Favorite 10 BobbyCast Moments of 2023! (Part 1)

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Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, we are experiencing technical difficulties.

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Speaker 2: This is the Bobby Cast.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to the best Moments in the Bobby Cast twenty twenty three, where if you missed the full episode, you gotta go listen. They were my favorite moments, and if you're like me, you don't listen to every single episode of a podcast sometimes because life gets in the way. But this is a reminder and it's the first half of my favorite ones from twenty twenty three.

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Speaker 4: Now, I sat down with.

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Speaker 3: A lot of awesome people, so it was kind of hard to narrow it down, but these were either my favorites or your favorites as in the most downloaded streamed episodes, or just the ones that came out going.

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Speaker 4: Man, that person is super cool.

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Speaker 3: And since they are the best moments, again, go check out the full hour long episodes.

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Speaker 4: If you're interested.

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Speaker 3: So let's kick it off with one of the coolest interview moments that I had this year was Adam Durretz from The Counting Crows, so like, that's the guy like for me musically it's my favorite band, the Counting Crows.

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Speaker 4: Never'd spend any time with them, and getting to sit.

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Speaker 3: With Adam durrett was really cool for me personally because I just listened to County Crows music so much favorite ever, and I got to ask a bunch of questions I'd always wanted to ask, like how Saturday Night Live launched the band's fame to you know, get mobbed before there was social media where people are like, that's the guy from the County Crows. So a really cool one for me, maybe maybe maybe my top favorite. But here we go, Adam Durretz from episode four hundred here at number ten.

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Speaker 4: So you mentioned Marty Jones. That's mister Jones.

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Speaker 3: You guys kind of imagining what fame is like or what celebrity is like.

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Speaker 4: How long did you write that song before that actually happened?

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Speaker 5: Oh while, I mean, I'm mister Jones is from sort of the middle version of Counting Crows. It's probably about nineteen ninety ninety one, something like that.

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Speaker 3: And so did you guys write it like, man, this to be awesome or this is gonna happen.

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Speaker 4: We really can see this happening to us.

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Speaker 5: Oh, I mean, Marty's dad, David Serva, is one of the few Americans he had left America and gone to move to Madrid, and he's one of the few American guitar players to ever make it in this flamenco scene in Spain. He's a brilliant Flamenco guitar player and he had a huge career in Madrid, which is pretty rare. And he came back to America at one point for a visit and he played some shows with his old Flamenco troop in the city in the mission San Francisco. And so we went to see them one night, and then we all went out drinking afterwards and got pretty wasted, and we ended up in this one bar a New Amsterdam on Columbus Street, and you know, we were sitting at the bar and it's all these really beautiful Flamenco dancers and we're not really getting anywhere with them. And in the corner of the bar, I'm looking over and Chris Isaac's drummer, Kenny Dale Johnson's in the corner at this booth with like three girls sitting there with him, and I'm just thinking, man, you got to get a shit together, man, because like, if we were rock stars, it would be a lot easier to talk to women. Everything would be better. You know, it would be kind of great. I just thought that was kind of funny, the thought of it, because you know, you it's not just because the girls in a corner. You know, you dream about things like if you're gonna write songs. You dream about being able to do that with your life and support yourself. And you know, we're spending this evening with this Manco Troupe and David Serva, his dad is like a famous guitar player over in Spain, and Kenny's in the corner, and you know, it's just what we wanted to do with our lives, plus the girl thing. But it also occurred to me how silly that is. It's like, nothing like that solves all your problems in life. It just doesn't work that way. You know, it may be great for some things, it's not going to fix who you are. And I got home at and I was sort of thinking about, like how the whole thought process was so funny to me in it and I wrote the song.

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Speaker 4: Was it one of those that fell out?

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Speaker 6: Yeah? Pretty much? Really, I mean I don't know, you know, well.

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Speaker 3: Anything wrote it all that night, anything in front of in front of five hours.

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Speaker 4: It was almost like falling Out.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I think most of my songs back then were probably less than five hours. I get really determined to just sit there and do it until it's done.

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Speaker 3: Whenever I think about me in college and those really formative years for me listening to music, I probably listened to more than any other body of music the across the Live Wire, you Guys's live album. I mean, I could tell you now my favorite band, uh, Counting Crows. I can do every even spoken part of that. You know, some people have movies, some people, and for mine it's that and even at the end, I like to think Dog's eye view. You know, you're doing the whole the river. Its so but I listened to that so much that if you were to say, what's the music you listened to in those formative years that made you musically who you are today? If I ask you that question, what did you listen to so much at eighteen to twenty two or twenty three, You're like, yep, that's what reminds me of those years.

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Speaker 5: I listen to a lot of rim You two probably at the time still probably listening to a lot of Jackson five. That's my first record. I don't think I've really stopped listening to that Roxy music around then too, Jay Gile's band p Funk.

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Speaker 6: I don't know, it's hard to remember it right.

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Speaker 5: At that one time, I was thinking of you two and Rim because I specifically remember. There's a few things on my mind that are Needle Drop records, where I literally remember when you put the needle on the record and how it started. And I have very clear memories of like being that freshman year in college and listening to Chronic Town that first rim ep and War, putting the needle down and hearing Sunday Bloody Sunday, like I remember those two really vividly. And I remember going to the Roxy Music concert right around in that last tour.

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Speaker 4: Did you ever see Jackson five?

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Speaker 6: Yeah, that's my first concert too. Do you remember it?

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Speaker 7: Were?

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Speaker 5: You told a lot about it now vaguely? I was probably about six. Rodeo in Texas they played at it. I went one day and saw the Jackson five. My sister went the next day with my parents and saw Sonny and Chaer.

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Speaker 3: I would have Rodeo is still doing that too, by the way, same kind of deal where it's somebody different and awesome every single day.

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Speaker 6: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: I mean, I'd have been happy with either one of those, but the Jackson five that was. I have vague memories, but I'm sure they're really mixed in with TV clips of the Jackson five, you know, I'm sure it's not really a memory because it's a long time ago.

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Speaker 8: Now.

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Speaker 3: If you get famous, there's all the social media that comes at you, and I've had different smaller ish type events where it's just like wow. But when you blow up in the nineties and two thousands and fame is not able to get to you through those means. How does fame get to you if you're always on the road moving around.

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Speaker 4: Is it just crowds? Is it just people?

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Speaker 6: Well it you know, it's weird.

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Speaker 5: We've been on the road for a while before it happened, really and it had been building.

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Speaker 7: You know.

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Speaker 5: We played Saturday Night Live in January of ninety four and we weren't even in the top two hundred. I mean, mister Jones was kind of a hit on the radio, but it wasn't making any impact anywhere the record, Like I said, it was two fourteen or something. But we played Saturday Night Live and it jumped forty spots a week for five weeks and we ended up in the top I don't know, thirteen, then six, and then two for the next two years.

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Speaker 6: So but I didn't really see you know.

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Speaker 5: We were on the road on our own for a while at Christmas, and we seemed to be a kind of a hot indie band for a little bit, and then we went back to opening for Cracker, and then in April we went to Europe for our first European tour, and we were gone for the month of April, and we flew back from Europe and landed in New Orleans right before JazzFest. And I'd been going to jazz Fest for years, so I'd spent a lot of time in New Orleans as a fan. Yeah, I think, yeah, because we weren't before the band. Really, this was my first time at JazzFest after the first record was out, and I went to the festival. Well the first day after we got there and got mobbed. The things that had been building that spring and winter had happened. It had kind of all coalesced while we were in Europe, so I didn't realize it.

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Speaker 3: Were you surprised by the mobbing? Yeah, scared the crap out of me. It's just like when someone waves you and you wave back and you realize they're somebody behind you.

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Speaker 4: They're waving at yeah, something, they're running to them.

