#405 - Amanda Shires on Making An Album With Bobbie Nelson + Writing a Letter to Tyrese Gibson + Billy Joe Shaver Convincing Her To Move to Nashville + Stopped Smoking Marijuana To Help Her Singing 2 Years Ago

00:00:06
Speaker 1: I watched MTV Jams Countdown every day. I wrote to Tyrese.

00:00:09
Speaker 2: He wrote me back, what do you say to Tyrese?

00:00:11
Speaker 1: I told him what I thought were the best parts of his show on MTV Jams, and he sent me back a signed picture.

00:00:19
Speaker 2: We're lucky to get to do this. But sometimes I will see Mike has booked somebody and I'm like, dang, that's pretty exciting.

00:00:24
Speaker 3: That's pretty cool.

00:00:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, And sometimes I get excited after I've done the interview because I don't know the person. But with Amanda Shires, I didn't know her, and I was still excited because she's awesome. And then she left and I was like, dang, like manage, I was awesome. I mean like just affirmed that, you know. Yeah, so super cool. Amanda Shire. She got an album called Loving You. It's a collaborative album recorded with the late Bobby Nelson, recorded before Bobby's passing, which was in March of twenty twenty two. It's just a reflection of the life and the music of Bobby Nelson and Bobby Nelson is also now is Willie Nelson's sister that obviously you know that, yeah, yeah, ok.

00:01:00
Speaker 1: Sure.

00:01:00
Speaker 2: Hooks from the album, and here's a couple of clips here always on my mind. You reason man like Willy has even said before with al Bobby, he probably wouldn't be Willy is at the level of Willie that he is. Here's Summertime featuring Willie so Time. Summer Time, Willy is so Amanda Shires has got that eye should check it out. Amanda grew up in Loving, Texas. About ten years old, she learned to play the fiddle. She talks about that, oh pawn shop. She played with a bunch of old dudes, like legendary old dudes. But as a fifteen year old and you're playing with the Texas playboys in there, and if you're fifteen and people are sixty, seventy and eighty, that's a lot older than if you're forty or fifty playing with somebody who's sixty seven or eighty. It's funny when she says about him. Later she got her master's degree, you know, she moved to Nashville. Tells that story something we didn't mention, and it's just a note here, and that didn't purposefully not mention it. But there was really no reason to bring it up, because it's not the reason we had her on, but I'm big Jason Isbell fan too. I don't think we ever mentioned that never married Jasonisbell in this or The High Woman. You're right, we didn't. We didn't. I didn't avoid it. I was just so interested in like her story and not her group or her husband. I'd love to have Jason on. I mean that would be awesome, but yeah, I definitely wasn't about that. I was thinking about that too. After she left. I was like, I'd like to have Jason on. I'm not sure if Jane. I think Jason is Ball is awesome, and I think sometimes we will tweet back and forth with each other. I don't know if when I first moved here ever got into like a Twitter fight with him. That's what I was going to read, because I think he's awesome and I have nothing but respect and even am a fan. And I just wonder when I came to town, if I, cause you now, was a bowl in a China shop for a while, and anybody who didn't I won't say, understand anybody who thought that I wasn't right for being here. I just would lash out, swing, punch kick. I hope I didn't, but I might have.

00:02:57
Speaker 3: We can find out we can.

00:03:00
Speaker 2: We can. I'm like tweeted, I've been like, hey man, I heard you do this interview. It was awesome and he always tweets back in his nice she brought him up afterwards, So yeah, and that would be an interesting thing. I hope I didn't anyway. Moving on, Yeah, the founder of The High Woman and she was awesome. Follow her Amanda Pearl Shires on Instagram, TikTok and check out the record loving you and here she is, Amanda Shires. Man, it's really good to meet you. I don't think we've ever met.

00:03:29
Speaker 4: We met a little bit in passing. It's not long enough for you to make any impressions.

00:03:34
Speaker 2: Correct, I don't make much impression anyway.

00:03:36
Speaker 4: I don't either.

00:03:36
Speaker 2: I'm always people with me. People are always surprised at when I'm not on. I'm just not on.

00:03:42
Speaker 1: No, that makes sense. I think I'm kind of like that. W's your birthday?

00:03:45
Speaker 3: April's birthday?

00:03:46
Speaker 1: March?

00:03:47
Speaker 4: What are you a hermit?

00:03:51
Speaker 1: I'm piss but I thought it was a hermit.

00:03:53
Speaker 2: I know so little about astrology. I was like, oh, the hermit hermit. I went to Taro all of a sudden I'm a I'm.

00:04:00
Speaker 3: A Airies, but I don't.

00:04:01
Speaker 2: I always find that those are And are you astrology like astrology believer?

00:04:05
Speaker 3: Buff?

00:04:06
Speaker 2: No?

00:04:06
Speaker 1: I just I don't subscribe to all of it one hundred, but some parts of it's got to be true.

00:04:12
Speaker 2: Do you do like I'm an eight on?

00:04:15
Speaker 3: I don't know. I forgot what the test is called.

00:04:17
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Brandy made me take that test.

00:04:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's that called mineagram?

00:04:20
Speaker 5: Yeah?

00:04:21
Speaker 2: I believe the enneagram. Yeah, because it's personality type. And so I'm an eight, which is like, you know, famous eights are like dictators, sadly, and my wife is a two, which is a helper, and they're like eights and two's are right and it defines her perfectly. Oh yeah, do you know what number you are?

00:04:37
Speaker 5: There?

00:04:38
Speaker 1: I would have to go back through it, but Brandy made me retake the test and it came back the same answer I did. It was the one where you're like, she said, it's basically being dure a wizard.

00:04:46
Speaker 4: I said, okay, I'll be that.

00:04:47
Speaker 2: Oh you got the Harry Potter. Yeah. Did you find yourself when you were younger? I hate to say a front person, but did you find yourself demanding attention creatively six, seven, eight years old in those years when you were in school, but you hadn't quite taken to an instrument yet.

00:05:04
Speaker 1: No, because I was started as a side versus sideband.

00:05:07
Speaker 2: But even but even as a kid, like I'm gonna say seven, did you do your parents they know you as a man who wanted to be out in front, singing songs in the living room. Nope at all.

00:05:17
Speaker 3: What were you like as a second grader?

00:05:19
Speaker 1: As a second grader, I don't remember. We have to ask my mom, but I do remember we moved around so much. I think that, along with growing up with little means, made me want to keep to the myself as much as possible. Fiddle didn't help. It just added more drama to the daily experience of getting to school with the violin on your back.

00:05:38
Speaker 2: Once you got to be a preteen, yeah, when did you get the violin? You started playing at what ten eleven?

00:05:42
Speaker 1: Yep?

00:05:43
Speaker 2: And so why the violin? That seems to be one of the more difficult instruments.

00:05:48
Speaker 1: I just saw it. I don't really I don't believe in signs and wonders, but I do believe in signs and wonders. But at the eighty yarrett sponge shop that we were at that day with my dad. I saw it and I just really was taken by probably superficial reasons that it's a beautiful looking thing and it is Texas, so it kind of like drips fiddles out there.

00:06:08
Speaker 2: So you're at the pawn shop and you know they're depending on what. There's like eight stories of your pawn shop fiddle. You know, if you look online there's oh, there are all the versions of your fiddle. So you didn't go into the pawn shop going I want to get a fiddle.

00:06:20
Speaker 1: No, my dad we had a great upbringing is you know, everybody's got their own childhood, but we didn't have a lot of means for real, Like he shot a deer, we ate, the deer got dressed on the kitchen table. Not we didn't get dressed, the deer did, but his knife broke so we went to go get a different knife, and I.

00:06:40
Speaker 4: Saw it there.

00:06:41
Speaker 2: So you weren't even looking for an instrument.

00:06:43
Speaker 1: No, I really just wanted sweet tarts from the candy store. But we couldn't even get that.

00:06:48
Speaker 2: I want that now, I yeah, spreeze. You go and you say, hey, i'd like that fiddle, and obviously, like you said, he didn't come for much money.

