#398 - Corey Kent on Celebrating His First No. 1 ‘Wild As Her’ and How Morgan Wallen Wrote It and Sang the Demo + How He Ended Up on Stage with Willie Nelson at 16 Years Old +  Recording His Hit Song While Working At a Pavement Company in Texas

00:00:06
Speaker 1: On my way out. Essentially, I had one publishing company reach out to me. I was so scared to tell them I was moving to Texas. A whole year, every Monday I would fly in and every Wednesday I would fly out and they would call me in. I'd be like breaking out. I'd be like, oh God, if I answer this and they asked me where I'm at and if I can come in, I'm done.

00:00:25
Speaker 2: Episode three ninety eight with Corey Kent. The song went number one this week, It's Wild as Her. Here's a clip of that.

00:00:31
Speaker 1: The Windows.

00:00:35
Speaker 2: Had the album comes out on a second. So I I hadn't met Corey Kent before and I came in, but a lot of my Oklahoma family, like in laws, know him. As you hear. My wife's sister went to college with him. He his wife took photos at her wedding. It's a whole thing because my wife's all on the calendar. She was like, Corey Kant's coming over to how's he doing. I'm like, what do you mean? She's like, is he doing good? What do you mean? Said? Well, he left to go to Nashville a long time ago, And you know, I was like, wait, huh, I was just so confused by it all, and she was like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I said, yeah, he got the number one song. She's like wow, wow, good for him.

00:01:17
Speaker 3: Said you're just coming to hang out.

00:01:19
Speaker 1: I don't know what she.

00:01:20
Speaker 2: Thought, but because she will, you know, try to find me sometimes because I'm not always just gone out of town but just doing stuff. I'm like, please keep my calendar just so you can see where I am if you need to find me, because it's all over the place. And yeah, she was like, Cory Kiint's coming, are you friends? How do you know? And I was like no, no, no, no, like he's making it now. So that was a whole weird situation, positive situation. But we talked about that a little bit in this. He is from Bixby, Oklahoma. You know. The wild part of the story was he was just a kid, like eleven years old and he starts in an old Western swing band. He talks about that and he's just really one of those guys who listen. He tried, he tried the Nashville approach, and that one that Wade in really work so much so then he moved back to Texas and just started grinding and touring and that kind of work for him, mixed in with a little bit of going viral but not really him, just like a clip of that song. A pretty interesting story. So Corey Kent is his name. I mean, he's been a hustle. He did over one hundred shows in a year. He just made his Opry debut, and he's going out with Jason Alden next on his Highway Desperado tour. And I thought he was pretty open about he's gonna make less money doing that than doing his own shows because he's selling his own shows and selling them out and selling a bunch of tickets. But it's an investment to go out on these big, high profile tours and he's very grateful for it. But he's like, yeah, it's an investment season. So it's Corey Kent. What'd you take away from this interview, Mike.

00:02:44
Speaker 3: I think when it comes to new artists sometimes you wonder how they're going to be when they come in. Really nice guy, and he also knows that, like he's having a moment right now, he's going to take that in but keep working, keep grinding.

00:02:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was really nice. I guess when I see the motorcycle and it looks really hardcore, except with a baby face at the same time, like every but it's all legitimate. Yeah, Like he like worked on motorcycles like as a job for a little bit too. I think he did the ass fall into the motorcycles. So Corey Kent. I do believe that this guy is like legitimately who he portrays, which is cool. Doesn't even live in Nashville. I didn't find that out. Told later on he's playing in Nashville the Brooklyn Bowl six two January, February, March, April May, June second. Is that album to day for him?

00:03:27
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:03:28
Speaker 2: Do you do fingers for months? No? I can remember him, not me. He's playing the Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville on June second. On June eighth, he's playing the Chevy riverfront stage at CMA Fest and his name is Corey Kent. There's a story inside of this I don't even want to tease, but it's one of the best stories I think it's ever been told on the Bobbycast. Great. I don't have to tell you what it is, right, you know what it is. It's one of the best stories it's ever been told, and one of the most holy crap stories it's ever been told on the history of the Bobbycast. And we're almost four hundred episodes in, so take it in. Follow him on Instagram at Corey Kent and TikTok same. Let's go here. He is Corey Kent. Corey, how are you, buddy.

00:04:06
Speaker 1: I'm doing good man, Thank you for having me.

00:04:08
Speaker 2: We well, first of all, have a lot of stories that involve you. Even though I was of yesterday, I was flying back. You f excited, all right, wall, Yeah, we're good. We were flying back from Austin and I was with Steve Hodges and you come up because my wife, which is another story, and he's like, oh, give him at Chory said no, nor mc corey, and he's like, man, he's the greatest. And then I said, yeah, I've heard the opposite, but I haven't had him. But he said that I guess your your song just went number one the night before yea, and that I don't were you celebrating? Was he with He wasn't with you with me?

00:04:49
Speaker 1: No, he was. So my manager was at the iHeart thing and I think he went and.

00:04:55
Speaker 2: Uh, maybe they were celebrating then for you, Yes, they got it.

00:05:00
Speaker 1: They got some champagne and you know did the thing.

00:05:02
Speaker 2: Well, that's what he was talking about. He's like, we just celebrated for Corey, and I was like, he's not here, we celebrate his honor.

00:05:07
Speaker 1: I was on I was on the road, which is where we are almost one hundred percent of the time. Yeah, I was celebrating from my red van Rooster at you know, one am, whenever it was official or midnight.

00:05:20
Speaker 2: You get to be in the fun part of your career now where you've worked so hard to even work freaking harder because when you first when you first get that success, no doubt, that's when it's time that you And I tell this to a lot of artists. I'm not going to say new artists, but a lot of artists who are experiencing commercial success for the first time, right because it gets a really tired, really time. We were just talking before you walked into all of us here, Like I spent five or six days on the road doing the radio show, doing ACM doing I'm just exhausted. But I have to remind myself sometimes, man, it's awesome.

00:05:49
Speaker 1: They get to be exhausted, no doubt.

00:05:51
Speaker 2: So congratulations on being exhausted.

