In Case You Missed It: #108 - Rhett Akins on the boots that Inspired "Dirt On My Boots" + The First Time He Met Blake Shelton + His Relationship with his son Thomas Rhett

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Speaker 1: Hey, what's up, guys. It's Mike, the producer of the Bobby Cast. I wanted to hop on here and share this episode of the Bobby Cast with you guys, because what we always do is we go through our messages, we go through um anything we get tagged on an Instagram of people suggesting who we should get on the Bobby Cast. And one I've actually been seeing a lot is Red Aikins in which, if you don't know, we've actually done an episode with Red Akins and it's a really great episode, and it just kind of came to my attention that, hey, maybe some people haven't heard this episode, which it's really great. He talks about being a country artist in the nineties, what that was like, and he has written like so many number one songs, like pretty much every song you hear on the radio at any given moment, maybe Renick throwed it. And he talks about a lot of the stories behind those songs. He actually comes in wearing the boots that inspired Dirt on my Boots, Like he was wearing those exact same boots and had the idea for that song from his boots and he came in wearing them. Um, and then He also talks about what it's like do you have a son. It was a big country star. He's uh, father of Thomas Rhett. So here it is episode one oh eight of the Bobby Cast with Red Akins. Check it out all right here with Red Akins. He's good. Can you hear anything? That's a trick of the podcast. We don't let you hear what's happening. We're making everything. You're good. Yeah, what do you do today? I wrote today? Any good man? That's a that's a question I can't answer anymore. I don't know. I have my own I have my own version of what I think is good and bad, you know, from the from my all of my years of listening to music. But when it comes to my own it's hard to tell because there's so many sons. I've probably written close to two thousand songs in the last ten years, and when I started, I really thought I knew. And then the ones that you think this is a Grammy, I mean, this is the best song of all time. He's still sitting on the shelf at my publican company. And the one that you walk out of there going it's all right. You know, nobody'll ever cut it whatever, boys around here, nobody in the world will ever cut that. You know, I've got it, you just I just don't know. I can't tell anymore. So you cut boys round here and you go out him. Now, this is another song of the day. I don't Yeah, And it was the demo was so whacked out. What you guys doing the demo that was different. Craig Wiseman built the track. The red red red red Redneck came from Craig. Wiseman asked Alice Davidson, one of the writers on the song, what he had done that weekend, and Dallas said, oh, just me and my red neck buddies fishing or something like that. But Craig had the microphone rolling and and you know, Craig, we didn't know it, don't even know this, but Craig's over there messing with the computer and we don't know what he's doing. Next thing, you know, you hear red red, red, red, red, red, red Nick. He had just taken Dallas's word from Redneck and turned it into that. And uh, the the bridge edge, Rig goes, oh, let's ride. That was that happened because we had been there so long that I just leaned back in my chair and I went yawn and Craig thought that I was singing at melody and he was like, that's good, right, there was what you got right there. I was like, what do you mean. I was like, I yawned, and you guys, yeah, it was good. It was in tune. It's in tuning. And so oh, let's ride came from me yawning. Actually um. And then Dallas had to leave, and so me and Craig finished the bridge and the rest of the song out. So the first half of the song is Dallas singing. The back half of the song is me singing. It's got the red red Redneck, and it's got all these little ad libs, like you know, all this stupid stuff, and and so, uh, Craig, we're packing up, and I said, no way on earth does this song get pitched until the redneck is out, all the little ad lives, and Dallas has got to come back and sing the rest of the song, because who wants to hear a song with half of its me and half of its him, you know? And he uh, he text me that night and I'm doing a Craig wise an invitation, but or he called me and he say, I ain't got daddy. He said, uh too late on that redoing the demo and I said, what do you mean? He said, Lawrene, I said, Blake and he loves it. That was it. You know, That's a song that I was like, who who could cut this? You know? And I guess Blake can. Well, Blake's you know, he's y'all are the raging idiots, and he's the biggest of all. He's the raging ist, raging idiot they ever walked so super country, even the pop. Yeah, he can say. Blake has created that lane where you can say anything Blake and with Blake Black just I mean, I've known Blake since probably two thousand. This is fun, This is true. I was back when I was on the road and stuff. I was booked by Buddy Lee Attractions and so me and Joey Lee, he was head of Buddy Leeward in the parking lot and Giant Records was right a across the rut across the road, and this guy pulls up in a truck. It's old truck and he gets out in his hair is literally to his butt. He's got a cowboy hat on, curly reddish brown hair, down to his butt and I asked, Joey Lee, I said, who in the world is that? And he said, uh, as this new artist I think named Blake Shelton, And I said, I don't know if he can sing. I don't know anything about the dude, but he will never make it like he was, just like worse than I mean worse than do we Ray never had hair like Blake had back then? And who who would have guessed? You know, eighteen years later, if you ask a random person on the street, do you listen to country music? And they go, no, you know, any country artist, Blake would probably be the first. Taylor Swifter or Blake would be the two artists they would probably pick, you know, because he's just the voice and everything he's done is just awesome. See you leave the studio now and you got you not even think about what you did because it's so like for me, I'll go to a radio show and I can't tell if it's good or not anymore because I do it every day, like I do what I do, and I try to do what I do to the best I can do it, but I don't know if it's good anymore. I don't either, I wrote with Ashley Gorley and h Jesse Frasier today too, fantastic writers. They're written every hit in the world. And We're just sitting there looking at each other, and I was just like, dude, how can we how can we cook this potato any differently? I's like, we have baked it, We've mashed it, we cut it up and made French fries, We've bowleded, We've held it over a fire with a stick. I don't know how to I don't know how to cook this thing anymore. It just be to me, it starts to be. I just trust the process. Yeah, that's for me. My whole my whole success is showing up and doing it. You know. I have to just show up and and just right because you never know what day in the world that God's just gonna drop that one in that one in your lap, you know, And so I I do it all the time. What's the one to you? If I say, hey, what's that one, that's what's the one? If you put out that goes Man, that's the one. I'm I'm proud of it him. I think the best, the only one song, but the best combination of melody and unique lyric I think was Honeybee. It's a love song that's that's written completely different than any other love song I've heard. We didn't even mean to write this song. Neither neither being Hey Slip nor myself even have this title. This has an Arkansas connection for you. Um We're sitting there like we always do, talking about Georgia football and hunting or something, and you know, we do for the first hour and what do you got nothing? What do you got nothing? And so I'm just thumbing through like a music ro magazine or something, and I flipped to this page and the Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee was was in Music row magazine that I guess he plays bass and he had come to Nashville and played on somebody's record and it said Huckabee comes to town or something like that, and I misread it and I thought it said I thought it said Huckleberry, and uh, I said, how about this title? How about Huckleberry? And you know, he was like, what's that? And I was like, I have no idea. All I know is that I heard it in the movie Tombstone that dry said Huckleberry. And so we tried to we fiddled with that for a minute and I was like, I don't get it. I don't know what this is. And then uh, the I'm your huckleberry turned into I'm your honeysucker. I said, what about honeysuckle? And he's like, okay, what's that? And I was like, well if I'm well, if I'm a honeysuckle or you're a honeysuckle, then what could be the opposite? And that's how Honeybee came about in the in the title and the idea was so different that we knew we had to write it kind of funny because what romantic song are you gonna hear with a guy and a girl