#337 - Ernest on Why He Still Drives An Old Car Despite Having 5 No.1’s As A Songwriter + How Much He Made Writing on Old Town Road Remix + Writing His Song “Flower Shops” and how His New Album Tells A Story

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Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to episode three thirty seven with Ernest. He's got a new album out today called flower Shops. He's also got a song that is in the top thirty right now. It's him in Morgan Wallen and it's called flower Shops. He has five number one as a songwriter. We'll get to that. His last one though, was Kane Brown won Mississippi, which just went number one. And there it is. Are you I go to Ernest official dot com. He's got some shows. He's on Morgan Wallons The Dangerous Tour. He's finishing on tour dates with Chris lanes Field and Boots Tour. Born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. And here we go. I think you're gonna like that. I like this on micra, I like it a lot of Yeah. I spent some time with them before we talk about that and did you leave in at the end we were talking about what to leave? Is that still on this podcast? You can hear what we talked about that we didn't know if it was gonna be on the air or not, and the discussion that we had about just the contents of this podcast and what was suitable to Aaron, what wasn't. So if you hang to the end, you hear that. All right, here you go, here's Earnest. Earnest is here. I just did your podcast. I mean it feels like yesterday, but all time I was weird. Yeah, how when did I do that? It's probably a couple of months. I feel like I did that podcast just because you were like, hey, you want to do it. I was like, yeah, sure, I do a lot of podcasts. I kind of feel like I get my own space to say what I want, so I don't really unless I'm doing a promotion for like one of my TV shows, they're making me do stuff. I don't, however, special that you did my podcast. Well, I thought about it, and you know, I don't know special as the word, but I thought about it and I said, you know, I would like to go over and talk to Ernest because I feel like you're just a pretty lay it out how it is kind of dude, Yeah, you know, and I have kind of the same philosophy. We kind of live in different circles. But it was it was pretty cool to see because you have a massive following, and in your music following is getting much bigger. But just as a personality of a big following and to a lot of your people, we're like going, hey, you're not terrible like I thought. I appreciate you having me on. Yeah, well thanks for coming on. I got me in trouble to a little bit. That's all right, that's what's about. Yeah, a little bit. No, I mean you did and I did. That's just that's just what it's about. It's good content. Yeah, absolutely, Sorry, sorry interrupt I just want to say that as we start, no, thank you, that it was a good experience for me likewise, and we got down to it. It's it's really cool we did I was. I loved getting to have a conversation with you. I thought it was I thought it was cool that our first conversation ever was you know, recorded. But yeah, and we really in the same way we did this. I think purposefully we didn't have a long chat beforehand, because sometimes you can kill a little bit of that that new fuzz, not all of it, because you can always still get what you would have gotten. But anyway, I really enjoyed it. I wanted to say that I appreciate you having me on. I don't do a lot of those, but for some reason I was just compelled to go over to what do your recording studio? Uh? Smelled like weed, I mean it and it will alright, So your album is out today, uh, and so we're gonna talk about what's happening today with this project and kind of your life and your career up until that point. Um. So just so you know, we're gonna bounce around a little bit. Yeah, the whole situation is pretty fluid here. Let me let's just start though. Flower Shops the album. It is out today. Here is flower Shops feature Morgan Wallen, Mr Take. You know, maybe i'd heard I don't know how I knew that song. Maybe was Morgan playing it at all? Yeah? We both we both started playing it in different settings. He played it at a whiskey jam thing that kind of went viral. Got maybe that's what I saw. Then. Yeah, I saw he was recording it with you, and I messaged him and I was like, I don't know who's like the main artist, but great song, Like glad you guys are doing it so so so tell me about you found the song. You you wrote the song right not right with Ben Burgess and Mark Coleman got it. So you wrote the song and just kind of you walking, you're in the room. I'm always curious about the genesis of the idea of who goes Here's what it is and did it turn into flower shops or what happened? Yeah? Check, So this is it's pretty unorthodox. Uh. I had been on a George Jones bender for like a month or so, just sad songs in general. I was listening to a George Jones Essential playlist and I picked Burgess up to go to the right in my truck and we're driving it's like a thirty minute drive and good Year for the Rose Is comes on on the playlist and we both knew the song, but we just hadn't like listen. We just both called a moment listening to it, like God, what a title? And Burgess was like, we should write a song like with a weird title like it's been a good day for flower Shops or something, and I was like yeah, And I had no idea at that time what it what it meant. So we talked about it on the drive and we realized it was just kind of this guy like run out of apologies and down on his luck. Good love, Good girl messed it all up. I'm gonna go spend my last time at the flower shops. By the time we got to Marks, like the idea was kind of sussed out, picked up a guitar, started getting the melodies down, and the song was written in like forty five minutes once we got to Marks. Now, I'm tired of people talking about how these great songs are written so quickly. It's it happened. I don't like it. I don't like it when these great songs come out so quickly. It makes it seem way easier than it should be. It's a great song. Thank you. You guys did a great job. Thank you. And I don't say that a lot, because there are a lot of songs and I believe only just the nature of numb first, only a select few can be great. And I think this is a great song. And so how did the Morgan hop on it? Like? What was that? Um? That was just a I sent him the song in the text, like we send each other songs just to listen to, and he was like, whoa bub, I love this. And a few weeks went on. I played it at a whiskey jam tenure whatever it was, at the Rheyman and then A couple of weeks later, we were doing our writers around together like some private thing, and we were like, let's play it tonight. We did it, did the back and forth the way you hear it, and later that night he went to another whiskey jam thing and played it by himself, and by the time the videos had come out on that, we're like, well, this is the one we have to do together. That's cool. Yeah. I do want to go through a bit of the songs that you wrote that were massive successes for other people. And I mean that car you drove in, and I want to relate it all to this. I want I just without telling me too much, the year model of your car. Okay, kind of like Coop Deville. Now that being said, here is from twenty nineteen, Big Big Plans that you wrote with Chris lane Um and Jacob Robert Durrett. Here you go. You don't know what I got some big big games. You're one of the writers of F g L. I Love My Country, My Country, I Love six Strings. So that's two number one so far. One of the writers on Sam Haunt's breaking up was easy in the nineties, sitting I was somewhere I can be wrong. Try to let you go. One, Morgan Wallen more than my hometown