Tyler Rich - American Country Singer/Songwriter and Animal Rescue Enthusiast

 in those early stages we would I would print out like these little cards I'm like business cards
 and it just had my picture and on the back it would say download a free song
 if you follow me here's the link basically and I would like DM these links out
 to download a free song on Reverb Nation. Once you go to a label and you're on a major label
 in a label like Universal with Big Machine or Sony, you're going to put out your first single
 on Country Radio and that's the first thing you've ever done. It already kind of comes
 as like a façade to give it a really dig into it. Whereas if you've already really built
 grassroots with people and you have a network social network and a foundation already
 people believe it more.
 You're listening to the radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host Ryan Alfred.
 Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the radcast. Hey man, if you've been checking my
 playlist, if you've been, if anyone that knows me, they know I'm a country music guy, so I'm going to
 get as many country music stars as I can and I got my favorite guy right now, Tyler Rich. What's
 up brother? What's up? Thanks for having me, man. Yeah, man. I was excited. I was like, I'm
 going to DM Tyler. I've been, I know you're busy. You're back on the road. We'll talk about that,
 but loving the newest hits, which we'll talk about and it's like, damn, I'm going to get this guy.
 You've got an interesting journey. Just super thrilled to have you on the show.
 Thanks man. I'm excited. It's different than the normal type of podcasts I do. So I'm excited
 about this. Cool, man. Well, let's just start down the road. We'll get into some of the latest
 hits and all that stuff that what's going on today, but I do want to just talk about, you know,
 your journey and your background and all the nitty gritty for kind of coming up and, you know,
 building a career and country music and everything behind that. So maybe let's just start down
 down that road. Yeah, man. So born and raised a little town called Ubersiti, California.
 A lot of people are always like, California, man. Why do you like country music?
 Usually people that say that have never been to actual California, they've only been to, you know,
 Disneyland or LA and whatnot. Where I grew up is one of the agriculture capitals of basically
 the entire west coast. So I was raised around country music and farming and all that stuff.
 Just fell in love with the songwriting and country music when I was a kid and pretty much,
 you know, anybody in my age or age of 35. So we all had, you know, from like Brooks and Dunn,
 Garth Brooks, George Stray, Alan Jackson, all that kind of stuff to really suck us in and then
 being from California, I was also a massive fan of every other genre of music because I was
 surrounded by, grew up pretty close in Bay Area. As soon as like Bay Area hip hop to a rock,
 you know, Metallica was from there. Deft tones was from Sacramento, Pop Roaches from Sacramento,
 all these places that grew up around. And so I had all these like really cool influences growing
 up and dove into guitar and bands and all that stuff when I was in high school and then
 out early 20s and then all of a sudden, you know, guys like Keith Urban and Tim McGraw and
 Kenny Chess and all that stuff. When I was departing from the band I was in and it was just going
 to be me and my guitar and I was going to be a singer songwriter. I was like, what do I really want
 to do? And country was just like just that obvious. I wonder at songs about where I grew up,
 what I grew up around, who I grew up with, and the ex-girlfriends I can't stand, you know,
 and like all these like realistic stories of where I grew up and what not.
 Your favorite beer and the long you used to mow. Exactly. And country sets you up so
 nice to be as honest, painfully honest as you want to be. And my uncle that taught me how to play
 when I was a little kid, it was always a country. He was just him myself, two guitars, him and a
 couple of friends there guitars. We would just sit around for hours playing music. And so that's
 really when I fell in love with the song and country songwriting. And so yeah, I just graduated
 after doing music. So I went back to school and got a degree in economics for some reason.
 Crazy off the wall. Yeah, perfect match with country music. Yeah, I know exactly.
 I think yeah, I think I needed something to get my mind off of this thing. I'd been chasing for
 so long and take a break. And so I went back and I finished and then when I was done with that,
 is when I moved down to LA from I graduated from Sacramento State and I moved to LA to do this
 singer songwriter thing and started writing a bunch of songs down there just alone for the first
 time ever. And then we got into producing pretty quick and put a couple just independent tracks out.
 And this was probably like eight, nine years ago at this point because time is just now I
 especially after COVID. I'll see friends now and I'm like, hey, what's up? Do I haven't seen you
 like a year? Like, man, it's been like two and a half. That would make sense because we have like a
 year and a half gap in the entire world. But so yeah, probably nine years ago now we put out a
 couple independent songs. And this is right when Spotify wasn't even thinking it. You know, it was like,
 it was really guerrilla marketing still. You know, I had to, which I know is pretty with this
 podcast is really about is like the business sounded. Man, in those early stages, we would,
 I would print out like these little cards. I was like business cards and I just had my picture
 and on the back it would say download a free song. If you follow me, here's the link basically.
 And I would like DM these links out to download a free song on a reverb nation. And I would go to
 festivals and I would go to front of the lines of any shows I was playing and I would just hand out
 these cards and all these cards trying to spread my music. And then it eventually got me to
 Nashville and then the rest kind of just happened from there. But that's that's the next
 hill version of how it kind of started and what got me from California to it's interesting journey.
