Stephen Wilson Jr. is a musician and songwriter originally from southern Indiana. He was recently nominated for “New Artist of the Year” at the CMAs and his new single “Gary” is out now.
Stephen joins Theo to talk about memories from the midwest growing up, his dad’s legacy as a boxer and man, and why it’s never too late to rewrite your own story.
Stephen Wilson Jr.: https://www.instagram.com/stephen.wilson.jr/
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Today's guest is a musician and a songwriter, originally by way of southern Indiana.
He's got that voice in him.
He's got that power in him.
He's got it.
He's got it.
He has a new single, Gary, that's out now and a sold-out tour in the spring.
I'm thankful to finally get to sit down with Mr. Stephen Wilson, Jr.
Man, I'm such a fan of yours on all levels.
Your podcast and your comedy and your humanity.
So, yeah, it's an honor to be here.
I appreciate it.
Stephen Wilson Jr., thank you so much, dude.
Yes, it's really cool.
I think this is one of those moments where I feel, yeah, like just so lucky that I get to, that some of this job has ended up like this, like getting to talk to people that, yeah, some people would love to sit down with, you know?
So thanks so much, man.
I appreciate it.
You have, you just had, you had a pretty decent run at the CMAs this year.
Yeah, it was a, oh, you know, I was new artist of the year.
Yes, I was nominated for new artist of the year, which blew my mind.
And did you win a Red Clay Strays one who?
Zach Top one.
Zach Top one.
Very well deserved.
That man has had a big year, and I'm a big fan of his.
And I was very happy for him.
And I was really rooting for everybody but myself.
I didn't really think I even had a prayers chance in hell of winning.
But I was just like, honestly, being nominated was a huge win for me because, you know, I wasn't supposed to be there on paper.
You know, like there's a lot of, there's a lot of things that like I contradict.
And so just being there, you know, it meant a lot just to be out there.
And it was really wild when I remember when they said my name and like it didn't feel like that's somebody else.
Oh, yeah.
That's not me.
That's like a.
Oh, for sure.
Well, do you think of yourself as country music?
I do.
Yeah.
I am a country boy.
I grew up in the country.
So I am very country just by culture.
And I cannot help but write country songs.
I grew up listening to country music and classic rock.
I grew up in body shops and it was all classic rock and country music, old school and 90s.
And so that was kind of my pedigree, my listening pedigree.
And then I grew up very country, very agrarian, kind of hunting for our own food.
And I ate a lot of squirrels growing up and rabbits.
And yeah, we just grew up very country.
It wasn't trendy at all either.
It was like just a means of survival.
My dad was raising three kids on his own.
And so he just went out and killed food.
It was a lot cheaper than buying it at the grocery store.
Like, you know, one slug, one deer slug could feed you for like three months.
So like, that's the way he looked at it.
Oh, there's a beautiful group right there, you guys, kids, huh?
That's my dad and his three little ones.
And that's, that's me.
That you on the bottom left there, kind of the middle?
Yeah, in the middle.
Yeah.
And who's that dime on his lap, huh?
I mean, that respect for you.
I'm just a child.
Who's that beautiful young lady?
Yeah, that's my little sister, Lacey J. Lacey J. Lacey J.
Yeah, named after Lacey J Dalton, another country singer.
And yeah, she's his little girl.
And she is beautiful.
And she's a beautiful person in general.
She's really kept our whole family.
Me and my brother right there, we're like Irish twins.
We're only like a year and a few months apart.
So we grew up beating the hell out of each other.
We were both boxers.
My dad right there in this picture, he had just won, you know, the Golden Gloves for like the third or fourth time in a row.
And, you know, he was probably just running over to like Owen Mills or somewhere at Walmart and grabbing this picture real quick.
So just so like, just so there's proof that we existed and proof that he did this.
And I always find it wild that he had time to even snap that picture amidst his life.
It was so crazy.
Well, and for a dad to put that together, that didn't say, you know, that wasn't really the dad world.
So he was a single dad raising you guys?
Yeah, he was driving a bus in the morning and then working at a body shop and training to be a boxer.
He was wanting to be a pro boxer, but a lot of things, you know, he had to really kind of focus on being a dad and kind of had to put his boxing career because he really had a very promising career ahead of him.
And so a lot of my dreams I live kind of, you know, for him and myself, but because he put a lot of his dreams on the back burner to raise me.
But he also created me.
So like he kind of had to do that.
Right.
But, you know, a lot of people don't take that responsibility.
And when I see that picture, I have like, like you said, a memory.
Well, he either got the day.
He's got great dimples or somebody caught him with two good dimples.
No, yeah, he's got great dimples.
He does.
Okay.
He has the same ones.
But yeah, I see that guy right there.
And about a year from that picture, he would have been curling my little sister's hair and getting her ready for kindergarten.
And even though his eyes were swollen shut from sparring the night before, I have like distinct memories of him like getting her ready for school and being like a dad to a very young little girl like and like, you know, crimping her hair and curling it.
And, you know, being a dad, being a dad, but also doing feminine things, like because there was no one to do the feminine thing.
So he was like, oh, I got to be dad.
And he was really good.
And he knew how to do the dude, the dad dude part.
Like he had me and my brother boxing every night.
And we were hunting and fishing and doing all the dude things.
But he had also had to be a dad to a little girl that was like the light of his life.
Wow.
That was like quite the responsibility.
And I look back on that and I have like, like I said, just such a distinct memory of him curling her hair like while morning cartoons are playing right before we got on the school bus.
And yeah, he was quite the dude.
What was his name?
Stephen Wilson.
Oh, he was senior.
You just never know.
Sometimes they'll throw a junior on somebody just because they don't know what's going on.
Yeah, I mean, you know, or they're just NASCAR fan.
They'll tack it onto the back of their kid's neck.
Like a donkey tail.
They just put it on there like a junior.
Like, yeah, we'll pin the tail on this child, you know?
No, I'm very much a junior.
It's very much a thing in boxing, especially.
Like, you know, I joke around that, you know, my, you know, my dad, you know, he was, he was named after a martyr in the Bible.
Like, my grandmother named him after a guy that had rocks thrown at him until he died in the Bible.
Stephen with a pH, by the way, and which makes a lot of sense because I'm pretty sure my dad was stoned when I was born.
That's the joke.
Oh, the pH level of his brain was probably weed, probably.
It might have been plus 40 then.
Depends on if he was on some serious gas or not.
He did like perhaps the country cabbage.
The story of Stephen from the Bible.
Stephen, the first Christian martyr, oh, the first Christian martyr was stoned to death outside Jerusalem for his faith, as described in Acts 7 of the Bible.
His executioners, including a young Saul, threw rocks at him after he testified about Jesus.
Why did Saul not want him to testify?
Did he not believe him, or did you just not want him sharing the truth?
Well, Saul at the time, this is pre-Paul, because Saul turned into Paul once he saw Christ, like the spirit of Christ appeared before him, and that's when he became Paul.
But at that point, Saul was very much a figure of the Jewish religion.
Like he was a very high-ranking Jewish official.
So he was kind of, you know, like a high-ranking individual.
And so he was really, in his mind at that time, probably just doing his job.
Right.
Not really knowing why he was doing it.
But then he, you know, he had a very much a come to Jesus moment.
No, no pun intended.
That's when he became Paul.
And he wrote literally probably two-thirds of the New Testament, or at least a lot of it.
He had this.
Half of it, at least.
This says here, it says, and we use perplexity AI.
And it says, before his conversion, Saul was a zealous Pharisaic Jew.
He was a Pharisee.
Pharisee.
I was a zealous Pharisee who believed followers of Jesus were dangerous heretics.
So from his perspective, Stephen's preaching against their rejection of Jesus and his criticism of their misuse of the temple was blasphemous and deserved death under the understanding of the law.
That zeal led him to participate by giving approval and overseeing the execution, which he later remembered with deep sorrow when he became the Apostle Paul.
Wow.
Yeah.
Gosh, dude.
I mean, that's got to be a lot to carry because if Stephen was the first Christian martyr and you had him stoned because your faith wasn't there yet, and then to look back through a different perspective.
Not much longer after that for him to be like, oh, now I'm preaching the same gospel without rocks being thrown at me.
And now that has to be quite the thing to come to terms with.
And I think that's what motivated him to write so many epistles of the New Testament and became such a huge figure of the New Testament.
There's a lot of books that they believe were written by Paul, like the book of Hebrews.
There's like no author, but they believe even he wrote like books that nobody has any author to.
They can identify his style of writing and be like, it had to be Paul.
Wow.
Yeah.
People love your style of writing, man.
Speaking of that.
I grew up very religious.
That's why I talk about it.
I grew up in a Pentecostal Nazarene kind of church, a lot of Holy Rolling.
And I read a lot of the Bible growing up.
Yeah, I just started going to a Bible study.
This is the first time I've ever been to a Bible study in my life.
So it's been interesting to start to just learn about different characters from the Bible and just different stories and stuff.
So, yeah, I'm just glad that we even got to talk about that.
And yeah, and that that's how your father was named from, Stephen.
I didn't know that story.
And now I remember it.
Yeah.
And so that's pretty cool.
What was that?
Yeah, the church you went to because you're from the Midwest.
You're from Indiana?
Yeah, I'm from where I'm from southern Indiana, Kentuckiana, they call that area, like just north of Louisville, Kentucky, just close to where Trevin's from.
Okay, that's what I do.
I would say that's where the Midwest and the South kind of chest bump or shake hands.
It is literally a collision of two cultures.
So people have southern accents and watch NASCAR, but they also put noodles in their chili, which is a very Midwestern thing.
So yeah, there it is.
Jackson County, Indiana, right there in this southern part.
Oh, yeah.
The Midwest, they'll starch up a protein in a second.
They don't give a dang, brother.
They'll put a starch right in the middle of a protein.
That's how they are there.
They love that.
It's strong winters.
It gets cold.
You need them starches.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I would go.
We used to go to the AC.
It was an apostolic Christian church with my grandparents and some of their neighbors.
And it was in Illinois, like in pretty much southern Illinois.
And that was just part of the culture.
Like people would eat their dessert at the beginning of dinner sometimes.
So they made sure they got their dessert in.
Like it was just kind of some of that culture.
Yeah, you don't want to miss that.
Get too full and getting too excited on mashed potatoes.
And they're like, damn, I ain't got nothing.
It was almost a shame.
If you couldn't make, if you didn't have space available in your body for a beautiful dessert somebody had made, you almost felt a bit ashamed in a way.
Yeah.
And you should be.
Like, think how much work was put into that cobbler compared to those mashed potatoes.
Like you, you ate the like the easy stuff.
Oh, and sometimes you'd have somebody, you know, you'd have such skilled labor in there.
You'd have a real cobbler making the cobbler.
You'd have a damn shoelace going through a, going through a peach, you know?
Yeah.
You'd be in there.
You're a bootlace cobbler.
Yeah, you'd find, yeah, you'd find half a soul.
And, you know, you'd be like, oh, is this, is this crust or is this, you know, part of an 11 and a half?
Yeah, what is this cobbler?
Soulless?
Yeah, yeah.
You'd be like, nope, not so much.
He's got real, real heels in the corner.
You know, it was just, but there was so much value.
I remember in my grandmother's town on cooking and on having people over for meals.
Just that Midwestern culture, you know, on hard work.
And religion was a big part of it.
You know, even their neighbors, if my grandparents couldn't take us to church, their neighbors would offer, we'll take them to church, you know.
And we go and just get to see what some of the different churches were like.
And that was one of the bigger religions in the area was Apostolic Christian over there.
Do you see any exorcisms or any speaking in tongues or movements of the spirit?
Let me think.
No, they had good doughnuts.
They braided their hair.
The women did like one big braid.
They didn't show a lot.
You know, it was very kind of covered up with some of the female culture.
They braid their donuts.
They did have those one.
What is that one that's great?
I don't know.
I don't know what it's called.
I don't love it.
I don't either.
It's too much bread, and I don't think there's feeling in it.
You think there is when you're a kid?
It's very deceiving.
Twisted donut.
No, there's a word for it.
It's cruiser.
Kreller was one that I loved, but I don't think this was a kreller.
Well, kreller often made from show pastry, French kreller, or yisto with the distinctive twisted shape.
Maybe it was a kreller.
Yeah.
Maybe it was, but yeah.
It was into something else, though.
It looked good as a kid, but it was, it was deceiving.
Yeah, it was always like, oh, I want that.
And then you would eat it and you'd be like, man, there wasn't trash.
Yeah.
I should have went with that Bavarian cream.
Yeah, or I should have went with the one with the frosting on it, you know.
But we had a beautiful time.
Yeah, I didn't meet any, there was no séancery, really.
I do remember there was a mentally handicapped fellow who said he could drive and he was a driver's ed instructor and he wasn't.
He was just, You know, and some people believe it was meaningled, some people were like, He's possessed by the devil.
And I'm like, Well, he's not possessed by like a devil who just, you know, um, is sitting around just picking his nose and just, you know, he was just a little bit off, this dude named Brandon.
And he was awesome, actually.
Um, he was kind of this special guy between an adult and a kid, and he never left that zone.
You know, so there was something kind of very approachable to him about kids because he was bigger than us, but he was just like us.
And he uh, he taught me how to said he could drive and we drove right into a snowbank and the police came and everything.
But it was exciting, though.
He was a liar.
Yeah, he was a good place for him to be at church.
He was a Bears fan.
I think it was a tough time for everybody.
That's that's, I mean, I got to say, I saw quite a few demon-possessed Brandons where I grew up.
I saw a lot of Brandons get demons cast out of them.
Really?
So you would see that at your church?
Yeah.
And what was that kind of like?
Like, because someplace that's a part of a culture.
And I believe that I believe in that type of stuff.
Do you believe in it?
I do.
You know, I have a, you know, I've tried to deconstruct a lot of that through because I have a science background.
I've had to really try to understand a lot of that and understand what is real and what is not.
But there was a lot of it that was 100% real and there was a lot of it that was 100% not.
And, you know, I believe there's theatrics, but I also believe, you know, God is everywhere.
And I believe God did show up in those places just like God will show up in any place.
But yeah, I did see a lot of, you know, grown-ass drywall dudes get like demons cast out of them before lunch.
And I'd be like sitting there with half a Pop-Tart in my stomach watching this dude literally like throwing dudes around and like exhibiting some superhuman strength.
Oh, they're popping the tart right out of that dude.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
That's the original Pop-Tart.
Dude is a damn exorcist.
Yeah.
He just created the original Pop-Tart.
That cherry-flavored Pop-Tart was from a demon exorcism.
That's why it's red.
Yeah.