sitting there and he goes, hey, you'd be my Mississippi and I'll be in Louisiana, you know. And so we kind of had Blake in mind, I will say for that when we we sort of had Blake in mind because again, like boys around here, who else can we can be wetty witty and and pull this off? You know? And then uh. I remember playing the work tape for Thomas Rhett because I thought I didn't think it was that good, and I was like, do you think we should demo this thing, and he said, Dad, He's like, if you don't demo this thing, I'm gonna I'm gonna do something with it. Um. And so we demoed it and sent it to Blake and he just flipped over it. And so that one, I think is the best combination of of lyric, a cool idea, and a melody. I mean, I've had a lot of songs that the melody were great and the lyrics are like, you know, lyrics are great, melodies stock or whatever is not anything special, but that would just seemed like that one just was everything in one. When you came to town. What was the goal for you to be artist? Um? Yeah, but I mean a songwriter also. I mean I guess always in the back of my mind, I was a songwriter first. But I did want to be an artist. I mean from the time I was six years old old enough to know anything about music. Um, I just you know, there wasn't the Internet or anything about then. So I just religiously studied album covers and had kiss posters all over my wall and I was just very I stayed up late at night watching Friday night videos and night tracks, and you know what, there was we didn't. We couldn't even get MTV, and when we did, that's all I watched. So I just I kind of idolized singers from a young age and football players. I'm a huge sports not too but football players and musicians were like from mars and and that's where I wanted to go. So you moved to town. You know. When I was growing up, this is massive in my house. You know, I listened to US ninety seven, A King, ninety six, Springs Lotter rock stations. I mean, I can vividly remember the song and the radio. It's part of my childhood. Yes, weird how that one has hung around. I mean, you never know why songs I play the song today on my show. I know I hear it. I heard um, you know, obviously once every two weeks or something like that. But I'll have people all of the time. Ago, man, I heard that. Ain't my truck this morning on the way in. I have absolutely no reason why. I mean, there's you know, there's a lot of great songs from the nineties, I mean, super giant hits from Garth, Allen Jackson, everybody, and for some reason, that one has has hung around. Thank goodness, you still have the itch to go and play these big shows. Uh some I mean, luckily for me, I still kind of get to do it. So it's not like I'm a songwriter only because I go on the road all the time and write. Anytime I'm out with Thomas Rhett, he always brings me on stage and and I sing that and maybe a song or two that he and I wrote or something else that I've written. And Uh, I go on tour with Luke Bryan every uh fall for the Farm tour. Uh the peach Pickers to me been hey slipping Dallas Davidson, and our primary goal is out there to write. We're right with Luke or whoever is opening the show, but we do uh we have we bring a full band, and so we've been opening for Luke since two thousand eleven, and it's freaking it's it's really weird because you know, most songwriters, they don't I don't. I don't think they. We get stuck in in Nashville and we're stuck on these two or three streets on music Crow, but we don't ever go out and see what's really happening in mid Iowa or somewhere. When you're out on a farm tour in a field on a dirt road. We're literally half the people miss half the show because they're stuck, you know, you know, But to sing for twenty thou people the songs that that we wrote and they do, we don't. We honestly don't have to sing. I mean they literally scream every word back. And uh, that's pretty awesome to be able to still get to do it every now and then. But I definitely don't want to be on the tour bus. I did it fifteen straight years. I mean I was on the road from so about two thousand and ten or eleven, and um, yeah, I don't have the desire to be on the bus every weekend. But I do like doing it, you know, once every six you know, four to six months. I just went on the road with Midland, like a couple of weeks ago. I went from I went to California for five days with John Party and flew to Ohio. Midland. You talk about two two bands that will warry out. I'm a good friends with John. Yeah, I love that dude. He's he's awesome. And you wrote this one. That's it, that's on the jam. It is, but that's another one that I walked out of there and never I didn't even think about it. And you when I left. Um, the boots that I'm wearing now, the boots that I wrote this song. I've been wearing these boots since two thousand and ten. Um and uh, we wrote this song like at eight o'clock in the morning before we went to our real rights, and um, well, I mean I was about half asleep and and uh, we don't have like two hours, couldn't think of anything to write. And I'm just looking down at the ground on my boots and I'm just like, same boots. I'm like, what about dirt on my boots? You know, stupid whatever, But we don't have anything else. And Jesse's track was so but you should hear the demo. Man, it's like banging. If you think this is banging, Jesse's demo was banging. And and we wrote it and and you know, it's not a fantastic title or anything. Um and uh, so I just walked out of there and going, who knows, man, it's so hip hop and and pop and it's called Dirt on My Boots. I mean, I don't know if it mal dig this. I really didn't think about it again, and I don't know a few months later, they said John Party was gonna cut it. And I've been writing with John since like two thousand nine, like, and he's just now, you know, really hitting it, and um, I was really excited that he loved it. And then right after I was excited that he loved it, I got really unexcited real quick because I said, wait, wait, wait, wait, John can't have the song, and they're like, why not? And I said, what his biggest hit he's ever had is called head over Boots. That was the big deal. I'm like, he said, he's not gonna cut. He's not gonna I said, even if he cuts it, he won't put it out. There's no way they will put out to Boots songs on a record, And uh, Mike Dungan was just like, I don't care if you say Boots five times. He's like, you want two back to Bat hits we're putting out during on my Boots. And thank goodness for Mike Dungan that he just didn't care. He's like, I don't care what they say. It's a smash. I remember John said he we have two Boots songs like our next song is about to be booted and I was like, really yeah, and so now nobody even thinks about it. He's got a song on his album called Cowboy Hat and I think you just cut a song called Pearl Snap And I was like, we're just going what do you want? Belt buckle? He wants spurs? What what else can we do? You play ball in high school? Yeah? I have a big sports guy too. I had a national sports to talk show for a long time. Played ball, of course in high school. But um, that's my passion music and sports. I think every singer wants to be an athlete, and every athlete wants to be a singer. I like to be out the one. Well. I went to the University of Georgia and I played in my freshman year, and uh, well, I would say played, I practiced. I did. My granddad who played at Georgia in the forties. We had season tickets my whole life. You know. I met herschel Walker when I was ten. Um for me. I grew up in Valdosta, Georgia, which is the winningest high school football team of all time. You can state. So I grew up in a town where our high school quarterbacks were more famous than me than Terry Bradshaw or Roger stall Back. I could go see then. I remember I shook Buck Baloo's hand when I was like eight, and he was the bout Austin quarterback and then he won the national championship at Georgia. And to this day, that's one of the biggest handshakes I've ever had, was Buckaloe. When I was eight. They were gods where I was from. And then he goes to Georgia and then Herschel as a freshman, and then you're ten years old and all this is happening is from your hometown and it's your college team. I was. I was like, you know, I was just as much an aspiring athlete as I was a musician. But but a musician is something that couldn't happen. And that was just there's no way I could be a singer. But I can play football, So you thought you had a better shot to make a crediven athlete. Well, who could be a singer? I mean there was no American idol or YouTube or or any way to even make it. I mean, I I don't know anybody, No, but I don't know anybody that can sing. There's nobody from around here that's ever gone to do it, so that's out. I mean, I'll just be sitting on my bed playing my guitar. So when did you make that turn though, where you go, Okay, I'm gonna try this because at one some point you have to go yeah, I'm gonna take the shot. I always played like I took my guitar to football camp every year, and I was always very