#314 - Matthew Ramsey of Old Dominion on The Dynamic of the Band and their Success + Starting Out As A Songwriter and Getting A Kenny Chensey cut + Painting for the First Time In Years

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Speaker 1: Hey guys, Welcome to episode three four with Matthew Ramsay of Old Dominion talks about the origin of the band, his career before music. It's a really good interview. He drove over and his pretty normal truck. Still pretty normal guy. Considering all the massive success he's had. He didn't seem that rich, but he is. I mean, he can't write all those songs. I not being I mean, the guys had so much success, but he just seems like a normal, normal dude. I like him a lot. And we spent five minutes, fifty minutes talking, right, Yeah. I told Mike, I was like, and I never know how long they're gonna be. And I was like, it's gonna be about a half hour. So I knew he just had just gotten off the road and be tired, but came in. I thought it was great. So, okay, here are the top five releases this week. At number five, Kanye West finally put out Donda and this actually was out Sunday. Here's a new song called Jail. It's twenty seven tracks, a lot of tracks, and he even says the record they will put it out without his permission. I don't know what to believe. I think if that were the case, they would have done that earlier. They would have that's jay Z there made in the image of God. That's Selfie. I still love Kanye. You're never gonna maybe not love Kanye. I mean, I guess you would have you told me for I love Kanye. Number four. Lauren Elena has a new album out called Sitting Pretty on Top of the World. Here's a new song called here on Top of the World, Sitting pay back tears, Playing It Cool but back Tears. Jacken, Carrie Underwood, and Dan and Shay released a new song from the Dear Evan Hansen soundtrack called only Us. That's my third one, but Us. At number two, Cody Johnson has two new songs out. One's called Treasure and here's a new one called Son of a rambling Man. And new country trio Restless Road have a new song out called Headlights. Fun Fact Kane Brown signed them to his record label back in Uh Funner Fact, they sent me a bunch of shampoo like three days ago, really for what I was at the opera and I went out and did something with them and this one guy and maybe the one of the singers. They're all singers, but maybe the lad singer if there is one, has big, curly fuffy here and I just like, I gotta touch it. And so they sent me some really expensive shampoo. Nice. Yeah, here's restless road headlights to have every summer and then move side. See Si more new albums. Drake put out his sixth album, Certified lover Boy. I've had no time to spend with any of it yet, of you, I was reading a thing that he has so many features on this one. I haven't even looked at the track list. Jay Z Young Doug Future twenty one, Savage, Little Baby, Little Dirk, not familiar with a little dirt the rest of now. Elton John has announced a Star Studic collaborations album. Was pretty cool as Jimmy Allen's on that with Miley Cyrus Stevie Nicks do a leap at Charlie Pooth. Casey Musgrave's announces a new tour she has hit in the road its support of her upcoming album Star Crossed. It's fifteen cities. I thought would be a little more than that. Honestly, it's pretty sure. Fifteen cities. This is a small tour, and you know she can sell old Dominion playing the sec kick off. If you hear this on Friday, that will be tomorrow on Saturday. Justin Bieber is now Spotify's most streamed artist in a single month. He earned the record of eighty three million streams in July. That's a lot. I mean, he's making so much money from streaming. Think it's so much funny from everything post Malone's teaming up with Yeager my Stir to help artists and venues that took a hit from the coronavirus. And I think that's it on the headlines. All right, here we go matt Ramsey from Old Dominion. It's a great talk. Enjoy this all right with Matthew Ramsey from Old Dominion. And I guess the question is, before we start this and get in depth, like what do your friends call you madam Matthew? Like what do you feel most comfortable? It's both. I've gone through my whole life with both. I mean it's like if you meet someone though and they're like, hey, I'm Jim. You are I usually say Matthew, But um then there's there's been people that have that it feels weird for them to call me Matthew. But like my family growing up, Mom, dad, grandparents called me Matthew. For example, Thomas Rhett. If someone calls him Thomas, he knows they're not that close to him because his name is not Thomas. Yeah, he's like, so the people that know me because it's it's it's he's like t r Thomas rhet because that's what he was called as a kid. That's not his last name. So if they come up and they go, ey, Thomas, how are you, He's like, I don't really know, you don't really know me would do it with sure? So I have I told you the story about So. I mean, I was matt for a long time. My family was Matthew. They all call me Matthew. Matt war all was on my friends and everything. And then I was in Virginia, you know, recording music on my own, and um, I was putting out CDs and playing stuff and had a website and uma I had a MySpace all that stuff, and then um, I gotta started getting some messages from some people that were looking for a different Matt Ramsey who happened to be in the adult film untram Yeah. So um and people were like, I really like your music, but You're not the Matt Ramsey I was looking for just heads up. So I started then to delineate Matthew was just to set myself apart a little bit. Does that Matt Ramsey still exist in a way that it's still does? Well, no, it's not confusing. He actually has another name, a more famous name, but he when he performs a certain type of pornography, he goes by Matt Ramsey. So so it's a fun fact. Yeah, I'm not going to google him. Yeah you'll you'll get some interesting images if you do. But when you were in Virginia making music, about what year was that when you were when you were dedicated to music, but you were not in Nashville. That was probably two thousand and so you're years old? No, I mean yeah, yeah, probably twenty. How would am I now? I'm I'm actually forty three. So so if that's the case, then why not move to Nashville? Then? Did you have a different career path in mind where you