You just know they could have gone with a lot darker flavors.
They're like, let's make this available to children.
But dude, a Pop-Tart's and Exorcism shit.
I'm there, dude.
I'll sit on your lap.
Speaking in tongues, I actually went, we'd, you know, some, you know, in our town, like an evangelist could like show up to your church and like a traveling evangelist and be like, we're having revival here this week.
And literally the church would shut down and be like, we're having revival, y'all.
This is what we're doing.
And the whole week would be a revival just because this dude showed up and said, God told me to have a revival here.
And they would have a huge like big tent revival.
No way.
Absolutely.
Dude, it's always been my dream to be a part of something like that.
Leap of faith was my favorite movie growing up.
Dude, that movie changed my life.
Nobody knows about it.
It's one of the greatest movies ever made.
Literally changed my life.
Oh, my gosh.
I'm so glad you know about that movie.
Like very few people I've been able to talk to about that movie because it had one of the most profound impacts on me as a kid just because of how I grew up and in the music business and seeing performance and theatrics and where is God and where isn't God.
And that movie is just brilliantly done.
But I remember I went up, this dude showed up and he said, tonight, everybody's getting slain in the spirit.
You come up, you're getting slain.
And I don't know if you know what slain means.
Like you stand up there and the dude hits you and you fall down and you're just out for however long.
And everybody lined up and I was like, I'm getting slain tonight.
I've never been slain.
That's a freaking religious perco set right there.
Yeah, I wanted it bad.
And he just knocking people over left and right.
Boom, boom, boom.
I'd seen him go down.
It's like, he's coming to me.
No way.
And he got to me and he started speaking in tongues.
And I remember he tapped me right in the forehead, boom, like that.
I was like, that was, that was kind of hard.
I was like training for the golden gloves at that time.
So I was like, a little bit like, what's up?
Like, he just like hit me right in the forehead with his fingers.
Yeah.
And then he started, you know, it didn't work.
Like, it didn't take.
And so he did it again, even harder.
And I was like, kind of like mad about it at that point because it actually kind of hurt.
I was like, is this dude trying to knock me out?
Yeah.
Or like, he's trying to slay me in the spirit.
And anyway, he just.
Yeah, let's look at the judge's car.
And I'm just like getting hit in the forehead by him.
And then he just moved on.
It was one of the most heartbreaking things.
He went to the next guy and knocked him out.
Next God, down, down.
Were you being defiant, do you think?
I don't know.
I thought like, man, I guess I don't believe.
Did I like snap out of it?
Was I, you know, was I not in the moment?
I didn't, I didn't really know what to think because I was like a 19-year-old kid just trying to feel God and try to get closer to God.
And everybody seemed to be doing that.
And what was wild is like he knocked everybody out and there was all these bodies all over the floor.
People like putting modesty cloths all over them and stuff.
And they're just out there asleep.
So I had to like walk all over all these bodies to get back to my embarrassing.
It's almost the walk of shame.
It was the most shameful walk I've ever taken at church.
I guess I'm not.
I guess I'm not.
And what really made me laugh at least kind of helped break me out of it.
I was missing the spirit.
I remember thinking, like, what if I step on?
Because everybody had their hands out, just kind of like laid out.
What if I step on someone's hand?
Wake them up.
Will I snap them out of it?
And they'd be like, ah.
And then they'll go back in or would they be out?
Like, oh, you stepped on my hand and now I'm no longer slain.
I was like, how did you or like Steven with the sinner, you know, or Stephen Wilson Jr., who can't even get the dark arts exercise out of him?
He's over here waking up people who are doing well.
Breaking fingers with his, with his steel-toed boots, shamefully walking back to his pew.
I was thinking about the walk of shame at church.
What is a modesty cloth?
Well, like sometimes a lady would get slain and she's wearing a skirt.
You know, it's a Pentecostal church and they cover and make sure like you know.
Oh, that's a lot of skirt, dude.
We used to call them skirtons because they were so long, you know, and some of them would be actual curtains that they had taken off of a window somewhere.
Some of them you'd even see like that stick, you know, the stick that's on the edge of a curtain that you can like, if you turn it, it'll go up.
Some of them even had those.
Yeah.
You're just sitting over there, but the picture all streamed.
Yeah, if you're trying to get her pair, you got to spin that thing for a whole lot.
Blinds underneath.
Yeah, they got blinds, those vertical blinds.
Yeah, it could cure you from blindness.
Dude, that's pretty funny, dude.
Thinking about something like that, thinking about something that's funny together with somebody is something that's awesome, dude.
Yeah, it was like, it helped me get through it.
Because like you said, there was a shamefulness to it, but it actually was kind of funny.
So they put that modesty blanket on them.
There's a modesty cloth.
That's good for that.
Yeah.
Good for that, that at least, yeah, because there's some guys, some lurkers, that would just be up there.
Yeah, you never know.
And like, like I said, in those churches, like nothing, you didn't even show below the knee.
So like if your skirt started to show some knee, they better get a cloth over that.
You can't be seeing that kneecap.
Oh, yeah, boy.
Those, oh, oh, I remember being young and just, God, I was kind of like a, I guess like a little bit of a peeping Tom or whatever.
I was like visually stimulated, I called it, and had a step stool.
But I remember for Christmas when you're, I wanted a ladder.
My mom's like, what do you want a ladder for?
Like, why do you want this little ladder?
And I wanted to go.
I'd go watch people and just watch in their houses.
And I wasn't always looking for perverse stuff.
I was just looking.
I liked watching people live, right?
Like, I think I hated being at our house.
It was like, it was like, it wasn't fun.
It was just painful kind of a lot.
And it was like always like aggressive and Defensive.
Like the second you were around, you had to be defensive.
And so I would go watch as other people live, like watch somebody just be, you know, or just watch some dad sit there in a chair, some mom make something, or some kid just, you know, like usually it's like the living room or something.
I wasn't getting real weird, but but I love that kind of stuff, man.
I love just kind of absorbing how other people operated.
Yeah.
That kind of stuff was interesting.
You're an OG people watcher.
Yeah, I was a bit of a.
Yeah.
I mean, that's, I mean, if get your ladder together, you know?
Yeah, but get half a pop tardini and get over there.
We'll see what the I find comedians or and songwriters in general are just like they're people watchers and then they watch so much people that they end up these narratives start to show up.
And so you were probably just harnessing your skills for what was to come.
Yeah, I think sometimes, yeah, you look back on your life and you're like, oh, so much of that was to was ammo to provide something.
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One thing you said that was interesting a little bit ago is you said that your dad, like your dad was a boxer and he did these things.
And then sometimes you're living out some of your dad's dreams.
And I find that to be interesting that we feel like that as sons or that some sons feel that way.
And then also that some dads will make sacrifices like you're saying.
Like, you know, and it wasn't like it was his choice that he made, you know, it wasn't like a sacrifice.
But sometimes even with choices, then come sacrifices that you don't see.
And then you have to make another choice then as to what do I do here.
But that, like, by even by giving birth to a son, by having an offspring, you are creating something that can go the next leg, almost like it's one of those races where they pass the baton.
What is that called?
I think a baton race.
Yeah, a baton race.
And yeah, so yeah.
It's not hard.
It's not as hard as this.
I'm not sure.
It may not be called that.
It may be something way more complex.
It is a baton, a relay race.
A baton race, a relay race.
But it's like.
This is as far as I can get.
And let me put this into you.
But then it's interesting as the next runner, as the next generation is, what do I, like, how much do I owe to this previous generation to carry on their dream?
Do I owe anything?
You know, what does it mean to be a son?
Like, all those things kind of were popping into my head as you were saying that.
A generational relay race is not something I've put to thought regarding all that.
But that is very, very accurate observation there because when you see a relay race, like the first runner or whatever, the runner before you, the runners before you dictate how fast you're going to run and they dictate your position in the race.
So like if they're running with everything they got, well, then you're only like doing a disservice to their effort by not running with everything you got.
Right.
And so yeah, that baton becomes something bigger than just this thing you're holding in your hand.
It's like the sum of all their efforts.
Yeah.
And, you know.
Yeah, I think we used to hear a lot more.
I think when families, and this is a hypothetical, but when families seemed closer and we needed more entertainment from our fathers and forefathers and we got lower passed down and family hit when there was more storytelling, when you couldn't get as much storytelling from like phones and television and stuff as we can in the past few generations, but when it came from like those the predecessors of ours and our forefathers and mothers, that that kind of stuff, it like beat inside of us like a drum,
you know?
Yeah, what kind of did you feel a pressure?
Like, and did something happen?
Your father passed away?
Yeah, he passed away seven years ago at the age of 59.
And it happened.
Yeah, he was very young and it was a sudden thing.
And it was.
Was he sick?
Yeah, well, he had like this pulmonary fibrosis thing that was starting, but he ended up dying of a pulmonary embolism, like a blood clot in his lungs.
And so, yeah, it was a very sudden thing that I don't think anybody really expected.
He was living in Indiana?
He was living in southern Indiana and he was, you know, he was doing quite well.
And like, you know, everything kind of changed in about six months.
And then he, you know, suddenly this embolism showed up and I tried to get there because it was his body was like shutting down.
What do you mean?
So an embolism?
Can you bring it up just so I know, Trevin?
Sorry to interrupt you, Stephen.
No, don't.
I'm just like, sometimes I've let information fly and I don't know what it is.
An embolism.
A pulmonary embolism is a blood clot that travels to and blocks an artery in the lungs, cutting off normal blood flow and oxygen exchange and creating a potentially life-threatening emergency.
So had this been happening for a while and then it got bad?
Yeah.
And so he had had some, obviously, some things going on that he never knew was happening.
And then, yeah, it got to that life-threatening emergency point.
And then there is a point where they can only do so much.
And, you know, he was a bit of a cowboy and, you know, those kind of classic dudes that don't want to go to the doctor and I'll tough it out kind of thing.
I'm sure there was a lot of that mentality going into it.
Also, there was poor health care.
You know, that's he was a victim of the American healthcare system, too, in that regard.
I won't get into all that.
But, um, but yeah, like that was, that was a big part of it.
Um, but we talked, we've talked about that a lot over the years.
It's a nightmare and the stress they put people through trying to deal with their own taking care of themselves.
It's like, it's a nightmare.
Especially at his age at 59, he was starting to feel like, oh, you're just like a forgotten human.
They don't, you know, like, you know, they don't really want to take care of you.
They want to do everything but that.
Like, you got to fight tooth and nail to take care of yourself in that, at least where he was at that time.
And yeah, I got a really panicked call from my sister that morning and said, you need to get here like now.
Like, dad is very sick and we don't know what's happening.
And they rushed into the emergency room.
And I jumped in my car and sped up there.
And I said goodbye to him in the middle of Kentucky on the side of I-65 on an iPhone 8 on the side of a highway.
And that was.
Pulled over to make it quieter.
Yeah.
And just so I didn't lose signal, I was so worried that because, you know, the middle of Kentucky is the middle of nowhere.
And like, what if I dropped the call?
Like, yeah.
And, you know, there was, so I just pulled over just, I mean, it was insane.
I just the sound of like semis flying by me at like 90 miles an hour, but literally being in a, I felt like I was in a bubble, like not like the world was, like the world stopped around me in that little car.
Like a semi could have taken the side of that car off.
I wouldn't even had known it.
Or, you know, I would have just, I was in a state of absolute shock and horror.
It was a very traumatizing experience.
And you were on a FaceTime call?
No, I was just on a video or a normal phone call.
Was he able to speak to you?
He was.
And he.
Did he know that it could be like his last moment?
He knew he was dying.
Did you bother you by asking you this?
No, I talk about it a lot on stage.
I kind of relive it every night.
And that's been a challenge for me, like mentally, kind of.
But it's also been like the beautiful part of unpacking trauma and grief because, you know, I'm not like our music really finds the grieving.
And I think it's important for me to grieve as well.
Like I go through grief every night.
But, you know, he was such a gangster in that moment.
He knew he had maybe 90 seconds left on this earth.
He knew he was going, not just going, but going fast.
He even told me.
He's like, I'm gone, Stephen.
And sorry.
But yeah, he was so calm about it.
He said, everything was going to be okay.
That was his first thing he said.
Like such a dad thing to say.
And he said, write a good song for me, Stephen.
And he said, I love you.
I love you.
Four times.
He wanted you to know for sure.
Yeah, like he wanted there to be no doubt.
And so I say it more than once all the time now because from that experience, I kind of realized that people are counting.
And I was counting.
And it was weird.
Like on that last I love you, it's almost like his voice got quieter.
Like he was literally being pulled like God was snatching him from the universe in that last I love you.
Wow.
And he was gone 30 seconds later.
And that was it.
I was the last person he spoke to.
And I'm really grateful that I got to speak to him.
And in that moment in that car, I was so angry at God.
I was so angry at him, even my dad.
I was like, how dare you die on me like this?
It wasn't supposed to happen.
Like, none of it was supposed to happen like that.
Like, I was under the impression he was invincible, first of all.
And he was just so young.
And he was just such a, you know, just such a lively, such a bright light.
So it just, it didn't seem possible.
And even to people in my hometown, they were in disbelief when he died.
Like, it was like, because his, his life force was so big that like people were in denial.
I was like, no, it's impossible.
There's no way he could be dead.
And I was like, no, he really is.
And it was a tough thing to really come to terms with.
But with any great reaction or any chemical reaction, there is a catalyst.
And I have to say, everything, the reason I'm here and the reason I'm anywhere right now is because of that conversation.
It was, you know, you have a product and a reactant, and then there's a catalyst.
And that conversation is what catalyzed my whole career.
Really?
And yeah, that write a good song for me, Steven.
Oh, was like a lifetime's worth of jet fuel for me to charge across the galaxy and do everything I could to try and keep him alive, to try and just tell the world about him.
Carry out his wish.
Yeah.
And what I found out is carrying out his wish and keeping him alive was keeping so many other people that other folks have lost, other humans have lost alive.
He was resurrecting other people at the same time.
And these people were coming to shows with this with his bounty of love that had no place to go.
And that's what grief is, essentially.
And I gave them, you know, these songs have given them a home for at least maybe three and a half or four minutes.
Oh, yeah.
And that's been, that's really been the charge of all of this.
That's been the mission statement is, you know, at the very beginning was just keep dad alive.
Keep him alive at all costs.
And, you know, like kind of a psychotic denial for the first couple years that he was even gone.
I was like, no, he's he's still around.
And I, and a lot of times I felt him on my shoulders like a little kid.
It was really weird.
It was like this weird reversal of roles.
Well, now that he's free, he kind of can do as he wants, you know, he could be on your shoulders.
