Jelly Roll is a singer, songwriter, and rapper who just won New Artist of the Year at the 2023 CMA awards. He is also nominated for “Best New Artist” at the 2023 Grammy Awards. His latest album “Whitsitt Chapel” is out now.
Ernest is a singer, songwriter and producer who has written for Jelly Roll, Morgan Wallen, Florida Georgia Line, and more. His latest solo album “Flower Shops” is out now.
Country stars Jelly Roll and Ernest return to the show to chat with Theo about the whirlwind weeks following Jellys’ big win at the CMA’s, what lead up to his viral speech, why country music is having a singer-songwriter revival, the unlikely origin of their biggest collab “Son of a Sinner”, the time Ernest had to call poison control, what they’re getting their ladies for Christmas, and more.
Jelly Roll: https://www.instagram.com/jellyroll615/
Ernest: https://www.instagram.com/ernest/
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Music: "Shine" by Bishop Gunn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3A_coTcUek
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I want to let you know that I have some new tour dates to announce.
Charlottesville, VA on February 1. Raleigh, North Carolina, February 2. Columbia, South Carolina, February 3. And Knoxville, Tennessee.
Go Big Orange on February 4 at the Knoxville Coliseum.
As well, State College PA on February 7th.
Syracuse, New York, February 8th.
And Amherst, Massachusetts on February 9th.
All tickets available at theovon.com slash T-O-U-O-R.
Don't buy through secondary sites if the prices are jacked up.
Just wait.
We'll come on back through town.
But looking forward to bringing the tour near you.
Thank you for the support.
Today's guests are two hit makers in the country music universe.
One of them is just named the best new artist at the CMAs.
One of them is one of the most talented songwriters that there is.
They're Nashville guys, and they are friends of mine, and they bring a lot of joy to a lot of people.
I'm grateful to have them both return to the podcast.
Today's guests are Jelly Roll and Ernest.
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 Almost there!
And now I've been moving I don't know why it just feels more like.
I put those on.
I think I'm supposed to sing.
Oh, really?
Does that make sense?
It's like as soon as they go on, it's like, check, check.
Can I get a little reverb?
Yeah, yeah.
I feel like, when I put them on, I feel like I'm, like I was supposed to do cold weather, dude, because we had, oh, in our neighborhood, you'd have a dude out there wearing, yeah, sometimes you see like a- Yeah, you'd have this dude wearing these at Christmas or something.
Yeah, yeah.
That was the.
You're going to shoot your eye out.
Fuck why come so high cameras in the movie.
Yes, classic.
They always wore those too.
Yeah.
Now, how high are you guys?
You guys, like, how high can you guys get?
Well, first of all, this is well, we were just talking about the highest we've ever been-ish.
We did it with the same person, but separately.
Yeah.
But I was sitting with you.
You gave us just enough time to get stoned.
I love to say.
You were like, yo, 10 minutes, boys.
And me and Ernest were like, to the car.
Look, and I was going to be five minutes early.
Yeah, I was going to be five minutes early, but then, you know, we pushed it.
So sorry.
So we might have showed up sober for that week.
Hey, if somebody's like, hey, man, we're going to need five extra minutes in here.
That's when that's when the weed sneaks in.
100%.
Sitting here with Jellyroll and Ernest, man.
Thank you guys, bro.
Thank you.
First of all, thank you guys.
If you don't mind while you're thanking us, I just want to start, and I'm sure Ernest wants to do this too, is that as guys that have been friends with you for a while, and my first podcast I ever did was with you on Thanksgiving week, by the way, as we sit here on Thanksgiving week.
So I want to thank you for everything you've done for me, being early, being a believer, a supporter, every time you've ever said something nice about me.
But more motherfucking importantly, Theo Vaughn, we want to give you your flowers.
You're on fucking fire.
I don't know if you even see it because you're such a humble in your own head, dude.
I know that as you as your friend, but you are fucking scorching.
It has been so fun to watch, dude.
I mean, it is, look at him, blushing.
It was fucking beautiful, dog.
Thanks, man.
So happy for you, man.
I was so glad to get the call.
One, just to get to hang out, but two, to tell you in front of you and your audience that, man, I have never laughed as hard.
I've never, I mean, I could just bore you with how happy I am in every podcast I've watched and just fucking how genius and brilliant you are.
But the Dana White one most recently, dude, I've watched every Dana White scrum my whole career, right?
I got to where I don't even watch the fights sometimes.
I just go Google Dana White and see what the postscript.
What did he say about the fights?
Are they fucking worth watching?
He'll tell you the truth.
There's a Chinese live feed you can get of just him watching the fights too.
Really?
Yeah.
No.
But I, dude, I never heard him like that.
It was really cool.
But I'm sorry.
I want to start with you.
We love you.
We're happy for you.
We're here with the writer of flower shops anyway.
So I think it's the guy to do it around.
Dude, what if you did a show where people got their flowers from somebody like as a get, like as a, you know.
Thank you, bro.
That's really sweet of you.
Retweet everything he just said.
Yeah.
Thank you, bro.
Thank you.
Well, thank you guys for making me laugh, dude, for making me feel welcome in a new city.
You know, I will say that.
You guys have been very, you showed up for like the first time that we had a show in Nashville at Zane's, man.
You came out and Ernest, you've been somebody that just, you know, always, you know, checks in or cheers me up or keeps me in the know of what's going on with a lot of these guys because so many artists are on the road now and stuff out of here, you know?
But thank you, bro.
Very sweet of you, man.
And happy holidays, boys.
Happy holidays, bubble.
Praise God.
I was throwing nuts your way for a second.
You got me high, man.
And you got you high.
And you guys wrote, tell me this, because I didn't know this.
I was at a writer's round, I think.
You were performing that.
And you wrote Son of a Sinner together.
Yes, sir.
Wow.
Yeah.
That's crazy, bro.
It is really crazy.
Because him, I believe, Son of a Sinner.
But then I get to read and I'm like, hold on.
Yeah, well, my birth father was definitely a sinner.
I was adopted into a less of a sinning man.
Oh, yeah.
You're like an aftermarket sinner.
I was actually son of a deacon.
Son of a deacon in the church of Christ.
We actually have a song on his new album that talks all about that, actually.
Oh, my goodness, dude.
Yeah.
So can I tell the story?
Yeah, please.
Dude, so me and Luke Bryan were playing golf out at Troubadour, and we're listening to some rap, and we start talking about Jelly Roll.
He was like, y'all known each other for a while, hadn't you?
I was like, yeah, we go back.
Don't act like you're not fighting your best not to do your Luke Bryan impression right now.
We got to hear it, man.
He was like, you've been knowing Jelly Roll, ain't you?
I was like, well, that's kind of bad.
That's kind of bad ones.
But I got a good one coming up here because I was like, Yeah, I was like, I used to go by his house and acquire some things, and we'd freestyle rap.
And this is like back in 2010.
I was like, Then I went to college and he went to jail.
And then we came back around all these years later.
And Luke was like, Hold up, motherfucker, you better write that fucking song right now.
And so we started, I started kind of freestyling in the golf cart.
It's like, I went to college.
He went to jail.
One was a dorm room.
One was a cell.
Who came out on top?
Hell, it's hard to tell.
I went to college.
He went to jail.
So we're going to treat.
So imagine this.
I'm getting a FaceTime or a phone call like every 16 minutes from a drunk Ernest and a drunk Luke Bryan.
They drunk too.
Sun beating on them.
They're sweating and they're just like, check this one out.
And I'm like giving a little input here and there.
And by about the fourth FaceTime, I was like, these cocksuckers are writing a song on a golf course right now.
For sure.
Over FaceTime with no guitars.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's crazy, man.
I just have, yeah, I guess inspiration can just kind of roll up whenever.
Is it as easy to just go in a place and do inspiration like that and get inspiration like if you're sitting in a room with people?
Or is that a lot easier to find a way to write a song or is it easier just if you're milling around with your boys?
It can come both ways for sure.
I mean, in the right room, inspiration is going to be there.
And just because you're out, you know, having fun and living doesn't mean that the inspiration is going to hit you in that moment.
But I think living breeds inspiration no matter where you're at.
I'd like your perspective from a comedian because as a songwriter, we're always writing songs.
Right?
Like, whether we know it or not, subconsciously, you might say something here today that one of us will grab and hit the other one with in a text later.
You're like, yo, when Bubba said, da-da-da, put that in there.
There's a song there.
Throw that in the notes.
You know what I mean?
It's like, is it like that for y'all as well?
Like just in day-to-day life, you're always kind of writing a joke, whether you know it or not?
Yeah, I think like if you're around your buddies, sometimes you get them to laugh.
You'll write that down, you know?
Rodney Dangerfield was pretty famous.
He would like if he was on a shoot or something, he would, in his off moments, he would get a get in a robe and just hang out like when he wasn't shooting, like literally in a robe and slippers.
I think because he felt real free in it, like his body felt free.
And he would, he would just write down, he would hang out by people.
And if something was funny, he would write it down on a notepad and just keep it in his pocket.
That's kind of like a famous story that I heard.
I find if I'm like about, say, like the funniest times I ever am is if like, say if I if I was like hanging out with a girl, right?
And she stayed over in the morning.
And I think it's kind of the same thing if you drank all night and you wake up in the morning, you're laughing like with your spouse or something or with your spouse.
Yeah.
And you're kind of like having just that funny time right there.
That's my fun.
I think that's when I feel like.
That's your golden hour of comedy.
It really is.
Yeah.
Cause if there's a, if it's a lady, you're trying to impress this part of you that's always like limbically trying to impress a lady.
Yeah.
I don't know if it's limbic or whatever, but just damn like Mediterranean or whatever that Mediterranean part of your head is.
And you're always just trying to impress a lady.
So Mediterranean part of your head.
Whatever it is.
It took six extra seconds for that to hit me, but it landed.
It landed.
Just moving away.
Well, yeah, I think that's when I feel like I'm maybe my most engaging or whatever it is.
Because I think a lot of comedians, they're just trying to get a girl to laugh.
You don't have any way to impress a woman.
That's when you realize when you're young.
So you're like, I got to make somebody laugh or one of these dudes is probably going to fuck me.
So it's funny.
It's funny.
I relate.
As a fat person, I always said that you got to be a little humorous and smell good.
You can't be fat, stinky, and an asshole.
You can't be fat, an asshole, and two.
Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
I just got to be fat.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, that's it.
I got to at least smell decent when I can.
And I better at least make somebody chuckle every now and then.
Yes.
Yeah.
So good.
Dude, and I'll say to that, too, not even just girl, but like an audience, like freestyling.
When we're freestyling, bro, like if it's a car full of people or a studio full of people and the energy is room, like that's that's when I'm going to black out and be able to freestyle, you know, think and just basically be channeling something because I know that I can see in real time like what it's pulling out of people.
Like, what do you mean?
Oh, so like if you're doing like you're just in front of like a group or something?
Yeah, like you can, you can get a real read on site about whether this is cool or not.
Whereas like if it's just me by myself with music or me and one other guy who's so locked into his thing at the time, then you can get in your head and get in your own way, I feel like.
I know it sounds weird, but if I had a choice to do it every time, I'd like treat it like a party and us three would be writing a song, but we'd have the homies over there chilling.
You know what I'm saying?
Like some of our buddies, because you can feel from that.
Like you're just the energy of a room.
But yeah, it's always like, it's also what you're getting into a room.
Writing's so fun because there's, I'm sure it's like this for y'all, but there's so many ways to do it.
I've done it so many different ways.
Now, the most crazy way I've ever seen it done, and I'm sure you don't mind me saying this, I had a session with Wiz Khalifa the other night.
Did you really?
Listen, man.
Wiz, don't get mad at me.
I don't know who I'm supposed to tell this, but you fucking did it in front of me.
So it's a fair game, I think.
He recorded his verse in reverse.
So I'm trying to figure out what's happening because I know it's going to be hard to even explain.
And keep in mind, I've been smoking Wiz for like four hours at this point.
I'm cooked.
I'm like, what the fuck am I even doing?
I feel like I'm taking trooms or something.
My skin's crawling.
The room you can't see through it.
I'm fucking like, yo, our own skin turns into a maze.
Yeah.
I'm like, what the fuck is happening?
You can't even call the cops.
You literally need to call like the, like the whoever.
Poison control.
Calling poison control for sure.
I'll let you finish and I have a poison control structure.
But he would take the last bar and go backwards.
So like he would be like, and I'm already gone.
And then he would go the measure and loop the beta measure into that and then figure out what the line going into that was.
It was the wildest shit I've ever seen.
I'm not bullshitting Ernest.
He did four bars before I looked up and publicly said, loud, is he recording this backwards?
Like I missed.
Oh, he done it for 15 minutes today.
He might be dyslexic.
There's not always.
He's burslexic.
I mean, you just described dyslexia, and we're all like, wonder what he's doing.
Hey, that's funny as well.
Bro, you don't see a lot of black dyslexia either.
Yeah, you don't see it every day, that's for sure.
Hey, that's funny.
That's great.
Tell us about your poison control.
Let's go take a ride and get some QB bar.
You know what I'm saying?
You don't see a lot of black dyslexia.
I'm down there at the waist sub right now, baby.
I'll be home in a minute.
We need more black dyslexia out there.
No, I'm not hiding.
Dude's rapping like Yoda.
It's insane, dude.
I've never seen nothing like that.
And it was sick.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Dude, if aliens show up, they better show up with some fucking bars or the hood's going to be like, fuck these motherfuckers, bro.
I'm saying that.
Yes.
Yeah.
Tough day to be a square alien here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, because a lot of black people have issues with aliens anyway, bro.
A lot of my dudes have told me that.
You've been hearing that a lot?
No, I've heard on the street.
Not recently, but I heard, you know, I'm sure it hasn't changed from since when I heard it.
Yeah, probably not.
If anything, it's probably gotten worse.
I don't think it was a meeting.
I don't think it was a meeting.
Oh, my God.
But what were we just doing?
Oh, poison control.
Okay.
Poison control.
Are drugs involved in this?
Not bad ones.
Honestly, just caffeine.
It's kind of insane.
So before one of these shows, I think we were at Marathon like two years ago.
Marathon is a marathon music venue.
I probably weighed 50 pounds more than I do right now.
Just keep that in mind for context.
I was tired as hell.
I wasn't drinking at the time.
So I went to the gas station and got some caffeine pills.
