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May 9, 2024 - This Past Weekend - Theo Von

02:04:37

E501 Red Clay Strays

Red Clay Strays are an American soul/rock band from southern Alabama. They are currently touring all over the U.S. through the rest of the summer, with a new album announcement coming soon. Theo is joined by Brandon Coleman and Andrew Bishop of the band Red Clay Strays to chat about their recent rise in popularity, the worst shows they ever played, cross-country van breakdowns, playing in a river rafting shop, getting the chance to open for the Rolling Stones, where they want to go from here, and much more. Red Clay Strays: https://www.instagram.com/redclaystrays/ Catch them on tour: https://www.redclaystrays.com/tour ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ PrizePicks: Download the Prize Picks app and use CODE: THEO. Prize Picks will match your deposit up to $100. Valor Recovery: To learn more about Valor Recovery please visit them at www.valorrecoverycoaching.com or email them at admin@valorrecoverycoaching.com Blue Cube: Follow @BlueCubeBaths on Instagram for a chance to win your own cold plunge this Spring and Summer! They will announce the giveaway soon… Modiphy: Visit https://www.modiphy.com/theovon for 50% off the Last Website You’ll Ever Need. ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3A_coTcUek ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Ben https://www.instagram.com/benbeckermusic/ Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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	Today's guests are two members of a band that I really enjoy.
	They're out of Mobile, Alabama.
	They have a new album coming out in May, and they've been picking up some steam.
	I'm grateful to spend time today with Brandon Coleman and Andy Bishop from the Red Clay Stray.
	Shine that light on me.
	I'll sit and tell you my stories.
	Shine on me.
	And I will find a song I've been singing.
	I'm going to stay.
	I'm going to stay.
	Yeah, I guess Ben has a he has that mustache.
	Some people can't grow certain facial hair.
	Oh, Brandon's native, man.
	Yeah, I can't really.
	I can grow a mustache and a little bit of a goatee, but that's it.
	Everything else doesn't work.
	Really?
	Why?
	What happened?
	You weren't scalped or something.
	Somebody wasn't.
	I don't think so.
	Doing the scalping.
	Yeah, we were doing the scalping.
	Then you think you'd have a little extra collection.
	You would think so.
	Like if my grandmother would have passed them down or something, you know, but she never did any of that.
	Wow.
	And so was your grandmother, did she seem kind of native?
	Like, did she have a kind of a vibe like that?
	A little bit.
	It was really my great-great-grandmother.
	I have an old black and white photo of her somewhere that's, she's just straight up Cherokee Indian.
	Wow.
	That's like straight out of Red Dead Redemption 2, you know.
	Yeah, do you feel native sometimes?
	I don't think so.
	Like if you get near like...
	I'll speak on it.
	I think Brandon gets a little frisky when like a, like a, like a rainstorm's coming in, you know?
	Yeah.
	Him and his brother, we take, his brother's on the road with us too, our videographers.
	Yeah, I met him one time and I met you guys.
	He can actually throat sing pretty good too.
	Yeah, he does it as a joke and everybody's like, you can't do that.
	He's like, I'm native.
	I can do that if I want to.
	What?
	He'll start really good.
	So you can do it too.
	Watch out.
	That's powerful, man.
	Yeah, one time I was up in Minnesota, like in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and I went to, they had a, what's it called, like a big get-together that natives have?
	Powwow.
	Every time I've heard the word powwow, it just meant backing trucks up to a campfire and drinking whiskey all night.
	Yeah, but that sounds pretty native to me, too.
	Yeah.
	You know?
	Cooking meat.
	Throw a little gambling in there, too.
	Yeah.
	Powwow is a gathering with dances held by many Native Americans and First Nations communities.
	That's so.
	That's it.
	Ben was right.
	Yeah, Ben was right.
	I didn't sleep that great.
	You guys have that ever?
	Oh, dude.
	All the time.
	I don't think we sleep good until we go home.
	Yeah.
	I don't sleep well.
	Going out on the road, it takes a couple of days to get used to sleeping on a bus.
	And then getting home, it takes a couple of days to get used to sleeping in your own bed again.
	Yeah.
	So that equals about no sleep.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, it is kind of a, it's a real, you're always trying to get comfortable.
	Yeah.
	That's why we carry a lot of Z-Quill on the bus.
	Yeah.
	So the first couple of nights.
	Have you, you pre-vosted it?
	You been in the tour buses?
	Yep.
	Those things are hard to sleep in for the first couple nights for me.
	What part do you sleep in and what part do you choose to sleep in?
	Like, is there the, because there's the different levels of the bunks.
	Yeah, so we're in a crew bus still.
	So we travel 12 deep.
	We got the crew, everybody in one bus.
	So I'm the back middle.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I'm the top bunk.
	We're looking for that second bus, but yeah, no, we have one bus when we go, and it's everybody's in there.
	They have a crew bus for like production.
	So they're in a separate bus.
	Ben's got some pictures.
	There you go.
	There's definitely different values to the different slots, I think.
	Yeah, our tour manager and keyboard player, they all prefer the bottom bunk.
	They say it's the nicest.
	They said the worst part about the bottom bunk is if you blow a tire out, it scares the crap out of you.
	And you're by everybody's feet.
	Yeah, that's a good point.
	I guess there's a lot more dirt down there.
	There's a little bit of foot traffic if you open the curtain.
	People throwing their shoes off and then you got to wake up, move shoes out of the way.
	Yeah, that's true.
	Yeah, you have to really want to get up.
	So I will tell you, our old bus, well, we call it, it's a bus.
	The one we traveled in before, it's like a redneck Privos.
	It was a 99 E450 with six bunks built in the back of it.
	You could probably Google it, Ben.
	Yeah, you could.
	The breeze is what we named it.
	And this was homemade, so this is how you guys first, when you guys started hitting the road.
	Yeah.
	And we broke down a lot, picked ourselves up off the side of the road multiple times.
	Yeah.
	We had started looking for a van, and the vans were just so expensive at the time.
	So we're sitting in front of there.
	What?
	I don't know if we have a picture of the inside.
	Probably not.
	Not on the internet.
	That's an old picture.
	And this looks like one of those things where they go to pick up seniors kind of to take them to market and stuff.
	Is it that sort of like a shuttle bus?
	Did it have that sort of door on it?
	That's us waving goodbye.
	Yeah, that was when we got the new bus.
	It had the door.
	It had an electric open.
	We ended up just getting rid of it.
	And then our security system was just a ratchet strap.
	It had an eye bolt on it, and we just hooked to it.
	Yeah, it was rough.
	At night time, yeah.
	But we were practically diesel mechanics.
	If you ever got a 7.3 and you worked on.
	Because there's so many breakdowns, you mean?
	Yeah.
	We had one at a...
	We had one...
	Well, we had a guy that refused to...
	What about his nose hair?
	It was all coming out of his ears.
	Whatever was supposed to be in his nose had really had gone upstream, I guess.
	You could see it?
	Oh, yeah.
	You could see it.
	I mean, it was like his, you know.
	One of those little troll dolls.
	Yes.
	Yeah, like one of those dolls you would get at school.
	You put on your pencil, yeah.
	You got to cut that at night.
	You got to do it for him.
	Oh, I think the moon cuts his hair.
	The moon reads his hair.
	I mean, it was like it was involved in something extraterrestrial.
	And he had, but that thing broke down a couple Times and one time he just threw a cup of water on it.
	I was like, that's not, we got to get it.
	Is he shampooing it?
	I'm talking about the engine.
	The engine broke down one time and he threw a cup of water on it.
	I thought you're talking about his ear hairy stuff.
	Oh, the ear hair?
	We've thrown our share.
	Well, we blew a hub.
	We had to throw water on it.
	Yeah.
	Mostly just to listen to it sizzle how hot it was.
	It's hot.
	It's hot.
	That's always the best mechanic, dude, when you just crack that thing up.
	You're just like, oh, dude, we've had some.
	There was one.
	You remember the, oh, we blew a heater hose and it had what's called a quick connect on it.
	Was it a heater hose?
	You talking about Joe?
	No, this was me and you.
	You remember I spit on it.
	Oh, yeah.
	We couldn't get it to go over that little.
	It's like you just push it on, it clips, and that's it.
	And we just fought with it for hours.
	And I was like, we missed our show.
	We had to cancel our show and everything because we could not get this thing to slide up.
	It just needed a little, and I was like, you know what?
	Screw it.
	I went in there.
	We're all sitting in the bus kind of thinking about what to do.
	I went out there and spit on it and pushed it on there and got it good.
	And it worked.
	We needed a little move, man.
	That's it.
	Oh, it's all you need a lot of times.
	Red Clay Strays, man.
	Thank you guys for coming in.
	Thanks for having us for having us.
	Yeah, I'm such a big fan, guys.
	Why?
	I don't know.
	There's something damn there's something just damn it feels like a little bit whimsical historical romantic about the music you know thank you there's something that feels like you just hop on the clock hands and just start spinning backwards and it's like almost feels like a little bit of like a time warp I don't know this just feels it feels good man it feels good to listen to well that's cool you know I
	know you guys started you guys are from the south you guys are from Alabama right we all still live there born and raised mobile and how do you guys was it a couple of you at first you guys have five guys now we have six now okay uh but yeah it was originally five yeah we just we just uh hired a keyboard player oh wow like last month yep and did you audition for that or how'd that go we actually met him on uh when we were touring with el king and he was playing with l at the time and
	then we realized last summer that he wasn't playing with l anymore and you know reached out to him immediately it was one of those we showed up we're like we're sevens he's like he's not with us anymore we turned around made a phone call like we got him now he's ours you're like they let him go that's crazy yeah oh that's perfect then so is that needed because you want to add a different element to the music or what do you why do you how do you come to make that choice kind of i think it's yeah we just wanted a we've we've always wanted
	a keys player to you know lay down piano and organ tracks and uh i could play a little bit but not near as good as we needed i guess so that's always been a a thing we've wanted to add in our music and it was supposed to be we were going to get our drummer's little brother to play keys with us and he passed away in 2020 so that was sevens was is the right guy to fill that role that was originally intended for him i think yeah was
	there like a trial night where he comes in and you're like okay this is normally it would we would hold an audition but we already knew how great of a player he was from seeing him play with l and just sitting around in green rooms when there'd be a piano in the green room and he'd we we you know we saw him play and how and how good he was so i think we've always been kind of looking for that piano player and when we saw him with l like brandon said it's one of those like dang that guy's uh he's good who is it so when we saw that opportunity we jumped on it as soon as we could yeah and
	he fits in just long with us yeah when we called we weren't like do you want to audition for us we were like hey do you want to play with us you know but here we are we're auditioning we'll audition in front of house guys and guitar techs but and how does the band start to form up like when it started out how does that how does a band even start because i'm used to just hearing some guys like get together write down a song or whatever and then just kind of get in a fight at somebody's house and then the band is done hmm we we do that we just
	haven't quit yet plenty of fights have happened now it's uh i had actually met drew uh right when i was still in high school and then drew introduced me to andrew uh and we had started a little cover band drew the guitar player he was actually the manager at the time and uh you know that band played for a while and we had actually hired john in that band and he played for a couple months before it dissolved
	and then we hired zach our guitar player and started calling ourselves red clay strays and then drew eventually we learned that he could sing and he was learning how to play guitar at the time so we started getting drew to come on stage with us and uh when he first started getting on stage with us his he kept his amp turned all the way down he wouldn't even actually play yeah he was just really shy i didn't know there's a way i didn't know there was a way to be shy on there with you oh yeah he was faking it till he made it that's that's one thing that was cool
	to see is uh because i lived with him and just he would lock to self in his room every day pretty much for like a year and just taught himself how to play guitar and so i used to tell him to stop playing too i feel bad now he'd be in there and the old man we'd be uh ending practice and he'd have like a beer bottle just raking it across the strings and i'd just have to tell him like dude you gotta you gotta give me a minute you gotta stop and now he's like uh drew's one of those um he gets the uh most improvement
	award every year for us he just gets better and better and it's just he's good i wish i had his worth ethic when it came to learning the instrument so he was it was just so he was on with you guys and then he got better well he was the manager in our first band and then when ray clay stray started the five of us started that you know together there he is handsome handsome devil there he's like i got to get in here yeah i think he uh he just he's got it in this song he he wrote him and
	brandon's little brother matthew write our songs pretty much 50 50 and brandon writes some too so i think it's just natural in him he just had to find that way getting it out and i think we what got us what got him on stage was we noticed he was singing harmonies at practice so we're like hey get on stage and start singing with us and he he didn't want to just be standing on stage empty-handed, so he would turn the guitar down and just hold the guitar pretty much.
	And then somewhere along the line, he decided that he wanted to start actually playing, so he taught himself.
	Wow, that's amazing.
	Zach, he's just always been incredible.
	Yeah, Zach just come right in, just ripping and shredding and blowing everybody away.
	Now it's just surprising to see that Drew and Zach, just two completely different styles and how they've learned off of one another over the years.
	And so like in the past probably year, things have started to get busier, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	We've been especially, I think things really started taking off for us.
	We were actually off the road last year, last fall in November, and we just see these numbers just like on a rocket ship.
	Like what the hell's going on?
	Yeah, we're just riding it out.
	We hired my little brother, who is the other songwriter.
	So we had already been playing all of his songs, you know, and but he would do his own thing.
	And I think he was driving for Uber at the time.
	And like last, we took him on the L-King run last year and then officially hired him like last April.
	And he just went right to work recording us and monitoring our social medias and like building a social media presence and then popping off on TikTok, I think, a couple of times, really.
	Yeah.
	That with the L-tour just kind of jump-started it a little bit for us.
	Yeah, he does a great job because there's a lot of really, he has a lot of fun clips on there.
	You guys have some cool stuff on YouTube and stuff that I hadn't heard that wasn't released yet, just like on Spotify and stuff.
	That used to be how we tour.
	Yeah, we toured off of YouTube.
	We'd just tell people to call venues and tell them to check out YouTube and Facebook.
	Yeah.
	Just, you know, hopefully they book us.
	And a lot of them did.
	So that's what we did.
	And when did you guys start touring pretty heavily?
	Kind of like when did it.
	Oh, shoot.
	We used to play.
	I mean, we'd tour, we'd play 200 cat rooms.
	I remember getting excited for 70 people showing up.
	I mean, we've always been, we just wanted, our big thing was we want to be the hardest working band in America.
	So we would, I mean, shoot, for the last couple of years, we've played majority of the year route on the road, especially last year.
	We did over 150 shows driving ourselves.
	So it's like more of like 250 travel days or more.
	And then that was the same the year before.
