#415 - George Birge On His First Top 20 Single ‘Mind On You’ + What REALLY Happens When You Sign A Record Deal + Touring and Learning About the Industry from Toby Keith

00:00:06
Speaker 1: I'm so embarrassed to say this, but my first date with my wife, I pulled the guitar out. I covered some job. I'm not proud of it. But she's got a ring on her finger now and we got two kids together, so it works.

00:00:18
Speaker 2: Episode four fifteen, George Burge. These are always interesting, And I say this to George that if I'm friends with somebody and I do this, it's either going to go great or awful, and sometimes it's both in the same episode. But the curious thing for me in these is always what am I going to learn about these people I already know close? Because I would ask questions in this situation. It doesn't matter if it's Ronnie Dunn who we're close with, or George or I would just ask questions in this interview situation that I would never ask in real life because I want to be like, so, growing up your mom, what did she do? And maybe that comes up, but it really doesn't like a lot of things, So like I like this one because I mean I learned some stuff about George here, had like big parts of his life, like foundation elements that I did not know, maybe even a bad friend. Because George and I have hung out at a lot, like he's opened for me on the road. We've been friends, he's come to my house for like Christmas parties, like I love the guy. He's the greatest guy. But I've never asked him, Hey, were your parents immigrants? Yeah, I was surprised. We did not know that one at all. Crazy, So I'm glad that I learned something here, because you know, George, to most people is still a very very new artist. He's got a song right now called mind on You. That's he tells us about to be Top twenty.

00:01:35
Speaker 1: I got my man you, Oh my man, you know, and he blew up first on TikTok with the song beer Beer Truck Trucks.

00:01:44
Speaker 2: So you should not wait, ain't out. And it's me trying to convince him stop being embarrassed to that song. That's constantly our battle. I'm like, dude, it's a good song. I know you wrote it as kind of a joke, but it's a great song actually, so I don't know. It's the story of a guy who's starting to get some success now you know, overnight success, but he's been doing it for fifteen years, been going hard to failed record deals, quit music as far as being a performer somehow, you know, Okay, let me do this again. And here he is and now he's getting his first like real shot at it. What were your thoughts oft this When you said my parents immigrated. I thought he was gonna say, like from Idaho. Oh. Now I was going to say, oh man, we're gonna have something cringeworthy here. Is that when you say where they're actually from. I was like, oh my gosh, yeah, I didn't even know which is and I felt guilty. And then you hear Eddie come in later on. Eddie comes into the show right that podcast a little bit at the very very end, Yeah, because I'm like Eddie. Eddie was coming over to the house to work out, and I was like, EDDI, you're not gonna believe this because Eddie has been hanging out with George even longer than I have, because Eddie was playing golf with George before I. George was still inside of Waterloo Revival. So George Burgs from Austin, Texas. He talks about that playing on Sixth Street in high school. He went viral in twenty twenty just doing something goofy. He you know, has written with Gary LeVaux and Matt Still written for Klay Walker colt Ford really good golf is the best golfer in town. As far as musicians and play he's the best. He won't say it. We end up talking about on the sports podcast. He's the best golfer. He may be the best golfer that I've ever played with. It's not professional, but he doesn't act like that. He's like, oh, you did so good. I'm like, it took me nine to get here, it only took you too. So here he is. You can follow him at George Burge on Instagram if you want to see what he looks like. Here he is George Berg episode four fifteen. George was gonna say something. I like to preface this by saying that I love George, and I love you very much. And when my friends come and I don't have any friends, not let people like me. But it's either an awesome interview or an awful interview, or sometimes it goes in between because it gets so inside. And if I'm we're going to bet this is gonna be awful, but anyway, go ahead.

00:03:56
Speaker 1: That's a really great way to say that.

00:03:58
Speaker 2: Man, thank you. But that's what we're well were you going to say though before and I was like, if it's good, hold off.

00:04:04
Speaker 1: Oh really, I was just gonna celebrate with you because it looks like at the end of the week, I'm gonna have my first top twenty single. Really, man, it's looking like nineteen by the end of the week. Man. I saw it as a long road since the first time I came on your show.

00:04:17
Speaker 2: I took a picture and I just remember this and I have to go through my vacation pictures. Don't worry. I was in Italy and Paris, France and stuff I ever heard of it, not a big deal. But I took a picture of the first time you made the countdown and I saved it because that was super cool to me. It's not I didn't make the countdown, you did, but to see you make the countdown was you know, a lot of freaking hard work, and it's hard work for everybody, anybody to make it in anything. So I'm not acting like you're caring cancer, but are. You have worked extremely hard, And I was so proud for you that I took a picture of a piece of paper that I was reading the script from when you made the countdown, and I was like, man, I'm gonna keep this my guy, thank you, because it's it's somewhere between all these pasta noodles and Paris and stuff.

00:05:10
Speaker 1: It's kind of insane to think the road to your first one, right, like I've been in Nashville for a word now.

00:05:19
Speaker 2: Just kidding, that's the penis of David.

00:05:21
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it'd been a lot bigger if it was.

00:05:23
Speaker 2: Fine, Go ahead, I am listening. I just want to find it just to show you I'm a full of crap. Go ahead.

00:05:30
Speaker 1: Well, I was just saying, like, it's kind of insane to think the road to the first hit, or like your first song that really breaks out at radio. Is it's a long one, man, And it's been every bit of a grind to every city in America. And to see it like finally start working has been pretty insane.

00:05:48
Speaker 2: Has it been a bit too? When it starts to work? Is it almost like you know you've been grinding at it, But there was never an expectation of it working. There was just kind of a hope that it would, and the expectation was that it wouldn't work, but a hope that it would. That's how my mind always works. Like most things, you go after and I'll go after everything. I have no fear to lose and to fail. I do all the time, but I don't feel like anything's gonna work out.

00:06:15
Speaker 1: Is this insane dichotomy of like when I started, everything was like no chances is going to work. But in my mind I've got this irrational confidence of like, hey, you know, just keep your head down, do your thing. It's going to work eventually, And like, looking back now at it, the percentage chance of it ever working was basically zero, And I look back at that guy and I'm like, what were you thinking even trying this?

00:06:36
Speaker 2: Right?

00:06:37
Speaker 1: And now that it is starting to work, it's almost like flipped all the way where I'm not like I have such a hard time letting myself believe that this is going to happen all the way because I have so much scar tissue of it not happening, or so much scar tissue of like not being able to break through that Now that it is and I'm starting to see like lights at the end of the tunnel and things working, like I have the hardest time letting myself believe like, hey, this is the one this is gonna happen, Like just keep your head down, keep at it and enjoy it, because it's never happened for me before. So guard tissue is.

00:07:09
Speaker 2: An interesting way to put it, because that's what it is, like you in a beautiful way. It just anything creative, right, Everybody wants to do everything creative. So everybody's trying to do it, and everybody wants it.

00:07:21
Speaker 1: And so.

00:07:24
Speaker 2: It's thundering and it is raining hard. Can you hear it, Mike? Okay, it's scared to piss out of me. I was in the middle of a pretty profound thought.

00:07:31
Speaker 1: I thought, actually pretty epic on the way that you're saying.

00:07:35
Speaker 2: But it's you know, where you've been through a lot of no no, no no that you just kind of expect more no no no nos, and when you do start to get the yes is it almost freaks you out a little bit. It did me when I first started to have some yesses, I was like, wait, and then I would get scared to actually embrace it because I would be afraid it was gonna be taken away from me.

