#541 - Brett Eldredge on Getting Anxious Before Shows + How He Dealt with His Vocal Disorder + Why He Stopped Performing as Much + The Origin of 'Glow' and How it Became a Christmas Tradition

00:00:06
Speaker 1: I do think about that a lot, but some reason, I've just had a poll that like it continues to pull me back even when I play less shows than I used to, But I still have this feeling of like this is an important thing for me to do, Like I need to do this. I don't have to do it on somebody else's terms. I want to do it in my own way, and I can't let the fear keep me from doing it.

00:00:27
Speaker 2: Welcome to episode five point forty one with Brett Eldridge. This was a very difficult interview for me because when you know someone really well, you know too much. Even is that that makes sense.

00:00:42
Speaker 3: It makes a lot of sense.

00:00:44
Speaker 2: Going into this. I thought, man, I know everything. Like Brett's one of my closest friends, and I mentioned this. He was going to do no press for his Christmas tour. He's not one to ever ask to do anything, especially me. He's I can ask me for anything, and I was like, dude, come do the podcast. And he doesn't really need promo for his tickets first Christmas shows they sell out constantly but it don't hurt. But yeah, he was coming over and I was like, man, I know every question. I'm going to ask, I think I know the answer to. We had just hung out like three days prior and spent like two hours talking, so I do like how it ended though. How it ended up, I should say, I think it was pretty good.

00:01:25
Speaker 3: I thought it was good.

00:01:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did too. I don't really know, because we did it over an hour together and but then he came up to the house and we hung out for like another forty five minutes.

00:01:34
Speaker 3: But the Christmas show is awesome. I'm not even a Christmas guy. It's fine.

00:01:40
Speaker 2: Just never had many Christmases that I look at as like super happy memories. And I've been to Brett Show the last three years. The first year we just went because we were just supporting Brett, and now we go every year because it's an awesome show. So if it's anywhere near you, he's doing his tour Nashville, Chicago, Saint Louis, New York, Detroit, and Boston right after after Thanksgiving. It's like night one after Thanksgiving in Nashville. It's Friday, November twenty eighth, so I'm assuming that Thursday, November twenty seventh is Thanksgiving this year.

00:02:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you guys should go. It's really great.

00:02:11
Speaker 2: You can even I would even say, if you can afford it, it's good enough to get flights and go and do the whole thing. People dress up. It's really cool. But yeah, he's one of my dearest friends. And he asked before we started this, he was like, do we act like we're friends? Well, we just haven't done a lot of stuff publicly. I think that's one of the great things about our relationship. We using each other for clout, hardly ever post each other. I think when he's saying to Caitlin at her birthday because he was in Oklahoma back in the day, she's from Oklahoma. It's like one of her favorite movies, and he's sang in her birthday for many years in a row, Oh what a beautiful morning, because that's from Oklahoma. It's really the only time we put bread up. Or that time we all played basketball at Vanderbilt. Oh yeah, yeah, like my wife reriented that out for my birthday, like.

00:02:55
Speaker 3: He played that time dames there.

00:02:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:02:58
Speaker 2: So go to Brett Eldridge dot com. Depending on when you hear this, it could be after tickets go on sale, it could be two years later. But tickets go on sale this week, twelve pm Local time. Here he is Brett Eldridge. All Right, honest question, how anxious are you doing this?

00:03:15
Speaker 4: I'm not bad.

00:03:16
Speaker 3: I am.

00:03:17
Speaker 4: I am full raw dog right now.

00:03:18
Speaker 1: No, no beta block or nothing really. Yeah, so but I do. But I'm like, I'm turning a new leaf today. Why what leaf? Like a maple or maybe an oak? No, I don't know, I just I sometimes I I mean, I've known you for a long time. I feel very comfortable around you. But I think it's uh, yeah, it's been I've learned lately to just kind of like go into things. You know, I'm going to be vulnerable and I might get nervous, and I just kind of have to feel whatever my body's feeling and be like I've never died from this, so I'm not going to die this time.

00:03:59
Speaker 3: That's sounds like therapy. Tell you that it is.

00:04:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, but like I get that on when I go on stage.

00:04:05
Speaker 3: You still get anxious going on stage?

00:04:08
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.

00:04:10
Speaker 1: In fact, I played two weeks ago and then I hadn't played a lot of shows this year, so I was going into the show days before like stomach hurts, you know, like and I'm not even really thinking about it, but my subconscious mind is thinking about, Oh, I'm preparing for a show, but my body feels like I'm dying or something because it's just so much pressure that I'm putting on myself. I get to the show, I'm like backstage dancing with the band. I'm trying to do things to loosen myself up. And then I'm like, holy cow, I can really feel intense right now, and I feel tight, and my chest feels tight, and I'm just like, I'm just going to go out there. Never died on stage. I'm never passed out on stage. I've never thrown up on stage, but my mind feels that way sometimes. And then I go out there and there were some of the best shows I've played in a long time. There's some of the first shows I've played in a while too, but they were amazing. So I guess like even in those moments, my nephew was in the crowd at one of the shows, and I started to have the feelings of.

00:05:17
Speaker 4: Adrenaline. I'll call it.

00:05:19
Speaker 1: It's really like some people would say panic or something, but it's just the same thing as adrenaline rush. So I start feeling that, I start feeling the kind of wave of like me wanting to jump out of my skin and out of my body and like run away. And this is just one of those spinning stages, you know, where it just slowly spins and it's like an arena sitting in a room, and I I was like, Okay, my nephew's right here. I'm going to go engage with my nephew and like do this for him and be strong for him. And then as soon as I grounded myself into that, I looked at him smile, and I looked at him just kind of in awe of the crazy experience, and he's like three years old.

00:05:56
Speaker 4: Then I kind of grounded back into it.

00:05:58
Speaker 1: So I've learned these different tools, but I think I've just kind of tried to accept that we're sensitive people being creative people, and it's okay to be sensitive and be up here. And I'm just there's so many people out in the crowd that would never want to do something like this either, and like, I'm just as scared as they are in some ways. But I want to be a voice, to be able to just express what people are going through, what I'm going through, what I've experienced with with heartbreak, with love, with life, with whatever it is. And maybe that's okay to just kind of feel a little on edge because you're doing something that's important to you and also scares you, and maybe that gives us our gift.

00:06:37
Speaker 4: I don't know.

00:06:38
Speaker 2: I asked if you felt anxious, because I know you've talked openly about being anxious before shows or even interviews, especially interviews, because you don't have.

00:06:45
Speaker 3: Control over that.

00:06:45
Speaker 2: At least a show you have control over, like you're the guy that runs it, but you're walking into a different setting where you're getting interviewed. You've talked about being anxious before. But you and I are friends, and so the juxtaposition of us being close in real life versus this is a setting that you don't usually find yourself being comfortable. I wonder how you really felt. Yeah, yeah, like driving over here. Yeah, it wasn't.

00:07:08
Speaker 1: Bad when I was driving here over here, like right now, I could feel it a little bit right here, even if it's lights.

00:07:14
Speaker 4: It's like it's all these old.

00:07:15
Speaker 1: Programming like good Morning America, all right, we're going live in ten nine eight. And then all of a sudden I started to have that thing come over through my head of oh, my god, here comes a pressure, millions of people about to watch me. Nobody like all this zooms in and closes around you. And that's so Sometimes cameras and stuff can do that to me. But I've learned exposure therapy is a great thing. If you go up and you show up. I mean, it is the number one way to get through something like if you're scared of spiders, Mike can be over there standing there with a spider and you'd be like, Okay, that kind of scares me. But he's over there, and then he moves like halfway over here, and I'm like, okay, I'm still alive. And then eventually and he's and he gets close and eventually I'm holding it at my hand. I'm like, I'm a spider man now, you know.

00:08:04
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:08:04
Speaker 2: I found myself after having done a few really crazy thing with heights.

00:08:10
Speaker 4: Oh man, I'm the Grand Canyon thing.

00:08:13
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:08:13
Speaker 2: Few, still being really scared of heights, however, because I had to jump off a cliff in Norway with bear girls, had to do a different one in Northern California.

00:08:22
Speaker 3: You had to do the Grand Canyon. Had to learn how to stunt man off a house.

00:08:25
Speaker 2: I hate heights, But it's not that the heights were easier, but it was I've done this before and gotten through it, and I'm going to do it because I remember having to swing under the Grand Canyon. It's four thousand feet. It's the scariest thing I've ever done, and I've skydive and.

00:08:42
Speaker 3: I that I hated it too.

00:08:44
Speaker 2: And I was sitting on the edge of the cliff and there's just a rope that was keeping me from dying, and I'm thinking to myself, I don't know if I can do this. But it's almost like a secondary voice comes in and says, regardless of what you think, you're going to do it. So it's either go ahead and do it now, or way to be miserable for another unspecified amount of time as you sit here. And that's what got me to go to the edge was I knew I was going to do it eventually, so let's just go. And I've done crazy things before, and I think what that's done has allowed me to do other things I'm really scared of. It doesn't make me less scared, it allows me to be open to the possibility of getting through it and being stronger at the end.