good. Well I wouldn't say I was good, no, just nobody else could play, so they thought I was awesome. Um, I'm very I was always good at listening. I can't read music. I was very good at listening to music and just moving the needle back and forth. And you know, after a little while, I could fake anything. I could play any skinnered song or George Strait or whatever. So I always played, you know, at football camp and parties. Everybody like get your guitar and and um. It was after I came home from Georgia and I moved back to aud Austin and I was working for my daddy, and uh um, I ran into an old high school buddy and we said we should get together like we did in high school. And just start playing somewhere. So we played at a little restaurant and at the Holiday Inn for like a happy hour and stuff, and um we did that for about two years and it just kept growing and everybody, I mean it kind of became a thing like Rhet and Hall are playing at the holiday and on Thursday night, and I mean it it was like getting packed in there and I would throw in one of my own every now and then. Um and everybody, you know, of course, when you're in a small town, everybody's like, man, you're better in garf. Man, You're you know, you're as good as Alan Jackson. You want to you want to move to Nashville. And um, so about when Thomas Rhett was out, about two we moved. We moved to Nashville and just said, you know, thank goodness, my parents and everybody were cool with it. And uh, I just said, I'd rather go try it and fail than be ninety and wish I wish I did it. You know, never would have dreamed you know I'd still be here doing it. You always call him Thomas Rrett. Do you call hi Thomas when you're not talking about him? Thomas Shrett. That's that's been his name to see his born, so it's he's always Thomas Rhett. That's not the thing you're just saying. Because we're talking about his name is Thomas Rtt. Most people think his last name is Rhett. I don't even call my name is Thomas Rrett. I'm Thomas Fredd Aikins Senior. He's Thomas Shredd Aikins Jr. And from the moment he was born. That's kind of a Southern thing, you know, he's been Thomas. We called him Thomas Rrett since day was born. So I call him t R. Yeah, I call him t R sometimes, yeah, but but that's mostly Thomas Rhett. Yeah. But most people that that that don't know anything about me or whatever, they think that that his last name is Rhett. And so the funniest thing ever on Instagram or Twitter one time the fans got into an argument about his last name and they said one person said, because Lauren's Instagram is like Lauren Aikins or whatever, and they were like, I think it's so sweet that Thomas Rett took Lauren's last name when they got married, Like he loves her so much that he ditched his last name Rhett for Aikins because his Instagram name is Thomas Redd Aikins. But they don't. But they're like, what's the Aikins thing? His last name is rhet so he took his wife's name and made that his name. And then the next person said, you're so stupid. They're like, they're like, his his his name is, his name is Thomas Redd Aikins. Dug his dad is Red Atkins. Like like, I've always been called you know, every nobody can get Akins right, It's been Atkins since I was in first grade. But it was like, no, his name is Thomas Red Aikins because his dad is Red Atkins. I mean, it was the dumbest argument I've ever seen on social media. But um, was that a conversation you guys had? Yeah? We did. Yeah, he just you know, I obviously there was Chat Atkins who started the whole thing. Then you had me Trace Atkins and Rodney Atkins and now you're gonna have you know, Thomas Redakins whatever and or whatever his name is gonna be and Thomas Akins. And I just said, dude, I said, not only do we have we called you Thomas RTT since the day were born. I just think it sounds cool. It sounds like a stage name, you know what I mean, It sounds like a cool name. So and you're not gonna get confused with me or Rodney or Trace or anybody. And and so that's they were cool with it. They're like, yeah, let's do that. It's been interesting because I've been here long enough night to see him early early and then see him now turning to the star that he is, but also have been there since the beginning to where it's we have a relationship because I was starting to I mean, I was just a little junior turd, you know, right about the time he was starting to blow up. And so man talk about someone who is in five years completely turned into a superstar, Like that's the one where I go, I I watched someone go from artists to a superstar. That's the one. Yeah, it's still weird to me, Like I still don't believe it, Like like I don't, I don't totally. I mean, I know he is one, but I don't. It's hard for me to think of him. I still think I can tell him what to do, you know what I mean. It's like, why are you doing that? Stop doing that? You know. I mean I don't think of him as Garthur. I mean, obviously he's not that big, but I still don't think of him as uh as a star. I still think of him as you better be home by eleven o'clock, you know whatever, Or did you change the all in your truck? You know, because if you didn't change the all in your truck, you're not driving it. Driving it this week? Um it's weird to go on tour with him. And the first show I went to last year on his first headlining gig was was in Illinois, and when we pulled up to the venue, I couldnot wrap my head around that Luke wasn't playing tonight. I could not get it. I was like these people, like look at these people. I mean it was fifteen thousand cars out there, you know, and his name is the one on the market. It's not Luke Bryan and Thomas Rhett. It was like Thomas Rhett tonight, And um, I was like this is this is weird? And what was weirder was going to catering because I'm used to going to catering and seeing a little big town or Miranda or somebody sitting over there in their sweatpants, and it was him, you know what I mean? I was like, this is your spaghetti? Like you share the sitt in blakes, Like you're paying for this, like you have a full time caterer out here, and um, it was it was just like nuts, what advice does he? Even? You have our thirty number ones? So what advices he hit you? I forgot when he's like, hey, help me out with this. It's different than it used to be, you know when like when he first started, he didn't know anything about what's the publishing deal? What's a you know, is this look right in my contract? What what? What is my manager supposed to do? Um? Real naive questions back then announce you know, dad, what song should I put out next? Or that? Do you think I've peaked? You know what I mean? Like he Thomas Schratt, he he thinks pretty deeply about his life in his career, and like, I think that's what God wants me to do. Like do you think I'm not spending enough time with Willa? You know, it's it's like real questions. It's not because he's got his manager and booking agent and label and he didn't have to worry about he didn't need me to tell him all those things. She just like that when you came home off the road, like were you just exhausted, Like was I bugging the crap out of you to play soccer or throw the football and you just didn't want to, you know, like real real questions about especially since he has kids. Name. Um, yeah, that's pretty I mean we've always been really close, but um, it's really cool for him to finally, you know, now that he's a dad, that we have a relationship like on a different level, Like we can compare notes on on kids and things. You know, do you see you when you see him? Do you start? Not as much as everybody else does. I mean everybody. I walk in the room and they oh my god, you look just like Thomas Redder. They tell him, you know you it's just like your dad. Um, if I was thirty pounds less, maybe, But because I I when you look at an athlete, I don't see tr I watched the box and you know he didn't. He didn't gravitate towards sports as well as I did. I think one thing is when you grow up in the in the South, in a small town, especially like Valdosta, who's one of many football games, It's like, what you do? I mean, it is like not even a question. You come out of the womb, you're a boy, you're playing football. And in Nashville there's a thousand high schools here. Like I was so disappointed. At every game I would go to see him play, there would be three hundred people at the game because Nashville is so spark I mean so spread out. On a normal game for us, I mean on a game that we know we're gonna win, fifty and nothing, people in the stands and every Friday night I used I used to do play by play for at the time it was Division two SOLDI and they still maybe and they maybe. I don't know what they are now, but I used to play. And we used to go down to Audusta because I did play by play at Henderson State University as I went to school with playing the same conference. So we traveled down to all Dust and we would just get crushed and we go lose seventy two, and it would be the most miserable thing calling a college m where you getting crushed becau, there's nothing