#361 - Famous Firsts: Stories Behind Artists First No. 1 Songs with Keith Urban, Kelsea Ballerini, Luke Combs, Dierks Bentley and More!

00:00:00
Speaker 1: M. Welcome to episode three sixty one. Famous First is a good one. You gotta shout out my putting this together. It's a really great episode. So it's about famous First and some of these artists that will hear from here. I had to make it as songwriters, you know, we'll talk about their famous first maybe the songwriter you know. These are a lot of the stories that we have gathered about their first number one songs. A lot of times they were struggling as an artist forever and finally got their first number one. It's just a lot of folks that you think probably have always been successful talking about how they haven't always been successful and how it was a grind and their first number one. So you'll hear stories behind number one from Kelsey, Ballerini, Derk s Bentley, Luke Combs, Lady A, and a whole bunch more. What was your first number one? I'm glad you asked. You're talking about what music? Music? Well, it's, uh, it's kind of controversial thing to ask me since I'm not a real life musician. But The Raging Idiots had a number one comedy album and we had a number one comedy song with Namas Day back in and that was our first number one, first number one. That's it? Oh you have it there, you already knew that. Yeah, we've had a few like in these odd category number one number one children's song which we had was when I grew up up up by could be that one whatever, That was the number one song. But it's been pretty crazy you any number ones ever? No, I never written number one, written a number like a top five, top five? What comedy song? Oh with me? Yeah, but it's Sunday it's like a number three. Yeah, it was number three, That is true. Maybe you know what our new goals. But did they even categorize comedy? Yeah, I'll tell you what happened on Spotify. They have pulled a bunch of comedy stuff for whatever reason. I don't know if it's the rights thing, but they pulled Aromas Day off Spotify for like a month because we had classified at this comedy. We had to go back and reclassified this country and it stayed up on all the other platforms except Spotify. We go check and see if it's there, but once we reclass has a fight and it popped back up. Yeah, there was a royalty thing with people claiming their comedy stuff on there. Is that what it is? Yeah, so they pulled a whole lot of that stuff. But there you go. All right, well this is a really cool episode. Nice job on this. It should this should be submitted for some sort of award. It to be your first There we go, my first podcast award. All right, here we go the Bobby Cast Famous. First, let's get into the first one. Keith Urban. He talked about how he vividly remembers his first number one but for the grace of God, because it came after years after struggles on his label. When you became Keith Urban, I'm gonna rolled through some number one here, two thousand and one, your first number one, but for the grace of God's here a little bit. It is God again after the years of struggle on a label to have a hit, did it feel like a relief or did it all like this is amazing, because there's a difference. Was it like, oh my God, thank you? Was like whoa, That's what I'm talking about? It only above. It was surreal to have a number one song in America was just crazy. Remember that, like it was yesterday. Really, oh my god, twenty years ago, you still remember it like that your first Literally, yeah, I remember exactly the house I was at, what I was doing, who told me everything like detail because it was too surreal. I was like number one, like the number one most played song and country radio in America? Truly really did your life change after that? After you had a number one, since you could say it, um, I felt like, okay, now we got a chance to get some more music going. And the next single after that, I think was Where the Black Top Bands, which is weird because it peaked. I was looking at numbers. It wasn't a number one, but that, to me is one of the songs I think of when I think of you in your catalog is Where the Black Cop Ends. It wasn't even number one, which shows you not all number one or career songs, and not all career songs or number one songs. Even in two thousand two thou two did that song feel big like a number one song? Where the Black Top Ins. I can't remember that now. When you can't remember now, I can't remember that. I mean I remember making that a whole album with Matt Rawlings, and it was the first time where I was in a studio and having gone through all of the famous producers and realizing none of it works for me. It just I don't know what I'm gonna do. Um. There was a guy running Capital Records at the time called Pat Quigley and he was the president. And I used every proper famous producer and none of it was working. And I went into Patt and I said, can I just I had just done a session with Matt Rawlings for somebody else. The two of us were playing on it, and I clicked with him and I really liked him a lot, and I said, could I just go and record some songs with this guy? Because I think he can put good band together and we can just make a record that sounds good. And he went, yeah, whatever. It was very much that case of like, go do whatever you want to do. We're not that interest. You could tell it was whatever it's going. So we went and cut up the Grace God and like four or five songs, and I took him in and played for him and he goes, that sounds good and just finished the record out. It was no big deal, and we handed in the record and it had It's a love Thing and I want to be everything. All the singles that came out Grace God, Black Top all that stuff, um, and they put out Love It's a love Thing, and I think I went to the number eighteen or something like, No, it's okay, pretty good. They put out another song, I Want to Be Everything, and I got to top five or close to it, and it wasn't It was okay. Everything was okay. And then the label really focused on me and they put out Grace to God and it did that and I could feel everything changed after that. Whenever Somebody like You comes out two thousand two, there's a little clip. Do you remember this one? Is vivid? At your second number one? You do everything about it. Recording it first time, I'd work with Dan hulf Um working out at Sound Kitchen and Franklin and the putting them, putting the band together and the set, the whole session. I remember it vividly because it got magical. Does a guy like Dan half challenge you? So? Uh? I was going to do the next record on my own UM Golden Road, and I had already done six six sides of that record, including who who were on Me? I put the band together, I chose the studio, I chose the engineer, I put it all together. And then someone said, you know, you should try and work with Dan half and I went, no, I don't want to work with him because and they went, well, he's a guitar player. I mean, I'm so not going to work with a guitar player who's gonna tell me what to play, you know. I don't want that. I've been down this road before. And they're like, we'll just give it a shot, you know. And I met with Dan, and this is a true story, and I it was really a compliment to Dan. I met with Dan. I said, Okay, I've got this one song it's called Somebody Like You that that'd be a good one for us to start on. And I've already been in the studio for two weeks with this band. We'd cut half the record, it's already done. And Dan says, okay, this song feels great. Um, I think we should use this drummer. And I got already got the drummer. Well, I think we should use this space. But I got I got the whole band. Dan, I got the whole band, all right, Well, I like to work at this studio, I said, I'm already at the studio. We're gonna be at sand kitchen. Okay, well the engineer I like to use is already got the engineer. His name is justin Ebank. And he goes, what do I do when I go, you just show up. That's all you're gonna do. Show up because I want to see what you do. I'm sick of these producers that say they're a producer, but really they have great engineer, great players, they don't do anything. I saw it again and again and again. I'm like, just show up. What the hell can you possibly bring to this session? I want to see? And he walked into that session. I've been with this band for two weeks. He walks in and I literally could feel all the musicianship go up a whole other level just with him being in the room. He sat in the room, the band's playing a bit of Somebody Like You, and he goes, hey, Chris, just change that snare a little bit there. Okay, yeah, leave that base part out right there, and you play that bit over there. And he I watched him arrange this thing and the whole track just elevated and like, well, damn, this guy is the real deal. He's so good. When did the town start to treat you differently. I was already getting support from the town very early on. I think because of all those writing sessions, you know, and when you write with people, where it gets out whether you can really thing, really play, whether you know about country music, if you're legit or just some poser really. So I think those sort of guitar pool sessions of people's houses going to the Bluebird, people knew I was for real. Kelsey Ballerini talked about how she landed her first number one, love Me Like You Mean It Back. She wasn't signed as an artist when she wrote this song, and it was even pitched to other artists before she recorded it. Tell me about this here, So you're talking about writing the song. Yeah, where are you talking about the room? Who's in the room? This was such a random mistake song. Um, that wasn't a mistake we had. We were writing at Black River. I was writing with Um Josh Kerr that day and Um Forest was writing with a guy named Lance Carpenter that day. Um, and so we all get done with our rights and we're like, hey, should we try to all