#373 - The Warren Brothers on Addiction, Losing A Record Deal, Getting Sober, and Finding Success in Songwriting and Why It Didn’t Matter ‘Red Solo Cup’ Was Never a No. 1

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Speaker 1: Episode three seventy three Brad and Brett Warren, the Warren Brothers. I think I could have done to maybe three hours with them. There's a lot of fun and then I went from fun to just being, you know, super serious. We had to trust each other a little bit. We got into some areas that I think if we all weren't comfortable with ourselves, we wouldn't have been comfortable going there. Just a real good experience here with the Warren brothers. They have nine number ones. We can roll through some pretty quickly. If you're reading this, Tim McGraw, feel that fire. Dirk s Bentley felt good on my lips. Tim McGraw, a little bit of everything. Keith Urban Highway, don't care. Tim McGraw. With Taylor and Urban, I could keep going. I mean they have so many songs, they have many top tens. I mean, they came to town, they were trying to be artists. Some stuff happened. Now they're two of the best songwriters in Nashville. And there's a new podcast hosted by Brad. It's called The Good Grief Good God Show hosted by Brad, where he talks about it's grief. It's a grief podcast when it's a good grief. I thought of Charlie Brown honestly first good Grief, but it really is a grief podcast and he talks about it. You can check out Good Grief, Good God show dot com or find the link in the notes of this podcast and go check it out. Here we are, it's me, it's the Warren Brothers, and it's episode three seventy three, Bred and Bred. The Warren Brothers are here. You know you guys commented on your head shot it's up when what when was that head shot taken? Do you think? And it was long enough ago where I don't have any gray streaks in my hair was now there for sure, So I'm gonna say ten years ago. Oh, I didn't think it was that. Maybe eight years ago, seven, eight years ago? Yeah, ten was way off. Eight, I didn't I think it was that dated. And I was like, well, this that's quite quite a dated head shot. And I was like, oh, you know what, it's not that bad. I'm still using it from like ago. Oh absolutely stowed up on the billboard. It's not that far off. So I think I was thinking about getting another one. I think we should just continue to run with this one, well against against here, you had a certain point where then it's just funny and fun again. There's that weird like middle ground devo is awkward because they don't look like that, but then you hit a point or it's just hilarious again. It's the joy of being a songwriter, breaking away from the artist, where you really don't care they think it's funny. It's funny if they think you're trying to look younger. You don't care when you want to stop getting Somebody occasionally will say you need to do a headshot. I'm like, why we're not looking younger? Updated for something? Something who doesn't look as good. I don't look as good anymore, not at the point where I started lying about my age in the other directions. So people are like, how old you and I say sixty two, and they're like, no, way, you look amazing. I just want the compliment. I don't care if they think I'm sixty two. I just need to be emotionally patted on the back. I was excited you guys were coming over for a couple of reasons, because you guys have been kind of in the orbit of my life forever. I mean since I moved here, but I don't know that we've ever all set down before. Never. I think we did something with Tim McGraw. You were interviewing him and we were part of the you for like five minutes about six seven years ago, but never just really yeah, I don't even remember that it was we were in So who is this Tom McGraw guy. We're the Cato Klin of the family. So if you met us, it was with we're in the career guesthouse. We have so many like parallels though with people with I mean, Jim Beaver's is a close friend of mine and is super funny. It was the first guy in town because I've been writing funny stuff from my comedy act because I do stand up and he was like, hey, all right with you? And then we just had fun and written a bunch stuff together, and he goes, you think I'm funny, you should ride with the Warm Brothers. Nobody writes funnier than Jim Beavers. Nobody. I mean, he's we think we're funny, but he actually writes funny. I think the only crazy funny song we've written was red Solo Cup happened to me with Jim. Yeah, we wrote a few more that were with Jim that we're funny but Pirates song? Has he turned you on to that? EDG first? Well? And mostly he was like, you guys are have the ability to be very funny and probably right very funny if you wanted to, like it was a it was a huge compliment on how funny he thinks you are. And that's that space that you could easily roll into if you wanted to, really a compliment with someone that funny that we do these writers around with him still, and I mean half the time we're just sitting sideways facing him crying. It's just, you know, it's like have you ever you ever seen when Arbal, I mean when when Barbal plays the Donkey song and makes the Donkey sound the right you could play. Let it be. They don't care anymore. The crowds is do you guys only work together? Pretty since Brad bought a house in Florida and he started working on this podcast right now, you don't live here right now, I live here, but I just bought a house in Florida, so we spend about a third of our time in Florida. That's significant. This is the first time we've written probably songs together and about the last year four months ago a little bit, just because just out of geography, is that weird? It was weird. It was a little weird. I felt like I was cheating on spouse, but like it just felt it felt a little odd. But I don't think we're totally cool with that. I mean, we write better together. When you write that many songs together, there's a natural chemistry. It just happens together. We make up one real songwriter, you know what I mean. It's like, I'm not sure credit is publishing is one song? Right? No, not that far? So okay. You guys grow up where Tampa, Florida? Been there many times? Really? Yeah, I've played the what's the big theater down there? It's pretty new note though now just a bunch of half the theater. There's um old Tampa theater. But it's it's a new as a new one. One One. It doesn't matter. It's a dumb question. It's gonna get us nowhere. But got guys been in radio before. But I've spent a lot of time in Tampa. Um usually once or twice a year. You grow up in Tampa. Was Tampa then like Tampa now? Where it's like there's Florida, but then Tampa it's kind of a bit of an outlier as far as the kind of people that are there. Tampa was like when we were growing up, had a rock and roll scene. There was rock and f and rock and roll was still kind of big and had local show and so our band would get on local shows and they had a ton of bars where everybody would play. It was the death metal capital of the world. Deathital music was sort of recorded it Morris sound there by Usff'll say this, Tampa has changed less from when we were children, so that Nashville has since we've been here years ago, whatever national has changed unbelievably. Tampa's still kind of And the house I bought is in Madeira Beach, which is right outside St. Petersburg, Um, and it's been exactly when I was a little kid. We used to go there like I'm never coming to this old people's beach, and now I'm old and I love it. That's normal, the people's normal folks. It's the quiet, but it hasn't changed that much. Like compared to Nashville. It's it's very similar to you talk about a band that you guys are in Was it the metal band? Yeah, like it was that a Christian metal band started started as that, Yeah, how does it start? But is it? I think we said the effort on stage and that they want excommunicated. You're canceled before canceling was the thing we had been canceled by. We went to a small Christian school and we would do like like and Raisers was the first of our band ever played. I was like fourteen, he was sixteen, and we couldn't play rock songs, so we would changed the lyrics to like Brian Adams songs like I Can't wait to see you in Heaven instead of find it hard to Believe in Heaven and things like that. So we we had to sort of cater to be able to play rock and roll. We didna no get saved instead of cocaine. Do you know what's so funny about that? As we used to play churches and instead of uh, George still get bad at the bone, we'd be like, there's gold up above. Do do do do do same thing? Gold up above? I said a bad at the bone? Were like, that's gold up above. So we had to change something we wanted to do. We had to do the same thing because they wanted to play the songs. I like this gold up above. I may write that, you know, I don't know that you should because I don't want to tickle a bone. But it's amazing how full of crap church stuff can be, because it's just if it's in the name and it falls into the into the