00:09:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah for sure.

00:09:26
Speaker 1: And and I mean, do you get is your anticipatory anxiety really strong when you go into that, Like you know, the night before tomorrow, I'm going to be hanging out and the Grand Canyon underneath this.

00:09:40
Speaker 2: Depending how big it is, yeah, how drastic it is? Yes, like that one. I couldn't sleep the night before. Yeah, yeah, because I knew what was going to happen, and we had done some pre production the day before and I looked at it. Some of the stuff I didn't know until I got there. But yeah, that and even like doing the radio show, like I don't sleep well because every night I'm going going to sleep thinking I might over sleep and be late. And if I'm late, the show's not going to be good. If the show's not going to be good, ratings are down. If ratings are down, I'm not gonna have a job. If I don't have a job, I'm gonna be back in the trailer park or like all of that happens. And that's a different version of anxiety. I don't have performance anxiety at all, but I do have getting their anxiety. Like when I was doing a bunch of stand up, I felt like I was going to be sick every day at the show, I got a sore throat coming on. I was convinced every day I was getting sick and I wouldn't be able to go on.

00:10:29
Speaker 1: Get like a tick kind of thing where always need too I got to clear my throat or something, or.

00:10:33
Speaker 2: I start feeling that early stage of a sore throat, even though it's not there like.

00:10:38
Speaker 3: I might be getting. I'm be geting a little sore throat. Do you deal with that at all? Oh?

00:10:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had at one point, and I can talk about it now because I understand what I was going through. But I had what they called dysphonia.

00:10:52
Speaker 4: I don't know what that is.

00:10:53
Speaker 1: It's basically, you get obsessed with how your voice feels and the connection of your muscle and your voice. You get so focused on how tired it feels and how it feels tired that you think that you can't sing anymore, or or that your voice gets really tired and like, so I would go in the first song and I'd be so clenched, so nervous, and so tight. I'd be thinking about my vocals the whole time. I want them to sound perfect whatever. It's putting so much pressure that I was focusing on that and in my head, with one song and I would be I could hardly even talk, I could hardly even sing. I would still make it through and I would still sound okay, but in my mind I was in hell, you know, like and how'd you know this existed? Though a lot of singers have gone through it? And I and I went to a specialist. I went to like a this is a psychology like a therapist that specialized in that, and they started doing like all this work on my neck, like neck muscles and all this stuff, and I slowly started to understand that, yeah, maybe the neck, maybe the p TEA stuff was doing something, but really I was just thinking about it so much. And what you just keep thinking about you keep focusing on I keep focusing on it, and it gets it becomes more of a thing. And then eventually I kind of had to just train myself to loosen up. That's why I started dancing before shows with the band and like doing engaging with people in the crowd when I'm nervous or instead of like just holding onto the microphone for an hour and a half as tight as I could, like and nobody in the crowd this before I kind of started open up to my fans and everybody about how I would feel was nobody in the crowd even knows you're experiencing that, but in your head you're in an absolute vortex of emotions.

00:12:41
Speaker 2: Why would you get into a career that is so hard for you to even get on the stage.

00:12:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great question. I think about that all the time.

00:12:49
Speaker 3: I think.

00:12:51
Speaker 1: I still think about that, and then I play the show and I'm like, that was so fun. But I think about that a lot. I was like, man, it'd be so much easier to just you know, I don't know what else I would do but work on a fishing boat or something. I don't know, but like it would be woun't be that wouldn't be easy life either. I've seen fishermen. They get up at like three am. But I do. I do think about that a lot. But something some reason, I've just had a poll that like it continues to pull me back even when I play less shows than I used to, But I still have this this feeling of like this is an important thing for me to do, Like I need to do this. I don't have to do it on somebody else's terms. I want to do it in my own way, but I need to do this and and I can't let the fear keep me from doing it. And so there was a time where I kind of stop almost fully for a while, and I was like, I gotta find some balance because I need this in my life.

00:13:45
Speaker 2: Did you feel like you missed the stage or you feel like you needed to get on the stage as a kind of a coping mechanism, Even.

00:13:53
Speaker 1: OH did both, because I had to learn if I did miss the stage, I had to go play a show to see if I did. You know, the kind of thing of it's such an avoidant thing after you know, I went years of playing like one hundred some shows or whatever, and and I had so many amazing things, and also with success comes pressures, comes all these things. And I got so burnt out that I especially once twenty twenty came. Then we were used to not being around people, which then made somebody who's already kind of a shy guy in some ways you know you don't see that on stage, get even more use to being away from other than.

00:14:34
Speaker 4: The close core people here too.

00:14:36
Speaker 1: So I kind of had to like tiptoe back into getting back out.

00:14:40
Speaker 3: There to see do I still like this? Do I still love this?

00:14:42
Speaker 1: And the answer was yes, But I'm still always finding that dance of what the balance is.

00:14:47
Speaker 3: You know, you said you played less shows. What was that decision?

00:14:52
Speaker 1: I just kind of like, you know, I have the Christmas thing, I have my other shows, but like I wanted to be home home and like work on relationships and in life too. Like I'd been on the road for so long. I mean, I've been on the road for a decade, missing friends' weddings, missing you know, family events, missing all the all this different stuff. I wanted to be there for the birth birth of my nephews. I wanted to get in relationships that I could actually stay in, you know.

00:15:21
Speaker 3: I wanted to.

00:15:24
Speaker 1: Really have that part of myself too, because I felt like I neglected that for a long time. I mean, and in some ways that's kind of what it required, I think to learn that also I can do both, but just with a balance. And so that's kind of where I've been now, and you know, and just kind of learning that balance.

00:15:43
Speaker 2: My anxiety would come on ticket sale days the most, the most, and I would be like, this could be the time that I'm over because if nobody buys tickets really cares it's over. Yeah, I'm not bouncing back, So I would get extremely anxious on those days.

00:15:57
Speaker 3: Is that an anxious day for you? Oh yeah?

00:15:59
Speaker 4: And that and releasing a creative project whatever.

00:16:03
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:16:04
Speaker 1: So like if I release something, you know, I've been so excited playing it for people, I'm very also scared to play it for certain people, like because I you're so dear to this art, you know, you're like, okay, Like I can't. I have to wait till it's exactly perfect in my head before I play it for anybody. Like the process is so is what feeds me of like creating music. I love that, And then the feeling I get subconsciously even going into releasing music, even if I don't realize that's what I'm thinking about, kind of like a show. But I once that, whether it be dopamine or excitement of like sharing, it is then launched out and it's out there, I feel this kind of drop of like, oh man, like because you have this expectation, it feels so good to you that no matter what happens from it, whether it went to the number one on all genre or whatever, your head you just were in it so much that through the years it was it was treating you like this is what success is or whatever, like it's got to be somewhere way up at the top. And I've had to learn slowly through the years because that that really doesn't matter as much. I mean it does. You want it to do well, you want people to receive it well. But at the end of the day, it's like you got to feel good about it. You got to love it, and and you got to be able to go home and go to bed at night and be like, man, I made music that was me. I can't I can't please every single person in the crowd, and I'm sure as hell I can't make every person want to drive around.

00:17:32
Speaker 2: And listen to this, because that's just impossible. Our songs ever actually finished. Then if if it were up to you, not a lot of the time, I mean I was, I was. I was on my computer earlier and I have I've been. I've started one of a sub stack and it's kind of more long form articles and stuff I've got, yeah that I'm writing. I'm just stuff to express myself. And because the kind of quick you know, dopeing Mie thirteen second video stuff just on my brain is past that right now, like it's so burned on it.

00:18:07
Speaker 3: But I have so many written that I haven't finished.

00:18:10
Speaker 1: And then I looked at another file next with all these songs that I've never finished. And I've always got all these different songs. I guess it has you always have a place to go with them. But a lot of times I'm sure they just sit there thirty years from now.

00:18:21
Speaker 4: Maybe my kids discover them and.

00:18:24
Speaker 1: They die, we release them, yeah, yeah, yeah, after I die, and then they've become hits from like my voice, memois on my phone, or somebody made some weird meme or some weird song sampled from it. But yeah, I think it's really hard to finish something.

00:18:39
Speaker 2: What about like your hits or even songs that go on an album, are you would you still tinker with them except there's a deadline.

00:18:46
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, all the way up to it, there's still like I think there was a part and want to be that song that annoyed me. Even when I put it out, I can't even remember what part it was. And now I'm it just is what it is, and I'm great with it. But there was a part for a while I was like, God, I wish I'd made that part of the bridge a little bit different or whatever it was. I can't remember, And I still remember thinking that I'd be like, that's so stupid to care about that. It's like a lot of people love the song, has become a hit or whatever, but there there is this part of you that like kind of has to step back and be like you gotta you gotta just let let the ink dry at some point and let it fly.