write together? Like we're all kind of so you wrote separately and they came together on this one. Yeah, it was our second song of the day and um, yeah, so we got together and we ordered soul Shine and we just kind of pizza pizza yeah, um, and we kind of just posted up in like the the big lobby area of the label, um, the upstairs by the fireplace, you know. But I'm just the question as um and so yeah, and it was kind of no pressure and we were sitting there, we were catching up. We all we didn't really get a lot of time together and um, yeah, we're just talking, hanging out and I think the first thing that came out well Forest actually, who ended up producing the whole record. Um, he's like my musical partner. He's just that person for me that I feel like it's my better half and has really become that, and especially now even working on the next record, is that even more so. But um, he was like, Hey, we're listening to Take a Bow by Rihanna. I love pop music, and so we're listening to that song and he was like, I really feel like you should try to to do like that swag that she does how she kind of like laughs after she says a sassy lion all that stuff. And I was like, I just don't know if I can pull that off. You know, I didn't know because I was I mean I was nineteen at the time maybe and I don't know, just insecure and awkward and UM. So he's like, let's just try it, and he started playing the debt app but dead a Dad on the guitar and and then we were all kind of like the if you're gonna know, if you're gonna We just loved that done on a kind of melodic thing and um. And then we literally just wrote it like thirty minutes. And uh, I don't think we really thought anything of it other than it was fun. But the moment for me that I remember was Forest did a demo for it, um, and I sang the demo. So he did like a basic track like guitar beat. I sang it like the next day, and then he did a demo for it, like built around my vocal and said it to me, I mean maybe a week and a half later, and I remember putting on my headphones listening to this demo being like, that's special. And I don't know why because it's not lyrically genius or anything, you know, but it's special to me. And um and the label felt the same way about it, so and it got pitched around town to which I didn't know till later. So they were trying to give the song some other people. I didn't know that because I wasn't signed yet. Yeah, and as you weren't okay good, this is all putting it into it to a place. Now you weren't signed as an artist when you wrote this song. It's fair than they pitch it. Yeah, to you, it may not feel fair, but guys, this is the first one. I get it completely. But looking at everyone thought it was way too pop, and I think, and this is a kind of a weird place for you right now, and that's why I'm really anxious. And listen, I've heard some of your You've sent me some stuff on your second album, and I'm ex just for it to come out, because it's gonna paint a new you, because what what's happened with you as you created this new niche in the format and now a bit. I don't think it's I don't think you're being penalized for it, but I think this is your one record and it got so big that people only know you as the pop country girl. So now it's your goal and this is just me talking, and it's your goal with the second record to show your depth. Do you do you feel that yes, I think that just talking super honestly, Like I think that this first record, it was really heavily embraced by radio, which was really epic. But I think in doing that the industry absolutely it made you not cool. It made me really not cool, and so it was awesome because I was like radio's girl, which I love, and I mean I did a twenty two week radio tour. I mean like that means for those of whom know, she's going to morning shows and radio stations. It's five in the morning and singing and it's miserable and it is and you're dealing. It's just and you're going city to city the little station, a little station, every single day doing this anything over and over and over and over again. Yeah, and it and it it's it's paid off and it's been amazing and that relationship has been amazing. But I think in in that happening how it did, it made Nashville kind of be like, but what a place to be because you're right, yeah, you put out this record and it it breaks records and sets new standards and here you are, You're all over all over TV. But you know how industry snooty can be. So to the industry like they you know, you're not that cool, but everybody in the world you're the coolest thing ever. And it's a weird dynamic because you're blowing up. But then the people that are at home, you're like that you want to to like be like, oh, Kelcy, so you're like, oh, they don't think I'm cool because my song sound poppy. It was. It's a huge and security of mine. Yeah, And and the thing for me like my biggest goal right now, And like I'm in Nashville right now, like I have two and a half weeks to finish my record essentially, and I'm writing twice a day. I'm writing after this I wrote this morning, Like I'm just like trying to drain myself of that because if anything, like I just want people to know I'm a songwriter on this next album. That's the most important thing to me. And what's funny, you're such a long writer, you know. I mean I used to play you and I know and we would drive for hours and hours and hours when you would play songs and you're very much a songwriter. But I saw it as it was happening, and as you were exploding. I saw you exploding in one way and becoming industry less cool at the same time. And it's such a weird anomally it's like the bigger you got, but you screw them, because I'm gonna tell you in a sort of way that that's happened to me too, where it's like, you know what, I'm just gonna be me and that's really all you can be. It's yes, it's carry carry her Khalil line. This sounds so lame, but her trademark or whatever is stay the path, stay your path. And I'm like, I always have to tell myself that because I'm always comparing myself. You're the next You're the first of the next wave. And that's that's pressure too. It's a lot of pressure too, because you have to put out a second record and the next record that you really do. It a lot of pressure. But the good thing for you is you also you create your content. You're not just not picking and and that's a and that's a different skill sell set in itself. But you're right, yeah, and a lot of people don't, so you can actually create your own path, which even if you lose, if you're creating your own path, at least lose. At least you lose by creating, Yes, you don't have to get someone else's vot and sync. You get to build your one boat and sink. There's so much more into that than it is just falling with it. So, um, love me comes out? Yeah, let it comes out. Wonderful song. Who picks it? By the way, like when it was across the board, we just knew we we had a meeting, just I think for the sake of having a meeting. Um, and we all sat around and I don't even know if I had management at the time. I don't think I had management. Yet you didn't because your management I remember meeting you're now manager in St. Louis when he came to one of our Yes, you're right, you're right. So I didn't have management. It was just me in my label and we all, which is not a good place to be, by the way. You want to always have someone there. But again, you pick a good song, good to go. Yeah, And so we listened to three songs. We had a song of looking at stars the first time and love Me and listen to all three and then we all went around the table and voted, and everyone said loved me and and then I guess they already n that that was going to happen. So then we they had all these like cool bracelets made that said let me like you mean it on um. It was a cool moment. Yeah. Luke Holmbs got his first number one in with Hurricane. He told us the story behind that song and how it led to a string of six more that followed. We get into the stories of each one. Here walk through these number ones and just give me a couple of sentences about what they like when you hear them back, Like what was happening around the time that either you wrote it or number one? Like what story we'll start. We'll start with Hurricane. Here you go, here's that. What do you think when that plays? I mean, it just is a flood of like things were just really happening at that time, you know, And and that song was around it for you know, in my life at that time a long time. You know, it had been out for you know, by the time it went number one, it had been out for two years. And so I played that song on a lot of clubs, and and I just could I I can just feel the like the momentum when you play that song, because it's you know, I kind of everything to that song, you know. I mean I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you if it wasn't for that moment in time, you know. And I just remember, you know, playing all these shows, and man, we're selling everything out, and people were all these important you know, business people were coming out and we want to see the show, and we want to talk to you about this, and and just excitement, I guess would be the word that I think of when that song comes to mind. All right, number two here is your second one one number away, I'm number. That's just different, you know, it was. It was the most different thing that I had done at that time, especially when we wrote it. You know, I had never written to a track before. I didn't know what that was, um, and it was just it was it was cool, man. It was kind of like I was like, man, this thing is just so cool. It's such a risk for me I felt at that time to put out, you know, and so I mean luckily it worked out. But that one is is definitely, I would like risky, I think, is how I would felt. I felt about that one when it rains it poors. Yeah, man, I mean just I mean, I just think that's probably my It just makes