And it's like four pills in a thing.
And I get back to the green room.
I take the four pills and then read the package.
It was like, you're supposed to just take one of these.
You know, you got four deals.
That's a recommendation.
Yeah.
So I immediately, this is like 10 minutes later.
I finally read the package.
I go back in the bathroom, make myself throw up.
And like one empty capsule came out in my puke.
And I was like, oh, boy.
And I'm starting to get antsy and obviously anxious about the whole scenario.
I don't have the coolest heart on earth.
And then I called Poison Control.
I was like, no brainer.
I'm going to see what they got to say.
I was like, hey, man, I took four of these caffeine pills.
I feel pretty uncomfortable right now.
I'm sweating.
It kind of hurts.
And he's like, oh, man.
He's like, yeah, that's a lot of caffeine.
He goes, but he was like, if you're in pretty good shape, you should be all right.
And I was like, oh, all right, thank you.
I hung up and I was like, fuck, I'm not in that good a shape.
Now he's just, he's fucking passive aggressively.
If you're in pretty good shape, I think you should be all right.
And I'm like, what is pretty good shape?
I'm definitely obese to an extent.
Let me draw a picture of myself.
I'll text it over to you.
Yeah, so I ended up being totally uncomfortable and stayed up all night and sweat, but I survived.
Poison control.
Dude, yeah.
And anytime you're just casually calling poison control, dude, that's a fucking weird.
Yeah, I'm standing outside the venue kicking it.
Somebody probably just assumes I'm talking to my mom or something.
I'm over there going, am I going to die here in a minute?
Yo, PC was good, homie.
And that's how I know you went to college because I'd have never even thought to call poison control in this moment.
I didn't realize.
I thought that's something you call when like you had rats at the house.
Yeah, that's you would just talk two volumes and be like, yeah, exactly.
I would just be like, this is it.
We'll take a Xanax.
We'll defend this.
We'll fight fire with fire.
Yeah.
Dude, me and my buddy went on a date.
We were going to pick some girls up for a date one time, and we had just taken these like no-doze pills.
Remember those?
Those are the first like drugs for kids that came out at a gas.
Was that like an over-the-counter amphetamine, basically?
Yeah, it was like no-doze.
It said, you could be a trucker.
You know, that's what it said on it, right?
I was like, fuck, that's some good.
I took a five-hour energy drink one time in my life.
And you've still been up?
Yeah, you ain't slipping.
And I took it.
I got off a plane.
This was 10 years ago in Vegas.
And I rented a car in Vegas to drive to L.A. because I was so broke it was cheaper to fly into Vegas and rent a car from there than to fly into L.A. So I took and like I stopped at one of them truck stops in the desert.
Yeah, for sure.
One of them figured it out.
One of them, we've all done those in our group.
I'll save 70 bucks.
I'll get there 11 hours later.
And I'll be on somebody's shoulder.
And I took it, dude.
And I'm driving down the side of that, you know, that old desert.
It's all desert from Vegas to L.A. And man, it hit me, dude.
And I took the most squalling shit on the side of the road.
It was the most brutal, painful thing I've ever dealt with.
For that five-hour day, yeah, I'll never take one again.
Those things are poison.
I should have called Poison Control.
Those things are fucking evil.
We can't help you.
If they call Poison Control right now, like, what's up, Poison Control?
We just want to check in with you guys.
Let you know we're doing good.
Yeah.
Hey, how are y'all?
How are you doing?
Nobody's ever calling to check on y'all.
Are y'all good over there?
You know, they have overdoses probably all the time.
If you have to work at a call center, dude, in Indy, you're definitely using a lot of pills probably to stay up.
Oh, yeah.
Indian dudes, they got, well, they got a lot in their system, though, man.
A lot of Indian dudes.
We had an Indian dude.
A lot of Indian, they have like a lot more spices, you know?
Yeah, that's the bit.
Oh, they smell a lot of Indian dudes.
You'll smell, you know, if they was by the house, you'll know they was by the house, you know?
Yeah.
Hell yeah.
The dog will come right up on them.
Do you hear that?
No, but I smell that.
I think the Indians just got that.
Because Indian people eat a lot of spicy food and it just comes out their pores.
You know, it's like being around an alcoholic, but it's like, yeah, a lot of Indian dudes, their arteries are just like a halfway house for like a spice rack.
A lot of motherfuckers have got that coriander in them.
Yes.
Yeah, dude.
Steph Curry.
Oh, dude, Steph Curry.
What if he made a restaurant called Steph Curry?
It would do well.
I'm sure it would do well.
It had 30 different things on the menu.
Yeah.
That's a great idea.
Nobody opened it, though.
San Francisco?
Steph's Curry.
Steph's Curry?
That sounds like a Steph Curry's.
Steph Curry sounds good.
Steph Curry sounds like a steakhouse a little bit.
Steph Curry sounds like a...
Kind of a...
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
It sounds like some almost like vaginal witchcraft.
Vaginal witchcraft, yes.
You got to get a hit of Steph's Curry.
I'm good.
Nicole.
It sounds like a dude in prison that tries to pretend like his butt is a vagina.
Oh, come get some of this Steph's Curry.
Sobach B throwing out that Steph's Curry all afternoon.
Oh, they serving one Steph's Curry over there.
And that Bedussi.
Did you get high with us before we got it?
Oh, I live vicariously through high people.
I wish I had smoked in here, dude.
Oh, man.
If I can't smoke, I can do.
But I can, I don't know if there's anybody that says you can secondhand.
Yeah, you can smell it.
Dude, I wanted to open up a shoe store by Joaquin Phoenix called These Boots Were Made for Joaquin.
That's like one of those ideas.
His only shoes that he could fit into.
It's like, man, if you fit in these, we got the boot for you.
He'd have to stop.
If you're driving out of your house and you see the shop near you, like, fuck.
Gotta go.
These boots are made for Joaquin.
I gotta stop.
How was the CMAs, man?
You guys got to go, dude.
Congratulations, too, man.
And did you, yeah, congratulations, man.
Thank you.
Best new artist was it, huh?
Yes, sir.
It was crazy, man.
It was really interesting because I didn't think I had a chance to win it.
Really?
Yeah, man.
I mean, that's true.
You didn't think it all?
I did not at all.
Who were you up against?
I was up against Zach Bryan and Parker McCollum.
And I felt like, no all pun intended to my boy, I felt like Parker had a hell of a year.
And I feel like Zach Bryan is the second most streamed artist in country music right now behind Morgan.
So it's like, to me, it was a no-brainer.
And I'm such a Zach Bryan fan.
So the fact that I got to sit next to him the whole night, it's so funny.
I'm glad you were able to, too.
Yeah.
That was cool for me and him to get that moment because he was awesome, dude.
There was a moment where I literally felt like me and him were like tailgating and watching a concert outside of an arena.
You know, like he's over there drinking.
I'm ripping a weed pin.
You know what I'm saying?
He's cracking beers.
There's empty shot glasses.
There's empty shot glasses under my seat.
He's got four or five half-drinking drinks under his.
He's bringing him drinks.
And we're just there talking about the music all night.
And I just thought for sure he would win, you know?
The last thing right before they announced the name was I think I tapped him on the shoulder and said, say something nice about me or something funny.
Oh, that's cool.
And then whenever I hugged him going up there, I was like, man, you deserve this.
You know what I mean?
And then you look at him like, don't worry, I'll say something nice.
I'll say something nice about me.
I can do it now.
Don't worry.
But it was cool.
It was really cool.
And you've had this a lot in your career, but I was blessed for the first time in my career to have a real viral moment.
Like I thought I'd went viral before, but it was like just building to a real viral moment.
I went viral.
For whatever reason.
And I didn't touch my phone for like 36 hours after the award show because it was just such a big moment.
I was just letting it sit, you know, and I didn't want to have my phone on me at night.
And everybody kept telling me, man, you're going viral.
And I was like, I'm, you know, I'm like, oh, cool.
I'm thinking like you're talking about to see if your doctor's letting you know.
I'm more concerned with that.
I ain't a whoop.
Yeah.
That's a, that's a, what is that?
I ain't a whoop on that boy.
I wore a whoop this whole tour, believe it or not.
I was like 50 pounds on tour.
Yeah.
Incredible.
I marked my sleep every night.
I checked my show.
My show was like a work.
You have been living well, dude.
Tell him.
Hell yeah.
I've never lived.
Dude, it was awesome, but I did.
I wore my whoop forever.
You got to be careful, yeah.
You don't want to have to get, yeah, because I guess also, if you're a bigger guy, you just have to be careful.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, like Stavros Halkius was just in here.
I love Stavi.
Oh, yeah.
He's so fucking funny.
He is so fucking big.
But he was talking about what it's like being bigger.
He's like, it's fun to be big.
You just have to also manage it.
You can't get over big.
So you just got to make you, you just have to enjoy your big, but you can't fucking, you know.
You can't be like, I'm going to, you know, get just extra big because I can.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
No, there's a point where it starts fucking you up.
Yeah, yeah.
I had that recently.
I was like, let me pull the reins and dial this back.
Get a surgery.
Best new artery.
Best new bust.
Best new artery.
Sorry.
But so that was so wild.
And then they, was it really like you were just shocked?
I was really shocked.
I really didn't have a, I didn't have a plan walking up there.
I was just walking up there like, man, I didn't, you know, I was getting more excited as I was getting up there.
Adrenaline's pumping.
I'm in the fucking Bridgestone Arena.
I'm on national television.
Dude, I'm still a white trash kid from Antioch.
All this is like, what the fuck is going on?
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, I'm not jaded to this.
I'm not used to this at this point in my career.
I'm still like, this is wild.
You know, and I'm standing up there and I'm just like.
How many steps is it up there?
Like, how high is that?
How high is this?
It's like a, dude, I didn't walk it, but I bet it's like 10 steps.
I tell you, I didn't feel them.
Wow.
I was on the cloud, bubble.
You know, at that moment, you're just like, man, this is, you know.
That would be the scariest steps because then, you know, once you get there, you have to turn around and say something.
That would be what was so scary.
Yeah, no, no, I was just more like.
He murdered that speech.
Yeah.
I was just walking up there, like, thinking to myself.
I don't know what I was thinking.
I was thinking like, I tell you when I started thinking was when I looked up, and this is inside baseball.
I like, I have the award.
I raise it up and I look straight up and there's a teleprompter that's going, I'm not shitting you, Theo.
59, 58, 57. And I think to myself, I got a lot to say and a little time to do it.
I didn't realize till I watched the speech afterwards that I actually said that out loud in that moment.
I was like, I got a lot of things to say, and I'm going to say it really quick.
But that was me thinking out loud because I remember thinking that.
That's the first time I remember really thinking in that moment was like, oh, shit, this is real.
I've got 58 seconds where they're going to start playing the music on me.
And they're going to send the sandman from Apollo and pull me.
I was like, I better make this count.
You know what I'm saying?
I knew in that moment, too, I was like, I'm definitely not winning another award tonight for sure.
I'm going to say it all right now.
Definitely didn't think I was going to win this one.
Yeah, I just fucking fired, dude.
It was the coolest thing ever.
That's so cool.
You're on a rocket ship, bro.
Dude, it was funny.
I wouldn't think of any all as new artists, though, in a weird way, but that doesn't matter.
It's just like an accolade to do.
It doesn't really matter what it is.
It's like Saying, hey, man, people recognize you in this case.
That's exactly right for sure.
It doesn't matter how long people have been winning that award that have been around for a while, but it is like you're on the map.
We recognize you.
See you.
It's your time.
And it is, though, I mean, I was giving you flowers out there, but it is true.
I mean, everybody sees it that it's just the lights are turned on for you right now.
All the lights are on for you right now.
I'm so stoked because you do, and I've told you this before, you do such a good job with your podium that you're on and giving back to this city and the things that built you.
And it's just, I love knowing you as a fellow Nashvillian.
It's just, Nashville is very well represented.
Thank you for sure.
No, it means a lot to me coming from y'all especially.
You guys are really the, you know, some of the roots.
I know there's a lot of guys around this area, you know.
Yeah.
But you guys are people that if I mention like to people I'm like at the gym with or something, there's always somebody that knows one of you guys, you know.
Some of the guys that knew you weren't usually doing too well, I'll say.
But they're good guys, you know.
Hey, that's funny.
Drew's fucking methadone.
I fucking fucked the boy.
If you came up with a fucking Suboxone or a Methadone, jelly donut flavored Suboxin.
For sure.
A fourth will get you back.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Subway.
Eat Suboxin.
Suboxin.
The Subway branding, but Suboxin.
Somebody make that shirt.
That is at least a painting to put in this room.
I walked in here thinking I'm having the biggest week of my career and they're going to get me in trouble.
And I was right.
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Is it weird?
Like, because yeah, thinking about that kind of stuff, do you start to feel more like you have to be, um...
I know you got, oh, did you win any CMAs or no?
No CMAs.
Okay.
Sorry.
Is that easier to say?
I knew you want to tonight.
Hell no.
It was like a date night and I got to sit and cheer my friends on.
Yeah.
Ernest got drunk.
Let me tell you what happened.
Every time Ernest walked by me at the CMAs, he was.
I was bringing Zach a drink each time I came back to.
Who was the other three for, Ernest?
Me, me and me and Delaney.
He would look like a bartender.
He would have two drinks in each hand.
They ought to have somebody doing that for us.
Parker McCullough was like that too.
Every time I seen him one, he'd have him and his wife on.
And every time he's just walking about.
It's for safety measures, though, because you don't know how long you're going to have to sit.
Like, it might be the last chance you ever get to get a drink.
You're waiting for a commercial break like a drug addict.
Really?
I swear, bro, you're waiting for it like Chow in prison.
You're sitting there and you're just waiting.
I don't know what that's like.
Chow, it's a new Chinese in me.
Who's getting this cutie?
And you're just sitting there and they're like, commercial break, and you're just like, you just watch everybody stand up and just immediately start shuffling.
Really?
It's like when school, it's like recess.
It's like when the bell rings and you got five minutes to get between classes.
It's funny how I went to a jail reference before I thought of school.
Fuck.
You went to jail.
I went to college.
That's the song again.
That's exactly the song.
That's so funny, man.
but back to the Nashville thing, Theo, I think that's what made it so beautiful that my first number one was written with Ernest.
And keep in mind that we're already like Ernest is on his seventh or eighth number one at that point in his career.
