#199 - Jim Beavers on writing 14 year old Taylor Swift, Plays Work Tapes of Chris Stapleton and The Song He Didn’t Think Anyone Would Cut

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Speaker 1: All right, welcome to episode with Jim Beaver, which you come in and we've been up here before. Just the whole setup wasn't up. Yeah, I've never seen the lights up here, talking to the talking to the mica. Sorry, I've never done this before with this, this is literally my first podcast, a first Bobby Cat. I'm sorry. Have you ever done a podcast? Oh you haven't. An we'll welcome. I'm like, just you've talked in a microphone. Here's my story with Jim real quick. So we go out and Jim and Jim and we go out. Alright, we go out and we're an Amarillo in El Paso one weekend and I think it was El Paso where you came up on stage, uh where you called me up from stage speak. We're playing. Jim has been writing songs with me in a little bit with Eddie two for this record. We're about to cut and by the time you hear this, it may already be out. But so Gem's in the audience and I'm like, Jim Beever's come up in Plass the Gym's written such songs as you know, uh five oh from Dirk spend Lee and Red Solo A Cup and watching airplanes. I'm like, Jim, come up. And I was like, oh wow, we got a real live Nashville song, right and yeah, having for you pretty cool. And Jim walks up and does like three words. I was like, thank you, good night everybody, or like, come on, well, I didn't I had no idea. I didn't know that call me. Yeah, I didn't know. I don't want to give your heads up. Yeah, I know it's not because if I go, because we've been for two days, we've been together, just writing songs in the road, haven't you know, talking And I said, Hey, I'm gonna call you up on stage tonight at the end of the show. Yeah, you would have spent a lot of the time that we were creating going, oh you god, I gotta go singing in front of two thousand people. I would have been thinking about it the whole time, and and I wouldn't been to enjoy your show. I was trying to watch your show just two because I hadn't seen it before, so I was really trying to be like an audience member, and that would have changed my point of view. So I'm glad. I'm glad in retrospect that you didn't so strategic move on my strategic strategic in the highest level. Yeah, no question. And I think you you came out and did a little bit of red solo coup and then you wrote drink a beer, and you went out and you went, I don't drink beer, thank you very much, and we're like, come on, I just gave a chorus. I just came in. Course. I didn't know how long you want to be up there. I was. I was just trying to get off stage. But you see how tightly loose we run a ship. Yes, I do now, yes, like you would look at it and go, oh, they don't know what they're doing. They're just out there doing whatever they want as as loosely as possible. However, not the case. A lot of it is package to look like we're running loose, and there's an art to that. And I know that there's a high level of skill to to moderate level let's go well, but it's it's like we kind of when we go into studio. You know, if you're cutting demos or even cutting a record or something you have, you may have very clear ideas of what you think you want to hear, but you've also got to allow for some magic to happen that you didn't plan on, whether it's the musicians or just a happy accident. So I think you obviously have a You do a lot of this, so you know you know how to balance it out. But I wasn't ready to come on stage. I don't know it was a blur. But you did have your nice T shirt. I did have a nice T shirt because even before this show, You're like, I've got a nice Mizzi top T shirt a show shirt. Yeah, it's nice and tight and black. I didn't want you to wear your show short and not be able to do a show. Had man spank, so didn't yeah side of it. It had everything. You look great, Thanks bro, Thank you. All Right, so we're here, I'm gonna run through before we start talking about the life of Jim Beavers. I'm gonna mention and play some of the clips from songs will come back to them. Five one five oh from Dirk Spenley. The song went number one. Congratulations on now thanks to wote that one? Am I the only one from Dirk Spenley bo when number one? Congrats on that appreciate that Sideways from Dirk Spentley, All up tempo All fun went number one. Congratulations like I'm very uh, why don't we just dance? From Josh Turner, he wrote that one we just stay right on the hook when number one drink of here. Number one wrote that fell good on my lips. Tim McGraw went number one, So we'll walk. There's some more of those in amount, some other songs you wrote, but I wanted to highlight one to three, four, five, six, number one. You have a lot of number two's and some songs that I thought went number one. For example, we'll come back to Red Solo Cup what you wrote, which only piked a number nine, But I think maybe remember more than any of those number ones. Oddly, I mean Red Solo Cup is just it's a song that I, you know, I have to I have to talk about on a weekly basis. Somebody brings it up. It had a huge impact, and and it was you and I talked about it one time. It's like that that song, to me, is a perfect example of that song was wanting to be written because that that that notion of good times and that cup was just floating in the ether and somebody just had to put a name to it. And that's all we did. It was like it was just a more than that. More than that, you're not giving yourself enough credit the songs. Songs don't just float. Yeah, you you have to be Why don't we just digging on this one for a second. Things? I like that, first of all, let's relax. Yeah, maybe I'm not saying the song itself, for the lyrics were floating. But you can't sit down and manufacture or predict what happened with that song. I guess what I'm trying to say is that one and one really did make three. It was like, but who noticed that that was such a part of everybody's everyday life? There you go, Huh where the idea come from? Yeah? Like that? There's so many red cups when no one's writing about that. Well, I mean I had the idea for a long all all songwriters or most songwriters, I assume, uh you know, now, on our phones, you can just keep a running list of any little tidbit could be an idea. It could be just a hook, could be anything. And um my son and I were going to a Vanderbilt football game, and he was a little little boy, and we were walking through the tailgate area and and I don't only