me happy when I hear that song. Man. You know, I remember shooting the video and and uh and Charleston and and uh you know me and my uh you know, now fiance had had just really got into the throes of our relationship at that time, and it was just really fun. That was just a really fun time for me. You know, that song brings back a lot of of really cool fun memories for me. Right number four here she got the best of me. Why did you up right there? What what happened up there? Was? As I mean, it's just that's full It's like full circle is the word I would use. Because I wrote that song in college. Um, I wrote it here in Nashville, but it was on one of my trips and it just the way it all came together was, um, you know, I wrote it with Rob Snyder and Channing Wilson h at that time they were both you know, doing the revival thing together at Tin Roof and um, a buddy of mine that I went to Nashville with had you know, kind of walked up to those guys and was like, hey, let's write a song thing, and and so they were like sure, man, you know, we're in town for a couple of days. And they're like, oh, well, we can write tomorrow or whatever. Me and my buddy got just super drunk that night at the Tin Roof and and you know, we played revival that night and um, and so he called me in the morning and was like, hey, man, like, I'm too hungover to go to this right, will you go instead? And I was like sure, man, like I'll go right with these, you know, two complete stranger guys, you know. And so I went over to Rob's apartment. Me and Rob were kind of sitting there writing and this. I mean, Rob and Channing are both like big dudes. They're both taller than me. They're both even broader than I am. And and Channing walks out in this like bath towel, you know, he's got his long hair and his big beard and everything. And Rob was like, dude, come come get on this song with us, manhol come write this song with us. And he was like, man, I'm not feeling it, you know, and he said, we'll play. He said, dude, just just play him something. So I played night Moves on my guitar by Seeger and He's like, yeah, I'll come right with you, guys. And then so we wrote we wrote she Got the Best of Me that day, uh, And I ended up recording it uh in college when I'm still in college, putting it out, And then when it came time to record the deluxe version of the album, you know, Lynn was like, this song is just great and your fans love it at the shows and and I really think it deserves a chance to you know, to be recorded with the proper equipment and the proper proper band, and and to shot at being a single one. So it was definitely a full circle experience for that one, beautiful crazy. I mean definitely, my fiance comes to mind more than anything. Um, and that song really just changed a lot for me. I mean it was seven week number one, which is crazy. I want to never imagine that that that to you, that song to me put you on a hold different like it's you have to have a massive song to actually make the jump. You can have eleven number one and sometimes you don't make the jump. But if you get that one definer, you can make a jump. I think for you, that's when it launched you up. And that's what I was thinking, is this is the one that took us from like I mean, we had four number ones and things were awesome, and then it was all of a sudden, it was like next, it was the next gear after that song, you know. And you know, I think of obviously winning the Song of the year uh here recently, and you know, all the accolades and and and and things. There's so many really positive, you know memories. I mean, I wouldn't be you know, I probably, I mean I would like to think I would still be with my fiance without that song. But I mean, this is the song that I played for her, you know, after we weren't even officially dating yet when I wrote this song about her, and I remember playing it for like two days after I wrote it, and I was like so nervous right there because I was like, man, what if she thinks I'm just a total creep? Like you know, because it was like, I mean, we're hanging out. We were hanging out a good amount at that time, but it was still like, man, it was such a risk in my mind like to play her that. What did she do? She was working at b M. I no, what did she do when you played the song? Did she get emotional or did she? Well? I I played it smart because her one of her friends was there, and so I had actually bought her a record player as a gift, like a Crosley record player with like the legs and like its own little speaker and stuff, and so I it had an OX cord jack, and I plugged my phone in and played the work tape and her friend was in there, and her friend was like, oh my god, like this is just wow, you know. And so I was like, I know, if I can like hook the friend and the friend thinks it's sweet, she at least has to pretend like she likes it so that I'm not in this awkward situation where both like, well, we'll just stop hanging out now, because do you think I'm super weird? So it was she, but no, she loved it. And I mean she obviously loves that tune. All right, Bear never broke my heart. I can't just feel the live show on that one. Yeah, I mean, it's just like it just feels like, you know, it just feel like I can imagine what the environment would have been like in an A C. D C concert, you know, like and not that that song sounds anything like an A C d C song, but it's the most rock and the thing that we have. You know. It has those heavy, like chugging guitars and and just it just feels like an arena rock like anthem song. And that's what it feels like every time we play it. And I think that song, you know, if Beautiful Crazy was important, I think beers just as important because we followed Beautiful Crazy up, which was this very vulnerable, like low you know, finnel like violin kind of acoustic thing, and then it just polar opposite is this song. And and this song. You know, I think this gave us a jump too, because you know, a lot of and like you said, we did have hits, but a lot of the hits were kind of like mid tempo e like there wasn't that like kick you in the teeth thing in the set, and I think that song brought that to the table for us. And the last one before we go, even though I'm leaving seven number one in a row as we record this right now, this is the one multi week number one when you wrote this, how do you feel? I've man, this was like crazy, right. So actually one of the guys I wrote Beautiful Crazy with White dirette Um. This was the first song that we wrote together, uh and me and him and and a good friend of ours Rave Fulture wrote this together and it was one of those things like I love to get into a rite and just not go until I feel like it's perfect, and I feel like sometimes the Nashville environment can be We got three hours, We're walking out with a song. I don't care if it's terrible. I don't care if it's the best song that anybody's ever written. I just want to get it done and turn into my publisher and get on with my life. You know, which is great if that's what you want to do. And I understand that, and I enjoy that sometimes too, But I have to go into it with a different thing because I'm writing it as something that could potentially be a humongous part of my life forever. You know, that song is never gonna go away. It's never not gonna have been a number one. I'm never not gonna play it every night, And so I love to go in and make sure that if I'm going to record something and I'm gonna put it out there for people, that it's something that has the stamp of approval. And so that was a right that took probably eight hours, seven or eight hours and one day. And we were in the little like um, we were in like the little office rooms at Southern Ground in the studio. We weren't in the studio, but there's a little spot next door where there's like, you know, just a little fluorescent bulb like offices. And why it's son at that time was you know, getting ready to you know, he was getting to the age where he was going to be graduating from high school very soon. And that was his only a child at that time. And um, he was like, man, I want to write my son a song and let him know that I'm gonna be there for him no matter what, you know, like just because he's not living at home, he doesn't I don't want him to feel like he can't still call me, or he can't still you know, be my son or ask for help if he needs it. And so that's how that song started. Uh and and uh, man, we had trouble getting through it. You know, I'm lucky enough to still have my my parents in my life, and so I haven't you know, had to deal with that, you know, horrible day yet. But we were all, you know, very emotional, like you didn't sing in the work tape. I got a little choked up, and I was like, man, this is like and I knew, like, if that's happening to me, like that's going to happen to a lot of people with that song. So um, that song is just you know, it's it's really powerful for a lot of folks. Dave Heywood of Lady A on how their first number one, I Run to You in two thousand nine started with a poem written by Tom Douglas. That first number one lead to Need You Now, which became their first crossover hit, I Run to You. It was on the first second a lot yet even though it's from the first record, and listen to those lyrics in our society today, Tom Douglas. Tom Douglas sat in that chair and blo did he come here? He talked about you guys really yeah, and gathering around the piano. Yeah, he's got a beautiful little farm and our beautiful home mountain. You know, Franklin or whatever, and just an old piano and he's such a poet. It's just so artistic. I'm like, I like want to be him. I would fangirl him just even though we've written with him a dozen times, Like I would fan girl him just about everything. Yeah, I've been lucky enough to sit next to some really mind blowing lye awesome people that I only appreciate way later because in the moment, And that's gotta be like