00:07:59
Speaker 1: Exactly well, and then you get that that exactly right, Like you don't want to enjoy it too much because you don't know how long it lasts.

00:08:05
Speaker 2: Or it's not healthy anywhere.

00:08:06
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, trust me, I know. And then the other thing is like it starts to happen and you're so used to being told no are You're so used to it not working or showing up to play a show and five people being there, that when stuff starts happening, you almost get this like imposter syndrome, where like, hey, can I sustain this? Can I back this up? Do I deserve to be here? Or have I just gotten lucky and tricked a couple people into giving me a shot? And so I'm working on that every day.

00:08:32
Speaker 2: You'll never work it out, but the fact that you can acknowledge it exists is a massive step. I haven't worked it out still, I'll never work it out, but I do have the understanding of I see it for the most part when it's happening, and they can't change really how I feel, but I can try to condition myself to know that it's not always real, and that's been a big, big benefit for me. But also having my wife who at times it's very uncomfortable for me good or bad, where she will just go like, hey, you're not actually being rational right now? Good or bad it could be something good or something bad because she's not in the business. You have to have that and you know, and your wife's not.

00:09:11
Speaker 1: It's been the biggest blessing for me, just having somebody that can pull you to real life. And you know, sometimes because all this stuff feels so big and it feels like such an opportunity or it feels like such a lucky break, you can make a mountain out of everything when in reality, like if you take a step back and you take a breath and put it into perspective, like everything's gonna be fine, everything's working out like it's supposed to. Let it happen, keep doing what got you here in the first place, and enjoying the people around you. And so yeah, that's been a huge blessing for me having her around. And I've got a really great group of core friends around me that you know, we can still talk trash to each other and you know, and and step outside of the industry. And I think that's really important because it gives me an escape to not get completely lost in it. And I think think on my way up, I've opened for a bunch of people in town, and I've gotten to know a bunch of superstars, and I've seen how a bunch of people have handled fame and success differently, and I haven't gotten that yet, but it's given me an opportunity to see, like the path that I want to take, and how I want to treat other people, and how I want to treat myself and how the people I want to surround myself with. And I think a little bit of that insecurity is good, but not too much of it, so.

00:10:24
Speaker 2: We'll work tons of it. I'm a Willbarrol. That thunder is thundering because my od security is so heavy. It knows it's more than a Willbarrol. It's a dump truck. Okay, god, it's a dump truck. I'm not telling the truth. Yeah, it is storming like crazy here at the house now. So let's let's timeline you and walk from childhood all the way to hear in a pretty rapid way. You're still you're very much a new artist. Yeah to a lot of people. I would even say most people. Even though I've known you for a long time, and some people may know you for a long time, you know you're about to have your first top twenty song. Ever, I have no top twenties yet, so that means there aren't a lot of people that know of you yet.

00:11:02
Speaker 1: Most people hearing my music are hearing it for the first time within the last two months.

00:11:06
Speaker 2: So and not being insulting, but I have to say, even with me, I'm like, I gotta realize most people have no idea even doing my radio show every morning, you have to reset things every day because there are so many new people that are listening all the time. So I'm constantly resetting and sometimes over explaining to people that have been there a long time, and hopefully they don't get so annoyed that they tune out, but that people that are just tuning in will catch up pretty quickly. So that's what we're going to do here. Where were you born?

00:11:35
Speaker 1: Born in Austin, Texas, And did you.

00:11:37
Speaker 2: Go to school in Austin, like elementary school, middle school?

00:11:40
Speaker 1: Never lived anywhere else until I moved to Nashville. And it was actually really hard for me to leave Austin, just because I had no experience anywhere else. That was like my safety net, my family, my friends, my school, like everything I knew that city like to back my hand, and I had never really been anywhere else where'd you go to elementary school? I went to Highland Park Elementary School in northwest Austin.

00:11:58
Speaker 2: What about high school, McCallum, You went to McCallan.

00:12:01
Speaker 1: Huh, McCallum Knights.

00:12:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. For those that don't know, I lived in Austin for twelve years. It's home to me still. I mean, Arkansas's home home, but Austin's like home. That's where I spent all my young adult years and that city really shaped me. And so you went to high school, then when you went to college, where'd you go to college?

00:12:18
Speaker 1: Went to the University of Texas.

00:12:19
Speaker 2: Well, you never left.

00:12:20
Speaker 1: I never left.

00:12:21
Speaker 2: Man got me a little cocoon, and you didn't want to move anywhere.

00:12:23
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, it's you. It's such an incredible city. I think between the music and the food and the culture, and it's like you it's just like this huge melting pot. Yes, you do have like cowboys and country and everything that makes Texas cool, but you've also got like this influence from California, New York and like, you know, all this culture. Like it was a really really special city and still is to me.

00:12:44
Speaker 2: But it's my favorite city. Yeah in America.

00:12:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing.

00:12:48
Speaker 2: It's the best. So you did you finish college? I did?

00:12:51
Speaker 1: I finished college graduated.

00:12:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, how about that?

00:12:54
Speaker 1: You know barely?

00:12:55
Speaker 2: What were you doing musically?

00:12:59
Speaker 1: What stage of your life did you start to play music in front of people? So started my first band in high school, like freshman year of high school. Sixth Street is world famous for country music, and so we would play on Friday or Saturday nights, and you know, our friends would have their parents drive them to shows like down on Sixth Street.

00:13:16
Speaker 2: And.

00:13:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was I have no idea how cool that childhood experience was until I got out and saw that that was completely not normal. But we found a place. It was a club called the Vibe at the time, I don't know what it turned into, but they were willing to let us put on shows there, and our high school friends would come out. We'd all have exces on our hands, and we'd play an hour and a half set down on Sixth Street. And the other thing that was really unique about that setting was we played ninety percent original songs, just because that was the culture in Austin. They weren't good songs, but everybody wrote songs, you know, and we would you know, collaborate and go over to each other's houses on the weekends and write songs and the trans stuff. Jason Carter played the drum. I was one of my best friends as a kid. Cody Cooper, who also moved to Nashville with me.

00:14:04
Speaker 2: Like, you know, from school.

00:14:05
Speaker 1: I guess that's what I'm Yeah, Yeah, they were all they all went to school with me. Yeah, And how did you guys get together? Who was the person that said I want to start a band? I played the guitar, Like, how did it come together? I was writing songs and didn't know how to play guitar, and I wanted like a way to kind of start putting it all together. And so I met some of the guys that had been like taking guitar lessons and drum lessons and asked them if they wanted to start hanging out on the weekends. And we started writing songs together, and they started teaching me how to, you know, shape a few chords together, and all of a sudden we had formed bands.

00:14:36
Speaker 2: So did you sing? No?

00:14:38
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. Like I go back and listen to some of that stuff, and it's like, I just want to say a huge thank you to anybody that was like friends with me at that point, or like came out to our shows because it was terrible. It is unwatchable for me if I go back and watch those videos or whatever. But I guess you have to start somewhere. Everybody. One question I always get is like, what was the first song you wrote? And I can remember it exactly, but I'm always like a no idea, I can't remember. Sorry, I'm like that needs to never see the light of day.