00:05:53
Speaker 1: Thank you man, Well and Honestly, it's more exhausting when I get home. You know, we got three kids at the house, So, like Lee, even the night our song went number one, I got got back in the van and we drove from two am to eight am to get home for Mother's Day, and then just had a whole day of you know, like when you get home and it's Mother's Day, it's like give mom a break day, right, So I'm basically like hallucinating for.

00:06:20
Speaker 2: Who drove the two to eight period is it's the worst time period they have to do anything because it ruins the whole rest of the day. Yep, So who drove the van?

00:06:31
Speaker 1: So me and our TMBO were the only ones in the van, So it was us, you know, and you can't just let one guy go the two am to eight am thing because if he gets if he starts dozing off, like you're both gone er.

00:06:45
Speaker 2: Someone's got to run watch, someone's got to run drive, gotta have.

00:06:48
Speaker 1: The co pilot slash DJ, you know. So it was both of us. We did pull over like you know, three forty five and catch an hour because we just we're seeing weird things on the side of the road.

00:06:59
Speaker 2: I catch that feel worse. I catched the hour and I'm like, oh god, I can't, I can't go on. Yeah, Well, congratulations though, man, then thank you number one song. Mike. Did you have a little bit of it a little bit while is there? So I think your wife took pictures at my wife's sister's wedding.

00:07:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, she did. And so we went to Oklahoma State with Grace with Grace. Yeah, and I don't know Grace, but for the record.

00:07:35
Speaker 2: I think mirrorly missing out because Grace is pretty awesome.

00:07:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what my wife told me all about, well both of them. I mean, she she got back from this wedding and was like these people are so fun Like what an awesome family. And she was like Bobby Bones was there and Grace's sister is married to Bobby and and I was like, oh great, so you told him about me, right, She's like I was like, no.

00:08:00
Speaker 2: Nothing got slid, no CDs, nothing, that's funny.

00:08:02
Speaker 1: I was like, well, are what are we doing here? You have a golden opportunity to help I mean nothing, And she's like no, I just she's so funny like that, Like one time she ran into Dennis Quaid in the airport physically ran into him, made him drop all of his stuff, and she's like holding one of our babies. And she comes back to me, like we split up to go through tsa come back together. She's like, I just ran into somebody. I'm like who. She's like, I don't know, but I should know him. And I was like, okay, well do you know? Like what is he? Music? Actor? Like what is he? She's definitely in movies, like movies we watch all the time, Like, okay, you have anything for me?

00:08:43
Speaker 4: No?

00:08:43
Speaker 1: Nothing? Walks by and she's like, that's him, that's him, And I was like, Dennis Quaid, you don't know who Dennis quad is? And then you know, just she just doesn't not that she doesn't care, it just doesn't. I admire this about her, like she just everybody, every person is a person to her, which is.

00:09:02
Speaker 2: Really already no.

00:09:04
Speaker 1: And same thing like we were watching the super Bowl one year and she's like, who's that guy and the confetti's falling, I'm like Tom Brady. She's like, oh, yeah, he's married to Giselle. Right, I'm like, that's how you know who Tom Brady is? You didn't know what he looked like? Nothing? Okay, how long you've been married, coming up on seven years?

00:09:21
Speaker 2: Do you look like you're about I don't know, twenty one one of those young teenage Oklahoma weddings or what.

00:09:25
Speaker 1: I guess. Man, we met, you know, we met at Oklahoma State and we met our freshman year. But we were just friends for a long time, and then it just over time, it was like everybody knew what we didn't know. They were like, so you guys are dating. We're like, no, no, no, we're just friends. We were definitely more than friends, but it was just one of those things that took a little longer to develop, and then when it did develop, it happened really fast. So we like got engaged. Eighty nine days later we were married, and like a few months in we were pregnant. So it was just like, all right, well we're having kids, I might as well knock them out, you know, so we have three now, might as well?

00:10:02
Speaker 2: Why not? Right, So you don't do the whole somebody else boomer, because this everywhere out of Oh my god, it's the worst. Everywhere I go, my wife, she will see somebody or they will see her. And if there's any oh you pre paraphernalia boomer suited. It's like, oh my god. No, Like we have a chance that people think are annoying me being razor bag, but we do. You kind of keep it into games for the most part, or like events. I'm just at the movie.

00:10:31
Speaker 1: You can read the room.

00:10:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're literally watching Air the movie in the theater and they got to yell that their their mating call to each other. Where did you grow up in Oklahoma, Big Spy? I've been to Bigsby?

00:10:44
Speaker 1: Why, I don't know.

00:10:45
Speaker 2: Well, Caitlin's from Fort Gibson, and I think I've just been a maybe Big Spy's work. Grace got married?

00:10:54
Speaker 1: Is that possibly? Actually? Yeah, it's actually the town has really changed in the last few years.

00:11:00
Speaker 2: Did it five A school?

00:11:02
Speaker 1: I think it's six A.

00:11:03
Speaker 2: Now you're right, and it's where I was. That's exactly what I was told. I've been there, shout out. I probably went to your house.

00:11:09
Speaker 1: I mean you could have. My house was not someplace you'd visit where I grew up. But anyway, that town is yeah, it I don't get to go back hardly ever.

00:11:19
Speaker 2: Is anyone there? What from your family?

00:11:22
Speaker 1: Yeah? My mom still lives there. My mom and have a little brother, and little sister that are in high school there.

00:11:27
Speaker 2: So it's a six A school. That's a big school. What was your graduating class two hundred?

00:11:32
Speaker 1: A little over two hundred, and now it's like my I think my brother will graduate with like eight hundred or something.

00:11:38
Speaker 2: So it is big.

00:11:40
Speaker 1: It is like quadrupled in the last few years. I guess wedding venues are there now that it used to be. The joke was like when people come play us in football, like they're going to Hicksby because you got to drive through the cornfields and the and the trailer parks. Not joking, like the downtown area is like low income housing and trailer parks, and then you get to the high school and so all these like city teams would come play Bixby and just make fun of us.

00:12:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you moved to Nashville. How old?

00:12:10
Speaker 1: Seventeen?

00:12:11
Speaker 2: Yeah this seems pretty young.

