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March 7, 2023 - This Past Weekend - Theo Von

01:53:32

E433 HARDY

Michael Wilson Hardy, known as HARDY, is an American country music singer and songwriter. In addition to his own solo work, he has written songs for Florida Georgia Line, Blake Shelton, Morgan Wallen and more. His new album “The Mockingbird and the Crow” out now everywhere. HARDY joins Theo Von on This Past Weekend to talk about growing up in the small town of Philadelphia, Mississippi, the perils of chicken farming, discovering dad’s Pearl Jam tape, breaking into the Nashville scene as a songwriter, his long-lasting friendship with Morgan Wallen, and more. HARDY: https://bit.ly/2Q1NS4F ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://www.amazon.com/stores/CELSIUS/ShopNow/page/95D581F4-E14E-4B01-91E7-6E2CA58A3C29 Factor: Visit https://factormeals.com/theo50 and use code theo50 to get 50% off your first box. BetterHelp: Visit https://betterhelp.com/theo to get 10% off your first month. BlueChew: Visit https://bluechew.com and get your first month free with promo code THEO at checkout - Just pay $5 shipping. Keeps: Visit https://keeps.com/theo to receive your first month of treatment for free! Füm: Visit https://tryfum.com and use code THEO to save 10% off when you get the Journey pack today. The Journey pack comes with three unique flavors and the new Version 2 Füm to help kick start your positive habits. ------------------------------------------------- Music: "Shine" by Bishop Gunn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3A_coTcUek ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers/ Producer: Ben https://www.instagram.com/benbeckermusic/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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	All tickets are available at theova.com slash T-O-U-R.
	Today's guest is an award-winning singer and songwriter.
	He's written for some of the greats like Morgan Wallen and Blake Shelton.
	He has a new solo album, The Mockingbird and the Crow, which he's out touring with right now.
	I've gotten to know him over the past few years, and there is no one just more down-to-earth and enjoyable to be around than this man.
	Today's guest is Hardy.
	Shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you my stories Shine on me And I will find a song I've been singing I'm going to stay And I'll be the one This is dope, dude.
	I live like I could walk here.
	I would be tired, but I could walk here.
	Could you really?
	Yeah.
	I mean, I would be tired.
	It would take me 20 minutes.
	We rolled this, but all right.
	So it would take you, so it would take you how long to walk here?
	I mean, maybe 30 minutes, but it's like two miles.
	It's like a mile and a half.
	But that's not walking somewhere.
	That's your, at that point, you're, you're hitchhiking.
	Yeah, kind of.
	I could bum a ride here.
	Yeah, yeah, there you go.
	Yeah, for sure.
	Yeah, I could bum a ride here.
	That's that.
	I feel like that feels like a better state.
	Yeah, you're, that's, I don't know why people don't use that.
	Like, cause, cause technically, you, you know how they're like, you could walk there and, like, technically, you could pretty much walk any, like you could walk anywhere.
	Yeah.
	Until you had to swim or whatever.
	But yeah, you could walk almost, like, it's crazy.
	It's crazy to think of the old days when people were like, I'll head over and they got there like four hours.
	Oh, yeah.
	Anything.
	Anything could happen between them.
	Like, you wouldn't know.
	Yeah.
	Like, you'd have to be like, you'd have to call somebody on a payphone and be like, I'll see you on Saturday.
	And before payphones, it was like by letter.
	It was like, I'll be there next month.
	And then they never showed up and they just like got killed by a bear or something.
	Or people like were like a parent showed up and they're like, where's our daughter?
	And the guy's like, you know, she fucking died.
	She went to get some water and I haven't seen her.
	He's lying.
	He took her life.
	Yeah, exactly.
	That's like some Game of Thrones shit, dude.
	Oh, that's heartbreaking, man.
	Yeah.
	We live in a more convenient time than ever.
	Yeah.
	It's pretty wild.
	It's so, yeah.
	Things are almost too convenient now.
	It is, dude.
	Somebody needs to do a study on this, but I think that like, do you remember like in the 90s, 80s, whenever, but that when you heard a song on the radio that you loved and you, the next time you got to hear that song was on the radio.
	And it was so euphoric to hear that song again because you didn't have access to it.
	Where now it's like, if you like one song, you can go listen to every single thing that artist or whatever has ever done.
	And back then, you had the luxury of having that euphoric moment of like, oh, it was having that to yourself, you know, and then having to like record it on the, on the fucking cassette.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Well, it almost felt magical too.
	Like if it came on at a certain moment, it was like that were like that was like the gods telling you this is it, you know?
	Yeah.
	Like, oh, I was driving by and this played.
	Yeah.
	And you had no control over it.
	It just had to happen to you.
	Yeah.
	Now you can sit outside of somebody's house for like seven hours and play the same song over and over again.
	You know, until the cops show up and take you somewhere.
	Yeah, exactly.
	But it's like you couldn't, yeah, before you couldn't.
	Yeah.
	You couldn't build up that dirty momentum like you can now.
	Dang, dude, that is so crazy.
	Things see, but then think of how much power the DJ had back then.
	Yeah.
	Because he's like, you know what?
	Right now I feel things out there kind of slipping, slipping out of our grasp.
	I'm going to put you guys on something.
	And he put out a love tune.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Or like, we are the world.
	You know what I mean?
	Like, oh, he controlled the narrative of people's lives back in the day.
	It's pretty crazy.
	DJ was powerful, wasn't he?
	It was always like the DJ had a dance.
	It was like that.
	But for the whole city or a nation, it was like when that song came on, it was like, this is what everybody's going to feel.
	If somebody right now is like, if two spouses are fighting or whatever, the casserole ain't good.
	I'm about to hit them with this love ballad and everything's going to change.
	Yeah.
	And that's the only way that they could hear it.
	They couldn't do it themselves.
	Unless they had a violin or something.
	Yeah.
	Or a capability.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I had to have a real capability.
	Yeah.
	Something like that.
	Hardy, good to see you, man.
	Happy to be here, man.
	I know.
	I'm stoked.
	Yeah.
	Thank you so much for your time.
	I know you had to push your flight or leaving tomorrow now.
	I really appreciate you making the time, dude.
	I am.
	I'm glad to make it, man.
	Um, I'm so happy for your career, dude.
	Thank you.
	It's been awesome.
	Past couple years has been incredible, bro.
	I didn't know you were such a, it's almost like going to a fitness team.
	It is like going to a dang show?
	Yes.
	When you go see Hardy, if you have not, if you haven't gone to see Hardy, then you need to go see him.
	You're going to be touring with Morgan and doing some, what do you, what do you have?
	Right now, I'm on, I have my first like real Live Nation headliner tour, the Mockingbird and the Crow tour, and we're like a quarter of the way through it now.
	It's only like 20 shows, so like five weekends.
	But yeah, this summer I'm doing the, I guess it's called One Night at a Time tour with Morgan.
	I should know.
	I should be more confident with that.
	I think that's what it's called.
	With Morgan, Ernest and Bailey Zimmerman, and then Parker McCollum is going to, when I, there's some shows that I can't do because I had other shows booked.
	So he's, he's doing fill in my spot when I'm gone or whatever.
	Nice.
	And that's, dude, like two nights at the biggest venues in the world is like the craziest thing to me.
	It just.
	What do you mean when you say, when you're saying that?
	You're like.
	Like, well, just Morgan.
	Like, I've known him for so long now.
	And like, he, you know, he's always just been Morgan.
	And it's just, it's so hard to process that one of my friends is literally quite literally the one of the biggest artists on the planet.
	Like college football stadiums are the biggest, like, that's the.
	Oh, he's the white usher.
	He's the white usher.
	Yeah, dude.
	Yeah.
	Maybe even white Michael Jack.
	Yeah.
	Well, yeah, yeah.
	He's like, I don't know.
	He's the Michael half.
	He's a country market.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Exactly, dude.
	But no, he's like Elvis Presley.
	Kind of, dude.
	It's crazy.
	And like, I just, I don't know.
	I came up with him and like, I, I, I, like, toured with him.
	Like, he brought me on my first tour as an opener and we were doing like rooms of like 800, maybe to 2,000, you know, and just to know that he's doing technically like 80,000 people and shit is fucking unbelievable.
	So proud of it, man.
	Yeah.
	Oh, it's, I mean, it's, I mean, I've only known you guys for maybe a couple years.
	And I went, I got to go to some of his shows last tour.
	But the thing, and it was amazing.
	I mean, when Morgan goes on, you know, you've heard, I never realized that I could sing for two hours straight.
	Like everybody, you know, every single word.
	Everybody in the whole place is singing it too, which is awesome.
	It's awesome.
	But watching you, man, it is like a fit.
	It's like, I'm like, dang, if that guy's wearing his Fitbit.
	His Fitbit.
	I just said that in an interview like an hour ago.
	That dude is, he's going to step out.
	He's going to beat his year and a half.
	Somehow I get fat when I go on tour, dude.
	I have no idea how, dude.
	Well, because it's just incredible, man.
	It's such a show, bro.
	It's so powerful.
	I'm just, it's, I don't know.
	I just have the, I feel like I grew up like watching rock shows and then like I FGL had me out a lot like early and I got to watch their show and how active they were and like I don't know I just feel like I learned from that and that's just kind of the only way I know how to you know translate all that into mine or whatever yeah it feels and it just feels like it fits you it feels like just like oh you're just getting who Hardy is that's what I'm feeling like oh wow yeah this is who this guy is this is real exciting yeah man it matches the music too especially with like we're doing the rock
	stuff now and and so it's the music itself is really high energy so I feel like I'm just having to keep up with my the mute the songs you know and oh damn portray all that at the same time I guess are there ones where you got to take a couple breaths before you start that bro yeah there's dude I there are some songs that I am like suffocating dude and I literally I'll just like hold the mic out and be like you guys come on but really I'm like just fucking dying dude just trying to catch my breath and half your fans are probably smokers too like oh no
	you you knew it no you no you and I'm like no fucking seriously dude uh yeah there's times for sure man like the first right now our set the first six songs is like a ball buster dude and it's awesome but there's like no break and they're the first five songs especially are like all the the biggest like the heaviest like rock songs and the biggest singing and screaming songs so there's like no break it's crazy that's fine exhausted but it's fun yeah the new album so mocking bird and
	the crow it's like um it reminds me some of kid rock in a way that's a yeah it reminds me of kid rock and and then obviously country music yeah you know so it's that's uh and people say you look like kid rock too dude you remember we were somewhere when you met kid rock weren't we in the same yeah we were dude it was uh miranda lambert opened her bar yes the uh oh man casa casa rosa or something like that yeah like a spanish bar yeah
	yeah yeah in downtown and uh yeah she had a big big star studded thing there we go yeah and people people had always told you you guys look like each other well damn yeah dude i get it i'm seeing more memes and stuff now but are you yeah and i like that night when we met like he already knew about it apparently so like he made a joke he like was like my long-lost brother which kind of that because because i i was a huge fan of kid rock back in the day like massive and still am and i know him now which
	is crazy but i love him and and um yeah so he was in on the joke and like the first thing he did is like took my hat off and put his hat and was like let's take a picture you know twins or whatever it was cool yeah but yeah that was that night i was i was i forgot about that that was that was really cool yeah i think i honestly i think i might have taken one of those pictures i'm gonna have to look through my pictures and see um yeah so where did some of that that come from for you so because some guys don't have that both sides of that thing they're really they're in one world kind of but you don't you really walk that's
	you have a foot in both yeah in both boots man i tell everybody like i grew up in a small town and you know country you know i grew up 8 000 people and uh probably real similar at covington right yeah yeah yeah similar just just small small ass town and so like growing up that's everything lifestyle wise I absorbed.
	So that's like, that's where all the country comes from and the lyrics and all that stuff.
	That's how I grew up.
	But, like, I did not listen to country music at all.
	Who listened to music in your house that you everybody?
	My music, other than like God, you know, like music was number two behind, you know, religion in my, in my house.
	Like, like, uh, there was always music playing.
	My sister was a really good singer.
	My dad didn't play or sing, but he was like obsessed with rock and roll.
	And my mom played piano.
	So, I mean, music was, you know, it was huge in my house.
	So I had no choice but to be obsessed with it growing up.
	Do you remember like the first song you ever heard?
	Yeah.
	Really?
	I have a vivid memory, dude.
	It was Alive by Pearl Jam.
	Oh, dude.
	I know where we were in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Mississippi.
	We were in my dad's truck and he had a cassette.
	And he said, listen to this.
	This is a band called Pearl Jam.
	And he put the cassette in and that riff from Alive started playing.
	It was like something out of a movie, dude.
	My brain chemistry just changed.
	And I was like, what the fuck is this?
	And I was like four, but I remember it.
	It's one of my first.
	Amazing.
	It changed my life forever.
	Did you?
	And was it just you and your dad?
	In that moment?
	Yeah.
	And he saw it like then.
	Like he, he was like, okay, this, you know, thank God, like, my son loves rock and roll or whatever.
