#388 - Martina McBride on Why "Independence Day" Wasn't No.1 Even Though She Called Radio Stations To Fight For It + Being In A Rock Band + Dropping Out Of College After One Semester + Reveals Her Secret to 35 Years of Marriage + The Joke Loretta Lynn Made Inducting Her to The Opry

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Speaker 1: I just didn't get it, not until I think years later, and when somebody said something I was like, oh my god. I was just like, yeah, the penetrators will penetrate you with our music. Episode three eighty eight Martina McBride, Well, what a good good job, Mike, I know you worked on this one for a while. Yeah, super cool. I've never spent a whole lot of time talking with Martina. I've talked to her occasionally, like we're somewhere at the same place or music, but I never just sat with her. I don't think she I've ever interviewed her. I've never met her, never even seen her till this, So you didn't even if she was real. Nah, it's awesome. So at Martina McBride, I you're gonna follow her on Instagram and TikTok. I mean, there's just so much shit, all these number ones. Obviously you're gonna walk through some of them. Yeah. Nineteen ninety five, Wild Angels nineteen ninety seven, A Broken Wing nineteen ninety seven, Wrong Again nineteen ninety nine, I Love You two thousand and one, Blessed two thousand and three. This one's for the girls. What's crazy. It's like her biggest songs weren't number one. Yeah, like if you talk about Concrete Angel or Independence Day, like, those songs are still played today and they weren't number one at the time. So just her songs that weren't number one were massive, So super cool. You can go check her out on the road Martina McBride dot com. She's in Louisiana, Missisippi, Alabama, Kentucky, all coming up May through June four CMA Vocalists of the Year Awards three consecutively. She became Remember the Opery in nineteen ninety five, sold over twenty three million albums, and just super cool to have her come over and talk for an hour. I don't know, I liked it and you've been killing it. But we had a great Chase Rice episode and then a great Martina McBride episode and good ones. Yeah we're on a two streak too. I don't know, I just forget who was third. That was awesome too, But I just forget Haley Witters. Oh yeah, the Haley one was good too, All right, enjoy Martina McBride. So a couple of things and if you want to wear those, you can. You don't have to. We may play a song or something. Okay, but you don't. You definitely don't have to a couple of things. I was talking to my wife, she's a massive fan of yours, and she was like someone on like her fifth grade talent show saying, concrete Angel fifth grade. Wow, that's what I said, And she said she was singing a lot of your songs. She goes, you know, someone in a fifth grade talent show. They didn't really know what it meant. They just liked the song, so they got up and sang Concrete Angel, and nobody really told the girl it was a very serious song, which again, that is a very serious song. But there's a kid singing in a talent show thinking it's like a happy song. That would be a peculiar situation if you really know what the song is about, like to see a kid or anybody or just somebody's screaming. I don't know what half the songs are I sing along too, right, So when you have a song like that, do you have to treat it extra sensitively and performance even as well because it is and at least in my mind, a lot of other folks who've seen the video, who know the song, do you have to treat it a certain way as well whenever you perform it. Yeah, well, it's interesting. First of all, you said that about the child singing it, because it's really super popular with little kids, and I think that they don't understand completely what it's about. But I think they they it's about a child, you know, So it's some part of them relates to it and is empowered by it, I guess. But yeah, when I'm singing that song, it's I don't do it live in the show very much anymore. But this is kind of like not a downer, but you know what I mean, it's like very serious. So and when I was recording it, when I chose it, I was I went back and forth. I think I listened to it for the album before and then finally just said, I have to record this song. It's so good. But yeah, you have it's a there's a sensitivity to it, for sure, you know you kind of I try not to look into the audience because if I see somebody emotional, I get emotional, so you know. But yeah, there's a sensitivity to those kind of songs. When you perform them, you have to have that. I would also think, and this is there's a theory. You can hit me and tell me I'm wrong if you've performed that song ten thousand times or something that I do over and over and over again. Although I know the impact of the meaning, if you do it a whole lot, it just starts to be a part of a process and that you'd have to read because there are times there have been like news stories, but you have to reach check yourself and go, Okay, this is the one time somebody's going to see me do this. I can't There can't be any snickers or anything right, right, even though I've done it ten thousand times, And I'm like, you gotta treat this as serious you possibly can, because if somebody that's just seeing you do it once, you gotta do it like they feel a about the song. Yeah, there's a responsibility there. I will say that after I have to check in every once in a while. I'm kind of in the process of doing that now, of really going through all of the lyrics and really start because I have two months off from the road, and my part of my process this two months off is really going to be reconnecting with those lyrics again. Because You're right, it does get to be not just a performance, but like you know, you really have to check in and make sure that you understand the seriousness of the lyric, even if it's a happy song, you know what I mean? So like that too, say yeah, yeah, where it's if you just do it something over and over and regardless of what it is, it just becomes part of the process. And I have to do it too, you know, even with the happy That's a great point. We do a segment on our show that we've done for like fifteen years. It's all about positivity, and I have to remember because sometimes I hate doing this segment because I've just done it so many times. Yeah, and we get all this research back and it's like number one testing, number one, and I have to go, you know what, some people are only hearing this twice a week, right, and I need to approach it like it's the only time they're going to hear this, and I need to feel great about it. But yeah, I want you to to do it so many times? Why because I didn't know that. Why the process with the song? You know, you didn't choose it and then you chose it later, Like what were you bouncing between? I just think the heaviness of it. I think I can't remember chronologically where that song came in my body of work, but I feel like probably after some I'd probably had a few heavy songs before that, you know, I had Independence Day, Broken Wing and So and Loves the Only House and just some things, and I think that I just thought, Wow, this is maybe heavier than any of those because it's about it well, I guess Independence Days about a child too, but you know, it's it's definitely hard hitting and very honest, and there's no kind of skating around it with the lyric. You know, it's really just it's real hard, It's it's real and it's real life for some people. And so I just kind of thought, but I don't know, man, I do that sometimes with songs I'm going to Love you through. It was the same way. I just kind of hesitated for a minute. I thought, is how is how is this gonna be? Like? Is anybody really want to sit through this? And then like a set list of like or a record or what are you thinking to what on the record? Got it? You know? And I just but at the end of the day, I just thought to myself, I have to you know, it just then it just becomes sort of you have to listen to your gut and I'm like, I have to record this song, and and it was released as a single of course and was a hit. So it's like that is a different I think we have a different landscape, you know. Now, I don't know if Concrete Angel was released in twenty twenty three, if it would ever get played on the