00:06:55
Speaker 1: For forty five minutes of convincing, and it's in the store, in the store sixty doll It was a lark fiddle. I think it was made in China, but I loved that thing. And then he said you have to learn how to play it, and I said I will, And we went back to his house and he smoked a bunch of weed and I sat in the front porch and broke all the strings. And in the summer I went back to my mom's and she got me into the school orchestra class, and then we were awarded some financial aid to be able to get lessons. And through my violin teacher, who thank God for good teachers, right saw that I was getting a little bored with the violin and only like specific passages, and he showed me what he was working on, which was transcribing Frankie mccorter's a little backstory. Ek Robertson, first recorded fiddle player, taught Frankie McCord and I was learning from Lanny who was learning from Frankie. Anyway, he was transcribing all these old tunes that predate the Will's band and all this stuff, and he played me a couple of them, and then he showed me Spanish two step and I walked the lessons, said, I'm a fiddle player. My mom said, as long as you, you know, keep up with your class of golden that's fine.

00:08:07
Speaker 2: So what I hear though, was a kid who got a fiddle kind of out of nowhere. You just saw it, you wanted it. Maybe fine intervention, absolutely.

00:08:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:08:14
Speaker 2: When I was ten eleven years old and I was a pretty driven kid, say, I was very poor, so I had to kind of set a goal and go get it right. Yeah, but you had a fiddle, you were getting no lessons, you broke the strings, but then you still wanted to play the fiddle, like a month or two later, when so many kids would have probably just gone, I'm bored and I don't know how to do this, so I'm gonna move on, right. Was that generally how you were as a kid and a young adult, where you saw something and you didn't stop until you got it.

00:08:38
Speaker 1: Since you put it to me, and I haven't been asked that question, yeah, I guess going forward, you never know what kind of situation you're going to find yourself in, but I tend to go follow my yeah, my compass.

00:08:52
Speaker 2: I guess I would just think ninety nine out of one hundred kids age eleven twelve, thirteen that get a fiddle, there's no YouTube, we're rough no.

00:08:58
Speaker 4: No, no, right, there's no I didn't even know if it's a player.

00:09:01
Speaker 2: And they still wanted to do it that far. That's pretty remarkable that you still had the drive and desire based on.

00:09:09
Speaker 1: That one incident in a pawn shop exactly.

00:09:11
Speaker 2: It makes me almost feel like it was some something divine could have been. As you play it, do you feel as you start to learn it, does it start to feel more comfortable? Like I meant to do this? Did that a minute?

00:09:24
Speaker 4: I can make it make a sound?

00:09:25
Speaker 1: Is when I found an expression for myself because I didn't have much in the way of vocabulary or frontal lobe development, but I felt like I had a means to like I don't know, like even my I'm not even a linear talker.

00:09:39
Speaker 4: It just I can express myself with it. I just felt right.

00:09:42
Speaker 2: When you're a kid in school preteen, teen, and you are the violin player or the fiddle player, depending on who you talk to, were you known as that at school or was that something that you kind of separated?

00:09:52
Speaker 1: I separated it, but I also like I did all my fiddling and I did my orchestra, and then I also really was really an to music generally, like I watched MTV Jams Countdown every day.

00:10:03
Speaker 2: I wrote to Tyresse. He wrote me back. I kept up with Yeah, you wrote a letter to tyres I still have it. And then I mean I had to have a picture of it.

00:10:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, any wrote me back, what.

00:10:14
Speaker 2: Did you What do you say to Tyres?

00:10:15
Speaker 1: I told him about what what I thought were the best parts of his show on MTV Jams, and I colored all over the thing and he sent me back a signed picture, And no, I was. I was really into R and B and rap. Like when I heard west Side Connections bound Down, it has synths on it to go.

00:10:36
Speaker 4: I thought that was fiddles.

00:10:37
Speaker 1: So I was at home also trying to learn those parts and turned out much later that it was since, which is fine. I could make that sound now with my whammy pedal. It's great. But uh, no, I all that Chamellionaire as a Texan too.

00:10:53
Speaker 2: Do you find that looking back, hip hop somewhat influenced your fiddle playings style, at least rhythmically at all.

00:11:02
Speaker 1: I think so. I think that that in country music, you know, we get a lot of all that kind of stuff, and you know we stole all that stuff culturally. But I also believe that I am. I got a lot of Latin influence too. But yeah, it all influences you in somewhere or another. And I still love hip hop and R and B and have design and desires to play with. Maybe that plays the fiddle with all the other cool people, but I don't know if she's looking for a second.

00:11:34
Speaker 2: I was at the opery last week, and even in my comedy act, I have a bit that I do that sets up very seriously, and I talk about country music and how a lot of people go, well, that's not country, that's not country, And the root of it is the country music came from two places, from Africa where they brought over it basically the banjo, which is influenced all that country music, and from Europe with a fiddle, right, And so when people go something that's not country, well, unless you're a black artist or a European with a fiddle, that must not be country because you can always trace back, and then here we are and we claim things aren't country yet, and the joke goes into garth that.

00:12:05
Speaker 3: Doesn't do rodeo. Now he's ready as rodeo.

00:12:07
Speaker 2: He goes into jokes.

00:12:08
Speaker 1: Right, you want to know my idea. My idea is it, are you a country person and you're playing country music?

00:12:15
Speaker 2: I agree, right if you say it is, yeah, and there's some an element of authenticity, right, that's all I need.

00:12:22
Speaker 1: I caught six raccoons in a live trap last week, different live traps, and one armadillo trying to get the groundhog.

00:12:29
Speaker 4: How can I catch the groundhogs?

00:12:32
Speaker 3: I don't know how to catch a groundhog.

00:12:34
Speaker 1: Okay, it's a terrible thing what they're doing in my landscaping.

00:12:39
Speaker 2: We have animals here. We have coyotes, we have bobcats, and this property right here, yeah, we have foxes and then circle of life because we had all these foxes and my dog goes crazy, and then the bobcats ate the foxes, okay, and then the bobcats got into a fight with the coyotes.

00:12:59
Speaker 3: There's just dead animals everywhere.

00:13:00
Speaker 1: That's incredible. My friend Ricky Binkley might be interested in buying some of those from you.

00:13:05
Speaker 2: Well, they're all ripped up carcasses at this point. There's nothing more country than that up animal carcasses. On your problem exactly when you finish high school? Did you think that there could be a career for you outside of Lubbock or just the Texas region musically?

00:13:22
Speaker 1: Yep, but I wasn't sure how I graduated high school a year early and went to South Plains College.

00:13:28
Speaker 2: Why did you graduate early? Want to get out or just so advanced that you just took a bunch of classes?

00:13:36
Speaker 4: Kind of both?

00:13:37
Speaker 1: I was. I was kind of not. I mean, I'd do the work and get it done, you know, got on a rolls or whatever. But also I was skipping school and doing things. And I got caught and got into suspension the last whole day of a month of high school because I stole the slips and was turning them in and sign them the ones where you can get out of class and then have the thing. But I get like I took the whole package after an orthodonist appointment.

00:14:02
Speaker 2: That's like stealing a doctor's pad in the prescriptions. You know, people, you were doing that just at a young age.

00:14:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then that lady wasn't there one of the days I did it and I got caught and that sucked. What lady the office lady, that's not the principle that writes the slips.

00:14:15
Speaker 4: She was like called in sick that day.

00:14:17
Speaker 2: And then you turned in with her quote her signature, Yeah got you.

00:14:22
Speaker 1: I will.

00:14:22
Speaker 2: Well, but here's the difference. You were actually, I'm assuming missing school because you were working. It's because you were playing the fiddle and the traveling.

00:14:28
Speaker 4: No, I was just getting stoned back then.

00:14:30
Speaker 3: Okay, well there you go.

00:14:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, I quit smoking weed two years ago.

00:14:33
Speaker 2: So and how I quit when it became legal, Yeah, the reverse of what I thought. How did how did that work for you when you stopped? Did you have any sort of did your body react in a way you didn't think? Yeah, I mean I with draws.

00:14:49
Speaker 1: I mean I don't really know about what draws. It kind of got shown to me by my producer, Laurds. They were like a B and my voice. I was like, okay, I mean, you can't really help me that much. I just sound how it sound right. But in the end, day one and I quit for that reason. And I quit also because.

00:15:05
Speaker 2: Because your voice, you're singing voice, you're saying affected your voice got.

00:15:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what their main point was. So I tried it out and they were right. And then I wasn't used to myself without being stoned. And I got used to that. And it's not like a big deal.

00:15:16
Speaker 4: It's just weed.

00:15:17
Speaker 1: But then you get used to not I like being goofy.