00:15:04
Speaker 2: What was it called? Forgot? You know, it's funny you bring this up. I literally two hours ago we were just talking to Kane Brown and I was like, you ever not play a song? Like do you cringe when you go look listen to any your old songs? And I know Kane really well at this point Can and I would say Can and I are friends even and he was like, I don't play my first songs like he goes, I no way, And I said, fifty thousand bucks at a private party and he goes, I'm not playing it. I can't. It makes me crunch. Then I got in between to fifty thousand dollars and no phones could record it, and he's like, okay, I probably play Yeah, I mean but he You know, we were just talking about how if you don't look back at some of that stuff and you're not embarrassed, you haven't really grown enough. You should be growing throughout of your your your skin so much and when you look back four skins ago, four skins, that's how funny it should almost it should be an embarrassing skin because you've gotten so much better.

00:15:59
Speaker 1: I haven't thought of it perspective, but that's exactly right. Like you have to be vulnerable and put yourself out there and do embarrassing things to grow right, otherwise you're going to be stuck. Too cool to try anything, too cool to write a song, too cool to put out an original song, too cool to sing it in front of people, and the first time you do that, just like anything else in the world, it's gonna be embarrassing.

00:16:20
Speaker 2: What was that song called again? The first one?

00:16:22
Speaker 1: It was called security and it was lame. Yeah, thank you, buddy, But I think that that's a really great uh, that's all I promise. I'm with Kane on that it's gonna be two hundred and fifty grands, and two hundred and fifty means a lot less to him than it does to me, But I mean it's part of it, right, So in a way, I look back at that kid and I'm proud of him for like being willing to like put that out there in front of everybody. But at the same time, I look back at that kid and I hate him because it's terrible and it's everything I don't want to be anymore. So like, I think that's also a good thing because I've grown from there, and you know, I've learned how to get better at writing songs and get better at putting on a show. And I think, you know, it's, uh, it's I'm glad all of that stuff happened, but it's definitely not stuff that I want to revisit too much.

00:17:08
Speaker 2: I already see a couple things repeating itself. And I exhibit some of this too, where with you, You're you were so naive that any fear you had, you didn't have enough fear to make you not do it because you didn't even really know what you were doing, just that you wanted to do it, yep. And that had you known really what was going to happen, Had I known maybe what was gonna happen, I don't know. Maybe we we would have done something differently. I don't. I don't know that's true or not. But even when you're talking about playing these songs with this band and not knowing how to play guitar, but you're writing songs like you're pretty naive guy, but you knew what you wanted to do, so you're just gonna go after it and dumb to dump. See what happens.

00:17:47
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's definitely been like a recurring thing in my life, is like maybe not doing enough homework and just jumping in headfirst on things.

00:17:57
Speaker 2: That I love, or just having the resources honestly they can give you great advice. Yeah, because you know, I don't want you to act like you're not an extremely hard worker and homework because you are. And you can down talk yourself, but you work and you tour and you constantly going. But if you don't have the resources, are people to really talk to that have done it or can give you advice, you kind of have to go out and create your own advice. And that is through just doing it wrong. Yeah, And that's it.

00:18:25
Speaker 1: It's it, that's it, and you learn from it and you meet people along the way, you know, I the way that Austin music bridge to Nashville was just that. You know. Uh, There's a guy out of Texas named Kevin Fowler, a big country artist in Texas had some national success, but in Texas he was a legend. And I literally googled his drummer who was producing his records, and I cold called his drummer and I was like, hey, man, can I take you to coffee? He said no? And then how old were you then? I was probably twenty one? Yeah he said no, Yeah, he was like busy whatever. And then I ended up finding a friend of his that we had that was mutual friends that I found on social media and had him connect us and then ended up going and visiting the studio getting to know him, and he agreed to cut one song on me. He said I won't do a record, he said, I'll record twenty one.

00:19:18
Speaker 2: We skipped over a part here where you're still playing music. So you're with this band through high school?

00:19:24
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:19:25
Speaker 2: When you graduate high school, does some of the band go off to college or do you all for stand? Yeah?

00:19:29
Speaker 1: Everybody went off to college, and my live music career took a break for four years. I would still write songs in my dorm room. You didn't play for years. No, I didn't play for four years. I took it off because I tried to play college golf.

00:19:42
Speaker 2: I walked on home. You didn't play for a year. Did you think that was gone or did you think.

00:19:46
Speaker 1: You were just one hundred percent thought it was gone. I thought that was like a fond memory of like getting to play live shows, and what a cool opportunity I had as a kid to do that live music in Austin. But now I got to go to college. I gotta get a job. I'm trying to make the golf team like that was no longer younger. That was fun, but not like a realistic career for me at that point.

00:20:06
Speaker 2: What tell me about your parents?

00:20:09
Speaker 1: They both immigrated to Texas when they were like in their early twenties. From My mom's from Mozambique, which is north of Africa or north of South Africa. My dad's from Brazil.

00:20:22
Speaker 2: What, yeah, how do I not know this?

00:20:24
Speaker 1: Pretty wild?

00:20:25
Speaker 2: I don't even know you.

00:20:26
Speaker 1: So they were both Portuguese speakers in Austin, Texas. My dad learned to speak English watching John Wayne movies and became a ranch hand ground. So if you hear my dad talk. You would think he's the most redneck textan you've ever met. He wears a cowboy hat, he's got a big mustache like you would never in a million years, and then he'll start speaking Portuguese and you'd be like, what the hell you know? But that was unique for me too, just like growing up in Austin and kind of trying to find a sense of identity because like you know, they didn't really know a lot about music, they didn't really know a lot about sports. They it was like they were amazing supportive parents growing up in Austin, but it was like I was on the forefront of first kid in my family to go to college. You know, like how they meet, they met, they both spoke Portuguese in Austin, Texas, and their families became so.

00:21:17
Speaker 2: They met in Austin.

00:21:19
Speaker 1: Yeah wow, Yeah, so pretty wild.

00:21:22
Speaker 2: And so you were the first kid to go to college and family. Yeah, I guess also too. I'm just trying to let people see and know that it's you didn't come from this wealth.

00:21:33
Speaker 1: Well you know, I I never want to say like I had like a hard childhood, Like I had amazing parents, and like I was never worried about having a roof over my head or being taken care of. But like it definitely wasn't handed to me, you know, it was I know.

00:21:45
Speaker 2: Do you know what Portuguese I speak a little bit? Really?

00:21:48
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:21:49
Speaker 2: You speaking French last week? I did on the air last week, Bob, And that's really all I would say is my name is Bobby.

00:21:58
Speaker 1: My grandmother doesn't speak English. And so my four years at Texas, I studied Portuguese in school, and then I went and lived in Brazil for six months to.

00:22:05
Speaker 2: Try what is happening here. I don't even know this guy, man, So you, like.

00:22:11
Speaker 1: I said, I just I love to love to jump into stuff.

00:22:14
Speaker 2: Man. Do you know Spanish pretty well? Then?

00:22:16
Speaker 1: Not as well as I know Portuguese.

00:22:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. I found when I was in Italy a lot of Italian is very Spanish based, And so there was a lot of things that I had known because all my friends in Texas were Mexican. Yeah, a couple of Hispanic.

00:22:31
Speaker 1: All my Mexicans the same way, because he spent Portuguese. All his friends of Mexican, and there's a difference in Mexican and Hispanic.

00:22:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, Mike, Yeah, yes, And so there's it being from Mexico or your parents from Mexico, or just being Hispanic. You know, four or five generations down who've been and so all my I was the only white guy, and so I don't know Spanish, but I can tell on these idiots are talking about me. I had so I had to learn what was being said all the time. And then when we went to Italy, a lot of their their language was based off of Spanish or you know, the rooted in Spanish. Yeah, but is Portuguese the same way? Yeah?