and two just went number one. Congratulations Kane Brown won Mississippi or Mississippy Mississippi. Now that being said, and now I want to relate it back to the car. That car, it does look cool, but it can't be comfortable. They didn't create comfortability back then. What do you look at me like that? Because it is so comfortable, there's no one it's like, I mean breaking down. I have an old Bronco that's a seventy one, and it's awesome because it's cool. Yeah, but it feels like you're sitting in your grandmother's living room couch in that car. Like it is comfortable. I go in there and sit and just with my headphones on and listen to demo to drive that it's awesome. But that's part of the comfortability. Okay, That's all I wanted you to say. Like it's part of the look, it's part of the MG drove in and I was like, I know, Arnists got some money. It must be just the day he's driving the old car. And I respect that you have a more comfortable car, though, do you have a f one fifty see see now it's all happening. Yeah, I like that. The one Mississippi though, like that in the last two weeks, I believe what number one? Right? Can um? How how have you found how have you created your UM camp? Uh? Pretty organically? I mean I started getting U integrated into the Big Loud group like five years ago, you know, so like when Floor Georgia Line really took me under their wings early on and through them a lot of natural relationships happened, and then you know, they signed Morgan and Hardy started coming around in that circle. The Tree Vibes Bus was actually a huge part of the networking the circle. Now that I have that guys, I write with Mark Coleman, Hardy, Jacob Durrett Morgan and we've kind of just it works. So I just spent the first three years doing the speed dating writing thing, which everybody has to do, popping in room to different people all the time over four days a week. Somebody brand news so like Rodney classon another one. Just being at Big Loud, starting with Craig, You're us around a lot of talented people and I've been lucky to be able to like have such a unique perspective as watching artists and writers and business all that sit back and kind of watch and grow up in it, um because now I'm about to be thrown into the fire and I'll have a little bit of knowledge of Yeah, it's a different fire completely. Yeah, it's a uh, you're gonna make way less money and you're gonna have to spend more hours in a lot of different places, especially early. However, then there's just a big flip and once you had a certain level, it's like all the way it is finally on side boom and it flips over. And so then it's any creative job mine included. I was broke for years, decades, and then all of a sudden, once you start to get success in a creative field, if one a so you grind, you hustle, you scratch, and then if you are allowed to not have to do that anymore, you don't have to do that. We're in songwriting, I feel like it grows a little slower and you can just take a climb, a steady climb to success. Artist world, it's a whole whole whole different beast, totally different, and you know, balancing the wife and kid thing because over quarantine. Obviously everybody was taking a break, but there was a beautiful simplicity to just being a songwriter. And like, I know Delanney loved having me home and it would be easier, but there's just there's something in me that once has always wanted to entertain and be an artist, and it's like, I gotta go do that. The entertaining things, the big part of it. Yeah, I gotta do it because you're you're an artist writing, absolutely an art. You're as much of an artist writing as you are performing. It is a different muscle that needs to be flexed, and it's if you find fulfillment from that other muscle being flex right, right, the energy you get from a group of people, Like I don't necessarily love to be in shoulder to shoulder crowds get pretty claustrophobic, but I definitely love playing to a crowd. Always have found a crowd to do something in front of where'd you grow up right here, like five minutes down the road, and that is you're the unicorn. Yeah, you're the unicorn of somebody who grows up here, stays here, does what the area is known for, and then it's really good at it. It's kind of crazy. It's crazy. Yeah, there's a lot of those things along the way, one of those four or five steps, it doesn't hit exactly right, and you just just find a new path. Maybe you leave because or you're burnt out on music because you grew up in it the whole time. Yeah, yeah, I think that maybe I'm just a little delusional, but I just I wasn't and I'm still not gonna accept like failing at it, you know. Uh, And I genuinely love making music. So to me, it was like that was always told my friends in high school. I was like, I'm either gonna be famous or homeless, but I'm gonna have a guitar in my hand, like and sticking with it at times is definitely the hardest, the hardest thing to do. But it's the little breakthroughs, like you say, you never you never know how close you are to like get in the treasure when you're digging through the wall and don't quit because the diamonds could be freaking right there, right there, and that knowing that just makes it impossible for me to stop. You know. You growing up and learning like a banjo early on, Where did you? Where did you see a banjo close to you. I would watched them on Hea Hall, I would see them in a lot of the old But where did you see one close enough to go, Wow, this is actually a thing people can do. I'm pretty sure it was the Opry, Like yeah, second or third grade went to the Opery. Love bluegrass, so immediately got the flattened scrugs whatever c D. My mom knew I was loving. My parents are not musically inclined. I'm adopted, so I was seeking it out and uh, they got me a banjo for Christmas lessons with Rob Jackson strings like the five strings scrug style, and um yeah, it probably did like two months of lessons. And then he realized that I was just watching him and playing with the ear and not tabs, so I got fired by him. And then uh, yeah, I picked up a guitar. I just tried to teach myself stuff I was. I was always drawn to it. I'm pretty sure the opera is where I first saw banjo though, and I guess being here, you're gonna see them in the line. I grew up in Arkansas, we did and see the angeo. Nobody played music where I lived, but I knew the banjo, but it seemed like a fairy tale from watching the opera of my Ground War, watching he Haul old episodes of he Hall on like Nashville Network or you know whatever it was. Um, so do you know if your biological parents had any do you know? Do you know about them at all? Um? I would just imagine that they were music something, right, Yeah, because I don't. I don't know my dad at all, and I'm I don't know my family history. My mom died and chimmy just the whole thing. But I never know my medical history. Like when I go to the doctor and they're like, hey, what are you what's your medical history? I have? I never know the same, Yeah, exactly. And so I but there's got to be something that one of them, or two of them, both of them did. Yeah. Yeah, because I mean I've just when I was two or three, there's pictures of me banging pots and putting my own little pot drum set together. Um. Yeah, it was felt called to do it. I always knew in school that I wasn't going to do anything I was learning in school. But what's cool about you two? As you embrace what I think artists that are in any genre have and that is influences in all directions. And I feel like, and I'm a bit older than you, but I feel like I was lucky enough to be in the first era of downloadable music where you could napster happened and I could take music from anywhere and everywhere, because in the past you have to drive