00:15:21
Speaker 2: I wish I smoked weed. Yeah, I have often am. I just a quick backstory. My mom died in her forties from drugs and alcohol. I never knew my dad, and so I was like, I've never had drink of alcohol, never done only because I'm so scared of it. I would love to. I'd be the best I went alcohol.

00:15:38
Speaker 1: That's like Freddie Freeman, he wears those sun things, those long baseball undergarments.

00:15:44
Speaker 4: Quit scancer. I mean not that that's the same as drugs.

00:15:47
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I mean, we all get these traumas and that's how we deal with them. And that's awesome because you don't know who needs all that dunk anyway.

00:15:56
Speaker 2: But I wish I could relax, like I have a real problem, Like I wish I could just be stoned all the time or some.

00:16:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, just so I could go find the chill that everybody else has. Yeah, I'm quite serious.

00:16:08
Speaker 2: I don't know to change of personality fundamentally.

00:16:12
Speaker 1: You know how sometimes you just if you smoke some weed, you can be like, yeah, that's fine. I can listen to this dude Yamaron for hours, but I just can't put up with it anymore.

00:16:21
Speaker 2: That's why I need to smoke weed.

00:16:22
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. I mean I'm not telling you to do that, but you could. I mean, you could probably ingest it somehow.

00:16:30
Speaker 2: So okay, I do want to talk about the project here, and I want to get back to how you grew up because I've been in love a lot. Oh you have, oh yeah, a touring mostly going to play the theater there, doing stand up Texas text there, big sports guy too. So I do want to come back to Lubbock in a second. But Bobby Nelson and this project that you did with with Bobby, but you did it before Bobby died, is that right?

00:16:54
Speaker 6: Right?

00:16:54
Speaker 2: So you didn't do it like during and it wasn't completed and you finished, like the whole thing was done before or Bobby died.

00:17:00
Speaker 1: All of it except for the like we were final touching mixes and mastering.

00:17:06
Speaker 2: But why why Bobby and what was the motivation for you to do this project?

00:17:11
Speaker 1: Oh, I made a record called Take It Like a Man, and I was toying with the idea of putting on you were always on my mind on there, and when you know, I have a wonderful like a world class keyboardist in my group, and I just we did it and it was great, and I was like, Bobby would actually be really good on this. That would be the only way to do it, like for real. So I just reached out, reached out. Seems like bad Grammar wrotched.

00:17:39
Speaker 4: Out, reached.

00:17:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say, reached out. Yeah.

00:17:46
Speaker 1: I went out and to find her and she said yeah. So we sat down and did it in Austin and as we were playing, then we started playing other songs like red Wing and going down the rabbit hole of music that we knew. And then we said we're going to make a band, and that we'll need to put you always on my mind on our band record. So we started making a record, and our big plan was to go out once a month for a few days and kind of you know, primary or secondary markets and just hang out and then play music and do some shopping. Because she was very stylish and liked having fun too and going to dinners, and so that was our big plan and then and then the gods had their own plan as always.

00:18:29
Speaker 2: What was she like?

00:18:31
Speaker 4: She was tough, you know, she was tough and funny and.

00:18:37
Speaker 6: Like a.

00:18:39
Speaker 4: Magician at the piano.

00:18:41
Speaker 1: You know how you can play with some people and they can let outside things in the daily like effect they're playing, and it kind of when you get her in front of a piano, it's like she's one with the universe centered there and it's all just music. Like you don't feel any like, it's just that door is just there and it's open and it's music and it's right and it's glorious.

00:19:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, when someone like Bobby who has played at a high level for so long, is it like you have a lot of you know, life questions. She lived a life, I mean similar to your life. She's like music traveling making it different though.

00:19:18
Speaker 1: She got her kids taken away for playing in a band, and she didn't smoke.

00:19:21
Speaker 4: Weed or drink or anything.

00:19:22
Speaker 3: What was that story?

00:19:24
Speaker 1: Well, she was playing in places that weren't churches, in bars and stuff, and they called her an unfit mother and poor and all this kind of stuff.

00:19:35
Speaker 4: I mean the seventies or that late. I don't know.

00:19:38
Speaker 1: I'm guessing she's not a great hot time out here, but I mean, women couldn't even have a credit card and till the seventies. But so she quit playing places that served alcohol, went back and got a business degree, then started working for the Hamm and B three company, modeling those demo and those pianos, and eventually got her kids back, and then the Wexler years rejoined Willie Nelson, and you know, I do you know, Willy would have been Willy no matter what. But Willy wouldn't have been the same Willie had Bobby not came back to play with him, because you know.

00:20:12
Speaker 4: He learned a lot about music from her.

00:20:14
Speaker 1: Anyway, so she had all that happened, and then you know, random not random, various abuses along the way, and managed to still stay in a life of music and then return to the life and music that she wanted, which was to be a sideman and play music.

00:20:32
Speaker 6: You know, let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

00:20:46
Speaker 2: What is your relationship like right now with music? You're going out of seasons of loving it and for different reasons.

00:20:51
Speaker 4: No, I really love music a whole lot.

00:20:53
Speaker 1: I just I'm aware of the of the people around it that you know a little bit more uh, open to people's manipulations and motives for sure, But the music, No, I love that to my core.

00:21:07
Speaker 2: So if I said what is your relationship with the music industry, that would be a different answer.

00:21:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I would say I would say, I don't really have much of one with the music industry, but I'd like to sit down and figure out kind of how many dinners I need to buy.

00:21:22
Speaker 2: When you grow up in Lubbock, Texas, are there any shows that come through Lubbock that you can remember going to and seeing it in person and going, dang, that's awesome.

00:21:32
Speaker 1: Snoop Dogg, Merle Haggard not together. No, No, that would have been Black Street came with well maybe it's Black Street and New Addition came first, and then Snoop Dogg came and everybody passed out because it was in the fairgrounds and there's like no ventilation and it was hot. And then yeah, Merle Haggard, I grew up, you know, seeing Lloyd Main's play a lot because he was in Lubbock in the flat Landers, of course, and I mean all kinds of fulk.

00:22:03
Speaker 2: The Texas country scene. I lived in Austin for twelve years, so very familiar with Texas and Texas country scene. Were those guys traveling through Lubbock a lot? Were you going to any of those?

00:22:14
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, I didn't go really to the Pat Greens and all that. I was working with like an indie, an indie group for store Cowboys. And then we'd bring shows to Lubbock, Like we'd bring shows to like LuSE Arrow and Corey Brandon, a bunch of like Cinromatic, all that kind of stuff, bring shows to Lubbock that were, you know, just different kinds of.

00:22:35
Speaker 2: Music eclectic either Yeah. Yeah. Where you started touring at fifteen or so, is that right? Yeah?

00:22:41
Speaker 1: I mean I started getting paid around and then, but I would go and play shows and learn how to do it along the road all the way. Yeah.

00:22:50
Speaker 2: And what'd your parents think about that? Oh?

00:22:51
Speaker 1: They thought it was fine. All the Texas playboys at this point were in their seventies and they were there. Who I compare everybody to, you know, any any kind of cat and around they did, Uh, they did it in the privacy of their own hotel rooms. And I only happened to notice that happened when I was on my way to a hotel lobby once and I saw one of the gentlemen escorting a lady through her car, and I was like, interesting but very classy, and at the same time, you know, I just showed up, and you know, we had fun. We ate dinner, I got seven desserts at the end of every night, and we did little workshops and fiddle camps and.

00:23:28
Speaker 4: It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun.

00:23:30
Speaker 1: Tommy also was the best so far, the best boss I've ever had.

00:23:33
Speaker 2: When you go to college and you decided to go to college, you went to Swanee. Oh yeah for my graduate Okay, what'd you where? Did you go on to Grid South Plains and then Texas Tech? You went to Tech?

00:23:44
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:23:44
Speaker 2: So what was the idea behind going to college? Was it to keep learning music? Was it to have a degree just in case?

00:23:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, moms did have a fallback plan.

00:23:52
Speaker 2: What was that? What was the degree in?

00:23:54
Speaker 1: Well, I was two credits or two maybe it was two semesters away from a Master's of archea exture in my undergraduate degree and I bailed so I could just get a city planning type thing because I wanted to play rock and roll music, going tour more.

00:24:08
Speaker 2: And so, what do you mean you bailed so you took it. I don't understand what we just that city planning is that I think I know. So I switched.