00:23:08
Speaker 1: Portuguese is like drunk Spanish. Like if you're your buddy that speaks Spanish, you know, had nine beers, That's what Portuguese sounds like.

00:23:15
Speaker 2: Wow, So in your house growing up as a kid, how was their English at home? Do they speak English?

00:23:21
Speaker 1: By the time I came around, their English was great. You'd never know either of them weren't from Texas. They sound like Texans now, but they both learned to speak English in Texas.

00:23:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, you go to college or studying Portuguese. You're not playing music. You don't even think music's a thing. But are you you say you're writing? Are you writing? Are you writing like poetry? Are you writing a song me and an acoustic.

00:23:41
Speaker 1: Guitar, you know, and it was like, It's funny. I think we all go through that like jam band college phase like it where it wasn't like really in a genre and it's more stream of consciousness and it's not like a structured song like it is now in Nashville with verse, chorus, bridge and stuff. It was more just like like you said, like a like a creative outlet, like poetry, country poetry, you know.

00:24:02
Speaker 2: What you play for girls and stuff.

00:24:05
Speaker 1: I'm so embarrassed to say this, but yeah, my first date with my wife, I pulled the guitar out and I covered some jobs. I'm not proud of it, but she's got a ring on her finger now and we got two kids together, so it works.

00:24:17
Speaker 2: So you say, John Mary play John Mayer. What song did you play?

00:24:20
Speaker 1: I played Comfortable Security, Yeah, Security.

00:24:25
Speaker 2: Man, comfortable jam one of my favorite yeah, from Inside Once Out the ep No Holy Wait a Minute. Comfortable It is a six song EP. And you know who's a big part of that was one of the guys from Zach Brown band, Clay Oh. Yeah, because he was part of John Mayer Just Do It All.

00:24:41
Speaker 1: Zach Brown band is talent level?

00:24:43
Speaker 2: Will you look up the John Mayer EP? What it? What is it is that? It?

00:24:53
Speaker 1: Look at you?

00:24:53
Speaker 2: Man? Yeah, dah look at me. After I said it, I was like, there's no way that can be right, because it's a great call that. I listened to that thing. I mean I burned the CD up. Yeah, they had Comfortable. It had a couple of songs, ended up making for his first big record, and he would never play Comfortable in concert, and then finally he started playing a little bit.

00:25:13
Speaker 1: It's just a songwriting clinic, man, He's he's otherworldly talented and easy, that unique combination of like insane instrumentalists but also insane vocalists and lyricists, like it's yeah, I.

00:25:23
Speaker 2: Sleep with a new girl. I'm still getting used to Yeah. No no no no no no no no no no no man, it's been I haven't haven't thought about that song in so long. I love was cove, I love was so mm help me out here, do you know what's stilln know what?

00:25:51
Speaker 1: I still remember?

00:25:53
Speaker 2: Talment demarket. Yeah, he walked up beside me, big car. That's it. That's always good man. I'm in love with you, right, now more and more in love.

00:26:08
Speaker 3: Hang tight, the Bobby Cast will be right back, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

00:26:21
Speaker 2: You're playing golf in college and then but when when does music become an actual I don't hate these were tangible, but it starts to be a tangible thing again that you can actually do.

00:26:31
Speaker 1: It was the biggest supprise. Nobody was more surprised than me that that I got to play music for a living. So, uh, finished college, got my degree, I went and got a job in Austin. They this company that hires a bunch of young kids fresh out of college to do you know, busy work, live downtown. It's awesome. And that was a cool culture because it was a bunch of people that were moving new to Austin. And I was the guy from Austin. So I was, you know, getting into all these people and taking them out and showing in the city. And I met a guy that played guitar, and uh, you know, same thing. I was like, well, we should, you know, start jamming. And so once a week he'd come over to the house and we kind of jammed together, play mostly cover songs right a little bit, and then I'll never forget one of the guys that worked with us. His brother had just bought the Lucky Lounge downtown Austin and redid it and they were having an open mic. And I went and did the open mic at Lucky Lounge, and our whole office came, which was like, oh you played it, why, which was like two hundred and fifty people because he was they knew that I played guitar, and they're like, just hop up and play two songs. So they kind of pressured you tobe yeah, and it was I mean I was in like khakis and a button down shirt. It would like, you know, not so okay.

00:27:44
Speaker 2: So you didn't plany this that way way ahead of time.

00:27:45
Speaker 1: No, it was like popped up on stage that night.

00:27:48
Speaker 2: Okay, So wait, so when do you hear about the open mic night? That day?

00:27:52
Speaker 1: They were like, Hey, our buddy's brother just opened the Lucky Lounge. She's gonna have an open night mic night, so you we're all going to go down there. Will you pop and play one?

00:28:01
Speaker 2: So?

00:28:01
Speaker 1: And you said I said yes, yeah, I said, you know, I still enjoyed playing like it's something that I've always loved. And so I popped up and I played two songs. Security, gosh, I wish I could remember security.

00:28:11
Speaker 2: I hope it security.

00:28:11
Speaker 1: It was probably security. But then it was you know, people were like, we should start doing shows, and you know a lot of the people I was working with were encouraging me to, which was cool, and so a few of us from the office started this band. We started playing, and it was we'd play Friday or Saturday nights at the Rattle Inn in Austin, and that was it. How'd you get the gig? Cold called him and said, we'd like to play.

00:28:37
Speaker 2: What does that pay?

00:28:39
Speaker 1: Zero dollars tips tip jar. Yeah, And by the end of it, they were paying us because we were starting to draw a crowd. But then it became a thing. Every Friday night we were playing the Rattle in and it was sold out. It wasn't a big room, it was three or four hundred people, but it was kind of a cool factor of like, hey, we're selling out this club every time we play it.

00:28:56
Speaker 2: What was the sound at the time. Were guys doing COVI country?

00:29:00
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, it was country and it was covers, but it was like fifty percent originals.

00:29:04
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:29:05
Speaker 1: I had a steel guitar player, had a fiddle player.

00:29:08
Speaker 2: The name of the band.

00:29:09
Speaker 1: It was called Waterloo Revival. Yeah, that's the first version of that as the first version of Waterloo Revival. Yeah. And the cool part was we all played for free and then we split the tips at the end of the night and we started ended up getting to take a cut of the door and it got bigger and bigger, and then local radio station kind of caught on and invited us to play blues on.

00:29:28
Speaker 2: The Green kgsr uh huh.

00:29:30
Speaker 1: And so we went out there and played that had a huge crowd, and I didn't know at the time, but a big label executive and a big manager flew in to see us play and ended up pulling us aside after the show and asked me if I wanted to fly up to Nashville to meet them. And this is all coming at me like a million miles an hour, because I've never, you know, had any contact with a record label in my entire life.

00:29:55
Speaker 2: How they watch your show or were they there to watch somebody else and then see you.

00:29:58
Speaker 1: So the guy that owned the radio station sent them my music, wow yeah, which was really cool. Bob Bob Sinclair Yeah, wow yeah yeah. Sent my music to Scott Boarshetta and TK Camberrell.

00:30:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I mean, it all makes sense now when I start to lay it all down in my head. Yep, that's how I know. I mean, I know Bob too. Yeah.

00:30:20
Speaker 1: So I gave Bob a burn CD with the one song that the producer agreed to cut on me in Austin. He was like, I'll do one song. I won't do a full record, And I will say that he put everything into it and it was the best sounding song I had at the time. But I had one song on a burn CD and I gave it to Bob and he mailed it to Nashville. Yeah, it's crazy.