And I'm calling him now.
We're looking at a decade plus of real friendship.
So I'm calling Ernest and I'm like saying it.
You know how I talk.
People, y'all know, how y'all see me on here is how I am.
My friends attest.
I'm a very straightforward, like, hey, I need help.
Can you, I call Ernest like the first time I got on Theo and Brennan's podcast, I hit him like, yo, I really need this.
This is a good look for me.
They were like, come on.
But same thing with busting with the boys.
But I call Ernest.
I'm like, Bubba, I'm treading new water here.
Come over here and drop some of that sauce off.
Wow.
You know what I'm saying?
I was like, fuck with your boy, man.
You know what I mean?
I'm like, it's just me and my dude.
Me and my dude that wrote Save Me.
We're friends of 20-something years.
David Ray?
Yeah.
He's from a trailer park in East Nashville.
Grew up piss poor.
Neither one of us dreamed of being songwriters.
We just dreamed of not being drug dealers.
You know, and so we're just in there piddling around.
We're like, we don't really.
We can't even read.
Yeah, for sure.
I'm like, we're not qualified to try to write.
I don't know the guy.
Exactly.
I'm like, we're not a middleman.
I'm like, we're not qualified to write a radio song by ourselves.
You know what I'm saying?
I was like, I only know one person.
We're going to write this song.
You can't even read.
There's only one hit writer in town that'll take my call.
Let me call him.
Yo, Ern, do me a favor, pull up.
He's like, I got you.
Are you there all week?
I'm like, I'm here all week.
And we've told the story, but he was going to get ribs and next door at the barbecue pit.
He really just came.
Ernest is Ernest is that good.
He's like, you know what?
I got to pick up some ribs in about an hour, but I'm going to stop.
He came in.
He was like, I got like 30 minutes to kill or something.
He wrote a piece of the song.
He just like poured out an idea.
I was like, love y'all.
Let me know how it goes.
I looked at our text thread after it went number one because that night I texted Ernest at like four in the morning because I was up.
He sent back a demo.
Yeah, a demo at four in the morning.
I was like, we might actually have something here.
Yeah.
And then it felt so good when I left, like, because we had the long-head son of a sinner.
And like that shit was just tattooed in my brain from the second I left until now.
And then I had to double back with the favorite Theo because then when we get the song done, I'm like, well, fuck, we don't know nobody to produce a radio song either.
Right.
So I call Ernest.
I'm like, you got to produce.
Hey, I'm one for one on producing country songs and them going to the top, baby.
That's your first produced one?
Yeah, it's the only thing I produced.
The best part was, I had to gas him up, Theo.
He was like, the Rudy Rudiger.
One play, one sack.
That's me.
I had to gas him up, bro.
I had to be like, yo, man, you can do this.
He was like, I've never done it.
I was like, I definitely can't do it.
If we have to pick right now who's the most qualified to do it, it's fucking you, man.
You got to figure it out.
He was like, all right, man.
Fuck.
I'll figure it out.
I was like, all right, cool.
Wow.
Crazy.
That is crazy hearing it out loud again, though.
I just had to bully him into it, Theo.
I was like, you got this.
I felt imposter syndrome being around, you know, the producer all the time.
But singing that song, it's in my set every night, and I love it.
Like one of mine.
And I say every night, I give a brief overcap of knowing him and then how special it is.
That one's, that's all the time when people ask me what my favorite number one is, it's that one.
Because of that reason, because it's homegrown, 100% homegrown.
Three Nashville dudes, three Nashville dudes that 10 years before you could have never told us we would be hit songwriters.
Yeah.
Any of us.
You know what I mean?
And we put real, real, real stuff in a song vulnerable that country radio accepted.
And like, that's cool.
Like pills and, you know, addiction and just weird lingo that most country songs don't have.
Well, yeah.
Well, nowadays, that's your dog and your truck.
If you don't, you know what I'm saying?
If you ain't got a lot of shit.
The dog is a dog's truck on blocks.
We're moved on.
We're moving on to opiate.
The genre has evolved.
No, man, I remember because I went to the opera and I saw you performing and then you played that song.
I was like, I just didn't know.
I didn't know the that's where it was.
That was when it was.
And I was like, wow, because I just love listening to that song.
Yeah.
You know what?
You did me a solid Theo, The Holler.
It's a big country-themed YouTube social media site.
And they did like one of them 30-second things with you.
And they said, what's a country song you can listen to non-stop?
And you said, Son of a sinner by Jelly Roll.
And you said, no, never mind.
Save me by Jelly Roll.
Oh, nice.
Thank you for that.
I got cold in the tin for one.
Yeah, you threw me a big alley ooopa because that motherfucker, because you did it, it went bayroll.
Everybody said that to me.
I love C. Yeah.
Where are you at right now?
Where are you at with Laney on that?
We're number two.
We're number two.
Yeah.
We should be pushing next week.
Save me should be the number one song on country radio.
Whenever this comes out.
By the time this comes out, I should be able to say this the number one song.
I'm a Jesse Murr.
I'm a Jesse Murph fan too.
I've been a Jesse Murph fan for me.
I feel scary even saying it because she's like a young girl, you know, but it's like a fan.
I am a all of her songs, dude, which is really alarming to say.
And I might even, I don't want to hear this.
I'm glad I'm not.
I can't hear that good.
If it makes you feel better, if you were like me, I heard the voice before I seen her.
And nothing about her voice says she's a 19-year-old girl.
Right.
Like her voice says she's a 37-year-old woman that's been through a lifetime of pain and anger.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like when you hear just the voice, because I just heard the music.
And then I found out who it was.
And then I was like, oh, this is dope.
But you'd love her, man.
She's like a little sister, man.
She's like, I got to meet up with her one night.
Her and this guy, Shay, no, he's like a light-skinned dude.
He writes music.
Shy?
Shy.
Shy Carter.
Yeah, sorry, sorry.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Shy Carter.
Yeah, dude.
It was awesome.
I got to meet up with them in Los Angeles.
And just, I was a huge fan of hers.
And then her manager, I think, Ben, knew about it.
And he's like, oh, Jesse's in town if you want to stop by and get to say hey.
And so I got to stop by and meet them.
Sick, gotcha.
And this, and like, she played some of her new music and stuff.
She's so good, man.
Yeah.
She don't miss it.
Maybe while you're at it, why don't you rap that stuff?
I need to tap in.
I only know like, bro, once you Get on it though, dude.
Yeah, her TikTok shit is so violent.
Like, once you get on it, it's like you're all, it's like you'll it'll be weird because you'll just be like at the CVS or something, and you're just standing there by yourself singing Jesse Murphy.
These kids start looking at you, like, this guy's a pervert.
Let's get this guy out of here, but he's a pervert that listens to good music, isn't it?
Pervert, true, good taste, absolutely.
That was the funny part.
When they sent me wild ones, I was like, somebody suggested, like, you should do a verse on wild ones.
And I was like, I want to sing about my wife, though.
Like, I'm not getting on any song with a young woman and not talk about the most important woman in my life.
They were like, cool.
I was like, whatever, as long as the label don't trip on my verse.
Because I sent a verse in just like not think.
I thought they were rejected because I'm talking like shit a little bit, right?
You know what I'm saying?
I was like, yeah, they're not going to let me fly it.
And they were like, this is it.
I was like, fucking, let's go.
So far.
Yeah, it was so good.
Bunny is my holly.
What's the line?
Bunny's my holly queen.
Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
It was fun getting the, back to getting to the freedom of having a, getting a rap verse.
Oh, dude.
It's like, it feels so, I've been in a situation lately where I've got to go write a bunch of stuff by myself or like in two ways again, like save me or, you know what I mean?
Like that style.
And it's been a ball.
Which we should do.
I've pulled up to a lot of places and just been thrown into like a feature category again when they're just like, well, just write something for this.
And I'm just like, hell yeah.
Good stuff.
It's normally like we write in like twos or threes because it's easier to bounce ideas off each other that way.
Yeah.
And, but like when you go do a feature for somebody, especially in the hip-hop world, they just, you just got a beat and you're just like writing something and you're like by yourself again.
And it's the coolest, most dangerous thing ever because you go back to what you think's cool.
You know what I mean?
It's like, I don't give a fuck what nobody thinks.
I'm wigging out about this.
I think this is sick.
I'm in my little, I'm on my kitchen table.
I still write at the kitchen table like I did when I was a kid.
I got my little headphones on.
My wife's out there.
And then finally, I'll be like, come check this out.
You're pinned to pad too, right?
Yeah, I'm still pinned to pad.
I'm still old school.
I love that.
I can't, well, because fuck, I also don't know how to play the music and go to my notes at the same time on my phone.
My hand don't work fast enough.
Like if when I try writing, A, it's either illegible because is that how you pronounce that?
Yeah, or something.
Illegible.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My handwriting's so bad because I'm trying to write so fast because my thoughts and like I'm afraid I'll forget it by the time I get done.
I've never seen you write anyways, though.
You've never written anything.
I've never seen you describe in the room.
Nobody believes you write anything.
And people just believe you just show up.
Literally.
Some of the written songs back and hit falls out of you, dude.
Not one time you've been the guy with the laptop typing the fucking lyrics, artist.
Never the guy with the laptop, but sometimes I do write complete ideas in my notes on my phone and then bring it and put a guitar to it.
But often it is just like music.
Somebody get a voice note going.
Blah.
Somebody type that out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I need scribes.
What's that line I remember seeing you get so excited about?
It's like map.
Oh, Hardy said that.
Ain't that a map.shame?
He's in more than my hometown.
Ain't that a map.shame?
Thank that.
I mean, I added nothing to that song that night other than the room we wrote it in.
And then when he said that, I about ran through a glass wall.
I remember you saying one time.
I was like, fired up.
I'm so excited you were about that lyric.
I don't know.
I mean, it caught me off guard.
Ain't that a map.
Ain't that a map.shane?
Ain't that a map.shine?
Yeah, that's so good.
That's such a cool way.
And I like that lyric.
Well, I got, I took some pills.
She took the dogs off.
It's all gone to hell.
That's a hell of a word.
She's gone to her mom's.
God, dude.
And I took up drinking since she took the time to tell me I took the best years of her life.
God.
Sad.
It is sad.
Sad songs make me happy.
Yeah.
I wonder if people relate more now to sad.
Do you think the overall that music's sadder or different than it was when we were growing up?
And you and I are probably more closer to age and earnest, but I just wonder sometimes, you know?
I think so.
I think there's more.
More vulnerability.
Okay, there you go.
It was so curated.
So music used to be curated.
The labels were in the power.
And they would curate songwriters.
They would pick the songs.
They would make the artists record the songs.
It was a big deal when artists got to start picking their own songs in this town.
There was a time where labels were like, this is your song.
I call it, I get in trouble every time I do this, by the way.
Fuck it.
I call it the Build-A-Bear system, right?
Like Nashville was like Build-A-Bear.
Like they would find a bear.
They would put cowboy hat on bear, cowboy boots on bear.
They would give bear a song, give bear a guitar, make bear have a band of bears behind bear, put bear on tour, put bear on radio.
And it was completely like these dudes were like fucking robots.
They were Muppets, right?
You know what I mean?
For the system and the power.
And what we've seen in light of the internet, and I always compare stuff to like other things for connectivity, in comedy, we've seen it as well, right?
And podcasting and the ability to y'all to go direct to consumer, right?
Like the idea that a guy like Zach Bryan can be writing songs in the military and sets up his phone and just sweating, just singing his ass off and can connect with people with no in-between, right?
And that's why sometimes the establishment don't like him because they had absolutely nothing to do with his success.
But we've gotten to a place where like we're back, the last time this really happened, and somebody's going to argue with me, but fuck them, was in the 60s and the 70s, the singer-songwriter movement.
Yeah.
Right.
Where you would see guys that were like writing their own songs and singing their own songs.
Willie Nelson, Whalen, Dylan, James Taylor, the outlaws.
But I mean, it went over like, I was playing, you know, Jackson Free?
Have you written with him yet?
Oh, yeah.
I love that guy.
Yeah, Jackson Free Free Free Free Free.
I think he's going to be, he's 23. In the next 10, 15 years, remember we said this name, this kid's going to have 30, 40 number one.
Jackson Free?
Jackson Free.
Jackson Free spells it with an X. But he didn't realize how deep Dylan's catalog was.
Because if you're like, I don't know if you, do you ever get into Dylan, Bob Dylan?
Bob Dylan?
Yeah, nope.
So was it the nasal thing that threw you off?
I don't remember.
I just don't know if I, I just don't remember him that good.
But it's like you've heard some of his songs without knowing, right?
The heart of gold.
Is that him?
It sounds like Tom Petty.
Tom Shit.
Tom Petty man.
Oh, yeah.
Like Tom Pedty.
Tom on Salt of it.
Ten on seven of the sale, man.
I don't know if that did not.
Johnny's in the basement, mixing up the medicine.
Now I'm on a picture.
He's kind of rapping.
He's talking about the government.
Yeah, I think they're.
Oh, wow.
Bob Dylan was kind of rapping.
But he also wrote Along the Watchtower.
Yes.
Right?
Like, he like, and Jackson didn't realize this, and I'm playing him all these big records.
I'm like, you know 10 Bob Dylan songs.
I could do it for you right now where you're like, no, I'm like, I play them.
You're like, oh, fuck, I do know 10 Bob Dylan songs.
I just didn't know Bob Dylan wrote them.
But it was a different era.
These guys were like writing their own songs and singing them.
And then we went through the 20, 30 year curated space.
And now it's like there's a lot of guys that are singing their own stories again.
And that's why I think the connectivity is different.
And I think the vulnerability shows because it's just men being honest in their music.
So it might seem a little sadder, but I think it's just more authentic.
That's a great answer.
Yeah, I agree with that for sure.
Jesus Christ, that is a good answer.
Thank you, bro.
Same's the same with the music, too.
Not even just the lyrics.
I don't know.
Pop was so synthesized, it feels like synthetic would be the word.
Now real instruments and like not being so on the grid.
When I say on the grid, like a Pro Tool session, literally locked in on the grid.
Guys like Zach playing how it feels more so than just everything's got to be perfect.
And like that just opens up a yard for people that are willing to do it, you know, kind of break the mold and go play in that yard.
And that's like, yeah, sad song is going to happen in there.
I love steel guitar.