00:24:14
Speaker 1: So I had two semesters left of this other major degree, and I was like, I'm not doing that. And I was like, I talked to the advisors, like, what's the quickest way out of here? Said, you know, geography, city planning, go that way, and I'm like, cool, I'll do that.

00:24:26
Speaker 3: And did you like it at all?

00:24:28
Speaker 4: School?

00:24:29
Speaker 1: Uh?

00:24:29
Speaker 3: City planning architecture?

00:24:30
Speaker 2: Did you like?

00:24:31
Speaker 5: No?

00:24:31
Speaker 1: I liked it, Yeah, I liked I like buildings, and I like geography. I like knowing where I am. Not to the extent I want to be doing autocat. That shit sucks.

00:24:41
Speaker 4: I'm probably not sorry.

00:24:43
Speaker 2: Well I forgot.

00:24:45
Speaker 1: We were not just talking like each other to each other.

00:24:48
Speaker 2: Anything that gets don't worry about it. Just talk however you want.

00:24:51
Speaker 1: I like to lie and say it means ship high in transit.

00:24:54
Speaker 3: What is autocat?

00:24:56
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a.

00:24:56
Speaker 1: Program that you build homes and things, like, do you ever play the game? No, but it's it's as much like a video game. Yes, yeah, you do.

00:25:05
Speaker 3: You use that at all?

00:25:07
Speaker 2: Now? At home?

00:25:08
Speaker 1: No?

00:25:08
Speaker 2: Whenever? You nothing.

00:25:09
Speaker 3: No renovation. No, I don't.

00:25:11
Speaker 1: Know who to call to get a renovation. I need a bigger closet. I've got an Americana sized closet. And we have way too many shoes.

00:25:18
Speaker 2: That's our problem too, really is the shoes. Yeah? I love shoes, so do I, and when both because my wife likes shoes, I probably have more shoes with my wife. When you both love shoes, one loving shoes, okay, but when you both do it, it just it's flooded of shoes.

00:25:32
Speaker 4: Where are you sneakers?

00:25:33
Speaker 2: Or? Yeah?

00:25:33
Speaker 1: Awesome?

00:25:34
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:25:35
Speaker 1: And I did you see the shoe surgeon ones, I so.

00:25:39
Speaker 3: Listen to this.

00:25:39
Speaker 2: Okay, you brought up the shoe surgeon because I'm a massive shoe guy.

00:25:43
Speaker 3: I never had shoes.

00:25:44
Speaker 2: When I first met m my first real money, I bought a pair of Jordan's and I was like, this is the coolest thing ever.

00:25:48
Speaker 1: Exactly. You would like fair Gamo's story than that documentary story of on Shoes?

00:25:54
Speaker 2: No? On what platform? U?

00:25:55
Speaker 4: Oh? Well, maybe Netflix?

00:25:57
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I have some. I have some shoe surgeon shoes, have a couple of pair which ones. Well, so I have the I have the Pizza Hut shoes that are I think there's like they put like twenty pair he did on period all And I have size elevens that are universal sized and they're worth thousands and thousand, thousands of dollars. But I didn't buy them for that. I got them as a gift when Pizza h put them out. They have GPS in them, and we looked them up and one site's on them for like a million bucks. Oh my god, exactly. I didn't pay that.

00:26:28
Speaker 4: That's an investment. Do we have them insured?

00:26:30
Speaker 2: They are? Well, here's the thing we do not.

00:26:32
Speaker 4: Can I have them and buy me a new closet?

00:26:35
Speaker 2: You cant?

00:26:36
Speaker 5: So?

00:26:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love shoes, big sneaker head, Why you and shoes? Where did that come from?

00:26:41
Speaker 4: I think that's what happens when we all come from nothing. We like shoes.

00:26:44
Speaker 1: You know, your kid, you're supposed to keep your shoes clean, You're suposed to have nice shoes.

00:26:47
Speaker 4: I don't know. I haven't thought about it too hard.

00:26:49
Speaker 3: But is it fancy boots too? Do you like boots, fancy boots.

00:26:52
Speaker 1: I like all the shoes, I mean shoes and boots and breast.

00:26:57
Speaker 2: Do you have a favorite I love red? You do shoes everything, but yes, red shoes especially. I have a whole section of red shoes and red boots.

00:27:08
Speaker 3: And I'll get them specially made too, like I'm a big nerd.

00:27:10
Speaker 2: Do you have a special like a theme of your a favorite theme in any sort of footwear apparel.

00:27:17
Speaker 1: I like my shoes very tall because I'm so very short I'm almost five three. Like heels, I like platforms. I like heels. I like even the you know, the tall tennis shoes that are tall. And then I've got some tisshoes heels.

00:27:30
Speaker 2: Like you know my favorites. We can nerd out for second shoes because I could do do shoes all day. And they're not the most dramatic. But just an example here, these are These are New Balance. Those are pretty and I never really I always thought a New Balance were kind of lame until they started to actually not be lame, meaning they started to color them up a little bit and they started to make them a little trendy here. But then they started to know they were cool and they started jacking the prices up a lot too, and now.

00:27:52
Speaker 3: I think they're the best.

00:27:54
Speaker 2: It's the best general universal tennis shoe.

00:27:57
Speaker 1: Yep, it's really good.

00:27:59
Speaker 2: It used to be a dida, used to used for me, used to be the big winner there. But now and maybe you just getting older too, but I don't think so. I think these new bounds are just really cool.

00:28:07
Speaker 1: I think if you have been in the shoe game for a minute, you know what the hell you're talking about.

00:28:11
Speaker 2: Well, I've been in for a solid minute. Yeah, I'm pretty in. I'm pretty deep.

00:28:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. I like it too when people go do Western stuff that you know, don't spend a whole lot of time doing Western stuff like these. These are some interesting plays on western wild way.

00:28:26
Speaker 2: So that looks like a traditional with some sort of netting. Was that part of the shoes that's my sock? Okay? Then that looks like it looks like a hybrid, like a traditional and a cowboy.

00:28:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's like not But I like that because it doesn't go well, it doesn't do the thing with your pants where it make message your pants line.

00:28:47
Speaker 2: I hate shoes that aren't comfortable, like I like expensive shoes. Fine, but if they're not comfortable. I will not be a slave to shoe fashion at expense for my feet rub and raw, exactly.

00:28:57
Speaker 1: I tell people when they ask me about it, I say, by my half size too big there when you're walking around on them and your feet swell, didn't they fit?

00:29:03
Speaker 2: Award shows are the worst because they'll go, Okay, here are the shoes you're going to wear, and I'm like, okay, it looks good with it, but I know I'm gonna have blisters, and they're like, suck it up.

00:29:12
Speaker 3: They're giving you this whole wardrobe for free.

00:29:14
Speaker 2: And what is it?

00:29:15
Speaker 4: If it doesn't feel good.

00:29:16
Speaker 2: Then I'm miserable.

00:29:20
Speaker 1: We should we should talk about this on the award show. Wow, like go off script and talk about this.

00:29:27
Speaker 2: Shows they drag us off and blame me somehow. So you're playing, you're in college, you're getting a fallback.

00:29:36
Speaker 1: I feel like we're not talking enough about you. No, this is not at all okay.

00:29:40
Speaker 2: I mean I'm over me. I do me all the time, so I would talk about me none if possible. But I'll tell you here's something about me. I wear an Ara ring now, and this Ora ring tells me how much I sleep at night. Yeah, and I don't sleep very much. But it also tells me my score on how ready I am for the day and the last five nights I've had like in the sixties, which is terrible because one hundred is perfect. I've never got in the eighties. My wife can get in the eighties. I've been at like sixty two at the elevated heart rate for like five nights in a row.

00:30:10
Speaker 3: I don't know why I think any to smoke weed.

00:30:13
Speaker 2: Have you checked your blood pressure, not gone to the doctor or anything. Yeah, but it makes me think like I should smoke weed because then I could be relaxed.

00:30:20
Speaker 1: I had something like that happened a long time ago. Turned out to eat a blood pressure medicine.

00:30:24
Speaker 2: Well, now you're get me freaked ou about my blood pressure. I'm no doctor. I'm a fiddle player. Were you playing in college, Yeah, while you were also studying. Were you playing to the point where it's affecting your grades?

00:30:35
Speaker 4: Yeah? I still got out.