were going to do it from Virginia? Was it slightly different than what you expected? Yeah? Well, I mean I went to art school. I kind a degree in illustration, and um, you know those are two I was passionate. I'm still passionate about both things, and um, I kind of got to the end of college and thought, I can't half ass both of these things. I need to focus on one. And music wound up being the thing I chose. So then I sort of did. Yeah, I made like a self funded you know, CD, and and just got to the point where I felt like I had exhausted everything in that area and played everywhere I could, and you know, made my money back in my CD, and it was time to to take another step that going into art school. What was that plan? Let's say the music thing didn't work out, or you were at the crossroads and you didn't choose music. I think that's the better question, Like what was the plan with the illustration? What what was a career outlook? There? I mean there, you know, you start to realize I started to realize on my senior year when you're you're kind of just doing all these independent studies and things, and you start to realize that all your professors are starting to view you as you as their competition. So you start to see like, well, I'm going to be able to maybe teach or you know, pick up some you know magazine illustrations or that drawing. I talk to me like a dumb guy. Becau's what I am. It's all of it, painting, drawing, m printmaking, stuff like that. So painting a picture on a canvas, Yah, you can do that. Yeah, you're a good artist like that. Pretty it can hold my own. Yeah. Do you ever? Do you do that for fun at all? Yes? I mean for I just painted recently a picture, um, for the first time in a while, um, which was very therapeutic, and um, I don't want to do it more. I posted a little thing on my own Instagram of it, but it's gone now. But um, like if I was naked. I took several years of figure drawing classes where someone would come in, and we had those in college, maybe like fifty bucks if you go staying naked up, and I was broke, But I wasn't that broke, right. I always thought about those people are like, man, you must need this money. I thought about in the same way in two ways. Either, I was envious of the fact that they had no inhibition at all, that they would go, hey, whatever, if people need to draw something, I'll show my wiener. I was so embarrassed and I'm still so embarrassed at my wiener that I just wouldn't. We had a bit on the show one and I'm, I mean my quarter joking. I guess you're laughing, so I guess I gotta be like, I'm joking. But we had a thing. This is when we were in Austin and I was, um, it's pretty early in my career. I just started to build my syndication company. We were doing mostly popping hip hop stations, and we were you know, at the time, it was a wild and crazy guy. Now I'm just the guy that gets trouble because I say things sometimes that the industry doesn't want me to say. But then I was just being an idiot for no other reason than just being an idiot. And so we did a bit where we had an artist come in and the loser had to get naked and be drawn and I lost, and I had to sit in a room like a closet and he and him I remember him for no other reason than just drawing it the right he had eyeball my Yeah, so you did. You did what I avoided for years a radio segment. Wow, Well, I mean you faced your fear though, So that's good, right, So would you do that to me? If I if I says like I would like to pose nude and have you draw a picture, I don't think I could do that. That's pretty cool though, that like, because that an artist musically, You're right, you perform like it's it's more of a three sixty thing when it comes to art with you. That was just that side of my brain is is the one that's active. You have an analytical side, Uh, you know, I mean I can, but you know, I'm not like into math and stuff like that. But Dave Heywood is a guy who I'm friends with who is i mean creative but also extremely linear as well. He's able to I sometimes can't do. I can't balance both at the same time. And he's the guy who's who's exceptional at that in your band because everybody kind of has roles in old dominion, like what is your role creative in that group? Creatively, I mean it's tough because we are. That's what makes it really hard to be in this band sometimes is is everyone is extremely creative. So um, you know anymore, I would say that it's kind of evolved and I've I've recently learned especially in this last album in the process of making it that my role is not necessarily in the tracking room while we're recording it's it's in the control room with our producer Shane and I'm I'm a better guide in that way. And um, and I'm I'm a strong writer, I think too. So I think I have a strong voice in the writing of our songs. But everyone does. Everyone is so talented. Do you have to submitting it? Isn't you use the frustrator? You have to submit yourself a bit when you go to record an album, because when you write it and you make you know, your work tape or your demo and you have you can get demo itis and wanted to sound like there. But then Shane come is in, Um, Shane mcinally, who obviously is is the best at what he does. I mean, I don't I don't think you would have a problem with saying he's better at being a producer than you are. Yeah, oh yeah, for sure. It's gonna make sure we're cold. And if he's like, hey, this is how I see it, Like I really am passionate about this. Do you ever have to submit and go like you know what? You know what you're doing and I only kind of know what I'm doing, so I'm gonna do that. Yeah, definitely. But we have a close enough of relationship that, um, if if we still will go down that road, if we if we're not fully believing in it, and I'm not fully believing in it, but he strongly is will go down that road for however long it takes until it until we see it or we go you're wrong. And and he's great at going Okay, thanks for trying, and we do the same thing. He'll he'll listen to us and our ideas, and you know, if we are feeling it one way, he'll say, I trust you, guys, let's let's go down that road until he either sees it or doesn't. It seems this is just my memory years later that he was involved really early with you guys. Yeah, he was, um you know, we were writing music with him, songs, um before he had any success. So I think when