Yeah, he would show up like that.
And the reason why I play this song Stand By Me is just literally two weeks after he died, I was scheduled to play this songwriter festival in Deadwood, South Dakota.
And it's a, you know, it's in the Black Hills, and it's a very spiritually charged area, just in general.
Yeah, for sure it is.
And the guy that runs it says, you don't have to play any music.
I know you're in a bad, bad spot.
I hadn't slept in a week.
And he's like, just come here and see what happens.
Just be around people.
There's nothing but love for you here.
And we know you've gone through it.
And at the end of the festival, they asked all the writers and stuff there, if you wanted to play a cover, what's your favorite cover that you love?
And they did this big finale.
I had been, for some reason, for about a year prior to my dad's death, I'd been singing this song Stand By Me in my living room, the exact way I play it now.
It just popped in your head to come, it just kind of came into you, yeah.
And like, for some reason, I was like, that song has haunted me my whole life because of the movie Stand By Me.
Oh, that sure.
Yeah, that's a big part of a lot of people.
That movie was huge in people's lives for so many little moments.
Yeah, like I very much saw myself in the kid on the left, the Gordon, the Gordie LeChance.
Now, what's his name?
Will Wheaton?
Like the writer, the writer that was trying to find a voice, the nerdy little writer kid on the left.
And that song was threaded so brilliantly throughout that film.
And it's obviously the title.
But because of that movie, which is also a Stephen King story, that movie is based off a Stephen King novella called The Body.
So, you know, it was obviously a very haunting and dark theme.
But, you know, that song really haunted me because of that movie.
And I just started playing it.
I was like trying to, I don't know, kind of deconstruct it, try to process it in a different way.
And when my dad died, fast forward to Deadwood, all I could play was Stand By Me.
Wow.
And I started playing it.
And I'd really never played it for anybody like that.
And the whole place just went crazy.
And at that point, I was not an artist.
I just quit my job as a scientist.
I just, I'd been a published writer for maybe two years at that point, just trying to get other artists to sing my songs.
And I never really saw myself as an artist, even though my dad did.
Like, he would always be like, why don't you just sing these songs?
You sound great singing them.
But I would always argue with him, like, no, I don't do that.
I write them.
Someone else sings them.
But when I went up there to sing Stand By Me, I swear to God, he was like on my shoulders like a little kid.
And I got so addicted to that feeling again.
Like, because he, he, I mean, he was there.
He showed up.
And I truly believe he showed up at Bridgestone at the CMAs.
Like he, he did.
He showed up that night.
And oh, I bet he was so proud of you.
Do you feel like he's proud of you?
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah.
He was so proud of me before he died, before any of this happened.
And I think, yeah, he, yeah, he would be very proud.
I've been trying to make him proud my whole life.
What did he say, write a song for me or make us?
What did he say?
Sorry.
Write a good song.
I'm leaking over here.
No, man.
I leak all the time.
Yeah, dude.
I listen to stuff that makes me cry all the time because I think I'm just full of tears and I got to get these bitches out, even though I'm dehydrated half the time.
So I'm like, I don't even know what's going on here, dude.
No, it's good for you.
Like, when my dad died, I swear all I did was cry for two years.
Like, it's all I did.
And if you have, if you can find the tears, find them.
Like, right now, I can't find them.
Yeah.
I mean, even though I get emotional, don't get me wrong.
But yeah, sometimes you have tears and sometimes you don't.
It's like almost like seasons, you know?
It's almost like an ocean.
Sometimes it comes up on the shore and sometimes it's out to sea, you know, even though it's, you know, it lives right.
Yeah.
So it's like, and especially, I think, people that have had like a lot of things in their life that have happened that haven't been processed.
You know, it takes a long time.
And I think I've gotten grateful in my life over time where if I find something that helps me process, I'll sit there and process it.
My brother says a lot of times he's like, yeah, getting rid of grief and like trauma, like that old stuff.
And people use trauma as a buzzword, but getting rid of grief and stuff from the past, he's like, it's like taking pennies out of a bathtub one at a time.
He's like, you know, it just, it takes a long time and it's slow and it's just kind of arduous work.
But you just be grateful that it can kind of happen over time.
He said, make a good song for me.
Write a good song for me.
Write a good song for me.
Yeah, because he knew that's what I was, that's all I could think about.
That's the baton, man.
That's the baton.
Yeah, he used to come to my, like all my shows.
And when I say shows, like playing for seven people at Writers Round.
Or like, and he came to the Bluebird Cafe.
I remember like had his giant.
You remember when they had those giant phones?
that were like the size of laptops?
Oh, those T-Mobile sidekicks?
Yeah, baby.
Them bitches was beautiful.
Yeah, he had one of those bad boys, and he would just hold it up and record the whole show.
But he used to drive me crazy.
Oh, dude, there's nothing crazier than watching like a boomer kind of like record something.
Or even just somebody from a generation above or just, we went to the USC fights the other day and some guy was recorded every single fight.
I'm like, he had a front row seat and he was recording and there was a TV right next to him playing the fights.
I'm like, you can just go home and watch.
Like, I just didn't understand what was going on.
But the fact that he was there and that he cared so much about it and that he loved watching you do it.
Yeah, there was this one song that's on the record called I'm a Song.
Oh, yeah.
And he watched me play that for the first time at Bluebird Cafe.
I'd just written that like that week.
Right over here?
Yeah.
Bluebird Cafe.
And he had his gigantic phone.
I'll never forget.
And I was like, dad, please put your phone down.
But he recorded that whole song.
And then he called me like, you know, a week later, kept talking about that song.
And about a month before he died, his Father's Day weekend, I came up to see him.
And we went to a tractor pool.
And then we went home and watched some fights.
And he goes, hey, Steven, you know that song you played at the Bluebird like a month ago?
It's called I'm a Song.
And I was like, whoa, how do you even know that?
Like, you know, because I was in that point of like writing, you know, 200 songs a year.
I was writing, you know, 10 songs a week.
So like a month ago, like that, I'm a song was like 50 songs ago.
So I was like, oh yeah, yeah, I know that.
And he's like, yeah, you played at the Bluebird Cafe.
And he's like, that's, that's my favorite song.
And I was like, oh, thank you, Dad.
And you're like, I thought he meant like, it's my favorite song, his favorite song of mine.
And he was like, no, you need to listen to me.
That's my favorite song.
Wow.
And I was like, how are you even listening to it?
He'd been listening to me play it on the Bluebird, at the Bluebird on his gigantic T-Mobile, T-Mobile, whatever that thing is.
And that's how he was, he was actually my first fan.
And he was the, you know, he would breathe so much life into me.
He believed in me so much more than I ever believed in myself.
And I remember him saying, you should sing that song.
And when he died, I sang it at his funeral.
And it was one of the hardest songs I've ever sang.
But in that moment, like that was, that was when, you know, I knew things were about to change.
And, but yeah, and that song has helped so many people.
And it's, I don't know, it's been a bit of a thesis statement for me.
And so when he said, write a good song for me, he knew, he knew I had already written one, at least in his eyes, because it was his favorite song ever.
So he knew at least he had proof on his phone that I was capable of writing something great.
And I guess his last charge was to please keep going and don't stop.
And as a, you know.
It's got to feel good for him to be like even in a moment, like, I mean, that's crazy to say this.
What am I talking about?
But in a moment of leaving the earth to know that you have a son or someone who can, who, you know, you've created that's capable.
You know, you have a child that you believe is capable.
I wonder what, you know what I'm saying?
Or something like that?
No, yeah.
And my other siblings are also very capable.
He's very proud of all of us equally.
But I think he, he knew something about me was different very young.
I was a very quiet.
kid, a very nerdy kid.
I had his name and his eyes, but, you know, outside of that, we were so different.
So he, he, I think he just knew I was going to do something different.
He just probably intrigued, I bet.
Yeah.
And I've like picked up guitar and taught myself.
And he was like just always mesmerized by like my musical ability because it seemed like magic to him because it was it was God given.
Like I nobody taught me how to do this.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh, you just picked it up and started playing?
Yeah, for the most part.
Yeah, I learned some tablature and and but you know, I sucked real bad then.
But that was.
This is you right here?
Yeah, that's probably like a week after I got my first guitar.
if that even, maybe a couple of days.
Then we're watching The Nirvana's Family.
Yep.
Yeah.
That's lithium.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Who is that?
Is that your dad now?
No.
This is some random old dude and this is after my dad had passed away.
Like none of this stuff, like all my whole music, none, I didn't have any music out when he was alive.
Oh, okay.
So they're just packaging this all up.
Yeah, this is all like old VS VHS footage from when I was a kid.
That's me getting my first guitar for 16th birthday, even though I look like I'm 12.
Look how hot.
Look, go back.
Look, hold on, yeah, hold on, right?
A little more right there.
Look how happy.
You can see, though, how happy it could.
You can see that.
Yeah.
You can see for a second.
See if you can catch his face a second earlier, maybe a second later.
You can see right there.
You can just see how happy he is, you know?
That's cool, dude.
Thank you.
I'm going to be cool now.
Oh, it's so fun, dude.
Yeah, I might actually have, you know, I might actually be able to talk to a girl now.
Oh, dude.
Yeah.
At least if you walk up with a guitar, at least you're fucking just like, hey, at least they'll be like, hey, what do you do?
You know what I'm saying?
You have some sort of semblance instead of hiding, putting hair in your eyes and hiding behind.
That's what I did.
I said nothing to nobody.
Oh, dude, that was most of my childhood when I was growing up.
I was thinking about what do you, what are the responsibilities of a son?
You know, people don't think about that a lot.
I think about what do my parents owe me a lot as a kid, or I have probably, you know, like my parents didn't do this or my parents didn't do that.
You know, that's been, you know, or some things didn't happen and should have happened.
That's fair.
But when I start to harp on the other stuff and it gets into this like, oh, woe is me or pity me type of thing, you know, that can be kind of an unsafe area to go into.
But the two can be easily connected, like things that, yes, a parent should do these things or those things should be.
A child's life should include these things and they don't happen.
And then, well, a parent, they don't owe you these things, but attaching those together.
But I never think about like, what is it?
What are my responsibilities as a son, you know, or as a child?
You know what I'm saying?
You don't think that because at a certain point, you do have some responsibility in it yourself, you know?
Yeah.
I mean, I've, I've had a lot of thought about that.
And, you know, I grew up thinking the same thing as you, like maybe, you know, things should have been different.
But at the same time, I tend to think about my parents as children because they had me as children.
They were like, it was a shotgun wedding.
My mama was six months pregnant.
They were teenagers having babies.
And so I also think about them like, oh my gosh, like I have a lot of sympathy for them as I was older, but growing up, I had anger and resentment towards certain things that I did not understand.
But I've kind of tried to understand that it's very biological about how fathers and sons are just children and their parents.
In the beginning of your father is like superhuman or he's a superhero.
Like humanize, demonize, and idolize is kind of how I put it down.
So in the beginning, you idolize your father and you idolize everything they do.
I remember idolizing my father, like wanting to be a boxer just like him, wanting to do so many things like him.
And I would hide in his shadow and I idolized him my whole childhood.
And then once I got into my teen years, that's when that separation starts to begin.
And you start to demonize your parents.
And you go through this whole demonization of your father or your parents.
And it's actually very biological.
This is how genetic diversity was spread because we're a tribal species.
So the young boy, young man in his reproductive years would start to demonize the parents and get away from the tribe and go join another tribe.
So he can procreate.
So he can procreate and create genetic diversity.
Right, because if he procreates too close to his own tribe, you also risk like inbreeding.
Yeah, like the guy that taught me how to drive.
Yeah, exactly.
And I'm not saying no shade, Brandon.
I think he was bred properly.
It was just, you know, God put some odd paints in his palate.
We love you, Brandon.
Yeah, we do love you.
And actually, he passed away a few years ago and we do love you.
He's a special guy.
Oh, man.
I'm so sorry, Brandon.
But yeah, and then as, you know, I think eventually you come back home.
There's always like this prodigal son kind of moment.
And that's where you humanize your father.
Because that's what happened with me.
Like, you know, you start off as a kid idolizing it.
You get to teenage years, those years that I, you know, he got me that guitar.
I was probably going to start demonizing him soon.
He wanted to at least have a backbeat for it.
Yeah, exactly.
Something to put all those angsty lyrics in.
Put that anger to lyrics.
Yeah.
At least make it a bop.
And then I remember when I was 25, like I was sitting on the porch with my dad and I just remembered.
I was like, you're just a dude.
Oh, yeah.
And that's when the humanization hit.
And I was like, you're just another dude doing the best you can.
And I could see it in his eyes.
And we were just kind of like, we were, you know, the father and son dynamic was still there, but he was now a friend and something bigger than a father.
He's another human.
He's just another human.
And that's a tough moment.
It's an interesting moment, too, to look at because it's almost, it almost breaks down the wars you were fighting or the whatever, you know, it breaks down like everything.
Right.
It breaks down the pedestal you held this person on in a way, in a way, some of it.
But it also breaks down if you've been demonizing it, like, well, who am I fighting?
I'm not fighting against, you know, the 20, the 32-year-old dad, the guy that I knew who like walked by me and didn't glance or whatever your thoughts are, whatever your whatever like you're envisioning, that's not there anymore.
You know, and it's like, then what, then this whole like baton that I'm still carrying of anger, that's not even real.
Yeah.
So what's really happening here with me?
And that's like a moment you kind of have to look at yourself as well.
And that's kind of painful.
Yeah, it was, it's very much a self-reflective moment.
And you kind of start to see kind of like, man, I was a selfish little shit.
Or I was, you know, maybe you were justified in certain areas.
It or yeah, at the end of the day, they're just another human doing the best they can, just like you.
And who am I going to be now?
That's the thing, too.
Yeah.
And sometimes I go back and I put on my old, my sometimes I go back and I'm the same person.
But more often than not these days, I do a decent job of like, well, let me be the leader.
Instead of saying, you should have led me or you should, let me grow up.
It's like, how many times do am I going to fucking miss the grow up bus?
You know, like, I'm on it, but still, sometimes I'll be there at the stop in the morning and I'll be like, nah, I'm going to let that bitch go today.
You know what I'm saying?
I ain't getting on that bitch today.
So some of that's interesting and it's interesting to look at.
And you're still just a human looking at it and trying to figure it out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it's, it's, I think, all part of the journey.
And like, it all, it's, it's rooted in something very old.
Like, I always thought like that teen angst thing was like something created in the 90s or something.
It's like, no, this is pre-biblical.
This is, this is something that's been going on for a long time.
Yeah.
