#281 – Edwin McCain (In-Studio) on Massive Success of “I’ll Be” and How Hootie and the Blowfish Changed His Life + Debate on Cover Songs That Were Better Than The Original + New Music Top 5!

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Speaker 1: Welcome to upisode to eighty one. This one's super cool Edwin McCain will be in. Who I gotta be honest with you. I was a fan of the kid and then I saw him on TikTok and I was like, man, let me say if I can get him in. He drove in from like two states away. He has that song I'll be You Crying Shoulder, that jam. He got a bunch of hits, but that's a that was the one, really big, massive one that stood the test of time. So we'll talk about that song, how Hoody and the Blowfish change his life. There's also a debate with Eddie and I on cover songs and if they were better than the original, And as always, we start with the new music Top five. All right, here we go. Pentatonics has a new album out called The Lucky Ones. Here's that song by the same title, because easy. Here's the thing about Pentatonics. If you're around anybody that's a little older and they hear Pentatonics, they know them. They'll always go did you know there are any no instruments in that? It's every time when Pentatonics play at number four. Kit More put out Wild World Deluxe. It features a song She's Mine that's out now, and here's a new song, sometimes a Man Guy. Sarah Beth Tate, who is an artist that hey I saw on TikTok, brought her in now she's putting out really really cool music. She has a new song called Hometown Girl. Damn Yeah. Check out Sarabeth take really cool. Number two. Lauren Dusky, who I know. She came out and open for me for a while. She was I think she won the Voice or was second on the Voice one of the two. She has a new song out called I Would for You. And Ryan Heard and Marion Morris have a new duet called Chasing after You But You Want To. Also, as you know, Taylor Swift has put out the new updated Love Story. So it didn't make the top five. You already know that anyway, but here's a clip. Be sure to check that out too. And Music News the weekend's music sales are up three hundred and eighty five percent since his Super Bowl halftime performance. He came out with it Can't Fill My Face. I didn't hate the performance. I mean that was my favorite, but people just love to hate the Super Bowl performance. That's fine. Bruce Springsteen arresta for a DBI New Jersey. You may have seen this. It's just kind of I just didn't know the law was this. He was on his motorcycle, a fan came up, took a pictures stead of here, take a shot with this, took a shot, and the cops saw basically and pulled him over and gim d W. I I mean, I wouldn't be taking a shot. I mean that's not I don't drink anyway. But I just didn't know that was a law. And they said Springsteen was cooperative to the whole process. He had to. He has to be so annoyed because I might imagine he didn't know that was a law either. And when he blew the breadth alizer or they did the blood alcohol level which is point oh eight, he was point oh two. But the fact that he was on his bike when he did it, he got the d W. I that's crazy. I'm not saying he's right or wrong. I just couldn't believe that was the law. Dave Grohl revealed his top three records for homeschool music class. By the Way Dave Girl from food Fighters, Bump Bump, Bump, Bump, and here are his choices. Here you go. You're going to want to get the Beatles. Sergeant Pepperson's one reason is because that album still connects the way it did the day it came out. Now, if you want to be a drummer, you're going to want to get the A C. D C album Back in Black. That is like, that is rock and roll drumming. One of the work. A third album I do like to dance. Let's just go with Saturday Night Fever. Like look, if you put Saturday Night Fever on, it's gonna feel like Saturday night. It could be a Monday morning. So I would have to go with those three albums. There you go, Food Fighters New Records out to Kane Brown starts his own label in Adventure with his label, so good for Kane Brown. And then finally, Justin Bieber is gonna play his whole album on TikTok. He's doing a concert on TikTok for Valentine's Day. He'll play his compilation Journals and Its entirety nine pm Eastern. The concert will re air on his platform on Monday at one pm Eastern. He's excited to bring the show to life. He says, there's your music news. I think you're gonna like this episode. Thank you friends for hanging out and checking in here on the Bobby Cast. All right, that's it, alright with Edward McCain right now. You know, tell you when I was like Edwin, I saved up money may one saved up money. You were playing at wash Staw Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Remember this, NOA, just of course I do, because that was they were very, very stressed out about language. Really. Yeah, you know, we got a lecture about about being careful about what I said on stage. I remember that makes sense. Specifically. It was a Baptist school and I did not go to that school. I went to the poor kids school across the street. But I was so pumped you were coming, and I went and I got tickets and I was in the very back and it was just you and a horn player, and I thought it was the coolest freaking show because it was you playing and singing with a horn, so which leaves your voice very exposed. Yes. Yeah. And as I got older and I started to tour and do comedy and do music, I went, you know, here's the thing about Edie and I remember thinking about you vividly and that show. I said, smart guy, I knew we could do it and have to pay a whole band. Yeah, well it was versatile, you know. We had these you know, I can play up and down, so all the way up to nineties piece orchestra to all the way down to me and a guitar. So it just seemed like it made sense to be able to sort of meet all moments, you know, be able to work in any setting, you know that. And I started out by myself busking, so you know that's always sort of been part of the deal, you know, just always be ready to go, ready to play. What's your busking experience? I used to play on the street in Charleston during Spileto they have this arts and music festival, and so I throw a guitar case out there and play whatever nine songs I knew over and over again. And then there was a manager at this restaurant right next to where I was busting that said, uh, hey, if