radio. I don't know, because I think now authenticity wins. It doesn't even have to be the sonically the best song anymore, as long as like people believe that it's real, even if it's real stupid, if it's presented real stupid. But I think it is, so I don't think it would be a hit. I think it would be a hit now we right, the lands gave us so different and I do think the honesty of it still holds true to today because sometimes we'll play it. I don't pick a lot of the music that we're playing because we're doing national show, but it'll come on occasionally three or four of your songs and I'm like, Dane, this song still hits like it still has. Yeah, you're watching all the movie or an old TV show like Mash will come on and I'm like, you know, it didn't quite hold up, but I can see why then it was good. Yeah, yeah, But what some of the especially Concrete Angel Independence Day, you kind of get the same feeling like like, oh, like that's it. Did you ever worry about maybe worries not the word having so many serious songs that you then would become the series, the person who sang all the serious songs like typecast even I don't know if consciously that was a thought process. I don't know if that if I kind of you know, interpreted it that way, but I think that was. Yeah, maybe that's part of the hesitation of recording another one of those kind of songs. I never thought about you until you started to list them all off together because I know your body work just listening to it through my life. Never once did I go, you know, Martina, she does all those serious songs really but it's right, But that's consumer versus the person who's living it every single day. Whenever you're doing your set, now, like what's the biggest pop when, when, when, what song starts? What notes hit? And everybody knows this is it, this is the loudest, but for sure broken Wing and Independence Day, but this one is for the girls gets really good response. It's it's just such a lift in the show, you know. I think we do it right after Loves the Only House, and it's just this that guitar dan huff guitar riff starts and everybody's you know, I always say, you know, this is for all my girls out there, and everybody just stands up and sings along, and it's a real high high point in the show. I would stand up a thing along too, and you'd be like, you're not a girl. But I, you know, like that's tough. I'm here. I love it, So I'm going, that's so funny you say that, because I always say I look out there every night and there's inevitably like the biggest man, as burly as guy, just standing up and singing at the top of his lung and I'm like, I love you. That would be except without the manly and burly part. But I would be up there singing at the top of my lungs. I was talking to a friend earlier today. We were up at the radio studio, the other one and I said, Hey, Martinez, gonna come by, and I expected her to say, because she went wow, she like lit up a little bit. I thought she would be like, wow, I love this song. She went right to your cookbooks really yeah, and she was like, I love Do you have two? Okay? She said, I love I don't know which one. And that was the first thing she thought about whenever I said your name was was your ventures into cooking. And so how much time do you spend with that now, even recreationally? Do you still cook and love to cook every day? Really as much as I can every day. If I'm home off the road for only like three days, I'm and somebody wants to invite us out to dinner, or I'm like kind of bummed because I'm like, oh, that's one night I don't get to cook. Love to cook, I love it. And it's so I'm so lucky, you know, that I've found another passion. Some people only get one passion in their life and one sort of thing that they can give, and I'm just really lucky that I found that. I just love to cook and I love you know, I'm thinking about writing another cookbook. And it seems like lately, just lately, like maybe in the past month or two, it started people who started to really resonate with that part of me. You know, do you keep notes on your phone if like, oh this would be a cool recipe or this would be something cool to do in a cookbook, the same way you would if you have a song idea. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I'm a paper and pen girl, so I'm I like, I sit down and write down this chicken poe. Yeah all right? Like what changes I want to make next time? But I'll tell you that I don't want to get off on cooking because it's not everybody's but we have all the time. But like I started out, first of all, I'm not a trained cook, so I'm not a chef. I'm like a home cook and I am still learning every day. But I started out just following that recipe, you know what I mean, Like if it says half a cheeseman of salt, I'm going to put a half a cheeseman of salt. I'm not varying from any of this. And then now it's so much more fun because I've cooked enough and I've had enough experience to really be able to riff, you know, so I can say, well, I want to add some tearragon to this chicken salad or I want to you know, I think that this would maybe I want to cook it it even prepare it a different way because I know techniques now a little bit better. Sounds like you play jazz when you cook, because you're so comfortable in that key and you can just kind of you can you can riff it, yeah on whatever, And that's that's kind of what makes it fun, is when you can use your instinct and experience to create and make it your own. And I think so many people are intimidated by cooking, you know I am really yeah, and by people who can do it really well, both because it's an art. And my grandma was a great cook and she had to learn how to cook because she grew up and the you know, the depression, and you know, she had to find things and learn how to make them halfway decent. Yeah, So she was great when she actually had real ingredients, and so she was awesome. My wife is such a good cook that when I met her, she was like, I'll cook dinner. And I laughed because I'm like, yeah, you're pretty for you probably don't cook, and she's like fantastic, But like you, she now has the ability to go, oh, let's try a little bit of this, little bit of that because she was raised cooking. Yeah, that's an intimidating things somebody who can really like chef it up. Yeah, because it's an art and science to it as well. And I'm terrible at it. So that's also why it's intimidating. Like I've tried, I mean cookies the other night. This isn't even cooking. This is baking. It's not baking's harder. Well, let me tell you the story. They're cookies in a pack. Oh, I literally have to just put them on a plate for pre heat the oven to like three fifty put them in. I put them in, I'm looking up through a lot of keep a light on. I know that keep the light on. And while they're in there, I push them and they're still so soft like that we can't be done. And so she said they done. I said, I don't know, there's no waste soft. She because how long I've been there. It's a fifty minutes. She goes, what was it eight? And I said, yeah, but they're still soft. There's no way they're done, because no, you got to pull them out and then they get hard. I didn't know that, So I'll pull that and they're all burnt. Oh yeah, yes, I'm just an idiot. Basically when it comes to cooking, baking's harder. I wasn't really bakings, just literally just tak you were just plopping thing. I was just trying to count to eight minutes and pull them out and that didn't work. So a third cookbook, huh yeah, what would be the difference? Like what would you do differently in this one? You know? That's the hardest part of a cookbook for me is like, first of all, with anything that I do creatively, I think this is a process for a lot of people. Sometimes I have a really concrete idea, like about why would I win a record to sound like, Sometimes I'm like, I don't know, I don't know, you know. Like so for me with a cookbook, it's like where do I start? Like what everybody always wants an angle, like is it a vegetarian cookbook? Is it a thirty minutes and let under on the table cookbook? Is it? You know? So I'm just kind of stuck as to what where to start. I mean, for me, like cook cookbooks are like a collection of people's favorite recipes, which I think that's enough, right, What does it have to have? Isn't that