#420 - Heath Wright the Lead Singer of Ricochet on the Untold Story of the Band + His Connection to Bobby’s Wife’s Family + Heath’s Issue with Modern Country Music

00:00:06
Speaker 1: I'm not going to bad mouth today's country music, but I have a friend, a songwriter buddy of mine said, today's country music sounds like three beer commercials strung together because they just don't tell stories anymore. It's like you're hot, I'm hot, getting the truck.

00:00:17
Speaker 2: All right? Episode four hundred and twenty. Heath right from Ricochet. You know Rickochet from Daddy's Money. She's got a daddy's money. Her mama is good, looks more Left, said a stack of comic books. What do I know? Which went top three? I've gone breedomny Eyday, love is stronger than Pride.

00:00:39
Speaker 3: If I gotta get down money.

00:00:42
Speaker 2: Rick Achet that hits in more Than and Now came out on August eighteenth. They're from Oklahoma. Mike. My question is because my wife ended up coming down. She's only ever been done twice. She came down to watch this because she knows Heath, because she grew up with Heath, because Heat's older than her. But it's from the same town. Basically, did you set this up because you knew.

00:01:01
Speaker 4: That I didn't have any idea. I remembered after the fact that you had mentioned being at a party where he was and performed mm hmm, and then I was like, oh, yeah, that's why a funeral. Wasn't there another situation where the opry Okay, yeah, that's what it was.

00:01:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, but she said, did Mike she just knew that you knew? She was like, surely, he said, I said no, I don't think so. I think it's because they have a record out. Yeah, the record. We tried to do a lot of different artists. I just love doing the nineties country. Yeah, me too, So all right, Ricochet they want ACM Award back in the day. It's something I didn't know about them, and you'll hear it later. It's not a spoiler.

00:01:34
Speaker 3: Who cares.

00:01:35
Speaker 2: They started as a cover band. It's so rare that that happens, where there's a cover band that's so good. They had turned into like a band that's actually making original music. So there they are. Ricochet. For more information ricochet online dot com. I can't spell Ricochet though, so good luck google it. All right, thank you. Here is Heath right from Ricochet. Heath, good to see buddy, you too, Bobby, good to be here. My wife is also in the room. She didn't want to be a part of the interview or anything, but she was like, Hey, I want to go down and hang out. Has she only ever done this twice? Jake? Oh, and who's a friend of ours? And Ronnie Down who's a friend of ours? And you who she's known since she said she was five years old eight, well zero years old.

00:02:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've known your families long before you were born.

00:02:20
Speaker 2: I grew up with your uncle, your uncle Jeff. Yes, so how did how did how do you know her family?

00:02:25
Speaker 1: Well, they're from Vienna, Oklahoma. Her her mom and her uncle, Jeff grew up in Yana, Oklahoma, which is where I'm from.

00:02:31
Speaker 2: And oh, you're from Vienne.

00:02:33
Speaker 1: From yes, I will. I grew up on a cattle rast just north of Ja.

00:02:36
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:02:37
Speaker 1: I went went to all public school all through Vien you know. So that's her, her uncle, Jeff and I like marched in high school band together along with one of the original members of Ricochet, who I think you guys know, Greg Cook?

00:02:48
Speaker 2: We know Greg? Yeah, So he's the three of us.

00:02:50
Speaker 1: We were kind of, you know, we were band nerds back in the day.

00:02:53
Speaker 2: So you and Jeff were friends, and Jeff and Greg were friends.

00:02:58
Speaker 1: Technically, it's more like the other way around. Jeff and Greg were friends. They were in the same class. They graduated in eighty three, and I was the young kid that just kind of hung out with them. I've graduated a couple years later than them. After them, we.

00:03:08
Speaker 2: Were over Ateff's house and he had instruments everywhere in his house. He had like horns and he had like seven horns. Yeah.

00:03:13
Speaker 1: Well, he buys things off of you know, He'll go on Facebook marketplace and he'll just buy anything that's available and he'll donate it to the school. Because he lives he splits his time between Houston and Vyenne.

00:03:22
Speaker 2: Now.

00:03:23
Speaker 1: He's he retired to like at age forty three or something and decided to come back home and bought the oldest house in Vyanne, renovated it and then just started. He's on this Van school board now and he does things for our community to help bring some industry into vyan Like we have a Love's gas station now because of a.

00:03:40
Speaker 2: I've been at that love many times, have you really? I've been at Vienne many times.

00:03:43
Speaker 1: My son works there now.

00:03:44
Speaker 2: Really Yeah? Do you so? Where do you live live? Though?

00:03:47
Speaker 1: I live on at the cattle ranch just north of there.

00:03:48
Speaker 2: Oh, you still live in I grew by.

00:03:50
Speaker 1: I grew up in Vyenne, I moved off. I came here to Nashville May eighteenth, nineteen ninety three, and I lived here exactly fifteen years. I got the last load of stuff, moved back to my rancho on May eighteenth, two thousand and eight.

00:04:01
Speaker 2: We saw you here at the Opry, Yes, when you guys played the Opry. And we saw you in Oklahoma. You and Greg played at Caitlin's grandfather's funeral. Yes, so I didn't know quite where you lived. I know you're I mean, it would be nice to live back home. THO, wouldn't it? I love it.

00:04:16
Speaker 1: I moved, like I said, I moved back home in two thousand and eight. And I had moved so many times in my career, in my life. I just told the guys that helped me get all my stuff back, I said, guys, the next time y'all help me move, you're going to be moving me from here to the funeral home. Because I'm dying here. I'm never leaving again. But I come back to Nashville every two or three months to do stuff like this.

00:04:36
Speaker 2: So you guys are putting out the hits and more. Is his name of the record.

00:04:40
Speaker 1: It is then and now Ricochet then and now the hits and more. I don't know why we decided to name it twice, but you know, it's a sixteen song project, but there's new stuff on it. There is new stuff. It's a whole album's worth of new stuff. Ten new songs that we had kind of even back when Greg was in the band. We would go in after we left Columbia Records back in two thousand, we would go into the studio with a producer, cut three or four sides, and then two or three years later we'd do the same thing when.

00:05:04
Speaker 2: We could afford it.

00:05:04
Speaker 1: We were self produced and self funded back then, so as we could afford it, we would go back into the studio and cut another two or three sides. And we had ten songs ready to release and no record label to help us get it out there and just distributed and you know, nationwide. So it just sort of set in the can for several years. And so this stuff is some recordings that we did ourselves. Now, when I say that, your viewers probably already know this, but Nashville has a certain way of doing things. Back in the nineties, we weren't even allowed to play on our own records, so.

00:05:34
Speaker 2: Meaning you had to hire.

00:05:35
Speaker 1: We had to hire studio casts, and I got to play some on the first album and a little bit on the third album. I was the only one in the band that ever played on any of our original stuff.

00:05:43
Speaker 2: And that's because the label was like, if we're going to pay for it, we need to hire these specific people to play on it so that it sounds perfect exactly.

00:05:50
Speaker 1: And you know, like I said, they have a certain way to do it. Producers like to get it done with over. It's a process, and they wanted the streamline the process as quickly as possible so that they can have more of the production money to put in their own pockets. It's just the way it works. It's just efficiency, you know. And it takes us so it might take us a little bit longer, but that's all right. It's us playing. So when we went in to do these every note on the record, on the all to ten note news side, as well as the six old songs that we re recorded, it's us playing, us singing. Some bands don't even get to sing on their own records. Wait what yeah, it happens. The lead singer, the lead singer will sing, but they'll bring harmony guys to do all the harmony vocals.

00:06:31
Speaker 2: Why did I do that on our comedy record. Yeah, it's so much easier if I just got somebody to sing for my part. When you put out the new songs, when you record them, are these songs that you've had for a little bit, You're like, man, I cannot wait to cut these we feel so good about it? Or did you kind of write them because you were going to do something new?

00:06:46
Speaker 1: Well a little bit of both. Like I said, we weren't chasing radio at the time, so we weren't looking for the next hit. We were just recording songs that we love. So there's gonna be some songs on here that your viewers and your listeners wouldn't expect from Ricochet. There's a song one of my favorites is a tune that Mark Bressard wrote, a tune called the Beauty of Who You Are? And I just one of the guys brought the song to the bus one day and played it and I thought, my god, what an amazing vocalist, What a great song.

00:07:09
Speaker 2: I just love the lyric. It's a real sexy lyric. Uh. There starts off with a there's a soft, sweet.

00:07:15
Speaker 1: Space on the back of your neck, smells like rain.

00:07:18
Speaker 2: There's a way, there's a there's a way you turn telling you it's it's it's a sexy lyric and I love and the way he sings it just sings the hell out of it.

00:07:27
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to try it, you know, see if I could sing it, and uh, I can't. I can't sing it as good as he.

00:07:33
Speaker 2: Did, but I tried. I tried.

00:07:34
Speaker 1: I did the best I could, so we we got a pretty decent little recording on it, added some big harmonies to it, the way the way we do things, and uh, it's really cool guitar stuff that managed they managed to turn on hit the red button just at the perfect moment when I was playing good that day. So I don't know that's That's one of the tunes on there that's a little different, but we did write some stuff as well. It's one of my favorite tunes on there. Is a song that our buddy Greg wrote called No Wrong Way to Fall in Love and it's a it's a story songs. That's what I think is the quintessential factor in nineties country is they're great stories. They tell stories. They take you on a journey. I'm not going to bad mouth today's country music, but I have a friend, a songwriter, Buddy Mine, that said today's county music sounds like three beer commercials strung together because they just don't tell stories anymore. It's like you're hot, I'm hot getting the truck, and so, I don't know.