I pay you seventy five bucks and give you a meal, you know, can you play for four hours up on this deck? And I was like absolutely, And I went and dropped out of college. The next day. I was like, I'm rich. So you quit school for that job? Yes? I did. I was such an idiot. I mean literally was like I was. I was at the registrar's office when she got there and unlocked the door. I was like, yeah, I'm out. I have hit the big time when you're busting. Was the goal to get better of singing? Or was it just to make a few bucks to put you to school? No? It was It was just honestly, it was almost like a challenge. It was like, can you are you? Do you have? Are you crazy enough to sit out here and sing for people strangers? Are you crazy enough to try to sing for strangers and actually entertain them? And if you can do that, maybe there's a chance. And I think that's one of the things I tell kids all the time too. And I and and and credit We're credits due. I had a guitar teacher, this guy named Tom Yoder, who is the Shredder guy and and he's a unbelievable electric guitar player. And he was the professor at Coastal Carolina where I spent one semester, and so I took a guitar class and he actually I had to play in front of the class, and he said, he just basically demanded that I go out and start playing in front of people. And he just said, look, you're you. You gotta get out there and play in front of people. And if you don't play in front of people, you're this isn't You don't know what You'll never know what you're doing. And I and I encouraged that to all the younger people I work with. Now. It's like, you know, it's great to sit and perfect things in your bedroom and film yourself and you have and edit things and and you look beautiful and it sounds beautiful and all these things, but that's not compelling. What's compelling to people is authenticity. What people seek authenticity and and death by perfection is a real thing. And and unless you're willing to go out there and and just struggle in front of people, they don't care about you. Like I I think audiences are are are drawn to your effort because you become the ambassador of possibility. You become what they they hope to be. You know something, you know what I'm saying, Like you know what you know walking out onto a stage, and especially when when maybe it's not your crowd, and you have a you have a it's a challenge to try to win this audience, and that's us. That is not something you can learn just sitting in your room, you know, honing your craft. You gotta get out not to not to be not for it not to be too on the point, but you kinda go out there and just bomb um. Sometimes you gotta just absolutely And even to this day and even at my shows, like I've had those nights where I've played this place in in Virginia, it's a it's a very well respected listening room. I'll spare the name, but I knew that it was a very discerning, you know, songwriting crowd, and I was like, I want, I want to come out here and do something different. So, for whatever reason, I don't know why, I thought this was a good idea, but I walked out on stage and played the absolute saddest song I have, just the gut wrenching is most depressing song I have as an opener. For what reason, I still haven't figured out right, and I just I just I ruined the room. I absolutely spoiled this room. I I finished the song, there wasn't a sound and and after about it felt like an hour but probably thirty seconds. This guy on the front road goes, yeah, what else, you guy, It's good to be checked, right. It happens. It happens all the time. And if you're you know, that's it's great. It's it's all part of it. I love it. For me, the struggle is if I'm gonna go to stand up at the opery where that's not my crowd. They've come to watch a bunch of different acts and country music. Some of them may know who I am from the radio show or TV, but but but most don't. And they also did not come to watch comedy, and so I know that that's going to be the hard and they're also to the opera has an older crowd, excuse way older, and any pop culture reference no good. I have to throw out jokes and and I'm going out there just trying to get by. But I respected so much more when I'm done, and I'm like they I just grew a little bit. When I can beat that crowd, when that's my crowd. Yeah, I'm just skewing on. Yeah, it's a layout, right, it's almost I don't know if you're like this but I I enjoy it more when i'm when when it's danger is like it's easy to walk there up there in front of people. That's a difference. You're elite, so you probably need that thrill. No, I'm not elite at all. I'm I'm tragically. This is the weirdest thing about the where I live in the music business is it is that I I've I'm so stubborn. I'm I have this oppositional defiance. That's so it's been a career I mean for some perspectives would be would be a career killer just within yourself or two other people. Within myself, Like I just can't do anything easy, like you know what I mean, Like I don't want to. I just it was I realized really quickly once I was in the major label sort of paradigm that I was gonna have I wasn't gonna wanted. I tried to do the thing and wear the clothes and do the stuff, and I hated it. I hated every second of it. And I was like, oh God, this is terrible, and uh, I gotta go back to be in this you know, independent, stubborn, independent guy that drives his own twenty five year old bus and has to change tires and you know it's got to be hard or it doesn't or it doesn't matter, you know what I mean, Why are you so reluctant? I don't know, I'm a I'm I think I blame Southern California punk music. I was like fifteen and I was into all that. Like it's unlistenable now, right. You know, if you're ever gone back and try to listen to Hoosker Do, you can't listen to thirty seconds of it. It's it's awful, I don't right, So anyway, so yeah, so it's all this like punk music for the sake of itself, right, and it was this voice of our weird little generation, and it got in my soul and now my and my son has a has a huge dose of the same thing. So I know it's genetic. Is just if if there's an easy way to do something I don't want to do it, I'm gonna do it my way. I'm gonna fall down the stairs, break my arm, struggle my way all the way back to the you know, out to the backyard where everybody has been, you know, happily enjoying their picnic, you