lane, it's good. But as soon as someone has a real problem, they seem to like scatter like flies. Not not always, but says the person canceled by the churches, I'll be honest, the church invented canceling. I mean it really did. We We canceled some people when I was a kid. I'm like, man, if they stopped going to our church, we lost their numbers. Did you learn or learn your love from music in church? We did? Like was there a music or a choir or there was a band in our church? Like when we learned. I mean, maybe a different I don't love the music in the church, but if you had the option to play in church, yeah, we would play it. Yeah, because it was more fun to play in church than to stand there listening to it. So we had drums and bass and guitar, so we did play in church. And learned how to play. We have to play in church. We have two older sisters, the oldest one. They're both way better musicians than we are. The oldest one can cite read Beethoven and tell you what not to car horn is. She's just like freaking The other one sings amazing. And Brad was a killer guitar player from age like ten. He was just great a guitar And I just never really practiced or did anything that my mom would be like, You're never gonna be able to play an instrument when you get older, like somehow that would be the the musical black sheep of the family. And now he can play every strument. But I just joined the band when I was fourteen because he said, Hey, all the high school girls are coming to watch our band practice. I just literally got in the band to hang out with the older kids, old older girls. Literally your parents musical, Yes, in what way? Both play guitar? Both thing. Did they ever try to do it professionally even when they were younger. No, And they encouraged us not to do it and told us it was not a job and it's a career, and we would wind up playing in bars until we were fifty and all that they could have been right. It was really close, you know, but it takes someone who's almost failed at trying to know that though. So yeah, they probably played a little bit and put their toes. My dad played in a few bands, but never like so they have a passion for music. Was it just around all the time or did you see that you would get acceptance or favor from your parents because they loved it if you loved it, they didn't actually like it the way we did. We had to play a musical instrument. It was like a that's thirty minutes a day you had to practice on. I played trumpet, he played trumbone. Not cool instruments when you're a kid. And then um, I heard a guy. We went to a friend's house in the church and he played um, Sweet Home Alabama on his electric guitar through an amp, and I was transformed in that moment. I was eleven years old and I'm like, I'm playing electric guitar. Did they make you guys do brass asteroids? Because they didn't want us to play rock and roll? And we were literally we grew up in a funny it's crazy because everybody wanted to be at our house, but we did not have a television. Everyone to be at our house. My mom wasn't the greatest cook, but kids just came over. We played basketball. It was like this. It was this crazy house to grow up in. But literally my mom and dad made us run three miles before school every day, even when I was in the first grade. Physically, family get up and we would run, and then my mom made our own sweatpants, and like we wore earth shoes. We just wanted to be cool. We weren't allowed to go to Applebees because they sold beer, so we had this more so to please. Then we just wanted to be accepted. We wanted to be cool. That's sort of false said, so being cool, I think that's what drove us more than almost anything else. Early on, could you listen to secular music? No, we were not allowed. It snuck until what age were you finally allowed? So we left their house And then when you started sneaking secular music? Was it rock? Yeah? It was Van Halen and Tom Petty and yeah we melon camp and everything that kind of sounds like what we do. Still did ever get caught? Oh yeah, yeah by My grandmother gave us a little black and white TV and my dad put it in the attic so we wouldn't watch it. This is when we were teenagers. Why she gave you a TV, but your dad said, you can't watch the TV you were just given. He would let us watch it occasionally on Friday nights if we watched raw Hide, but he would go into the attic and get it, bring it down and we can watch raw Hide, and then you put it back in the attic. Now, by the way, this isn't like this is raw Hide and that's what you can watch. Eight five was like when they played it at midnight on Friday night or something. Yeah, and so we would They had Friday night videos from Friday night videos. Okay, so if you didn't have him TV, which we certainly didn't have, you could watch. So we would sneak into the attic quietly, take that little TV down and put it in my mom's sewing room and watch Friday night videos with the volume barely up. I remember the handle was broken, so you had to turn it with your with your fingers. It was just hysterical. The links we would go to more flyers we had broken. We always yeah, and you had to go in and then that the channel and if you're born in eighty two or below, you know what that is. So you guys have two older sisters. Now, were they also sneaking music in or were they pretty much angels and did just the Christian music angels? They were pretty much angels. Yeah, they made up. They made us look we were We were pretty wild anyway, but they really shined. It was made us look bad and then eventually we made us look bad. Exactly. Were you guys best friends as kids, even though because two years is significant and it gets less significant as you get older. Now, as he got older and maybe had our own friends. He was in different grades and we played on all the sports teams there at the school, so we kind of had our own groups of people. But I mean we were around each other a lot. We fought every day for probably three or four years from like ten to thirteen. We fist fought every single day, like every day. So best friends would have been weird, but we did everything together and we share We still share friends that we made back then, Like someone between our ages, you're younger than me and you're older than him, still are you know? Our our best friends are still friends that we made together. So it's interesting that we weren't like what we would have been called best friends that we were. Did you guys collaborate on anything musical as teenagers like to write? Like, do you remember the first time you guys actually wrote something original together, not not words to a melody that already existed, or like a Christian parody? Yeah, I mean, okay, So it's funny. The reason we've written songs together is because we were I wrote all the songs. I was older, so I wrote all the songs for our little band, and Warren Hill was the first one, and then there was St Wren. There's a Warren theme here obviously, and uh so I wrote all the songs. And then Brett started writing songs and I was like, these are good. So we kind of started arguing about whose songs we were going to play at the one show we played every two months, and we just decided to write together so we wouldn't compete for the songwriting. And like thirty years and three thousand songs and a fair number of hits later, we realized that that was the moment we started writing songs together and we just did it together. Did you guys want to pursue a career in Christian music when you were teenagers before you were excommunicated from that. The Christian music death metal scenes. We kind of we just it was all we knew, a career in music, and because we were kind of in that world where anything that wasn't Christian was bad. Yes, but we wanted to be on a tour bus. We want to make videos, we wanted to play on stage, so whatever that meant Christian, non Christian. I grew up Southern Baptist, Yeah, what were you? What were you getting? But it was charismatic Southern Baptist, So our Southern Baptist church we spoken tongues and like people were slain in the spirit. And my grandmother was Pentecostal and so she spoke in tongues. So I guess I did kind of both, but in different buildings, similar in the same church, which was odd. I remember the first time I saw her speaking tongues, and my grandmother adopted me. For a long time in my life, I was my mom too, and I was like, what is happening right now? Like looking back, what are your thoughts right now on that? Bizarre Yeah, but just wildly bizarre. I think if I walked in now and so I'd walk out. I okay. I was like a teenager, and all the other older teenagers laid hands on me to get my prayer language. So I was speaking tongues, and I remember sitting there and they were, oh, I was so hungry, and I was so tired, and they kept praying for me to get my prayer language. And I finally just started blubbering something so they would stop, you know. And then and then when I when I started blubbering, they just cheered like I was on stage at Madison Square Garden, like