 I mean, it's like I know every past every, you know, it seems like hit artist or whatever
 journey's different. But it's definitely a different path. It seems like every other one I've
 heard is like move the Nashville with the dream in mind or something like that. But I know,
 I know California pretty well in knowing how, you know, some of the rural country it's a huge state
 like, you know, and how popular and how it kind of did originate some of some major artists and
 things like that in country and things like that. So not that shocking. But what do you think the
 the biggest challenge for you like, you know, through that journey is it just like it's just,
 I don't know, you don't seem to lack confidence. But like it seems like the journey for artists
 especially is like when you're trying to get that fan base and trying to kind of get the machine
 rolling or something. I mean, talk about just some of that, some of those just challenges and,
 you know, things you struggled with or, you know, that you feel like you've kind of pushed through on.
 Yeah, the biggest struggle always is, well, what you said about confidence is important because
 that's the number one thing you have to get no matter what because if you don't believe in your
 brand or believe in yourself and what you're selling because I mean, I'm an artist and musician,
 but I mean, it's business more than anything in the world. You know, you have to believe in it
 and what you're selling and it's so crazy important because when you're trying to tell somebody
 to listen to your music and they've since any sort of hesitation, they're like any sort of like,
 they get like, I mean, somebody tells me, Hey, man, when you check out my music and I have like
 even a 5% inkling of like this weird vibe from this person like about one, two.
 So that is super important obviously, but as far as
 going back to that girl of marketing thing, man, it was so important in those early days of
 getting those that core early on because you want somebody, you want people that are passionate about
 your progress and your journey. You want people to be like, man, I was there and I'll give you
 a perfect example of this. Like I was there when it started kind of thing, right? So you think seven
 years ago, eight years ago, I was at stage coach, which is a massive country festival, 100,000
 people in Southern California. Yeah. And I used to walk around with those little cards I was talking
 about and I would hand them out. I'd take like 3000 in the festival and I would walk around and
 I would just tell people like, Hey, I'm playing next year. They're letting me promote ahead of time.
 Here's a free song. And it was a lot. I was never playing next year. You know, but then you
 got three thousand people. Yeah, I get it. You got three thousand people now that we're going to
 discard being like, Hey, I've never heard of this person. Next year, we could be the only one
 singing this guy's song. So let's check it out. You know, there's a pride and an ownership that
 abandoned that. And then so now flashback forward like five years later. So in 2019, we played
 stage coach finally. And we had, I think they said 12,000 people at our stage. We were closing
 the XM stage and 12,000, some of the people four o'clock in the afternoon, you know, midday slot.
 Yeah. But we had a massive massive following. That's a lot. And our crowd. And I told that
 story on stage about walking around with those cards. And I said, we're any of you out there,
 one of these years that you got one of these false advertising cards, right? And it wasn't false.
 Your year was off. And if you believe it, it was not. Hey, I tell people, you say that these
 in marketing as long as you believe it, and you're going to manifest that it wasn't false.
 Yeah. And it never wasn't true that I wasn't playing next year. There wasn't even a lineup yet.
 You know, so in my mind, I was I wasn't going to play. Exactly. It's none of us knew yet. You know,
 how do you raise your hands? Is there some people raise your hands? They not only did they raise
 their hand, but so many people lifted that card up in the air. No shit. So people had like saved
 them, right? And so like, that's just like a little thing that just shows like how one little
 interaction could go such a far away. And ultimately, like, our biggest thing is make
 sure we grow in each city. You know, like, I don't really play certain markets as much as I play
 other ones that we just played a show in Columbus, Ohio, headlining show two nights ago. And
 we were just looking at how many people were coming and the crowd was massive and we were just
 super excited. And I looked at the guys backstage and I said, man, three years ago, we had lined
 it in this city two blocks away and we sold 12 tickets. You know, and and then we were about to
 play the show and you walked out and we played 75 minutes and the whole crowd massive crowd was
 singing like every word to every song. And it's crazy because you can play a show, you know,
 a week ago that might not been that good. But as long as where you have been before continues to
 grow and every time you put that under song, more and more people are listening. As long as you
 can physically see it, then you know, you're in the right direction. Well, Greenville, South Carolina
 needs needs some Tyler Rich, you know, I agree. I agree. I know. So we'll start the fan club here,
 specifically with this podcast. We got we've got a national audience pretty growing ourselves,
 but Greenville, South Carolina needs some Tyler Rich. We'll come back to that and they will get you
 down here for some kind of benefit or something like that. We'll we'll figure that out. But so
 talk to me, man, Tyler. Talk to me about talking to Tyler Rich, culture music, artists, writer,
 superstar. I'm going to give you all the accolades, bro. I like it. I like to praise up my,
 my guests, the, but talk to me about like maybe the biggest difference. Like I think there's a
 perception with country music of okay, the way careers are grown, moved to Nashville, you got to
 sound the label, you got to do it this way. Like, you know, not everyone listening maybe knows the
 business of country music, but maybe talk to me about like the reality of it and maybe the
 perception of some of the business of growing and becoming, you know, a star artist.
