Jason Aldean recounts surviving the 2017 Las Vegas shooting—bullets striking his bus, his bandmate’s bass, and near-misses with his pregnant wife—while criticizing the FBI’s silence and media’s uneven coverage. His hit "Try That in a Small Town" (64M YouTube views) stems from frustrations over transgender policies in schools, which he calls "evil," and backlash over its courthouse imagery led CMT to drop it. Aldean defends his stance against "baseless" racism claims, comparing his authenticity to Charlie Daniels’ unfiltered approach, and praises Trump for reshaping country music’s conservative shift despite industry pressure. Skeptical of California’s decline—like LA’s $500 shoplifting laws—he predicts Trump’s 2024 win, citing election distrust and economic gains under his presidency, while dismissing progressive policies as harming families. [Automatically generated summary]
We're kicking off our live coast-to-coast speaking tour and we are thrilled to announce a special guest at our Milwaukee show on September 16th.
Larry Elder and I are going to be on stage that night and we're going to be joined last minute by Bobby Kennedy Jr. Bobby Kennedy Jr. live on stage September 16th, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Get your tickets at tuckercarlson.com.
See you there.
Here's our latest episode with Jason Aldean.
So you've been famous a long time and then you got way more famous with a single song not too long ago.
So two of my bandmates, two of the guys that are in my band who I've been playing music with for 25 years, we started a publishing company, I don't know, a few years ago, kind of started our own publishing company, writing songs.
I feel like it's more the way it's starting to be done now, but it wasn't always that way.
We're all on the road talking about the same stuff that everybody's talking about.
State of the country, those kind of things.
What we agree with, don't agree with, what we're seeing.
Those guys wanted to basically...
You know, write a song about it.
And it was, you know, meant to be kind of our version of A Country Boy Can Survive, the old Hank Jr. thing, you know.
But, you know, make it relevant to what was going on now because we felt like it was, you know, there was a lot of stuff out there that nobody was talking about or calling people out for things.
And so it kind of came from those guys and they played it for me.
And, I mean, to me, it was a no-brainer.
I mean, it was just like, man, this is everything that I feel.
It's everything I want to say.
It's something that nobody else is talking about, or at least in our world, in the music business.
So we put it out, man.
I was excited to put it out, excited to put it out as a single.
Obviously, when that happens, you see a lot of the people in the label or whatever it is, they're like, I don't know, we'll see.
A lot of times people in the business are just scared of how it's going to affect my career or their career or whatever it is.
At some point, I just feel like you've got to plant your flag somewhere and stand for something.
We put it out.
We put a video out that I felt like represented the song the way I saw it.
Once we did that, it just kind of snowballed from there.
We put the video out, and that started getting a lot of traction when it got people trying to cancel the video or whatever.
It just kind of snowballed, and next thing you know, everybody was checking it out, trying to figure out what all the...
You know, what all the hoopla was about and, you know, ended up being a huge song for us.
Yeah, well, I think that's one thing for me I noticed, man, was, you know, being in this business and just that situation for me especially, you know, I saw firsthand how the media can take something and really switch that narrative and lead you down a path that maybe it's just not true.
You know, it's like somebody writes a story and they say the headline is Jason Aldean releases.
But, you know, it's wild to me that they can go out and media can go out and put that narrative out there.
And then you got all the other media outlets and you know how it works.
Somebody says that you do one interview or one person writes an article, then all the rest of them grab that one article and it's blasted out to everywhere and that becomes...
The story, that becomes fact or true or whatever.
And it was just wild for me to see how the media could do that and sort of create something out of what shouldn't have been that big a deal.
You know what I mean?
And so it was the first time I'd, not the first time I'd been involved in something like that, but I think the first time on that level, really.
I mean, it bothered me to a sense of like, Man, that's not really, you know, you're taking it and turning it into something else, which I knew it wasn't.
But I've also been in the business long enough to know that I'm not going to go out there and start trying to defend myself to everything.