I met him he had one he had just gotten um Leeann Walmack song recorded his first one, and you know we were all just broke, you know, he just I think he had just like moved out of his car into a house, you know, so, yeah, he's been around for us for since the beginning. I want to go back to in Virginia, the first instrument you pick up is it the drums? It was the drums? Why the drums? Uh? You know? When I was I had an older brother and um he's he's four years older than me, and he had a friend who was a drummer, and it just enamored me. Just today, he would come over to our house and set his drum kid up and I would sneak down there and look at it. And then he played like a drum solo at the middle school talent show or whatever. It blew the whole place's mind and I just saw how that affected everyone. And um, so I just was drawn to banging on stuff for their bands that you listen to and drummed along with, and you liked the most as a fourteen fifteen year old kid, where you thought, all right, if I'm gonna do this, Yeah, I mean at that point it was starting to get into um is starting to get into a lot of grunge. I mean, for me, when I first learned not play guitars, chili peppers, it was metallic because it's some really easy intros totally. Yeah. Yeah, so I had at that point, once I started really digging in and playing along to music, Um, I had. I was my parents had a basement and I had a drum kit down there, and I had guitar amps and guitars, and I just and it was kind of like split even then. I had half of the basement was art supplies and canvases and things, and half of it was musical instruments. So I would just kind of live down in the basement and play along to mostly things like Pearl Jam and Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins and stuff like that. And I asked this question, and I'm being as respectful that possibly can with this question, because what happened to me may have happened to you. But being an art kid and a music kid, did you get beat up a lot? I never got beat up, but I definitely, um, I mean I got tugged on a little bit. You know, um actually ended up. I've never really talked about this ever, but uh, I actually ended up getting plastic surgery on my ears because uh, they were yanked on quite a bit and they kind of they were like, you know, I always think about this. It must have been really bad because I kind of don't think about it that much, but it must have been really bad for me to beg my parents to fix this problem and for them to go through with it, because you know, I have kids, and I know if if they if a kid and my kid in the sixth grade was begging you know, me to physically change them because of what people were doing, it would must have been heartbreaking for my parents, and I know what stuff for me, so so they did so for a while there, Yes, I went through some you know, some order, you know, punishments. There. I suffered similar you know, consequences for not being a you know, finger quotes normal kid. But you're a lot cooler than I am. That's why I asked. I mean, you're like cooler and you're talented, something like did you like break the mold or you're They're like, he's so talented, let's just celebrate him. I mean, I did wind up once I got into high school. I was kind of friends with everybody, you know, I was friends with the athletes, and I was also in the marching band, so you know, I kind of made peace with with everyone. So when did you transition from being the percussion guy to kind of go on, I don't even really want to do that much anymore, Like I want to play guitar. I want to. My first band was born out of the Marching band because the whole drum line we were such good friends, uh, and we all wanted to be in a band, but we were all drummers. And so it was, you know, one guy going well, I have a guitar, and another guy saying, well, I'll have the drum kit. And I was like, well, I can find a bass, I'll borrow a base. I borrowed a basse from somebody. So it was just we wanted to play music, but we only thing we knew how to play with drums, so we just kind of learned together and you know, just by ear figuring out that. So then once I started figuring out things on the base, and I had a piano that I would, you know, kind of mess around with, and and and a guitar that my uncle had given me. My dad was like, you're really good at figuring things out. You should pick up that guitar and try that. So so then once I picked that up, I didn't know how to play it. So that's when I immediately started writing stuff so that I could play what I was writing, that it was music natural to you, even though it was hard, it was, Yes, it was natural to me. Was wild for you to be able to play a E. G. C. E. Minor, you know, all the ones that you can let me be on, all the ones I play for you to play. Like, how quickly were we able to adapt and actually play you know, those main chords with your guys? I mean pretty pretty quickly. You know, it didn't take very long before we were all writing songs together as a band. You know, they all sounded like pro jam ripoffs, but you know, but didn't everyone. But yeah, it wasn't at that point. Yeah, okay, so you you you go to school, You're gonna do graphic art illustration. I'm messing that episode. You're also playing music. I again, I would understand that nine nine people out of a hundred are going to make more money doing that graphic art job because they could probably get work. Maybe I think it depends on not not necessarily in the in the field that I was headed towards, it was kind of equal to the music, I think because I wasn't interested in sitting at a computer and coming up with like graphic design. I wasn't. I was more tactile and would rather get my hands in paint or sculpt or, you know. So, And at that point, I have a couple of friends that are classmates that are successful artists now and it's been the same road, you know, it's just been grinding it out and keeping you know, keeping their head down and painting and painting and painting and painting until they finally we all at the same age. They're they're having success as artists and I'm having success in music. You're playing music. What are you playing by yourself? When you when you dedicate your life to it now as a craft to pay your your and what other job are you doing? Every job possibly could, I've worked, um, oh man everything. I