00:19:24
Speaker 4: But it's really hard. I've found that really hard to do.

00:19:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, So do you think that deadlines are the reason a lot of your albums got done?

00:19:30
Speaker 4: For sure? On anything?

00:19:32
Speaker 1: If I don't have a deadline, I and I recently, I recently got diagnosed with ADHD, and and when I was a kid, I got diagnosed with like a processing disorder and dyslexia. So but I mean, maybe that was what they were gonna call ADHD back then, but at that point it was just that's what they called it. So I got a time and a half on TASTS, and I still, like the kids would get done with their tests thirty minutes in the class, I'd still be on my first page by the time everybody lest the class. Then I have to go to this different room from everybody, Like I've always kind of it's always taken me longer to figure things out. It's also a gift, I think in some ways, because I think differently. I think a lot of creative people have ADHD or whatever, these different ways of seeing things. But finishing a task is really hard for me to do. And yeah, if I didn't have a deadline on about anything, I would be I would be in trouble.

00:20:31
Speaker 3: I think.

00:20:32
Speaker 1: I don't even because that's usually also when I do some of my best work is that it's crammed in. I've been ruminating on all these different ideas over and over and over and over for a long time. I just haven't put them to work because I hadn't had to. But if I have a deadline, I was just I'm working on a Christmas children's book and the call was earlier today and I hadn't I hadn't even finished my revisions yet or anything. And I sat down like an hour before the thing and I got it done. But that was only because I had the deadline.

00:21:07
Speaker 3: And I wish.

00:21:09
Speaker 1: I wish a lot of times I'm like, why can I just do it like a normal person. That's what your head says, is like, what's wrong with the or why can I just do it like a normal person? And I do feel that way a lot of time, but also like it usually ends up happening, it's got to have a good people in my corner that helped kind of guide me along. And I'm sure it's very frustrating to deal with somebody like me in that way, but it also you know, here we are.

00:21:32
Speaker 2: What's up with the dyslexia? Would they like, what version of what kind?

00:21:35
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't even I guess I didn't know. There's different flavors, but.

00:21:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, like Eddie has dyscalcula, which is a number type. Amy has dyslexia where it's not so much backward but things are out of place. I don't know if there was ever any specifics they gave you about yours.

00:21:52
Speaker 3: Is it backward at all?

00:21:53
Speaker 1: It's not backward, it's I mean, I know, like when I read something, I do all audio books, and I didn't remember because it was long ago when I got diagnosed with that. But when I read something, I have to go back and read a bunch of times. So it's not like technically I read backwards. I just don't like, I don't retain it a lot.

00:22:10
Speaker 3: That could be the ADD or ADHD.

00:22:11
Speaker 1: As well, yes, for sure, and which I when I got diagnosed with that probably I don't know six months ago it was. I did like, I did all these questions. I did all these questionnaires. I had like a specialist that kind of I was like, I want to really dive into my I'm always trying to figure out what's going on up here, and uh, he went through all these questionnaires he called closer relationships of mine for my family and stuff, to see how they experience whatever these things are, which is a very vulnerable thing they're probably telling.

00:22:41
Speaker 3: Them now, Yeah, which but I thought it was cool, like I didn't.

00:22:44
Speaker 1: Luckily he didn't tell me all the things that you know, they had said maybe that actually would be good feedback. But he had came with you know that I had eight diagnosed with ADHD, and I wasn't surprised, but I also felt kind of seen in a way of like I've known my whole life that it didn't like make me feel less than it just made me feel more like, Okay, I'm not crazy on when I struggle with these things like clutter or I get really anxious from clutter. But I also make clutter because I can't figure out how to where to put it an organization and that kind of stuff. But I can create really well, you know. My therapist calls it ADHG sometimes like attention deficit hyperactivity gift, like the gift part. It can be like a gift in some ways, it feels a lot of times not. But if I'm writing a song, I will jump around to about six different ideas in the middle of the right, which some writers I'm sure get driven nuts, like we could be two hours into an idea, and I'll just lose kind of that feeling of this is wasting all of our time. I have this other idea, and then I'll bounce to another one, and somehow usually my instinct will go, this thing feels like the best expression of me, like and so I think without that, I don't know if I would have the same creative skills and gift, if you want to call it ADHG. And so in some ways it's really debilitating, and it makes life very difficult. Sometimes even when I was a kid, I can still hear my mom saying when you when you take something off, take it straight to the hamper and put it in the hamper, and I'd be like, I'm trying, mom. I've tried this so many times, and I still hear that in the back of my head, and I still struggle with it all the time. And I like, I'll see something that's sitting in the corner of the room that I've been saying I'm going to move for like a month, and I still haven't done. And I know I want to do it, but I just get frozen from all these different things, or booking hotel rooms. If I have different options, I freeze and I'll take months to do it.

00:24:47
Speaker 3: Are you able to mak a TV show or a Netflix show? If that's hard? If you don't have one going in, that's really hard.

00:24:52
Speaker 1: Like I'll do the like or even restaurants, like go through Yelp for like an hour to figure out the exact one. And I remember that show Master of None. They did that on that show, But it's so true, Like I'll spend an hour. Look, I mean maybe an hour, about half an hour, but it could be an hour looking for the right restaurant for the right hotel and at the end of the day, you're like, Okay, I would have had a good time at any of the restaurants, any of the hotels. I would have enjoyed it either way. I just need to jump into the thing. It's easy to say that, but when you're in that space, man, it just it absolutely.

00:25:26
Speaker 3: Freezes me up.

00:25:28
Speaker 5: Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

00:25:42
Speaker 3: Last question about this. Have you tried adderall?

00:25:45
Speaker 1: No, but I've tried a non stimulant medication for that and it kind of it didn't work for me.

00:25:53
Speaker 4: It works for some people.

00:25:55
Speaker 1: But I'm kind of open to different ways of trying different medications because I think I saw something like I've actually I remember big researchers like six to eight percent of the population has ADHD's like fifteen some million or I can't remember what the number was, but in the US, and like, there's a lot of downsides if you don't treat it, you know, to relationships, to a lot of different things. So I'm not against it, you know, I think everybody's got to find their own thing. I just I'm always I'm always cautious, but I'm also open to trying something I'd never tried adderall, I mean, especially growing up.

00:26:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't really feel like I have any sort of add or ADHD. I I like hyper focus, which I also learned is a version of it as well, really hyper focus.

00:26:45
Speaker 3: Hyper focus in my way, like.

00:26:46
Speaker 2: On anything, I get obsessed, even addicted, even working on a singular project, I get hyper focused on. I can't do anything else. I won't even allow myself to like get water because until I to this point, I don't deserve water yet.

00:27:02
Speaker 3: So it's very much that. And i'd never tried out at all.

00:27:06
Speaker 2: But then I had and it's something I haven't talked about a bunch, but I had those and you know about it. But I had like those a schemic strokes, had three of them. And we had tried all kinds of stuff to get my brain back almost like jump started, like kickstarted, and my doctor was like, you should try adder all because I was like eighty percent there. But I'm talking about for a year I just couldn't click right. And I had we had just found out that that's what it was, these these blood clots in my brain, and that it had created these schemic strokes and it's like, try it out, And so I started taking it, and it was the greatest thing I had ever tried, except I super hyper focused again like I did before, but I felt like myself for the first time forever.

00:27:50
Speaker 3: And I stopped taking it.

00:27:51
Speaker 2: Probably I don't know, it's been a while since I've taken it.

00:27:55
Speaker 3: But I only stopped taking it.

00:27:56
Speaker 2: Because I got fearful that I wasn't going to have it anymore because I see all the news stories about how they were running out of adderall, and I was.

00:28:03
Speaker 3: Like, I gotta get ahead of this. I gotta stop taking it because if I get attached to it or addicted to it or dependent on it and they run out, my life's gonna be over.

00:28:11
Speaker 2: So then I started gett anxious about that, so I just stopped taking it. But it's what helped my brain so much after those strokes. I think I'm probably ninety seven percent there at this point, right, but I think adderall and I'd never known to take it, but there are people that took into college and they were like, man, you focus so good. I didn't really feel a different. I never felt like a euphoric feeling with it, right because I would watch like.

00:28:34
Speaker 3: Righteous Gemstones and they would like take Adderall and be like, let's get messed up. Yeah, I never got that from Adderall.

00:28:40
Speaker 2: It actually made me feel a bit like I used to feel before I had those brain issues, those blacking clives. This made me feel normal, kind of made me feel as close that I've ever felt to be in back the me before I had those brain issues.

00:28:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's cool. Yeah, And that was kind of like a last ditch effort by us.