they were so happy that I got in my prayer lenks. I'm like, oh, no, I didn't. I was just hungry. Yeah, And I would have my assumption would be that you're because I would see I didn't know it's called prayer language. But I remember the first time that people would speak in tongue tongues some of it's plural or not at the Pentecostal church, and everyone would again maybe not cheering, sometimes it was cheering, but it was always positive, extremely positive affirmations because of it. So I would go, are we sure they're just not doing that for positive affirmation and they just keep doing it because they got rewarded the first time. And so now that's I always thought that even as a kid. I don't know if everybody was, but somebody was. Somebody was doing that for it felt like luiji board, like somebody is moving that thing and so but yeah, it was. But I went to a Southern bat but we could dance at our church. At the southernmost we danced too. We did the Jeremiah dancer. Everybody held hands in line and did the thing back and forth. I don't know that they called it to Jeremiah, like a fun dance. We always said, you know why a Baptist people don't have sex standing up because they're afraid someone might think they're dancing. You know. We were like, no, no dancing if it was rock music. But you could flail about the church while speaking in tongues and that was cool. But you couldn't like slow dance too. You can't do it slower to music. You can do the same thing slower to music. You can only do it fast. And my church is pretty I mean. I went to a Southern Baptist church, Mountain Pine Baptist, and they were actually not the typical what I hear from people who went to other Southern Baptist churches, because some of my friends went. I mean, they were just like, held, you can only do this. We're regular. Everything's regulated. And I don't know if it's because my town was so poor. They were just like, hey man, whatever, we're just glad. Yeah, it's just like thank you, and you gave us a buck. We appreciate that. Maybe. So when do you guys decide that to to do what you want to do, you have to travel. I'm not even say go to Nashville, but you know there there's a point in your music career or where you go. We can't just do shows here. We can't be in just Tampa. Maybe we go play show it. We gotta go Tallahassee, you know, Atlanta. When you guys started, we had done a lot of that. We moved over to the Beach right after we had the Christian rock band. We graduate from high school. He was two years ahead of me, so he did two years of college. I went to one day of college. We started traveling around and ironically he's a ATUC professor at Belmont now, so it's pretty funny. I went to one day of college, I tell the kids at Belmont, I actually say not to sidetrack. My advice is, if you're in the songwriting school, you don't need to spend fifty two dollars year. It's just quick school now. But I love them. Do you know not to side track? Your side track let's keep Yeah. But I went and spoke at a college, Texas State University, and I went and spoke to the radio television class and went to the radio people, and I said, Hey, you don't don't do radio in college, Like what are you doing? Why are you doing? Don't do radio? Like either, if you're trying to do what I'm doing, you're not in the right place you need to go be doing it. Or if you need to get a degree like I had to get a agree, don't study this while you're here. So something else. Yeah, And they they told me I wasn't allowed back on camping for years. I was banned from campus. What did you study? What was yours? Well, let me I'll finish this. I got a letter from them going, hey, thank you for coming, but don't you can't come back. And then like four or five years later, I finally got a note from the new president that came in said hey, we would love to have you back, and it's funny, I still haven't been back, but yeah, they told me these kids are all on our class, my class, their seniors, their songwriting majors. That's what their major is. And I asked them, how many songs have you written this year? One? I started? One, I've written to you know, like very few, and I'm like, I'm fifty one. I've had quite a few hits and I've written thousands of songs and I've written six this week. Like you're competing with Jim Bieber's. You're competing with you know, you didn't write six songs? No, but I mean maybe six songs in the month, two weeks whatever. I mean, they're they're they're not doing what they want to do. The only way to do that is to actually do it. It's that simple. I wish I could. My whole class is about sort of just the the psychology of just doing it. And we have they graduate on May the five, and I always have a class called May the six. Were are you working? Is your dad cutting you off financially? Where are you living? What are you gonna do to be able to write four to five songs a week to compete with Ernest and all these new writers that are coming up there your age, and so it's just real practical. And so I didn't learn that in my one day of college. But what if some what if a kid came and miss class. It's a bunch of class and you're like, hey, yo, where are you been? Like I literally got a call to do some writing, and sorry, but I wrote these songs. What do you do as the instructor? Um, it's it's his choice, he's gonna have to make. I don't really monitor. I don't even keep a tab of attendance. I'm they'll in my class. They'll meet Troy Tomlinson one week and Seth England and Ken Levitan and managers and producers and big writers and we meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays and they meet someone like yourself in the business on a Tuesday, and then we'll talk about radio and what a radio promo tour looks like and what that would look like for you. Or we'll have a manager and say what do you need a manager or a business manager? And so if they don't want to meet, if their songwrinning majors and they don't want to meet Ben Vaughan or Troy Tomlinson or you know, Seth England. Yeah, I'm like your seniors. This this is class as a gift for you. I don't do test. I don't need a paper. You're telling me what music means to you. I'm gonna introduce you to real people that tell their story and they're all very similar. Can they fail? Um, if they don't show up for the class, they failed. But if they didn't show U because they're writing songs, I'm gonna fail them. Yeah, you write songs at another time. You've committed to this class. That's what I was hired to do. So yeah, you have to work around it. Write the songs that failed. Don't worry about if they're great songs. Yeah, it's a it's a choice you have to make. I went and I've spoken. Where do you Belmont? I did lips come for three years and that this semester I'm gonna teach it. Belma, what do you mean this semester like January starting to spring semester? Correct? You know when I'm coming up? I spoke. I mean I've spoken to munch of schools. But one of the last ones that I spoke at. I shouldn't in a position it s I teach, but I get my day to day manager. She was actually a college student. Wrote my name here it is, emailed me for an internship. She emailed me, brought her on as an intern assistant producer. Couldn't really pair that much their hider is my assistant, um, executive producer, head producer, and then took her she worked in red Line Management now as my day to day manager for me speaking at a class, we speaking because I would go and be like, this is what's happening, this is how you do it, this is what and then that's made that connection there. It's oh yeah, Like like I got out the door. She was like, hey, I'd love to talk about an internship, and I was like, that's what I'm talking about. That's exactly how there's always one kid in the class. It's just like there's a girl Peyton Porters and artist. She was one of my classes and she was doing every music show and emailing people in writing songs even when she was in my class. And she's the one that's kind of moved forward and really doing it. You can just sort of tell the people that aren't letting grass grow to their feet, they're moving and shaken. You guys started moving and shaking? When when you when did you start going? We gotta make money, we gotta travel. So we started. Okay, So we started as this like original band, doing showcases and working day jobs. And at some point we just got tired of working at a job, so we started learning cover songs and playing beach bars and happy hours. And we did that for a couple of years. It was cool. And one day I had just that day, we lived in this little shock on the beach, which is pretty fun, and we played for the tourists and and I had decided, like we gotta get out. We had visited Nashville a few times, um, and we didn't know if we were a rock band or a country just we just knew that this was a music town. And I had just decided, like, we're gonna move to Nashville. I'm done with this. And like that night Brett came home and he goes, dude, if you heard that song I Can't make you Love being a Bonnie