worked as a at a recycling plant Virginia. In Virginia, I worked at landscaping companies, at signed companies, UM and then UM. Then moved to Nashville and worked for a moving company and where you know, I worked. The first year I was here, worked I think probably seven different jobs in the first year, just you know, trying to keep my bills paid and and then right at night and play. It was going to ask because there's no I mean, there is writing at night, but for the most part, any of my friends who are established writers don't write at night, not anymore. And so when you're a young guy, I'm assuming there are other just hungry people that will write any time. And you're working all day and you're just like, hey, let's just try to write at eight o'clock to night. Have to. Yeah, if you're gonna if you're gonna pay your bills, you gotta do that. And then then you gotta write in your free time. So I mean, I even had, like I wish I still had them. I had a job where I worked at a stained glass place. This is still in Virginia, and I would you know, they had the old school time punch cards a hobby lobby. Yeah, and that you would I had them sitting there and I would write songs on the time punch cards while while I was working. I would I would be writing those songs on the time punches. So you have to write every possible moment. Did you feel like you were a good writer though before people told you you were a good writer? Um, yeah, I think well, I mean that's interesting question. I think you're always questioning whether or not you are a good writer. Even at this point you know you're like, do I know how to do this anymore? Um? So I think there's a certain amount of at that point early on arrogance that you have to have for sure, for sure to do something. And I say this all the time. For me to think somebody's gonna pay a fifty bucks to come watch me do comedy, I better think I'm pretty danger. You have to have an ego about and then you gotta have humility at the same time, So you gotta be able to look back and realize why it wasn't working then. So I think if you can do that, you can keep growing. But um, but you know, I think I when I first started, I was I was really writing because I really needed to. I was really was expressing things that I had had no other way to express. So it wasn't about being good. It was about, um getting some feelings out and and working through things in a way that I can only figure out how. So I mean spend off questions comes from that they that you say, I guess the first one is what you're working full time doing things other than what you would like to do. Full time, which is be creative. What was the first mini break you had that didn't make you have to go work at the plant or the restaurant? Um Well, I moved to um Well in Virginia. The first thing I did. I was working at this thing glass company. And then I was making enough money, um playing you know, gigs that I was booking myself that I could go part time, like regionally, so you'd booked drive a couple of hours you need to or locally, yeah, I would play. I would play all the surroundings basically the whole state of Virginia. And I made enough money there for about a year that I could work part time, and luckily they were supportive and of me and let me do that. And then moved to Nashville, and it took probably, i don't know, for a good five six years before I got a publishing deal with Phil Vassar, who allowed me to stop working. So let me get this straight, just so our listeners they see the massive success of all Dominion, right, and everything you guess put out is seemingly the world is your oyster. Musically, for five or six years, you're talking about five times three and sixty five days you worked well, Yeah, and I still worked when I had that publishing deal. I still had to find other means of income. But it did loosen the it lessened the pressure a little bit, and it still was. I still went through that hole, that whole publishing deal without getting any any song recorded or anything. So it gave me a little money, but that was it. Is there a guilt that you have because I've experienced this when people have signed me to certain projects that didn't do as well as I had hoped. Is there a guilt that you would have in a publishing deal where nothing got record, did or cut? Guilty that they were paying me? No? Um, no, because that's a that's a risk they assume. You know, most people, most people that you know, if if if I signed a writer, I would sign them expecting nothing to happen in the first like a few years at least. You know, it's really just about learning at that point. So that's all I was trying to do was learn, And I was very upfront about that and with any any publisher that signed me was I'm just trying to learn how to write better. And most of them see that, they see a glimmer of of talent. Most of the song sucks, but maybe there's one line in there that gives them some hope and and they can give you a little bit of money to keep going. So I never really felt guilty about that. I mean, especially like I was saying earlier, I can go back and listen to those songs and go see why in the time you were like these are great? Why is no one recording them? They're not great that you know. I had a lot of growing to do for sure. So you're writing and you start to just write songs for a living. What was the first writer, I won't even we'll say break that you earned. What what was your first break there where you go, Okay, I'm not just now treading water, like I might be able to have some real success with this. Yeah. Um, the first sign of hope was guy named Steve Holly recorded a song that Trevor and I wrote with our friend Matt Jenkins, And then, um, really was watching my friends have some success. Was really what gave you the real hope was is that because you knew that you could do what they do well, I was doing what they were doing. I mean, we were doing it all together. So it was like it like Shane for instance, he came in and played um remember he played us the demo for Somewhere with You and Una, and we were just like, damn, like that's different, that whatever that is is the next step. And we even though we weren't writers on it, we knew that that was going to change the game for all for all of us. And even now when we watched Kenny play it, like we sit there and go we none of us would be here