I mean, if anybody thinks that I walked down the street, you know, was looking at places to shoot a video and went, man, let's pick a place where they hung a guy in front of the building.
That'd be great for, you know, my career, great for the video, great for the story we're trying to tell.
Like, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
You know, that courthouse is 10 minutes from my house.
It was close, you know what I mean?
And so when you start having people take you down a path of that, I'm like, well, he picked it because of this.
I'm like, that's so stupid, but I'm not going to go out there.
It depends on what the story is that gets out there.
I think just online people that go and start trying to find anything that has to do with anything.
I mean, it's just whatever.
If they don't like the song, they want to figure out a way to prove their point, right?
So this is a pro...
That's where the pro-lynching stuff came from.
That's where all that stuff came from was that.
And it happened 100 years ago.
Like, I would have never...
Thought to go back and go through the history of that courthouse to make sure.
And in the South, if I'm being honest, if you go to the South and find any sort of courthouse, you'd probably be hard-pressed to find one that didn't have some sort of racial issues at some point over the years.
I mean, that just is what it is.
But anybody that thinks that we went out of our way to shoot a video there to have some underlying meaning for the video is just ridiculous to me.
You know, I think when you do something like that, I mean, I think there's going to be a lot of, you know, there's probably going to be a lot of people that were fans that don't like the fact that I stand for this or I say this, and, you know, and they kind of peel off, and that's fine.
I mean, I don't know for sure, but I mean, I would assume law of averages means it probably did, some.
But I think also with that, you also have a lot of people that maybe were borderline fans or maybe weren't fans that all of a sudden go, man, I like that guy.
And, you know, I stand by what he's saying, too.
And so what you lose, you kind of gain back.
And, you know, to me, it's less about the fans and stuff like that and more about me being true to who I am.
You know, being able to lay my head down at night, go to sleep, feeling like I did the right thing that day and that I did my part to, you know, raise my kids right and do everything I'm supposed to be doing that day.
And as a public figure, not go out and be fake and tell people what they want to hear.
It's like, you may not like what I have to say, but at least you're going to know where I stand.
And he's a guy that I think he just called it out.
He called it the way he saw it.
And, you know, he just, you know, if he saw stuff going on in the world he didn't like or in our country or whatever, he'd write a song about it, put it out there, and, you know, you like it or not, but here you go.
Well, because I think a lot of times in the business, you're, you know, it's almost like you're, I don't know, they want you to not.
Step out and do those things.
They don't want you to ruffle the waters a little bit.
They don't want the waters to be rippled a little bit because they don't know how it's going to affect your career, your fan base, or whatever the case may be.
I think it detours a lot of artists from going out and really being able to say what they want to say.
A lot of times it's artists, too.
Artists are scared that if they go out and stick their neck out too far that they're going to lose some fans or maybe not win some awards at an award show or something.
You know, and if that's the case, listen, everybody's got their own right to do things how they want to, and I just, it's just not how I operate.
I mean, not to be mean, I know you know all these, you live in Nashville, you know everybody, of course, because they all live there, but kind of hard to call yourself an artist if you're afraid to express yourself, right?
I feel like it does, you know, and that was kind of one of my arguments with the song.
It's like, I'm an artist, like, you know, I'm not...
You know, a political figure or whatever.
It's like, I'm an artist.
I sing.
So if I have, you know, I do my stuff through song and through, you know, shows and things like that versus getting on and, you know, you have a platform to do your thing and it's killer and you're one of the best at it.
And for me, that's music.
That's how I do my thing.
And if there's something I want to say, that's how you get it out there.
But I think, you know, there's a lot of artists.
Like I said, whether it's from record companies or management, giving them what they think they should do or whatever the case may be.
But I think a lot of people are just scared to step out because they're scared of losing fans.
They're scared that it's going to affect their live shows.
They're not going to make as much money or win an award here and there.
I think it's starting to loosen up a little bit.
You're starting to see guys not scared to step out and speak as much.
I mean, there's been some in the country music world.
You know, lately, some of the younger guys that are coming up that have been more that way, which is good to see.