radio? Yeah, of course, And he said, I've heard that song on the way home and maybe pull off the road and and just sit and listen to the whole thing. And I'm just we we need to move to Nashville. Expecting me to say, oh, let's see, And I said, yeah, I'm ready to go. Let's go tomorrow. So we didn't go tomorrow, but we went like a month later, maybe two months later. We got in and our we shared a Toyota Corolla. I don't know, some girl gave it to him. Long story, Um, a girl gave you a car. Christian rock pays off. Girls gave the cars. Crazy. Yeah, just and I could speak in tongues really good. I didn't mean that the way it came out, but you guys all took a but literally what happened was we came here and we didn't even know what we do for a living now exist. What was your expectation that when you tell him let's move to Nashville, what do you think he would say? And what did you want from him? I was just I was just passionate about it. I was so you did really want to go? I was really wanting to go. I was probably gonna go no matter what. But I knew he would do. You know, we could kind of tell we were We're frustrated in the idea that there was a low feeling, like you said, we've got to get out of here. That was that was kind of like understood. But we were we were so sheltered as kids that those two or three years that our mid twenties playing covers for a living, it was something we needed to grow up. We were paying our rent and figure out how to play music entertain crowds, and we needed that. We're just kind of late bloomers and uh, but we were coming here to be stars. We were gonna here to be Keith Irvin, you know. So we knew one guy here. He was a host at Bennegan's, this guy named Johnny V. And he introduced the first personally. So we rented an apartment, the one bedroom we shared one bedroom apartment, and we went to see our buddy that worked at Bennigan's as a host, was the only person we knew in in Nashville, and he introduced us to his friend that was also a host of Bennigan's, Shane mcinneally. Wow, literally, and he was just like, I mean, he was further behind that we were in the music business. He had Shane was probably how old was probably and yeah, I'm a songwriter too, are like cool? I mean, he was like, I had no idea he would become the one guy from Florida that had made a connection here with a guy named Buzz Cason who has a studio right next to Black But we didn't know forever and Buzz introduced us to a new songwriter in town that we started writing some songs, was named Tom Douglas. We had no idea that we were gonna start getting mentored and start writing songs with that guy that caliber. Have you seen his documentary? Oh? Yeah, isn't it? It's the greatest I've watched, even if I didn't know Tom and didn't know his work, and the house that built me for everybody listening would probably be the song that most people associate with him. The documentary is so good. Every watch. It's not even a Documentary's kind of like a monologue. Yeah, it's like a moving monologue, like a moving docu log I don't moving, But he said that's exactly what it is. He was like, would you like to watch this? This is a year and a half ago, maybe because we don't know what to do with it. And I watched it, and I was so moved by it that I was as honest, like he said, I don't know what to do with it either, but I do know what it did to me, and and I actually felt all and I just kind of listed the things that I felt. And is it even out? Can you get Yeah? It's on Paramount Plus. Okay, well then let me do a little plug here. I should probably get Tom back on. Then it's called Love Tom Tom. It's on Paramount Plus, and um, Jason Owen kind of helped him move it there, and he just moved from one stage and one song. And every songwriter should have to watch that. He's telling the story of his life and wraps in the songs that he's written and kind of the psychology of songs and life. And I don't even think it'd be a songwriter to enjoy it, don't. Yeah, my kids don't really, they're not paying much attention. And my son when came out, he's seventeen. I was like he was fifteen. We sat down and said watch this with me, and he got done. He goes, I get it. I love it. It's awesome. And you met Tom when you get first out here close to which is crazy because everyone was like, you guys don't even seem like you would know. Tom Douglass he still like you. Yeah, Yeah, we're great. We're great friends. A matter of fact, we were. We were we think we were budding alcoholic drug addicts when we met Tom, and he somehow dealt with us, and then we became sober. We really became close. And he's like, gosh, I was still worried about you guys for so long, but we Yeah, we loved each other right away. We were really different. Did you guys struggle together with alcoholism or addiction or almost Yeah? And I said that from somebody that my mom died of addiction. Yeah, and I talked about it pretty freely and openly. So so the way, yeah, I want to get to that too. That you you don't drink, right, that's amazing, because um, I think that you probably need a reason. But it's imagine what you could accomplish in life if you just eliminated that time sucking, energy sucking thing of alcohol and drugs. Even even people that don't have a problem, it's a lot of time spent doing that. I mean, you're kind of living proof. But I've always been kind of amazed with someone who could see that as a potential problem, especially someone who had a parent or a sibling to struggle with it, and the tendency is for that person to just delve in and do it the same thing anyway. And I loved, I always loved the story that you just didn't do it because you saw that. I mean, you think that helps your career. I first let me say for me, I don't really. I'm sure we all have similar views. We've all experienced different versions of it right through different parts of our family, and so for me, I've been just scared of it. I wish I could drink. I wish I don't have the ability to relax ever, and I have to go through I got to a therapist, and I have some like severe PTSD stuff from being attacked and jumped. Had nothing to do with it, but I can't ever just go ever, So when I see my friends be able to have a beer or two have a drink, I'm very jealous. I envied the the ability to have something that would make you just go okay, there's a slightly lesson the only thing I've ever had that made me feel like, oh, this is awesome, and I wish I could have it all the time. It's laughing gas like, so I had a lot of sugar on purpose. Alright, alright, talcing back hit me. But I am I always knew though, And it's not the same with other parts of my family. Not everybody made the same decision I did. And I look back now and I'm like, how how did I even no? Because there was a lot of trouble and I had to raise myself in many ways, But I don't know how I was able to go I'm never gonna do it, and I never did it, and I am shocked by that. Let me put your mind at ease. Well, I don't know. Everyone have a different opinion on this. I think it's a gift. Sobriety is a gift because the crutch that we used to relax does work for about twenty minutes, maybe an hour if you don't have a problem, but it doesn't really work in the long run. Anything that gave me what I would call relief wound up with bad behavior and a terrible hangover and something that I regretted. And you don't have to wake up in the morning and wonder who you texted or what you said, and if you make a mistake, you can kind of own it because it was you. And that's the worst part. I don't want to for people that don't have a problem, that don't have the addiction, they can't have a beer or a glass of wine, and it does sort of jealous. But for guys like us that we have the disease, I mean, alcohol really wasn't our problem, it was our solution. We were the same way. I didn't really realize that growing up, but I was insecure and I wanted people to like me, and I felt uncomfortable and socially awkward. And then when I would drink a couple of drinks, I just didn't care. And I was the wild guy and the funny guy. So if four drinks were good, twelve were amazing. And it just with everything. It's really that way. You guys have addictive personalities and more, yeah, or drug of choices more, but caffeine. I overdo caffeine to this day. I think I work a lot, and it's in keep your mind busy. I absolutely and I understand why someone like we talked about him earlier, Tom Tom McGraw, where he would work out all the time. Because if you have an addictive personality, and I do, God, I do with everything I do. I decided earlier to to like fill that hunger with hopeful, hopefully positive things. I'm gonna be addicted to something, Okay, I got it, But what I'm gonna be addicted to are things that are going to be the healthiest option for me. Not always healthy. It's not healthy. How much I work, it's not healthy. How much I'm obsessed with it doesn't matter what it is for this three months or year, or it's not healthy. But I think it's healthier than where I want to go. If you deal with