The Tucker Carlson Show - Aaron Lewis on Being Blacklisted from Radio & Why Record Labels Intentionally Promote Terrible Music

Aug. 22, 2025 - The Tucker Carlson Show

01:45:19

Aaron Lewis on Being Blacklisted from Radio & Why Record Labels Intentionally Promote Terrible Music

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	How did you wind up singing country music?
	Well, my childhood, the soundtrack to my childhood is all country music.
	That's all I heard from the time I woke up in the morning until the time the lights went out.
	It's funny, you're from Northern New England, which I think people don't associate with country music, but it's Oh yeah, for sure.
	Country, like out in the woods, everybody's listening to country music.
	Thank you.
	But yeah, I would I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' house.
	Where?
	In Wallingford, Vermont.
	Spent a lot of time there.
	It was a safe place for me.
	And my grandmother would wake up in the morning and the very first thing that happened before an egg hit the frying pan or anything was the country radio got turned on.
	Wow.
	And it was on all day long.
	And the very last thing that got shut off before the light got shut off was the radio.
	So, I mean, it didn't matter if I was going fishing with my grandfather or whether I was at the house.
	If we were going fishing, I can still visualize the pile of eight tracks on the floor of his Gran Torino.
	with the boat tied to the top of the car.
	And it was permanent.
	There was always country music, always.
	And if we were in the boat, he was singing it.
	So my whole childhood is just steeped in country music.
	So when I decided to do something different because I had gotten to the end of my contract with Stained, and I was now free to do whatever I wanted to do, I had always thought about putting out.
	out a solo record, if you will.
	A lot of lead singers do that.
	I didn't want it to be stained light.
	I wanted...
	Yes.
	And the only direction to go was country music because it was such a part of my being, part of my whole childhood memories and the landscape of it.
	So when I decided that I was actually going to do something by myself, that was the direction that I went.
	It's funny, I think people think of country music as a regional music, southern, Appalachian, you know, Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, kind of the birthplace.
	They don't think of it as the music of the country.
	So it's like Central California, Bakersfield, of course.
	Oh yeah.
	Vermont.
	Bakersfield is a piece of Texas.
	Of exactly.
	In the middle of California.
	And you grew up in Northern New England, which is, you know, very rural, one of the most rural places.
	And you get out of the cities in New England, and it's as country as country gets, and it's as red as red gets.
	Even the state of Massachusetts.
	Oh, I know.
	If you look at the state of Massachusetts broken down county by county, the whole state's red except for Boston, Worcester, and Springfield.
	Yeah.
	If you get outside those three big cities and in the state of Massachusetts, which is one of the worst, California too, you get outside those big cities, it's all red.
	Yeah, not a lot of Kamala voters up near Mount Shasta.
	No.
	No.
	No, not at all.
	It's just, music is such a window into attitudes and culture.
	And it's just, it's funny that country music is basically popular everywhere outside the cities.
	100%.
	Interesting.
	So how was it weird for you to go from one genre to a completely different one?
	Weird?
	i don't know if it was weird it was foolish by everybody else's accounts because i had already built something substantial in the rock industry yeah and i kind of walked away from that and went to a completely different genre that there might be some overlap of stained fans that also liked country music.
	But I was certainly in that moment shooting myself in the foot and having to basically start over because my value in the industry was towards the rock industry and nobody knew who I was in the country industry unless they would listen to rock music too.
	So it kind of In perfect me form, I took the hard road and decided I was going to change genres along with putting something out by myself, which would have been hard enough as it is.
	How has country music changed itself as a genre?
	I don't really recognize country music anymore.
	Really?
	Well, what's playing on the radio?
	Like, how do you draw a line from what's on the radio now and called country music to what was on the radio when we were kids called country music?
	Like, there's no there's no line to be drawn.
	I listen to Bluegrass Junction, so this is all outside my world, but tell me how it's changed.
	It's been infiltrated by California just like everything else.
	Oh, really?
	When within my career, about halfway through it, everything changed in the industry and a lot of consolidation happened.
	A lot of people lost their jobs at whatever record label they were at or they were in the top 40 side of things and everything got condensed and they lost their.
	Well, they all either went to Nashville or they went to country radio.
	And I truly believe that that has something to do with why country has become so popified, where it's like the land of the misfit toys, where it's not really country, it's not really pop.
	It kind of rides right down the middle of it and becomes its own thing, and they should call it its own thing.
	Like it should have its own genre and classification.
	And instead they call it country.
	And I don't know how you can put George Jones and Merle Haggard in the same sentence as Morgan Wallen or the Rascal Flats.
	I mean, how do you even how does that correlate?
	How does that fall into the same category?
	Because it doesn't in any way to me.
	Which is better?
	Country.
	Yeah.
	We have pop music.
	I think pop music with a country twang is a little weird.
	Why did they do that?
	Did that happen organically or do you think it was on purpose?
	It's the control mechanism.
	It's the people in power calling the shots and being the tastemakers, if you will, and choosing for us what we want to hear and then stuffing it down our throat until we accept it.
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	There's something a little radical, well maybe more than a little radical about traditional, you know, Johnny Cash doing, you know, a live show from the Folson Yard.
	You know, it's like it's pretty.
	It's pretty untamed in a lot of ways.
	I mean, there's like a true outlaw, not a fake outlaw element, but like a real outlaw element.
	I think the country music is American.
	Like, it's the it's the genre that we as a country of America are certainly responsible for.
	It came from here.
	It didn't come from somewhere else where where rock had a lot of English influence.
	All those English bands from back to the 1930s and stuff.
	And but they brought us to country music is country music still isn't worldwide.
	It's big in Germany.
	It's it might have it's got a listening audience in in England and in Germany, but it doesn't expand much further than that.
	Like, country music is an American genre.
	And it's become less American and more international, more like Barcelona.
	It's just everyone's city.
	Like, it's like...
	It's like the land of the misfit toys.
	That's the best way to describe it, where it doesn't fit in pop, doesn't fit in country, just kind of, but you can push it in either direction and it works, but it has no...
	It's definitely not pure to the genre.
	Do you think that there's still a demand for it?
	Yeah, real country music.
	Could Merle Haggard make a living today?
	I don't know.
	I mean, I would certainly hope so.
	But if you listen to the landscape that's on country radio right now, I don't see where he would fit in at all.
	Hmm.
	I don't see where I fit in at all.
	Are you on the radio?
	No.
	Really?
	No, they won't play me.
	They don't like my thoughts on things.
	Really?
	How important is, well, it's obviously you, how many shows you do last year?
	Oh, probably 175, 180 shows last year.
	Yeah, so obviously pretty much all of them sold out.
	You're doing fine.
	I'm just fine.
	It's nice to not have to bow down to the powers that be.
	It's nice to not have to undermine my value in a market because the
	I don't need to sell myself short by doing favors for a radio station.
	Is that how it works?
	Oh.
	First, you sell your everything else you've got to the machine, which is the radio that drives music.
	Really?
	Is it satellite or terrestrial radio?
	Like, what?
	all of it.
	All of it.
	Satellite just took over.
	Yeah, but it's the same idea.
	Same concept.
	So how does, if you don't mind revealing the sleazy underbelly of the business, like that you don't participate in, apparently, how does that work?
	Um, we're the, we.
	I mean, I think that indentured servitude laws are literally still on the books in California so that they can get away with what they do with them.
	The performer, the artist you're talking about?