00:30:38
Speaker 2: Wow.

00:30:39
Speaker 1: So when you talk about like less than one percent chance of any of this stuff happening and the stars aligning like they did, I just like, I never in a million years thought that I could play music professionally. I did it because I loved it and it was fun. But then people are talking about record deals and you need to get a lawyer and do you have a publishing deal and you know royalties and I have no idea about any of this stuff.

00:31:01
Speaker 2: Who were they looking at though you obviously were they trying to go? Okay, Zach attack, we just want Zach Morris or were they going we want the whole Waterloo Revival.

00:31:10
Speaker 1: They came to me independently. And then I had a very close friend that I wrote a lot of my songs with Cody Cooper, who was the part of Waterloo Revival. With me, we were a duo, and I asked if we could come to Nashville as a duo, and they were on board for it, and so that's what we did.

00:31:28
Speaker 2: We signed as a duo to Nashville. That's crazy, yeah, And that's about where I started to know you guys a little bit because Eddie and I we consider ourselves from Austin, even though Eddie's from different park textas enough Markansas. We are very much Austinites, like in our blood. And then you guys will come and we like you guys, and we'd be like, oh, yeah, they're from Austin. But I knew you guys had a relationship with Bob. Yeah, but I didn't know that's where all that.

00:31:49
Speaker 1: That's that is wild, which is crazy because he didn't even own a country station in Austin, and Bob Sinclair, you know, owns stations all over America. You know, big powerful radio guy, and uh, you know I never burned CD. He called me back the next day. He said, I've never called back anyone that's given me a demo before, but I think you might have something. And just from that phone call, I was like, I've made it, like we've done it, like we've taken over the world. I'll never forget. We were opening for Reckless Kelly the next week in Austin, and I called my wife after I got the call inviting me to open for Reckless Kelly, And at that moment in time, I was like, we are famous. We are opening for Reckless Kelly, and this is like our lives have changed. Little did I know?

00:32:28
Speaker 2: You know?

00:32:28
Speaker 1: What?

00:32:29
Speaker 2: What what the what?

00:32:30
Speaker 1: The real path looks like.

00:32:31
Speaker 2: That's so cool. That's such a good version of that story that I mean that version. I didn't. I didn't know that. So wait till Eddie finds out your parents were Portuguese? Does he know this? These people don't know Eddie and I thought we knew George. We don't know. We didn't know George, Like we have hung out with George a lot, like like we are like friend friends, but I guess we're not.

00:32:51
Speaker 1: That's what the Bobby cast does a deep dive.

00:32:54
Speaker 2: Okay, so you have to move to Nashville. So you and Cody are gonna move to Nashville. You're going to keep the name. Do you guys move up? Are your roommates here together? Yeah?

00:33:03
Speaker 1: So we lived together for all married. I was married. Yeah, Cody was dating his now wife.

00:33:08
Speaker 2: What did all four of you guys live together?

00:33:10
Speaker 1: Just Cody lived with me and my wife and then once he put a ring on it his girlfriend then fiance moved out.

00:33:16
Speaker 2: Good Wiches.

00:33:16
Speaker 1: Yes, that's the right call, right, and was.

00:33:18
Speaker 2: That it was because you are on a with t K who I know from Toby. Yeah, at Toby Keith's record label. That wasn't a major label.

00:33:32
Speaker 1: So I signed with Big Machine Records. I was there for a year and had a great experience. But at the same time they signed me, they were going through a process where they were signing a lot of veteran superstars and new acts. So on my imprint, they had just signed Tim McGraw, Rascal Flats, Jennifer Nettles, Me, the Cadillac Three, and Daniel Bradbury and on that pecking order, we were the bottom, right and so very kindly actually, after the first year because when you I don't know how well people know this, but like when you sign a record deal, like they own your life for five years, like you're you're there, whether they want to do something with you or making you can go to jail for five years and your music career's over. And and one of the more generous things that anyone's ever done for me in Nashville, Scott Woorshetdow came to me and he's like, hey, man, like we just don't have the manpower for this right now, but I don't want to hold you guys hostage. We'll let you go. And he let me go Scott free after a year, which was amazing. And uh, that's when I ended up signing with Toby Keith and t K and did. I did about five years with Toby Keith, went on tour with him, learned how to write songs from him, got to be, you know, pretty close with Toby. And when you talk about that's when he was killing, killing, selling twenty thirty thousand tickets a night. And we're getting to get in front of those crowds and you know, and that's a whole different thing because we're coming from Austin Texas, where we're used to playing and feeling like a big sold out show is three or four hundred people. And ye, you get put out there in front of Toby and it's like, hey, good luck, here's a catwalk, here's a stage that you've never seen before, and here's thirty thousand people that the ones in the back can't see your face. Figure out how to entertain them.

00:35:09
Speaker 2: And they don't even want to see you. Yeah, exactly when.

00:35:12
Speaker 1: You walk on stage, they have their arms and they want to hate you before the downbeat. And let me tell you that was the best education I could ever gotten in the music business. How So, because the first ten shows bombed, I mean, fall on your face, nobody's clapping, nobody cares. But you figure it out. You figure out how to you go out there with no expectation. You know, Toby, when he walks out on stage, if he stomps his boot once, thirty thousand people are going to scream at the top of their lungs. I haven't earned that right yet. So how do I go out there and set them on fire and change their predetermined attitude of This opener is not going to be worth a lick, you know, and so you have to come out with energy, and you have to program the set where there's no dead spots, and you have to mix in some originals with some covers that they might have heard before to make sure you're getting their attention. And I don't have two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to have a pyro show before behind me or an led wall or smoke. So it's like, how are you going out on the Catwalker? Is there like arranged moments where you and your band are pushing forward, but like you figure out how to put on a show, because this is not standing behind a microphone for an hour and a half in a bar anymore. And that was a major wake up call for me that you learned in a pretty terrifying way.

00:36:23
Speaker 2: So you, guys, again at this point, your Waterly Revival and we know you from that was it? Did you ever have a point where you're like, I think we're gonna make it as a duo? And then did you have that point where you're like, I just don't think we're gonna make it as a duo? Like both of those?

00:36:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I came to Nashville. When you sign a record deal with a label like Big Machine, and you see the other acts on the label, right, So I'm coming to town and I'm like, oh, they got Taylor Swift and Florida Georgia Lyon and Thomas Ritt, and you know, our tickets punched, like this is it. You don't realize that the success rate on a new signed act is probably less than ten percent. I would say significantly less than ten percent. And you know, you've got friends calling you from high school like, holy crap, you made it? Can I borrow money? Like, and you haven't made a dime yet. You know, you're just in town and you've got this team working behind you, but you don't. At the time, I'm like, we've signed here.

00:37:16
Speaker 2: This is it.

00:37:16
Speaker 1: They're going to do for me, just what they've done for everybody else. And then you quickly realize that, you know, you go visit all these radio stations and you know you're playing for a programmer in a conference room that's got his arms crossed, and same with the other folks. You know, it's looking for a reason not to play your song, like you have to change their mind on why they should. And it was a pretty quick wake up call for me that I had no idea what I was doing, and so then you you kind of dig in and you start trying to get better on the songwriting and on the performing side and on the relationship side, and it I think I was naively optimistic for my first four months in town and then it felt like, hey, this is a long, long shot.

00:37:55
Speaker 2: You learned, yeah, yeah, jumped into it.