to talk about when you're getting woked. There's nothing to say that you haven't said al and you're two minutes into the third quarter and you're down fifty five and nothing, what do you say? And that's my worst that those are my worst memories of doing because on the road since and I was it was I was a paid play by play guy, and this is before I started doing on Fox Sports. But I didn't have a color guy on the road because there was a money. I'd have a color guy at home, but they wouldn't send a color guy on the road. So I do play by play and color losing seventy two. So um, alright, I formation one to the left. Oh, a sack, that's the nineteenth stack of the day. Well, he didn't grow up in that type of situation. And so because you know, high school football wasn't as huge in Nashville as it was for me. He it just wasn't. He didn't grow up in that environment to to to die to play football, you know what I mean. And he also Thomas Shrett I could take a lot of abuse. I mean, number one, I played quarterbacks, so I got hit all the time. But our coaches, there's no way in the world, our coaches from the eighties would have a job more than one day to day. They would get fired. My coach wouldn't. We didn't get water, they would say on the water unrewarded. You only get water when you earn it. And that's and now to even say you can't get water all the time, it would be ridiculous. But there were people throwing up. I mean we would do rolling wind sprints and people be puking out of their face mask, and um, somebody got hurt. The coach will say, you know, get off my get off you're killing grasp bo we get off my field, or somebody's laying there and they go move, just move the huddle over and run to run to play again. And uh. For some reason, even though I didn't like it, I could take it. And Thomas Jrrette could not. He he had to. His high school coach and his little league coach were rough, and he just he couldn't. He didn't like the the verbal abuse of of sports. My duke were playing ball. Thomas Jrrett came along. Yeah, yeah, well and I flunked out of school. Flunked out of school and you got a kid. It kind of kills your football career. But um, you know I went to Georgia and uh, you know, I was on the scout team. I played, you know, scout team, quarterback, Scout team, the offensive the other team. Every week. Yeah, if we're playing Old Miss that week or whatever I was, I was doing Old Miss and I was having to tackle. When I was playing defense, I was having a tackle. Rodney Hampton and Tim Worley like guys that went pro. When I was on When I was playing quarterback, Bill Goldberg was the pose guard. You know, it was like, it's the wrestler from Bill Golber played at Georgia and I'm telling me, I got killed. So what was he like as a ball player? Gold He's a beast like but but back then he wasn't as ripped. I mean he was just more bulky, you know. But now he's he's ripped. But when you would see him w CW. Because I'm a big wrestling fan too, I mean, I grew up a freaking Arkansas. We're talking all my favorite things, wrestling, football, music. Did you watch wrestling at all that well, I mean yeah, every every single Saturday night from the time I was seven to us about seventeen. So if you if you know wrestlers from the seventies to about eighties seven all that once. Once I got out of high school, I was I wasn't I know Stone called Steve Auston and the Rock and all that stuff, but I don't follow it. But did you watch the Goldberger area at all because you knew Bill? Yeah, I watched the Sun. But I was, like, I'm talking about Dusty Rhodes, I remember, I mean the American Dream was one of my favorst roads Rick Flair, um Lex Luger, Sting, uh, Tommy Wildfire, Rich Junkyard Dog, and I went to those. My grand I got a Memphis like we had. First it was Georgia Championship Wrestling, and then it became uh, I guess w c W. And my granddaddy believed it so like so much that the ritual of my my grandmother's house was Lawrence Welk. Yeah, the Lawrence Welk Show, Porter and Dolly and wrestling. And I'm telling about my granddaddy. There's no doubt that that Dusty got hit in the parking lot with a chair and he's out. Like he took me to see Abdulla the Butcher and Andre the Giant when I was eight, and then we saw Tommy Wildfire Rich the Junkyard Dog in the Fabulous Freebird Factous Michael P. S As And then when I was about seventeen, we went to Tallahassee. It was one of those huge, like all night thing where you have the smallest of the small and it was like, uh, who were the guys that were the real college wrestling outfit? Signed? Yeah, Then they fought the Road Warriors and then it was Lex lucan Animal, Yeah, Lex Luther and Sting and then the main event was Dusty and Ric Flair. And I remember touching Rick Flair's arm as he as he walked down the all to get to the ring, and I was like, that's That's the greatest thing I've ever done. And then and then I have Ric Flair's phone number, like I met him. I went on tour with Brantley Gilbert Um a few years ago and he played in Charlotte. Brantley came off the stage as soon as we walked back going to the buses, Ric Flair walked by and I literally tackled him. I went WHOA, And I mean I went up to him and just bear hugged him and he wooed back, and it was it was a wou contest for like. It was like the Wu Tang clan. Me and Rick Flair wooing each other and um, dude, we hung out with him all night. He gave us his phone number and I've texted him and called him a few times. Do you watch the documentary I did. It was awesome. Well, it was all some and really sad. I felt it was excellent entertainment for a wrestling nerd like me. I really thought it was fantastic. But man, I felt so bad for him, like real. But he was awesome. And I talked to Dusty Rhodes on the phone one time, buddy of mine kind of knew him and has his phone number. We just said hey, and just as you know, I think I imitated him or something, you know, But um, if I have a I wrote Black Shelton's new song and the which it's called, I lived it, and the and the lyric in the second versus Uh, the mold Duke Boys were flattened in the hills. Hollywood was fake and wrestling was real, like we really. I believed in my granddaddy, especially believe it. Man, I could do a whole show on wrestling, like I could do that Onery the Giant documentary. Have you seen the previous for that? I haven't, No, dude, that's amazing. Yeah, I still having the key to call off t shirt like a Russian I've got it's got the rush and sickle and he's just standing there with his fist up or whatever. My brother has a rip flair. Sure we can't. I have all my concert tickets, all my tea I have in a in a band in my house right now. I have Molly Crue, def Flappard Whalen. I have every concert t shirt ever ever went so and all the tickets stubs like I've always just been the most like I just idolize. I've always just idolized music and athletes. When I wrote my first book, I wrote a passage you about Sting because I talked about things that as I was a kid, and I preferred the blonde haired Sting more than the raven or whatever that ended up being. And he wrote me a nice note that what got to him? He wrote me a nice, nice note and send it back to me. And the people that you see as a kid that were cool are always cool to you. The rest of your life. Because for me, you know, I'm friends or I'm acquaintances with these massive artists and they're just pete. There's just folks. But I got on an airplane once with Barry Switzer and he was on the Southwest fly and I was the whole time. I was like, you got out of your mind. He's a former raisorback. He you know, coached the Cowboys, coach all the homma. I don't care about Oklahoma, but those in staying, the Barry Switzers that you know, the guards, those are the people that I really still go, oh, that's that's it. That's who I idolized me too. I definitely have my heroes, and I've met um, I've met. I've met all the people on my list. The only person I've met that I have to meet is Paul McCartney. But Mick Jagger is my all time. I picked Mick Jagger over anybody on Earth. I met him, uh two years ago. And I always try to not meet my heroes because I don't want to be disappointed. I mean, I don't think it's fair to put all of your hero hope into one meeting. So how did it go. I was disappointed to Mick because I felt like he talked with me too long. I felt like that he lowered himself by talking to me more than one minute's you know what I'm saying to the old court, I don't be a part of any group or stop like like, seriously, you should have quit thirty minutes ago, thirty seconds ago. Um, do you get a picture now? Because I couldn't ask him, you don't want to run the two cool moments now that I could not ask him. Um, But Keith was taking pictures and I went over to ask Keith if I could get a picture with him, and his bodyguard said, we gotta get him out of here, dude, you know, so they kind of rushed Keith out. Um. But I met guy Greg Almans, one of my biggest heroes. I met him a couple of times. And Hank Junior is my biggest country here. We we got to be buddies and we fished and hunted