know, while I show up bloody and bruised. I mean, it's the only it's just it's a it's a character flaw, and I just I've accepted it. Your son, how old your son? My middle son dr Evil, he's fourteen, So you have teenagers. How are you able to explain to them how freaking popular you were for a period of time. Um, they don't care, like if I started to explain any of that, like they it's the best part about it. Like, so it's how I know I'm doing it right, Like they feel like my son tries to make me listen to Drake and I told him one time. I was like, look, buddy, I feel I think I feel about Drake the same way my dad felt about Van Halen. So we're doing it right. Like I'm not supposed to understand why you like little Oozy Vert. You know, we've got a diamond in his head, right, that's you. That's your music, this is your stuff, and I'm not supposed to understand it. It's not supposed to be for me. And if it and if I do like it, you should be worth right, you know what I mean? Like this is your it's your this is you gotta figure out your world. But they don't, um, they don't get it. They they do get the song, like the significance of the song, because the song is much bigger than I've than I ever would hat was or would ever be. The song sort of became its own entity, which is part of the reason, you know, part of the reason why I've always just sort of been grateful for that and not tried to, uh be equal to it, because it's it's it's like a it's one in a jillion, it's a one gonna I mean, it's more than that. It's it's crazy, it's and it's twenty two years later, and it goes and goes and goes, and people are like, when are you gonna put out a new record. I'm like, I'm not, like, are you gonna play a new record for me? No, Like, I go out on the tours and play I played probably seventy five shows a year still, and I'll walk out on stage and go tonight, I'm gonna play all new songs and everybody and everybody goes, oh no, because I get it, right, I mean, they don't want that. So you talk about this, let's start with it was gonna wait a second, but I'll be let's play club of this for everybody. Everybody knows it, but this song here, did it happen and then a label heard it? Or did the label say, hey, you're really good right us something? What was that? I was on Atlantic, so you were already at a deal. So here, So here's the back story. So we were playing, We're playing like all the bands in the Southeast were playing fraternity's. I remember a weekend where Dave Matthews, Hoodie and the Blowfish, Us, The Grapes, and Jacko Pierce were playing on fraternity row at Washington and Lee University, same school, the same school, the same weekend, like all just playing in the fraternity houses. And then six months later, everybody's playing Amphitheaters. Of course we weren't Amphitheater ready, but we were opening for Hoodie and so and of course the Hoodie guys essentially what they did and what Darius and and all the guys did for me was I was sort of like their little brother, and and they just they were on the ride, they were getting signed, and they were going for the big ride, and they said, hey, why don't you come with us? And they literally just let me go on the ride with them. I was no, I was nobody. I was like, you know, I was an opening act. And so uh and Darius Darius, how cool is this? Darius tells Atlantic, Look, I'll appear on his first single with him if you'll sign him. And what are they gonna say? This is the biggest fan they got. Yeah, okay, So essentially they take me on the ride. Darius appears in the first video for a song called Solitude and now I'm on the label and and they don't really want me. They didn't, they weren't, they weren't really interested in me. They just did it because Darius made him do it. And and so my the my boss at the time, I was on a subsidiary label called Lava, and it was run by a game Jason Flam who's still to this day one of my dear friends and an incredible human being. Um Jason had gone to a department head meeting with Atlantic and and my first record sold, I don't know, a couple or thousand records, which back then in was horrible, like two records. You're yeah, it's not worth their time. So he calls me and says he used to call me Jethro. Jethro just left a department head meeting. They're gonna drop you if you don't turn in something great. Okay, I said, I got something I've been working on. I feel pretty good about it. Uh, I'll get back to you. Click, you know, pull out all the scraps of paper from my from my duffel bag and throw them out on the coffee table. And and twenty minutes later, I've written this half court hook shot at the buzzer and it goes in. But here's the story. No he knows, and I think the statute of limitations is run out by now. So the record company didn't care about us. So they said, all right, we'll put this song out on three stations. Test it Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Birmingham, Alabama, and I don't even know where else, like one other station I can't remember where. Well, my manager at the time was a friend of mine from college, and I said, look, how bad do we want this? You know, this is our last shot. And after this it's I'm back to cooking pizzas at Sharkey's and you're back to doing whatever you were gonna do. And so we gathered up whatever money we had, and we sent friends of ours to these cities to buy the records from the record stores, and we did. And so we had them calling the radio, We had street teams, We had all my college friends buying records and then they'd send them to us in little boxes and then we would resell them at our shows and it would double the sound scanned numbers. And so what we did was we made this little blip of spender sale ratio in three cities, which obviously that was sustainable for about considering the money we had was about a I don't know, two weeks we made We made the numbers like blip for about two weeks, and somebody in Atlantic went, wait, there's a spend of sale ratio happening here. And then they put the song on Dawson's Creek and and it went from three thousand records a week to thirty five thousand records a week, and then and in other places to not just the places you were going by records, right right, So it was yeah, it went from three thousand, Yeah, it went. It was nationwide. So basically what we did was we sat there and we blew, we blew on the little embers we made a little