the angle? Could that be the angle? Well, so my wife did some just she moved to her a pandemic. Everybody was doing whatever just to stay sane. And she's not someone who likes to be on camera, but she loved to cook, so eyes it was like, hey, let's do some cooking videos and I'll hop in some of them with you. And she did. She did them really well, and she was like, I don't really like to be on camera, but well, Food Network called her and they were like, they were like, would you like dinn't offer a show or anything, but they're like, what we like to do is put people who are good on some of these panel shows and they can like judge. And she was like, ah, that's really not for me, Like thank you, but you know, I appreciate that. And so I tried to learn while she was doing it, you know, while she was cooking. I tried to learn from her a little bit. But it was also like what's the theme. She's like, I don't even know, like what's the theme of this video? Like everybody wants like a gimmick as to what we're gonna create Now, we're going to create it. And when we got married, we got like three hundred recipes from her family. Wow. That was like there, that's right. I was like, that's the theme. We already have it written for. We'll just take credit for it. Yeah, Kylen's family recipes. There, we go, stamp it there, you can mail it off. You were out doing the judge tour, So were you filling in? Where you part of that because I know there were some changes once the death happened, or were you already on that tour? I was already on the tour, so they asked me back in the summer. Well, I don't know. I guess we toured in the fall, so in the summer to come on every show and do forty five minutes like a full set, like a full set before before every show, and then they were going to have well then it was gonna be one known in Naomi. And then when Naomi passed, they restructured and had still wanted me to be on every show, thank goodness, and then had several other women fill in. So there was Kelsey Ballerini actually Judge, Trisha Yearwood, Brandy Carlisle, Tanya Tucker, I'm forgetting someone. Faith was on a show and so, you know, so I got to Yeah, I got to be on every show. The story of Tanya Tucker and your dad like talking to you. Yeah, because you grew up a Tanya Tucker fan. Yeah, I think like most anybody, I grew up in rural Arkansas, so you almost had to be Yeah, so what is the story? I know you were in a family band for a while, and so was that passed down through you that tanned the Tanya Tucker fandom? You know? Was your dad your mom fans? Yeah, you know, I was. My dad had a cover band that played on the weekends and so we would just play like whatever was on the radio. So I sang in the band. I sang Texas when I you know when I die, I may not go to heaven Texas when I die, and a couple of her other songs. And I went one of my first concerts actually was well, I went. I think my first concert might have been Alabama with my parents, but then I went to see We went to see Tanya Tucker in this little town in Kansas, about thirty miles from where I grew up. And um, so I my mom passed three years ago, so I called my dad every night since that. And so I was on Taniya asked me to come over to her bust after one of the shows just a couple weeks ago, and so I went over there and we were visiting. She's playing me music. It was really really awesome, and I said I have to go because I have to call my dad, and she goes, well, let's call him, call him up. I'd love to talk to your dad. And it was so sweet for you, like, Dad, or did you say, I don't know? How do you set it up? I think I just said, hey Dad, I've got you know, And then she just jumped in. She's like, hey Dad, it's Dane. That's awesome. Hank Ty the Bobby Cast. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the Bobby Cast. What's Sharon Kansas Light? Um. There's about one hundred and forty people that live there. It's very rural. It's about ninety miles from Wichita, which is the biggest city in Kansas. And it's just like like like dirt streets, no stop lights. There's a couple of maybe three churches. There's no grocery store, there are no restaurant. Gotta be a dollar store though, No, really, no, No, it's tiny. Wow, because I'm from a town of seven hundred and we just got a dollar store there you go, and then it turned into two dollar stores. Wow, not a two dollars store, but two dollars stores that now compete for that seven hundred people. Wow. So you had no how many traffic lights? None stop signs? Yeah? I too. We didn't have as in dirt streets. There was there's a couple of there's a couple of paved streets, but mostly the side streets are all dirt streets. What about the school? What did you have, like Sharon elementary, we had elementary through high school and then like I had ten people in my graduating class, that is small. I thought forty. I had forty, and I was, wow, that's a whole different level. We had thirty eight. The year I graduated, we had thirty eight students in the whole high school, thought student body? Did they combine classes? Ever? No, there were ten people. It was ten. Class after me was five kids. And the year my brother graduated he's two years younger than me, they shut down the school and consolidated, which really was just the end of really the end of the town because there were no more team sports really in that town, and there were, I don't know, the high school was really the hub of the whole town. So so the band that you were in with your your dad, your family band was it called the Shifters? And so was he a musician when he was younger? Did he ever try, like I'm gonna give this the real try to make it as an artist or was he always just someone who loved it recreationally and got pretty good at it. Yeah? I think so. I mean he was he was a farmer as well, and a woodworker, built houses and things like that, and he like entered some contests when he was a kid, but just never really thought of actually like picking up and moving to Nashville. Is it because nobody else did it? So he didn't know it was a real thing. I don't know, because that was nobody else I knew did it either. But it was a whole different, you know, generation, But like I don't know why. I mean, I think he was really really happy playing in that local band. It was kind of a big deal. We were like, you know, regionally respected, and we worked a lot and I think that, you know, that was that was good for him, And I mean that was probably good enough for him. How was he when it came to you doing your own thing? Support wise? Very supportive. My parents were both very supportive. They always said, you know, we didn't come from a lot of like college graduates, so it was going to college wasn't really that important? It was you know for me. I think everybody we just always assumed that I would sing in some capacity. And they always said when I when I decided to move to Nashville, my husband and I decided to move to Nashville. We'd just gotten married about a year before that, um or two years. My parents were always like, look, somebody's got to make it right. Like literally, maybe tomorrow there's going to be a new artist that gets signed and makes a record. Why couldn't it be you? If you get in the right place at the right time, and you work really hard, why not? Why not you? And I was like, yeah, so I think you know, probably like you when you have when you have when you grew up with something that you it's just kind of part of you. You have a confidence, you know, especially when you're young. If a confidence that I could probably do this little naive, little confidence. Yeah, it's a real lethal mix it. Yeah, And I think you have to see it, Like I think you have to be able to visualize walk. I'm like, for me, I always visualize walking up on CMA steps and accepting an award. You know, I think you have to see it, otherwise you won't go for it, especially if there's no one around you that can tell you that it can be a reality. I mean, a mountain Pine, Arkansas, nobody left, we worked at the mill, or you worked in Hot Springs. That was it. And so there was never anybody that was like, this is a reality, you can actually pursue it. But at the same point, there was nobody said it. You couldn't. It was just a TV thing. It was like fairy tale. Yeah, probably like moving to Nashville. Yeah, but