without that song because he wrote that, Kenny cut it. It changed Kenny's career and because of that, me and Josh Osborne and Trevor Rosen, Matt Jenkins, Brandy Clark and you know, we're all in that rider circle and we get we get to reap the benefits really of of that exposure. So watching our our each other succeed was really what kept us go. And we're like, it's not like I'm doing it, but it's weird doing it. You know what about first success for you were a song actually good, a single like a real life it's got a chance single That was wake Up, Loving You Buy Craig Morgan. So that was the first one. I can't remember. I can't remember Hot went on the chart if it was top ten or not. But um, but it was close, which was you know that's back then that's all you want, is like you want top twenty and then you get that and you're like, can you watch that? It was your first you are you watching the charts everything back then? For sure? Watching it all the time. I don't watch anymore. But when you hear that at the beginning, the first time you hear it actually cut, are you like, I like what they did with that production? Or that was my alarm clock? Actually it really was, Yeah, yeah I did. I did that on the demo. I made a little home demo of it with that alarm clock, and and they here Theredith and then everyone who cut it after that, A couple of artists cut it. Everyone used that A long o'clock. Then it's just my A long o'clock. A couple cut it, but they didn't put on a record. Um. I think Keith Keith Anderson cut it, and I think it made a record for him, but it wasn't a single. So then what's the rule there? Because Eric Passley, who embuddies with, he wrote Friday Night. I think Friday Nights sung. I'm thinking of lady A cut it but on the record. He then said, well he didn't use this single. I want to use this single one number one for him. I want to be Oh friend, is there a rule that if it doesn't go as a single, you can still probably cut it somewhere else? Sure? I mean once it you know, once it is out, once somebody cuts it, anybody can cut it. So so you can put it out as a single anytime. Do you have to ask for single rights? Though? No, only one? I don't think so. No. I mean you do that one time, you give you give the license out one time, and once you approve it, it's it's a fair game. So you're telling me I could cut I was on a boat. Yeah, put it out of a single and then once it beat you guys, is the best streaming song? That's just life. Yeah. But we reaped the benefits of that, soot why good? Good for us all? Like we all went there. Nice first number one song you wrote say you Do for Dirk Spanley And was that a rocket ship number one or was that a we don't know if he's gonna cut it. He did cut it. We don't know if it's gonna be on the record, we don't know it. All of them are like that. I feel like, um, that one was you know, talking about breakthroughs and stuff that as far as the writing that song, that was one that I was sure it was something special. Really you knew when you wrote it. Yeah, was there any chance you were keeping these songs because old dominion was maybe if we were a band at that point you signed. Uh No, So even like wake Up Loving You was our like show closer man, like, to let Craig Morgan have that song was a really tough decision because at that point it started to feel like maybe we were gonna We were so far away from getting signed, but it felt like maybe we were going to. Um So it was tough to kind of let that one go. Say you do wasn't tough for us because we we did play that song and every show and um but at that point, man, you know, we're just trying to pay the bills and and we moved here to be songwriters anyway, that's what we wanted, so um So it was awesome and and he did an incredible job. There was a moment where I was going to sing background vocals on it, but it didn't pan out. Um, man, it was just an exhilarating feeling to hear that song and watch that song climb to get your first number one. Amazing. This chainsaw from the Bam Perry wrote this one. Yeah, here's the was it written as aggressive? It's way more aggressive. Our version is way more aggressive. This one is the light version of it. So my dad actually, my dad actually made a comment one time about He was like, man, your version is like, you know, I can kind of picture you out in the woods, like with like frozen snot in your beard, cutting down the tree. It's definitely a lot more aggressive our version. Before we get over to the old dominion stuff. Ecstasy from Sam Hunt is probably, in my opinion, his biggest non single song. It wasn't a single, but everybody knows it. Um, I wish that was a single. One to me, I kind of had to be reminded it wasn't a single. I'm a big Sam guy. I like Sam away from work, you know, Yeah, I love Sam at work, you know so, But I love this song. When he cuts it again, he kind of though, if I'm not mistaken, this was on the pre Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Um, and Sam wasn't Sam Hunt, Right, but did you when you guys wrote, it wasn't written like Wow, this is different, like say something like new Territory type stuff. I mean we knew before everyone knew that it was you know, Sam Hunt. Like writing with that guy, you're like, damn, this guy is something entirely different. And what means, like just his creative mind is is he attacks things at different angles. So the things that come out of his mouth, you're like, I don't know how you thought of that, but you know, even like with make You Missed Me, he throws out a line like to keep a slip knot and the strings you attached like something some obscure thought like that, he can make seem very palatable. So just writing with him, that was a moment where you knew something was big was going to happen. So that song, it's funny like he he overthinks a lot of things and to you know, to his credit, it works, you know, but he, like most people, you sit in the room and you write and at the end of the day you got the song. You can write for weeks and weeks and weeks on the same song with Sam, So that's what happened. I never really knew the final version of Ecstasy until it came out, Like I knew what I thought it was gonna Were the other little changes that you heard in it that you're like, well, I don't remember that at all. Yeah, yeah, thats all like talking part at the end that there's like a whole like kind