remember this in retrospect because the song became so big, But I remember walking through and I noticed, for some reason, everybody was drinking out these red cups. I was like, red cups many, but everybody's got the red cup. So I pulled my phone out and I typed in red plastic cup. And when I wrote down and um, I didn't think anything else about it, because it joined the list of I don't know, two thousand ideas or more that most never turned into anything, but I always on the discipline just try to write them down. But then, but then within a couple of weeks either I can't. I think I was at my house and I was walking through the room and on TV it was either commercial or a movie or something, but there was a scene of playing beer pong and they had the red cups again, and so that really made my spidy sense tangle. Can I say that I have to take it to corner? This is? This is not? And so that made immediately go back, well, there it is again, And so then I thought there was something there, and I thought maybe I don't know, I don't really believe this. Maybe the universe was telling me that there's something there. And and then um, I was sitting out by myself one night on my on my back deck, playing my guitar and spoke in a cigar where you know, a lot of a lot of ideas and and songs have gone up and hits have started for me. I don't know why. So that's why I spoke a lot. Now I need to smoke more. And um, and I just it just kind of popped into my head just at that chorus. And then I got together with with guys, you know, the Warren brothers and my brothers. So it was unique that there were two sets of brothers and we were just trying to make each other laugh. We never in a million years thought anything would have happen with that song or anybody would cut it. So it was just crazy. Still is so whenever you decide to, you know, to do that song, and I mean, you write it, and you said you didn't expect you want to cut it? Like, what do you do with it? We we actually the true story is, um, we were over at a studio in berry Hill called Station West that a buddy of all of ours named Luke Wooten runs and I think the Warren the Warren brothers and the Beavers brothers. We caught ourselves the Warren Beavers, which is obvious. We were writing i think every other Wednesday or something. We just had a regular writing point. We also wrote Felting on My Lips. It was kind of that same crew. We were just trying to come up with something and Luke Wooden was walking by and heard us in there singing and he poked his head. He goes, what is that? You know, it's just a stupid song or just cutting up. It's about a red cup, you know whatever. Anyway, he loved it, and that day before we left, he came and he said, y'all come in here and just put it down. Just put it down. So we literally walked into the studio. He had one microphone set up and we just cut it one time for him because he wanted it. And then that is what got out, and and what and now how does the song get out? What did that mean? What does that think? People started forwarding it, forwarding it around to each other, and then we actually made a little kind of fake CD that had like five or six songs on it that we had written, and Red Soil Cup we put on there and felt felting on. My ups were was on there as well, and it was more just kind of us a vehicle to pitch the songs we had written to the town, you know, so artists would would maybe cut them, or at least somebody would laugh and have have fun. Anyway, So Red Soil Cup just started jumping out and nobody was talking about it, and people started calling us, wanted to write with us because they heard it. I mean, you know, I could have never predicted it anyway. I don't know exactly how it happened, but somehow it got to you know, the story of hers. It got to Toby Keith out on the road somewhere and you know, people were listening to it on their busses and he heard it and he said, you know the story he tells is you know the song ended. He said, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard my life played again, and they did. He said, I want to cut it, and they did. So that was it. Man, did anyone before Toby come, I go, I want to cut it. Tim McGraw at one point said he was gonna cut it and put it on his record, like as an hidden track or something, not the target, the dreaded maybe the best buy, a limited edition only in the Southeast, you know, I don't. I don't know how serious he was. But and that didn't come to fruition, No, it didn't far as I don't know. And maybe so hidden, I mean right, it may be on one target CD, so so secret, so secret. No, it never did happen. Is that exciting when they go, hey, Tim mccross thinking about it? And then is it deflating when they go, You're not gonna do it? Uh? Yeah, I mean you can't. You can't help but get your hopes up. At least me, I can only speak for myself. I still get my hopes up. You know about songs that that I feel a strong connection to her or or just that I think are really great and I really wish somebody would um sing them, or that people could hear them, And um, you're inevitably you're you're gonna be disappointed about of the time. And I've got a lot better at not getting emotionally invested in songs. Um, but I still do. I still do. You can't. I think if you lose that ability, then you may lose your reason for writing. So I don't want to lose at all, but I have gotten better kind of smoothing out the emotional wavelengths of highs and lows and get your hopes up and stuff like that. With a song like Red So Look Up, which peaked at nine, which is what I'm looking at here. I would have thought had you just asked me that that was the number one song, with the impact that it had kind of on the country music culture, it lasts. I still play it sometimes inside of our dance party, like that's still a fun song. And just monetarily speaking, does that song make anywhere close to let's say I felt good on my lips because of the downloads, like I would probably not if you just want to get in the weeds of the business. No, the the majority of our money is all made, you know, on how long the song stays in the top five. To be honest, and the way things are now with songwriters, it's like you you really can only make a living if you're having hits hits on the radio. I mean, streaming has not been good to us. Um, there's really not a lot of synchronization rights to be to be spoken of. So no, I would say that felt good on my lips probably made more money than than a Red Soak Up, although Red Soak Up I'm sure had