00:12:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, I finish high school. I did a year early so I can move here and write. I wanted to learn how to write songs. I wasn't currently really doing it, but I knew that I could get here and learn from some people, so I to back up. Like I played Western Swing as a kid, which is like talk about nineteen thirties era dust Bowl kind of music. Really, the whole genre kind of existed to lift people's spirits during like a really tough like.

00:12:40
Speaker 2: In depression is time. Yep.

00:12:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, like dust Bowl era where like no crops were growing, people were they could barely feed their families, and Bob Wills was kind of the guy that made it famous. Where I'm from, like Texas and Oklahoma. There's there's other pockets of Western Swing guys that were, you know, pretty popular in California, and so there's multiple cultures. But I grew up playing this stuff not because I loved the music, but because two Hall of famers saw that I could sing him play and they were like, hey, do you want to make money to play music? And I was eleven. I was like, you can do that. I didn't know that was an option.

00:13:18
Speaker 2: You're playing at eleven.

00:13:20
Speaker 1: My first show, my first legitimate show, was at Caine's Ballroom in front of Asleep at the Wheel and the Texas Playboys, which was Bob Will's band, and it was sold out like two thousand people, and it was I didn't even realize the magnitude of it at the time. It was just like we get to go do this thing, we get like one hundred bucks and we get off the stage and then our parents drive us home. It was super wild and far fetched.

00:13:47
Speaker 2: Well, well, let's back. I want to get to the end of the story though, But let's go back. How old were you when you started playing music and who influenced you to even know that you could get a guitar and play music.

00:13:59
Speaker 1: Well, when I was a kid, I remember seeing like the maybe my earliest TV memory was Garth Live in Dublin. I just remember like being enamored with this guy that could like control this sea of people across the world, and they all knew his songs and he's like in this crazy shirt running from side to side on the stage. So that was like my first country music memory. But my mom, you know, she can sing. She's probably the only I would consider the only musical person in my family.

00:14:31
Speaker 2: So nobody was a music teacher, played in a band like growing up, So you really saw something and were just drawn to it.

00:14:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, my mom was really good about like helping me just try all of the activities to kind of find my thing. I did all the sports, but I was never like a standout athlete. I was pretty good at wrestling, but never I mean, Oklahoma's like a big wrestling state, So I was you put me in another state, I might have been pretty good, but Oklahoma I was just subpar.

00:15:03
Speaker 2: So the state's got a really good program.

00:15:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you wrestle there? No, all my buddies did. They were a little better than I was, Thank god, dude. I mean, I wouldn't be able to fit in your monitor in my ear if I wrestled at Oklahoma State, you know. So uh but yeah, I think just my parents kind of given me the just like the encouragement to just keep trying to think, trying new things until I found something. I was that stuck, you know, and music guitar specifically, I was super anti theory, like to this day, can't read music, really don't have an interest in it. Tried it seems complex, but I wanted to learn how to play songs, not play scales. So I finally found a teacher after quitting like twenty different teachers. They would just teach me the three songs that I wanted to learn. And as soon as I learned those three songs, I was like, all right, I'm ready to go play. I'm gonna go play show, And so I begged this band that used to play. My mom had like a women's clothing store in Tulsa and she had parking lot parties at this thing and would hire this band. And this band was playing at the State Fair, and so I begged them to let me play during their like break, and I just figured, you know what, it's the Fair. Nobody stays long enough to listen to more than three songs anyway, So I played the three songs over and over and over. And while I was there, that's where I crossed paths with these Western Swing Hall of famers that were like, hey, you should, you know, give this frontman thing a try for this band. It was a nine piece band, Eleven to fifteen was the age range, and it was just supposed to be for that one show at Kane's Ballroom, and it ended up being like a novelty thing that nobody had seen before. So we got to play all over the country. You got to play at the Kennedy Center in DC open for the Oakridge Boys and got stage time with Roy Clark and I mean just legends and got to learn and talk with them and just get all the advice that we could, and then when I was sixteen, I had like this chance encounter with Willie Nelson that sent me down the songwriting rabbit hole that made me move to Nashville, and you know, it's led to everything, but that was the pinnacle moment, the defining moment of like, all right, I'm gonna learn how to write songs.

00:17:21
Speaker 2: What's the Willie encounter?

00:17:24
Speaker 1: So I just got my driver's license, was sixteen, and the band had broken up, not because of anything else other than I was the youngest in the band and everybody was going to college, so everybody's going different directions. It's like this isn't gonna work. And essentially I was like, all right, well, I'm just gonna go back to wrestling and playing sports and being a normal kid. Because five years into a band, even though we didn't really get all that far, I knew how hard it was to get any momentum going. I was like, that seemed like a lot of work. I'm probably probably out on that. And then my grandfather and my uncle were coming to town from Broken Bow, which is where they live Southeast Oklahoma. They were coming to town for the WILLI concert because my Grandpa's like the biggest Willie Nelson fan, and they've got tickets and they stopped by the house and they're like, man, you should really, you know, like you should really go see Willy. He's in his late seventies at this point, I think, and maybe early eighties, but anyways, they were like, you never know how long this guy's going to be touring, right, you should go.

00:18:38
Speaker 2: I was like, well, I.

00:18:39
Speaker 1: Don't really have the money. I'm sixteen. Every dollar I have goes to gas. And they were like, we'll just show up at the show and after it starts, you know, you can pick up a cheap ticket. So that's what I did. I drove down to He's playing at the Spirit Bank Event Center, which I don't even think exists anymore, and I bought a cheap ticket after the concert started from somebody that was scalping tickets, and I walked in. And the context of this is like, up to this point in my life, every concert I ever went to, I was like tortured by the thought of, like that should be me, I should be up there. And I think because of that, I was always thinking what would I do if that happen, Like would I be prepared for that moment, and this night just felt like different. I've always had that thought, but never, you know, never wound up on a stage, and this particular night was like, man, something feels like that could happen. I don't know what it is about tonight, but I went to the concession standing like, asked this sweet old lady that was working there. I was like, can you find me some cardboard and a marker? And we made it happen. I wrote a sign It said, uh, it's my dream to play a song with you, and I'm up in the nose. No, not kidding, you wrote this sign out I'm in the nosebleeds. The story gets better. I haven't really been able to tell the full story.

00:19:58
Speaker 2: So we got all the room. Okay, go ahead.