	And so from then until I could like drive basically every time we got in the truck, it was something new.
	Aerosmith or ZZ Top, you know, and, but it was never country.
	He, he liked a little bit of like Merle Haggard and like, I guess if you call John Prine country, like, but he knew he never played.
	It was always rock and roll.
	So I owe all of my, and then I found, you know, then I got into like by the, my like prime setting, like teen, you know, angst or music influence years was like Lincoln Park and like Pulla Mud and all that new metal, Lint Biscuit and all that shit.
	So I've kind of discovered that on my own, but I owe all of my childhood like music taste or whatever to my dad.
	It was all classic rock.
	Yeah.
	There's something interesting because Lainey Wilson was just on here.
	Yeah, listen to it.
	Yeah, she's great.
	Yeah, awesome.
	Yeah, dude.
	She like, I mean, yeah, she's magical.
	And you guys have that great song together, man.
	Wait in the truck.
	But I was thinking like, and I was talking on there about the first time that I heard a song, I was with my babysitter.
	And I wonder sometimes if there's like something about just you and your dad together, like sometimes it takes like a certain like, I don't know what I'm thinking exactly.
	Cause I remember it was that I was alone with, I'd never been in a car with somebody that wasn't like probably all my brothers and sisters at the same time or all of us.
	I was like, my babysitter was taking me somewhere.
	So it was me and her.
	It was just like this moment.
	And then she put in a cassette.
	And so my senses were already real alert.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	That's interesting.
	I never really thought about it like that.
	But I'm sure you and your dad had probably gone different places together, but that's cool that he put that in.
	Dude, imagine if there's like a dad and he puts like a good song on for the kid and the kid doesn't give a shit, dude.
	Dude, coming from a music family, like it would have broken my dad's heart if I would have just looked and said like, I don't, I don't like this.
	Can you just turn it?
	Can we sit in silence?
	A four-year-old just asking if he could turn it off.
	This hurts my ears or something, dude.
	Bro, that would be so crazy.
	He would have died.
	He would have hated that.
	Or the dad even puts on something that's kind of like just not even that great.
	And the kid's like, this is trash.
	Yeah, but the dad like loves his favorite song.
	And he's just to the kids like, this fucking sucks.
	That would have been horrible, dude.
	I hope that does not happen to me, dude.
	That would break my heart if I have a kid one day.
	I know, that would have to be such a heartbreaker.
	Dude, I think about that a lot.
	Like, imagine if your kid isn't smart and you have to like wish him good luck on a test or something when he leaves for school.
	And you know, like, the luck isn't going to, nothing's going to help him.
	I feel like parents probably go through that, though.
	You know what I mean?
	Like, your kid sucks at fucking volleyball, out of soccer.
	I don't know, but you go out, you just have to, like, your kid likes it for whatever reason, and you just have to go watch him like fail until they lose interest in it.
	Oh, that's crazy.
	If you have a kid who like he loves, like, just not even being good at it, kind of, but he still wants to go.
	Cause usually kids want to stop going if they're not good.
	Yeah.
	But I guess when you're like a young kid, I don't know.
	That's, I don't know what would go on in a kid's mind.
	But like T-ball, you know, like if they're horrible, like, does the kid, is the kid old enough to be like, I'm not very good?
	I don't feel like a kid would say, I'm not very good at this.
	I don't want to do it anymore.
	Maybe, maybe like seven or eight, but when they're real little, maybe not.
	And then you have to have that talk, like, you know, like, especially parents that grew up like, you know, middle class or whatever you want to call it.
	And like, they're spending money, you know, on this thing and they, you know, the kid's terrible.
	Like, does the parents sit them down and say, like, look, maybe you should find something that's, you're going to actually be better at.
	So we don't, we're not spending our money on this wasteful shit.
	I don't know.
	Yeah, that's wild.
	I think that's kind of, yeah, I'm trying to think of what I played.
	I think I played, oh, our team was.
	Did you play baseball?
	Oh, dude, I was bad.
	I was under.
	I couldn't even believe I was so bad.
	At baseball?
	Dude, yeah.
	And the field we played on was like slanted, right?
	We had a bad.
	Was it slanted down?
	So would a home run be easier to hit, though?
	Like, because, you know, in golf, like if it's downhill, it's technically sort of.
	Oh, no, that would have been great.
	Ours was just slanted over to the side.
	To right field.
	So every, like, kind of, if you hit it to third, it ended up like out in center field.
	So it was.
	What's the name of your park?
	Oh, we played out at Cordell Furniture and American Legion.
	Okay, American Legion.
	Yeah, that's everybody used to play at American Legion.
	Yeah, something like that.
	Ours was Northside Park, but I'm pretty sure the American Legion was like right behind the park.
	Yeah.
	It's like that comes as a package deal.
	It's like the National Guard, the fire station, and the American Legion, right?
	Yeah, especially like in a smaller community, that stuff is awesome.
	So what was Philadelphia like?
	You're from Philadelphia, Mississippi.
	What was it kind of like?
	Man, I loved it, dude.
	It sounds like it's perfect size.
	8,000.
	It's like great.
	It's the most cliche, in a way, the most cliche, in the best way, like small town, dude.
	Like when you hear like a cliche-ass country song about courthouse square and the whole deal, it is the definition of a small town.
	But dude, I hear a lot of people, I meet a lot of people that are like talk about where they're from, and they're like, I'm glad I got out of that shithole.
	And like, I had never felt that way.
	I absolutely loved my hometown.
	Yeah, it was really cool.
	And there was obviously, you know, like drama and everything.
	It was all, there was just as much bad as the good, but I was just very thankful for my time there.
	And I still love to go.
	We had it, dude.
	The coolest thing about my hometown is we have a county fair, and this is worth a Google called the Neshoba N-E-S-H-O-B-A, Neshoba County Fair.
	Okay, Neshoba County Fair.
	So that's, see all this county was Neshoba County, Mississippi.
	Neshoba.
	I think it means like it's Choctaw.
	Yeah.
	And I think it means like wolf or something like that.
	I'm not sure.
	I could be wrong or I could be completely wrong about that.
	But dude, so this fair is everything else about it is just like a county fair.
	You have horse races, the whole thing, but you, but you have like 800 of these cabins and they're all family owned.
	And you move out there for an entire week and it's the heat of the summer.
	It's hot as fuck.
	And you being from Louisiana in the end of July, dude, it's brutal.
	And you live out there.
	And they air conditioning, like AC units and all that kind of stuff or window units and stuff.
	But dude, it's the most fun.
	It's the most unique thing ever because the town literally shuts down and everybody in the little Quadrant County area just goes to the fair and you people take off work like and you stay out there and just kind of party and hang out for a week and it's amazing.
	And the houses and stuff, they're around a lake or they're around the fairground.
	Picture it like a giant cookie cutter neighborhood somewhere.
	There's like 10 rows here and then you kind of go over and there's a little section here with a long row and then back over here.
	But the like cornerstone of it is around there's cabins that wrap around the racetrack and that's like the cool picturesque.
	But there's 800 of them and they dude, it's like 200 years old or something crazy like that.
	They're family owned.
	Dude, they get broken up in divorces and wills.
	Dude, if somebody sells one, you can sell them for like half a million dollars.
	It's a really cool little piece of like Americana South that's like kind of still undiscovered.
	I can't believe like Barstill Sports or somebody hasn't gone out and like kind of blown it up yet, but it's a really cool little gym of the South.
	Wow.
	You have never, can you zoom in on one of those, please, Ben?
	I've never even seen, I've never even heard of this.
	The Neshoba County Fair.
	Yeah, man.
	Have you played it yet?
	I did.
	I got to play it.
	I was supposed to play it 2020.
	First year it got canceled since the Civil War.
	Not since the Civil War, World War II, since the Depression, I believe.
	So it got canceled.
	So I played it in 2021.
	And it was like, it's like three top three bucket list places that, you know, and I got to play it and it was incredible.
	Wow.
	It was really, really cool.
	And do people come in from around to see it or is more just the locals kind of go?
	Well, the locals, it's the locals like have the cabins, right?
	Okay.
	And then like you'll have a, you'll have a crew like from Jackson that's had a cabin for forever or maybe from Louisiana or like a, we know a family from Texas that somehow has a cabin.
	They come every year.
	But like a lot of people from around the state will come for like a night, like the first weekend and the last weekend.
	It starts on a Friday, ends on a Friday, you know?
	And like, so people from all over will take off work and like crash with a friend or go and come or whatever.
	But for the most part, the people that live around there are the ones that have the cabins.
	Wow.
	You guys can't see it.
	I mean, if you're seeing it on YouTube, maybe you can see some of these pictures, but it's beautiful.
	I mean, yeah, they have all these homes are beautifully colored.
	Yeah, it's like a bourbon street kind of vibe, honestly.
	And then it mixed with like college football.
	A lot of cabins are like Old Miss or Mississippi State, Southern Miss, like decorated kind of thing.
	Ours is a big Mississippi State cabin.
	Gang, baby.
	Wow, that's nice, man.
	Really cool.
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	And what'd your folks do in town like for a living?
	My dad was a chicken farmer and my mom was a food service manager for Philadelphia High School.
	I went to Neshoba Central, the county school, but my mom was the food service manager.
	So she like was the lunch lady's boss and like planned meals and did, you know, like she had all the spatula.
	Yeah.
	But my dad was a chicken farmer.
	Was he really?
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	So did y'all have extra chickens at the house as pets and stuff?
	Hell no, dude.
	No way.
	You didn't bring in the, this was like, this was like Tyson chicken, dude.
	Like, oh, you're working out there at one of those 100-yard-long houses with 27,500 chickens in a house.
	And they're violent, aren't they, those animals?
	Yeah, like game roosters are.
	These chickens were like, I don't know, politically correct.
	They were not special ed.
	It's fine.
	I was in special ed.
	Yeah, they were that kind of deal.
	Like, they're challenged chickens.
	Yeah, but look, let's be honest what they're giving people.
	Look, you ain't getting, if you getting a Mac Nugget, you ain't getting the best chicken.
	No, you're not.
	And these things, man.
	You ain't getting a Harvard bird movie.
	You ain't getting a fucking.
	Exactly.
	You're not getting the ones that are like on pictures on websites and shit.
	They got those things.
	These were like different.
	They would start like this big, and in seven weeks, they'd be a seven-pound chicken.
	They were pumping them things full of, I don't even know what.
	And were they sitting in like a little gym?
	I mean, what are they doing?
	Then they don't move, huh?
	No, they're just packed in a house that the floor is literally chicken shit.
	Oh, man.
	And it's just, it's crazy.
	It's the way it is, man.
	And there's a feed line and there's tons of like, it's just a long feed line and it has a little reservoir and they eat and there's water.
	And my dad had this thing called a cake machine and it literally, it was designed for chicken houses that you would go in after they catch all the chickens because the shit would be so compacted after they, you know, the people and all the chickens had been in there.
	And it would break up the chicken shit and lay it back out like dry and like soft for the next chickens.
	The cake machine.
	Wow.
	And is that a real machine that they have?
	Yeah.
	I mean, it was.
	It breaks up chicken shit and then what lays it back out?
	Yeah, like scoops it up.
	Like it was chill on the soil?
	Yeah.
	It's literally, it's kind of like that, but it like goes into this.
	It's like a big machine and you would scoop it up and it would go through the machine somehow.
	And I think it would like dry it and just, it turns it into powder again and lays it back down.
	And then every time they would catch, you had to go back through there.
	It's like mowing grass, but it's like scooping up chicken shit.
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	We had a turkey farmer on.
	Really?
	Yeah, and it was real interesting just learning about how quick they get them ready for Thanksgiving.
	Really?
	You know, and how they like change the lights in there and stuff to make them think that it's day and night and stuff like that.
	Oh, yeah.
	I think maybe my dad did some of that too.
	It's kind of like that saw, like saw the movie, you know?
	Big saw vibes, dude, for sure.
	Like if I if I if reincarnation is a thing, that's one of the last things, if not the last thing I'd want to come back.
	It would be one of those chickens, dude.
	It's crazy.
	It's a really shitty life, man.
	Yeah, we're doing better than them.
	Yeah, we do better.
	What a, I'm trying to think there's a bunch of stuff that I want to talk to you about.
	What was, oh, what was I looking at earlier that I was thinking about?
	Whenever you start getting into tunes, like, what is the first instruments that you get?
	Like, who gets you keyed into music?
	Like, obviously stuff your dad was listening to, you liked it.
	Yeah.
	Your mom's playing music around the house.
	Yes.
	Right.
	So you're hearing a lot of good tunes.
	When do you start to really get like an ear?
	Like, oh, this is something that I'm kind of good at.
	I got a guitar when I was little.
	I got, like, my parents got me like a little Fender Squire, like $100 guitar and a little guitar amp when I was like probably fifth or sixth grade.
	And I picked it up.
	I learned like the barcourt, like the easiest shit, like smoke on the water and crap.
	You know what I mean?