a bigger you know, cultural impact. Now it may have sold you know, Red Soak Cup probably sold more you know copies. And like I said, like you said, without question, if I play a writer's round or something. You know, even people who don't know or like country music, they always know that song. That's the one I know I can do, and they'll go, oh, oh, yeah, my cousin, Yeah I got drunk to that or something. So I think everybody's cousin got drunk to that. Every cousin got drunk to that song. Maybe maybe lots of cousins. You grew up in Texas, I did, wh what town? Um? I lived um in a town called Garland, Um for a while, and then I went to high school in Jacksonville, which is in East Texas, not far from Tyler and part of the Piney Woods, which I know you grew up in the pines. So well, I got up a mountain pine Arkansas. I mean even have the word pine in the end of your town. We're also probably cousins. Yeah, that's well, you know, that's how it works down there and you go from there? And did you study music in school? Were you that kid? Were the music kid? I didn't study. No, I played. I didn't. I never studied music. Um, but I played. I started playing banjo and I was probably about thirteen on which to uh the church camp and uh I saw a guy named I'll be Porter playing banjo one afternoon at one of our little you know where all the kids have to walk over and listen to somebody do something, and uh, I was remember just it was a real watershed kind of moment. I was very besmerized by it, and I was taking lessons from him, you know, a week later and uh So I played banjo for a while and I started playing guitar just a couple of years after that. But I never formally studied. You tell your folks i'd like a banjo. Yeah, I did. I had to go in and say, mom, dad, I have some bad news. What is this son? I want to take banjo lessons? Oh? God, anything but that please. So how did they get you a banjo? They go the pawn shop. Where do you get a banjo? Music stores? Yeah, I went with Bobby. He took me and um, he took me to a music store and helped me pick one out. Yeah, were you the banjo kid at cool Um? Yeah, I don't think there are any other one, so I probably was the banjo kid. And they were like, there's a little Jimmy Jimmy banjo, Mr Banjo. They call me banjo beavers a couple of guys, And I know you love Steve Martin and I would love. I loved Steve Barton. And on the I had the forty five of King and on the flip side was him playing a banjo song. And that also was another reason why I wanted to learn. It's called Sally Good and it's an old banjo standard that he's played. It's the flip side. So so you're studying, I know you're you're learning. I studying learning to me the same, you're not studying it. I know you how are you learning? It? Were just playing? We just playing. I had an older brother who played a little bit um and I had a good friend named Dale. He took guitar lessons from Bobby. I took banjo lessons from Bobby, and he was my best friend. And on the weekends. You know, this is pre good video games or any kind of cell phone or any kind of mazing. I mean, that's that's all we did. We said around, We picked and we listened to records, and we tried to slow him down figure amount. I was, Um, you know, I had a cassette and I would wait for the radio to play my favorite song and I'd missed the intro, but I'd get the rest of it, and I sit there and try to learn the song. And uh, And I think that tactile, you know, relationship with music, which we don't have anymore. I think that was real, you know, no punitentid real instrumental in just me, you know, being all in and being into it. And then you know, you start meeting other people and weirdos like you, and you start putting together bands, and you know, you just do it because you love it. You're not really thinking why, you just want to do it. So whenever you're going to school, going to college, are you wanting to persue music? No? I went to UH. I went to school at Baylor in Waco, Texas, and I was a business UH and broadcasting major. Um. They probably didn't have any kind of commercial music program that I know of. I'm sure they had a music program. But I had no interest in learning how to read music or being in an orchestra. That never. I wanted to go play in Honkey Talks, So I did that. So you kept playing though as you're playing in business, you kept playing music. Oh yeah, yeah, I played the band. In fact, I played the band. Played a couple of bands, but want the band. I ended up playing at Baylor and back then this is the late eighties, and then you know, the country was really about It's really about the boom Big in the early nine he's been the late eighties. In Texas, it was a thing, man, and you could back a for a for a a college kid. I mean, I made good money on the weekends. And there's so many dance holes and places down there and they're still there and everybody danced, and so you just go play top fourty covers. Man. That was great for my playing and writing. I had to, hey, we need to learn this new Dwight Yoacom song for this weekend and stuff like that. So and that band was called Sons of the Desert. They actually ended up getting a record deal after I don't have to move up here, and then they got better when the guy that replaced me. Really, I mean, no, kid, he's a really good lead singer. Were you the singer? Yeah, yeah, kind of the main singer. And then I got Drew Walwick replaced me. And then they came up here and got a record deal after I had already moved up here. So it's kind of a weird, weird circle weird. And were you jealous a little bit? I really was, because I had no interest in being an artist or having a record deal, with being involved with that stuff. I was more just happy and thought it was cool and happy for them, you know, and thought it would be an interesting thing to be a piece of, you know. So, so he moved to Nashville after a graduation from Baylor. Correct, you move here, and what's the plan? What do you want to do? I wanted to, um run a record company. Someday, That's what I want to do. My first job in town, I had a couple of unpaid internships. My first job was mail room at Capital UM fifteen grand a year and maybe the happiest I've ever been to get a job, you know. UM. And so that was my first job here and UM and then I kind of moved into the finance department because they had a job opening and I really didn't want to do finance, but it was the first way out of the mail room, so I took it. And in retrospect, it was a great, really great opportunity to learn