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Speaker 5: Somebody wanted to pick her and an autograph or something. And then the crowd just gathered and gathered and gathered and gathered and didn't stop. And then later that night we played Tippatinas and you know, fit's about eight hundred to one thousand people in Tipatinas and there were two thousand people outside on the neutral ground in the street. They kind of had to close off the street and we went outside after the show they had to open They opened like they had these wall doors that slide out, I think, and they opened them up so the crowd outside could hear too. We went outside to play a couple songs acoustically for them after the show, and there was just massive and uh, That's when I realized, like it happened while we were in Europe, and so whatever build up there was going to be, we missed it, and it just we just landed in this thing.

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Speaker 6: Isn't that crazy?

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Speaker 3: It was.

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Speaker 6: Really weird.

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Speaker 5: I mean that the next you know, a few months were very strange. I remember being on tour and being in Birmingham and having a day off and deciding there's like a movie theater about four blocks from the hotel. And I walked down and I was watching this movie. There's no one in the theater but me.

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Speaker 6: It was weird.

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Speaker 5: It's like an afternoon matinee or something. And this guy comes walking down the aisle and then walks up the row and sits next to me, and I was like, hey, old empty theater says right yeah, he said, hey, I'm a really big fan. I was like, thanks, man. He said, do you mind if I sit here. I'm like, look, I'm just trying to watch a movie. If you don't mind, I just I just want to watch a movie, you know. And he got up and left, and about forty five minutes later saw a guy coming down the aisland come down the road to me again and I was like, god, damn it. And but it wasn't the same guy. It was the guy that was working the concession stand out there, and he said, hey, are you in counting crows? And I said yeah, and he goes listen. I don't know what's going on, but there was some guy in here before and for the last half hour. He's been on the payphone in the lobby calling people, and there's a huge crowd outside. You know, if you want to get out of here, there's like a door at the bottom, like a alley exit. And I said, yeah, thanks man, and I snuck out the alley and walked down the street. And then I heard this noise behind me and turned around. There's this massive crowd of people out in the front of the theater and they all start running. I ran, like, I just ran down the street, got to the hotel like ahead of this crowd. It was just a little while after jazz Fest.

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Speaker 3: You didn't even have the infrastructure to be famous, because it all happened while you were gone. You didn't know you landed, it's here, and you didn't have security, didn't have anything to make sure you're even safe.

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Speaker 5: No, never really got any of that stuff either. We never really I had a lot of friends in bands who had security. We never really got security out with us or any of that stuff. It just seemed like you could sort of avoid It didn't seem to make sense to me. Walking around with some huge guy next to you. It seemed to invite more attention than anything else. I never really got into that. Even now at the over the Hill age. Now, I mean, I don't know, I never really did the security thing, but yeah, I mean I was just completely unprepared.

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Speaker 6: But there's the truth is everybody's unprepared.

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Speaker 5: There's no way to be prepared for that because it's just like everybody start It's not like you really do anything. Everybody else just starts acting really weird, and there's no way to prepare for that.

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Speaker 6: It's just like waking up on Mars.

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Speaker 5: You know, you could, you'll get used to the gravity after a while, but it takes a bit.

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Speaker 3: At number nine, it's Haley Winters from episode three eighty six. Now to a lot of you, Haley may be a brand new artist, but you know, her story is pretty legendary and as a ten year town she got here said exactly who she is, and the genre kind of came to her her. Now, she moved to Nashville from Iowa, and she talks about the grind, how.

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Speaker 6: She didn't give up.

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Speaker 3: She talked about getting her first publishing deal, which means you're getting paid to write songs, and how one of the songs she wrote got cut by another artist. But she was so broke, she had to sleep at the airport at the same time. It's Haley Witters again. I'm a big fan of her. She's at number nine here on our Best Bobby Cast Moments. The record that You paid for Yourself, which was The dream yep Right, Yeah, when you pay for a record yourself, how do you go about that?

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Speaker 4: Is it a lump sum? How many tracks?

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Speaker 3: Like? Walk me through those decisions, because sometimes there are hard decisions to make because you don't have enough money pay for all the tracks that you want to come right, So go back to that record and tell me how you made the decisions that you did.

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Speaker 4: Put that out.

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Speaker 9: That was like you know, some people go and they like cut a record in like a week. That was like a year and a half process for me. So it wasn't like, you know, I just had this giant sum of money and let's go blow it on a record. It was like I was waiting tables I had. I was still in my first publishing deal, which was with Carnival Music, so I was getting like, you know, my monthly songwriter thing.

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Speaker 4: But let me tell everybody listening, that ain't no luxury boats.

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Speaker 9: Uh no, Like you're pinching pennies, you know, like first deal, you ain't making money. But and so I like, I also had had my first single as a songwriter kind of during that time, maybe a few years prior, a little Big Town recorded a song I'd written called happy People.

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Speaker 4: Was that on the Frail Project or was it it was on?

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Speaker 9: Yeah, it was right after it was the Breaker record?

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Speaker 4: Got it?

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Speaker 9: And you know, again like that one struggled at radio, like I think it was only on there for maybe a few months, So it wasn't like I had before.

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Speaker 3: You talk about struggle that I want to talk about you getting the single like actually, because that is not that's.

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Speaker 4: An amazing thing to hear they're cutting your song.

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Speaker 3: Yes, so and now I'm gonna get back to the record, but You've sent me down a different hole that I want to go look into where it's you're right song? Do you have a publishing deal? You write that song? And how do you know when they're interested?

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Speaker 9: First, this was like a total freak never happened thing that happened to me where it was like I went up to Boston. I think this was like year eight maybe of me being in town seven or eight something, and you know, Laurie McKenna. It's like, that's like years of building up to try and get in a room with Laura McKenna, and I finally got the green light and I went up to Boston and I wrote. We wrote Happy People was the first song we ever wrote. And I was literally sitting in the Boston airport about to like fly back to Nashville, just texting my plugger, Hey, here's what we wrote. YadA YadA. She was like, I'm going to send this to Karen Fairchild and she like texted it to her, emailed whatever, and within like an hour she texted me back was like, hey, Karen wants to hold this for the.

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Speaker 4: Sand same like trips. You're not even I'm not.

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Speaker 9: Even home yet. And I was like, what dang. And so you know, they played it. I guess everyone liked it. Next thing, you know, they're cutting it. Next thing, you know, if you get that call, you.

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Speaker 4: Get that call they're cutting the song or do you know afterward?

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Speaker 9: I knew they were holding.

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Speaker 4: It, but you didn't know they had cut it yet.

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Speaker 9: I didn't know they were holding it. And you want to know, what's so funny about this story? And just to like give some perspective, I was still like, you get great news like that, and I was like so broke and busted, Like my flight got canceled and I literally couldn't afford a hotel in Boston, so I slept in the airport.

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Speaker 4: Then what is what any position?

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Speaker 6: Position?

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Speaker 3: You're like, hey, major artists, Yes, they want your soul and they love it.

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Speaker 4: Also, yeah, you got no money for Super eight.

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Speaker 9: Yeah you can't stay well in Boston downtown Boston. It's like two hundred bucks or whatever. But still it's like I remember, like couldn't even barely eat a meal because I was like probably had like a few hundred bucks in my account of that time. But it's the insane thing about this business where it's like the high and the lows, you know, but.

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Speaker 3: And the dream that feeds you even when you're not really eating real food. Like that was it for me for such a long time, where I just had the idea that one day it wasn't going to be like this, and because I had that hope in that dream, it was Okay, it sucks now, but I just got to keep fighting. Yes, And without that, I don't think I could have done it without there being a hope. I don't think I would have been able to last like I did because that was my nourishment A lot of times was what possibly could be. And I think there's a lot of that to be said about this story too.

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Speaker 10: Yeah.

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Speaker 9: I like to say, like we're kind of like negligent optimists, you know what I mean. We take foolish risks sometimes, but every once in a while something pays off really big.

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Speaker 3: You sleep in the airport, you go home. You just wrote with Laura McKennon. You're broke, but you're things are happening a little bit.

