# 129 - Ryan Hurd Returns to talk about the Struggle of Being a Songwriter turned Artist + Not Wanting To Exploit His Marriage

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Speaker 1: M HM. Welcome to episode one twenty nine of The Bobby Cast. It's the weekend show and Ryan Hurd is here. And usually on the weekends we don't bring a guest in. We have a lot of stuff that we gotta catch up on from the week. But uh, I guess this is the only one we're doing this week. So it's two things. One is the only episode we're doing, and then too, I feel like we know you well and help we can just bring you in and you just chill. Well. I came over to the pool party, man, so I feel like, you know, I can make myself at home here, and this new studio is beautiful, and uh yeah, that's cool to get an opportunity to come. I was like one of the first guys you had on this, which is what I was gonna say. You know, there are two people that I kind of give credit to saying to myself, hey, this can be a thing, and it's you and Caitlin Smith, because early on, I think I was still in the condo at the time. Yeah, I was like, and it was before your I mean, you're all you've always been an artist, but it was before you were outwardly trying to be an artist getting you know, radio, Satellite, Spotify, you know all that before that had taken and you were in as Ryan heard this songwriter because that's what I was doing just and then uh yeah, here we are again. It's like a full circle. Is he the only person we've ever had back? I think I think you're the first one we've also had back. That is very cool man, Thank you guys. I know we've done two with with Lindsay, that's true, and then we did a double with Jackline. But yeah, you know, yeah, look at you. You're the first person we've had back that I have a made out with another not not Jacqueline, she stayed. We did a double long one. But yeah, I get the first person. So look at that. I was driving in US flipping through and I heard you on satellite and Diamonds that it was the number one song. That's really really cool about you is that you don't see somebody like them as like your competition. No. I just like to see the artist thrive for everybody. I feel like there's this thing where and I had to learn the hard way. It's like if you try to make somebody feel special, then every it really what actually accomplishes is to make everybody else mad, and so it's cool to have and I know that. I think you use it more for like what's working before I run with something, and that's a huge I think that's brilliant. And I also, you know, it's cool to like be able to talk about a small success. For me, that's the kind of the like the most successful accident I've ever had. But it's not on your platform as much. I mean, you were so supportive of it, and I had so many Bobby listeners gravitate to the song, but you know, it's not you know, on the on the highway. So it's cool to have you like support that. And I just that that was such a unique moment and I think people really liked that it was honest and there wasn't a marketing push, and I think people really do like what I do. And it's cool to be able to like turn around and say hey Sony, hey management, Hey myself, I think I can really do this. And that's It's been a really cool a few months with that song. I think that one of the song is good. If the song wasn't good, really, even if they like you, they wouldn't care because I like a lot of people, but some of the people I like don't have good songs. Some people I don't like have great songs. And I try to really approach it professionally all the same. He really play some of that you have that you have. I'll be I was driving in I heard it and number one and I was like, look at that. Good for him. I just like songs to be heard, I don't. I just like good things to hit good ears and hit hit good eyes, because that's how we're all living. You know, we're all basically small punk bands at this point, meaning we're going to places and making relationships with fans listeners, and it's such a niche world now, you know, we're out Like the punk bands of the eighties, what they would do with it. They wouldn't have fans because it really wasn't a distribution for them. There was like this massive distribution model of you know, seven radio stations and three TV stations, so they had to go everywhere. And I feel like with country artists now you have to do the serious Spotify, Amazon, Apple Music, you have to do you know, radio. But radio is such a macro that it gets a bit handicapped in that they can't really go out on new artists as much because we have limited space. Now I'm I'm a bit different than the rule because I kind of came in not knowing that, so I never actually adhered to that policy and they had to have been taught the policy had been different, but I didn't know the policy, so there wasn't a policy to me. I was just like, let me just but I want to, Like especially in country music, yeah, especially like it's almost like you wait in line. It's like you you put yourself out there and you're like, well, I got hopefully on. Like if you can't get thirty stations on your first weds in and you're a new artist, like, that's that's tough. We got thirty five the first time, and we felt pretty good about it, and then maybe maybe it's thirty two or something like that, and then it just it really didn't have the legs. And I had gone through some business and personal stuff that made it more difficult. But like it it's sort of like you go out there and you get your first round of research and your first round of believers, and then it jumps a little bit and then you go get another round of research and another round of stations that try it out, and it takes almost a year, no matter who you are, and that's an exhausting process. And that's very unique to our format because I've watched you know, Marin with this pop song and it's like bloom eight weeks exactly. And that's how honestly it should be. Really, it should be like what's the best right now, because it should be the best at the top right now. And that's the ability that I think some of now. Again I speak from radio, but I don't have the same linear mindset is radio. So I mean this weird position of space. You know, I have limited space. And even then, I'm not supposed to be a music guy. Like they didn't bring me here to go, hey, find new music. Like zero percent of them wanted me to come on and just light new music. They wanted me to come and do be funny and be you have content that's compelling and do what you do. I didn't do any of the music stuff when I was a pop and I didn't break artists. I don't even like where I am now in that. And I think I'm gonna stop a bit because what you said bothers me because what happens is, and you don't have to speak on this, what happens. What has happened inadvertently, I think just through competition and some people living in the same space and then moving to another, is that there there begins to be a competition to where if entity A goes out and says, I like this artist with an entity B and C and D, go Okay, you're gonna keep them in your pile, then I'm not. I'm gonna hold them back and I'm not gonna I've seen that happen with Moe and Eyeballs, and it makes me, just for the larger scale, go, I don't want to be involved in this game. So if it helps the the newer artists more, if I get out of the game, then I think that's what I wanted to do, and I think and I think that's what I'm going to have to do, is kind of bail out of this whatever this arms race has turned into, because that's almost what it's like now. It feels like that a little bit, but you also sort of