so much about just the business side of of how everything. If you know where the money is going, you know, then you kind of have to figure out everything else. At that time, Garth was exploding, and so there was just so much financial stuff going on and so much energy at the label that it it was a great educational experience for me. That's where I'm met Tom. So my manager, Tom Betchy was the guy who was like, hey, you know, I think you're like I think you're like Jim Bieber's. He kind of set us up on our blind day, he did. He was my boss for a while, that's right. And I was talking to him today. We were flying back from New York and we were talking about some stuff and he goes, let me tell you about Jim. I said, what's up? Because that guy used to play guitar in his office when he should have been working, right. It was like he should have been doing like what he's supposed to be doing, but we'd walk by and he'd be over there writing songs. And that's true, it's true. But I was just really quick with my work. And then i'd keep the guitar in office and I, you know, make up funny songs for people, and I'd write, you know, all that kind of stuff. So when I look back, it makes complete sense of what happened and kind of where I ended up. But at the time I didn't. I could never have predicted it or thought it would happen like this, you know, I'd be sitting here with you or it's just this is a big highlight of your life. I mean, this is it. I mean I told my wife this is it, and we're moving back to Texas tonight. You've hit the Apex after actor to haul in your driveway right now. You newly and Walmack from before in Nashville High School high school. UM, when I moved to Jacksonville, Texas, where I went to high school, she lived about a quarter of the miles down the street from me, and my dad was the superintendent of the new superintendent of the school district. And Um, either her mom or dad worked for the school and my dad he came in. He got a forty five and I still have it. He said, Hey, this is this is a girl that that lives here and she likes contributed to and and her. He went, your name is Leon Womack, which is how we pronounced it and U and it was a forty five of her singing a Patsy Cline song and uh, he said, oh't know, you got thought it anyway. I remember going down Lion's house and playing Judd songs and her singing. And so I was sixteen, and uh, I saw her today. As a matter of fact, you know, thirty something years later, I saw he today. So I ended up playing on the road with her son. Once she got her record deal. I was a road manager for a while and uh, your road manager, and then played guitar something for her. Yeah. First, like my first gig with her was right when she got started in like ninety seven. I went out as her road manager, and um, that was another great just crazy experience where I got to learn about how the road works. And and you know, we're playing these huge tours and playing these George Straight Stadium, sold out all day events and then playing these little clubs where you gotta, you know, go get paid in cash and and hope you make it back to the bus kind of stuff. So it's just really great educational And then I went back and played on the road with her for a few years. Like when There's More where that came from came out, which is probably oh five ish, Were you with her when I hope you dance it? Um? No, Actually that was there in the gap where I wasn't with her, but it was so bad. Yeah, I mean, there's no question that. But but the the funny side note is going back to the Suns. I told you about the Suns of the Desert. They're the ones singing background on that song. They're the ones who sing the you know, time is a wheel and cuts them. So the band that I started in college, so you influence that whole song, is what you're saying. Every part of that song was influence, I feel. So the band I started in college and left ended up singing background on the hugest hit of my high school friends. Pretty cool. Crazy what happened to that band? They? You know, as as the Wheels of Nashville Turn, I guess, I guess it just didn't work out. Did ever get a hit? Ever? We get a song. I think they had you a couple of marginal you know, semi hits, nothing nothing big broke all the way through for them, and they were great. You know. I think they were actually a little ahead of their time if you asked me, so you did the deal with Leanne, you wrapped up your second stand with her, and then what I used the songwriter there By that time I was song writting. After I went on a road with her the first time, I ended up getting back in the label game. Um, there was a Virgin Records for a hot minute here in town that Scott Hendricks open, and I wouldn't worked for them. I don't think we were open two years. And then I went and worked for um, Mike Dungan at Capital, who I know you recently did a Bobby cast with and at Capital and then they had a massive, you know, layoff, and I was one of those people. So I always and and and at that point I had already been deciding and thinking, like, I think I'm in the wrong side of business. I don't think I'm supposed to be doing the label stuff. I think I want to be writing. I've been writing at home and uh, just for fun and had fallen into a couple of cuts, and like I said in retrospect, now I know how unusual that is um and I just didn't see all the signs. And then by that, by the early two thousand's, I'd already had a pretty sneaking suspicion that I was I should be writing songs. So that's when I kind of when I got finally laid off from Capital, that's when I said, all right, this is my chance. I think I had a little bit of severan spay or something, had a brand new baby at home, and uh, I was like it's now or ever and thank goodness at work, so you know, it was it was really just like I may have to go back to Texas if this doesn't work, because the label side doesn't want me to not working working out for me. What was the first one that you wrote? They kind of got a little play and you're like, oh, maybe I can do this, Like I got a little bit of radio cut, well not radio play, the first cut that made me think maybe this won't be as bad as hard as I think. I got one on the My Town record for Montgomery Genter, but it was just now I'm cut. But if you want to bring Dirk Spentley into this. I mean, that's what just absolutely saved me. Derk's I had met because he was a newly signed artist on Capitol and so he hadn't come out yet. And I had met him not only at the label, but my brother was writing