	Yeah.
	Everything, every penny that we ever get paid from a record label is all a loan.
	It's all a loan.
	To give you just a conceptual breakdown, this is all just kind of a, take a dollar.
	Yeah.
	So 25 cents of that dollar, let's just say.
	it's probably more, goes to the record label just because, because they invested.
	The rest of it...
	Lawyer takes their percentage.
	Management takes their percentage.
	Business manager takes their percentage.
	Then the government takes their percentage.
	And then the overhead.
	And then what's left?
	Let's call it 10 cents at the end of the day.
	That goes back.
	to the record label to pay back the loan that they gave you of the money that they gave you up front.
	Actually, any money that I've actually made from the record label, I've made them 80 times as much.
	Like that's of a dollar.
	Let's just say there's 12 cents left.
	The 12 cents actually goes to pay back the record label for the money that they gave you.
	It's insane.
	How does that still exist?
	Because of the laws on the books.
	It's like, it's insane.
	Are the record label people adding a lot to the process?
	Are they creative geniuses?
	No.
	I just love how all the people who are getting rich from the video are the least creative people.
	They're the ones that can't create, but they are making the most money off the creatives.
	We're here because who wouldn't want a record label?
	Who wouldn't want to live this dream?
	Who wouldn't want to make music if they're a musician?
	Who wouldn't want to make music as their livelihood?
	So we're in a very, a very fucked up situation where there's a thousand people.
	behind me.
	Yeah.
	That would kill me to have my freaking job.
	Yes, exactly.
	So I'm in, I got no leverage.
	Television's the same.
	I got no leverage with the industry.
	Yeah.
	Because I'm, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm easily chewed up and spit out because there's a thousand people behind me waiting to get chewed up and spit out.
	How long did you participate in that system?
	was 2012 or 13 that last stained record that we put out was was
	And then once that contract was done, I tried to play the game with country music.
	And then I released a song called That Ain't Country that was basically talking about the whole industry that has created this amalgamation of music that doesn't really fit in a genre.
	And that was the end of it.
	I put out a song trying to get country radio to play it about them and they didn't like that very much.
	Okay, so you attacked the distributors and then were surprised when they didn't distribute it.
	Yeah, super smart.
	Yeah, super smart.
	I admire your purity.
	Exactly, but principle.
	That's that's hilarious.
	So that didn't, that didn't work.
	So what Well, did it work?
	Well, I don't know.
	It basically did it didn't work to my advantage to be played on the radio, but it certainly freed me from being a servant to radio yes so it's a i it is so freeing to not be under that thumb yes i can write
	songs that are over three and a half minutes long i can put lyrics and songs that that I want to put there.
	You know, I'm no longer held to the industry standard because I'm not necessarily trying to participate in the industry game.
	I go out there, I play successful shows, I have a fan base that seeks out my music and doesn't just listen to what the radio stuffs down their throat.
	And I'm very, very blessed and very, very lucky that I don't have to participate in the game anymore.
	How has Spotify changed it?
	I'm a Spotify billionaire.
	I've had over a billion spins on Spotify.
	If I only had a penny for every spin on Spotify, that would be fantastic.
	A dollar, a quarter, a penny from every spin with over a billion spins.
	on Spotify.
	All I have is a plaque.
	You never got paid?
	It's so...
	I don't even think a penny comes my way, to be honest with you.
	For a billion spins, you made no money?
	I don't think so.
	I don't.
	That's not how Spotify works.
	Well, how does it work?
	I'm not sure.
	I'm just not.
	I just know that it cuts a lot of people in on my financial stream.
	That's all I know.
	And a lot of people who are not you.
	Right.
	That once again aren't the creatives and they're the ones making all the money.
	So you think so.
	They were creative in how they came up with something to get into someone else's moneys money stream.
	What's called creative accounting, which is a form of creativity long unrecognized in the West.
	I would call it being a leech, but yeah, I would say the same.
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	That's amazing to me.
	It's a billion plays more than you don't get paid.
	I don't, I mean, I might have, it certainly wasn't enough for me to notice, whoa, where the hell did all this money come from in my bank account?
	Oh, I got spun over a billion times on Spotify.
	That's why.
	No, I mean, do I know for sure that no money came in?
	No, but Well, if you don't remember, then obviously it's minuscule comp comparatively speaking.
	That is so interesting.
	Have there been that's basically the whole thing.
	The amount of money that we generate as the artist, what we get back for that is minuscule comparatively speaking to what everybody else with their hands in the cookie jar makes.
	So whenever I hear people talk about the I'm not complaining.
	Well, you should go out.
	I'm very blessed and I'm very lucky and I'm and you know, obviously God has a plan for me because the way that all of this has just happened and I am just a passenger and I'm not driving the ship.
	Yes.
	But, and I'm very lucky and very blessed, but I can still recognize the faults to the system.
	and not necessarily be complaining about how amazing of a ride I've had doing this.
	It's just, it's interesting.
	I mean, but I should just say, Spotify has been such a huge blessing for us on this podcast.
	I mean, it's just crazy.
	It's an amazing new way for people to consume.
	Yeah.
	And it's run by a guy I know who owns it and I think it's a good guy and committed to speech.
	And so I'm very pro-Spotify, but I just didn't understand that the creators on the music side were cut out of the benefits.
	Again, not cut out.
	No, but I mean, a billion But that's all I'm saying.
	I should have seen a pretty significant deposit into my account for that many spins.
	But what's interesting is they probably paid someone but not you.
	So you hear the Probably, I'm sure my record label got paid.
	Well, you see the accounting of the US economy, like what's our GDP?
	You know, how much money is the United States economy generating?
	And like a lot.
	So the question is not, you know, is the engine functioning?
	The question is, where's the money going?
	And my complaint about the US is not capitalism, which clearly works.
	It's about who benefits from it.
	And it does seem like the least useful, least creative, least certainly least patriotic, but least decent people make all of them big money.
	And I think this is another example of it.
	Like, how did Larry Fink get so rich?
	Like, what did Larry Fink do for America?
	Et cetera, et cetera.
	Figured out a way.
	to completely leach off of everything that's already there.
	Well, that's that's certainly the way it seems to me.
	Certainly does, right?
	So how do you make money by getting on the road?
	That is how, and that's why I work as hard as I do, because that is where I make my money.
	I don't make money on record sales.
	I don't make money off of spins.
	I make money off of merch.
	and actually playing shows.
	Wow.
	But that's a much, it feels like that's a much more direct transaction.
	Like you're renting the venue, you're performing for two and a half hours or whatever, you're getting a cut of gate.
	Like there are fewer middlemen in that, right?
	There seems to be less of a machine that puts itself in between.
	Yeah.
	But there's this thing that has taken place since I got my record deal 28.
	years ago, 27 years ago, is called a 360 deal, where now the younger artists they're sharing the profits for everything the record label gets a cut of their merch the record label gets a cut of their live performance pay the record record label gets a cut of 360 everything why no matter what you generate because
	they can because there's a thousand people behind every single person with a record label with a with a record deal that wants it as badly as you did before you got it and they can give you the shittiest deal on the planet because if you don't take it the guy behind you will Wow.
	And they're not only greedy and dishonest, ruthless, they're also very political, right?
	The record labels.
	And usually in the wrong direction.
	And I don't understand how a record label that, I mean, it certainly isn't capitalism with a conscience, but it is, it's certainly capitalism where the record label is in it to make money.