	Like the sweet home, Alabama, and just all the shit that everybody learns.
	Stairway to heaven.
	No, not even, bro.
	I couldn't.
	That was, that was like expert level compared to the shit I was learning.
	Yeah, damn.
	But yeah, and I picked that up.
	And then like I got, I, I went into my teen years and I kind of put it back down.
	And then I picked it up again when I was like 16 or 17. And that's when I like started to really, I like figured out like right, songwriting and like all that kind of stuff.
	And like actually learning a little bit more about the guitar and getting a little bit better and stuff was like, like later in high school.
	And did you feel more like a performer?
	Did you feel like a writer?
	Like when you, when you think about what you felt like that drew you to something, you know, like sometimes a comedy, like, I don't know if I think of myself as a writer.
	I think of myself as a performer.
	Right.
	It's like you're thinking, yeah, like a performer.
	Sure.
	Did you have one or did you have a.
	Man, it was writing for me, dude.
	It was writing for me until five years ago.
	Like I moved to town to be a songwriter.
	And my goal was to write hits for people.
	And then so that I always had that in me like in like in my favorite class in school, I liked like biology because I loved animals and like being outside and all that kind of stuff.
	But I was not a very good student, but I excelled randomly in writing.
	And I always had a really good knack for whether it was like essay, you know, like short story, whatever you had to write in school.
	And I just had a knack for it and I was obsessed with it.
	Like knowing that I had the ability to create a story or make something up or say something in writing was always like really important to me for whatever reason.
	And now I know why.
	Like that was just a, like that was the gift that God gave me, I guess, was my interest in writing or whatever.
	And, but so I, I, that's, it was always writing.
	And then the record, like the, the artist thing, you know, people say doing the artist thing that came around the time like Morgan's up down was a hit.
	Like, cause that was my first number one as a writer.
	And it was his first number one as an artist.
	And he was at Big Loud.
	And I was writing other songs for other people at Big Loud.
	And that's when they kind of came to me and they were just like, if, you know, do you want to do the artist thing?
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	And that was 20, it was 2018.
	Damn, so that's not that long ago.
	No, dude, it feels like a time has flown by, but it also feels like forever ago.
	But like, I didn't, I was super apprehensive about it.
	Like, well, most of that was COVID.
	Yeah, it wasn't a lot of it.
	yeah.
	I mean, when I really, my shit finally kind of started going is when 2020 happened.
	But I was, I saw like what Morgan was going through, and it's not a bad thing.
	It's, it's great, but like you, if you're, if your shit like pops off, like it, your life changes.
	You, you understand.
	I mean, like, your life changes forever.
	And, and I just didn't know, like, I had an offer on the table and I sat with it for months because I didn't know if I wanted to, to do it.
	I was, I'd had some success as a writer and I was like, man, this, you get to go write a fucking song and then go play golf every day or something.
	And, and I just got done reading The Alchemist and that book, it talks about opportunities and omens and stuff like that a lot.
	And so I had that in my head because it, it kept kind of getting brought up of like, you know, like, are you going to sign this record deal and blah, blah, blah.
	And then I finally just said, I'm going to do it because I didn't want to regret it later, you know, having turned it down or whatever.
	Well, I think it's awesome that you did choose that.
	I mean, you know, like Mississippi has a lot of great writers.
	Yeah.
	You know, I mean, over time, some of the greatest writers are from Mississippi.
	Yeah.
	Eudora Welt.
	I think she's from Mississippi, right?
	Yeah, I think so.
	Dude, and then you've got Elvis.
	Oh, yeah.
	You've got Robert Johnson, who arguably created rock and roll with the blues.
	Does his son, did his son play music too?
	I think so.
	I should know that, but I don't.
	But yeah, and it's nice to see Mrs. kind of like, you know, because people, a lot of times, especially in the South, they put an artist onto a state, you know?
	It's good to see Louisiana getting a guy.
	It's good to see Mississippi have a musician, you know, like that people can get behind and a guy that has his own point of view and stuff like that.
	I think it's, because also a place needs that.
	You know, there needs to be a young man in Mississippi right now who loves your music and then he's going to learn.
	He might not even realize right now you're from Mississippi.
	And then in five years, he realized, no way he's, I could do that.
	So that's how things happen.
	Absolutely, man.
	We had, are you familiar with Marty Stewart?
	He's a big bluegrass guy.
	Pull him up, please.
	He had a couple of hits in just a regular country format in the 90s, but he's a really famous roots like bluegrass guy.
	And he, there he is.
	He is from Philadelphia, Mississippi.
	And so when I was a kid, he was the shit.
	And so exactly what you're saying, like, I always had that in my mind of like, well, somebody from Philly went and did it, you know, and he really made it.
	I mean, he's very, very respected in the country.
	He's really big in the opry and like all that, you know, and I've certainly heard his name before.
	So it was inspiring, man.
	That was like, I knew it was like exactly what you said.
	Like it can be done.
	And that gave me the courage to move up here and give it a shot.
	Well, there's a part of your brain that you don't even know that's working that it's like, okay, that's in my head that that's possible.
	And until that little thing, until that little coin gets put in your bank, your brain doesn't really have that as a as part of its account.
	Yeah, you're not like hyper-focused on that.
	It's just your subconscious.
	No, it's just, yeah, your subconscious.
	Like, oh, this can happen.
	And you're subconscious that, you know, it just starts to be part of your assets, you know, in the background.
	You're like, oh, then eventually it can happen.
	My favorite comedian, one of the reasons I believe that I got into comedy and storytelling myself, my best friend Scott, his dad is from Jackson.
	His family's from Jackson.
	Mississippi?
	Yeah.
	Cool.
	And I would go up there and he would play Jerry Clower for me.
	Oh, come on, dude.
	Speaking my language, dude.
	Bro, he would play Jerry Clower.
	Knock him out, John, dude.
	Knock him out, John.
	He'd be like from Yazoo City, Mississippi.
	That's it.
	And I was like, oh, my God, like this guy, like he's, it just, it's amazing what he's doing and like that, that this is a possible thing.
	And I think hearing that to this day has had a big effect on the fact that I got into storytelling and that I like it or that I believed maybe that I could do it.
	Do you think, like, was he kind of the first guy that really based his comedy around Southern ideals and stuff?
	I think he was a really, well, he sounded very Southern.
	Right.
	But I think he was probably just a good storyteller.
	And he had a lot of that, like, the lead betters, you know, like he named people in his neighborhood and characters.
	So when you were listening to him, you start, he had this world was being built.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	And so I think that was fascinating to me.
	I was curious because you talk a lot about people from your hometown.
	So that was an influence or whatever.
	Yeah, no, I think it probably had a lot to do with it.
	That's awesome.
	But it was funny because, yeah, my best friend's dad, he said, yeah, you got to listen to this guy.
	You'll love him.
	And he put him on.
	I just, I couldn't believe it was a thing, you know?
	And then.
	Man, that's awesome.
	Dude, I haven't really heard Jerry Clower in a long time.
	I remember my childhood playing him too.
	Everybody knew his bits, right?
	Oh, yeah.
	It was really cool.
	Yeah.
	And you go, and there's, there's video you see him performing.
	He always wore this kind of like loud red outfit.
	Right.
	He was a big dude, too, right?
	Yeah.
	And he was a drug.
	He had a cocaine problem for a while and he ended up being a pastor, I think, towards the end of his life.
	Oh, I didn't know that.
	His wife still lives in Mississippi, but he passed not like that long ago, right?
	10, 15 years ago, something like that.
	Yeah, I'm not sure when.
	He passed, I would say 10. Yeah, it sounded like about 10 or 15 years ago.
	Yeah.
	But one day I was getting out of my car at the mall and this guy comes running up and he goes, hey, man, I've heard you say that my grandfather is your favorite comedian.
	And it was his grandson.
	Here?
	Jonathan Clower, yeah.
	Here.
	Here.
	No way, dude.
	Do you look like him?
	It was pretty cool.
	Is he a big dude?
	I mean, he was young, so it's hard to be like, I didn't want to fucking, you know.
	Dude, that's really cool.
	He lives in Nashville.
	Put him in old clothes and see how he looked, you know?
	He didn't have like the old, like puffed up hair.
	It would have been crazy if he just had old ass hair.
	He was born like that.
	So how'd you get over to?
	So at that point, so you're starting to write.
	You're in school.
	How do you get over to Mississippi State?
	That's where you went, right?
	No, I didn't, dude.
	I moved to Nat, dude.
	This is my biggest.
	And I understand like if I didn't move up here when I did, like my life would be completely different.
	But that's like my biggest life regret.
	Both my parents went to state.
	We're a Mississippi State family, but I moved to Nashville when I was 19. I went to one semester at a junior college called East Central Community College in Decatur, Mississippi.
	But no, I didn't go to state.
	I actually went to Middle Tennessee down here in Murfreesboro.
	And you got your degree from there again?
	Yeah, I did.
	Oh, wow.
	Commercial songwriting.
	Dang, really?
	Yeah.
	So you just went and took a class on it.
	Yeah, I mean, it's like a poor man's Belmont.
	You know what I mean?
	Yeah.
	Like all the kids, all the kids that didn't get into Belmont, which is like, you know, the big music.
	I mean, it literally sits at the end of Music Row down here.
	But yeah, I mean, and the songwriting class was like whatever.
	And I've said this before, and I feel kind of uncomfortable because I know there's people watching it probably that go to MTSU that are, but like when I was there, it was like, there was no filter.
	So it was like a bunch of people that just weren't very good.
	And so like, it was like, okay, today we're going to learn about writing a verse.
	And it's, there's got to be structure and each line has to rhyme.
	It's just stuff that like most people knew, but there were a couple of kids in there that like got it.
	You know what I mean?
	Like you were, you like, you had to play a song you wrote every week and they'd critique it and talk about it and this and that and the other.
	Yeah.
	And there was a, some people in there were horrible.
	And, but there were some kids in there that were really good.
	But you could tell, like, that was what I took away was like the people that had it had it, but you can't like learn it.
	Like you can't, in my opinion, like, I don't know if you could like say, man, I owe all of my songwriting success to the songwriting class at MTSU because it's like songwriters, it's like any other form of writing.
	It's like everybody has that weird internal voice and that's how they write and stuff.
	And I feel like people are just born with that.
	Yeah, I think you can hone things.
	Yeah.
	And you can like fine-tune them.
	You can whittle them.
	Right.
	You know, you could put a little bit of, you know, you could put something in a crust.
	You know, you could put an icing on something.
	Yeah.
	But you got to have something.
	You got to have the natural kind of thing, I think.
	But I learned a lot about the industry there and like record deals and publishing.
	I mean, I learned a ton about all that stuff.
	And like even recording and studio stuff, like I got all of that, all of that stuff from MTSU.
	Yeah.
	And then the first time you hear those things in business, it's not the first time you've ever heard them, you know?
	So it's interesting how, like, some people know, I took a comedy class, right?
	So I went to, I was in, uh, I was out in Los Angeles, you know, and everybody was just, you know, it was when you first get out there, it's a lot of like kind of per, like every people like, they'll have agents and managers will sign you, but just because they're damn pedophiles or something, you know, it's like they'll try to get you out to dinner and then they give you a ride home and they're squeezing on your leg or something, you know, asking if you got any leftovers on you or something.
	Like, what do you know, what are you doing?
	Just some slimy shit.
	What are you even talking about?
	You know, I don't have any leftovers.
	But it's like, yeah, it's just a lot of perves out there.
	But eventually I found, you know, I said no to all that.
	And then I got into a comedy class.
	And the best thing about it was I thought I was probably in my head, I thought I was better than the class maybe in a weird way.
	Or I didn't, but it made you, at the end of the class, you had to get on stage after six, you know, and then I realized as the class went on, some people were better joke writers and they were better like organ to keeping their stuff.
	I just came in with a little bit of an attitude, I think.
	But at the end, you got on stage.
	So how long was it?
	How long did you have to go for?
	It was six weeks and it was probably with the actual performance.
	Oh, three minutes.
	Okay.
	Damn.
	So they didn't give you, you had to like, you had to give it everything you got then.
	Oh, yeah, dude.
	And it was like, and the first week, like at the end, we're going to do a three-minute performance.
	You're like, I got that.
	And then like the day of, I mean, you're, you know, you're losing it.
	Yeah.
	You know, people are just damn, you know, just losing it, jumping off of really small buildings, not hurting themselves, but just, you know, just practicing in case they can't handle it.
	Exactly.
	But it got, yeah.
	But then we got on stage and that was the thing.
	That was the breaker.
	It was like for you guys having to have a song at the end of the week.
	It's like, that's the thing where it's like, okay, because if I don't get on stage, then I don't know if I ever get on stage.
	Can you do it?
	Can you actually do it?
	Right.
	Yeah.
	And once you get that first, can you do it?
	Once you get that first like open mic or I'm going to write a song and play it in front of other people.
	Once you get through that first time, everything changes.
	Yeah.