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Speaker 9: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So whenever a little big town has.

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Speaker 3: Your song and they say they're key, will you get any any better rights just because an artist is holding a song or is that mostly after they cut it? Or like when does the reputation start a little bit where peop want to get you in a room.

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Speaker 9: I feel like it starts there, you know, like Laurie being able to see my name on a song with Lori and like a hold and ye little big towns cutting it and stuff, you know, like that all kind of really helped I think get crack the door open for me a little bit.

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Speaker 4: When did they tell you that they did they send you the song before it came out on the record.

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Speaker 9: I don't think they did. I think that they posted a clip of them singing it acapella somewhere and that was like the first moment. I was like, oh, you know, chills, just like hearing their voices on it. It was such a cool feeling and it was just really exciting, you know, you think like everything's gonna change for you.

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Speaker 7: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I've had a few of those where I'm like, oh, this is huge, my whole life's chant and it does it. But it's always something really small that is at the time kind of inconsequential feeling. That are the big things, Yeah, that actually do pivot into stuff. So you have the relayship with Lori, you have the little big town, but at the same time you're working on this record that you're paying for yourself. Yeah.

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Speaker 9: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So you said it took a year and a half.

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Speaker 3: Is that because you would save up and get a track done or how was that process?

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Speaker 9: I would do like five songs I think a session, and you know, we'd like work on that. And I didn't really have a team at this point either, so it was like me and my producer Jake and my publisher Emily Shiraldi Furman at Carnival, and it was kind of like the three of us just like holding up in the office, like what should we do? I don't know, Yoda yoda, And you know, we'd kind of work on the record a little bit. Frank Ladell at Carnival, he produces Miranda Lambert or he had done a few records on Hurley and Walmack. He was kind of like grand bothering us a little bit and like coaching us through it and telling us, you know, like what he honestly was just really supportive and kind of like fed us to keep going and whatnot, because we had no idea what we were doing. I'd never produced a record, My producer had never produced a record. We just like we're following our gut with it all, you know, and making trying to make music that we liked that we would want to listen to. And for me, it was the mentality of like, I've been here ten years, like this may be it for me, so let's just make something that if this is the last thing I get to make here, we love it and we can go home and like I can tell my kids about it someday or something.

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Speaker 3: You know, unless you fail doing what you wanted to do. There have been times where I failed doing something.

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Speaker 4: Other people have to say.

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Speaker 3: Why don't you do this, and I'm like, you know what, okay, and then you bomb out. You're like, god, dang, I'd rather fail doing what I wanted to do.

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Speaker 4: So I didn't have all these thoughts that would like, yeah.

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Speaker 3: And so that was your idea of Okay, we may go down, dang it, but we're gonna do something that really feels true to me and what we're doing, because.

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Speaker 4: If it fails, at least we failed to honestly yeah.

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Speaker 9: Yeah, and you can hang your hat on that, you know. And so that's kind of what we did. And it was a year and a half of just like holding up at my engineer's studio in Germantown and and you know, we just stay up late into the night, drink bourbon and talk about we're just so buzzy on songs and energy and excitement and fun.

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Speaker 11: You know.

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Speaker 9: It was like one of the most fruitful years for me because I'd been so broken hearted by the industry, you know, and so this was like kind of me getting a little bit of like I tuned out so much of the town and just kind of went in and was like finding it all again.

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Speaker 3: Was there an impatience as you guys were creating the songs that would be the record and you're doing them in batches?

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Speaker 2: Huh?

00:20:36
Speaker 3: Was it ever like, you know, what, screw it, let's just put these five out, like I just want to get something out.

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Speaker 4: Did you have to battle that or did you really have.

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Speaker 3: The patience to go, We're going to finish this whole thing and we're going to put it out as the projects because my patience isn't good.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm just like, oh, I did it, Let's go and get it out there. How was that process for you?

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Speaker 9: I it's funny that you say that, because I have never thought about that. But I was just like it was a record in my mind, and it wasn't until everything was complete. I mean, shoot, I think that I went up to write with Laurie again and I wrote what ended up being like one of the title track of the record. So we'd gone in and made that session, you know, and then I went up with her and I wrote a few more songs. So it wasn't you know, it was a work in progress the whole way until it felt complete to us, and then we didn't have a team, So then we're like, okay, now what do we do with it?

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Speaker 3: You know, you put out other songs from that record, like a deluxe version, right because you did the record that you've added songs. Was it different to do those songs that were added because the record was at least critically acclaimed and depending on I mean, I like the record, and a lot of people like the record, but I don't know it's reach out because I wasn't watching any of your Psycho about you just mildly. So was it easier to find the money to do those tracks because of the success of the original record?

00:21:53
Speaker 7: Yeah?

00:21:54
Speaker 9: I think so, And I'm trying to like, remember, I think on the deluxe is when Cloud I was signing my deal too, so then they were a part of them.

00:22:04
Speaker 4: You know.

00:22:04
Speaker 9: So I wasn't like saving all my waitressing tips anymore. You know, it was like they were helping float me and giving me the freedom to be able to create.

00:22:13
Speaker 1: Hang Ty, the Bobby Cast will be right back. Wow, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

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Speaker 3: Was there any part of that record that whomever signed you over a big cloud, like I don't know which of the guys, Yeah, which of the people over there were instrumental and hey, that's awesome, let's get her. Was there a song or two that they brought up like really resonated with them. They were like, when we listened to this, this song shows us who you are.

00:22:35
Speaker 6: Do you remember?

00:22:36
Speaker 9: I remember like Seth got super jacked on Filling my Cup. When he heard Filling my Cup, he was like, this is the sound.

00:22:46
Speaker 4: You know?

00:22:47
Speaker 9: That was like we'd put fiddle on it. It kind of has that throwback like you know, and and he was just like he lit up on that song. And yeah, it's been really cool, you know, to see the whole thing with them. And Nicole Gallian's a part of it too, with songs and daughters, and she's someone I've written with for a very long time, so she knows me very well creatively. But I feel very fortunate. I think having been here for so long, I was always so like gun shy about record labels because I've seen so many friends just get crushed you know what.

00:23:20
Speaker 4: Works.

00:23:20
Speaker 9: Yeah, so it was very important for me. One of the perks of having been around the block of this town a few times very important for me to find someone that just like got it, you know, and I felt that Seth and Nicole and the team there, they really got it and they've been really cool about letting me do my thing.

00:23:40
Speaker 3: You know, when you play shows now and if when you play the single, do you hear people sing back to you?

00:23:46
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:23:46
Speaker 9: Is last night? It was so freaking nuts. It's so bizarre as someone who's been here for freaking ever, you know, put out multiple records to be able to see the difference with this one song. It's just nuts.

00:24:03
Speaker 1: The Bobby Cast will be right back. Wow, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

00:24:13
Speaker 4: Number eight.

00:24:13
Speaker 3: So a really awesome and talented duo who happened to be married. Their name is the War in Treaty, made up of Michael Trotter Junior and Tanya Trotter. Michael shared the story behind their name and how serving in the army inspired him to write music, and Tanya talked about how they met and how she got started singing at a really young age. And in the episode if you go listen to it, Michael talks about how you know he saw her on Sister Act. It was like I'm gonna marry her pretty funny, pretty awesome. Here is the War in Treaty from episode three ninety nine. Whenever we talked about your name, Michael, you mentioned you wanted war because of your background.

00:24:47
Speaker 4: Is that military service? Is that what we're talking about?

00:24:49
Speaker 10: Yeah?

00:24:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, why did you want the military?

00:24:52
Speaker 7: Oh?

00:24:53
Speaker 11: Just I had made a lot of mistakes, man, in my life. I mean, I had dropped out of high school. I was done with that, and I had made a baby, my daughter, my sweet honey, and I had another one on the way, and I was just lost.

00:25:09
Speaker 10: I didn't know where to go, what to do. And I just knew.