00:28:57
Speaker 2: He was like, you should try adderall because it could actually affect your brain in a way that stimulates it, because it is a stimulant for sure. And I tried the long, the slow release, and for somebody that doesn't sleep well in a way, and it's still slow releasing at three o'clock, never slept. So then I would take and I don't I forget the name of it, but it's a pill that's not a slow release, like it all hits you all of a sudden and then by noon it was gone.

00:29:20
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:29:20
Speaker 2: Well I still had trouble sleeping, but it wasn't from the adderall. The Adderall affected me in a way when it was a slow release that it was affecting my already bad sleep, but yeah, I enjoyed it. I just thought, well, they're going to run out, so I'll go ahead and cut right now.

00:29:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, like what happens if a zombie apocalypse.

00:29:35
Speaker 3: Happening and I don't have any adderall, so I'm going to be a Yeah. So I started feeling anxious that they were.

00:29:41
Speaker 2: Going to run out of at all, so I stopped taking adderall and I don't really feel any different not having it now, but it really did help my brain. I'm convinced that that is what stimulated my brain to more of a sense of normalcy. Or it could have even been because I'm a big believer too in that if you just believe something, sometimes you can trick yourself. And I think a big time I could have taken it and felt more normal and then convinced myself that it's possible to feel more normal, that I'm not totally broken. And since it was like the first time they're in a form in a mile right, nobody could do it. One person didn't, and then everybody started doing it, Yeah, I took it, and then I thought, oh, I can be more normal again, So I'm going to work toward that. And so yeah, I haven't taken it in a long time. But one, it worked so effective. It was so effective for me. And two I think I needed that, Yeah, like I needed that.

00:30:30
Speaker 4: It's so interesting.

00:30:31
Speaker 1: There's you know, we live in an era of so much information thrown at us all the time, and there's a lot of bad stigma towards medications and everything. I used to be very like, very natural, and I still am as much as I can, but even with anxiety through the years, you know, and I haven't really talked a lot about this, but I'm very much I've I've I would try to just get through it by you know, sheer strength and resilience and and I would never think, Okay, I'm gonna try medication, because there's all these things of you know, you just hear all this different stuff online and and it felt like a weakness or something to try and medication.

00:31:17
Speaker 4: And it's and it was stupid.

00:31:19
Speaker 1: I mean, hindsight's stupid because I ended up, you know, trying different things and I found something that really helped me, and I took for a while, and uh, and so you know, I think every person needs to go to a doctor and talk to him about it. But I think you know mine, you know, meditation has helped me a lot. They're all just tools and they're not gonna they're not going to cure your ailment or whatever you want to call it, your challenge. But even with something like I haven't you know, because I remember one of the first doctors I want to he's like, you know, I'm not going to give you adderall because it's pretty much legal speed. And that's like I remember telling my my, my, my therapist that and he's like, that's the worst kind of a way of phrasing it, because this is what This actually saves people's lives and it really helps people. And so yes, they can be abused, and there's different medicines that can but there's also stuff that really help people. And I think everybody should be curious and also know that it's not gonna. It's not going to cure you, but there are different tools from natural to pharmacological, whatever it is, that.

00:32:23
Speaker 4: Can help you.

00:32:24
Speaker 1: And I've and i've I fully am open to different ways that that helps you move forward in life.

00:32:31
Speaker 2: You know, my wife is a big part of me removing the shame of taking medicine. And I have a different history with taking anything because a lot of my family died from drugs and alcohol, so it's kind of a double But I remember I was going through some issues and I don't want to take this medicine and it's a bit PTSD. It was a bit a bit, I mean, you know, I got a bunch of things happening up.

00:32:54
Speaker 3: Here, yep.

00:32:55
Speaker 2: And she was like, if you're knee hurt, would you be a shame to take medic If your stomach was messed up, would you be ashamed to take the medicine? If you had blood pressure issues, would you be ashamed to take the medicine?

00:33:09
Speaker 3: And I was like no.

00:33:11
Speaker 2: She's like, so why would you be ashamed to take medicine just because it's working on a different part of your body?

00:33:17
Speaker 3: And I was like, that's a good point.

00:33:18
Speaker 2: And then she said, what if one of your friends came to you and said, I don't know, I have shame, what would you say.

00:33:23
Speaker 3: I'd be like, no, it's medicine.

00:33:24
Speaker 2: She's like, exactly, like, treat yourself with the same love that you would treat somebody that you do love. And I felt like that impacted me in a very healthy way. And so now I'm able to be a little better at taking any sort of medicine because I understand if I'm not abusing it, it's created for a reason at all.

00:33:41
Speaker 3: It is pretty awesome.

00:33:44
Speaker 2: I haven't had it in a while, but man, it's pretty awesome. I remember seeing my wife. I remember we went.

00:33:49
Speaker 3: To your Christmas show a couple of years ago for.

00:33:50
Speaker 2: The first time, and her relationship with you has been that of she did not know bred Elder's the singer because especially all during CO but when she moved here, you would obviously come over and we hung out a lot because there was that you had your circle and you just hung with you in her circle, and we were in each other's inner circle. And so we had spent probably a good year and a half spending a lot of time together. But there was no performance aspect to any part of us. There's no muse. We didn't talk about really music unless there's music that we like to listen to. But it was like we'd eat food and talk and hang out. Yeah, yeah, whatever it was. It was so normal. And we went to your Christmas show the first time, and it was a little weird for her because she didn't know that version of you, and she and I've told you this story, but she was like, I don't know, this feels weird. Like she felt like you were going to come out and if it was the same guy that we hung out with, she was gonna be like, this is awkward. And you came out and you embraced and definitely attacked the stage and she started crying, and I was like, are you okay. She was like, I've never seen him be so in his element when you were doing your because shows, Like she was emotional at watching you own something and look like that you just belonged there.

00:35:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, And there is such a difference.

00:35:11
Speaker 2: It's the same person, but it's different parts of that same person of you when you get up on stage, and I would say especially during the Christmas shows, because I've seen you perform in a bunch of different ways, of course, but when you come out and you're in the talks, it's almost like you're putting on a costume.

00:35:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, like Superman.

00:35:27
Speaker 2: It allows you to be a different version of yourself.

00:35:30
Speaker 3: Would you agree with that?

00:35:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, one hundred percent. And I think I always feel it.

00:35:35
Speaker 1: Almas says, like a Superman cape throwing on a velvet tux, you know, because it gives me this confidence of all the people that I love doing that growing up too, Like I idolized the Dean Martin's and Sinatra and Nat King Cole and all these these people, and I don't know, like it becomes this aura of of old soul storyteller that I get that's kind of a huge part of who I am. But I get to like really step into that and like it's not a character, but it in a way, you know what I mean, Like it's it's fully me. It's just the most full, exaggerated version of me. And in a way that I mean like it's fully my heart. But it's like I am getting to perform it and portray it in a an extreme and in powerful way, and it makes me feel it makes me feel like I have an important story to tell. It also builds pressures from other parts of my head. But but when I really get to see when I go out to these shows and it's we're coming up, I think on next year it will be like ten years of glow.

00:36:37
Speaker 4: Which is crazy.

00:36:40
Speaker 1: When I get to go see these just beautiful venues that we get to play these shows at, and I see everybody dressing up and like people are wearing top hats now in full tuxes and and dresses and ugly Christmas weaters. You know, it's like a very much a tradition now. To get to see that and get to feel that, and like it reminds me of like when I was a kid decorating the tree of my mom and dad, like and listening to Nat King Cole and being Crosby and like all that kind of just swirls and this feeling of tradition and connection. It really gives me this sense of purpose and I it makes me. It just transports me in the weirdest way that I can't even really explain, other than when if you go see a gloss show or whatever, you can feel it even from everybody in the crowd, because this music is so it's such a shared experience for everybody. Everybody has some you know, people have different stories, but if you love Christmas music, you know you have different stories that a family or friendship or whatever it is, or just watching these movies or listening to this music and you have this like feeling of connection with everybody, like it's a shared experience. And so yeah, I'm up there, but it's kind of everybody's show, and I just get to be this like larger than life part of it that like pulls us all together, and I'm really pulling from all their energy as well, and it's just really cool to do that.

00:38:03
Speaker 2: Do you put the tuxes on before the show again to make sure you either haven't lost or put on a bunch of weights?

00:38:07
Speaker 3: Oh?

00:38:07
Speaker 1: Every year, every and like this year, I uh, this year, I've been I've been lifting a lot and like, I know, I know, I don't look like crazy jacked, but I but I put on a lot of muscle through like over the last year. And I tried to put on a tuxt the other day and it did not one of them did not fit the way like my arms and shoulders. Yeah, arms, shoulders, chest, we're tighter there. And I was like, damn, I guess I'll just have to get more. I have so many tuxes, but yeah, every year because I do it. Now I've got these really nice tuxes. But how many do you have? Probably fifteen? No way, oh yeah, I would say fifteen. I would say no, no less than twelve, but probably fifteen.