 Yeah, it changes every year, you know, the process, you nailed it when you said that,
 you know, that's like, well, you said earlier also, you know, so many people say, oh, I left
 and went to Nashville first and build it from there, or as an I chose the route of building it
 from my home state first, and then we go into Nashville, but there is the conception that you
 you need to move to Nashville, where LA is the Nashville, otherwise, because you know what I mean?
 It's like, yeah, you move LA, you think you can do anything entertainment related, and I realized
 pretty quick, I needed to actually look at Tennessee. It's like being in politics and perfusing
 move to DC, being an actor, not living in LA, you can't, you have to be in Nashville for country.
 And so I learned it pretty quick, but, you know, they say you move Nashville, get a publishing
 deal and then get a record deal, and then spend forever, figure out what's the perfect song to
 release first, take that to radio, and that has been the machine that works every single time,
 as long as you have the right song, you have the right team, et cetera.
 In this growing age of streaming services and constant just content at your fingertips,
 no matter what it is that you want, immediately, that is changing, and there are a lot of artists
 I'm seeing that are absolutely just crushing independently because of stuff like Apple and Amazon
 playlists and Spotify playlists. And there's just a discovery aspect there never was before.
 And if you make it on hot country, on Spotify, and you are unsigned, and you're getting,
 a million streams a week or something like that from that, that is massive awareness on your
 product, right, your song. And so it's interesting to watch change now in my timeline, my situation,
 that was not even an option in my mind or even in reality. Like I was very set on my,
 I need to get this record deal and then we're going to take. So country radio is still
 the biggest radio format of any genre, whereas in people that listen to other genres don't
 necessarily listen to the radio as much anymore as country consumers do. Country radio is everything
 to the country audience still. So in order to get on country radio, actual charting country radio
 stations, you have to have a record deal. And so if you don't have a record deal, you don't have
 a promo team that's pushing your stuff to country radio. And so it's, it's just become like
 other genres, man, you can do it. You can do it without a label for a long time. Country,
 I would still my number one form of advice is go get yourself a record deal, but get the right one.
 Even if it's an independent one, even if it's small, you need a radio promo team because country
 radio is the spark to every career still currently. That was validated by one of the the biggest
 self-made country artists that was on our show a few weeks ago, coffee Anderson, who did country
 ever after, who's been 100% self-promoted, never labeled, but he even admitted and he just signed
 to get on country radio starting like next year that that's the avenue. You know, he's done really
 well. He's made good money. Maybe not, I mean millions and millions, millions, but a very
 comfortable, really nice lifestyle, you know, through other channels, but even he said and it
 doesn't surprise me because that genre of country music, the people with that, I don't know,
 down home, good country music people just still listen to the radio, still trust the radio,
 still love the radio, the DJs and everything else. That's just way of the staying power, hadn't it?
 They get off work. What did they do on their way to dinner or the way home that they just
 turn on country radio? They don't open their phone and figure out what they want to play on a playlist.
 So that's here, a large chunk of your demographic. And with coffee and so many other artists,
 especially like Texas artists, I mean, people just crush. There's people that aren't played on
 country radio that will sell out massive auditoriums all across the country and they don't need
 country radio to do it. But if you're wanting, so for instance, we'll be put on lists for opening
 slots for tours, you know, and like, hey, Tyler's available, this person's available,
 this person's available. And then you'll get, like I just went through this with our headlining
 tour that is on the West Coast. It starts four weeks from tomorrow. And so when we're looking at
 openers, they send these press packages and you look at their streams and you look at all this
 stuff. But when we get submitted to things, we just got submitted to a few for next year,
 there's a number one criteria that must be matched and that is that you have a current song
 climbing on country radio. And if you don't, you're just not going to get big tours.
 Unless you're an anomaly, there's outliers to every situation. But if we're talking like
 status quo, like run in the middle, like, what's going to happen? Yeah. You need a dance on
 country radio. You can do that. You can dammit. Deal. And I love my label. They press for me. And
 we've definitely had our battles with country radio and our ebbs and flows and whatnot. But
 we're just like everyone else. We're in the fight every week getting done. What is, I mean,
 I know I'm not asking you to smack the hands that feed you. But I just made that point. I am just
 curious like a little bit of the, because I get it that you have the record label. They're
 promoing you. They're they're pushing you. They have the relationships. I mean, business is
 still about relationships. And it always will be. But is it, is it just purely, play my guy
 more, play my girl more, whatever. I'm seeing guy universally play my artist's artist,
 the duo group, whatever more, more, it's just, it's just constantly trying to get more plays.
