?
Why don't we think about this?
I've always tried to keep it this open thing of me and people that work with me can talk about things and have discussions that a lot of people, I think, Sometimes lose that.
They become so shielded in the idea of celebrity, which is like they got a security guy, so nobody on their team, like they might not even know this guy that works for them at all.
They don't even know that guy's name and he's worked for him for five or six years at all.
Doesn't even know him, you know?
And like to me, it's like I can't say we're all best friends, dude.
We're not all coming over to my house and having...
I'm friendly with everybody that's out on the road with me.
I want people to know that I'm approachable.
We can talk about something.
I think that's so crucially important to the overall success of the thing.
Because if I show up at a venue...
The only impression that 99% of the people working in that venue will get of me is someone that works for me.
Right?
So if everyone on my team is rude, then what are they going to think about me?
But this attitude that you have, though, is why people love you.
I mean, it's why it resonates.
To keep from being captured by celebrity and stardom.
Because a lot of people do because it's a shield.
You put that shield up to shield you from the thoughts of uncertainty and insecurity and whether or not you're worthy and whether or not you can keep doing it.
With a lot of people, it's like you start doing it, but can I keep doing it?
Do I still have it?
Are my new songs any good?
Are my new jokes any good?
It's the same kind of thing.
You're just thinking about it the right way, but it's not something that anybody could teach you because nobody gets to be famous.
Small, tiny sliver of the population.
And then to be famous for doing something that resonates with people and, like, they worship you.
They fucking listen to your song a hundred times in a row.
I mean, that's a thing that no one is going to be able to explain to you.
Because you could talk to a psychologist about it and they're dealing with, you know, theory.
They've never experienced that.
They don't know what it's like to stand on stage in front of 60,000 people.
And only you do.
Very few people do.
And it's up to you because you are the guy that's holding the microphone and playing the music.
You are the guy that has to navigate that road.
And you're doing it, I think, the right way.
The way you're handling it with humility and the way you're handling it with genuine appreciation and just being a real person.
You can keep that going.
Guys have kept that going.
And that's actually something that's rewarded in country music, which I think is great.
Because in some styles of music, it's rewarded that you become untouchable.
You become this unapproachable, untouchable, don't make eye contact.
He's a genius.
He's going to walk into the room and everybody get out of the way.
And if he picks up the guitar, everybody stop talking.
That kind of psycho thinking, that can pollute your mind.
And people get very captured by that.
And we've seen it many many many many times with rock stars with movie stars It's just the the thing that you have given into is so overwhelmingly odd and So few people experience and it just does not resonate with any normal human emotions It's so strange that everybody knows who you are and you don't know who they are and you just this is the life you live but it's up to you and Because you're the rare traveler that's gone down that road that far,
the rare one.
It's up to you to navigate that road.
And if you can do it, a young artist can also see you do it.
I just think about, it's like, I can't tell you how many beers I shotgunned in college, and now I can shotgun a beer and 50,000 or 60,000 people are stoked about it.
Well, he was the guy that launched the UFC, really, because for him as the biggest star, for him, because he was such a destroyer, he'd just like seek and destroy style.
If you look at the fact that he got armbarred by Matt Hughes when Matt was in his prime.
He got knocked out by Matt Serra.
Matt Serra was a murderous puncher.
He took that guy for granted.
Matt fucking caught him.
Matt could do that to anybody.
Eventually, they had a rematch and he beat Matt up in front of The fans in Canada, and it was an insane event.
He's an all-time great, and I love him to death, but I feel like if I look at the level of competition he faced and the level of competition Kamaru faced and what Kamaru did to those people, you gotta understand, Kamaru, when he was coming up, no one would speak his name.
So I think what I was thinking is, and when I bring up Jon Jones, is I remember the first Jon Jones fight I watched was when he got DQ'd against Matt Hamill from the 12-6 elbows, right?
That was my first experience with him.
The next thing I feel like I remember, and I may have seen some of his fights in between then, but is when he beat up this guy that was trying to rob this lady the night of a fight.
I'm interested in your take on this because I watched it happen with Jon Jones, and I feel like I watched it happen with Kamaru as well, where it was like...
Jon and Kamaru, as they came up, right, it's like Jon does this thing where he stops this robber and he wins the belt.
He beats Shogun, who is this kind of like, you know, him and Lyoto were these kind of like, unfigureoutable guys, to me as a fan at that time, right?
Like, guys like, how do you beat Lyoto Machida?
You can't figure, because you can't even touch the guy, right, at that time.
And they were, like, inherently these, like, good guys that everybody was rooting for.
And then both of them became these, like, epically long-range champions that then became sort of like villains.
To me as a fan, again, who doesn't know anything, and maybe it comes back to maybe the celebrity ego thing, like to the camera as a fan.