of down bridge where he's kind of talking and you look kind of cute and all this stuff. I didn't remember any of that stuff, But I mean it's amazing. Were you surprised to see the explosion of him? Yeah, No, I mean I'm excited. I mean, I'm supposed to thee any explosion of anybody, right because it's always so unpredictable of who it's gonna be, when it's gonna be, on why it's gonna be yea, And with Sam, it hits so hard, so fast, And I feel like Sam is the most reluctant superstar that I know, And when people are kind of bagging on him, I'm like, well, first of all, he's way smarter, way more talented than you, and he doesn't because he loves to be an artist, but he didn't want to be be the guy out and people forget because everything now sounds like m hunt, so it didn't. Then he changed it and everything on country radio. Half of it is just watered down Sam months Kenny save it for rainy Day. I have this hook up here. When you write a song like this, how quickly do you send it to Kenney? This one you never like, I didn't know Kenny at that point, and you never ever right aiming at a certain artist. But this song has the like quickest journey ever, but a huge journey. But we used to write. Brad and I and our late friend Andrew Doff used to write every morning at nine in the not every morning every week at nine in the morning, so we would have double booked ourselves. We would write from nine to eleven and then we would go to our normal right, So that morning I didn't have any ideas, but in the shower on the way or getting ready to go there, that kind of course popped into my head. So I showed up and I was like, Hey, what about this? And they were like yeah, And we wrote that song in forty five minutes. And at that time, Brad was making a little home demos and I kept kind of egging him on, like, dude, you gotta make a demo, and I was joking. I was like, man, you want to Kenny Tesney cut or not, like make the demo. So he was like okay, okay, and he made the demo and um, sure enough, like we got it right to him and he picked it up like it was. It never happens like that, but that's the only time that's ever happened is And then he went and recorded it and the studio musicians told us they only did one take of it. They played it and they were moved on, so they thought, no way that's ever making it. So we wrote it in forty five minutes. They did one take of the recording session, and then it becomes a three week number one songs. Pretty crazy, When did your mindset change? And Okay, I'm an artist and I'm you're always a songwriter. Yeah, but now like I'm the guy and we're the guy. Is where we're looking out for us first, because if we don't, nobody else is going to Yeah what No. I think it was hard man to even throw throughout the whole first album, which was you know, two thousand, fourteen fifteen ish. Um, it was hard for us to turn that songwriter switch off and hold on to even song for another time, we pitched two, We pitched at to Kenny Like at that point we were still trying to We didn't know if it was gonna work, but we knew we were successful songwriters. So I mean, honestly, probably for me, not until the last album with like Maga Sweet and One Man Band. All that stuff was when I finally felt like we as a band were confident in ourselves and we're able to, like, you know, kind of live in our own skin. How do you form a band five people? Right? How do you form a band? I know how to form a band, but how do you form the band when you've been in town a long time? All you guys weren't righting. It didn't seem like when I look back at the oh, but I mean so with you know, when and I went to middle school together and we're in competing drum lines together, and then he was in a band with Um Jeff all through college, and and Brad was at the same college. They were all taking classes together and playing music together, and Um and then I was going and opening for their band. We just this is just my guys that I've known for forever, since we were kids. So, uh, those are the people that I always played music with, so it wasn't very hard to like. We moved down to Nashville sort of one by one. They were still in a band. I was calling them trying to get them to move down here because I was such a fan of them. I knew they could come down here and crush it. Then they broke up, moved down one by one, and the other members of that band did to their One of them in Taylor Swists Band, Um, one of them. Um. There's another guy in Taylor Swiss Band from the same group. Um, and one of them plays on every country, he plays on all Sam stuff. He plays along Dustin Lynch's music. And so everyone just moved down there. I was right, they were super successful. But you know, when I'm looking for someone to come and play the songs I'm writing, I'm gonna call my buddies that I've always played music with. And I guess that was my question. You know, do you come to Nashville, the Land of the Giants, and cherry picked the giants or do what you did? You grabbed your guys who were also really great, but they were your guys. Yeah, I mean, at that point, you don't have access to the giants. You can't cherry picked them because the people at the top are cherry picking them. So you gotta make do you know, you gotta you gotta call your buddies that will play for nothing because you can't give them any money. So you know, you just kind of roll with what you got. All five of you, guys, were you in the all five of you in the official like start of Old Dominion? Brad was not the guy was mentioning his name is Devin Malone, who played the studio musician here in town, was at the time the original guitar player. And then, um, you know, at that point we weren't making any money and but we were touring like we were, you know, we were just losing our assets. But um, and he started to be asked to play on the road and in the studio with some other artists, news paying his bills, and you know, it's to the point where he couldn't make a bunch of Brad started subbing for him a bunch. So the time came where it was like, hey, man, are you are you into this or not? And he was like, I don't think I can do it, man. So so he left and Brad was the was the guy. Was Brad already making money as a songwriter? No, it was too early on that that front for him too. Yeah, yeah, he was just he was just starting to get into the songwriting world and kind of make