that with you at times too. You're doing this big in the moment, you're just trying to get through it and not suck and go back at it and go Yeah, that was awesome. It was so cool. That was a poem which we told that story, but our bass player jokes us about that a lot, but it was. It was a poem time it'd written called I Run to You, and it was just all these things that he runs from, pest, this and prejudice. He was like running. He was like actually running, I think maybe the Music City Marathon, but he had all these visions of things that you run from. I mean, how deep is that? You know? Like I mean it's like, like, why can't I think of that kind of stuff. He's just that kind of guy and has lived a lot of great life and and had, you know, his ups and downs that he writes and shares about. But yeah, that started with a poem and we basically took his poem and kind of put music to it, and then we got into it so right. And for the next record, we had a writing compointment with Josh Kire and we never written with him before, but he had written before he cheats for carry Underwood, and Uh. We went in there and wrote one song first for about an hour and it was kind of quick, and I just didn't feel like a good song. Um, it was a quick right he had had Um, he had had like half of it done. It was a song called young Love, and it just didn't feel like us. It didn't feel like us. And we finished it and I was like yeah, and then it was like one of those things. Charles was like, why don't we just day and write another song? And I was like, I mean, we're all single and nothing to do. I was like, sounds great, I'm here. So we started writing another song and um, Charles had some melodies on the guitar. He had just started playing guitar. Actually and learned a few chords on the acoustics, so he came up with some of the melody on the verse D D D no no um, and then we kind of just sailed off from there and you know, we wrote it really quick. I'd say in an hour as well. Needs You Now happen fast, some of the some songs take like six hours or a few days or a couple of writing sessions. Needs You Now was quick. I Run to You was pretty quick. You finished Needs You Now. And it's just a song. It's just a song. I didn't think it would. We sat on it for probably eight months, just sitting in our iTunes playlist and our very last label meeting to cut with Paul Worley for that Needs You Now record, which it was not obviously titled inn Um I remember, and again it's just a beautiful testament. I think Charles and his memory and his passion and ear from music, He was like, what about that remember that song we wrote Josh here that day. You know, it's kind of like it sounds just like it'd be a cool album track, you know, kind of one of those like kind of insider songs that like people just love the vibe you know, it's it could probably have like a cool vibe. Um, what if we you know, in the the acoustic demo, I want to play you some of that. I mean, the acoustic demo is just we're fumbling all over the melody, you know, it's like he messes up a lyric and it was just all over the place. The acoustic demo was really just it was just a voice in them from our phone, and so it sounded really rough. But we were like a couple of people in the room Autumn House, Mike Dungan Um, they all kind of perked up there like that could be kind of cool. Why don't you guys try that? And so still we didn't know what was happening. We got in the studio and recorded it, and I think once we got in there and Paul Worley got his hands on it, he made so the piano part, Mike Rojas was tinkering around, you know when you're warming up in the studio, and he started to kind of do that on the outro of the song, and we were like, man, do that on the intro. That's like a hook. That sounds like one of those big hooks. The baseline, this guy named Craig Young play that Paul Worley got. I could geek out on these guys names for for for hours. But um, some of the bass playing, piano playing guitar, I mean me and Paul played about twenty acoustic guitars on that song. So when it gets to the chorus on the song, acoustics, So this is an old Um, I won't go down this tangent forever. This is an old Crosby Stills in Nash and Young trick that Paul Worley knew where you kind of if you have like up to twenty to thirty acoustics, that makes it feel like the whole song chugs along really like it's like a wall of sound, right, So if you notice on the course there's just this jinging, jinginginging, straight kind of thing. And that's about acoustics in the background. I mean, it's not the same. If you want to to in today's world, you could just duplicate him. Yeah, But to have different guitars with different woods and different strings from different eras in different times, all surrounding in stereo, different guitars all playing, and you know, Paul plays a little different than I play, and I play a little different and finger some of the chords differently with different voicings, but just those little nuances on the track. When Paul worly got and and dug in with that song, I mean, I gotta give it to micro Haas. The piano stuff is amazing on that song, and I gotta give it to Paul worly Man. He is such a champion for great art and he takes his time with it, and that can be hard with patients and studio because we all want to just pump out a track in one day. But Paul will sit on it and work on it and work on it, and then two months later you're like, wow, this thing sounds timeless. So you write it and you think it's a song. Then it's sitting there and you think this is a song. Cut it. When do you realize that it could be special? Um? Once we cut it and we started showing it to people, so we recorded it and we started playing it for you know, our friends. Um. I mean I wasn't married at the time. I wouldn't say my I put friends and people at the label and management and they're like, man, that's like that could be really a crazy cool kind of first single, um, and we're like, no, we need to have a tempo. Isn't that what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to have like the rock and tempo is your first song. And they were like, man, it just just feels like a piece of art. It feels like art. And we were all about it. We just thought it would be the album track. But we were all about it. I mean it was. It was all of our favorite song that we had recorded for the Needs You Now for that record. Derek's Bentley talked about his first number one What Was I Thinking, which happened all the way back in two thousand three. He told the story of how he didn't even want this song to be his first single. He originally wanted a different song, I Wish You Would Break to be his first single, but it worked out for him obviously because what was I thinking? It was a massive song? Still is I have some songs here? Oh man, it's play some other stuff? How about this one right here? Put that cross my mind a little too, because that was text first thought that comes when you hear this up here. Weaver great songwriter here in town, and really without Bread, I wouldn't have anything he Um really took me under his wing as a writer, and I learned so much from Bread about writing. And this was back when, like when we had like the shoe box tape recorders, you know, and and pen and paper, and he thought I had to write. One of the things he thought was just you think out loud on paper, don't talk the whole time when you're writing songs, or somebody just could work on something when you've got an idea. Maybe. But I remember playing that for Autumn House, who was an a R at a Capital. I found her outside exit and I got my guitar, ran out to her the exit in she came out of there. I sat her down on my tailgate played her to that song acoustically. I was going to the studio the next day, and she's like, cut that song. That's great song. So you run out to some prominent person here in town, say hey, stop and have her watch you sing a song. She was a and R. She still is over Capitol Records and uh and I she was in the club, I think exited and hearing listen to somebody. I texted her text or I called her and she met me outside and I played it for acoustically like outside the club, and because I thought it was it could be a hit. Oddly enough, I fought really hard that not to be the first single, So what did you want to be? The first song called Wish It Would Break, which is more of a country thing. Um, you know, it's about your wishing your your car stereoid break because every song plays your mind of your girl wistening. This picture frame would break, that keeps falling down, but you don't have the heart to throw it away because it's the pictures of two y'all. In the last verse is about wishing your heart breaks, you just move on. It's a great song. And I wrote that with Brett but Duncan Mike Dungan from capitals like, we're going with those again, so and you're glad it didn't. Yeah, all right, here we go, come a little close. What makes me? Might hear that song? Makes me think Chesney? I wrote that Brett Beavers, but Chesney said that was a song that Um, when you heard that come in the radio, that's the reason why you take me back out on the road, man, and you do so many Hey people do this to me too, But I haven't heard that. I want to play this song a love anymore. So I love hearing that in a great song, you don't play you're talking it's a little slow. Can you stay a little slow because you feel like it takes the crowd down. You know, you gotta make a rollercoaster out there when you're you gotta find a way to take people on the ride. And you can only have you gotta pick your you know, our show is so high energy, and that's but what makes this show great is what makes those high energy songs work is the real moments and and and that that you can only have so many in that song. Just there's just no room for that one right now? All right, how about this one man's part of my favorite songs? Another song. I don't do the live show anymore, but