00:25:12
Speaker 11: I believed that at that time I wasn't school material, you know, I didn't know what kind of material would be period, coming from the streets Cleveland, and and but my grandfather, my father, my uncle all served and I knew that I wasn't too far from how jacked up they were.

00:25:29
Speaker 10: So I was like, I'm I think I'm gonna go and join the army.

00:25:33
Speaker 4: And you Iraq, right, Oh yeah, what was that like for you?

00:25:37
Speaker 6: For me?

00:25:38
Speaker 11: So, man, I think it's's It was a gift and a curse.

00:25:46
Speaker 6: You know.

00:25:46
Speaker 11: The gift was the first time I had any kind of relationship with someone who didn't look like me, you know, Like I tell this all the time, even when we were on the stage, Like I had went through my whole life without encountering white people at all, you know, and only reading what they put in the books and what they want you to know, whether it's on TV or whether it's in the books and the history or whatever. But when I got into the army, it's.

00:26:13
Speaker 10: Like, all right, here we go. We're doing this, you know.

00:26:16
Speaker 11: And then you start realizing that the color of your skin is the actual uniform and the flag and you know, and then you start talking and realizing it ain't much difference. And that was the gift for me to be able to serve with those men and women, my battle buddies, you know. And the curse was and then you lose them. You don't realize, like, hey, this isn't forever, you know, and you forget sometimes like you're at war because people don't understand war. There's a lot of downtime, it's a lot of quiet, it's a lot of reflecting, and then all of a sudden, boom, there's a explosion on mortar round or ied or something like that. And then even that gave me a gift because then I started writing songs. My first song I ever wrote was in the war about one of my battle buddies who got killed, and.

00:27:09
Speaker 10: I wrote it.

00:27:10
Speaker 11: I taught myself to play the piano and to make the song.

00:27:13
Speaker 10: And they have a piano there, Saddam.

00:27:16
Speaker 11: You know, yeah, this isn't a well known or well publicized fact about him because it would kind of humanize a little bit, this tyrant. But he was a prolific pianist. He had pianos everywhere in Iraq. And we just happened to take over one of the palaces that had his black upright piano and little initials was carved. And I'm just singing and learning how to play that kind of thing. And I do the song I wrote for this particular soldier's memorial out there, and it brings so much resolution to the soldiers. Like the stuff I was putting in it, you know, I would talk about the things I would miss and the things I would not miss, you know, like the smell of his feet. You know, it's just a little stuff like that, just trying to lighten the moment. And my kernel at the time shout out to pe ter L Jones, who watched who's very familiar with your show. He uh, I wonder to know if I wrote the song. I said yeah, and he said, well, you know what, that's what you're gonna do for the remainder of your time in Iraq. You're gonna go with me, learn about the falling, and then you want to write the song and perform it. Wow, And that became my job from five to seven when I would get out the military.

00:28:42
Speaker 4: What was your job before that?

00:28:44
Speaker 10: Just infantry?

00:28:46
Speaker 11: I was in the infantry, and really it's whatever the army needs, you know, but my sole focus was protecting logistics, that kind of thing. And yeah, it's always a difficult part to tap into you.

00:29:07
Speaker 4: And I would imagine too with that you talk about a.

00:29:11
Speaker 3: You know, a curse and also something wonderful is that you're getting to do this for them, and it's a wonderful thing, but you're constantly re exposed to the hardest part of it.

00:29:23
Speaker 10: I didn't know.

00:29:25
Speaker 11: Because over ninety percent of the soldiers I was writing about, I knew, you know, so these are friends. But when you're so focused on healing and you're so focused on taking everyone else's mind off of it you're not focusing where you're putting your mind at the moment.

00:29:42
Speaker 10: And it wasn't until.

00:29:44
Speaker 11: I got out where I realized I had I had, I had a problem, you know, I had PTSD and depression and anxiety, and it took my life over. I couldn't get jobs. I would When I did get jobs, I lose the jobs because I just freak out a little bit. Fourth of July was always hell, especially in Detroit, because I don't know that their Fourth of July is a little bit different than everyone else's.

00:30:11
Speaker 10: They got stuff that really sounds.

00:30:13
Speaker 11: Like, no, I know that's a bomb, you know, like I don't know how a little rocky got that. But you know, and this is when she first discovered there was a real problem with me. I mean, I'm I'm six ' two, I weigh about one hundred and ten pounds, you know, trying to dive under the couches, hiding, and my children are crying and I'm yelling commands, get.

00:30:39
Speaker 6: Down, get down.

00:30:40
Speaker 11: You know, it's stuff that people for years have made jokes out of shell shock, But you know, until you really go through it, you don't realize how real it truthfully is.

00:30:52
Speaker 3: You know, I've done a lot of work with veterans like yourself, and we would get them service dogs through either a specific work through organizations.

00:31:02
Speaker 4: And one of the.

00:31:04
Speaker 3: Tools that soldiers would use and they would come back home is that service dog who would always keep them as grounded as possible into what is real because they've also got to take care of that dog, yep. And that's a big part of having a service dog is you can't just let that go take care of.

00:31:22
Speaker 4: It while they're also trained, so like, I respect it so much.

00:31:25
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, it's a difficult part.

00:31:26
Speaker 11: And even with the service dog, like there's some things that most people don't consider when they offer it up to a soldier because it's very important.

00:31:33
Speaker 10: Like you asked one unit. You know, with my.

00:31:36
Speaker 11: Particular unit, our focus was defusing a lot and most of the situations we would have to diffuse or the bombs we have to diffuse, where carcasses or you know, a dog is running up to you and you know we love dogs, right and you don't realize there's a wire hanging out of his tail and you're like, what's going on and it's too late. So you know, even babies and carriages, strollers and stuff, so I had to, really, I just share this with my whole team and my wife. Not that long ago, I said, you know, I, oh, I know what it was in regards to the shooting here in Nashville, right I had to That situation helped me feel again in a way that I had lost that feeling, you know, because I'm I've seen murder on a different scale, you know, And this year, I can honestly say I started feeling again like I could feel that that pain, I could feel that loss, you know. And I think it's through the love of my wife and through treatment, you know, that I'm able to get to that point. But so many soldiers, it's just like we got to drive on, you.

00:32:53
Speaker 2: Know, Hang tight.

00:32:54
Speaker 1: The Bobby Cast will be right back, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

00:33:07
Speaker 6: Where did you grow up?

00:33:09
Speaker 12: I grew up in Washington, d C.

00:33:11
Speaker 6: Did you were you always? Indeed?

00:33:13
Speaker 4: Were you Maryland at all?

00:33:14
Speaker 8: It was Maryland lot of PG County. Yeah, But there's the Potomac there.

00:33:19
Speaker 4: There's a fine line there, and I've done both.

00:33:21
Speaker 3: I've played the theater like literally in DC right next to the Capitol, and then I've played the Amphitheater.

00:33:29
Speaker 4: And there's like city and country and.

00:33:31
Speaker 3: There that line that's real close to each other and you go from one to the other and there's no you know exactly where you are. Oh yeah, so yeah, where did you live in the city or the country?

00:33:40
Speaker 12: I kind of lived in both.

00:33:41
Speaker 8: I mean PG County At the time, it wasn't as populated as it is.

00:33:45
Speaker 12: So we moved from Washington, DC.

00:33:47
Speaker 8: My dad was a police officer, Washington DC police officer for twenty five years, and we ended up moving to PG County, which was very, you know, suburbs, so they would call us the suburbs.

00:33:58
Speaker 12: Girl when we went back to the city, you know.

00:33:59
Speaker 8: And I didn't realize it until I got older that that was a big difference. And then we would also go to Newbern, North Carolina, where my dad was from, every summer.

00:34:07
Speaker 4: So I had I mean, that's the country.

00:34:10
Speaker 8: That's that was dirt roads and hog pins in front of my grandmama's yard and all that stuff.