the store and there's a limited selection based on the region you were in. And def right, genres were um a bit more prevalent in different parts of the country. So growing up in Arkansas ten years before I did, people would have only had access to, you know, some pop something right, but a lot of country. And I am heavily influenced by country. But that being said, I was such a nineties alternative guy. I was such a hip hop guy. I was such a country guy. So when I came here to do this, there was so much pushback on me because I embraced all that, even on my show even played it, and so they were like, well, no, your country, and I'm like, no, no, you don't understand. If you were born like are you're a teenager in the early two thousand's late night you, this is you. It doesn't matter what format you say. You are. You still have all these influences that being said about you. Here is a clip of your debut rap song, Dope Mane Man, What the Dope just got? Yeah, I just got paid the one dude I just knew would have a few different flavors on the table if I wanted to choose. And I haven't heard Rollo when I'm before bub I just do what I do, nothing new, trying to cool. All these people want to piece it, so I would too. You can do both. You can do both. Yeah, I tried. I tried. There's nothing that in you doing that doesn't make you less country, right. I do agree with that. I do agree with that, and that us always. And that's the hill that I will probably die on because I've been standing on it screaming forever that it's okay you can love and be country, but also you can have a love for something else too, Because again, early two thousand's, late nineties, when music started to be able to be consumed from Indy and everywhere, we started to be influenced by everything. Yes, yeah, it becomes our d NA like uh, the same Christmas, I got a banjo, I got the Space Jam soundtrack and the rest is history. Like I mean, if you go through the Space Dam soundtrack, you get introduced to Salt and Pepper, jay z R. Kelly Oops, um who else you get? You get um, It's like early jay Z and then Bugs Bunny but jay Z wrote Bugs Bunnies verse. It's like even Bugs got bars on Space Dam soundtrack. I made a note here on my phone, the Old Town Road? What is the what? What? What did you do on that song? So? Uh? I hoped wright Mason Ramsey's verse, and when the Young Thug and Mason Ramsey Park came out, that's right. All I wrote was Earnest Old Town Road, and I was like, I know there's some okay here is Ernest uh writing for Mason Ramsey, who was known as the yodel Kid. Just well know here you go out up on accounts when the trade may be okay, you ain't Gonald. Did you go in with him to kind of walk him through the cadence of that? Yes, But this is how it happened. Jake Owen and I uh did a verse for fun before this opportunity came uh, And then I got a call. This is like two weeks before this, and I got a call from Mason's manager. He goes, Hey, we're gonna put out an Old Town Road remix with Thug tomorrow. Can you come to the studio night? So I go to big Louts, like nine o'clock night tonight. I just finished dinner with Delaney and I get this phone call and I was like, hey, babe, I gotta go to the studio. You're not gonna believe this. So so I go in there. It's Mason and me and I. I wrote a whole new verse for Mason and then we FaceTime Little nas X and he was like, uh, what about that? Yeah, I wanted to sound more like that verse y'all there with Jake Owen, so we pulled more from that. The hop up in the rais or got a thousand acres that was me in Jake's version, and then kept the you know, getty up, you ain't got no giddy out and giddy out my way. It might be my favorite line ever. Whenever you do a remix for a song like that, and I know they're just the goal of putting out a new version is to keep streams up because it all ac counts for the same song. So if you put a new version of it and it still keeps rolling. You as a creator, do you make much off of that version like that? I wouldn't because I wouldn't zero. I made zero. How if you rite that one's a that one's like a whole probably all fair conversation trying to figure out. But there were so many people involved in that track, bro before I even before it even came to my plate, Like you owe them money now somehow somehow, but um, but yeah, I just went with my name on the credit because I just felt like, you know, there's times to pick your battles, well, pick your battles. A song on Walker's new album, Walker Hayes Dolorean Yeah, and this one, you know it was get a little heat socially. Yeah. Yeah, here we go. Let's be in the back seat, you accord again. Good look, And I'm not gonna spend the whole time doing music. I just want early on to give it folks an idea. Were you named after Ernest Hemingway, No, my dad is Ernie Ernie Smith, So they went ahead and slapped me with the Ernest Ernest Keith Smith is my full name, Okay, And let's just start from the very beginning you grew up in Nashville. Um, you were adopted. When did you learn? Uh? I don't remember being told I was adopted, So I think it was always just it was always known. Uh. I know when I was seven, Uh, we adopted my little brother, and my parents like I had a gift. I opened it said you're a big brother. Now, yeah, we're going to St. Louis to pick up my brother. It wasn't I've always known I was adopted. What what part of town do? You grew up in? Forest Hills like Ton and Granny White? So in Nashville, Nashville, Nashville, Nashville. I I bought the house that my dad grew up in. I live in my grandparents house now my parents moved back in across the street. So it's like opposite of how I grew up is how my son's growing up in school? For you, were you a kid that enjoyed the learning school part of it? Not at all. No, I I enjoyed like the social aspect of it. In between periods was when I thrived before school and after school. Um, but baseball was like it was baseball and that was it. So let's just say you're tent in tenth grade, Like, what did what did Ernest or earn? What Keith? At that time? You were Keith? Okay, what did Keith think he was going to do with the rest of his life when he was in tenth grade? Music? But I didn't know what any of this looked like? Like baseball, Well, yeah, that's I knew. I wanted to go play college baseball. Pro would have been awesome, but I definitely in my mind get done with high school, play college baseball. Uh my, my short sided, not reach for the stars, dream was to take my dad's coaching position at Lipscomb High School. He coached there for like forty six years. So I was I was like the non dreamer in me, would I'm gonna do that? The dreamer and me was just like, oh, I always had a guitar everywhere I went. Well, were you known more for in high school as the athlete or the music kid or the athlete that played music? Because that's the thing. Probably athlete played music. Like if you if you ask anybody that played summer baseball with they would remember that I was freestyle rapping in the dugout in the outfield, like I was always rapping, so as much as as much as baseball, awesome music, making up songs, clowning on my teammates and stuff. When you major opery debut, I think I saw on your Instagram and that's pretty recent. Huh yeah, January eight or something like this year, right, Yeah, when you made your opery debut. Now, as someone who grows up, is it it's always gonna be awesome? But is it like less of an outer body of experience because you've always been here being close to it. There's even more because you only ever see people come into town that are great and make it. It's like aliens arriving get to do it, not people that grow up here. Yeah, I think it was like more out of body for me because there's like a surreal moment I had getting to stand in the