have to I'm in this world right now where I have this record company who I really enjoy and I think, really believe in me. But what I like I am trying to accomplish is very different than not the end result, but the way that we go about accomplishing the same thing is so different. And it is an arms race to them about like they don't want to go with a song unless they have an arsenal of research and analytics behind it to show all of these people, you know, this kid is different and this song is what's going to do it for him. And which is a hard thing for me because I'm like, I don't hear music with a spreadsheet, and it's and and but they're not trying to honestly, like, I'm not a manager and I'm not a music I understand this isn't supposed to be fair, and it's not. This is not the music fun time, socialist music. No, it's the music business. And you sign up for the because those people can take what you do great and multiply it by a million. And but it is it. The arms race is exhausting. And as an artist, I don't mind radio tour too much. I don't like being away, but I want to do it, you know, like I want to do it and get it done and then go home and then I want to play shows and I want to make records, and that's what I just I mean, that's why I stopped just writing songs for the people. But and you gotta worry about, like if I do this, this person is this person to get angry, And that's kind of what I ran into originally. And I think part of like where I'm at right now is I've had some I toured really hard for eighteen months and I opened for I learned a ton because I I feel like it takes along like sometimes some people are very natural artists, but Marion's been doing this since she was eleven, so like, you know, I've learned a lot from her, but I've learned more from guys like Thomas and guys like Tyler Hubbard, who, like you watch the way that they operate, and I, you know, I would hope to be as good as them someday at what they do, but like they are, they are great at their job of being an artist. And it's like the hustle and it's the look and it's the everything else. But man, I it is I feel like at this point I've had some time to step away from the road and get some more songs written, and I got this song out which we didn't expect, which is really reacted, and then gotten like just some time to be like get my team right and get my relationship with my label like really solid, and also just like personally, like I got married, I got I feel like this is a frustrating job no matter what, and to be able to like sit back and be like, but that's not my whole life and it can't be something like Sam Hunt that's kind of inspiring to be like I don't know if it's the best move in the world for his career, but like to be like, you know what, I've pounded it for four years and I need a break to be a person. And I had to like really be okay with like, hey man, you're music is a great thing and it's your whole life, but it's also like like let's look at the whole thing and be really excited about it and thankful and happy about it. And I was just burnt out and I've finished the year with Dustin on the road and got off of it and was like I am I need like counseling, and I need to like take a month and not drink any beer. And just like re like do my body in my head? And so then I get and then we got married, and just it's really cool to sit here and like Sunday July one, like six months in and be like, man, this is a different This is such a fun thing that I get to do the music part, not just my life, but the whole thing, and I'm really pumped about all of it. I'll watch your Answers Story sometimes and you play parts of songs. I don't know if they're rough mixes, did you have I don't know if you're playing did you just smile and playing a song? Demos? Demos? Okay, so you'll write the song and in the room that day or maybe if it's a two day song, you record the demos you just have it on your phone. Are those songs that you're thinking about recording or songs that well. The last time I did it, I played like that You Look Good demo, which is just pretty much it's very similar to what they did, which is the Lady A song Lady and Llam and I played the Luke demo Sunrise, and uh, but then I just you know what I do that when I get really it's kind of a cheap way to get like my self esteem backup because when I do it, like I know, there's a lot of people who love what I do. I get asked about when's my album coming out by ten people a day, which is like I want to have an answer for you, and I don't. But I do that to like, first of all, remind people I still got some I'm still doing stuff like if you don't think if you think I quit, I didn't. But it's also like get so many people are just like, oh my god, I love that. It's just a snippet, right, It's just that fifteen second clip of that song, and um, I don't know. I just it's a good way for me to like remind myself that people really do like this stuff will react if it gets out. And the other half of it is like I want to remind people like, no, I'm I'm gonna I'm not going anywhere. I want you to be excited about me. And so having this little I call it like my little miracle song because that song Diamonds is just a demo man that we had shined up a little bit and we just I didn't put it out for any other reason to just go like I mean, don't want it to flop, but just like, man, this is a special moment and I'm not trying to like put it like like exploit my marriage now. But also I'm like, really, I think this is something that other people would really love. And so the instance story thing, I don't know I am. I think I have the weirdest little things on Instagram that I do. I'm like, how how did I end up doing coffee pores and playing demos over the speakers for fifteen seconds? And but I don't know, man, I just really I like interacting with people that way, and I like, I know, I can't share music the same way that I could have if I was just a writer, where I could just put my demo on SoundCloud, which is what you know how Marion started. But I can't. I don't know. I just I want to put out just little things here and there, so just too for whatever the reason, either it makes me feel good or makes other people feel just good for just to get them a little excited. You talk about answer story Instagram and make you feel good, That's what the whole apps about. I mean, we're all just seeking approval with every image and sound we put up, right, Mike Doan, We all just try to find a look at this picture of me doing something. I know it is it is. I think I thought about this when I was coming over here, and I was like, man, I get so many people who talk about our relationship and they say things like goals, and I'm somehow too old for that, Like I'm too old for goal. But I'm like, there's people who like see what we do and what we put up, and I'm like, man, we have a lot of things that we have to work on really hard just to make this think. Oh, and I feel like it's kind of unfair to put up the hard the easy parts, you know what I mean. Like that's you're literally putting up your filtered life and we put it well. Actually, what you do, though, is different because you put up you post a lot, and it's like it's not all the great stuff. And I think that is one reason that people have like really like I don't know, I don't have the capacity to do that much. Like it takes me a lot to like like something enough to like put it on Internet, and it takes a lot out of me to like a lot of brain space to be in that world. But like what you do is you just you put up everything, and I think that's why people have come to trust you. And also like