00:08:26
Speaker 2: You think it's more melody based.

00:08:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, melodies too, And I love songs that start kind of low in my register, like on the verses, and then gives me a chance to really sing out on the top part of my range.

00:08:34
Speaker 2: National Anthem, well, yeah, gotta start low. If you startready higher than that time you get to the and you're cooked.

00:08:40
Speaker 1: I'm telling you. And a lot of people worry about the high note. I worry about the low note. I worry I'm not going to be able to hit that low note with a lot of good depth and stuff, you know. But yeah, National Anthem is one of them. And we didn't put that one on the.

00:08:51
Speaker 2: New We haven't shuit have though. That was the track you should have done. National Anthem should made up Newverse.

00:08:54
Speaker 1: It's gonna be on the what it's going to be on the New on the new album, yeah, I promise.

00:08:57
Speaker 2: So the record came out in August and there's some new stuff on there as well. I kind of want to go back to the origin of the group, and I'm always curious about the name and how many names you had before you actually settled on the name, and who did you have other names with. You know, it's kind of like your whole dating history before we talk about your your wife. So you started playing music, I'm assuming at a very young age, even if it was like piano or horn or whatever it was, because you were in the band.

00:09:21
Speaker 1: Well, I started playing guitar. I took my first guitar lesson on the day of my ninth birthday.

00:09:24
Speaker 2: Should have a guitar in a band? No you mean?

00:09:28
Speaker 1: And yea yeah, like in the March I played drums and marching bands in the fifth grade, but by that time I was already playing guitar. So you know, they didn't have guitar in the marching band, so I had to choose another instrument. I kind of wish I had to choose a horn of some sort, maybe saxophone. That's a sexy instrument, you know, but I didn't have the amishur for it. I didn't. I've had bad teeth growing up, so I didn't have the amishur so I was like, well, I'll just play drums.

00:09:49
Speaker 2: So thirty the three drum thing, I played the Yeah, but I played.

00:09:54
Speaker 1: Snare as well. At one time I was a decent rudimental drummer, so I can play on reda m cues and paradiddles all of that stuff. But yeah, I've been played in some Oklahoma state marching bands and stuff.

00:10:04
Speaker 2: Like that back in you know, Hi Nashville is they don't let you do your dam accused of paradidis anymore. Yeah, I know. It's like they get somebody else do a paradidal. So you're you're playing guitar and you're playing drums in the band. I feel the same way about band. For me, I wish I would have just been in the band because I would have loved to have learned how to play a horn, just for simply knowing how to read music better. Yes, at the time, I was like, I don't want to get to beget in the band. I could beat up, I could beat up enough, but I wish I would have done that because it would have served me so much better than me having to go get a court sheet at Walmart and learn how to play guitar like I did, you know, because I'm not musically, I'm not in any way talented musically, so I had to kind of like struggle with the fingers. But you're right, maybe for you too, if you don't learn how to play like a French horn.

00:10:46
Speaker 1: True, which is probably I think one of the hardest brass instruments to learn how to xylophone, but you know the xylophone, and then you don't have to march. If you plays xylophone, you stay there on the sideline, really can't roll them around, no wills. If you play the bells, you got the harness, Yeah, to get the harness, but yeah those no no no. Girl comes up and says, hey, can I can you introduce me?

00:11:03
Speaker 2: Can I go? Yeah, I want to.

00:11:04
Speaker 1: Meet the xylophone player.

00:11:05
Speaker 2: Nobody says that.

00:11:06
Speaker 1: So guitar that was that was the instrument.

00:11:08
Speaker 2: That will get you a girl. How long did you play in the marching band.

00:11:11
Speaker 1: All through up from fifth grade all through high school?

00:11:13
Speaker 2: And did you play drums the whole time the whole time?

00:11:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, well in marching band, yes, in a pep band or excuse me. In a stage band, I played guitar pet band, which was our We played at basketball games pretty much. Only by that time Greg had already left to go to college, so I borrowed his bass guitar and played that in pep band.

00:11:29
Speaker 2: Okay, talk me through these three here, because I'm very jealous people who play music in band early on marching band is I know that because I played football. Just football games. You're out and in the middle of the field doing the deal. Okay, pep band is basketball only, that's what we called it.

00:11:43
Speaker 1: Pep band. That was our basketball smaller, smaller band. So we had a bass guitar and we weren't marching obviously, so I could get more funk. I could bring an app We didn't like marching band arrangements, but I would take the tube apart and learn it on bass guitar.

00:11:57
Speaker 2: That's cool.

00:11:58
Speaker 1: So I wasn't very good reader back then either. I could read one line because I was a drummer, but I knew what all the notes and well the lines and spaces were. But I was more of a treble cleft guy because I played guitar, which is written in treble cleft. This is for all you music buzz classic me too, and so the bas bass cleft was a little different. So I would have to like get a sheet of music and write the letters under each note before I could actually learn it. And my mom and dads like you sure spend a lot of time with this bass guitar. Are you done with your studying? I mean that's I mean hours and hours at night. I would just practice the bass part, which I don't even play bass anymore. I just played it. That was two years in pep band and that was it.

00:12:31
Speaker 2: And then the other one you called it stage band.

00:12:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, we like jazz band. In most schools, we would do we would do like how many people in arrangements, and let's see, guitar bassed drums and it was a kit of drums, not like a drum line, but a drum kit, and then you would have horn sections. You'd have a couple of saxophones, a couple of trumpets. Yeah, it was really cool. And I don't know why we didn't add a vocal thing. We could have had like a vocal quartet to it.

00:12:53
Speaker 2: But it was nobody saying no.

00:12:54
Speaker 1: It was just all instrumental arrangements.

00:12:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like we did soul if nobody was singing, But could you sing at that time?

00:13:03
Speaker 1: I could, but I was only singing harmony parts back then. It was before my voice changed, and so I was singing the high tenor vocals in every band I played it back then. So I started high yeah, yeah, the right above the lead vocal.

00:13:14
Speaker 2: So not not even that high the end.

00:13:17
Speaker 1: Well, it's too high for me to sing.

00:13:18
Speaker 2: Now, what's uh, what's what do you what's the really high one? Uh?

00:13:24
Speaker 1: For female voice to be soprano?

00:13:26
Speaker 2: Soprano or for a kid had his nuts cut off. We call those costrados castrado.

00:13:32
Speaker 1: There's an actual term for that.

00:13:34
Speaker 2: No, way, we don't.

00:13:35
Speaker 1: I guess we don't do it anymore. But back in the you know, the yeah, medieval serious, that's what they said. That would they would take them off and then they call Yeah.

00:13:42
Speaker 2: That's a funny band name too, but that would be a good thing. We should remember that for the next little parod you want to do. We'll call them the castratos.

00:13:49
Speaker 1: This is going to get millions of hits.

00:13:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we were talking about, but that's really what happened. That's what they used to do back in the day. So you're playing music all through high school. Now you're talking to your parents like they're like, you're getting your homework done. Did they think that you actually had a career in music, even if it was music teaching, or were they like, all right, we need to really focus because you're gonna have to run the ranch. Yeah, well I was.

00:14:14
Speaker 1: Fortunately I had very supportive parents growing up, and they would never like, you know, why don't you put this music aside and focus on something real. They never asked me to get a real job or anything like that, and they and they knew that one day I would. I was the only child, so I was going to be the one who would inherit the ranch and have to run it one day. But when I when I graduated high school and moved on to college, they were like, what are you going to study? I said, well, I don't know. I was thinking maybe music education or something music. Yeah, I said, sure, sure would like for you to consider doing something else just in case, you know, the music thing doesn't work out for you. Maybe just something to fall back on.

00:14:51
Speaker 2: That was always their phrase, portfolio exactly.

00:14:54
Speaker 1: So I went to school and I got a degree in business management with a minor and accounting. I can still name four different depreciation methods right now I.

00:15:00
Speaker 2: Can name none. So that's all right. Then you a line or not. I have no idea for telling me the truth. They're not if you're just saying words. So where'd you go to college?

00:15:07
Speaker 1: I went to the Northeastern State University in Tallaquo, Oklahoma.

00:15:10
Speaker 2: And I know Talaquah too, don't probably have I been there? Oh? Yeah, I've been. Carie Underwood used to work at the pizza place and her big pizza thing is up there Salmonella, And that's where the guys from Yeah, it's where Cal's parents at school. But it's also the guys from term paktriubiados are from there.

00:15:27
Speaker 1: That's true, you know the term pat tripe. Yeah, and I just got inducted into the Oklahoma's Music Hall of Fame last year.

00:15:31
Speaker 2: Really well, I brought up Tallaquater. They're like because a lot of those towns I get mixed up.

00:15:37
Speaker 1: But we have a lot of weird Native American names for our towns.

