#379 - Tom Douglas on The Unconventional Path to His Career as a Songwriter (The House That Built Me, I Run to You, Raise Em Up) + Turning His One Man Show into a Documentary + The Clarity He Found And Advice on Getting Older

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Speaker 1: Episode three, seventy nine, Tom Douglas. It's our second time talking to Tom, but always love it. It's been a couple of years we've talked to him the first time. He has a movie out called Love Tom. It's so good. It is on Paramount Plus. I believe that's right Paramounts. I watched it when he sent it to me after he made it, and I was blown away by it. So I hope you're going to check out the documentary. He's written so many big songs and the documentaries basically his life and all the songs he wrote, for example, I Run to You from Lady A the House that built Me Miranda Lambert, which one of the massive mus Keith Urban raised him up. It's a great one if I'm going through because he has so many number ones here. Um A Little Rock by Colin Ray, such a great, long lasting song. A lot of emotion attached to that song, and he talks about that here. So Tom Douglas follow him at Tom Douglas Music. I mean he still did he say how old did he say he was? He said he was about to turn seventy and he is fit and active and talks about playing tennis when I'm seventy. I'll barely be playing pickleball and he's out playing tennis. I won't be coming to podcast when but love the guy, and I hope you listen to this and enjoy it. And I hope you also go and check out the documentary because it is so good. It's definitely different. When it starts, you're like, oh what, wait, what is this? What's happening? But by the end of it, like me, you're just enthralled. It's so good. All right, there you go. Let's talk with one of my favorites, Tom Douglas. Oh well really, yes, it's man. It is difficult navigating traffic, you know, really literal traffic or metaphorical traffic. Is you're a songwriter, you know, I never know what level you're coming at me. Um, I would say today, literally it was bad. Getting through Green Hills or anywhere was quite challenging. But I'm also working on gratitude. I'm not gonna work on I was thinking, there's a lot of complaint boxes. I need to put up a gratitude box. That's what I need to put up for me. This uh a new effort of gratitude for you. It is an uncommon effort. It is. It does not come naturally to me, you know, I guess I don't really I it does it to me either, So yeah, I'm the same. I think that's the human condition we gravitate towards. I belonged to this little tennis club and we've just built an indoor facility, and it's just it's ironic that the first two or three, like the first week, everybody's kind of in the honeymoon, and then all of a sudden, after a week the complaints started coming out. Where before we were like, oh, if we could only play inside, you know, because it's raining in its goal. But now we can play inside, but now we start finding faults. So I was just thinking, what we need is a gratitude thankful thankful box, not a complaint box, or at least if you do put in a complaint, you must also include one thing that you're grateful for. I do find that because I struggle with gratitude in general. Within my self. I'm very thankful for people that stick their neck out for me and help me, and but it does get lost sometimes because I'm so assigned to the next thing that I haven't been able to get I'm obsessed with it, which is a bit of a blinder because when my obsession kicks in, I'm working so hard to get to that next thing that I forget all the things that allow me to get to where I am now. So I need the reminders and I do an okay job. But I'm not a natural gratitude guy. I'm very happy, I'm very grateful, but just living a life of gratitude. I struggle with that, especially when it's gratitude within myself. What what's happened with you to make you see that your perspective was not indicative of who you wanted to be. This recent gratitude, recent gratitude, Well, I think it's a number of things. One is, I turned seventy seven years old next month. I would have not put you over two. You would have not put me over sixty nine and a half. Thank you, But that's why you get the big bucks right there. Well, I didn't say forty. You did not say forty. So the older you get, the older I get. I think I've become more and more aware of the uh, some of the toxic aspects of my personality and um, well like what and I can always lead you and tell you my toxic things. You know, I think it's yeah, I mean, it's it's jealousy, insecurity, I'm wildly insecure. I'm wildly and incredibly insecure. Uh, rage, lust, um you know you you name it and it's um. But at the risk of having a catch all, I really do think when I focus I mean those things, you almost can't arrest them in your personality. But what I can and do is focus on something uh, you know, pure, like gratitude, like love, like faith, like you know, my relationship with God. Those things, the toxic aspects of my personality tend to start to fall away, They lose their grip if I focus on I'm just grateful that you know I can be here. I'm grateful that you know I got a car that I can drive. I'm grateful that I live in America. It's I mean it, I know it sounds cliche, but honestly, it does rescue you from wallowing in um, you know, bitterness and cynicism. I mean, I think that's what we see so much in the culture. You just see that, the disappointment and the cynicism and the critics and well, because it's clickable, it's clickable. Yeah, polar opinions are what create gravitation. Everything lands on things that are dynamic, and especially now in news culture, and yeah, it's very toxic because they know, all these companies know what we're all going to click on, and it's something dynamic. And most of the stuff that dynamic is because it's so negative and so polar. You know, it's kind of a weird culture that we've built and that we're mad at, but yet we still contribute to myself included. Yeah, if there's a story like ah, she hey, why did just to say she's so angry? Well, let me just see what she has to say this. Well, we are politically, we're and I think they do manipulate us whoever they are. We're drawn together by the things we hate, not the things that we love, especially now, and that's not that is not who America is. That's it's just not and we have fallen into that. Um. But you know, as a transition, I really do think art in a way can help rescue us from you know, those some of those feelings that that you know are not are not the