00:20:02
Speaker 1: So the full story is. The short story is I end up close enough to hold this sign up and Willie sees it. The long story is my uncle calls me and is like, hey, did you get a ticket? I'm like, yeah, I'm up in the nosebleed. It's like Willie Nelson is an aunt. I can't see him, but I can hear, and he's like, okay, well you have to have like this wristband to get down on the floor, but I'll I'll swap seats with you. I can't give you my wristband, but if you walk down here, He's like, honestly, your grandpa is hammered and I need a break. I was like, okay, done, you know, like if you know anything about my grandpa, makers Mark and Willie Nelson, like that's the dream team. Okay. So he's feeling pretty good, Like at this point, I think he's like eyes closed, just listening, you know, vibeing to Willie. And so I walked down there and I just walked past security like fast enough that they don't ask for a wristband. Go sit down there with my sign and they're like third row, like their seats were good because this was like a I think a birthday present or something for my grandpa. And I just sitting there and he's vibing out and I'm like, I'm gonna hold this sign up. So I hold the sign up and Willie leans over, takes the bandana off his head, throws it at me like pretty much saying, hey, I see you, but put the sign down. So I took the bandana and I put him in my pocket. And then I held the sign back up and he comes over there again and throws me another bandana, like, for real, dude, you gotta put the sign down, thanks for coming, and I took the bandana and I can feel the tension behind me at this point. You know, I'm blocking very expensive seats with this sign, and so I turn around to a guy behind me and I'm like, I'm sorry, dude, I gotta do this. I hold the sign back up again, and then Willie finally leans over and he's like, all right, kid, what do you want to sing? And I was like, because of that moment that I always had in all these shows that I was like tormented by of, like that should be me. What would I do? I was like instantly, I was like Milkow Blues, and he was like, why does this kid know a nineteen thirties dust bowl western swing song? And is honestly, because I knew nobody at that concert wanted to see Corey sing Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain. They wanted to see Willy sing that, and that's not a realistic expectation to have. So I was like, I'm gonna play a song that I know that Willy knows that I've seen him cover before that he loves that's not his and the band's gonna know because it's a standard, and so he goes, well, get up here, and dude, the next you know, ten minutes is a complete blur. I ended up walking past security. The song's already started, like the band started the song, and I'm like running up trying to get to the mic in time. And I walk up to the mic and he goes, what's your name? I was like Corey, and he goes, this is Corey. Everybody and the crowd's like ah. Like the first thought across my mind is like, nobody is gonna believe this. Like my uncle is on his way to the nosebleeds, like not paying attention. My grandpa has had a lot of makers and he's kind of a storyteller anyway. So I'm like, nobody's gonna believe him. And nobody my age, nobody from my high school is at this Willie Nelson show, like and this is before everybody has iPhones. So I'm like, nobody's gonna believe this. And so I walk up to the mic and Willy looks over at me and he's like standing really close to the mic, just I think if I'm reading it properly, like if this kid just completely freezes up, I have to take over. So he's right by his mic, and I walk up and I start singing the first few words and he's like, I'll never forget this much, dude. He just gives me the biggest ear to ear grin and backs off the mic and nods and just like just plays, just plays and lets me sing the whole song. And at one point, you know, I God, I really don't feel that old, but I definitely am gonna like date myself with gen Z right now. Of I definitely took out a flip phone and tried to take a picture because I was like, nobody's gonna believe this. And I was shaking so bad that the picture you can't even tell who's in the picture. And I walked that was in the like solo section instrument. I walked back up to the mic, finished the finish the song, and Lucas Nelson was his guitar player on that tour, so I got to meet Lucas, got to meet Mickey, got to you know, talk with Willie for a second. It was magical, and I just remember walking off stage going okay, like if I needed a sign this was it. Like I'm writing song, so I'm getting back into music. And probably the wildest moment about this whole thing is that when I make my way back to my seat, I sit down in my uncle's seat. Really, I sit down and the guy behind me taps me on the shoulders and I'm like, oh god, this guy's gonna lay into me. And he goes, Hey, if you don't hold the sign up again, I'll send you the video that I just took.

00:25:28
Speaker 2: Oh come on, And I was.

00:25:29
Speaker 1: Like, oh my god, no freaking way. And so he's like the only dude in the whole crowd. They got footage of this, and it's the only video that exists is on YouTube, and it's super blurry because I think it was like a handheld camera or something like I cam. It was not an iPhone, but it was. That was such a cool, like full circle moment of you know, the guy that I totally have been pissing off for the last hour.

00:25:55
Speaker 2: That is a crazy story. And here's a clip from that performance back in the day.

00:26:05
Speaker 4: We interrupt this interview to bring you a message from our sponsor, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

00:26:19
Speaker 1: And then so I graduated a year early from high school because I wanted to go to Nashville, and so I moved purposefully.

00:26:26
Speaker 2: Did you cram hours? Yep, so you could leave.

00:26:30
Speaker 1: I took dual credit at the local college, so it was knocking out my high school stuff. But it was also kind of giving me a jump start at college. But that was because I was going to take a whole year to go do the songwriting thing. So my senior year of high school was spent crashing in my truck and sleeping on friends' couches in Nashville.

00:26:48
Speaker 2: I was gonna ask, if you're seventeen and you move here, I mean, you're not even an adult. So when your parents like two thumbs up, go ahead hit it?

00:26:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty much.

00:26:57
Speaker 2: Did they push back at all? Your mom pushed back at all?

00:26:59
Speaker 1: Not? Man, you know they I think they had been exposed to the world, the music world, because I mean they'd been Honestly, it was probably more like, thank god you have keys, because we've been driving your butt to all these shows for the last six years. Never again will I take you to a show. Here's your keys. Like I was already making trips at sixteen to Atlanta, Georgia to play at Eddie's Addic because that was the only spot outside of Oklahoma that would give me a chance to play anywhere. There's a guy named Andy Hingley there who's now like the Live Nation guy in the Southeast. He runs everything down there, but at the time he was booking Eddie's Attic and he's he's chance encounter saw me play somewhere. It was like, Hey, you're in Oklahoma, but I'll give you one hundred bucks and I'll put you on sold out shows, on the front of sold out shows, and you can come play and you can stay on my couch. So I was already back and forth to Atlanta every chance I got, So they knew that I could drive there safely and back. But yeah, I think they just they knew they could probably try to stop me, but it wouldn't even work.