 Or is it more complicated than that? Pretty much, man. It's like, so you're ready at your record
 level. You're set your promo team. I have seven, I believe, or so people on my promo team,
 specifically that work my songs to country radio. Okay. And their job weekly is, yeah,
 connect, keep the connections go and talk about getting it added and then talk about getting
 it put more. It's such a process where they have to work together with other stations too to make
 sure that some that like, you know, if my song is crushing and spoken right now in the radio,
 they're going to start lifting it more because that means it's doing good for their listeners or
 listeners want to hear that song more. But if they go too fast and then someone in Greenville is
 going too slow, then when it really comes down to the end and they're fighting to chase that number
 one song, it's already burnt out in this market over here. They'll come off the song because it's
 already hit the top of their countdown. So they have to at the same time, time it so that all that
 so everybody's working together at the same time. And you know, business relationships are the
 number one. So you got to think after a year. So my second single, once I got pulled from country
 radio, it did what it was going to do. Then we're figuring out, okay, cool. What's next?
 About six months went by. We're getting ready to send the ship. The next song is what we call it.
 And then quarantine hit. It is now a year and a half. And then now we just ship better than
 our used to my current single a couple months ago. But radio moves around so much. So it's like,
 we could do zoom, zoom hangs. We could do all this stuff as much to meet new people that run these
 radio stations. But it's just not nearly the same. So now what we're doing is I'm actually flying out,
 meeting these radio programmers and DJs again and getting to know because there's nothing bigger
 bigger than the human connection in person. We all got so used to, you know, being able to do this
 in the luxury of being able to do this, which is incredible. But it's just there's nothing that
 compares to that human connection of. It's hard when you have, because even when you get a record
 deal, man, there's how many slots on a charting stations of 60 songs on billboard or media based chart
 basically. So yeah, maybe 60, 500 or signs of major labels probably, you know, with how many
 songs? Yeah. So how do you get your song to be in that 60? And it doesn't just, it's not just
 about having a good song. Yeah, there's like 17 layers of it. And what about the whole like now
 full album like versus singles? Like it seems like it's there's never been a time more where there's
 more EPs and more, you know, like I've seen some of these guys that I like and it's like, they have
 like seven singles last three years and not a single album, you know, like, I don't know. What's
 that? What's that all about? Man, myself, I'm 35. So for me as a music fan, I want to buy an album,
 streaming album, whatever. Yeah, I'm front to back. I truly believe in the art of, yeah,
 long it took me to decide the order of my album. It was a long process and I had to do with the
 keys of the song. I had to do it. The energy of each track had to do with story. It's old from
 beginning to end. But unfortunately, fans just don't listen to music that way anymore.
 Super fans will, I mean, like the real die hards always will. So that is why I believe the album
 obviously will never die because super fans like the filler songs, they like the deep
 that's the sad bastard ones in the middle, you know, like, oh, they love all that stuff.
 But and it's a singles chasing game because at the same time, you've got other fans,
 everybody just content is so readily available. And if some artists are putting out a new song every
 month, and then I'm only putting a new song every four months, fans are listening to the other
 artists and they're forgetting about me. And so they want music as fast as they want Instagram
 posts. And it's just this weird world we live in now that we're all getting used to.
 I personally would love to, you know, we just like in a week, it'll be a year since my first album
 came out, which sounds crazy to me because it feels like yesterday. And I would love to just track
 a new album and put it out, but, you know, realistically, like, probably going to do an EP and then maybe
 another EP and then those EP's together will be called album two, you know, and we all, I wish
 we all even knew the answers to where it's heading and what it is. We literally have meetings and
 talks like every month or so about what the plan is and that changes every month because we're like,
 well, maybe instead of releasing one song, we're released three, you know, but then if we're
 going to do that, it might as well release an EP. But then you worry about burning songs is what we call
 it. So if I think I've got two no-brainer hit songs, do you record them right now and put them out
 or do we wait a year to put the other one out because it takes a song a year to go number one on
 country radio? So do you release one hit a year and then 11, you know, or nine deep cuts just so
 that that one song, like, what do you do, right? Yeah. Fascinating. I love it. This is the way
 I'm saying stuff of the music industry. People don't completely realize it. Go into it and the
 complexity, you know, what in our industry, like, we've contributed to your complexity, which is
 all these channels, you know, Spotify, all, of course, the music playing distribution channels,
 but then social media, you got a million platforms. Let's talk a little bit about that. Like,
 I mean, how does social played for you be it, you know, TikTok or Instagram? I know you're big
 there. So we met, but, you know, talk about, you know, the impact of social on your kind of
 trajectory. Yeah. It all started with socialists for me. I mean, if you take it back to those little
 cards and guerrillas remarketing of like, follow me on this site and I'll DM you a link to a free
 download and all that stuff and really, really blew up my Instagram to start this whole thing for me.