And it's been, you know, I would say probably over the last two years, probably for sure, I've kind of noticed like, wow, it's all right, that guy, I see you over there.
You know, guys like Cody Johnson or even Parker McCollum, who's a young guy coming up.
I mean, those guys are out there and they're newer artists and, you know, it could affect them and they're out there.
Saying their piece, and I'm like, alright, cool.
We got some like-minded people now that aren't scared to go out and talk about it, which is cool.
Without using names, but since you do obviously live there and know everybody, it's your business, you've been in it your whole life, do people ever talk about this off-camera?
When you're running a business like that, I mean, it's just, there's a lot of money involved.
There's a lot of people, you know, when you have an artist, there's a lot of people underneath that artist that work for them.
A lot.
So if they get hit, you know, something happens.
You know, and I think a lot of people look at, like, the Dixie Chicks, that situation where, you know, the whole deal with Bush and they went over and talked about Bush, came back, and country was like, you know, country radio and all that.
I mean, they just, it was done for them after that.
And I think that is what...
A lot of artists look at, and it's like, man, well, if I say something, that could happen to me, too, sort of thing.
And I think that's one of the things that probably has deterred people over the years, especially in the country music world, from speaking on things.
I mean, the country music fan base is blue-collar, you know?
It's the everyday American.
It's not, you know, the everyday farmer, like those kind of people.
It's like, you know, it's not...
And I mean, there are exceptions to the rule.
I just mean, like, overall.
And, you know, I mean, country music is...
You know, it's as tapped into the heartland as any type of music there is.
And so, you know, I don't know.
What I've noticed is, I think sometimes you can watch the news or listen to the media or whatever, and, you know, there's times where it makes you feel like, they make you feel like you're crazy.
And, you know, I think it's, you know, when you go out, for me, what I've seen is when I talk about things or say something or, Whatever.
It's the amount of people that are like, thank you, you know, and they come to the defense of whatever's going on or just agree and say, thank you, man.
Somebody's finally saying this and, you know, and it's the blue collar people and they are the biggest country music fans.
And it's not why, you know, it's not like I chose that because, oh, well, we can get more fans because country music fans are like this.
It's like, man, that's just how I feel.
And I just feel like.
I'm a pretty average everyday guy that, you know, same thing as everybody else, man.
I'm trying to raise my kids, raise good kids, and provide for my family, and, you know, I have a lot of people that work for me.
I try to take care of those guys, and I know that everything I say is under a microscope.
Everything I do is under a microscope, and everything I do could affect everybody underneath me that works for me and my family and everything.
But like I said, man, at the end of the day, I got to be able to like lay down at night knowing that I'm doing my part and being true to who I am.
It is a great app that I am proud to say I use, my whole family uses.
It's for daily prayer and Christian meditation.
And it's transformative.
As we head into the start of school in the height of election season, you need it.
Trust me, we all do.
Things are going to get crazier and crazier and crazier.
Sometimes it's hard to imagine even what is coming next.
So with everything happening in the world right now, it is essential to ground yourself.
This is not some quack cure.
This is the oldest and most reliable cure in history.
It's prayer.
Ground yourself in prayer and scripture every single day.
That is a prerequisite for staying sane and healthy and maybe for doing better eternally.
So if you're busy on the road, headed to kids' sports, there is always time to pray and reflect alone or as a family.
Hard to be organized about it.
Building a foundation of prayer is going to be absolutely critical as we head into November, praying that God's will is done in this country and that peace and healing come to us here in the United States and around the world.
Christianity obviously is under attack everywhere.
That's not an accident.
Why is Christianity, the most peaceful of all religions, under attack globally?
Did you see the opening of the Paris Olympics?
There's a reason.
Because the battle is not temporal.
It's taking place in the unseen world.
It's a spiritual battle, obviously.
So try Hallow.
Get three months completely free at Hallow.
That's Hallow.com slash Tucker.
If there's ever a time to get spiritually in tune and ground yourself in prayer, it's now.