00:37:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I have it.

00:38:00
Speaker 2: Yeah. What was the most success you guys had is to do what song?

00:38:05
Speaker 1: Probably hit the road, our one that brought us to town. I think it was a top I think it landed at maybe forty four on the chart. We were close, and we had a little bit of a cult following. We you know, we did pretty well on ticket sales nationally, and we had some I had a song called meet Up in the Middle that was on the season finale, the TV show in Nashville. That was a pretty big deal for me when that was popping off. So you wrote, yeah, I wrote that, And then had a song called a Backwood Bump that was the national song for college football for ESPN for the year. So like, we had some stuff that was like popped off pretty good, but we never like made it made it. Most people didn't know our name like it was never it never felt like we're set, and I chased that from twenty fourteen to twenty No. Twenty twelve. We started it. Twenty fourteen is when I moved here, and twenty twenty is when I finally was like, I've given this everything I have emotionally, financially, like there's no other angle that I can think of here. And that's when I ended up asking out of my record deal. Was in twenty twenty.

00:39:07
Speaker 2: With the idea of I'm just gonna go be solo, or with the idea of I just want to figure out what I even am.

00:39:13
Speaker 1: I had had some success songwriting, very mild success, but I knew that that was a passion of mine and something that I had a little bit of talent at. And so I just decided I was going to go get a publishing deal, which is when they pay you to write songs, and it's gonna be a songwriter.

00:39:27
Speaker 2: Somebody just ring a doorbell? Is that at this house? Is there? So if somebody rings the front doorbell, it rings there. Let me see what's going on here? Really well, I had no idea what was going I'm listening to Georgia's story, and then I think George is something set up like a big balloon bouquet for our top twenty song.

00:39:46
Speaker 1: The firemen are here.

00:39:47
Speaker 2: Yes, let me go to security. Let's see doorbell camera. It could be. I mean, there's no reason for Amazon to ring a doorbell though, And they do that craft sometimes, like at like eleven PM, and I'm like, did you just drop package off?

00:40:06
Speaker 1: It's eleven pm, you know you draw?

00:40:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like it is coming to rob my house. All right. I don't know who that is, but uh, they have a mask on and there they have they're waving around a guy. It looks like, yeah, it's all good. My wife will handle that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just let him in. But buzz them on in, Mike.

00:40:21
Speaker 3: The Bobby Cast will be right back. M This is the Bobby Cast.

00:40:34
Speaker 2: To go from being in a duo to just just but it's a different total route when you're gonna get a publishing deal and write songs and your livelihood depends on if you're getting cuts. Yeah, and what's that conversation like with your wife because you're gonna it's financially, I don't know if you're if you're not making money doing both. It's not a big change, but you're at least you're going in a differ direction.

00:41:00
Speaker 1: Now, absolutely, And like she there's no chance I could have done any of this without her because she believed in me when I didn't believe in myself. I mean, when I asked out of that deal, I was also like, am I gonna go get my real estate license?

00:41:14
Speaker 2: Like?

00:41:14
Speaker 1: Am I gonna am I starting over? Like is this the end of music for me? And she was the one that talked me into continuing to write songs, continuing to chase it for a little bit and kind of just give it one more breath. And so I started writing songs, I put some stuff on social media. I pretty quickly got approached for a publishing deal. And that's like it's not a huge salary, but at least I'm gonna have a check coming in every month. Yes, I know that I can keep my lights on, you know. And oh, by the way, like I'm a new dad at this point, right, so it's not just me and my wife that I'm taking care of. And so there's like definitely an added pressure to that. And like that was a massive It wasn't a huge check. But it was a massive weight off my shoulders to know that, like I can keep the lights on, food on the table. Like that's a start. And so I started turning in some songs to the publishing company that I had written some stuff that I was excited about, and they're starting to pitch stuff. And pretty quickly a month into me turning in songs, they're calling me and like, hey, like, you should consider putting some stuff out yourself. I think there's something.

00:42:10
Speaker 2: Are you cutting the demos yourself?

00:42:12
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm singing the demos? Yeah. And so it took I just had a like we talked about like I had a little bit of scar tissue of like chasing and chasing and chasing and chasing and just it not happening. And so I wasn't sure that that was something that I wanted to do again, especially like with my young family at home and like, you know, just kind of starting this new journey. But they talked me into putting some original music on social media and kind of chasing that a little bit, and there had become such a buzz that all of a sudden we had started to get a lot of label attention, and finally it was like, all right, I'll go take some meetings. And so I took meetings with basically everybody in town, and you know, the first question I would always ask is how many artists do you have in development? And at most major labels they would tell you they got fifteen to twenty artists in development at a time. And that was from my earlier experience in town. Was a huge red flag to me of like, Okay, I'm going to commit here for five years and it's between me and twenty other artists that you're throwing against the wall to see what sticks. That sounds to me like another nightmare, Like I don't want to do that, right, And so I ended up getting introduced to this new label, which is under the Sony umbrella, but as a boutique, smaller label called Records, and it was run by a guy named Barry Wisse, who's a huge music industry veteran, had broken a million bands that are household names. And I go to take this meeting and it was just like everything was different. He was like, what kind of artists do you want to be in ten years? Who do you want to tour with? What kind of album do you want to make? And who do you want to produce it? Like when you look up in five years, what would make you proud as an artist? Like all the things that you want to hear when you're trying to build something with like some longevity that is true to who you are and not just a you know, see if it sticks kind of thing. And so they were the first people to really get me excited. And another thing I really struggled with when I moved to town is you go sign a record deal or you go into one of these offices and they all have a vision of who you are before you open your mouth. So it's like they know what they want you.

00:44:12
Speaker 2: To look like.

00:44:13
Speaker 1: They knowed, yeah exactly. They know the hole that you're gonna feel for them, and they're going to put you in that mold. And when I first got to town, I was felt so lucky to be there that I couldn't say no. You know, I'm like, well, this guy wants to invest a million dollars in break in my band, and if he wants me to spike my hair and wear skinny jeans and a leather jacket, I'm gonna do it, you know. And looking back now, I'm like, you're such an idiot, like that was not you, and that was not your sound, and why are you doing that? And so this was the first time I was brave enough to say no to everybody that wanted to put me in that position. And this was the first label that was like, we just want to give you the resources to be exactly who you are and the artist you are. And I will say, like, probably the thing I'm most proud of in my life, behind my wife and my kids, is the fact that, like I bet on that and in the last eighteen months, my solo career is twenty times bigger than anything I've ever done in my life, doing it true to myself, making music that I wrote that I'm proud of and not compromising on that stuff.

00:45:15
Speaker 2: Is that another conversation with your wife? Okay, well, now I'm gonna come back.

00:45:19
Speaker 1: And do absolutely before absolutely, I will say that for the first time, and it wasn't like a light the world on fire check, but like for the first time in Nashville, like I got paid, like I signed a record deal and I got a signing bonus, and it was like had a comment in it, like it was it was a start, you know, And so it was the first time She's like okay, like there's something here, and she always believed in it. I think it was me that didn't believe that there was a way to like be successful and make money and like have longevity doing this and until like I saw that hit my checking account, like I didn't believe it was coming, and then you see it happen, and like I said, it wasn't like I could go buy a new house check, but it was a take a breath, like this happened.

00:46:04
Speaker 2: Did you have any success when you were just in the songwriting world? Do you get any cuts? I did.