Again, I've never met the guy.
He's probably great.
But just as a cash watcher, I went from going, I'm rooting for this guy, to then it'd be like the way he talks about himself, and I feel like Jon Jones was the same way to me, is they became this really...
And then Jon got in all this kind of turmoil-y stuff, like...
There's human beings that have different temperament and different minds and different mentality and a ruthless competitive drive that's almost terrifying to the ordinary person.
That's Jon Jones.
Jon Jones is a bad guy who's trying to be a good guy.
But that guy, if we were living a thousand years ago, he would be on a horse with the biggest battle axe, wading in the back, hacking heads off, and everybody would be running.
And those people have always existed.
These dominators have always existed.
But John is like a genuinely sensitive, intelligent guy who's trying to do the right thing.
But he's a fucking conqueror.
He's a fucking conqueror.
That's the thing that's inside of him that leads him to be the GOAT. And without that, you don't get there.
You don't get a Mike Tyson without that.
You don't get a Muhammad Ali without that.
You don't get a Marvin Hagler without that.
You don't get that.
There's a thing inside some people that is a driving force that allows them to overcome the greatest around them.
Yeah, Khabib is in the conversation, but Mighty Mouse is in that conversation too.
Mighty Mouse to me, if you want to look at like a technical expression of the greatness of martial arts, he's as good as anybody's ever done it.
When Mighty Mouse was the flyweight champion.
And the only problem is, besides Cejudo and a couple other guys like Benavidez, he was not dealing with guys that were of the caliber of the guys that Jon Jones was facing.
Jon Jones was facing Gustafson.
Glover Teixeira.
He was facing Daniel Cormier.
He was facing the elite of the elite and he never fucking lost even when he was doing coke and he wasn't even training.
That's how goddamn good Jon Jones is.
And when Jon Jones talks about fights though, when I had him on the podcast, one of the things that he talked about Some people don't really watch tape or they only watch a little bit.
They let their coaches do the work.
Jon Jones studies everyone.
He studies their tendencies.
He gets in his mind how when you throw that left kick, you make this little step with your right foot.
You might do this thing when you shoot for a takedown where you keep your head on one side every time.
You might do this thing where when someone throws a right hand, you always lean to the left.
John Jones picked up that tendency, and that's how he knocked out Daniel Cormier.
He knew Daniel Cormier has a tendency to duck towards his right side because he goes for that single on the left leg, and John caught him with the perfect head kick.
But it wasn't by an accident.
He fucking, he set that up.
He set it up just like Leon Edwards set up that head kick on Kamaru.
There's a beauty of that that's just, man, in the middle of chaos and anxiety and fear and the fucking fog of war, you figure out a way to connect with this thing that you saw in tape and in training and in preparation.
So it's with John, it's not an accident that he's the GOAT. Even with his lack of training, even with his, even with the, it's just like he's so fucking talented that he almost needs another John Jones to make him compete the way he would, the way, make him train the way a lot of these other guys do.
Like he's so good, he can beat those guys without being challenged by someone like him.
Yeah, I was up until the day of the fight, I was like, I don't know.
I was with Cam Haynes and my buddy Tommy Jr., and we were talking about it.
I was like, I don't know, man.
I mean, he had a hard time with Dominic Reyes, and Dominic Reyes is not nearly the striker that Cyril Ghosn is.
And then the day of the fight, I don't know what it is, man.
I think John's gonna run right through this dude.
I just, the day of the fight, I just had this feeling.
I just have a feeling that John is just going to express his greatness tonight.
Like, all those years out, all the doubts, all the chaos, all the personal problems, and the drugs, and the partying, and all the mess.
I think this is going to bring out the very best in John.
Because I think guys like him, I think one of the things that was happening with the Dominic Reyes fight and the first Alexander Gustafson fight, I think he was so dominant that he was playing with his food.
I don't think he was fully engaged in the fear of facing these men.
I don't think they presented the challenge that he requires to reach the level that we know he's capable of reaching, but I think Cyril Gunn did provide that challenge.
And I think he knew that going up to heavyweight and winning the title and just winning it easily the way he did...
Jamal Hill, the way he pieced up Glover Teixeira, I was like, oh my god.
The way he grappled with him.
Jamal Hill might be the fucking man at light heavyweight.
And if John went down, that might be a wild-ass fight.
That might be a wild fight.
But I think John is done with starving himself and depleting his body to make 205. And now that he's the heavyweight champion, I think he beats all the best heavyweights that are available.
The problem is, if you fight in that style, though, if you fight in that style against Conor, you're coming straight forward towards Conor, that is Conor's wheelhouse.
Conor's one of the greatest counter-strikers that's ever fought in the UFC. If you look at his fight with Eddie Alvarez, you look at his knockout victory over Jose Aldo, if you come at Conor and you give him a chance to time you, especially in the early rounds, he is fucking lethal.