00:38:53
Speaker 3: Do you have any?

00:38:54
Speaker 4: Probably get three or four more of this year?

00:38:56
Speaker 3: Do you have a closet of them.

00:38:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it stays in a different part of the house, like it's a dedicated tuxedo closet.

00:39:01
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:39:02
Speaker 1: And I will tell you because a couple of years ago, I left one on a plane and it was this whole drama and we couldn't find it, and I know it was in the in the plane, and eventually, like social media, all my fans got on and actually helped us find the talks and I got it back like it was somehow just magically appeared from the airline.

00:39:25
Speaker 3: Like it wasn't there.

00:39:25
Speaker 1: And then when I told the story about it, fans got ahold of that, and all of a sudden, all these people from different airlines started hitting me up.

00:39:33
Speaker 2: I can't remember which airline was. I don't want to call them out. Was it like a lost and found.

00:39:38
Speaker 3: No, it was well, I don't know, I don't know, it just showed it.

00:39:41
Speaker 1: It is kind of all of a sudden, like I couldn't get ahold of them, couldn't get ahold of them. I had like my management reach out or something, and as soon as like I had, I had talked about it on some podcast or whatever it was. I can't remember some of my fans got onto it, started talking about it and the next thing you know, it shows up. And so but these things are so delicate, like these tuxes and they're they're really nice. But you know, I wear these every year, so like this is my persona, you know, I I want to feel a certain way when I put on a tux.

00:40:11
Speaker 4: I love a good suit of good tux.

00:40:13
Speaker 1: I love the way it makes me feel confident in it that fits good. And so I have these really nice but like if you get a little bit of like I remember Edgar, you know I used to bring them on stage with me or yeah, my dog Edgar. He's been retired for years now, but he he used to be on stage with me and he got a little bit of drool on one of my tuxes. But it's velvet ruins it. One time I was doing a Target commercial. I had a uh red velvet tux on. They made it fake snow on my head. The whole tux was ruined because it because it snow was like a wet like fake snow.

00:40:48
Speaker 3: For that one. They they had already bought it.

00:40:50
Speaker 1: Anyway, So but but just any like anything, if you breathe wrong on those those velvet tuxes. They they they get injured. At one time, a dry cleaner ruined a tom Ford one I had. Yeah, they just kind of they're very delicate, so you have to really handle them with care and and uh but I love I love having them and I think, you know, there's things that I'll pass on to family one day and I love that. How did these shows start? Uh? It started as a at a place called the Suttler. Do you remember the Suttler? It was it was in Nashville. It was I think it's like a poncho and lefties or something. Now it's it's like a small bar. Yes, it's like a small bar. It's like there's like a there's a club in the basement. And I was like, I want to start doing these like a jazz Christmas show, play some some uh, because you know, jazz is just as much a huge part of my life as country was.

00:41:46
Speaker 3: That's kind of how I started. So I was like, I want to do one of these shows.

00:41:49
Speaker 1: I'd already had hits on the radio and stuff, but I wanted to really have some fun and just invite some some friends, some ministry people that you know, people from the label all that kind of stuff. So we had like maybe a hundred tickets, like a golden ticket kind of thing.

00:42:03
Speaker 3: We invited them to this show. It wasn't called Glow yet.

00:42:06
Speaker 1: It was just like a jazz I had like maybe three piece or four piece horn section and a rhythm section, like drummer, piano player, bass player, guitar player down there who played the songs. It was like, really, I had the tucks. I was like, I was fully in the group. I hadn't found the exact group of what it is now, but that was the start of it. And then I and everybody kept talking about so the next year we do it a little bit bigger place.

00:42:33
Speaker 4: I think we did it Skull's Rainbow.

00:42:34
Speaker 1: Room, which is downtown, and then and then we did it, you know, like City Winery maybe the next year. And then we did it at the Country Music Hall of Fame. So we just keep growing it every year, and then all of a sudden, I made the Glow album and I was like, I'm going to fully record this music.

00:42:55
Speaker 4: It's not it's not going to be like I'm people.

00:42:58
Speaker 1: Know enough about me that I'm I've got this jazz background that I've got this this crooner kind of voice kind of stuff.

00:43:04
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna go for it. I'm not gonna try to make a country.

00:43:07
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna I'm gonna do exactly what this this kind of stuff that I grew up listening to that I love, and I think we can pull it off. And we went and made the record and and it just worked, like the when Glow came out, it worked. And then all of a sudden we did like one show at maybe Irving Plaza I think in New York, a little little venue but like pretty old classic venue, and then it just took off. And then every year we do one night at the Rhyme and two nights, three nights, did bridgetone last year we go to the Beacon multiple nights Chicago, three nights in Chicago, and so it just kept growing, and it just like I get to get to do this thing that I love, and and and as much pressure and as much like small amount of time. You have a window of three and a half weeks to do this tour like and it's a lot in a short amount of time, but it's it's so much fun and it's so fulfilling in a way.

00:44:02
Speaker 4: I just have to stay in my a game. I got to get my best sleep.

00:44:05
Speaker 1: And because I feel this this obligation to to bring something special to the crowd on these shows, and like, if I could, I was saying this the other day, if I could convince it, And I want people to see my regular shows too, and they're really special.

00:44:23
Speaker 4: But if I could convince.

00:44:25
Speaker 1: Anybody of anything was to go see a Gloss show, if anything in my life, like, I want them to see that because it's once in a lifetime kind of experience to be able to step back into this you know, comfort and almost like escape the world for a while. And it's it's way bigger than us up there on the stage. It's kind of everybody, and I think it's just a tradition that you know.

00:44:46
Speaker 4: I'm just glad to get to be a.

00:44:48
Speaker 6: Part of the Bobby Cast. Will be right back. This is the Bobby Cast.

00:45:03
Speaker 2: And so you're doing this year for twelve dates. Looking at the cities here, yeah, tell me because I don't remember all them. Boston, ye, Saint Louis, yep, New York, Chicago, Detroit, Nashville yep.

00:45:18
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:45:18
Speaker 1: And it's so hard to pick how you do it because there's such a small amount of time, and fans get so mad, like, well, why don't you come to California or why don't you come to floor. It's like there's only like, there's only so many days and you have to hit these major Christmas cities.

00:45:32
Speaker 2: What about the band? It's a big band with people that you don't normally play with.

00:45:36
Speaker 1: Well, now that's why how I used to do it. I used to fly to like New York. I'd have the players from New York, which like some of the best out there. But we have incredible jazz musicians in Nashville, and so we're like, let's keep this consistent. I don't know, maybe four years ago or so, we started traveling with Nashville musicians and so we have the same band now, so the.

00:45:57
Speaker 3: Whole band travels with you, the whole all the brass.

00:45:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have an eight eight piece horn section. Uh yeah, so it's like a twelve piece orchestra.

00:46:06
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:46:06
Speaker 2: Is that way more expensive than your normal band? Oh yeah yeah. Yeah, it's an expensive it's an experience.

00:46:13
Speaker 1: It's an expensive experience, and on the business side, but like for me, it's like, yeah, it's very expensive to put on. But man, it just it's there's the only way to do it, and it's and it's so worth it for me, Like I would rather spend that money and like feel that punch of the horns and that this explosion that you feel from of energy from the horn section, and and also like the gentle moments of a holy night and silent night, and and and some of these original songs I've got to write, and it's just a beautiful flow and without without that big orchestra, it just it makes the experience even more special. And then the stories I share, these stories of my past, you know, from being a kid to still creating memories with my family every year, and and and it's.

00:46:59
Speaker 4: Just really cool to do that.

00:47:00
Speaker 1: And I think all of that kind of makes it the element that makes it special.

00:47:05
Speaker 2: If anybody's going to these shows, I'm sure some of you are that are listening, I would make a suggestion that there are a couple of times during the show where the music cuts out and Brett sings very acapella, don't talk.

00:47:17
Speaker 3: Like that.

00:47:19
Speaker 2: People have no understanding of hey, shut up, yeah, because it's a moment and I don't know one of the what's one of the songs that you do that.

00:47:27
Speaker 3: It's the end I do. I close with the first Noel's yeah, and so the band goes down and it's just to you. Yeah.

00:47:34
Speaker 2: And that's really the only time that I think everybody's encouraged to be quiet. Yeah, because these are songs we know, and everybody sings along and you have good energy, your band leader's great, everything's happening and it's awesome. But that the first Noel, it's ayah and therapy.

00:47:50
Speaker 3: There are shushers, and I have respect the shush. I love the old Yeah, third grade school teacher shushes.

00:47:54
Speaker 2: I respect the shushers if somebody's talking in this situation because I never have a problem with any kind of show of singing along, of having a good time standing up, like do all of that.