you know, historically who we are, you know, as a culture, as a nation, I don't want to get dark here, but it's gonna at least wait in that water a little bit. Where I've had some health issues over the past five years I really haven't talked about publicly, but a bit. It's really bad for a while, to the point where it was the first time that I really started to question, not question, but even consider that I might not live forever, because it was some real serious stuff and I'd had a couple of issues where I had been jumped, I had a gun to my head, and these crazy things that have happened, like security things, which is way different because security things I can kind of control, not I don't full control over it. But now I have full time security if I'm public the company makes I have. My guy has been with me now for like eight years. Everywhere I go, he goes, and it's weird and sometimes I feel like a loser because I hate being seen with that or as that, and I asked him not to stay, you know which I can somewhat control those walls. Health I can't, and I can do things now to me, but I had these really this really crazy few years and I started to go, I'm not I'm not, I'm like, I'm not gonna live forever. And we know we're not gonna live forever, but until we start to feel that, we're not going to live together. So mortality has been something that I've been thinking about. And you mentioned you're about to be seventy and it's shifting you. Is that seventieth birthday? Is that something that starts to drag in on you? And it's not a health thing, it's just you getting older. I'm getting older. I think what I'm trying to do and we'll see if it's successful. Time will tell, is you you have I am trying to look at that as as a real positive. There are many many benefits to getting older. Honestly, I think there are many more benefits to getting older than there are being younger. I just stay injured all the time though, ever since I got forty. If if anything thinks up, it stays for longer, and when it gets cold it hurts again. Other than that, all good. That that's that that is one of the downsides. But the there's a sense of of you realize the fragile veil. That's really what you're discussing, I mean, and then when you come face to face with a fragile veil of your own health or the health of those that you love. It is, uh, I mean, it takes your breath away all of a sudden. So I think what I'm I really I'm trying to operate in this space of there's clarity that comes with getting older. I just don't have I don't literally or metaphorically, I don't have as much time to fritter away. I've wasted a lot of time in my life. I really, I really do regret that that. That is a regret. I have not been as focused as I wish that I were. When is that focus, that lack of focus? It was it early? Was it when you got away from writing, when you came back. Is there a specific non focused season of your life or just generally do you wish you would have focused more? I think kind just you know, during the during the day, it's uh like every day like every day it's just I mean, they're just there can just be you know, hours that are just lost, and uh so I guess the only remedy for that for me is to really think about the time that I have left and not not not what's lost or what I have frittered away. But I really do want to be intentional about the time that I have and and make some decisions. Okay, God willing this is let's say I have I don't know years could be. I mean, I you're so, I heard your number one of the world Tennis Nashville, of the New Club. That's roof. I am the most average, mediocre tennis player you have ever met. It's it's incredible. I've spent millions of dollars trying to be a better tennis player. So that's your that that's your sport, your passion, your hobby. I have always loved tennis because I've to me it's it's really very poetic. It's what what aspect? If you see Roger Federer on the green lawn of Wimbledon, it's to me. If you don't see that as poetry in motion, then I need to get your I need to get the fog of off your your glasses. It's it's just it's a very poetic, beautiful sports. Do you play as a kid. I have I played since you know, I was like eight or not, So you you were exposed to it early. I was, yeah, we did. We didn't have tennis where I grew up, and so I would see it on TV and I would see Sampras And I'm a massive sports guy now and I do a sports show as well, but I would see Sampras the American guy's chang then Agassi, uh young Andy Roddick and moved to Austin, Texas. Went there for like twelve years and again didn't know anything about tennis except I would have watched the Majors. And I got a call from Andy Roddick once he said I'm doing a charity event. It was a sister. He's like, he's doing a charity event. Um, he's a big fan of your show. Would you mind doing this charity event with? So I go And when I'm not on, I'm way off, like I have you put me on stage to stand up. Let's go TV show, go, radio, go. But when it's not that, extremely reserved, very shy, to the point of people like, well, he's not being who he normally as he's a jury. It's just very quiet person. You're an introvert. I'm so introverted, selective extrovert and extremely extroverted when it's that time, selective extrovert never heard that. Well, I still like to get paid, so I do extra yea, so I do the charity from Andy. And Andy's same way like very private andil but he's publicly super funny, obnoxious, loud. So we kind of struck up a mild friendship and we hung out more and more and uh, smash cut this. He was at my wedding. Is my best friends now? And you're kidding Andy Roddick. I talked I mean I talked him this morning, like he's been one of my best life friends. Like if he called needed a kidney, I wouldn't think twice about it. Like there's like four of those people. And so when we were in Austin, I would travel with him to events and like we were tight because neither one of us had big circles and we were we trusted each other. And so he had to deal with obviously any tennis or sports company that he wanted, and he would give me the absolute best of the best equipment, rackets, shoes, balls, it doesn't matter, machine, everything, just what even want, whenever you wanted. And I was like, I'm not a bay tennis and he was like, we'll start playing. And I just got like four or five of my friends and like, okay, we're gonna start playing, but they all need stuff too. He he fitted us all with I mean, we had thousands of thousand moment and I would tell you, Tom, we sucked. We never got better because