	Because then you have a real clear idea on if you're capable of it or what part of it you're capable of the most.
	Yeah.
	And that's all contingent on your audience too, right?
	In a way, because you don't know if you killed it or if you did a good job unless somebody tells you people that you know you can trust.
	That's a good point.
	But I think you get a feeling as to, okay, maybe I loved writing it.
	Maybe I didn't love being up there.
	Maybe, I mean, you just get more information.
	Yeah.
	You know, it's crazy that how much, how little information you have before that first step, almost with anything.
	Yeah.
	That's really true, man.
	You know, it's very true.
	Especially if you're getting on any type of stage.
	It's like you just don't, you know, get thrown to the wolves in that moment.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	But right after that, you're like, all right, you know.
	Yeah.
	And then you get into like immediately, I feel that like you can immediately be like, your brain starts ticking on like what you could have done better and like how to make it better.
	But you don't know that until you do it.
	Right.
	And it's so crazy the difference between I didn't do it yet to I just did it.
	You'll come off be like, and suddenly you'll be like, next time I'm going to do it this way.
	And you're like, what am I saying?
	Next time that means I want to do it again.
	It's like just the little information that you get from taking that first step.
	Dude, that's such a cool snowball effect, too, because it just, it gets better and better.
	And like you're constantly critiquing yourself and telling yourself next time, which is manifesting that you're going to, it's going to get bigger and better and all that.
	Yes, true.
	Yeah.
	It's interesting.
	It is, man.
	When you write a song like, so you guys write, you and Lainey wrote Wait in the Truck.
	No, so I, so she, she did not, she did not write it.
	Okay.
	Yes.
	So you write the song with other writers?
	Right.
	Okay.
	Yep.
	Just, it's like going to work and you just, you know, go in a room and throw out your ideas and sit around and write a song.
	Now, say you walk in a room, right, and you see the other writers in there.
	Is there sometimes you're like, all right, I'm going to put certain ideas and sometimes I'm keeping some in?
	Totally.
	Oh.
	Yeah.
	Oh, dude.
	Like if you're, this is like if you have a like balling ass, badass idea, like I'll sit on that until I know I'm in a room because if you throw it out, especially in Nashville, like LA, it can be a little greasier where like people will take back ideas, but you just don't do that really in Nashville.
	And like, like, it's not as dog eat dog.
	Let's just put it that way as it is in LA.
	But like, I'll wait until I'm with some of my buddies or people that will completely grasp a cool idea.
	So you know, you're going to nail it.
	Cause I've made the mistake of throwing out a really good title with some people that just couldn't latch on to it as well as maybe other people could.
	And you just kind of ruin the idea.
	And then you can't really write it again or you're an asshole.
	Right.
	At least these other people are attached to it and that's sort of then that's when like you'll, you know, then if you did write it 10 years later, then you got to add these people because they were there when, you know, and they're like, well, I said that line and you use that in this song too.
	But yeah, there's definitely times.
	Like Wait in the Truck's a perfect example.
	So Hunter Phelps is like one of my best friends.
	And I wrote that with him and Jordan Schmidt, who's also one of my best friends.
	I'm pointing that way because Jordan lives right down the road.
	Okay.
	And Hunter and I kind of came up with that idea together.
	And we knew Jordan was a really incredible writer and that that was the time to bring that idea out and write it with somebody.
	Definitely.
	That's wild, man.
	That's cool.
	Yeah, it's interesting because I guess in the beginning, you might go in and just put all your eggs out there and the other two people, one of them shows up hungover.
	One of them is pretty, you know, not pretty.
	It could be.
	They just found out they're pregnant.
	Right.
	So their day is fucking ruined.
	Yeah, their day is right.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And then you're like, damn, man, you just don't get it to fruition.
	Yeah.
	And it, dude, it breaks my heart when I have a great idea and you kind of ruin it.
	Because then you're just like, fuck.
	Like that, that, that, I mean, really, to get into the technical or the, not to be vain or not vain, but materialistic, but you're like, I just missed out on like $200,000 because I had a hit idea and I just ruined it on these people.
	It happens, dude.
	And you just kind of beat yourself up about it and like this and that.
	Some people even go home and completely rewrite the idea and make it better and be like, send it back to the people you wrote it with.
	And you're like, I like this.
	You guys can be on the song, but I completely rewrote the song or whatever.
	Does that happen sometimes where somebody will write it?
	Two other people were in the room and they get a part of the credit and that's that?
	Yeah, the rule in Nashville is drop a word or say a word, take a third.
	You know, like it doesn't matter if you're having a bad day.
	And that there's like, it always evens itself out because like you go into a room with two other people and one of the guys sits over there and doesn't say a word.
	He's still on the song.
	He still has a third of the song.
	Like freaking Boo Wordley over there.
	Yeah, right.
	Boo Radley.
	Yeah, like sitting over there like fucking, just not saying a damn word, just staring at his phone or something.
	But then there's times where you might not be on your A-game and somebody else, two of the other guys or guys or girls are killing it.
	And it's just like a Nashville rule.
	I know in LA, like they have lawyers, they have people like sitting in on rights, like paying attention to who said what.
	And then they get in and they try to negotiate who contributed the most.
	And that's like the percentage they get.
	That hasn't made it here yet.
	I hope it doesn't, man.
	This sounds stressful.
	It ruins everything.
	LA will ruin anything.
	Are you still out there?
	Do you still have it?
	You still out there at all?
	Yeah, I'd probably spend about almost three.
	I would say almost four months maybe out of the year out there because I have to practice out there.
	I can't really practice comedy in Nashville.
	Yeah, so Zaney's, is that the only spot here?
	Yeah.
	That's kind of surprising.
	I mean, it's good for them, I guess, because they have like, I mean, it's like that until you, you're bigger than that, right?
	And then you do like the rhyming or something, right?
	Yeah.
	So we could do other places.
	Yeah, it's like, but if I want to practice, you know, like in LA, you can, I can do three spots a night.
	Is that like comedy store and stuff like that?
	Improv comedy store.
	There's a place called the Bourbon Room that's really popping.
	Westside Comedy.
	I mean, you could do five in a night if you wanted to, but at a certain point, you're just driving around like performing.
	You're not really learning anything.
	Did you just like show up and see the guy that runs the thing and you're like, y'all got a spot for me?
	Or do you schedule it in advance?
	No, on Mondays, you put in your veils.
	So that, I mean, some places you could stop in and they'll let you get up if you have a certain level of, I guess, notoriety or notoriety.
	Notoriety probably is a better term.
	But I don't know.
	That always feels uncomfortable to me.
	Like, I always hate.
	It's like crashing a party.
	Yeah, a little bit.
	And it feels like it's not your, you know, somebody else drove up there.
	Yeah.
	They might have a couple children.
	They might be expecting to get home.
	I don't want to wreck that guy's.
	Yeah.
	Or, you know, I don't want to have him get home 30 minutes later.
	Yeah.
	That's nice.
	It's like just out of respect, right?
	It's like showing up to somebody's show and then somebody pointing you out and then you get up there and play for an hour and steal the show or something.
	Right.
	Like if you want to do one, you know, but but yeah, I think, yeah, so that kind of thing is a little bit uncomfortable kind of.
	So I would rather, I like to, and I like to know in advance when I'm going to have to go to work.
	Yeah.
	You know, because now it's, it is more like going to work.
	Is it interesting, does that start to feel like that for you?
	Like in the beginning that it was a lot more of like, this is fun.
	And it's still fun.
	Yeah.
	But once it becomes your work, it becomes your work.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Definitely.
	I mean, man, I would almost argue and say that the more into it I get, like the, the, the more the years have gone by, the, the more fun it feels and the less.
	Cause when you're, if you just start out, man, and you're like, you've got a new brand new single, you're doing like radio tour.
	I mean, you are grinding so hard and you're playing shitty shows for people that don't, you're either opening for somebody and the crowd is not there for you, so they have no fucking idea who you are.
	So, but then the more you're established, I feel like, I mean, it, it still feels like work.
	It's just a crazy job, but it's, it's, I think it's more fun the more like, you know, success you have, which I guess that that makes, you know, that's obvious.
	No, it's not obvious, really, I don't think.
	I think it's interesting because it's like, yeah, I don't know if I guess there's different ways to look at it or different ways that it kind of happened in the way you perceived it.
	Yeah.
	Because I think some people would say that it was more fun in those other moments.
	Yeah.
	And I guess in some ways it is more.
	It's like you don't know what's going to happen.
	Yeah, that's true.
	Well, that's true.
	Like there's so much left to wonder like what's going to come of that, you mean?
	Right.
	Or what the other side of the coin can look like.
	So I guess maybe fun isn't the overall word that we're kind of looking at.
	It's like it's all fun, but some of it's more thrilling in a way?
	yeah, I don't know.
	I mean, I'm just trying to figure it out, and today's one of those days where I'm not figuring it out that good, you know, but that's okay, man.
	Um, but yeah, it's definitely there's things that are more well, there's more intrigue, I feel like, but I don't know because then you get different opportunities.
	You're like, oh, God, this is what this feels like, you know, it's like, yeah, I think it's all, it kind of comes in like not waves, but even levels, right?
	Like that's a good word, you know, because then you have a, you have like a big record and then you're kind of like new to a newer scene of more, of a higher level, you know, and then there's more wonder and all that.
	And then like you blow up again or have another big moment.
	And I don't know.
	I feel like it could be kind of tiered, but it's all relative.
	It's all the same situation, but just at different levels of success, maybe.
	I think that's a good way to say it.
	I remember going to you guys' show at the in Nashville.
	Bridgetone.
	At Bridgetown.
	Yeah.
	And I remember seeing the arrows on the flutter taped on the floor where the where the artists go and go up and like, you know, because it's dark back there.
	Yeah.
	Everything really dark.
	And I remember thinking, oh man, how cool.
	You know, I've always wanted to be like see what the rock star sees, you know?
	Like backstage and all that kind of stuff.
	Yeah, it was just like, and I have my own backstage at shows and it's different.
	You know, it's just with comedy, it's a lot different.
	It's really subdued.
	It's just you're sitting back there.
	Yeah.
	And I was going to say, there's probably not, it's not all hustle and bustle because there's not, it's like the production's not like a country, like or any, like a concert.
	Oh, there's nobody to damn bum a vape off of you.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Like you and your, do you have a tour manager?
	Yeah, you got a tour manager, couple of comedians, yeah.
	Yeah.
	And it's wild.
	It's like quiet and more chill.
	It's dead quiet.
	Yeah, that's kind of crazy.
	Yeah.
	And so, so it's totally different to be back there in you guys' environment.
	There's like people walking around.
	Oh, yeah, especially like you called it like a Nashville show.
	It's like fucking chaos back there.
	It's just, but in the best way.
	Like there's, it's just exciting and there's people everywhere and like other country stars and shit walking around.
	Yeah, it was cool.
	That's when Ronnie Dunn came out and played.
	Yes, that's right.
	God, he could, I didn't realize he could sing.
	Oh, dude, he's a legend.
	I mean, I knew he could sing, but I just didn't know it was like that.
	Yeah.
	Dude, he's a people, a lot of people say that he's like the most or one of the most iconic voices in the country.
	He's a damn wind instrument, dude.
	He's just a damn.
	He's fucking man flu.
	I want to hang him outside on your grandmother's porch out there.
	Just let the wind blow through him.
	Just let the damn birds eat off of him.
	Did you imagine, dude, a fucking Ronnie Dunn wind chime, dude?
	Just every time it was, ooh, like every time that could be a great idea.
	That'd be fucking awesome.
	If we could make it so that when the wind went through it, it sounded just like him.
	Yeah.
	And then have three notes in harmony, you know, like wind chimes do.
	That's a fucking, that's a million dollar idea, bro.
	Yeah, Ronnie.
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	Yeah, that was fun, man.
	And who, oh, did I, I was there with, oh, your parents were there?
	Yeah.
	My mom is actually, they're having some work done.
	They live here at the house.
	And so she, I was walking out the door.
	She was like, where are you going?
	And I told her I was coming over here.
	And she was like, oh, I love him because I forgot y'all had met there.
	Y'all met, right?
	Yeah.
	I got to meet your folks there.
	And who else?
	Yeah, like, oh, Baker Mayfield was there.
	Yeah, he was there.
	And like, yeah, that was so random, dude.
	It was random.
	Jason Worth, I think it's Jason Worth, baseball player.
	There was a bunch of like athletes there.
	It was a bizarre group of people, man.
	It was an interesting group.
	That was fun, though.
	Ernest was on.
	Yep.
	Yeah, that was great.
	Was that, there was three nights?
	One of them.
	I came the first night.
	Thursday nights.
	To me, I thought Thursday and Friday were the best.
	It was Thursday night, St. Patty's, or was that Friday?
	I can't remember.
	One of them was St. Patty's Day, and I just remember how drunk the whole crowd was.
	It was like I could see it from all the way at the top, like people were falling over and stuff.
	Oh, that might have been Saturday.