songs with him is and and my brother ended up being a producer for like the first if I think, four records. But so Dirk Snod just like guys, kind of became buddies and went to lunch a few times, and then all of a sudden he got a record deal, and and I was I think I was still working at Capitol, and we I said, you know, I don't know if you know, man, but I'm writing songs too. Oh really really a label? Gay it write songs or whatever? And we wrote one day, we wrote one song. He ended up cutting it, which is asking any songwriter, they'll be like, I gotta write thirty songs to get one. Anyway, we wrote one day, we wrote one song. He caught it and then it was a single and it was a hit, and it literally saved saved me and my family, you know, and it gave me I didn't have a publishing deal. I could not get a publishing deal in town, and so, um, what was the song? It's called how am I doing? And uh I even wrote it under a pseudonym because I was still at the label. I wrote it under a name called writer X. And it really piste off a lot of people in town because they just, uh, piste off man, I'll be the right word. It created a lot of interest and it peaked a lot of people's curiosity of like, we all try so hard to get our names from songs and then there's somebody who's using an assume name and who is it and all this stuff. So it was fun. It was a talking point for Dirks and it wasn't that well kept in the secret. But like Red Solo Cup, you know, fifteen seventeen years later, as somebody still called me writer X every week, they just thought it was funny that somebody did that. So this song you wrote this on where did they? Where did they hit? You remember? Got number four? Really yeah? And it was the first song you wrote like with dirts with dirt pers and uh yeah, So does that open up other doors with Dirks? Specifically, like if you have a hit with Dirk's top five song, does he go, hey, we should get back together right some more? Well with him, it did because we were we were and our friends, you know, we have an actual real relationship and um, so yeah we then then I mean he went out and killed the road, like he was gone two or fifty days a year. But you know it started writing regularly, oh and making me right. And it wasn't like we were writing every week, but you know, I would try to come up with ideas for him, and when he could squeeze a day in with me, we would write and and you know, he's he's been the biggest factor of my career, you know, to this to this date, and we're still great friends. And I've he's cut you know, a bunch of songs of mine and for other artists. A lot of times it's you know a lot of these other songs you played. I don't meet the artists until the number one party, like you know, it just got played for them and they liked it, and then they cut it and you just had the right song at the right time. So the relationship really wasn't there. And sometimes you get one with him and sometimes you don't see him again. So it's kind of weird. What was the one where you're like, oh, I can't believe that artist has decided to cut my song, Like, of all the artists, that's really weird that they they're the one who liked that song. Yeah, well besides Tobey Keith cutting, anybody cutting red solo cup um? Uh? Josh Turner cutting? Uh? Why don't we just dance? I didn't know him, and I thought it was a great song. I didn't. I do remember thinking, I said, I think this would be a really big song of somebody, and he was the perfect artist to do it, and and but I didn't realize until I heard him singing it. I was like, dude, that say, it's like you didn't know. No, now here's the question. After you Josh Turner or Luke or even like Eastern Corbin, after you have a hit with these artists, then do you like exchange cellphone numbers and can text them any time? Or is it just kind of like hello goodbye? Um? It can be a little both. It depends on my experience has been. It depends on where they are in their career. If it's Luke and he's already Luke Brian and and you know, he's just got people coming out of the woodwork trying to write with him or get him songs, and and uh, it's only natural that these people are gonna have a little bit of a more closed circle. It's not like, well, he heard a song you wrote, so now you're you know, hunting, fishing, loving every day with him or something. So, um, it's usually more like that. If you're coming around later in life and they're just hearing a song, you're you know, you may have a little bit more of an open door to them. But I've never had another Luke Bryant cut, you know, I've never had a j Sharner cut. Do you have Josh on her cellphone number? I think I do. Do you have Luke Bryan's No, I text them today? You want to just saying it on the air, and already did. Yeah, can you imagine that? Pistic? I have a Luke on my phone three different times I text the two people that aren't Luke anymore because I have it as Luke Luke Bran New and Luke bran New Real And so I stop taking your number. You're not famous. Chase you around the most famous guy in our format? Um, how about Gary Allen. Do you have a number? I have Gary Allen's number. I've written with him a couple of times since Watching Airplanes. Yeah, here's the Watching Airplanes, which peaked at number two, the most frustrating. It actually got number one on one chart. Yeah, that's the charted them. I thought that all chart. I call it another do you say my first number one? Of course it was number one. I would contest that I would raise if I was in the crowd. But excuse me, sir, songwriters, like if you sniffed it if it was number if it was number one for you know half of course on Saturday night the canail. That's fair. Now here's what I say. I have a kid's song that went number one on like three different charts. There's not really a kid's official chart though. Then there's like it was number one iTunes for two weeks. It was number one on the Disney Airplay number one, right, so I guess that counts. I can't make funny any chart. It's my mom's favorite. It's my mom's number one number one. This was a jam though this a jam, still a jam. Yeah, they still play the crap out of the song. Um, it's so it's it's that's one of my favorite songs I've ever had out. Did you write that with him? No? I wrote it with Jonathan Singleton and so, but then you when you wrote with him afterwards, you and Gary wrote another songs, not until it's probably six or seven years after that. Really, Yeah, well that's kind of while you become friends way later when you're not even