 I used to sit on like the stairs at the gym. I would sit on the stairs. I mean, I would like
 sit on the stair machine and like, walk for 45 minutes after workout, just liking pictures
 from hashtags that were similar to me. Hashtag Sam Hunt, hashtag either, but hashtag whatever.
 Yeah. Or if I knew I was going to a city and I saw like that venue that night before was a
 country show, I'd go and like the pictures that people posted from that show to really start to
 blow up Instagram. When I did get my initial meetings with Scott Borchetta with Big Machine,
 the reason I got my meeting so fast is because I already had over 100,000 followers on Instagram,
 but I never record it. And people always say, I mean, how really important is that? And I'm like,
 really important, not only because you've already created your own network, but like,
 like I've already, like I said earlier, also like, once you go to a label, when you're on a major
 label in a label like Universal with Big Machine or Sony, you're going to put out your first single
 on country radio. And that's the first thing you've ever done. It already kind of come is like
 a facade to like people that really dig into it. Whereas if you've already really built grassroots
 with people and you have a network social network and a foundation already, people believe it more.
 You know what I mean? They believe you got your record deal for a reason. And that there was
 already a demand. And so, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, I've been, I got to stop
 you right there, Tyler, because that is Universal. I had this conversation we work with personal brands
 and large, we work with some celebrities, do everything like that. And that right there is
 Universal, tremendous, like like recommendation, whatever, asterisk that, that's going to be a
 highlight clip from this episode, because people realize building your audience now for your
 personal brand, your artist, whatever your business is, gives you leverage. And it gives you
 attention. You have built in a brilliant for you, recognizing it, but everyone listening,
 circle that one. Circle, circle. Yeah, man. It's so true, man. And so then, you know, just building it
 from there from all these years, it's just like everything social media changes every day and
 what's cool on social media changes every day, you know? And so, I found the cave ding at a TikTok
 over quarantine, because I was bored and scared, right? You know, I was like, man, we don't,
 we don't, we can't play in front of crowds anymore. We can't test it. Music in front of crowds
 anymore. This TikTok thing is blowing up. I'm not going to dance on it, but I'll try other things.
 And so, what I took into my, my core for TikTok was like, all right, there's people that are on
 Instagram and TikTok, but there's people that are only on TikTok and don't even use Instagram
 anymore. And that is an entire market I'm missing. And so, I was like, if I can't test out these
 new songs, I'm writing, I wrote so many songs. And I was like, if I can't test these songs out
 in front of a crowd to see if it gets a reaction, as we can't play shows, what if I just do like
 little teasers, people love my wife, they love my dog, you know, and so I was like, me just
 showing the family new songs. And not even me playing it, man, just like turning up our stereo,
 me and like, hey, here's a new demo. And a few songs really caught fire that way, including my new
 single, better than you used to. And so, that thing had a few million hits. It was at end of January.
 And so, we didn't have any plans, what an ex song was going to be, we didn't really know what was
 going on. And then the label was just like, oh my god, we had a releases thing right away.
 Let's do it. And so, we dropped it on Valentine's Day. And we just, and because of TikTok,
 all because of TikTok, it's an app that I literally wasn't going to download because of
 I'm 35 in my pride. And I thought it was just for kids that dance on the internet. But there's
 so much more to TikTok than, I mean, I get a lot of like my stock advice from TikTok. I get like
 all sorts of stuff from TikTok. You know, there's like experts of every field. I'll have
 channels. Yeah, man. It's like, it's interesting. And he really is its own world. And so, I mean,
 now you think of like something that started on TikTok as a teaser, literally just passed like
 32 million streams that song now. And it's number six on the top 30 countdown on XM. And it's
 climbing them regular radio. And it's all from a TikTok post. And it's just, yeah. So I'm
 I still hate TikTok, but I hate the pressures of TikTok. But I can't deny like just, you know,
 invaluable tool that it is. Yes, I have a love hate relationship. I'm in the business,
 and I have a love hate relationship with it. But it is very powerful. And, you know, hell,
 I'm blanking on his name. But I fancy like, I mean, Walker Hayes. I'm like, oh god, I hear it every
 other time I've turned TikTok on now, right? Definitely last month. And now he's,
 Apple Vs has got the commercial. So I'm sure he's banking, getting something for that. I'm happy
 for him. I hear he's a good guy. And I'm sure you know all these cats. But talk about some of your
 influences. I mean, well, I want to come back to some of the business stuff because it's really
 fascinating. You've been as enlightening as anyone we've had on the business. I really appreciate
 that. But let's, what are, I mean, who are some of your influences in country music, either,
 you know, in the past growing up, but in even now today? Yeah, my biggest one, which is a lot of
 people. So it's not unique, but Garth Brooks. I mean, it was, I think nothing, nothing compares,
 you know, it's like, obviously George straight as the king of country. And I love George. And
 he really got me into it when I was eight. So I love the movie Pure Country that he was in.
 I just, that's how I found out who he was when I was like, first grade.