00:30:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:30:37
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:30:38
Speaker 2: Were you playing to the point of you were getting I'm not going to say so good, but you were getting a lot better and being recognized that you knew now that you have the fallback. It didn't matter you're STI working to suit professionally.

00:30:51
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I never wanted.

00:30:52
Speaker 1: I didn't really want to finish that degree, but I wanted because I want to go on the road. And I was, you know, still side man, and I was haven't had a comfortable living doing that?

00:31:03
Speaker 4: You know?

00:31:04
Speaker 2: Was it always in the in your cards to be a side person?

00:31:08
Speaker 1: Well? See, because I started so young, I thought that that's what I was gonna want to do until I fell in love with words.

00:31:15
Speaker 4: And that happened in part.

00:31:17
Speaker 1: I made this little fiddle record that's just mainly all fiddle tunes, and I made it because it takes as playboys. They each individually had these little records they made of them their own selves, playing themselves, play in their tunes to sell to supplement the income at income at the table. And so I did that too, because who doesn't want extra fifteen dollars anyway? So I did that and then I you know, I sing harmony too at that point and wanted to somehow feature that. It turns out that you had to pay people if you sing their songs. So I just wrote a couple and threw them on there and was playing with Billy Joe Shaver, And because I didn't know to ask that you're supposed to ask before you set your CDs up on the merchant table. There's like nobody teaches do what you're supposed to do. I just had him and I was showed up for the show and I put him out there. And after one of the shows he noticed, he was like, what is this. I was like, Oh, that's my little fiddle record. He was like, you didn't you didn't ask to put that up there. I was like, oh, I didn't know. I had to. And then so the whole drive we had to listen to it. And this Billy Joe Shaver, if you've never met him, is a wild man, a wonderful human but also very wild.

00:32:21
Speaker 2: Listen to what your record? Yeah, he wanted to listen to with you. Get a listened together.

00:32:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wrote in his car with him.

00:32:27
Speaker 1: Yeah. This is the man that is famous, famous for making whale and do right by his word what he said he was going to do anyway.

00:32:39
Speaker 2: Outlaw, but he got only a couple of fingers of all shooting is a lot Honckey talk.

00:32:43
Speaker 1: Heroes is almost all written by him, all that stuff. But he also before he died he shot a man in the face, like like two years before. Anyway, anyway, why did I go there? Because he's a wild man. So I was a little bit nervous in the car because he has a gun in his boot and I'm not lying, and to like those speed detectors, one on each side for no one was like the radio yeah crazy. Meanwhile, he hits an orange and white like road cone and it's like not road code barrel. Anyway, so we listened to it and he said you need you know what you need to do. And I was like, what, you need to move to Nashville. You're clear you're going to be a songwriter. I was like, no, I don't want to be fired. I love my job Billy Joe, and he said, he said, no, no, no, you got to go be a songwriter. I was like, no, I really love playing the fiddle with you, sir. I feel like I'm doing a great job. I will not put my CD out anymore. And he's like goes on and on and then anyway, I wasn't getting fired.

00:33:41
Speaker 4: But then a year later I did pack up.

00:33:43
Speaker 1: All my and move to Nashville to pursue my dream of being a waitress.

00:33:49
Speaker 2: What happened to make you actually like, uh, gun in the boot pulled the trigger to actually move to Nashville year later. Was there one incident where you're like, Okay, I gotta go now.

00:33:58
Speaker 1: There's a couple I was.

00:34:02
Speaker 4: First.

00:34:02
Speaker 1: I was having a hard time getting booked in Texas, booking myself because you have to start out booking yourself because everybody already knew me as a side person.

00:34:10
Speaker 4: They're like, nah, but you played with Gary p.

00:34:12
Speaker 1: Hunt, y'all, but you play No, but you play with And I'm like, no, but I'm a songwriter.

00:34:15
Speaker 2: Now where you get singing and playing fiddle?

00:34:18
Speaker 4: I was singing playing fiddle.

00:34:20
Speaker 1: If I had if I could get a side person to play with me and play backup guitar, I'd play fiddle. If not, I'd play ukulele. Yeah, And just because it was easier to tote and anyway, So did that and wasn't getting very far and then Todd Snyder called and said you can open a show for me, and I said, okay, that'd be great, and I drove Dallas, which is like five hours from Lubbock, and then he didn't show up, and then I only had like five songs, so I had to keep playing over and over and over and over, and only two weeks ago he told me he.

00:34:53
Speaker 2: Was there, but you still had to play even though he didn't show up.

00:34:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, do you play so last minute?

00:34:58
Speaker 2: You had the whole show then over and over.

00:35:00
Speaker 1: And over the same five songs. Yeah.

00:35:02
Speaker 3: What what the crowd think about?

00:35:04
Speaker 1: They weren't. They didn't, they didn't. Most of them left, but they didn't. They probably didn't think much of it.

00:35:10
Speaker 2: Wow.

00:35:11
Speaker 1: And So between that and then feeling like because that was like one show that I got to do, and I was just like feeling like, Okay, I have to go kind of start over somehow, and when I do, I'm going to have to not be a side person because that's easy to fall back into.

00:35:25
Speaker 3: It's like moving to a new school.

00:35:26
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.

00:35:27
Speaker 2: You can. You can almost smart change.

00:35:29
Speaker 1: Who you are, Yeah, exactly, And it's.

00:35:31
Speaker 2: Always a version of yourself and maybe a version that was kind of suppressed by you or other people, because that wasn't always who you were, right, You almost don't. You almost don't get to evolve when you were with the same people all the time, right, But you felt a change of scenery in a more musical place would actually let you evolve without people going nope, we only know you for this right.

00:35:46
Speaker 1: And I felt like I had to be careful like I was. I told myself when I moved to Nashville and do this. I'm only going to play with people that I can learn something from. You know, it has to be somebody I can learn something from.

00:35:58
Speaker 2: Who did you know here?

00:35:59
Speaker 3: Who did you meet here?

00:36:00
Speaker 2: Early on? Justin Town Earl so you knew him before you got here? He was there?

00:36:04
Speaker 4: No, I met him.

00:36:05
Speaker 1: I was so Jason was playing at the Mercy Lounge and he called me because we were just friends. This is way back in the day, and I'd played with him some when I was touring on my own out of Texas.

00:36:17
Speaker 4: And he was coming town. He was like, come play the fiddle on this thing.

00:36:20
Speaker 1: Put in a record that it was The Sirens of the Ditch had just come out, And I said okay, and I went up there and sat in, and then after I got off the stage, Joshua Black, Wilkins and Justin Town Searl over there and we started playing pool and there were my my BFFs.

00:36:35
Speaker 2: Did you move to like a small apartment here? What was your living? Yeah?

00:36:39
Speaker 1: Well I lived with a boyfriend, and I lived. I lived with a boyfriend. I spent some time in the back of Buzz Casin's guest house for a while, and and I lived with a boyfriend, and I lived on the road a lot.

00:36:51
Speaker 2: Did you do the songwriter things here in town, like on Tuesday and Wednesdays? Or are you gone as much as possible?

00:36:57
Speaker 1: I was working as a waitress mostly at three sixty And then you know three sixty in.

00:37:03
Speaker 3: Bill Mead, Well, I don't know anywhere.

00:37:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's that one.

00:37:07
Speaker 3: And then there was what's three sixty is a place?

00:37:09
Speaker 4: Yeah?

00:37:09
Speaker 1: Okay, it's like it was, because like in two thousand and three there were as many restaurants here.

00:37:14
Speaker 3: I know Bell Media to live in Bell Mead, but I don't know three sixty.

00:37:17
Speaker 4: It's by this ball.

00:37:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. What'd you learn about because I was I was a server. I was a waiter before server became the term. Yeah, as a waiter?

00:37:24
Speaker 3: What'd you learn through service?

00:37:26
Speaker 2: Waiting?

00:37:27
Speaker 1: Then?

00:37:28
Speaker 2: I liked wine, okay, And I was gonna say I learned the little bit of patients that I have.

00:37:33
Speaker 3: I have very little, but I had to have.

00:37:35
Speaker 2: Patients with idiots, yeah, or I wouldn't make my money. Yeah, exactly, because if I get irritated somebody who's gonna tip me, then I'm not going to get a tip. Right. It's like dealing with some of these promoters now if I'm on the road doing comedy and sometimes they're idiots, Yeah, and I have to just allow the idiots to spread their winds.