we never wanted. We just played each other and I'm not sure played with the right rules. But that was my tennis is that I thought our group is pretty good. So I told Andy one day, I said, I think if at the time he held the world record for fastt serf and he was like a touring artist, but touring in the rock space where he would be gone in Europe or three months. We don't text or call occasionally, but when you come home. We were together a lot, and he come back and said, when you come back, I'm getting pretty good at this. I was only beating my friends. I'm getting pretty good at this. I want to I want to hit something with you. And it was okay. So we had the world record per service. I said, I think if you hit your ball at me ten times, I could at least put it back over then at once, because you can't like no, no, no, I'm not saying I would score point, but I think once and He's like, all right, he said, you can't, but okay, so we do it. He goes, if you do this, though, I need you to document it because you're not going to be able to do not. And I know me, I could do anything. A prop my mind too. So I'm training, but only get some friends that stuck right, and we meet up and he's ready to you, and I got my in sports illustrative was doing a thing on it and I'm like, let's go, baby, and he hits the first one. I don't. I don't under see it. I don't see it. I was like, I think I heard something, and he had a couple more and he knew I had no chance. So then he started to like cut the serves where they would come a little slower, but they would just like hard sliders gone. And then he just started tagging me with the ball off the ground. And that's when I realized tennis is not for me. I can't see very well. It's one of my eyes and the work and I just I don't have it. I never had it. So the fact that you're a big tennis player, there's so much running and cardio and being in shape, like that's that's a great sport to be a fan of because you would kind of stay fit and it would keep you pretty healthy. Do you find that's a big part of your health and your fitness now is being dedicated to tennis. I mean I play, you know, two or three times a week. Wow, that is a lot. It's a lot. I mean, I take a couple of lessons and I got you know, guys that we play with, are you are you good in your group? Your person? I'm okay, I'm not being modest. I am I even at at my level guys, I play with guys fifty to seventy. It's still is amazing that you can look at, you know, guys that are doing athletic things and some guys just have even at our level, they just have a greater gift I hand coordination than the other guy. I mean, now, Andy Roddick is exponential. It hated him. It's superman. Yeah, the hand eye coordination thing because he trying. I'm gonna work out with them and it was tough and I get it. He's also a lot bigger than you think, super athlete. But we play ping pong. He's awesome. We played golf. I started playing golf. I haven't played golf a long time in my life, but I started playing a little bit before him, and he went from being a terrible golfer to awesome golfer and like nine months, I'm still trying to get there. So, but when we talk about gifts natural gifts, where do you feel like your natural gift is being used the most in your career? Like what makes you? And I'm gonna use the word you don't have to agree with the word, but please for the second question, based on your dad at your stats, what makes you eat as a songwriter. As far as where your gifts come into play, I think we all possess a super I would say that my superpower would be if I had to just name one, it would probably be empathy. I can really put myself in the shoes of almost anybody. It's you know, it's kind of the storyteller aspect of me. I'm very I am very interested in people, and I really feel things deeply, like no matter no matter what I feel stories deeply, movies, you get emotional quick. Yeah, I'm very emotional, Yes, very emotional. That my wife's an EmPATH, yeah, big time. But you're not um you know, I am a situational EmPATH. I'm not an emotional EmPATH because I struggle with emotion. I think I went through so much big time trauma my age one to seventeen eighteen that I never let myself be that sad. So I never got that happy. I never was excited about anything because I was always disappointed. So never too high, never too low. And but if I if I can't get that set, also can't go that high, right, And I don't like that about me, So I don't have that emotion. I'm working on it. My wife's been such a good influence there. But I have situational because anything that I've even kind of been through and I see somebody else going through it, I just want to I want to fix everything. But I can do it very linear and just fix it and not It's like a trauma surgeon who goes and somebody's like dying, but they are you able to focus and go all right, this is why I'm here. Let me fix it. And yes it's a very emotional thing, but they can go. If I am not collected, I will not be able to do this as efficient as possible. So yes, I'm I'm a situational impact I have no emotion, but when it hits me, god dang, because it never hits. But when it hits, it's like you pulled the plug of the bathtub and the water has been in there for eight months or so. But that's why I think I'll I enjoy you as a songwriter so much, either if you're singing them in a demo that I hear a version that you've cut, or artists that you write with, or artists that you just write for. I think universally most of your songs have an empathy to them of some sorts. And I when you said empathy, I was gonna I was gonna bring that up, and and your style and even your movie, which I mean I watched two or three years ago. At this point it's so good. I didn't. I love you as someone who's created your body of work, and even the amount of time we've spent together, which isn't a ton, but it's enough that I feel like when you walked in again, I was like, dude, it's great to see you again. Like I I watched that movie, And maybe that's part of it two is watching that movie and in getting to know you even better. Because people feel like they know me because I volunteered a lot of my life to them. But I watched your movie and I honestly when it started, I'm gonna be completely transparent with you. This will be painful. I'm getting this, but it ends up it's like it's like a work black because it's gonna be great. At the end. I was like, oh, man, I don't want to watch some songwriters Glory Peace, where they think they can do a movie about like, Okay, we know you wrote a bunch