connected. Yeah, you know, it's just it. I don't know, I'm you know, some of these some of these writers are like their best buddies with everybody, and they're they're they're hitting them up. And then I don't know if I'm just not that kind of person or if I don't know how to do it. I'm definitely not very good at it. I don't I don't really get in always. I'd like to think, man, if if they like my song, they like my song, and that ought to be good enough. But I'm not real good at working it. But but yeah, you do, you'll run into them, and like I said, there may be an open door, like, hey, Gary, you should listen a song this guy wrote watching you know. Maybe that's as far as it goes. I don't know, Billy Currington, you have his number. I don't think I'm gonna say no to that one. Yeah, you're feeling at the way I'm I'm feeling a note because I know Billy a little bit and I like Billy, but I don't have Billy's number. And once Billy comes up and he brought to do a piece paper and he goes, writes this thing down, it's right, and then he folds it up. He takes my hand and he shoves it in my hand and then shuts my hand. It goes it's for you, And I'm like, what what is this? Is a Billy art? Is it a Billy original? And I opened it up and it wasn't even his cell phone number. It was his email address. He put his email down and was like, hit me up, we'll go surfing, whan I never served in my life. And too, he didn't write a cell phone number down, which was weird. So I felt like he didn't give a cell phone number out. Maybe he doesn't have a phone dot com address. I do think it was kind of an old school address though it was like it was like a Yahoo. Maybe that was the artist version of the girl in the bar that doesn't want to give you a real maybe, But I didn't ask for it. I didn't ask for anything. Yeah, he volunteered it. You wrote, don't here you go, here's Billy Carrington. Dun't this? Do you count? This is the number one? That was the number one? He did too? What chart you looking at? Man? I count it as a number one? Okay? Then number one it is, because at that time there were two charts. There's Billboard and air check. If either one of them got number one, we were throwing part I'll tell you this. I went to a number one party for that song, and I went to number one party for watching airplanes. So if that don't mean number one, I don't know what I mean number ones? Do you have nine? Nine? Okay that I know of? Oh no, that's kids. Sorry Eastern Corman. Loving you was fun? Oh it is, isn't it fun? Is this the number one? That's a four? Don't you sound like a four? Apparently there's like some station that refuses to play him, so he can never have a number one. I'm probably did divulging thing. No, but you know that's a thing where some people just won't play certain people that they really pissed him off. That might have happened with him, which is detriment. There's a few like big Time. Yeah, there's a few world and now it's I've called a few of them out publicly and they stopped doing that a little bit good. Where I've been like, hey, and what will happen is you go, I'm just gonna say, hey, John Smith, not a person in Houston is a city, but not one I'm referring to. I hear that you're not playing certain artists on the air. Let's not make that a thing. And usually if they know somebody knows and we'll call them out, they'll stop doing Wow the Bobby Bone shame play. I like it. Well, you just shouldn't penalize art if you don't love the artist, and your job is to share, like that's that's your job. It's some one that's researching. Don't let your personal beliefs hold back what you think would be best for your station. But yeah, I've heard that, not about Easton, but about a couple of people. I'm pretty sure it's the case with him or it was Chris Stabled and Parachute. Yes you wrote that with Chris, do you? Because she's write regular right now? We did, We wrote very regularly for um for a few years, for several years, like every you know, one of those usually if you have like what we call a standing appointment, it will be every two weeks or every month. You know, you'll where every other Wednesday or where the first tuesdays every month. You know, when you go look at your calendar that way, you know you've got you've got the appointments coming up. So you can kind of get in a groove with somebody if you if you enjoy writing with them, or if you do well with them, and you know, if you don't finish the song that day, all right, we'll get it next time. Or so christ did write a lot regularly for for years. I was looking at the hoodie track list because I love Darius, has been prints with Darius since I was seventeen. My first ever radio and you met him. I listened to your book. Yeah, oh thanks, Yeah, that's my dude. Right, So, like we through format changes and you know, we've kind of bounced around, and um, so I'm a huge hoodie fan. And I was looking at the songwriter listening and I see you and Chris Stapleton wrote one of the Hoodie songs. I think maybe the only one or maybe two that weren't written by hooting the Blowfish. I saw the track listening. I think it is the only one that that that Hoodie or a Blowfish was not on. And I don't have the clip because it's not out yet. But how does that? First of all, how long go to during christ Depton? Right? That song? That song is called hold On and it's probably four years old? Yeah, And how does this song last for four years and then get to somebody? Well, if you want know the specific story about that song. Um, I was meeting with um Brian Wright, who is the head of A and R at Universal Records, and they're the people who are in charge of signing new artists and kind of overseeing recording projects. I was meeting with him probably four months ago about a completely unrelated thing, and at the end of the conversation, he goes, man, do you have anything for who you need to blowfish? He said, I just got just we're having a hard time. Just find it just the perfect thing for them. They're writing some good stuff, but we're just looking for something. And I said, I actually have something I think we perform and I played it for him right there. He already knew the song because he works with Stapleton, and you know, he just kind of lit up. He goes, that's it. He said, that's the best one I've heard. That's it, and then they ended up cutting it. So I was just if he hadn't brought that up to me that thought, you wouldn't be missing that song right now. That's how weird the business, and you know how weird this