I do it usually earlier than night in acoustic show. But uh, when I think of that video, and I think that signed to the video port because there's a scene where I'm getting rained on by the rain machine and there but you can tell us nother rain like anywhere else just coming on. It's like the cartoon whenever. It's such a great video, there's just that one moment because you know, if you're you care so much about the work you do, You're like that one scene drives you crazy. But Chris Stick, you do that video. It's actually when the best videos we ever did. And uh, that song is um. I love that song and it's one of my favorite songs. But I usually do it. I do a pre show acoustic performance for some folks. I usually I'm doing that song a song. I wrote that song and launched it blown the same day with Brett Pevers and running Steve bogartan. Uh, you know, it's a great song. I would say it's one of the songs that it could say more. I mean, if that was it, you know it was. It was a number one, but it wasn't like a that was a lead single off an album, and it just wouldn't do much. People still love that song. I still do it live, but I used that song for a lot of video content of like our life on the Road. But that's a song that, if I'm being totally honest and critiquing myself, I just didn't say enough. You know. The verses need to be more specific and more biting and more personal and more um telling who you are or the story you're trying to tell and just not so um interchangeable, so that that I love that song, but that I was listening to. That's one thing every song you put out I put up in this one on has to be like say, something really impact four or you know, every line has to be just Perke Maddie and Tay on their first number one, which was a Girl in a Country Song, and how quickly their life got very crazy. They talked about how things moved so fast and they didn't even realize what was happening in the moment, and they thought that having a smash number one was just normal because it happened so fast. Tell me about this song, so you guys kind of come on and you do a Girl in the Country song? Played a little bit Girl in the Country song? You guys still like the song? I do? It's I was trying to think about how many times we've played it, Like it's only been four years. I mean, that's still a long time, But like I was like, I wonder how many times, Like I would be curious to know the number of thousands. With radio tour doing like three shows a day for a year and a half, we gotta be in that in the thousand brackets somehow easily a thousand. Yeah, I would think easily a thousand. But this song, so it was kind of a rocket ship for you guys, at least from my side of it. It was like and I kind of just started too, you know, I just moved from the world and I come over and I'm, you know, the guy that's and everybody hates me because I'm so different, and they're like ah, and I'm like, oh good, these girls are different too, and you guys come in and first of all, you're really good, but there there's a novelty to this song too at the same thing. And so but it was just like the video was like splash, like here you are. And yeah, I watched that video recently, like for the first time in years, and I was like, I haven't we were some ballsy eighteen year old girls, Like whoa. I guess I did not realize how big of a deal this song was until like going through what we've been through the past couple of years, and I was like, you know what, like this is not gonna happen, but if God forbid, everything like just like fell apart or whatever, because I mean it has for us, you know, last year. But if all of that happened over again, at least like we said something like we said something that was important and needed to be said, and we would love to keep doing that obviously, but um, just watching that bag, Oh my gosh, like we we're fearless? How did that happen? This song comes out though, and it sens it's your first song. Do you guys think that's normal? Like was that norm? Was it? Like this is oh, this is how it's done. We have a song or a bit where you're like, whoa this is It's kind of hard to compare it to something you've never had something else that was That was the issue, if I can say issue, It really wasn't an issue because it was a blessing and it got us to where we are now. But if there's anything the con to that was just being so green and almost like I mean, we were a baby artist. We like you said, we had nothing to compare it to, and so our whole team the entire time Girl was rising up the charts and doing all these milestones. It was like they said, this isn't normal. You're not. You're gonna have to work much much harder on your next single. And they were trying to warn us, but we still didn't have that experience in our in our back pocket to kind of draw from. So for us in a way at the time, it was normal, which is crazy to think back and look at, like I wish I would have had more experience so I could cherish those moments more and not just like like stop and smell the roses first, Like even though it sounds so cliche, like I don't remember a lot of that because it was just like onto the next day, Okay, you did the Today's Show as your first full band show. Great, Okay, let's go do it again. It found like it was just nuts and I'm like, I don't know how we did all that, but um, I'm kind of glad that we were so like green and like um just and it were fearless because we would do anything like now we know better, like don't play three shows in one day. You're gonna wear yourself out and it's gonna mess you up. Like don't do that, like you know, just stuff like that. Or don't fly from Orlando to New York back to Orlando in one day and do three shows. That's not a good idea. Just just say no. Sometimes you have to say no to things. But I'm glad that it happened then, and it kind of gives us I don't know, it gives us perspective on like we have done before. It's not going to be as easy this next go round. But it did it a little backwards. I sometimes I wish it was slipped, but it's okay. So that song did it hit one? Okay? So it goes to number one, and what's the next single after that? Fly? Okay? So Fly comes out and doesn't go number one. It was a number seven, but it impacted really well, which was kind of cool. Yeah, we knew the the hardness of what was to come with that song too, and it was a ballad. If it were in the summer, they're all these rules. But so this song comes out. I love you the song by the way about I'm only asking this backward, but it doesn't go number one. So you've had a number one, then you have one that does go number one? What do you think after that? I was really happy because people were The way I measured it personally was how people were singing back when we were on stage and they were singing Fly. And still do just as loud as girl. So to me that was a number one song, like maybe not on the charts, but from for our fans and for my spirit, I was like, we landed another one. Joe Diffy talked about his debut single Home going number one back. He also shared stories behind his other big hits like John dere Green, which oddly never went number one and is such a massive song from Joe Diffy. Here is Joe Diffy, rest in peace? Joe, what song of yours? When you play it gets the biggest response? And you know what's funny about that it was not a number one song, And it's you know, I talked with a lot of young artists now and they're like, I just want that number one, Like I get it, you do. But and and in Keith Or and I have talked about this where his a lot of his songs weren't number one and then we were to have you know, of course back in those days, I mean there were several over like four or five different charts, so I think it did go number one and one of them I don't know which one, but but yeah, uh that's always that is a strange phenomena. Some of your some songs that do go number one don't sell as as well, etcetery. You know. So for me when I think about your music, like my favorite song has propped me out, and that was not a number one song on the on the radio chart. I mean when I think, Joe Diffy, this is the song for man. Know every word. I remember when it came out. I bought the CD and I memorized every word so I could sing all of I did that and third Rock because the third rock is a little harder, the words are a lot faster. But this, this is the song for me that if someone's like, what your favorite A matter of fact, when you came in, I was like, Joe, you gotta play problem me up? And you did. And again is it peaked a number three on the radio chart. It's weird. There's a big record from the video though for this song. Is what I really remember from this song as well, because back in the day we used to really watch CMT from music video right a lot. Yeah, all you know what I remember about the video mostly filming the video. It was so hot, man, it was, and they had this these buckets of like Sea bree member Sea Breeze. It was kind of like a facial cleanser or some kind of deal. And it was like but it had like an aromatic kind of effect and they were dabbing all of us with it stuff. You know that's judge member was so hot and and plus the dead guy. Yeah, it was so funny. Man, I mean that that that to me is those two songs. And again as I started deep diving, and I was like, man, my favorite two songs number five and a number three. And you say that John der Green gets the biggest. When you do your set list, what do you start with? What's the first song? A third Rock from the sun? You come out of high energy, huh, Which this wasn't number one song for you? Yeah, I just would have a problem going out and doing the fast up quick cause I'd be had of breath for the next three songs. That has happened, like especially I said where it happened to me a lot as if I'm you know, on the opry for some reason makes you nervous, and boy, if you ever get backwards during your breathing in that song, you're screwed. I