fire, and we went and and and it actually worked and and that song basically saved my life over and over and which is funny. Why people go, well, do you ever get tired of singing that song? No? No, No? Song is the magic carpet that I still currently ride on every single day of my life. Is ridiculous. When you wrote it and you finished it, or you're like, Okay, this this is it, or you're going, all right, God, I hope to God this is it at the at the not And I want to be real clear about this. I don't say this too. It's not egocentric. Just I got really emotional about it when I finished it. My my nose was running and I was I was emotional, and I knew that something was there. I knew it was there. But here's the thing. I also, you know the I also am a dear friends with Angio Pero, right, and and I know that like beauty and talent and and staggering Lee, artistic work doesn't necessarily try and laid into success. Because I've seen I've seen so many unbelievably talented, incredibly talented people. Maya sharp as another person, she should be as big as any name you've ever heard of, if it's just down to talent and writing, and but I know that that's not it. So the other part of that was the shuck and jive. Right, So now we have this song, what else are we willing to do to make this happen? Right? And I played on the top of low power radio vans in Manhattan. They stuck me on top of a van and had a low power FM transmitter and I was right around on top of that thing because somebody in the Atlantic thought that was a good idea. And I played pool parties for radio stations in Omaha, and I mean I did. I actually played in a drive through at a Crispy Kream while people came through and got married for uh yes, yes, if if if you came up with a radio promotion idea, I would do it. The only answer I ever gave was yes, because I realized that I was sort of I was not wanted, I mean we I had. I had secretly gotten the code to the weekly conference call internal conference call they had an Atlantic because when I talked to this girl into giving it to me so I could listen in to what they were talking about, and also got a copy of the internal report. It was a Thursday Morning reporter, and we weren't ever even on it. Like you they would rank the bands like importance with the label. We weren't even part of the conversation. Like we planned the releases of our albums when we knew nobody else had anything coming out, like no other band was releasing anything on Atlantic. That's when we would put our records out, because that way we knew they had to do something, you know. It was it was all as much as I want to say, the the song is the song, but then there's this whole other component of of strategy that had to be employed, or you don't really have a career unless you're willing to do that, right And I I just I mean I had I had. I remember, I used to have uh spiral notebooks all the program directors that could potentially play my songs, and I would get up at eight o'clock every morning and just start calling them. And I had notes to the side of the last time I had called, whether I actually talked to him, what we talked about, or if I just had left a message. And I just started banging the phones and I just became you know, it was either you're you're either gonna add it or you're gonna be so annoyed with me, will eventually be friends, you know, And I still have program director friends to this day. They're like, God, you were so obnoxious, but what do you will and to do? At what point did it go from you having to hustle to you just holding onto the rocket ship after the Dawson's Creek thing. It just but it just it was it was in but but that was the difference when you know, like when they turn on when a major company turns on the juice, when they say when they turn on all the force and the of the promotional machine they have where where all they gotta do is pick up the phone. And you're on Leno, and you're on Letterman, and you're on every talk show and now you're doing you know, anthems for all the major sporting events, and it's you know, yeah, you're just hanging on. But then so then the challenges And I see this a lot because you've been hand to mouth for a decade before this moment, and because you've played every single gig that anybody's ever offered you, and you don't ever say no. To anything all of a sudden, there's no way two two say yes to every thing, yet you still try, and you create complete imbalance. Bye. And we were I think, I mean at one point, at one point, we've been on the road for like eleven months or ten months or something, and and they didn't even know we were still out, but they were paying for a tour bus, and we were like, well, we're not turning this back in, and so we would play anywhere, and it just got to a point where it was it was, it was a total imbalance of life. And and I was just twenty something shows. It was crazy. It was crazy. I mean it was It was one of those uh uh you have to live through it to learn how to say no. You know, what was the stage that you were on. It doesn't be a literal stage, but you go because I'm lucky a few times in my life I've been able to look around. One Seacrests went down and I hosted American Idol. Right, I work on the show. But Seacrests went down and he's the only let me too host of that show ever. And they were like, hey, we need you to host, and I don't have a lot of moments where I can look at myself and go, hey, this is a really big this is cool. But I'm under the American idol Moniker, which is about as big as of a brand of a TV show that's existed in the States, and I'm like, huh, can I believe this? I'm hosting this freaking show. Like for you, what was one of those moments where You're like, geez man, I'm the guy busting in South Carolina and now here I am doing what I mean almost every single day still even now, like I'm like, I'm I can't believe I'm I get to do what I do even now, like I'm sitting here, like honestly, I was telling a friends driving here. I was like, I have no idea why Bobby is bringing me to Nashville to do it. I'm like, what I know, I am the least relevant person in this. In this to you right now, here's why, and then I'll have you finished answering that question. One, I was always a big fan, Like, first and foremost, like I did not have money and I saved up and bought tickets to your show, right, So for me, I was a fan. Secondly, I