	We're just running around, breaking down and just excited for 50 people to be in front of us.
	Gosh.
	It's crazy to look back at that now.
	And we always wanted, where we are now, we kind of always looked up to like, man, I want to play these clubs, you know, these thousand, two thousand cat rooms every night.
	I could get used to that, like opening for people.
	And now we're there and now we're like, man, those arenas look fun.
	How about getting used to doing that?
	You know?
	Yeah, or a festival.
	Do you guys do a lot of festivals too?
	Well, that'll probably happen this summer.
	Yeah, we do a lot of festivals.
	Yeah.
	I don't know if we really like festivals as much.
	We like doing our own show.
	We're not pressed for time.
	Festivals, you got to be on time with Sartin and Endon, and that's just, it's kind of, we like to take our time and relax.
	Set is really short, too.
	It's like we get 45 minutes, and it's like, I'm just now starting to get warmed up at 45 minutes, you know, and then it's over with.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, and we're not headlining festivals.
	We're playing at like 3 o'clock in the afternoon, you know.
	Oh, yeah, sunburn time.
	Oh, yeah.
	We just did it in Tortuga and Fort Lauderdale.
	Oh, yeah, at the Heatstroke Festival or whatever?
	The Heatstroke Festival.
	Yeah, we just felt like we just ruined everybody's beach party.
	Yeah.
	Oh, that's the worst.
	We're up there playing sad songs.
	Dude, I remember one night we had a fillet.
	I'm thinking of one time they put us at this Italian kind of cocaine sort of Christmas kind of party.
	And it was, this was in LA.
	It's probably about like maybe seven years ago.
	Like, are you guys going to perform at this Christmas party?
	This cocaine Christmas party?
	Yeah, well, everybody, we get there early and everybody's trying to get us to do cocaine and we're doing it.
	And then, like, we had to perform, but we thought it would be like a stage and like a good setup.
	So I think it had rained or something and they put like this party in like a tent, one of those white tents with the fake plastic windows.
	Yeah, you know, yeah.
	Yeah.
	And so we had to perform in there right next to the tables.
	Like you were, some people's backs were like, you were on the curve of the table and their backs and they were eating.
	And you were doing stand-up and you just feel like you're just in the way.
	It was so hard.
	Especially high on cocaine, I'm sure, too.
	Oh, it made me so like scared and nervous.
	And some lady kept kind of biting her lip at me.
	And, oh, that was one of the worst moments that ever happened.
	She was probably doing the cocaine, too.
	That's probably that jaw thing that goes on, you know.
	Everybody in there.
	Everybody was reading that one.
	Everybody was rattling.
	Rattling.
	Everybody in there definitely had a catalytic converter issue.
	It was just, but that was a tough gig, man.
	Yeah, we've had those.
	Those tough gigs make you humble, though.
	Oh, yeah.
	I don't think I know what you're going to talk about.
	I was going to talk about the Purple Buffalo.
	I was going to talk about Dallas Cowboys.
	Was that a corporate gig you did?
	No, I've done some really bad ones.
	I hate corporate gigs.
	Corporate shows are terrible.
	Some guy made his son come up and give us $10 one night when we were on stage, and we were performing like an empty backyard.
	Really?
	Yeah.
	And you're doing comedy?
	I've never seen someone tip a comedian on stage.
	Oh, live.
	This kid ran across a child.
	Go give that nice man $10.
	I've had, you know, and I've had those shows too where it's just like you're in someone's backyard and they're not paying attention, but at least there's music and it's super loud and you can drown all that out.
	I can only imagine being in that setting trying to tell jokes and like nobody's paying attention to you.
	I don't know how you keep it together, man.
	I'd have an anxiety attack just trying to.
	It just, you're like, yeah, this is what I deserve.
	That's where it kind of ends with you, you know?
	This tough part about the kid was he kept running across like halfway and then got confused of what to do and he would go back and ask his dad.
	So it was just like, just give me the $10.
	Or I'll come get it.
	But I can't.
	It was like I was just.
	Did you just take it from him and he start crying?
	Don't drop out of school, kid.
	Thanks.
	Oh, That was a really tough one.
	That's putting the grind in, though, man.
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, dude, I used to drive at 110 miles an hour to get to the next gig, putting everyone's life in danger so that I could perform at like an O Charlie somewhere or something.
	It was like everybody, it was very.
	We used to have our Mexican restaurant gigs back in way back in the day doing four-hour cover shows.
	Oh, that sounds fun, guys.
	It's not.
	It's fun for a minute, for at least the first hour.
	There was one right before COVID had happened, and it was this place called the Purple Buffalo.
	North Charleston.
	Yeah, and we played right after this heavy metal.
	No, it was like show.
	Three punk rock bands before us.
	And then you?
	And then us, and we're playing covers at the time, too.
	Our country bumpkin' butts just get up there and just start playing music.
	The room just empties out.
	We're literally playing to nobody.
	And I just go out in the crowd, and I just where the crowd would be, and I'm just sitting at the table singing to the band as they're playing.
	And then the whole time, the bartender was like offering us drinks.
	And we're broke at the time, too.
	And we're just thinking, oh, cool.
	Well, at least we got a bar tab.
	At least we're going to get the drink.
	And then after the show, she just brings us the bill.
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, man.
	We didn't even get paid to play.
	Didn't make any money.
	Yeah.
	We're like looking around the bus for change.
	Pay our bar tab at this place.
	Just drank ourselves.
	There's a picture of an actual purple buffalo.
	I prefer that one.
	Oh, yeah.
	That's nice.
	Oh, that's what the place looks like with people in it.
	That's kind of cool.
	No, I've met her before.
	She parties, dude.
	We've definitely had those empty shows where you just play for yourselves.
	That's when you really got to enjoy what you're doing.
	We used to play for tips.
	Our tip bucket determined how far we were going to get the next day.
	We'd have no money, and we'd get tip money for gas and maybe even one hotel room for all five of us to pile up in.
	And it was just chance every day, you know?
	Yeah.
	Damn.
	Stayed in a lot of people's houses or even slept in the car a couple times before we got the bus or the shuttle bus, that is, the breeze.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I wouldn't say we're successful.
	We're not where we are from overnight, I guess.
	Yeah, I think that's what I was trying to get at a little bit, just like thinking about all this stuff.
	It's funny, a lot of times I'll forget about a lot of that.
	Oh, yeah.
	In a weird way.
	You can take it for granted pretty easily.
	Yeah, not in, it's weird for me.
	I don't even know if I take it, I just forget.
	It's like you forget the work that you've put into something.
	Yeah.
	You know?
	We've been doing, me and you have been doing this since 2015.
	So, you know, seven years, eight years.
	I was in college, too.
	Nine years for me and you.
	Yeah.
	I'm thinking.
	Red Clay Strays has been.
	And the band before that, what was it called?
	Coleman Mason Band?
	It was just a local cover band.
	The band we don't speak of.
	Really?
	We would run the crowd out.
	Yeah.
	I love that.
	Hey, look.
	Hey, look.
	Then Red Clay Street.
	We're going to run back here.
	Yeah, we're coming as the bar closer, man.
	They want to get them out.
	We got them out.
	Oh, I love that.
	It's like instead of playing closing time, it's like, let's hire this back.
	Yeah, they'll get them out.
	They'll get them out.
	And you want to shut this thing down?
	We got you.
	Which even with, which we mainly ran people away because it was so loud.
	The guitar ants were so loud.
	But even with Red Clay Strays, we were playing somewhere in Arkansas where the guy, the sound man, come up on stage and he told us to turn down.
	And I was like, the only thing running through this system that you're wanting to turn down is my vocals.
	Like, the drums are still going to be loud.
	The guitar is still going to be loud.
	And so I walk over there and I inch it down just a little bit and continue playing.
	And he just like walks on after a song that's right in the middle of the set.
	So we're not doing this tonight.
	And he just walks up and turns everything down by itself.
	And I was just like, man, if I didn't need this $500, I would freaking leave right now.
	Yeah.
	We used to talk a mad game.
	What was it?
	That was at a restaurant, too.
	Yeah, that was in JJ's and Little Rock, Arkansas.
	Was that Little Rock?
	No, that was Fayetteville, Arkansas.
	Yeah, that's the tough part.
	When you're going to compete with people's moment to dine.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, that's dinner.
	Yeah, there's some.
	When you're going to say, hey, set that fork down for a second, mama.
	I got something for you.
	We'll give you a pork chop.
	Can you turn the music down?
	Can you tell them to turn it down?
	That's what playing with people eating is like.
	And we used to do our own sound too, so we used to make it real loud because we grew up listening to Skinner and we thought that's how it's supposed to be.
	Yeah.
	Just loud.
	We're still pretty loud.
	Yeah, we are probably still pretty loud.
	You know, the number one thing I think that's tough sometimes, if I go into like a small venue or like a, like a, just like a bar and somebody's playing is if they have, if you can't hear the vocals a lot of times.
	Oh, yeah.
	It's though, it sucks.
	Because you're like, I don't, I might love this.
	Yeah.
	That's why we try to hire a good, good sound guy.
	Dude, the sound guy is what, I mean, that's your, that's your, he's practically a member of the band.
	He's making you sound good for everybody.
	It's a good thing.
	And we've been to a lot of big concerts.
	We're like, this sounds like crap.
	And this sucks because we know how good that band is.
	It doesn't matter how good the music is.
	If you can't understand or can't hear something, then it's pointless.
	Yeah, there's a lot of venues aren't really built for comedy or music where you have to end up playing too, which is kind of wild.
	You know, like recently I went to some places and the venue just wasn't, it's not the perfect venue, but it's the only one in that area that you can play.
	Yeah.
	We've been to those where you walk in and the reverb in the room is just ridiculous.
	You just know you're just going to blow these people's heads off.
	Just part of it.
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	When it came to the, yeah, the name of the band, how'd you guys figure that out?
	Man, that story is not even that cool.
	You think it would be.
	Well, Red Clay's all over Alabama.
	Yeah.
	You know, you get over anywhere over there.
	I didn't like the name at first.
	I don't think any of us liked any name we came up with.
	What were some other options?
	Oh, dude.
	One of the band likes a lot, Brandon Lane and the Hurricanes.
	We on the Gulf Coast.
	We got Hurricanes.
	That's his middle name, Lane.
	Oh, it's perfect.
	I liked it, too.
	That'll be the Alter Ego.
	The Alter Ego.
	No, but my brother came up with it just randomly.
	Brandon Lane and the Hurricanes, Red Clay Strategy.
	We had the Dirt Leg Trio for a little while when it was just me, Brandon, and John.
	Yeah, Dirt Lego.
	The Dirt Leg Trio.
	We're from South Alabama.
	We're not good at making up names.
	Yeah, that one I think is a little bit, that's like a gangrene.
	That feels more like an infection staff, the staff boys.
	The staff boys.
	Something I got from my job, it's like they wouldn't say you redneck.
	They'd say you dirt leg.
	Dirt leg.
	That's what I'm saying.
	What is a dirt leg?
	And they're like, well, here's a redneck, and then here's a dirt leg.
	It's like trashier, worse of a person, you know, steal from you.
	They're a dirt leg.
	Damn.
	We would have somebody call, yeah, we call like a dirt serpent.
	That's Kid Rock, we call him.
	Yeah, I'd say Kid Rock falls in that dirt leg category.
	But he's a dirt serpent.
	I just described a lot of bad stuff.
	I know, I'm just joking.
	No, he's like, yeah, he's more of a dirt serpent.
	He's like a leader of a club.
	Yeah, you just had him that time.
	Oh, there's a Urban Dictionary.
	Dirt leg, a female looking for a quick fuck who only has enough time to take one pant leg off.
	That's where we came from.
	We ain't got those.
	Getting the other pant leg dirty.
	All right.
	Dirt leg.
	All right.
	Yeah, they just put that TikTok ban into.
	Yeah, we actually on the way down here or on the way up here.
	We actually just saw that.
	You guys seen that?
	I've seen it on Instagram.
	Yeah, we saw it on the news.
	Let me see.
	Congress had passed the bill this week as part of a wide-ranging foreign aid package meant to support Israel and Ukraine.
	It was approved by the House on Saturday and by the Senate on Tuesday.
	And it also had TikTok hidden in.
	Is that what it's saying?
	Yeah.
	Welcome to our government.
	I know.
	They always be doing that.
	Ain't reading that fine print, people.
	Now we lost TikTok.
	It's going to suck if it actually goes away, though.
	I know.
	Man, there's got to be something behind it.
	Even our band has grown so much from TikTok.
	I don't even be ticking the talk.
	I'm not even on it.
	It's fun.
	It's dangerous because you can get into a warped zone where you look up and suddenly your family's not, hasn't eaten.
	You know, I could see that easily.
	Somebody's scrolling on TikTok and then they're just, they look up and their children haven't eaten.
	That's what they need scroller, the death scroll was.
	Death scroll.
	Instagram or TikTok.
	See, I get all my reels from Instagram and my fiancé gets mad because I'm like six months behind.
	Oh, yeah, y'all are behind over.
	On the YouTube.
	I do the YouTube shorts, too.
	That's my death scroll.
	Oh, yeah.
	So I'm getting like eight months, nine months behind.
	Yeah.
	I mean, you're hospice.
	The reason I like TikTok is you can ask him, like, all of my Instagram stuff is just messed up, people.
	We get dark our Instagram reels.
	You know, people getting their motorcycle racks and just a lot of crazy stuff that I'm like, how is this on Instagram?
	We done screwed our algorithms up.
	But then TikTok, it's like, well, here's how you make a garden in your backyard or here's how you for now until you get on the dark side of TikTok.
	I haven't been on the dark side of TikTok.
	Damn, do they have?
	I don't want to get on that.
	Don't start searching things.
	What are some things?
	Look under some of my links.
	I have a couple of favorites that I've had on there recently.
	Oh, here we go right here.
	Now, this was something I saw.
	This is called the Oriental Shorthair.
	These are tubular, long and tubular, with rock hard bodies, tight, close-flying coats.
	And then they have a cat as fine.
	That thing ate a ruler, homie, that thing.
	That's a different ethnicity of a cat.
	The cat got your measuring stick, huh?
	That thing got the other thing.
	That was a wiener dog at first.
	Yeah, it is, man.
	That's a damn wiener cat.
	Wiener cat.
	Wiener cat, dude.
	You don't want to see our recent searches.
	Really?
	It's getting pretty bad?
	Well, those are some of them.
	That's one of my faves.
	I'll go through a couple more.
	But the cat videos?
	Well, yeah, we might as well enjoy TikTok while we got it because we ain't going to have it much longer.
	And that's Asian guy walking with turtle.
	And that's always a beautiful...