	And it's not necessarily about what's the art that is being created by the creative.
	It's about the money that that creative artist is going to generate for the record label to cover the 15 failures that they brought to the table.
	Yes.
	And dumped all this money into.
	I get it.
	Publishing's the same way.
	Yeah.
	So, you know, you've been in it your whole life.
	You've toured with everybody.
	Pretty much everybody.
	Everybody.
	You were telling me last night about smoking weed with Willie Nelson on his bus many years ago.
	So you've toured with everybody.
	How many creators, artists, performers in your business?
	in private hate and resent the record companies?
	Most.
	Most.
	Most, if not all.
	I don't know that in a private setting, in a private conversation where things aren't going any further, I don't know of anybody that I know in the business that would have good things to say about it.
	Would it be possible for a decent person to start a record company and record label?
	I would think so.
	I would think so, but the problem is that the operating system, it's just, it's not decent.
	Right.
	So a decent person could start a record label, but unless they change the entire formula and in the entire way that the whole business is ran, The business itself is lethargic.
	So a good person could start it, but unless they change the whole thing, it's going to be the same same.
	It's like getting elected to Congress.
	It's pretty obvious now that this country is getting weaker than ever, meaning the population is unhealthier.
	That's what Maha is about, trying to counteract this long term trend that's culminated in a disaster.
	Americans are so unhealthy we can't staff the military and it's really, really sad.
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	So when did you start having conflict with your corporate masters over politics?
	Hmm.
	Amen.
	Obama getting elected.
	That was a moment, wasn't it?
	And you weren't fully on board?
	Hell no.
	You didn't worship Black Jesus?
	I immediately recognized it as a horrible blow to our country.
	Immediately.
	Not even knowing why yet.
	Like, I just knew.
	Instinct tells you.
	Instinctively, in my gut, I knew that we had made a massive, massive mistake as a country.
	Yeah, that's for sure.
	And so many balls got rolling during that time frame that I was going to be that we're still that we're still trying to slow down oh i know it but yeah um When TMZ would get me when I landed in Los Angeles and I was walking through the airport and they'd get me and ask me questions and that was when I started expressing my feelings and my opinions on the airport.
	You know how they get you?
	Do you know the answer to this question?
	I found out.
	I've been gotten a few times at LAX by TMZ and other airports and I once asked, like, how did you know I was on that plane?
	Like, you know, because they know because they bribe the airline.
	The guy told me this.
	They bribe the airline to give them the manifest.
	Makes sense.
	Now that makes sense.
	They're like, hey, yeah.
	Like, what?
	Where?
	How?
	How did you even know I was here?
	Thanks, United.
	Bless you, American.
	You know, it's pretty.
	Anyway, so they would, you'd roll off the flight at LAX, someone come up to you and ask you a question.
	What did you say?
	Oh, I was.
	I had no issues then, nor do I have any issue now telling anybody exactly how I feel.
	And, you know, I was already talking about the unconstitutionalness of Obama's actions and what he was doing, and I mean, mentioning that what he was doing was borderline treasonist, and that was how I started the ball rolling.
	And what kind of responses did you get?
	Because you weren't allowed to criticize Obama there for a while, or else you were, I can't remember the word, racist.
	Yeah, I know, I've been labeled that.
	And then there was one time I was playing a show down by the border.
	And I mean, I've played a lot of shows.
	And I've played a lot of shows back before I had a record deal.
	And this was the rudest crowd I had played to in, I don't know, 15 years.
	I'm playing completely acoustic all by myself.
	Not even any extra musicians on stage or anything, just me and my guitar.
	I could not get them to shut up all night.
	Just talking over me like I was the jukebox.
	And I made the mistake of back then at the end of the show, I would do a song completely unplugged.
	Where I would pull a cord out of my guitar and I'd walk away from the microphone.
	and I'd go stand right on the edge of the stage and I'd go I would acoustically play the last song with no microphone with no nothing just belting to the crowd and for some strange reason after such a rude evening, I decided I was going to do that and try to prove everybody wrong.
	They're going to listen to me whether they want to or not.
	So I attempt to try to start the song.
	I explained to them what I was going to do through the microphone before I stepped away from the microphone.
	And I attempted to start the song.
	As I got to where I started to sing, the volume had gone up and not down.
	Now, mind you, there's no sound system anymore.
	It's just me singing to the room.
	So I stop.
	I walk back around.
	I go to the microphone.
	I explain to everybody what I'm going to do again.
	I start again.
	Volume goes up.
	So I go back to the microphone, and I was like, you know, listen, I don't have to do this.
	I was trying to do something, and a lady that was standing right there in the front row, like four people from the center, she's like, tell him to shut the fuck up in Spanish.
	And I said, close to the microphone.
	I wasn't necessarily talking into the mic.
	I was talking to her, but it was close.
	I said I'm sorry ma'am, I don't speak Spanish.
	I'm American.
	The world ended for like a week all over like broke the internet Aaron Lewis a racist Aaron Lewis this a racist right because I said I'm I'm sorry ma'am I don't speak Spanish I am American that was what I said beats me but that's what went around Perez Hilton did a hit piece on me about how much of a racist I am put the video connected to it And if you watch the video,
	you see that the whole interview is, I mean, the whole piece is a complete bullshit and a complete fabrication of all of it.
	And they would write these hit pieces.
	Yeah, it doesn't matter.
	But it doesn't matter because people wouldn't actually, they just read.
	Oh, Rez Hilton, boy, I haven't heard that name in a while.
	Is he still alive?
	I don't know.
	Boy, that's.
	I don't know, maybe the VAX got him.
	I don't know.
	Possible.
	That's wild.
	So you're a racist for saying that I don't speak Spanish, I'm American.
	When America, it says clearly in the books, in the naturalization process, that you have to have a full working knowledge of the English language before you can become a citizen in this country.
	Yeah.
	Well, you know.
	You know, English is not a race, the United States is not a race.
	There's nothing about race in that sentence or sentiment.
	I know.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Oh boy.
	Wow, you just brought me back to an earlier time.
	I don't think that would have happened now.
	I don't know.
	People are so over that.
	People are over it, but I think that that side of things probably still would have tried.
	Well, now they call you anti-Semite, probably.
	I'm any of the is.
	Right.
	Oh, wow.
	That's wild.
	So how did your manager and a sorted handler's record label feel about this?
	this um i mean it was just one of those things where you just had to kind of let it go by yeah just let it die out let it let it play its course and go away was the crowd mad when you said that no yeah right no and then i tried one more time to sing the song and they wouldn't listen and i put my guitar down on the stage and walked off stage.
	Ooh.
	What'd you do?
	was already two plus hours into a show it's not like they they they they I was done.
	I was just trying to do something special.
	And they didn't want it.
	So.
	So did you ever have like direct conflict with an employer over politics?
	With an employer?
	Yeah, with the label.
	I mean, my record label president, we've had some pretty heated.
	discussions about politics and and he I mean when you do the whole breakdownown and you start talking really bare bones basics, there's a lot of things that he agrees with me on.
	But when you bring all the rest in, we don't see eye to eye on much of anything.
	I get that a lot.
	Reasonable people, similar values actually, but they're just, they see themselves so differently and they're just committed to some weird partisan addiction.