If you study primates enough and you, you, uh, you can really kind of see a lot of, you can learn a lot about humans by studying primates because they're also, you know, we're technically primates too.
Yeah, there's rumors.
There's rumors.
Yeah.
I mean, we're all part of the animal kingdom, kingdom, animal, and we are of the, we're technically of the greater apes.
That's what they call it.
What do you think happened?
Do you think, do you think we, what do you think there about evolution?
Because it's so tricky.
You know, it's so like, because we're the only people that are out here.
It feels like suffering like this sometimes.
Can I put you a piss and get back to this question?
Because this is going to, this has got an answer.
Yeah, let's take a break and piss, man.
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Thank you.
There you go, brother.
Popping into that Celsius, brother.
I'll have a little with you.
Let's do it.
There you go.
Stephen Wilson Jr. right there.
Yeah, I remember I came to, and we just took a bathroom break, and Steven put on a nice sweater.
I did.
It's nice.
It looks like my grandma's curtains, so it feels.
Oh, yeah, dude.
My grandmother, my grandfather worked at a factory in their town.
It was a small town called Wyoming, Illinois.
It was real small.
But it was nice when we went there because it just the world kind of made sense there a little more.
It was like a safe place to be.
They had a park right across the street and they had a garden where like most people had gardens where they grew like strawberries and tomatoes.
Everybody had tomato plants, cherry tomato plants.
And the summers, the roads would bubble in the summer from the tar.
And so it was like kind of crazy because every now and then you'd somehow, you'd be an idiot, at least once a year, and you would run across to the park, but you would not have your shoes on and you would hit that road and you would literally have what we called NAACP feet, you know.
And it was, I don't know if that's a racially charged term or not.
I don't think it is.
I think it's safe.
But yeah, you would get, you would just, and, but the crazy part is, once you got the NAACP, you'd be faster at the park.
And that was the craziest part, too.
Yeah, but you got that extra soul now.
Yeah, it is.
That's what it was.
Yeah, you're like, you got something to grip now.
Oh, do you?
Oh, you went home.
My grandmother knew.
Bio souls.
Yeah, you were lost.
Like, you got a free pair of Nikes.
Yeah, you did, bro.
But there were so many fun things just about being in like a small Midwestern community.
The safety of it, the bike riding, the like baseball cards.
Dude, we would go to this place.
Baseball cards.
They had a dime smell.
A shitty chewing gum in the pack.
That was so stale.
It was so gross.
You'd eat it in.
You chewed it every time.
Yes.
I'd be like, every time.
I don't care how bad it is.
Sometimes it would just disintegrate.
Yeah.
Somebody'd like break off and like, you could, you could open a box with it.
And yeah, you could, dude.
And every card was Mark Grace.
I felt like every card was Mark Grace or Sean Dunstan or Chris Sabo.
They were all Wade Boggs.
Yes.
Yeah.
Sabo.
Gosh, man, you're dropping heat.
Well, dude, I mean, your song 1994 was like, it's just one of the best pieces of nostalgia.
Like, I remember, yeah.
I remember like when I was a kid, my mom had this rug in her room, and it was like a, I think it was a cow.
I don't know where she got it from or something, but it was kind of like a prized possession.
It was just like a cow skin rug.
It could have been a damn Dalmatian or something.
I don't know.
It looked like it could have been a big Dalmatian.
It could have been a Dalmatian rug.
It could have been a great day, and we got swindled.
But anyway, she said it was a cow.
And I would lay there and I would like put my face right and I would inhale it.
And like, cause I didn't get to spend a lot of time with my mom, but sometimes at night, like she would put on hand cream or something.
And that was like a big thing.
When I was a kid, hand cream came out for women.
And so women were always just put, I mean, God, I'd be like, Mom, do you love me?
And she'd be like, well, hold on, let me put this hand cream on.
You know, it was, yeah, it was just it.
She had every woman at the time had to have hand cream.
It's like they couldn't even cook anymore because they couldn't open the cupboards because they just were too, they would slip out of their hands.
I think women were looking for an excuse to get out of the kitchen.
I can't pick up a pot.
I'll drop it.
I have too much hand cream.
Cast iron back then.
It was like, we can't.
We can't afford to lose any of this.
But I would lay in there and I would like put my face on the carpet, like on the rug, and I would inhale that smell of like leather.
And I would just kind of pretend that I lived in like a different world or that like, like we didn't have a dad around.
So I don't know if I'd pretend like there was like this manly energy or just something.
You know, it would kind of like the smell would fuel my imagination, you know, and I would just fantasize it like we lived on like a Ponderosa or that we lived out in like New Mexico or Texas or something, you know, or like, I don't know, just that things were different.
But there was something about when you were a kid or when you were young and just putting your face on the carpet.
It was like we used to do that.
There wasn't, you weren't on your phone all the time.
Yeah.
And TV, you couldn't just have whatever you wanted.
So you, you would just do kind of crazy things.
You look under the couch just to see what was under there.
Like nobody does that anymore.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was exciting.
That was almost like taking a vacation or whatever, just looking under that.
You get a flashlight, man, that'll blow your mind.
Like, there's a whole other world under here.
Like spiders, there's like, yes, you'd be curious about the world.
You were curious about the things you had in your own world.
And you'd ask mama, what is this for?
Why do we have this?
There was just a lot more like the storytelling you needed.
It was like more prevalent, you know?
And you had to tell a story.
You had to find some value.
Like we created the stories.
There wasn't like the internet where you could just go and like, oh, share this link, you know?
We like that's why the storytellers were so valuable then because it was like, oh, you got to ask him.
The only way you're going to hear this is if you ask him, you know, or her and they're going to tell you about it.
And man, that was the best.
Do you think this may be out of place here, but you know, because I feel like stand-up comedy and songwriting is kind of our last kind of, that's our, that's our, you know, that is our storytelling now.
Because yeah, like you're right, people don't pass down those stories generally anymore like they used to.
And I wonder if people are craving comedy and creating songwriting, craving songwriting in the same way that, you know, we used to, because there maybe is a lack of that, those stories being passed down.
And that, because I feel like, you know, great comedians are great storytellers and great songwriters are great storytellers.
And that is something that our culture is really not latching on to is telling stories.
Even like a good joke, it's hard to find somebody.
You know, when I was growing up, there'd always be like somebody that would just have like a thousand jokes.
And they weren't comedians.
They weren't professional comedians and they weren't wanting to be.
But they just had a myriad of jokes, which are basically stories.
Like they would go, you know, they would infuse the jokes into the stories.
Like you wouldn't know if they were telling the truth or not.
Oh, yeah.
And I was like, that's kind of a lost art that you don't really see like happening a lot anymore.
Yeah, they had good storytellers.
Well, storytelling was a big thing.
Well, I think this is a more general way to look at it.
I think we've lost some creativity.
And I think we've lost creativity in a lot of ways.
I think it's one of the reasons why Los Angeles has struggled in some ways because in the beginning, Hollywood, Hollywood has kind of struggled in some ways.
And I say this like in the sense that it started to feel super uncreative out there.
Right.
And I don't mean to speak bad on that, but I just think it's a note for that we've just we've we're missing some creativity in the world and I think the gatekeepers of creativity are starting to fall so I think you are like I think we're in a desperate place for creativity and for authenticity where creativity you feel like it's there's something genuine about it.
Yeah, maybe I don't know.
That's a great question, man.
Yeah, you know, I think authentic is like you said, is because it's really hard to authenticate anything anymore.
It's kind of hard to find out what is real and what is not.
And, you know, I tend to authenticate things with emotions and experience.
Like if I write a song, I kind of have to write it from, I can't write or perform anything that I cannot authenticate from my own experiences and my own emotions.
So did that make it tough for you to write songs for other people?
I think that was a big challenge for me, trying to get other people to see the authentication of my emotions and finding that authenticity within themselves, perhaps.
And that alignment happening was a difficult challenge.
And for you, say you write a song, somebody takes it or somebody accepts it, you know, as a, and they're going to cut it.
And then you're like, it doesn't really fit that person.
That's a nightmare too that you don't think about.
And then it's really tough.
Did it ever happen to you?
Yeah, it did.
And I mean, and but you know, I think a lot of it is they weren't able to authentic authenticate the emotion that I that the music had come from, that it had originated from.
And that's not their fault.
And it's really not mine.
It was just kind of the nature of the business.
But yeah, I think, you know, it's tough.
If I've had any advantage, it's like the only way I can create a song is I have to authenticate it in something truly real.
I can't like, I can't do fantasy music.
I can't like, I can't be like something, I can't be Superman.
I can't be a Marvel character.
And I can't play something I'm not.
I think it's because there's too much of you already who you are that I don't even think, you know, it would fit.
You're just a rare foot.
No.
You know what I'm saying?
So it's like a rare foot.
It's like, yeah, some feet, it can be like, oh, we'll put it in something.
It'll look good here.
It'll look good here.
But I think we're like, no, that's, that's.
Yeah, I was called different a lot as a kid.
It was not a compliment most of the time.
It was really.
But I have to say it has been an advantage as of late.
And like being the weirdo finally helped out.
Oh, for sure.
You know, for so long, you're a Clark Kenton.
You're in there just, you know, changing clothes in a phone booth or whatever.
And people are like, this guy is a pervert or whatever.
And then eventually you come out and think something starts to fit.
I've heard you say that songwriting kind of was like a survival tool for you.
Those are the right words.
No, yeah.
It was like it was my therapy, especially in those first couple years after my dad died.
Like I kind of used science and songwriting at the same time because I have a lot of training in science.
I went and got a science degree.
I worked for a year.
Were you to Purdue?
No, I went to MTSU.
Oh, you did?
Yeah.
And I worked at Mars, the food company, and RD for them as a food scientist.
Oh, wow.
Mars candies?
Yeah.
Research and development for them?
Yeah, but y'all make Snickers, huh?
They do, but I actually worked in pet food for them, which is based out here in Nashville, the Nashville area, at least.
You were snacking on that, huh?
Yep, that's me right there.
Shit, I wouldn't even go to work if that's all they had in the damn snack bowl.
Yep, and they did.
They had like buckets of Snickers.
I put on like 30 pounds of food.
Oh, I'm talking about my pet.
I'm not sure if I'm doing this food.
Oh, yeah.
I'm like, I'd wear a, if I ate that much pet food, I'd wear a damn, I'd wear a damn helmet, too.
That's insane.
People did eat pet food there.
I saw it.
Would some people try a little, got used to it?
Yeah, I'd see some people do it.
Like some, sometimes, like, you know, you'd see some high-level people do it too.
Like, it's like, you don't need to do this, dude.
Oh, shit, that's just Cracker Jack Russell.
Yeah, they're just trying to get down, you know, get down with us a little bit.
Oh, yeah.
Some people love animals so much.
They'll have a, you know, there's people that even videos of people that will snack with them and have those little treats.
Yeah, I don't advise it from a microbiological perspective.
Really?
Because I have a micro degree as well.
I wouldn't eat raw cat food or like wet cat food.
I mean, it does go through like a cat food.
It makes my wings sauce, brother.
I'll tell you that out the gate.
But I did see dudes eat it.
Would you?
Yeah, like with a spoon, like wet cat food.
I think there's a flex.
No.
There's a flex, yeah.
Is there one type that's the good type?
Take me through some of that.
No, it's all as far as like cat food to eat.
Yeah, it gets a little snack.
No, I don't want to try none of it because I knew what was in that.
And I knew like what was in like proteins and like all that that goes into those foods.
And I understood all the kill steps and stuff were there.
But I also know that my digestive tract is far different from a feline's or canine's.
And we ain't made to eat what they're made to eat.
So, so yeah, I didn't really, I did not partake.
But yeah, you'd see a dude like take a big spoonful of cat food and then like drive off in his Lamborghini because, you know, it was easy like a high-level person.
Yes.
Like it's a power move.
It was a power move.
Yeah.
It was impressive though.
I was like, damn.
Dude, I was just talking to my friend this morning at breakfast about things that the powerful do and why they operate certain ways because it's like, yeah, what can I do?
How weirder could this get if you have everything?
If the, if the basic, like I need to make money to survive, I need to feed my family.
Or once you have like, I have seven wives living in different cities, I'm going to live in a jet or I live in a, some people might be living on other planets now.
They don't even know.
They've got their own islands.
Yes.
Yeah.
At this point, yes, I'm having cat food, but I want the greatest cat food ever.
I want cat food that cats can't even afford to eat.
Yeah.
And sometimes they pretend like they could discern between, be like, they're not going to like this.
I was like, but you're not a cat.
Yeah.
Like, how do you eat it as he's eating?
That's for cats.
He's like saying, like, he's basically stating he's eaten so much of this food, he can now discern between what will work and what will not.
That's good.
Yeah.
This is.
Oh, that's good, huh?
Oh, that's good.
They're not allowed to talk about this.
Yeah.
But Himalayan cats are going to love this.
A tilapia aftertaste.
What was a product that you guys made while you were there?
Do you remember one product that kind of came through?
It's called Dentistics Fresh.
It's still on the market.
I see it out there.
And it's for animals?
Yeah, it's for dogs.
It's basically a teeth cleaning dental chew.
Oh, it's pretty cool.
Very digestible.
There it is.
That's my baby right there.
Oh, yeah.
I've seen that before.
Yeah.
That was one of my products that I launched from start to finish.
And yeah, it's cool.
It's cool.
It's cool to see it kind of out there still doing its thing.
Yeah.
At the end of the show, you hum some of those out in the audience.
Yeah, I probably need to start chucking them out there.
Like take a bite out of them.
I'll catch one, dude.
I'll call it catch one in my mouth.
No, I would eat one of those if I had to, but I wouldn't eat none of that cat food.
That's fair.
And look, I love to eat.
That's mostly like flour.
That's mostly wheat flour.
And it ain't got the same ingredients that cats get.
Did you ever pitch a product that they didn't like?
Or are you allowed to pitch products?
Yeah, I did.
I pitched a lot of products.
But at the end of the day, I was the geeky scientist.
And they're like, you need to make what you need to make.
And they have a much, I think, a greater understanding of what the market requires than some of us geeky scientists do.
I had my own lab, and I would come up with these new things and new designs and pitch them in my free time.
And there was a lot of creativity to it.
And, you know, that was, you know, there's actually a lot more creativity to analysis than you think.
And there's a lot more analysis to creativity than you think.
I think the two can work very well together.
like back to what I was saying, but like when my dad died, I was able to kind of apply science and songwriting because I was like so devastated.
But like I was kind of able to metaphorically put a lab coat on and go into researcher mode.
And that's kind of where the songs came from.
I just started looking at my pain from another perspective, like trying to look at it from the outside in, like as an observer.