	I don't know.
	Yeah, I don't think when I left, I remember seeing people doing St. Patty's stuff.
	It might have been, it might have been.
	It might have been Saturday.
	Yeah.
	Is there a night that you guys like to, is there a night when you feel like the shows are better?
	Or a day, is there a show that, give me that day and time that a country show or that a performance, a musical performance is the best?
	Friday nights, usually in the summer.
	Because Thursday night, a lot of people have to go to work.
	So they're there and they'll stay up late, but they're not going to party.
	And then Saturday night, a lot of people go to church, especially in a country crowd.
	Friday night, it's like, I just got off of work and I don't have shit to do tomorrow.
	That's like, that's the one every time.
	Even if you do, you can feel it, especially when you, if you do three nights at one venue, you can see the difference between Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
	It's pretty crazy.
	And the Saturday crowd's like more tired and hungover.
	You know what I mean?
	They're all good, but like Friday night, nothing ever beats Friday night.
	It's the best.
	Damn.
	Yeah.
	Because for comedy, it's different.
	Friday night is the toughest night.
	Really?
	Why do you think so?
	I think it's because people have been working.
	They get off, and I don't think they want to be kind of still in a space where they have to sit and kind of listen.
	Put your attention.
	Yes.
	I think their attention is a little burnout.
	They either want to fucking rip their dick off, you know, or not.
	Somebody's going to rip a tit off or whatever and get a damn Michelobe in them, or they want to or they want to chill out.
	Yeah.
	But I don't think they want that middle ground.
	Well, I wonder why that's.
	But it's notoriously the worst.
	Steve Martin quit performing touring.
	On Friday nights.
	Because, totally.
	Because if you go out and you're just waiting Thursday to Saturday, I think it's just kind of a low, but he said he quit performing because Friday night.
	Really?
	It's that big of a difference.
	I wonder why.
	I mean, I guess, I don't know.
	It's crazy because I guess you don't have to pay attention at a concert.
	This is super archy for.
	I guess you feel music more than like you actually pay attention to it, you know?
	So maybe that's a little bit more of a release than feeling like having to sit and focus on something maybe.
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	It's interesting.
	That is interesting.
	Sometimes it stands up.
	I think in the end, it gets in your head that Friday's going to be, you know, might not be.
	But then I don't know.
	Half the time I feel like I can't really tell the difference.
	Dude, what other, if you take Louisiana out of the equation, what's your favorite city to play in?
	Oh, dang, dude.
	Anywhere in Texas is good.
	Really?
	Texas is fucking good, dude.
	But then Portland, some of my biggest crowds are like Portland, Australia.
	Oh, dude, I'm going in like a month.
	I've never been.
	Oh, bro.
	I'm so excited.
	It's like, you know, they started it.
	It was all criminals, dude.
	Yeah.
	They sent them down there.
	That's right.
	From like the UK area, right?
	So it's awesome.
	Yeah.
	Dude, you know that Georgia, our Georgia, was the same thing.
	Really?
	It was like Australia for Americans, and they would send, and you can fact check me, because I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it was a place where if you went bankrupt or committed a crime, they would send you down to Georgia because Georgia is one of the, I think one of the 13 colonies.
	It's one of the original, if not, it's like it was very early, and they would send it down there to send you down there to like restart down there.
	From jail to Georgia.
	Let's see that.
	Hey, I think you had it there, Bub.
	Zoom in on that if you don't mind, please.
	18th century Georgia was really just King George's penal colony, right?
	Can you zoom in a little bit more?
	As conceived by its founder, James Oglethorpe and his trustees in London, Georgia was expressly built on the theory of work release.
	And they convinced King George that the overcrowding in prisons, it's fair to say that scores of recently released people of the King's House of Corrections were among the colonists.
	Huh?
	There you go.
	Damn.
	Isn't that crazy?
	Well, here's the dude.
	Hold on then.
	This might go for the whole STC because Louisiana, they said it was like criminals and prostitutes from France.
	Really?
	They're settled like in New Orleans?
	No, in France, they're like, if you want to marry a prostitute, we'll give you land in Louisiana.
	I just tweeted something about it.
	No, I just saw something the other day.
	The original colony of Georgia, for example, was founded by James Oglethorpe, who originally intended to use prisoners taken largely from debtors' prisons, creating a debtor's colony where the prisoners could learn trades and work off their debts.
	Wow.
	Dude, isn't that crazy?
	So you had people over there that were just doing a trade to work off a debt that was in England.
	That's crazy.
	Yeah, isn't that wild?
	But then the craziest part had to be after the American Revolution, after we won the, beat England in the war, that those people were just like, oh, I don't owe anybody anything.
	Yeah.
	So then they were just free.
	They were just there.
	Huh.
	That seems like Georgia a little.
	Yeah.
	What is something?
	I was thinking about this.
	What is something that had you met Laney before you guys got together to make that song?
	Oh, yeah.
	So that tour I was talking about, Morgan brought me on that tour.
	I said 800 to 2,000 people.
	Laney was first of three, just acoustic.
	So she was the acoustic opener.
	And then I was second.
	The Morgan was third.
	And so I met her then.
	And we did, that was like 39 shows or something.
	So we, she was, and that's, I really got to know her then.
	She was on the first half of that tour and got to really know her then.
	Dude, she's, I love, she's like a sister to me, dude.
	She is salt of the earth.
	Yeah.
	Oh, she seems really, really.
	I mean, she's interesting, beautiful, exciting.
	Authentic, man.
	She's a real deal.
	Yeah, she just, yeah.
	She sounds like, I mean, you just want to climb down her throat and just damn, just be in, just raise it.
	Just live in it, dude.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Just get a damn, you know, get your little oven or something in there and just stay in there.
	Yeah.
	Make trips.
	A couple chairs.
	Yeah, dude.
	Yeah.
	It's like she just, she sounds like a home.
	Yeah.
	That's a good way to put it.
	Wow.
	She writes songs.
	And she sounds, yeah, she just sounds really, this is so powerful.
	I really enjoy getting to spend time with her.
	I was thinking, what is something that people wait in the truck for?
	The Sonic Order?
	Okay.
	Definitely Sonic.
	Like their drug dealer to show up, maybe?
	Okay, drugs and Sonic.
	Yeah.
	Oh, their wife.
	Anywhere their wife is.
	Oh, yeah.
	Especially if you're the kind that's like, I'm going to go wait in the truck.
	Sorry.
	You know, and they're honking kind of deal.
	Which was every dad, I feel like.
	Oh, yeah.
	When we were growing up, and even like, I mean, you're young and baby, but when we were growing up, it was like every dad was like, I'm going to wait.
	Yeah.
	I'm going to be out of here.
	I heard a story about George Jones that he like got tired of waiting on his current, the wife that he died with.
	I can't remember her name.
	I should know that.
	But that one time, he wouldn't wait on her.
	So he went and sat in the car and laid on the horn.
	And she came out in her underwear and got in the car.
	And he was so fixated on going wherever they were going.
	He drove all the way down the road and didn't realize.
	And she was pulling one on him because she was like, well, fuck you.
	Then I'll go wherever we're going.
	I'm going in my underwear if you can't wait.
	And he went like five miles down the road until he realized that she was in her underwear and turned around and came back.
	Yeah, that was always a thing.
	I'm going to wait in the truck.
	And you would just see dads out there just shaking their head.
	What about like you're like a little brother when your big brother's like at baseball practice, you know, like that type of deal?
	Oh, yeah.
	I'm going to sit and you would see the brothers always just lean on the open on the open window.
	Yep.
	And then somebody would come up and just like bang on the window, scare the shit out of them.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	What else do people wait for?
	Yeah, drugs for sure.
	Dude, waiting for drugs was always scared.
	It was always like.
	Dude, always.
	Always.
	I always had to wait.
	What was the fucking deal?
	Why don't drug...
	No, they're not, dude.
	Even like weed, before weed was legal, like I would have panic attacks, dude.
	Like he'd be like, show up here at three.
	And I'd be like, all right, cool.
	And then, and then like, dude, it would be like 3.05.
	And I'm like, but you're like, I don't want to piss my drug dealer.
	You know what I mean?
	Like, I don't want to piss my guy off.
	But you're like, where the fuck are you at?
	Did you get arrested?
	Like, are they, like, in my mind, it was like, okay, the cops got him.
	And they're like, all right, go do the drug deal.
	So we can bust the guy.
	Like, I had, that's where my whole thing went, you know?
	Dude, I remember this guy.
	I told us one time, he's like, yeah, meet me at this time.
	So we get there.
	It's like a huge in the middle of this Kmart parking lot, right?
	So we're like, well, fucking pick a corner to unwind them.
	They're behind it.
	It was just the worst idea, right?
	So we, so we were like, I remember we drove around, like just around the middle for a while.
	Like, I guess we didn't want to go in.
	It was almost like if we went into the middle, we were in trouble.
	But it was like, we were just scoping.
	I thought it'd be less suspicious to just make like a bunch of laps around the parking lot.
	Oh, dude, the worst.
	I remember one time we got some weed to sell it, right?
	And it was like, we were so excited, right?
	We get this weed.
	And the second we got it, we're like, oh, we're going to fucking jail, dude.
	Right.
	So we're so scared.
	We're in the driveway.
	We finally ended up just giving the shit away to a guy down the street, dude, and just ended up working the payment off to the guy.
	No, just too freaked out.
	Yeah.
	Damn, dude.
	Too noided out.
	I would have done some shit like that, too, though.
	Too fucking noided out, dude.
	How much was it?
	Was it like a cop or was it like, was it like teenager or a lot of like an ounce or something?
	No, no, no.
	I would say it was probably, yeah, maybe a QP, I think.
	Yeah.
	Damn.
	Damn, dude.
	Gave it away.
	That was a good day for the guy you gave it to, though.
	And maybe he saw that in us.
	Maybe he said, oh, these fear babies over here.
	I'm going to fucking get that.
	Yeah, he might have.
	Was it a stranger or somebody you knew?
	Somebody we knew.
	Okay.
	That was fun, though.
	All right.
	So you get in a tuned, you get out here.
	Yeah.
	How do you get that first hit, you think?
	Dude, it's a crazy story.
	I got my first publishing deal.
	And what is a publishing deal for people that don't know?
	So it's, so if you're just a songwriter in Nashville, you sign, there's tons.
	If you drive up down Music Road, there's like 50 or probably more publishing companies and they sign songwriters.
	And the point is they pay songwriters a salary to write for that company.
	And they also, they have people that work for the company that schedule the rights for the songwriter.
	They pitch the songs to artists that the songwriters turn in, you know, that type of thing.
	Oh, so you get a deal with a publishing house or a publishing company and then you're kind of like one of their batters in their box.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	And like, you know, a lot of times I've seen like, you know, fucking Joe Blow Nobody signs with a pub deal and then he blows up or signs with a publishing company and then he blows up and has a bunch of hits as a writer.
	Well, then suddenly that publishing company is on the map because people are going to want to sign there so they can write with this dude.
	You know what I mean?
	And that's how people, that's how Big Loud, you know, Big Loud started as a publishing company.
	Craig Wiseman signed like four writers and it was like Rodney Clausen, Sarah Buxton, Chris Tompkins, and a few others.
	And they all blew the fuck up.
	And they, and so that just boomed Big Loud.
	And then, and with, along with Craig, who also is a big hit writer.
	And so then they were able to really have a legit publishing company and sign a bunch of writers because people wanted to be in that camp because they were the guys writing all the hits.
	Okay.
	So then how does Big Loud get guys like Morgan and you and Ernest?
	So once they, you know.
	So they're doing well.
	People know their name.
	Right.
	As just as a publishing company.
	And so then Craig Wiseman and I think at that point, Seth England and them decided to start a record label.
	And so that's, you know, when they started Big Loud Records.
	And then they said, Well, let's go find an artist to try to develop.
	And then they went and found Chris Lane and they had a hit on Chris Lane.
	And FGL was in that because they signed FGL to a publishing company, but they also managed them.
	But their record label was a big machine, but they had Chris Lane.
	And then, you know, they broke Chris Lane.
	And then they went and they've got, I don't even know who like the next would have been.
	But anyway, then they found they found Morgan and they just like catch word.
	Like Morgan was on the voice.
	And then he had, you know, word had gotten out that he had been coming into town and doing stuff.
	And so they were like, let's, let's have a meeting with this Morgan Wilen kid.
	And they reach out to Morgan and Morgan plays them a couple songs.
	They're like, we like your voice.
	Seem like, you know, we could work well with you.
	They sign into a record deal.
	You know, it's just constantly growing and that whole deal.
	And then guys like you at that point are friends already with Morgan.
	You see that he's there and that excites you guys?
	Yeah, yeah.
	I mean, like, I met Morgan.
	He's part of it.
	Yeah, yes, exactly.
	And like, and especially like Florida, Georgia Line and those guys, like, they were all in that big loud camp.
	And so that draws people into that.