00:46:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the guys that believed in me early on was Clay Walker, and he was a big part of me getting the publishing deal coming out of coming out of my record deal. We wrote a couple songs together and he singled two of them, need a Bar Sometimes and catching Up with an Old Memory, and both of those were his first two top forties and almost ten years. So that kind of put him back on the map and gave me a little steam as a songwriter and a little feather in my cap. So that was that was kind of like my first little bit of success as a songwriter.

00:46:40
Speaker 2: What was the deal with when beer Beer Truck Truck happened, because were you already signed to a label deal or were you just writing at the time.

00:46:48
Speaker 1: I was just writing at the time. You just had the publishing deal. And I was actually with Clay at his house in Galveston writing for his record, and I had told him that I was done with music. I told him I'm just going to be a songwriter. And he was the one that convinced me to put my songs on TikTok.

00:47:02
Speaker 2: Actually, which Islaywalk the TikTok much older, you know, he and he is all over TikTok yep. I don't know if he slowed down a little bit after the whole bus thing, but.

00:47:13
Speaker 1: He was that was all over TikTok ride.

00:47:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's good. I mean, what are Clay Walker is like, hey man, hey kid, you need to get on Teketok.

00:47:23
Speaker 1: And I was so anti TikTok just because I thought it was like, you know, just dances and pranks and stuff, and not not that there's anything wrong with it, just not anything that I saw myself doing. And so he kind of basically the way that he put it, He's like, you can go get in a vanaged trailer for three years and not get in front of two million people, or you can post something captivating and get in front of two million people in twenty four hours.

00:47:46
Speaker 2: So progressive for an older guy.

00:47:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean truly. I mean we laugh at it, but it is really smart.

00:47:51
Speaker 2: It's probably it's Clay sixty fifty five problem up there near that. Yeah. For that to be happening, Yeah, for him to tell you that, I mean, that's soggressive of him to be able.

00:48:01
Speaker 1: To crazy to see that.

00:48:01
Speaker 2: Then.

00:48:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so I downloaded the app and that that's where beer Beer Truck Truck came from. And for people that aren't familiar with the.

00:48:08
Speaker 2: Story, so clever, don't wash over. I know you and you would. We had this talk privately where I'm like, dude, you have to be proud of that, but I do get that. I see Eddie walking in, you can just let him in this door. You do have you have to. It's very clever. I'm going to tell the version of it that I think this girl gets on and she's like, all I ever think country songs are beer beer truck trug beer. Yeah, and you take that and you flip that around and you're like, every country song's not beer beer truck truck and tied, and it goes viral.

00:48:41
Speaker 1: Yeah it was. It was my defense of country music. And I do struggle to like plant my flag on it, just because I have worked my whole life to like be able to write a song and like, you know, have that validation and you can't control what like blows up for you. And I will say, like I tried to do it as artistically as I could. I did it defensive counry music.

00:49:01
Speaker 2: Right.

00:49:01
Speaker 1: She said, country music ain't nothing but beer, beer truck, truck and girls and tight jeans. And my flip on it was, it's not all that right, And I tried to make it this love story of a guy that's like out in the country and being judge and everybody thinks he lives slow and this is all he does, but like he's also a safety net for this girl that like anytime she wants to come back, like that's gonna be here for And it's not just beer beer truck truck. And it's unfair relationship with the song thank you man, thank you for you do. I tell you this every three months or so, where you're like, oh man, that song because you got to see how that sausage was made, and because of other ways you've seen that sausage made you feel a certain way about that song that it's not as legitimate as it's such a clever song. You sing it wonderfully, the production it's and when you break it down and you play it just acoustic because we did some shows together. It's such a good freaking song, but you don't have that relationship with it because of.

00:49:54
Speaker 2: Your life that you've spent with it. One percent.

00:49:56
Speaker 1: It's an insecurity for me. And it's because like when I laid at night and like I want like.

00:50:01
Speaker 2: Me being here about my huge winer. You'd be like, don't be insecure about that.

00:50:05
Speaker 1: It's your cross to be yes, but and I.

00:50:07
Speaker 2: Would be like, I don't know, I'm so embarrassed. But that's the same thing.

00:50:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's Uh. I'm unbelievably thankful for the song, for the doors that it opened for me, for the life that it's given me, touring wise, record label wise, I've gotten to go in and cut an album because of this song. Like I'm in a great place and my wife gets to stay at home with her kids, now and like and life is is really good and it and it all started from that song blowing up. So I'm unbelievably thankful for it. But I think my biggest nightmare is in five years if somebody brings up George Burge and somebody else says.

00:50:42
Speaker 2: Oh the beer beer truck truck guy, Is that better than George birds who.

00:50:45
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes it is. Yeah, and it's also a gateway for people to listen to the rest of my league.

00:50:51
Speaker 2: Well, you got to stop being embarrassed this song. It's also a good song. Yeah, but again, you've just associated it with your life and what's happened with TikTok on it and it being in the video she made, which she was hilarious, And yeah, you also made her a songwriter on it, which I.

00:51:05
Speaker 1: Will say that was the most fulfilling part of the song. I wrote it as a tongue in cheek rebuttal to this girl making fun of country music, and I DMed her the day I wrote it, and I was like, Hey, I did this. I hope you're cool with it. If you want, I'd love to make you a songwriter on it, because I think I'm gonna put it out she's a school teacher. She's a music school teacher, elementary school teacher outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. And she ended up being super cool and saying that she grew up listening to country and gotten away from it. But it was like so thankful for the opportunity and thankful to be on it as a songwriter. And so it's just me and me and her are songwriters on on the song and she gets to check every quarter from it. So that's pretty special to ear of it.

00:51:43
Speaker 2: If you didn't tell people that story, if you just played that song and you told none of that story about TikTok, about her about and you just said, I just have this song called beer Beer Truck Truck, people got to that's a good song.

00:51:54
Speaker 1: Thank you man.

00:51:56
Speaker 2: So still being a wim fair, embrace the fact that it's a pretty but it's not that would be like Georgia song sucks, but I would I wouldn't be fighting for the opposite. Yeah, I've fought this fight for I don't know a year now with you where I'm like, stop being a barrass of the song man.

00:52:12
Speaker 1: I appreciate you more than you know for that too, because I do need to hear that. Yeah, yeah, okay, So let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor.

00:52:29
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Bobby cast Let's smash cut.

00:52:36
Speaker 2: We're laying in bed together right now.

00:52:38
Speaker 1: Cigarette.

00:52:40
Speaker 2: So I'm on Instagram one night. Obviously I knew you're from Waterloo Revival and you were like the Austin guys that Eddie and I knew and liked and yeah, but you were playing a Gary Allen song. I didn't know know you then. We'd never hung out other than like industry stuff, and we'd say, hioh, how's Austin Remember that street? You know that kind of stuff? And you were playing what Gary Allen song are you playing? Uh?

00:53:07
Speaker 1: It would be you.

00:53:08
Speaker 2: And I don't know why because I don't really watch a lot of music on Instagram. And I remember sending you a message and the message was something like, hey man, it's really good you come play it on the show something like that. Yeah, and you were like cool And so you came up and you played and you did that and you did mind on you. Yeah, I got my money. You've heard of mind on you beer beer truck truck and it crushed mine on you crushed and this is forever ago. Now at this point, it feels like and I don't even know what happened after that, but all I know is it was like my friend George was gone because he was now promoting.