business city. It's a little thing like that can make or break, and a song can be recorded not recorded. It was literally in passing at the end of a meeting, he said, I'm looking for something, and I just happen to think of that one song. So so if anybody at any time goes, hey, I need that song for Slean Dion and you really don't have one, but you have a bunch of songs, like of course, here's you go and just pick one of them up play it. I would only do that if I really didn't think I have I wouldn't have said that to Brian if I didn't honestly believe I had a song that they would do very well, because that's now you're talking about your credibility, right And if you and if you have that one shot with somebody and you play them a piece of crowd, then then they may not ask again. So that specific song you're talking about, who Neian Bluefish has always been one of my most favorite uncut songs. So I have no I have no problem selling the song if I really really believe it. And there's not that many I really really believe in, but that's one for sure. So I don't know. If I if I probably wouldn't have a slingdon songs be honest and yeah that we'll go back to drinking here for a second. Uh did you is that a U and stable toon track? Correct? Because stables and singing right? And so they didn't invite me to come in that day. I don't know. Maybe they gave me the wrong studio. You probably displaced. I get a lot of invites that don't actually get to me too, like, oh, we meant that, I'm gonna go with that one of that, I want to go with that. What's what's the story in this song? Um? This is another one where UM I was sitting on my back porch smoking a cigar, playing my guitar, and um, I remember that that the chorus came to me um or, as writers like to say, God whispered it in my ear? Bobby, do you like that? Is that a little more poetic? You're not good nut going there? Okay, I think people if you really feel that way. Um, I don't feel like God's ever whispered a song in my I don't feel like he has a mine. I don't know why, but that that course came to me, um and in its form, which is the four lines, you know, I'm gonna sit right here on the ed this beer and watch the sunset disappeared? Do you like to run pier with beer and drink a beer? And so, I don't know why it happened. It was with that guitar. There's a picture in here I'm pointing to and um, I put it on my phone. I was like, I kind of like the sound of that. And then Chris and I were getting together, and you know, like all writing appointments, you kind of just start staring at each other and like, you got anything. I don't know any anything, And I said, man, I got this little thing. I only know it did, and I'm played him the chorus and he remember he laughed because how long I waited before I went Andrea keo beer. He just thought it was funny. That's really long. Pause. I said, I know, I know it's long, but it works, you know. He said, it did work. And Uh, that song, you know, has been another crazy learning experience for me because, um, that song means a whole lot to a whole lot of people. I will play a show and I'll play that song, and invariably somebody will come up and say, oh my gosh, that we played that at my grandfather's funeral, or that was my's Usually somebody they've lost, you know, which is is is powerful thing to hear as a as a writer, and and to me, the weird story is, you know, we had the chorus which if you listen to the chorus, there's no context to it. It doesn't say why this person is doing what they're doing. It's just four lines, right. And so it was like Chris and I knew the answer to the problem, to the math question. Then we had to go figure out what the actual problem was, and we tried a lot of different ways to get what we thought it at all. Maybe you just quit his job and it's kind of a fun I'm gonna sit out here and we tried and it never felt right, never felt right, never felt right, And we tried a lot. I remember, we tried a lot of different ways. And then I don't know which one of us in the room it man, what if the what if that person used to go do this with somebody they just lost And then it just everything clicked, just because we kept trying and kept trying, and the song was there. And uh, did anyone else put that song on hold before Luke got it? No? Um, it was out for a while before before before we cut it. I mean it was probably in town for six months or a year. And then Jeff Stevens, his producer, heard it and said, I think Luke would love that song. And again it's another case where the song is just a song, but then you match it with Luke and Luke story and now it's the thing. And so again, as a writer, you don't control that. It's just you're just the You're just a conduit, you know, and and the universe has different plans. You know, when you and Chris the writing and you guys are gonna sing the demo afterwards, you always make Chris sing, you know, he always wants to be a sing because he likes to steal his lips from me. I don't know a lot of people don't know that. Um uh, not always, honestly, not always. I've got work tapes where we've written and I'm actually singing ill advisedly, I'm singing the the in the phone, but but usually it's him yeah, and he's in you know the do you want you want more? Inside? And stuff like the hold On song that Hoodian a Bluefish cut, that is. I had a drum loop going in the room and I just recorded Chris singing it on my iPhone and that's what we pitched. I mean, we never did anything else. It was just Chris singing in the room over a drum loop, over a drum loop with us playing guitars, just like when you and I wrote a song. We'll all right, let's put this down so we'll remember how it went. And uh, we never demoed it. We never did anything special. It's low, very just the iPhone, just an iPhone work tape. Is it on your phone? Probably? Let's let's hear a piece of it, because you want to hear hold On? Yeah? Just well yeah, let's let's tell any of them. Let me see if I can pull that up, I bet I have. Is your whole phone full of yes of it? All? Right? This is this is I mean I can do we can right, yeah, of course absolutely. Okay, Let's see if I can pull it up. I'm trying. Which song is this? This is hold on the one? Who do you got? Yeah? Drum loop? That's my big fat drum loop. Can you hear that? Yeah? And you're gonna hear the velvet cones of ri state of tones in the second Claude Sick Cloud seems like going wrong. It is this what you play to your buddy? Wow? Okay you know when Darius can sing that? Yeah? Man, I mean you