to have parents that were so optimistic, Yeah, like what an asset for a kid? Yeah? Oh absolutely. And you know, also just being able to watch the CMA Awards or watch he Harror, watch whatever we watched and see you know, Loretta Lynn and Tanya Tucker and Riba and all of these amazing women doing that. I mean, you just saw you saw yourself there, You're like, well I could do that. I mean she's from Oklahoma, you know, a little town in Oklahoma, little town in Kentucky. Like they came from small towns. Why couldn't I do that? When you were singing as a kid, when did people start to treat you special, like, oh, you're better than other kids at that age doing that thing. It's interesting because you know, I'm very Kansas is very Midwestern and in a lot of ways, and praise isn't really something that's bandied about, Like it's not really freely given, so they think you're going to get an ego or a big head or something. So like kids are like, I think I recognize that people recognize that what I did was good. I was the only kid that did it. Like everybody else was into sports and things like that, so but it wasn't nobody was going around going, oh my god, you're you're you know what I mean? So I think I probably recognize that it made people pay attention and made people happy. When I was probably about seven years old, that is a lot younger than I thought you were going to say, Ye, could you like nail pitch? At seven? Yeah? You know, I was a belter, you know I was, And I didn't have any lessons. We didn't have like my lessons that were in high school. The way I learned to sing was from listening to records and singing along with records like Linda Ronstadt records, Bonnie Rate records, Rebo records, um and singing those cover songs in the band. That was really how I learned to increase my range and try to match their nuances. And they're all of it, you know, how long they held notes, how big the sound was, And so I forgot your question. But well, just about other kids treating you different and you at seven being able to hit just match a pitch at all, but you did. You just got it from listening. I just got it from listening. And you know, we we lived way. I didn't live in the town, the booming town of Sharon, Kansas. I lived on a farm about ten miles away the suburb of Sharon. Obviously. Yes, it was like literally ten miles down or eight miles down a dirt road and then there's a house. And my grandparents lived a mile down the road before he got to my house. So it's very isolated and we my mom didn't drive. So until we could drive, we were just come home from school. You're there, like you're not going to run around and go down to the corner, you know what I mean. It's just like so my parents always had instruments for us though piano, guitar. We had little tape recorders that we would record ourselves messing around on the out, you know, in the utility room. And my brother, my younger brother. So that was our entertainment and records. And I can remember having kids home from school, like my classmates to play after school or to stale night or whatever, and we would I would be playing them all these records and they they just didn't. I found a friend in high school that was a little older of me that loved music like I did. But you know, most of the kids in my school were just not that interested. It was just music. It was just like background, you know. And so I would we would sit and listen to records and they after about thirty minutes, they'd be like, is this all we're gonna do? Like, let me go outside and blay. I'm like, yeah, okay. Your music maturation, I guess jumped quickly because that's what you had a lot of at the house. Yeah, what did your parents care what kind of music you listen to? Were the rules on what you couldn't listen to? Um at twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old, I don't know if it was rules, but there was they they My my dad was a country fan, like he like I somehow my old I have an older brother and an older sister. My older brother was into like Credence, clear Water and um, I don't know, just like really cool rock bands, and my sister was into pop living Newton John and Casey and the Sunshine Band whatever it was on the radio, and so I got those influences from there. But when we were in the car, it was specifically with my parents country music. And my mom loved like she loved more like crooners like um, like Nashville sound type croner. Yeah, No, like like you know, like Frank Sinatra. We didn't have any Frank sat Yeah, I got it, got it, like the rat Pack guy Boubley now yeah. Yeah. And my dad love he did love Ray Charles, and so we did have Ray Charles records and Eda James. But then I got into high school and I got into like like my first concert that I went to without my parents. Was Ozzy Osbourne, right, the Blizzard of Oz tour. It's it was so like rock and roll and was so exciting to me. And um so some of that music I would listen to with headphones. Yeah, you finished high school, you go to college. Now, you mentioned college a minute ago, because there wasn't a lot of college graduates in your family. Same here, so it was a whole new world to me. Again, I'm I'm somewhere. I don't really have anybody to lean on to go How do I do this? How was your experience to college short lived? I went to a community college. I got a UM dollarship for music and academic and I went there. Okay, so but we like my kids grew up in Nashville and had all of this college prep. They've got a college counselor, they've got all of these people that helped them know what to expect, help them with the application process, all of that stuff. Okay. I had the opposite of college prep. I had no college prep. So I show up, I'm literally so overwhelmed. I don't know this whole schedule thing, you know, and how you have to find your classes and it was just completely overwhelming to me. Plus I was living off campus, I was singing in a rock band, and I was working at dairy Queen. I had a boyfriend, so I had a lot going on that was pulling me in a lot of directions. But I went one semester and was just like, I don't know what I'm doing at all. The fact that you came from such a small school, and I'll speak from my experience as well, it's more than just I having college prep as well. It's like a culture change. Yeah, going from ten kids in a class too, it doesn't matter our community college aid side school like that is like moving to New York City or to Yeah. So it not only was wow, nobody family has ever been in college before. I'd never been around so many people, right, Yeah, and it's always all been on me. But now I'm having to go and do the same thing. Yeah. And so speaking of your rock band, The Penetrators, Yeah, yeah, well we're in a room. Who says, well, okay. In my defense, I was seventeen years old when I joined that band, and I've lived a pretty sheltered life and we didn't have the you know, Internet or anything like that. Three channels on the TV. One was fuzzy, so like I just didn't get it, like I'd really not until I think years later then when somebody said something, I was like, oh my god. I was just like, yeah, the penetrators will penetrate you with our music. What role did you have when you entered the band at first? Were you pure front front man? Yeah, like that's it. And did they not have a singer before or we just way better than the one they already had They had one and she quit or moved or something, and so yeah, they actually one of the guys in the band owned worked at a like a music store that my parents frequented, you know when we'd go to the big townel Wichita or whatever. So they actually came down and talked set in our living room and talked to my parents. They were these were older you know, well I guess they're probably in their mid twenties thirties, and said, you know, we want more tea. Looking back on it, it seems like a blur. I don't really recognitantly remember like having that. I kind of remember sitting there going, Okay, these guys want me to sing in their rock band. I'm going to be a rock star. I love it, you know. And my parents were like, well you seem like good, good people, you know, they kind of gave their blessing. And I spent the next year and a half riding around in a van with a hole in the floor, you know, pooling all of our money together to get two jars of