of great songs. I love the song, but you're gonna do a movie now like and it wasn't about you. It's just that's what I would have felt with anybody. It's a massive songwriter going and made a movie about my songs in my life. But I am such a big fan of you, And I said, you know what, I owe it to me because I like Tom so much to watch it and I started it unorthodox style. You're talking to and you're moving through and it took me a second. It was almost like when I watched Hamilton's I didn't really know what I was getting into and it took me a cat Oh they never stood oh, And then I breaking loved it. Once I assigned myself to the idea of what I was watching, and it was about probably twelve to thirteen minutes into your movie that I went, oh, I'm not weird it out, and as a matter of fact, I am enthralled. I loved it so much. I remember writing a note and I had to keep myself from writing a note to you or to somebody on your team immediately after. It was so good I couldn't stop telling people about They're like, what I watch it? I was like, I don't know, he sen me link, alright, I don't. So when it came on Paramount, which is where it's at now, and I was talking about it, Michael is talking about with uh somebody, yeah, the Warren Brothers, I was like, I gotta get Tom back on because people can now see this now when you make this just the style of it is you telling your story with songs that you wrote, but you're like forward facing and walking through it. Where does that? Where did that visual come from from you? To how to shoot this? The well? Because it's very visual, it's very visual, and that all came from our brilliant Oscar nominated Irish director Michael Lennox, it's such a great idea. So well, I'm I'm delighted that that you liked it and that you talked about it. That's that's a real honor. The the thing that I would I wouldn't do just because it would bore me silly h is. I would not make a movie about me. I would not write a memoir I am. I am totally uninterested in that. What I am. I think the reason why you liked it and why other people liked it is because ultimately it's about you. All I did was create a piece of art that you can project your story on, and it it transported you to a time and place that you enjoyed. Some of it was enjoyable for you, some of it was painful, I'm sure. So it's just there is just there's kind of just one story. But when you when I tell my story, it reminds everybody of their story. And then when story really stories change everything. Uh, And when you forget your story, that's when dangerous things happen and you get lost. I think you know, as a culture, but as an individuals too. So that's why I'm really passionate about just the concept of storytelling. And why we all need to know our story and be able to articulate our story and um, and that's really what it was. I was just telling my story just so other people could tell their story. But it did start with In two thousand fourteen, I was honored to be inducted into the National Songwriters Hall of Fame. I gave a twelve minute induction induction speech. And as you know, of all people, everything is not created equal what it? For whatever reason, that twelve minute speech got an inordinate amount of interest and plays, you know, it went viral. It was It was kind of I didn't really get it. I mean, I was always pleased when people would talk about it, but so two thousand you know, I never really knew that there was anything more to it. In two thousand eighteen, I was really at a very low point in my one of my many low points in my career, where I was discouraged. Time had passed me by. I don't know how to do this, Why am I doing this? My life has had no meaning? And I got to see Bruce Springsteen on Broadway? Did you by chance? I watched it on Netflix? Well? It was great on Netflix, it was better. So and when I saw Bruce Um, you know, in a little theater on Broadway tell his story. It was all about him growing up in Freehold, New Jersey, and I was immediately transported to thirty eighteen Are Gone Drive. It was his story, but he quickly disappeared and it was my story. And for two and a half hours, I could kind of relive my childhood, my relationship with my father, you know, the discovery of music. I mean it was it's just a story, but it engaged me and Um and then I thought, Okay, I want to take my twelve minute induction speech, blow it up, and I want to kind of do a bad version of Bruce Springsteen. So I did Love Tom. It was a one man performance, and I did it a hundred times anywhere and everywhere. People would I do it for benefits, for charities. I'd have people out to my studio And how long was the show? When you do it one man? An hour and fifteen minutes. I just enjoyed doing it. There's one thing that I had control over. Most of the things that I do create, I feel like I have no control over It's like I can go I could like come over here and just give me a piano fellas and give me an hour and fifteen minutes and I'm gonna take you on a trip. It was just enjoyable. Anyway, this director saw my one man performance, he said, I know how to make a movie out of that. How do you see it? He just I was doing a performance for his brother in law's company, and uh, he just happened to be there. When someone comes up to you and goes, oh, I think I can make it, I don't trust anybody anymore from Hollywood, you know. But when someone says that to you, do you think he's serious because it's such a well, I guess, I mean, you know it. It all comes down to the person. I had an immediate affinity for him, and you know, I knew he had had He's got a body of work that I would respected, and we kind of had a relationship. I mean, my immediate response was let's do it? When where how much I'm in I haven't seen the movie in a couple of years. I watched it as soon as you sent it to me, and then I've preached about it and I'd never watched movies twice. I want to watch it again, and if I mess up some of the details. Just slap me and tell me the real story. But there's part of it where you're talking about you stopped doing music, you're selling real estate. Yes, and not for like eight months, for over ten years, right, thirteen years. I mean, that's a whole different linean it's all different life, that's all that's crazy. And so you call your dat your dad? Can you my father, whom I loved dearly the majority of my life. It was it was idyllic. As I say in the movie, my father had a predisposition towards clinical depression that at times led to an addiction to pain medication. So he kind of got on that roller coaster