00:48:02
Speaker 3: You bought a ticket it as you're right.

00:48:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, But Mike, my encouraging moment here is don't talk during the last Noel?

00:48:08
Speaker 3: Would you co sign that the last no? Sorry? Yeah, it's darring bubby bah. The first, Yeah, there was a first and now the last. I love that you wud encourage people to be quiet for that one. Right.

00:48:21
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And I've had I've I've had some weird stuff happened during that because mostly everybody knows it too, like it's a tradition now to where I close with it, like I wanted to be how we end every show because it's this really gentle moment that is so magic, and people stand up, sometimes people cry.

00:48:39
Speaker 3: Sometimes somebody will sing along with you and they're way out of tune. I mean there was one time where there's no music. Again, Yeah, there's no no music. It's just me.

00:48:49
Speaker 1: No, I'm not even holding a microphone, and it's it's actually Tony Bennet used to do this, and that's how I I wanted to try it. Was like Tony Bennett used to put his microphone down and and seeing acapella of the crowd, and I'm a huge Tony benfan, and so I wanted to try it.

00:49:03
Speaker 4: And then I did it, and it started to just become this thing.

00:49:06
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I've had years where somebody, like somebody up in the balcony one year was so out of key and it's hammer drunk and they're singing the first no well, and I am about to lose it, like I and I'm only person singing up there with no music. I don't have a They can't take a solo behind me as this lady's just shredding the first noel and every note that doesn't exist in the actual key of that we're singing in, and I just held it together.

00:49:33
Speaker 3: But everybody after the show, the man's like, did you guys hear that? Lady? It was like it was.

00:49:37
Speaker 1: Unbelievable And it still makes for great memories. But I'm so glad that hardly ever happens. But there's all there's there. You know, you can't predict anything from a show. But uh, but that's cool too. But I'd love that the prediction is that the shows are going to end like that, because like it leaves everybody walking out like with this this piece of joy and warmth in their heart and they can go on their their life where they can, you know, hug the person next to them and think, you know what, we were all in this room sharing, you know, something special together. Nobody was fighting. I've never had a Christmas fight. I've had I've seen fights in my crowds at at regular shows. I remember playing Me to Me one night and watching a guy just pummel somebody over the head from like a and uh, but I've never I've never had a fight at a Christmas show, and that's it's.

00:50:25
Speaker 4: Not that kind of environment. But uh, it's it's pretty cool.

00:50:29
Speaker 2: Did you ever think that you would play your hits during the Christmas shows?

00:50:34
Speaker 3: At least at first, you.

00:50:36
Speaker 1: Know what, I made a full commitment. I was like, because you know, when a tru first started, I didn't know if people would understand, like, this isn't a like country show at all, there's nothing to do a country show. This is full on Christmas. And I was like, I don't want to. I don't I can do that in other shows. I want this to be full on Christmas. When you come, this is what you're getting and it's going to be really damn good. And so I never I never did any of my other songs because I it's just a whole different.

00:51:07
Speaker 4: Thing, and I wondered if it would be a problem.

00:51:11
Speaker 1: And it was like the opposite of that, Like it was just like everybody knew what they were coming for, especially after we started to build it every year, and it's just like, yeah, it's full on Christmas, nothing else, and uh it works.

00:51:25
Speaker 3: What's your biggest song? Not Christmas? What's your biggest song?

00:51:29
Speaker 2: I don't know, what song do you play at a show and you feel the most energy back from the crowd.

00:51:36
Speaker 4: Drunk on your Love or Beat to the music.

00:51:38
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't ask me, I'm asking you no, I know, I know, I don't even know either.

00:51:41
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm trying to think, like I mean, I it's different every night. But I would say between drunk and your Love, beat to the music, and want to be that song?

00:51:49
Speaker 4: Between those three, I think which he just picked?

00:51:52
Speaker 3: I picked three songs because I don't know. I don't know.

00:51:55
Speaker 1: It's like a lot of times I close out with beating the music and people go nuts for that one, and that was a big one. But I some nights people really want to, you know, be the crowd that throws their arms up and want to be that song and wave them around. Or some people want like a groove like Drunken your Love. So it's so hard to pick. But I would say, if I had to pick one of them, maybe it's beat of the music, but it's it's all.

00:52:17
Speaker 4: It's definitely a toss up.

00:52:18
Speaker 3: What was the song that changed your life?

00:52:21
Speaker 1: Ooh, I think that the album that changed my perspective was Sunday Drive.

00:52:28
Speaker 2: The song that changed my career. Yeah, like what changed your career? You're in town, you're trying to make it. Yeah, this song you cut it, it gets put out and your life is different after it makes its run.

00:52:40
Speaker 1: Oh don't you for sure? The first Yeah? Yeah, the first and that was it took like fifty some weeks to go number one, and yeah, it was a really slow climb and uh yeah, it was definitely.

00:52:55
Speaker 3: Don't you Did you have any songs before that that didn't work?

00:52:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, Raymond Raymond was my first single and it was about, uh, my grandmother had Alzheimer's and so I wrote a song about basically a guy working in a nursing home that forms a relationship with one of the patients there that they she thinks he's her son. And I wrote this song about it, and it was. It was a beautiful song. I think it went to the twenties, like maybe twenty two in the chart. So it wasn't like a big hit, but it was a good start.

00:53:25
Speaker 3: That's a hard launch. That's some deep stuff. Yeah, I'm new artists, Brady Algie.

00:53:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, here's a song about Itzeimer's Yeah, wow.

00:53:32
Speaker 3: Yeah it was.

00:53:33
Speaker 1: But it was like, so my grandmother had passed from Alzheimer's around that time. It was something important to me and I I've always loved that about country music, is like you can go straight to the heart, even if it's deep and sad. Like I was like, I'm going in and uh, I think I think it was the perfect way to launch because it it gave me some legitimacy. But I like I had to go back and and I had a whole like I had a whole album put together before Don't You came and and I once Raymond kind of like did his thing and fizzled out in the twenties or whatever. I was like, you know, I'm gonna go in. No one said like this album is gonna work. I was just like, I'm gonna go in. I'm gonna write a bunch more stuff. And I just started grinding and I really got into working out. I try to like get myself healthy and like, you know, if I'm gonna go I'm gonna go hard.

00:54:21
Speaker 4: And I wrote don't you.

00:54:23
Speaker 1: Bet to the music mean to me like all these songs from my first album and uh, and then that was the album that became the album. But there's still songs from that first album, but it was way more. There was some really like super country stuff on the first one, and then I went back and kind of found more of what was me.

00:54:41
Speaker 2: When Raymond didn't work. Was there at all like an internal crisis?

00:54:47
Speaker 1: You know, it's so weird. I would the way my mind works now, I would probably.

00:54:50
Speaker 4: Think so, but I don't know.

00:54:52
Speaker 1: It was like kind of this thing of you know, I had a record deal, which is never a guarantee. I mean there's you know, so many purely good record deals and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes luck is on your side, sometimes it's not.

00:55:04
Speaker 3: Whatever.

00:55:06
Speaker 1: But uh, for some reason, No, I almost like fired me up more to like I'm gonna go figure this out. I think now, like, once you get the success, you're like, oh, I've worked so hard to get this, Okay, what happens when that changes or when you you know, and then you have to just revision what success is. And I've definitely done that over the last five years or so, probably since COVID, But at that point, yeah, I would have thought like if I looked at it my mind from years later after success, you'd be like, yeah, you think that would have shot me down and been like, oh man, maybe I'm gonna have to go back to living in my little town in Illinois or whatever, you know, But I never had that.

00:55:48
Speaker 4: I never had that.

00:55:49
Speaker 3: I'm surprised you don't have a boat.

00:55:51
Speaker 1: I've you know what the reason why I don't have a boat, Yes, because I'm scared I'm going to crash into somebody else's boat.

00:55:57
Speaker 3: I don't care if I hurt my boat.

00:55:59
Speaker 1: But I I'm very much like a non confrontational person a lot of things, and I'm I spent a lot of time in like the Bahamas, in different places, and there's so many nice boats and the like the worst thing that can I imagine my mind as I'm trying to park my boat and I run into like somebody's yacht or something, and and all these scary rich guys that come out, and like all this stuffs evolved.

00:56:23
Speaker 3: That's your irrational fear. Yeah, serious, that the boat you haven't bought yet is going to crash.

00:56:30
Speaker 1: I'm more absolutely I'm worst case scenario. And I I almost actually a few years ago, probably in like a bachelor stage or like I don't know what I'm.

00:56:40
Speaker 4: Doing in my life.

00:56:40
Speaker 1: I almost bought a boat, and like I was like seriously looking one I was like, I could live on a boat, like in Florida and just like live on a good sized boat and like have you know, bedroom or two and have family come visit. But I was like, I'm never gonna probably drive it. I'm not going to drive this big boat around and I have to park it and h then you probably crash it. Then I'll probably crash and you know, and so I never did. I never did that. But maybe one day. You know, technology is advancing and it's going to be able to drive for me. So you know, that's a hilarious fear.