peanut butter and two loaves of bread, and like that's what we were going to eat for the week, you know what I mean. It's like just playing locally but scream like singing Pat Benatar and Heart and Journey and it was it was fun. Well, you have to be nourished if you were, can penetrate properly? Yeah, yeah, I mean I completely understand have your protein absolutely. You mentioned those three artists, Like what I was gonna ask, like what songs do you hear and remind you of that time period, like if you hear it on the radio or playing at Walgreens. You mentioned Journey, like don't stop believing anything like we did anyway you want it? Oh, yeah, good, anyway you want it? And we did Pat Annatar, we did uh oh my gosh, the best shot. Hey, I don't know if we did that one. I did that live every once in a while now, but we did Promises in the Dark, we did um Fire and Ice. It's probably a little bit later Pat Benatar, because I remember when Pat Benatar came out. I was at my grandmother's I was folding clothes and I was listening to Casey Kason's Top forty and Heartbreaker came on the radio and I was like, what is that. I was so knocked out by that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And then later I got to do Crossroads with Pat Benatar, which was and when it all comes back, unbelievable. Was that like one of the coolest Yeah, for sure for me, if I get to hang out with people that I loved as a kid, it's way cooler than somebody that could be massive, like in celebrity stature. Yeah, but for me to be able to remember, like John Michael Montgomery right, like he's been over here and we and to him, he's just John and loves in Kentucky, drove down listen to the show. But I'm like, I don't know if I need to remind you you're John Michael mcgomery. Like that to me is super cool because as a kid, listen to a lot. Yeah, and so for you to be able to do that, that's awesome. It was awesome, and it was so surreal because I thought to myself, Okay, never in a million years would I have dreamed that I would be on stage with Pat Benatar singing her songs. But then also, I have songs that she's going to learn and sing. That's so that's even beyond like but no, I'm it's not lost on me. Like when I was standing on the stage a couple of weeks ago with Winona and Tanya Tucker and me, and I'm like an Tanya, you know, with like put her arm around me, like, oh my god, what am I doing here? Like, yeah, it's so crazy. And when you when you kind of allow yourself to look at it that way, yeah, that's super cool. The Penetrators, how long do you guys play before you stopped penetrating? It was pretty short lived. It seemed like a long time, but I think it was probably I don't know, because I moved to Which's Hodd to sing in another band five nights a week at a club when I was probably eighteen, so maybe eight months a year at eighteen? Did you kind of have it figured out somehow? Someway you were going to sing, like, oh yeah, did you know you would go to Nashville eventually or was it let's just see where it takes me. No. I always dreamed of making records and doing, you know, doing the big thing, but I couldn't at that point in my life eighteen nineteen twenty, really settle on country music. I was kind of rebet. I was kind of like singing all kinds of music. So I was singing with this cover band. I was singing everything from Marita Franklin to Whitney Houston to Madonna to you know, just whatever was on the radio at the time, plus some classics like that. And I love that too. So I was like, I don't know if I'm really ready to go and do country music full time. And I had an aha moment. I had to quit singing for a while because I was I was like waiting tables and singing in clubs five nights a week, and I started to get like some vocal fatigue and that they did a scope and said, you know, you don't have nodules, but they're starting. It's not looking good. You should probably take some time off from singing. So I did and in the meantime. Of course, I couldn't just completely take out sings, so I started singing harmony vocals in this country band, these two brothers called the Feller Brothers that played locally, so I'd go and sit in and sing harmony. And then I started singing with my dad's band a little bit again, and we did a battle of the bands, which is so weird. We never did that the entire time I was growing up. Your dad, me and my dad in that band. Yeah, And it was at a club and it was in Wichita, and we did this battle of the bands, and something clicked for me, like a light bulb went off, and I said, I said. One of the DJs that was judging the contest actually said to me, I don't know what you're going to do with your singing, because I know you're singing a lot of other stuff, but I hope you decided to sing country music, because you know that would be really great. And I that comment coupled with the experience of singing that music again and realizing how important the lyrics were, how important the singer is, it just felt like home to me. I said to my mom. She was there. She ran the soundboard actually for the band, and I said, I think I've made a decision. I'm going to move to Nashville and pursue a career in country music. And I told my I asked, you know, didn't tell my husband, Well kind of, maybe I kind of did. I think I said I want to move to Nashville. And he had a local sound company that was doing you know, local sound and touring a little bit regionally. Um, And he was like, all right, let's go, and he moved his entire sound company. We didn't know. We knew John Kay from Steppenwolf because John had worked with him and toured with him doing monitors, um, but we really didn't know anybody, and we talk about naive like I would go. I knew I had to find songs, so I'd go to these publishing companies and walk up down walk up and down music row and knock on the door and say I'm a singer and I want to get a record deal. Can you play me some songs that I can records for demos? And they're like, um, sure, come on in. Like it was so odd that they were probably slightly welcoming but confused. Yeah, like this is really not how it works. But okay, you know right, wow, So okay, were you married? You were married at the time, Yeah, you and your husband, so how long he'd been married? Therefore we moved. We got married in May of nineteen eighty eight, and we moved here January of nineteen ninety. That's a that's a pretty adventurous first year and a half. Yeah, so you get here, you don't know anybody, You're walking up and down. How did you even known music row was a thing? Though? Well, we ran into We came down before we moved and made a demo and actually we went in to see this guy at a publishing company that John Kay had known, so it's kind of like a friend of a friend, and sat down with him and played him a demo that we had made back in Kansas, and he said, that's not good. That's not going to cut it. Like, you know, that's not good enough. You need to find real, real musicians. It was recording a warehouse. It was like, really, echoy, He's like, you need to find a studio records. And he gave us a list of names of people that maybe could help us do that, studio musicians, and John made a couple of calls, and I think the third person he called was a bass player named Mike Chapman, who said, yeah, I can. I got a friend, Lonnie Wilson, who's a drummer played on sons on my records. Do you know Lonnie, I know who is so great? And he said, he's got a studio in his like reck room or garage or whatever. How about tonight put a little band together. You can come out Because we were only in town for like three days. And I went out there and we recorded, Um, I don't need a couple of original songs that one of the one of the musicians had said here, you can record these songs. And I was like, I like these songs and took it back to the guy the next day and he said, yeah, that's good enough. That's that's a real demo, right, so um so yeah, it was. It was just it was just like meant to be. I guess what sounds very divine in that the battle of bands happens, whether you had your awha moment where somebody happened to be there and go, hey, I would like to give you affirmation that what you're doing here is the right thing. Like all those little particles came together, and then you knew somebody that knew somebody, and that person first of all not only helped