and then he retired. Um and you know, everything went to hell in a handbasket when he retired, and he was on a real roller coaster of you know, depression and it's basically opioids, you know, on and off, prescribed by doctors for almost twenty years. Now, I've forgotten. What was your question, the dad you're you're living in Texas? Well? Yeah, so my dad was not doing well. Was in Atlanta, which is where I was from. I was in Nashville. My mother called me and said, I can't do this, and you know, I could tell my my mother's voice that it was killing. So I brought my father to live with me in Nashville. I couldn't take care of him. My songwriting gaining no traction, My father and I moved west to Dallas to stay with my sister and brother in law. I reinvented myself as a real estate broker, leaving Nashville never to return, and literally about I don't know, five six years in I I kind of thought I'd made peace with Nashville, and all of a sudden, I found myself. One day I was cold calling a shopping center as a real estate broker, and I just I was talking to a prospective in it, but internally I was having this raging argument with God about how could I be thirty nine and be so disappointed with my life? So, I mean, it was really an epiphany moment. And that's when I literally heard I haven't I've heard God a few times, and God said, well, you've been worshiping the creation instead of Me the Creator. So there you have it. And it was just shocking. When you were selling real estate, were you good? Did you get good? Average? Okay, you keep saying that i'm, I'm, I'm, I'm. I'm just telling you I have one thing I do really great. I am. I really am a very good lyricist. The majority of other things, I mean, I was okay. I mean, I made a living, but I was surround to talk about, you know, superman elite in Dallas, Texas at that time. I was surrounded by some of the greatest real estate brokers and real estate developers in the United States. Almost the kind of the burgeoning real estate development business started in Dallas that just happened to be a collection of men that that kind of built America and they started out. So I was surrounded by be like, yeah, I was a pretty good tennis player, but you know I was with Andy Roddick and Roger Federer. I did meet fed Bunch and he was awesome, the kindest guy. I do have one John McEnroe's story, which I will tell you at some point. It's an amazing story. But we digress. You are selling real estate again for over a decade, But were you were you itching to create whatever that meant not? You know, I hard, I was repressing it, and um, you know, I I just I kind of just didn't have much I really wanted to say, you know, you know I was I was better. I didn't think I was, but but I thinking of actuality. I think I was just disappointed in yourself and myself and God. And you know, just in the fact that my father, you know, kind of fell apart at the end of his life. It was just it was kind of also needless. It was so pointless, like we all kind of had it together and then you know, so, I mean, I blame my father for a lot of it for a long time, which was foolish. But when were you reintroduced to fulfillment? I remember I had honestly, when I had that moment with God and I thought, Okay, you're right. I've been looking down here for years and you're up there. You allegedly, you know, or the God of creativity in the beginning, God created allegedly. Let's just say that's true. Why don't I just go back to the God of creation and say, I need I need a hit of creativity. I just want to enjoy this again. I I did love it at one time. Now I hate it. I just want to go back to I just want to enjoy it. I don't care if any I'll never go back to Nashville. I don't want to do that. I want to enjoy this gift. And as soon as I kind of did that, the some of the weight started to follow off my shoulders. It took about a year and a half or two years. I started to thaw out and I could just kind of start breathing a little bit. And I remember one day, you know, it was the convergence. I was working with Walmart, Bill Clinton was running for president, and my father was trying to recover from a litany of things, and I just sat down and over a couple of weeks, I kind of wrote Little Rock. It was just the convergence of all those storylines and it was like, Wow, that that's what I'm talking about. That's all I wanted to do. And it was just just the joy of that creation was enough. Okay, So I heard something there. You're talking about Walmart and you talk about litteral rocks selling BCRs. It ain't Walmart, it's I mean, it's that reference inspired by that season with that exact exactly. I mean, every Time magazine, every Look magazine, every newspaper would say Bill Clinton, that kids on a roll and Little Rock and I was like, every time I would see it, I think, well, that's a song. If I was a songwriter, I would write that. But I'm not a songwriter, so I'm not gonna worry about that. But I did. I did park it away. And then one day I was like, all right, what if I told the story of somebody that's the Little Rock is it really is? It's by a graphical it really is my father, that's his story. He was always trying to start overdrawal line on the sand. I'm not going back to that other way of life, and so really it's it's just I just used all those you know that storyline of this this recovering alcoholic finds himself and you know Little Rock, you know, selling VCRs, and he called the the whole song is the and a half minutes of this guy calling his wife trying to convince himself and her I'm I'm gonna do it for Markansas. That song was personally many many many ways. Not only is it and my parents that my mom dealt with a lot of fiction, but also my state didn't get talked about much and it was always bad. So they have a song where they were like Little Rock we're like, yeah, let's go, that's our song. I think I'm all so you right that song? Did you feel like that was something you had been storing in you as in you could write all these songs? Or did you feel like that was something that kind of replanted in you buy something bigger than yourself, because that's kind of a that's a powerful way to start your second we'll call it your second career of songwriting. Well, you know, it was it was a real moment I think, you know, in the creative experience, I think it's like that. It's it's it's plateau, plateau, plateau. And then then occasionally, and you never really know. Occasionally you'll just move up, you know, a few rungs of the ladder, and all of a sudden it's a whole lot better than it