00:15:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, and an you know, Native American sounds to me a bit like German sounds, where some of the sounds don't go together. And how I would spell out things. But but so they kind of sound funny both to me, even even like Mandarin, it just has a but the same thing happens where I get them mixed up. And I was like, hey, I knew how to say talaquad though, and they got freaking out from Turnpike said, you know to say talaqua. Oh, like I've been there. Yeah, yeah, there's a There was a probing store too there right, like a dry short store. They used to compete with your moms. Okay, no shout outs there.

00:16:12
Speaker 1: Okay, no shout outs. Yeah it's funny. But Telequah, as you said, it got a weird Most people couldn't pronounce it if they didn't know how to how to the town that carry us all is from. Also, people used to mispronounce her town all the time. She's from Chakota, Oklahoma.

00:16:27
Speaker 2: And I lived right near like Washaita, with it was spelled Oi Chiitah, Yes, and so again had I not known. I mean, it's just an odd pronunciation from a guy from the south in Arkansas.

00:16:38
Speaker 1: I'm told that Jimmy Webb when he wrote Wichita Lineman in washingtaw he actually wrote it as Washaita lineman because he's from Oklahoma and he saw a guy working on some highline wires one day. He thought, that's the loneliest job in the world. And it was the Washaita Lineman until he turned it into his publisher and the publisher said, I love everything about the song except the title.

00:16:56
Speaker 2: All the things on Wichitar pissed right now that you're sharing that, that's like, that's their claim to fame right there.

00:17:00
Speaker 1: Well, you know, Jimmy Webb, he's our claim to fame.

00:17:03
Speaker 3: He's Okay, hang tight.

00:17:04
Speaker 5: The Bobby Cast will be right back, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

00:17:18
Speaker 2: So you're in Oklahoma and you're going to college. Did you end up staying and finishing school or I did? Really I did.

00:17:23
Speaker 1: I got my degree in business management, and I got I went on the road with the band immediately after that, because that's what I wanted to do.

00:17:29
Speaker 2: After you graduated college. Aster I graduated college after.

00:17:31
Speaker 1: Well, I did take a short break. A band that Greg and I had together at the time was the name of it, This.

00:17:36
Speaker 2: Is what I like.

00:17:37
Speaker 1: This band was called Breakaway Okay, And this band was a group that we had put together from another band that we had been in when we were kids, and we sort of broke away from that band and decided to make up do our own thing a breakaway, so we went on the road. We got signed to it with a booking agent and he put us to work, and so I took a year off in the middle of all that, but I did go back and finish my degree.

00:17:58
Speaker 2: You finished school just in case. But while you were in school, were you playing music around? It was?

00:18:03
Speaker 1: I actually played in Telllequah. I had a local band at the time called the heath Right Band. I'll never forget we played this Telequah has a thing back then. They had a thing called Pioneer Days and it was just a weekend out of the summer. This pizza place hired us to play in the parking lot to kind of bring people in. It wasn't Salmonella's. It might have been where Salmonella's is now. But I forget the name of the pizza place back then, and I'd never forget. The sign on the front said all you can eat heath Right band. Each year all they want, all they want, they could eat heath Right.

00:18:34
Speaker 2: And how often did you guys play while you were in college or did you have to not play as much because you really wanted to graduate and finish school.

00:18:40
Speaker 1: Well pretty much weekends. I mean, there was a club in Telecaul called El Paso City Limits, and we played there a lot, played just a few clubs in Muskogee and surrounding areas. So it was just a weekend band.

00:18:52
Speaker 2: Did you feel like you were just kind of buying your time until you finished school where you could go and pursue it professionally exactly? So that was the plan.

00:18:58
Speaker 1: It was the plan I wanted to get. I wanted to get the degree, have something to fall back on, like my mom and dad said, and then get out and just start pursuing it full time. And I joined a band, another local band in Oklahoma, and again they were just doing nightclubs, just the nightclub circuit. And I did that for a little over a year, and I realized I wasn't really getting anywhere. I planned to the same clientele every six weeks. We were on a six week rotation. We had like eight or nine different clubs that we worked in that area. And so I went back to school, this time to study music at a small college in level Land, Texas called South Plains College.

00:19:30
Speaker 2: I'm assuming that's in like north north Texas.

00:19:32
Speaker 1: It's west Texas. It's below the Panhandle. It's south of the Panhella, but it's just west of Lubbock.

00:19:38
Speaker 2: Did you move down there to do that? I did.

00:19:40
Speaker 1: I moved there. I already had one degree, so I didn't have to take any of the normal general educational requirements. I think I had to take one history class because Texas requirements were a little different than Oklahoma requirements.

00:19:50
Speaker 2: But I got a.

00:19:51
Speaker 1: Degree in country music. They called it commercial music, but I studied country music the whole time I was there, country in western swing.

00:19:57
Speaker 2: That's like me geting a degree in People named Bobby from Arkansas just already got it. There do a lot of work, I already know.

00:20:04
Speaker 1: I knew a lot when I went there because I'd been playing in bands for most of my life. But I learned a lot while I was there, too. I'm telling you, I learned about things that I didn't have a whole lot of experience at being in the studio, and I'd done a lot of recording in studios by that time, but I was on the other side of the glass, so I learned about different types of microphones and signal flows, a lot of technical you know, a lot of multi tracking study. So you know, I learned a lot more about producing while I was there as well, you know, taking a group of musicians and ended up with a finished song, a finished product. I'd produced a lot of my own student projects. I've produced a few other students projects while I was there, and the faculty just amazing. Some of those faculty members would hang with me, like until nine o'clock in the evening in the studio, just helped, just helping me kind of get my projects finished. And the whole time, by the time I got up every morning at seven am to the time I collapsed in my bed at midnight every night, I was a better musician. I knew that every morning when I woke up, I was going to be a better musician the.

00:21:00
Speaker 2: End of the day. So you're going to school after you had kind of been burnt out by playing the clubs. Was it with the purpose of learning more so you can go and try again at a different level, or were you like, I still want to be in music, but I want to go learn it. Maybe I'll be a producer.

00:21:13
Speaker 1: Well, it was just so, I mean, if if you're going to be a doctor, you go to medical school, if you know, if you're going to be an attorney, to go to law school. So I just wanted to get as much knowledge as I could. But I didn't really want to, you know, no offense to people who play symphonies and stuff. I didn't have aspirations of playing in a philharmonic. I didn't want to study Mozart and Bach and Chopin and all of that. I wanted to study, you know, George Strait and Garth and Restless Heart, and I wanted to study that type of music that was making money, that was out there. Commercial. That's so that's the name of the degree, the commercial music degree. One of my classmates was Trent Willman, the Cody Johnson's producer. Natalie Mayin from Dixie Chicks went or excuse me, the Chicks went there after?

00:21:55
Speaker 2: Were they were? They? They probably weren't even a band. They were they were they had with a Natalie or differentlyad singer at the time.

00:22:02
Speaker 1: I had Laura Lynch at the time.

00:22:03
Speaker 2: And so you're going to school down there, and again, are you just looking forward to graduating so you can go start again? Not?

00:22:08
Speaker 1: I wasn't looking forward to it. I look forward to each and every day at that school. I soaked up every single, every single minute of training that I got while I was a South Plains And uh, since uh they've named a freaking wing of the building after me since then, and I've established a scholarship there. And next month I go, They've named me one of the distinguished alumni. So I get to go and you know, be part of a big gala and is it galor gala?

00:22:34
Speaker 2: Could be out of the one? Would you wear a cowboy hat in a robe? Do it?

00:22:38
Speaker 1: What?

00:22:38
Speaker 2: I wear a cowboy hat and a rope? If you go as a distinguished alumni, you're wearing the robe. Are you gonna wear the Tao.

00:22:44
Speaker 1: Hat or the cowboy hat?

00:22:45
Speaker 2: Oh?

00:22:46
Speaker 1: Oh, well, I don't know that they'll. I don't think they do that there. I mean it's not during the graduation ceremony, but they're just good to.

00:22:52
Speaker 2: Do it anyway. You think I should wear them?

00:22:56
Speaker 1: Distinguished?

00:22:56
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, I got my own wing. I'm distinguished and here I am. So you finished going to school down there? And then okay, so then what let's form another band? Let me try solo? What happens?

00:23:06
Speaker 1: I had been kind of doing some networking. Prior to that, I'd lived in Dallas briefly to play in a band that was based out of Dallas before I moved off to South Plains. And while I was there, on my nights off, I would go out to the nightclubs and kind of network and just meet other band leaders and guitar players. Is like, Hey, I'm playing in this band, but we only work on weekends. We fly out every Thursday, we fly home on Sunday. In Dallas, Texas, there was nightclubs that we were opened six days a week. I said, if you ever need a sub, here's my cassette. Cassette back then, here's my business card. And so I had met these guys called Lariot, a band that was based out of Texas, and giving them my cassette and my business card. And six months later I get a call from them and they're like, hey, we're all based in Nashville. Now we've all moved from Texas to Nashville, and we got some label interest, but our lead singer is leaving to join his cousin Tim Rushlow to do a dual Texas from Little Texas Yeah, to do a duo project called Rushlo Harris, because you know, Tim's had like a two hundred and three record deals. It's different different styles of.

00:24:08
Speaker 2: Artists.

00:24:08
Speaker 1: Where there be two I think he's had two bands, Little Texas in a band called Rushlo and anyway. But he was getting ready to do a duo thing at that time, and he was going to his cousin, Donny Harris was his name, was quitting the band Lariat to go join Tim Rushlow.