some noise. How do you guys talk. It's so it's you're like the elite songwriters out of old dominion. Let's just remove the band old dominion, Like you legitimately have elite songwriters in your band yourself that that didn't get together because of your elite songwriting success. No, but you know, I mean Trevor and I got together because of songwriting, not because of the success, but but because he and I hit it off as as co writers and friends. So we had we knew we had something um and then we just kind of built it from there. Same thing with Brad. You know, Brad, we had a we had a sort of friendship. We knew him, but we also knew was extremely talented. But then we write with him and we're like, this guy's kind of got the same thing that we have. So, you know, it's just about finding your people and luckily that our people are our friends. Are you able to switch off front man of a I mean of my favorite band of probably the biggest band in country music right now. Are you able to switch that to dad husband like that? No, No, it's it's been. Um. You know, that's hard. That's that's been you know, quite honestly, um, a challenge. So it's it takes some therapy, some work to figure that out. I wasn't like I was kind of stupid, um thinking about working on this the whole time. I never thought about being like famous or like a rock star or anything. I always thought about songs and music and and and that being known. But I didn't think about people wanting to know about me, and that freaked me out, honestly. So kind of the beginning of it, the first few years, it's kind of a mess of trying to figure out how to handle that. Do you like that part of it? Do you like being the lead singer of Old Dominion? I have learned to. I didn't at first, but I do not. I've I've been able to kind of switch it in my brain and realize that that I'm kind of in the service industry now, you know, like, it's not it's not about me, it's about serving other people. I can, I can visibly see what we are doing is affecting and helping other people. So in when I can remember that, I absolutely love it. Like it's there's nothing better than going out there realizing that something you created from an emotion or or just a grouping of words, it has a really big effect on people. Then by all means I would not want to be doing anything else. Can you guys do five tour buses for all five members? We cannot. That's expensive. But you got And I asked that now because again in the last pandemic years weird to quantify. But like you guys have you're the elite now right. You also became very elite at a time when there was no money going around to which is which is an odd thing because here you are don anating and you can't really capitalize on what the success that you've had. So no five buses yet? What we got three? I mean we're all in the same bus. So um, okay, we got listen. I think I'll be your business manager. It's time. I's time to get another at least another bus. Here. Our business manager right now is like, what what no one bus? Please? But I mean we have I think we're on three buses total with our crew and everything, but but there's six of us on our bus, and so it's the five of us and our tour manager. It is a weird dynamic. And I'll speak from experience too, because I've had the guys on my show for the most part for ten fifteen years. Like I just grabbed my people that had never done that before and was like, let's go along for the ride together. Trust me, I got you, and then at times they've had to have me too. But there is always weird inner personal dynamics because everybody's still so different living human lives are growing up on our show. I mean, we've got people get me, getting married, if people have an extra kid. You got with five people, it just like I'm dealing with that five people. You guys have grown have adulted quite a bit together. Do you do any sort of therapy as as a group. We just got asked that, um by someone else, and no, we we haven't done that. UM. I mean it would probably be helpful, I think, but we haven't gotten to the point where I don't think we need it. Do you vote? We do vote. We had like right in the beginning, we were sat down with an attorney and he was like, Okay, we're gonna come up with the system here of voting, and we were like, we're never going to need that. And it was literally like the next week, I want to play just a clip if I was on a boat that day, which is number ten right now, is we're recording that living Son and Wrong. Just at this long of all the old Dominion songs, seems, I won't say the most fun has maybe the most love. There's a different feel to it. You have other fun songs, but this one feels purposefully a little more like, hey, we're just putting out a song to freaking have fun, like a little goofy even exactly what it is, Yeah, is that is does that happen in conversation? Like you, guys, we've done the deep songs we've done, why don't we just put one out that makes us go a screw it, man, We're just have fun. Well, I think we weren't thinking about that when we were writing it, but once we had written it, it felt that for that reason, it was like, you know, coming out of pandemic and all this stuff, it was just like, man, let's just let's just not even worry about let's just put a fun song out. Let's and in the groove, you know that shuffle. It doesn't matter people dance if they don't know what, they dance to that beat, no matter what song it is. So it just felt like, man, we had so much fun recording that song. Let's just keep that party going because you know, there's no needs. We pride ourselves on the happy sad mix. Easier to do a song like that when you have the cred of success of really deep, substitantive songs. Yeah, you know, as if you're putting out a bunch of songs like that, people are like, well, they're the goofy band. But no one's gonna take you for the goofy band, right, But we are, you know, inherently goofy. People like, we're goofy friends with each other and we laugh constantly all day long. So that is a big part of us. So you know, it's it's I'm glad it's finally showing a new album on the eighth of next What number we are in? We're nine? We're nine now, I guess the Pandemics also eliminated in the ability to know it's number month. It's impossible. October would be October October eight time Tequila and Therapy. Why that title? I'm sure you guys