00:34:15
Speaker 12: So it was very different from me.

00:34:17
Speaker 4: Did you sing as a kid? Oh yeah, how young?

00:34:19
Speaker 8: And I was eight eight years old when I started. My mom was from Panama, so I was listening to all kinds of music. I was like, am I gonna be Cellia Cruz. I might gonna be pay a little Belle, you know, you know, I was just trying to make the difference.

00:34:31
Speaker 12: But eight years old was when I got the bug.

00:34:34
Speaker 4: Did you sing in church or was there a stage for you?

00:34:37
Speaker 3: Because usually social as artists that come in here, church is always first place that there's an open stage that it no't matter how good you are, you can get up and make a joyful noise.

00:34:46
Speaker 12: Yeah.

00:34:46
Speaker 4: So did you sing in church at all?

00:34:48
Speaker 10: Oh? Yeah?

00:34:48
Speaker 12: Everywhere was a stage.

00:34:50
Speaker 8: I was one of those kids, so whether it was a living room, whether it's a church, I was always entering myself in talent shows from age like seven.

00:34:57
Speaker 12: You know a kid. Yeah, I was very extravagant as good.

00:35:03
Speaker 7: Good.

00:35:04
Speaker 12: I don't know if I.

00:35:05
Speaker 8: Was good more if the theatrics of it all is good.

00:35:08
Speaker 4: You know, if you.

00:35:09
Speaker 3: Were to be an adult now and see you at seven, not know it was you singing, would you go that seven year old's got real potential to be a great singer.

00:35:16
Speaker 6: Where'd you go?

00:35:17
Speaker 3: That seven year old has got real potential to have potential?

00:35:23
Speaker 8: You know it's interesting because I was so flamboyant and so wild. I would have said that that seven year old is going to make a good entertainer. Yeah, because there was just no bars off when I was seven, I mean there was I was free.

00:35:34
Speaker 4: Is that what you wanted to be when you grew up a singer? No?

00:35:36
Speaker 10: I didn't.

00:35:37
Speaker 8: I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to practice entertainment law. But then I got the bug and I was like, okay, this is a way for me to kind of, you know, get into music as a lawyer.

00:35:46
Speaker 12: It's to sing.

00:35:47
Speaker 3: When did the bug change direction? Because apparently always loved to sing, but you thought you would do something else. When did it kind of consume you that, Okay, I'm not going to do that. I am going to sing.

00:35:58
Speaker 8: Very interesting because I had my first record deal when I was seventeen, and I remember being in that and doing the music and putting out a record. I would say that the bug didn't really hit me until the Warren Treaty. Really yeah, it got me when I started doing with Michael and because I left my record deal and when I was like twenty two, twenty three, and I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. The passion wasn't there. I didn't have that thing that it takes for you to go through the highs and lows with it.

00:36:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, that even though you're getting all the nose, you keep going.

00:36:33
Speaker 12: Yes, that thing. I didn't have that thing.

00:36:36
Speaker 8: And once I got with the Warren Treaty and we were doing like coffee house tours and I was so happy we were, he being the coffee shops and it's like two people clapping. But the music made me so happy. And it was every genre of music that I just loved. That we were kind of, you know, a musical gumbo together. So the Warren Treaty gave me that spark. And when I met Michael out on that field World's Lake in Maryland, it was him out there in this hot I mean it had to be ninety five degrees outside of him it was a big koogie like sweater back then, you know, those were like the sweaters. But he was killing it and his passion for it was just something that I remember at eight years old, climbing up in the tree in my backyard writing little notes of my little songs back then that I had at eight years old, but I didn't have at seventeen once I.

00:37:24
Speaker 12: Got the deal, But he had it.

00:37:26
Speaker 4: How'd you guys meet at Laurel Lakes.

00:37:30
Speaker 8: It was a love festival, as cheesy as it sounds.

00:37:34
Speaker 4: So it's so love festival. Yeah, it's so.

00:37:39
Speaker 3: It sounds a little, you know, but it's.

00:37:44
Speaker 8: Not really maybe maybe ten years, but there was the love of the community.

00:37:47
Speaker 11: They were giving out backpacks and they wanted singers, and I was a local local when they were like, you should come sing, sing your singr song.

00:37:57
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's a festival that I would do in the city to give back back to the underprivileged kids in the area.

00:38:02
Speaker 12: And Michael was one of the artists.

00:38:04
Speaker 4: So you saw him singing, you were drawn to him?

00:38:06
Speaker 6: Oh?

00:38:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, were you drawn to him? Like?

00:38:08
Speaker 3: That's an energy? I want to be around her? Like that's an energy I want to be a road.

00:38:12
Speaker 12: That's both. It was both, you know.

00:38:16
Speaker 8: I immediately gave him my phone number and he was there with his friend.

00:38:23
Speaker 10: Her approaching it.

00:38:23
Speaker 11: Do you remember I sure do I remember me approaching her and she was ignoring my conversation.

00:38:30
Speaker 10: Yeah, how about that?

00:38:31
Speaker 4: So what's the real story here?

00:38:32
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's my story. Is a real story.

00:38:34
Speaker 12: That's not it's your side, my side down the truth.

00:38:36
Speaker 11: I walked up on Tyan and this lady named Diane introduced us, and Tanya gave me her little hand, her little hand like this, and I was like, oh, Michael, and she says, I'm Talian and turned right around and kept talking.

00:38:48
Speaker 8: I was like, this girlfriend, I peeped the same, you know, let's see what's happening.

00:38:52
Speaker 12: I'm not gonna get to however.

00:38:54
Speaker 11: However, you know, I remember her coming up to me at the end of my set and she was like, did.

00:39:03
Speaker 10: You write all these songs? And I said, yeah, yeah, I wrote them.

00:39:05
Speaker 11: And she told me about the project she and her brother were actually working on, and she wanted me to come in as a writer, and she gave me her phone number.

00:39:13
Speaker 3: Right then, just from that one, just I want you to come in as a writer straight up.

00:39:17
Speaker 10: Yeah, she can't remember.

00:39:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, I got it.

00:39:22
Speaker 10: I threw a number away. Why did you have a girlfriend? No, I just I read into it.

00:39:30
Speaker 11: I was like, she done, she don't want this is a fake number, you know what I mean. Tanya is beautiful, and I had a lot of esteem issues, and you know, I wasn't paying attention to writing. I thought like, yeah, this this is gonna be us, you know, And I threw the number way and instantly regretted it. And I'm driving my girlfriend at the time home and it was her.

00:39:54
Speaker 10: She's like, you like her, don't you?

00:39:57
Speaker 11: And I was like no, and yeah, She's like I could see y'all together.

00:40:05
Speaker 12: Like I was like, I could too.

00:40:07
Speaker 3: Well, your girlfriend told you, yeah that she could see you, Yeah, with another person.

00:40:12
Speaker 11: Surely she's sweetheart, Yeah she is. She She definitely told me that. She was like, I can see y'all. Y'all's energy right there in that Conbo was like, I was like really.

00:40:23
Speaker 10: Because I didn't. I didn't think there was no energy there at all.

00:40:26
Speaker 3: But how did you guys find each other back then? If you don't have her number? I found that police officer.

00:40:32
Speaker 4: That's hilarious.

00:40:33
Speaker 12: He's a private detective. At the time, I was.

00:40:35
Speaker 8: Like, this is I wish they had face recognition back then.

00:40:39
Speaker 4: That's so funny.

00:40:42
Speaker 1: Hang tight, The Bobby Cast will be right back. Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.

00:40:52
Speaker 3: At number seven, it's Kicks Brooks of Brooks and Dunn from episode four oh nine. Kicks is just a really funny guy, and sometimes it's hard to tell if he's being serious or if he's just messing with me, you know, Kicks talks about getting discovered at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville and the first song he wrote that to him was super special. If you haven't listened to the full episode, I highly recommend you go and you listen. Here is Kicks Brooks at number seven. But back on episode four O nine, I mentioned Johnny Cash, like Brooks Robbins, I played third base for the Orioles way before me, but he was from Arkansas.