mean it's it's over, you know. Tell me about this song third Rock? So you heard it were you like, what's this about? Like? What? Um? I always thought it was like a little mini movie, you know, which I heard a lot of songwriters say, you try to dude, right, I try to write a little three minute movie, you know. But honestly, this was one that I mean, even though I liked it, they there was the same Polisher had played two different songs for us, and uh and I like the other one better actually, and so uh you know. So anyway I ended up getting both of them. Had to do to the Wheeland and dealing some some guy apparently that I don't know. I can't verify this, but I was told this. Garth Brooks wanted third rock as well. So and how did you get third rock? And what was the wheel? We cut both? We would do both of their songs. Do you know what the other song was? It was called uh something? But if you're having to think, I guess it really was. Never There was never a single. Yeah, did you put it on the record? Yeah, it's on there. I'm gonna run through your number one's real quick. Let's do home. Yeah, your first debut is that right? First song out and you go number one for six, number one six in a Row. So do you think after let's say two or three, do you have a figured out? Um? You know what I felt like? Such I was. I felt a little bit like a rube. I was so naive about the whole process. I mean even though I kind of knew. I kind of knew about stuff. But man, when you know when you get it, when you when you start off like what I did. I mean, I was on the road three hundred days of a year, and so I didn't really have time to think about stuff. I was busy, you know, traveling and doing shows and me doing meet and greets and all that stuff. You know, So what brought you to Nashville? Meaning I know the music, I know that the thought of country music. But there's always something where something you get that push or you can kind of the itch. Well, I got laid off from my job I had. I was working on a foundry back in Duncan, Oklahoma, and they shut the plant down, laid us all off, and you know, and I've been singing a little VFWS and twenty moved. I moved to Nasville when I also a little bit older, Yeah, compared to like the nineteen two years are moving here now? Exactly, so you get laid off, yeah, and I said, And I had been to Nashville once before with my aunt and a friend of mine. We had we we did this little thing as a trio and we came in and my aunt had known somebody here in Nashville, and so anyway, we met with him, and I spent in love with the city then. But I didn't have the opportunity because I still had a job at the time, you know. But when I got to laid off, I was like, well, you know what, I think, I'm just gonna try it. So I just loaded up everything I could get in this whole beat up car I had, and off I went. So at home, you know, you're you're playing around bar? Are you playing on bars at home at all? Not a lot, Honestly. My background was more of a I sang in a gospel group then I then I went from that to a bluegrass group. I played bluegrass for six years with this group called the Special Edition. Were you known as the guy that was doing music while working at the plant by your workers? Yeah? Are your co workers? Yeah? They'd always ask me to sing, you know, would you ever sing at work? I don't remember gather them around and be like, all right, boys, yeah, I mean it just they sing that song, you know whatever. Isn't it funny how the things at the time that seemed this happened over my career in my life too. We're really I put finger quotes up. Unfortunate things that happened to us turn out to really be blessing, dude, blessing, the biggest blessing ever. Yeah, because if I hadn't got laid off, I probably would have never left there. You know. So when you get laid off, do you remember how that happened? Did you did your your boss your form and come in and go all right, you're done? No, it was just more of a I got a phone call, I think, and they said, yeah, playing shut down, don't go out there. And then immediately do you go? All right? Time to go to Nashville? Like was it kind of in the chamber already? Know? It took a took a couple of months, you know, drawing unemployment, and I thought, well, you know, I might as well think of something. I had a good friend of mine and we used to discuss thing he wanted. He moved to Dallas and became an accountant, and you know, and that's what I want to he said. Yet, you know, you gotta try music. You're really good at it and all that stuff. So and when you got to town, did you feel like you were good enough to get in the mix immediately? Um? I just felt really lost, honestly when I first got to town, because I just gotten divorced and I missed my kids and you know, and I was just in this new place and I didn't have a place to live, and you know, and all this kind of stuff. Would you do what you I finally moved in with a with a musician, a guy named David Greer, and we we rented a house with no heater and for for about a year. And what are you doing when you first moved to Nashville? Meaning are you out trying to meet people? Play right around? Like? What what what happens with the new artists? With me? I was trying I needed to man count. So I got a job. I knew a guy that worked at Gifts and Guitars, and so they hired me out there too to work in the warehouse shipping guitars everywhere. So and then after that I would just do whatever I could. I'd go to two showcases and you know, just go hang out, just just to get my get out there and meet people. You know, it's so interesting to hear about because, like I know, you was the country music legend. But I love hearing like the origin story of the hustle because I think so many people don't know that there's a hustle for everyone. Man, I tell you what there was. There was days seriously, Uh you know, we didn't have anything in the house to eat. I mean nothing. One time I had I think I had like I don't know, seventy five cents on me and I went by this funniest thing ever. I didn't know they didn't have white castles in the duncan. So I saw instead of Hamburgers, I thought, oh, yeah, I've got I can you know? So I stopped. Yeah, so I know, I said the guys canna help you? I said, I like a Hamburger police. He goes, uh, just one. I said, yeah, I didn't know they were, you know, tiny Hardy on his first number one one beer. That's his first number one as an artist. He had Lauren Alena and Devin Dawson on it. He also talked about his first number one as a songwriter Up Down, which he wrote for Morgan Wallen and how was the first time he made any money writing songs. Yeah, let me play this first. Here is one beer on the record. This hits slightly different than the rest of the songs. So whenever this was decided to go to you know, radio, conventional radio, was someone really pushing that and it was like, Wow, we can't believe we're gonna do this or was that kind of the consensus to go with that song? Yeah, it was just the internet. It was data of it stood, I mean as oddly enough to It was on Hicks tape. It wasn't even originally on my um My Rock, my actual record. It was a Higgs tape song. And of all the songs, we knew we were probably gonna do a single from Higgs tape and Seth England kept saying like, dude, it's gonna be one beer you just watch and I was like, okay, and uh, sure enough, I mean exponentially beat everything else on the record. And and I've always been uh I say always, I've only been doing this a couple of years. But like anything that I cut, I would be willing to do to have as a single. So whatever that they, you know, say, is blowing up on you know whatever Internet, any app or whatever, I'm good to go with. So I just said, let's let's do it. I know it's different, but go for it. There's only ever been one of the persons and say that in that way to me when when doing these long form conversations, and he said, you know what, I write almost all my stuff, not a love of these. I'll take a couple of songs that that I don't write because I'm a songwriter and I appreciate songwriters. And he said, but if I cut it, I just go, it's good enough to put out. So you decide, because I wouldn't cut it if I didn't think it was good. And that that was Chris Stapleton. Ye, who goes, I cut it. I gotta believe in it, so label you take it and do what you're good at, because I already did what I'm good at. That's how I feel pretty much exactly the same. I'm cool with anything. And I know there's kind of a whole spectrum of of sonically of of stuff that I put out, but I'm cool with anything going out there. Your first money making song was up Down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was that. The first song that ever got cut. No, my first cut was, but that was actually so I sold two cuts. Up Down was on my old deal. Um I should go to Church sometime by Tyler Farr. Oh yeah, that was my first cut and it was my first single and died like in the sixties. I remember it. Yeah, yeah, but still exciting to get that first single when you get the call and they go, hey, it's a single. Are you pumped? Yeah, oh dude, yeah, I mean I thought it was gonna be rich. Not that that's why I do it, but um, yeah I was. Yeah, I mean that's yeah, it's a it's a huge milestone and and and uh, you know, just a confidence booster and it's like you are doing this and somebody legitimate cut your song, and yeah, it's it was. It was all the wind and the sales I think that I needed. And then after that everything just kind of started happening, which is everybody says like you get one and you get X amount or whatever. And I've seen that happen with a ton of my friends too. It's just funny how that works. So as much wind gets put in your sales when they say, hey, it's gonna be a single, did as much get taken out when it didn't hit, Yes, but up Down kind of cross faded with that, so I had a little hope there. Um, But around the time it died was when Morgen cut it, so we just