Steel guitar is all over my record, and there's not a sadder sounding instrument than steel guitar.
So I consciously write a lot of times to cater to steel guitar or like what I, you know, I think that's to give you your flowers, though, outside of the genius you are as a songwriter, as the artist, Ernest, that's what makes you special, though, Bubba.
It's like you focus not only on the top line and the lyric.
There's a sound that you want.
You're bringing, like, you're years ahead of your time with bringing that sound back around.
Just like Hardy was years ahead of his time with bringing in the really rock-heavy metal country.
It's like guys like that is, when you think about the guys who really went on to win, it's because their sound was so different as well.
Not just the shit they were singing about.
Like the, like, when I see an earnest show, it's like nostalgic.
It's like this, but with new concepts written over the top of this super old nostalgic sound.
You know what I mean?
It's just really sick to me.
And it's the same thing I hear when I hear Hardy, like, listen, I bang truck bed like me and Bunny are beefing.
And me and her, we don't argue at all.
It's my best friend.
You know what I mean?
I love my wife.
We don't have any problems, but I still wake up and bang truck bed like I'm fucking ready to get divorced.
You know what I'm saying?
Like that song just fucks in every way.
And it's because it breaks every rule in Nashville.
Oh, yeah.
Not just Nashville, but every rule.
And like he said, there's a system in music, Theo, that's like, okay, and he knows the number system better than me.
He'll explain this like.
Here's the one, four, five.
Yeah, it's like, so, okay, I did, here's the one.
I got to go to the four because that's what's supposed to happen next.
It's like, can't you go to the five?
It's like, nope, got to go to the four.
Yeah, so it's like, fuck you, going to the five.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like, you know.
Well, yeah, I think there's an overall system in the world like that that kind of like, you know, the powers that be kind of feel like they, they've got everything down to an algorithm.
But I think it's, again, proof that that originality and hue, that there's something inside of us that wants to be original, not just individually, but even as a species, where it's like, we don't, you know, don't confine everything into that space.
You can't lock us into an algorithm as humans, you know, like we're going to find a way out of it, you know?
And I think that's one thing that's great about a lot of the music right now.
Like you say, like, even some of the artists, when you're saying who is even up for best new artists, I don't even know if I would say half those people are country music.
You know, I wouldn't put them just as a country music.
You know, like it's good.
That's a great term.
Yeah, yeah.
But it's like Zach Bryant, to me, it's like he's a, some people could say he's their Bob Dylan, you know?
Yeah, yeah, genres are totally skewed right now.
Yeah, like Jesse Murph is, she's in seven genres.
Yeah, for sure.
You know, it's like Jelly.
It's like most people, if you'd have said Ten Years, is he a country, it's like he's a country motherfucker, you know, in the sense that, you know, like he does.
All things are true for him in when he's rapping, when he's singing country songs or rock songs, the story never story, the story's the same.
It's just a matter of what furniture you're dressing a room with.
And the story needed.
Clap it, Ernest.
Yeah.
Clip that.
I got bars now, too.
Clip that for me.
What did you say again?
I was saying the story stays the same no matter the genre.
The furniture changes in what you're decorating the room with.
Damn, bro.
That's fucking hard.
I needed that.
Thank you, brother.
Yeah.
I needed that.
But I'm country.
I want out, first of all, I love country music as a fan.
Like, I'm obsessed with country music.
Have been my whole life.
And because being from this town, I was always fascinated with it.
When I was a kid, there was no other job in this town.
Like, you were either, you know, like a layman or a bartender or you worked in country music somehow, right?
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, 100%.
It's like, you know, and my mother was a bartender, so she took like great pride in like this, like the country music scene being in this town and coming to the bars.
And like, it was like, I remember CMA week would come, fanfare is what they called it back then.
And it would be like an economic shift.
Like our families would plan vacations around it.
Like, all right, well, we can't go to July because fanfare is in June and we're going to have the money then.
They put back Christmas money because it was such, this town only had 300,000 people in it then.
So you got to think, we're bringing an extra 50,000 people to town for fanfare.
It was like a sixth of our population, a fifth of our population was just showing up to spend money in one week.
The bartenders celebrate.
They called it Hell Week.
They were like, this is going to suck, but we're all going to get paid for all this.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, don't worry.
We're eating steak on Friday, baby.
You know what I'm saying?
We're going to afford that divorce next Monday.
That's got to be the worst.
You can't get divorced because you can't afford it.
It's like, ah, fuck.
Can you imagine waking up every day?
Like, I would leave you if I leave you.
If I had $640, I'd leave you.
I'd found right now.
For every time I've heard you say it, I'd leave you.
I'm surprised I haven't seen more GoFundMes about divorce.
Divorce?
Like, just looking for $1,000 to file.
That's hilarious.
That'd be a great reality.
They want three grand to get a new apartment.
The crazy thing about touring is you meet people like, oh, we're from Dippendot, Alabama.
And you're like, where the fuck is that?
Oh, I'm from mixed breed, Arkansas.
Yeah.
Did you see that video about the most racist town in America being in Arkansas and the guy from, I can't remember, I'm too high to talk about this.
Might have been Eric Andre, maybe, who went to.
No, no, no.
It's a famous YouTuber.
I follow his channel.
I'm just fucking can't remember his name right now.
The black dude went into him and was trying to interview the guy.
Yeah, he was fucking Marco, maybe?
No, it wasn't.
It was somebody else.
I can't remember dude's name, but I can't remember his name.
He's got dreads, and he went to like Alaska.
He always goes to weird places, but it was fucking super cool, too.
Super cool.
He wore a Trump shirt or something.
And he went to the most racist town in the world.
You would feel, you would piss yourself.
I know your people.
People were actually for the most part.
People were trying to be pretty nice and be like, hey, do you know where you're at?
He'd be knocking on the door or something.
And an older white couple would come out and be like, oh, hey, like, you probably shouldn't be in this town.
Like a fair warning, not like we're going to do anything, but I can't speak for my neighbors.
They're like, oh, you shouldn't be out after dark.
I mean, you shouldn't be out dark.
Yeah, either both.
You tampered like a champ, and he obviously knew he was going into the fire, but it's like, it's good content.
He talked to one old toothless man, boy, and I pissed myself.
It was so funny.
One of my favorite videos I've ever seen in my life.
I think you should, if you want to be racist, I think you should at least have to have all your teeth.
I feel like, right?
Because otherwise, you're not even taking care of your end of the, you know, it's like, you should at least have to fix yourself up for a racist.
Who are you?
There should be a criteria.
There should be a criteria for racist.
For a guy who doesn't like blacks, you have a black space in your smile.
Which is really interesting that you'd let a nice white tooth expire.
Kind of hypocritical talking.
You and your interracial grin over there.
Oh, my God.
That's crazy, dude.
If you got hair, you want to keep it.
That's it.
Unless you don't, but most of you do.
And if you do, then you're like me.
I'm keeping mine around.
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Couple thoughts.
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But yeah, I think what's happening with guys, like there's always kind of like guys that come along and evolve this thing.
And I think it also is an evolution of what men, like, it's not just the dog and the truck, you know, some of those old like, what are those things called?
Euphemisms?
No, that's not.
Euphagisms.
That's killing it all.
Euphemizationisms.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Analogies.
Yeah, yeah.
Tropes.
Something like that.
But I think those are even evolving.
It's like what a man is.
It's like now a guy is sitting on horseback, but he's playing Nintendo Switch.
The furniture's changed.
The furniture's changed.
but it is cool.
Like I was saying about there being a fresh yard to play in as a writer, it is way more freeing to write songs now than it was when I first started writing songs.
And I think part of that is with some success comes more freedom to get to do it.
But like, yeah, like, you know, the options of guys that'll cut songs now are is different.
Like, you know, you got, he's willing to say way more shit than so-and-so is willing to say.
Or like, you know, if Post is coming and wants to make country songs, like there's an option for like, you really got some more freedom to say stuff that, you know, so-and-so over here would never say or never even be able to say that has a little more swag or a little more sauce on it.
Right.
And that for guys like me, I love that because then I really get to exercise the fun muscle in my brain.
That's true.
When artists start to like collab and stuff, that it's like anything could kind of be happy.
It could kind of opens the door.
And then you still have guys like John Party that's kind of like fun-tree, you know?
Yeah.
And writing for a guy like that is so much fun too because then you get to step into like a honky-tonk world.
And you know, oh, this sounds like a party thing.
It's corrupt.
That's the greatest compliment you can pay an artist in life is when you're thinking of something and you're thinking of a song in your head and you're like, man, that's more of a party record.
That shows how much of a brand he's built with the specific.
Don't hurt yourself.
Sorry, fuck.
I'm blowing it.
Yeah, like he's so specific in what happened.
Why did it take me that long to get it?
Dude, just, I hate you, P.O. Need some Narcan over here, dude.
Only if they're dealing with some Narcan to get a word out of him.
Dude, that'd be crazy.
Imagine if, and this is separate, you're just trying to get a word out, but what it puts some of your time, they were so kind of like illiterate that if they couldn't get a word out of you, fucking hit them with some little popper.
Yeah, we say extracurricular.
Extracurricular.
Extra wide awake.
Anyways.
But he's so specific.
It's like, I think about it when we were kids, we would go on, what was it called?
Was it called SoundClick?
SoundCloud.
No, no, the beats.
Oh.
Soundclick, I think.
I don't know.
What was it?
So there was a website called soundclick.com and it would have beats.
And it would be like producers would make these beats and they would lease them to you.
But they would title the beats like, and I dreamed of the day this would happen for me.
Drake type beat.
Yes, yes, yes.
Eminem type beat.
And it was like, that spoke so that goes back to the sound we were talking about earlier in the pod.
It's like great artists build sounds, not just great songs as well.
They build great sounds behind them.
So like the greatest dream is like, oh, that's a John Party sounding song.
That's a kid rock sounding song.
That's a belly roll sounding song.
That's a like, that is the greatest compliment because there's a lot of artists in music on pop and country that's like, there's four artists that could cut the same song because their sound is just that sound.
You know what I mean?
It's just a big, it's a big like, yeah, it's just kind of like down the middle sound.
It's going to work out.
People are going to like it.
Yeah, people are going to like it, but it's not polarizing.
You know, there's an artist you could, you know what I'm talking about.
And then you have the other artists.
It's like, oh, that sounds like J. Cole should be rapping on that.
That sounds like Jellyroll would be singing a song like that.
Like, that's what you go for as an artist.
And any young artist watching this, that's what I challenge you to do.
I challenge you to write a thousand songs, and I challenge you to make production around it in a way that it's your thing.
Yeah.
So what he's saying is you're going to need to go to prison, probably.
Or college.
You're going to need to go to college?
Yeah, you're going to want to go to college just for long enough to drop out of it.
Or prison.
Yeah, because otherwise nobody will buy your music, at least if you're not a college, if you're not a dropout.
You got to have a story with it.
Yeah, you can't be singing about pills and dogs and have a degree in business.
Pick your life.
Pick your life.
Yeah, and also, dude, shout out the producers.
Like Joey specifically, Joey Moy, just one producer of the year.
He's been crushing.
Let me see a picture of him.
Can we bring a picture of him up, please, Alex?
So Joey's our producer, me, Morgan and Hardy.
I've met him before.
Yeah, you've met Joey.
So he's like Joey Moy.
No, dude.
He took that picture.
He's the GOAT GOAT, though.
He has done such a good job of for years, even since Nickelback, he's been able to build several different brands within the same genre and make each of them unique.
Like how different me, Morgan, and Hardy are within the same exact format is Florida, Georgia line.
Yeah, Florida, Georgia line, Chris Lane.
Tyler Artie's same stuff.
Yeah, it's like Tyler's awesome.
Joey built all of this.
And I mean, I'll give Hardy credit too.
And he's very hands-on on his sound and what he wants to sound like.
They're very, what's the word, collaborative, Hardy and Joey are.
Yeah, kudos to him.
That's amazing.
To be able to have that ability to be able to organize, not only put something together, but then find different places for things that are really great, that can be close to each other and stuff.
Yeah, it's insane.
Is it true that the Nickelback record, that what the hell is on Joey?
He is head.
That's Joey.
What's about Joey?
That's Joey.
So yeah, I think he had like a fake Stanley cup on his head in this photo, and they were like stoned.
And I think Joey's on the cover of High Times or something like that with Chad at one point.
But yeah, look at this photograph every time.
And what the hell is on Joey?
His head.
Oh, that was Joey Morris.
But think about this while we're giving him his flowers is Joey, think about this.
Joey did Nickelbeck created the sound that made Nickelback the icons they are.
Then went on to do it with Florida, Georgia line, Hardy Ernest, and then Morgan.
So it's like his spectrum of decades worth of just reinventing.
That's a genius, dude.
Outside of him inventing artist sounds, he's reinventing himself.
There's something different happening with that dude, man.
Yeah.
To be able to change.
Yeah.
It's hard enough For somebody to do something well once.
Yeah, for sure.
To produce a song like Animals or Something in Your Mouth by Nickelback, and then also have like Seven Summers.
Yeah.
And how difficult.
I think about last night, like just an exact liquor.
Shout out Charlie Handsome, too.
Yeah, crazy.
Yeah, Charlie Handsome.
Shout out young Charlie.
He's so fucking good.
I gotta have a talk with Charlie.
Charlie's a cool cat.
Yeah, what are you gonna tell him, man?
Let's get it.
This is how much I love him.
Okay, dude.
I thought it was gonna be about his use or something.
I was like, yo, is this where we're going?
When I met Charlie, it was 2018.
We were at the Universal Studios, the recording studios, not the Disney World.
And he's a songwriter.
There's two people known.
Charlie Handsome.
Yeah, producer, songwriter.
And truly one of the greatest.
Yeah, truly.
He started out like a hip-hop producer, but like he's one of the greatest musicians.
He plays all instruments.
He kind of was the first producer to do that acoustic trap stuff, like the early on post-Malone stuff, GoFlex, stuff like that.
That's his gut string guitar.
and he does all these crazy vocal effects.
So anyways, I met Charlie in 2018 when I was kind of...
That's that's one guy is Charlie Hanson.
Yeah, one guy on the left.
Yeah, that's Charlie.
Those are handsome Charlies, dude.
Yeah, for sure.
I fuck with that dude with four cigarettes in his mouth, though.
But whoever that dude is, is fucking knocking.
Shout out to that guy, too.