00:41:25
Speaker 10: Yeah, did you have.

00:41:26
Speaker 4: A Louisiana people like that to you that you were like, they're from where we're from. Sure, I really like I admire what they're doing.

00:41:33
Speaker 10: Who would that be?

00:41:35
Speaker 13: Well, obviously the you know Hank Williams and Johnny Horton and Merle Kilgore. You're familiar with him. So Merle was Hank Junior's manager and also wrote Wolverton Mountain, And I.

00:41:55
Speaker 4: Was just if he was a writer and he managed, Yeah.

00:41:58
Speaker 13: Managed Hank Junior, but famous and I met him through this CMA board the first time and we got to be great friends. But yeah, he was famous for you know, he had big rings on all his fingers. You know, this jeweler diamond Dan you know made it really really outgoing, you know, over the top, really fun guy. But you say, Merle, you're doing good man, everything okay, and you go.

00:42:24
Speaker 10: Are you shifting me? Just those rings? What was this?

00:42:30
Speaker 4: What was this?

00:42:30
Speaker 3: I mean when you mentioned a guy like that, I think about Nashville when it used to kind of.

00:42:34
Speaker 10: Be like that.

00:42:35
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, low, and it's still its own way of loud, but like low, you would just see somebody and know that they.

00:42:42
Speaker 13: Lost a lot of our carnate factor.

00:42:44
Speaker 3: Carney's yeah, it's definitely. What was it like when you moved? What was this talent like when you moved here?

00:42:48
Speaker 13: I'll tell you the For me, it was all I just wanted to be a songwriter in this town. That's really. I mean all most all songwriters have some dreams and you know, they played the songs, we've gotten some recognition. There's exceptions to that, but most songwriters like to think of themselves as artists. I mean I did, and I had a couple of record deals before Ronnie and I got together, but not because I was that great. I don't know. But I started singing a lot of demos, you know, for stuff like that. But the town, the ability to my first publisher is a guy named Don Gant and man, he would hold court every day. We'd write songs all day. But he had been at Tree Publishing and was responsible for some of the great careers from Roger Miller and Mickey Newberry, got Sonny Throckmorton, people you may not be familiar with, but people that Harlan Howard. Of course they were all at Tree. I mean they owned independent publishing, but there were still great publishing company companies like Combine where Christofferson and you know, Whalen and all those guys were too little smaller company. But when we were done at the end of the day, people would start piling in that door, and Don would always send out for a few asis of beer. We just packing his office and start passing the guitar around. Would really make you want to write something special, because if that guitar came your way or Don said, did you write anything today? But at the same time, even if I written something that wasn't that good, he would find that one line in a song and go, man, wait a second second verse, Well was it you said you? Because y'all hear that it's like and all of a sudden he would make you feel like he might not tell you it was a great song, because it wasn't. But he would also make sure you knew.

00:44:33
Speaker 10: That's what you need to be.

00:44:34
Speaker 13: That's that's a great line. Give me a whole song full of that kind of stuff. You know, it's a great teacher. But also by the end of by the end of the night, we're all well oiled. Then then you know, Mackey Newberry or Ray Van Hoy or some of those guys that Throckmorton who are just writing this brilliance. They get the guitar, and then you got the opportunity. Man, it was all up and down the street and where is it happening kind of thing, and I just I don't you know, there's so so much you know, I don't sound like an old guy, but there's so much concrete where there were little houses all the way down Music Row, and you just wander up and down. You could hear it a lot of times, up and down.

00:45:16
Speaker 4: People just doing the thing.

00:45:17
Speaker 13: Yeah that's going or and somebody come running down to your publishing company and go man, going down to Combine, you know, whaling's down there and there singing, you know, and dad, that kind of stuff is going on.

00:45:29
Speaker 3: Do you remember when you moved here, like and again, you're in the majors now because you have all the great songwriters around you, which elevates at least hopefully you to to get to their level. Do you remember the first like song you wrote where you were like, man, this is special, like I have now.

00:45:42
Speaker 4: Reached a new peak.

00:45:43
Speaker 3: I've I've learned, and I've written this song. Do you remember the first great song you feel like you wrote?

00:45:49
Speaker 13: Honestly, I had quite a few number ones at that point, but I think I think Red Dirt Road was was a time when I really put the period on that song and went, it's a freaking hit and it's it's really saying it's you know, Ronnie and I did that together and he actually we had it was just a place where we talked about really got real with each other, talked about where we came from. Like, you know, he was telling me about Elderad. I was telling me about where my grandparents was.

00:46:22
Speaker 6: That's where it was.

00:46:23
Speaker 13: And somehow I was telling about driving those roads with my grandfather looking you know, looking at at timber you know what he was going to cut, And I said, man, that dirt was just so he goes, I know it was up and said that'd be a good name for an album. So now we got to write a song. And we kind of puttered around at it three or four times and never really got more than a line or two. And he got off the plane we were we had a gig and Sacramento and we flew to San Francisco and got off the plane and he handed me a cocktail napkin and it had those lines about you know, drank my first beer and you know, wrecked my first car toward all the piece is something about Jesus and you know, life ain't just for high achievers. And he said, what do you think. I think it's freaking great, man, This is exactly what we were talking about. And I jumped on a bus and you know, wrote the pretty much the music and the verses. He had already told me about Rule Route three. You know, that's kind of when we kicked around where he came from, and he came and knocked on my bus, had Terry McBride and said, man, let's go get a steak. And I said, you got to hear this song though, and we both just kind of slapped it up in here and and I couldn't wait to record it. It was it was it was really fun to put it down too.

00:47:37
Speaker 3: Did you ever write a song and this one's special then you recorded it and you're like, I think it's.

00:47:40
Speaker 4: Lost what we were trying to do, so let's do it again, or I think.

00:47:46
Speaker 13: More Just sometimes when you write songs for a living and songs get recorded, you know, Don Gant had a plaque on his desk that said, it's not as good as the demo put off?

00:47:59
Speaker 3: Yeah you yes, you ever hear Yeah, it would just be tough if like you feel it. And then you even like comedy songs, like if I play them live and we try to record them, I'm always like, it doesn't sound as good when I recorded it, like, and it probably does, probably sounds better.

00:48:14
Speaker 4: Yeah, but because it's like live.

00:48:18
Speaker 3: Or like if I'm creating something on the spot, it just feels newer and fresher.

00:48:22
Speaker 10: You're married to the thing.

00:48:23
Speaker 13: And I would never would never mention what song or that was, you know, or whatever, because it's I mean, it's the greatest honor of all for somebody to risk their career on something you made up, you know, as a songwriter, you know, but it is demolt.

00:48:43
Speaker 10: She just get here.

00:48:43
Speaker 13: It used to hearing it one way so many times. I remember, like modern day Romance. I wrote that with a Dan Tyler only song we ever wrote together, and we had both had He wrote Bobby Sue on the Oakridge Boys album, and I had a cut that I'd written on there and called that was actually my first cut called old Kentucky Song ever ever, Yeah, which was pretty lucky to be on a million selling album.

00:49:09
Speaker 4: Because you can money your songwriter, Royal Tea, you know, all of.

00:49:13
Speaker 13: A sudden, Don started paying me one hundred bucks a week, and I'm a professional songwriter.

00:49:17
Speaker 8: You know.

00:49:18
Speaker 13: It's really really where it went from. But man, I really believed in modern day romance. I said, man, this song is cool. It's got a good vibe to it. And everybody seemed to like it, but nobody would cut it, you know, And finally Gan't said, look, I'll cut it on you. He said, and he produced above Ittt's first five records. You know, he did come Monday, did all the backgrounds. He was a great producer. And I said, wow, that'd be cool. He said, we'll get you a record deal.

00:49:44
Speaker 6: So let's do it.