let's do it tonight, but it's also like still that same game. He's still in your life. Yeah, yeah, I mean all of that's not coincidental, right, but pretty cool that when the dominoes fell, we aren't afraid to kind of go with them, because that's also brave. Yeah, you know to here you are, You're I don't know how how old you at this time twenty two? Okay, I'll make a demo with guests musicians here. How did you feel singing with experts? Did that? Because again they're the bad they're they're doing studio work. You gotta be really good to do that kind of stuff. Yeah, did you think about that at all? Are you just like I can saying, let's go, I don't remember I journal, I have to look up, I gotta go. I'm say I'm going to go back through and read all of my journals because your perception of things and how it really happened are different. But um, I think I was probably just nervous and blown away and kind of like, but let's do this. You know, it's kind of quite equal parts of because because you know, I was in my element musically but out of my element situationally. You know. So I don't know, you come back with that demo, do you when you move here, do you start passing it around? Are you duplicating it? Or are you like, Okay, this will get me into another room where I can then record even more or our songs. Yeah. We I think we ended up borrowing some money to move here, and we set up this was like a two song demo. So the song the next demo that we made was the one where the songwriter said, here record these songs, and um, we went to we went to Fireside I think, and recorded the tracks for like five songs, which I just found that demo the other day, by the way, and um, then we were Then we went to the Music Mill, which was it was a big studio here at the time, and recorded the vocals and then we so we pitched that around to every record company. Got turned down by everybody. Why, I don't know. They just said, we're not looking it's not what we're looking for. Standard answer, it ain't for us. Yeah, And then I made a second demo, This is all all within about a year year and a half, and um John was out as production manager for garth At that he'd got that job in the meantime, and so I made it. We made a second demo, and I Mike Chapman, the original bass player guy, said you know you need to do somebody had told me at a publishing company size singing demos. They said, we think we hear that OURCA is looking to sign a female artist, and I was like, okay. So Mike Chapman said, you need to put your demo in an envelope and you need to write they don't just take stuff off the street, which I didn't know. You got to write on their requested material and put a phone number on it. And I was like all right. So I went down to Kinko's and I got this bright purple envelope and wrote I think John actually wrote requested material Martina McBride and a phone number. And about three weeks later we got a phone call from Josh Leo, the head of A and R at the label who and they wanted to see a showcase, and we heard through the grapevine there was like me and two or three other girls. So we put together a band. We went to ASA clubs, we did a showcase, and they came back that night and said, come in tomorrow and you've got a record deal. Why all that that advice of just write requested material on there so they'll think that they actually were the ones who wanted this, that that act that paid off. Obviously it was you who closed. But sometimes you can have all the talent in the world, but if you don't have a way to get that talent to where it needs to go, it's a tree fallen in the woods. Yeah, that is so crazy. He's like, just write requested material and they'll just believe they wanted it and that they were the ones. We're in control the whole time. Yeah, and that's it worked. And you know, on my I think my fortieth birthday, Randy Talmas, the head of A and R, gave me that envelope. He'd saved it all those years and he framed it and gave it to me and now I think it's in my Hall of Fame exhibits. So it's yeah, it's it's wild, you know. I mean, I just think that some things are meant to be and if you can meet it, you know, if you have enough enough determination and sort of passion and perseverance to meet it where it is, you know, then it's then it, like you said, the dominos start to fall, Yeah, and it's okay to fall with him. We interrupt this interview to bring you a message from our sponsor. This is the Bobby Cast. So you've been married thirty five or so years almost so, got married for the first time about a year ago. Never been married, was never engaged, was never in a serious anything. Ever, She's the first person I ever told that I loved, because she was the first person I loved. Right, So I'm a little stunted in that part of my life because I was just so dedicated to my career and met her and it's been a year, year, a year and a half or so. What is there is? I know there's no universal key. You can't give me a key to the city and I open every door with it. What is it? What's what's the secret that's not that secret that it's just right in front of me. I think it's determination and deciding. You kind of decide I'm I'm gonna stick. I mean, unless there's abuse or you know, if it's just really not healthy. That's a whole different thing, right, But like, if it's healthy and you found your person who wants to grow with you and encourages you and you makes you laugh every day and has a sense of adventure and all some of the really important things, then you just decide we're in this. And there's going to be times when you know, maybe you go, oh my god, what have I done? You know what I mean for him and me? But you go that passes, it passes, or you talk about it, or maybe it was just a mood or a season, and then you just you know, you then you start to have all these shared experiences and I don't know, I think you honestly, I think you just decide to be dedicated to it if it's a good relationship. Whenever your success really started to grow, and as a new artist that has a bit of momentum, you're gone. A lot people think new artists are just making tons of money, and new artists are not grinding harder than anybody. Yeah, making no money. How was that for the relationship with you and your husband? Was that a really hard time or was he able to take what he does and take that along a little bit of both, so he was my sound engineer on the road, so he did. We did travel together and we still do that. Really may I think made things easier than if it would have been a different situation because we get to share everything together. We've kind of grown through this together. And but when we were first get when I first got a record deal, he tells the story of how, you know, he was kind of like my manager for lack of not really, but you know what I mean, he was like the biggest he wrote on the envelope. He went and dropped it off. He was like a big supporter. And so you know, we go do this thing. Ourca used to have this thing during country radio seminar that was like a boat show. So he went on this General Jackson boat and all of the radio people were there and it was like a showcase, like you did your new material or whatever. So the first time I went on there, my promo guy, my radio guy, came and got me and said, I want to take you run and introduce you to some people. And John says, it's like he just like you just left with the real people, you know what I mean, and left and he was kind of left standing there. And also a lot of people weren't. He had to go through a lot of things where until people get to know him and respect him and not see him as that the husband that was going to be in the way, or you know, all of those stereotypes that people have. So it was I would say it was harder for him than me. But you know, once people spend any time with him and recognize his talent and his passion and his heart, you know then that that came around nineteen ninety three, you get inducted into the Grand ol Opry. You mentioned Lauretta in earlier, she's the one who does it. What do you remember about that night? It was part of a television special. It's like an anniversary of the opry. And Loretta is so funny. She came, she came to do the rehearsal and they gave you. They gave me a plaque and she said, well, during rehearsal, she said, is this is this what