Hallow will help personally and strongly and totally sincerely recommend it.
Hallow.com slash Tucker.
I asked your tour manager, how many people go on tour with you?
You know, it's like you start and, you know, when we first started, we were on one bus.
I think there was eight or nine of us on a bus.
And that was my first, you know, time going out on the bus.
It was me, my band.
I had a tour manager and maybe two crew guys that ran with us.
Then it's like you go to two buses, and all of a sudden you've got 15 people out there, and then you go to three buses, and there's 20. It just kind of keeps growing.
Next thing you know, we're 19 years into this thing now, too.
Yeah, well, you know, and I think, you know, my wife is very outspoken, you know, and she's very...
I don't know, very firm in her beliefs.
And it's tough, man.
It's like, you know, you're trying to raise kids.
Like, we have a five and six-year-old.
I have a 21-year-old and a 17-year-old as well.
You know, and it's like, but you're trying to raise kids in an era.
And we were talking about it earlier, where, you know, you're trying to make things normal to me that aren't normal.
And, you know, and I think when she said that, you know, it was just like, you know, there's a certain group of people that...
I feel like there's people that are going to take offense to everything these days, no matter what you say.
Obviously, she said that.
People jumped all over that.
But, I mean, I agree with her.
I feel like, listen, if you want to be trans or do those kind of things, it's like if you're an adult and can make those decisions and you're old enough to have the mentality to know what you're doing and know what that looks like for the rest of your life, that's one thing.
If you're As a kid, your parents are already instilling that in you and all this stuff and allowing you to do those things before you're of age.
You can't even vote until you're 18. Why should you be able to do that?
Or drink a beer until you're 21, but you can change your...
It's just weird to me.
And I think if somebody wants to do that and they're old enough to make that decision, hey, it doesn't affect my life, whatever.
But you can't try to make that normal to everybody.
We ended up getting invited to New Year's at Mar-a-Lago one year, and I think we had kind of started to become vocal about it.
And honestly, when he ran in 2016, I mean, I was not political at all.
I didn't really get into it, didn't really understand it a whole lot, didn't pay much attention to it.
But I did think it was cool that here's this guy that is really not a politician.
And at the time, you had all the...
A-list stars were going, oh, Trump's running for president.
They were all excited and almost kind of like it was a joke a little bit.
And then he won, and I don't think anybody thought he would win.
And for the next eight years, it's been nothing but trying to just like slander this guy, get him out, you know, and just all the stuff you watch him deal with in the media.
And to me, it was just, I don't know, we just kind of started speaking out about that stuff and how we felt about it.
And so I went and had breakfast with him, played golf, came back, had lunch, and then saw him at the thing and just kind of hit it off.
I mean, you've been around him.
You know he's a guy's guy, man.
You talk to him about sports or like whatever the case is.
And he's just a...
He's a cool guy.
And so I just kind of hit it off with him and kept in touch with him over the last few years and try to see him when I can.
Down in Florida, we lived down there part of the time, which is only, I don't know, probably 45 minutes from Mar-a-Lago over there.
So it kind of started like that.
It was like we had no intentions of getting political or any of those things.
It just kind of happened.
You know, with all the elections.
Like I said, the last eight years, just watching what happened and going through 2020, the election stuff and the BLM stuff and the COVID vaccine and all those things.
It's just like, man, you're just watching all this stuff go down.
Like, what is going on right now?
It's crazy.
And so I think, obviously, having little kids made us get a little more involved and started paying attention to what was happening.
And it's like, man, I just, you know, my thing is I don't vote for...
And this is true.
I don't vote for the person, like, as much as people may say that's a lie or whatever.
You know, for me, it's like, which one of these groups is going to take the country in the direction that I feel like it should be taken for my family, my kids, and, like, their future and those kind of things?
And to me, that's what I base it on, and I feel like, personally, for me, that's him.
And so, you know, it just kind of became a thing, but it was never, you know, I mean...
Ten years ago, man, I couldn't have talked to you about any politics at all.