00:49:45
Speaker 13: He said, you sing it great, and I die, so we did. We cut it, actually got a film company interested, cut a demo on it, I mean a video on it, and was about to put it out as as an independent thing. And and Warley called and said, hey man, dirt Man, just cut this song. He said, it's a freaking hit. Okay, I'll put no mine in the trash because I'm a huge Dirt band fan. And Jeff Hannah sang the heck out of it. Anyway, it was you know, sometimes things, sometimes things will just work out with songs, but you never know.

00:50:21
Speaker 4: Where did Kicks come from.

00:50:23
Speaker 10: There's a couple of weeks before.

00:50:25
Speaker 13: I was born, was what I heard. I was trying to bust out of there. You know, I don't know about you, but nine months.

00:50:30
Speaker 4: Was trying to know, and I was trying to I knew a good place when I had it the opposite.

00:50:36
Speaker 13: I don't know. Fetal position wasn't really my thing. I wanted to stretch out.

00:50:41
Speaker 3: With Mike because I you know, Bones is not my real name is not Bones. It's est So kicks nickname is a kid or nickname. Later, No, it was I was always Kicks, always from a young.

00:50:52
Speaker 13: Young kid, from the time I was born.

00:50:53
Speaker 10: Yeah, really, but not your birth certificate. No, it's on Eric.

00:50:57
Speaker 13: I'm the third. My son's the fourth.

00:51:00
Speaker 4: Is he kicks that you call him kicks as well though? Has he kicked Junior?

00:51:02
Speaker 8: No?

00:51:03
Speaker 10: Call him quatro? What do they call it?

00:51:04
Speaker 4: But they really call you kicks that you kicked.

00:51:05
Speaker 13: Not really calling merrick. Yes, they've always gone me kicks.

00:51:09
Speaker 4: Because you kicked in the wound, because you came out of baby. It's because you mess so much. I don't know if you're kidding or not. No, that's the truth, but you do understand.

00:51:17
Speaker 10: You mess so much that.

00:51:18
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's hard for like Douse, I'm looking at you, like, okay, so kicks came from you were always kicks, that's correct.

00:51:23
Speaker 10: Okay, So if you.

00:51:25
Speaker 13: Can, if you can find any defiance of that, Bobby, you have no.

00:51:30
Speaker 10: Full credit on here.

00:51:31
Speaker 4: I have no defiance.

00:51:32
Speaker 13: I just because I've removed all of that so you won't.

00:51:35
Speaker 1: Well find it, hank Ty, the Bobby Cast will be right back. Wow, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

00:51:50
Speaker 3: The episode that made it to number six was an open and honest conversation on a topic that's not easy to talk about, even though it was in the public eye. And that topic is divorce. Umber six from me is Michael Ray. This is from episode four oh seven. It got a ton of dreams, and even for me, it was one of the first times that I felt like I really got to know Michael Ray better.

00:52:09
Speaker 4: I asked him what he would have done differently.

00:52:11
Speaker 3: He was open about that his last marriage, and he explains why he and his ex hadn't spoken in.

00:52:15
Speaker 6: Over three years.

00:52:17
Speaker 3: We got to hear his side of the story and why he chose not to release any songs about it, even though that wasn't happening on the other side of things here he is, Michael Ray, what would you do differently if you could go back? Because I feel like a little bit this is I don't know you that well. You know, I've spent a couple of minutes. I don't know your ex at all, so I have no I know nothing. What would you have done differently with that whole relationship? Would you have slowed it down a little bit?

00:52:44
Speaker 7: Yeah?

00:52:46
Speaker 14: You know, I think too, If I'm being honest, I think being really the only true thing I ever knew about love or marriage was my grandparents or my aunt and uncle, my uncle, my dad's brother, him and my aunt Kim. They'd met when they were fifteen and fourteen, and that was it for the rest of their life, you know, until my uncle passed away. And so those are the only two things.

00:53:06
Speaker 7: And I always, man, I want that.

00:53:08
Speaker 14: Or I'd go to my friend's house, you know, and i'd see them and their family or whatever, and there was none of the at least obviously when you're over there, they're not showing you what's really happening. But I think, you know, I can't speak for her, but I think for me it was like, man, look at all this going right.

00:53:24
Speaker 7: I think she was, you know. I also we weren't around each other a lot, and we're both waring arms.

00:53:29
Speaker 14: Yeah, man, And so you got the one day and that you're trying to cram it in to see each other and do what you know, and you're packing and you know you're out again.

00:53:36
Speaker 7: And so I probably would have slowed things down.

00:53:39
Speaker 14: I wouldn't have been so influenced by I think the people, you know, fans being involved in it, and yeah, you know, to be honest, I think I knew in the beginning or around that time, that.

00:53:53
Speaker 7: This was something we probably should have slowed down.

00:53:56
Speaker 6: If I could go.

00:53:56
Speaker 3: Back, I would not have exposed my wife to the public as early as I did, and we still waited a while, but I was like, you know, I lived my life very openly. She never really had an interest in being exposed. Exposed is a weird word, but just like, you know, really just exposing people, because it really made it hard for really hard for her because she that's not her favorite.

00:54:21
Speaker 4: Thing is to be public. She's not trying to be an influencer.

00:54:24
Speaker 10: That's not her life.

00:54:26
Speaker 3: She's very family oriented, not trying to be famous. But what I did by doing it earlier, I think it came on so hard and strong for her.

00:54:34
Speaker 4: It was a negative and she was like, I.

00:54:36
Speaker 3: Don't like this very much, and I already already didn't love it, So I'm just going to kind of take another half step back where I wish I would have just waited a little longer in that What was that conversation like for you guys, like, Okay, were we going to do this? Because I would also think if I were you guys, I'd love the attention because two together, Oh.

00:54:54
Speaker 7: Dude, I mean, I mean, listen, I'm not gonna lie.

00:54:56
Speaker 14: Yeah, it did the greatest thing ever it's cool as shit, you know, and you want you know, and you see Tim and Faith and you know Garthatricia, and you know, we were both coming up kind of at the same time, Her and I.

00:55:05
Speaker 7: So it was like it wasn't like one was over here and the other one was, you.

00:55:09
Speaker 14: Know, first starting out, it was like we're kind of right there at you said, so it was a lot to celebrate.

00:55:13
Speaker 7: But yeah, I mean, yeah, it's it's yeah, I'm not gonna lie to do it is it's.

00:55:17
Speaker 3: A lot of a lot of perks come with it, and a flatch some of the toughness honestly, like all the hundred great like, look at these two.

00:55:23
Speaker 4: I don't want to say names. I'm not going to bring her name up because it's not but it's like, look at these two together, because sometimes when you put two together, it's bigger than the absolutely man then the two individual lead.

00:55:34
Speaker 14: Yeah, and and and one thing too that we didn't like, we didn't do counseling. We didn't do any of that before.

00:55:39
Speaker 7: And I think that and there was.

00:55:41
Speaker 14: Moments that I look back now and I'm like, why didn't I speak up on that? Like that was one of the first times I realized her and I are opposite, you know, and I'm a very much more extroverted, you know person.

00:55:53
Speaker 10: And and and she's not.

00:55:54
Speaker 14: And so there was a lot of different things. I come from a big family that, you know, every it helped. My cousins had keys to my dad's. Yeah, we used to just go. We'd go and we wouldn't have food at the house and we'd go just go to my uncle's house and we'd be in there cooking. They weren't even home, you know, Like it was just that, you know, So there were little things that I think if we would have done that, I think we would have seen that, oh, this isn't we're when when you do have two at the same time and it's even the same business.

00:56:19
Speaker 7: And it's and all the eyes are on you, it's very easy to keep.

00:56:24
Speaker 14: That hey everything's good, even when you're home, you know, and you're really not going, you're really not addressing issues, you're not really.

00:56:32
Speaker 7: Knowing each other.