	And, but, uh, I met Morgan when the way I talk was like at, I think it died at like number 30, which is crazy to think about because it's such a still like a big hit for him.
	But it, it died at like number 30 at radio.
	And I wrote with him around that time and for the first time.
	And I was just a big fan of that song and his voice.
	And I was just like, this kid's really good.
	And so he came over to the house.
	I lived in an apartment over here and we wrote and instantly hit it off.
	And, you know, the rest is history.
	Damn.
	But when I, so my publisher to this day, his name is Dennis McCoskey.
	And he grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
	But his mom is from Philadelphia, Mississippi.
	And his mom is my grandfather's aunt.
	So, and I knew, and so Dennis in the 80s lived in L.A. He's my grandfather's aunt.
	So Dennis and my grandfather are first cousins.
	They shared moms, sisters, you know what I mean?
	And when Dennis, Dennis in the 80s was a big hit songwriter in L.A. And his claim to fame, he's done a bunch of other amazing things, but his biggest claim to fame is he wrote Maniac in the 80s.
	Exactly.
	Yeah.
	And so growing up, I knew I had this cool cousin that was like a songwriter, but I didn't know like, I knew he lived in Nashville at this point, but I didn't know.
	And he's an older guy.
	He's like late 60s, maybe early 70s.
	And so I was in college.
	I was writing songs, videoing them on my webcam, dude, and putting them on like YouTube and shit.
	And then sharing them over.
	Dude, yeah, right.
	I know, right?
	And he wrote on my Facebook wall, my Facebook wall, dude, and was like, you seem like you're doing good.
	Like, come by the house.
	What a bigger pervert, dude.
	Dude, that was, that's like, back then, though, this was shit.
	This was like.
	But if a man writes out on your Facebook wall, you seem like you're doing good.
	Come by the house sometime.
	To anybody that didn't know the situation, I could see how that would be.
	That's right.
	Yeah.
	But I went by his house and then he signed me.
	And then, I mean, well, it took like years, but it was a cool thing because it was a family thing, but I didn't really know him.
	And then he reached out.
	And so we've now, and now he and I are very close.
	But it felt like it was supposed to happen when some of those other pieces are kind of built into the background.
	It was written in the stars.
	Especially when it's family stuff.
	You kind of put those pieces together.
	Yeah.
	What about, so tell me a little bit more about that publishing house.
	So how does that work?
	So people get some, writers get signed to a publishing house.
	Right.
	They start writing.
	Yeah.
	And then they're on salary.
	Yeah.
	But if one of them does well and creates a song, then they start to make money from the song.
	Yeah.
	But only these days, only if the song gets played on the radio.
	So you have what's called mechanical royalties.
	And that is royalties that are paid to the song if it sells copies.
	So like, for instance, like on Morgan's last record, the big record, that created a lot of mechanical royalties because it sold really well.
	Right.
	So, but, but when you sign your first publishing deal, most first publishing deals called a baby deal, you, you, as a writer, you don't get control of your mechanical royalties.
	That goes to the publisher and the publishing company.
	Oh, wow.
	And it's just something that's been around for a long time.
	So even if you had a song that blew up on TikTok or that sold or streamed like crazy on Apple Music or Spotify or whatever, you wouldn't see any of that money.
	The only way that young songwriters really make money, because most of their salaries are like, if you sign a first publishing deal, it's like 40 grand.
	That's really good.
	Like you're doing really good.
	So it really for a year?
	Usually they're like four.
	Four years?
	Three or four.
	Yeah.
	So 40 grand over three or four years?
	No, sorry.
	Yes.
	40 grand a year for the term is like three or four years.
	Got it.
	But you only make money if you have a hit on the radio.
	So like anything, especially for a young writer, top 20 and better, is you'll make a life-changing amount of money.
	Right.
	You know what I mean?
	Like, is that the one you were talking about earlier?
	You can make a couple hundred thousand dollars?
	A number one, you will.
	Wow.
	Depending on how many writers, because if it's split, you know, if it's a six-way, you're going to make less, or you're going to make half of what you'd make if it was a three-way and that kind of thing.
	But yeah, so the radio pays out a lot of money, and that's where songwriters get paid.
	And that's through PROs, which is paid.
	Wait, what does it stand for?
	Paid royalty organization?
	Is that right?
	Yeah, I think so.
	And they collect money from the radio stations, and then they, in return, pay the writers for having hits on the radio.
	It's tricky, man.
	It's hard to get a song on the radio.
	Like, it's so hard.
	I worked.
	Well, you know, one of my jobs that I had, I was a tour manager for Josh Kelly.
	I don't know if I ever told you that or not.
	Really?
	Yeah.
	George Clay?
	Just like that, George Clay.
	Yeah.
	Was it that time?
	Baby.
	Dude.
	You're amazing.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Oh, Josh's, man.
	I didn't know that you TM'd him.
	Yeah, dude.
	When was that?
	We went around the whole country, dude.
	We would go to all the radio stations, and I would go in in the morning and be like, Josh can't leave.
	You know, get the coffee and the donuts and you know get people fired up and stuff and Josh would come in with his guitar you paint a picture on the wall yeah man it was awesome this was I don't know this was probably eight 17 years ago maybe or something like that oh wow but we went around we went to I think every radio station I mean we went to a lot of the bigger radio stations we went totally know that radio tour game man so I didn't realize until you were saying that I kind of forgot about it but yeah we would go in and you try to grease not grease these
	people up but you wanted to get them excited about an artist yeah of course you know yeah and they see so many of them that like what can you do you know like let's yeah tomorrow like well tomorrow you know Jason Moraz is bringing crab legs exactly dude yeah dude man dude it it's it's hard man you sit in a room and they're just they're looking at you like yeah what are you doing here you know I did not know that though that's crazy yeah Josh Kelly's one of the most talented guys out
	there and yeah I just feel I feel grateful I got to be just even a little bitty part of his career that was fun man it was interesting but that's where I learned about kind of and that's when radio was still even more it was a bigger deal yeah 20 15 years ago yeah now they've a lot of them have been kind of consolidated yeah I mean streaming is just streaming is like it's taken over a lot of that market for sure yeah what was I thinking about uh did I saw do you see that thing with the governor the
	um Tennessee yeah I don't I'm not sure it was like the governor of Tennessee brought crab legs to no this Tennessee governor appears to have dressed in oh they're remember that did you see this thing you're trying to make it so in Tennessee you couldn't they don't want people performing get into the article man if you don't mind criminalizing drag performances
	in public yeah Monday a recently passed bill criminalizing drag performances in public and in front of children so they want to stop i guess like drag perform they don't want performances that could influence i guess a child's sexuality maybe or um but then this is the governor right and they found a picture of him in a powder puff car oh no way and so that's what they're saying well they say look here you are you dragging out oh boy you know so they found this a picture of him in high school
	man but it looks like they're going to try to pass this law which is kind of wild you know yeah i mean let the people just let people do what they want well i think it's like it almost seems like it's more of a parent's thing like if you're taking your child to something yeah where where would you where are you going to be that your child's going to see a drag show right without the parent going like a child child yeah you know without the parent going dude i remember and we went to like a prom or something dance and
	they had this restaurant in the french quarter new orleans and it was uh it was all drag queens in there yeah and dude they kept getting like they were getting i mean all of us i think we're underage probably but we're in there with fake ids you know like a teenager yeah like probably yeah fan we were under 21 anyway so it could have been college i think it was high school and all the like it was like the male waiters or whatever they kept getting people liquored up and then they would take like this one dude ryan
	i remember they kept taking him back like into the kitchen i'm like damn i don't know what's happening with ryan bro like they how long was he back and would they do it like more than once oh yeah and at first he was like i don't want to go by the third time he's like i'll be right back guys like you could tell they were like kind of like picking off young birds who were kind of milling around damn really you think they had any cocaine back there or something oh god i hope they did i wouldn't want to get molested if i didn't have something in me yeah no kidding i don't feel like anyway i mean i hope not anyway i uh i love new
	orleans man yeah yeah it's like key west is like my number one favorite place to go you know visit but new orleans is number two i love it so much man dude nick swartson do you know who that is yep he spent almost a million dollars during covet he stayed at a hotel in key west he went there oh really and it's like i'm just gonna stay i wonder which one it was have you ever been down there i have been one time and i don't remember it real well man what's it like it's it's like a
	like a beachier safer new orleans it's very very similar man i went for my bachelor party it was so fun dude oh my god it was so fun it's just man i don't even know dude and i that the island time thing is such a thing down there like nobody is worried about and like you know it depends on what you're into but there's like the food it's it's just like new orleans man the food there's these little hole in the walls that are like super authentic and like well i could see that because you're in kind of like that it's kind of got that caribbean vibe
	huh yeah i mean shit you're you are 90 miles from cuba oh wow if they built a bridge you could you could get there in like less than an hour and a half dang i love it but i new orleans man the food and there's something there's no other city to me with the culture that new orleans has there's it's such a fine-tuned like distinct culture and and like every city has its thing and like you know the northeast and boston and seafood and all that but
	there's just something so fucking dope about new orleans yeah yeah i guess you know i always i always noticed that growing up i went to like san francisco i thought that was a really exceptional city very unique right yeah and um i remember thinking charleston was kind of cool charleston had a vibe of its own definitely it was like kind of old south but still pretty neat chicago new york city and then i was like new orleans because for a while i was like new orleans man but then i went around a lot of america and i'm like oh wow it's really unique because you you were kind of
	like kind of a like uh you took it for granted in a certain way yeah you're used to it yeah but then you go around you're like dang bro new orleans is something else do you like new york i i do i think there's some energy about it i don't think i like some of the i don't like the like the overtly liberal shit a lot of it yeah you know if i'm real you know where it's like yeah ridiculous you know where it's like they're uh wearing masks to the end of time,
	like the same kind of stuff that happens in LA.
	Yeah.
	You know, not much of that either.
	There's something about it that's cool, though, right?
	Like, oh, yeah, there's something about it that there's energy that's like, right, no other city has.
	That they could build this.
	I remember the first time I got out of New York in a taxi and I was like, what?
	Yeah, it looks like it's, I love every time, I think, I can't remember if it's JFK LaGuardia, but there's one where you can see like a really stretched out view of Manhattan, and it's just like so, it's like breathtaking in this weird way.
	Like, there's so many fucking buildings and shit.
	Yeah.
	It's crazy.
	I love it.
	Yeah, it blew my mind, man.
	Did you guys tour internationally yet?
	No, we're doing, we're flying to Australia on like March 16th.
	Wow.
	First time.
	I'm so excited, man.
	We're flying from San Francisco too, which is or San Francisco.
	I can't remember.
	But so it's that shorter flight.
	It's not like I've heard there's like a Dallas one and like a New York one and that's like 20 hours.
	Yeah.
	Dude, I'm so stoked.
	It's nice, though, dude.
	I like being up in the air.
	I like, if you get, yeah, if you get the good seat, if you get the bougie, like the pot or whatever.
	Oh, sometimes, yeah.
	I think I got that one time.
	I don't know where I was going.
	Oh, you getting that bitch?
	You're like, let's stay up.
	Oh, yeah.
	Why does everybody want to laugh?
	You're getting angry.
	Yeah.
	The second you get off, people aren't serving you and shit anymore.
	Dude, what's Australia like, though, if you had to compare it to anything or describe it?
	A lot of.
	Well, they don't have a lot of religion over there.
	Really?
	Yeah.
	And it's a lot of dangerous animals, dude.
	If somebody's like, hey, look at this animal.
	Yeah.
	You know, where I'm from, if somebody's like, look at this animal, it's usually some type of somebody trying to flash that wiener on you.
	Like a sling blade situation?
	Yeah, it's like, hey, you want to come see this animal?
	And it's just a wiener, you know, with like little cat ears on or something.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Some guy's like, got little mouse ears on his penis.
	You know, you're like, that's it.
	I'll pet it, but I ain't feeding it cheese.
	You know what I'm saying, bro?
	But it's like over there, it's like, you know, God put nine of the most dangerous animals ever in New York.
	Can you look it up?
	No, in Australia.
	I know the boxed jellyfish, right?
	That's one.
	Oh, they're all bad.
	I mean, I hate to say it, but it's crazy because they put all the prisoners in Australia, and then God put all the pretty much the most criminal animals in Australia.
	Yeah.
	It's kind of wild, right?
	Very wild, dude.
	Yep, you got boxed jellyfish called the sea wasp also.
	Oh, God, look at that thing.
	I've heard the Taipan snake.
	It's like you live like 15 minutes or some crazy shit.
	Yeah.
	Saltwater crocodile.
	That blue-ringed octopus.
	I saw a TikTok of this kid that picked one up and didn't know it was an octopus.
	And then he just like casually let it back in the water.
	And they were like, damn, if that thing would have...
	Bite?
	I don't know.
	Probably just, I feel like just...
	How does it...
	Don't octopus have a beak or something?
	Don't they have a little, like...
	Can you look that?
	Yeah, go to that blue octopus and let's see what it says.