they they they're not buying into, like what they see is what they get on the video and in these podcasts and in the book and then on the internet and in your comedy show, which I still have not seen and I would really like to because comedy is oh, dude, actually the joke. So I read your first book. That's how we met right at the c MT Awards, and and uh, I don't know what compelled me to read your book, but I was like, you know what, I'm hopefully meet this guy someday. Would be nice to like at least know something about him. So I read the book, and then I got the other book that came in the mail this week, and then uh, this morning I was like, well, I the dog woke me up at like six am and Marion was sleeping. I was like, I'm I was gonna read the start reading the book because I'm coming over here today and talk about your dad in the very beginning. I've read the forward, everything up until chapter one, the what do you call it? The most awkward joke? You tell or something, Oh yeah about my dad, my frison, my dad, and I walked off it. That is that's funny to me. Comedy is different. That's like like putting your your music out there is sort of like you don't have to you don't have to comedies like you have to live on this line where like this could be horrible, like not it could be funny, but it could be very wrong to say. And you sort of like get a little bit of leeway. But so many people go too far. And that's like the perfect like I don't curse, I don't talk about things that kids can't listen to. But I'm gonna do this joke and people are gonna go, I don't know if I can laugh at that, but they know it's funny like that. That is amazing to me, you know, to me, it's it's very isolated up there because it's just a microphone and a mouth hole. And that's it again, dude, I can't even And the hardest thing is to dig yourself out whenever it doesn't work right, but when it works and it's only you in your mouth hole that makes it work. And you talk about the line you always crawl the line. To figure out where the line is. You always bomb to make it better. You don't just walk out and it goes perfect joke. Yeah, but it's not even Sometimes it's like like the shock value of stuff is something like people want to figure out what they can get away with, and then you get like a Michael Richard's situation. You're like, Okay, man, I don't know what the line is, but I know that's right, that's beyond it. That's the thing. No one ever knows what the line is. He should have known, and you know what, he's probably done that many times or something similar. I just didn't get recorded. You know. I think the line is, can you put it in front of somebody that's going to take it and put it out and be upset with it. People are saying vile things all the time. Isn't it amazing what you can get away with just because it's called comedy? Yeah, and you know, and there's some people that think because it's comedy, you should be able to get away with more. But for me, listen, I know my lane, My lane is just my life. I don't curse in my real life, you know, I don't. I'm like, there are times where I think about the F bomb, it makes a joke a lot better. Mike and I were talking about a joke other day and I was like, man, if I just said the B word, but that's not the people listening to you, it would punctuate the joke so much. But but yes, if you were on Comedy Central, yes yes, but not in a theater with people who have grown and like grown up listening to your show and grown up with you, and they know everything you stand for and what you're about. So my point is you're not missing anything. All right, there, You got the point. I don't. I don't care if it's something that is my thing or not. I'm just fascinated that you can do it like that. To me is always like, wait, he can do that too, because I've seen your band just at festivals and I saw them at the Rheman and I was like, well that's not what I expected and it's great and it's like people people flip out over this, and I was like, I need to, I need to, I need to like kicking me in the butt. Uh, And you guys got I think it's just a cool. It's a it's amazing that you can do all of that stuff. The thing is, I don't do any of it at an elite level. I do a lot of it pretty good. Nobody does, though, Like all right, I'm I'm sort of the same way where I do a lot of things pretty good. Like I have always I've done sports, I've done music, and I've gotten I went to college and I was always like really really good at stuff like all of it. But like when you have someone like you see the people who become the the greatest, I don't know, Michael Jackson didn't hit left handed, you know what I'm saying, Like they kind of are this one thing that I don't know. Marin is kind of a similar way too. It's like the people who are elite, like iconic and the most talented are probably the most talented at that thing that they've developed pretty singularly for their entire life. But that's also not true because your radio show is like that, like everything centered around that, right, Yeah, I think so. I think it's all centered in that one minor osis. I think that's pretty that's that's pretty obviously like a like that's not just a pretty good radio show. But I wasn't. I was never the good radio show. And this is just me speaking is as frankly as I can't. I was never the good radio show until all of a sudden, I was the greatest radio show, meaning everyone thought I sucked for ten years. No one could understand the success of the show ever, and it was like you, you don't speak right, You're not super funny, Like what is it about it? And until it was the greatest, it was just a pile of crap, you know. And it took me being able to prove through other ways that it was actually good. But it was never I never had this skill that people looked at it said, oh that's good. I mean, I think I learned through a lot of just failing and uh figuring it out. But also I talked to people like I think that's my skill. I have a skill to empathize. I have a skill to have people not sympathized with me, but empathized with me as well. And I think that's why I'm gonna eventually run for office, Like I think that's my thing. It cool. I think I'm gonna be the governor of Arkansas, and I think eventually I may give the president a shot. And I don't think that because I have these grandiose visions of telling people what to do. I just think I understand what it's like to go through the process to have it be really difficult. So what happened with the sports show? Oh, I had too much. So I was for for those who don't know, I was doing a national sports show on about three hundred stations, and I was doing that on weekends and filling in, and it was on Fox Sports, and I was doing my radio show and I was even on the road, And so what had happened to They had offered me that a national like every day afternoon sports show moved to Los Angeles to Sports. Everybody hated the sports show except for the people that listened to it. It was odd. It was the same thing. I've never really been anywhere that I fit, but I think that's made me fit everywhere, which has been the cool thing about it. But they offered me. They gave me a couple of options, like go to a national alternative show, you do a national sports show, or I could be here, which I wanted to be because there had never been a country show as large as the one that I was going to create. It wasn't step into it because it didn't exist yet, and so I wanted to come here. And what happened to it was it was just I had to kind of decide what I want. You only have so much time. I mean, I'm pretty hypo curl saying that. A I'm putting out books