 But Garth Brooks, from just his singability, the songwriting and the stories he tells to his
 as a performer. I mean, he's, you know, one of the most famous musicians in the world and he still
 goes out and does dive bar tours and his stadium tours. And he's dripping in sweat when he walks
 off stage and he's just my biggest influence as a whole all around. Also as a kid, man, I loved Michael
 Jackson. And I still watch his music videos like their movies. Thriller is one of the reasons why I
 loved horror movies as a kid and still do to this day. Him as a performer, his just attention to
 detail from everything from just every single drum hit to every light that shouts on stage was all
 on his like crazy genius. That musically nowadays, I mean, Keith Urban is my number one from
 Current Country. I love Old Dominion. They're songwriting. They're quirkiness. Everything about
 Old Dominion is a bumper sticker or a shirt that a dad wears. They tone a beach on, you know,
 they take just everyday common phrases and turn them into the catchiest, just like brilliant hooks.
 You know, I, I love John Mayer. Love, love John Mayer, Jason Morris. You can hear a lot of like
 that Jason Morris-esque production in my music. My stuff is country songwriting, but production-wise
 is very can be like beach, feel good, California, you know, in the rhythm sections and whatnot.
 Totally. I grew up listening to metal hardcore punk rock. I was in bands that had, you know,
 distortion so loud you couldn't hear the vocals for half our shows. Food fighters were my favorite
 rock and roll bands all the time. So slipknot. I mean, I listened to it all. I love it all and I
 think, you know, because my mom and my uncle, I grew up listening to the country because of my
 dad, I grew up listening to rock and roll. CCR is probably my top five favorite band of all time.
 Because of my other uncles, I listened to punk rock and metal. I just had the coolest
 influences growing up that introduced me to so much at such an early age to keep what could
 easily become a narrow mind wide open. And it's and I'm thankful for it. Especially like we
 get to play music festivals sometimes. There are good music festivals that are all genre. And
 people be like, all right, cool. So we're only going to watch EDM with this festival. And I'm like,
 oh, cool, but you know, what about like this hip-hop artist and this R&B singer and what about
 this soul singer? You know, we're about Alabama shakes, man. Brittany Howard's like one of the best
 all the time. And so yeah, I'm super thankful for it. I don't know my musical influences,
 but my family influences that got me there. I hear that Jason Maraz now that you said that.
 I totally used that that and I was nodding my head thinking about kind of the melody. It's
 some of the tunes. I don't know what it is. I don't know if that California vibe. I don't know
 what it is, but that totally ran true. And beat it was my first cassette tape single Michael Jackson.
 Oh, yes. Nice. I was nodding my head. And I was a pop-a-roach guy too. Like all that stuff.
 Like I've been through all those things. I'm we're close to the same age. I'm a little older than
 you, but similar influences, but love. Pop-a-roach. Pop-a-roach is really cool for us because they grew up
 like 40 minutes from where I grew up. Oh, wow. And so when we were in high school, they would play
 like in grocery lot grocery store parking lots where we're in our hometown. But the bass player
 played the trombone. And they were just high school band. To then all of a sudden, you know, like
 then they get a record deal and last resort comes out and you know, and it was just the coolest thing
 being local and watching it happen from the ground up. What's um, how long have you been married?
 You're not. You've not been married that long, have you? Uh, two years the end of September.
 Is it September yet? Yeah, almost like Tuesday, right? Wednesday. Yeah, two years, September 20th.
 Great. I mean, how's that? How's that been? It seems like you'll have a great relationship and
 seems like it's amazing. Yeah. Yeah, she, um, especially with her being an actor and our
 schedule's being chaotic and crazy. We've, since we've met, we've always been long distance. So,
 whether I'm in L.A. with her, she's in Nashville with me or we're just on tour on the weekends.
 We've always made it work. We see we see ourselves more than each other more than we don't, but
 all of a sudden, you know, we got married at the end of 19 and then, um, and we've been together for
 four or three or four years at that point, but then married it in 19, then immediately it was the
 holidays. Then we went on our honeymoon in January, came back and then the world ended out of nowhere.
 And then so we, uh, all of a sudden went from like super honeymoon phase for six months to then
 living together every minute of every day, like a regular married couple.
 I can make it break, my brother. Everybody I talked to you is like, cool. So now that you put the
 marriage to the actual test, like regular people, how's it going? And it actually made it sweeter.
 You know, we got to know each other. We're like in a whole different way. And, um,
 quarantine sucked for a million reasons, but it was, it was really awesome at the same time because
 of that. We binge watch Netflix shows together for the first time ever. You know, we, uh, cooked dinners
 together and learned how made meals and like all that kind of stuff and very domestic for us.
 You know, now we're back to Taco Bell and, uh, road catering. Yeah, also not so bad.
 That's cool. I'm assuming better than you used to is so it's got to be something with your wife,
 right? And, um, yeah. I mean, she's, she's the ultimate muse man for everything always.