Well, it just felt like, you know, the country was doing what it does.
I mean, it'd kind of go through its periods of whatever, but it was never crazy.
It was still, you know, economy will go up and down and those kind of things, but it wasn't just like a complete shit show.
You know what I'm saying?
And then all of a sudden when that happened, it was like, wow, we got little kids.
And I'm like, man, I got to send my kid to school.
You know, it's like, we're talking about, like, the transgender stuff, and it's like, what do I do if he comes home?
It's like, man, there's a girl in my class that's a boy, or, you know, it's like, that's hard to explain to a five- or six-year-old, and people out there can say it doesn't happen.
That's a lot.
It's happening in elementary schools, I know for a fact, because it's happened around places where we live.
You know, somebody's going to bitch about something.
I mean, that's just the way it is.
But I think until, you know, I finally just came to the conclusion of like, man, you know, I think I'm right.
I just think I'm on the right side of this.
And like, you know, I have a platform to be able to go out and...
I mean, there's other artists and actors and actresses and, you know, all these other celebrities that'll get on talk shows and all this stuff, and they'll run Trump down, you know, right there on live TV or Kathy Griffin holding up a Trump head that looks like they cut his head off.
You know, all that stuff's okay.
You know, nobody says shit about that, but, you know, we start talking out about things.
All of a sudden, they're appalled, right?
But to me, I just feel like I'm on the right side of it.
And it's like, man, if you agree with me, cool.
And if you don't, that's cool, too.
I mean, it's not going to affect the way I view things or what I say or how I feel.
You can get everything you need for hunting, fishing, enjoying the outdoors at Bass Pro, and we do.
What you might not know is that for over 50 years, Bass Pro has been a leader in conservation efforts throughout the continent.
Bass Pro is led by our friend Johnny Morris.
He's the visionary founder, visionary is not too strong, by the way, of that company, and he's put conservation at the core of their mission from the very first day.
And by conservation, we're not talking about some weird theoretical climate scheme.
We're talking about preserving the natural landscape, preserving the land, the natural resources that we inherited, created by God.
So for the last decade, Bass Pro has averaged giving back more than 10% of their earnings to conservation and advancing their mission, a critical mission, of introducing people to the outdoors, getting them away from screens into God's great nature.
Advocating for the rights of sportsmen and conserving wildlife and habitat, which is essential.
If you hunt or fish, you know.
So customers are invited to round up their purchases in-store and online to support Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's Outdoor Fund, which gets invested directly with conservation projects and organizations in the communities they serve.
It's all real.
So rounding up that little bit of pocket change adds up over time, particularly with a big company like Bass Pro, and it makes a big difference.
So stop into your nearest Bass Pro Shops or Cabela's to gear up for all your outdoor pursuits, hunting, fishing, being outside.
And while you're there, we recommend rounding up for conservation.
So something that I hesitate even to ask you about, but I feel like I have to, you were performing in Las Vegas during the biggest mass shooting in American history.
And I didn't know until today when we were talking off air, first of all, like how, I mean, your bus got shot up.
It's like, went out to play a show like I always do, and, you know, you expect to go out there for an hour and a half, two hours, get done, come back, hang out with your guys, and get on the plane or bus or whatever it is and go home.
You know, that night was just a different story, and it was just a weird deal.
You know, something that a lot of the guys in my camp, my crew and stuff, it kind of messed a lot of people up for a while, just kind of going through that stuff.
And, you know, a lot of the guys that are with me have been with me for 15 years, plus some of them have been with me for 19 years.
And so, you know, it was tough, man.
It was a tough thing to go through, and I was telling you, like, before.
You know, the toughest part was going through all that, and then you get home and you're watching the news trying to figure out, all right, well, why did this guy do this?
Like, what was his reasoning, and why this show?
And, you know, he never really got any answers on any of that stuff, and still to this day, like, we don't really know much about it.
I just, you know, you go and see the aftermath after it happened.
You know, there's bullet holes in the front of my bus and in the side.
My band bus, the windows got shot out of the band bus.