together a bunch. Um. But Paul, you know, he's I would love to meet Paul. Okay, so let me just ask you about the format for a seconds. I think that something everybody talks about, like how do you feel the country format is right now. I think it's awesome because there's so many different I mean, everybody's got a shop, man, I mean I really do. It's it's from the most traditional to the almost hip hop to almost pop. I mean as you can get. There's literally because I I mean I love it because I grew up loving everything. I mean, I love um Hank Williams Jr. As much I love Ozzy Osborne and Bill Monroe and run DMC. I mean I literally grew up going to concerts and watching videos and buying records of everybody. It doesn't it didn't matter who it was. If the song was good, I liked it. I didn't care, if you know. And so I think the country is now. The country is um you know, branched out into so many fields. I mean Thomas Redd has pushed it as you know, he's on the line there, he's way over the line, but he's only he's pushing against the next line, you know almost. And then you got Midland coming in and going back all the way to you know, seventies country. Um got came Brown killing it, you got Luke. You know that's that's still country is crap. But but can rock and pop it up a little bit. I mean it's just I mean, as you got everybody. So when someone says, well, that ain't country, yeah, I say that all the time, you know. I mean I still I grew up in South Georgia. I mean my heroes were Hank Junior and Whalen and Willie and those people. You know. So yeah, I mean a lot of the stuff that's out right now is not country to me, um from where I came from. But I love me, but I'm just not a I'm not a country music snob like that, because you know, I would try. I would go to high school and I have on a Hank Junior T shirt. I have OZ and You're written on my fingers like yeah, and I let it, you know, kind of fade out like you. I wouldn't wash it also at fade just right on my note I still my mom still has my my notebooks. I'm drawing the van Halen logo right here. I got the rat logo written right here. I got Whalen's w right right here. I run DMC. I mean, I can't say, you know that ain't country, you know, because I loved it all. I still love it. I'll listen to just as much hip hop now as I do. You know country? Um, I listened to pop. People have always been saying, though, regardless of what the cycle is and whatever or it is, that it's not country. Would you think that that's fair? Was there? Because I talked to Garth and Garth said, hey, when I came to town, people were like, I'm not country, yesh, I's the country's thing ever now compared to you know, we were. But I mean this, you could have this debate for ten years. I mean, do you think Jimmy Rodgers thought Hank Williams was country? I mean they didn't want Hank Williams to play on the opera because he had a snare drum. You know that wasn't country. You gotta play doghouse base and that's it. Do you think Hank Williams would think that Whalan was country? Um? Buck Owens told me one time, he said, man, he said, you know how long it took me and Whalon to make it? He said they hated us because we played electric guitars, you know, because we were loud man. And now, I mean, you don't think of anything but country when you think of Buck Owens or Whalon. Um there's you know, Merle Haggard wouldn't think, you know, Garth was country, and Garth don't think Thomas Rutt's country, and Thomas Rtt won't think the next exactly. So it's it's it's always. At My point is whenever I talk to magazines or I want to call and say hey, what you say? Hey, this will always be the question for the rest of time. It's always going to be the cycle and the question, and the next one up isn't compared to the last one out. I mean Frank Sinatra, you know, he didn't like Elvis coming along and messing up the flow, and Elvis didn't like the Beatles coming along and messing up the flow. I mean, they're all jealous and they're all, you know, it's taking up and that ain't really I'm sure that uh all the jazz puist thought Frank Sinatra was not true jazz, you know. And if it ever does stop, don't you feel like it's it's broken. Then if it ever does stop, and just sit And that's what I say a lot of time. If you if you want the same thing forever, you're just gonna get the same thing, and it's not gonna there's gonna be no growth. I mean, I am a snob and some things like like I love old bluegrass. I want Bill Monroe, I want Stanley Brothers, I want ancient. The only new bluegrass is out, I'll kind of I really like, like Ricky Skaggs doing like ancient tones and bluegrass rules albums that's new, but it's still the old. I don't want to hear new blue grass because that's what you grew up with. That's where I grew up, and I like, I like, and so I get it. I mean, I'm I mean, I'm no different than any fan out there that goes that ain't country, that ain't hip hop, that ain't what rock music is, because I think you define what real music is from from what you grew up listening to. You know, I you know, I love rap music, but I don't like it as much now as I did. That's what I was gonna bring up. I wish that they were still Nelly and Um, I mean, I still wish that there were melodies and courses in the song. You could still be tought was still hard but his melodies, but you had girls bumping it to fift you know what I mean, the hip hop analogy. It is great because people now older go, hey, d that's you know, the twenty one Savages, the post Malan's you know it's a mumble rapt. They're going, that's a hip hop. It's it's not just our format where this is happening. And some people do think it's this country, oh country, but it's every single format. It was funny, I guess I could say these names. They were curious funny. Uh. This year on Thomas Stress tour, daniel Bradberry and Kelsey Ballerini were out on the tour and so after the show we were all on Thomas Stress dressing room and and uh, I was like, I want to be DJ tonight. You know we always hang back there and crank music or whatever. And uh so I was DJ that night and I was playing nothing but Nellie and um, you know nineties rap and eighties run DMC uh Houdini. I mean I was playing like I was playing what I think it's real rap music and Danielle and Kelsey were dancing and they were having a good time. But finally they came over and said, can you play some rap? And I was like, what do you think I've been playing for last thirty minutes? They're like Daniel was like you face a me goes you know, like I mean, that's like somebody going you know, I mean, I'm playing George straight all night and they're going, hey, can you buy some country. It's a it's all art always evolves, and every generation fills their art is what's the truest exist And I don't think that you're that anyone's wrong, but I do think that to think that you're right is wrong. Like I know, if I go, oh, that's not country, I'm not wrong. I don't think you can have a creative opinion that's wrong. But if I go for sure I'm right about that not being country, I'm wrong because I'm not for sure right or wrong. Yeah, well we're GONNATO. The whole philosophy, it's all. It's all an opinion. But you know there are I mean, you got every avenue in the world to listen to what real country is, what you think real country is? You got it at the touch of your phone, now you know? And why for ten years and people go whi and make songs like Whalen. Well, it's all there and there are people that sound like whaling to All you have to do is do I hate it when somebody goes, man, if you heard so and so they sound just like whaling, And I'll go, what's good about that? I mean, it was like, why is that great? You know, like like friends of mine, you know, they'll go to some local bar and they go, hey, man, I'm gonna see you this video. This dude sitting up on the stool playing at the bar. Man, he sounds just like Alan Jackson. And I'm like, but why is that good? Why didn't he sound like what his name is? You know, that would that would impress me more than he sounds like Alan? You know, I mean people like familiar familiarity though, I mean, I get it, but um, I just think nowadays you can just if you want to listen to old bluegrass or new bluegrass, just get on your pick it up. Man. But you know this is commercial radio, you know, I right. You know, I questioned myself all the time. I'm like, I mean, should I try to write a song for the radio or should I try to write something I really to write? You know what I mean, because I'm in the music business. But you know, people out there riding around their car. They don't care about that. When you say you wrote a song for the radio, what comes to mind? What song did you write for the radio. I'll tell you a song that I didn't write for the radio was was I Lived at Blake's new song? We wrote that on the Farm tour two years ago, and we said, let's write the realest song we have ever written, so country that no nobody that was born after nineteen eighty will get it. Nobody's gonna cut it. Let's just write it because that's what we want to write. And that's