 The original idea from that song is my little sister is just such a hardass and she is stubborn.
 She's the youngest. She's stubborn. She's extremely intelligent. She's a lawyer.
 She's always got the poker face on and then over Christmas last year. I guess, whatever,
 some point last year. I was having a conversation with her about her boyfriend that was just
 putting her through it and, uh, she's crying and she's like, I'm just putting so much in and he's
 not giving me anything back. And in her normal conversation, I was like, you need to find,
 you need to find somebody that's better than you're used to. She goes, I know, I know, I know, I know.
 Always in conversations. I've probably said three things that we've been talking and I'm like,
 oh, cool. I'll remember to write that down because that's a cool song title, you know? Yeah, it is.
 So I wrote it down in the idea and then a few months later, um, I brought it up in a room and
 usually how it works is, there's a word from like two to four of us just hanging out chatting
 about different ideas and I brought it up and once we started writing the actual song,
 you know, I can't write a whole song about my sister like that. Like there's not enough,
 it's too surface level. So when I met my wife, she was, you know, getting out of a relationship
 where she was extremely unhappy and etc. And so when I met her, she was superjaded on love and
 didn't believe in it and didn't want to give it a chance. And I had to be that person to tell her
 that like, I can be better than you're used to. Like I can be that thing. And so that was what sparked
 all the actual lyrical content. But it's kind of cool, you know, my little sister, you know,
 that we got that out of that conversation of me trying to be the older brother when she's never
 really let me be because she's always so self-sufficient. But yeah, that's cool. I would probably
 always say, well, not only is it turned into a massive hit, but it's, you know, has that dual
 meaning? It'll be special for you guys forever and especially to her. So that's awesome.
 Yeah, exactly. How so can you share? I mean, touring like anything that's like big coming down.
 I'm sure we aren't going to be able to like make releases before your promo,
 or anything, but like, there's anything that might be out there that people don't know or like
 anything coming up like next year or, you know, anybody huge, maybe you're opening for,
 that's open for you or anything, any of those details. So next year is pretty much still all
 completely coming together. But we are, my headline and tour is September 28th to October 18th.
 It's 18 shows over 21 days all across California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Utah, Idaho,
 Boo West Coast tour. But that is, we're doing that buddy, Shike Harder is opening that show.
 Wow. And then we have a week off and then we go out with Chris Lane. So we are direct support for
 Chris Lane from end of October, pretty much until middle of December. Then it's Christmas and then
 we are, and then in that will tour is for us through the south. We're not coming to Greenville,
 unfortunately. He might be, he's a Charlotte, Charlotte guy. So he will probably be hitting one of
 the Carolinas I'm assuming. We're doing the Midwest and the south on that tour, doing some Florida
 stuff, doing like tour Touga Fest, Florida. Lots of really cool stuff. The rest of the year is
 extremely exciting. This is actually the next two weeks where you're going to be pretty,
 I'm going to try to drop some beer weight, get show ready again so I can gain a note back,
 come headlight into it. It would be great. I love that. Is it still, I mean, on tour,
 like as we kind of conclude here, Tyler, is that is, I don't want to say rock star lifestyle,
 but like, is it just kind of, I mean, 18, 18 in 21 is insanity. But like, is it just nuts?
 Well, what's funny about that is that, so usually on country, they call a country artist,
 Weak and Warriors, because we usually go out Thursday Friday Saturday, come back on Sunday,
 leave on Wednesday if Thursday Friday Saturday, come back on Sunday. Whereas in rock bands,
 hip-hop, everybody else usually go on one tour, that's like three months long, and then they're off
 one tour is like three months long. And so my agent hit me up when we were, because this headline
 of tour is, it's the fourth time re-booking it. I wanted to call it fourth times a charm, but
 we wanted to stay away from COVID puns. And so, like all these, I came in, it's still like a five-week
 tour. How do you think? How do you feel about three weeks? I was like, oh shit, so we're losing half
 the tour. He goes, no, so remember when you used to be like in a rock band, 15 years ago, whatever,
 and used to tour like non-stop? How do you feel about 18 shows in 21 days? And so we are straight
 up, like it's going to be tiring, exhausting, rewarding, and freaking awesome. You need to
 do that. I sure you have a content team. You got to document that shit. Like 18 and 21, like that's,
 that's, there's your, you know, big, bold, like it's not some more creativity around it, but
 like that would be cool. Well, conveniently, so the tour is called 2000 Miles, which is the
 title of my album. And so that is 2000 Miles is basically almost the exact distance between
 Nashville and LA, and from our two front doors. And so the entire time I was writing that first album,
 Sabita and my wife and I were going back and forth, trying to see each other between 2000 Miles.
 And so that was like the no-brainer title for that album. This entire tour of 18 shows
 is almost exactly 2000 Miles and routing also. And so it kind of, love it when marketing and
 and reality come together. It just comes together perfect. Yeah, so my media guy Rick on tour,
 they just documents our stuff. Nightly, he's going to do like a whole, a whole like actual
 thing that we can release. It's like a documentary style of the whole tour.