00:37:53
Speaker 1: I love comedy so much. I go to like Comedy Club, laugh Factory, all those zanies.

00:37:58
Speaker 3: I love all that here, you'll just go. Have you seen anybody good lately?

00:38:04
Speaker 1: No? I went to I haven't been to this eighties On a second, I've been going out of town more. Yeah, so I go to the ones out of town.

00:38:10
Speaker 3: But what's the best comedy show you've ever been to? Were you just laugh?

00:38:14
Speaker 2: I went to see Chris Rock once in Atlanta. I love Chris Rock, and I thought about the funnest thing I've ever seen. It was like three hours too, and I usually even I heard about that.

00:38:24
Speaker 4: My friend Will will Welsk went to the one that was in New York.

00:38:27
Speaker 2: I don't even like movies be three hours, so you wouldn't. I wouldn't think I'd like a three hour comedy show. But it was so good and it was like watching Picasso paint, but we knew how good Paasso was while I was painting, instead of.

00:38:37
Speaker 1: It's so wild. They just a comedian just gets up there with just a microphone.

00:38:42
Speaker 4: Well, and that's all they've got.

00:38:43
Speaker 2: The great part about it is there's no overhead for me. I will fly into a theater. Yeah, I got I have no it's just mean.

00:38:48
Speaker 1: There's no overhead, but it's all your faults.

00:38:50
Speaker 2: At the same time, It's the most isolated, lonely thing I've ever done, because if I go up and I don't feel right or I'm not on, there's nowhere to go.

00:38:58
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:38:59
Speaker 2: Once I was doing a shit in Massachusetts and somebody yelled I'm gonna shoot you or I should shoot you, and everybody started screaming. But the promoter had had a conversation with me before, like, hey, you have to do you know, fifty minutes or you're not getting paid. That's fine, I do our ten hour, twenty whatever. But then everybodys are running out, cops came in. I sat down the stage and wouldn't leave because I didn't want him to go.

00:39:19
Speaker 3: You didn't do your fifty minutes.

00:39:20
Speaker 4: Man, I've been in that spot in Belfast, like.

00:39:24
Speaker 3: Bell, not in America Belfast, right, So they didn't want to pay you.

00:39:28
Speaker 4: They wouldn't pay me until I hit the whole time limit.

00:39:30
Speaker 1: And I was having trouble because I ate some bad Fahita's bad ideas.

00:39:33
Speaker 2: Oh you're sick and yeah.

00:39:34
Speaker 1: At this the bathroom was right by the stage. Everybody knew what happened. To talk about a humiliating experience.

00:39:40
Speaker 3: How'd you get through that one?

00:39:42
Speaker 1: I came out of the bathroom and everybody heard what was on display, and I said, I'm sorry, but I had to keep going for thirty more minutes. I don't mind if you all leave, I would, but I'm going to sit here and do this because otherwise I'm not going to.

00:39:53
Speaker 2: Have a guess m Yeah, I'm always afraid of them not paying. That's why I say it like idiots be idiots. I just yes, sir, you got it, sir, I'm gonna finish my show, my show, sir.

00:40:01
Speaker 1: If they get too weird, you just get your booking agent on them.

00:40:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, but usually it's they only get weird with me if they do, because most are great. But if they do, it's nine eight forty five. Like before, I'm gonna go on. There's been some issue and they don't want to pay for this. Yeah, and my manager maybe will probably on the road with me, but like anybody else, won't answer the phone at nine o'clock at night when I'm doing a show. So I just kind of feel lonely out there.

00:40:26
Speaker 5: The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the Bobby Cast.

00:40:38
Speaker 2: So you're in Nashville. You're making your friends circle. Yeah, when you moved here, did you kind of notice that musically.

00:40:47
Speaker 1: It works some of the basement eats east to despite Grimy's forgetfulness at the.

00:40:52
Speaker 4: Time, I would do some bar backing there.

00:40:54
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, did you know?

00:40:55
Speaker 4: Not the East just basement og The East wasn't there yet?

00:40:58
Speaker 2: Like how elevated musically this town was, or did you come here on that you felt like there were a lot of just really strong players or were you just around so many already that it really wasn't a culture shock to you players I was.

00:41:08
Speaker 4: Used to being around.

00:41:09
Speaker 1: I wasn't used to seeing so much great like artists, like songwriters, like I didn't see a whole lot of that. Like Lubbock, we had some. But it is like when you go out out into the world in Nashville, and you hear people, you're just like, that is an artist, that person those how did that person come up with those words? You know that kind of thing. Musicianship is stellar in world class here and everybody does move here. And it's also you know, inherited and of the soil probably or something. But I had never seen so many people that were, you know, like not just sidemen.

00:41:45
Speaker 2: More intimidated at first, or inspired or what would you ratio that at just by the artistry of folks.

00:41:53
Speaker 4: I always always intimidated by that.

00:41:54
Speaker 1: I don't know how people could go on stage and on the stage, be in the front and all that. It's so weird to I had horrible stage right. It took me a long time to get used to, but.

00:42:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was.

00:42:05
Speaker 1: It's intimidating, but it's also like renewed, not renewing. It's like intimidating, but it's an inspiring feels like such a stupid word, but it's such a It makes you want to rise to the occasion too, you know, kind of you want to be that good or hope to aspire to be.

00:42:22
Speaker 2: Do you remember anybody here that you saw and you were just like I cannot believe that person is that good.

00:42:30
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Ben Hall, I don't know if he's playing much. He can really play, And then trying to think who else good? Justin got to where he was really good, but then he took a turn for the worst. But that's the beast's fault, not his. And other folks that were really good.

00:42:48
Speaker 2: Like you saw him at a show. Maybe I didn't even know him, but you were just like, I'm like, I'm almost enthralled. Like you couldn't You're just you couldn't stop thinking about the artistry.

00:42:56
Speaker 1: Oh, the Time Jumpers when I saw them, it was the same night I met to t Hall.

00:43:01
Speaker 4: That was wild.

00:43:02
Speaker 3: What about the Time Jumpers took you aback?

00:43:06
Speaker 1: The fiddle playing was right and it was so beautiful, and it was they were doing some incredibly difficult things, uh, the way they engaged with the crowd, and it was just really beautiful.

00:43:21
Speaker 3: Can you hear a fiddle and a song and not judge it?

00:43:24
Speaker 1: Yes you can, because this is the thing about fiddle players. We all stick together. It's not like like fiddle players are monogamous. They like their this one fiddle that they really love to play. They might have a backup one. But also fiddlers like Aimen. All the fiddle players in the world want to sit around and just play the fiddle all day. You know, Tyler, Tyler children, Timmy's playing fiddle and everybody's playing the fiddle. Now it didn't used to be like that. But you know guitars, guitar players they like to cut heads and you know, so.

00:43:52
Speaker 2: You're not switching out fiddles every song like a guitar player. No, not, do you switch at all? It's just not one. Really, do you have to tune? In part of my ignorance on fiddle because I play guitar a little bit, but I don't play fiddle at all. Do you ever have to change tuning in a fiddle?

00:44:06
Speaker 4: You can if you want. I never do because it kind of doesn't settle right.

00:44:09
Speaker 1: You can do whatever you want to any intrment, But no, you leave it like it's supposed to be, and you have a tuner there that you just tune up.

00:44:15
Speaker 2: Do you play since you play the fiddle again, ignorance, please forgive me? Oh, so you play one of those.

00:44:19
Speaker 4: I love talking about the fiddle like.

00:44:21
Speaker 3: The electric harp type thing.

00:44:23
Speaker 2: Is that at all the same as a fiddle, the electric harp.

00:44:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's got like say, listen, I don't even know what it's Okay.

00:44:29
Speaker 1: I probably get to the bottom of it. If there's an electric carp, I want to own it.

00:44:34
Speaker 2: Is there not an electric carp? Am I just really it probably is. What is the closest instrument to a fiddle that's not a fiddle because you can probably put me on it?

00:44:41
Speaker 3: What else do you play?

00:44:42
Speaker 1: I mean there are things that they're old, ancient ideas that it came from the liar, the lear lire whenever, one of Apollo's muses or something. I don't know. I wasn't there. But the fiddle is awesome. I played them with five strings like Johnny Gimble did.

00:44:57
Speaker 3: Can you think can you finger it in place?