Yeah, that's Charlie.
But Charlie's a man.
And so we met doing some rap stuff, and we talked that day about, he was like, yo, I got to come to Nashville.
He's like, I want to get into country.
And I was, at that time, had a foot in both doors, and I was kind of ready to go the country route.
Foot in what door?
Rapping and country?
Yeah, like, that's why I was out in LA just like making rap beats and doing hooks.
You see stuff.
Yeah, I know that.
I was just making the rounds out there and then coming back here and doing country.
And like, I already was boys with Morgan for a couple of years at that time and Sam Hunt and FGL.
So like Charlie came into town and we started doing tag team and all these sessions together.
And that's when like If I Know Me for Morgan came Heartless for Morgan, more than my hometown with the, and like it all started happening.
And my first number one ever was a song called I Love My Country with Florida, Georgia Line, and me and Charlie did.
And we just, we kind of sat there and accidentally manifested the whole thing is what we talked about that day was like, yo, I feel like we could go really organically blend these two sounds in Nashville.
And it's happened.
I mean, putting it's not like we're the first to ever put 808s with a country song because Joey was doing it with Cruz back when FGL was doing it.
But I think it's happened.
I got to give my boys flowers too.
Zach Crowell did it with breakup in a small town.
Zach Crowell did it with Break Up in a Small Town.
He might have been the first to do it.
Probably so.
So the way it's evolved organically, though, to where it's like, it doesn't sound like such a mesh.
It just sounds like one brand.
And then it's the voice that's pulling it home.
Well, it's probably getting into people's systems, too.
After it gets in their system a little bit, they're kind of used to hearing it without putting the frog in warm water.
Charlie's really one of those special ones, man.
Shout out to Charlie Hanson.
Shout out to the crowd too.
Shout out to Ernest, by the way.
Yeah, man.
Ernest, it's funny how Ernest always finds himself, you know, and he's so humble about it.
He's like, yo, this guy and this guy and this guy.
But it's like, you always be in the room too, motherfucker.
I know you.
I've been in with you.
You're fucking.
He's something special.
I sneak into a lot of trouble.
Yeah, Ernest is Ernest.
Ernest don't sneak.
I always love Ernest, but he always makes me laugh.
He's one of the funniest guys to be around.
Fucking hilarious.
He's my favorite FaceTime.
If I look down at my phone, it's a FaceTime and it's Ernest.
Every time you're like, I don't know what this is, but it's going to be fucking awesome.
You know what I'm saying?
And the cool song.
It could be a hit song idea.
He could be up fucking partying on his bus at four in the morning.
He could just have a bit.
Call with a joke.
Like, yo, check this out.
Just fucking like, like, just like.
I know if Ko Wetzel's on with him on the same FaceTime, I'm going to need a call.
He's getting even better.
Yeah, I'm going to merge calls with my sponsor.
The idea of Ko Wetzel makes my liver and nose hurt.
Because hearing his name, I just got PTSD.
We got to get Ko on here, man.
Oh, my goodness.
Everybody loves him so much.
I'd probably do an afternoon with him.
He's not awake.
If he's awake, he's hunting right now.
Yeah, he has been.
I just seen a picture of Gary Dale posted that him and his dad have been out killing shit.
He's an aft.
Yeah, he can hunt.
I love Ko, man.
He's such a good dude.
He's one of the.
His whole crew is cool.
He's also, man.
Shout out, Dre.
Dre is the dude.
Dre Roka?
Yeah.
Fucking the dude.
Yeah, man.
But I'll tell you something else about Ko that I think gets overlooked because he's so fun and the party and just who he is is just also, man, he's incredible, dude.
Like, if you see him with just a guitar, I mean, I've seen him bloat out of his mind, pick up a guitar and just kill.
It's like so second nature to what he does.
He's so ingrained in the music side of it.
You know, like we were in a writing room one day and he was trying to, he was like, no, here, here, he's like, just hand it to me.
Brantley Gilbert's like that too.
And Brantley will throw that guitar on it.
Just, man, I mean, I always, you're a great guitar player in a room.
You know what I mean?
It's like, you notice the ones that are like different.
You're like, and I think maybe Co caught me off guard because I didn't expect it.
Because we partied all night the night before, like all night to like nine in the morning or something.
It was like fucking got dark.
It was fucking deep.
And I was just like, we got to the studio at like four the next afternoon.
We're both like shaking.
You know what I mean?
We're both in really bad shape.
He's been there.
And it's like, and I'm watching this dude just pour a song out of him.
I'm like, this is crazy.
I brought no value.
I had to leave.
I was like, yo, I'm out.
That's me, dude.
I feel so bad.
I'm trying to have sex on cocaine.
That's me, but I'm going to bring nothing to the table.
Yeah, let me go.
I can't even bring the table.
I'm getting this up the stairs.
I've already sold the table.
You were talking about somebody like Joey getting to live.
Few people get to do it once.
And we were talking about Tyler Hubbard for a second.
Yeah, Tyler.
I'll tell you a great story about Tyler.
So I went to, I don't know, this actually isn't a great story, but it is a story.
And I just realized it wasn't that great.
Okay.
But we went to see, we saw Hardy and Morgan and Ernest at Fenway Park, right?
And it was beautiful, like beautiful day, great set, wait place to see a show because you're inside Fenway Park where you've seen baseball, but you've never seen a show in there.
And like, Hardy's up there with the American flag, and like Ernest's kid runs out on the stage with him.
Oh, rhyming, twinkle, twinkle.
Yeah, second he heard a song, though, he's like, I'm out of here.
He really came and got me.
He's like, dude, this guy's fucking bunk, right?
He's his dad.
I was like, dude, that's your father.
We have to sleep.
I need a cigarette.
He'll be there.
Yeah, I think he really liked the music.
He just wanted some nicotine.
But anyway, afterwards, I'm leaving and I'm like, shit, I stayed a little too late to be able to beat.
Like, we had to just walk back to my hotel.
So, and it was a wave.
It was probably a half a mile.
So I'm like, so I get out there and I'm kind of starting to argue with this cab driver a little bit.
Neither one of them speaks the other guy's language, right?
So we're trying to figure out how far I need to go.
And Tyler pulls right up, dude, with his family.
Oh, incredible.
You want to get in?
Yes, dude.
And I was like, thank you, dude.
Man, cruise, bro.
Cruz.
I think he's going to be one of the few that got to live his dream twice.
Wow.
It looks like it with the songs he's putting out.
He's a sweet guy.
Yeah, the hits he's getting on Country Radio.
It's been good to me.
Yeah, it's been great.
And I think I told him that one night.
I was like, man, very few men in life get to live their dream once.
And I think you're fixing to get to do it twice.
Wow.
Technically three times because then you and BK will get back together later and go do a digital reunion thing and it'll be fucking big again.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, what'll happen with them?
Yeah, can that happen that Florida, Georgia line could get back together, you think?
I don't, you know, he knows them better than me.
I just met BK the other day, who I'm, who I think was sweet as chest pie.
They have both always been so, they've both always been so good to me.
Like I said, bro, when I was still snow, they had me come.
That was your rapper name.
Yeah, I was just like, and nickname.
It was just that era.
I marked that era.
It was like 2014, 2011 through 2014 was the snow days.
And those were like Brian and Tyler had, I had no business being in a room writing songs with them.
And Big Loud and them took a way early chance on me years before I needed it.
Well, that's another nod to like people changing genres and thinking of something different.
Because who would think I'm going to get a white rapper?
Yeah.
You know, or who would think, you know, a lot of guys probably weren't thinking, hey, I'm going to get a rapper in here to try with me.
Right.
Yeah.
It's cool.
I mean, and then, you know, having the rapper mentality and then having also signed a country writing publishing deal kind of forced my hand to just start doing a weird hybrid where I was like, I was really rapping.
Like I would be like doing 16 bar verses like a rap would, but I was adding melodies and doing it over acoustic and stuff like that.
And then, you know, that was just, like I said, putting the frog in warm water.
I was the frog in warm water as far as finally fully committing the brand and craft to like country songwriting.
And like, I think I shied away from it for so long because I thought you had to be redneck to be country.
And I'm not the most redneck guy.
I've done redneck shit with my friends.
I got redneck friends for sure.
But I'm country.
And I'm, and it took me a while to even realize that because, you know, I didn't grow up on a farm.
We moved to 13 acres my senior year, which was not because of poverty.
You know, it's like that.
I had a pretty decent, so I like shied away from the country things.
I don't want to be fake.
But some of my favorite songs ever written ain't got nothing to do with big trucks and mud.
It's like love or heartbreak and pain.
And it's like, oh, being a country artist can just be telling your story.
And the music is my favorite music anyway.
So like once I wrapped my head around that and wasn't ashamed to be country and realized I am country, then I was like, yeah, let's go.
I'm not redneck.
Well, dude, I'll never forget the first time my mama played looking for trouble and I found a son.
Run down the barrel of a long man gone.
Ain't living long like this.
Ain't living long like this.
And I was like, yo, this is fucking country?
Huh?
Who's saying that?
Wayland Jennifer's Wayland.
That sounds like you.
That's what's crazy.
I mean, it sounds like it's a shit.
That's what inspired me, though, right?
That was the stuff that I was like, yo, this is awesome.
You know, it's like that was, to me, Willie Nelson's Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.
These like classic raps.
Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground.
Dude.
Man.
And Lucas doing it at the birthday party was insane, too.
Oh.
That's one of my favorite songs.
Just he, his, the whole catalog of Willie was.
Willie inspired me to understand that the personality, the, the pain.
Like, I used to think because I was like a bubbly big dude that I couldn't sing sad songs, but all I wrote was sad songs.
You know what I mean?
And then you look at guys like Willie, you know, the braids, the guitar, the headband.
And then he goes, he's like famous stoner, like who Willie is outside of the music.
Yeah.
And then he would get on stage and sing the saddest song ever.
You know what I mean?
It was like, that inspired me so, so much.
But just high enough to come back around.
I think they'll get back together.
Florida, George Line, I think their impact was too big.
I don't know if it's in the next five years or 10, but it's just like I'm still holding on to hope.
I just listened to Andre 3000's flute album.
I was just high enough to really dig it, to be honest.
But I was thinking to myself, there's no way, even if we don't see an Outcast album ever again, that there's not going to be a day where something's going to come along that we're going to see Outcast on a stage again.
Unless you're playing a vine.
Yeah, you know what I mean?
I just don't think.
I think their cultural impact was too big.
Oh, Dirt is a song I'll play a lot of times, man.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
Dirt, Confession, Anything Goes.
Hey, I'll show you Chris Tompkins' demo of Anything Goes.
It's just him and a keyboard.
Really, I'll show you.
I'll show all y'all one day.
I'm trying to think of what else was something I was going to think about asking you boys.
Let me show you this new hat I got.
You like this hat I got?
Yeah, Tell me.
Lane.
It's a Lane Frost.
He is a, his daddy was a, will you bring him up, Diamond?
If you get a chance, Alex.
Lane Frost.
I got to make a phone call really quick.
No sweat.
I'll talk to Jelly.
I love that Ernest was so earnest.
He's like, I got to make a phone call.
He's like, I'm just high enough to remember.
I was supposed to call my doctor at 12. He's like, dude, I'm doing obviously, I don't need to be in here.
Lane Frost, right there, celebrating a bull riding legend, one of the best bull riders of all time.
Yeah, can we get on his Wikipedia at least?
It might help us some.
Yeah.
Oh, he died in 1989.
Yeah.
Why he died young?
His parents lived in La Pointe, Utah.
His father was on the rodeo circuit.
Yo, hold on, hold on.
This is crazy.
He sustained severe injuries at the 1989 Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo.
I played that before.
It's a huge deal, dude.
Me and Ko Wetzel played that.
Really?
Dude, I'm headlining Cheyenne Frontier Days this year.
Oh, nice.
If you're off that day, you should come out and see it.
It is the wildest fucking shit.
It's so legendary, bro.
Really?
It is like seeing that just gave me goosebumps.
You know, think about George Straits.
I can still make Cheyenne.
Think about Garth Brooks Beaches.
Beaches.
Beaches of Beaches.
Drew a Bull in Wyoming.
No man could ride.
I'm getting goosebumps, bro.
This is crazy.
All this was about this guy then.
Look at that.
Big goosebumps, bro.
Wow, that's true, huh?
Must have been about him.
Look.
Oh, damn.
Oh, those are real, right?
Some fucking buzzards you got going, baby.
Damn.
That's the power of music and stuff.
You hatching buzzards right there.
Go back to Lane Frost real quick and go down a little bit more on him early life.
On January 5th, Frost married Kelly Kyle, a barrel racer.
And then how did he pass away?
On July 30th at Cheyenne Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming, after completing a successful 85-point ride on a Brahma bull named Taking Care of Business, Frost dismounted and landed in the mud.
The bull then turned and pressed his right horn on Frost's back and pushed him against the muddy floor.
He was rusted.
He fell to the ground, causing his heart and lungs to be punctured by his ribs.
He died on the way to the hospital.
He was 25 years old.
Man.
You got to come with me this year if I do it.
That's crazy, dude.
I will.
That's amazing, man.
I appreciate you saying that.
I'll have to.
This sounds really, really cool.
Oh, there's a movie, Eight Seconds, where Luke Perry, R.I.P, played the role of Frost.
And he has a son, though, Lane Frost, I think is maybe, or maybe this hatline might just be named after him.
Frost's parents.
Oh, they played tribute to him with the dance video that Garth Brooks put out.
This is crazy.
Wow.
Country music star Zach Bryan's middle name is Lane after Frost.
Wow.
What are the odds, bro?
What are the odds?
Somebody just wowed me this hat man the other day.
I see it across the room.
I go put it on and we're back down to Zach Frost.
I want one now.
And his 2022 song, Open the Gate, is a tribute to his namesake.
Wow.
Man, that's awesome.
Gosh, dude.
There's something about storytelling, man.
There's something about that people just, you know, you want people to relate to things and feel something.
Yeah.
You know, have you, because what does music look like do you think moving forward for you?
You know, do you think like more about it?
I mean, do you think like about staying more in a certain lane?
You all good, Ernest?
I'm great.
Okay, cool.
No worries.
We'll just go a little bit longer, man.
Do you think about staying in a different lane or doing it?
Do you have any thoughts?
Or is there new stuff you working on?
Yeah, man.
I'm actually proud to say this.