 Taking my Husky out there. I've had the same dog for 15 and a half years. She just turned 16.
 And so we're taking her out to California to start the tour. And she's going to be out on the bus
 with us for the three weeks and bring her back to here. And then a week off before Chris Lane starts,
 that one's called the Phil Van Boots Tour. It will be dead by then, but happy about it. Yeah,
 exactly. Hey, good problems to have. What's the future? I mean, I know you're living it out.
 You got the hits coming. You're writing. You're you're living the dream. You're growing. I mean,
 you know, but is there, are you one of those that's like, I got this, I want to have this done
 that done? Or are you, are you just riding the wave? Man, I'm just riding the wave. It's hard to plan
 for anything in this lifestyle. We wanted to buy a house. We just bought our first house in
 Nashville. So we're excited about that. We're still moving into this. This is my studio. And so we're
 in the process of making this thing home right now. Kids are on the mind. So that'll be like the next
 thing. But as far as like music goes, man, we just ride the wave. We're wise. We just ride the wave.
 We're next week, the seventh. I'm going in to track a few new songs to be what's going to follow
 up better than you're used to. Yep. And we're starting album cycle number two. And so
 tracking with Jaren Johnson, who is the singer of Cadillac three. And so it's going to be
 he's producing the next batch of stuff. So it's going to be probably a little more rocking,
 a little more in the face. And so I'm excited about it. All my stuff has always been such,
 such as like easy going country love songs and feel good stuff that we're going to add a little
 grit to the party. And I love it, brother. You got time for a real quick rad or fad. We give you
 a one word. You tell us rad or fad. But like I said, it's good to stay or it's just here for now.
 Yeah. Or some people interpret it as truly what they say rad, awesome, fad. Yeah, not so great.
 Or however you want to interpret. But yeah. First, it's the Graham Brails, Rad or fad.
 Um, rad. Yeah. All right. Kanye. Kanye. Oh, who's who's now. Yeah. Again. Yeah. I'm going
 Kanye. Rad. I think he's one of the greatest marketing influence like his brain is crazy.
 Ding, ding, ding my friend. Uh-huh. Dolly Parton. Oh, come on.
 Rad. I'm asking every country usually like if someone dares as fad, I don't know what's going to
 happen. But I'm going to like, you know, give the flush to toilet sound or something. I don't know
 what that's a trick question. No, uh, country hip hop. Rad or fad. I'm gonna say I'm going to
 say fad. Yeah. I don't know on the fits. I enjoy it. But, you know, but like, I don't know if it's
 for everything and, you know, I'm gonna say fad strictly because, and I do enjoy it as well.
 I'm like, I've told you, I love all genres of music. I love artists or I don't. It's never
 the genre thing. I just say fad just because I don't think it's ever going to go bigger than it
 already is. I think it just kind of lives where it's at. Yeah. It's kind of, I think we're seeing
 it's heyday or it's moment right now. And lastly, Jake Paul. Rad or fad.
 Yeah. I give credit for all the ditch and he's garnered. He seems to be able to be a pretty
 damn good boxer. All things considered. But, uh, yeah. I mean, in the sense of this, of this podcast,
 I would, I would almost give them all rats because they're marketing genius. This got them to
 where they're at right now. All of them. And it's got them to a point that, but we'll be lasting.
 Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Hey, Tyler Rich brother, I can't, I can't thank you more.
 It's been fascinating kind of hearing your story, your journey, kind of hearing it firsthand.
 We really appreciate your transparency and your honesty come through and your music. And if
 you're out there listening better than you're used to, go download it, Spotify, Apple Music,
 anywhere, everywhere. I know it's out there. Where else can everybody keep up with all things,
 Tyler Rich? Uh, it's just as easy as that. Anywhere you type my name, if it doesn't show up,
 then I'm doing something wrong. Uh, name is spelled very simple, T-Y-L-E-R-I-C-H.
 Yeah. Cool, man. And go, if you're on the west coast, you know where to go find them.
 I might have to get out there. I'm going to be in LA next month. So maybe maybe something will
 align somewhere where I'm on the coast. I'm going to come here, your brother. Yeah, man, we're,
 I mean, if you're in the next month, we're all over. Yeah, cool. Let's stay in touch, man.
 I want to follow your journey and really appreciate you coming on. Yeah, I appreciate your time.
 Thanks everybody. Yeah, we'll see you soon. Hey guys, we really appreciate Tyler Rich.
 You know where to find him. He just told you better than you used to. It's awesome. Go
 listen to it. Country radio, play it more. And you know where to find us, the radcast.com,
 search for all the highlight clips, search for Tyler Rich. You'll find all the episode information
 from today. And you know where to find me at Ryan Offert on all the platforms.
 We'll see you next time on the radcast.