circle when I was about that third or fourth grade age, right when I was getting into it, like in between sets, set changes. One of one of the girls that played for my dad in high school. Her dad was a still guitar player in the opera band, so he took me to the opery one night and I stood in the circle. I was like, I want to do I want to do this when I grow up. So getting just The next time I stepped in the circle was when I was playing the Opery, and I still probably haven't processed it all the way, like watching videos afterwards, but like in the moment I look I think back on it, it it feels like one of those dream memories. Is like it was a blur. A lot going on backstage, but the gravity of like everybody that's been on the circle and what it means. I try not to lose sight of that at all, Um, because I I think being a country music artist is, like, especially now, it was an awesome responsibility to be able to carry the meaning of country music. Like to me, it's not about being redneck or whatever. It's songwriting and storytelling is what I think is the coolest part of country music, and that's what I'm trying to do. And some of the best people to ever do it stood right there in that circle. And these are all the thoughts I'm thinking before I go out on stage. I saw, Um when you did Dropprey debut, and so I saw you were doing it first because I I produced the TV show, I helped produce it, and I host it, but I wasn't there that night. I think I was maybe shooting the show on coach. I don't know what I was doing, but I was not able to be there that night. Um, and you came out and you did flower Shops and Morgan came out with you, right, that brought him out, Okay, And then I saw it became a bit controversial. Yeah, you know, I've talked about this if you don't want to what free What did you feel from that? Um? I mean in the moment in the night, it was it was awesome. I mean, people in the crowd loved it all. My family was there, Um, it was all special backstage and had a cake for me like it was. It's always a very wholesome yea. You feel very welcomed. Yeah, you feel like people are rooting for you. I'm proud of you. Yeah, totally. So, I mean the best vibes that whole night was was awesome. So I I probably didn't think too much about backlash of having Morgan out with me. But at the same time, that's like my brother so and we have the song together, and I wasn't gonna not do flower Shops with Morgan at the opera. I just felt like, was that ever a thought in your mind? Like I don't know if some folks will get upset or not or do or maybe it wasn't Like I don't care. I really didn't. I really didn't think about it. I really didn't think that it would be um. But I get I get why people were upset. But that's okay. Morgan. Morgan need that moment too, Like we got to go do our song together at the Opry. I think that's awesome. It got some of the specialness got taken away from it, I think because of that, and that's okay. Maybe that's my fault. But whenever I came into your podcast, you were you had lured me over to a part of the world where you were like, let's talk about radio and how thin. And I just remember, even before I went into it, I was like, you know what, when I talk about this, I always get in trouble. There's gonna be a couple of headlines that come from this. I'm gonna say how I feel, but I know I'm getting my bosses are gonna call me because it's gonna eventually, And I just knew that I was gonna step in it. But it's a step in that I was okay with because it's just annoying to deal with this sometimes. And then that was what I just did to you a little bit, and then we move on. But that was my one. But it's all good. Now we're even. It's all good, and it's both of how we felt about certain things. And they'll probably a blogger too that makes a comment out of that, and I'll just protection be like, yeah, how does that feeling? That's happened to me too? Excesses were screaming down my neck. Stop talking about because I think right after why was that? Let me remember back to the podcast and I came over to your place. Something had happened and I'd gotten in a lot of trouble for doing something and you brought it up and you're and you had your guy over there to come in and ask the question to take the heat off of you, which I recognize and go, nice move. Yeah, But I wish I might dmember what that when I was on this podcast. I don't remember exactly. Was it number one, That's what it was. It was one we didn't let me tell you that happened on TikTok. I got into so much crap and I was like, you know what, I only talked about on TikTok. I didn't even think about it, and I went over to your podcast and it was like, hey, let me ask you about that Troubley. I'm like, oh my god, all right, well, if we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it. I'm sorry, No, don't be sorry. Okay, I'm not. When somebody does an hour long anything, I feel like you get like two chances to make the person slightly uncomfortable and they get anymore and that you stop and you go, oh, we're good, We're good. But that's it. You got me, and I was honest about how I felt, and then I got you, and you're honest about you, and then we'll move on and get something some other stuff. Um, I like this game. Was talking to Cain about one Mississippi This Is I think it was way before it was a number one song, maybe when it was announced as a single, and he had mentioned that he met somebody on Instagram and invited him him to write or someone that he had never met before. It was Kane Levan Gray and Jesse Fraser. Okay, so you get into the room with this guy. What's the sitch? I mean, pretty pretty Unorthodox's day again, Me, Jesse and Kane are hanging waiting on this dude to show up and his first time Kine ever met him in person too, So like talk about the small talk at the beginning of a session. Usually it's up thirty or forty minutes. We kind of had the quickest catchup of all time. Yo, what's up? Boom boom boom. Levan sits down. Was he nervous like visibly not visibly? I mean, do was just ready to hang good hang and uh had the idea? Had the title won Mississippi? Jesse I think started a track and like I kind of just started freestyling with with that title, and Caine was like, yeah, Von would throw some stuff out in it. It was really nice. I mean, everybody was involved and Lavon was awesome. Dude, that doesn't happen, you know, like like what mean like it does because every freaking song you're talking about, like you know what, we sat down twenty minutes later, I bought I bought a seventy four Continental. That happens. But I'm just I'm talking about like a dude's first day in Nashville. He had like his homies and his fiance hanging out in a van in the parking lot while he wrote. It's his first ever legit song right with an artist. It gets cut and it goes to radio and it's number one. That never happens. That's crazy. Um, Now you hope he doesn't think that's normal. No, And I mean, dude, I'm pretty sure we told him that days like this is not normal. Like me and Jesse looked at each other, like after seven years of grinding, grinding, getting a cut and Lavon comes in here. But dude, talk about now you now you have a job. Now you gotta go into every room and show up. And he's doing it. So what was your first cut? My first cut was I can't remember the name of the song, but Mils me and Mitchell Timpenny we wrote it and Radio Romance cut it. I was like probably two thousand fourteen. But then my first cut on like a big album was Dig Your Roots Florida, Georgia line. Um, what you gotta help me here? Radio Romance. Radio Romance was a band. There are a band signed to Sony a TV. At least that they were. I think they're still signed somewhere. Um, but yeah, I cannot remember the name of that song Radio