On stage to me, one of my best friends in the world for the last 25 years was standing next to me, you know, had a bullet lodged in the bass he was playing at the time.
So bullet hits the bass he's got on at the time playing.
And so, yeah, I mean, there was some close calls for that stuff and a lot of stuff that, you know.
I've never really gone way into detail about a lot of it, but it was wild.
I mean, I took my guitar off, laid it on stage that night of the shooting, and it stayed right there in that spot for two weeks while the FBI went out and did the crime scene and all the stuff.
So we didn't have guitars to play.
And Lorne Michaels called us and wanted us to come do Saturday Night Live, do a cold opening and all the stuff.
And I said, man, listen out.
I got some stuff to say.
I don't want you guys writing stuff for me to talk about or say or whatever.
Let me write it and say what I want to say.
Tom Petty had died when we were flying home the next day.
Tom Petty, we got the news, he had died on the flight home.
I was like, man, just a crappy week.
I was a big Tom Petty fan.
I was like, man, if you'll just let me say what we want to say and play a song for Petty.
Tie all the stuff in.
It's been a rough week.
Lauren told me that was fine.
I could do what I wanted.
We went up there and called all the guys.
Got everybody rallied up.
Went up there and played a show.
I'll say this.
That crew and everybody that was on that show was really cool to us that day.
Very welcoming.
Which was really needed for us at the time.
They helped us a lot to get over that hurdle a little bit.
To get back and start playing and know that we had to pick up and keep moving.
We had a tour to finish.
We had another four to six weeks left of the tour to go out and finish after that happened, which was tough.
So we did that and then came home and just kind of shut everything down for about six, seven months and went underground pretty good for a while.
My son was born during that time, so I got to come home.
He was born, which kind of helped take my mind off of it and stuff.
I just find it odd that they, you know, can solve all these crazy crimes and all this stuff, and here's a guy that committed one of the biggest crimes in our country, and it's like, we got nothing.
You know, there's no computer, no, you know, he had a girlfriend or something or whatever it was, and he had sent her to wherever he sent her with some money, and, you know, it was just a weird thing, and I'm like, we never got any sort of I mean, it was just never anything that made you go, oh, okay, I see that.
And then as soon as that was over, left and flew back to Vegas, which was, I think, a week to the day of the shooting.
Just went in there, went to the hospital, and started making the rounds, man.
Just going in, seeing all the people that were in there.
Some of them had a leg wound or whatever, and then some of them had been shot in the head, and their families were in there not knowing.
It just sucks, man.
It was like, you guys were at my show.
You guys came to hear our show, and that's why you're here like this.
It was...
It was a lot for me to process, you know, and I think that was one of the first things I think for me where it took me out of being this, you know, this guy that was just having fun on the road, playing, living this great life and doing my thing or whatever.
It's like, you know what, man, this is bigger than all this stuff.
Like, this is a big, big deal.
And, you know, I had a lot of people that worked for me that were sort of looking to me going, what do we do now?
You know, where do we go from here?
And, you know, it's kind of like a lead by example sort of thing.
And I'm like, you know, so that was the first time for me that I really had to kind of step up and be the boss.
Big country music fans, a lot of people that are out there that don't agree with his policies and everything, but it's like their families are out there, and they've built lives out there, and they don't want to leave the state just because of this guy.
So I just think what he's done to California is not good, and I would hate to see the rest of the country look like that.
I hate to tell you that it's still going on in 2024, but you know what they can't censor?
Live events.
That's why we are hitting the road on a fall tour for the entire month of September, coast to coast.
We'll be in cities across the United States.
We'll be in Phoenix with Russell Brand, Anaheim, California with Vivek Ramaswamy, Colorado Springs with Tulsi Gabbard, Salt Lake City with Glenn Beck, Tulsa, Oklahoma with Dan Bongino, Kansas City with Megan Kelly, Wichita with Charlie Kirk, Milwaukee with Larry Elder, Rosenberg, Texas with Jesse Milwaukee with Larry Elder, Rosenberg, Texas with Jesse Kelly, Grand Rapids with Kid Rock, Hershey, Pennsylvania with J.D. Vance, Redding, Pennsylvania with Alex Jones, Fort Worth, Texas with Roseanne Barr, Greenville, South Carolina with Marjorie Taylor.