your anxiousness and your anxieties by overworking, it's not necessarily perfect, but it's a lot better than if you dealt with them without. Because people ask me what you missed about not drinking, and I say, the first thirty minutes, you don't drink it all anymore. No, seventeen years, it's neither one of us correct. We started together, we used together, we quit together. Why did you quit at the bottom? Whenever people alway asked, did you get a du y? None of that, just we were done. I wanted to quit and my wife was about to leave. She didn't. She stopped crying. She sat me down lovingly and said, hey, you know what, I really care about you and worried about you. I'm gonna move home to Detroit. I had two little kids at the time, and I was like, Wow, this is really happening. And it kind of was this clarity moment and then it was still about a year and a half till I fully quit it. But I really tried on my own. I'm only gonna drink on the weekends. I'm only gonna drink wine. I'm not gonna take pills. I mean, fill in the blank. I was trying to do it myself and we kind of were out and L's be honest, you didn't get a duy because we lived on a bus. Because I'm not playing like patting myself on the back. But there wasn't like a big incident like that that it was just cocaine and it was that's no good. It's really fun right up until it stops. It looks a lot, and I'm being honest, it looks like great fun, Like it looks like the greatest fun ever. And I don't even say that joking. Late's I all my friends they have, they went to college, they have all these stories in college of parties and oh what look what we did. You know what I did? I went to work and yes it's great now it is great, but you know there is There's My point is I'm not I don't celebrate the fact that I never had a drink. I look at my trophy. I go. It's hard, and I wish that I could not. But I know where I have deficiencies. I think we all have them in different areas of our life. It's just I also don't keep sugar in the house because I know I eat it all right then, right then, and there, all of it. I'll eat a whole cake, so I can still do that. I'm as healthy as my grocery store trip. That if you have kale and almonds and blueberries a lot right now. And I intermittent fast My kids are tired of hearing. They want to hear it anymore. But I can deny myself much better than I can moderate myself. Same and the same reasons, because once I start, I literally eat for eight hours straight. It's almost like I am addicted to intermittent fasting. Once I start, or whatever it is, yeah, it's like I'm gonna I'm gonna be there. I want to be the best at everything too, so I know that if I drank, I'll be the number one drinker. I want to be the number one intermittent, faster. I want to be So you know what you said that resonated with me was your wife stopped crying, Because that's a that's a stage in it for whomever you're with. Even with my mom, it got to the point where I wasn't upset anymore and I was just like, Okay, well I've exhausted that part and it's not going to get better because of the exhaustion and the emotion. So now we're at this stage. And you know, there were times checking her in and out of places that were very difficult before she died, and but that is a stage. That was a stage that I had. But you know, her brother died also. The same reason my dad left was when you're from a small town in a rural area where there aren't a lot of options, Like I understand the opioid epidemic in the way of I get it. I hate it, it sucks, but I get it. When you have no options, hopelessness and isolation. I would do if I if I were hopeless and isolated and sad and here's something that can make me not be for a bit, I would. So it's a fun definitely. Well, I want to know what age you were when you just said, like, I don't remember it, always knew it, just just do it, I would see, am I real doubt left? Right? So I never he left five or six? I vaguely remember then. How old were you when you gave up with you? I mean, like, I don't mean gave up, but you know what I mean when you said, Okay, I can't not the emotion is not gonna fix this for which part? Like when you stopped getting stressed about her going to rehab or or over. Never I never got stressed about her. I just always had this romantic version in my head of her because I knew and you, guys, maybe you can disagreet you like I knew. For her to get better, she had to get to a place where she wanted to do it holy herself. For a long time, I felt like I can want it so bad for her and if she kinds of kind of wants it. And then I started to make money. I was like, great, I'll wire some land, bought some land, then bought her a place to live. But I was actually doing what I shouldn't be doing, and I was aiding her. Yeah, and so as I'm enabling her, it's tough. People don't know. They don't know, so then it's okay. Well, but I'm doing all this stuff I thought could help, but actually enabled her to have more time and more resources to do that. And so she I don't think she ever really wanted it. I don't think she knew. But again, she had me. She got pregnant fifteen. You know, she never didn't know poverty. So I have a sister, yeah, younger, younger, four years younger, and I had to do a lot of that raising myself. Um, she's closer. My sister had some struggles. She lived here, No, she lives in Arkansas, where I'm from. So but she never really my mom. I at one point, I don't make this about me, but I just find it so fascinating that you guys will openly talk about it because I know you guys have gone through parallels or and I'll end on my part of this story with this. I had been jumped at work and had a gun held in my head. I's had a radio event and death threat that. A lot of stuff happened, and I've been to the doctor. I don't like to take medicine even because I'm so scared to be addicted to stuff, but there are times where I have to take medicine because I'm also you know, I'm not hippie. So I went to the doctor and we started really light and tried all these things because I wasn't sleeping. I'd i'd go maybe get an hour sleep every two nights because I closed my eyes and I was getting attacked constantly my dreams or my sleep, and so we tried all this stuff. Finally he said, hey, why don't we try this sleeping pill. We tried everything because I'm scared to get addicted. Because great, then let's not you cannot sleep. We go through all the process, took sleeping pills, got to the point on them where I was dependent. I'm not gonna say addictive, but I was definitely dependent. And there's a there's a difference. There's a difference. Yeah, And I stopped and I went through some crazy withdrawal from the sleeping pills, and I vomited for a few days, Blurry felt terrible, and I remember thinking to myself, if this is withdrawal from sleeping pills, if I'm my mom, I would never stop taking meth and how violent and that going on. I feel so ukey to have gone through that because it gave me an understanding of the monster that she was constantly fighting, that that addicted, not just the addiction part, but okay, if she wanted to quit, and then she went through something that was I don't even understand, and for me it was awful. Am I was sleeping pills. It wasn't even like the hard stuff that she had got addicted to, and so that was I'm very grateful for that sleeping pill instance an issue, just for that understanding. It's like my wife, we we I mean, that's a different story, but we might her or may not get to him like we My son had. My oldest son had this this issue and we lost him. But my wife would take it personally and I was like, you don't, because I'm an addict. I completely understood, I've been through. Everything is not personal. He's not doing this to misbehave. It is literally it's more of a miracle. The moment in time that passes where he doesn't do this. It's way more of a miracle that I don't drink today than than crazy that I did. I am programmed to do that. I was the best at drinking. Maybe he was the best, but when we were first and second place often, UM, and it that is the I mean your program that way and having experienced it, which is why we're able to help a lot of people, um and recover. We do it because if you if you don't understand it, I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, I know, I know that, I recognize that. And then people can tell you the worst things about them and you're like, yeah, I get it, and they kind of are almost taken aback by the fact that you're not jumping on them or gasping and whatever it might be. And UM that that is the gift and the transfer of it on. But if you haven't had that experience what you had, it's hard to understand you. It's like, that's why would you do that? I understand. Empathy is such a tool and you only get it through struggle, and nobody wants to struggle. So it's something that old saying good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment. It's like kind of like that, but are usage of alcohol and drugs. It seems like this, oh yeah, we had to