	It's almost like a feel good addiction, like a virtue signaling addiction that people seem to have that for some reason feel so guilty about their own life that they need to create these these things to to virtue signal and and make themselves feel like a better person because at the end of
	the day how they present themselves and and behave in life is is is unfulfilling for them so they somehow have to virtue signal to make them feel better about their unfulfilled lives.
	It's a very strange, strange thing.
	I have found, as a 53-year-old man, looking at the people that are younger than me that are going to take over this country when I'm gone, they just want to be a victim.
	Like it's the craziest thing happening with our culture where All of our younger generation, there's more pride taken in being a victim than there is in getting over and getting through and moving past whatever it is that you were a victim of.
	It's not pull your bootstraps up and stand up and keep moving forward anymore.
	It's lavish in the victimhood as long as possible.
	And that just doesn't compute with me.
	No.
	Like, I don't, that's not what I was taught at all.
	At all.
	At all.
	You weren't encouraged to whine as a child?
	No.
	I wasn't either.
	Honestly, if I was whining, I don't think that my voice was even acknowledged.
	Of course not, as it shouldn't be.
	Right.
	Do you feel guilty about growing up as rich as you did going to Hotchkiss and Yale and all the advantages that you had?
	I grew up very much like most in this country.
	We were lower middle class at best.
	The first memories that I have are living in a single-wide trailer in a trailer park in Castleton, Vermont.
	Charming place.
	Super charming.
	It's not the Vermont of weekend getaways, is it?
	Not so much.
	It's not Stowe, really.
	And my dad, back in the 60s, he bought a hunting camp up on the side of a mountain in Shrewsbury.
	and he moved us from the trailer park to that hunting camp.
	It's in the song Country Boy.
	My dad picked the place up for 1500 bucks back in 1964.
	He bought this hunting camp on the side of a mountain for 1500 dollars.
	And he moved us into that hunting camp.
	And by the time we moved, he sold that same place for 85 grand, I think.
	And that was what put us in a regular middle class neighborhood at that point.
	That was the up that he turned that 1500 dollar investment into 80 something.
	I've always wanted to live at my hunting camp.
	I think that's the dream for a lot of people.
	I would just like to live in a hunting camp.
	How was that like?
	As good as As a kid?
	Yeah.
	Lonely.
	I bet.
	Lonely.
	I had to keep myself occupied, for sure.
	I was out in the middle of the woods as a five year old kid.
	What's your mom say?
	What does a woman say when her husband moves her to a hunting camp?
	I don't think my mom minded.
	I don't think my mom minded.
	There was like she had the garden out front and they were always I mean, my parents were kinda hippie-ish.
	Yeah.
	It sounds like.
	I mean, my dad got arrested at the Yankee nuclear power plant for protesting back in the day before it was up and running.
	Yes.
	Was it, I mean, what was deer season like if you already live in the hunting camp?
	It wasn't there.
	we would go to Wallingford and to Danby and up where the family was.
	And the Lewis farm was in Danby and was, you know, half of the...
	Danby is almost like a volcano, like an inactive volcano, where at the top of the mountain, there's a valley.
	So it's like an old, like an ancient, ancient volcano that at some point blew off, but you would never know.
	But there's a valley on the top of the mountain.
	And that was the valley that the Lewis farm was in.
	And it was like top 10 dairy farms in Vermont.
	And so the...
	I didn't get into bow hunting until later in life.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, well, it didn't, there wasn't much of it.
	Not really, not then.
	No.
	Oh, I mean, bows have really come a long way since like the mid-80s to now.
	I remember the first time I heard it, I thought it was like one of the, not bad, I wasn't against it, but I was like, wow, you kill a deer with a bow?
	Mm.
	Like Hiawatha?
	Like, that was wild.
	Huh.
	Do you still hunt and fish?
	I do, all the time.
	I'm so completely ate up with upland bird hunting and I'm from New England, so I had never hunt quail before.
	and I earlier this year went on my first quail hunt and oh my God, that was it for me.
	Really?
	That was it for me.
	Like I have gone, I went probably 15 times since I found quail hunting and I hunted all the way up until the last day of the season in Florida is April 15th or 20th maybe or somewhere around there and literally hunted all the way through to the last day.
	and uh what do you like about it?
	Everything the tradition is the biggest thing for me.
	Like, I'm all about it.
	I'm hunting with a gun that, you know, should be in a museum or in somebody's private collection.
	And those are my hunting guns.
	What do you hunt with?
	I'm a big 4-10 guy.
	I love the 4-10.
	It's the smallest of the shotgun gauges.
	It is the smallest of the shotgun gauges.
	It is the most gentlemanly, if you will.
	But I'll be out there in full.
	full filson regalia and looking like I just came out of a safari or something.
	And I'm all about it.
	I respect the tradition of it, the camaraderie, the dogs.
	Oh my God, I love watching the dogs work.
	They're unbelievable.
	Watching a dog slam into a point like that, like somebody just shot him with electricity.
	Just, it's amazing.
	It is amazing.
	It is amazing.
	It is amazing that.
	that that's almost as enjoyable as the actual flush and the shot is actually watching the dogs.
	I totally agree with that.
	It's half, three quarters of the enjoyment is experiencing that whole thing with the dogs and how amazingly trained they are.
	I mean, just how?
	I don't know.
	It's amazing.
	It's latent.
	I mean, it's in the dog.
	Your job is to bring it out.
	It's instinctual and then you got to bring it out.
	That's it.
	It's amazing.
	Can you hit a quail with a 410?
	Almost every time.
	Really?
	Yes, sir.
	You're doing 180 shows a year.
	How'd you get to be such a good shot?
	I had I Yep.
	I think I got my first double for woodcocks at 10 or 12 or 13.
	Wow.
	I've never done that.
	The grouse one was like, it couldn't have been more perfect.
	three grouse all went up at the same time and they all flew straight away from me.
	I probably could have got a triple if I was using a semi-auto and not a So for people who don't, I mean, I'm sure we're going to lose an audience point here, but for people who don't know what New England grouse hunting is, can you describe it?
	A grouse is a big woodland bird about the size of a chicken.
	About the size of a chicken.
	And they strut like a turkey does.
	And they're one of the most beautiful birds.
	And they're one of the hardest.
	Yes.
	They're as fast as an F-15.
	And you literally have, if you get two seconds, as a window of opportunity for that shot.
	That's a lot.
	That's a lot.
	Yeah.
	That's a lot.
	They go off and it's like, and they're gone and the noise I'm making is what it sounds like when they take off from their bird from their wings hitting their body and it'll it will stop your heart like yeah and they're no pen-raised rough grouse they're just all wild birds 100 and they're as wild as wild gets and for you to go out and
	have a successful day of rough grouse hunting or partridge as they're also called.
	Yeah.
	You've accomplished something.
	That's for sure.
	You get a limit and you're actually done for the day and can't keep hunting for the day with roughed grouse, you are you have accomplished something.
	If you're doing it on foot, I've never done that, but never limited out on grouse, but like how many, how far per bird do you think you walk in grouse?
	Miles, miles, unless you, unless you have found a, a, a thick population, you will cover some ground and you will put in a lot of work.
	It's probably why I like.
	quail hunting.
	You get older.
	Because I'm, I'm, I'm 53.
	I, I don't necessarily want.
	to walk into a piece of woods that is up and down and the thickest.
	Of course, they live in the thickest crap.
	Oh, yeah.
	So you're really, really, really, really putting in a lot of effort to possibly put up one bird.