and you know, but you really only have so much time. And uh so that's where it was. But I'm you know, I'm a nerd. I'm a sports nerd. So that was a tough one. I had to make a decision was do I want to go pursue a professional sports broadcasting career or do I want to come to Nashville and do this. But I just saw this as being the radio show a big part of it. But I knew I could just for me. It's the same thing with music. It is about just getting content out there, books, going out on stage and meeting and meeting people and music and all the things. And I think that the things now with artists, and especially in our format, we're five years behind. Because look at Drake's record. He just puts out Scorpion it but tracks tracks. But what he does right is he feeds people constantly, even when he's not putting out a record of twenty three tracks. He's putting out another song three weeks later, another song, two weeks later, another song. That's how we like to consume it. Because we're all subscribed to streaming platforms. We can consume without having to pay for it every time. Because we're paying for it all the time. Now, the pro is there's that much more music for us to listen to. The con is it becomes disposable because you go, I like the song. Back in the day, we spent nine bucks on a download of a record, or we'll go back further, we bought a c D or even a tape. Like, we spend our money and we were gonna get our investment out of that, So we're gonna play it all the time. Take that and you put it in a streaming platform. Your investment is all you can eat buffet, So you're not just gonna eat the tomatoes for on the all you can eat buffet. You're gonna take as much up as possible. So someone like Drake who's constantly feeding people boom boom, boom boom. That's the model. Now. It's a difference for what record labels are because it's a money it's a change and you have to commit to it and spend money on that. What we do in the country format is, let's we'll use lucas an example. Luca put out a record and then he'll have it and it'll go to radio and he'll talk and he's the most successful in our format right now of the contemporary artists. So maybe he's not the best example for people to hear and go because it works for him because he's the biggest. But Drake puts out a song every three weeks and then he puts out an album as well in the middle of all this process, so you're constant looking for new music. There's always Drake stuff popping up. So Drake is always in your conscious and your consciousness always and so I think that's where our formats missing, and it's gonna be There're gonna be a couple of artists to do that the right way and it's gonna really turn the format on. It's either sure, I don't know who it is. I still love the album, don't get me wrong. I think concept albums are going to be the the album of the future, meaning this is the album I did for this exact reason, and it stands for this exact thing, not just a collection of songs. You can put out a collection of songs one or two at a time, or three at a time for every month collection. What's a collection a song? Seven songs like Kanye, twenty three songs like Drake. There really aren't rules. And I think because in our format, we're hearing to these rules. Uh, that's why we're getting left behind in the streaming deal because we're we're putting our twelve and ninety nine or whatever you subscribe to, if the Spotify or Apple or I R Radio or whatever it is. Uh, and we're getting our investment, but our investments not staying with the same product now the same songs that they used to be. Does all that makes sense? Yeah? And I tried to do that. I think our initial plan was to put out a song a month until they told us to stop, and then we go to radio and take whatever it was reacting there and and I think we just hit a wall because people love terrestrial radio so much in country music, it's still where they get their songs, and there's other discovery things, but they It's amazing to me that people care about what single goes on the radio if they already bought the record, you know what I mean, Like I really really want this to be. I think it's because they want to, like they are invested in that artist and they want to like agree with the choices and he and everyone else to find these songs whatever. But the streaming thing, man, it's really interesting because we talked about every meeting with these with record people, and it's like it that is their main their main frustration with it is that we the our market doesn't use streaming the way that the other markets do and the other The one thing they have said is that the country music consumer in in streaming is is for the most part, like they're the paid subscriber, where the other genres are a lot of people just using the free version of everything. So like they see a lot of potential with our market just because our markets used to buying music. Still, just because you're used to something doesn't mean that's the way it's going to be. And that's my problem. And at times I get called a bit progressive. But when we were doing a podcast nine years ago or putting our and really highlighting our show, Hey you should listen to us on the internet, I was you know we were called dumb, like keep people listening to the radio. My thing was how it's gonna be built so when people come to it and go, oh, I want to do it, we're already gonna be there waiting for them. And so but in three years, you're gonna see such a shift toward all and I mean and all the platforms, and they're all gonna get stronger by competition. For me, what for what I do. I'm with the most elite company with for what I do, which just create content like what I got lucky. I've been my company for thirteen years, but I got lucky about five years ago whenever these new bosses came in because they put all a lot of on talent and content. And you can go and here Ryan Hurt song in seven different places right and go all the all things we just mentioned. But you're only gonna be able to hear my show without our radio. And if you like Charlemagne the God Who's Hip Hop, or Elvis Durant, like Howard stern On serious, there's only one place to get that. And my company really highlighted that, and that's why I really love my art radio. But you're gonna see all these things start to splinter. Uh it's right now. It's really cool if you're into technology, because you just don't know where it's going. And that's why it's fun. And that's why I pay attention to all these things. And I enjoy what serious does you know. I like what they do with the new artists, and they have space to do it because they don't have they don't have to get ratings. They can play four terrible songs in a row and it doesn't matter. There are no ratings, and so we can flip off, flip back on, they subscribe, they're good. Um, we're radio where we have we have a much bigger audience, but we can't play songs that are risky because if people turn it off, ratings go down. You don't make money back on commercials. They're just different business models. I still don't think it's going anywhere. I know people have said that ever since I've been before I even had a publishing deal. People are like, radio, it's gonna it's not gonna be around, or it's not gonna be as important, and it just seems to be getting more important. And I know that you can get music from other places and you can discover music from other places, but I just I don't see it going anywhere. And I might have people call me stupid for saying it, but just I've been here long enough and heard enough people for as long as I've been here say this is going to be