And then just kind of documenting my findings as I went.
Like I spent four years making this record, Son of Dad, and like two or three of those years were research years, just me documenting everything I was going through and keeping meticulous records like scientists do.
But I was channeling that into songs instead of like, you know, a pet food product.
But I was still using the same methodology.
Like, cause I had to be true to it.
Because that's the thing about science.
It's just a truth detection tool.
It's not an ideology or a paradigm.
It's just an effective tool if it's used correctly.
It's like a metal detector, you know?
Yeah, exactly.
Or a chainsaw.
Even if you use it great, it can be great.
But you use it right, it can be great.
If you use it wrong, it might cut your damn hand off.
Like science created the atomic bomb.
It's also created cures for incurable diseases that we thought.
It's a beautiful thing, but at the end of the day, it's just a tool for detecting truth.
And I used it like that.
So I would have this question and I'd have my observations.
Then I would create a hypothesis, as you would say, which would basically be a song, a song title, an idea.
And I would go out and test it in the world.
I'd play it in front of seven people here, 10 people there, seven people here, seven people there.
And I would get instant data, like feedback, which is data that in the scientific field, we can spend six months before we, it can be six months before you get your first result from an experiment.
So I was getting instant results.
So I love that part of it.
Yeah, I think that instant feedback is, I mean, yeah, it helps you know what's going on.
It's even like working with jokes, you know, and getting them out there.
Absolutely.
It's pretty fascinating how like the parts of your life, like to be a scientist, to have like a methodology to then use it to channel your emotions and look at them.
You look at your emotions, look at your life, look at the path of things, you know, to put like to almost like take a template of science and apply it to something as emotional as music.
Yeah, I kind of joke around calling myself a song scientist, but that's essentially what it is.
I mean, because, you know, user bias is like it can so easily contaminate your results and contaminate your entire experiment and experience.
And so I really was trying to use user bias because I was trying to authenticate something in one of my own emotions and experiences, but also take user bias out of it because at the end of the day, you got to find the truth.
And just because you don't like the results doesn't mean they're not true.
And that's where user bias gets in the way because you want the results to be different.
Maybe you really like this song, but you're not getting the results that you thought it was going to get.
So you start adjusting your formula.
And then before you know it, you got conclusive results, either conclusively, this is not the truth, or conclusively, this is the truth.
And then you run with the truth, whether it's good for you or bad for you.
Yeah, I was just looking at this right here.
It says user bias refers to cognitive tendencies that distort how individuals perceive, interpret, or respond during research.
What are examples of user bias?
For example, you think that this is going to work for whatever reason.
You have a hunch, like that this, whatever thing is going to work.
And you've now like attached an emotion to it because you almost need it to work now.
Now it's more about you than it is about the truth.
So when you go into an experiment, it doesn't need to work out for you.
Your feelings have to be completely separate from this.
If you're doing true research.
If you're going to be a true researcher and using the scientific method the proper way.
So, you know, that's, I guess when you get into a song, especially a song about your dad or a song about loss, it's easy to be like, well, it needs to be like this.
It needs to say this or it needs to say that because that's what's going to make me feel good.
But that may not be the truth.
Yeah, I think your songs don't really take me on like a, they don't take me on a typical journey of like a beginning, middle, and end, I guess.
And some of them are different than others, of course.
But yeah, I guess sometimes you think of a song, especially if it's a country song, I think, of having like a beginning, middle, and end, almost like a journey.
Whereas yours sometimes sort of like take me on a ride down, a ride past something or through something.
Yeah.
And it's not as much of like you're giving me this story as much as you are providing some things and I'm remembering the story of mine that pertain that associates with it sometimes.
Yeah.
Well, that's, I mean, like my favorite.
And I'm not trying to judge, like, what the fuck do I know?
But some of that happens with your music.
That's what I'm saying.
Well, that's, if, if there's any goal I've ever had as a songwriter is to basically do that because I remember I heard this song called Don't Take the Girl on a School Board when I was a kid.
It made a mess out of me.
Yeah, because everything, it's like, then this is now he's 20 years older and then now it's the end of the time.
But I was able in the weirdest way because my mama was, you know, my mom and dad divorced when I was really young and she was with some abusive men.
And she lived in Tennessee when I was a kid.
And I was always, I spent most of my childhood very worried about her.
Really?
Very worried about her getting killed or hurt really badly.
Why did she like abusive men, do you think?
I think probably a lot.
Her childhood was very, very hard.
Oh, so maybe something happened and then she remained.
Oh, she's a beautiful lady.
What's her name?
Kathy.
Kathy Lynn.
Kathy Lynn.
There she is.
Yeah.
And, you know, she's just a baby having a baby and, you know, trying to, and my dad was, you know, a great, a great man, but they were also teenagers.
They were kind of like forced to wed because of religion.
You know, like she was six months pregnant when they got married with me.
There's no way they were going to have a child out of wedlock.
Right.
That was not going on.
Not cool.
And then they end up having two more kids.
And before they know it, they're 22 years old and they got three kids.
And it's like crazy.
And so, you know, I have to, you know, give her a lot of, you know, a lot of grace because of, you know, her life was very hard and she was very young.
And I don't understand a lot of the, you know, some of those choices she made, but I remember, you know, spending most of my childhood in fear of her, of getting that call that she was, she was gone.
Yeah.
Is she your mother still alive?
Yes, she is.
Oh, beautiful.
Yeah.
And she's had a wild year and she's she's very much with us.
And she's had a wild year?
Yeah, she almost got killed this year on an ATV accident.
It's wild that you brought that picture up.
But she literally, yeah, she had very much a near-death experience.
She spent two months in the ICU.
And yeah, it's been a wild year for all of us, especially her.
ATV deaths happen to so many people.
Yeah, I don't.
People don't realize how popular it is.
I don't want one of them damn things anywhere around.
I'm not saying we're getting you one this year.
No, please don't.
I'm just saying yet.
I'm not going to sell it on anybody.
Yeah, yeah.
Skip go with that one.
That one can go on to the next.
In the United States, ATV related deaths typically range from 300 to 900 annually.
But yeah, I don't know why we're even talking about this.
And I'm sorry, but I'm glad to know that she's doing well.
When you guys were young, what kind of stuff was she struggling with stuff?
Yeah, yeah, she had a lot of struggles.
That young age is so tough.
Can you imagine that?
When your mother, can you imagine?
Like when I was 22, I was just concerned if I had enough time in my day to jerk off without somebody bothering me.
And here there were people feeding children.
Oh, true.
I mean, she had no business having children.
But yeah, they had these, you know, they very much had these children.
And she was going through some really tough stuff.
And, you know, like my dad got custody of us, which was kind of rare at the time.
But I remember hearing that song and I was able to put her in that song.
Yanni's Daddy.
And it didn't make no sense that, you know, like, why is my mom in this song?
She shouldn't be.
Like, it doesn't follow the storyline.
Oh, but your head put her in there.
But my head put her in there.
And I was able to copy and paste all of my emotions into that song.
And three and a half minutes later, I was a wreck.
Like, not because of the song, but because of my mom being in the song.
And I was like, okay, that's like to me, that's what the wizardry of songwriting is.
Like Craig Martin and Larry Johnson wrote that song, not knowing that some southern Indiana boy was going to be balling on a school bus with around a bunch of FFA kids wasn't a good look.
And so, yeah, I mean, that's really what I, I mean, I would say that was the moment that I really got bitten by or like song bit, so to speak, because I realized that music was more than just beats and sounds and making words rhyme.
It was literally taking a story, like, like taking someone's life and making it part of a piece of art.
And wow.
And that's, that's really what a great song does.
And I think the real great songs out there, and me as a songwriter, the only thing I've tried to pay forward was that.
So when you said that, like I was, you're able to put yourself in those songs.
That's really all I've ever hoped to achieve.
Not so much to put just put myself in those songs.
I want to put other people in those songs and let them be the star of it, not me.
Got it.
And I feel like that's, if it's, if it's anything, that's how people respond to the music.
It's about them.
It has nothing to do with me up there.
I'm just a vessel.
Yeah.
No, I think, and I think there's a lot of guys that are trying to feel.
I think for especially for a lot of young men, it's been like there's a lot of feeling and processing that we've missed somehow, or we haven't found a way to do it.
I think it's the same thing that I noticed with some of Red Clay Stray's music.
And it's different.
You guys' stuff is totally different.
But if you go to their show, they're great.
Their show, it's a lot of men, probably kind of adult men who are processing, who are trying to find ways to process stuff.
That's what I believe anyway.
And it's just, it's interesting to see that.
It's interesting to see like, where do we go to process stuff and how do we do it?
And yeah, I think your music does a lot of that for people.
Yeah.
And that's why I was saying that, yeah, it would be hard for you to write for somebody, which makes it a little bit tougher to have a career in some ways, because you don't have like you're you and you can write some songs and but man, that with your stuff is so personal, it feels like to your brain and perspective and attitude, that it'd be hard for a regular foot to fit into it.
You know yeah, that was the, that was the challenge.
You know, like there's there's, you know, this sounds so much like you, that was right and you know.
But at the same time and it hurts at the time because you're like well fuck, i'm just trying to do this, but then in the end it's like, oh well, i'm the, i'm the instrument yeah, and that just takes yeah, and then that's a, it's a, that's a gift that you are, because if you'd have got found this other avenue that was for songwriting and I know you've had some success in it, but if you found this other avenue that was hugely successful, then you may not have continued to uh nurture, or the energy may not have been on the seed.
That was you, you know, the sunlight might have not focused on you to keep that growing.
Honestly, if my dad was still alive, I mean, none of this would have happened.
I mean really if um, you know, i'd probably be just writing songs, trying to get cuts and probably still still failing at it and uh yeah, your dad would be selling merch for you.
Be nice.
Huh yeah, he might.
He would mean he would still be there with his giant phone, probably recording every bit of it, proud as hell.
Um man my my uh, I was just thinking about my dad.
So my dad was very old when I was born and so I remember like I was ashamed of my dad, so I had a lot of shame about him, you know.
But I grew up in a lot of fear too in our household.
Like my sister was real sick and so I was always scared that she was going to pass away.
And then my dad was old, so he was in his 70s when I got to know him and so I was always afraid he was going to pass away.
So it was like this constant thing of like, you know, it just felt like somebody was just gonna dang dah, you know yeah, so it made everything kind of dour yeah, I think, or I don't know.
It made it like the perspective was dim, that's what it was and my brother would mess with me.
He'd come in the room and he'd be like, dude, dad's dead and i'm like what he'd be like?
Go in there dude, go in there right now.
And my dad would fall asleep all the time because he was like 76 or 77 and those people like to sleep a decent amount during the day and I don't know if he'd be asleep or he'd just be laying there with his eyes closed.
You know what i'm saying a lot to old people like, i'm awake, i'm at work, You know, I'm married, you know, they're just not forgetting the things that are important, you know.
But I would go up and I would have to go like, and he would be alive.
And I would be like, fuck you, you're full of shit.
So then it got to this weird part where my brother would come in the room and he'd be like, dude, dad's dead.
And I'm like, dude, he better be dead when I go in there or I'm going to beat your ass.
So it became, and it flipped this whole perspective of like what was normal in the world.
So my friends would be like, dude, what do you mean he better be dead?
Are you going to fight your brother?
You know, but no, he does this all the time, dude.
He's not freaking dead.
You were like, I don't know.
You were combating the dark arts with other dark arts.
Yeah.
Or my mom would be like, go spend time with your dad because he's probably going to die soon.
He'd be like, all right, you know, and shit like that.
But she was just doing this to get us out of the room so she could tidy up or something, you know, some trick.
But it was just weird shit, you know?
And so were you?
And it was true, too.
He probably was going to die soon.
So I was like, well, get in there and spend some time with him or draw a picture of him.
We probably have like 70 pictures of him.
We drew of crayons.
But if she'd like, go in there and draw a picture of him.
You know, you're going to want it.
You know, just horrible pictures, you know.
And sometimes we draw him like as a black goddess, like, you know, just like, cause it would seem more exciting or whatever.
But were you, uh, were you quiet as a kid?
No, I don't think that I was.
I think I was like kind of curious.
Yeah.
And I like to make excitement somehow.
Like I like to create ambiance for things.
But I think I was probably, I don't know, my mom says she didn't tend to me that much because it seemed like I was doing fine.
Yeah.
So she didn't think I needed like a lot of attention because she felt like I was doing okay, you know, because we've had like some conversations about that stuff.
But yeah, I think that was a big regret I had was that I had like a lot of shame about my dad's age.
And so I didn't even embrace him really that much, you know, because I just, I was ashamed of it.
Wow.
But it's just life's just harrowing like that.
You and I had like polar opposite dads.
My dad was like a baby and I was like a, I guess I was kind of, I wouldn't say I was a, I was, yeah, it was they, yeah, they were just kind of totally different perspectives to think about.
Like my dad was like a child, like honestly, like a big brother in a lot of ways because he was only 18 years older than me.
Oh, yeah, that's pretty normal.
I mean, I was like, there's actually siblings out there that are like 15, 15 years older than their siblings, you know?
Yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, that, that had to be, that had to be tough.
I find people that are, that's why I asked, you know, people that are spend a, I know, I've, I spent my whole childhood in a state of fear of loss, fear of losing someone really unlosable at that time.
Like, what would make that happen?
It is such a, oh, because your mom being my mom.
Yeah, I was like, like, losing her was not like something I was willing to bear, but it seemed like it was inevitable.
And like something that was like just around the corner, too.
So like, it made me like retreat as a kid.
It made me like really quiet and observe it, like observe everything.
You got to make sure everything's okay.
Yeah.
God, yeah.
And keep my mouth shut because like I didn't want to say something or, you know, like, you know, that could cost me her.
Yeah, it could cost me her or, you know, I didn't want to draw attention to it or speak anything into existence about it.
And I didn't want anybody to know about it either.
So it was like my own little, you know, my own little thing.
Yeah.
And my dad didn't know about a lot of her, what she was going through with her other husbands.
Like that was something that I knew about.
Yeah.
And that was a tough secret to carry because, You know, it was, you know, he would have never, he wouldn't have wanted me around that.
And God knows what he would have done to those of those dudes.
And he probably would have killed them or something.
And so I was, I was always worried.
I was always trying to protect my dad from himself.
And I was trying to protect my mom from herself.
It made me grow up real quick.
And I bet your dad's situation probably made you grow up quicker.
You aware.
That's the thing.
The worst thing to be as a young kid in some ways is just so aware.
Because then you're living on this different timeline.
You're living on this other thing.
It's good to be oblivious in those years.
Like, yeah.