one of the rare ones that that somebody recorded and and put out. But you know, I mean, it's like you get. We write a lot with tracks you know that we go in. I don't it's not every day, and we just go on with a guitar or piano. So we're sitting there and obviously if somebody's playing a track and there twenty five years old, the majority of it's gonna be sort of poplin and you know, and um, you just kind of know you like that sounds like the radio or you you play something, you go that one. I don't know if radio would play that you know what I mean, because radio is pretty safe. You know, as as as adventurous as they have gotten in country music, it's still pretty safe. And I mean they want to know they do a lot of testing. Oh, we do a lot of research, and that's why a lot of troubles because I don't do a lot of research. I just play whatever. Right, Yeah, you've done great with that. Not all the time, because we do have someone that programs double music in general. But I get to go and my company now lets me just go on my own and if I think it's you know, but what sucks is when you write a song like Farmer's Daughter that I wrote for Rodney Atkins went to number three because it didn't go one because of San Francisco station in the l A station wouldn't play it because not because it had cuss word in it, not because it was offensive, because it said feeding the hogs, because what people in San francs couldn't because in San Francisco. I'm like, if you drive five miles out of San Francisco, their feeding dogs, Like California is the biggest farm in the world, you know what I mean. That's see, I wasn't in the format then, so those a little petty things like that don't happen. There was a station in New England that wouldn't play that ain't my truck because they said, nobody up there, uh drive trucks. They all drive cars, and it didn't relate to their fans. And thank goodness, I wanna call her out. Lee Adams, who who was my rap back then now is the head of broken Boat promotion. She went. She called every Dick car dealership in New England and got their numbers and trucks outsold cars. She she called. She sent it to the program director in New England or wherever they were, and said, well, you're wrong about who drives trucks and cars. But I mean when you do this for a living. If I was just writing songs because I wanted to write songs, I wasn't getting you know, paid, or writing for a publishing company, you know, I would write whatever I want was nobody's gonna hear it anyway. But if you're doing this, you know you're getting paid, and you know it's like that that bothers you. You think about it, you go, I really want to say this, But because San Francisco wouldn't say hogs. Can I put this in it? So all you know what I mean, It's like, is this gonna deter a radio station playing this? Is this on a turn? The turn Luke Bryan from from cutting this song? You know, So it's it is a thought that you have, and then some there's some days I succumbed to it and I go, well, I really want to say this, but I guess we'll say this. And then there's some days I just go screw it. We'll saying I'm saying what I want to say. I don't care if it gets cut or not. What about this one, because this is a really country song. Fish That was the one that was one that Luke was really scared wasn't gonna work because it was two countries, two country and hunting, you know every day. It's just weird. You know. We just lived in a different time. And when I grew up, I mean hunting. Never once in my life that I think hunting was a bad thing until I moved to Nationally and and me either because we and I hunted a lot growing up. And it's a couple of things I want to branch it to is because I grew up in wet. I grew up poor and we ate it or we gave it away, or we even with fish, we either ate it or we gave it to somebody that needed to ease. And even with what's happening with gun is now, I don't think the two sides understand Because of how I grew up in the South. Guns weren't this amazing thing where we looked at them in fascination like people who aren't around guns me too, you know, me too. So it wasn't a guns weren't this thing from television. They were really just a part of our every day. So it wasn't We're gonna take a gun and and go do something crazy with it. Because guns weren't crazy time. I mean, getting a four tim when I was ten years old, natural thing on earth. I've never won. I've never questioned what I ate until I moved to Nashville because I'm fried chicken. I mean, I want to go to Sweats every day, which is a restaurant here and town the soul food. I mean, I want to go to Sweats. I want to go to Arnold's. I want to I want to go uh to any country place. You know, I don't go to Arrago and I don't go to big fancy restaurants here in town. I won't fried chicken, and you know, I'll drive to McDonald's probably on the way home. Um. But it's like you're you're righting with people from l A. And and they look at like they look at me like, are you raising you're gonna eat mcnal's. Like I'm nuts, you know. I mean, I've I've written a lot of in l A. You ought to see me in l A. I might as well just walk in and go. Y'all think I voted from Donald Trump. I know, I get it. Whatever you can just look at me and you assume who I voted for. But I was in l A writing with a bunch of pop guys, and um, they were like, Hey, we're gonna order some food, you know, And I said where we're all getting? They wanted sushi and you know, salad and all this kind of stuff, And I was like, is there a way I could get a Snickers and a coke and a pack of Red Man And look, dude, I felt like I got Like the next day, when I wrote with different people, I hid my coke behind my chair because I felt embarrassed. If they think that I'm drinking a coke, they like I'm bad person. Like I wrote, I wrote with Andy Grammer out there and we went and got something to eat, and he got a salad and all this kind of stuff, and I ordered a hamburger, you know, and he was like, dude, I haven't eating hamburger in ten years. I think someone like that because I do spend a lot of time and and again again, I don't know if I'm someone in the mental healthy. I know it's not the healthiest food in the world, but I grew up in that environment and and like I went from a four ten to uh at a twenty two to a twelve gauge to a thirty OT six. That was the big one for me when I when I finally But then I have friends that have never had any gun at all, and because they didn't grow up with them. It's this, it's a it's a TV thing, and where if you're if you're not right in the head and you want a TV thing, you want to do TV things. And so I see my friends and are so piste off about what's happened with the guns, are like, you don't take that the guns. I grew up with them. It's not even a thing to me. When uh, my buddy Dallas Davidson, his wife is from Australia and um, they had a kid a couple of years ago, and Luke Brown and I got together and said, you know, when she has the baby's come up with a cool gift, you know, for Dallas Dallas baby, and um, the first our first thought was let's get him a gun, you know. And so I went down to this cool gun shot and bought a twenty two, like a nineteen seventy pistol, nineteen seventy. And I think Luke got him shotgun. We obviously he can't do any of this for twelve fifteen years. But but Dallas's mother in law was just because she's from Australia and I guess you can't have guns at all, and you know that's just not part of the culture. Like she was just almost mad. I also, how in the world could you think of buying my grands on a gun? And it's because the sides are so different that they can't agree on anything. That's the crazy part to me. Well, when the as soon as you say gun control, it's over and the conversation is ever, I think we've got to have a way because I'm not into I mean this, this whole what's going on with these shootings and stuff. It's just it's just unthinkable, felt about. I hated the big right because I'm not a big fan of people having these les. I don't think there's a need for so either. I mean, I've never had I've never owned anything but hunting, you know, bow and arrows and shotguns and uh and a dear you know, dear rifle. I've never owned a r or anything like that. But we've got to have enough information. Both sides have to have legit info to be able to have this discussion. Because the first thing you think is they ain't taking my guns. And that's what all my friends think. They go, they're not taking my guns. To them, it's a natural part of life. And so two people I have other friends that live in Boston, for example, they're not they're not no, no, nothing about guns. And so again to them, they don't think anyone should have a gun because they haven't seen it be a tool of everyday living. And both sides create their own information. And what's happening is nobody does anything in the middle, because if you give, then you're giving, and we never come to any solutions because both sides are so freaking dug in when the real the reality of it is for me, because I'm one of the few that we'll talk about