I've got more demos in my phone right now than I've ever had.
Like, I've wrote more this year than I've wrote in a year in a long time.
I just wrote on the tour this year.
I've been gone all year.
I've only slept in my bed 36 days.
I don't know if we got that on the early part of the year.
That's not that, but I've been gone like that much this year.
So it's like I've just been writing wherever I can and whenever I can.
And it's really ignited a flame in me again about the writer side.
I've been writing a lot of songs just by myself again, just with folks or just by yourself?
With folks too, but I've been doing a lot of just like falling back.
You've been so busy, too.
I bet you ain't slept in your bed 90 days this year.
No, it has been crazy.
But you're touring so unorthodox.
You're on tour this week.
You got a show on two days.
But see, but we tour different.
You're doing like the pop.
Rock and roll.
Yeah, rock and roll.
I'm gone for four months and not home at all.
And we go out every weekend.
You know, we're back Monday.
I hated that, though.
Let's talk about this.
You do the nuclear order stuff, too.
I'm kind of sporadic.
Yeah, I'll do like four days in a week and then I'll take off a week or I'll do two weeks, four, four days, five days, and then take off for two weeks.
See, what they're doing that I don't like is that's cool.
That's actually the way to do it, probably.
The way they do it, and I don't like this, respectfully.
Everybody does their own way, but it's not my way.
They do probably, no shit, Ernest.
You're doing 47 weekends this year, if I had to guess, out of 52 weeks.
Jesus, that's a lot.
Yeah.
No, 45 at least, I'd say.
We started the first week of March, and then pretty much every weekend until this, with the exception of when Morgan had to cancel a few shows, I got a couple extra weekends off.
You still picked up some gigs during that?
But yeah, we filled that up.
I played a lot of shows.
So probably 38 weekends.
It's like for me, I would never get in the rhythm, Theo.
It's like when I'm gone that much, by the time I came home Sunday and slept, Monday, I'd get rid of the hangover.
Monday, I'd be like, all right, I'm feeling better.
Tuesday, I'd start rotating in the world, but Wednesday night at midnight, the bus left again.
You know what I mean?
So it's like, I preferred a rock and roll style tour where like I just went out and did 11 weeks and did five shows a week and did 55 shows in 11 weeks.
I never tried another option.
I've never tried that.
I don't know if I can handle it.
I don't know.
I think I'd just get we just get two burnt out probably.
How many buses you got now?
Four?
No, we did, I guess, eight or eight or nine, maybe ten.
On your tour?
Buses?
Yeah.
So you got your own.
Bunny's got her own.
Yeah, and then we did seven.
So it was nine.
Jesus Christ.
You got one bus.
I don't know.
I think we did 10 tractor trailers too.
Yeah, but big tour, man.
I mean, you got to think we did arenas.
It was a big tour.
Production's insane.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, we did.
And I wanted to make sure that I'm very a stickler about doing it right.
Like, if I have to take a haircut and lose a little money, but I know that the show is going to look that much better.
Like, I bought content for my show.
Nobody buys content for their shows.
Everybody uses stock content because it costs a million dollars.
You know what I mean?
And I was like, I'm buying content though.
Like, I want to create my own.
It's insane.
Yeah, I know it's a one-of-a-kind show because they're so hard to do one-of-a-kind shows, right?
Nothing news under the sun.
Everybody's done it twice.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like we all got the same video walls to some degree.
We only got so much room to play with.
You know what I mean?
And I was like, at least if I create content, it took nine months to build the content for the tour.
Yeah, we're building animation right now to play.
We just got some screens in some of these venues.
I may go back, though, to just not doing like, we just started doing some arenas this week, like some smaller kind of, I mean, the word arenas is kind of loosely used, but like a lot of them are like college basketball places.
Yeah, like we call them hockey arenas.
Yeah, and then hockey rooms.
Are you doing Arizona State?
We might.
I don't know.
We did Pikeville.
That was a tough, that was actually a tough room.
Some of the audio in the rooms is not, we're bringing our own speakers and stuff, but it's some of it's not built for.
What's the Verizon?
Is that the Verizon Center or whatever it is right there in Pikeville?
It's that little arena in the middle of downtown Pikeville.
Yeah, it's Pikeville is beautiful.
It's beautiful.
I mean, it's like nestled in the mountains.
It's sexy.
Unreal.
It's like this perfect little place.
Did you drive up there?
We'd bust in, yeah.
I drove up there because the drive, when we played Pikeville that day, I was like, I had to, dude.
It was fucking incredible.
You drive to that little, because Pikeville's up there in like the corner of Kentucky and West Virginia, right?
It's like right there in that little like mountainous area right there.
Beautiful.
It's fucking for a nice hike before, but that audio was that I felt like sometimes I just kind of felt like that venue, the audio was kind of tough at it.
You ever have some of those where some of you are just like, man, this just and you feel disappointed because you're like, it does, it's not helping me as much, you know?
But here's the deal, though.
I knew that you were going to have to start picking up arenas when I was seeing the two or three theater shows in a day pop.
And you're in a weird spot, man, where it's like, how do you feel about this?
Because the problem you're going to run into if you don't start playing big arenas is your people, everybody who wants to come ain't going to be able to come.
There's still people not getting a ticket to see you.
And you're playing 8,000 cap arenas.
There's still people in that market who are like, damn, wish I could have went to go see Theo Friday without a ticket, you know?
Yeah.
I don't know.
I think part of it is I'll just keep doing the tour and I'll just come back instead of trying to do it.
That's one nice thing.
It's like, okay, we realize this area, we could, more people want to come see it, then we'll come back.
I'd rather do the same, like not the same material, but let it evolve over time.
Yeah.
But do that for five years.
And by the end of it, it's a whole new show or, you know, it might be a new show and a half by then.
But it's like, yeah, I don't think feeling like I need to hurry and then get an hour out.
And then it's like, you know, we'll come back.
I tell people all the time, if tickets are too expensive, if it's aftermarket, we'll come back.
It might be a year and a half.
You know, you might not be alive.
You might not even be alive.
You might die before I get back.
I'll be back.
I'll be back.
How do you know?
If you don't mind talking about it, where are you at with your hour?
I'm good.
Yeah, we're doing like, I'm doing like an hour and 20 minutes on stage right now.
You feel like you got a new hour?
Yeah.
When are you thinking about filming?
I don't know if I will.
I think I'm just going to tour for a while and not hurry myself into that next space.
You know, me and David Spade wrote like a movie we might want to try to get made.
So we talked about maybe getting you to get you as a anything you need.
I'll do something too, man.
I mean, got it.
We're a package deal now.
We just hire you.
We hire you.
Freaking fried over here.
But yeah, I was going to present at the CMA's, actually.
They asked, but I had a show that night in Greenville, South Carolina.
I just got back from Greenville.
It's beautiful.
Where'd you go?
Where were you?
On the college.
No, no.
Okay.
We just did the Blind Horse Saloons.
That place is awesome.
I love it.
Did you play Coyote Joe's the night before in Charlotte?
No, we didn't do the two.
I didn't route it that way.
We got from Rockingham.
Greenville's beautiful.
There's so many cool people.
Please get an arena down there on this tour.
Wasn't incredible.
We did our tour party in Greenville.
Oh, I got a story.
This is a story.
I don't know if it's a good one, but it's a story.
I love the honesty.
But we played Greenville and we had the night off before.
So what they did was they let us load in the arena the day before.
And then we rented this place.
God, they're going to be so mad.
I can't remember their name.
But it was the coolest thing ever.
It was like an adult playground, kind of.
Like they served booze and they had pizza.
Alex and Pizza.
And they had a putt-putt golf center in it.
You could throw axes.
They had like beer pong games.
They had ping pong.
Like it was like one of those like adults.
But it was like adult.
Like we were all in there.
We rented the whole place and got blackout drunk and most of the crew did Whippets and Blow.
And it was just crazy.
I mean, it got really crazy, dude.
It was album name.
And it was all 75 people from the tour because it was like a 75-person crew.
All the drivers came because we parked the day before.
So the truck drivers and the bus drivers got to get drunk.
It was like watching the bus drivers get drunk, nothing tickled me more.
You know what I'm saying?
Because they live a real kind of like regimented, sober.
Crazy.
You know what I mean?
It's like the one night where it's like, y'all don't have to drive for 40 hours.
Like just because the buses were already parked at the venue.
The venue had been loaded in.
I hired IVs for everybody the next day.
So I had like a 10-person nursing staff backstage.
So when everybody got to the venue, like truck drivers are getting IVs.
It was the night we gave away the bonuses for the tour.
Oh, what a night.
It was special.
Social attitude.
No, no, no.
This place is way cooler.
That place sucks.
When you find this place, dude, you're going to be blown away.
That's like a brothers.
That's like a mini putt.
It's like a mini, it's kind of like mini putt-putt golf.
They got axe throwing inside of there.
Oh, they got damn baby.
It was bad karaoke.
We were getting drunk doing karaoke.
We all karaokeed struggle songs.
It was awesome.
Oh, that's so good.
It was really cool, man.
It was awesome.
What else did we have in the news?
What was in the news in there?
Did y'all think Morgan was upset about not getting that award?
Do you think he cared?
I mean, I don't know.
They didn't even let him go there last year, right?
I'm not sure.
I don't know if he was there or not last year.
I think he performed.
I think I remember him performing.
I think I remember him performing.
I think he did U-Proof.
But it was really cool.
That boy's pockets are fine.
Yeah, he's fine.
he's got some of the best fans.
He's the most him getting 11 Billboard music awards were deserved.
I mean, he's the most because that one is not up to anybody except just stats.
I think Billboard is stats.
It's just stats.
That's the truth.
Yeah, him, Taylor, and Zach are the juggernauts of streaming.
Like, it doesn't even get close.
Morgan, Zach, and Luke Combs are the three biggest streamed artists in country music.
Zach and Morgan, and Luke to some degree, in the world of all artists.
But Morgan and Taylor are by far the two juggernauts in the music.
I mean, it don't get no bigger than Morgan Walland.
On earth.
Like, he's bigger than Bad Bunny.
He sold more records than Bad Bunny.
It's crazy.
You know what I mean?
It's like all that shit you think was doing great.
Morgan just came in and was like, hold my beer.
So it's like, he's so, you know what I mean?
He's in such a stratosphere of his own.
I tell people, this is the way I tell them.
You have Luke, streaming-wise, Morgan, Zach, and Luke in that order of the three biggest streamers in country music.
And on Spotify alone, the gap between them and the next biggest streamed artists in country music, which would probably be Bailey Kane or maybe me, weirdly enough, the gap between us three and them and us three and those three is probably a billion streams this year.
That's crazy.
On Spotify alone.
It's crazy.
Does that make sense?
Like, that's how far.
4, 5, and 6 a billion lower than 1, 2, and 3. It's crazy.
It's like, well, if you have like, imagine if I do end up being the fourth most streamed artist in country music.
Somebody said, how far away from the third were you I go 1.3 billion?
You know what I'm saying?
On Spotify alone.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like we're never going to get there.
You know what I'm saying?
To some degree, these award shows have to be a little different because there'd be no sense in nobody else showing up.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like if we were like really grading it on that, it's like just give them all the fucking more tailor.
You know what I'm saying?
That's actually a great point.
You have to make it.
Yeah, that's a good point.
The show itself has to make things kind of exciting.
And there's other award shows.
There's like the billboards that it's based on the stats.
So there's no like rigmarole.
Was there an after-party or anything you guys get to go to?
Oh, I had Buscar.
I had to go.
That boy had an after-party.
We partied.
He and Lainey had our own party.
Shout out Lainey Wilson.
We love Laney Wilson.
Shout out Laney Wilson, dude.
And I don't know if anybody's worked harder this year.
We saw her.
I got to take my niece to her first concert, right?
And it was Lainey.
We took her to her and Laney and Hardy in Baton Rouge.
And it was cool, man.
She's great.
And it was just so much fun.
She got to meet her.
And it was just, but man, she was, you could tell that she was getting burnt out.
She'd worked.
No, she slept in her bed last year 17 days.
17 days of all of 2022 is how many days she slept in her bed.
It's in like, this is what I say.
I'm willing to do the stuff nobody else in this town's willing to do as far as like work, like media, go spend three weeks in New York or whatever.
Like I go do that stuff.
That's just what I do.
I'm into it.
She's willing to do the stuff I won't do.
Like Laney, I've never seen nobody work genuinely harder than her.
Her schedule gives me anxiety.
You know what I mean?
And my schedule would give the average human anxiety.
And her schedule gives me anxiety.
Like she has, she is utterly fearless.
I think she stood on stage 160-something times this year.
Yeah.
170 times this year.
That's just for 45 minutes being the smallest set, 90 being the biggest all year.
It's insane.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, that's wild, man.
Because all the things, radio, all the streaming things.
Oh, the yellow shit.
She is.
Make a gumbo, babysit your cat.
She'll have everything on her schedule.
Yeah, well, we talked about this the other day.
Like, I think she's obviously, and you two are going to be able to say no a lot more than you were able to in the last year or two.
And saying yes is like, you got to for a lot of those things.
And obviously it's like paid off and people are recognizing it.
The work.
And I would be remiss not to say that, you know, dude, when I called, yep, thank you.
When I called Laney for Save Me, I said, Laney, I'm going to be honest, man.
I've said this a thousand times, but I'm hitching my trailer to your train here.
I've took this song as far as it can go.
Wow.
This song was a double platinum.
That's kind of true in an interesting way, huh?
Because that song, I'd heard it, I'd listened to it a bunch, and it still had its place in my heart in moments where I was by myself, and I like to listen to it.
But it kind of, that was.
You got to hear a different perspective, a different voice, a woman's perspective.
I was like, and as hot as she is at country radio, I was like, this is all you.
Even when we got to the last chorus, when she did all the ad-libs and extra stuff, she's like, you want to come in here and sing back and forth?
I was like, not at all.
As far as I'm concerned, this is now your song.
You know what I'm saying?
I was a double platinum record when I gave it to her.
I was like, yo, I've done all I can do with this song.
But I think this song could still help so many people if you would just be a part of it.
And she was like, yeah, I'm totally in.
And there's no way that this was a number one in 16 weeks by myself or 20 weeks or whatever it ended up being.
You know what I mean?
So she definitely came in and put her sauce on it.
Yes, she really, I mean, we got to have her come in and she's from Louisiana.