And really ignorant to the pain and the magnitude of that is the weight of loss as a kid.
Like we insulate and we protect children from that.
Yes.
We don't even bring them to funerals because we don't want them to see the that's something my dad.
I got to say, I could give him a lot of credit because I've been, I've seen people die from a young age, from grandparents to family members.
Like he would bring me to funerals, probably because he couldn't find a babysitter.
Like, what's he going to do?
Like, get a babysitter or have us wait in the car.
He's like, no, you're going to come and look.
It's going to be anybody.
You're going to see this dead person because one day it could be me.
My dad would drop us off at funerals in our town, if there was to, in order to take get time away from.
He dropped us me off at two funerals in our town I didn't know any know anybody at, and he would take us to leave us at Burger KING for eight hours like they were a babysitter that he had no, I'm like.
And every time he'd be like, dad, they do not want us there anymore.
Like we ate like 11 French toast sticks that people gave us and they don't even have a play place.
He'd like he'd enjoy the play place and he'd be like, it's the wrong one.
Burger KING doesn't have it dude, you don't have it everywhere, no.
So this lady named Miss Wanda she was always like the lady that would take care of us in there and we would just drink those syrups when people left from there.
But we'd be at the Burger KING for like eight hours talking to people me and my sisters and it would just be bizarre.
But you'd end up in bizarre shit like that you know my dad would take.
He'd be like, drive me over to the post office, because I was kind of tall when I was 10 or 11, maybe 12, so I'd drive him over there, but I didn't have a driver's license or anything and there'd be no parking spots, like well, just do a couple laps around the block while I'm in here.
And I'd be like, and there was this huge Cutlass, His Delta 88, and so I was like I can't drive this bitch and didn't have power steering dude, I would hit.
And the car was so banged up I hit probably seven cars going around that block, totaling cars with that.
Oh dude, just all kinds of shit, because those things are solid and there was no like mirrors, or there was no house around, there was no mirrors, for sure, after I hit the street, but there was no um cameras, nobody knew what had happened, you know, and I would just be in there, and if dad had to wait to buy stamps I'd be out there.
I'd fucking hit 50 cars, dude.
But dude, it was just.
You would be in crazy scenarios.
Odd environments put you in crazy scenarios that other people couldn't fathom, and then it would just kind of get your brain to like a different place.
Yeah, so your brain was kind of operating in some wild territory.
Um, one of the things you said.
Yeah yeah, I wonder how many kids are quiet?
Because they're they.
They're worried if they just tall, if they affect the world in some way that it could alter that they could.
You know, because when you're a child, things are very balanced in your head.
Like I remember, I would swallow on both sides of my mouth.
I would be careful how I stepped.
If I counted one, I had to count one on the other side of my brain.
I always had like these two sides inside of me and i'm like one over here, one over here, like these little things I had to do right and um, I did the same thing.
Yeah ticks, little ticks, and it was because I had to keep things even, everything had to be even.
And so I wonder how many times kids operate in this space where it's like I just can't affect anything too much because things, as far as I recognize them, are already like kind of on a, on a uncertain fulcrum, on a one-footed fulcrum, and it's going to get weird, you know.
Um no, I think you, You just hit.
You hit the nail on the head right there.
It's interesting me.
I think that was, I think you articulated it far better than I did or could have.
Yeah, you're afraid to affect the world because you might change it for the worse.
So like, I'm going to stay Switzerland and keep my mouth shut.
Yeah.
And I did that for most of my childhood.
And then But then a lot of the world happens inside of you then.
If it's not happening inside of you, a lot of the conversations and stuff, they happen inside of you, which is interesting.
And I think it can be painful and scary, but also kind of fascinating.
It allows you to be by yourself a lot.
And it teaches you and trains you to be alone and thrive in loneliness.
And if there's anything like with boxing, songwriting, and I'm assuming comedy, there's a lot of loneliness to it.
You got to be inside your own head a lot in order to do it properly.
It's not like you just go up and play a baseball game and hit a homer.
And then, you know, it's this thing you got to stay in all the time.
It's not event-based.
It's just kind of this state of mentality.
That's a good point, especially with boxing, because boxing, most of it is the training.
The fights are very rare.
The fights are rare and short compared to the training.
So your father was a boxer.
How did he get into it?
Do you know how?
Yeah.
Well, he started probably a year before I was born.
He saw Muhammad Ali fight.
Muhammad Ali was like his hero.
He's from Louisville, Kentucky, so very almost like a local dude, too.
Yeah, my dad just idolized him.
He just watched all his fights, loved everything about him in and out of the ring.
And I think, yeah, he was just really inspired by Ali's story.
And he literally just wanted to start boxing.
And I think the movie Rocky probably just came out around that time, too.
I bet that probably had something to do with it.
A lot of whites got caught up in that.
Yep.
But I think with the combination of Muhammad Ali and Rocky Balboa, yeah, my dad said, hey, I want to put on some gloves.
And before he knew it, he was fighting.
And he started on his own, just like literally fighting anybody, like signing up for tough man competitions.
And then he ended up finding this great gym up in Indianapolis and fighting under this coach named Champ Cheney.
That was his name.
Champ Cheney, bring him up.
Let's get a gander at him.
I'd like to see this man today.
I can still smell the cigar smoke.
That's him, dude.
There you go, Champ.
Oh, dude, I haven't seen him in forever.
Let him out of it.
That second picture right there, that's exactly how I remember.
He'd have that same sweater on every time I'd see him.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, Police Athletic League.
That was the pal clubs we would fight at.
Like, we would open up for our dad's fights.
Like, when he got into like Champ's tutelage, that's when he started really doing well.
Okay.
Because he didn't have any really good training.
And very much like how Apollo trained Rocky, Champ trained my dad.
He reformatted his whole style.
He taught him footwork.
He taught him head movement.
He taught him all the things that he lacked fundamentally because my dad was just a tough guy with a mean punch and a heart of a lion.
And he could just train, train, train.
He loved to train.
He loved to work.
And Champ loved that about him, his work ethic.
He'd show up to Indianapolis.
He'd spar anybody.
I remember him getting up in the morning and literally having to peel his eyes open to see us because of just sparring, not from a fight, just sparring those dudes in Champ's gym.
Dude, go ahead.
You know, I was just going to say, I mean, he had a lot of guys that didn't care for him.
And I remember, you know, him talking about that.
Like, he really had to fight for his spot at that gym.
Your dad did?
He did.
What reasons would they have not to care about him or care for him?
I think, you know, he just, I think Champ maybe favored him because he really put in a lot of work.
I think Champ saw what he was going through.
He was bringing his kids to the gym.
And, you know, he was very much out of sorts there culturally.
And he was fighting an uphill battle and he was, and the wind was in his face.
And he just still kept going forward.
And I feel like that's what Champ saw in him.
And so when we started boxing as a kid, I mean, my first memories are the sounds of these fights.
Like that right there.
Like I can smell that picture.
Like I can smell the room.
It's cigar smoke and isopropyl alcohol with menthol in it.
And it's all those sweat and leather and the sound of like cops under the table gambling, screaming red and blue.
Because that's where you'd be like red and blue.
They have like red headgear.
Like this was an exhibition fight.
Me and my brother were fighting each other in this one.
So we didn't have an opponent, so they'd just have us fight each other.
So that was one of the fights we would, that was one of the fights we opened up for my dad.
Well, they gave both y'all a trophy too, which is fucking shit.
Sounds like a participation trophy.
Because it's an exhibition fight.
If you both get one, yeah, I could see that.
Just tell them both are the winners.
There's exhibition fights and then there's competition.
These are exhibitions.
So in an exhibition fight, you both get a trophy.
Got it.
You're just exhibiting the sport of boxing.
Not really, it's not going, nothing's going on your amateur record or anything like that.
But then we ended up fighting other kids.
And when they could find a boy our size a fight, we'd fight him.
And so we would open up, like the first two or three fights on the card would be kid fights.
Oh, that's fun.
So I joke around.
I've been an opener for a long time.
But yeah, I really have.
There's nothing funny than watching a kid smoke cigarettes or fight another kid, a little kid.
I did both of those things.
Hell yeah.
There's something about that.
I think they should have a zoo where you get to watch people do unique shit.
If they had a section where a couple kids are sitting there smoking, like, don't have them smoke all day because I know it's bad for them.
It is bad for them.
But they get two cigarettes a day each.
And it's like at a certain time they smoke and you all get to watch it.
If it's like 15 minutes a day, you come in and watch it.
And you could stream it too.
If you didn't want to go in person, you could stream it.
But you're telling me some kids smoking on my lunch break at 12.15 p.m. today, you know, Gary or Robert or whatever is going to smoke.
If you find a little Gary, let me know.
Yeah.
Bubble wrap him.
Protect him.
That's a precious, that's a Gary Breed right there.
Oh, that's a Gary, Indiana, isn't it?
Gary, Indiana is a wild place I've heard.
Oh, yeah.
But yeah, I would watch a kid.
I would love to watch a kid smoke, you know?
So, and that's, maybe that sounds very Russian to me.
I don't know.
I've been online a lot.
No, I think smoking's a very American thing, too.
But yeah, I just love, like, I don't know.
I love nostalgia too.
That's something that I love, dude.
I remember the first, yeah, going to funeral.
Like, I just, I love the first of everything because after the first time of everything, everything lost a lot of luster for me in life, I think, a lot of times.
And I don't know why that is.
And I don't mean it like super negatively, like I'm not down in the dumps or anything.
Yeah.
But I just, it's the first, it's like there's something fascinating about the first time of everything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nostalgia is a, it's a really effective tool as far as, you know, making people go back to memories.
Like whether it's in when you get in your own memory, you're attached.
Yeah.
You know, it's like, yeah, there's just something that attaches you there.
Yeah, and you can use senses to like a, like as an appendage to nostalgia, like a sense of smell, a sense of sight or sound and touch, all that.
And I think if you kind of use those senses and appendage them to a certain type of nostalgia, you can unlock a memory within any human.
Yeah.
Like all humans.
It doesn't have to be your memory.
You suddenly have a key to so many memories, so many minds.
And yeah, you open up these memories that people have had vaulted for years.
And when they come out, it's almost like seeing that toy that you got for Christmas when you were seven years old that you were so excited about.
But seeing it again for the first time when you're in your 30s or 40, and you kind of relive that excitement for at least a second.
Like, oh man, I remember that feeling.
I haven't seen that in 30 years.
And when you kind of unleash that memory, it's such a beautiful thing.
You see it on people's eyes.
see them traveling through time and um yeah it's yeah it's like the first time you hear a song kind of that really touches you you know Like, it's a human thing.
Why?
I got a new complaint.
Who sang that song, yeah?
Nirvana.
It's Heart Shaped Box.
God, that song was fucking good.
Oh, it's incredible.
Yeah, I hear that song.
I'm coming home from school to listen to that song, dude.
And watch the video.
I remember watching the video and just being like, I remember Kurt rocking back and forth in that chair.
Just everything about it.
That whole record in utero was just life-changing for me.
That was huge.
Scentless Apprentice.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, this is the video.
Oh.
I do remember some of this now, dude.
I've been locked inside your heart shape.
Oh, dude.
When Soundgarden came up, bro.
Soundgarden changed my life.
Stone Temple Pilot, bro.
I actually learned how to play guitar from Soundgarden.
People, if they're like, if I could give anybody like, who taught you how to play guitar?
It literally, like, if I could credit anybody, it would be the band Soundgarden.
And I feel, is that Soundgarden?
Stone Temple Pilots.
They were all so good.
What was Soundgarden?
What's a Soundgarden song?
There's so many, like, as far as hits, you got like Black Hole Sun, Fell on Black Days, like Blow Up the Outside World, one of my favorites.
The outside.
Rusty Cage, pretty news.
The day I tried to live.
The 4th of July is heavy as hell.
I love 4th of July.
4th of July.
July.
Lemo Rec.
Oh, that slaps.
Super heavy.
John, John, John, do.
Well, that's 4th of July.
John, John, John.
Blow up the outside.
Dude, dude.
One of the greatest rock and roll vocal performances ever is Blow Up the Outside World.
Like, listen to that Chris Cornell vocal and just talk to me after it is like a clinic.
Is it pretty good?
Put these on.
Let's play it real quick.
You're going to play a couple songs for us, Terry.
Do you think Steve?
Yeah, let's do it.
Come on.
I ain't scared.
Let's listen to this together if we can.
There's so much like John Lennon influence in this song.
You can really.
Ooh.
All I tried was in my time Remember how videos were so much too then?
Oh, riding or dude, riding somewhere to listen to a song by yourself.
There was nothing like it!
My buddy would smoke cigarettes in his car and he'd just throw them in the backseat when he was done smoking them.
Yeah, he was flipping the bus.
Whole backseat, it burnt up like 70 times the back of his car.
He would just have a little water bottle from his mom's hair salon and he'd just zap it out.
Zap it, bro.
His voice was like nobody's No, it's insane.
I mean, it didn't even seem human that he was doing this.
No.
Very few people had like that range of being able to go that high, but also like go low and make it meaningful and then go back down to this world.
Yeah.
Oh.
And take you there.
A lot of those high singers would lose you when they go down like that.
They kind of.
Yeah.
It's all it all.
I mean, just so enveloped.
Like you just, like you wanted to be in their world.
Smashing pumpkins together.
There was a lot of good.
And I always, one thing I've never liked, I don't like music where you can't hear the words, right?
Yeah.
Sometimes the way they do mixes something, it loses me.
If I can't hear the words, that's the part that I need the most, right?
Because I need to feel something.
Like the beat and stuff helps.
It's cool for me.
But for me, I've always been like, what are the words telling us?
I want to know the story.
Yes.
I want to feel something from it.
Yeah.
You know?
No, I'm with you.
I mean, that was, I'm a word nerd.
So I'm assuming you are too.
Oh, I love to write.
That was like my favorite thing.
I think like one of my goals, maybe the next couple of years would be to like finally get a book done.
Like I've written a lot of stuff and I've written probably half of maybe two books, but I would like to finally get it done.
But once video became so popular, it was just like, and once podcasting became busier, it was hard to focus on that.
Is there anything good in the news right now that we want to check out?
Dude, I did.
Will you look up an article, Trevor?
I saw something about Facebook.
It did research and then they canceled it after it started to find beliefs that they didn't want.
We were talking about that.
We were talking a few minutes ago about research.
Yeah.
What kind of user bias?
Oh, about user bias?
Unboxing.
Have you done eboxing?
Because you know, I've go to a lot of MMA.
I go to a lot of MMA stuff.
I love it.
As soon, you know what?
I wouldn't mind getting into something more.
The past year has been tough for me.