	That's like the notebook in Japan, dude.
	That video right there.
	It's their notebook.
	What else do we have?
	Oh, look at that.
	Oh, this guy's a little nativity scene on the go.
	This is like DoorDash Nativity scene.
	Play it one more time.
	Is that all it is?
	Yeah.
	It's like $40 the dude pulls up.
	Oh.
	Do you have like an actual little baby he could start using too for Christmas?
	Oh, if his wife, maybe, if he's probably got to ask his wife.
	Reminds me of those booths at the fair.
	You pay like 20 bucks to go see the snake lady.
	Oh, yeah.
	And it's just like a.
	Well, we just had a carnival worker on, and his grandfather was the great Lentini, and he had three legs and two penises.
	Okay, and well endowed.
	No, that's what people thought at first: like, damn, one of these things needs a shoe on it.
	Oh, this is real.
	Yeah, that's a real guy, Frank Lentini, right there.
	Wow.
	He's got his own Wikipedia.
	Wait, he said his dad?
	The carnival worker that we had in named Mitch, he had a granddaddy.
	Okay, because that guy was born in 1889.
	Yeah, this guy.
	Where is he from?
	Damn Narnia, probably.
	That's the stuff you see in the Marvel movies, though, man.
	Dude, I bet that dude could run a foot race, play soccer.
	I bet he could climb up walls and stuff.
	Oh, I bet that's.
	That's a modern day Spider-Man.
	That's what I was going to say.
	I bet he lives in a web.
	I like how they have one nude picture of this man.
	You have to.
	That's what his attitude was.
	You think he had a temper and want to get in bar fights and just start kicking people?
	That's a great call, huh?
	It would be crazy if you're standing there talking to him and then one of his foot just puts a cigarette into his mouth.
	You know, this is what the UFC is missing right here.
	It really is.
	Maybe you think the weirdos, like the people from Nick, could have like feet things.
	What?
	Just in this guy.
	Oh, on Foot Finder, this guy would have been a spokesman.
	Oh, he would have been the Naomi Cambler.
	Three legs, four feet, 16 toes.
	Come see him, boy.
	I'd appreciate it.
	That math ain't mathing, is it?
	Yeah, it was a different time, different math.
	Now, didn't they ban all?
	2015, he had one extra.
	Didn't they ban, like, you can't show yourself off in carnivals and stuff?
	Like, freak shows?
	Did they ban them?
	Let's look at that.
	I don't know if.
	It was considered inhumane.
	Well, what if you, like, sign yourself up?
	It didn't matter.
	They banned it anyway.
	Freak shows remained popular until the 1940s when public opinion began to shift.
	Throughout the 20th century, several federal laws made discrimination against people with physical disabilities illegal, and the exhibition of extraordinary bodies was outlawed in some states.
	Wow.
	Now that seems a little prejudiced.
	What I read was the freaks in the freak shows got mad because they were like, this is how we make a living.
	Yeah.
	People paid to look at me.
	But I don't know how true that was.
	Well, it's like the Redskins now having to probably change their name back because the natives got mad at them for changing it.
	Oh, they did now?
	They got changed.
	That's what I've read, yeah.
	They're trying to change it back now?
	Yeah.
	Supposedly.
	Wow, my friend Cliff Kingsbury is coaching up there.
	It's his first year up there.
	Offensive coordinator.
	I've graduated college with the safety, Jeremy Reeves.
	Oh, wow.
	I did sports medicine in college, so I did some of his rehabilitation.
	Damn, and is he healthy now?
	Yeah.
	Well, he just came off an injury, but he's good.
	Damn.
	Good enough to be playing with the commanders.
	Which who knows if it's that good?
	We'll see.
	We'll see.
	Remains to be seen.
	He's getting paid.
	Yeah, which states outlawed, which states outlawed those shows?
	That's kind of interesting.
	I wonder if it was like – like who would do it?
	I wonder what states would do it, southern states or – Well, I wonder if they looked at it as like you're just – I wonder if it's like you're bringing like, you can't really call them special.
	It's like handicap people and making a show of them.
	But what if they sign up and they want to make the show themselves?
	Well, they have the same thing type of now where it's, you know, they have like a lot of people with what some people call disabilities have like shows on TikTok or social media channels.
	TLC.
	Yeah, TLC.
	Their whole network is based off of people with four necks or whatever, you know, or double, you know.
	Do you ever watch My Strange Addiction?
	That was one I watched when I was younger.
	It'd be like lady drinking gasoline.
	Oh, yeah.
	One lady liked to eat toilet paper.
	Oh, yeah.
	She ate the foam out the mattress.
	She was a big one, too.
	Went straight to her hips.
	It sure did.
	Really?
	Dang, boy.
	Play Squidward with them Krabby Patties.
	You got to watch out.
	Pimper Pedic, baby.
	I like them pickies, baby.
	I think she ate the Springs, too.
	You'd have to look that one up later.
	Well, we spoke with a man the other day who ate glass.
	Was it on the street or was it on the podcast?
	I can't remember.
	But yeah, he's had a lot of it.
	You know, I don't like anything like that.
	I wouldn't think so.
	Yeah.
	With the demise of the carnival, an important slice of American history risk being lost.
	But the residents of Gibson, Florida, are trying to keep the legacy of the town's famous freaks alive.
	I think a town of freaks.
	Yeah.
	It is Florida.
	Gibtown was a utopia.
	Its first settlers, the giant and his wife, the half-woman, ran a campsite, a bake shop, and the fire department.
	Wow.
	That's a whole town of like the freak show.
	In the golden days of American Carnival, all roads led to Gibson, Florida.
	The self-defined 14,900 inhabitant town 12 miles south of Tampa became the industry capital, Kearney Town.
	They must have been next to one of those power plants.
	It makes me wonder, though, like, if it became illegal to stare at freaks in a freak show, but it's okay to go watch mentally handicap people in the Olympics and stuff-wise, one accept on bull and one's not.
	That's a good question.
	Yeah.
	Is it just because one's doing sports and the other's just sitting on a couch?
	Shoot juggling.
	I seen some probably seen them juggling.
	Yeah, you would think I would like.
	That's a sport.
	Dude, I think it's like it doesn't even – Down for love, right?
	I've heard of it close.
	Dating online.
	I've never watched it, but I've heard of it.
	It's amazing, right?
	And it's just like, it's people that have disabilities.
	Some of them are Down syndrome and they don't want first dates, right?
	And they start to learn relationships.
	And they are just as awkward as anybody that doesn't have the disabilities, you know?
	In fact, sometimes they are better at dating than people that have disabilities because they're a little bit more frank about what's going on.
	A little more open, a little more bold about it.
	Yeah, yeah.
	It's fascinating.
	That show is Fascinating.
	I was just watching Baby Reindeer.
	Have you seen that?
	We don't watch cable.
	I don't really have a lot of time to watch TV.
	Damn, I'm living in damn luxury there.
	And we ain't got cable.
	I try to watch stuff on the bus, but I usually just end up falling asleep.
	Yeah, that's impossible.
	What's Baby Reindeer about?
	Baby Reindeer.
	This guy, Richard Gad is his name.
	And he writes this.
	It's amazing.
	It's like eight episodes or six episodes.
	It's about he had a stalker.
	And it goes from there.
	It's.
	Is there a reindeer involved?
	It looks like a baby reindeer.
	It looks like a reindeer.
	Interesting.
	That sounds cool.
	You guys have one full album out, right?
	Yeah.
	And now you're putting together another album.
	It's put together.
	Oh, it's done?
	It's done.
	Okay.
	It's ready to put it.
	Coming out here in the very near future.
	Wow.
	Hopefully by the end of summertime.
	How does that feel?
	What's that?
	Because that's really.
	I can't wait for people to hear it because it's just a lot better of an album than the first album as far as production goes.
	Because we recorded it with Dave Cobb.
	Oh, yeah.
	Chris Stapleton.
	Yeah.
	He's done all our heroes.
	It was always a goal of ours to work with Dave since we very first started.
	Yeah, there he is.
	And now, how does that come to pass that you guys get to match up with him?
	Does he reach out to you?
	Do you start to interview a series of producers?
	No, we actually, at the time, we were looking up studios.
	So we wanted to go to a studio where the Alabama Shakes recorded their first album.
	I think it was called The Bomb Shelter here in Nashville.
	In Nashville.
	And that was the plan until Brandon Malden, who works with Conway Entertainment, which is where our manager works, made the connection.
	He reached out to Dave for us and he's like, hey, we represent this band if you're interested in working with them.
	And Dave knew who we were.
	And so he was like, yeah, I'd love to work with him.
	And he set up a Zoom call with us and reached out.
	And we talked to him that day.
	We were actually on the way to a show.
	We had to pull over on the side of the road and talk with them.
	Well, I said the van wind makes such a noise that you talk.
	It's so loud in there.
	We stopped for some barbecue too.
	So I'm like eating a barbecue sandwich talking to people.
	There was no service.
	They were like walking around trying to get service during this because it's like we're talking to one of our heroes in the middle of Alabama in the middle of nowhere.
	You're like, these guys can't, they can't even produce a call.
	They're not going to make it.
	We're probably somewhere in Alabama, too.
	Wow, that had to be a pretty magical moment.
	Yeah, that was.
	I didn't know how to feel about it.
	It was crazy.
	We're just, we don't really like the record, their first record that's out.
	Like, I cannot stand to go back and listen to it at all.
	It was such a cluster making that thing.
	I like it for what it is.
	Yeah, for what it is.
	We'd just gotten out of another record deal that wasn't working for us.
	And the only way to continue forward was to get out of it.
	So we finally made it out of that thing and then just on our own, not knowing what to do.
	And, you know, we go to this guy's studio in Huntsville.
	Sink every dollar we had.
	Go in the debt, making it.
	And that's eventually.
	We were still unhappy with it trying to make it, but eventually we just had to, you know, call it quits and say it's done.
	Was that because of money?
	Like just had to call it money and time.
	Yeah, we didn't put all this work in this window of time we opened up for it.
	So this next one, though, we listen to it every day, I think, and it's incredible.
	I haven't gotten tired of it yet.
	Yeah, we're ready to put that one out.
	It's going to should be pretty good.
	Dang, I can't imagine.
	Or the people hate it.
	We don't know.
	I can't even imagine.
	Because, yeah, when y'all's music come home, man, it just feels good.
	Can we listen?
	Can you take me through who comes in on Wondering Why, like in the beginning, just in the beginning, so I know who the different.
	Because you guys have different band members.
	I want to make sure that I get the gist.
	Can you play it for us by chance?
	You wanna do it in the headphones or?
	Can you just play it through the, We can walk through.
	Through the telly.
	Yeah.
	And what song you want to listen to?
	Wondering why.
	Yeah, yeah, this is right here.
	Can you just take, I just want to know who comes in when, right?
	Because it starts off just with you singing.
	Yeah.
	You probably won't hear it, but I'm in the right at the second verse.
	Okay.
	First verse.
	But I just play bass.
	It's not that big of a deal, you know.
	But you come in.
	Yeah.
	That's it.
	Well, I go to the chord.
	You'll hear it.
	This is Matthew recording first.
	That's me doing the private school.
	Never missing.
	So that's you on the guitar.
	I come from blue collar, low dollar.
	The old boat paddle.
	And here comes my big mouse.
	Right here.
	And I don't know what happened, but it should don't have on paper.
	One earlier cut used to have finger snaps right here.
	Ooh, I like that.
	But who was hitting that symbol right there?
	That's John.
	Okay, that's John.
	And that's Drew.
	There's Drew.
	She keeps on love.
	And then it's everybody.
	That's awesome.
	And that's Zach in there laying in those backup parts.
	Or just ride fretting that.
	Did you play a slab on that?
	Is that called fretting?
	What's it like?
	He does this right here.
	Courting or making court.
	That was Zach.
	Got it.
	Yeah, I was just listening the other day.
	I was wondering, I was like, who's coming in when?
	Just so I know who's doing what.
	Yeah, what's the collaborating like for an album?
	Like, do you guys seem to, like, does it get tough?
	How is it, like, battling egos and stuff?
	I guess at this point, if you spend that much time in a, like, in that close of quarters, you guys have got it figured out.
	No, we're brothers, man.
	Yeah.
	We used to, we would work up songs and in the earlier days, you know, we would get aggravated if we didn't want to take the song in our direction or my direction or Zach's direction or whatever.
	But somewhere along the line, I think we just got to a point to where we realized at the end of the day, we all want the Same thing is to make good music.
	And so we try everything, you know, and there's always a way to make everybody happy as far as making music like that.
	And we'll try everything, even if we have to play the song for eight or nine hours while we're working it up.
	Just play it over and over again, all these different ways until we find the right way.
	And there's not really any egos involved with that, you know.
	Damn.
	I don't think a lot of bands are like that.
	At least, I wouldn't think so.
	So we feel very fortunate.
	Yeah, I know when I met you guys.
	When I met you guys, we were in Virginia.
	Oh, Charlottesville, maybe?
	You were playing.
	That's where you brought us out to your show up there.
	I don't know.
	I can't remember.
	Shoot.
	I feel like I think it's Charlottesville.
	It was Charlottesville.
	But we came at the end and saw a couple of you guys, got to see a couple of the songs.
	He wore that goofy Jeff Gordon jacket.
	Yeah.
	I didn't believe you were going to show up there.
	Theo's probably going to come out.
	And I was like, Theo's going to be way too busy to be worried about us.
	Dude, I had so much fun.
	There we are.
	But y'all's band.
	There was an energy in there.
	You guys, we all sat in there and just chatted for a little while.
	But a lot of groups, it's not like that.
	You'll meet a group of band sometimes, and it's not the same energy.
	Dude, we live, we make each other laugh day in and day out.
	You put five of us, the five of us, with each other, we're going to just, we can't help but just crack up laughing.
	Yeah, because our theme song on the podcast was made by a group called Bishop Gunn.
	Did you guys ever hear them?
	Yeah, they're from South Mississippi, or they're not together anymore, but they were from South Mississippi.
	Yeah.
	And they really had a great start, you know, like they got to open up for the stuff.
	That's us watching you.
	Oh, gang, dude.
	That's awesome.
	They had us over their side stage.
	Oh, wow.
	We were there for like five minutes and we were like watching the clock.
	We had to leave right at a certain time to get back to start our own show.
	We didn't want to leave, man.
	No, it got bad.
	Did it?
	We left at a good time.
	No, it's funny because we don't really listen to much music as a group.
	Like when we come on the bus after a show, it's comedy.
	Oh, yeah?
	Yeah, it's Kill Tony's or somebody's stand-up special.
	Kill Tony's so great, man.