	Where with quail hunting, if you go to a plantation where that's their deal is quail hunting, with a nice leisurely stroll, nice leisurely gentlemanly stroll through the woods, you can put up 100 birds instead of possibly one.
	In that sense, the hot and heavy action is what kind of keeps makes the quail hunting thing kind of at the top, if you will.
	Quail hunting is a rich man's sport.
	rough grouse hunting in New England is a poor man's sport.
	Quail hunting is a rich man's sport because of the fact that the
	country everything else it's really hard to actually find wild quail to begin with yes so what you're hunting is a put and take situation so there's an overhead to it yeah and you you're paying anywhere from a thousand to astronomical prices to go and hunt this place.
	Yep.
	Some places are insane and so exclusive and so private that even if you had the ridiculous amount of money, you can't.
	But yes, yes, it is a rich man's sport in the sense that it's hard to go do it on your own time with no dime.
	For sure.
	You got to go to a place that...
	the most part you gotta go to a place that it charges you because there's a massive overhead for the cost of the birds and the cost of everything.
	So if, you know, musician, if you had to pair a musician with these two kinds of up-on-bird hunting, you'd say Bruce Springsteen, who's the representative of America's Working Man.
	Oh, yeah, totally.
	He would be a grouch.
	Like, I would put him as my representation any day.
	Do you know Bruce Springsteen?
	No, thankfully.
	What do you think of him?
	I think that he is a disgusting display of not appreciating what was handed to him for as in this country as being an American the success that he has had I the
	fact that he duped us all with one of the most anti-american songs ever and called it born in the USA as some sort of celebration of how great it is to be born in the USA.
	I'm angry at myself for not seeing it for so long and actually giving him in my mind the I think that he has forgotten where he came from.
	Yep.
	think that if you're not careful doing this, this career that me and him have both been so blessed to have had, if you're not careful, it will consume you.
	And it's obvious that it creates a situation where you've lost sight of the reality of the country that you live in because you've lived such a cush...
	You have so much that it's really easy to take a stance that is so anti- everything that you that you were lucky enough to have lucky enough to create lucky enough to to be to change your your situation in life.
	And he's just lost touch with the struggles.
	He's lost touch with the struggle.
	And it seems like...
	Those are the people that somewhere along the way they feel guilty for the success that they have had.
	So they somehow have to make it up with this nonsensical bullshit that...
	It was the most unracially driven, the verbal beating that we took over and over and over our whole childhood of you don't judge a man by the color of his skin you judge a man by the content of his character and and
	like it was the best that our country has ever been and I think that that didn't work well for the Democrats and the Communists.
	Why?
	Because they thrive in the chaos.
	They want us at each other's throats.
	They want us bickering internally so that we have no sense of shared country pride, that we have no sense of shared morality because they've created so many things artificially for us to fight about.
	I mean, There is no doubt in my mind at this point.
	It's not coincidental.
	It's purposeful.
	Like, there is definitely a a power center in this world that definitely does not want to see us as the the shining light on the hill no at all they're against peace and prosperity and well because there's no money in it self-sufficiency and god um yeah no i i couldn't there's no money in it If we're all,
	you know, how can they exploit us if we're all united in getting along?
	When we're all looking out for each other as human beings, how can they exploit us?
	They can't.
	So they have to keep us in a constant state of conflict.
	When did she start to realize this?
	Hmm.
	As I got old enough to be carrying the weight of that responsibility on my shoulders.
	Yes.
	Like knowing full well that, okay, it's my turn now.
	I have assumed the responsibility, which we are all supposed to do, that the...
	It was in my father's hands before that.
	It was in my grandfather's hands before that.
	And as our generations grow and get older, each generation, it's now their turn to become and take over as the stewards of this amazing, beautiful country.
	And we forgot about that for a little bit, and we haven't been doing that over probably the past 30 years.
	That's not okay with me.
	Like, it is my responsibility now as a father and a proud patriot.
	It's my responsibility now to make sure that what I hand over to the next generation behind me is better than I found it.
	Because that's...
	that's what we were taught our whole lives you walk into the woods you leave it cleaner than you found it you find one piece of trash it doesn't even matter one piece of trash and you pick it up and you put it in your pocket you have left that better than you found it and our generation That's what was instilled in us, beaten into us.
	That's for sure.
	Yeah, that's what I still come from.
	I come from the generation of..
	still, it's probably the last generation of as a kid.
	Now, did it fuck me up and make me feel like my voice doesn't get heard and like an incessant thing for me is to be heard because I didn't feel like my voice was heard as a kid at all because I was like the last generation of kids that are kids are to speak when they're spoken to.
	And that's it.
	Like that's I got that from my grandparents.
	Like children are only to speak when they're spoken to.
	That's fair.
	And children are to be seen and not heard.
	Also fair.
	Unless they have something interesting to say.
	Sure.
	Yeah.
	But if you don't, I think in general, if you don't have something interesting to say, I think that all supports the whole thing of because I said so.
	It doesn't, I don't have to give you a reason as my child as to why.
	Like, because I said so.
	There's a huge lesson with that.
	in life.
	Your boss isn't going to explain to you why you have to do something.
	He's going to tell you to do something and you need to just do it.
	There's going to be situations in life where if somebody tells you to do something and you hesitate and don't do it, your life could be in danger.
	It's just a lost art form.
	It's a lost art form.
	Parenting is a lost art form.
	I said that all the way back in 2001 on the cover of Rolling Stone.
	Parents have forgotten how to be parents.
	Like I realized that all the way back then.
	And it's only gotten worse.
	Yeah.
	The average kid these days, the biggest parental figure in their life is their computer or their phone.
	It's not their parent.
	Yeah, it's the internet.
	It's insane.
	We are knowingly and willingly flushing everything down the toilet out of convenience.
	It's so convenient to have this fully operating computer in my hand at all times.
	It's so so convenient Every important piece of thread that makes up the fabric of this country is being picked out one at a time.
	And it's going to leave us with this empty shell that nobody knows what to do with it now because we've already discarded and thrown away everything that kept us on a path, on a good path in life.
	It feels like new people will rebuild a new and different society in place of the Americans who were here when you and I were born.
	And that's scary.
	Oh, I know.
	That's scary.
	If we hand this country off as the stewards of today, if we hand this country off to the younger generation without fixing it first, and they're able to do what they've been taught to do, this country will cease to exist.
	Certainly will not be the shining light on the hill anymore.
	I don't know that it is already.
	I mean, the love and want and desire for this country to go back to where it was for a lot of people is still strong.
	But I don't know if we have the wherewithal as a society, as an entire country, to pull our heads out of our asses long enough to fix it.
	It's scary.
	I'm scared.
	I'm scared for my kids.
	I lose sleep over what this country is going to be for, good Lord, my grandkids.
	It's bad enough for my kids.
	Yes.
	But another generation, my grandkids, if this ship doesn't get righted what are they even going to have is their life going to even have the sem even the slightest semblance of what our lives were do our kids now is their life even the slightest semblance of what me and you had as kids no fucking way how's it different you've got three kids we were latch key
	kids you didn't even have to lock your door it like You came home and so many parents weren't even there.
	And there was no worry.
	Like, I never had a key to my house.
	I don't have a key to my house now, actually.
	Because of where you live.
	Yeah, well, right.
	No, that's right.
	And I love it out here.
	This is like No, I agree.
	No, but you're you're right.