00:56:33
Speaker 14: Honestly, it's just like, hey, we're here for twenty four hours and I kind of got to do this meeting. I do this meeting, going to do dinner at five cool, you know, And I don't think we really just realized that, man, this is we're opposite.

00:56:45
Speaker 3: At one point on the internet, did you go, I can't read this. I can't look at this up anymore because one it's either not fear not true, or it's just overwhelming for me to see.

00:56:52
Speaker 7: Yeah, I uh yeah, I thought for what I went. I went dark for a little bit, just because.

00:57:00
Speaker 14: There was so much that isn't true and there's so much that was twisted, and it was just like out of nowhere.

00:57:07
Speaker 7: Everybody was just like, oh, look what he did. I'm like, well, what are you talking about?

00:57:10
Speaker 14: Like, first off, none of y'all were around, you know, for three years, and you don't know anything that happened. You just know what this headline and what she has said. And because I don't believe in throwing shade at her any of that stuff, we were both learning and growing up. And I'm not trying to ruin what she's trying to go into. If she wants to, you know what I mean, she gets another relation. I don't want to ruin any of that. I don't want, you know, I hope she has the best success and does everything that she wants.

00:57:37
Speaker 7: I'm not trying to make this this you know beef.

00:57:40
Speaker 14: Yeah, between us two, Like listen, both of us dropped the ball in a lot of ways.

00:57:44
Speaker 7: And that's the truth, you know.

00:57:45
Speaker 14: And so we I didn't show up after you know, the wedding day, because by that point in time, there was a lot of stuff that she did show up for, and it was just kind of like there's stuff that happened that day where I was like I'm out, you know. And and again I never went to therapist and never did any of this stuff. So it was just I had all the stuff built up, and then I think the fear of am I repeating this process?

00:58:04
Speaker 7: What did I do?

00:58:05
Speaker 5: Uh?

00:58:06
Speaker 14: What if I you know, and so all of that kind of just it was a lot, man. It really took its toll, and I think just we just didn't we showed up at two different times. And then it then to to kind of go back to where you're asking about the comments. I had to I had bought my tongue a lot, man, because I.

00:58:24
Speaker 3: Was your restraint, yeah, top notch, just having a restraint period, even if every comment was right or wrong.

00:58:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would have just been in the mix.

00:58:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, it would have been completely unhealthy and for me and i'd have been, but I'd have been in it and I'd made myself worse.

00:58:37
Speaker 6: But you never.

00:58:38
Speaker 4: He didn't say anything, he didn't put a song out, you didn't get into comments. I mean, I don't know how. I don't know how you did it if you had good people in your ear.

00:58:47
Speaker 14: Yeah, yeah, you know, I think a lot my management team who was helping me a lot during that time. Also, Man, I just realized too. I went home, I went to Eustless, Florida, and stayed at my uncle and ant's house and there downstairs and hung with family. And it was at that COVID time where no one was working. We weren't touring.

00:59:05
Speaker 7: It was Wire's Florida, so it was open. You know, Florida. We're doing Florida. Never got COVID yet, stopped at the Georgia line.

00:59:12
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:59:13
Speaker 14: So, dude, I think I just got re and retouched with your roots, man, because you know, I mean, like you were saying, we're all over the place all the time, and it's very easy to get disconnected. And I think I was during that ang that that was when I started seeing some of that anger start popping up.

00:59:29
Speaker 7: And then I went from oh.

00:59:31
Speaker 14: You want to say that, Okay, Well, now the trailer park uses Florida kid comes out. You know, I'm like, I'm ready to fight, and I'm I'm like, what do you say? You don't know anything about this, And so I was like, I need to go home, chill with my mom, you know, with my buddy's fish, with my cousin, just do stuff that we did and just reconnecting and push that all away and not even not even look at it.

00:59:53
Speaker 3: It had been hard to even listen to the radio though, because you're on all of a sudden, you hear a song about you and you're like, mother.

00:59:58
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, I just embraced that. I just turned it up.

01:00:01
Speaker 6: Good for you.

01:00:01
Speaker 7: Yeah, I was like, screw up, man, let's go.

01:00:04
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor. This is the Bobby Cast.

01:00:16
Speaker 4: Did you write songs that you'd never put out?

01:00:18
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, there's a couple.

01:00:19
Speaker 14: I wrote one with my buddy John Saderfield and John Stone that we might put out at some point, but it's not. It was mainly just honestly, I don't think I actually will. Because we were on my bus one day and they came out to write and I was just like man, because everybody kept asking, he's going to write a song, you know, just I was like no.

01:00:36
Speaker 3: Because everybody felt like they would have backed. I mean, honestly, we're all like, yeah, wow, like he's it's going hard on him.

01:00:43
Speaker 10: True, not true.

01:00:43
Speaker 7: We don't know.

01:00:44
Speaker 4: I don't know your relationship, right, I don't know what happened. But it's like, god, dang, there's like six songs in her ever song about you, Like, how's.

01:00:50
Speaker 6: He not respecting?

01:00:50
Speaker 3: Ye?

01:00:51
Speaker 10: FONDI yeah?

01:00:51
Speaker 7: And that was, you know.

01:00:52
Speaker 14: I mean, I think she could have gone a different way of that, and I think it was you know, I think you know. Also, I don't think people realize we we both we grew up in broken, broken homes. We know people from our hometown. Sadly, in small towns, broken homes is more common than ever.

01:01:07
Speaker 3: Now.

01:01:08
Speaker 14: I know how hard a divorce can be. I've seen it, seen it when my parents have seen it with buddies of mine. I got friend of mine with four kids. He's hundreds of thousands of dollars and still fighting, you know in there, it's just wow, it's as hell. We didn't own anything together. We both signed prenups. I haven't seen her spoken her in three and a half years. I went my way, she went hers voice paper sent to my manager's office. I signed them, got sent to her business manager's office.

01:01:32
Speaker 6: She signed him.

01:01:33
Speaker 7: That was it. That's clean, that was clean.

01:01:35
Speaker 6: It's clear.

01:01:36
Speaker 14: There's not this like And I'm not downplaying anything, and I'm not downplaying Hardbury what anybody goes through, any of that. But when you look at what my problem was, why are we trying to make a financial gain on something that is not what is being portrayed? You know, when I see friends of mine that have gone through hell and back, you know, on both sides of the fence man process of a divorce, the process, through the fighting back and forth, I'm like, you know, yes, ours was public. Yes there is some answers to fans, like you said, they feel like they needed and a we let them in, so you got to, you know. But on the on the whole thing, I was like, man, this isn't as what This isn't what people think it was, you know, And it was as clean as it could be. It was a breakup with paperwork. I hate that it happened. No one gets married to get divorced. I It's something that haunted me for years, you know, again made me mad at myself, made me you know, you over you played things through where I did look back and go, maybe I should have done that different. You know, I think you have no other choice in those situations to look in the mirror and go, Okay, what what did I What did I do out of this?

01:02:36
Speaker 9: What?

01:02:36
Speaker 10: What?

01:02:36
Speaker 14: How can I stop what I did? If I what I contributed to this? How do I not bring this into the next and which is how it helped me get through all of it, you know. But that was the part that really just kind of stuck to me a lot. Was like, Man, I don't think people realize like this wasn't this like gruesome battle. It was trying to be forced to be something way bigger than it was, you know. And I think too, that's why I didn't want to add any flame to the fire.

01:03:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that was part one of the Top ten Bobby Cast of twenty twenty three. We'll be back next week with the remaining five and then if you honorable mention Bobby Casts in case you want to go listen to the full episodes. In the meantime, some of my favorites of the year that didn't make the list though, if you want to go back and just search for them. For King of Country, Awesome, Dallas Smith and his story of being in a rock band The Blew Up and he's a massive country artist in Canada. Richard Marx from the eighties. Go search the Bobby Cast to listen to those find them, have a good week.

01:03:34
Speaker 2: Bye everybody, thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.