00:24:22
Speaker 2: Were you marketing yourself as a singer or I was just a guitar.

00:24:25
Speaker 1: Player and that could sing harmony parts. Is the first band I've ever been the lead singer of.

00:24:29
Speaker 2: So you're still like, here's my tape of my lead vocals, It's like here I am, I play guitar nill.

00:24:34
Speaker 1: Actually, to be honest, I had recorded four songs as lead vocalists as part of projects with other bands that I'd been in, the bands that Greg and I had been in, But it.

00:24:42
Speaker 2: Wasn't your main thing, like I'm here to be the lead vocal I didn't.

00:24:45
Speaker 1: I never marketed myself as a lead vocalist. I was just a guitar player who could sing harmony parts, and that's kind of what I was looking for. I didn't never consider myself a front man, but they needed a lead singer. They already had a guitar player, and so I was said, oh, okay, I'll try that, And so I joined the band and through no fault on my own, And I want to point out, the band fell apart the following month.

00:25:05
Speaker 2: Wait, you joined the band that you moved to Nashville.

00:25:07
Speaker 1: I moved to Nashville to join Lariot, to join the group Lariot, which eventually became Ricochet.

00:25:12
Speaker 2: So okay, you move here for a month, you're in Lariot and you're the lead singer Lariott for.

00:25:18
Speaker 1: For a month. Yeah, for about a month.

00:25:19
Speaker 2: How did it off all parts so quickly? Oh?

00:25:21
Speaker 1: Well, again, no fault on my own. The two original brothers of Ricochet, Jeff and Junior Bryant, were the leaders of the band Lariot, and they had signed a new management deal with some guy that he wasn't really a music manager. He owned a carnival business and he would take his carnival from town to town and he would, you know, tell the Chamber of Commerce, look, I've got a carnival and bring it to your town and it's turnkey. I've got all the food vendors, I've got all the rides. I've even got a band that can play the beer tent. So it was all turnkey. And so he had a whole summer's worth of dates booked with Lariot, the band I was about to join. And that was one of the enticing parts about moving in, Asheville knew I wouldn't have to get a real job. I could go to work immediately with a band and make enough money to pay my bills. And then they decided that they they didn't really have either they didn't have a contract with this manager dude, or they had one that had just run out, because they decided to change management. And when they did that, what they didn't realize is the old manager had copyrighted the name Lariots under his name, so.

00:26:23
Speaker 2: He could just make Larry.

00:26:24
Speaker 1: So with him, put another band together and called them Lariot, and then that you know, the whole He was able to put all of those dates on his new band's roster, and the old Lariot they were just they they were done. They had a new manager, so they didn't have they couldn't use the name Larry anymore. And at that point after we lost all our dates, we started losing band members, so the guitar plary quit. He was one of the first ones to quit. I'm like, well, I play guitar too, I can take that over that part. But then everyone started quitting and it just eventually got to where we were just rebuilding the band.

00:26:54
Speaker 2: So who was left?

00:26:55
Speaker 1: You and the two brothers, Jeff and Junior Bryan were the only two. And we had a temper bass player who didn't want to do it permanently. He was a little older than us, he was in his forties, and he didn't want to go on the road permanently. So he was like, well, I'll stay with you till you find someone more permanent. That's when I brought my buddy Greg in from Oklahoma. From Oklahoma, Yeah, he had just finished a degree in microbiology with a coarse concentration in chemistry or something like all complain said, yeah, I've got my degree, now I can come do what I want, you know, So he was he was all for, you know, moving to Nashville and joining the band. This new band that I was putting together, and we were going to we didn't even have a name yet. Honestly, mean you just.

00:27:31
Speaker 2: Moved here too. It's like you moved here to be a part of something now all of a sudden, and then all of a sudden, now you're the leader of putting a band together exactly.

00:27:36
Speaker 1: So I get, Yeah, I get to be the guy that starts networking and putting it all together. And so eventually, I think by February of ninety four, we had it together. We had our last member in place, and we had our vocal blend that I really wanted. I knew I wanted a big West Coast style harmony vocal blend.

00:27:50
Speaker 2: What's that mean? West coast?

00:27:51
Speaker 1: West coastyle.

00:27:52
Speaker 2: It's like the Eagles.

00:27:53
Speaker 1: It's when there's two harmony parts above and two harmony parts below.

00:27:55
Speaker 2: That's sort of the West. So I got burger with a lot of layers exactly.

00:27:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, above and below.

00:28:01
Speaker 2: So you're how many are in the band at that ninety four when you finally say.

00:28:04
Speaker 1: This six we were a six piece of thing. So me on lead vocals and.

00:28:07
Speaker 2: Looking money, that's too much bad? I agree, I agree, But you know I want to recommend you did not do that back in ninety four.

00:28:13
Speaker 1: Well, I kind of wanted to have a steel guitar player.

00:28:15
Speaker 2: You also wanted to have the Hamburger vocals or whatever you called it. You can't do the best three people. Yeah, I can't really do that with three people.

00:28:20
Speaker 1: I knew I needed at least five to do West Coast harmony, like a restless Heart type type band. And so I thought, well, I need something to set the music, the bed part of our sound, not just the vocals, but the musical bed set that apart from everybody else. And I couldn't think of any bands out there that featured a steel guitar and fiddle. We already had a fiddle player. I was the guitar player, but we didn't have a steal.

00:28:42
Speaker 2: So I talked to guys.

00:28:43
Speaker 1: I said, instead of hiring another guitar player to replace the one that quit, why don't you let me take over guitar duties and let's hire a steel guitar player. And so that was the last instrument that we had. The last guy was Teddy Carr, and we added him. We found him here in Nashville. Actually he lived some one of the outlying towns of the name of the town escase me right now. But he he had advertised in Dick mcvay's musicians Referral service, so I found him through that, brought him in auditioned him.

00:29:09
Speaker 2: He was great.

00:29:10
Speaker 1: Wasn't a singer though, but that's all right. I already had my five vocals, so I already had my five home.

00:29:15
Speaker 2: Take another one, so it's like European vocals and West Coast I had one more. God dang, so you are six. It that's just so many people. It was a lot.

00:29:23
Speaker 1: And we didn't make a whole lot of money at the beginning because we were only playing nightclubs for like, you know, three thousand dollars a week, and we'd be there the whole week, you know, and so we were maybe if we were lucky, we were getting about four to five hundred dollars a week in our pocket.

00:29:37
Speaker 2: Did you need that much to survive then? Though?

00:29:38
Speaker 1: No, No, I didn't have a family. Some of the other guys did, but fortunately they had wives who had real jobs. So you know, there's something to be said for that.

00:29:47
Speaker 2: You know.

00:29:47
Speaker 1: It's like it's like, I don't know, it like having every good rancher also has a wife that works in town, has a good job in town, because you're gonna have years where you just don't make money in ranching, And for me, that's that's a every year.

00:30:00
Speaker 2: What was the name of the band at first? When all six of you got together, that's.

00:30:04
Speaker 1: When we decided to go from Lariot Too, and we knew we needed a new name, and we were the new manager would own a nightclub in Columbia, Missouri called the Silver Bullet. He wanted to call us a Silver Bullet band, not realizing that already had that name for decades, and so I said, now we can't do that, and it needs to be one word, should be two or three syllables, like Alabama or foca that's for restless heart.

00:30:26
Speaker 2: That's two words, but still three syllables.

00:30:28
Speaker 1: Something I'm jinking here. Yeah, I'm still thinking, trying, trying to something that would be memorable, you know, but it's only one or two words. And so our manager's his wife come up with a name. How about Ricochet. It would look cool on the marquee outside if it said the Silver Bullet presents Ricochet. And I'm like, yeah, I like it Ricochet. And after Shannondoa broke up, you know, because there was a little time when they broke up, we were the most misspelled band in country music.

00:30:53
Speaker 2: I don't know that I could call it ricochet right now that looking the page, ri I c h they over played. Don't know me? Rick is che are I see? Oh shay, that's right? Oh shit, yeah shit. I close my eyes though, so I know it was cheating. I'm a man of integrity. What I've read that about you? Yes, So you guys are playing there, six of you? Are you good?

00:31:20
Speaker 1: We were actually fairly good, I thought. We not because we were just naturally good. I think because we put the work in. Uh, Like I said, we would beat a night club for four or five nights at a time. Back then we were just playing dance sets, you know. And so during the day I told the guys, I said, you know, if we were working real jobs, we'd be working eight hours a day. So why don't we get together and do a vocal rehearsal this afternoon. Let's learn a new tune for this, you know, we'll add it to the show. We'll go down to the club and rehearse it, you know, make sure it's good. And so we spend a lot of time just just putting in the work and figuring out exactly where everybody's vocal was going to be in the mix, and figuring out, you know, parts and making sure everything was in tune and in pitch and in time, and and paying a lot of attention to like when we would work up someone else's song, like a Diamond Rio song or something, making sure that all of the parts were right. You know, I'm a huge Jimmy Olander fan. I was just we just did a show with him this past Saturday, and Jimmy's got this cool guitar that's got double benders on it. It's you got a kind of it's hard to explain, but it's, you know, you can't just buy a guitar of the off the off the wall that's got these benders and you have to have them, especially installed. There's a guy here in town named Joe Glazer that does them, and so I had to have the same thing. I had to have a guitar with double benders in it. So we would work up a lot of a lot of Diamond Rio stuff and make sure that all the parts were right, vocal parts, mandolin parts, guitar or whatever, and so any but anything we did, whether it be a Tracy Bird, Tracy Lawrence song, Restless Heart, whatever. We took great pains and efforts to make sure that our covers of those songs we were right, you know, and I don't know that a lot of cover bands did that back then. So what if when you ask were we good? I think we were. I think we were one of the better, better cover bands out there at the time.