watched on TikTok, and so it was. It was the two worlds colliding. And I was talking about producer and I was like, you knew i'd really like to have up here. It looks like just a really interesting guy to be around is Edland McCain. And he was like yeah, I said, yeah, I don't think. I think he still lives in South Carolina, and that that is the genesis of me being a fan and then watching you now and here you are. It's it's it's incredible and it's amazing. But if i'm if, I'm going back to a point where I couldn't believe. Uh. I played a show with Ray Charles and you know, Michael McDonald and and I was just being included in these moments where I was like if I just kept waiting for the guys in suits to show up and go, look, man, this is there's been a huge mistake here. Did you ever feel like you did not have the talent though, to be included every day of every day in my life, I think I don't I have I have those voices in my head, God, I have those voices in my head. They're like, dude, you are the biggest used car salesman um and and I I'm I'm not. I have those voices that scream at me. But I love singing and playing for people, and I love the emotion and I love the I love that moment when a crowd becomes the the completion of the art. You know that that something, something personal to me has gotten to a moment where an audience understands and you can't. There's no there's no amount of money or fame or or accolades it that'd come me even close to touching that. And and so I found that even before the Atlantic stuff, and and and I still mercifully get to have that in these little venues that I play to this day. And I'm I'm fiercely protective of it, to the point where I don't play as many shows as I could because I I don't. I don't ever want to jeopardize my opportunity to go out there and play it. I will sit in an excavator and dig dirt for half the year just so that I can play my seventy shows that are beautiful and special, you know what I'm saying, Like, that's that's more important to me at this moment um. And plus I love being home with my kids. And I don't know, I don't know how else to describe it. I mean, and I had gotten to a point and I'm gonna you know totally, I got into a point where I was resenting going on stage because we were playing so much and so much, so many, so many. It wasn't it was just it was turning into have to and there was it was all about money and everybody. You know, there were a lot of people that that rely on you. When you get to a certain when you start to earn a certain amount of money, everybody thinks it's all going to you. But it's not going to you. There's thirty people that are making a living on the money that you're generating. And if and and they don't that. It's not in their interests to help you have balance. It's it's let's how many shows can we play? How many? Um and and so that was sort of a I had. I kind of had to have a I mean that in in my personal life, I had to have a there was a reckoning. There was a moment and two thousand and seven where I just my life was completely out of out of balance and out of hand and I had to throw up my hands and and you know, say help and go to rehab and and get my you know, start all over again. I guess, you know. And that's that was the if. And I and I talked to a lot of people in recovery. You know, I try to help as much as I can, you know, get help people into recovery because of that, that experience, you know, and people don't know it naturally know how to create balance in their life, you know, it's we We know how to create momentum. Momentum. Man, we can get going fast. Everybody knows how to create momentum, but balance is something that you have to be taught. It is such an opportune time for you to come and have this conversation because I know you're talking to a microphone, but I feel like you're talking to me without even knowing it. I'll tell you in my personal life, even just yesterday my fiance and I were talking, I've had to hustle every freaking second to get here. I mean, just kill myself. And now, for the first time in my life, people start to think I'm cool and they're offering me jobs. And I got this TV show that too and I can't turn anything down because I'm afraid that if I turned it down, I'm never gonna get another offer again the rest of my life. And you go to yourself, Am I really gonna sit here this weekend and know that I've got some thirty five thousand dollar appearance that I'm not gonna go do And I'm gonna be able to sit here and enjoy my weekend knowing that I'm leaving this huge payday on the table like that, like that was That's a real thing. And I know, I mean people, I can hear people out there going way, you know, I can hear them out there saying why. But I promise you that, uh it took a It took this seventy year old guys friend of mine, he's my oldest non related friends, got named the Mole. And the mole said to me, he pulled me aside one time. He goes, look while your kids are little, and why you have a good life going right now? Those gigs are always gonna be there. You know that golf course always be there. That you know, you know, be home and and and be a part of the special parts of your life. And I and for some reason, that just that hit hard enough for me to to you know, I took it to heart and and just rearranged how I do things now. I say that, but it takes years to be able to dial it down a little bit, because you can't just go okay today, right, You just have to incrementally dial it down and start to just gently put the boundaries out there for people so that you can have balance, because otherwise you're no good to anybody, especially yourself. Like man, I know, for me, I was, I was useless by the time I hit the I hit the wall, I was, I was suicidal, and and I was done. I was done. I was done with life. And it didn't I had a lot of money, So that did that, wasn't it? You know? It was? It comes down to, and I say this all the time, the currency in this life is the relationships that you have, the friendships that you're blessed to be a part of, and and the opportunity that you're given to be someone that somebody else can count on. Are you some I gotta say this to my kids all the time. Are you? Are you somebody that other people can count on, that they can rely on? And that's the thing. That's it. I mean, that's it. That's all there is. The rest of it is fireworks. You