00:44:59
Speaker 1: Yeah? It's like a mandolin, but you don't bow the mandolin.

00:45:02
Speaker 2: You said, the ukulele similar at all?

00:45:06
Speaker 4: No, no, no, it's just they're both little.

00:45:11
Speaker 2: Fingers. Do you have callouses from playing fiddle? Is that a thing? Pull the threats down and if you don't mind, go away. If I don't play for a little bit.

00:45:19
Speaker 1: It's a different type of caluis I get one here too, that sometimes can be considered your neck. Well, yeah, from where you hold it. But sometimes it's odd because sometimes people think it's a hickey, like if you've been playing or practicing a lot and it makes like a thing and sometimes you know, kind of gets a little bit of a callus on your neck right there, and if you play it a lot during the day, you can get a mark that might you know, somebody being like overly like whatever they be, it's not a hicky on your neck.

00:45:44
Speaker 4: You're like, no, it's not hicky on min idiot, have you ever had a hickey?

00:45:47
Speaker 3: Got a freaking ball fiddle player?

00:45:50
Speaker 2: Whathickey looks like?

00:45:52
Speaker 1: So you've never seen a hickey?

00:45:54
Speaker 2: Could you? That's what it looks like.

00:45:55
Speaker 3: That's true. I don't think I've ever had a hickey.

00:45:57
Speaker 2: Might get right a hig.

00:45:58
Speaker 3: I've been a loser, and.

00:45:59
Speaker 2: You could give yourself one that I've done on my bicapp there. I thought I sucked my bicep into a hickey more than once.

00:46:05
Speaker 3: But then you go to school and they be like, I'd be like, I got a hickey.

00:46:08
Speaker 2: Like, no, it matches with your mouth exactly where if you could bend your mouth to your arm.

00:46:12
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:46:12
Speaker 2: So in Nashville, you make your friend group. When do you feel comfortable being a front Like comfortable being a front person? Is that? Is that? Years later?

00:46:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, it took me some getting used to.

00:46:23
Speaker 2: Did you have any crazy shows where you're like, I don't know, this does not feel good. I don't like being a front person. Maybe I just want to go back to being a side player because it didn't go well.

00:46:29
Speaker 1: I don't want to go back to being a side player, but I wanted to figure out how to overcome it, Like I was reading some self help books in downloading things to try and figure it out. Why it was like that, Like why do I always get up there and get nerved out when I'm trying to sing my own songs?

00:46:43
Speaker 2: Yeah? What's up with stage Friday in you? And how did you combat it?

00:46:46
Speaker 1: I read books about it and tried to be scientific about it, and that didn't help. And after a while there's a couple of things, like, you know, you don't realize it when you go to a show until you're watching on the other side of stage. People have a music listening face, like the way they listen to music, and it's not always a pleasant face. It's like they're you know, they're like relaxed or they're in thought and you could take that as sleeping or it's not caring, or they might be like like thinking hard, but it looks like I hate you.

00:47:17
Speaker 6: You know.

00:47:17
Speaker 1: There's a lot of.

00:47:18
Speaker 4: Music listening faces I've noticed, and so.

00:47:21
Speaker 1: There's that, and then it's part of it, though. You have to learn how to navigate like I feel like you do. To be able to play anywhere at any time. You have to be able to put up with Heckler's and know all all that kind of stuff, and how to deal with people that are just genuine assholes and do want to throw stuff at you. But you have to learn all that, and then the fear thing. I guess what happened with me is when I did the Aubry for the first time and I was about to not go on stage, and he said.

00:47:50
Speaker 3: You were thinking about not going on stage?

00:47:51
Speaker 2: Really I was terrified, really anxiety attack just or just crazy ANX.

00:47:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. I used to get bad panic attacks too, But anyway, I started trendsigental meditation that helps. But what he said that he was he said, Oh you're nervous, it just means you care. He's like, go out there and be nervous and show them that you care with your nerves. And I was like okay, and I was like I went out there and I was like, you know, he's.

00:48:13
Speaker 4: Right, I just care.

00:48:14
Speaker 2: I worked with a bunch of kids on American Idol for four years where that was the main thing they would ask me. I was like, the head mentor on the show, how do I not be nervous? And I was like, you don't. There's no not being nervous. There is. You only have a few instances in your life where you get to be nervous for something awesome, and there's a lot of times it's gonna be nervous for something that ain't awesome, right, But if you get to be nervous for something awesome, that means this is cool, this matters, this is important to you. And the sooner you realize that you can't overtake nervousness just by thinking about something, and that you embrace the fact that it just kind of sucks that you're nervous for a good reason, and the more you do it, the more you that you can. For me, especially doing sand Up, when things went wrong and I was able to navigate out of them, then it didn't scare me so much the.

00:48:59
Speaker 3: Things would go anymore, right.

00:49:00
Speaker 2: It just took me to get up there and screw up a bunch to go, Oh, worst case scenario, I'm still okay because I've gotten through it. And then I started to be less nervous, not because I got better at it, because I got better at being bad at it.

00:49:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, exactly, that's funny.

00:49:11
Speaker 2: And so it was like, Okay, well, if I suck and I'm so nervous that I'm gonna suck, I've sucked before and I found my way out of it, right, so I feel comfortable enough to go into it again. And if I'm nervous, one cool. I mean it's worth something. In two I'll be okay. Yeah, got out of it before again. Yeah, are you stage right now? It's gone?

00:49:27
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:49:28
Speaker 2: Really.

00:49:29
Speaker 1: It took a little doing between that experience and then I went on tour with John Priyan a lot, and he knows how nervous I was, and I was going out solo. I went out solo for all kinds of folks. Even Ryan Adams had some experiences there too that were interesting. But anyway, all that to say, I was playing a show with John went and it played like I don't know, like grown Again or somewhere in Sweden, and I forgot my shoes. And the next day I went out and I had my tennis shoes on with my black dress and all this. We're playing theaters, you know, and he said, you can't wear those shoes. It doesn't look great with that outfit. I was like, what am I going to do? And he's like, well, it looks good with just the tights, and he said, I'll make sure we find your shoes. But like, so many weird things happened so far on every stage that it's like, I think I've done all the bad things that could possibly happen.

00:50:18
Speaker 2: And whatever they shoot at you, yeah you're gonna be ok. Yeah, yeah, all.

00:50:22
Speaker 1: The technical things have happened everything that could happen, probably.

00:50:25
Speaker 2: And you also what I've learned too, like if my ears go out and I just keep going, yeah, just keep going, Just keep going.

00:50:32
Speaker 3: That's it.

00:50:33
Speaker 2: Just keep going because I've stopped early on old Yeah, just keep going. Yeah, And nobody really knows.

00:50:39
Speaker 4: And the Beatles did it without monitors.

00:50:41
Speaker 2: I was watching an old video of the Beatles playing Shay Stadium in like late sixties like it's where the Mets played baseball, no monitors, and not only that, they would just have their little amps to an entire stadium and they were just putting mics on amps and the people are screaming so loud you couldn't even hear them. Yeah they're terror and today it would be the Terrible Yes, yeah, but they would play I Can't buy Me the Terribly Mike, Terribly Amped and the people were just screaming so loud.

00:51:11
Speaker 1: I heard because I was alive, and that the that the those venues all smelled like p too, because all the folks were peeing themselves with those concerts.

00:51:19
Speaker 2: I see where people now that people will wear diapers the tailor's shows because they don't want to leave. Oh, they'll just p in their diapers like adult diapers. Uh huh.

00:51:27
Speaker 1: Nice.

00:51:27
Speaker 2: That's how you know you made it when people cool, When people want to stay at your show so bad, Yeah, they'll just eat a bad fahida and stay.

00:51:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I heard George Jones did that once and also acted like Donald Duck the.

00:51:40
Speaker 2: Diaper in the George Jones series. Have you seen that at all? The George and Tammy No.

00:51:47
Speaker 1: I saw the Tales from a tour bus.

00:51:49
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I saw that too, George.

00:51:51
Speaker 2: And Tammy was actually really good and like Jessica Chastain like Tammy Wynett and could sing.

00:51:55
Speaker 4: She's so hot.

00:51:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's pretty.

00:51:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, and but he talks like a duck a lot when he was like getting nervous. It's really good loving you. June twenty third, So he did this with Bobby Nelson. What Willy's a part of this too?