	We actually saw a couple, I guess it was a couple weeks ago, we went and saw Shane Gillis invite us out.
	He put us up in the suite and everything, and then we got to meet freaking Tony and Jeff Ross.
	Tony was just standing outside smoking a cigarette, and we walked up on him.
	That dude's as goofy as you'd think he was.
	That's what he was like, oh, hey, guys.
	Had his big old Texas belt buckle on.
	Tony is one of a kind, bro.
	His show, they have like 100,000 people watching it at once when it comes on.
	That's unprecedented in the world, I feel like.
	I can't remember how we even discovered it, but we watch it all the time on the bus.
	It's just about every night after a show.
	Kill Tony's coming on.
	It's incredible for what it does.
	I think we're going to a Kill Tony in a couple, probably next month.
	Are you guys going to head down to Austin?
	Yeah, we're going to.
	Yeah.
	I think Tony invited us out to do a Kill Tony with him.
	Really?
	I'll be there.
	Yeah.
	We're going to hang out with him.
	It's going to be a party then.
	I think it's at Rogan's place, if I'm not mistaken.
	I don't know where to shoot it.
	Yeah.
	I'm going to go down there for a couple weeks and work on some material.
	You're going to be on the panel that night, you think?
	I don't know.
	They asked if we wanted to go on stage, and I was like, hell no.
	No, I don't want to go watch.
	I don't want to get on stage.
	You ain't going to hurt my feelings today.
	Yeah.
	Those poor guys, I've been doing comedy for 13 years and they just get roasted to hell.
	It's like, damn.
	Yeah, the balls that that takes, because it's so hard to make people laugh in a minute.
	It would almost be like, hey, guys, in one minute, make me believe that you are a good band.
	Yeah.
	You can't do that.
	It'd be really hard.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	You know, I mean, you could do a couple riffs or whatever, but I feel like it'd be really tough.
	That in comedy is just something I don't understand how to make.
	I like sitting there watching it and wondering where a joke's going to go, and then the punchline comes in and just makes you roll while you're laughing.
	I can't do that.
	So I wouldn't want to go on Kill Tony just for that reason.
	I'd be up there just playing a band.
	I told Brandon, if he ever goes on, you just got to go up there and sing for a minute.
	That's what you got to do, bro.
	I'm not even going to tell you.
	You just lean hard into it.
	Yeah, lean into what you do best, brother.
	If they invite you to bring potatoes, bring potatoes.
	It's just that being a comedian seems, man, it's like we have music to hide behind, and we have the five of us up there or six of us up there to hide behind.
	And we have each other.
	Especially watching you and Shane, it's like you're up there by yourself, man.
	You're out in the empire.
	It's so fascinating.
	You're floating around hoping people laugh or, you know, get what they paid for.
	We couldn't do it with, I think the hardest thing I think to do is that improv where people are working with other people, you know?
	That's the thing to me that seemed like it's really the toughest.
	That's where I like, I've tried to take improv classes and stuff, and I was not good at it in Los Angeles.
	You weren't good at improv.
	It was so hard, man.
	It was like, because it's just, you're so used as a comedian, you're so used to just, yeah, I was just so used to like controlling things myself.
	Yeah.
	You know, that I would just, I don't know.
	It was hard to do it with somebody else, I guess, to trust that somebody else, it was going to work well, you know.
	It's kind of that other chemistry, too, though.
	Yeah, there's a surreal moment for even us.
	It's like it's hard to believe that people are coming to see you do what you do.
	Oh, it's and it doesn't feel right.
	One time I was stuck in traffic.
	We're coming back from the YMCA from working out for a show, and I was like, man, what the fuck, dude?
	This fucking town, and it was traffic for about and the driver goes, dude, these people are going to see you.
	Oh, no.
	I was like, oh, shit.
	You're complaining about the traffic.
	That's one of our goals when you've made it is when you can shut down the damn freeway outside of the arena.
	That's when you make it.
	That's how we felt pulling up to your show with all that traffic.
	Dude, it was like, are we even going to have time to get in?
	We're like sitting in traffic.
	We get out and just start walking.
	The Uber is just like, we're just get out here.
	And we just started walking down the side of the road.
	Literally the red clay strays, dude.
	You guys are just wandering around.
	Yeah.
	I think we're in a cool spot right now to where it's like, we definitely get noticed a lot now, But it's still hit or miss in some places.
	Especially if I wear a hat.
	It's like an imposter syndrome for us, too.
	Like, it just doesn't make sense to us why people like what we don't feel.
	I mean, we feel what we do is half-assed mediocre, you know?
	It's just like you could go spend your time and money on a lot better things.
	Well, people just, but even talk to me about the number of shows you guys did last year.
	I mean, the only person I've heard talk that's done that many shows was Lainey Wilson last year did a lot of shows.
	Yeah.
	I mean, she was, you know, I saw her at the end of the year and I was like, man, she is gone.
	She's, it just hasn't ended, you know.
	You have to, I think that's where you, you know, I think that's where the boys and the men are separated.
	It's not about being the best.
	It's not about, it's about literally just going and doing it.
	If you can stick through it.
	Yeah.
	Oh, yeah.
	Resiliency for sure.
	And then I think like even with Bishop Gunn, they had like addiction.
	They had like some addiction issues in the bank.
	Like that kind of stuff tore them, you know.
	Oh, yeah.
	I mean, we've seen that.
	Not with ourselves, but it's so easy being on the road how you can, I mean, you probably see it with comedy, how you can easily turn to those things.
	Oh, yeah.
	It's a dark hole you don't want to go down.
	It's not the 70s no more.
	Yeah, it's not the 70s anymore.
	And the whole sex, drugs, and rock and roll thing is kind of a, you know, what's the word I'm looking for?
	Like a thing of the past?
	It's like a stereo.
	Yeah.
	Everybody from the outside looking in, they think that's what it's like.
	And it's not really like that anymore.
	Yeah.
	And we've always made it clear, like, you know, everybody has their struggles and whatever you're going to do, but don't let it get in the way of this.
	You know what I mean?
	If you're struggling with alcohol, not to say that any of us do, but just in the sense of if you are struggling with something, stay sober for an hour and a half a night to play the show.
	These people pay money and they take their time out of their day or their schedule to come see you, and you're going to get on stage too messed up to perform.
	That's not cool with me or not cool with any of us.
	It's always been a strict rule with us, I think.
	Like we were talking earlier, us five are so close to each other.
	We're like brothers.
	When somebody slips, a pack corrects and we've all gotten our ass chewed after a show or two.
	Yeah, that's pretty fortunate then that you guys are able to have that symbiosis or whatever within your group, you know?
	Oh, we want the best for each other and we all love each other very much.
	We all recognize that we're doing something bigger than ourselves.
	If you're worrying about yourself and what you want to do or how you've been done wrong, then you're going to find all kinds of excuses to get mad or to quit or to argue or fight with somebody.
	But if you keep it selfless instead of selfish, that's where you can find fulfillment and the strength to keep going, I guess.
	Yeah.
	And I think a part of that was our come up meeting some of our heroes and realizing these guys are not cool.
	And that's how we don't want to ever treat other people or treat our own crew, let alone each other.
	Yeah, just seeing that kind of stuff on different festivals or different things like that.
	Yeah, yeah.
	You run into some.
	I mean, we've met some people that you think would be douchebags, and they're cool as hell.
	Yeah.
	And that's always cool.
	You know, it's like meeting you.
	You could have been an asshole to us, you know?
	Yeah.
	You kind of were, but that's okay.
	We're here, you know.
	I had to be, I guess.
	What did I do?
	Something bad?
	No, I'm just messing with that.
	Oh.
	You wore that Jeff Gordon jacket.
	That was problem one.
	That'll turn some people off.
	I made you take it off.
	I felt.
	You got to pee really fast, guys.
	You got to pee anybody else?
	I got a pee.
	I got a pee.
	You remember the first song you ever heard?
	I remember the first song.
	Sorry, I'm a little out of breath going up upstairs.
	The first song I remember singing was a song by Tracy Bird called, We're From the Country and We Like It That Way.
	Everybody knows.
	Knows Everybody.
	Everybody calls it.
	Calls your friend.
	Yeah, it was a good song, huh?
	Don't need any invitation.
	Kick off your shoes and come on in.
	Yeah.
	Know how to work.
	Work and we know how to play.
	We're from the country and we like it that way.
	How old were you when you sang, huh?
	I had probably four or five years old.
	And were you singing to the family?
	Were you performing for someone or were you just sitting somewhere to singing that?
	I've always, my mama told me even before I could talk, I'd walk around just going, knee, nah, me.
	Already on the vocal warm-up.
	Okay, so.
	But I've always, yeah, just always been a songbird, I guess.
	I remember having the little radio off of a toy story, the microphone.
	Oh, yeah.
	I was just dragging the radio around.
	And it took a cassette tape.
	And so I'd have the Traxy Bird cassette tape in there and just.
	Oh, dude.
	Oh, gosh, that just brought back some memories.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, the one I had.
	That looks like Sketch who was just on here.
	Oh, my God.
	Maybe that's what he base it off of.
	What's up, brother?
	Unbelievable.
	Yeah, what's up?
	You got to send him one.
	Oh, yeah, we've got to send him one.
	Will you write that down, Ben?
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	What was that sound you made again?
	Ni, nah, knee, nah.
	It reminds me of Squid Games, kind of.
	I did not like that show.
	You didn't?
	No, it freaked me out a little bit.
	A lot of people, yeah.
	I don't, look, I've, yeah, I've got some Japanese friends, and they've, they're prone to violence at times, you know?
	Really?
	I can see that.
	Oh, they liked it.
	Yeah, they're really, because they keep a lot of their feelings in.
	And so the only, they.
	Well, that's like the way of the ninja, though, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I guess so.
	They just busted a dude with a samurai sword out there grilling meat.
	Where was that at?
	Sounds like Florida.
	Samurai sword and grilling meat.
	Yeah, this man, man grilling in shopping cart, used sword as skewer arrested near Santa Monica.
	Well, he didn't try to stab nobody.
	That's what I'm saying.
	This guy is video from the Citizen app captured the wild scene before 3 p.m.
	on Sunday.
	The man is seen dragging a shopping cart through a bike lane.
	That looks like California.
	The main compartment of the cart is filled with flaming wood while the man uses a sword as a skewer to hold meat over the flames.
	Here's the thing.
	You can't, if you have so many people who are without Homes, right?
	They're going to start to open up barbacoas or whatever this is called.
	You know, they're going to start to open up haircutting.
	I get my hair cut when I'm in LA by a guy who is a street man.
	A street man.
	But he makes a living cutting hair.
	He makes a living cutting hair.
	This dude, Dreamer, he's Native American, actually.
	That right there?
	That's a food truck.
	Well, food cart, but same concept.
	It's the same concept.
	And yeah, sure, maybe it's FDA approved.
	Maybe it's not.
	People, it's still society.
	They're still going to start a civilization.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, everybody's going to start a civilization.
	And so.
	And if they don't have money to pay permits for food trucks or whatever else, they're just going to.
	That machete is that man's permit.
	Yeah, they're going to resort to whatever they can.
	They're going to figure out.
	And I think we got to put more swords on the streets.
	I bet that's some of the best barbecue you probably ever had, too.
	Oh.
	Samurai sword?
	Yeah.
	Oh, yeah.
	Willie's samurai barbecue or whatever.
	I think that meat is.
	He probably needs to buy that at the grocery store.
	Damn, dude, I think that's damn good.
	He's got some of them Cali raccoons.
	I don't know what they got out there.
	Oh, I think that's probably braised human, bro.
	Oh, shit.
	Who knows?
	You don't know when you're getting it out of a shopping cart.
	No, dude, it's look, obviously.
	And here's the thing.
	A shopping cart will make you think that it is.
	Grocery store quality.
	Yep.
	So really, they guys got a great concept.
	Really, it's a grocery store manager quality.
	Where does some of you guys' influence come with music?
	What are you guys listening to right now?
	What am I listening to right now?
	I've been listening to Lake Street Dive a lot lately.
	We just saw them at Mooncrush.
	Really?
	They're incredible.
	Lake Street Dive.
	You never heard of them?
	Uh-uh.
	Oh, they're incredible.
	Put me on.
	Put me on.
	Always been a huge fan of them and then seeing them live just kind of reignited that.
	So I've just been on a Lake Street Dive kick for the last few days.
	Our listening.
	Her vocals are just insane.
	I love that organ player, man, when he sings.
	I mean, they're like, it's like the 70s, modern-day 70s music right there.
	It is incredible, especially live.
	Yeah.
	Really, really good.
	Lake Street Dive.
	I got obsessed with trying to do vibrato because I can't do it.
	Couldn't do it at all, but now I can kind of do it.
	But she was one of the ones that I would listen to trying to figure that out, how to do that with your voice.
	Still can't do it that well, but try my best.
	So a singer will learn different tricks from other singers, kind of, or not tricks or just manipulations or ways to perform, kind of?
	I just learn by listening.
	If I listen to Lake Streak Dive or listen to Wayland or whatever I'm listening to long enough, I'll start to kind of mimic that on stage a little bit.
	So how I sing at whatever show I'm at depends on what I've been listening to for the past few days, I guess.
	Yeah, I think there's something about that about being an entertainer.
	Part of you wants to, especially if you're staying open to things, you're going to be kind of a sponge in a way.
	If you've been absorbing one thing, then the next time you perform, there could be some of that just in your energy.
	You want to be kind of a conduit for good energy.
	And a lot of creativity and music, art is good energy usually.
	Do you see that in comedy at all?
	Yep.
	If you watch too many or too much of one guy, you kind of start taking that personality on.
	Oh, I'll watch some Chris Rock, and I'll go out there and be like, so yeah, that'll happen.
	Oh, every comedian, when they started out, like at my time, everybody sounded just like Mitch Hedberg.
	Like all the people that were booking clubs, all the bookers were like, yeah, everybody just, everybody right now sounds like Mitch Hedberg.
	It's just because he's so popular right now.
	So I think there's a lot of that that happens.
	Who's some kind of?
	That's the guy who yells, right?
	He would be like, no, that was.
	Who am I thinking of?
	Oh, you're thinking of.
	He died a long time ago.
	Yep, you're thinking of Sam.
	I like this game.
	No, it's fun.
	Sam Kennison.
	Yeah, Kennison.
	That's it.
	Sam Kinnison.
	That guy was hilarious, too.
	Well, he had a crazy story with this guy, Carl LeBove.
	Can you bring this up?
	So Carl LeBove, R.I.P to him, too.
	He passed away.
	Really funny, sweet guy.