She's from Bastrup, I think.
Will you look that up, please, for me?
Sounds right.
Bum fuck.
Whoever's fucking spitting.
She's from like Baskin Robbins, Louisiana.
She's from Dip and Dock, Louisiana.
She's from Louisiana.
Baskin, sorry.
Baskin.
Baskin.
Carol Baskin.
Yeah, huh?
Fucking bitch killed her husband.
Joe called by her.
For no reason, America.
Somebody wrote online, yeah, Carol Baskin killed her husband everybody for two years.
Like, that bitch killed her.
Joe Dirt still wants her dead from prison.
And now she's doing that.
You're not Joe Dirt, Joe Exotic.
Same difference, dude.
Literally the same guy.
Same guy.
Joe Exotic.
Joe Exotic.
That dude's always DMing me all the time, man.
Exotic is your DM.
Whoever's in his Instagram account is fucking ridiculous.
I used to know the person that ran it.
You're fucking ridiculous.
There's no way he's running it.
Was it a male?
It was a female.
It was.
He felt his female energy-ish.
Yeah.
He did too.
He's probably the most gangster gay dude that ever lived.
Gangster spelled G-A-Y.
He's a gangster.
Yeah, dude.
That's fucking crazy.
Oh, dudes would be real scared.
If you're scared, somebody's going to shoot you and then make love to you and you're not into it.
That's going to really spook you.
It gets interesting out.
Yeah.
What other cool things have you turned down this year besides Joe Exotic, the CMAs?
Yeah, and Joe Exotic.
Yeah, and Joe Exotic.
Sorry to repeat your joke, man.
I repeated it too.
I wanted to make sure he got hurt.
I don't know.
That was probably about the, maybe one of the neatest things that came along, kind of, where they were like, do you want to do this?
But I'd already, we already had a sold-out show, and I just felt bad.
And I'm glad I did the show.
The show was awesome, you know.
There were some moments where I felt bad about it.
It would have been fun.
You know, I know Peyton Manning was there.
You guys were there.
All your friends.
This town loves you, dude.
I still want you to do the opera, bro.
Do it one of the nights I'm doing it.
Let's do the opera together.
Let's all three do the opera.
Oh, we got to all three do the opera one now.
I'll call Jordan about that right now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, they want you there.
Maybe if my, I think I would, my mom would probably like to go.
So maybe if she's going to be, yeah, I would ever maybe come in for that.
We should do like the grand old opera and do a night of it for real.
I'm not, if y'all are cool, I'll call Jordan about it right now.
I'll give you some clean material of it there.
You just got to keep it pretty clean.
Yeah.
Yeah, but I mean, kids can't cuss.
They don't mind if it's risky.
Yeah, it can be risky.
It's not about the cuss words because it's on the radio.
Yeah.
It's still the actual.
I finally asked him, I was like, yo, what's the real story here about the cuss?
And he was like, it's on the radio.
He's like, the FCC.
He's like, it's a live radio show still.
So what's the actual deal?
And I was like, well, that's nice.
No, all those people that are, the Opry fans will love a little Risque Hume.
I mean, dude, think about it.
He-Haul, we were talking about.
Oh, yeah.
We saw Jimmy Johnson.
He has a history of, you know, iffy comedy.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, He-Haul, man.
Do you know?
So I was, I went to see the Arizona Diamondbacks play a game one time, and they had the manager, his dad, LaRusa, I think his name is.
No way, it's Tony La Russa.
No, it's not him.
It's a Diamondbacks manager.
Yeah, Torrey Lavulo.
His father produced He-Haul.
This dude comes up to me, goes, hey, man.
I said other nights.
That's the dude that gave you the Diamondback jersey?
Yeah, he gave me a cool one.
It says Rat King on the back.
But anyway, just kind of an interesting piece that his father, Sam Lavulo, there you go, was a producer for He-Haul.
That was a great show.
They still have the He-Haul stage there.
Yeah, Jamie Johnson.
I played the Opry last night.
I did the Opry last night.
Yeah.
Me, Chris Jansen, Riley Green, and Nelly did for the Friendsgiving for the Big 98 here.
Wow.
Perfect.
Dude, you work hard, bro.
You do so much stuff, Jelly.
Man, I'm just so blessed to be here, though, Theo, man.
You like.
I feel you there.
It's so different when I get to hang out with you in earnest because y'all will like remember when it wasn't like this for me.
And it's like, this is all I wanted it to be, though.
So like now that I'm in it, like, I just feel like I don't even want to disrespect God like that kind of.
Like, I prayed for this for so many years and so many.
Dude, I'm filming a special for a television show, CBS Sunday Mornings, what they call it.
It's a big, big deal.
And they took me back to my old jail yesterday.
No, wow.
The jail that I found out I had my daughter in, like the jail I was in when she was incarcerated.
They took me back to my old cell.
What was that like?
One, I've walked in there certain I wasn't going to be emotional because I walked in so happy and in such a good mood.
And dude, I walked in the unit still happy.
We're chatting.
I'm telling them stories.
We walk upstairs.
And as soon as I walked in that cell, I cried like a baby, dude.
I mean, like I lost it completely because it was like every memory.
I'm getting choked up now.
It's like every memory from that jail cell, like every song I wrote.
I spent like a year and a half in that cell, dog.
Like the hearing I had a daughter, every song I wrote, everything I went through.
And you're just sitting there like, man, this is unreal, dude.
Thank you, brother.
It's just sad.
It makes me sad.
I mean, it makes that make me sad, but it makes me, yeah.
It's powerful to think of somebody being caged up and then being as free as you are.
No, it's unreal.
And I walk out of there.
I'm getting choked up too.
And I'm like, I leave there and go back to my old halfway house at the Men of Valor.
I go see them boys.
And it's like such a like humbling thing for me.
And then I go do a show with Nellie and Riley Green, and I'm on fucking the biggest podcast on earth the next day.
Like it's you and Rogan, dude.
You know it.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like, you know, I'm just like, man, this is just such a, I'm so like blessed, dog.
And that's why I do all the give back stuff.
Yeah.
It's like, how could God bless me so much and me not want to bless somebody?
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
And I know you have a toy drive that's going on right now that people can hit.
Yeah, any Walmart in Middle Tennessee.
Okay.
They got a box right there that you could just drop off toys at the box.
I'm going to put a couple hundred grand up myself.
We're going to do over 100,000 toys.
It'll be the biggest one in Nashville.
I mean, just look who got behind us, dude.
It's crazy.
The Predators, Coca-Cola, Hasbro, the Nashville Fire Department.
Walmart has been a partner in this.
I mean, my dream is in the next five years for this to be a national thing that I do with Walmart.
And we raise millions and millions of toys for underprivileged kids.
Oh, I love it.
So what's it do?
I go in there and buy toys and put them in a box.
Yeah, just drop them right in the box, man.
Yeah, just drop them right in the box.
And it's cool because it's convenient.
We're all in and out of Walmart all season.
You know what I mean?
So it's like, all you got to do is just buy an extra toy.
Dude, going to Walmart, that used to be fun, dude.
I'll tell you a story if you don't mind me getting...
Sometimes there's nothing else to do on the road.
My daughter wanted to do this.
Oh, yeah.
And she started this five, six years ago at a local bar in White House, Tennessee with her aunt, where they would just pick them up from the bar staff and people, and she'd go give away 20-30 toys.
She was doing this at nine years old.
This was her thought.
And I looked back at it, and when I got out of jail, and a halfway house to me,
the dollar did a toy drive for the guys that just came home.
And I remember dropping off a truck of toys I couldn't afford for her Christmas.
And I didn't even get to meet her at that time.
I wasn't court by court.
I wasn't even allowed to see her.
I just got home.
So her heart, to want to do this toy drive, and then me to be able to be in a situation to amplify it is like, it's really cool.
That is amazing.
Fuck, I said I wasn't going to cry today.
I was like, I'm not going to be fucking emotional, bro.
I've had an emotional weird man.
I got nominated for a Grammy.
He's having a fucking weird couple weeks.
Damn, dude.
You're the only dude I know who's been nominated for a Graham and a Grammy.
To be honest, I love you, Theo.
That's so cool.
And they split one of them with you.
Yeah, they split one of them.
Oh, yeah, that's incredible, bro.
But it's crazy.
So it's like to see this thing come to life is like, I think that's why I'm so passionate about giving back to juvenile.
And I'm so passionate about going to jails and rehabs and singing for people and investing in rehab facilities.
And like, like I'm meeting with our mayor and our governor about the fentanyl epidemic and a plan.
And you know what I mean?
It's like, cause these are the things that affected my life.
You know what I mean?
Like the shit that touches you the closest to home.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, we want to build a center.
That's one of our goals next year is to try to find some land to build like a halfway house.
Like I don't know if it'd be a halfway house or a detox.
Probably a place where you could also have meetings at, you know?
Where would you do it at?
I don't know.
Somewhere close enough, like somewhere here.
Let me tell you this.
And I'll say this on your show publicly.
Whatever I can do.
Like whatever you want to do.
Like I don't care if we, maybe we do like a string of fucking shows or something that I'll put together and just donate the money or what, like I'm into that in a way you'll never understand.
Thanks.
Like if you like if nobody else like, and this is what I say and off camera too, I'll say it to you, but like not even just on some like raise money shit.
Like I'll cut a fucking check.
Yeah, same.
Like I fucking, I hate people that go just raise money.
You know what I mean?
Like if you're not, that's why I tell everybody, don't worry, I'm putting money into this toy drive.
Like I'm going to write a big check because I'm not just going to be a face of one.
My face can help bring more attention to us.
That's the only reason I even talk about this stuff.
We did philanthropy for years.
I never spoke about it.
But I realize that our platform's so big that we can help bring attention and money to the cause, but it's still important to me.
My daddy raised me, man, shut the fuck up and cut a check.
You know what I mean?
That's just something I learned from a kid, you know?
Yeah, no, I appreciate that, man.
And we're going to do the same thing.
We want to make, yeah, we just want to do something, a place I can go to meetings, you know, where other guys can go.
That'd be neat where people, maybe we could do a songwriter night where songwriters come by and play some songs with the guys.
We'll do something done.
But yeah, it's a big goal of mine, man.
It's just so important.
I had just so many friends of mine and myself, so many people in my own family, just so many people struggling.
That's why I think I can feel when you talk about that kind of stuff, you know.
I know what it's like to not be caged up like by walls, but to be caged up by even just somebody's own their own life, caged up by their own feelings, you know?
Man, when you're just locked inside of yourself, you know.
Can't get outside of your own head.
That's the worst prison.
I've been to a lot of jails, and the worst one on earth is between the ears, man.
Yeah.
You know?
Let's check a news thing or two, and then we'll get you guys out of here.
That's a funny thing about podcasts.
You just never know where it's going to get.
You don't really know what's going to happen.
That's why I love them.
Yeah.
Because it is just like, yeah, we have microphones on, but this is just conversation we'd be having at coffee.
We might not even get this deep over coffee.
That's what I like about it.
We wouldn't have enough time.
We'd be rushing to our next thing.
That's what I think is the beauty of being friends now with homies, like having homies like Theo and you, that like we have crazy years where Theo's rocketed into arenas.
I did my first arena tour.
You came off a stadium tour into your first big theater tour, two nights at the rhyming.
You know what I mean?
Like all these things you're still right.
And it's like we don't get to talk the way we want to.
So we get to sit down for homies for two hours with a microphone in front of us.
And it's almost like catching up.
Yeah, truly.
You know what I'm saying?
It's really cool.
It's like, it's deeper than just like what's going on in your life.
It's like the shit we'd do on the phone if we had time to.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I realized that one time I left out of Joe Rogan's podcast and he's so he's a super busy guy, you know, and he just is.
It's just his life.
He's built a busy life and he has a busy life.
He's not too busy for you.
He just has a busy life and he has a lot of friends.
And I was like, man, I wish I'd have spent more of that time when I was talking with him.
Like, cause sometimes you think, oh, I'm on a podcast, but then sometimes you're just like catching up with a buddy, you know?
I was like, I need to make sure that I spend that time catching up with a buddy because sometimes your life is busy and that's all the time you get, especially as you also get older.
You have, both of you guys have children.
It's like, there's shit going on.
You know, it's like, so yeah, the time you get with people is important, you know?
And even though it is on a podcast, it's like, it's still, that's the time that you have.
I had Cam Haynes flew down here to the show last night.
Oh, did he really?
Yeah, Cam Haynes.
We were talking about you last night.
He's.
Cam Haynes, not the.
Cameron Haynes.
Keep Hameron.
Keep Hameron.
Oh, Cameron Haynes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love it.
He was like the underwear guy?
Yeah.
Cameron Haynes, keep hammering.
Yeah, yeah, keep hammering.
Oh, that's right.
He said you guys were going to see each other.
Yeah, for sure.
He came out here and we spent all night together last night.
At least I'm not surprised when I'm an idiot anymore.
Underwear guy?
I used to feel bad on the camera.
I got confused because I was like, maybe Cam has an underwear deal I didn't know about.
He wrote a book.
I was like, fuck, maybe he did do an underwear deal.
If he could write a book, he could make some fucking thing.
He could have a goddamn pair of underwears.
He could make some drawers.
Listen, I don't think there's anything on Earth campaigns can't do.
Here's a guy that'll be working on one of your, there's, this could be working on one of your deals.
Tennessee man arrested for DUI meth while driving a lawnmower Santa's train full of kids.
So was the DUI for meth or did he get caught with meth and a DUI?
I mean, see, this is what's wrong with DI.
Listen, if he was drunk and had meth on him, I kind of understand.
Yeah, that's terrible.
I feel like he's been pretty dialed at driving.
I'm pretty sure.
It's like I've definitely not fallen asleep behind the wheel.
We've done two different kind of meths.
That's pretty sure.
Yeah, I think, first of all, this is what's wrong with the U.S. postal system.
I want to be honest.
This is how they're delivering mail mail.
Erratically.
What did say?
Henry Mead was driving Santa's train, a motorized lawn mower, pulling carts of children, which, first of all, seems like a bad idea.
Oh, they found meth.
Narcotics and a serene idea.
I wonder what the narcotics are.
I hope they took bills?
Probably bills.
I hope they took the blade off that thing.
That's all I'm hoping.
Officials noted that Mead was not a town employee.
That's what the mayor wanted to make that definitely clear.