	I mean, the feeling of safety was kind of unquestioned.
	The feeling of trust, just overall trust of your fellow man.
	There's nothing there's that's that's that's instinct.
	It's it's it's it's extinct.
	It doesn't really exist anymore.
	So you travel by vehicle, by bus through America.
	I don't like to fly.
	I literally have not flown on a commercial plane since everything shut down for COVID.
	Wow.
	Good for you.
	I will, I drive everywhere unless I absolutely have to fly.
	And then I am guilty.
	I won't fly commercial.
	But once, maybe twice a year when I absolutely have to fly.
	I will be bougie and get a plane.
	But because you're traveling overland the majority of the year, I see what this country is.
	Exactly.
	So that's, what do you see?
	And you've been doing this for what, 30 years?
	You've been on the road across America.
	I have watched the flyover states just crumble.
	You go into a small town.
	half the businesses are boarded up.
	They're all boarded up.
	There's nobody downtown.
	There's no commerce.
	There's a Dollar General down the street.
	There's a Walmart ten minutes away, but every mom and pop shop is all gone.
	Family businesses that have provided for that family and provided for the town with the business that they provide, it's all gone.
	Everywhere?
	Pretty much.
	Pretty much.
	What are the, you play in every region of the country?
	Yeah.
	What are the toughest parts of the country right now?
	Rural.
	Yeah.
	Rural.
	Second, you leave the cities.
	And that was, and it's, and it's undeniable.
	visually right there in front of your face you have to close your eyes to not see it so why does no one ever mention that i never i I every U.S. senator I know, I know all the Republicans.
	I mean, They're very upset about Iran or Ukraine, but I don't ever hear them mention their own states outside the cities.
	I know it's disgusting.
	And these are supposed to be the people that are the representatives of that area.
	You wonder, has Tom Cotton ever been to the Delta in Arkansas?
	Like when was the last seriously?
	When was the last time he was in El Dorado, Arkansas?
	Right.
	And I've been through all of Arkansas.
	And it's, it's poverty stricken and falling apart.
	And that's anywhere.
	Tennessee.
	I know.
	Like anywhere.
	I know.
	30 years ago, 40 years ago, Pine Bluff, Arkansas was a real town.
	And now, you know, it's one of the most dangerous places in the country.
	I just wonder, like, what do they think?
	I don't know.
	And I don't understand why their policies never work.
	I know.
	Like they never, ever work.
	I don't know of a single...
	it was that the policy was designed for.
	None of them.
	Right, it's only about destruction.
	It is, it's only about destruction.
	Well, here's a story you probably haven't heard a lot about.
	The Chinese mafia is exploiting rural America to create a drug empire.
	This is not available on cable news.
	The network's not telling you about this, but it's totally real.
	Communist affiliated drug gangs destroying parts of the United States, the parts that Washington ignores, to sell drugs, laundering money and building a black market network inside this country's most beautiful but least served areas.
	We've got a brand new documentary on this.
	It's called High Crimes, the Chinese Mafia Takeover of Rural America.
	It's available now on tuckercarlson.com.
	It's excellent.
	The purchase of churches and schools to aid the operation, the jerry rigging of power boxes to steal electricity, foreign pesticides, collusion with the Mexican cartels.
	It's unbelievable.
	By the way, one of the drug houses is like walking distance from my house.
	I didn't know that.
	It's a layered and fascinating story.
	And to tuckercarlson.com to watch now, we think you'll love it.
	So here's one of my favorite quotes, my favorite Aaron Lewis quotes, my book of Aaron Lewis quotes.
	You know, everyone wants, you know, everyone in music is like a outlaw, a rebel, and they all say the same thing, and they all mouthe the same pieties, read the same stupid bumper stickers, kiss ass to the same powerful people.
	So this, this actually is kind of an outlaw thing to say, and here's what you said in 2022, and I'm quoting you.
	You know, as fucked up as it sounds, maybe we should listen to what Vladimir Putin is saying.
	I got so I got so I got so much trouble for that.
	And I can let me, I will continue to quote you back to you.
	Maybe when Klaus Schwab and George Soros and every other earth-destroying MF are all jumping on the same bandwagon, maybe just maybe we should take a good look at that.
	Why are they trying to protect Ukraine so much?
	What do they all have to lose?
	So I would think like in a in a country with creative people, a free country, that you'd be one of many people asking the single most obvious questions.
	Why can't we listen to what the other side is saying?
	And why are all these people who were pretty obviously bad also vested in this one faraway country?
	Like, what do they have to lose?
	I mean, first of all, bless you for saying that.
	That second, did anyone ever answer your question?
	No.
	No.
	I lost employees.
	Employees?
	Oh, yeah.
	People that not direct employees in my, like, in my knit circle, but external employees, people that worked for me in different areas that wouldn't, that, that wanted nothing to do with it anymore.
	It's a funny story and you're part of it.
	The reason I said that is because I had literally just watched your show.
	Oh, gosh.
	And you were the one to say, hmm, maybe we should have, maybe we should listen to putin and see what he has to say and i was like well if tucker has said it on box how that worked out for me it worked out for both of us the same way and i agree it worked out for both of us the same way it it took weeks for that one to go away really oh yeah but i just i'm not an artist i'm i'm a guy who gives his opinions
	on youtube but i appreciate artists, which is to say people whose whole job is to pursue the truth, you know, whether they get there or not.
	But I mean, that's their job.
	And every society carves out room for them to do that.
	And a healthy society isn't run by artists.
	Don't want them.
	They're not in charge of the power grid.
	Okay.
	But a healthy society does kind of listen sometimes to what they say because they're saying unconventional things, challenge you to think a little more deeply about things you assume are true.
	Are they actually true?
	You pay artists to say things like that.
	So it's just wild to live in a society where artists are leading the charge for conformity.
	They're like, no, no, obey.
	That wasn't when did that happen?
	don't know, but it's very weird.
	It seems like...
	It does feel that way.
	Because they're all afraid of losing their position in the machine.
	Yeah.
	When all of the higher-ups think the opposite that you do, Most of the time in this industry, those people don't have the wiggle room that I do.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So they have to conform or they lose their spot.
	All right.
	Right.
	So that matters.
	I didn't necessarily lose my spot just because I didn't conform, because I had already built it and they couldn't take that away from me at that point.
	Like they've already tried to cancel me.
	They've already done everything that they can do to talk shit about me.
	So now they just ignore my existence.
	Now they don't even say bad things.
	They just don't say anything at all.
	It doesn't seem to have affected your sales.
	It doesn't seem to.
	You had one of the biggest songs in the country a couple years ago.
	Everybody hated it.
	Everybody in charge hated it.
	Am I the only one?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	There was an outward call within the industry for me to be canceled and to lose my record deal.
	My record label president, who we don't see eye to eye on politics at all, stood up for my right to free speech and my right to creativity and as an artist, my right to express myself however I want.
	What didn't they like about the song?
	That it was a patriotic, country-loving point out the what the fuck is going on right now point of view.
	And they didn't like that.
	They didn't like that.
	I was pointing out the obvious in a time where every single one of us was sitting there scratching our heads going, what in the fuck is going on in this country?
	I'm 49 or 50 at the time or whatever it was, and I've never seen anything even remotely close to what's going on right now in this country.
	Like, where did our sense of free people go where all of a sudden we're just conforming to these rules that just don't make any sense?
	it seems like they're just taking handfuls of shit and throwing it against the wall and seeing what sticks.