00:33:00
Speaker 2: Two things, but one where you it sounds like you're now, Well, first, you're the I moved in for a month. You were a role player in a bigger band that you were like, hey, I can fill in and I can take that job. But now it's you're you're the general. I feel like like you had to take a leadership position quickly.

00:33:14
Speaker 1: Pretty much. I don't know if the two Bryant brothers just weren't cut out for that, or if they just didn't want the job, because there's a lot of work that goes along with leading a band. So I, you know, I was the guy that carried the credit card and kept track of the receipts and all of that stuff. So I you think I have two degrees I had, Well I had I have business degree too, so that didn't hurt it. I actually read every contract that was put in front of me every word of I'm probably the only guy in the original Ricochet band that read all sixty four pages of our recording contracts.

00:33:41
Speaker 2: You type A personality? Oh, yes, do you know what your niagram is? What you're the niagram number?

00:33:47
Speaker 1: Now I don't even know what you're just like, you're speaking a whole another one. I am.

00:33:50
Speaker 2: It's Mandarin. I mentioned it earlier. Oh you're good and I'm kicking it. So yeah, I definitely feel a lot of Type A in you, which I think is pretty cool. You are with the group. There's five people. It doesn't matter six and five, five plus U Okay, yeah, it doesn't matter who the six are. And if you all love each other. That's a hard dynamic. It is just because you have six I mean, I do the radio show and I have all my best friends, and there are still times we want to kill each other even though we love each other we've been together fifteen years, because it's just six different attitudes, personalities, people, and so now you're also probably having to manage that, which isn't really what you knew. The dynamic wise, you're gonna be managing.

00:34:27
Speaker 1: So were you were you like the dad oh, probably not. Gosh, I don't know.

00:34:32
Speaker 2: I was.

00:34:33
Speaker 1: I was probably the problem child. Honestly, you can be both, I guess, you know. And I'm I've got a weird personality. I've got you know, I'm I'm very u meticulous.

00:34:44
Speaker 2: Well, the guys put them through boot camp too, play guys.

00:34:46
Speaker 1: Who used to love playing tricks onbody. For example, I like, when I get into a hotel room, I have to take everything out of my shaving kit and line it up, you know, all the toothpaste and toothbrush right here, and then the deodor the in the cologne here, and then the shaven stuff over here. And I did that every so I wouldn't leave stuff behind. So I did that every single time with the organization. Organization. So the guys thought it'd be funny as hell to take one of those little trays and super glue all my stuff out of order, and so that just little things like.

00:35:11
Speaker 2: That, pretty funny. Yeah, it was more like you than them. And that's still pretty funny. That is, get super involved. It's pretty funny.

00:35:17
Speaker 1: I guess we had too. That's when I decided we had too much time on our hands and we need to do more.

00:35:21
Speaker 2: More work more work. Were they ever like he chill out me and we don't want to practice every day.

00:35:26
Speaker 1: No, I was lucky, you know, like Eddie k especially, he was he was great. He I don't think I ever outworked him. He was great at just like he was our vocal arranger. So if we did anything that was non parallel vocals, like you know, when the melody goes up, so do the harmonies. When the melody goes down, so to the harmonies, parallel vocals. If we did anything that was like counterpoint or any you know, choral type singing, if we didn't like, for example, uh, we did a a capella version of let It Snow. He arranged every note of that. Our a capella version of StarSpangled Banner, he arranged every other that was that's pretty meat and potatoes. But he's he's just got that kind of mind. I think it comes with.

00:36:02
Speaker 2: Being a keyboard player.

00:36:03
Speaker 1: So I was lucky to have a group of guys that had a good, strong work ethic, and they weren't. No, there was no lazy ones in the band, not even the original band.

00:36:10
Speaker 2: How did you go from cover band to band that's doing their own songs? That transition doesn't always happen. True, We got lucky. Honestly.

00:36:18
Speaker 1: It was during a time when country music was going through some changes and they were kind of losing a lot of bands. I mentioned Little Texas had taken some time off the road, Restless Heart Larry had left the band to go do a solo thing. As a matter of fact, our original guitar player went with Larry Stewart. Other bands like the Gibson Miller Band and the Pirates of the Mississippi they just disbanded. And so country music was needing some bands at the time, and so we got lucky that A and R guy from Columbia Records heard us one night at a nightclub and as I say, you know.

00:36:50
Speaker 2: The rest is history.

00:36:51
Speaker 1: Wow.

00:36:51
Speaker 2: So he was just there.

00:36:52
Speaker 1: Well, I think it was arranged for him to be there. I believe somehow our manager had a friend of a friend somehow knew Blake Chancey.

00:37:03
Speaker 2: Did you know he'd be there? Yeah, we like a ballplayer knowing or yeah, we were nervous outs up there.

00:37:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were very nervous.

00:37:08
Speaker 2: Make them work extra hard that day, like four sessions.

00:37:10
Speaker 1: No, I think we probably rest of that day so as to be fresh, fresh for the big record producer that was going to be the an R guy that was going to be in the audience that night.

00:37:19
Speaker 2: Did he come up to you guys after the show or was did he reach out like a couple of days later. Now he came up to it.

00:37:23
Speaker 1: We met after I had a few drinks afterwards, and he says, I really like what I hear. Let me let me go back and talk to some people. And I think I think he did it just as a favor to his dad. Blake Chancey was his name. His dad was Ron Chancey, the.

00:37:35
Speaker 2: Big producer of the Oakridge Boys and T.

00:37:36
Speaker 1: Graham Brown and and Ron was the friend of the friend of our manager. So he managed to get in touch with Ron. Ron got in touch with his son, Blake, who had just taken over the an R position at Sony Music. And so Blake did it as a favorite his dad. But his intention was to say no, His intention was to come out here, give it, give us a listen. Oh, and he also brought a guy named Cliff Aldridge with him, and so he wanted Cliff to hear him so that he could put the blame off on Cliff said, no, it's just not what we're looking for. But they got back to town and they had a meeting the next next day or the next week whatever, and Cliff said, well, I think it's one of the best live bands've ever heard. I said, but they're just a cover band right now. But I think they have potential. They have an original sound, so I think they have potential. They have great vocals, and he sung our praises and Blake was looking at hims like you're supposed to say no, you know, but it did worked out, you know, it worked out.

00:38:24
Speaker 2: Were you guys writing anything at the time or we just practicing.

00:38:27
Speaker 1: Not a lot like a living We weren't right. I had taken I was new to the songwriting game. I had just learned how to write a song at South Plains College, you know, the year before that, I took a songwriting class there. It was part of the curriculum, and so I was completely new. So I'd done some writing. One of the reasons I brought Greg into the band because I wanted him to be a co writer on the road with me. He and I had written some when I was home for vacations and stuff. Greg is naturally talented that sort of thing. He's really good, and so was Eddie kil Gallen. I was new to it and still my main contribution to a co writing session is a chord patterns melody, things like that. I'm not a great lyricist, but you know, I could at least lend that to a songwriting session. We didn't do as much writing as I wish we had, because I wish we would have had a whole bunch of songs to turn into our label and say it took look at all these songs we've written, let's record ten of those, you know. But we didn't, and so we'd ended up for the first album. Nobody got a single song on the first album. I had had a publishing deal in Nashville prior to that, so I did manage to get some songs written here in town with some great songwriters, and I thought one or two of them was good enough to be on the album. But apparently the label thought otherwise, so we didn't get anything.

00:39:34
Speaker 2: Whenever you're a cover band and then all of a sudden you're a signed to band, how does your life change or does it? At first? It does?

00:39:42
Speaker 1: Everything just goes and I mean it seems like texts forever from the time they tell you you're going to get signed, to the time you start working on the project, and then it texts forever to get the first song to radio. But once, once that first song hit radio, what do I Know? Came out in November of ninety five, and I'll never forget it was. It was just a whirlwind after that. I mean we'd been on a radio tour six months prior to that, kind of introducing ourselves to the program and music directors and stuff and just kind of making sure that they.

00:40:11
Speaker 2: Knew who we were.

00:40:12
Speaker 1: And that was grueling, and sometimes we'd hit three radio stations a day, and we did that for six months all over the country.

00:40:19
Speaker 2: So that was a top ten song too, right, What do I know?

00:40:21
Speaker 1: Yes it was. It went to number three.

00:40:24
Speaker 2: Really part of me.

00:40:25
Speaker 1: We were trying hard to get a number one out of that one as a debut single, but it didn't happen.

00:40:30
Speaker 3: The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the Bobby Cast.

00:40:43
Speaker 2: So that song is doing what it does right, it's gratisseses are playing it? Are you guys playing shows as that song is climbing? Can you fill the crowds getting bigger? Oh?

00:40:52
Speaker 1: Yes, we're playing some of the same nightclubs we had played as a cover band, but we're playing our own music.