00:57:12
Speaker 2: It's not sinking, it's not drowning richer than use big boat.

00:57:16
Speaker 3: That is what my my.

00:57:20
Speaker 1: Brain through what do you want to call it anxiety through years is looking for that crash, you know what I mean. And I've had to like retrain it, like I know, that's not a rational fear. You know, if I have a pain in my arm, my dying from shoulder cancer, arm cancer, so I have that dialed in my system. I have to override it by being like that's silly, that's that's.

00:57:45
Speaker 3: Just a thought. But that is my thought on boats. What's your relationship with your phone right now really good.

00:57:54
Speaker 1: It's much better. I you know, I did the flip phone back in the day. I did all that stuff. Now I've got something called screens in. You know, I'm always got I've always got the tech. I know it's called screens in. I'm only on Instagram maybe five minutes a day. I for a while I was doing it like thirty minute on a different app called Opal. But now I have this thing called screens in. It makes you wait thirty seconds and tells you to take a deep breath, and I'm usually like, okay, yeah, I'm just gonna go look at stuff that I don't care about.

00:58:25
Speaker 4: So usually I'll just zip out of it.

00:58:28
Speaker 1: And the only times I'm really on it doing that stuff are like if I'm posting my tour dates or something. But I can't. I can't do this stuff anymore. I can't do that. I did so much of it, and I can't blame anybody for doing it. I just like I just gotta. I am sobern out on phones. It makes me just it makes me really anxious. Like if I look at social media for more than ten minutes, I get tight in my chest. I get really anxious. I get to feeling like I'm supposed to be doing something different than when I'm doing right now, I get to feel like, oh, I'm I'm not doing enough on there, So I've really like, Yeah, my relationship with my phone's better. Sometimes it annoys people because I don't say a whole lot on there, but like I'm going to my shows and that's where you're going to get to see me. But I just like the balance more of where I am in my life with with with everything I think I'm I'm learning it more. It's just a day by day process.

00:59:25
Speaker 2: As you know, you used to have I don't know if you've ever shared this, and I don't think you care, but used to have this app that you had to like have a password or oh yeah and ED cut you off and like your manager was the only one that had the password.

00:59:37
Speaker 3: Yeah what was that app? Well, part of that was just us.

00:59:43
Speaker 1: The screen the screen time on your iPhone, but I would have somebody else set the password, so there's absolutely no way that I could get on apps once that time went up. So like if somebody's like, well, we need you to post about your new album coming, I'll be like, sorry, I ran out of my twenty minutes. I have a lot of today, and they'd be like, well, how are we going to tell people your new album's coming. I was like, we'll have to wait till tomorrow. But I think having those boundaries has helped me because you know, I was at one point the snapchat king and like that's where the like I had heard all these weird names, like I was known to be a social media guy, and it just exhausted me. And I just I, uh, I think it's a great tool in some ways, but for me, it's it's uh, it's tough. So I got I gotta put boundaries and I gotta I got to find a balance, and I'm always trying to learn what that is.

01:00:34
Speaker 5: Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor, Wow, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

01:00:47
Speaker 2: As far as texting goes, it might be a five minute return, or you might not text me back for thirty six hours.

01:00:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you too though I saw that, but game knows. Yeah.

01:01:01
Speaker 2: I think it's different though, because I know you're not just a you're not a big phone guy.

01:01:08
Speaker 3: You're just not You're not a texture.

01:01:10
Speaker 2: If we're gonna have plans, it's either you hit me in the morning, but like you nobody pick up ball in thirty minutes, and I totally respect it.

01:01:16
Speaker 3: And I'm like, yep, I'm in or not in town.

01:01:19
Speaker 2: But I know if I'm going to ask you if you want to do something, I need to give you about a day and a half because you might not even see it.

01:01:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm either don't see it or I saw it while I'm doing something and I'm I'm an add and I'll be like, okay, I'm gonna respond to that, and then I don't get back to my phone, or I have major decision anxiety of just making a plan and like I don't want to let somebody down of what time I do it, and and so like I'll freeze and then I don't know what to say, and I don't want to let the other person down. That's sometimes why I know a lot of times it's because I'm not around it, or i'm or I'm just like dazed and out in a different planet or something. But sometimes it's a lot of times, like I get I want to say the exact right thing and a response in a text, even though like to you, I've known you forever, so like I'm not worried about what you think about.

01:02:12
Speaker 3: What I said, really, but it's still like hard.

01:02:16
Speaker 1: I get definitely like anxiety of like feeling like I should respond to somebody right away, and then you get then they get stacked up of like it's not like I get a thousand texts today, but like even if I got five, I might struggle to get to someone because I don't know exactly how to say exactly what I what's what's there? Even if it was just like, okay, what about red dots on your phone? Do you allow them?

01:02:40
Speaker 2: Wellady, red text? Yeah, they just to me those just red dots are r D dots. Yeah, read r R E D or r E A D that's ready.

01:02:54
Speaker 3: R E D T. That are you? Is not red? It is it is. It's both. Oh my god, you're good.

01:03:06
Speaker 1: It is red and I'm not high, but it made me feel high.

01:03:11
Speaker 2: I was just asking like, do you let do you leave un like the color red, because that shows you the red is the dopamine color that they put on your phone.

01:03:19
Speaker 3: Do you leave? Do you have them on your phone or do you have to keep them all clear? Oh?

01:03:22
Speaker 4: No, that I have so many on red. Yeah, that's crazy I.

01:03:27
Speaker 3: Have I can.

01:03:28
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know my phone's over there, but I think I have thirty some thousand unready emails.

01:03:33
Speaker 4: Does that make you want to Yeah?

01:03:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, because if I pull out my phone, the only messages that are unread that I have are the ones that have come during this interview. Right now, I have three unready emails, no way, and five unread texts. And that is just what I've gotten since we've been sitting here. Yeah, it's a different kind of focus, like it's overly. It's overly where I must eliminate. Like that can make you have anxiety too, crazy anxiety.

01:04:01
Speaker 1: I have anxiety also because I have so many unread and it's just it's just like stuff piling up in the corner of the room or whatever.

01:04:08
Speaker 3: It's the same kind of thing.

01:04:10
Speaker 1: It's like having thirty some thousand emails somebody, And a lot of times I get emails I don't even know I got them.

01:04:16
Speaker 4: Because they're just yeah.

01:04:17
Speaker 1: And or text sometimes too because it's like I don't even know what is what.

01:04:22
Speaker 4: But yeah, I like I'm a hoarder for text.

01:04:25
Speaker 3: I guess one of my texas from you going just got here?

01:04:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, yeah, I don't keep it.

01:04:32
Speaker 3: I don't.

01:04:33
Speaker 1: And that's me basically saying in case you're not ready for me to say no, I.

01:04:36
Speaker 2: Text you before that. It's like, hey, we're back. You know your way around the yard, so I wasn't worried about you getting back here. Usually Mike has to go up and meet people at the front because I'll try to go in the house.

01:04:43
Speaker 3: Ah, and that's awkward. Yeah, like they'll show up and them too, Yeah, my wife's like hello, she doesn't know yeah, and so Mike has to beat them to the front door. So oh yeah.

01:04:54
Speaker 2: We talked about the tour before you came in as far as where people can get tickets, but you guys should go see it's a great show and just find the show that's closest to you.

01:05:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, do that. Yeah.

01:05:05
Speaker 1: And I like it's crazy because we started to have a lot of people fly from different countries even now because obviously there's only so many shows you can have in different states. But it's an amazing like these are amazing Christmas cities where you can fly to Boston, Chicago, New York, Nashville, Saint Louis, you know, Detroit, Like you could fly to these cities that feel christmasy. There's so many different activities you can have around for a weekend with these shows.

01:05:33
Speaker 4: It's just like the it's the perfect.

01:05:34
Speaker 1: Date night, whether if you want to, you know, have a big date night, Matt like, I had so many friends of mine thank me because it's a perfect date night when they go out of the date night, or you bring your whole family, bring the kids. It's it's just kind of the perfect scenario for family and for for connection and for just a place to have something fun around the holidays.

01:05:57
Speaker 3: Right, final two questions, Where's the coolest place you've ever been?

01:06:02
Speaker 1: Coolest place? Switzerland's probably my favorite. I love Switzerland. I think I could live there for uh, I don't know about a year, but I could live there multiple months and I have thinking about doing that at some point. So I love Switzerland. H I love Costa Rica as you know, I love I love hikes and being in nature, rainforests. Yeah, those are two of my kind of my favorite places for sure. Totally different.

01:06:32
Speaker 3: Ye.