	And I was like...
	Am I the only one Who's seeing this?
	Who's recognizing how completely absurd the whole concept was of shutting everything down?
	How do we survive that as an economy?
	The wheels that need to keep moving at all times just screeched to a freaking halt.
	And, you know, me and Jeff Steele and Ira Dean got together and everybody was wearing masks at the time.
	Everybody was distancing themselves from everybody.
	moment in time was one of the most destructive moments in time that we've ever experienced.
	It destroyed our It destroyed human beings are social people.
	They want to be in groups.
	We want to be together.
	We want to...
	We're, you know...
	We...
	We want to come together instinctively.
	And to do that, like there's a whole lot of people that are responsible for that, that should be held accountable for what they did.
	I couldn't agree more.
	I'm still blown away by it.
	I still feel like the words to that.
	song are just as relevant to this moment that we are sitting in right now as it was five years ago when we were locked up and told that we had to wear masks and that we couldn't.
	I had a mask in my car just to put on if I went into Dunkin' Donuts or if I. And that didn't even last for very long.
	A month into it, I was like, this is fucking bullshit.
	I'm not.
	I got thrown out of Dunkin' Donuts one day for walking in without my mask on.
	You get thrown out of Dunkin' Donuts?
	And like, like rudely.
	Really?
	Like you are putting everybody in this in this place's life in danger and you should be ashamed of yourself.
	Wait, Dunkin' Donuts is the place where homeless junkies shoot up in the back.
	Right, right, yeah, yeah.
	Okay.
	Same place.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	But what you were doing was unclean.
	Right.
	So, like, yeah, I never knew that people were that easy to train.
	I never knew they were that obedient.
	I never knew there were that many people with no self-respect at all?
	At the time, I was living in a very, very left town.
	Massachusetts, Northampton, Massachusetts.
	Lesbian capital of the world.
	It's where Smith College is.
	It is a festering situation.
	What's the happiness level, would you say, in Northampton?
	Misery.
	I don't see anybody smiling ever, ever.
	They are all, all these people that feel the need to virtue signal every time.
	they turn around are some of the most miserable people you've ever met in your life.
	Oh, I've noticed.
	Oh, yeah.
	What are they mad about?
	Their own failures?
	I don't know.
	I don't know why it's such an incessant need these days to do it.
	Like just live a good life.
	All this virtue signaling, all this fake outrage, just live a good life.
	Yeah.
	Treat people good.
	You'll get treated good in return.
	How'd they treat you in Northampton?
	If they knew who I was, probably not very good.
	Country music's not that big in Northampton.
	I'm not the artist, celebrity.
	I hate, I don't even like using that word.
	It makes me feel weird.
	I'm not the artist that wants to get noticed.
	I try my best to stay under the radar.
	A successful day for me of going out and about is not getting noticed.
	So, it doesn't...
	Sometimes I get on a roll and I lose track.
	Well, you just picked the right town for anonymity.
	I mean, if you were, say, the Indigo Girls or the Dixie Chiefs.
	You wouldn't be able to walk down the street.
	No.
	But, um, you really?
	Did you choose Northampton because you know not a single person there has ever heard of your music?
	At the time, it was out of convenience.
	Um, but I certainly would not choose, nor do I, now that I don't live in downtown Northampton.
	I don't choose to go there.
	I will go into Northampton for pretty much one reason and one reason only.
	And his name is Sam, and he is the sushi chef at Moshi Moshi.
	Oh.
	And I will go and I will sit down at the sushi bar with Sam.
	drink sake with him and eat sushi.
	So you'll make the sushi pilgrimage, but no more residential time there.
	No.
	What's your, let me ask you a couple questions about what you like.
	I want to try that flavor.
	Oh, it's the best.
	This is sweet nectar.
	We just came out with it and I got like a case of it.
	So I've been on it.
	And what are the other two new flavors, the other couple flavors?
	I know that I heard you.
	We have a bunch.
	We've got fruit and mint and winter green and all that.
	But this is, and we've got a bunch of other flavors we're working on.
	But that, the government makes it hard to introduce new flavors.
	It's crazy.
	Well, because you're trying to get the kids.
	That's what it is.
	Yeah, I can't, I'm not even allowed to talk about that topic.
	Nicotine for the children is totally verboten.
	I started really young.
	I'll just say that.
	And I'm glad I did.
	But anyway, I know everyone disagrees with me, but that's how I actually feel.
	So I'm just going to say it.
	I had my first cigarette at eight.
	That's pretty young.
	And I've actually been smoking, like, half a pack of cigarettes.
	I've been smoking since I was...
	was like 13.
	Yeah, me too.
	But I quit at 45.
	And what brand do you smoke?
	American Spirits.
	It's a good cigarette.
	It is, as far as a cigaretteette goes.
	It's delicious.
	It's delicious.
	It doesn't have all the extra 1600 chemicals that they put in there to make it more addictive, to make it burn faster, to make it burn slower.
	Right.
	They even put in there chemicals that are contradictory to themselves.
	Yeah, for fire, fireproofing their cigarettes.
	I mean, it's all Yeah.
	And then an American spirit will go out on its own.
	No, I know.
	If you I smoked American Spirit Blues, the light blue, and I always took the filters off and I said, wow, that's like, that's the strongest cigarette made in America.
	If you do that, it's incredible.
	cigarette.
	I don't smoke more.
	Anyway, sorry.
	I'm not promoting smoking, though it is delicious.
	Very delicious.
	More delicious than anything I've ever done before or since.
	I'm just.
	That's why people do it.
	By the way, the piety around smoking, obviously smoking is not good for you.
	I don't want my children.
	It's not good for you.
	It smells.
	It looks gross.
	All of those.
	I disagree.
	And it's such a satisfying five minutes removed off your life.
	When you think about people who kind of openly, brazenly, publicly send young men off to die in pointless wars on behalf of some other country.
	That's just par in the US Congress.
	They all can't wait to do that and they face no moral sanction whatsoever.
	But if you were to light a cigarette and someone saw you, you'd be like a monster.
	Look, I'm not arguing for smoking, I'm just saying it's good to have a sensible moral hierarchy in mind when you assess other people's behavior.
	Like some things are bad, but some things are worse than that.
	Right.
	Right.
	And make your choices accordingly.
	Well, kind of, and make your judgments accordingly.
	I mean, I do think violence is bad.
	And sending off other people's kids to die is one of the worst things I can imagine.
	And yet that's celebrated.
	You would think that that would be like a really hard decision.
	It's not.
	It's not.
	No, it's like the easiest decision for them to make.
	Lindsey Graham literally can't wait.
	And I do think all of them should be forced to go to the front lines in Ukraine and worry about getting droned.
	How about that?
	Not because I wish them harm, but because there should be some skin in the game.
	I just want some fucking truth.
	Yeah, I agree.
	I want to know why Lindsey Graham is such a Ukraine.
	Like, what were you doing over there, Lindsey, in 2014?
	I think it was fair to ask.
	What were you doing?
	Why are you so vested in Ukraine?
	Why would you put Ukraine over everything else?
	Like, what is going on?
	I mean, as you know, as so many people are fully aware, the Ukraine is one of the dirtiest and most corrupt places in the world besides the United States, run by a Stalinist, by the way, who cancelled elections, closed the biggest Christian denomination in the country, put the priests and nuns in prison, like him murdering his political enemies.