00:40:57
Speaker 2: Card tickets and people are coming to pay money some.

00:40:59
Speaker 1: Part tickets, and they put us on tour. They cut us on a couple of major tours. We went out on the Double Trouble Tour with the Marty Stewart and Travis Tritt. We were on the T and T Tour with Travis excuse me, with the Tracy Lawrence and Tracy Bird and then eventually the John Michael Montgomery Tour. We won our first ACM when we were on the John Michaelmgomery Tour.

00:41:19
Speaker 2: What was that ACM for? It was for New Vocal Group or Duo of the Year nineteen ninety six. What's it like back in Vienne Now that you guys are on the radio, I gotta imagine, well, everybody's time now, not now, but then, Oh, back then we were like ninety seven. Yeah, it was pretty awesome.

00:41:37
Speaker 1: We used to play a show back in Vyenne at the football stadium and we donated all the proceeds to Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital because there's two boys from Vyenne who both ended up with leukemia, both treated at Saint Jude and now they're both adults, you know, so we we be and Greg talked about it. If we're ever in a position that we can do something for this hospital, we need to do it. So we started doing this thing called Green Country Jam back in Vyenne, and it was just people would would come.

00:42:02
Speaker 2: You know.

00:42:03
Speaker 1: That was always a difficult day because everybody wanted to get on the bus and how do you tell your friends, no, we can't get this many people in the bus, and plus we're trying to get ready for show, and now we.

00:42:11
Speaker 2: Got to leave.

00:42:12
Speaker 1: We gotta leave, you know, right after the show. But that sort of thing. But so my tour manager came up with this, this test if people actually knew me, then they could get on the bus. And he knew how to test them because my name, my full name is Perry Heath, right, and in school I went by my first name Perry Wright. But then after school I didn't think that sounded real show busy. I just started using my middle name, Heath. But most people back home still call me Perry. Caitlin's uncle still calls me Perry half the time. So you know, it's ah that would be the test that our tour manager was here to knock at the bus door and open up saying, I'm full friends with Heath and Greg. He said, really, what what do you call him? What'd you call him in high school?

00:42:52
Speaker 2: Heath?

00:42:53
Speaker 1: No, Sorry, if they said Perry, he'd let him on the bus.

00:42:56
Speaker 2: So, so, Vyanne loves you, Nashville loves you. You're doing this festival. How long did you do that? This show? That, the show at the high School? How long did you do that? Man?

00:43:04
Speaker 1: I think we did that for five years. I want to say we started in ninety six or ninety seven. Dixie Chicks were on the show that year. They hadn't even had a record deal, or they had a record deal, but they were in developmental steel so no no hits yet. And Emmy and I used Emily the banjo player. She and I used to date.

00:43:21
Speaker 2: I've heard all this, but I know all that. They knew that whatcus Kaelin would tell me these stories. I wasn't going to bring it up, oh, because it's not my business to bring up your business. But if you're bringing it up, I know all this because Kanlelin would be like, yeah, I'm at the Dixie Chicks back in the day and you were at that show.

00:43:34
Speaker 1: Awesome, Oh awesome.

00:43:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah.

00:43:36
Speaker 1: The Dixie Chicks were there on the very first one, the inaugural show of Green Country Jam, and they had just played in Las Vegas, New Mexico the night before and they pulled up in their little RV and you could tell they were exhausted, but they got up and did a hell of a show.

00:43:50
Speaker 2: Just amazing.

00:43:50
Speaker 1: And a couple other my friends were on the show that that year, and I'll never forget the year that we did it. One of the last years we did at Joe Diffy was on the show and Joe, as you know it is an okie. He brought his mom and dad out to the show, and my mom and dad were there as well, and my mom and Joe's mom sat on the bus and chatted like they were old high school buddies. It's so good to see him get together.

00:44:12
Speaker 2: Joe refused.

00:44:13
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, we would write checks for at least expenses, because we wanted to give as much money as we could to Saint Jude. But we would reimburse these guys for their payroll and their bus fuel and their bus lease or whatever they whatever. Their expenses were they would just give us an invoice and they'd say all right. Joe refused to take a penny and expenses.

00:44:29
Speaker 2: That day, so he took a loss. He took a lot.

00:44:31
Speaker 1: See definitely, I don't know if he was if it was a routing day for him or for he just and we only asked him to fly out and do an acoustic set and we would pay for his plane ticket and all of that, and he says, I'm going to bring my whole band. And the reason he did that is because we had.

00:44:42
Speaker 2: Played his He had a charity show for First Steps.

00:44:46
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember that. He had a country show used to do with the Ryman every year called Country Steps in for First Steps, and we played it like the four or five years prior to that, so he I don't know, maybe he felt like he owed us, but he was such a good guy. Refused to take a penny and expenses that day.

00:45:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys have a record deal. The song goes number three, Where do they come with second? After Daddy's Money?

00:45:06
Speaker 1: Daddy's Money was the next, So we would have released Daddy's Money first, But what do I know? We weren't the first ones to get our hands or maybe we were. We It was written by three great songwriters, Stephanie Smith, Kathy Majeski, and Sonny Russ, and they all had different publishers and so no one knew who got the hold on the song first because the publishers were pitching it around town. So we both both us and Linda Davis recorded that song at the same time. We knew that if we released Daddy's Money first that we would probably lose What Do I Know as a single, so instead we went with the more mid tempo ballad what Do I Know, And we didn't even release a video with it because we spent all of our promotions budget on a tour, a radio tour six months prior to that. Anyway, we managed to get What Do I Know released and then it went top five, number three on Billboard or rn R and five on Billboard I think, and then we were free to release dad His Money, and that thing shot up to number one, like in sixteen weeks.

00:46:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna ask if it felt different from the moment that it hit, because then the first song.

00:46:09
Speaker 1: It sort of did because there was a video on that one, so we were more recognized after that. A lot of people would come to our show before that and they would, you know, they knew that there was a free show at you know a little bit of Texas in Saint Louis or whatever, and so they would come out and listen to us, and they've been we'd do what do I Know? And said, oh, I didn't know that was you guys that did that because there was no video on what do I Know? But Daddy's Money had a video attached to it, and so there was a lot more recognizability there.

00:46:36
Speaker 2: And that song is so catchy. I mean, we will still play it sometimes on my show Awesome just O. Kaitlin also sings it all the time too, walk to House, Yeah, all the time. So that song, you say, sixteen weeks is what it took to get to number of teen weeks, as I recall him. Now, did it go away quickly because it shot up so fast? Or did it stay stuck a number one for two weeks? Which I guess was pretty good back then, because I remember everyone being so surprised that that was there for a second week, because we, like, like you said, we were kind of expecting it to to be more of a you know, in and out kind of song it is. I mean, it's let's be honest, it's it's that song is not going to cure cancer. It's not really saying anything. It's fun change the world.

00:47:11
Speaker 1: It's just a fun song. Cat It's fun and catchy, and you know it was it served as purpose for that for that summer for us. We needed a fun, catchy song for the summer, and we released it and it went to number one and got us a whole lot more recognition and even got us an award, and so you know, we were lucky to have that song as part.

00:47:28
Speaker 2: Of our career. Did you ever feel like you resented the song?

00:47:32
Speaker 1: Ah, that's well, I resent it every day when I try to sing it now because we still do it in the same key you happen.

00:47:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be touching up. It's so high, it's just I can see that. Did you did you ever feel like because I didn't even know all the words, I just knew the melody from hearing on the radio that Cale was singing it so much. I know every word in the song now because she says it all time, Yeah, everywhere, And so did you ever feel like and I say this because I think I love the song and I look back at that time in my life and it brings me back to that time. Right. That's a music, guys, It take us.

00:48:03
Speaker 1: People tell me that a lot. Yeah, because that music is the soundtrack of your life, you know.

00:48:07
Speaker 2: And so I remember, you know where I was at that time. But you you have this song that you say you didn't get a single cut on the record and they had you put in it shot up, but where you were, like, I wrote songs better than this.

00:48:18
Speaker 1: Well I might have had that thought of time or two. But it's truth is it's those little, simple, catchy songs that absolutely that sounds so easy, but they're not that easy, right, you know. I mean, who would even think about that scenario about this guy being all you know, confused and not not being able to pay attention to the preacher because he's got his eyes on this girl in the choir off and that's all he can think about. And now he's praying to God, if you got any if you got any miracles handies. He scrant me, one, let me walk down the island and say I do to that angel with the choir RoboN. You know that it's just little little scenarios like that don't come every day. And I've heard that Mark de Sanders used to write along those lines a lot. He always would have some sort of little religious thing in his songs, like a walking in Jerusalem, Tracy Byrd he wrote that, so he would put some sort of little wholesome churchy thing in all of his songs like that.

00:49:10
Speaker 2: And who knows.

00:49:11
Speaker 1: I mean, I really think Jeff Carson for showing up at the right time. Do you know the story behind that addy his money? I don't, all right, settle in.

00:49:18
Speaker 2: It's a long story. All I know is that I would hear to the kid and be like, more less than a stack of comic books where I is, And I'd be like, I don't really comic books. This must have been an older dude who wrote it, That's what I used to think. Well, it's three older dudes.