	And can you zoom in, do you mind?
	Just overall note?
	Dear God.
	They look absolutely.
	Okay.
	They look absolutely amazing in a fish tank, but don't touch these ball-sized creatures bite and are highly venomous.
	This thing is often fatal.
	The body shuts down, becomes increasingly paralyzed, and breathing is no longer possible.
	Oh.
	Damn, dude.
	There's no known.
	That's the scariest part.
	No known anti-venom.
	So if you're asking people for help, they can be like, oh, I can't help you.
	And they mean it.
	So does that mean that you die if you get bit by one?
	Oh, there it is.
	Look at that.
	Oh, damn.
	Chitin?
	Oh, yeah.
	Okay.
	There you go.
	Man, it kind of looks like a, the mouth of it looks like a vag a little bit.
	Oh, yeah, it definitely.
	And that probably would get you into it.
	Some perv over there by the beach being like, hold on, son, I'm going to go meet up with this little thing.
	Do you think that people in Australia, you think somebody like if they wanted to, if they wanted to like end it all would just go find something like that?
	Like use it as a free story or something?
	Or just spend time with it?
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, I see what you're saying.
	If you wanted to die.
	Right.
	If you wanted to die.
	Now, that is kind of nice.
	It's almost like God saying, hey, you don't need to hang yourself or, you know, you don't have to get all Brooks with Series.
	Yeah, you can go the way, you know, the natural way.
	I've always said I wanted to, if I, if I was going to die, like an ant, like an animal killing me, it would be kind of, kind of honorable, I think.
	Well, especially since you hunted, you know, yeah.
	You feel like it's almost like turnabout is, you know, it's like it's their turn to get one.
	Yeah, yeah, exactly.
	I don't know.
	I've always thought that they were here first kind of thing.
	And I don't know.
	I just think it'd be, it'd be terrifying, but like bit by a rattlesnake or like even a mountain lion or something, it would be terrifying.
	Yeah, or just nature, dude.
	Like letting nature get you.
	Yeah.
	Like some naked and afraid shit, dude.
	Because back in the day, like you could, you know how Jack Daniel died, the whiskey guy?
	He fucking got mad because he couldn't open a safe or something and he kicked it and his toe got infected and it went up through his body and they chopped his leg off and it kept going and he died because he kicked a safe or a heater or something.
	But like back in the day, man, like if you if you fell and like cut yourself, like you could, that was, you could, you could die.
	Yeah.
	Like instantly.
	Oh, dude, imagine how like that's what kind of, it's like we are just living these long, like crazy, we don't need, yeah, that's why I think it's one of the reasons why we have so much mental health because we don't have any, at a certain point, you don't have anything else to do but have problems, you know, it's like we've just, because nature is, you're not, yeah, the same things aren't happening.
	People, now they even have like, it used to be, you got stung by a bee.
	Yeah, you were dying, you know, you fell off a like, you fell off like a third, step three or four.
	Yeah.
	Died.
	Yeah.
	Because you couldn't.
	And also like tuberculosis.
	What happened to that?
	What is it?
	Everybody died from tuberculosis back in the day.
	God, it's heartbreaking.
	Do you think that like, I wonder if like tuberculosis was just like cancer before they knew it was cancer?
	Oh, there you go.
	Probably.
	Or do people, like, is there a vacc, is there a vaccine for it?
	Tuberculosis is a disease caused by germs, sorry, that are spread From person to person through the air.
	Oh, dude, this was, yeah.
	Can people still get it, though?
	It affects the lungs.
	It can also affect other parts of the body, such as the brain.
	Oh, God.
	Kidneys or the spine.
	Imagine that.
	It literally sounds like COVID, dude.
	Yeah, it sounds like it definitely has very early COVID vibes.
	But do you think over 10 million people get infected with tuberculosis every year?
	Was there a cure?
	It's gotta be in India or something, dude.
	Yeah, I can't imagine.
	I never met anybody with it.
	Have you?
	No.
	I thought, I mean, absolutely.
	But dude, when I was growing up, people would have like, you'd have a dude who, like, if he got hit by something, that's just how he was.
	Oh, like polio or something.
	Oh, yeah.
	You had a dude who got hit right, like it would have baseball bat in the side real hard, and he was just like that from now on, dude.
	You had a dude, if somebody broke their collarbone, they're just their shirt never fit right.
	You know, just that's who they were.
	Like, everybody had faced out teeth, had a bad eye.
	You'd always see him at church, and you'd finally ask like your parents, and they'd be like, well, when he was a kid, and then like, yeah.
	And the truth would come out.
	Yeah.
	But now everybody's all patched up.
	Oh, yeah, for sure.
	It's different, man.
	Like scoliosis.
	Like, people, that was, that's such a common thing.
	Back in the day, people were just.
	No, they checked at school?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Did they do checks at your school?
	They would come and you'd have to bend over and that lady would do both of them.
	Yeah, I do remember that.
	Checked on your back.
	That's right.
	Damn, dude.
	I had forgot all about that.
	They would check that damn spine, boy, check that railroad on you.
	School nurse, dude.
	God, dude.
	Oh, we had for a while, we had a hot one.
	Then we had a man, dude.
	Man, nurse?
	I used to think men could be nursed.
	God, nobody got sick for like two years, dude.
	All the guys, like just scared to death.
	Dudes were like, dude, I don't want to get sick.
	I think they were just scared of, you know, just, you know, it just wasn't.
	They didn't know what a lot of people had never seen a man nurse.
	Yeah, I didn't think, I didn't think it was allowed.
	I thought it was like illegal or they honestly, I truly, I thought it was like you were gay.
	Yeah.
	Like actually gay if you were a man nurse.
	Right.
	It was just part of the practice.
	And I think early on it probably was, you know, I think now it's a little bit more universal.
	Yeah.
	Because you see a lot of Latino male nurses that have like families and stuff.
	But I think in the beginning, yeah, it was like, it was like, I think a lot of men used to want to have kind of women jobs kind of, you know, I think if they were, I think a lot of gay men, because I think here's probably why is because they probably weren't accepted in a lot of male jobs.
	Yeah, I'm sure.
	You know?
	People made them feel like they weren't capable.
	Like a maid, like a man-made.
	Man-made.
	Damn.
	Or a train conductor.
	There's no way if some guy was like, they're going to let him run the train, even though he would have loved it, dude.
	Yeah.
	Oh, bro.
	All aboard, bro.
	Bro, I think they should only have gay male train conductors, I feel like.
	Could you imagine, dude?
	Why would they have anybody who wants some straight dude being like, bro, you want that fucking party boy up?
	100%.
	You know how it's got like the little rail that, you know, and they just do a little grind on it and they pop up in there and fucking go to town?
	Dude, that's what I want, man.
	Damn.
	Does it feel weird to consider that you've made, you know, this term that you've made it?
	It's a weird feeling, isn't it?
	Yeah, I think so.
	Man, I don't know.
	I don't, I've never, I don't, I don't see, maybe there will come a time, but like, I always feel like there's a next step, a next level.
	You know what I mean?
	Yeah.
	I don't know.
	You're in the midst of something.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Like something is next always.
	Like I'm still doing it.
	Yeah.
	Maybe I haven't written my best song yet.
	Yeah.
	No, I dude, 100% believe that.
	Wow.
	I hope that I always feel like that for sure.
	Yeah.
	Because I don't know.
	I think content can kill somebody's career.
	I've seen it happen to friends and stuff, you know, and like that, that's definitely a thing.
	But also, you know, want to learn how to slow down or like, I don't know, feel like, you know, I appreciate moments, but like really try to take time to be like, man, I have done really well and like technically have made it, you know, to a lot of people.
	And because there are times where I am constantly worried about the next year and man, we're going to be in arenas next year.
	And the year after that, we're going to do this and that.
	And, you know, and kind of constantly worried about that.
	But it's good to check yourself for sure.
	What, um, you started a family.
	Yeah.
	You know, that's one thing I think that kind of starts to put down something that's real to you.
	And you seem to really love your wife, you know.
	I do, man.
	You seem to really love being around her.
	You know, I notice that when I'm around you, you guys have such a nice connection.
	It's admirable.
	Thank you, man.
	How did that kind of come to play, man?
	Did you know she was the, there was no doubt when you met her?
	How did it go down?
	First night I met her, man.
	Dang.
	It was awesome.
	Dude, again, my buddy Hunter Phelps, this is so cheesy, but we hung out.
	I met her at, I was playing drums for a Hunter opening for a guy named Jameson Rogers at Ole Miss.
	And I met her there.
	She went to Ole Miss.
	She did.
	Oh, dang.
	She's an old miss girl.
	She's from San Diego, but went to Ole Miss.
	Oh, okay.
	Okay.
	Best of both worlds.
	Yeah, it's interesting.
	And we met, and then like she took us, went to her apartment, hung out with her friends, and then she took us.
	I always remember she drove us barefoot to Huddlehouse.
	Oh, God.
	We ate Huddlehouse.
	She went to Huddlehouse barefoot, which is big on its own.
	Oh, that's tuberculosis.
	Yeah, exactly, bro.
	That's ringworm fucking shit.
	And then like.
	Yeah, if you like it, put a ringworm on it.
	Dude, exactly.
	I'm going to put that in a country song.
	I'll give you credit, dude.
	It won't be a good song.
	I'll already tell you that.
	But anyway, and I knew that after that night, man, I was like, I got to keep in touch with this girl.
	Ah, so that was out to keep in touch with her.
	There's something about her.
	Yep.
	And I'd never really, I never had that with anybody.
	And then we went, she and I, we dated.
	We'd been dating for like three or four months, not long.
	And then when she got out of college, she and I took a road trip from here to San Diego to meet her parents already.
	I mean, we just, it was a one, it just was, we just knew.
	And so we drove all the way across the country.
	It's my favorite memory I've ever had.
	And so it's hers too.
	It's just everything.
	Like we were like newly like in love and shit.
	And, but also seeing the, you know, the driving across the whole country together and like just that whole experience.
	But we would hit like a middle of nowhere spot, but then go to Vegas the next night.
	It was unbelievable.
	And, but anyway, there was never, never a doubt, dude.
	It was awesome.
	I am.
	Yeah.
	And did you, where'd you propose that?
	Did you do something?
	I did at the venue.
	I met her at a specific spot in this venue called The Lyric in Oxford.
	Okay.
	And I proposed, I faked a, she, she knew.
	She tells me she don't.
	She fucking knew.
	But I faked that I had a private show at this venue on a Sunday after our Atlanta show on Saturday.
	And so she rode with me to the private show.
	And we go in the venue and then like it had been like laid out with flowers.
	And so I did it like at the exact spot that we met.
	It's pretty cool.
	That's cool, man.
	That's romantic.
	Yeah, dude.
	Does it feel hard to keep up with that amount of romance?
	Because some dudes are like, oh, dude, I'm starting with low-level romance, dude.
	So you always have something to work up to?
	Yeah, yeah, dude.
	There's no, we're moving up, you know?
	Man, I try, dude.
	Yeah.
	I don't know if I would consider myself romantic, but I try.
	And it's tough, man.
	I think in any relationship, but it's just always so much shit going on.
	And like, I just try to take a second every couple of weeks and think of something, you know, to do like out of the ordinary.
	And it could be anything.
	It could be like a fucking Chick-fil-A gift card to leave, you know, and be like, go get some lunch.
	It could be anything, but I just try to do something just to keep it, to keep it, you know, keep it interesting or whatever.
	Yeah, to be thinking of somebody else, you know?
	Yeah.
	Because that's the thing I think in the end, we want to be thought of.
	You know, people want to be damn thought of.
	Yeah.
	And that's, you know, like the love languages thing?
	You ever heard of that?
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	Hers is like definitely like acts of service and like quality time and stuff like that.
	You know what I mean?
	And I've learned that, you know, throughout us dating and being married, but I always just try to think of that.
	Like, even if it's just like one little thing or whatever, you know?
	Yeah.
	It's hard though, man.
	Like this life, you know, it's just busy, busy, busy.
	And I come home and I'm tired and stuff, but she deserves it.
	So like, I really try to do as much as I can to, you know, out of the ordinary for her.
	Yeah, I just noticed that when I'm running, it's like you really put her on a, you know, you, you, there's no doubt that you, I feel like when I'm around you and she's around that you present her proudly.
	Yes, I do.
	And there's something about that that is, it's like, oh, I would like to be like that.
	Yeah, sure, man.
	When I'm, you know, in love with a lady.
	It's easy to do when you find the one that you want to do it with, though.
	Like, I'm never, I'd never be ashamed of.
	Was there a close call before that?
	Was there any?
	We went through a little.
	Where you got married, though, where you almost got married before?
	With me and another, another.
	No.
	That was it.
	Nah.
	I had like one other, maybe, maybe two in the past, like serious girlfriends.
	Like, I would say, like, I wouldn't count a serious girlfriend until after you're like 18. You know what I mean?
	So I had like maybe two over the course of eight years before I met her, but nah, not like never really considered like going and buying a ring or anything like that.