I didn't invest in a lot.
Like the past couple years with touring, I kind of should have invested more of like having a trainer with me on the road or things like that.
I kind of took some of that for granted.
And I think in the future that I'll do it differently.
But this year I'd like to get more into focusing more on my health and stuff like that.
I've really burned myself out pretty good.
But I used to take MMA classes and I have a feeling that I'll get back into it.
I've also had traveled.
Was moving a lot too, but now I'm going to be here more.
And so I need to put some roots more in some places like that.
So it's like I'll be able to have more of a system, like a pattern.
So it's been tough for me to have that.
It's so hard to find that.
I mean, I box a lot here in town.
Well, a lot.
When I'm in town, I try to as much as I can, but it's, it's helped me so much just try to, even if it's two days a week.
I only brought it up.
I went to the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas.
Oh, that's what I did.
Last week.
And because we played in Vegas last week and they invited me in.
Oh, were you at the fights?
No.
No, it was after the fights, but I saw Sean Strickland there.
It was cool.
You did?
Oh, dude, he's a really amazing guy.
He's an interesting guy.
Incredible.
He's a deep soul.
He is a deep soul.
And just such a nice guy.
Everybody there was so nice.
They're so great.
Did you get to work out there or train there at all?
No.
Yeah, I did.
I trained with Brandon Jenkins there.
You did?
Yeah.
Dude, bring up Brandon Jenkins.
Yeah, Forrest Griffin basically gave me the tour and like he met me there and I was like, holy hail.
There he is.
Nice, dude.
Yep.
Yeah, he put some work on me.
That's awesome.
I was really out of shape.
But it was cool.
I got to learn some new things.
I only train with boxing guys and he's an MMA guy.
So there was a lot of different angles, a lot of new things I had to learn and take it kind of slow and kind of start from scratch.
It was humbling.
And I was like four weeks on the road and very like four weeks having not trained is too much time off to like go back.
I felt like a total piece of crap.
Yeah.
Like I looked real bad and I felt like I looked real bad.
That's the tough thing as you get older too.
It's like you got to catch me.
Give me a couple days to prepare for anything.
I can do it.
But do not catch me.
If I've had four or five diet cokes and you want me to box or whatever, bitch, I'm staying in the car.
You know what I'm saying?
Like way too much aspirin.
Yeah, that's what it is, dude.
It's like, I look like a damn teddy bear or something, you know?
Because also my body style, my God-given body style is I'm built kind of like a gingerbread cookie a little bit, you know?
Like I'm sturdy.
Bring up a good G-bread on me, daddy.
It's seasonal anyway.
I bet you can throw.
You know what?
I can survive, dude.
I'll do okay.
Put me, give me a couple weeks of MMA.
That's how I'm built right there.
Now, sturdy, I got a sturdy base on me.
Yeah.
Do your legs look like that?
Well, I think they're bow legging like that.
No, this one had a bad, this one might have been in a bad oven, but I got a little bit more frosting on me than that one.
But yes.
Anyway, maybe the one they don't really make a perfect cookie, dude.
Dude, you know what would be interesting?
What if we made cookies of like people that have been on this show and we saw it?
It was like a fun, like we could do part of it as like a fundraiser or something for moms or something.
That's good.
We eat each other's cookies.
And you just get a batch of them or something.
Yeah, you can get a batch of the Stephen Wilsons.
And make him bite my head off.
I love that.
If you're angry at your husband, you just get you a batch of them Stephen Wilsons and chew his head off.
So that's pretty crazy.
So Brandon Jenkins met you out there.
And Forrest Griffin met you out there.
And they gave me a tour of the whole facility.
It was cool.
Oh, man.
It was like, I was a kid at a candy shop.
Did they take you through not just the gym part, but also the UFC building and stuff?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I got to go into like the lunchroom.
Yeah, dude, it's nice.
Yeah.
I was like, this is so nice.
And yeah, like you don't, this is like the most dangerous lunchroom you'll ever walk into.
Like seriously, like, like, everybody was so nice and so friendly, but it was like, you'll never walk into a cafeteria that could hurt you so bad.
Yeah.
Oh, even the line cooks will have like cauliflower.
He's like, do you want cauliflower?
And you're like, oh, I'm good.
I'm back.
About the broccoli.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, dude.
Even like, yeah, I think like the head chef in there last week was like Brandon Roy Valor.
So I'm like, they got some gangsters in here.
I'm being careful what I asked for in here.
Yeah.
Oh, that's hilarious, dude.
Meta buried casual evidence of social media harm.
U.S. court filings allege.
Oh, yeah, this was it.
This was about information bias.
Let me see this.
Meta shut down internal research into the mental health effects of Facebook after finding causal evidence that its products harmed users' mental health, according to unredacted filings in a lawsuit by U.S. school districts against Meta and other social media platforms.
So, so would that be information bias?
Internal research in the middle of in a 2020 research project codenamed Project Mercury.
Scientists worked with survey film survey firm Nielsen to gauge the effects of deactivating Facebook.
According to meta documents obtained via Discovery, to the company's disappointment, people who stopped using Facebook for a week reported lower feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and social comparison.
Rather than publishing those findings or pursuing additional research, the filing states Meta called off further work and internally declared that the negative study findings were tainted by the existing media narrative around the company.
Privately, however, a staffer insisted the conclusions of the research were valid according to the filing.
Is that user bias?
I'd say it definitely could be user bias, but I would actually have to see the research.
There's so many other variables.
Like you want to know how many participants were involved.
Like what's your statistical in?
Meaning like how many participants were there.
Therefore, your bell curve is going to be a lot more, I guess, a lot more valid.
You're going to have more statistical significance the higher number of participants are involved in the research.
For all we know, there's 20 people that they did research on on Facebook.
Right.
But if they said, like, no, we did research on 200,000 people.
Okay, now you got statistical validity, but I need to see this research paper.
And because one person's saying that there's user bias, and then there's another person saying, no, the results are actually scientifically valid.
So that person may actually have bias because they're like emotionally attached to all the research they did.
Who knows?
Oh, that's what you're saying.
This could be like a user bias on top of user bias.
A user bias sandwich.
Yeah.
Oh.
Bias.
A sandwich, user bias.
It's the new bond me, dude.
Bring it back up.
I want to see a little bit more information.
Let me see if it tells us.
Because it is interesting to think, though, that I noticed after only a week, people were getting better.
This is allegedly.
The full record will show that for over a decade we have listened to parents' research issues that matter most and made real changes to protect teens.
Go further, see.
Okay, the allegation of meta burying evidence on social media harms is just one of the many in late Friday filing by Motley Rice, a law firm suing Meta, Google, TikTok, and Snapchat on behalf of school districts around the country.
Wonder if we get in touch with them.
That sounds like kind of an interesting lawsuit, doesn't it?
Just to see like what are they learning and what information have they learned?
Broadly, the plaintiffs argue the companies have intentionally hidden the internally recognized risks of their products from users, parents, and teachers.
I want to see the research and I want to see if they conducted it or if it was conducted by a second party or third party.
That's going to be a huge part of it.
And I mean, Australia just recently did a social media ban.
I saw that.
Kids under ages 16, I believe.
Why is the Australian government banning social media for under 16s?
The government says it will reduce the negative impact of social media's design features that encourage young people to spend more time on screens.
10 platforms are currently included in the ban: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube, Reddit, and streaming platforms like Kik and Twitch.
A study it commissioned earlier in 2025 found that 96% of children aged 10 to 15 use social media and that seven out of 10 of them have been exposed to harmful content.
This includes misogynistic and violent material as well as content promoting eating disorders and suicide.
One in seven also reported experiencing grooming type behavior from adults or other children.
And more than half said they've been the victim of cyberbullying.
Wow.
I think, oh shit, I'm not even a child and all that's happened to me on there.
Yeah.
I'm a damn adult and some of that shit hurts.
Yeah.
Will it say how will it work or when they're imposing it?
I just want to get that information out in this.
Dude, go back up.
It takes Meta about an hour and 52 minutes to make $50 million in revenue.
That's Australian revenue.
That's crazy.
Wow.
Australia's social media ban for children under 16 officially started on December 10th.
So they're in it.
Marina.
If you're an Australian kid, shit, I don't think this is legal to have kids call.
But call and tell me, honestly, what do you think?
Do you think it's good?
Are you pissed about it?
What are the feelings right now?
Hit me with a couple of, hit the hotline, 985-664-9503.
And just let it drop, drop, and don't be some fake weirdo pretending with an Australian accent who's obviously a pervert or whatever.
We want real kids to call in.
No, I mean, Australia, when it comes to science and research, they are very thorough.
I went to school there for a year.
You did?
I did my junior year.
And I went to four of their science programs.
Their research programs are some of the best in the world.
So if they've actually done proper research to back this up, I believe that it's probably valid science.
And was that in Sydney?
It was in Brisbane.
Oh, yeah.
Get out of Brizzy.
And yeah.
Dude, the Brisbane Lions, dude.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I watched L Squad.
No way.
Yeah.
I love the Lions.
Dude, the Brisbane Lions, bring them up.
And the Wallabies.
Oh, yeah.
The Brizzy Lions, dude.
Fucking legends, dude.
Bring up Mitch.
There he is, boys.
Class.
Yeah.
Dude, yeah, I love the Brisbane Lions, dude.
I went over there one night with Mitch, had a good time.
I love Australia, brother.
It's great.
I miss it.
I'm going to go back some, hopefully next year.
Did you find, are you married?
Yeah.
Yes.
Okay.
Is there a Stephen Wilson III?
No, there isn't.
No.
There isn't.
No, I don't have any.
Biological children.
I have a stepson named Henry.
Okay.
I've been helping raise since he was about four years old.
Oh, nice.
He's my boy.
And incredibly cool kid.
He's such a great kid.
I'm very, very blessed.
What do you admire about him?
He's, well, he's so different from me in the best ways.
He's very, very intelligent and very collected and calm and very, I would say he's more ordered than I am in a lot of ways.
He's got, I think, this incredible constitution about him.
And he's got a very calm constitution, which is not what I grew up around.
Like, I grew up around a lot of noise and a lot of chaos and a lot of energy.
And he's like a rock in a raging river that will not move.
And I just, I love that about him.
And he's a very strong and smart young man.
He's very much into Muay Thai kickboxing.
And we started in boxing.
And yeah, he's my dude.
And my dad was a stepfather, not just a father.
He remarried after my mother.
And a couple of times he didn't have the best luck with the ladies.
But a couple of his wives had stepchildren.
And he really taught me how to be a good stepfather, I got to say, not by teaching me, but just by example.
His faith was led by his works, not his words.
What's one of the toughest things about being a stepfather, kind of, that people don't really see or that they may see and you may have your own that you may have some specific thoughts about?
Well, I mean, I was not just a step, I'm not just a stepfather, I was a stepchild.
So I remember the perspective as a stepchild.
So I go into my step parenthood as a stepchild.
Oh, okay.
So I have something that a lot of step parents don't have.
I have like a really unique perspective of what it was like to grow up with steps.
R D. You've done the R D.
Yeah, I've done the R D. I've had the experience.
I've had multiple step parents.
I didn't just have one set.
You have a trial sample.
I like, yeah, I didn't a lot of variability.
Variables, yeah.
Okay, there we go.
So I've got some good data there.
And one thing I just remember, and this was never a conversation.
My dad just loved his stepchildren like us.
There was never like, I feel like a lot of step parents, if they have biological children and stepchildren, they will be like, well, I love you just like I love him.
And they'll say that he never said that, that I can remember.
He just did.
That was what his, that's the lesson that I learned is that it has nothing to do with words.
It has everything to do with your actions.
And so I really just tried to be the best stepfather I can, not talk about being a stepfather.
Not talk about anything.
Just like just be.
And yeah, I think it's, I think it's tough.
It's like sometimes it's easier for me to love a stranger than it is like somebody close to me, I feel like in a weird way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, there's, you know, familiarity breeds contempt.
That's an old saying.
And, you know, the more familiar you become with somebody, the more contemptuous you can become.
Oh, yes.
That's disputes.
Yeah.
So like a stranger is without contempt because there's no familiarity there.
And, you know, that's, I guess, the kind of the battle of love because the more you love somebody, the more familiar you become with them.
And like, I guess that is like, how do you balance contempt and love?
Because contempt is going to kind of creep its way in or somehow.
Resentment, something.
Something negative will come in there.
The more and more you love somebody.
And, you know, maybe that's just, you know, the darkness balancing out the light.
But, you know, I think just acknowledging it and knowing that it's there is really the big part of it.
Cause like the fear or the panic behind it is the lack of understanding behind it.
Really?
Fear is most of the time just a lack of understanding.
And fear, sometimes they're standing there and you don't, it's like if you really looked at it for a bit, but sometimes I'll just feel a fear and react.
I'll do that for decades without really looking at what's going on here.
What's really got me here?
What am I, you know?
And sometimes just you could figure it out and you're free of it.
You know, you can at least have a see when it's standing there.
But I'll let a damn thing Michael Myers me out there forever.
And I won't even go out there and realize, oh, this is just a damn cardboard cutout of some old bullshit.
This isn't even fucking, nothing's even in this costume anymore.
And I've still been acting this way because part of me, I get something out of pretending that that's still real too.
I get an excuse.
I get to keep living my life a certain way when I pretend that that old boogeyman is still new.
Not saying that that happens a lot, but I'm just saying that that hasn't not been a part of my story at times, probably.
And sometimes I didn't realize it.
It's wild what the mind can do.
Like my dad took me deer hunting, and I think that was the best thing he could have done for me.
Not just the boxing.
You deal with a lot of fear in boxing because you don't understand certain things.
But I remember when you go deer hunting, you go out, especially if you morning hunt, you go out about an hour before sunrise into a pitch black woods and you'll walk a quarter mile into a pitch black woods.
And my dad would post me up against a tree with a shotgun in my hand, not even a tree stand or anything.
Post me up against a tree, and then he would go off about 500 yards the other way because he'd have to be far away because I could shoot him or he could shoot me.
Like you got to be, you can't be in range of each other's shot because we're shooting slugs.
And, but I just remember like, okay, getting out there an hour before sunrise, it would be pitch black.
And he would walk me out to this tree and you couldn't see nothing.
And I remember thinking, like, he would walk out here by himself all the time.
And I was like, man, that's crazy.
And he would sit me up against a tree in the pitch black and it would just be pitch black.
And then he would go off into his tree.
And I would be there for at least 45 minutes in the darkest woods you can imagine.
Yeah.
Hearing everything crick and crackle and move around, shuffle through leaves.
Is that a wild boar?
Is that you know, is it a hooker?