I'm supposed to give you? This is what you get for joining the opry? And I said, yeah, I guess though, and so she said she kind of laughed, and during the ceremony she said, welcome to the opera, honey, this is what you get. That's super cool that it was her and she's the one like just first want anything with her. Yeah, but she's the one inducting you into the greatest country music space in the history of the world, the Grand Ole Opry. Like what a special memory. Did you know that she was going to be inducting you before like rehearsals with it, because sometimes you know, they the invite us a surprise. Was that a surprise to you? Yeah, but they didn't do it like they did. They didn't just show up and surprise you at performance. I went to lunch with the head of the opera and he asked me at lunch, and and then and then I got to I got to invite. I got to ask who I wanted to induct me. So you chose, all right, okay, man. Being told at lunch by someone who an executive is like being proposed on the phone. It was like, I mean, you're still getting married and that's awesome, but you didn't even get on a knee. Yeah. I don't think they did it like that back then. Now I love how they do it now where they I got to be that person for Charlie Daniels, I got to ask him to join the opera and he didn't know you were there. You guys kept it completely secret. That's that's the greatest. Those videos where people are surprised. Just dude, I would say the history, because you're right. They didn't do it like that twenty five years ago. I think like twenty years they started doing it a little bit. But those videos where people get surprised and they're awesome only second to whenever somebody for the military comes home and surprises are kids. Man, those are good too. But I don't like when they show the videos of the dogs with one eye and Saidarah McLaughlin sings those videos that don't like. I like what they're doing. I just don't like those videos. Yeah, Like you know what comes to me? You sign a record deal ninety one? How fast until you actually take off and have a hit from the moment you signed until you're on the radio and you got a number one song? Yeah it was a second record. I didn't have a number one song to the third record. Wild Angels was my first number one. It actually just happened the other day. I think it was in nineteen ninety six, So it took six five or six years to really get to that place. But i'd be four wild angels. I had Independence Day and I had my first three Independence. It wasn't a number one song, No, it was number ten. Maybe Again, I'm just the consumer here the song that I would know you for the most. Yeah, it wasn't even a number one song, right, that's a whole story. Like, you know, we had a lot of resistance at radio with that song because the subject matter, and I think it was really because she burned the house down, you know, it was like she was taking she took action that just didn't set very well with a lot of radio people. Bizarre. And so it's funny because I was so passionate about that song, like it literally changed my life, not only career wise, but just my awareness and my you know, wanted to try to help some way, and all the letters that I got and the people that I talked to and heard their stories and it was so big for me. And so my probown guy once again, Mike Wilson, came to me and he said, I think we're losing the song. I don't think that it's gonna take it. And I was like, what, how is this possible? And he goes, well, there's there's a you know, maybe twenty stations that won't won't refuse to play it, And I said, can I talk to them? Can you give me their numbers? And I want to have a conversation and he was like, uh sure, I guess, like that's not usually done, but I guess though, And so I got on the phone with these guys and I was just like, talk to me, like, tell me what is it? And some of them would say, we just don't think it's appropriate that it's on our station. And I said, and oddly enough, this is right. Independence Day came out maybe seven weeks before Nicole Brown Simson was murdered, so all of a sudden it was on that story was everywhere, and so I was I said, you know, it's interesting because you're talking about domestic violence every every day, several times a day on your newscasts, right, yet you don't feel like this song can can be listened to or whatever. And I turned a couple few of them around. There were ten stations that never did play it, but but I was able to they would give it a chance. You know. One guy said to me that video like if I'm sitting with my daughter and that video comes on. Then I have to talk to her and explain things, and I'm like, yeah, dude, that's maybe not a bad idea. So it was interesting. It's just a different time, you know, is it when people just think that song is about fourth of July? Yeah, like on fourth of July you hear the song and no, it's not the same thing. Guy talking about literal Independence Day of America. Yeah, because sometimes I'll be like, it's your July for the playlist and oh all that every year. Yeah, yeah, Independence Day comes on. I think I think that's what you were talking about earlier. How sometimes you can just sing a song for years and not really ever. You kind of just sing the chorus and you're distracted during the verses or whatever. Because I think a lot of people don't know what that song is about still, But then so many people do, and that's you know, that's the song that I've heard and thought to myself, somebody needs to hear this song. This is going to be the song for somebody. Yeah, And then I get letters people saying that's what I got in the car and I heard that song on the radio, and that's I decided I'm out of here. I've had enough, right, So it's like that's the power. That's not me. That's the power of music and the power of a song. Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor, Wow, and we're back on the Bobby Cast. Three questions for you when you finally win for female vocalists, because you grow up a couple of times in like the late nineties, but in like maybe two thousand and three or so, I think you won the first time three in row. By the way, it was like bam, bam bam. Yeah it was ninety nine. Is that you won ninety nine? Okay, So the first time you win and you had always been able to envision yourself winning, did you have that moment while it was happening where you're like, I've always like it while it was happening, like I always could see this and now it's actually happening. Yeah, kind of. Yeah, it was like not an out of body experience, but like it's so okay, I want to say this and have it come off as an in aconceited way because I'm not, but and it's not where it's coming from. But like, like it goes back to what I was saying before, you kind of have to believe it. You kind of have to believe it otherwise all of the rejection and the and the being away from home and the traveling and the recording and all of the stuff that you do is you know, you have to believe it. It's going to pay off in that moment as as in that moment. So you know, there was a I don't know, maybe it might have been even four or five years we were nominated and didn't win, and and you you just go, what's going to happen. It's gonna happen. So you still believed it was going to happen. Yeah, Yeah, when you got that close and didn't, Yeah, because it was too maybe premature, Like I feel like we One thing I'm really that was a good feeling for me was when we finally won. I felt like we'd been around long enough to kind of deserve it in a way, and my team, you know, everybody that worked so hard, they it was rewarding. It was just kind of like, oh, I'm so glad it didn't happen too fast. I'm so glad. I feel like I'm kind of in the industry and that people really wanted me to win, maybe so, but yeah, there's that moment where you go, well, this is it, you know, the first times that you didn't win. Are you like listening for mum and is it deflating or is it? Do you really feel anytime I ever lose, I'm not honored to be there? Right, I'm like this sucked? Yeah? Or are you honored just to be there? And You're like I'll get him next time? Like it? Like, yeah, I was kind of like that. I was really because I would look at the category and the other females in the category and I was just like wow, wow, like it's so amazing