quit. We party too hard. Literally, there's two I've found and being Brad talking about all the time, there's two ways to look at recovery. It's either like like this punishment where you get locked in a cage, or it's a gift. And the gift side of it is because of the kind of strange way we grew up. It kind of developed a real relationship with God with us and everything that was bad. We kind of lost our record We didn't know songwriting existed. We moved here to be big stars, and we sort of wasted the way that decade and drank away our major opportunities. Um And I was like, well, what, okay, I've quit drinking, I'm sober now, but what good is going to come out of this? Did you find God going to use that great unviolated to my next thing? Right? So you lose your you lost the deal. Nine eleven happens we get kicked off our tour, because it's not kicked off for doing something wrong, but the tour ends. We lost our record deal, lost our publishing deal, and then our dad died two days before Christmas two thousand one, and are having fun. We're a party where the rock and roll country guys led to serious medicating and it went downhill from there. And so what is four we got? That was one four years, four years of total deck, four years of just interestingly when we when we got silber, when it's time, I'm like, oh my god, I'm never gonna be able to be creative again. When I was going, here's the ironing and that no one's gonna like us, we found out no one liked us. Okay, so worrying about the creative process, I am not drinking any where. I'm never gonna be able to be creative again. This is it's over. We had zero hits. We had a record deal, but we we had written a bunch of songs that were not hits. We had no hits, and I was protecting something that didn't even exist, which was a successful songwriting career. Oh my god, I mean, I can't quit drinking or I'm not gonna be able to write. And the year we quit writing, we had two hits. We had never had a hit. We we and actually became songwriters because there was a little humility and becoming the service guy that helped other artists get where they wanted to go. And we realized that our talent wasn't helping someone get where they wanted to go instead of being the artist, and we started writing and trying to help other people, and immediately we had hits and we've had a great career since that moment. But I was so afraid that we were gonna lose this edge of creativity we had, and I had no success before. That's how insane it is. Was there a clarity that was surprising once you started to create non medicated? Oh yeah, I mean there's that the pink cloud if you just a feel better. I remember driving home going over got nothing on me drinking. I wanted to to pull me. I was like, pull me over, dude, so fast for like a year. So it's like you just have this freedom and then you know, just going going to the meetings and staying clear in your mind just gets clear with every day and you have it comes from a place of humility and total honesty. That exhale you were talking about earlier. You know, it's hard for me to get that too, But I find it in moments like these, or when we're just sitting with other people and we're just being completely honest and no one's worried about what you're gonna say, you're gonna judge you, or you made a joke that went too far. It's just like this moment when everybody's just sort of being compassionate, empathetic and honest, and you can kind of those are the moments try go. You know what those sobriety is is. I'm want to say better sobriety is easier for us than it is for you in a way because we've been through a lot of that hell that your mom went through. The little issue you have with sleeping pills, we had that for ten years, and yes there was fun involved, but towards the end it was total medication, total fun. So it's really easier for us because we experienced so much hell emotionally, spiritually, physically, just feeling horrible the whole time. Makes it every day that I wake up and I don't have to wonder what I did. I've never in seventeen years woken up and saying, man, I wish I got hammered last night. It's never happened. So if I can delay the gratification until the next morning, it's it's actually really a gift because it was so bad. What were the two songs that you said, the Lucky One, the Lucky Anyway and anyway from our talk bride, So did you write them near each other, because they came out a couple of years apart. We we really remember the Lucky One got cut, Okay, the Lucky One we wrote before I'm sorry. So the two we had at the same time we're anyway and if you're reading this and they were up at the same time. The Lucky One we had written earlier. We actually wrote that before we got sober, so it became a hit after we got sober. But we wrote anyway, and if you're reading this, like the first year we got silver, Now, they didn't become hits immediately, but that was our first year of sobriety is writing And to be honest, we we play a corporate nights Songwriter City all the time, um and and at five minutes set and we've written a lot of songs, thousands, and had a lot of hits, and we still to this day will play if you're reading this in anyway, and that set because they were that so that first year of sobriety produced something that we still make a living off of. I saw Tim do if you're reading this, when he put out the book a year and a half orso ago. They did the theater tour and he performed that. And to hear that song acoustic and in person, it's a gut I mean it's it's a gut punch. And I've heard the song because it came out so like that's when I remember it. But to hear it again in person acoustic, every word right, because for me, I love slow acoustic, even sad songs. I can hear the words. There's not a piece of fat. It's it's so strong. We've had some cool just going out in the road to write with him. He'll let us come up on stage and play with him and we'll play that song and we've had, you know, right after we wrote it. It was kind of a hit for him. While we're playing it, ladies come up and set their husband's dog tags on the stage. I mean, me and Brad are sobbing while we're playing. We've got to play Walter Reid. It's every night. But we've we do these corporate shows, and corporations just hires it. It's the greatest job ever because they're there and they're listening and we play that particular song and usually it's just it's like the song of the night. It is. It's just a I don't know why, it's just Dirk Smitley told us we came about it, well, that's the best song I never want to hear. Yes, you're right, it's like a movie. You don't want to hear it every day, said, and you got it and you felt it, but you're like, Okay, I'm good. I don't need to go back and watch that one. I'm not watching the Notebook. I mean, not that I've ever seen it. Yeah, of course or read the book. I did. But so Highway Don't Care speaking of Tim transitions me there whenever you guys write that. But then that turns into a whole event, And I don't know if that was the assumption that Highway don't care. It's Tim and Taylor and Keith Urban on it and like that that's song kind of graduating to that level you write it. Is it just a song for one person? Was it for Tim and how did it slowly grow? We wrote it as a duet actually, and we were thinking Tim and Faith. Um. Yeah, but we wrote it as a duet. It's funny. We wrote with Josh Kire and on the work tape he did the girls part because he could sing really high. It was funny. But we did write it as a duet. And when Tim said he was gonna get Taylor's to do it, we had written with Taylor when she was younger, and oh, that's great. Then it took a while because she has a lot of you timing issues and she didn't want it to come out too early when getting the way of something she was doing, and we're kind of like, damn, just just do somebody else. Just doing somebody else. Be goes. We wanted to get it out there, and then when finally with Taylor sang out, we're like, oh God, thank you. I mean, it's it's never uncol to hear one of your songs recorded by anybody. But I remember when we always tell the story live, when we do our little thing, it's like Tim said him cut another one of your songs. Were like great. I went home and told my wife and she's like, oh, congratulations. You know. And then I told her Keith Urban's on it. Wow, he's hot. And I was like, I don't think it's going to be a single to radio. Well cool, then we'll get paid. And then I said, and I think it's a duet with Taylor Swift. And my wife looks up and she goes, we are painting the house like it is one of those that's that's a massive song with three huge legendary people on it was those don't come around for a moment there were It was pretty cool looking at you guys, this just collection of songs and going through the catalog. Uh we mentioned Red sol look up earlier and when it comes to Toby weird that wasn't a number one. And it also shows you that not all number one's last and not all songs and need to be number one to also last forever and be defining songs. Because