irrelevant, and it just keeps getting weirdly more relevant. And I think there's two things you cannot beat free never and it's readily available and it's still in your car, and that's where people listen to the radio. And number two, they are never. You cannot shut like federally, you cannot shut down radio waves because if everything, if there's a nuclear reaction or something like that, and the internet doesn't work, you still have to use a M and FM radio to communicate. It's like that's a public service. So like there's there's two reasons that you can't like get you just can't get rid of it. If people are worried about that. I think the relevance thing is is a conversation, but I haven't seen any evidence of its slowing down too much. Well for me, I don't even look at radio the same way as I did three years ago. So when I hear radio, I just think of the phone. So I guess that's just how you think about radio, because I think you're talking about terrestrial from a signal from a tower radio. I think a lot of that transitions a bit. But for me, I the radio is in my phone and it's all the things that we just talked about. It's every kind of anything that will play anything, any content and music like that's the radio to me. Um so. But I mean, you look at the seventies and eighties. Whenever network television and you know the network television is gonna die. Here it comes cable network television has a die. There are a lot more options for you. And I just think it's all a niche based world. We're getting into all these different things because there are more of them. Are going to have to provide a specialized service to that person, and who can specialize the best and find that exact niche For me, you know, I know what I do the best. It's not fine music. It's not play music. It's actually create compelling content. Whatever that is. If it's this, if it's finding something that in the world that is broken that I think we can work to fix. If it's farting, I don't know. I mean, there are all these things, and you know from that that's that's what I do. But it's an interesting conversation. It's one they've been having for thirty years. Have you ever farted on the air? Yeah, accidentally like where you people could hear it. Yeah, but I don't know that anyone knew, because I don't fart on a microphone, right, I'm not. I don't even mind farting on the We're getting into it, but that would be quite fart once. Let me just I want to come back to something in a second, but about doing something in the air, I shouldn't have. Let me let me read this. When I talk about a sleep number for a second, you find me talking about my sleep number and how it's improved my sleep quality and my sleep umber setting is thirty. Maybe you've considered a sleep in my bed and you thought you couldn't afford one it can you really afford another restless night's sleep? Before you do anything, you gotta go to a sleep number story and experience adjustable comfort for a limited time only. Queen matches that started only five. The sleep number bed let you adjust your mattress firmness or softness on each side. 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I don't have to use it if someone close to me uses it and loves it. For example, I have a sleep over bed. I would not talk about it if I didn't. Um, did you go lay on it and prove me right if you wanted to. It's right down there downstairs. That's three. They have three of them at this point. Yeah, every just about every room. But that being said, like for a long time, I did not use laser hair removal. Amy did, but she loved it, and they said, hey, would you mind coming on this on the commercials with Dark and I did it. I also understand this is a business. We're all we're trying to make money for us, and how we make money for us and make money for the people above us so they can be money for the people above them. Like I get it. But at one point in my career finally got to go, you know what, I'm only going to do things that I think work, that I think I believe in. And so I did laser hair removal for eight years and then I finally did it and it's awesome. So that was one that I didn't do, but I probably they do. Yeah, over a hundred commercials a week. Yeah, it's a lot. I go in for an hour before I go on the air every day. Yeah. Wow, Yeah, I just I mean I have a stack of and then liners because we're on in so many cities, I think we're cities now, and then we're in Canada now to all these stays in Canada. So it's like I'm reading, I'm like, going, how you listening to Ottawa's number one for and then I'll read a whole page for them, and then I'm going, hey, check out Van's Auto parts. And you know that's I mean, that's the job, but it is. It is fascinating. I've gotten so into like other people's work lately, and it's just little things that I am fascinated by. I'm not a details guy, but I'm like fascinated and simple stuff like we have this trainer that everybody uses named Aaron, and I was asking her the other day about why she never isolates calves and she's like, no, why I do? And I was like, well, my other good dude doesn't do it either. I was just curious if you had like a reason. She said, no, I do it like this, and I the spray tan girl had a new spray tan gun, and I was like, why is this one cooler than than the other one? But I'm like, I am fascinated by other people's jobs, and like what the nuts in the bolts? Sometimes I think most of what I do is the nuts. People don't even see it. The easiest thing for me is to go on the air and do the show. Had the hardest thing is all the work, not even the commercials that is that's just me you reading, yeah, um, But it's all the preparation that goes into the show, you know, Like dude, you guys, the amount of like it's different than a like a live show, where you like spend a month or two like conceptualizing it and then you rehearse it and you do the production and then you go play it and it's the same every night. Like a live show is like you gotta have something when that one's over. It's sort of like a great job, let's do it next year. And if it's great, who cares. But if it's bad, you're like, oh god, I gotta get on and do something good. Yeah. But that's also the beauty of it is that you get instant feedback good or bad, and you get to move on to the next thing. I have trouble to do it. I mean, look, I have nine projects right and you know, a couple of TV shows going right now. I've got the book pressed like at the radio show, and I love all of this stuff. I get when I get really intoed in the same thing over and over again, I start to go a little crazy. The good thing about the radio show every day is that it can be as different or same as I wanted to be. So if I want to talk about you know, Ryan heard for twenty minutes, I can, or I can form on a microphone. You know. It really something to aspire. Yeah, it really is. That's the great part. I do have my walls. If I go on at five am, I get off at ten am, and I've got to play this amount of commercials. But I'm lucky enough to have built to where I kind of have creative freedom. Yeah they don't. You know, I really don't have anyone coming in now. I have. Ratings went down in a lot of places, and you know how how it works with me too, is you can't look at one single city and go wow, ratings are awesome or ratings are terrible, because we're on in a bunch of cities. So you sure you look you have the sample size has to be pretty good. I would imagine you in Omaha. I don't know if you're at Omaha. Maybe you are Omaha in l A are very different New York City and yeah, New York City and Milwaukee are very different places with very different