was. But you you just have to put in all that time, and you've gotta be willing to You just can't be defined by failure, which which I'm oddly enough not, even though I am very insecure and very fragile, I am not defined by failure. I can I can handle failure, surprisingly will I bet you can too. Yeah, I have to do it all the time. Yeah, I don't like to fail. My second book that I wrote was called fail until you don't. And people have this association with me and failure and that I just like to go out and fail. I hate it. But I also I don't like I don't like exercising either. I don't like eating pretty good. But I gotta do some things in order to actually be better, and some of that happens to be You gotta know, you gotta be okay with how much it sucks when you can't do something good because you don't do some good, gotta do something not good first, And yeah it sucks. Filure sucks, but it's it's being okay. It's like in the morning for me, you know, I go in every day and wake up it. Sometimes I have it too wake up. It just depends. It's the early early show. And I never got used to waken up early. Even today I went in this morning a whole show today. I never get used to waken up early. But when I get used to is how to handle it when it feels terrible. I'm better at feeling terrible and hating waking up in the morning. And that's how I am with failure. I know, that Okay, well, that sucks, but I've had it happened before already. I got through it and got better, and it's gonna happen again too. That's nothing to do with this failure. So why am I going to spend a whole lot of emotional energy assigning myself to this failure? And then if I can take something from it, awesome. It' still always hurts. It's still always hurts and always sucks. But I know there's gonna be twenty more failures coming up that have nothing to do with this, and I this is needed. So I don't get better wake up of the morning. I handle feeling bad better and don't get better at failure. I handle it better because I've done it so much. I know more will come. And um, I think that's I mean, obviously, that's yeah, that's one of the reasons why you're very successful in a number of fields. It's borderline psychotic because, like I said, everything is linear to me. Like I just lined out a B, C, D F G of how I am able to live my life and my feelings. It's not feelings, their dots, and I walked to the dots. It is interesting. I mean, you you say borderline psychotic. I mean, I get that, but I'm I think I'm very attuned and sensitive to as a storyteller. I can tell I could, I can tell your story a number of different ways, just this last little bit, so you can you can project that that's psychotic, or you could just say, you know what, you're just very focused, you're very committed, and you're very sciplined. I don't think that psychotic, but and we could do this to your story too. I'm focused and disciplined because I'm terribly insecure, and I'm scared of going to back how it was when I was a kid. I don't want to have to not eat meals because we can't afford it. I don't want to have to go and not be able to afford close or shoes and figure out how to have to just survive. And I'm so scared of that. And I'm so insecure with my skill set, which I don't feel my skill set is pushing and not stopping. That I have developed these other things from those first difficult things, and I'm grateful for it now. I used to resent it like crazy. That's what i was asking you about that, you know, bitterness and resent I used to be so bitter and so resentful and have a dad, and it was hard. But now it's like I have empathy in a way that I would never have had I not had those failures and those struggles. And when it comes to struggles and some of your most notable work, for example, I think something you probably get asked about a lot is the house to build me. Yeah, I believe you told me last time. It was a seven year song and you just kept going back to it. It was never quite full finished. And two questions one after all that time, what was it about it that you went, oh, now it's done? Because I think I would have just gotten to the habit of wanting to fix it or giving up. I don't think as songwriters we ever really have that moment of clarity where you think, oh, it's done. Uh, it was just it's just part of the cycle. Uh. You know. We've done a number of demos, and we did this one in two thousand nine, and it was we demoed it. It was like, that's amazing, But I thought it was amazing. That was my question, that you also think it the first many times I've I've always thought the first you know five. So it wasn't you that was holding it back. No, it was it's you know, you just have to stay in the process. I my one man performance morphed, you know, probably seven different times over the two years that I did. It had all different names, had different parts of it, and I thought it was amazing. Every time I did it, I thought it was just killer, only to find out like, oh, somebody would say something might just be crushed and devastated and be like, oh, you're right, I forgot that, but equally hurtful and awesome. I have those moments too. My wife said something about my stand up actor. I did that one man comedically inspirational show where I'm funny but I'm also telling stories, and she'd be like, well what, and I'm just so I'm like wounded when she says that, but I know she's saying it from a place of love. And then I'm like, oh, it hurts because you're right, and I didn't see that, and I'm like, oh, that sucks, and you're right. So that's like I get it, Like when you say that, you're speaking from my mouth. I tell my wife about I don't know. Three weeks ago, I said Honestly, I don't think I can ever play you another song again. It was so the reaction was so honest and so painful. It was almost couldn't. I was just almost catatonic for about thirty six hours. What did you expect? I expected her to love it? Did you expect her to love it? Or she just really want her to love it? And want her and even if she didn't love it to tell you she loved it. I knew she would not tell me she loved it if she didn't, but I wandered her. You know, I've got an audience one. I'm just I'm still trying to impress my wife, you know that same, and I'm losing the ability to everyone with her was awesome. She thinks I am. I'm not even funny to her anymore. It's crazy. It sucks. Uh yeah. But by the way, when you were on bear grills and you all were doing some of those, the one with her, the one by myself, the one was one with her, okay yeah, the last one wow, oh