still didn't know and he had only had the way I talked, um, So it's hard to you know, really gauge that, but um, yeah, it was a good It was enough cross fade for me to not like be super down and think maybe that was my shot. There had to be too a bit of excitement whenever it's not only Morrigan who who at the time was an unknown artist on a label who had no history at all, not even if success or not success, but no history, big lad of no history. But then when fgl gets on the song, you gotta go, oh man, I got another bullet for the gun inside of the song. Yeah, it was a huge um booster for him, and that was kind of a sigh of relief for you. I'm saying, like to write a song, you know, I f GL is on the song It's not Gonna die at sixty Uh. Yeah, And that was that was kind of the Okay, this is gonna be a hit. There's no way it's not gonna be a hit, and uh, that was definitely a huge thing for all of that. That was all me, Brad Clawson and c J. Soler was our first really a few of our first cut or maybe minding somebody else's like first or second cut, and our first hit together too, So it was good for all of us. Let me play this here is Morgan walling up, down down, Damn, We're down. You mentioned Brad Lawson. So when I heard about you the songwriter about to start turning into you the artist, it was from Nicole Galley and who's a friend, and she was like, yeah, hard he's he's gonna try to be an artist. And I didn't know who you were. I just yeah, nobody did. If She was talking about the songs she'd written, and she was like, I don't know, I tried that. You know, because a lot of songwriters in town have either tried and it was unsuccessful and not a good experience, or they just don't want to do it. Yeah, you see all their friends do it and they're like, I don't know a by that, you never have someone who's a songwriter who hits it big for a couple of songs, it goes, you know what, I'm good. I don't want to do it. It's never that way. So you know if with the songwriter mostly they're they're like, I don't know, I want to live the artist lifestyle. But for you, was I always kind of the goal on the No, it was not. When I was in college, like I kind of wanted to. And then I signed a pub deal and I was just like, this is awesome, and all I gotta do is write a song every day. And and uh no I had, I had. I had reached to the point where I had zero intentions of being an artist or at least like signing a record deal and like doing the thing. I might have had aspirations to put music out or something, but no, I had no. I had no plans to to do it. Tracy Lawrence talked about his debut single Sticks and Stones, going number one in but how one of his most famous songs, pay Me a Birmingham, never went number one. Here is Sticks and Stones. So when this song starts to get some traction, you're a brand new artist. I mean, is the record label like we knew it we knew you are a guy like are you treated differently? Rick Blackburn didn't believe in that song. Elroy Kahanak, who found me up in Days Will Kentucky, believe in that song. He literally got in his car. He was the head of promotions in Atlantic and he would drive all over the place and bring pets out and stick him in the car in the parking lot and make him listen to it. L Reconne made that a hit. He shived it down everybody's throat. But it was so different when it came on the radio. There was nothing else that was like it. And that was the thing that that change in musical style when I was trying to figure out and the summer of ninety when I was living in Louisiana, what do I need to do? Because you gotta think about all the stuff that would happen had that happened. In eighty nine, you had Alan Jackson that came out, Mark Chestnut, Vince gil Uh, Garth Brooks as all this new music, this new sound that was happening, and it was exciting back then, and I was like, I've got to go be a part of that. I've got to be gona be a part of it now. So when I got the shot to cut my record and James Stroud and I were put together and all the wheel started turning on that kind of stuff. I mean, James had cut that first record on Clinton Black, so I was with part of that new sound that was making that change in country music. That's when the young country slogan, that whole thing just exploded out of Nashville. It was it was awesome time. Did you get any pushback since your sound was different and every kind of different generation gets a pushback, was there any there? You know? I never felt it personally towards me, and I know a lot of the older guys. I heard the Whalens and the haggard grumbling underneath the surface, you know that they weren' getting there to play on the radio anymore. And there was there was not It was not a there's not a love a lot of love toward us from those guys early on. I think it kind of eased up as time went on. But the one person that I never felt that from was George Jones. Never uh. And you know, George and Nancy they found a way to embrace that change, and so they just they gathered us all up and made us part of I don't need no rocking chair and all that stuff, and he I went on tour with Jones, so it was it was. It was a great time. But George, they just approached it from a different perspective. But yeah, there was there was some pushback. But you know, these guys have been getting there and played for thirty plus years, and then all of a sudden, all these young kids are coming in town, the music change and taking over, and they're not getting airplay anymore. They're they're a little bit better at times. It's funny you bring up I don't need your rock and ship. I mean that to me. I can remember singing that, and I George Jones was a bit before me. As I got older, I started to listen to more George Jones because I love the format. I wanted to learn as much about county music as I could. But when that song came out, I remember all you guys being on that song. I mean, it was every country superstar I could have ever imagined on that song with him and the ones of us that weren't on it. I didn't get to sing on the record, but I got to do it every now at the confer there were so many. I was looking at um the c m A s or that song was nominated for a c m A and it was just like seventeen people on that song, and I thought it was so cool because every all those people love George Jones. Respected George Jones. They did, But do you know what, how could you not respect George? Look at look at what he had been through. He lived alive. I mean he survived himself and uh and and lived to a place where he was able to still be relevant in a time where the music business was changing all around. You gotta have a lot of respect for that. That first number one was now We're There. Single that happened after that that did not hit his heart. Six and Stones hit hard, uh, the couple of big ones off that record. So Sticks and Stones, the four off that album were Sticks and Stones. Today's Lonely Fool running behind that were number ones, and then Somebody Paints the Wall was a top five, So we had three number ones on top five. And now as we progressed into Alibis, which was my second release, we had four number ones off of it. But there was some friction there because I was wanting to grow. By this time, Indian Outlaw had popped and I was wanting to do a heavier guitar sound, and James and I were on board that. James Stroud who produced the album, so we were we were pushing things. Alibis was a massive hit. When I remember being in the studio, we cut can't Break It to My Heart, which was a single, and uh, that track was originally cut with a screaming rock and roll guitar on it, and I thought the head of the label was gonna blow us top and he lost his mind, made us go back in and put a fiddle solo on it. There's too much rock and roll guitar that couldn't stand it. Another song that was the number two air placed song of the year called Can't Break It to My Heart, that I was a co writer on. I thought he's gonna drop me off the label because he me not to cut it, not cut it anyway. It's wild to hear those stories about songs that I just associate being so freaking country. I mean, now I look at those and I'll play some Alibis. Here's Alibis and here is Can't Break It to My Heart. Where this is as country as I could as the country of a song can be. Absolutely, he hated this song, hated it, hated everything about it. Why I have no idea because he told me not to do it, and I did it, and that's why didn't really like it. But you know, there's you know, I always say, people ask how you know when you're get in the music business, when can you push? How do you know when to push? When you get momentum, you better push because if you don't, you'll never get it. When you get an opportunity to take advantage of a situation, or you will never have any creative control your whole life. And I took advantage of the opportunity and I pushed back a little bit. And I don't think they knew quite what to do with that. And I had managers that stood behind me to I wasn't out there by myself. My manager fat the fight for me. It's funny when I was walking over here, I was I was like, God, Tracy's over, come over and talk to you. And I started in my head as I was walking to the front door, I just started going, pay me, you burn me. It's like I think about you and that's the song that comes to my mind when I think about you. It's when that iconic song. When it was it was a massive record. You know, I've been blessed with a lot of number one in the business. That one only got top five, which we were talking about before you got here, because I'm always fascinated by songs that become an artist's, you know, one of your career songs. But and it doesn't matter if it was number one now because everybody knows it and an associated with you. But that wasn't a number one song. Do you remember what beat it out? I don't remember. You know it was. Uh. It was the first thing that we had released when I moved over to DreamWorks from Warner