Green, Sunrise, Florida with John Rich, Jacksonville, Florida with Donald Trump Jr.
I hope at some point clear heads prevail and people are like, man, listen.
All across the board, it's like whatever we're doing here is not working and it's just a mess.
And so until...
You know, everybody kind of gets on the same page, stops pushing their own agendas for their own parties and their own stuff.
Like, I don't see it getting better, so I hope it does, because I feel like how I grew up, you know, I mean, I was born in 77, kind of a kid of the 80s.
You know, the 80s were awesome, man.
Got to ride your bikes all over the place, and you played outside, and, you know, you didn't worry about...
And then there was stuff going on.
I mean, there was, you know, Cold War and all that stuff kind of stuff going on or whatever, but...
And so, you know, you always had that stuff going on.
And I remember laying in bed as a kid going, man, is there going to be a Russian rocket come through my window tonight?
You know, there's always been those kind of things.
But, you know, I just think our country, man, like what it was founded on, the beliefs and everything else and what we stand for as a country has just been kind of lost.
Yeah, it was just those kind of things over and over.
And then, you know, so, you know, whether there was ballot dumping or whatever you want to call it going on during that time or not, I think to the average person out there, it looked shady.
It looked like, you know, wait, Trump's in the lead and then all of a sudden water mains break.
Well, let us count all these votes and then all of a sudden Trump stays here.
And Biden, you know, overtakes him.
It's like, how is that possible?
You know, I think there was a lot of that kind of stuff going on, which is why a lot of people questioned it.
And, you know, so I don't know.
I think, like I said, I mean, I'm obviously a supporter of Trump.
I like, you know, do I think he can be brash sometimes and say some things that, you know, he probably could have a little bit better of a bedside manner?
Sure.
I'll give you that.
That's fair.
At the end of the day, I don't really care if he hurts your feelings or not, as long as, like, as a country, we're moving in the right direction.
The economy's great.
You know, there's jobs for people.
When people are working and making money and there's jobs created, I mean, it's just a fact.
There's less crime.
There's less all those things.
People aren't having to steal for money and, you know, feed their families or do whatever.
There's less of that because they're working.
They're making money.
They're doing well.
And I just, you know, I saw that when he was in office.
You know, that's what I, one of the reasons I'm a supporter of his, I just like the direction that I feel like he would take us.
And so that's where a lot of the questions came up.
I hope that they figure out a way to do this election.
Where it's fair, you know, I think you should have, you know, everybody should have to show ID. You should be a registered voter that has to show ID. You should be a legal citizen from here, you know.
I mean, this border, everybody we're letting in the, through the border, you know, I mean, are we going to let them vote?
Like, how does that work?
I mean, I feel like, I mean, to me it seems like that's the whole reason we're letting them in right now, right?
And so for the first time all day, my house gets quiet about 10 o'clock at night.
And so that's when I kind of start sitting there.
You speak for many American men.
Yeah, I get really creative at night, and so I'll just sit there and start going through stuff, texting my guys, and start trying to map out a song or something.
You know, and then we'll get on tour or whatever and we'll kind of finish stuff up.
When I first moved to Nashville, I moved there as a songwriter.
I was signed to Warner Chapel, which is Warner Brothers Publishing Company.
So, you know, I would go into the office every day and I would write from 10 o'clock to 4 o'clock every day in a room, no windows, just sitting there trying to hammer songs out.
Anymore, it's like a Pro Tools rig or something just where you can, I mean, you got like an iPad or something.
You can pull up a, you know, Get something going, just like a beat, drum beat, a little loop or something, and put a guitar over it and start messing around and lyrics.
It's kind of in sections almost.
I mean, the idea, the title and the idea are the main thing, and then you kind of start building around that.