still love playing, uh more than anything. I love it. I love it more now than I ever did. Um. But it took me. It took it took I had to go touch the I had to go touch the flame. Now, don't get me wrong. This this is the thing. This is just me because I know a lot of people that are super great at being famous, and they love it and they love the the whole thing, and and uh, I'm just I just wasn't one of them. I just wasn't good at it. I gotta imagine you get a lot of request for weddings. I mean some sometimes, I mean I get I've done a lot of weddings. I actually I've Yes. Sorry answering, let me make a thousand word answer out of one, give me let me answer. Yes. You have a song that has heck. I saw Justin Bieber singing this song when he was everybody for a minute, everybody was blaming me. I was like, dude, he sang the song. Everybody loves it. What are you talking everybody? It's a universe personally love song, and it is a universal love song I see in movies, TV shows. You ever just go grocery shopping and you're like, what the craph in my hands? Dude? Home depot every time I walk in home depot. And the best part about is always make a scene if my kids are in there. I'm like kids and I'll accidentally knock stuff over and go, I'm sorry. I was listening to all some songs and I could kids. Listen, Litsten, this song is gonna pay for want of you to go to college and you wrote this by yourself. Yeah, so I gotta imagine the checks are still coming in publishing now they do, but but you know it's that yes, but I don't you know what I mean that that money helps. No, listen to a lot of good stuff. This is a this is a very in the Weeds Music Interview podet, we have publishers come on, so like a lot of people that work in the music industry, listen to this for those exact type of questions, not look how rich I am. But it's like, if you write a song that sustains at different levels, you can continue to make money off of it, right, And and yes you absolutely can't. And what's interesting is that, and I really have not been a very good, uh custodian of my publishing catalog because like during the pandemic, I was like, maybe we ought to try to like go back and look at all the stacks of paperwork here and figure out if any of this crap means stuff. It's like, oh, look, Malaysia, you know, are we supposed to be getting money from Koala lampour? Because I think maybe that's a thing. And uh yeah, My I have a friend of mine and who's a who's now helping me. He's a music business attorney. He's really great and he's like he called me the other day he's like, respectfully, you're an idiot, you know that, right? You know you're out there like doing forestry mulching for people in the swamp, yet you're publishing catalog is in complete disarray. And I'm like, well, that's your job. You're supposed to fix that for me. So yeah, that's I am not. I'm not one of those guys. I just like, if you want to put me into a coma, please just put a spreadsheet in front of me and tell me that it matters. And I'm instantly asleep. So yeah, I should care more than I do. Let me play a few of these, give us a clip of Abby. Everybody knows, let's remind them again. Can you still hit those notes like that? Yeah? You know it's funny. Yes I can. And every night though, when I'm singing the high note, I always go freaking twenty five year old me, jackass man, we want to put it in the Kia. Be your dumb ass like that won't be hard to sing when you're fifty one? Do you ever? Do you ever? Can't drop it a half step? Sax players? Sax players don't like it when you throw a kpo on or drop it a half step. And he's been playing with me for thirty years, so he's and he's our tour manager. So if I did that to him, then I would end up sleeping in the conference room on the cot every night, you know, in the hotels. Actually I'm not, I'm lying. This is how cheap we are. He and I share a room when we're on top to this day, thirty years we've been playing together. But I have the same mostly the same band and crew I've had for this entire time, which, in and loyalty is kind of expensive. But I stand by it. I think, you know what, what's the best story, man? We we started this journey together thirty years and because of what we did, we all have, we all pay our rent and eating you know. Cool, that's a cool story. We started out in a van that I bought in Atlanta for five hundred dollars. I put a fifteen hundred dollar stereo in it, and thirty years later, look, look where we are still playing music. I could not ask for more. Hit it hard, my good boy. Come on, yeah, there was before auto tune to you, jack Ash and everything sounds so perfect. Everybody sounds perfect. How many times would you have to sing those singing down? Could you walk in and singing down and then walk out? I want to I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna flex a little bit here. I wish I could get an old golden on the phone our engineer for him to tell you that I would. I could walk in and to take it, you know, to take and and and really, if you don't get it in the first couple of takes, you need to leave because by the third or fourth take, man, you're just reading a Hallmark card. It's not there. You're not there. And and plus back then tore back then, tape was expensive. You know, there was reels the tape man. Every time you burn the real a tape, I was like five hundred bucks. So you get you know, when that red light came on, you better have your ship together because this is expensive, you know. And uh, we were. I think back to that. I used to play ten shows a week in Hilton Head, uh. And then I had this old, that old van, and I had had a love seat that I bought from Goodwill in the back of it and I slept it on the slept in this van. But I'd play my ten shows and I'd get all the money from my shows and then I drive to Augusta, Georgia and sleep in my van in the parking lot and then walk in with my little bag of money and give it to Howard Warmeth um uh at Studio South and uh and he would we would record a song, you know. I would just basically walk in deliver all the money. And then we made my you know, an independent record, um guys, and just it's it's unlistenable now, but it's like I just thought it was so great and uh. And but then you know, we did stuff on that record, Like I didn't know I shouldn't bring a whole choir in and do a whole song with him like I I would do. I was