00:28:06
Speaker 2: You know, what did you do when you got here? Because I mean, did you have a system of friends at all that also wrote?

00:28:12
Speaker 1: And I knew I knew one person, actually I knew I knew nobody that lived in Nashville. I knew the Halsey's, which Jim and Sherman Halsey, who managed the Oakridge Boys and Roy Clark and a lot of the acts that we got to open for. I had met them through that, and they brought me out here one time and introduced me to one person really that helped me make my connections. And he probably like if you were to ask him about this, he probably doesn't remember this. But his name is Daniel Lee, and I have no idea where he is now. I know he's still in the music industry, but he was at a place called ten Tin Publishing at the time and they brought me in. They introduced me to Daniel and he was like, well, what are you to do. I was a sixteen year old kid. I knew nothing about the music industry outside of just how to play a show. And I was like, well, I want to learn how to write songs. And he goes, Okay, I run a full on publishing company. I need to put my guys with guys that are good at writing songs, otherwise it's to waste their time. But here's a list. I'm going to print you off a list of ten writers that don't have publishing deals that I think are good, and here's their info. And he gave me a print off and a cell phone numbers of ten writers that he thought were good, and I cold called every one of them and was like, I'm this new dude from Oklahoma. I've written three songs, but Daniel says you're good, and I'd love to write a song. And a couple of those guys like songs have made my records are there, you know, Like Josh Matheeni was on that list, and he's, uh, you know, he's like a crazy talented ACM of the Year nominee for I don't know, instrumentalist I think anyways, I don't know what he is, but he's a great, great musician, great songwriter. Josh dor was on that list, and from there I just kind of made friends and then their friends became my friends, and I've crashed on all those guys couches. And Josh Dore's roommate was Jordan Davis at the time, so I'm like over at Josh's house and then I met Jordan Davis and then I was like, do you want to write? And he was like sure, So then we wrote a few songs and then that was like the first time I saw what a guy from you know, the early days that like blew up. I was like, oh my gosh, that's the same guy, you know. And we're friends now, but just cold called people. And one right turned into five and by the end of the year, I was writing like every day and working my way up.

00:30:53
Speaker 2: You don't live here, no, I was just in Fresco for ACMs. That's where you live.

00:30:58
Speaker 1: That's where I live.

00:31:00
Speaker 2: Fresco. It's a good spot, you know, Yeah, why Frisco.

00:31:04
Speaker 1: So in twenty nineteen, I got dropped from my pub deal in Nashville, and my wife and I were living here. We had our first baby, and we were just kind of like, you know what, the only thing that was keeping us here is gone. And we had our first little little girl and we had another on the way. Whe were like, we want to raise our kids around family if we can, and there's nothing holding us back from doing that now. So we decided on the FW area and moved back and just kind of prioritized our family. And I was like, man at the time, like the year spent in Nashville, I had nothing to show for it, Like, I didn't have any big cuts. I didn't I was kind of waiting for the magic song to like change my life, and it just never happened. So I was like, man, you know what, at least back where we're from, you can just go build it the old school way. You just go play the honky tongs and get a van and a trailer and you go do the thing. So I was like, that seems more suited for my skill set than anything else. So let's you know, move out there, work twice as hard at music. And she's just kind of from that area, so that's why we chose that area. And it's just a couple hours away from my folks up in Oklahoma, so it just seemed like a good happy medium. And then we basically everybody in Nashville's like, hey, that's a horrible idea. If you want a music career, probably shouldn't leave Music City. We're like, yeah, but it's not working here. We'll just work twice as hard on the road from Texas and you know, let God figure out the rest. And so we moved. And then right about that time is the time the whole world shut down. So it was a horrible time to move and be out of work with two kids and music's not a thing.

00:32:46
Speaker 2: So have you found yourself. I guess maybe, and maybe you're not having to do that because you have I mean, you're all on our record, But how did that come about? Because you're on a big record label.

00:32:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, did just a long and winding road to write here the thirty thousand foot views. When I got to Texas, the world shut down and I had to figure out something else because couldn't you know, pay the bills, have a wife and two kids, and now I think at this at this point, I got a third on the way, and it was like file for unemployment or learn how to do something new. Those were the two options. And so I went to work for a pavement company in Dallas, Texas, and didn't really think much of it. It wasn't like a now I'm not a musician. It was like, there are no musicians right now. It's not a not a thing. You can't go play live music. So I just put my head down, went to work, and I started playing at this Mexican restaurant right down the road from our house because it was the only place that I knew of that would allow live music. So I was just doing it because it had to like for my soul and just kind of keeping the rust off that way, and I think I was so motivated by the time that, you know, luckily I lived in Texas. Texas was kind of like the first place to go. All right, we're going back to normal, We're gonna try this. And so honky Tonks and local bars and stuff started opening up one by one and doing like seated shows, and I start I got my first opportunity at a real show to go open for Flatland Cavalry in like January of twenty one, and I just remember thinking, Okay, the world just gave us like a caution lap in Nascar, Like, no, I'm not even a NASCAR fan. This is the best analogy I could think of. I do love Nascar, but I'm not like a diehard. But I know what a caution lap is. You know what a caution lap is.

00:34:46
Speaker 2: I do, and I'll fall a Nascar at all, Okay, but I get the analogy.