00:52:10
Speaker 1: Right?

00:52:10
Speaker 2: He got one of the songs.

00:52:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, he sang on Summertime.

00:52:13
Speaker 3: And so what did he think about the project?

00:52:15
Speaker 1: He thought it was beautiful. I mean, I mean, I'm gonna go ahead and speak for Willy, but I believe Willy loved his sister's music, musical talents, and probably was his favorite.

00:52:26
Speaker 4: But no, it's gonna it's cool.

00:52:29
Speaker 1: It's cool.

00:52:29
Speaker 4: We did a bunch of old jams and.

00:52:32
Speaker 3: Did you do Always I'm Online with Bobby?

00:52:34
Speaker 1: Yes? Yeah, yeah, we did that. You're always on my mind. And we did some Texas Playboy stuff. You know, Willy's one of his first shows he ever put on. His first was a Bob Will show down in Texas. And he's a big Bob Will's fan, you know, that by all of his Tunsy's covered and he was a huge Cindy Walker fan. They also did a record of hers but good music, as he said, as once they're written there for everybody.

00:53:00
Speaker 3: The new album Loving You.

00:53:01
Speaker 2: You guys check it out June twenty third, it's out and do you still practice?

00:53:06
Speaker 1: Yes?

00:53:07
Speaker 4: You know what I've been doing lately.

00:53:09
Speaker 1: I'm gonna there's release shows I'm doing with the Wheel July eight, the ninth.

00:53:13
Speaker 4: But down in Texas, I saw Ray.

00:53:14
Speaker 3: Bens of the Grammy for the first time in a long time.

00:53:16
Speaker 2: You came out. But it's like bo He's so big, right, I love him tall? Yeah, friendly, and he puts his arm around me, and yeah, I knew him in Austin like I.

00:53:23
Speaker 3: Was in Austin.

00:53:24
Speaker 2: I knew Sleep with the will yea yeah. And so speaking of Ray Benson, I just think about him. Did me to interrupt your story there?

00:53:29
Speaker 4: No, that's okay.

00:53:30
Speaker 1: No, I was just gonna say I've been I went and dusted off the didn't sound silly, but I don't care. I wentn't dusted off the Orange Blossom Special, and I've been playing it at the rehearsals just for fun and playing it way too fast, because that's also fun. But you you forget sometimes if you don't keep the tunes in your in your pocket.

00:53:52
Speaker 4: So I try to keep them close.

00:53:53
Speaker 1: Somewhat I want to.

00:53:55
Speaker 2: Find before you leave. We're gonna cut this in a second. I want to find the instrument that I brought up. I'm crease me too, because listen, I'm not known for my uh instrument prowess.

00:54:04
Speaker 4: Listen, you can't know everything.

00:54:06
Speaker 3: Trust me.

00:54:07
Speaker 2: I think I do, and then I I'm quickly reminded that don't forget.

00:54:10
Speaker 4: To write down that fair Gamo documentary.

00:54:12
Speaker 2: I don't even write it down. I'll remember it, you will, Okay, Yeah, how's your how's your memory?

00:54:16
Speaker 4: It's really good?

00:54:17
Speaker 1: What I'm not spoking to read?

00:54:18
Speaker 3: Actually have you noticed the difference?

00:54:19
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, because I haven't. I haven't part partook in, partooketh, partaketh, partaken part yeah. Add these words sound like they could be better, don't they? In such a long time that do you miss it?

00:54:33
Speaker 2: Sometimes?

00:54:33
Speaker 1: I miss the part where you can just where everything's hilarious and chill.

00:54:39
Speaker 2: And I would like that too. Auto harp, oh, the autoharp.

00:54:43
Speaker 1: I love that I have Paul Kinnerleies that's.

00:54:45
Speaker 2: What I'm taught, not guess electro harp. It is not the same thing. Obviously.

00:54:48
Speaker 1: This is mother maybell thing, the thing where you push the buttons that you can strum stuff.

00:54:53
Speaker 3: Yes, tell me about the auto harp.

00:54:55
Speaker 1: Auto Harp's an amazing machine. I subscribe to the idea that you can get yourself out of rut, to be it musically or with writing, by just changing up the instruments. It wasn't an idea unique to me, but a lot of people do it. Like Tom Waits to go play with some kind of instrument he's not used to playing with the jostle some stuff and get some new ideas. It's like anything you know, if you if you're getting bored with cooking by yourself a new spoon.

00:55:23
Speaker 4: I don't know.

00:55:24
Speaker 2: The autoharp to me, looks like if you were to mix a steel guitar with one of those eighties piano guitar ukulele things where you're like, not a ukilet.

00:55:33
Speaker 3: But it's like the piano and the guitar.

00:55:35
Speaker 2: No, it's it's a centaur. What if I think called where it's like looks like a guitar, Well, it's like a guitar. Piano in it. Oh, key guitar, there you go. It's like if you mix the stell guitar and key tar or you're pushing the buttons.

00:55:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like it is like that.

00:55:51
Speaker 1: You hold it and you push these buttons and you strum like so you don't have to like do your fingers.

00:55:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, chords.

00:55:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, it takes a long time. The tune. Speaking of it, Gillian Welsh, give me my auto harp tuner.

00:56:04
Speaker 2: Back, please get our piano tune which is annoying. Oh yeah, does it's like think?

00:56:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, oh my god.

00:56:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll look.

00:56:13
Speaker 4: Well, make sure you're not around when they do that.

00:56:16
Speaker 2: I try not to be. But it's like I make a plan there, we'll be there between one and f and I'll be there.

00:56:22
Speaker 1: I'll get the surgeons shoes and I will buy myself a new closet after your piano's tuned.

00:56:26
Speaker 2: All right, Look, everybody go and follow on Instagram Amanda Pearl Shires, that's her name. There. What are you doing on TikTok? Do you do? Do you play it?

00:56:34
Speaker 3: I haven't seen your TikTok? Do you do anything?

00:56:36
Speaker 1: I don't really. I tried to do it because everybody said to do it. It just I'm just not good at all that, Like I can't find enough time.

00:56:43
Speaker 4: To do that.

00:56:43
Speaker 1: And you know, play my ancient fiddle, you know, Okay, back in the closet playing for sake and lover. What am I supposed to be doing on TikTok?

00:56:53
Speaker 3: What's the oldest fiddle you have?

00:56:55
Speaker 1: It's just the only one I have. It's not old anymore though. My old one died in an accident on stage. But the one I have currently is made by Jeffrey Allison, who is a luthier that joined the army to His plan was to go and learn how to make fiddles and stuff in Germany and all that. But he got sent them, you know, to the sands and started carving and making fiddles and transporting them and humbies and such. Anyway, he came back and makes fiddles, And mine is a Jeffrey Allison fiddle.

00:57:28
Speaker 4: It's maybe twenty years old, but I love it really.

00:57:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's my buddy.

00:57:33
Speaker 2: Thank you for coming by, everybody check out loving you. I'm a big fan.

00:57:36
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you. I'm a big fan.

00:57:37
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't believe that you have to. It's almost like when someone goes Hey, nice to meet you. Have to nice to meet you back, even though maybe it wasn't nice to meet them.

00:57:43
Speaker 1: But after this conversation, I feel like we have a lot of things in common.

00:57:46
Speaker 2: I feel like we have a lot of the common too.

00:57:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, so, how are you at swimming?

00:57:50
Speaker 2: Well?

00:57:52
Speaker 3: It depends.

00:57:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, I grew up in lakes.

00:57:55
Speaker 1: Huh.

00:57:56
Speaker 2: But I'd done a couple of trithlon's like Alympic triathlons, but I wouldn'tayd a, it's swimmer.

00:58:02
Speaker 4: I'm not either. I can't do the overhanded thing.

00:58:04
Speaker 2: I can tread water for a long time.

00:58:05
Speaker 4: Me too.

00:58:06
Speaker 2: They can jump off a dock.

00:58:07
Speaker 4: I can do that too.

00:58:08
Speaker 2: See that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, so, and both of us have stopped smoking weed.

00:58:13
Speaker 1: Yes that's you never started, but exactly you stop thinking about it.

00:58:19
Speaker 2: Are you? Guys? Go follow Amanda and check out the record. Loving you, Amanda. Great to see you, Great to see you too. I love this episode of The Bobby Cast.

00:58:26
Speaker 6: Subscribe on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.