Romance. They're like, you wrote a song, it was your first ever cut, and that's how you know somebody has too many hit songs or maybe a mixture of both. Maybe a mixture of both. Do you watch your song flower shops move up the chart? You check in? UM? People tell me I try not to. My father in law, Delanney's dad. Um. He he wrote Grendy County Auction back in the nineties, him and Rich Fagin, and he was in the band Bread back in the day. So he's an older dude, super chill, and he loves going and reading YouTube comments and like keeping up with the charts and reading. So he'll he'll text me and keep me up today. But I don't like watching and looking at all that. How did you meet your wife? I met my wife through her brother, through a mutual friend. UM. I came back home after dropping out of college my freshman year and texted this dude that I I went to high school with I hadn't seen and probably two or three years UM, asking him if he had any fruits I could have, And he had fruits at my friends studio. So I went over there and my friends studio was Matt Royer. Um got sidetracked in my head. Okay, So I meet meet Matt this night through a mutual friend. Matt is like a sixteen year old kid with his feet up on the desk working on pro tools, and I'm like, yo, let me pick up a guitar. So I go in there in like freestyle rap with guitar. We kick it. We're hanging out for a while. He's like, you gotta meet my dad. So I go back to Matt's house meet Rob Royer, Me and him bro down. Somewhere in the mix, Delaney is in and out of the house with her boyfriend, and I was like, she had a boyfriend the first time you met her. Yeah, yeah, yeah for a while. And I told him I was going to marry her one day, told her brother I was gonna marry one day. And I kind of told everybody within the first week of knowing Delaney, I was gonna marry her one day. That boyfriend that she had, by the way, was Jake going, Yeah, we were getting there, we were getting there. I spoiled it. It wasn't it so you but you met her with a boyfriend. How quickly did you guys start to see each other. Um it kind of. I was pretty respectful with the timing because I let it play out. Um. I was sleeping on the couch in the studio of the basement. They had a house over here all time, and so me and Matt would stay up all night making music and she was off to her. It was like right at the tail end of her senior year of high school. Um, I sat with her boyfriend and her dad at her graduation. So you sat with her? I mean, let me let me picture that you sat with her boyfriend and her dad. Yeah, because we were all at the house, like we just it was like the animal house. We were just all. So we're all going to Delaney's graduation. Um, she graduated, they broke up. We all went to St. Thomas because her dad wanted to go look for houses in the islands. So we went to St. Thomas. Stayed in this house for six weeks. That would be where we probably made it official that we were actually out there for six weeks. Yeah, no job at all. Stayed out there for six weeks and then he found money. Have you could do that for six weeks? How do you have money? We'll check This is where this is where it gets cool because when I dropped out of college, my parents said, you got a year to figure something out pretty quick. After that, we're in the island for six weeks. Rob finds a house. We moved into that house, but he gets us an apartment, like a one bedroom apartment for me and Delaney's brother to share. We stay there for six months and I get gigs four nights a week. I'm playing, like bar gigs, You're playing in the Islands four nights a week. Yeah, for for eight months, I was just playing. Yes, I'm dude. The Islands is our home away from home. Like, we still go to that house. That's you stayed there for eight months playing gigs in the island, playing gigs, chilling. I would. I would fly from the island to American University, where Delaney went to college, for one semester. We'd have our little conjugal visits, and then I'd go back to the island. Yeah, I'd play for enough money to get a taxi back, and like we'd split a large pizza and a cow zone for a couple of days, and you know, free food at the bar and probably one of the greatest times of your life easily. That's where I say I found. I found myself in the Islands, like breaking the whole Keith Smith thing that I had thought I was trying to be all through high school. This baseball thing, this whole persona I'd built up all kind of got washed away and I got to find my core self with how much time I just spent by myself in the Islands. I've never spent time by myself ever really, especially without baseball. And you know, all of a sudden, I went from like all these expectations I thought people wanted me to be because of small Christian school, whatever, drama, gossip, Dad prominent and you know, yeah, yeah, so the there was there was no pressure coming from my parents. It was more like, what is everybody gonna think of me? They already think I'm here just being some stoner in in the Islands and throwing my life away. But it's like those were the days that solidified what I'm doing now because I'm playing the fourteen people watching the Broncos game on a TV above my head, and I got two more hours of this and and I loved it, Like it was like this is what I want to do, And now it's like there's no bad room. Anytime I means I'm playing a show, it's like nobody cares like I've played way worse than this in the Islands, regardless of what it is you've played. I want to play another track from the album this out today. Let's play Tennessee Queen. Here we Go. This is track two on the record. Good God good. No more traditional sounding of a song. That's why I pulled it here than Tennessee Queen. And I play that into in juxtaposition with some of this other stuff like dope man yea to show sorry for moving? Yeah, stop or go home? Okay, I'm gonna sit on my hands, uh, you know, to to show you know how versatile you are at a very high level. And I think that song shows that. So tell me about the song and why you decided to put sonically that there. Tennessee Queen song I wrote with Jordan Schmidt and the brothers Hunt Yeah, Dan Isbell and I think when we started writing it, maybe it was like party was in mind a little bit, and the further I got down the line, I started falling, Like before the song was finished, I'd fallen in love with it. Um because me and Delanney always talked about our our house was built in our kitchen looks strangely like grace Land, so we joke about our house piano on Little Graceland. It just became really personal to me. I mean, we're both Nashville kids, born and raised in Tennessee. Um and sonically, Flower Shops is the centerpiece to the album content was and and musically, and I just felt like I felt like Tennessee Queen was a perfect song to have up at the top half of the album, setting the tone. Yeah, I loved it. Here's Comfortable when I'm Crazy. You and Rodney Lassen wrote this one. I'm only comfortable and I'm crazy. I'm just kindling. I know, girl, my vibe. I like the slow stuff just in general, like slow stuff all the time. And you know those two songs, you know, screamed at me for my personal taste. But you know you are for as big of a personality as you are, Like you're very tender, I am pretty. Since it's pretty pretty, do you find that it's difficult to get into a room with other writers? Big strong, I mean Rodney Clawson, the strong, successful, manly man of a man. Yes, he is. Do you find it's tough to get vulnerable when it's too like you know, dudes, um no, and with a guy like Rodney. I started writing that song by myself, um and I pulled Rodney in because I knew that he would be the perfect guy to finish the song with. The way that song started, though, was we were sitting at Troubadour