	Yeah.
	Just, it was just like a year, year relationship or something like that.
	She was the only one for sure.
	That's cool, man.
	Yep.
	Damn, she went to Ole Miss.
	She did.
	She's from San Diego.
	Her dad was in the middle of the day.
	She's a lot of that California to old miss.
	No.
	She only knew, she knew like one other girl, I think, from San Diego, but she wanted, dude.
	She's, she wanted an experience outside of what she was raised in.
	And so she went and toured.
	She said she went and saw like Texas, LSU, maybe Alabama.
	And then she went to Ole Miss and she just was like, this is where I want to go.
	She did say that when she went, she thought like, you know, as a lot of people, I think, she was like, this is the South.
	So everybody's going to have like cowboy hats and shit.
	And she shows up and it's just a bunch of fucking fat, frat dudes.
	Like, you know what I mean?
	Like completely different, you know, than what she thought.
	Well, especially at Ole Miss.
	I don't think you get the cowboy hat at Ole Miss.
	No, no, that's a Mississippi State thing.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	The Ole Miss is all the kids from Memphis and Jackson do.
	Yeah, definitely.
	City, city kids, city country kids, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, I think it does, man.
	That's interesting.
	Ben, was there anything else in the news that we wanted to look at?
	I'm trying to think of anything else that was cool.
	Oh, dude, what?
	Let me see.
	People, yeah, it says the average penis length is growing according to a new study.
	The study was led by Michael Eisenberg, a urology professor at Stanford Medicine and sexual function specialist.
	Compiled data from over 75 studies done between 1942 and 2021.
	Damn, he's been just looking at a lot of wean, huh?
	Gathered measurements of the erect penises of over 55,000 men.
	God, this dude's probably in the damn closet.
	If he's got a wife, she needs to damn knock on the door sometimes and see what's going on in there.
	55,000 men and erect, dude.
	Yeah, there's no way you could look at this many.
	I don't want to bring up a picture of the guy, but damn, are we sure he's not just...
	Let me see.
	Zoom in on that.
	Bro, there's no way that that guy wasn't born in.
	Oh, no, he just looks like a dude who would look at...
	Oh, that's when he's been looking at him from then.
	Oh, okay.
	So he's just been looking at pictures?
	From then, yeah.
	Or drawing.
	How do you even find a picture of an erect penis from 1942?
	Oh, I think you can get that pretty easily.
	I think it's some of the rest of the, it's like just putting them all in a stack or whatever.
	How many is it?
	Go back to the information, please, brother.
	Let me see.
	The final result.
	Penis linked also showed variation by drew.
	Go down.
	Let's get into some information.
	Oh, it locked up.
	Great.
	You know what's becoming interesting?
	You have to pay for news now.
	Do you notice that?
	Yeah.
	So then over time, whatever information is going to be only available to people with money.
	Damn, that's wild.
	It's going to get weird.
	Yeah, you get, you read, I've noticed that.
	Like, I'll see a clickbait thing and you'll read like the just enough.
	And then it's like for the rest, like subscribe to Huffington Post or whatever it is.
	Oh, there you go.
	Can we get any more Eisenberg told Stanford?
	Showed variation by, We all knew that already.
	By geographic region?
	Yeah, that's a given, right?
	I think so.
	In the article, Eisenberg said chemical exposure could be interacting with our hormone makeup, which could be one of the many reasons the biological change is occurring.
	Oh, maybe people are living in a place where there's more plastics in the water?
	Or could it be like I've heard like kids, like a 13-year-old boy or girl today looks like a grown-up, like has the is built like a grown-up compared to like in the 30s, 40s, 50s or whatever, because of like hormones in the food or something like that.
	That's crazy, dude.
	It's weird what we're going to end up as.
	We're going to end up like chickens in your dad's thing.
	Yeah.
	We probably kind of already are, you know.
	It feels like it, doesn't it, sometimes?
	Yeah.
	You know, it feels like we all know the same information and are kind of like watching this.
	You know, it's like we all get the same six news stories every day.
	Yeah.
	We're all kind of like stuck in the same thing.
	What about that train thing?
	Are you keeping up with that?
	That Ohio derailment?
	Yeah.
	It's supposed to make it here, but I don't.
	Oh, that cloud is coming here?
	Or something yes in the water?
	Damn, but I'm going to get a hot air balloon and go up and get a hit, cuz if that shit comes over here.
	You might grow a fucking tail or something if you do that, dude.
	Like a third arm or something.
	Dude, I'll take it, bro.
	If I had three arms, dog.
	Oh, what would I do?
	What would you do with three arms?
	Would you fight people?
	Oh, yeah.
	I would grapple.
	You'd make a hell of a prostitute, I think, too.
	Oh, yeah.
	Dude, you'd be, you could juggle.
	Oh, but you'd have to juggle like five things, right?
	Yeah, that's true, huh?
	You have to really up the ante.
	What would you do if I had three arms?
	Oh, you could be a really good like blackjack dealer.
	Oh, yeah.
	Car dealer.
	I got a hand job from this gal that dealt blackjack one time, and I remember at the end, she went like this.
	She went like this.
	It was like at the end, dude.
	Shout out to her.
	Like that, yeah.
	It was awesome, dude.
	Pretty cool.
	And that was over by, I think, by the win.
	Is that in Louisiana?
	Y'all got casinos?
	No, no, that was in Las Vegas.
	Oh, Vegas.
	No, we don't.
	You guys have Tupelo, right?
	Tunica.
	Tunica.
	But that's another thing about my hometown.
	We got two big Choctaw casinos.
	Oh, really?
	Out in the country.
	Like, you top over this hill, dude, and it's these two, like, they're like, what, the size of like Tunica or somewhere like Vicksburg.
	But there's one that's crazy.
	It's called the Golden Moon, and it's this like stairway to heaven looking shit with a, with a big old moon at the top corner of it.
	It's pretty wild.
	It's in Philadelphia.
	Oh, wow.
	But I moved here when I was 20 and when I was 19, so I never got to go and do it.
	Yeah, and I was afraid of getting out there, like sneaking out there and trying to sneak on the floor and like getting arrested or going to like Choctaw jail or something, you know?
	Oh, yeah.
	What did we have?
	Did you have one in Covington or close?
	No, what did we have?
	We had like a daiquiri place.
	People would go drink it.
	That was big in Louisiana.
	Get you a daiquiri.
	Oh, I've heard all.
	And they put the little straw, the thing on the end.
	Yeah, if they don't take like the thing, if they don't take the paper off the straw, it counts as a closed container.
	Right.
	So they'll give you that thing with that little hat on it.
	Dude, it's crawfish season.
	Oh, yeah, it's good.
	I haven't had any yet this year.
	Yeah, they're good, man.
	Did you guys ever have them up in Mississippi?
	Did they get up there?
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, yeah.
	Yeah, we actually just recently, in the past 10 years, there's a place in Philadelphia called Blake's Seafood, and they do it there.
	And you can go get like a big old, you know, I'm actually going to Philadelphia tomorrow.
	I'm playing a little acoustic hometown show, and I might go get some crawfish.
	That sounds pretty good.
	That does sound good.
	Dude, we used to go because I used to work on a farm in Mississippi in the summers.
	So I would go.
	I've heard you say that before.
	I'd go up to Natchez, right?
	Yeah.
	And the farms, I mean, the land was actually right over the levee in Louisiana.
	Oh, really?
	Because Natchez is on the border, right?
	Yeah.
	So we'd go by like Deer Park.
	We'd be like in Faraday and Vidalia, like right there.
	And we'd go across and we'd be in Mississippi.
	And yeah, it was nice, man.
	What kind of farm was it?
	It was soybean, corn, cotton.
	Do y'all ever find arrowheads out there?
	Milo.
	No, but they had land around where we go look for them sometimes on the weekends.
	I find them, I look for them out here.
	Go look for Civil War shit.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Well, Natchez, that's right.
	Apparently, Natchez was like that the Union came up the river and they fired a bunch of cannons off and that the whole city came out and was just like surrendered or whatever.
	They gave up.
	Yeah, and it kind of opened up the gate.
	Oh, they Natchez gave up Natchez to the Union.
	Go look it up.
	Natchez Surrender in a Civil War.
	Damn.
	I think they kind of opened up the gate to the fixed part of what they were doing then.
	But I could see everybody being on something.
	Dude, this is right here.
	It's big Civil War shit.
	Really?
	Yeah, big time.
	There's a hill right over here called Shies Hill, and there's a memorial at the top.
	It was a giant battle.
	People find, still to this day, find relics and shit in the ground.
	You know what I mean?
	Like all kinds of stuff.
	My buddy says he saw a ghost.
	He lives over here.
	Says he saw a union.
	I mean, dude, and this dude is.
	Is he from Mississippi?
	No, he's from Minnesota.
	Oh, damn.
	I don't know if they usually like ghosts as much.
	Dude, he was laying in his hammock, said he saw a dude walking up the side of his hill in like Civil War outfit.
	I swear to God.
	And he was like, dude, he was like, I don't believe in nothing.
	And I saw this and I was like, I think I just saw a ghost walking up Shy's Hill where there was like an actual battle.
	It's pretty bad.
	I could see that, man.
	I could see there being so much traffic, right?
	Where a lot of deaths happen at once that a couple spirits get kind of logged in the ether.
	Open that back up, Ben, please.
	Surrender.
	There you go.
	Surrender.
	Surrender to Natchez, Mississippi.
	There we go.
	This shit looks damn good.
	Is this a play?
	I know.
	Pretty sure it was a thing.
	They fired a bunch of cannons and shit.
	I got a damn AA meeting.
	Do you?
	What time?
	In one minute?
	Oh, shit.
	It's at home.
	Oh, word.
	All right, cool.
	Yeah, will you be bummed if we chat another time?
	Dude, not at all.
	Okay, cool.
	Bro, I've been here for like two hours.
	Dude.
	Yeah, we've been sitting here for a while.
	I appreciate the time, man.
	Yeah, I appreciate you teaching me about the Neshoba County.
	Yeah.
	Dude, you got to go.
	Dude, I can't even believe it looks amazing.
	I can't believe I've never heard of it.
	I mean, you can just walk and dude, like people are so inviting.
	Like, you can walk into any cabin and say, hey, I'm not from here.
	Can you guys tell me something to do?
	And any cabin will be like, come in here, feed you.
	Like, it's just, it's the coolest thing in the world.
	God.
	And it's hot as fuck, which I love, dude.
	Yeah.
	Well, you know what's interesting, man, is I noticed, like, say if, like, there's been times where I go and stay in a hotel somewhere and then I'll stay like in an off the beaten path place that doesn't have air condition.
	And there's something about when you're in that non-AC place, you like wake up in the middle of the night, you're sweating and shit's weird.
	And it's like, but it feels like more natural.
	Yeah.
	It's sticky.
	I mean, it is nasty, but it feels a lot more natural.
	Yeah.
	We did that in Thailand.
	Like we went to Thailand for our honeymoon and like there was a couple places that were like that.
	And it was just like, they just don't have air conditioning.
	Yeah.
	You feel like you're just out.
	Even though you're inside, you feel like you're outside or something.
	I don't know.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I think it was just where you're more tied into nature when that kind of stuff's going on.
	Yeah.
	You know, but yeah, I could imagine that there's a lot of places where people died at once and then there's just bumper to bumper traffic going to heaven or whatever.
	I think so.
	And people are like, I'm a mill around.
	Yeah.
	It's like, that's like why like mental hospitals and like old prisons and shit, you know, where like a lot of people died in one place.
	They say that's like the most haunted places.
	Oh, yeah.
	You know what I mean?
	I could see it.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	The mockingbird and the crow.
	Yeah.
	Congratulations, man.
	Thank you very much.
	Yeah, please keep writing and making cool music, man.
	Thank you, brother.
	I love you.
	You know, my sister and I are, one of my sisters and I had me was super close, and we listened to give Heaven some hell.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	And dude, we just jam outside.
	We'd never done that before.
	That's awesome, dude.
	So it's cool.
	Like, you know, we never had that kind of, even that little moment of fun, we never had that.
	That's cool, dude.
	That makes my day.
	That's the power of music, man.
	It really is.
	It's the only language we all know how to speak, dude.
	Yeah, it's pretty incredible.
	Thanks for all your contributions to it.
	You guys can check out Hardy.
	We'll put all his links to everything, and you guys can catch him on tour, on his own tour, and with Morgan and Parker and Bailey.
	Earn.
	And Ern.
	Yeah.
	Oh, dude.
	So funny.
	I can't wait to have Ern in here.
	Yeah.
	He's a trip.
	Yeah, he is, man.
	Thank you so much.
	Dude, it's just, I really appreciate it.
	Yeah, it's awesome, man.
	I'm glad we got to spend some time.
	Hell yeah.
	Now, I'm just footing on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
	I must be cornerstone.
	But when I reach that ground, I'll share this piece of mind.
	I found I can feel it in my bones.

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