	I never knew Sam or met him, but they had a one of them had a daughter.
	Can you bring it up?
	Let me see.
	The late comedian Sam Kennison left his friend and fellow comedian quite a belated surprise.
	Carl LeBove says that Sam was the real father of the daughter he thought was his.
	Oh, no.
	We heard about it on the Joy Bahar show where LeBeau said he found out that Sam was the father after Sam died.
	So yeah, Carl had raised her her whole life and then found out that Sam was the father.
	I was devastated.
	This was with his wife?
	Yeah.
	So I think there was a rumor that the child was conceived while he was on stage one time.
	Wow.
	Out of some disrespect.
	Yeah.
	I mean, there's craft services and then there's craft services.
	I was devastated, Carl said.
	We're talking about at the same time a 14-year friendship.
	We started out together.
	So we had survived living on the streets.
	You know what it's like to start on comedy?
	I mean, we stole fruit from the bars at night just to eat and slept in my car.
	And we survived for a very long time.
	And then with the Rodney Dangerfield special, it changed our lives.
	And of course, Sam became huge.
	And I was the head writer and his best friend.
	We never lived more than a mile apart.
	Wow.
	Then he slept with his wife.
	Yep.
	And he was sleeping with his wife.
	That's crazy.
	Yeah.
	What does it say happen?
	You can say best friend and do that.
	I know.
	That's what's wild.
	So I called my ex to explain to her that I was having a tough time.
	And that's when she told me that Sam had fathered my child.
	Wow.
	Huh.
	Yeah.
	That's crazy.
	Carlo Bov had not been able to legally establish that Sam Kinison was the child's father in court because all the blood tests proved that she was related to the Kinison family.
	Now with the DNA test, he has definitive proof that Sam was the father.
	Wow, that had to be so wild.
	Yeah, I wonder what his thoughts were.
	It's like, because his best friend died.
	And so that's normally something you would be mad about, you know, him sleeping with your wife.
	But at the same time, it's like he left you a little part of himself to raise.
	I don't know.
	It's almost a story out of the Bible, almost, it seems like, you know, in a way.
	Yeah.
	In a way of like, you know, like, or maybe not out of the Bible, but it's like one of those Aesop's fables or something, something where you like learn a lesson learning stuff.
	Because that'd be crazy.
	You would hate him.
	You'd be angry at the wife, but then you'd also have something that you cared about for so long.
	So did he didn't learn that until the death?
	Right.
	He didn't learn until like way after the death.
	Yeah, I think till the, yeah, I think the daughter.
	Wow.
	You have to look at that child a little different too.
	That's not your blood anymore.
	I know.
	I wonder if that starts to happen inside of you.
	But you also had that connection like an adopted child.
	And that probably wouldn't disappear, I think.
	I've seen mixed emotions from different videos.
	Like some men are like, it doesn't matter.
	That's my kid.
	I don't care.
	And then some men are like, well, that's not my kid anymore.
	I don't know how I'd feel in that situation.
	Yeah.
	One guy I saw was playing Hit the Road Jack on his phone after he found out.
	So he was like pretty excited.
	It definitely depends on the man, I guess.
	Yeah, what else have I been listening to?
	Yeah, that in comedy?
	Stephen Wilson Jr.
	I listened to.
	Eddie Ninevolt, I listened to.
	Yeah, we had him listening for us at a show.
	Oh, yeah, we'll do that film.
	Eddie Nine Volt.
	Yeah, bro.
	They're vibey, man.
	Oh, yeah.
	Yep.
	I'm on the come up.
	We got a band called The Moss opening for us on the West Coast.
	I think they're out of Salt Lake.
	They're cool.
	The Moss.
	It's a little more indie rock, yeah.
	Not so much.
	I don't know if you're into that.
	You're West Coast, aren't you?
	Yeah, I would listen to some.
	I would listen to anything.
	A lot of times I need people to tell me what to listen to.
	A good one that they're no longer a band anymore.
	Yeah, The Moss.
	Yeah.
	J. Roddy Walston and the Business.
	Oh, yeah.
	That's some groupie stuff, too.
	That's like some good rock and roll music.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	All the albums they put out.
	Did they put out two or three?
	Oh, I couldn't tell you.
	You introduced them to me.
	J Roddy Walston and the business, baby, I like that.
	That's some cool stuff.
	I don't know if you ever listen to Alabama Shakes.
	Yeah.
	I hate that they're not a band anymore.
	That's one that we looked up to.
	What happened to them?
	Well, I think there's some, we read some dark stuff about one of the members in the band, and I think that probably led to the downfall.
	We don't know how true that was, though.
	Yeah, we don't know if it's true, but I think they are a band like we are that started together equally.
	You know, like a lot of bands nowadays are built around a star or a singer.
	And I think they were one that started together and ended up breaking up together.
	More of a constellation.
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	Yeah, what happened?
	In 2018, the band went on hiatus due to Howard's focus on her solo project, Jamie.
	Yes, he's done a bunch of stuff after that.
	Which led to a solo tour in 2019.
	Howard released her second solo album in 2024.
	In June 2020, guitarist Heath Fogg released his debut solo project under the name Sun.
	Yeah, I'm not familiar with any of that, but Alabama Shakes was incredible.
	And was that all the members of Alabama Shakes?
	What's that?
	Those people right there?
	Some of them.
	That's part of the band.
	So some of them, they obviously just some of them went their own separate ways.
	something must have happened and then went through or she wanted to do her solo stuff Man, that's the scary part, you know?
	Well, that's what's interesting about the ego.
	The ego, you don't know how it's going to grow.
	It grows like a moss, man.
	I could see myself doing solo stuff one day, but I'm not going to quit Red Clay Strays.
	You know what I mean?
	Yes, hers was more of a quit.
	Yeah.
	Like that band Need to Breathe.
	You know who I'm talking about?
	That's another one to listen to.
	Ben knows.
	Their lead singer does a project called Wilder Woods, and he goes and does Wilder Woods stuff, and he still does Need to Breathe stuff.
	This is just if I ever get extra time on my hands and just want to start other projects, I could see myself doing it.
	I definitely wouldn't.
	Need to breathe.
	Yeah, they're great.
	Brandon actually showed me them, too.
	I would say have a pretty similar, we have a similar sound to them, I would say.
	I grew up listening to them.
	That's definitely somebody that I started trying to mimic, like learning how to sing.
	You've got a very powerful, loud voice, and that's how I started singing everything.
	It was very powerful and very loud.
	And then getting into, I guess diving deeper into it, starting to learn technique and how to use your voice and stuff.
	And then I wanted to learn how to sing like opera singers with vibrato and stuff.
	So it just depends on who I'm listening to.
	And would you sing?
	So after you was rattling around the house, mimicking and learning some, you know, and running your pipes, you know, like, did you start to sing in church or what was that like?
	Like, where'd you singing?
	Kind of.
	Yeah, I started to sing.
	How'd you start to sing it?
	Yeah, where'd you start singing at?
	Oh, yeah, that was the first place I ever sing in front of a crowd was at church.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I started playing drums in church when I was like 12. That's a dangerous move, usually.
	Did they put you in that little shed or whatever behind that thing?
	No, I hate those things.
	I do, too.
	Usually the church always puts that guy back there behind that little shed.
	It depends on the church you go to.
	Now, the ones that, you know, that Brandon was in, they're in there jooking.
	It's not contemporary.
	All the churches are moving that way where they want to shield everything and have all of the actual sounds of the instruments coming through the PA system.
	And it's like, I want to feel the sound waves, man.
	I want to go out, just let the drummer play, let the guitar player play.
	Oh, I want to get hit by a damn drumstick in there.
	Yeah.
	I actually had to go to, it was Brandon was playing in the church and John, our drummer.
	John was playing drums in the church.
	This was probably four or five years ago.
	And I grew up in a Catholic church.
	And it's, you know, you walk in with a tie on and the organ's playing and congregation singing.
	I come in there and they are in there throwing down.
	I thought it was a WWE match.
	Oh, yeah.
	And I had to bring John's snare drum.
	He asked me to bring his drum and I'm like in shorts.
	I didn't know what I was coming to.
	It's such a, it's a wild, different environment, but you feel the Holy Spirit moving in a bunch of different ways.
	So there's a lot of energy in there.
	Oh, yeah.
	That's why I've always liked Pentecostal.
	Pentecostal?
	Yeah.
	I'm more non-denominational because I don't really.
	The Baptists, the Pentecostal, the Catholic, this is all preference based in my opinion.
	But I do like a Pentecostal church because I zone out so easily and I'll lose attention.
	And if I got somebody up there screaming at me and stomping his feet and getting into it like a performance, pretty much, it keeps my attention.
	I love that.
	And my pastor, he was like 72 at the time.
	He'd be running across the pews, running over the top of them, and just feeling it, man.
	It's just something that keeps your attention the whole time.
	Yeah, do you think that's had an effect on how you perform kind of?
	Yeah, I'd say so.
	Now, the church he's talking about is where I was going as an adult.
	The church I grew up in was more of a, still a Pentecostal church, but it was more of a smaller building, and a lot of older people were there, and just the old country, southern country church, I guess.
	It wasn't a lot of energy until I started playing drums there.
	Brandon brought the Holy Spirit back in there.
	Did that change the vibe in there a little?
	Yeah, it was literally just, at the time, it was literally just the pastor with no amp or anything, just playing his acoustics, singing hymnals.
	And then I started playing drums, and then they had a keyboard player, and that's, I guess I started doing that around when I was like 12 and played in there all the way up through high school before I started going on the route and being gone all the time.
	Yeah, man, that church, especially if you got a church that's got a feeling in it.
	That's why I remember the first time I went to black churches, man, them things was different.
	I've been looking for a good black church.
	I mean, I see a lot of similarity in the church like Brandon's talking about.
	They're in there getting down.
	The preacher's up there, you know, really preaching and throwing energy into it.
	The music's bumping and jiving.
	Oh, yeah.
	That's what they do.
	Yeah.
	I love that.
	Because, well, there's definitely something.
	I mean, it's even if you look at like Tony Robbins, he jumps on his trampoline before he goes on stage.
	Like, there's something.
	Get that adrenaline going.
	Yeah.
	To get just his like, I think he says it's to get like the lymph in his body, like basically just to get the, it's like shaking the snow globe, baby.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Yeah.
	You want to, you want some weather, you just want nothing, you know?
	So you got to start your own weather a lot of times, you know.
	Hop on that trampoline.
	And a lot of times the Holy Spirit or whatever, that feeling you get, I feel that a lot on stage.
	And that's what I project a lot of times, singing.
	And just to see that in a pastor, you know, feeling that passion to make him raise his voice or to make him stomp his foot.
	Yeah.
	You know, he's up there in the moment.
	He's feeling it.
	And that just keeps you drowned in the whole time.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, man.
	I need to find some good churches that have stuff like that.
	I thought about it.
	That's the South, I think, and just in general with churches.
	I would love to one day maybe end up in a road like that.
	There's some moments on stage where I feel a little bit like a pastor.
	Is that weird to say that?
	Well, I mean, you're up there with a microphone.
	I wouldn't say so.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I don't feel like it in the sense that I'm like some.
	Like a spiritual leader.
	Right, no.
	But I do feel that in a sense, like, oh, I wonder if there's part of me that has this calling a little bit.
	That's what it is.
	It's like a little bit of energy goes through me.
	And like, it's even a moment when I'm talking about God in this one bit.
	And I'm like, I wonder if, why does this bit stand out to me so much?
	You know, or I wonder if...
	Yeah.
	At least whispering.
	At least whispering.
	I think God gives you a platform and it's a constant trade-off.
	God raises you up and gives you a platform and then you turn around and give it back to God and raise him up and then he raises you up and that's just the way I've always looked at it.
	God gives you talents.
	He gives you drives to do things.
	And then gives you a platform and you can either make it about yourself or turn around and give the glory back to God.
	And it's just that constant trade-off that's always going on.
	Wow.
	I never really, yeah, that's a great way to say that, man.
	Like, yeah, it's like volleying with tennis, kind of.
	It's like love, love, love, love, you know?
	Yeah.
	Huh.
	That's fascinating, man.
	Do you have a pretty good faith?
	And is it just you that has a pretty strong faith, Brandon?
	Does a lot of your band members, or is it a church-going group?
	We're definitely not a church-going group, but yeah, we're all pretty faith-based.
	Yeah, especially the five core of it.
	We all come from different religious backgrounds with it, too.
	Like I said, I'm Catholic.
	Drew's Methodist.
	Brandon grew up Pentecostal.
	John, I don't know where he came from.
	Southern Baptist.
	Southern Baptist.
	Wow, yeah.
	So we actually, I mean, we've had a lot of portal then.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And it's like none of us are fighting to live like a Baptist or to live like a Catholic.
	It's just we all grew up that way.
	We have great conversations, though.
	The goal is to do what God puts you here to do.
	And that goes back to not making it about yourself.
	It's something bigger is going on than just yourself.
	And so I think that's another big reason why we haven't broken up or anything.
	Even when we do disagree or get in fights or whatever, the goal doesn't change.
	There's still something bigger going on.
	Yeah.
	But to get everybody to believe that, that's hard to do, you know, because some people can believe something, you know?
	Two out of five people sometimes will be like, yes, this is how I believe.
	And this is how I'm going to behave based on that belief that there is something bigger than us going on.
	But to really get all five, that's pretty miraculous.
	Yeah.
	I think.
	And it's not like, I mean, like even our whole road crew, we're built of, you got Christians, we got atheists.
	It's just like we have a common goal and it could be something different for that other guy, but we know it's something bigger than ourselves.
	Yeah.
	And I know if somebody doesn't believe, it's not my job to save them.
	You know what I mean?
	I'm not going to, I'm not out trying to preach to anybody or convert anybody or anything like that.
	I'm simply just singing songs.
	And if you like it, if you like the message and if you like what we do, then listen.
	And I don't care what you believe or anything like that.
	Yeah.
	Oh, I'm not the Lord's EMT.
	That's what I say.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Listen, you can do is pray for them, man.
	There's power in prayer.
	Yeah.
	I'll follow the ambulance, but I ain't the Lord's EMT.
	You get right behind and get through traffic.
	I used to do that when I'm camera.
	I tuck behind that thing.
	Yeah.
	I'll be going to the house.
	He's the lead to skirt through traffic.
	Yeah, he's lead blocking for me right through rush hour.
	Amen.
	I used to love to try to look in that back window and see what they're doing in there.
	Oh, yeah.
	They should put on the outside what's going on.
	Oh, well, I like how they leave the lights on.
	You can see them in there working on somebody.
	Yeah, it's almost like, it's almost like.