people, very different people. But you can't look at one. So let's sam in a hunt will use block. Uh, if seven of them are up and thirty of them are down, that's actually a win because I can't control up or down. You know, It's it's all about who is doing the rating. It's just like when you get research. You know, it's it's who gets the call to do the research. It's not always accurate, but it is data, and some data is better than no data when trying to make a decision based on data. Yeah, so that's kind of how I live my life, is that if seventy up thirty down, that means you're pretty much going in the direction because it's a bigger the sample size, the more realistic of what you're looking at. So but yeah, I do. I do a ton of commercial Here's the story I was gonna tell you whenever I was probably twenty five or so, Sarah McLaughlin was coming into the studio. Very cool, very cool. This is back in my when I was doing pop and I may have just started my own syndication company around that time, maybe had had one station on maybe two, and I wanted to go and we have any engineers like we were We had nothing. I mean even the equipment that I started to syndicate with I had to buy myself. Like nobody was investing in any of it. And I'm glad they didn't. Looking back, it was the greatest thing to ever happened to me because I learned so much in the process of the struggle. Um. But so I'm going up and I'm running down the hallway and I'm playing the piano on two my through my board. I'm recording it, and then I'm listening back to it in my studio and running back down the hallway playing piano again, making sure that it sounds good for on the year because she was playing in room down the hall and I'm playing and I messed up. This is recording now, I said, oh, and I wasn't on the air and I was liked f f F and this is I've only not been cursing for about two years. So I'm listening at the potty mouth for a long time and eventually probably will again. But I was like, nah, Deity, Deity I was playing, I messed out, like and so I go back to the studio and I was like, okay. So I go on the air, not thinking much about it, and I say, Sarah McLaughlin's got to come play. And that was a big fan. You know, I will remember you. You know, she was I hope she plays that song, you know idio and I was going and said, oh man, And so I hit the button to play the first part of me playing the piano. What I didn't realize was I never rewound it. So as soon as I hit it on the air, it goes. The airport just started screaming over the year. There was no delay. This is pretty Janet Jackson justin Timberla. Yeah, oh no. So I'm obviously said the Fford like six times on the air has a great, pretty good song. And so I'm like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I'm god, oh my god. Nobody said a word to me, but you, I mean, you've got in trouble. But that was not something. No no one said a word. I don't think anybody heard it. I don't know nobody as nothing. Man. I wish that happn't just nothing. I didn't think about that. When I do, like stuff like this and stuff like the highway, I'm like, I can say whatever I want and no one's going to get but that I don't. But I can totally and here you can say whatever you wanted. You could fart on the microphone and you could, and on the satellite you can. You know why the federal regulations because the government owns the air waves and there are obscenity rules which really don't exist. My thesis my senior in college as an honors graduate, was the Seven Deadly Words. It was a page thesis and I'd get up and deliver it in front of all of the faculty, and it was how I think eventually radio turns into allowing all the words. And I still feel the same way I did when I was two and wrote this, this humongous thesis, but I used all the words. I basically cursed for you, and I believe that FF is gonna and so and I got the ribbon for the best things. Yeah my graduation. Yeah, but my brain. I trained my brain to the only reason I don't cuss because I just think it's a sound like I honestly just think a curse word as a sound even larger than that. I don't associate it with anything. I don't think the F word means something dirty. If you don't in your mind think it's something dirty. If somebody that didn't speak English had the effort to somebody else, it would just be like, well, like, it's not assigned to some bad stigma because only because we've assigned it to that. So I just do it because I don't want to create and have those pop up and have to then go. I gotta circumvent that I want to be because I know what I want to create and how I want to create it. I don't want those to even creep into my creation because then I just have to push them out, and that's that's more energy, and it's that's more creativity that I'm having a waste. I'm just getting rid of the F word. Not even know if that makes sense, Well yeah it does. I just think it's if I was in your spot, it would and my job was to talk for a living publicly, I'd probably like, you know what this is? Probably this is this is much more of a risk than it is worth. This is just there's too much risk here in using these words regularly to just it's easier for me to just cut them all out. You brought something up earlier, and it's something I'm sensitive to, is that you brought up you didn't want to exploit your marriage, and so the last couple of times that you have been on the air, I haven't brought Maren up at all out of respect to you, because I again, I knew you before you were married to Marin and before and I don't know if you ever if you feel like you're in a lot of places Marin's husband, Oh, I I am that and to most people, but that's something I'm totally fine, but meaning first and foremost, well, I I just played it serious last week, and it's very funny how many people would walk up to me and I would you know, I have the biggest song on their station this week, and like, I love your wife and like me too. She's great. But I mean, I know that's kind of that's part of the territory, and that's fine with me. Like I have, I'm very comfortable with that. Like that's are you because again I don't bring it up out of respect. That's nice of you until you brought it up last time, and I said, Okay, well you want to bring it up, I'll kind of follow it a bit. It's my life, man, I don't want. I didn't want with that one specific song for people to think that I was using our wedding to somehow profit like musically like. But it was a really cool moment and it was honest, and it was something that like I knew she would be okay with me sharing with people. And that's like we have been really like open about being together, and we put like not everything about our life on the internet, but we quite a bit out there. Like we've navigated a lot too that maybe we don't want to put out there. But it's something that I'm like way off to Mike. Sorry, Mike. It's something that I'm totally comfortable with talking about. And honestly, it's it'd be weirder for me to not talk about it, just because it'd be like it's all like, is it like a weird elephant in the room, how successful Marin is. No, it's something that's really cool and it's been awesome, and it's like our life is this weird world where we're both involved in both very successful on music row and her as an artist in me as a new artist and a pretty successful songwriter, Like, I don't know, that's it. It's not something that I am in any way annoyed by or that's something that I honestly, I have a lot of fun. We have a lot of fun with her career and she has a lot of fun with mine, And it's it's not something that I'm I don't want to talk about. I would