yeah, she's but she's a monstute beast. That was really I mean, the I'm very scared of high and I just the way that you all negotiated and navigated. That was very inspiring it. Thank you for bringing that out now I'm reliving that. Thank you. What a storyteller you are. Do you have any other songs that are like you've been working on for six years? It's like wine, you know how the age wine or whiskey? Yeah, you've been holding seven years? Is doing the seven year deal again? Do you think you know what maybe this birth that you've been on and off working on, well, I mean, nothing that comes to mind, um, you know, I mean, Love's the Only House took a long time, and we have many differents of that, uh. I mean we had one that was kind of a Jimmy Buffett Calypso version. We had one that was, you know, a very Elton John String version, and then you know, we kind of ended up with the version that we have. But you know, I've come to see the creative process. For me, it's it's a two cycle process. I create and I share, and that's really it. Then I have to immediately go back to creating and sharing the next thing I can't get hung up on. I mean, when we did our movie, I we just sent the movie to every notable person that we knew in the music or entertainment business. That's how you distributed it. Early for partners, we were just trying to find somebody somewhere that said I like this, I know what to do with it, And you gotta say I said I like it, I have no idea what to do with it, so go to the next person right well, and that that's that was the case until we got to Jason Owens and uh Chandra the plume and how did they get to Paramount plus the overall? Like the uh so, Jason at Sandbox Entertainment in Chandra, they have an arrangement with Sony Pictures Entertainment. Sony Pictures Entertainment. They then shopped at to all the different streaming services. It took them, you know, nine months. Do you feel like they believed in it Sony when they were pitching immediately. I mean it's like once you kind of get well, there's you know two things. It's you've gotta have somebody that has the ability to do something with the art that you give them, and you also have to find somebody that is passionate about what you do. So fortunately we found that and that it was it was an amazing team Tom McKay and Los Angeles. He was who just pounding the payment trying to I mean, people saw and nobody said that's terrible. I don't know what you guys were thinking. It was just now it has to fit into the niche of I mean, all these streaming services have identities that are so segmented that some like music, some don't like music. Some you know, I mean they it just depends on what their taste are. How was it being front facing to a camera, having to speak directly to a camera different than acting? It's different. It's just so different than anything. And how this was shot, and how your relationship with the audience and the camera. Well, you know, honestly, I didn't really think about that. It's not that we set out to we I didn't really have any idea what we were doing. I just wanted to do it because it was another form of expression. I like telling the story like that. So I had performed it so many times that I knew the script pretty well. You're comfortable with the words. It's your voice, obviously, so it would just be like plug and play, like Okay, we're gonna do this three minutes segment. Here, do this and you know, I didn't know I could do it, but I didn't know that I couldn't do it. When I look at it, it doesn't look that unusual to me. It's only when people, you know, I say gosh, how could you walk and talk at the same time that that I mean, they had low expectations to begin with. The few times, like, we're surprised you could walk and talk at all, Tom, don't you gum? Do not try to chew gum with that? Have you found random appreciation for it, meaning from a community that you were not already in and someone just found it and found you and something got a methodge to you. Uh yeah, it's some of those random Uh. You know, I'm not really on Facebook, somehow I have an account, and but I started getting you know, flooded with you know, Facebook from people that are literally going to grammar school with or college with or this or that, and you know, and occasionally I'll go somewhere and somebody said, hey, man, I really enjoyed your your film, so uh, but I really am all about the next one. I mean, we're trying to do the next the next one. We we we probably should do love Bobby or hey, Bob, you have done so much and you're a lot of songwriters like like a goal. Like a lot of people said that their goal has been getting a room with you to write. You're a hero to a lot, and some people don't even realize you're the hero till they get to spend time around you or study what you've done and how you've done it. Heroes influences. Two questions about that. One, who was your hero when you were a kid and then as you became an adult. I could be a young adult who then and maybe it's the same person who then that you weren't related to became your hero at any point your adulthood. That's a very good question. I was very influenced by. And I noticed that when you asked that, you didn't give any kind of parameters. And I know you did that perfectly. I have a question like that that I asked, and I don't give parameters, so it's always interesting people's response. So I didn't fall for that trap, bod. I was very influenced by the music in my house that I grew up with, which was you know, Lawrence Welk, you know a big band music, music of the church. Um, you know. I mean I literally remember my sister my day and I went to Jim Silly's record store in Bucket and we bought a forty five of Hound Dog. I bet that was nineteen. I can't really pinpoint the day, but you know, there was always music around me. My father was very creative and very artistic, even though he was a steel salesman, but he was a very poetic guy. So I was very influenced by my father. Um, and you know, it was always you know, pushing me on my biggest fan. Uh. And my mother was very creative, but in the design arts. So that and uh, I honestly think maybe everybody thinks this. I think I grew up in the Golden era of music. I mean I grew up the Beatles. You do you think you're the Golden Okay, so everybody thinks that, But you know, I mean I grew up with the Beatles. I grew up with I grew up with Springsteen and Dylan and Jackson Brown and the Eagles and Bob you know, so I was really you that was that was my school. That was my education. That's how I That was my