Brothers, So there was there was a political shuffle that had happened that whole time frame. That album was actually cut on Warner Brothers and uh uh, James Stroud was running DreamWorks at the time. Scared Boardshadow was the head of promotion. So we had our own deal worked out and we couldn't get one of birth and Brothers to release us. They wouldn't get the paperwork done. We waited and waited, wait, and we're trying to be patient, getting all the tease crossed and eyes dotted and all that stuff, and then low and behold, if Ken Melons didn't drop a single the same song, and uh, then the lawyers got involved, then it's like, okay, we're done. We've been waiting to release a single and here here's somebody else has got their hands on it. So we we came and got aggressive and it Uh. I think there was just some some things going on around DreamWorks at the time, and then it was probably Toby that was ahead of us that kept us from going in. But they just felt like it was time to let it go and move on. But it but it was a massive hit man. That thing impacted hard. Yeah, I was gonna ask is it massive because it's lasted or was it massive then? And for some reason You're like, why can't we get this the number one? Because I'm feeling it when I'm playing shows. You know, Uh, it was massive because it was massive, it really, and you know all number ones aren't aren't that way. I've had a lot of them that you know, they they manipulated the numbers. They went in on a dying breath, some things fell out at the top. Whatever the reasons were, Uh, I don't think. I don't think the longevity of the song needs to be determined by how far it went up on the charts. And there's a there's a there's a you know, a markey to all that stuff too. But I think the longevity of it speaks for itself. I mean, it's it's one of those songs that just connected with people. You know, Hank. I don't think Hank Junior had a number one song for years and years all that early stuff that was so massive for him. I mean most of those were just top tens, but they impacted, they left up, they left an indelible mark in people's mind. I remember, and I didn't know at the time. As a kid listening to that song, I didn't know what a key change was. It was only later in my life when I learned a bit about music to understand what a key change watch was and how hard it was to do. But there's a key change in pay Me at Birmingham that you do that when listening back to it, I still get chill bumps because it's like it goes to the next level when steps up and what we do live. I closed the show with it have been closing the show with it for a long time, so we've built this big power of pop guitar solo into it that just really elevates it. When you hit that nod, it just won't you know. I think one of the things that made that record so special too is nobody really knew what a Birmingham was. They thought, you know, you had people that thought I was talking about the city that I left my love in Birmingham. You had people thought about, you know, it's a uh, whatever the scenario was. But what I found out later on it maybe I didn't really even know what it was until later on. But the song is actually written about a house called a Birmingham. It's a style of house and we've talked about that in the past before. So I think the being able to interpret that song and be something that anybody wanted it to be made was one of the things that made it so special. It wasn't locked into just being what it was. You can interpret it many different ways, which a lot of great songs have. That absolutely, because what makes it great is so many people can relate and sometimes so many people find their own relationship with the song. And I think that's what this song does. Like everyone finds in a relationship with this song absolutely, and then I get fifth our own mental picture of what that is. Another song that that was locked that for me was Texas Tornado and all the things that I've had. I think Texas Tornado impacted the young kids more than anything else that I ever did. And and the only thing that I can correlate that too is how many times as a kid did your mother say your room looks like a tornado hit it? So I think that it had that perception to young kids, and they were they found a way to relate to it on a different level because I never saw that that that correlation when I cut that song either. Jody Messina, on when she finally landed her first number one in with Bye Bye, two years after her debut single Heads Carolina, tells California peaked at only number two and it would have been a number one, but my Maria was ahead of it as a tough one to beat. Here you go, Jody Messina, your first number one here is Bye Bye. So was this your first single or was it your first single that went number one? Did you have one before this? It didn't We're just gonna love this one. One of my teammates. Um, My first single was heads Carolina Tales California, which is which is bizarre, was gonna get around by Maria. I was gonna talk about it. That's the wildest song to never go number one. Heads Carolina tells California like I can't did on some charts, like the smaller charts, but Billboard and I think are and are It's set behind my Maria forever. That is just some bad luck that two of the biggest country songs of all time are on the chart at the exact same time. They just want to kick Ronnie and Kicks in the ship and be like, hey, guys, come on, let me hop up. There is five. They were my first major tour, so no, I learned a lot from them touring with them, and they were just so kind to me, and their crew was kind to me, and they they gave everybody the speech you know when we first started, like whatever whatever they need, you know, just see two that they haven't take care of him and we were just spoiled rotten on their tour. So no, but we did have bad luck, or not bad luck, but we did have that same luck again with Lesson and Leavin and that song that's for a few years after that. Who sat at number one that time one Star Amazed eight weeks eight weeks we were at number one and two. That's crazy. So let me rewind for a second. So heads Carolina tells California, um, which we still play on our show, because I mean, that song just transcends every form of music, every form of it doesn't matter. It's such a good song that thank you. Was that your first ever single and if so, it must have felt like a rocket ship. Well here's the deal. We were done with the album and Tim Nichols, who's one of the writers on there, had called me and said because he saw me at a showcase and he's seen me around town singing and um, he called me and said, hey, I wrote this song and I was wondering if you would listen to it. I'm like, dude, we're done, we're done with the record finally. And he's like, please, let me just leave it in your mailbox. Listen to it and then let me know what you think. And so he did. He left in the mailbox and I was like, man, this song is really catchy. I love the chorus. I'm not crazy about the opening two lines, but I'm going to play it for my producers. And I played it for my producers and they're like, which is Byron Gallimore and to mccroth, And they were like, oh man, we gotta cut this. And I was like, yeah, but I don't like the first couple of lines, and so they're like, well, ask him to change it, and I was like okay. So they did. The only studio time that was available then was on the fourth of July, so we actually cut it the fourth of July before it was released. And so as you cut it, were you already this is a single? Like in your mind? Were you cutting it to be a single? Are you cutting it just to get it on the record and see what would happen? We're cutting it to get it on the record. And then as soon as we passed the record in, as soon as we passed it in, there like okay, this would be the first single. Do you remember what the lines were that we're changed? We two have known it the day they cut that paper mill down, or shut the paper mill down. Sorry, there'd be no future for us no more in our little town. I've got people in Austin, ain't your daddy still in the morning? And I was like, oh, and can we change Austin to Boston? People in Boston. So yeah, So that's Peaks at two and then you okay, So then bye Bye comes out? And did you feel like a little bit because bye Bye again such a great song? Did you feel like a little bit that the chart? The chart people felt like, Okay, we need to make because she got such a raw deal with Heads Carolina Tellas California, we need to make sure there's nothing else in the way with this one. I don't think they were aware. I think it was just the song itself. Um, I saw they pitched m I pitched it to me. It was a film of aster song and they I loved it as soon as we heard it, and so and that, and then I had a different first line to the opening line for that was girly, you sure look pretty. They're standing in the doorway in the sunset light. And when I sing, and it's like, boy, you sure look good. They're standing in the doorway. And I remember before we cut it, Phil Bash was like, it's not a song or a girl, it's a guy's song. And so he still says that today it's like, that's not a girl's song that was written for a guy. So but we we love each other. But he's yeah, we got bye bye that came out and then I'm all right, yeah, same year. Thanks for listening to episode three sixty one of the Bobby Cast. Famous firsts now, go out and write your own number one song. And since I inspired you, give me five percent publishing or just make sure that you subscribe to the Bobby Cast wherever you're listening. Rate at five stars please, And if you're looking for more podcasts, I want to suggest two of them. Twenty five Whistles. It is our football podcast or movie mix movie podcast if you love movies. We're back next week with a brand new episode. Thank you guys, this episode was awesome. Good job Mike, thank you a great episode. There you go, thank you, See you next time. H m hm