He's so explosive and fast.
You know, I mean, who knows?
The thing is, like, the USADA testing pool, I don't want to harp on this too much, but this is a giant issue for multiple reasons.
Here's one.
Let's just speculate.
Let's speculate he got out of the USADA testing pool.
This is what I would imagine if I was a pro athlete at Conor's level and I broke my leg.
You need help, okay?
You're not just going to heal off that eating mangoes and fucking eating clean.
You need some help.
I would say I would want that person to take something.
You would have to consult with an expert sports medicine doctor who would tell you, you want peptides, you want growth hormone, you want this, you want that.
You want all these things you can't take when you're in USADA. You want testosterone, you want all these things.
And you look at Connor after that leg break, he got fucking jacked.
That's generally not the result of natural hormones.
Sure.
That's generally the result of exogenous hormone use.
I don't know if that's true.
A lot of people are speculating, not just me.
And then when you look at the USADA testing pool and the fact that he's not in it, that also comes in.
So, now here's the thing.
You're in your 30s, you're 35 or whatever Connor is, 34, and you've disrupted your hormones with exogenous hormones.
Now your body has to get back to developing its own hormones.
And generally speaking, when people take steroids, and I'm not saying you took steroids, but generally speaking, if someone takes steroids, Say if you take steroids for six months, you need a year to bounce back to normal hormone levels after that.
Especially if you're doing it naturally.
There's things you can take like HCG and clomiphene and all these different things that restart your body's production of testosterone.
But you have to make sure that that's all done before you enter into the USADA testing pool.
Then you have to be in the USADA testing pool for six full months before you're allowed to compete.
So this is where it stands.
So until he enters into that, we don't know when this fight is going to happen from now.
If he says it now, tonight I'm going to enter the USADA testing pool.
I mean, you know, I can't say I'm a gym rat, obviously.
But it's interesting, man.
I've always struggled.
I've been this big...
Forever, as weird as that sounds, right?
So it's like proportionately to my, you know, until I stopped growing height-wise, you know, like once I got to where I'm at now, I was kind of like this size.
Well, I think the real benefits of exercise is not just with the way you look and your body size.
I think it's your brain.
Sure.
Especially when we're talking about all these issues about the mind and the creative mind playing tricks on you.
For me, forcing myself to exercise every day is one of the main reasons why I stay sane through all the chaos that my life goes through.
And I think that's the real benefit that a lot of people do.
It's almost like the The benefit that you get physically is—that's great, but that's almost like a side effect of the benefit that you get for the mind.
It's a process and you have to look at where you are in that process.
Now you can be someone like Jamie who's thin and healthy and fit and his process that he decides he wants to improve his fitness is a different process than yours.
And this process is scientific.
You can look at it in terms of calories in, calories out, expenditure, diet.
And mitigation things and all the different things you could do for recovery, like sauna and ice bath and all those different things.
All those factors play a part in this process.
And this process is long.
You have to realize that you've been in the process of becoming who you are now your whole life.
I was talking to my business manager, who's a dear friend of mine now.
Myself and my manager are all really, really tight.
It's kind of an abnormal relationship in the sense of he's not just my business manager.
He's friends with my parents.
He's a part of our lives now.
We talk about these things.
I remember telling him, sitting out one night, having a whiskey, and I was like, Chris, man, look, I know I've accomplished so much doing music, and we're about to go on the stadium tour.
This was just a few months ago, I think maybe December.
Or January and I was like listen man like I've accomplished all these things and like I've won Entertainer of the Year twice now and and I've got you know 15 number one songs and all these insane accolades that I could have never imagined and like in some ways Because I love music and because I feel like I've been blessed with the voice I have and the talent I have,
the voice and the talent I have, to me, doesn't feel earned.
Does that make sense to you?
There is a lot of work to hone the craft, but nobody that's tall is inherently talented for being tall.
You're not a great basketball player because you're tall.
You earn that.
But sometimes the precursor to being great at basketball is being tall.
So you do have to.
Not always, but for the most part.
Statistically speaking, that's a precursor of being great at basketball.
Having a great voice...
Statistically is a precursor for being a great musician.
Not always, but for the most part, statistically speaking.
And so, I don't want to come across as contrived or anything when I say this, but like, I feel like sometimes that I haven't done anything that's like hard to do.
My physical fitness and my appearance and my size has always been something that I've struggled with from the time I was a child and like it's this mountain that I've always been standing at the bottom of trying to run up and inherently slipping down every time, right?
And it's this thing that like I feel like if I don't overcome it in my lifetime It will be my biggest regret.
Without a doubt.
Like, it is a burden that weighs so heavily on me.