	I can't go to Ukraine.
	I'd get killed if I went to Ukraine, a country that my tax dollars support, right.
	And Lindsey Graham's like, no, that's great.
	I don't know.
	I mean, let's just wake up a second.
	This is bonkers.
	It's degrading us.
	It's beyond immoral.
	It's like self harm at scale.
	It's crushing the United States.
	It just makes me wonder how many of these politicians that make these decisions that we're like, what the fuck are are you even thinking?
	Did you get caught in a honeypot?
	Did you do something and they caught you doing it and now they have you under their thumb?
	Oh, I know.
	Like, Madison Cawthorn got ran out because he started mentioning stuff like that, started talking about the parties that happened and start.
	They got rid of him as fast as they could.
	He's a good dude.
	Well, Matt Gaetz, same thing.
	Matt Gaetz, same thing.
	They're like, oh, you had sex with...
	I don't know how Marjorie Taylor Greene has somehow made it this far, aside from...
	I think she's a decent person.
	Yeah, I think she's incredible.
	But it was so funny with Gates.
	They're like, he starts making, you know, unauthorized noises about this or that.
	And all of a sudden they're like, well, you had sex with children.
	Okay.
	Where's the evidence?
	And by the way, where's the indictment?
	They never indicted him for it.
	Oh, I know.
	So how can you accuse somebody of a crime and then not the government is accusing him of a crime and then not indicting him for it?
	Why is that not a crime in itself?
	If Matt Gates had sex with children, indict him, arrest him, put him on trial and prove it.
	Or you're in char trouble yourself for, for, for destroying his character.
	Using my tax dollars to commit slander against your political opponents.
	Yeah, that's a crime.
	Right.
	But no one's ever prosecuted for it.
	And, and, but that's what that does is it puts the fear of God into all the other freaks in Congress, all of whom have something, not all, but many of whom have something to hide, including people we've just mentioned.
	And they're like, whoa, you know, I better stay away from the boundaries because I could get hurt.
	It just casts a pall over everyone of fear.
	You obviously don't feel that.
	No.
	How long can you do 180 shows a year?
	If I'm doing the country thing?
	Yeah.
	Forever.
	Really?
	Well, Willie Nelson does it.
	He's 90.
	Yeah.
	I can, if I live that long, I could still be, the country thing, I could still be doing that.
	The stained thing, that's a little bit more taxing.
	Yeah, I believe that.
	To my voice.
	It's a lot of yelling.
	It's a lot of screaming.
	it's It's a lot more taxing to where if I'm being completely honest, there's probably more.
	of a shelf life to my country thing than there is to the stained thing.
	There's probably going to come a point where I'm going to have to be like, you know what?
	It's too taxing on me and it takes too long for me to recover from being on tour with Stained for a month.
	And there's probably going to come a point where I'm going to be like, for longevity's purposes, I need to either do less shows or not so many in a row or...
	and enjoy it you You have to be pretty damn blessed in life to be able to continue enjoying a job.
	Yeah.
	It is a job at the end of the day.
	I'm blessed that I was able to create my job around something that I love and that I'm driven to do.
	But as a job, there's parts of that that kind of ruin the experience of it all.
	It's the music business.
	The music part, I love.
	The business part.
	It can ruin the part that I love so much.
	That's why no one enjoys porn.
	Sorry, I should have said that.
	No, but it's true.
	I mean, like any, anytime you, you know, take a good thing and make it a business, it diminishes it, of course.
	Oh, God.
	Our poor kids these days, they're sex addicts and porn addicts before they even had sex.
	I know, it's depressing.
	They're learning about sex through porn.
	Yeah.
	And yeah, that's a healthy sex life.
	Yeah.
	Speaking of creating a moral hierarchy, the people who make and profit from porn, I mean, I don't know why they're not in prison, but I talk about exploitation.
	Oh, yeah.
	Right.
	But it's the cigarette smokers and the people who doubt Zelenskyy who really should lose their jobs.
	Okay, let me end on a happy note.
	So you've said a lot of tough things about the music business and the people who profit from it.
	You described them as leeches.
	I don't know that to be true because I've never been in your business, but we all know that.
	Calling them a leech is a pretty negative connotation, but just a blood sucking parasite.
	In general, what a leech does is it parasites off of a living organism and that leech isn't the one that's responsible for the life that it's leeching off.
	Exactly.
	And so it's an analogy.
	I don't want to be that negative or hateful about it.
	I'm very grateful to my president, the record label president, for standing up for me.
	But, you know, it's a...
	Yeah, I believe that.
	So who are, so here's the question I want to end on because it is a positive question having been in it for 30 years who are the good guys who are the artists who you know personally who are actually in the green room good guys oh long sigh there um i i keep my circle pretty small um
	you know bob's bob's my friend.
	Debbie Kid Rock.
	You know, I don't interact very much with the rest of the industry, really.
	I mean, I don't find myself in Nashville very often.
	I don't go to the gatherings and the parties and the, and the, I live out in the corn and the soybeans and the tobacco and, and, and, you know, there's miles in every direction around my house of just agriculture.
	So I don't really interact with the business very much.
	I'm very particular about my inner circle and who I consider a friend.
	I don't have a lot of those.
	So I don't have a big picture here, Aaron Lewis.
	I gave you a chance.
	So I was like, all right.
	Who are the good guys?
	And you're like, well, you know, this business is tough.
	Would you want your kids to go into it?
	No.
	And they've had my oldest daughter, Zoe, is on one of my records singing Traveling Soldier by the Dixie Chicks, actually.
	And I don't know.
	So many people approached me like, I'll give her a record deal.
	She doesn't want nothing to do with it.
	My kids have been on the receiving end of all the shit that comes with this industry and all the sacrifice and all the disappointment and the, you know, I'm a slave to the grind.
	You know, the grind has taken precedent over important things in my life that I can never get back.
	You know, monumental things, my kids' first steps, my kids' first words, my kids' first days of school, my kids' last days of school, my kids' graduations.
	I haven't been able to be there for a lot of them.
	The sacrifice is real.
	But it's created a situation where I just don't let very many people in.
	So to, in a big roundabout circle to answer your question, I have a lot of acquaintances in the industry.
	There's people that I have huge love and respect for.
	I'm like pen pals, like me and Marilyn Manson text all the time.
	Yeah.
	I haven't seen him.
	He'd actually surprise you.
	I interviewed him in the 90s, Brian, and I thought he was smart in maybe 1999 at the Chateau Marmont in LA.
	Ryan is one of the most intelligent, profound conversations I have ever had with somebody.
	I like...
	He's a...
	He is fully aware of every single button he is purposely pushing like all it's all been he's a genius like it it's all been calculated.
	It's all, like he knows exactly what he's doing.
	He knows exactly what buttons he's pushing and he's pushing them on purpose.
	Interesting.
	Hmm.
	He's amazing.
	Jonathan Davis from Korn, one of my favorite people.
	Like, you text with Marilyn Manson.
	He's like my modern-day pen pal.
	We never actually talk on the phone.
	We just text.
	I'll give them my best.
	I will.
	Aaron Lewis, thank you.
	Thank you.
	I'm going to go bird shooting with you.
	I'm looking forward to it.
	I can't wait.
	I can't wait to watch you, uh, watch you use your new hammer gun.
	I don't know if I'll be able to use it correctly, but we'll find out.
	Thank you.
	My pleasure.
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