and talking with one of my buddies, JJ, and we're talking about alcoholism, which, by the way, I'm like day nine without alcohol today is And I asked, this, is that that you're gonna do it forever or you're just doing it to straighten out a little bit. I have no end goal. I'm not like trying to get to a certain spot right now. I'm happy not drinking, okay. Um. But when we were talking about it, and at the time I was drinking and I was describing what it's like two to have that, I'd say, Eamon, but you know, you do fight it, and it's like you're only comfortable when you're crazy, Like being calm is the hardest thing to do with being with your thoughts is the hardest thing to do for any for any addict. I feel like, you know that's the struggle is being alone with your thoughts, and so I said the phrase comfortable when I'm crazy, and I started a voice note sing it, go back, pick up my guitar and kind of get this first verse chorus mapped out, texted it to Rodney, was like, yoh, can we please finish this? And I think like the next Tuesday we got in the room and uh, I was right. Rodney was the perfect guy because he added his clausen is ms on it. And it's when that I think that in Feet want to Run in my two favorite songs on the album. Let's play that one then too. Okay, all right, here we go. This is number four feet want to Run Good my feet. Uh, your son has an interesting name, Ryman st. Smith. No idea why you name it that, but we'll move on. Um, he's about to be one in April, right, Yeah, tell me because you know, I just got married six months ago for the first time ever, maybe seven months now, and you know, she's thirty and now we're trying to figure out when we're gonna have our first kid. And I've just dedicated most of my life, well all my my my life to my career and so but now it's time to also do this at some point in the next couple of years. How hard is it to have a baby, asked Delaney. The to have the baby ridiculous to to keep the baby alive? Dude, having a baby puts everything else in the right perspective. I hear that, But did you were you like me? And did you go okay? I've a hundred people say that, yeah I am. Because the one thing I would tell everybody, like the wee or two after the baby is like all the cliches you've heard are exactly right, Like all those cliches, the way you feel and all that. Um. What they don't talk enough about, though, is the legitimate sleep deprivation, like clinically sleep depressed, depressed deprived um and depressed, but deprived like two weeks in once. Once you're up like every hour, you know, throughout the night, it gets it's hard. But then just when it gets like I can't take it anymore, the kid like smiles for the first time. Well, now I'm I can do this forever. There's just like there's nothing like your your kid. And for me being adopted, not ever really getting to see my DNA in the eyes, that that's like another level of like, oh my god, your part me and her the person I love the most. I got to create a version of myself with like all the all the qualities I dislike about myself and all the qualities I love about her. Like you're gonna get to be the perfect combination. Now, just I'm gonna try to suck it up. But but the it's just a feeling of love that you can't you know, I can't even describe it. You'll know. Now, put yourself a year and a half ago, though, and if someone were saying the exact same thing to you, would you go, yeah, I believe you, or would you go That probably happens everybody else, but I don't think it would happened to me. I think it would. I think I would have believed it. But it's just like you can't fathom the way it feels until you actually feel. It's like you can see pictures of the Grand Canyon. That's true, the same type thing. Having a kid is like going to the Grand Canyon. I went to the Grand Canyon and almost died. So oh yeah, that's that's right. That's yeah. It's the scariest time in my life. That's right. I hated it. So I don't like the analogy. Yeah, no, no, no, but the vast, vastness is indescribable. Yeah, I love it, man, And it is hard. It is hard, and it's definitely hard on Delaney and having to balance being a dad and a husband and traveling and all that. I mean, that's where I start to worry. Yeah, it's tough because I'm on the road a lot. Ye. You just gotta prioritize it and make it. You gotta make it like number one, and then everything else comes number two. That's the new thing for me. It's like, I'm so self centered. Naturally me too. I was about myself in my whole life. Just I was just doing me and that was hard enough. And I spent thirty years of my life doggy paddling as fast as I could just keep my head above water and doing that. There's a sense of well, I'll just say, it's a different kind of selfishness. Not that I want to keep everything, but I just had to worry about me all the time. And so I worry that I'll have a kid and then I'm still gonna be so selfish and you'll snap into it. I mean the because Delaney Delaney too. She's an artist and very independent, and that's how we've gotten along, get along. We're we're both very much doing our own thing. I worry too a little bit. And it's interesting you're a new dad and you have a we have a similar background that you're kind of ish. I don't like my dad bailed when I was five years old, and I don't know him, Like, how do I know that's not in me? Uh, do you feel like you would walk out? No? But I don't think he And to be fair, I think he was seventeen. My mom had she got pregnancy, is fifteen. I think that, Um, he probably didn't think that either. Yeah, no, but I mean seventeen two. I also think that. I mean, I could be speculating, but you probably have developed quite an opposite complex due to that, like very opposite. Like I've never had a drink of alcohol, the alcoholism. And I think you're gonna be an awesome dad. I think you're gonna love it. This kid kid's gonna have a yard. You know, his kid's gonna be all right. Why did Ernest k take everything off streaming services so that this could put everything on you know, like there's gonna be a time and place and I can't wait to like drop a secret SoundCloud link with all the stuff. I just wanted it to be as clear as day. This is what I'm doing, this is what I'm here for, and not to snub my other influences. I just wanted it for people that are going to just digest me for the first time. I wanted I want this guy to be the guy that's shaking their hands, and then once we get acquainted, I'll show you my shoe collection, you know, and it'll and maybe when I'm doing an hour and twenty set, there will be a moment for me, you know, kick a beat and I'll freestyle or something. There will be a time for that. But right now it's country music. This format is tough with older listeners or people who grew up around older country music listeners in that they will they want you to only be one thing, and even though they like many things, when they come to you for country, they think you should only be kind tree, which isn't fair. I am a consumer as well, and I think I do this in other ways too, So I try I try to adjust my habits based on what I see um, and so it is especially in our format. I think it's the hardest to do multiple things or multiple types of things in music, and so I agree and understand why you did what you did. But then I look at somebody and it's not the same because countries is the hardest. But like a machine gun Kelly, who some people only know one for his alternative stuff, my is responsible for him going that route too. Why I think that the rap the little quick little one to rap battle in a weird way, Dude, I feel like him and him might have ended MGKS wrap career. How you wrap back at that so you don't ignore it and hope people don't break it up. Do something