this, what do you feel like gun control? I said? First of all, I don't say the words gun control. I'll say gun education, or gun anywhere you want to insert. I don't say control, though, because that has such a connotation. But I say, let's imagine that I'm driving a truck down the road. Now, I had to get be sixteen and pass the test to drive a truck, so I went to Hunters. I didn't did that in school. I did the things I needed to do to have a four ten or two. I said, but I can't just go from my truck to drive a bus without some sort of education improving that I know how to drive a bus. And I feel the same way about freaking weapons. You shouldn't be able to get an a R unless you get the bus license, and that bus license might be military, it might be, but I don't think you should be able to go and buy freaking a art right. And we've gotta have more mental checks too. I mean, there's gotta be if if if somebody, if you're a therapist or a doctor or whatever, and you know this person, something's missing, you know with this person, I think you've got that information has got to be somewhere where gun stores and places can see that. I don't think they don't care. Gun shows happen. And I've been to gun show and I'll admit I've been to many gun shows, especially when I was younger. They'd pop up Oliver, Arkansas is how we go. I didn't realize exactly how it was so every day that until you get away from it and you see others perspectives and you go, oh, I get white people can just walk up and just take a gun. Well that's why the song Hunting Fishing, we were all scared of it. You know, we were like, this is really us. We're not lying about this song. There's not one. This was a song that we didn't go you know, maybe we should we should tone that down or what. We didn't really say anything offensive in it, but it was just like Luke was, you know, like this is me, this is us, this is what we grew up doing. This is our lifestyle. You know, I'm an artist and I want people to know how I grew up and that that was a big decision and how my boys, you know, how I raised my boys and stuff like that. And so Luke was like, uh, you know, boys, uh, this one might not make it. You know. It went to number one, you know, but we really were thinking it might die fifteen or something. You know. I gotta tell you, I never never heard any kickback on I didn't from my position a song that there was a lot of thought put into should we can, we will we? I never and I hear kickback but everything, Yeah, you know, it's weird. This song and Dirt on My Boots are the two songs that I get nothing but dude, I love that song from l A Riders and from people who don't know who don't write songs that country, you know what I mean. They're like when that song came on, you wouldn't believe how many songwriters and term were like, dude, hunting fishing this bomb man and Dirt on My Boots is is freaking awesome. I was talking to Katy Perry because I'm doing Idol this season in the mentor, and so she said I didn't know anything about Luke Brian. I just know that one song, hunting, that's what that was the one song she said she knew that Luke did. Was that because I heard this one song. I don't even think it was real. She goes, it was like hunting and fishing and loving. So yeah, that's the one even her like, that's the one I think that others are like when I hear when I hear a rap song or a rock song or whatever, I mean, why do people why did why did young seventeen year old English kids in the sixties decide that a sixty year old black man from Mississippi is what they wanted to listen to. They have nothing in common at all, but they heard it and they went, dude, that's real, you know what I mean? Talk about that specifically? Why did Keith and Mick and Eric Clapton and Robert Planting. I mean, these kids have nothing to do with the South in America and they and they they built their career on on these songs. And I think, you know, when something's real. I think when I think, like, there's probably a lot of people out there that they don't like country music, but if they heard hunting, fishing. They might not understand it, they might not agree with or whatever they go. That was real, man, you know what I mean, They didn't. They didn't fake that. I mean, you couldn't make that up. I think that's what draws people into other genres, you know. So um, I was proud of that song because we're really you know that that we weren't gonna be allowed to let the let those words be heard. But thank goodness it did. I mean, I gotta I'm obviously got to the whole library here. But man, you got a bunch of on I mean just printing money. You got money factory at your house, and I don't spend any of it. Are you pretty tight? I'm still drying well. I did buy a truck last year, but I still have my two thousand and eight for um, but that type you know, hunting me and stuff. But I didn't want to. I didn't really want to buy a new truck. The only reason I bought one is because I researched it for like three months, until they got so tired of me that I think they sold it to me for ten thousand less than the sticker to get rid of us. This one's. I was honestly surprised it wasn't up a Song of the Year. I really was. I thought it should have been. It's hard to it was a four week when what I heard it was four week number one, but it was. I think more people in America heard that song this year than than any other. The audience impressions were We're the biggest, or body like about road. Maybe was finished by the time this came out, because nothing beats that really and audience impressions, but I guess for two thousand and seventeen that song was the biggest. That was another farm tour song. Wrote it in the back of the bus in two thousand and fifteen on the day that the farm tour got rained out. So we were sitting like uh back hose, I mean, uh, bulldozers were literally pulling the buses out back backstage, and we just sat in the back of the bus and and wrote this, and um, I was a little tired from the night before. I just put one pass down on the microphone and I told Kyle, the guy who was recording it, I said, um, when we get back to Nashville, I'm gonna put a real vocal on that you know, I'm gonna sing it really good and all that once again as another thing like Boys Running Here, where it got pitched. I didn't want it to be pitched because I thought I sounded terrible on it, and um, Dustin loved it, and uh, when he went to singing in the studio, he sang it, and the label and everybody were like, it's good, but it sounds too good, like we've fallen in love with the demo and Rhet's lazy voice. Can you can you uns sing it? And so when he went in the studio to sing it, he laid on the couch while he's sang while he's sanging this vocals to to make the annunciation be more lazy. And they just said, just don't care, just sing it, you know. So that's weird how what I think sucks other people like, and then sometimes what I like other people sucks. You just stuck your stuff. Ross, we were talking about our friend Ross Copperman. One of my favorite Ross quotes. Um, he's a songwriter, producer in town, and um, I do the same thing with Rosso, But hey, let me come back tomorrow and I'll re sing that or whatever, and uh, and Ross was like when we started getting more cuts with my terrible vocal, what I thought was terrible. And I asked Ross and said, why do you think? Why do you think these people are cutting our songs? Well, my vocal is so bad? I said, as you think, because I don't care. And maybe I'm singing it just with more emotion and I don't care if it's in tune and this and that. You think they're like buying into my real natural singing voice better and he got no, I just think they think it's bad and they can sing it better than you do. I was like, thanks, Ross, I thought I had. I thought I was pouring out my heart and soul here, but uh, I was talking to Ross. I was with Ross over the house his place before I came over here. I said, Hey, you know, I don't I don't really know h We've we've met in passing a couple of times, very briefly. I don't really know him. He kind of looks like he beat me up, Like is he He's like, Oh, he's the nicest guy. Dude, he's the nicest guy. You're gonna love them. I was like, Ross, he'son funny, he is funny man. We We just make fun of him and joke with him all the time. He's fantastic writer. This town is full of talent, man, I'm telling this. I don't know if there's any other city on Earth with as much songwriting talent, especially capital in an area. Yeah, I know l A's full, Yeah, New York, London, all of you know, Austin, Texas. But there's there's something about about Nashville. It's like one big high school, you know what I mean? Good and bad. Yeah, It's like, you know, I heard something in this co write and then tomorrow I told what I heard they singing that. You know, it's like going from English to history classes. Did you hear Braden Jenny broke up? You know what I mean? It's like rumors. No, you can't say anything and without the whole road know it in in thirty minutes, you know. But it's awesome. I'm gonna run