that I'm even in the same like these people even know. I remember when I walked past Alan Jackson one time at an award show, probably the first CMA Awards I went to, and he's in the front row and I walked by him and kind of, you know, I was I'm not I'm kind of an introvert, really honestly extroverted introvert. So I'm not the kind of I'm always the kind of person that doesn't want to go up to somebody and introduce myself. I don't want to bother them, you know, what I mean. But I walked past him and I just kind of looked at him and thought to myself, Oh God, that's Allen Jackson. And he said I love your stuf, and I was like, oh my god, Alan Jackson knows who I am and has heard my music. What in the world you know? So it's it was like that. I don't think it came off. I conceded at all. And I'm a big believer in what I would call a healthy arrogance it because if I don't have it, if I don't believe in me so much, nobody else is going to yeah, like I have to because at times other people are gonna go yeah or nope, or I don't know, prove it. But if I don't believe in me and I don't believe what I'm putting out, it's worth people buying a ticket if I'm doing a comedy show or spending twenty minutes with me in the morning or reading a book. If I don't believe it and I don't believe it's great, nobody else will. Yeah, that's true. So I have to be that, and I have no problem. It's just for me. At times I think I get so insecure that that healthy arrogance tends to come off the other way because I'm so insecure that it's like, well, I got a prove to everybody that I don't take any crap, and let's let's go. That's my problem. When things started to really pop for me, I had to There are a couple times where I had to be like, WHOA, we got to check yourself. Luckily, I have that awareness. I was going to say, you're aware of Luckily, yeah, did when it? Did you ever have to have that talk with you That's a weird question to ask where you're like, oh, it's hitting now, like let's make sure we make these some wise decisions, not because of an arrogance thing or insecurity really, but you know, I just it took me a really long time to realize that I had some power. Like you know, nobody tells you that when you start out. They're like, there's all kinds of people that want you to do what they think you should do. And I mean everybody from video directors to art directors to producers to everybody executives. And it took I think it was my husband actually that said, you know you they're kind of working for you in a way, and I was like, oh my god. Yeah, so then you kind of you can kind of assert your power over your creativity and your own persona and how you see you over yourself, and that can get pretty heavy. So sometimes I feel like, especially I don't you know, as a woman, I kind of had to check that a little bit just to not alienate everyone. Makes sense, Yeah, absolutely it does. My final question, it's kind of a two parter. If you go to your home, inside your home, what is your favorite professional picture that you have that if somebody could stumble across it's in a frame somewhere. And what is your favorite personal picture that you have that somebody could just stumble across and be like, oh look at this, Oh you're duck hunting. I don't know what, but give me, give me both of them. Okay, well, I don't really have any professional pictures of me framed, but nothing like you had a singing it's the opery anything at all? Any not in my house. But a friend of mine, Nathan Chapman, who I think has been on this show. I love him. Yeah, saw him. We played the Rheman. Yeah, yeah, he does. He's an amazing human being. And my favorite bass player. Really no offense to all the other bass players out there, but he's so good and he's a great singer and a musician and I just love him. I can't see enough good things. But he also, because he's good at everything he does, is an amazing photographer. So he called me up a few weeks ago and said, can I jump on your bus and just I just want to come out and shoot photos. I was like absolutely, So he took this photo of me two actually, one me going up the stairs to the stage and it's kind of blurring out of focus. It's so iconic, and then another one of me on stage from the back, which is my best angle, by the way, and there's nothing for me to critique or pull pick apart. It's like it's the back of my head. My hair looks good, it's fine, and so um that picture. And I haven't got him framed yet, but he made me huge prints, like like as big as that when you have here, So I'm probably gonna frame a couple. That's super cool. What about personally, My one of my favorite pictures is my picture with Loretta. I have a couple of snapshots with her that I have framed um and I just look at I walked by them and just think, I just was so lucky to know her, so lucky to know her, you know. And then of course I've got kid pictures with my kids when they were from all all through their whole um, you know, their whole lives. Got some newborn pictures with all of them. So you know, that's personally. I guess when I said, when you said personal picture, and I said me and Loretta, that did feel like a personal relationship to me. So, but that's probably more in the professional category. So pictures of me with my kids would be the second one. So you're doing shows a few in May and in June. Now you're taking a break right now though for the most part. That's what you're saying. Are you going back out in the fall? Is that announced yet? No? Okay, putting that together, I don't want to go to tour jail, so I'm not going to push no, what's up. I just decided this year to take a little bit more, to try to tour a little smarter, because we were for the past since COVID, since since touring started back up again, we were really hitting it every single weekend like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, every single week, maybe with a week off here or there, and it just gets to be so discombobulating. There's there's always this first of all, I'm a real homebody. I love to be at home, but I love to tour. But there's this reentry that comes every time I coming off the road. There's about a day where it just takes a minute to get settled and in the groove, and and that's just jarring, and nothing ever gets unpacked, and everything's I'm transporting things back and forth. And so this year I said I kind of wanted to work in chunks, so we did the Judge tour. We've got April and May off, no March and April off, and then we were working in May, June, a little bit in June July. Then we're going to do a tour in the summer and the fall for probably fifteen dates, and then we always do a Christmas tour, so we'll probably end up doing the same amount of shows, but they're just spread out a little more. It's been a real treat. I appreciate you coming and just talking with me about like the stuff that I don't have to get to hear from you, like I want to know about Sharon. Yeah, I want to know about your mom and your dad. And so I hadn't heard this. So I really appreciate you taking an hour and spending it and sharing that with me. That's that's the coolest thing for me to get to do this. So if you want to get ticket, you go to Martina McBride dot com or go to our socials quite the Instagram following. I must say, you kind of kill it over there. I love it. It's fun at Martina McBride. And then the final final question, do you still love singing? I do? Yeah, I do. I mean I do, And I think I'm I'm learning to love it in a different way. Um, for a long time, it was just this thing I did, and it was just this I sort of had complete control over it. I don't want to say I took it for granted. But you know, now I'm older, I've gone through a couple of vocal issues which I've been resolving, and I appreciate it more and I think I'm more connected to it in a in a in a different way. And I think the next few years I'm going to enjoy it more than ever. Well, thank you for your time. This has been a real treat for me. Um, I guess that's it, right, Mike, all the stats and stuff we read before you got here. I'm glad you did you know what I was here. Yeah, Well, we didn't want you to get too cocky, you know, So all right, Martina mcgride, Everybody, I loved this episode of The Bobby Cast. Subscribe on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.