else? Now, just try something else. What's happening on the the album was released then? What it was? Because it's so I was talking with a friend of mine is putting out an album it's today as well, and so I'm very close to and he said, Uh, it's weird now because record day used to be big party is out. You say how much it's sold, or you watched iTunes and you know immediately, But now you go here it is and you have to sit back and yeah, well you check in some streams in a week and then months in three months. Yeah, it's just not it's like Boom album, Let's go as it used to be. Totally. Yeah. I mean I think I've warned my album out over the last like as soon as I got all the masters back, that's all I listened to for two or three weeks, and I've kind of let it go and I'm ready for it to be consumed. And I'm gonna step back for a minute and let let what happens happen in flower shops is doing awesome. I love the song. I'm confident with every song on the album. It's my favorite body of work I've made, and um and yeah, man, I just let the people have it and chill and see what happens. My goal is for one day for an artist to wherever I talk to them, it's here, the radio show or whatever platform I'm doing. It's just been a goal, and I don't I never tell an artist this, and in my desired heart an artist to come in and go, you know what, it isn't my favorite ever done. It's fine. I mean, it's still better than other people's, but it's not even my favorite. It's not and I'll be honest, not even my most personal you know, I just wanted that happens too, because it should be. It should be the favorite thing you've ever done. Right, you would agree you should be growing every time, or then don't put it out. That's how I feel, unless you just are chasing a check if you have some bills to pay, Like I get that too, but I would like for somebody, you know what, It's fine. I mean, it's not my best, but it's but I think people like it. Yeah, it's my It's definitely my favorite, and I think it's like it's the most not the local locals only was an honest, honest record too. But my life has just changed a lot since I was chilling on an island and writing songs about being on an island. Like the story of this album from song one two some other bar is the story of a good love almost gone for good and like you can it's the love song the Sucker for small Town Tennessee queen classic. And then you start to feel that crack that he's battling with the feet one around comfortable when I'm crazy, And then he messed it all up flower shops and then did it with you. So you're telling me this album is song by song a story. I picked it. Yeah, I put it together to listen to top to the bottom line. So it is not a record of just good songs you put together. It's a record of songs that you have created the tell a story in chronological order. Yes, yeah, And and it wouldn't. It wouldn't intentionally when I'm writing each song, I wasn't thinking about that. Once I put him in a pile and started living with the songs, and the list kind of started putting itself together as to well, yeah, and ending it with some other bar kind of leaves it's a wink to leave the door open too. You could actually play the album backwards and get the same kind of effect. Get her back by the end. It's like those TikTok's where they jump in the pool but it's backward and they come flying out there and there in Batman Wolverine, and it's like just like that on your podcast being Earnest, What's Well, that's a different animal too. And you know, everything you do has a different skill set even though they are similar. And I understand that because I'll do stand up and I'll do radio I'll do this or TV and they have a microphone, but like, oh, I must be the same. It's not really the same. There's just a microphone. There's a communication, but everything is different and so but you're communicating a different way songwriting performing. What has been different about doing a long form podcast? The hardest part would be new guests, Like I can talk for an hour, but the I feel like I was really top heavy on my guests, like I've I need somebody to help bring me guests, and I guess as it grows, but um making time to do the podcast. Also, it's like like I'm saying now that I got a kid. When I come home from the road, I got like two days in town. I need to spend family time. So that's why we were talking before you got in here, figuring out when I'm gonna get it back up, because I need to probably take it on the road, and then when i'm that'll help me get guests. I'll be in their city and then I'm not wasting at home time to go talking a microphone when I could be you know, you'll be in their city. What do you mean on tour? No, I get that, but what guests are in Tupelo. I don't know, maybe maybe nobody, maybe maybe maybe that's a solo podcast, but you know, I'm sure New York in l A. We hit it once a year somebody. And you can do three. Yeah, while you're up there, Yeah, do three or four. And then you have dude selling meet and greets and doing like a live podcast before the show would be another thing would be awesome, dude, Q and A's do you find it was easier or harder than you imagined? Oh? Harder. I mean it's definitely harder than I imagine. I thought an hour is a long time to talk to like five minutes. When the first couple episodes I recorded just by myself on ableton like board in quarantine and looking out a window talking into a microphone, I thought it had been like thirty minutes and I looked down for like seven minutes. This is gonna be a long hour. I'm gonna have to have to edit that long pause and start talking. Yeah. But um, I've had a good time doing it. I mean I've gotten to have, like you have conversations I wouldn't normally have, and get to hang out with people that you know, people are busy especially people I'm trying to have in my podcast. So it's always awesome to get somebody to kill an hour with me. And I've actually made friends because it's a pretty intimate thing to sit with someone for an hour. And I mean it's rare that you and I even break eye contact over doing this because we're rat tat tat, we got you gotta go, I gotta go, we gotta and so we're filed in here and and it is a professional thing. But by the end of it, you're like, I just made more eye contact with you than almost any human ever for an hour straight, especially today. Yeah, except for my wife. I don't do this for very long, right, um, but I've made people that I've met doing this. I'm now close friends with I would say close friends with that I wouldn't run into. We spend an hour, get to know each other, and then it's like, hey man, you never around him with a text. Next thing, you know, you kind of also learned someone. Hopefully by listening to this, someone sensibilities and they become a fan hopefully if you think, I mean, this is a great platform for long term, um, for like fans to figure out who the people are not just the music they're hearing. Yeah. That that is a great thing too, because it lines up with social media will which you know, artists you have to have the social media account to do part of it. This is a fun way for me to like not have to try too hard on Instagram and stuff to show my personality. Um, podcasting is just like, all right, this is what this is what it would sound like if I was hanging out with this person and go like Aldine the Aldine Podcast spilled beer all over myself. I don't know if you saw an episode I was. I had a beer chugging device I was sponsored by, and uh I put it on the beer can and I was like, all right, this is uh blah, this is how this works. Popped it and dud. The entire beer fell all over me and we died laughing. And that was probably the greatest bonding moment of the whole podcast. I destroyed myself a beer. We've about two minutes left here. Um, a couple of questions. Okay, I'm gonna do all your promo again. I read question for Earnest Oh, let's go. Okay, Um, what is your favorite song you've ever written? And also has there ever been a song that you wrote that someone else cut that later you wished you would have taken for yourself. Good question. Favorite song I've ever written? It might be feet want to Run and which we played earlier. Yeah, and and favorite song or a song that I wish that maybe I hadn't given away? Um Mason Ramsey's Old Town Old Tower. Uh, tight rope the Zane ended up putting out I wrote with David Ryan Harris. It was like, Wow, that was fast. Were so prepared you think it? We had the AI that's crazy. Uh yeah, that that's when I kind of wish I kept for myself. But I don't know if it would have been the same or made a project. I just liked my voice on it. Yeah, big shoe guy, I like shoes. Yeah, my that was a metaphorical shoe collection I was referring to. I mean, like all my genres, but I do like shoes. But you wouldn't have made again, you wouldn't have used that metaphor just got some off whites oh nice? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I got the mules here yo? What or the hum Yo? These are crazy? They're basically these are the hardest shoes ever. I was like, Yo, you messed the heel up, but there is no heal, there is no Those are badass bobby bones. I love a slide in the summer, but this is my winter slides, tennis slides, and so I rocked though I got a couple of they look like tennis shoes. You weren't where we want jeans, pants, whatever. I also am a big shoe guy myself. I couldn't afford shoes growing up. Now it's like the things we couldn't have we want. Yeah, So it's like that's that's, you know, creat and it's also a way to um creatively have fashion, creative expression. We're a non wrinkled shirt dude. Throw a nice pair of shoes on with any outfit. It's a here's and I'll leave you with this. That's a good comment there. I was with my wife and she's really big into fashion. Um, she was a she did commodity sales for oil and gas and was an like engineer. But there's no reason for her being FasTIS she just loves it. But she's so into fashion and she like, we'll pick out stuff. I don't know what she's doing. She picks out stuff. She looks great, and she's got she wears this kind of pants and whatever. And so we're out, we're walking. We're in Las Vegas, and our flight are the something broke and so we had to stay back an extra day. And I'm in a T shirt that's like the next ripped a little bit, it's wrinkled. I've got a pair of razorback gym shorts on that are probably a little too short. I've got these shoes on. I mean, I look like a garbage can. And she looks perfect. And we go into a store and the guy comes up to us. It's like, oh my god, you're fashion. And I'm like I'm like, yeah, it is. And he's looking at me and he thought that the garbage I had put together was on purpose. And I took it and I was like thank you. And she was like, what is happening, dude? She goes, those are the clothes on the ground you wore yesterday. I was like, I know. Apparently I'm a fashion stop fashion, look it up. Yes, um, okay, here we go. Let's let's let's do it. Flower shops the album out today. You're gonna love it. I'm telling you're gonna love it. I enjoy it. I don't always not you I'm talking about your stuff, but I don't always so I don't say it. But most times I'm just like, hey, there's a project out there, and everybody check it out. I'm a big fan of what you do and in many places thank you. So I hope people check out flower Shops the album, Um, Flowershops, the song is just blowing up. You're gonna have no choice but to hear that. Um. So that's the first thing. The second one is I want people to check out your podcast. And there's so many their episodes you can go and like, you know, listen to a few weeks. You got plenty up there. Um. I enjoy doing your podcast and I don't really enjoy doing that stuff for the most part. Well, I'm glad you did. I mean, you just hit me on d M. It was lit in his d and it went into my and and I never checked my general and for some reason, I was like, let me look over my general see if and I saw yours and I was like, you said, hey, you want to do the podcast blue chet goes a long way? Yeah, And I reply back, I was like, yeah, sure, that's let's set it up. It was it was that easy. No, no, pr No, we just did it. It was it was awesome. I got in trouble after that interview. I just want to say that one more time. UM, so it might be even yeah fair? Um? And then is there anything else I don't want that I wanted to promote on you. I feel like there was. You can go to at Ernest by the way, his instagram. Are you shows, Yeah, I'm just official website, Yeah, Ernest official all the shows around there, finishing out the tour of Chris Lane. Uh, playing festivals and stuff this summer, doing some shows in the Dangerous Tour. I'll pull the all pretty part if you want. Is this all fair? Yeah? What do you think I would like? You didn't say anything at all. It was controversy. You didn't leave it. But I'm happy and if we don't pull it, I'll leave this into I'm happy to pull it if you're uncomfortable with it, because I never want anyone to come in and feel uncomfortable for any reason. Why. And I wouldn't even ask you that question if I thought it was going to go to a place that would get anyone in trouble. Yeah, I don't think. I mean, I said, well, how I honestly feel. I hope it doesn't get taken the wrong way. I don't, Mike, do you think it could? I was listen. I don't even think it could be interpreted the wrong way because I made notes. I don't think so. Yeah. I think the only thing is me saying I didn't think about it, you know, because I didn't think about the backlash that would come with it, which probably would get me in trouble in the first place for not thinking about it. Oh, if you're worried about you not thinking getting you in trouble, I think that's that that already happened. But if you feel like, hey, let's pull it, let me know. I'm happy to pull it. I personally, I know, because like me, when I left yours, I was uncomfortable and I was like, oh no, I'm gonna get kicked in the ball for that. But I thought, you know what I meant what I said, and if something comes of it, I'll do it again. I'll say it again. So if you do feel like I don't like that very much, just hit Mike up. We're happy to pull it because I never want you to come here and feel like, yeah, so because because yeah, you know, I didn't even feel corner until after it happened. Here. Yeah, it already happened, okay, So let me know. I'm happy, happy to take it out. I think I did really well. I think I did okay with it. There is nothing that you did that we'll get you in trouble, okay. Um. So the only thing that if I were you, i'd think twice about was you going it took some of the shine off of it, but you were being honest. That's honest, that's honesty. That's not you saying any in controversial. So think about it. If not, we're leaving all this up too, okay. Um, so big fan, thank you, thanks for having me on here. Keep doing the deal. I obviously have to go. But the last time that I saw you, I walked into a restaurant and you were like, hey, what's up. I was like, what up? Yeah? And then you're like Jake oh and sitting over there because I guess you and Jake know each other. Yeah, I was like, I know I'm going to eat with them? Yeah, And was that like the first time y'all had hung out or okay? Okay? And then I went and sat down with them. He goes, Ernest is over there, and I was like, I know, well, it's funny because I was I was gonna send you all a bottle, and then realized neither of y'all were drinking a wasted bottle. Are going to talk to an all right,