through a few of these. He wrote this for Thomas Rrette with Thomas Ratty Change you wake up Change. I don't think I care. He texts me about that so long a couple weeks ago. Can we think about this song? Think? I think it's a great song because, like you think it works. It's like, yeah, of course it works. Yeah, that's a real one man. That's that was what he said. He said, is it too real? I said, you can't be too real, but there's no someing's too real. Yeah, he's a warrior man, just like you know they, I mean, all artists. It doesn't matter how successful I've I've I've been around the most successful people in country music, and um, you know, and got to know him really well. You know, when the fans think, God, they just got it together in their lives awesome and they don't worry about nothing. I was like, dude, you have no idea how much your hero worries. I wrote, I just fatiched my second book and I wrote a whole thing about it. That where that doesn't matter how big the artist is. They're still reading the the negative things somebody says on Twitter and calling their other super famous friends going men is really bumming me out. Humans are humans deleted. He hadn't been on Instagram in forty days, you know, because he can't. He could have. Literally, he gets five hundred thousand likes every picture he puts on there, and you know, twenty thousand comments or whatever. If nineteen thousand, nine hundred ninety nine said you're the greatest thing God ever created. And one dude says you ain't country. He's done. You know what I'm saying. It's like that's that's the one comment. But I was like that too. It was like that one that one guy at the show that just wouldn't tap his foot, that was just staring at me, like you suck. You know. I thought about him the rest of the night instead of the other people that like the show, And I just think that's creative people. These are our babies, you know what I mean. It's like, I mean, you're an artist, just like you write something, you play something, you do your show. When one person calls in, it was like, dude, you're terrible. You know, you're not funny. Whatever, it does hang with you, it bothers you because this is your baby, you know so. But it's cool that that that our biggest heroes in our favorite artists are just humans. Also, yeah, you don't grow out of having natural human feelings because they had Our heroes had them as they were in their less than mature stages of artistry, and they don't go away. If anything, they may get worse and so man, let me don't these baby made a couple of blocks love Aldine? Man, I get this guy? How about got your heads? I don't want let me ask you this. There any number ones that you just don't remember writing? No, because I'm well they all everybody calls me the you know, human juke boxer as rad he knows you know what I mean. I don't know why that. My brain always just remembers songs and things. Um, I guess because I'm so amazed that we wrote something that worked. I do remember pretty much every situation. That's one of the first songs we wrote with uh with Luke. We wrote that, guys in like two thousand nine or ten. What about writing with Thomas Ratt? How is that? How is that dynamic? It's awesome, man, It's it's never we've been right. I could send you pictures of me and him, videos of him when he's eight years old and we're writing songs together. We've always done it for fun. Never in a million years, you know, did we think we'd be doing it professionally together. But it's not weird at all. You would think, you know, we're writing a love songs. It seems weird, like let's writ let's let's write a love song with your son or with my dad. I don't know what's weird, You're like, write love song my dad right now, you know what I mean. But, um, we're just buddies. I mean, I'm still is add and I you know, and we still have that role where he's my son and I'm his dad. But but at the same time we've grown to beat buddies also, you know, And so we can just sit in the room together and and and write anything and and uh, life changes was one of those where we just told the truth about his story. Yeah, you know, we wrote that in two thousands and tens. There's no demo of it. He found it on YouTube. So he found what He found himself singing it at a radio station in two thousand and eleven. Yeah, and thought, oh, I forgotten. And a lot of his fans had had searched all his YouTube videos and they found it that when you're gonna put start of the show out, you know, and so um, when they did the deluxe package on on his last album, um, he said, yeah, this dad, this song has just been sitting around and all my fans here and they requested in my meet and greets and stuff, and he goes, let's do it. So he thought, you know what, he thought it was too progressive, you know, like that doesn't sound progressive. I mean it sounds a little pop, but it doesn't sound way out of the box. But in two thousand and ten or eleven, gosh, that was that was like Bruno Mars or something, you know, for country. Most nervous ever been by the Song of My Life one because Thomas Shrett had already had two singles out before this one. He had beer with Jesus and uh, something to do with My Hands and they both went to about fifteen and um, he was worried the label. You know, it's like we really got we need when we've done good and we're happy with what we've done, but we we need a smash. And um, I think I heard you played it the first time when you when you said, okay, guys, you know this is brand new one from Thomas Hrett. Like I almost threw up not a lot Land. As soon as I'm bound out here, I was like, this is not a hit. It's not a hit. It's not a hit. I was like, I have ruined my son's career. He's done. Like, I was panicking when you played that song. At what point did you go okay? I think we got it when he played um. I went on the road with him and he played in Missouri at this little club called the Blue Note, and this song, I mean, I don't even think it was out of the thirties or whatever. It was probably a six hundred seat college crowd. They went nuts as soon as as soon as they went those drums came on and a down down the crowd went nuts and sang every single word. And that's like, okay. I was like, you see the upcoming hit that, yeah, exactly, But that one worried me. I mean, I'm nervous. I'm nervous every time one of my singles comes out, but it was when it's on your with your kid, it's like, if it fails, then I you know, I ruined my son's life. You know. I think about that with every artist. I mean, if if Luke puts a song out, I'm just like, gosh, Lord, please don't let this be the one that doesn't work. You know, I don't want to be the guy, you know that screwed Luke Luca. But it's very nerve wracking when it's your wrong kid. It's like watching him pitch in the World Series. You know, you can't watch it, but you have to watch it, and you're nervous of everything they're doing. Well, I've enjoyed you coming up with the house. I appreciate that. One thing. We're hanging out again coming up. I think we're going to this wrestling. Oh that's right, Yeah, we are. If you're going yeah, yeah, it's Mankind, Foley, Yeah, whichever the mini names. That's funny because we are going to do that. Speaking of wrestling, I didn't even think about that. Yeah. Yeah, he's telling a story and it's like a at a comedy club. But it's freaking Mick Foley, Mankind, Cactus Jack remember the Cactus Jack days when he was Captus Jack barely And I think I was out of rustling by that point, you know, but I don't. I don't. He wasn't George, he wasn't huge. And the Southeast I don't think it's it's funny when you said that, you know, Georgia, what was because mid South is where I was Georgia Championship Georgia because we had like Bob and Brad Armstrong. It was most local Atlanta wrestlers, but that's what turned into WCWS. And then Turner had it because it was in Atlanta, because you know, TBS was in Atlanta, which turned into the National just like the Braves. I mean, that's why the Braves were the America's favorite team because everybody got to see him. I tell I knew who Del Murphy was exactly he was. I was a huge Dale Murphy freak man. Sawma diired Cubs fan partially for the same reason because w g M was in everybody's house. You go up in Arkansas, you don't have a team, and so my stepdad was a huge Cubs fan because he got to watch them. Pass it on to me. So the same thing. I watched the Braves because the Cubs never played at night. This is still day game because I don't have lights. So I watched the Cups of the daytime get from school and I watched the Bravest w g N two. So we watched them and like Bozo the Clown and Boo yeah, the group freaking Grand Prize game. We thought the six Cups and I would have never seen it without cable tvycle if you get number six, know exactly what you're talking about. Well, let's not. I appreciate you coming by. I know you got some hit songs to go, right, but good talking to you. And now when I see you, I'll be like, hey, remember me, it's Billy when he came up with my house. We'll see you next time here on the Bodycast