musical education. Were all that music that I just absorbed growing up, even though I never I grew up in a time and a place in a family where there was no possible way I would have told my parents I'm going to now be a songwriter. That would that would have been unthinkable. When you got to choose your influences, and I have just hear you around, I'm gonna ask the second part of this question again, but now you get to choose who's your hero at I had some guys along the way that, from no good reason, just believed in me as a songwriter. When I was in Atlanta in the very early days, they just they saw something in me, and they you know, they supported me financially and emotionally. It was Bobby and Bobby Vincent, and uh, they really influenced me just in their passion and how much they love I loved songs, but I saw how much they I love songs because I was creating. They just loved songs, and um, you know, I think that's it. That's acceptable. Yeah, came to Nashville. I was here and it was me. You heard me for the first time and I heard you guys awesome, and I need to be more like him. Thank you for that and I appreciate that you say that all the time to everybody. It's very kind of. You had two final things to ask you being in Nashville and you play I'm assuming you still play some of the can you talk about your show, but you still probably play some songwriter stuff, and like, yeah, if they say, okay, Tom, you're doing four songs tonight, what four will you more than not? What will be your four more times than not? What are those four? I just did a benefit for the n s A I on Monday night and I played four songs, and they, oh, good, I like this, Let's just do what you did recently. They got started with van Go. But I tell these kind of a little elongated anecdotes to the songs. Now, I don't just play the song. So there's I play a song called van Go, then I played a little rock, then I played I Run to You, and then I played the House and Built Me. You got a close with that one, right, That's that's the that's the it's still I mean, the people love it not really because of the song. They love it because they get to take a trip back to their home good or bad for about three and a half minutes. That's why they love the song. We do this bit on our show. We've done it for years and years and years, about once a year because we don't want people to know what we're doing. If we have a guy on our show, just go it's getting risk here and risk here. But he'll go up to the house and knock on the door and he'll just he'll just recreate it. It's never actually been in the house, but he'll just say the words from your song and see if he'll let him in their house and be like, I used to live here. We are all dogs in the backyard, you know that. And it's so funny because it's just your words, but amazing, I gotta see that. Well, it's it's I mean, it's stupid now your song. The bit we do because he'll just be like, I feel good about hello. I just want you to know uh, and I have thought and he just does it. He acts out your word and they believe him. And sometimes they show in the door in his face and sometimes they're like okay, yeah, come on in, and then he's like, you know that that tree over there, just it's so funny. Yeah, he's gonna get shot one day anyway. That's what I want to say before we wrap on the last question, I'm gonna watch your movie, guys. I loved it so much, and I hope people listening to this if I'm correct, the movie is not three hours. It's not a Marvel movie where I'm just like, I gotta pee. This was like is an hour until fifty six minutes the air amount plus that's less than an episode of some of the shows I watched. Okay, you guys, go watch Love Tom. It's awesome. It stylistically is gonna be a little different than what you're used to, but that's what you'll fall in love with after about eight minutes. And if I'm telling you money back from tall like that from you, not from me. I somehow a Diet Dr Pepper on me. If you don't, that's a lot of Diet Dr Peppers I got. We got a big audience here, Tom h final question, what did you have for lunch today? Oh? Man? I have had the same thing for years and years and years, I will say, and you could you can talk to people that have written with me. I have a I have a whole thing. It's a turkey sandwich. It's good, thick, whole grain bread, it's mustard and mayonnaise. It's boar's head, honey, maple, turkey, Americans sharp cheddar cheese. Today I always have one special ingredient. Today I put cranberry relish. That's pretty good. I like that. The mayonnaise kills it, though, what god man must tarn a manaise together? Are you a serial killer that you want to see my lunch? Check it out? I had this today. Yeah, but those this is my lunch and I usually instagram what you have? I did today because like, how dynamic that is? What is that chick? What is that chicken and waffles? It's a it's called a chicken breakfast plate. And there are there's chicken, there's waffles, there's biscuits, there's fruit, there's bagels. Where's I'm glad you asked here in town? My wife was like, do you want to go have lunch? And I'm almost done for the year, Like I got a couple. I think this is like my last thing thing. Well, yeah, I wanted to really end on a on a low note. And he goes, let's go have let's go have lunch. I said sure, And it was a Z blue A and Z I E blue right down there where like Hillsboro. No, it's we're all like the college kids walk and people the biscuit. I don't know. I don't I don't even know how to get to work. Let's have term. But it's Anzi Blue. It's awesome. Wow, that looks delicious. It is. I couldn't eat. I mean, have stomach problems, but I had. I had the whole plate there right, some of it and called it today. It was amazing. That was my lunch. Thank you for ask. I like that. You didn't ask. That's all right, I should have that. Look, the movie is awesome. Thank you. We've done an hour here. This is an hour, a great hour. I enjoy spending time with you. We have to start recording yet, so that was just a warm up. We're gonna get to the actual. H No, that was just a warm Now that's the pre interview. We're able to talk. And I talked like this in the interview. Tom doug Less everybody, Uh, I hope people check out. Love Tom. I love Tom. There's so much. It's so good. Paramount plus go get it. Tom. It is always a joy to spend any time with you, whatsoever, especially when they're it's just me and you. Well, I would say God bless Bobby Bones. I would not say that, but I appreciate that you did. Congratulations, check out, Love Tom, and that is all.