Is that a cougar?
You'd hope it was a hooker, but it never was, dude.
It was like a boar or just a squirrel.
Yeah, or a raccoon like it had gotten shoes somewhere.
Like a rabid raccoon.
But no, I just remember then the sun would slowly start to come up and the light, you would start to understand the woods that you didn't have understanding of like 45 minutes ago.
And you'd start to see it.
And then it was like, okay, it become literally as the more and more light crept into the woods, the more understanding you got of the woods and what it looked like, what it was made of, what kind of trees, what kind of animals that were making all these sounds.
And by, you know, by the time the sun was up, there was nothing in that woods that was scaring you anymore.
So it was really, you know, your fear was what you didn't understand and what you couldn't see.
The woods did not change in the presence of light, the lack thereof.
It was the exact same woods that it was 45 minutes ago.
Because the squirrels don't care about dark and light.
You know, they just, they live, you know, oh, yeah, they're always up to some bullshit or whatever.
They ain't afraid of the dark.
Yeah.
They ain't afraid of other men either.
Apparently, some of these young bucks, I've seen a lot of squirrels.
Terribles.
Gosh.
Oh, he catches me a little bit.
Richard Gere.
Terribles, baby.
Oh.
Those are the old days, dude.
Remember how those crazy rumors?
Yeah, I know.
We were just talking about that.
Like Richard Gere's gay.
He used to put squirrels up his butt or whatever.
And people are like, what?
But somehow that made it around society.
No, I know.
Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, that made it to my tiny little small town in southern Indiana.
We were just like, what are we talking about?
I guess maybe that is the downside of social media is that those old bullshit rumors don't come up anymore because someone would eventually would shoot him down immediately.
It'd be all over TikTok in a day and then someone would be like, yeah.
Someone would be like, this is a bunch of bullshit.
Yeah.
And then be like, you used to be able to lie to people.
Yeah.
My dad's a skydiver.
Yeah.
Like, oh, he'll be home any minute.
You fucking lie to people all the time.
He'd be like, I'm a lawyer.
They'd be like, you're in seventh grade.
What are you talking about?
You're like, yeah, whatever.
The defense rests.
Doogie Hauser.
Dude, Yowser was good, huh?
You could become a doctor at like age 12.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, man, the world was wild.
They just did whatever they want to in the 90s.
Richard Gere, Gerbils, children doctors, Doogie Hauser.
To be young, huh?
Yeah.
Say by the Bell.
Oh.
I saw, I was at the UC fights the other day and I saw Mario Lopez.
Oh, wow.
Crazy every time it seems he looks younger than when he was working on it.
He's got like his mullet back.
Oh, 100%.
Look, what grade he is?
He's like in seventh, eighth grade now.
He's still wearing like those leotards and stuff.
The unitards.
Yeah, the unitards.
Yeah, bro.
He looks even better than that now.
I don't even know what happened.
He's incredible.
Yeah, he was like, yeah.
He's every ethnicity, too.
Looks like he's still captain of the wrestling team.
Oh, dude.
Dude, oh, God, yeah.
Oh, geez.
Sorry.
But yeah, guy looks healthy.
What I'm saying is this, whatever, dude.
I like women.
But what I'm telling you is, will you have a kid?
You're on your thing.
I don't know.
I'm pretty good.
I think, you know, we talked about it.
We've also talked about adopting kids.
But, you know, I don't know.
I've got a lot going on right now.
I got Henry.
I mean, I know what it's like to raise a child.
I know what it's like to love a child.
I know what it's like for a child to love me.
I'm not missing anything.
But you never know.
You never know.
We could have a child.
But right now, my life is very, very busy.
And I think I have other things that I'm supposed to be doing right now rather than raising a baby at this particular moment in my life.
And I have a lot of work to do right now.
And maybe a child will be in the future.
That's fair.
But you asked about nieces and nephews?
Yes, I do.
I have quite a like all my siblings have children.
And yep, I'm a wild Uncle Stephen that goes around the world singing his songs.
They're a little bit, I'm sure they're like, what the hell is this dude?
Because all my family are still in my hometown.
They work on cars and they're very, it's very much a small town life.
And then my weird ass does what he does.
But they love it, though.
Oh, I bet they're so proud of you.
It's cool.
Oh, yeah.
I don't think they know what to think about any of it because they've seen me kind of live multiple lives in front of them.
That's been one wild thing to see because my siblings had their children very young, just like my parents did.
And so my niece, a lot of my nieces and nephews are older now.
So they remember me when I was a scientist and that's all I was doing.
And then they remember when I quit my science job and I was waiting tables and bartending and just trying to get a publishing deal.
And then they remember the guy that got a publishing deal and was writing songs for other people and my dad recording them on the big phone and all that.
And now there's this chapter.
So they've kind of got to see their uncle go through multiple identities.
So if anything, I hope that it's been helpful for them to see that you're not stuck in any particular life.
Like you can live multiple lives.
You can do all kinds of things.
Amen, man.
And I think it's important for them to see that life has chapters.
It's not one chapter.
And you're writing your own book and you can make the chapters as long as you want, but there are only so many pages.
Amen.
Amen.
Well, thank you for helping us think about stuff, man, and for giving us some of your music over the years.
Dude, I'd love to get together and we could talk again sometime.
I feel like there's other avenues of things we could talk about.
And sometimes I realize it's better, you know, to just get together and talk again sometime.
Yeah, so that way we could go down different roads and think about other stuff.
I think today it's been nice to just talk about like, yeah, relate like familiar relationships and how some things can influence you and yeah, what it's like living like your father's dream out.
Um, we never talked about the theory of evolution, but we can get to that next time, maybe.
Yeah, we can.
I'll put a whole presentation for you together.
Well, I'll do a morning while you're gone.
I think I might hit a pet and zoo or something while you're gone and see if I can get a little bit more research done, dude.
Um, well, I got to say, I probably owe you money because I feel like I could have paid a therapist a lot of money.
I've never had therapy in my life, but you probably do need it.
Uh, haven't, but you said something that was so like insane earlier about the quiet part.
You know, about do you think you were quiet because you didn't want to affect the world around you?
Yeah, I think, like I said, like I said, that really rocked my world, so to speak.
I'll be thinking about that for a long time.
Um, there's certain things that we as songwriters say to some sometimes to somebody, and it kind of flips a switch or it makes them think about something they've thought about for a long time totally differently.
And that was a paradigm shift, and I thank you for it.
So, if anything, I walked away with an incredible piece of knowledge that I, like I said, I could have could have never even found in therapy.
And if I had, it would have cost a lot of money.
So, thank you.
Oh, you won't.
You're welcome, man.
No, you've already, you've paid me, you've paid in advance, dude.
So many times I've listened to your songs in moments where I needed something or to process something or just to remember my father, you know.
Like, I like, you know, one thing about my dad, I remember he liked to whistle and he had change in his pockets all the time.
So, if I hear change, you don't hear change in people's pockets anymore.
That used to be a thing, you know, like an older man you'd have changed in his keys in his pockets, and now like a lot of car doors are just auto entry and it's hooked to your phone, and people don't have change anymore.
But that, like, when I want to think about my dad, I'll like that's one of the first things I'll lay there and think about is the sound of change in somebody's pocket, kind of, you know.
But, um, that was his song, yeah, yeah, that was his song.
That was like my dad always whistled, he always had a song in his head, he was always whistling a song, or humming a song, or singing a song.
He like he was a song, like, you know, he was either riding a song wave or or just you know, being a song without being one, yeah, but you know, like you know, but yeah, there was always like a sound to him.
It sounds like your dad had the same sound.
Oh, yeah, he was a joyous instrument, but yeah, if we think of ourselves as a song, it's like, what song am I when I go into the room with people?
And you know, and you can be different songs, sometimes you're a separate song, maybe when it's just you by yourself, or or your music's kind of off, and you're just sort of listening.
But yeah, it's like, what kind of song do I bring into the world?
You know, and then do I just play the same song over and over again?
And maybe I do that because I just, it's therapeutic to myself, you know.
Um, yeah, I don't know, it's but it's been fascinating, man.
It's been fascinating to be a fan of yours.
It's been fascinating to get to share your music with other people.
I've done that a bunch to connect with them.
Thank you, you know, tell my brother, like, hey, man, I love this song, you know, and then he can call me back.
I'm like, oh, I see why you like it, you know, and just things like that that can bring people closer together.
So, thank you so much, man.
Thank you.
You've shared this music, our music, my music a lot on your show, and you've talked about it a lot.
I remember Randall Lambert was in, and we both loved him.
Yeah, well, everybody loves to talk about you behind your back, Steven.
So, I figured we would do it in front of you.
Well, I'm grateful either way that anybody is talking about this music.
And you've been an early champion of it.
Oh, well, I don't know if that's true, but thank you, dude.
And Evan Bartells is another great guy.
You're listening to any of his music absolutely.
God, I mean, there's just some people that can just make me feel something, you know.
And so, thank you, dude.
Thank you for helping us feel.
Would you honor us and play a song or two before you leave?
Let's do it.
Let's go.
All right, let's do it.
Let me play some Gary.
Let's do it, man.
Ladies and gentlemen, Stephen Wilson Jr.
Thank you, sir.
These days been lying in his bed, man.
Working on the same car going on a decade.
Scribbles on drumming, don't draw attention.
I never really noticed, but now that I'm mentioning ain't a lot of boys named Gary these days, born with the cigarette glued to their face.
Fixing bound anything a hammer can't handle.
Saving all the money cause a Gary don't gamble.
Ain't a lot of girls going by Debbie anymore.
They got the same nicotine pouring out their pours.
Time leaves town, but the minute hand stays.
Ain't all named Gary these days Gary these days been worried about the bad news There ain't a lot of teenagers filling up the church views.
No.
Burning bush lights don't talk to his brother.
The people even still say grace before supper.
There ain't a lot of boys named Gary these days.
Born with a cigarette glued to their face.
Fixing bound anything a hammer can't handle.
Saving all the money cause a Gary don't gamble.
Ain't a lot of girls going by Debbie anymore.
But they got the same nicotine pouring out their pours.
Time leaves town, but the minute hand stays.
I had a weird suspicion with the light out on the front porch.
Hard medication poured down where the drain pours He holds his left arm while his parakeet prays Has anybody seen much of Gary these days Has anybody seen what you're getting these days?
No, there ain't a lot of boys.
Ain't a lot of...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You do it like that.
It's just fun, huh?
This is fun.
It's almost like the door closes on it or something.
It's like the, you know, Gary dies, and it's almost like the door closes on Gary.
It's Gary said.
It is, and there's not enough Gary's out there.
There's not.
I mean, they're a Gary breed.
Dude, well, they should have a they should have a museum that has Gary's in it.
I agree.
You know, I always thought there would be a great idea for a Gary Busey museum called the Gary Museum.
Oh, I like that.
Yeah.
The museum, yeah.
Yeah.
He should have that.
I think so.
And you go in and it's just like a bunch of point break, memorabilia.
Yeah.
And like just be a lot of good Busey stuff.
He was in Make It 2.
Yeah, a lot of movies and some of his cameos even does now.
It could be him.
Yeah, he like breaks the fourth wall.
I love that about him.
He looks at the camera.
You notice that?
Like in movies, like he like looks at the camera.
But now that you say it, he breaks the fourth walls of existence of being human.
He does, yeah.
He shatters right through it.
He speaks in acronyms.
And it reminds me of a rare name, dude, that I or Debbie.
We had, was that Debbie in the song?
Debbie, yeah.
We had what was our Miss Robin.
That was our lady at our kindergarten.
And I would not sleep.
I couldn't nap time or whatever.
So she started to notice it and she'd let me go outside and watch her smoke more kids.
And her hair, she goes, if you can't sleep, you can come watch me smoke.
And sometimes I would.
That was your Debbie.
And sometimes I would need some sleep.
So I'd be like, I'm going to sleep today or whatever.
But then probably two days out of the week, I'd go out there and watch Robin smoke.
Tell me about her husband and stuff like that.
And her hair was kind of like this feathered sort of kind of colour.
That's a total robin.
I think she looked exactly like a man, but she was beautiful to me.
She was probably one of the hottest.
She was just a woman that would talk to me.
So she was stunning.
It was incredible.
God, there was something like that.
Just to watch a robin smoke, not the bird.
Yeah.
But the human, the human robin.
We talk a lot about your quote.
I know it's not your quote, but grief is only love that's got no place to go.
We talk a lot about that, man, on here.
We've mentioned it a few times.
You think you could play that for us?
I could, yeah, I'd be happy to.
Would you mind?
Take just a second for me to tune up for it.
Life is a battlefield And it'll drag you right through hell.
It's like a rattlesnake.
The kind that you just don't see on the trail.
And I miss my father.
The kind of pain I pray don't fade away For the ones above, guide me down the road.
Yeah, grief is only love.
That's got no place to go.
For my great-granddad in the ground, All the ghosts in my hometown Yeah, The ones that find me down a road.
Yeah, grief is only love.
That's got no place to go.
Grief is only love, the world is a cannonball So deal with the feelings you can't hide
God gave us alcohol When we need to leave them all inside And I don't feel like crying, But I just keep crying For the ones above To guide me down a road.
Yeah, grief is only love.
That's got no place to go For my great-granddad in the ground.
All the ghosts in my hometown Yeah, The ones that find me down a road.
Yeah, grief is only love.
That's got no place to go.
Yeah, grief is only love.
Grief is only love
Grief is on to
guide me down.
Yeah, grief is only love that's got no place to go.
So hang on to the hurt and let it gravel, And the only thing for certain is it's out of my control And grief is only love that's got no place to go.
Yeah, grief is only love.
That's got no place to go.
Yeah, grief is only love.
That's awesome, man.
Thank you Phil sound okay?
It sounds great dude.
Yeah, just thank you.
Yeah, it's just nice.
Thank you Theo for everything man.
Thank you.
Trevor, is that okay?
That was fucking awesome.
He's never accused profanity in here.
So he's going to get informed.
He's just worst in his life.
Hey, that's what's going on, dude.
Theo, thank you so much.
Thank you so much, dude.
Thank you.
You're awesome.
Thank you.
And I love it.
And thank you for sharing and helping us feel and making it okay for people to feel stuff.
And, yeah.
Yeah, I think, yeah, it's time to feel things because what else do we have if we ain't got feelings?
I think it's the only thing that separates us from the robots at this point.
Yeah.
So let's lean into what we got.
Amen.
Lean into what makes us real.
Yes, sir.
Stephen Wilson Jr.
Thank you so much, brother.
Thank you.
God bless you all.
Thank you, Theodore.
Amen.
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 peace of mind I found.