00:49:29
Speaker 1: I guess he can call him that now, But it was Mark D. Sanders, Bob Dapiro, and Steve Seskin. They're sitting in a room one day at a publishing company, trying to come up with something to write about, right, And there's a window there in the room that they're writing in, and they see this young demo singer named Jeff Herndon pull Up, who eventually would become Jeff Carson. So Jeff pulls up in this brand new Jaguar. He's just a demo singer. He's hadn't even got a record deal yet as far as I know, and absolutely no hits. And the guys started talking, well, how the hell can Jeff afford to drive a Jaguar. I mean, he's just singing demos for we know, and maybe maybe has a publishing deal, but you know it hadn't written any hits or anything. And I believe it was Mark d said, well have you seen that woman that he's married to, Kim? Not only is she gorgeous, apparently she's got her daddy's money too. Whil they had something to write about it at that point. So I used to think, Jeff, I say, man, thanks for showing up just the right time, and thanks Kim for letting for letting him drive your car that day.

00:50:21
Speaker 2: You know, oh that was her car too. It was her car. That's funny too. So when they when they they say, Okay, you guys, it's not awesome live, but we need a record now. So this is this song called Daddy's money record. What did you think the first time you heard it to record?

00:50:33
Speaker 1: I heard it over the phone for the first time. I was at home in Oklahoma. The record label had given us a small signing bonus, and so I took my two or three thousand dollars to the sale barn that day to buy some effers. And that's how I wanted to invest my my record bonus, my record signing bonus. And so my dad and I, this was before cell phones. I didn't have a cell phone. Dad and I would have to sale all day long. And we came home. My mom says, son, somebody named Uncle Ron just called you. I said, Uncle Ron, that's Ron Chancey, that's our purduce. Well, he says, you need to call him back immediately, something really important. So Uncle Ron Ron Chancey plays that song. He says, we just got this tune in and if we don't put a hold on it soon, we're gonna lose it. So he played it for me.

00:51:11
Speaker 2: I listened to every word of it, the whole the whole demo.

00:51:13
Speaker 1: Ron Wallace sang the demo I'll never forget great vocal, and I thought, that is the silliest damn song I've ever heard what was the But I said, look, we got to hold it because it's going to be a huge hit.

00:51:24
Speaker 2: I got you sonically obviously on a phone though. But the demo was it a fully produced demo or fully produced? Had like electric guitar?

00:51:31
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I don't know that. It had fiddle and steel on it. Shit, it was a full band production. It wasn't just acoustic guitar vocal. But it was catchy as crap you could do. It was and you know, like you said, more last than a stack of comic books, the country is a turnip green. Come on, These are just phrases that I know are going to stick out and and and be memorable. People are going to remember these phrases, So I thought, and I like the melody, and I like the way it it kind of soared up in the chorus. Give me a chance to kind of stretch out on my high range. And so it I was like, yeah, I love the melody. It's just little lyric and I think it's I think it's gonna be catching enough that people will love it.

00:52:04
Speaker 2: So did you have the expectation that it would do what it did? That one songs on the record, just even at the time the thing was number one, are you like, I can't believe that's the one that did it because we have all these other songs too.

00:52:15
Speaker 1: I knew I'd been studying country music trends for a long time, and a lot of I mean a lot of times it's the silly little songs that are always gonna be are gonna be huge.

00:52:23
Speaker 2: Hits because they just are fun to sing by everybody else who buys music or li'sen to music.

00:52:26
Speaker 1: True exactly, Yeah, I mean it was just I just had that commercial appeal to it, you know, because like I said, I I've been studying country music trends and songs and for most of my life, because I knew I wanted to be part of country music one day. So when I know I can't bring one to mine, right, White Lightning. I bet when first time George Jones heard white and like the yeah, yeah, they're yeah whatever that is the hiccup? Yeah, yeah, you know who wrote that?

00:52:51
Speaker 2: Right?

00:52:51
Speaker 1: The Big Bopper wrote that?

00:52:52
Speaker 2: Oh really?

00:52:53
Speaker 1: Yeah? So and I'm sure that when George Jones heard the Big Bopper, everybody listening, Hello, babe, that guy, Yeah, that guy wrote quite lightning. So I'm sure George thought that's the silliest song I've ever heard, but it's going to be a huge hit. So I kind of felt the same way about Daddy's Money.

00:53:09
Speaker 5: Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor. Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.

00:53:23
Speaker 2: So you go, and the song crushes number one for two weeks, which doesn't even happen a lot now, much less than at the time. So, and people are seeing you on CMTAC. Are you starting to get recognized just randomly? And do you wear a cowboy hat? Would you wear a cowboy hat out? Because I would if I were on.

00:53:40
Speaker 1: A well back then, I didn't wear a hat. Back then, I had the award winning mullet. Dude, Come on, I know that version of you. Oh really, no, I watched the video sometimes I've never beautiful haircut, really.

00:53:51
Speaker 2: Was never see do you remember him with the mullet?

00:53:54
Speaker 1: Oh really Yeah, I just started wearing the cowboy hat after I moved back to the ranch in two thousand and eight. Yeah.

00:53:59
Speaker 2: See, I don't know you without the cowboy hat.

00:54:01
Speaker 1: Whol Is that that's kind of neat the cowboy version.

00:54:05
Speaker 2: I need to see hold on, I need to see what is Oh no blue.

00:54:11
Speaker 1: It was a maybe powder blue shirt, which was a gift from Emily. Believe it or not, I don't know if I ever said that an interview or not. That powder blue shirt that I'm wearing on the on the cover of our debut album was a gift as well as the boots. The Austrich boots I was wearing was a gift from Emily Irwin Dixie Chicks.

00:54:25
Speaker 2: Okay, right, I still have the boots.

00:54:27
Speaker 1: And somewhere I probably have that powder blue shirt somewhere.

00:54:30
Speaker 2: I did heath Right hair and it gave me a hair salon.

00:54:33
Speaker 1: Just put in Daddy's Money, Yeah, okay, do you play videos on your podcast?

00:54:38
Speaker 2: Are you allowed to do that? Well? Yeah, we can put it in whatever kind of clips. Daddy's Money video. I feel like I'll be Oh my god, award winning is.

00:54:53
Speaker 1: Very popular.

00:54:53
Speaker 2: Haircut that is crazy and long, and there's a vest. You're in a vest.

00:55:00
Speaker 1: Uh No, it's a bandoned collar shirt with a with a with a black rings.

00:55:05
Speaker 2: Oh you look at the hair.

00:55:06
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm wearing a frock coat. Look like a preacher in a frock coat.

00:55:12
Speaker 2: This is wild. Look at you?

00:55:18
Speaker 1: All right? So we added what do I know at the beginning of this video right here, so that the people would know that those guys that's saying what do I know are the guys you're about to see.

00:55:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good idea. Who had that idea?

00:55:28
Speaker 1: Somebody in the in the A and R department or maybe marketing department, Probably somebody in the marketing department at Sony.

00:55:36
Speaker 2: Dude, I wouldn't even reck it if you walked in looking like that, I would be like, who is this? Dude? They said Heath was coming over the cowboy hat. Dang, that's great. So what is it like? How old were you then?

00:55:47
Speaker 1: You think I was twenty eight twenty seven?

00:55:49
Speaker 2: I mean, were you married?

00:55:51
Speaker 1: Twenty eight?

00:55:51
Speaker 2: Were you married? No?

00:55:52
Speaker 1: What is that to get married to my.

00:55:53
Speaker 2: Midor what is that like? You're twenty seven twenty you get a hair like that, you're traveling the country, you're single as a pringle. I imagine that's got to be pretty good. You get all the happers you want, right it was.

00:56:04
Speaker 1: Life did not suck. I'm not gonna lie. It did not suck. Back then. I lived my single life and I lived the hell out of it.

00:56:10
Speaker 2: Were you in Nashville Were you living in Nashville and coming back to Nashville? Were you back in Oklahoma? Then?

00:56:15
Speaker 1: No, I was living in Nashville. Like I said, I moved out here in May teenth, nineteen ninety three, and we got signed to Columbia in March of ninety five. So everyone said it was a five year of town to be prepared to be here for five years for anything happens. But as I said, we were lucky because Nashville needed a band. The several different labels were losing their bands and so they needed one. So we got signed within two years of my moving here.

00:56:34
Speaker 2: So when you moved back, was there a time? How did you guys end the band whenever you ended it the first time?

00:56:40
Speaker 1: Well, truth is, we have never ended the band. Greg and I my buddy from vy Enn. We kept the thing going. We just didn't have a record deal, and so everyone thought that the band disbanded and we lost a lot of you know, most of the original members. I'm the only original one left, so you know my Some would say why don't you just go solo and do the do a solo thing, And I've always answered that with it. I like being in a band. I like the dynamic of a band and the big vocals and just their West Coast vocals. West Coast vocals. It's just something different about a band energy that's you know, it just feels different than being a soloist. And also the name there's some there's some name records.

00:57:19
Speaker 2: If you do, if you do have video, as Heath Right, then you got to put both songs at the beginning of the videos. They know that you sang all those true by the time you do three songs in, you haven't play the video yet, you know what I mean. Well, that's a good point.