	It's kind of eerie, though, when you see an ambulance with lights but no sirens.
	Like, oh, that guy's dead in there.
	More than likely.
	They'll just drive him to the hospital.
	Well, it's almost like, do they say, is it cheaper not to do the sirens?
	I wonder at that point, it's like, oh, this guy's dead.
	Or just run up the bill.
	This guy's dead.
	Yeah, like, does that siren cost you a little extra?
	They got insurance?
	You go the whole thing.
	They're going to take you.
	You ain't got no insurance.
	You're sitting in traffic.
	We'll get you there, buddy, but you're going to save about $500.
	They should have a second level of ambulance for people that don't want to pay the high premiums of regular ambulances.
	Because how much does it cost for an ambulance to come get you?
	You already had it, dude.
	With insurance, the average out-of-pocket cost for an ambulance ride is $450.
	So that's like an uber black from probably… Oh, yeah.
	You could probably get from Lebanon to here.
	$450 black, maybe?
	That's true.
	I don't know.
	that's a decent rise but a In a regular Uber, yeah.
	That's a long ride.
	Yeah, they should have that secondary market.
	Like, hey, I don't know.
	I'm hurt.
	I don't, you know, I'm not going to die.
	Get me over.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, get maybe a thing of Narcan in the door.
	I feel like Uber could do something for you.
	Uber emergency.
	Uber emergency.
	Uber E. Uber E, yeah.
	Uber E. It's a little more expensive.
	They'll drive like a maniac.
	You maybe get a little yellow light or something.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Nothing crazy.
	Just something that's like if somebody who delivers mail in a rural community, they would put that little orange title.
	They got the minivan.
	You ever seen them left-hand drive minivans?
	Stick you with something?
	Dude, my mom would deliver newspapers, so she would have that one arm.
	Boy, it was just that thing would damn.
	Was she on a left-hand drive, too?
	She'd play for the Mets, dude.
	Nah, she'd keep that window down.
	She'd be saying something to me, and I'd have to just watch out every time, brother.
	And if you did, if you missed the case, you heard the wind come off this thing.
	Oh, you missed the cadence, baby.
	You was full of the news.
	See, that's a mama you don't talk back to.
	She probably got a backhand from.
	She would learn you fast, man.
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	Is pornography causing a problem in your life?
	That's a good question.
	It's a real question.
	It has in mind.
	It has at certain periods in my life.
	Watching porno and everything and watching porno was making me, it was ruining my life.
	It was ruining my life, man.
	It made me feel just so much shame.
	That's what it did.
	Well, watching pornography has become commonplace today.
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	Thank you.
	Did you guys go to college?
	He did.
	Yeah, I graduated in 2018, so I got out at a good time.
	I started playing music right out of high school.
	Really?
	Yeah, he was actually in college a while while we played music, and he'd have to make deals with his professors to come back and take tests and stuff because we'd be out on the road.
	Yeah, our first tour, I was like a sophomore, and I went to my advisor.
	I was like, look, I need two weeks.
	Like, I'm going to do it regardless.
	Please let me make my work up because I want to go to school.
	Yeah.
	And what college was it at?
	South Alabama, University of South Alabama.
	USA, huh?
	USA.
	Red, white, and blue.
	South in your mouth.
	That's what they said.
	That's their mascot?
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, my God.
	The mascot's a Jaguar.
	Yeah, but the motto is South in Your Mouth.
	Yeah.
	Y'all beat that SEC team one time?
	It was Mississippi State.
	I was on the sideline for that one.
	Really?
	Y'all beat State?
	Yeah, we celebrated like it was the Super Bowl.
	Oh, God.
	We came into the house.
	They missed a field goal to win the game, and we rushed the field like too early.
	We had to come back.
	They were still probably at three quarters to play.
	They missed the field goal.
	We out there celebrating on the logo.
	It ain't even happening.
	South in your mouth.
	South in your mouth.
	South of your mouth, dude.
	What is this right here?
	Oh, British man has the largest penis in the United Kingdom.
	That's not a lot of people in that country, just to say.
	Yeah.
	I mean, the U.S. is what?
	Almost four inches.
	This is in the news.
	What do we got here?
	It's about as big as Rhode Island.
	It can be a nightmare, is that right?
	Yes, I think people have, you know, it's a very insalubrious topic to bring up, so I think people have learnt a lot of myths from pornography and stuff where they don't realize the implications that it would have when you're actually living with the situation.
	When did you first realise that perhaps you had a little bit more than some of your classmates or some of your teammates in a sports team?
	Classmates.
	I mean, predictably, this dude was at school.
	I think that's what everyone has the best.
	This dude looks like a bigger than anyone else looks like.
	Yeah, this guy, first of all, this guy seems like a trap.
	I bet this guy does not have the biggest wiener.
	He just is saying that, which is a great thing to say.
	And then you surprise somebody with a basic wiener.
	But the man saying your classmates, how do you know?
	Like, when you're like, hey, let me borrow a ruler.
	And you're like, oh, never mind, actually.
	I got it under control.
	Yeah, that's a creepy situation.
	He looks like a school teacher.
	Yeah.
	Why would you go on the news about that, though?
	Dude, I think the great point.
	That's a lot of ego right there.
	What's the UK got going on?
	Let me take this wiener for a walk, you know?
	I'm going to be on the news.
	How'd they find out?
	Is he posting about it?
	He told.
	Who's he telling?
	Nobody's emailing the news like in the park yesterday, you know.
	Nobody's ever asked him to prove it, though.
	He's just going off word of mouth.
	Yeah, that guy should definitely have to show up every year at a certain meetup.
	Oh, they brought the ruler out, man.
	That man is posed with a ruler.
	Where's he going right there?
	Look at that look on his face and that bottom line.
	Why he won't get size reduction surgery despite all the downsides.
	See if you can find out what the downsides are.
	Just look real quick.
	Let's see.
	Because this is something.
	Because, yeah, a lot of times this is one of those things where you think a lot of things are going to be great and then they're not.
	The reality of it, you know?
	I'm just surprised this is the news over there.
	Yeah, what are they doing in the UK?
	You're going soon, aren't you?
	Yeah, we're going to go over there.
	This is it, I guess.
	You got to meet this.
	You're going to have to bring him to the show.
	Talk about yourself.
	I'm going to have to bring this guy on stage.
	Is it something about Cambridge?
	Where did it say he was?
	Yeah, Ben Shepard is his name.
	Yeah, does it say anything that he says is the problems?
	Oh, to get a reduction in what cost $50.
	Yeah, I guess your insurance.
	I don't know if nobody got insurance in the UK.
	I don't know how it works.
	He could start a GoFundMe.
	That's true.
	Just keep the money.
	Oh, that'd be the crazy thing.
	The money and the wiener.
	We had a guy that did a GoFundMe or whatever, and he was supposed to die or whatever, and he didn't die, and people were all pissed.
	I would imagine.
	Oh, that's a letdown.
	That's a scam.
	Yeah.
	People are like, what's up, Ron?
	Thought you were going to die.
	Where's my 20 bucks, man?
	Yeah, bro, huh?
	All right, pay me back, home.
	Let's see that cash.
	I would hate it.
	It would be cool probably in college, but even then it would be fun.
	Listen to us hating on it.
	I'd hate it.
	No, it's not even fun.
	Don't want it?
	I just wouldn't want to be known for that.
	It'd almost go back to being like one of those circus guys, you know?
	Come see Wiener Baby or whatever.
	Getting paid, getting paid, man.
	Yeah, come see Mr. Watchware or whatever they call it.
	That guy's pretty much the new three-legged gentleman over here.
	There he goes.
	See, that's Frank Lentini.
	Come see the snake lady.
	I wanted my $1 I paid back after I saw that.
	I saw Tom Thumb, world's smallest horse, once.
	It was enjoyable.
	Was it a small horse?
	God, it was a small dog horse.
	I mean, dude, it was this big, brother.
	You think there's like an inbreeding to make them that size?
	It looked like it.
	It looked like it wouldn't go to regular school, I'll say that.
	When I looked in its eyes, but it was this big, man.
	You could tell.
	It rode the short trailer.
	The short trailer.
	Did it still stand up on its head?
	A little bit.
	It tried to.
	Oh, man.
	We out here making fun of that horse.
	I thought it was a pig that they go some hair on.
	Look at Pop Bill.
	That horse got issues, man.
	We in here bullying that poor horse.
	Look at him.
	Look, man, that horse is on the road.
	It's probably opening up for awful.
	For a no-humped camel.
	That horse is doing fine.
	Making money to see.
	You got the Budweiser horses.
	I paid, I think, probably $2, $280.
	Horses can do it.
	Why can't people do it?
	That's a good point.
	That's a great point, huh?
	Let people take the show on the road, man.
	Well, that's the thing.
	We're getting to a point where it's like little things are going to start to start up.
	And a man's going to be, you know, his own little homeless salt bay or whatever and making meats out of his cart.
	And everything's going to have to be financed.
	People are having a tough time.
	Everything becomes for sale.
	Yeah, I mean, everybody's like moving into tiny homes.
	And they're going to starting these little villages.
	Have a little doctor and a dentist and a makeshift trading station.
	Man, we have an end-of-the-world plan, and sometimes I just wish it'd happen.
	Sounds fun.
	You guys have a plan?
	A little bit.
	I can't talk about it because I can tell you where we're at, but we all got little jobs already set up.
	We got land picked out.
	That's cute.
	Sometimes I just think that'd be kind of fun.
	Well, you'd be a bad.
	Yeah, at least you would have a skill too.
	You'd have a band skill.
	Oh, we're going to be hunting and gathering.
	Yeah.
	There ain't going to be no more time for music.
	When he's got Native American in him.
	Yeah, I can track the buffalo.
	We grow the crops.
	Be tracking the buffalo, man.
	We ain't got buffalo in Alabama.
	You don't know what's going on.
	We've got something down there.
	I don't know, dude.
	I've been outside of some.
	Some Alabama Buffalo.
	Do you guys go on tour with the new band now, or it's just your tour now?
	Like, is there a point where you don't open for other bands?
	How does that kind of work?
	It's just our shows now, and they keep selling out.
	So we keep having to move to bigger venues because people are getting pissed about it.
	But we are actually opening up for the Rolling Stones on May the 30th.
	So that's going to be a lot of fun.
	The Rolling Stones album's pretty exciting.
	Where's that at?
	It's on Gillette Stadium in Foxborough.
	Wow.
	That's going to be pretty.
	That one actually just hit us last week.
	So things like that are kind of popping up all the time now?
	Yeah, it's pretty cool because Mick Jagger allegedly has to approve all of the openers.
	So he approved us.
	I think we get to take a picture with him, too.
	I'm not sure.
	It's kind of cool.
	we're kind of at a point now where we're I hate to say too big, but there's a point where you can't open for people.
	And there's now we're in this weird state of trying to get people to open for us.
	There's a, you got to, it's like a juggling act of figuring that out.
	Yeah.
	What bands are big or that can open for you and what bands are we able to open up for, which really be like the Foo Fighters and Chris Stapleton or something at this point.
	And so we only got to really do it a couple times with, especially with Elle.
	We did a whole tour with her like 40 days.
	She's the only one.
	She was the first one that took us out like that.
	And the only one.
	We've never done it with anybody else.
	That's awesome.
	Yeah.
	I saw her perform during COVID here in Nashville.
	Really?
	I haven't been to one of her shows, though.
	I got to go check her out.
	Yeah, she's cool.
	She's good.
	She's on a good show.
	Yeah.
	People love her.
	Was there a moment where you guys kind of felt like, dang, we really got a real shot?
	Like, or we're kind of making it?
	Like, what does this look like?
	Was there like one moment where you guys all just maybe walked into a place and sat down and then you like looked at each other and you're like, damn, are we like making it?
	Are we doing it?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Because it's a weird thing, but it's a real thing that happens.
	We have little moments like that, like when we first got on the tour bus and got off the bar.
	I can't imagine that.
	Getting driven around in a prevost.
	We sold out three days at the rhyme in like four hours, and that was really cool, too.
	And those are in September.
	Is that the ones coming up in September?
	That was a moment like, because we knew we had a good feeling we'd sell one.
	And then it was like, okay, the second one, we got to throw it up right now, like within the hour.
	And it's like, we got a third one.
	We probably could have done five, nine.
	And then the manager was like, hey, pick an opener right now for a third night.
	We're doing it.
	Okay, let me see.
	So we got to throw it up in 30 minutes.
	I'd say that's a moment.
	And we got some big shows coming up this fall that are going to be kind of one of those moments.
	Like, I don't know specifically, but those rooms are getting bigger.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Do you pick openers together like that as a group?
	Yeah, we pick all our openers.
	We industry.
	I mainly let Drew and Andrew, y'all do a really good job at picking them.
	Yeah.
	We just kind of find music we like and send it to the agents and, hey, what they cost.
	Can we get them?
	We have friends too, like Taylor Honeycutt.
	She's from Montgomery, and she got started about the same time we did, and she's on the upclimb as well.
	So she's actually on one of our rhyming shows.
	Taylor Honeycutt?
	This is great, man.
	It's going to give me a lot of good stuff to listen to.
	Yeah.
	Oh, Belgian man whose body makes its own alcohol cleared of drunk driving.
	Yeah.
	I've heard about this before.
	It's a syndrome of alcoholism.
	Yeah, it does.
	But it's where your body makes booze.
	Let me see.
	A Belgian man has been acquitted of drunk driving because he has auto brewery syndrome.
	A rare condition whereby the body produces alcohol, his lawyers said.
	Wow.
	People are not born with ABS, but can develop it when they already have another intestine-related condition.
	Patients can present with symptoms consistent with alcohol intoxication, such as slurred speech, stumbling, loss of motor power.
	Yeah, that's not similar.
	He's just always drunk.
	That's got to be crazy, though, if you just.
	To not have to drink anything, but you're always buzzed.
	How does that happen?
	Does he have to put like fruit juice in and get some hooch out?
	I don't know.
	Like, Randy's burping, y'all.
	It's going to be a.
	Don't let him drink that apple juice.
	Hello.
	He's peeing liquor at that point.
	Don't let him drive, man.
	I've got a hard time believing.
	That sounds like some European stuff.
	Auto brewery syndrome or gut fermentation syndrome is a condition in which ethanol is produced through the endogenous fermentation by fungi or bacteria in the gastrointestinal system, oral cavity or urinary system.
	Dang, you can make your own body wine, baby.
	So does that come with the problem of drinking too much alcohol, too?
	I don't know.
	Are you literally an alcoholic?
	I guess just by standing around.
	What happens if he gives blood?
	Shoot, I don't know.