And as long as I always said, the fans will tell you when it's time to quit or cut back.
You know, if you're playing a 20,000 seat place and there's only 5,000 people there, it's probably time to pack it up and maybe go home and do something else for a minute.
But, you know, I hope that never happens.
And as long as people come out, man, I'll be out there playing for sure.
You know, I think that's, I think a lot of times that kind of comes with the territory.
I mean, you know, as 15 years old, I'm playing in bars with guys that are in their 40s.
And, you know, I was, I saw a lot of stuff as a kid, you know, go in the band dressing room and there's...
Coke or whatever on the table or whatever these guys were doing.
And I just remember thinking to myself, like, I don't want to be playing a bar when I'm 40. You know, I don't want to have like a day job and then come do this at night when I'm 40 to make 50 bucks a night.
Like, I just, it just wasn't, like, I knew then that that was a stepping stone to do something else that I wanted to do.
And so I think I was always, like, pretty aware of that and always wanted to make sure that, like, I try to take care of myself.
And it's hard, man.
I mean, I went through periods on the road where, you know, I wasn't living the healthiest lifestyle either.
And, you know, never was, like, a hard drug guy.
But, like, I mean, I like to drink and have fun as much as anybody, you know.
And there's times where you probably do that a little too much.
You know, and I think, you know, even that stuff, like, it's taken me, you know.
It took me years to kind of get a grasp on all of it, you know, because you become such a creature of habit.
You go out and it's Groundhog Day, man.
You get on the bus, you show up at a place, hang out, you do your show, you hang out with the band after, you drink a little bit, get on the bus, go to the next town, do it.
Well, when you start doing that and you're playing 200 days a year, you're drinking 200 days a year and doing that stuff.
And so I think it reaches a point where I think most everybody...
You know, when it's starting out, you hit it hard.
You're so excited to be out there and you're just, you know, running and sort of living life on the edge a little bit.
And then, you know, I met my wife and had our kids and, you know, she came out on the road and started giving me a little bit more of like a, okay, this is more like home out here now.
And so one of the things is wanting to make sure, like, our life is so not normal anyway that, you know, it's hard, man, when you're raising kids and you want them to have a normal childhood, normal life and all that, but then they come out and experience the things they do, and that's so not normal that I think, you know, a thing for us this year is making sure she stays at home with them more to make sure they're in school and playing.
You know, Little League baseball and softball and doing all those kind of things, too.
That's really important to both of us.
But, yeah, I mean, for the last, what is Memphis?
So, for the last six years, I mean, they've been out.
I mean, I would say probably 75% to 80% of the time I was out, they've been out with me for the last six years.
And I love it, man.
I love having them out.
And that's one of the things about this job is you tour, you're on the road constantly.
And to be in a position now to be able to carry them out and travel with them and stuff, it's nice because when my older girls were little, I hadn't hit that point in my career yet where I could have multiple buses and bring them out and kind of have a family bus.
You know, I was doing good to pay for the one bus I had.
And so, you know, and then they started school and same thing with them.
I wanted them to kind of have a normal childhood and upbringing, even though our life was kind of crazy.
And so it's been a little bit of a juggling act over the years trying to figure it out.
But I feel like for me, you know, I'm finally in a place that I feel comfortable, like, you know, I'm happy to go out on the road.
I love being out there and playing.
I love coming home.
You know, after a few days and seeing the family if they're not out there and it just, it works for me and it works for us and it's been really good.
So it turns out that YouTube is suppressing our show.
I know.
Shocking that in an election year, with everything at stake, Google would be putting its thumb on the scale and preventing you from hearing anything that the people in charge don't want you to hear.
But it turns out it's happening.
So what can you do about it?
Well, we could whine about it.
But that's a waste of time.
We're not in charge of Google.
Or we could find a way around it.
A way that you could actually get information that's true.
It's not intentionally deceptive.
And the way to do that on YouTube, we think, is to subscribe to our channel.
Subscribe!
And you'll have a much higher chance of hearing what we say.