00:34:50
Speaker 1: Okay, So I feel like the whole world like there was a crazy wreck and everybody slowed down to the same pace, and then this pace car is out there, and then eventually that pace car leaves the track and it's like may the best man win? Like the playing fields are kind of even again, right, the people that had these big leads, they had to start from ground zero again too seemingly, And I just remember going, I'm gonna take full advantage of the caution lap, like I will not be out hustled from this moment on, and Texas gave me the ability to start building again, Like I started playing as much as I could, and eventually my shows outweighed. I was having to take off work at the pavement company to go play shows, and that was kind of the tipping point. While I'm still working at the pavement Company, I recorded Wild as Her. I was just taking every opportunity I could to keep building back because I wanted to get back to music so badly, and it was such a far fetched thing that every opportunity I got, I took for a whole year, lost so much money, you know, just paying the band and play one hundred and fifty dollars opening slots for a whole year, played one hundred and five shows year, and in January of twenty one we got one show, So we played the first two or three months we got maybe ten shows total. So the last nine months of the year we played ninety plus shows. And just hustled and it built into this thing, and Wild This Hurt started growing, and it just I might have my timeline off on that we recorded it, but we hadn't released it, but our live show started growing. Then by the time we released Wild This Hurt, we were like, I don't know, eight singles in of consistently releasing music like every six to eight weeks, and it just popped like a couple weeks into being out, my manager called me. It was like, hey, you're having extremes. Yes, yeah, you're having a moment. And I was like, how and he said, you're not a video like you not a video or something on your socials. But the song itself has just gone viral, like everybody's making videos to it. It's a thing. And I was like, oh my gosh. And then you showed me the streaming numbers and it was like ten times bigger than everything we've done. And then we just kept building it on the road. And you know, that's what we do that we're live musicians. So I think the culmination of like we essentially were a live act, like an old school building on the road act that had a viral moment, which doesn't really happen. Usually it's like, yeah, viral moments from viral.

00:37:30
Speaker 2: Acts, and you didn't even know you had a viral moment til someone called to tell you had a viral moment.

00:37:34
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it was. It was hard to believe. And then we started seeing, you know, everybody knowing every word to the song at all of these shows that we were playing.

00:37:46
Speaker 2: Could you notice more people coming to shows just organically or was there a growth but you just thought, hey, we're moving, we're gathering fans because we're pretty good now.

00:37:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, it felt more like that. It was in an overnight like oh, shoot, this is where we've arrived. It wasn't that. It was actually kind of a like when we put the song out, there wasn't much of an initial reaction. It was like a few months into the song being out that it just took off. And then we started to see, you know, ticket numbers are starting to move. And but what was cool about that moment is we already had two records out, so it was like, who's this new guy. Oh, we have twenty something songs we can go dive into. So then the live shows, people were showing up for one song, but they also knew seven other songs from a band that's brand new, so it just grew really quick. It wasn't like people were standing around waiting on one song, which happens a lot with new acts that have their first thing. For us, it was like people are singing along with us, like a majority of the set, and then they we get to the last song and they're just losing their minds and everybody's posting about it. And now people got fomos. So the next time we roll into it starts to sell quick and just a big snowball at that point.

00:39:05
Speaker 2: Can you trace back what actually happened with that song? Like do you know the first person who posted in a big video? Do you know, because there's always some sort of genis some again, yeah lucky moment where somebody likes it and shares it somewhere and then but before you know it, other people go out is a good song? Could you trace it back?

00:39:24
Speaker 1: So I know that we were like I went to school for business, like I run, and I enjoy that side of the music business, and like I had, I owned a merchandising company, So when we were at the shows, like my company's printing the T shirts and we're so we're looking at everything like a like a business, right, And so we've tried a bunch of different marketing plans at this point, and we didn't have a booking agent playing you know, one hundred plus shows a year. We did just get a manager who was really helping me, who was like the mastermind behind all the social media stuff. And he was like, well, you know, how do you feel about TikTok and all this stuff? And I was like, man, if I could just play music, that's what I would do. And I know a lot of artists feel that way. And he's like, okay, so we have to find a way to use this that's authentic to you. And I was like, well, what if we have other people who are naturally, like really good at this promote our song for us instead of me trying to promote our song. And so we started down that road and he every release of those eight ten songs whatever, leading up to Wild is Her, we were constantly just tweaking the knobs on social media, like we started hiring I call it like gorilla warfare of social media. We started hiring like individuals I think probably before that was popular, Like we were singing in other spaces, but not necessarily in country music, like you know, people were hiring bloggers for their clothing lines, but nobody was like, hey, social media guy, you know sing this, do something to this song. And so we started there of like, let's get this guy that seems like they have some fan overlap their fans probably like country music. Let's try them. Well, initially it started out like let's try to give them an idea to do something on their video, and that backfired. It was like when we would try to create something that we thought would work, it wouldn't work. But then when we by wild as Her, we were like, hey, we're gonna hire you to We're gonna throw you little money, and we want you to do whatever you want with the song. And that was like the magic recipe, Like they were doing stuff that was on brand for them and there and they're following. And it wasn't me doing a TikTok dance that I sucked at and that like feeling like way out of my room and never had to do any of that. I never had to like be a look at me personality. It was like, let's let the people that are naturally like that do their thing and let's let him use a song, and we hired a handful of people. But what was I think the domino that fell was that people felt freedom to do whatever they wanted, and it made other people want to do whatever they wanted, and it just became the sound to all of these different videos that had really no theme. It was just like a sound that became a trend, which was cool because like for us, again, we're just a live band rolling around in a red van that we call Rooster, playing Oklahoma in Texas, and now our song is like one of the most viral songs on the Internet. And when people were like, I wonder who that guy is, they got two records to go find. So it's kind of this perfect storm of events. But I don't really know if there was one person in particular, as much as it was just like a theme of people are using the song and making whatever they want that's authentic to them, which is like the culmination of everything. For us, is like authenticity. If you don't believe it, then you're not going to share it.

00:43:00
Speaker 4: Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor. Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.

00:43:15
Speaker 2: The record Jet coming out June second, Blacktop is that because that's what you did whenever you had to do something for a minute other than what you love to do.

00:43:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that was almost almost a two year stint. I worked at a motorcycle shop for a little bit and then went to the pavement company, and this is Blacktop is really like a way of me paying tribute to like the industry and the people that gave me a chance to put food on the table for my wife and three kids during the absolute hardest time of my life. That's that's one reason that it's called Blacktop. But also I started recording this while I was still working in the pavement company, and it's got me back on the road full time. So between those two things, it just felt like Blacktop was the right name of the journey. There's nothing in the songs that has the lyric Blacktop in it, but it just felt like if I had to name this chapter of my life, that's what it would be.

00:44:15
Speaker 2: I was looking at the track list, and you wrote most of the songs on here, but Wild is Her. Kelly Archer, Brett Tyler, Morgan Wallen all wrote that song. How did that get to you those years ago?