	I'll take a pint, though.
	Yeah, baby.
	I'll take two pints.
	Look that man up.
	What else?
	Any other news we got?
	I did see they had, what was that?
	Oh, they had that a dog that.
	Did you see this?
	It's like, look it up.
	It's a dog.
	Yeah, yeah.
	This is at Therminator?
	Throw Flame Unveils Robot Dog Therminator with flamethrower attached.
	The Ohio-based Hermitian $9,400.
	Look at this dog you can have.
	$9,400.
	That's the Boston Dynamics dog.
	Yeah.
	Dude, that's like Elon Musk when he put those flamethrowers out, except you can have it hooked to a robot.
	$94.
	Look at that.
	That's Elon Musk get fired.
	That's like a nice, that's a decent used car price right there.
	You could have that 2008 Durango out there.
	What do you need though?
	What's the purpose of that dog with a flamethrower?
	Burn stuff.
	Yeah, light a cigarette probably.
	Burn a trash pile.
	Dude.
	Or cook up some damn catfish, dude.
	I'll tell you this, that thing will grill up a tilapia, homie.
	Man.
	Bro, that thing could be a waiter for that homeless guy with that cart.
	We're going to start seeing some crimes.
	Like, what if this is.
	That guy who just set himself on fire in New York, if he was going to do that, he could have done it with one of those dogs.
	Yeah.
	Would have been.
	It'd have made the news probably a little bigger.
	Yeah, yeah.
	It would have been.
	He was trying to start a revolution, apparently.
	Was he?
	Yeah.
	You haven't seen that?
	I didn't see it.
	I know that it happened.
	Yeah.
	There was some protest.
	I know my man set himself on fire.
	If you're going to start a revolution, at least use a robot dog with a flamethrower to do it.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	That's.
	Are those legal?
	We're going to stop seeing drive-bys and it's going to be people walking people.
	I'll tell you this: you could start some, if you get angry at your neighbor, that thing, you could burn someone's home down.
	Yeah.
	Just comes out of the garage and walks across the street.
	Like, oh, shit.
	Hey, Jim, check out what I got.
	Or be petty.
	Don't even burn the house down.
	Just burn their bushes down.
	Yeah.
	Oh, that would be the worst, bro.
	You come out in the morning and your azaleas are gone.
	Trash their grass.
	So what do y'all's folks think as your lives change?
	Has that been interesting or has it been.
	I mean, it's been so long.
	It's just normal, I guess.
	Yeah.
	It hasn't.
	I mean, I know it seems like we kind of just come out of nowhere, but we've been doing this for seven or eight years now.
	So they've been on the bandwagon the whole time.
	I mean, yeah, my mom really wanted me to finish college.
	She did.
	Yeah, I did.
	I was like halfway through sophomore year when I realized I could just do this.
	And it was, she really wanted me to finish.
	She wasn't paying for it either.
	Did you get your degree?
	Yeah, I got it.
	Oh, yeah.
	I was kind of blessed in the sense of my parents weren't very hands-on as far as that goes.
	They were like, well, trust God and do what you're going to do, man.
	You know, just pray and have a relationship with God and go find your calling.
	You know, I didn't really have people holding my hand too much or overbearing parents or anything like that.
	Yeah.
	I could see it being tough, though, as a parent, and that's what your kids getting into, you know, because especially our parents, they grew up in the 70s, 80s.
	Back then, it was a lot different.
	Yeah, dude, my dad for me.
	My dad works in construction, so I was like, yeah, son, if you want to be a rock star, go do it.
	Oh, that's awesome.
	Yeah, it probably is.
	I guess that's a two different types of parents.
	It's either you got to go with something safe, or are you going to be like, dude, I've had to do something safer.
	Won't you get out there and take a swing at it both?
	Well, what people need to realize is whatever you want to do, you have to make that your safe, make that your safety net.
	You can only go so long with a backup plan or eventually you're going to just have to dive into it and make that your safety net.
	Yeah.
	Figure it out.
	Yeah, that's a good point, man.
	Even with like comedy, you hear a lot of comics started out sleeping in the back of their cars.
	I mean, same with musicians, sleeping out in their cars to go do another show the next day.
	And you just got to send it.
	Yeah, I remember.
	I was in love one time with a girl and I was like, I tried to stop and do real estate for a while and I couldn't do real estate real good.
	I actually filled out that one of the leases wrong or something.
	Bought the house.
	No.
	I had to pay some lady's rent, though.
	Really?
	Yeah.
	I messed up.
	During COVID, I sold roofs.
	You sold roofs?
	Yeah.
	During 2020 when those two or three hurricanes hit the Gulf Coast at once.
	Oh, yeah.
	Everybody was down there just selling roofs.
	And I was working with one of the companies that was owned by one of my friends because he knew COVID had happened and shows weren't very common at the time.
	So he hooked me up with a job working with him.
	And I think I sold three or four roofs.
	And every single roof that I sold, he lost money on.
	He'd get under there and just find more and more stuff wrong with it.
	It ended up being like a $40,000 job and the insurance only covered like $20,000 of it.
	You're like, Brandon, I'm not a good roof seller, man.
	I'm not a good salesman, period.
	Because salesman's job is to convince you to buy something.
	And my attitude was just like, buy it or not, I don't care.
	If you don't want it, no skin off my back.
	That's like the opposite of what you're supposed to do.
	Hurricane jobs are a real thing where we are.
	You hope for them hurricanes.
	Well, it's so funny.
	It's like you kind of like, yeah.
	Yeah.
	So many of my friends work in like where they sell the Cal process, like people's insurance claims and all of that.
	Man, that's during COVID.
	My fiancé's dad is an insurance adjuster.
	So I was like unchained.
	I was climbing on people's roofs, marking stuff with a, I had no idea.
	I was up there just circling stuff.
	Just drawing whatever?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I'd sign my name on half of them.
	Just go up there and circle damage and take a picture of it.
	Well, what's scary is...
	You got this hippie coming and climbing on your roof up there coloring and drawing.
	Yeah, he's just writing widespread panic lyrics up there.
	Yeah, you need a new roof.
	Draw the Wayland symbol.
	Yeah.
	Have you guys gotten to meet Widespread?
	No, no.
	I mean, we listen.
	I wouldn't say we're the biggest fans, but I mean, I think everybody's listened to him at this point.
	Yeah, yeah.
	It's just something, you don't hear a lot of people get to meet.
	It's just, they're kind of like one of those interesting groups, you know.
	It's like we played with Eric Church, didn't meet him.
	He sent a bottle of whiskey with a note, but we didn't meet the guy.
	That's because he would literally fly in and play the show and fly out.
	I think that's how a lot of those really, really big guys are.
	They come in, get business done, and they're out there.
	I went to Eric's house a couple years ago.
	I was sitting out with him.
	Yeah.
	And wrote a song.
	Me and Matthew and Drew wrote a song with him.
	How did something like that get set up?
	I have no idea.
	I think one of the booking agents reached out to him?
	Probably.
	Yeah, I think it got set up through the managers, and I don't really know.
	I can't remember how that went about.
	If he reached out to us or if we reached out to him.
	Are there writing sessions that you have scheduled coming up kind of thing?
	Or is that just once in a while sort of thing?
	How does like, because you guys have a new album, so you won't be writing for a while, or you just kind of write as you go?
	Me, Drew, and Matthew make a yearly trip up here in January after the new year.
	And that's, we usually stay up here for a week and do a bunch of writing.
	And we're trying to do that more often now.
	But yeah, sometimes we'll meet people too and just get a co-write scheduled.
	A lot of times, though, when we write our stuff of our own, it happens when we're at home.
	It's very hard to write and make music when you're touring all the time.
	Yeah, and most of our songs come from with Brandon, Drew, and Matthew writing rather than from a co-write somewhere.
	Yeah.
	It's just kind of how it happens.
	That's how it happens, man.
	We play all the new records at the live shows, pretty much.
	Oh, sweet, sweet.
	That's how we test them out.
	Yeah, and so the feedback, the response has been good.
	Well, that's how we even do it before we even go in the studio.
	We just start playing stuff.
	If the crowd, if we don't feel a good response, then we kind of go back and change a couple things, and they kind of grow with us on the road.
	And we get, I mean, it's like it's quick feedback.
	You're constantly in a space where you can explain.
	Yeah, we can test.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	That's pretty awesome, huh?
	Yeah.
	It's like going out and trying jokes on the crowd, see if he laughs or not.
	Yeah, no, it's that is one nice thing about having shows where you're just kind of cruising along and you're working and you're writing at the same time.
	Because I learn a lot of times in the moment up on stage, you know.
	I think it's, you can write it, but it's, yeah.
	After a while, you kind of know your voice too, and you know what it'll kind of roll for you.
	I think that's what you can't.
	That's what you can't get.
	And I'm not knocking anybody who does like the voice or American Idol because if that's your way, if that's the path you want to take, then cool.
	But you can't skip the road dogging it.
	You can't skip playing in front of a crowd or playing in front of empty rooms.
	No matter if you win a TV show or not, you're still going to have to acquire that experience or it's just, you're going to have a hard time navigating, trying to figure out how to work a crowd or figure out what works and what doesn't work.
	Yeah, that's a good point.
	I would hate to have gotten to had a chance to have a larger crowd and not known.
	I mean, even then, it's still tough sometimes because it's still, you're in front of a huge group of people.
	I mean, you see all the time, like entertainers have problems with people throwing them out.
	We've had to throw people out of shows or people throwing stuff at like Nikki Minaj gets something thrown at her every other week, it looks like.
	I don't understand that.
	Yeah, me neither.
	But it's like there's always going to be that element that you're in a live space.
	But to not have had the reps of like, I know how to be here.
	It gives you some confidence, too.
	Yeah.
	But yeah, I couldn't imagine, especially a comedian, like you're saying, that just gets thrown out to the wolves.
	You're here so an arena.
	Good luck.
	But a lot of those guys off Kill Tony will have to do that.
	That's a good point.
	They go from a minute to, I don't know what you get as an opener.
	Well, they do.
	Do you get a couple more?
	Yeah, that's the goal.
	Armor, when you got to, they usually start to with three minutes.
	As a, as a, like, first opener?
	Yeah, comedian with three minutes.
	Like when you're first starting out, they're like, okay, you're on a show.
	It's like you're going to do three minutes.
	Wow.
	And you're like, okay, can I get through three minutes?
	And if you have to get down early, you're just like, I'm done.
	And they're like, well, you weren't, but okay, come on back here.
	You know?
	And then you try to get up to five.
	And when you really start feeling like you're rocking as a comedian is when you get to like.
	That 15 mark?
	Yeah, I could see that.
	You got a little time to get uncomfortable.
	You're like, I might go on the road.
	You might start saying shit like that to people.
	And people are like, you're out of your mind.
	Do you work?
	You work at Dairy Queen?
	Yeah.
	You know what I'm saying?
	You're out of your mind.
	I got a 15-minute set, man.
	You don't know me.
	I'm going to go to her.
	I'm out of here.
	And you just start yelling at people while you're trying to throw that trash into the bin at night behind the Dairy Queen.
	Testing it out on the homeless people who are still hanging around outside.
	Yeah.
	And then that's when it gets like, that's when you can kind of go on the road with somebody.
	But then there's those moments where you get stranded.
	You burned all your 15 in 10 minutes.
	It was a bad show and you still have to kill five minutes.
	We've had shows where you just want it to be over.
	Yeah.
	What is it?
	Sometimes it's the energy of a room.
	It's just the night just is what it is.
	I mean, we had one recent.
	Sometimes it's just from being tired.
	Like we're trying to think now where no more than four shows a week and no more than three in a row.
	Yep.
	Because by that third show, and we've had five shows in a row.
	And it's like by that third show, you usually you need a break.
	And at the end of the day, you're taking away from the crowd anyway, because if you're up there tired and too tired to give it your all, then you're selling your crowd short.
	Yeah, you just kind of go into the motions.
	But I mean, we've done that and people at the show is like, that's the best show I've ever seen.
	And sometimes we're sorry.
	Sometimes it's like Tortuga, though, where it's like everybody's vibing to a completely different style of music than we play.
	And then we show up just playing rock and roll and the crowd's just like, bring back the, bring back the bro country or pop country.
	And then we're in the middle of it.
	And we don't even consider ourselves country.
	It's just like we ruined everybody's beach party.
	Yeah.
	They're out there.
	They want songs about getting drunk.
	Oh, I could see that.
	Kind of, you guys are kind of in a little bit, not your own space, but what is it?
	I don't know.
	We just do what we want, I guess.
	We call it non-dom rock.
	Yeah.
	I like that.
	Non-denominational rock and roll.
	It's just like all over the place.
	Everybody's at that beach, and we're like, here's one about mental health.
	Yeah.
	Enjoy.
	If you know somebody.
	Strays, though.
	That's kind of strays.
	That's what strays do, man.
	Yeah, that part came from just kind of being, I wouldn't say outcast, but we were always a little different from the crowds we grew up in.
	Didn't quite fit in.
	I went to private school.
	I didn't fit in with a lot of those kids.
	I didn't really put that together, too.
	Yeah, we are kind of straying from the norm.
	From the norm musically.
	A lot of people don't really know where to put us.
	Well, there's some riffs in there.
	Sometimes I feel like some of it has an Aerosmith kind of.
	It's interesting.
	I'll go through different moments where I feel different things, you know.
	Yeah, it's just, I mean, we don't, when we're writing or making music, we don't try to sound like anybody.
	I mean, we just do what we think sounds cool.
	Yeah.
	I think that's really cool to find your own little niche.
	Yeah.
	Well, look, I think it's just a testament to, but to be able to figure out what works for five guys at once, it's pretty remarkable, you know?
	Because you really have, you have five inputs, even though you have only three or four guys contributing maybe on the songwriting edge.
	We still all work it up together.
	Yeah, we all create the songs together, yeah.
	But then, yeah, it just goes back to not being able to skip that step, playing in front of crowds together as a band and road dogging it and everything that comes along with all of that.
	That's where you start to figure out how each other plays or what each other is about to do.
	It's kind of like, what is it, telekinesis?
	Telekinesis.
	Telekinetic.
	No, it's not telekic.
	What's the word we're looking for?
	Telepathic.
	Where the women all get on the same menstrual cycle or whatever?
	Like on a volleyball team?
	We definitely have that.
	Oh, yeah.
	Well, we're on the same musical cycle.
	I like that, man.
	Any unique things that have happened out on the road?
	Any Wildcat?
	Oh, man.
	We got stories for days.
	Anything that really shook you out there?
	Being recent?
	Or just some general?
	Back in the day, we've had bus fires.
	We've blown.