kind of mess around with a few different titles. Why why those words? Yeah, well those are lyrics from one of the songs. UM and we've you know, bounced around a bunch of different titles for a long time, and finally that came out, and what it did, It's the first time we all five went immediately went that's it, you know, And I think because you know that is man, that's that's old dominion in a nutshell right there. We've been together for so long, there's so much time in history behind us. And you know, tequila is a is a big part of our you know, pre show ritual, and you know we work with the tequila company, and you know that's just kind of part of our culture. And um, and the therapy has been a lot of therapy in the past, you know, a couple of years between me and a couple other members, and and we're learning a lot about ourselves and and you know, music itself is therapeutic, and UM it just seemed like the perfect snapshot of of what this whole album is. Did you ever have the fear, because I did and struggle with it for a while. Going to therapy was going to make you have less of an edge, And I don't mean edges like a bad boy, but I mean edge and creatively. I think that thought crossed my mind some. Yeah. I learned pretty quickly that whatever you know, I don't say demons or darkness or whatever, whatever you're carrying around therapy isn't gonna make go away. So I'm always going to have that stuff. I just maybe have the tools to deal with it a little bit better so I can go back there and access that all I want. As far as creativity goes, it's always going to be there, whether I wanted to or not. I don't want it to be there, but you know, I would trade all of that going away for you know, I'm already successful, so I can say that I'll lend on this. And being a Tory musician is exhausting. Are you writing anything that's not maybe for you guys? Yeah, um, you will just write and go maybe we'll send this off. Yeah, I mean we do that all the time. I mean, Brad just got he's got the new um Keith Urvan Wild hearts with with Eric Pasling. Um, yeah, and I think we hold onto him for a little longer. But for the most part, the chances even still of getting a song recorded by another artist are so slim, even even with our success. It's gotta all the stars have to line up perfectly, and so at this point we're just kind of like, yeah, send it to him if if they if they like it, great chances are there not going to and then it's still ours. So the question that I would have then is if you're writing for the sake of writing, I would think artists would go, well, if I doesn't want to cut it because I didn't think it's good enough for him, probably, yeah, I mean, and that's all we ever do is right for the sake of writing. We don't try to write an Old Dominion song even we just write. But yeah, I think that probably is happening some you know, I think, Um, you know, there's been some talk about maybe recording demos without my vocal on them so that people don't hear it as Old Dominion, you know. Yeah. I have a buddy who writes in a different name at times for similar reason. Yeah, He's like, I don't want people to think that I'm only writing and not cutting them because I think they suck or not good enough for me, right, And it's just it's just about whether or not it's right or not, you know. I mean, it's not like you're gonna pitch a song you don't believe in. Like I have plenty of bad songs that I would never let anyone here. So if they're hearing the song, I believe in it, and I would cut it if it was the right song to cut. So maybe it is for for the other artists. I think we're gonna we're gonna end it there and listen, I was on about the day is gonna be a number one soon. I don't even I don't even need to promote anything, like you've been generous with even coming here, because you need no promotion. You guys just walk in. It's turnkey. You got hit after hit. I think I don't speaking candidly. I don't even like albums anymore. I don't have the patience for them. And I know that's that's not the comfortable thing to say in an artist community where people are still fighting. But I don't feel like i'm I'm I feel like I'm gonna not get to experience certain songs because I don't have patience for them, and so I feel like I lose if somebody puts out an album. I'm getting to a compliment. Don't worry. I'm with you. I feel like I lose when someone puts out thirteen songs because I don't invest enough time that as much time as I should in all thirteen songs. You're you're most people. I go through a couple of times, and the ones I like a swipe over and save, swipe save um, and I'm not it's not fair because I would like to give it all the songs time. Yeah, that being here, there's a compliment sory, like when you guys put out an album, it's every every track, thank you, and I don't. I don't say that to anybody. May I would say that to Mayor. But then Mayor started doing smaller practice, right, and we talked about that we were gonna kind of split this up. I think what the plan is for us instead is we write so much, we're just gonna keep recording and make another one pretty quick, I think. But I think you know, most people are like that. We just we like the music. We're just gonna put it out. We have fans that will listen to it and some people won't. We'll have, you know, we'll have a few singles that people know, and that's great. That's the same as any other album. You know, So do a concept album. That's what I want from all the concept. I don't even know what the concept was, you know, I don't know what the concept is. But nineteen twenties, that's where we need to bring wit in all. That's when his mind would would be that he would set the concept like a cool old Dominion concept album about eight try so you tell me a story. It's the wall. I just like one day. That's like the announcement is all Dominions doing. It's it's about dinosaurs. What dinosaurs? I'm here for this, Okay, listen, Hey, thank you very much. I appreciate you coming vibe. I know, um you're doing a lot so to spend a little time here. We appreciate it. You guys can follow all Dominion music on Instagram or empt Ramsey. Um. That's that's that's Matt's private account, all right, I guess not private public but account yea which everyone Yeah, yeah, the private private account. The only I have. That's the other metory, all right, thanks Matt,