00:53:41
Speaker 1: I can't wait to tell you what happened after that, because I remember all this like it was yesterday, because it literally changed my life. I was sitting on the couch with my wife watching TV. I had posted that cover of Gary Allen, and you know, like anybody else, I'm sitting there and refreshing it, seeing if anybody liked it or if it's going to do any good. And I see you comment and this is exactly what you said. Hey, this is really good. You should come on the show. And I like double take tap my wife pause the show. I'm like, holy crap, Like Bobby Bonace just asked me to come on a show because obviously, growing up in Austin, I've listened to you forever and then we got to know each other in Nashville. But I had never been on the show, and it's a rite of passage in this town. And to get that invite, I was over the moon. And I was so damn nervous that morning to come on the show. And so we get in there and play beer Beer Truck Truck on my legs going like this while I'm playing, you know, I'm trying to keep it all together and I'm hoping that I'm going to get to play mind on You. But this is not a single yet. I've just released it, like I don't know how much time or what I'm going to be asked to do. And you were like, hey man, you want to play one more? And in my mind, I'm like, this is it, Like this is your chance, Like come on, So I take a deep breath, I play Mind on You, and you guys are amazing. Y'all hyped it up. Your listeners dug into it, it it up on my end, and all of a sudden, we start seeing like all this streaming and all this interaction, and my socials go insane, and the label's like, hey, I think we've got something here, and so they all scramble to make that song a single. Mind on You. We go to country radio. A month and a half later, I'm a brand new artist on a startup label with my only other song out as Beer Beer Truck Truck, and it was the most added song in America at country radio.

00:55:27
Speaker 2: That's pretty crazy.

00:55:29
Speaker 1: It's insane, man.

00:55:30
Speaker 2: It's almost like you were playing a radio music festival and there's a random person in the crowd who flew in because a random person sit them a one song CD.

00:55:40
Speaker 1: That's everything that's ever happened in my life so far to get to hear, Like the odds of it are. When I look back, I'm like, how did you ever bet on that? Or how did you ever think that was going to work? Or how did you blindly believe and bring your wife and your kids along for all of this? Like I almost get embarrassed looking at it that this kid believed that was gonna happen, and me knowing what I know now about this industry, like, how did you ever think that? But it's just somehow it's the stars have aligned thus far, and who knows what's happened, what's coming, but like it feels, it feels pretty special.

00:56:16
Speaker 2: See, this is where I think we disagree a little bit. I don't know that the stars have aligned. I think you would have aligned the stars regardless had it been attempted three hundred or seventeen hundred and sixty nine or six, you know, and there's a way you can look at it and go, well, I got very lucky this happened, and very lucky this happened. Or if you're just in there swinging blindly, you swing enough, you fill up the room with enough punches, eventually you're going to hit something. Yeah, you know. And it's just some people get pretty fortunate hit another sixth some people they're eleven hundredth and but you're that guy who it ain't luck when it happens four or five or six times. It's tenacity. It's and we've used naive, but it's all I would remove it from this. It's belief that if you just do the little things right, the right things can happen. Not will, but can. And so as we talk, and it's you know, with Bob and the one song in the cage, that stuff'sn'na happen if you're not already out there in a place for you to be seen or discovered or to be heard. It's not as if you were walking down the street someone grabbed you by the collar and said you look like you can sing, sing into this microphone like that didn't happen. And I think that a guy like yourself can be so humble that you can also start to believe that story of I've just been very lucky. You have been fortunate that it has lined up the way it has. But I truly believe that it was going to line up regardless in some way, because that is the kind of person that you are, and this way that lined up. Listen, you feel so fortunate now, but you could be pissed that. I mean, you've had you had did two failed deals. Basically, yeah, you just kept going back into.

00:58:01
Speaker 1: I'll say that like there was a moment in time, and I've talked to you about this a little bit where like I would catch myself not liking a new artist that had like just moved to town and was instantly famous, or like wanting to hate a song that blew up overnight and somebody is you know, it's the first song they've ever put out and it's a number one song, and and I had to really check myself and be like, hey, man, like, do you really not like that? Or is that coming from a place of like you wishing it was you? You know? And I wouldn't necessarily want to take my path again of you know, ten years in a fan and trailer and playing empty bars and wondering where the next checks coming from, and like is this ever going to happen? But now that I'm and I'm not even all the way on the other side of it, but now that I'm closer to the other side of it, I'm really thankful that that journey was my own, because I learned a lot of lessons along the way about myself, about how I want to do business, about how I want to treat other people. And I think it's given me some empathy for people that are just getting started and how I want to like be a hand up for the next person that's going through that. And it's taught me how to put on a show and taught me how to write a song. And if I'd gotten the golden ticket when I moved to Nashville in my early twenties, like I probably wouldn't be a guy that I like, you know, it's given me a chance to like dig in and build roots with my family and like have everything covered at home and internally. And now if God willingness does scale, I think that maybe hopefully I'll be equipped to handle it.

00:59:34
Speaker 2: Top twenty most likely right now. Pretty cool.

00:59:38
Speaker 1: It's crazy. It's crazy to even hear you say it.

00:59:40
Speaker 2: Man, pretty cool, that is pretty cool. That's it. It's I'm super proud for you.

00:59:47
Speaker 1: Thank you.

00:59:48
Speaker 2: Everybody works hard, but you're working really hard. It's working hard and having a good attitude at the same time, which can be tough, especially when you have to when you have young kids, which you have. That's a lot of sacrifice. You you're gone, yeah, absolutely, And you know it's not like you're making a ton of money right now. No, I mean you're just now starting to get good. You're just now starting to get these good money offers that you don't get to be played for six months.

01:00:10
Speaker 1: It's within the last six months. Yes, it started happening, and it's, uh, it's fun.

01:00:15
Speaker 2: It's fun. I won't lie to you.

01:00:16
Speaker 1: It's like, it's it's surreal. Right now.

01:00:19
Speaker 2: Things get easier. It's still not easy, but things get easier because people treat you different. Food's a little better, it is instead of a vain you know. It's just it's all of that. But you deserve it. Man, I'm super pumped for you. So the album is Mind on You. That's out. Obviously, the song is doing great right now. You're just a likable dude. I can't wait to tell Eddie all the stuff I learned about you. Eddie have no idea, buddy, did you know George if parents didn't speak English, they're Portuguese? No it Yeah, and he knows, yes, his parents he looks like a regular white dude Portuguese. His parents were immigrants, both of them. Wow, and so he's yeah, it's the whole thing. He's well, he's also he's got two penises, one in front, one and back.

01:01:08
Speaker 1: They weren't originally.

01:01:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys follow that George Burge on Instagram. You have a different name on TikTok, dude, what's up?

01:01:16
Speaker 1: It's like George Burge officials.

01:01:18
Speaker 2: But there was already an unofficial. Yeah, there was already.

01:01:20
Speaker 1: It was a weird, weird guy. Yeah, yeah, I didn't say that.

01:01:25
Speaker 2: George Burge unofficial, whoever you are. I don't think you're weird at all. I think you should not sue me. All right, there he is, assume me.

01:01:30
Speaker 1: It's cool. I don't have anything.

01:01:32
Speaker 2: You had nothing, George burg George, dude, it's been awesome, which is an hour.

01:01:37
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me, man. It's always fun catching up and you reminded me stuff. I hadn't thought of him forever.

01:01:43
Speaker 2: He didn't george't even know any Portuguese, Eddie. He was like, I know Portuguese. All right, there is George Burge. You guys go follow him. He's out on the road, his songs killing it, and that's what's up.

01:01:52
Speaker 3: Thanks, thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.