00:57:31
Speaker 1: It's a good point. Yes, I don't know how I would do, and who knows. I may do something as a soloist one of these days, because I've got the freedom to do that now. I'm I'm in creative control of any project I record at this point on. So we've talked about, you know, doing a like Heath Right of Ricochet album someday, because there are certain songs that you can record that might not lend themselves well for a band, because they don't lend themselves well to big West Coast style harmony. And I'd like to record some of those songs. I've got a whole bag of songs like that that I'd love to record some one day, but they just haven't been right for a big band to record.

00:58:06
Speaker 2: I feel like you invested your money widely.

00:58:09
Speaker 1: If I had money, I think I would have invested at wisely. I've invested in my ranch, and there's anybody I tell people the best way to become a millionaire in the cattle business is to start with two million. It's just I don't know how my dad did it. My dad managed to put me through college just selling cows, and.

00:58:26
Speaker 2: He was being humble.

00:58:28
Speaker 1: No, I'm not wealthy, wealthy man, not at all. I might one day know what it's like to be a millionaire, but that that hasn't happened yet. So I'm I'm happy doing what I'm doing.

00:58:40
Speaker 2: How much is telling? How much does it heer cost?

00:58:43
Speaker 1: Right now?

00:58:43
Speaker 2: They're really high.

00:58:45
Speaker 1: I'm getting ready. I hold five grown cows and I think they were all pregnant. I'm having them progtested. But they sold what is today Tuesday? They sold yesterday, and I expect to get for a pregnant cow, I expect to get about eight hundred, two thousand dollars each.

00:58:59
Speaker 2: For them, and so what do they cost to raise that pregnant cow to that point?

00:59:03
Speaker 1: Well, I'm selling my herd down right now because cow cows are really high right now. They're about three dollars a pound so alive. Yeah on the hoof, Yeah, on the hoof, they're three dollars a pound now, Hamburger meet is three dollars a pound. So I should be you know, if I, if I had all the FDA, I should be taking them to a processor and sell them in a package as opposed to sell them on the hoof.

00:59:21
Speaker 2: But there's a whole lot of FDA stuff. You got to go skip over that. Who needs them? Yeah?

00:59:26
Speaker 1: Who needs all the governmental Who need them?

00:59:29
Speaker 2: Do you still? Do you still enjoy the ranch life?

00:59:33
Speaker 1: Some days I do, and some days I just want to haul them all off right now. But the other day Sunday I was working cows. I was trying to get everything done before I came out to Nashville, and so I was vaccinating and ear tagging and cutting the bullcaves and just trying to get everything ready because I'm going to have I'm start hauling them. I'm getting rid of most of my herd right now. So I'm and about at midday, about five o'clock, we had this cow jump over the gate and get her dang leg hung in the gate, and I couldn't get that thing out. We couldn't have for thirty minutes. We tried, We tried getting hack saws and saw on the gate, off the hinges, and I was afraid she was just gonna die on me, just gonna lay down and die. And we worked for half an hour just trying to get that cow free of the gate. When I finally realized that I bought this new thing called we call it a hip hugger, which you kind of clamped down on the hip bones of a cow and you hook something, you hook a rope or a chain to it, and put her on your tractor and lift her up. That's the only way we got her out. She survived somehow, she but at one point I was just afraid I was going to just have to shoo her in the head like.

01:00:31
Speaker 2: Live a piano. It feels like you have to lift it and swim.

01:00:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's kind of what we did with the cow, only we lift her up by its hipbones basically, and she's fine. I mean, she's running around. I've got her in the pasture of cows that I'm about to sell. So she's going to be fine. And she's a young cow. I think she's only a three or four years old, sheeked.

01:00:49
Speaker 2: Let me reask the question, do you sometimes still love being a rancher?

01:00:53
Speaker 1: There are days when I love to go out on my tractor and watch them. When it's early in the morning and I'm watching them grays and all fences are up, and I haven't had to haul off anything that just laid down and died, because cows will find a way to either just lay down and die or kill themselves in weird ways, like what just almost happened with this one cow. When everything's going perfect and I didn't have to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on hey or you know, fixed fence the day I was supposed to leave for a road trip or whatever. When things are perfect and the sun is coming up or going down and I can watch them out there grazing all my ranch, that's when I really love it. But days like Sunday that I had, when I'm trying to keep one from killing itself or trying to get them all run through the shoot before it gets dark and get them all vaccinated near.

01:01:39
Speaker 2: Tag and it's tough.

01:01:40
Speaker 1: It's not. Ranchers aren't for sissy's. I'm being a ranchers.

01:01:44
Speaker 2: That's why I'm not one. That's exactly why I'm not one. So Ricochet, the hits in More Than It Now came out mid August. It's out now and again you said there are six or eight new songs on.

01:01:54
Speaker 1: It, six new songs, ten excuse me, ten new songs, six re recordings of the hits, got it?

01:02:00
Speaker 2: This has been awesome. We've done over an hour here, seriously, seriously, That one by Fast done over an hour. That Keep You Loving Me is the single from this record? Right, Well, that's a good question.

01:02:11
Speaker 1: There's I guess you could call it a single from the record. That one sweet Tea are two of my favorites on here. I've co wrote both of them. What You Leave Behind is another co write of mine.

01:02:21
Speaker 2: Uh, all singles, I guess you can. Yeah.

01:02:24
Speaker 1: I mean we we kind of released to the DSPs.

01:02:28
Speaker 2: Six Lingo about and then digital. Yeah, come on, so.

01:02:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've sort of released six singles to the DSPs. But we're I guess at this point, we're just hoping that people uh, either download the project or oh, let me talk about this for a minute. We have partnered with the Wounded Blue. And I don't know if how familiar you are with the Wounded Blue, but it's an organization out of Las Vegas, Nevada whose sole purpose. Yeah they yeah, adopt exactly, Yeah, yeah, adopted cop dot com. You can go to that website and donate twenty dollars or more and they will send you one of our new CDs. We donated boxes of CDs to them, so we're hoping to help raise money for them because their their mission is to help out wounded law enforcement officers. And you know, you'd be surprised. Over one hundred and twenty thousand law enforcement officers were intentionally attacked in the last two years. That's on their website.

01:03:18
Speaker 2: I read that.

01:03:18
Speaker 1: I pulled that from their website, and it's just amazing how much how much they do for us, and that gets overlooked. I've said it one hundred times. I think that the three most dangerous words ever spoken in this country were defund the police. I'm not a fan of that movement. This is our way of trying to counter that movement.

01:03:38
Speaker 2: I think we should fund the ranchers is what I think. Hey, we should just give you money for no reason. Just come give me money. And could you know what people do that?

01:03:46
Speaker 1: People will come to a ranch just to stay on it for a few days. Well, they call them dude rents, just for the whole wrenching experience and they'll actually help you. Well not yet, but I'm working on it. I'm building a barn to many of them so that people can come spend the weekend with me and bring your work gloves and you don't get me a day.

01:04:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then they pay me.

01:04:04
Speaker 1: And then they helped me do my work. They helped me fix fence, they helped me work here.

01:04:06
Speaker 2: They didn't grow up in the country. Then, because I ain't doing that, as you know, I did much haul too much. Hey, I work or too much? Yes, don't tell don't tell them. This is a part of the ranching experience. Well, all your rich city selectors out there, the ranching experience of heat is a really great place.

01:04:20
Speaker 1: You never know, you might we might get a cow a leg hung in a gate or something. Yeah, that's that's the that's got to pay extra for that.

01:04:26
Speaker 2: Well, you do have to.

01:04:26
Speaker 1: If we have something like that happened.

01:04:27
Speaker 2: You got to pay pay extra. Yes, Caitlin, did I miss anything? Is there anything? We won't put your camerack you to make it. You want to talking to the microphones, we can hear you, Okay, don't. You won't be on just come over here, but we can't hear you're yelling from across the room.

01:04:41
Speaker 1: It is.

01:04:41
Speaker 2: It's interesting to everybody. If it's interesting to you, you're the most interesting person I know. I'm here, thank you. No, I just wanted to say thank you for seeing at my grandpa's funeral.

01:04:48
Speaker 1: Well, I was honored. He was a great man. He was as your uncle said. I don't know how.

01:04:53
Speaker 2: Jeff got through that. That eulogy.

01:04:55
Speaker 1: That was the best eulogy I've ever heard at any any field. And Jeff told me the night before, you say, here's here's the songs that I want. And he's like five songs. I'm like, Jeff, normally at funerals you don't do that many songs. He says, yep, but I want these. And it was like uptempo songs like with a circle be unbroken, things like that. I was like, well, these aren't really normal funeral songs. Funeral songs are like amazing grace and it is well with my soul and stuff like that, and he says, no, I want this to be a celebration, a celebration of life. JB was a great man. He and my dad were good friends. And I was honored to get to sing it.

01:05:27
Speaker 2: Oh. We were very thankful, and I got to talk to Greg briefly after, but I didn't get it. Thank you, So I just wanted to thank you a lot.

01:05:33
Speaker 1: Thank you. I thank Jeff.

01:05:34
Speaker 2: He called me up that night.

01:05:35
Speaker 1: I said, thanks for having me at this man. I was really pleased and honored to get.

01:05:40
Speaker 2: To do it. Good. Okay, you guys, follow official Ricochet band on Instagram, check out the record and again, go to adopt coop dot com and donate and you'll get a record there as well. Listen to s CD. There we go. That's it.

01:05:56
Speaker 3: Thank you, guys, thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.