doing stuff when I was eighteen that I just I didn't know. I wasn't supposed to do that, right and and uh but that was it. That was it, and it was just figure it out, you know, figure out how we're gonna do it. Let me play some of hearts Fall. Yeah, you still sing all these I don't. I don't. I haven't sung that one, um, but but I do. I have been during the pandemic. People have been getting me to play all these old songs and I have to go to YouTube and find some guy in Poland that will show me how to play my song. You know. Uh actually had somebody send me a YouTube clip of this dude from Poland playing one of our songs called Promise You, and I'm watching the dude play it, and I was like, that is a way better way of playing this song than the way I play it. So now I do it his way. You know, the internet it teaches me everything. Um, I play. I play a lot of the those songs that they come in rotation. There's like a core group of songs. I know that my audience is going to want to hear solitude for sure. It comes that one comes and goes. Um, you know, I was thinking actually when I first got here, Uh, when Patty Griffin released this album called Living with Ghosts, I became completely enamored with her because that album is ridiculous. It's so fantastic, the songwriting and her singing and everything about her right and so at the time, we were doing really well and I just sent the word. I was like, any tour date she wants, she should be able to have so and not thinking at all that you know, she probably isn't gonna want to play the NASCAR barbecue beer slide that we're playing, because like I would play anywhere, I would play any place on Earth. And then here's like sweet Patty, and we took her. We dragged her around all these horrible gigs, and um, I got it to see her, I don't know, a couple of years ago, and I got to at least apologize to her for all these insane gigs we dragged her to back in the day. Uh. God, I was so in love and I still am. I mean, I think and It's one of those things. And I said to people at the time when I heard her first record, I said, this is this will This is undeniable. You watch. I don't care how long it takes this. This girl is going to be considered in in terms of the all time grades. Some people like, what are you talking about? Man? I was like, trust me, you can't. This is undeniable right here. You can't stop the real thing. And uh And I love being right like that too, right, I get it to go back and rub everybody's nose in it, because so so amazing, so amazing. We've we've been here before you five minutes. This has been exciting for me to be able to do. I'm just a fan. I was a fan, and then when I saw you again on TikTok, I was like, we gotta get him back up here. Everybody followed, I don't. On TikTok, he sits in his room, he plays the I guess the first one that I saw that was you doing the dude. They're like the duets where people hop on and do it with you and sing the other side of it, and you know whose idea that was. My friend Mike Karado is just retired from the Marine Corps. He hit me up and he's like, dude, you need to do this thing on TikTok where you do at it. And I was okay because I didn't know any better, and and it just went crazy. And then Brittany and the whole Brittany Moore thing, Brittany Moore, who is a really good singer who I saw that song, well, I saw your challenge and I saw her come on and sing Jesus and Janie and I was like, well, that song is fantastic because this that speaks to me and and uh yeah, and the whole TikTok thing. What I love about is how you know, people are just trying to figure it out right, and there's a lot of people, I mean, there's a there's a bunch of static on there too, but there's a lot of people that are authentically trying to understand each other and they're trying to be helpful, and there's a lot of really funny people. It's the best one for funny content. And I can sit and watch forever and laugh. Yeah, and just I mean that's one of my that Before that, I guess my TikTok was comments sections of any YouTube video like there. I mean, people are funny, man, I mean that is one of the things like I hold like the great hope in humanity in the just ridiculously funny nature. People are hysterical, They're great. Well, thank you. I know we're gonna do something too on the radio show. We're gonna play. So I appreciate you, you know, coming up and entertaining a fan. That's what this this is for me. So I'm very honored. Thanks for spending close to an hour with me here and then I can't wait to hear you perform. And I'll have to pay for a ticket and send them back this time, like I said, up for free. It's like the opposite from when I was a kid. And when I was a kid, I was broke. I had to save up for a ticket and sending them back. Now I'm broke, I'm sitting up front and I got a free ticket. That's awesome, all right, Edward McCain, you gotta go following on TikTok, follow him everywhere. Good to talk to you, Thank you, thank you. I saw this list on Whiskey Riff. It's a list of songs that are better than the original which is what they say. What I'm gonna do is play them both and we'll be the judge that. Okay, so the debate is the original versus a new one. It's gonna be hard because usually you just go with the original because it's the first thing you heard, so you base everything on that. Okay, let's start. Nine Inch Nails had Hurt, Okay, I got this is here you go, And later it was recorded and to critical acclaim by Johnny Cash. And here's Johnny Cash doing Hurt but the sweetest trip. I actually can understand what's being said in the Johnny Cash version. But I would think, if you're a die hard Nine inch Nails fan, you hate the Johnny Cash version. Yeah, I would think that. But I gotta tell you, man, like you already got me run the first one. I was like, there's no way I'm gonna like the second version. But when I heard Johnny Cash sing this song, I loved it. Oddly made sense right, Yes, he was older, and I think they released around the time either he died or maybe right after he died. So, man, it was very emotional when this song came out. There was a whole thing where Trent Resiner who's the lead singer, said, Hey, that song not even mine anymore, like even he loved that, said that that's that's Johnny cash now man. Pretty cool. All right, how about this, let's go back to here's a song called Summertime Blues by Eddie