when I think of Toby Key, I think of a couple of different American songs and Red Solo cup like that's a because his personality, right, his personality lends to he's funny and that's his funniest song. Did you that he didn't write to the b M. I I avoid everything. We don't go to the c M as. Everybody said you go c as. We like, if we're ever nominated for something, we might go. My friend Jake was there and he said that Toby Toby thing was really special. It was really special. But Toby's an amazing songwriter and I think has written every one of his own songs except two or three, and that has to be one of them. So they're honoring him at b AM, I Frey songwriter and there's red solo cups on every table and they had the whole thing were red sol cup blows up in the video and I'm like, this is funny, me and be and Jim Beavers and Brett here. I was like, yeah, just joking around like this whole nights about that stupid song. It is something. I don't know why it's that big. It's funny. But the number ones you mentioned, because anyway that we still play wasn't a number one, and if you're reading this was not a number one. L Red's old cups and three of our and we have we have some number one songs that we never played live or I think people have forgotten. They just kind of go by. That song was also a cultural song, meaning we had we knew, we knew the cups, but no one had really identified that that was a part of what people And I'll just say because we're I'm from what people in the South used when going on when they just hung out and did stuff with other people. That was it. When song's going on, there's red cup and on that the track you hear, I hear Jim even make a noise and are you guys it's the four of us around one mic Jim's brother Brett. Yes, the four of us. So Jim and Brett Beavers bred Brett Warren where we did a demo session and uh, we didn't record that song. And so the engineer, Luke Lutin, we know him big for this. Uh, he said, hey, do the cup song. We're like, now, we're not doing We had already broken the drums at everything down. He said, do the cup song and we said, we're not doing that. It was just a joke. It was just funny. It'll be for us and he's, no, I want you to do it because I want to play it for my wife. And we said, well, we've already broken on the drums down and the amps are packed away and he said, here, here's a mic in the little room. You four sit around and just do it. So Jim Beavers saying it all the funny stuff, and we recorded it and anyway, so we wound up getting Toby Keith, our friend Butter played it for Toby Heath and he said, I just want the music to that without the vocals on it, because that's exactly what the record is gonna be. And we're like, we don't, we don't have a version, didn't record it, and tracks, we didn't do it. So he said, all right, we'll put that in your ears and then go back and do all the crazy ship that you didn't that you did same, just don't sing it and just leave the you know, just leave out the lead vocal. And so literally our chairs are squeaking. Jim Beevers is making funny noises. Bread schooling here. It's some part of it. I was trying to imitate Axl Rose and you're here, and I was doing, like hear me, clearing my throat as the as it counts off. Brett Beavers is playing a band show and he that's the record. It's amazing. That's sloppy. One take or on the mic is the record. Don't make a lot of money off that one. No, there's only a No. Or eight and you don't really get anything extra for it being a cultural act. I wasn't used in places and did they. We've had quite a few songs that have made more money than that. Now, when we get hired and and people call us to do a corporate show, they call the company's songwriter city that hires us. Usually that company wants to hear that song. Ye, that's the one that sticks out, And I mean we'll play big hits and Grammy nominated songs and song of the Year nomination from the c M as people, Oh it's great, thank you very much. And then when you play that, everybody's up, every phone's out. It's crazy. So that's how it's translating into it's actually we've been more funny playing that song called performance. But that's just also a gift to what's good, grief good okay. So I UM it's a podcast. I started um SO two and a half years ago. My oldest son UH died from a fentanyl overdose. UM. He struggled with with drugs and alcohol. UM He had been sober for about a year and then COVID happened and he just you know, it just kind of fell off and he had a couple of weeks where he was out and he took some drugs of fetting on them and um, and he died. So there's a new journey, UM, and I have. I started meeting with other men that had had I had a couple of friends that had lost children. And I realized that because I'm in recovery, I had people to talk to, Like I had a circle of friends where you you know, men don't just sit around and get raw and honest with each other that often that's just something that women do. And we were raising a culture and and you know, you just don't talk about your feelings. And UM, I realized that these men that I knew didn't have, that weren't in recovery, didn't have anyone. Some of these guys four years, five years their child had been gone and they had never talked about it. And like, well, that's ridiculous. We should change that. So I started a meeting at my house, um, with dad's that lost kids. And so there's you know, UM, some people that you would probably like Casey Bethard and and Jeffrey Steel and some people that. UM. But there's just a group of guys and we just start a dialogue and just talk about the loss and really honest about things. And it's amazing. It's never in my life except for that hour once a month or that two hours am I in a room full of people where everyone knows exactly how I feel. UM. And that conversation kind of spurred something in me. Um. I wasn't really actually thinking if I ran into a guy. We were in Austin playing a corporate a charity event and Uh, this guy, Matt Piveto that produces Jack Ingram's podcast, UM saw me and catering. He said, hey, I want to talk to you. Um. I've been waiting to meet you for like a year. But he said, I saw something that you wrote on Facebook about your son, and I think you should do it. And he said, I I produced podcasts only. I think you should do a podcast on grief. I'm glad it's that's a nice idea. I'm definitely not doing. That doesn't sound like any fun at all. And we exchanged numbers and we talked about it a few times, and it's kind of good. That sounds like, it's a lot of work and it sounds like a really emotional thing. I'm just definitely not doing that. In one morning, my wife said, you're doing this, and um, and I knew I was supposed to. And so we have started doing it and it's actually been a really powerful thing. Um. It's something that's missing because I think people that are really ingrained in church and whatever that may look like maybe have somewhere to go with this. But this show is kind of for people that maybe are a little bit outside the traditional religious thing. They still believe in God, they believe their child is in heaven or whatever it is. But we talked about it raw honestly. There's there's profanity and Jesus and whatever, and it's just a really honest, um conversation with somebody who's experienced grief and uh, you know, because you have experienced it. Um, And I feel like everyone if they live long I mean, if you live long enough, you're gonna experience loss and grief, and UM, we just kind of started a conversation. First episodes came out two weeks ago, and it's just the response has been more than we thought it would. My friend Lisa over here is one of the producers on it, and it's just been it's really emotional and but it's been really powerful. Just it's just a conversation about loss and grief and there's humor and thus far there's a lot of music people in it. But um, it's not like we sit around and cry the whole time. It's funny and we it's humor, but it's actually things that you don't I don't know, I've never heard people talking about, at least in the way that we're talking about it. And um, we'll see it's this tomorrow a new episode will come out, but it's really early. But the response has been a lot more than I have no social media presence done anything, and somehow people are finding it and listening and calling and wanting to be on it. And that's really cool. Blessing, Good Grief, Good God show dot com or you just search for it. We'll put it up in the notes too, Mike, so you guys can see it over there. So we've already done an hour. I mean I could do another hour easily, So I have a couple more things to say, but before I have to go, my trainer is here. Okay, we can't get it. You know, we're addicted to working out. Well, we do an hour and now and usually honestly about pick two minutes in for everybody. I'm like, all right, let's move. But I could do another hour easily because I feel like we could have any rests. So how about this in six months, let's just do it again. Little you're