love to talk about Marin. So it's nice of you to think that, and then I know why you think that, But it's also not something that I I don't want to talk about. I love talking about it. So what's happening with you? Say? People ask you all the time. For me, I don't ever ask about albums because I don't really care about albums, Like I just like product. Well, give me the weed, you know what I mean? I don't know, man, it was this has been a really weird year. I mean some like changes to my team and mostly just so Mary and I could work with the same manager. Um so that I mean, our our lives are nuts. In her life is absolutely crazy, and managing two calendars with two teams is impossible. So when they're both doing the same thing and we need to see each other. And so I've had to reset a little bit, but not just as an artist, as a person. And so part of that was like Sony coming back to me and being like, we put out these four songs, we did our took our first shot at radio, and you know, when we reset my team, it was like they wanted to just reset everything. So they pulled my single and that was hard. It was really hard. What song was that? It's called loving a bar and um loving book. Yeah. Yeah, and I'd say you're just right right pretty perfect, but like you have to like wail it so like you have to barely like get to the notes. That's the job. Uh, but I don't know. I kind of went back and they said, write more songs. And that's what I'm comfortable doing. And what I love doing is like creating. And I came here to make records. I came here to I came to Sony too put music out and they can put out music better than I can. And it's just been a real like a cool learning experience. And so when I said, like, I have got these songs that I'm really starting to believe in and we weren't even talking about Diamonds, and I had the Luke song come across. That's, by the way, you have you wrote Sunrise Sunburned Sunset for Luke. Yeah, which, by the way, when you played it on Idol, I was there. It was the first time that I had heard that it was going to be the single, like officially, and I was like, oh, that's awesome for Ryan. I know these guys, don't you know? Thank you? It is very cool for me. And uh, I've stayed relevant as a writer with Lady on a Bellum and You Look Good and now with this song this year, and I've had songs with so many artists, I'm still getting cuts with other artists, which is blown, like really amazing to me because I don't write quite as much as I used to, and I'm keeping a lot of those things like reserved for me and all on hold for me. So getting more cuts is cool. But like I had that song, I had Diamonds, and I walked into Sony and told Taylor. I was like, you need to make a decision right now about these two songs because this song is on hold for Luke Bryan, and I think this song is a hit, and I'm gonna want to put it out, if not as part of the project that I think I'm gonna want to put this out as a wedding song. And it feels good to be right on those two things, like like Luke was not gonna let go of it, and he cut it immediately and put it like kind of committed to it and really supported it. And he fought to get that song on the radio. And so then I'm in this spot with my label where you know, we've kind of slugged through the first part of what we hoped would be a super successful launch and it didn't work out quite the way we wanted. And I toured so much but only on four songs. So I'm doing thirty and sometimes forty five minutes a night and most people don't know these songs. And got pretty burnt. And then I just went and wrote, and that was really a cool time. And I wrote with the people that I really wanted to write with, and mostly with this guy that produces my stuff named Aaron Shist who we grew up together and he's a writer for Shane mcinally and uh he wrote. We just started writing songs and went back to the label and Taylor Lindsay's like, you know, you don't have to do this, but the feeling that I'm getting and if she says, if the label says the feeling I'm getting from the office, means it's been said enough for her to come tell me. And she's like, they think it would go a long way if you found like a more experienced producer to either work with or uh partner with Aaron And I was like, Okay, well what I mean that I love what we do together. I'm not saying we're we've figured it out, but like what do you want to do? And I kind of came up with the idea of working with Shane mcinally and that chain is really busy and he wanted to do it, he just didn't quite have the time when we needed him to do it. And then Aaron like we ended up reaching out to Dan Huff to record some music for me, and Dan's done. He's like kind of the most successful producer in Nashville that we've maybe ever had. Um he did like recently like all the Cane Brown stuff and all the Brett Young stuff, and he's just an amazing, amazing guy. Really brings out the best and artists, and it took a long time to kind of get him nailed down and get the amount of songs we could do. But in the meantime, we had this Diamonds Are Twine song and I just said, suddenly, I don't need you to I'll pay for it, and I don't need you to take this to the radio. Just I would love for you to release this for me. Just put it out, and you don't have to do anything else. Just put it out and me and Janet, who's our manager, can like figure out what to do with it. And we went to the Highway and they're like, sure, we'd love to really like have a moment where we could talk about So I went into Stormies studio, the Highway Studio, and two days before a wedding, said I'm putting this song out tomorrow. It's the song that I played for Marion when we got engaged a year ago. I guess it's July one. We got engaged July three, so it's kind of cool that it's number one this week over there. And I put this song out and people immediately responded, and then you jumped on it and blew it up. And that was super validating. But in the meantime, we've had this kind of project that we've been building with Aaron and Dan Huff, which is kind of why when people like you are like, why aren't you taking this to terrestrial radio, It's like, well, it's not like we don't want to, or like I don't want to like take a hit that I have, even if it's not the hit I imagine, I don't. I don't think that generally you should just say, like, we're going to ignore all of this research. But the fact is there's so much new stuff that we're doing that people are I'm I've never gotten to be this the artist that I'm becoming now, and I feel like Diamonds is a great song, but it's a moment and I don't think it's a song I want to. It's not about exploiting my marriage or whatever. It's just I feel like I've said that and it's gotten to enough people and people will continue to discover it and continue to use it as their first dance and stuff. But now it's like I get to release two more songs and that's more. What it's about for me is like you said, it's about putting contents out there. I'm truly not interested in picking a single and running it up the terrestrial charts, Like that's not the thing that makes me. I want to do it, and we will pick us angle and we will run with it. But I'm more excited about just I'm putting a package out there that I believe in and it's just two songs, but it tells the whole story, and it's I talk about all the time and maybe you can and like relate to this. But being in the tunnel, I'm like, there's this analogy people use. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's like I'm almost through whatever this is, and I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, But I'm in the tunnel, right. I am in I have a vision for what I want to do, and I have the right people around me that really believe in, like in my music and my writing, in in the fact that they like I. I just am finally getting a sense of who I am and who I can be as an artist. And it's sometimes it's as simple as walking into Randy Goodman's office and being like, I think I can be like Dirk Spentley. I think I can do drunk on a plane, and I think I can do say you do, and I think I can do I'll be the Moon. I obviously wrote that song, but like that when you put like when you can see the creative stuff and you can see like you know, like we've already partnered with Corona and Bows and like these really cool ways to like just make things happen. And that's we don't even have a song on the radio. And then you like think about like going on tour and you can see the set list. But then when you can walk into the record companies all us and be like, this is the thing that we're seeing and you can't quite see it the way we can, and that's fine, but I want to be like this guy and you can point at it and they can totally it all kind of comes together in their mind a little bit. And that's what I've been doing for six months, is like being you know, a better dude, a husband, a songwriter. And now I feel like, for the first time, really an artist, like I don't I used to say I'm a songwriter on stage, and I don't say that anymore, Like I don't that's part of what I do. But now for the first time, I feel like, okay, like I can see what who I am, not just as the dude in the room, like being brooded, like a brooding songwriter who's always like just whatever, trying to get his feelings out. It's like, no, I can. I think I can entertain people, and I can make compelling art, and I think I can do it in a commercial way. And that's when I think all the things start to come together. And I've had to really wait and like learn how to I'm not a not a patient dude. Nobody is in this business, and every artist that's ever watching here is said like I'm ready to go, and the labels like you're probably not. Well, this is the first time, Like this is the first time. I don't know if I'm ready to go, but I just feel like I have an identity and I feel like I'm about to have an identity and I feel like the songs we release people are going to go. I get it and sonically it's stuff that I never thought i'd get to do. And sometimes your job is to wait, and that was a real the hard lesson for me to learn, and sometimes even when you think it's going to be done. And I thought we were going to record February nine, when we recorded May ten. I got my final mixes back from these two songs a month and a half later. That's a long time to wait when you're just kind of looking around me and like, when when do I get my next shot? And I am I mean, I was sitting with Randy Goodman from Sony on Friday afternoon and he was like, I know you're frustrated. He's like, I'm frustrated. I've been in this business for forty years. It's a frustrating business. It's I'm always frustrated. And it's like, well, that's part of it. But I'm not frustrated. I'm excited. And that's like you can't. There's a lot of reasons to be excited right now. I think with our genre and with my stuff and with like Mare and making her like we're literally going through the same thing together for the first time where it's we're both in the middle of creating art. She's making her second album, and I get to be a part of that, and I get to have time to like go on the road with her while I mean this like hurry up and wait mode, and then you know, like playing music for them and then being like, man, I don't know if this is it or not, but you know, at least I get to sit there and can convince them that even if this isn't the one thing, you think, you can break the fact that they want to put it out and the fact they want me to go back in and keep trying. It's like, that's all I really need as a creative person is the outlet. Right, Like I've had a number one song and a bunch of out at seven or eight radio singles, and I've had the one that kind of gets towards the top, but everybody has to have their top five. It doesn't go number one. That's like a write of passage. And then I have this other single, but like this is a I don't know, just having the outlet to be creative and know that like I'm gonna get to put out more stuf up and I'm gonna get my opportunity to win fans. And I think the more that I get to and the more people see like the things that I've been up to, whatever the timing is, It's like, man, that is a that is a blessed place to be and that's kind of been my my six months is a little like learning how to wait, being a better do, learning how to be a good husband, which I'm not every day like it's been. There have been really difficult things to like learn how to do. When you just I don't, I don't know. It's you're trying to make two two people, like constantly driving down the same road and it's always one person wanting to go left, one person wanting to go right, and trying to figure out navigate that all the time. But Marin's record is amazing, and I'm really excited about what I'm getting to do. And for the first time, I feel like I have an identity and a lot of excitement. And You've let me, You've let me talk for a long time about this, but I really do appreciate it. It's because this is the stuff that we sit on our back porch and talk about, is like, you know, how is this gonna work? And how am I gonna When am I going to get my shot? But I have my shot and I'm beyond just a record company. It's like we've we've we've made it happen in a cool way, and it's just a really it's been a fun, a fun year. I think we've grown a lot and I have grown a lot, and it's just yeah, thanks for letting me talk so much about it. And with that a little diamonds of twine, everybody here on the this is really special man that I can't believe that disconnected like it did. But it's really special to me. Thank you for supporting it. I mean, I know it's frustrating to like run with it on your show and then not have everybody else throw it on the radio so you can continue to support it. But for whatever reason, I don't get frustrating when people don't do the thing. If I did, I would be fuguting all the time because most things I do people don't run with. Yeah, I just do whatever I feel I want to do, and what's what I think is from my perspective, the best. That's the true. I mean, who knows who the best is. We don't have our different bests. But yeah, no, I don't get frustrated. I just go all I can do is the best version of me. And I'm like, you know what I'm really feeling? This song here it is and a lot of times people have jumped on board and they've been massive hits and careers and most of but most times they haven't. And I still go, you know what, But I was honest with myself. I loved that the end. What's the extra? What's not? So it's good. I'm good. I still like that song. I still probably play it. That's awesome And I love that song too. I didn't listen to it after we turned it in, like that's enough. And then I heard a couple of times on the radio and heard it on your show, and it was like, the song sounds pretty good on the radio. Look at that. I can say, well, listen, we've we've said it all, like Ryan heard, whatever does my one nine from one of the first episodes, the episode one nine thank you for having me again? Episodes between I'll be here and what is that? Yeah? Yeah, I we'll see about the quarter century mark, yeah, pencilmania, yeah yeah. The good to seeing my friend and well we'll see you guys next time here on the Bobby Cast. Goodbye, everybody. M