01:06:33
Speaker 1: I mean they're both nature like very like like cold and hot. Yeah yeah, yeah, but Switzerland's like it just feels so untouched and Costa Rica dos too. In some ways, like when you're in the rainforest, you feel like like not.

01:06:46
Speaker 4: The main thing going on there.

01:06:47
Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's so much this nature surrounding you and and and you're just a part of it.

01:06:51
Speaker 4: It's really cool.

01:06:52
Speaker 1: Switzerland feels like so perfect in the craziest way when you go there. It's it's so serene, it is so peaceful and so clean.

01:07:04
Speaker 2: We tried to go, Caitlyn got sick at the airport. That's right, our bags went. I remember that they came back with snow on them. Yea, they got dropped off of the house with snow on them.

01:07:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:07:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, that that's that's where we haven't been that we'd really love to go. But yeah, it's cold.

01:07:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, that's tough.

01:07:21
Speaker 3: I'm not a cold guy. Let's go there. I'm not a cold guy.

01:07:23
Speaker 2: I'm also not a beach guy. Really yeah, I hate I don't like to beach all skip board?

01:07:27
Speaker 3: What am I going to do? So you get like you can to sit there and like lay in there if there's like a water sport, but the ocean doesn't really have water sports because the waves, So.

01:07:35
Speaker 4: You can't sit by a pool and read a book or anything, or can you.

01:07:37
Speaker 3: I mean I can, but if I'm going to read a book, why not do it in the air conditioner? Yeah, I mean that's not bad.

01:07:43
Speaker 1: What about kind of like what about more of a like a seventy five Sonny and seventy five.

01:07:49
Speaker 2: Find of have a reason to be out there. I don't have a reason to just be outside for the sake of being outside.

01:07:55
Speaker 3: Yeah.

01:07:56
Speaker 2: That's spent a lot of my early life outside. I'm good and I never went to the beach. I also, like, I don't drink, so some of my friends they want to go to the beach and it's on the beach, and you know, drink beach drinks or get wasted or as we get older, it's not so much get wasted. But I don't really have anita. If I'm gonna be hot and sweaty, I'll just play a sport.

01:08:14
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.

01:08:15
Speaker 1: What what does Caitlyn say about that? Like, because she likes the beach. Yah, and she likes hikes and stuff too.

01:08:20
Speaker 3: You No, she's extremely normal, Like she's normal and mentally healthy. You know, she she's on it. But it works for that reason. You know.

01:08:29
Speaker 4: It's like she can have her thing, you can have yours.

01:08:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, except I don't really have a thing. Yeah, like what's my thing? I'll ask you what sports? Yeah, but I got all of them. Sure, But I mean, like vacation even like I don't have a place that.

01:08:43
Speaker 3: I like to go like you do. I don't like what do I want to do? Mostly I just want to sleep in my own bed and get sleepy.

01:08:50
Speaker 1: Prefer routine and being home nowadays, more like you know, you've always traveled all over the place, and you're always traveling, You're but like do you have you as you've grown up, more have do you feeling like routine and like just being in the same place is way better for you.

01:09:10
Speaker 4: Like even if you're able to go and do.

01:09:11
Speaker 2: Something really cool, it's a bit grass is greener. Yeah, whatever I'm doing the other is better.

01:09:16
Speaker 3: Yeah.

01:09:18
Speaker 4: Yeah.

01:09:18
Speaker 2: So when I'm here and I'm doing a lot of time at home now because I have multiple podcasts and I can't just can't leave. Yeah, and I'm not torning at all, and I'm like, man, I could really be out on the road having a great time. But then once I get on the road, I'm like, I don't like at home. Yeah, I'd rather be home and sleep in my own bed, so I think if I could just do it in spurts.

01:09:36
Speaker 4: Yeah, but.

01:09:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's a happiness chase that I don't think ever. Actually, you don't actually catch the rabbit ever, and I think part of happiness is knowing you're never going to catch the rabbit, so a little bit enjoy the fact that you're getting to chase the rabbit instead of catching the rabbit. I think that's what I try to focus on more Now. I'll never be happy not catching the rabbit, but I can be a little more happy in the chase of the rabbit. No, the pure happiness isn't the actual catching of the rabbit.

01:10:03
Speaker 3: So that's a weird answer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, rabbit talk. Last question, it's not you know, it's a figure tive rabbit.

01:10:11
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.

01:10:13
Speaker 2: Which of your hits almost didn't happen? I'm trying to think which one almost didn't happen. I think.

01:10:27
Speaker 1: I think love Someone almost didn't happen and it almost became.

01:10:32
Speaker 4: A song called cycles. I think that was what it was.

01:10:37
Speaker 3: How does that happen? Like what happened?

01:10:39
Speaker 4: Well, actually, I know be the music.

01:10:42
Speaker 1: I had cut bet to the music with another friend of mine before and uh, and they were just like, I don't know, I'm not feeling it. It's not quite working right, which is fine, and nothing against that person, just wasn't you know, the right person for that song or whatever, and so at that point it felt like that song was kind of dead.

01:11:03
Speaker 3: In the water.

01:11:06
Speaker 1: And I was like, man, the original demo is pretty great. Why don't we just build off the energy of that? And I went to Ross and Ross and I Ross coverman, sorry who.

01:11:20
Speaker 2: We wrote a lot of we have micrones in front of us now, it's not yeah, yeah, I know.

01:11:24
Speaker 3: We both know. Ross. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right.

01:11:28
Speaker 1: Ross Copproman who I've I've written a bunch of my songs with and end he produced a lot of my music, and he was like, why don't we just make a bunch of this stuff? And actually that's what happened was then all of a sudden he started producing because don't you it was actually uh produced by I wrote with Ashley Gorley and Chris the Stefano. Chris produced that and then Ross I went and cut me to the music with somebody else and mean to me and be the music didn't quite work and they weren't feeling it. So I took it to Ross was like, let's just cut it, you and I And then all of a sudden and that connection of him just creating the music became a thing. And I remember I was playing a show and I think it was Oregon or something. I remember pacing around the parking lot was Scott Hendricks was my an R guy at Warner. He's like, man, we could go with a lot of these different songs. I really think Be the Music is definitely the next single. And I remember thinking we went from nobody sure this was the right thing at all, to you know, if you stick with the song and you believe in it, it can make a huge turn all of a sudden, like we're talking about this being the single, and then it became the most played song on Contra radio that year, and so it's like, you's gotta stick with it sometimes. And also when we were recording Bet the music, we go the first verse chorus and we go to a bridge before the even second verse, which nobody really ever does that. And I there was an engineer or there was somebody in the studio, some part of the recording crew that thought it was crazy that we were putting a bridge wasn't one of the producers, but somebody else in there. I thought it was crazy that we were putting a bridge before the second verse, where I was like, no, it's got We were like, no, it just feels right, we're putting putting a bridge in this spot, and uh kind of fought it for a while and we kept it in after the first chorus in it and it worked. And it's very unconventional, but it was so that song really had a kind of a crazy journey. How's the bridge go?

01:13:28
Speaker 3: Oh?

01:13:30
Speaker 4: Why I wouldn't I want to stay?

01:13:32
Speaker 3: Oh and let that plane fly away? Hey? Hey, because you got the soul and you know how to use it.

01:13:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's a bridge. And then it goes back to another verse after that chorus. And that's just I've never noticed that. Yeah, it's a bridge, an early bridge in that song. Yeah, it's weird, and I.

01:13:52
Speaker 3: Don't think it's that way.

01:13:53
Speaker 2: Again, I'm a consumer, however, I do know music like that doesn't.

01:13:59
Speaker 3: Yeah.

01:13:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, and my ear says a lot of things. If a song starts with a chorus, I'm like, oh, that's interesting. They started with a chorus, or they did two verses before a chorus, which is very traditional like the nineties. Yeah, yeah, but I've never heard that song and thought that bridge is way too early because usually, like you said, it goes verse chorus, verse courus bridge, yep, chorus, sometimes double chorus yep. I feel like I learned something today. Yeah, okay, we're done. How do you feel? I feel really good. Yeah, feel really good. We haven't started recording yet now, and now we're starting. That was us dancing before the stage like in your band. Now we're going to hit record. All right, you guys go check out Brett. Shows are really awesome. And the thing about Brett is he was going to do no promotion for this. I know you, and I was like, dude, your tickets are going on self Friday, and I put me because I do love you. I put myself in your shoes, and I'm like, if it were me, i'd be so anxious about tickets going on seal, even with a highly successful tour many years.

01:14:53
Speaker 3: And so I just text you. I was like, dude, come do promo and yeah, hop over to the house and we'll do this.

01:14:58
Speaker 2: So that's the kind of friend you are on it prevent awesome. I appreciate you coming over and you guys go to the show. We'll put the information down in the bottom and that is Brett Eldridge and we'll see you again in like seven years over here.

01:15:08
Speaker 3: That's about that's about the that's about it all right. Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production