00:44:27
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, Fortunately, right before I moved to Texas, I had gotten dropped right on my pub deal and on my way out. Essentially, I had one publishing company reach out to me that had interest and we ended up working out a deal. And they know this now, but I was so scared to tell them I was moving to Texas that I was so afraid that they wouldn't work with me, they wouldn't sign the deal, that I just didn't tell them. And so for a whole year, every Monday, I would fly in and every Wednesday, I would fly out, Wow, and I would tell them, Hey, you know, I've got a family at home. Thursday and Friday, I need to not write. I'm probably not gonna be available. And they would call me and I'd be like freaking out. I'd be like, oh God, if I answer this and they asked me where I'm at and if I can come in, I'm done, They're gonna know. Well, turns out they probably they probably wouldn't have cared, but it's hard to know hindsight. They all know now, we all laugh about it. But before I went to work for the pavement company, before we knew that the world shutting down was gonna be a thing for a while. That's what I was doing, like flying in and out writing as much as I could. And and Combustion is the name of the publishing company, and wild just heard was a Combustion song. So I learned because my friend Brett Tyler wrote this song and Brett writes at Combustion. I was the new guy at Combustion. Uh, and they just felt like my brand and what I did live matched up perfectly with this song and that we you know, if I don't know if you've heard the demo, but Morgan obviously is like one of the best singers in the format, if not the best. And I don't know, I think a lot of people just heard that and were like, oh, it sounds like a Morgan song. I'm not gonna do it. And I heard an opportunity to do it in the style of our band, like we had a live thing, and so we took a stab at it in the studio and and it Uh, it came out pretty special and sounding on brand with what we did and sounding like our song. And uh yeah, people have people have liked it has done pretty well for us.

00:46:38
Speaker 4: The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the Bobby cast.

00:46:50
Speaker 2: Do you feel the need to move back to Nashville.

00:46:52
Speaker 1: We've thought about it. Need No, I don't. I mean, I'm on the road most of the time anyways, and i have a lot of old friends here, and I've started to bring people out to Texas to write, and I've been writing a lot of my best stuff outside of Nashville anyways, and it's always here, Like we have a piece of land in Fairview that we bought in twenty seventeen. That's like, if we ever need to go back, that's where we're going to go. But right now it makes more sense. All of our band increws from Oklahoma, so they all live there except me and Bo, our tour manager, live in Dallas. And it's just kind of like a family thing that it just would feel weird to, you know, do this with a different family at this point. So I think we're in Texas for the foreseeable future, and that's where we want to raise our kids and maybe when they get a little older, if it bought us more time together, you know, if I could like go to the studio and then come home at five o'clock and see my family, I think that we would really look at that, but right now, I'm just on the road so much that I don't think it would buy us much more time together. So we're we're in Texas for now.

00:48:02
Speaker 2: What did you do to celebrate when the song hit number one? After all that? I mean, that's a lot, you know, it's it's a lot for anybody, right This is a business. Yeah, anything creative, it doesn't matter what it is, because everybody wants to do it because it looks fun. It really a lot of that's not and it's very hard. That being said, a lot of people go through crap. You went through a lot of crap then you hit what'd you do well?

00:48:28
Speaker 1: The first thing we did was we asked the venue. We were playing in Lubbock, so we were like, it's past the point of getting, you know, to the liquor store to buy some champagne. And it was looking like it was shaping up pretty good, and uh so we asked the venue if they could track us down a bottle of champagne. They did, and I did not feel comfortable even with a lead. I mean, Morgan Wallin's in the two spot, like that's the artist of a generation, man. Uh, one of the best to ever do it, I'm not comfortable until midnight and it's one hundred. So I think my team was more that they were like, hey, congratulations. I'm like, don't don't say that till midnight, Like it's not I'm not comfortable letting my guard down. And midnight hit and you know we are. We're still in our van. We get to go to a bus soon, but we were playing in Love It and right by our van and I jumped up on top of the van and you know, opened the bottle of champagne and we got to have this moment as as a group that it's the same guys from the moment that we recorded the song to the time that it had a moment to the time that it went number one, it's been the same band and the same crew, and we just got to like, I know these guys' wives, I know they're kids, I know, like it's a family and it felt like a huge family win and it was like super fitting that I got to be there with them, these people that have been on this journey from you know, that Flatland Cavalry show that we opened up at Hurricane Harry's where everybody was seated in socially distanced, and I remember giving the pep top of like we are going to we will never be out hustled from this point on, like we have to build this thing and to be there and to be standing there right next to like not next to a tor boz, next to our van, and be like, we have the number one song in country music. It was such a powerful moment because it was like against all odds, like the dude based out of Texas working at the pavement company has the number one song in country I mean.

00:50:32
Speaker 2: And the length of this and the amount of time it took to get there too. Yeah, because you know from March of twenty twenty two, I believe I'm guessing. I'm not guessing, I'm educatedly guessing. Right, was it like March or Zone Kata single to What Are We In Now? May of twenty twenty three. Most times this song is given up on or giving up on out the word You're you celebrate that it May thirteen, because you're not going to put another seven weeks into it, right that? Also, Yeah, well it's not common.

00:51:05
Speaker 1: You know what was really cool about it is we We, which at the time wasn't cool because I didn't really know Parker McCollum all that well at the time, and he put out a song the same like, put a song to radio the same day as Wild as Her, and I'm going, oh, like he got most added, he got all the things that I was hoping to get. And now we're really good friends, like we play a lot of shows together. He's like big brother, and we paced with him the whole way, And I think that is a huge reason why they were like, oh, this thing's doing well right, Like Parker's going for his third number one and he just got it the week before us, And we just followed a guy that had a track record and a big fan base and was established. Our song was pacing with his, So I think that that that helped us kind of. You know, if ever there was a moment of like, ah, do we keep going, I think that that was enough to go, well, Parker's crushing it and we're right there, like let's hang on. And the amount of time was like the song the song had been out for a little bit, but it hadn't been at radio super long either, so it's kind of had two lives. Like we released it independently and it went gold before any record deal. Was done, and then we signed with Sony RCA and they did their I mean, they are some of the hardest workers. I'd never anticipated signing a major label deal and finding people that worked equally as hard as I did. And I've found that, Like there are killers in this organization. And they went to work and they doubled how big the song was and now it's you know, they worked at radio and it was a hard fought battle to get to that one spot and I'm just super proud that we I was telling them, look, even if we get to number two and that's where it dies. The fact that how it was done, like fans demanded it to go to radio really because it was it was consuming huge and people were screaming it on the other side of the world. We played in Australia and people are screaming this song to the point that we just let them sing it like it was amazing. The song has already done what it needed to do. I just wanted to know that the team that I had signed with was going to fight as hard as I was going to fight. And I saw that and then I was like, you know what, wherever it ends up is where it ends up. And thankfully, I like winning a lot more than not winning, and getting to one is just super gratifying. But I was really pleased with how just everybody's work ethic.