back. I don't ever do that with you. I don't just like people that much. But six months, let's do it again. If you're back in town, great, But something that I still live here. By the way, I just killed that said. If you're back in town, you've got not big time now, Mr Florida over on the beach guy. So when I'm first moved to town, and I was living in Austin, Texas, and I had kind of built my own little syndication deal in Texas, and I was on you know one and two the twenty five pop stations, and I was bringing in you know, pop artists, but also would have Dirks and Willie Nelson and Eli Young band, and I was getting a lot of heat for being too country to be pop, which is ironic because now I get heat for being too pop to be country. Everybody. So my contract is up and they say, what do you want to do? And they said, we're gonna move me to New York or l A for Ryan or for Elvis Duran and they both resigned deals. And I was like, I don't know. I said, well, there's never been a nationally syndicated country morning show, and they said, okay, so we do this whole thing. And so I come here and meet with the company and I'm still a little like, I don't know, but they're really trying to convince me. I knew I wanted to do it, but I had to leave everything that I built and sent my own money on, like I built it all. And I was like, but if the minute I leave this, it's gone forever. I can't in a year ago back and go I'd like to have that. Yeah, I'd like to have all that, right, right. And so we come and I go, okay, boom. Well I find out they're like, hey, look there are these two guys. And the head executive of our company was like we the one person was like, we don't want you here. We want the warm Brothers to do the show. I didn't know if that information ever got to you, but we were going to bring that up. Oh yeah, I know, I know it. Immediately they asked us to do it, and we did a couple of Thursday nights on races. I'm sure there are two versions of the story too. And and he told me straight up because I don't it was the head in the format, but he wasn't the big national boss, and he was like, I don't think this is right for you. I've already got the Warm Brothers picked out to do this show in Nashville. And I'm like, who the Warm Brothers. Oh, those those Christian death metal guys and big Christen death metal life metal. So I was like, listen, I don't know what you only want me to say, and he goes, well, I just know it's gonna be tough here. And you're also not my first pick to do this. I don't think I was just pick at all to do it. It's just fine. And so I was a little weirded out by that. But then again the did not like I didn't know who you were. And let me just say for the record, we would never have been even a smidget as successful as you have. You don't know you might have been in Nashville nationally, it would have been all inside humor, good self awareness, being a radio for four hours until King takes a lot of work and we were like, anyway, yeah, we can't do it. It's five hours piscounting anyway exactly exactly. I remember just going, well, that's weird. I guess they're good. I don't. I didn't know you were even a songwriter. I thought you were just too like comedy Brothers at first. I've never done radio, by the way, and so I came here and I was like, yeah, I'll do it, let's do it, and a couple of times during it because it didn't go well for me for a long for two years here, it was very difficult. It felt like it was immediately a huge hit. But and you, I felt like, you guys just wrote a bunch of songs. Don't nowhere right? And so what I remember is being told through the grape vine like, hey, he's really looking to get the warm Brothers in here if you go backward at all, And all I was doing was going backwards the whole time, because it was he was rattling a saber that didn't exist. And I just always had this feel like these two dudes are like plotting against me the whole time. I always felt it the whole time. Well, then the show took off a little bit, and then I really and that dude was relieved, and I brought in my guy who now runs the format, but I'm also his guy. And then I then got later into it and understood that he found quit finger quotes found you for whatever job that was. If he did or not, I don't know. So that's why I was so important to him, and he didn't quote find me like you were his guys anyway. I hate I hated you, all right, that's I mean, I really loved that because I never even know if that information got to you. And we didn't really we did a few weekend nights or week nights. We never really took it that seriously because I said, Brett, we're funny for about five minutes. There's four hours. So we would do an hour on Thursday night and I would be I mean like we would prep a bunch of stuff, like maybe thirty minutes worth of stuff and it would be gone in seven minutes. Oh so no, we we knew, and we did a few nights were like, no, we can't. We are not equipped to do this. I'm not sure we'd get up this early. And the way we already kind of had a job that was working like he was going well, he was like, oh, you could do it. At the same time, we're like nah. I remember he asked, he goes, how much money do you want? We had never done it. We asked for like a half million dollars a piece and like eight weeks paid vacation. I mean, we were not on the list you have done with this. We would never I mean, I'm not being humble. I'm telling you we would have never done even a fraction of it because our humor is kind of Nashville base, so it would have been funny here, like Jerry House was our hero, and we had never done radio. We had realized that the bits that you do have to lengthen out and the funny little clips only last for a second. Oh no, they whoever didn't hire us, made the best move ever for everyone. I mean, ever score information got to you. I think that's terble. Yeah, I know immediately. That's why I held some of our songs hostage and they weren't number one for that. But that being said, I haven't I mean, I haven't really thought about that in years, and I've just been a big fans of you. Get a big fan of you guys, mostly because people I'm a fan of and no and like personally have an affinity for have an affinity for you guys because we hadn't spent time together. But that's how you know if a show, it's like somebody with sensibilities like yours loves a certain show and it's like this is it just it's good nine. So some of my dearest friends Lee miller Um just several of our first like you don't know, Bobby Bones, you guys may be the best of You don't know. You've never said I don't think we've ever said high in passing with Tim, but we've never really talked. I had no ideas, but because we definitely almost didn't get this show, the fact that they were dangling us over your head is the funniest thing. That was a rotten over a couple of years, like it was on and on. But I do I just youna have to bleep out Michael Brian's name when I say it. Michael Brian and I are stale friends so great. We love him because he actually had faith that we I'm like, I really think we can do this weekend. But Brian was at the Dangler though, he was really okay, wow, I can tell you out because we never talked to anyone else. But I love that he had the confidence. I'm like, I think you're crazy that you think we can do this. I think we could be funny on someone else's show, but I'm not sure this isn't we could be funny for two minutes between songs on stage. Five hours and doing a show. It takes. And when I listened to your travel, when you say, oh, I'm going every weekend, I'm going here and doing that, I'm like, Okay, you got up at three o'clock and more than five days straight and you're gonna fly out of town as soon as you get off work and come back the next day. I think I'm too old for that. I'm serious, I am. Yeah, happen for a long time. Yeah, I've always Yes, that sucks, but it's lovely and I wouldn't get to meet guys like you if it weren't for it to bed at night. There's not an answer. I mean, if I'm on the road or shoot a TV show, or we're living in a foreign country, which we had to do for a month and a half. I do in the radio. It's it's tough. But my final point is I've you know, a lot of people that I'm close to and value friendships with and have again just a massive affinity for and they have the same thing towards you. So I've always like I felt extremely pure about you guys, and have big fans of who you are without meeting you, and obviously a big fan of your work. So well, thank you for having us this same and thanks for having us in six months. Six months, I'm in because I got so I got so much more and even more. Even though we were the rotten carrot that got dangled, you still had a song only took you ten years, so big that he could smash it. Now I'll wait, it will crash. Probably should have talked the first week. We could have made your life so much cheesy. You guys, check out a good Grief, Good God show and go to at the Warren Brothers and we'll see you guys soon. Everybody, Thanks Bobby, appreciate h m hm