The Taswell Police Department responded swiftly to the incident, ensuring the safety of the attendees in the event.
14 police officers.
Jesus.
It was a parade.
It was a parade.
Went to a parade with a bunch of kids.
Hey, that's one way to do it, dude.
Oh, my goodness.
What else we got?
Anything else popping?
That's so Tennessee.
Florida comes towards a felony after public sex.
It was always a dream of mine.
That shouldn't be a crime.
Look, why does she look so sad if you just fulfilled a dream?
Me and Bunny would look the polar opposite right now.
We'd be in that motherfucker cheese and cheese and cheese.
You guys do seem like a public sex type of girl.
Public sex.
Listen, Bunny is a wild woman, bro.
Man.
What are you getting money for Christmas?
Do you know, Jilly?
Huh?
You know what you'll get her for Christmas?
I got something cooking for her, man.
So we quit doing the gifts a couple years ago because we realized that it was just getting stupid.
Like, as far as like, you know, you know, like, whatever.
So, like, now we do trips.
Like, we'll like put our money together and be like, all right, this is what we would have bought each other.
Let's go to, so we're going to go somewhere and just spend some time together, man.
Like, she is still my favorite human to be around.
Like, we've been married almost eight years.
I'm sure you feel like that about Delaney, but it's like, when I have a free moment to hang out with somebody, that's the first person I think of.
I'm like, I wonder what my wife's doing.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, she's like, there's nobody in life I want to be alone with more.
The homie.
Than the homie.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, I just want to spend like every minute I can.
Like, she's like my favorite hang.
She's funny.
She's goofy.
She's a fucking wild bitch.
You know what I'm saying?
She's fucking wild.
She's like, she's, she's, she's the perfect woman, man.
She's like for me.
So for like short, we'll probably take a trip somewhere.
I am going to get her a little something just because I got, it's like a real personal thing.
But she's a, we're going to probably just go out and do something like just me and her.
What about you and Delaney, brother?
We're going on our first, we're going to Mexico.
Whoa, damn.
Brother than Mexico.
I've never been to Mexico other than off the FGL cruise.
Delaney, yeah, as far as gifts go, it's like she wants, I think, new forks and knives and like a dope espresso machine.
Yeah.
But we call that the house gift because we'll do that too.
We'll be like, all right, what do we need?
You know, like, we bought a fridge last year.
That's how old and married we are.
You know, I'm like, we need a new fridge.
Yeah, that's what the appliance is.
I'm getting her countertops and like, I think we're getting 20, 15 foot tall trees in the backyard.
Yeah, for sure.
There, Merry Christmas.
It's a Christian trees.
The buddy doesn't want roses.
She wants a rose bush.
You know what I'm saying?
It's different, you know?
Yeah.
What are you doing for Thanksgiving?
I'm going to go...
I'm going down to Dustin Poiria does a fundraiser thing every year.
They hand out hams and they're in Louisiana called the Good Fight Foundation.
And so I'm going to go down there and do that.
And then we got a show the day after Thanksgiving at the UNO where I saw my first concert at UNO Lake Frontier.
Really?
God, that's awesome.
Are you excited about that one?
Yeah, I'm pretty.
I am excited.
I know that other people, I know that a lot of my friends are excited.
So I think I'm almost more excited for them, I think, in a weird way.
Just because I know they're excited.
Is it nerve-wracking having a bunch of people you know in the audience?
I think my fear is that they're going to yell out and stuff the whole time, which for music is fine.
But with comedy, you want people kind of just being more silent and stuff.
You think they just aren't going to know how to act?
Is that kind of where you're at?
Well, we had a show.
I shot my first, like, I shot a comedy special in Louisiana one time, and people had never been to a comedy show before.
They don't even have a comedy club like in New Orleans.
So people didn't know what to do.
People were like, there were people in the crowd.
I remember this one lady just yelling defense the whole time.
Was that a football?
Yeah, like a bunch of LSU fans.
Yeah, like people had.
That's the most rattling.
That's got to be, how do you crowd work with that?
Unreal.
And I think she even had one of those fence cut out.
I was like, yeah.
Man, do you know where you are right now?
My career was over after that shop.
And I was like, this is they had one of the dudes with that helmet with like the two beer cameras and the covered.
I was like, what the fuck are we doing?
Fuck the Packers.
What?
So that was kind of wild.
What about thankful, man?
What are some things, maybe, you guys are thankful for?
And, you know, sometimes I make gratitude lists, like in the morning, you know?
So I'm trying to think of something that I'm thankful for.
You know, I'm thankful that I don't give up on myself.
You know, I think if that's something that I had to be thankful for, you know, I'm thankful that I don't give up on myself when I give up on myself less than I used to.
You know?
That's a good one.
Each day, I'm more thankful for my son, Ryman, and Delaney being the badass she is.
Like, as much as I'm gone and not able to be there, I'm thankful that I have a peace of mind knowing that everything is good and Ryman is getting the most love and attention.
And I get home, and he's growing and acquiring such a cool little sense of humor and personality.
And it's like, I owe that to Delaney because she's in there making sure that every little want and need is taken care of.
And she's on her hands and knees playing trains with them and stuff and paying all kinds of attention to him.
So I'm thankful for that.
Amen.
And trains are damn dangerous.
Damn track always.
Train track.
I'm not playing chicken with the train.
He's playing train the moment.
And a guy just got arrested for driving a kid's train smoking meh.
It's a lot different than when we got a train work.
I was wondering why he didn't call me back yesterday, too.
My phone died.
I'm thankful for my relationship with God and my higher power.
It's really anchored me this year to be present.
Cause like having such a successful year, it's really like I've never been more present than where I am.
You know what I mean?
Like even in this conversation, like I'm more relaxed and laid back now and just more like just being more present.
Like I thought I lost my phone yesterday and I realize I think I lose my phone every day now because I'll just set it down and wherever I'm at in that moment is just where I am.
And then I'll go look for the phone at the end of the day.
You know what I mean?
It's kind of where I've been at in my life and I'm just really thankful for that.
And I'm thankful for my family, my wife, of course, my children, but I'm thankful for my presence because like I've been present around them, but not present.
Man, you know what I mean?
I want to get to that point, bro.
I'm so bad about being present.
I live in the future and in the past in my head so much.
And Delaney is so good about being in the present.
It's like, I notice how bad I am at it when I'm seeing, when I'm with somebody that's so good at it.
Yeah, that's why I thank my higher power.
That's why I thank God because like I truly like, that's my anchor.
That's my meditation.
It's like my prayer and my ability to just be like, today, I'm just going to like, I just want to be wherever I'm at today.
I just want to be there.
You know what I mean?
Like that's all that really matters is like right then.
And I'm just thankful that I haven't achieved it completely yet, but I'm getting fucking so close and it's awesome, dude.
It's a really cool feeling.
How do you keep that going?
How do you kind of nurture that relationship with God kind of for you?
Just more praying and just more trying to clear my mind, just more meditation and grounding myself.
When you pray, kind of what's it like?
Like, what do you...
It's just my praying ways.
Of course, you know, I'll always say the serenity prayer every day just because that's like just so anchoring too.
But, you know, I'm an old school guy.
It's just like, God, I just want to thank you.
And I just want to ask you for the ability to just care and love.
And I just want to be, I want you to help me be conscious today of the way I am in this room.
You know what I mean?
And I want to be a prepared and I want to be a like, man, I heard the coolest thing the other day, Theo, that said, if we're searching, if we think our purpose in life is to be happy, how much more narcissistic can we be?
Our purpose in life is to be useful.
And so now it's just more like, man, I'm a tool, dude.
Yeah, making a service.
You know what I mean?
Like, what can I be a man?
You know where I'm getting this from.
You know what I mean?
We'll talk.
But it's like, how can I be of service?
Like, what can I do to actually be useful to somebody today?
You know what I mean?
Like, and in every little scenario, like, is there something, can I do something cool here?
Can I like that?
I believe firmly that that spirit, the day of the CMAs, not to get weird and hokey, but I walked out of my front yard in my boxers and a t-shirt, no shoes, no socks, boxers now.
Neighbors driving by waving and I put my bare feet in my front yard grass and I just looked up at that sun and I just said a little prayer and I just thought like, you know what, God, I won being here.
Like, I don't care if I win an award.
Just like help me to open the show.
Let me do it right.
Let it be a moment.
You know what I mean?
Just like, and let me enjoy tonight, like, regardless.
Man, I set my phone down at the house.
When I walked out, I didn't have my phone with me.
I didn't check my phone until the next night.
You know what I mean?
Like, I was present in every situation.
And because of that, I think when I got on that stage and it seemed 58, 57, something inside of me was like, you thank God, you thank your wife, you thank your label, and you say something that fucking matters is what was going through my mind.
You know what I mean?
Because that was that presence of like, I was just so grounded in the present of that moment.
I knew that moment I wanted to thank Parker McCollum.
I knew I wanted to tell Zach Bryan I thought he was the goat.
And I knew I wanted to tell my wife I loved her.
And I knew that I wanted to say something that would at least make a motherfucker go, man, he blessed me with that.
You know what I mean?
And I didn't think it would do what it did.
I was up out of my seat.
I saw a silhouette of me just like tears in my eyes, bro.
I was, I mean, the faces on the audience, all around me, some were like, oh my God.
Some were like, some were in tears.
I was literally, you would have thought Derrick Henry just took off for a 98-yard touchdown run.
I was losing my mind.
And you were a vessel.
That's, you know, being a tour or whatever, being a vessel.
Like, I think when you are that present and that in tune, there's more of a vessel than I think than you, Jelly.
Truly.
I think you really do.
I think you inspire so many of us, man.
Yeah, you just have a gift.
I don't even know if it's a gift, but it's not a gift that you have, but it's just a gift that you are.
Right.
You feel like a gift, I think, to so many people, you know.
You know what I love about you?
The same dude that could say something that eloquently just thought Cameron Haynes was the underwear guy.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, that's what makes the others.
Well, we're retarded, man.
A little bit.
I mean, I've got a little bit of it.
We all got a little bit of it.
I just, I'm thankful.
I'm thankful for both of y'all.
Thank you for letting me come on this with you guys.
I'm both of y'all.
Been great getting to know you over the last few years.
You too, man.
Thanks for always being somebody that can make me laugh, dude.
You call me too.
You check in on me every now and then.
But you make me laugh.
I was like, fuck, I don't feel good.
I need to call somebody to make me laugh.
You were so damn good at it.
I hadn't had a choice.
Perfect.
Don't stop.
I was like, you were so good at it.
I didn't have a choice, but like, God.
Have I let you down?
No, once you're checking, thankful for your art, Theo.
Yeah.
Like, outside of our friendship, like, I'm thankful for your art, dude.
Like, I watch the pod.
Like, I'm a fan.
Like, I have been.
That's what drew me to you.
One thing I've learned in life is never be too cool to be a fan.
You know what I mean?
Like, never be too cool to be a fan.
And it's like, I'm a fan.
Like, I can tell you, like, as a brother, like, I think you're fucking brilliant.
And my cousins, man, my cousins, Addison Prope, all the prope, my prope family side, they love you.
They really love you.
The girl and her daughter.
You saw them at breakfast yesterday.
Yeah, you did just see them the other day.
I've just seen Ernest and Ryman and Delaney at breakfast.
I was like, that's crazy.
But no, they told me they loved you.
And they was like, I was like, I'm going to see Ernest tomorrow.
He's like, that's what he said.
I was like, yeah.
And they were like, we can't believe you're going with Theo.
And like, you know, my wife, I mean, we all just find a lot of, you bring a lot of smiles to people, man.
And it's like, man, in a world where smiles are so rare, where there's no compassion in America right now, there's no middle ground.
Nobody finds any calm.
And there's so much tension in so many ways.
You have found a unique way to constantly break that and make people smile and feel really good.
And man, that is your gift, brother.
And you need to know that too.
If You ain't heard it recently.
I'm sure you hear it every day, but I want you to hear it from me, brother.
You're special, man.
Thanks, dude.
I appreciate it.
Yeah, sometimes I have a tough time feeling proud of myself, you know?
And that's okay.
Some of that's okay because you don't want your ego to get crazy, you know, but sometimes I do have a tough time feeling proud of myself.
Well, we're proud for you.
Thank you.
For what it's worth.
I appreciate that.
Anyone you lack in it, we're proud for you.
We were like hype.
Thanks.
I got to get you and the wife together.
It's like a must.
Yeah, I know.
I know.
I'm going to go do hers.
People always ask me if money's going to come on or if I'm going to go on Bunny's.
People ask me a lot.
Yeah.
So we'll make it happen this year.
Yeah.
She had a clip go viral that kept that, and the meme was the female Theo Vaughn.
Because she said, Kim, it's so funny.
She said, that's garbage.
She said, you know what that is?
French for trash.
It was like such a garbage.
It was like, but yeah, y'all would, y'all would, it would be cool.
I got to get y'all together.
I'd love for y'all to do the Podge together, but it's going to be fun to meet.
I think it would be fun, man.
We'll have to do, I'll make sure that I do it with her in the new year.
Yeah, yeah.
That we'll do one.
Absolutely.
Y'all will be a lot of fun.
And yeah, I think, you know, even us just sharing about some of our thoughts and stuff about each other, I think it's just like, and how music is changing.
I think it's like there is some evolution in the way that men communicate and feel and like, you know, and need, you know, need to be supportive of each other.
You know, I think, I don't know why we're in that space as a society where it's like, I don't know if it's like that we used to be all like around the fire in the woods and we were like right there for each other and like in tribes and small groups.
And then now it's, there's, but we're, there's an element sometimes that's missing, you know?
And so, yeah, man, today was awesome, man, just to be able to sit and kind of, you know, share and reflect on the year and yeah, and say something nice about each other, you know?
It's important because people, because people need to hear that stuff, you know, because sometimes there's something wrong with us and we can't say it to ourselves.
Right.
You know, it just won't the cyst of the cul-de-sac is fucking broken or something.
Right.
You know, for sure.
So congratulations, man, on great years, dude, and just on creating cool stuff.
To everybody, man.
Yeah, praise God, man.
Big ups.
Merry Christmas, dude.
Merry Christmas.
Happy holidays.
Happy holidays.
Yeah, happy holidays.
Y'all get y'all's levels tested, huh?
Now I'm just floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
I must be cornerstone.
Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this piece of mind.