	We did a whole transmission swap ourselves in Colorado.
	No way.
	We bought another bus.
	We were going through Colorado.
	I think I-70 had washed out.
	Yeah, I-70 was washed out.
	So we had to go the fair play up through where South Park is, and it's like 13,000 feet.
	And we had to go the back way to get to Grand Junction.
	We were going up the side of this mountain, and I was laying in my bunk.
	I was driving.
	I hear like Andrew screaming.
	I had my headphones in and I hear him screaming like, we just blew the transmission out.
	And like, we're literally on the side of a mountain.
	Yeah, it's 90 degrees straight down, 90 degrees straight up, two-lane road.
	And just right there.
	Like right against the side of it with rocks, and there's a falling rock sign.
	And Drew steps out of the bus and hits some gravel and immediately falls down.
	Just test.
	He gets up and starts punching the bus.
	We're all just, I just knew it was happening.
	We're just going.
	And when you get up that high, with our diesel, especially, you lose, you know the math.
	You lose what, 3% for every thousand feet or so.
	Of what, brain power or whatever?
	No, that hard brain power.
	No, for the motor.
	Oh.
	Like if the air is so thin, the motor has to work harder.
	Probably some brain power too.
	We're definitely losing some brain power.
	I'm not good with altitude.
	I've had some bad times.
	And how did you get that thing back down?
	You need a tow trunk?
	Yeah, we had a whole bunch of stuff.
	We had to get a semi-truck and loaded the bus up and our trailer.
	Like a $5,000 tow.
	A state trooper gave us a ride as well out of the goodness of his heart.
	And yeah, Buena Vista, Colorado.
	And there was like one hotel room left in that whole town because I was calling and calling and calling while we're waiting on the tow truck and finally got it.
	And we all piled up in that one hotel room.
	I'm like, well, what are we going to do?
	Me and Andrew, so we had the bus dropped off at a transmission shop in town and it was probably a good four miles away.
	And we got up the next morning right before the sun come up and just start walking towards it.
	And we're like 10,000 feet.
	I mean, we aren't sea level men.
	We ain't built for that.
	We finally make it to the transmission shop and he's like, man, I'm two months backed up.
	Get this thing out of here.
	I can't work on this.
	And so we're walking back to the hotel, wondering what we're going to do.
	And we've been in that situation before.
	And because, I mean, we've had to roll up the shops like, hey, we ain't leaving.
	You're going to fix it or we stay in here with you.
	And it's not like, we just have to throw money at people, like, just work on it.
	We'll pay you whatever.
	And he's not having it.
	Damn.
	He's like, sorry.
	Isn't that where the shining is, where the hotel is?
	Buena Vista?
	I don't think so.
	I don't think so.
	This is not a very nice.
	I mean, it's beautiful, but it's not a big town, like where that big hotel would be.
	Okay.
	Ben might have to pull that one up.
	I'm not sure where that's at.
	Yeah, see where that's at.
	It is up in the mountains somewhere, though.
	Is that Montana?
	That's in Oregon, man.
	Dude, that place is in England?
	No, the interiors are filmed.
	No, The Shining, yeah.
	The interior, yeah, the Real Overlook Hotel, maybe?
	You know, we got Good Godly Woman and the sequel to The Shining for like two seconds.
	Oh, yeah?
	Yeah.
	Dr. Sleep.
	But to continue what we were talking about, was we started having to, we started walking back, just like, what do we do?
	And we have to start, me and Brandon's hitchhiking through this town in Colorado.
	Literally walking out with a third wheel.
	Uh-uh.
	Yeah.
	This old guy in the Jeep picks us up and he gave us a ride to the hotel.
	We were just like, we have to do something.
	Damn.
	We've been picked up by strangers a bunch of times.
	He dropped us off and he's like, hey, there's a white water rafting company that sells buses like the one you're talking about.
	Maybe hit them up, see if you can buy a bus from them.
	And we were like, yeah, whatever.
	Thank you.
	Still tried to find someone to rebuild the transmission and the closest person that would was in Denver three hours away.
	He said, if you pull it and bring it to me, I'll build it for you.
	And so before we resorted to that, we had rented a U-Haul van and went and talked to that company, the White Water Rafting Company.
	And he had a bus just like ours that had a freshly rebuilt transmission in it.
	And he put like 30 miles on it and parked it because he bought a school bus.
	They used the buses to bus people out to the river to White Water Raft.
	And he said he'd sell us the bus for three grand.
	And then he figured out we were a band.
	And he was like, well, if y'all play a show for us, I'll knock a grand off the price.
	No way.
	We were here for like four days.
	And the place is so they do that white water rafting.
	All these teenagers come to be the gods.
	Like a bunch of river rats come in and they, you know, those campers on the back of a pickup truck?
	Yeah.
	It's a field full of them.
	And that's laying on the ground.
	That's where these kids are living.
	In those?
	Yeah.
	And the grass is all grown up around them.
	And they don't have power.
	So it's just the ground and then the camper top?
	And the camper top.
	And it's like a trailer park of them.
	They're everywhere.
	But it's not a full trailer.
	It's just the little cab.
	It's a little cabinet, isn't it?
	What do you mean?
	Yeah, I mean, well, I think you can stand up in them, but they have like that little part in the top you can sleep in.
	Here's what I'm picking a picture in, like a pickup truck, and then that thing that goes on the back.
	That goes on the bed, yeah, like sits down.
	It goes on the bed and kind of goes over the top.
	It's over the top of the cab.
	Oh, no, not that.
	I'm just thinking of the one that just goes, that's even.
	Oh, you're thinking of a camper shell.
	No, this is like a motor home.
	Well.
	Now I know what you're talking about.
	Yeah.
	With the piece that goes over the top.
	And they're all window unit in them sometimes.
	And these are straight hippies.
	And there's no trucks, just those?
	Just those.
	And the grass is all growing over top of them.
	They're living in them.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, it's like those.
	Not as nice.
	Like that one on the top right.
	Yeah, 100%.
	No, left.
	That one's too big.
	That one.
	It's a bunch of those.
	And these kids are straight up real life hippies.
	Like, straight up.
	We were playing.
	We sat up and played for them and they were dancing in-between songs kind of thing.
	It's all gravel.
	It's all dusty in here in the rafting building.
	Yeah, they're still there.
	There's probably 30 or 40 of these kids.
	Because I say kids, they're probably in their late teens, early 20s.
	It was in the big building where they keep all the boats.
	And we sat up in there, and it was like a gravel floor, and just the dust from them that hippie shuffle.
	Dude, that's incredible.
	And that was, yeah, look up, see what rafting company that was.
	That's phenomenal.
	Whitewater rafting in Buna Vista.
	Yeah, we can, I mean, there's a couple.
	It's in Buna Vista.
	Some whitewater, something.
	So then you guys take off in that new bus?
	Well, no.
	We get the tow truck to drop our bus off next to the one we just purchased, and then we just start taking them apart.
	And we took the transmission out of ours, took the transmission out of the other one, and swapped them around.
	And I did something wrong in the process.
	I didn't put the torque converter all the way in.
	And so we bolted it up and bent a pump gear and had to pull it back out and take it to that original transmission shop.
	And we pulled one of the, what he was talking about, like, hey, we need you to fix this.
	We ain't leaving.
	He ended up having a soft spot.
	He actually helped us out big time.
	He took it apart and straightened out what I had accidentally bent and put it back together.
	And then we got it back in there.
	A two-day job turned into like a five-day job, and it was miserable.
	But while like Brandon and a couple of the, and this is just the five of us on the road together, they would be working on dropping the transmission or getting the other one ready.
	Me and Zach would be just ripping every part we could get our hands on on this bus.
	You don't see these buses ever in like a pull apart.
	Usually somebody will take them in.
	It's a 7.3 diesel.
	Those never show up.
	So we're getting every part you could put a hand on, snatching it out.
	We took out like the turbo.
	We took the back AC unit.
	We took the driver's chair, took the steering, the steering box underneath it.
	That thing would never drive ever again in its life.
	Damn.
	We just straight pull apart.
	Somebody asked if they could have it and we were like, yeah, you can have it.
	He was like, we'll just drive.
	I'll take this, huh?
	Yeah, he said, steer it over here, and I'll pull.
	I was like, you ain't steering nothing.
	So we straight left it.
	You're like, we took the steering.
	We took everything.
	That thing was, we took the bumper.
	We swapped the bumpers, everything.
	I took the taillights, but we got it put back, our bus put back together with all these other parts and got down to Mississippi.
	So you guys had to miss some shows in it?
	Or you had a little break?
	I think we missed one show.
	Did we?
	I don't know if we did.
	Where were we heading?
	Mississippi.
	No, we were heading somewhere else.
	Oh, Grand Junction.
	We missed the last Colorado show, but we had four days off, so we made it.
	We just buckled up and drove.
	Wow.
	Yeah, that was a time in our lives that was...
	I think it was that American Adventure Expeditions looks familiar.
	Yeah.
	We went and stopped somewhere that's a good whitewater raft, and it was in Tennessee, though.
	It was over near Chattanooga.
	I've never done it before.
	It looks fun.
	It's nice, but they didn't take us out.
	You'd think that had been part of the deal, but there's your bus.
	Oh, man.
	That's it.
	I mean, that's the town.
	That's where we were trapped for four days.
	It was beautiful.
	Oh, yeah, but we were underneath that thing, bench pressing this transmission, and this dude comes by and he crawls up under there with us.
	It's hippie.
	He had like a touching.
	He's like, let me touch everybody.
	Get his hands on us.
	Eliza Thornberry.
	He's like, man, we're having a moment right now.
	It's like, yeah, man, we're having a moment this whole week.
	Thank you.
	Then he offered us some drugs.
	He's like, man, y'all like to party?
	Like, yeah, we like to party.
	He's like, man, I got ketamine.
	I got cocaine.
	I've got all sorts of stuff.
	We're like, no, man, we're good.
	We're going to bench press this transmission.
	He wasn't really good at reading the room.
	Just covered in grease, trying to put a bus bag together.
	I ain't doing no cocaine with someone who's super homeless.
	Oh, yeah.
	These are.
	I don't know.
	Yeah.
	I'll see where you're not living at.
	Let's party.
	Let's walk.
	Come back to my camper.
	We'll hang out.
	But if somebody's super homeless, dude, I'm out.
	That could have been it, too.
	That looks pretty familiar.
	It was what was across.
	There was two of them across the street from each other.
	There was a dominoes down the street.
	That's all we had to eat.
	Oh, yeah, they're always eating.
	Next to a mechanic shop.
	They shared a driveway because they'd sleep at where you're there.
	The hotel was right in front of the rafting place.
	I think that night we had to sleep on the bus.
	Yeah, we had to sit down.
	As it was still blocked up, we opened the windows and camped out in it, man.
	Just like the hippies.
	Hell yeah.
	And that's when you're like, oh, now I see where that guy was coming from.
	Yeah.
	It was, that was.
	That was a tough time.
	Yeah, there's the dominoes.
	Yeah, and I think it was, it's the one across, it's the adventure company.
	Yeah.
	That's who you guys are, man.
	Y'all are the adventure company.
	You guys have been on a lot of adventures, man.
	I got a good rating.
	That's the raft.
	That's something.
	Look at this.
	There's that building, go up one, Ben?
	That one.
	No, y'all played in that raft room?
	That one.
	Yeah, we played in that raft room right there.
	Amen.
	That's where we set up.
	Wow.
	They were still rafts hanging around.
	People were hanging out at them, watching the shows.
	It's kind of cool.
	Bro, that's unreal looking.
	We'll have to get in contact with those folks.
	Dude, if you guys went back through there at some point.
	Probably that bus is probably still laying where we left it.
	We had to go check on that bus.
	Yeah.
	Amen, man.
	They hate that mechanic shop next door.
	They hated each other.
	But you guys were kind of like the bridge between them at that time.
	Yeah, except we left that bus.
	That mechanic said he was going to go get it.
	I bet he never went and got it.
	It's probably still sitting in the same place.
	Any stray animals you pick up out there?
	Speaking of the strays.
	No, not really.
	Trying to think.
	We've hit some animals.
	Amen.
	We did.
	And R.I.P.
	Sorry.
	But hey, look, sometimes the Lord uses you and your vehicle to bring an animal home.
	Exactly.
	It's good for the population.
	Let this respond somewhere.
	Yeah.
	Dude, I'm so excited about the new album.
	When will it come out?
	Do we know yet?
	We're thinking late summer.
	Yeah, hopefully around August time.
	It's about to start picking back up again.
	I think everybody's going to really like it.
	I'm amazed that you guys aren't even impressed with yourselves yet.
	I don't know.
	One of those things you kind of can't take it for granted.
	It's going to be taken from you tomorrow, you know?
	Yeah.
	We could scanner this thing and die in a plane crash.
	Hopefully not.
	People get popular too, and they're popular for however long, and then time goes by and then nobody knows who they are anymore.
	That could very well be us.
	Who knows?
	Just try to be thankful for it and never want to be like complacent, I guess.
	Always want to be trying to get better.
	Just be a better person, put on a better show, and be a better band, make better music.
	Just keep, never stop growing, you know?
	Yeah.
	Well, the rest of us are impressed, man.
	I'll say that, dude.
	Good deal.
	I'm getting a lot of better music out there.
	Thank you guys so much for making good tunes.
	And yeah, excited to hear the new album.
	Do we even know a name of it yet?
	Give it to them, Brandon.
	Huh?
	Just give it to them.
	The album's going to be called Made by These Moments.
	It's got a good message to it.
	I'm excited.
	I'm excited for people to hear the music, but it's just got a good message as well.
	So it's going to be cool.
	No, we've never told anybody that publicly.
	Nope.
	Nice.
	You heard it here first.
	I'm sure you'll email me tomorrow and ask me to take it out, but that's all right.
	No, we don't take it in charge here, buddy.
	We make the calls.
	Oh, man.
	We make calls.
	Yeah, well, thanks for sharing that.
	Made by these moments, man.
	Yeah, it's a lot of what life is, man.
	You know, making them good ones, too.
	I mean, that's what it stands for for us.
	All those stories we were just talking about is why we're here.
	So it means a lot to us.
	Amen.
	Red Clay Strays, boys.
	Thank you guys so much, man.
	I appreciate it.
	Thank you guys for coming and just chatting and spending time.
	Good to get to know you guys a little bit.
	And yeah, I look forward to coming out and being able to catch another show soon.
	Yeah, you just let us know.
	We always got a spot on the list for you.
	Gang, baby, you guys stay healthy out there, man.
	Me too.
	You too, man.
	Thank you.
	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 I found I can feel it in my bones.

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