00:53:44
Speaker 2: Do you have the next single be announced it yet? Do you know it is a secret?

00:53:50
Speaker 1: It's not a secret. I mean, I think we're just we've got gut feelings, but you know, the record comes out June second, and we our most recent single is definitely our top performing release that we've ever had, which is called Something's Gonna Kill Me, And uh, I think it's I would love for that one to go to radio.

00:54:08
Speaker 2: What do they wait on?

00:54:08
Speaker 1: Like?

00:54:09
Speaker 2: What what are you waiting on for that to be official? Are they gonna let it all come out? And look at consumption?

00:54:13
Speaker 1: I think that's part of it. I mean, I think that these days it's a little more calculated what you take to radio, it seems again, I know, not like I am learning on the fly. I know nothing about the radio world. Like this is our first stab at radio and it worked out really well, but that doesn't mean I know much about it.

00:54:31
Speaker 2: That's how worked to everybody though, Okay, gradually, well first time, yeah, no problem.

00:54:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's easiest from what I hear, so no, but I think that's part of it, is like they want to see how how the the fans like the song. But I think the other part of it was like we just had time because while the Serve is still on the chart, it's not like we're gonna throw another one at it. So now we're kind of in crunch time to figure out what are we gonna do next, And it seems like something's gonna kill me. Makes it makes sense. It's doing well, it's on Exum right now, it's performing well, it's streaming really well, fans are singing it back to us live like it's got all the indicators. But also this record, I just I could not pick one. If I had to pick one, I don't. We have a lot of radio worthy songs on the back half of this record that hasn't come out yet, and as a new artist, I think you only it's not like I can go have eight singles off of the first record with ten songs on it, you know what I mean. So we do need to be careful on how we pick, but I don't I would be lying to you if I said I could predict what people are gonna.

00:55:43
Speaker 2: Like last question, does your rate go up now you're guaranteed now that you have number one?

00:55:48
Speaker 1: And I hope so?

00:55:48
Speaker 2: I mean is that because for me, mine would go up once I would sell comedy shows. They do like you know fifteen hundred, you do that consistently. I never had to chart. Mine was always my rate would go up or my guarantee would go up once I had been able to sustain ticket success has now that you have a number one, that I mean that should be like an automatic let's let's turn it up a little bit.

00:56:16
Speaker 1: I mean, I would hope so. But like you, I mean, we we've been building tickets like that's.

00:56:23
Speaker 2: What hard tickets, which are the hardest thing to do and also the most valuable.

00:56:25
Speaker 1: Yep. So you know we can sell a few thousand tickets in Oklahoma and Texas and uh and elsewhere too. I mean, our our ticket sales have been really solid and always on the upward trajectory. And now it's to the point where it's like, you know, we're going on tour with Jason Aldan and like the exposure was a no brainer, but it was like, man, well shoot headlining shows, like we can go make a great living doing that should we should.

00:56:51
Speaker 2: We'll make less money. I'll say it. You'll make less money opening for Al Dan than you would have done your own shows. Yes, but but there's currency also on exposure on a big, massive show.

00:57:01
Speaker 1: It's like investment seasons and then like reap the rewards seasons, and you got to find a way to balance them. And I never want to be the guy that is just like stuck as an opening act. So you got to you gotta pick and choose when you accept those things. But this was we actually had turned down a tour prior that was great exposure, same same pay, it just didn't align with the brand as well, and so we were like, you know what, in this particular situation, we feel like it's more valuable for our brand to go back to the clubs and just build our headline stuff. And then the Al Dene tour came along and it was like, this feels pretty on brand with with what we've got going, and I feel like this is an accelerator. It's it became an investment season, right, And so I always, I mean, I would guess that it's almost always based off of tickets, Like it doesn't matter if you have ten number ones. If you can't sell three tickets, you think.

00:57:56
Speaker 2: First of all, if you sell hard tickets already, that's me, that's the key. So it's almost like you don't need a number one because they are artists that tour that don't have number one songs, right, that's guarantee is massive because they can sell tickets, right, true, heard, tickets are the hardest thing that if you have that data, you can do whatever you want. Yeah, so yeah, your rate is probably already defined by tickets and that's awesome because you've created that. Well, look, dude, that's awesome. Congratulations on everything.

00:58:22
Speaker 1: Thank you brother.

00:58:23
Speaker 2: Have you met Willie?

00:58:23
Speaker 1: Since No, I'm still I'm hoping for the day man, just to just to be able to say thank you, Like, I don't know, he's not gonna I doubt he would even remember that. That's probably happened a million times to him, but to me, it happened once and it changed the course of my life, Like it was a thing that got me to go try my hand at writing songs. And yeah, hopefully someday I can I can cross paths with them, just shake his hand and tell them thank you.

00:58:52
Speaker 2: Mine was the Wiggles when they called me up. Remember that, Mic, Do you remember that you were so excited? I knew ever since, oh ever since, I was like, this is for me, this is it for me.

00:59:00
Speaker 1: That's awesome.

00:59:01
Speaker 2: Congratulations man, And I know you're head from home and have safe your poem and looking forward to seeing you again.

00:59:06
Speaker 1: Dude.

00:59:06
Speaker 2: Heck y'all all right there he is.

00:59:08
Speaker 1: Thank you, Corey Kat.

00:59:09
Speaker 4: Love this episode of The Bobby Cast. Subscribe on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.