Cochrane. Sometimes, but I'm a collet, dude, but he no thetime, No, no, no no, you're saying the other one. Alan Jackson, Yeah, here you go. Sometimes I don't wonder I'm no cure for the Summertime Blue covered a song from Ye It's hard not listen. We know some these people. It's hard not to pick them in these songs personified the age that we grew up. But I'm picking Eddie Cochrane. Yeah, me too, dude. And because the La Bamba this came out in the movie LaBamba, Richie Allens was playing with Eddie Cochrane. It's a it's a scene in the movie. And when I bought the soundtrack to La Bamba, this was in then in the soundtrack. I think the version I knew though, was Brian Seltz Bran Sets Orchestra Orchestra covering Eddie croc Cochrane. But it made me find this music and I love the original. Yeah, I love it too. Listen, I love that Alan Jackson version if I'm gonna listen to it myself more. But I think that's such a cool song, and a lot of people don't even know that that's a cover that Alan Jackson did. All right, how by this, I'm gonna play you George Jones, also Kenny Rodgers cut it. Here's Old Red somebody, why don't you run? Get mye my God Rado, Happy Dread, v the Morning Come? And here's Blake Shelton and the Root. Somebody, don't you rentition a little firm to take George Jones or Blake Shelton. I want to apologize for this one. Man, I had no idea George Jones saying this. So this Blake's the only one I've ever heard. That's the first time I've heard George Jones sing that. So I have to go Blake just for that reason. Yeah, I go George Jones. Like I feel the fear. Yeah, Like play the George version again. Somebody, why don't you run? Get my my God, Rado, Happy Dread the Moon? I feel a look grittier too? Is both good? How about McBride and the Ride, which, by the way, the song was written by John Richard Big and Rich and two thousand one, McBride and the Ride had Amarillo Sky. He just takes tract another round sounds, so that's two thousand two. Then Al Deane put it out in two thousand six. He just takes a tractor another round across the sands of taking McBride the Ride, the original or Al Deane absolutely McBride and the Ride too. Yeah, it's so good that definitely, the nighty sound of it. I go with that one. Yeah, I mean too, you know. And also when like a big label gets it, it it kind of pops it up a little bit too, and it's so supermascus option. But I like the original version. I think Al Deane would agree with that too. Then night the lights went out in Georgia. Here is Vicky Lawrence. Here you go. That's song with number one in nineteen seventy three. By the way, Vicky Lawrence plays mom and Mom's family um. And later on here's Reba doing it. And I talked to Reba about this song before and she's like, man, I'm just so lucky that Vicky cut and it was so good and let me actually jump off of it, and I still go Reba. Yeah, me too. I think this one Reba outdid it because I mean, she's the passion in her voice when she sings that, you can feel it. Yeah, I go Reba, but barely. It's also hard to compare songs. It didn't have the resources, the recording resources. Three didn't have the same kind of studios they did in you know, nineties. I don't know though, man Vicky's version. You can hear a little xylophone in it at playing it while she's singing the whole different world back dressed his mo. Okay, how about this? Did you know Colin Baton rouge? Is it cover? Stop it? No? And whatever you're about to play, I've never heard this. Let me play the original version by the oak Ridge Boys. Get Sam a low down about come on, let me talk to about one more time. Oh yeah, I love that versions. I've never heard them before in my life. Here is Garth Brooks obviously through the loose. I can't pick against Garth versus Colt so good, but I gotta go Garth. Sorry, boys. How about three B W. Stevens and put out a song called My Maria. It made the top ten of the pop charts. My Maria, I didn't know. I didn't know that there was that successful Turn it up a little bit. This is a jam version. It's Brooks and Done almost took it exactly. That's what I was gonna say. Let's hear you get all right, here's Brooks and Dunne. I'm gonna go b W. Stevenson, you are just because it's a jam, not just the jam. Brooks and Dunn just did what they did just a little better. They didn't. By the way, it's hard for me to say this, because I love Brooklyn dun and I think they would agree to. They basically just did that song better. They didn't copy switches of it. And Ronnie sings better than he does Ronnie Dune does Ronnie the original almost sounds like Ronnie a little bit. It sounds like Ronnie's and it's singing his iPhone. Yeah. So I'm gonna go Brooks and Done though, just because that's the one I knew. And then finally, you know, Chris Stapleton did Tennessee Whiskey. But here you go, let's do David Allenko and George Jones. Here you go up first, first, smooth Tennessee. That's David alan Coo. And here's George Jones yours it's Tennessee Whiskey. And here's Chris Stapleton. Rest you gotta pick one of the three. I do, and it's Chris Stapleton because the other two sound like it's on easy listening stations. I mean, yeah, now you would hear that there's so much soul in the Chris Stapleton version, But don't you think that's part of the smooth I like that smoothness of George Jones. Let me George Jones in the SECD one yours it's Tennessee wish I could just hear. I'm saying, guys, we need to make this sound smooth, and they did. It's good. It's real good. I'm still gonna go with Stapleton on this one. I'm gonna go David Allenko because his voice to me, the first one, Yes, the first one. You play that one again, please gosh swish, Oh dude. I love David alanco and his voice to me just brings back so many memories. Which one you going? I'm going David Alankolchrist Stapleton. That's great. I love that there's three out of this one to pick. Check out Eddie's sports podcast, Tell Me about that Me lunchbox in Ray, we do a sports podcast called The Sore Losers. We talk sports, but we also talk a lot about our lives and we're trying to get more guests on. Now we have Taylor little One from the Titans on this week. Pretty cool get and uh it just goes up from here, dude, We got next, probably Joe Montana, Emmett Smith, Troy You're lying now, Okay, now I'm lying, But good to have dreams. Those are our goals. Eventually someday check out The Sore Losers. Thank you very much,