gotta have And what is that you with the fellows? Sorry? Is this the wrong time for that? It's interesting that you have that, because again, who can who can sing that with that power? Unless it's somebody who can sing that, I don't know. I just write them, man, I try to write them. Yeah, yeah, but Darius can do it like Hillary Lindsay will cut songs and the artist almost can't sing what she writes. Carry the woods about one of the few. Otherwise, I mean stay and if again going real into the weeds, Stapleton had that effect on people when he was primarily known as just a writer in town. I mean, he would you know, sing his own demos and it would intimidate the artist if the song to beIN pitched too and they and they would fall in love with the song and then they would they'd go in to cut it and they'd come out going, it's just not the same, right, Like, it's not as good as a person who is saying and so what they were they were falling in love with Chris, you know, they were falling in love with that unbelievable vocal and and you know it's that's very He's a perfect example that. And so now a lot of times with with demo singers, you know, the people who are actually singing the song that we pitched to the artist, you don't want them too good. And even if they're capable of like yeah, so now I'm getting a lot of work lately. Um, it's it's shocking. So uh no, so you eat and even if they are a capable vocalist of like blowing your mind, you will tell them just tone it down. You want it, you want it pitched as generic that you want to you want the song to be the star, not the singer, you know, and they just have a vibe. But it doesn't even have a vibe. It's just a vibe. But no tricks, no crazy trills, because if that artist doesn't like those things or it's not careful of those things, they're gonna be thinking about it and they're going, well, I can't do what they're doing. You want it, you want the melody presented in a you know, in a fairly generic way. It's it's, it's And it took me a while to learn that too. I think Caitlin Sumiths had that effect on people too. Blow away the track and people were like, I don't know I can do that, and it has nothing to do with the song even and even you know, like some people's voice of mind, probably it's just don't start with the camera. There's a camera looking at you, but it's just part of the whole. It's almost too twanging, you know. It's got a country East Texas thing to it, and some people don't want to listen to that. And so even though I'm singing the exact same melody that's somebody else is singing. You know, I know I should not sing this song, we gotta get somebody else. It has nothing with the song. None of the lyrics are different. No, the music is different. It's just who who's communicating it, and it makes a big, big deal. That's an interesting concept, and a lot of people will bring their phones and play like work tapes like that, and it's, um, it's pretty cool to hear that, because rarely anymore are the work tapes just blowing things out of the water, because again they're like, whoa if if it's too too vocal, people were here and to go why I can't do How would I cut that song if I don't have that skill set as the person who's singing the demo. I mean, there's lots of little tricks, like you know, if you're gonna be pitching a certain songs with a certain artist, you may try to cut it in their key, you know. So you imagine him driving around in their truck listening to demos and I want this, but I want them to be able to sing along, you know. So if it's a McGraw, you may go lists put it in a McGraw key, you know, and stuff like that. I mean, there's you know, you try any little advantage you can get to make your because they're listening to hundreds of songs. Possibly, So, yeah, do you have what else you having your phone? That's another one. I got watch of stuff on my phone. Do you have a lot of stuff that you and I've written? Do you want to I might have like the drink a beer? Yes, if you can find that one, let me see, let me see you know, and do you archive any of those or if you just lose your phone, I'm just searching for it and they don't come in the cloud, You're they're just gone. What about the gym beavers? Muse them after you die. Yeah, well there's already a vibrant one right now in East Texas. Um Um, this is this is stable thing. Drink of beer? Right? Is it okay for me? We play him? Chris has played on our show? Okay, I say, you know him being a recording artist. I don't know why. God, Yes, they were routed. Do you guys put the phone down in the middle of you and just get over the top of the phone to play up. Yeah, well you'll know you're normally sliding about three quarters of the way closest to the singer. There's the best way. I'm gonna come in here and take the course for about That's the day we wrote It's cool. Is that cool? Yeah, that's cool. I didn't had that on there when Chris because we would have Chris in the studio before he hit, because he was just a songwriter that I thought was awesome and I was getting a lot of trouble for bringing random songwriters perform um. And luckily Chris hit. It was not luckily for him for me because once he hit, everybody left me alone. That kind of validated your opinion, crushed it. Just they were like front in front, they were like we're gonna stop you, just do you because I you know, I had had some success of bringing a couple of artists, but I was getting heat from people, um like my high ups that did no country music go and you you shouldn't bring on And I was still pretty new, and the idea was like he's an unknown and yeah, completely unknown. But I was like, yeah, he was doing Josh Turner, um your main in and he did. He come in and he played drinking beer and he played and they were like, you know, I know he's written these songs, but I just don't think that you should have one, and I'm like, well, first, it's my show, Like you didn't bring me over here to do what you want to do, and no disrespect, but let me. And when he hit, I was still thinking it was just because then and I wasn't. I was just following what I thought was good. Go with the genius thing. It's always better. I was number one on the genius chart. Yeah, it was amazing. Case. I've run with that every sence I've been number one, every sense you knows it's is it whenever songwriters come into our room together and you both have had some success in the past, because I'll compare it to you and I where I haven't had success as a real life songwriter, but I've written a bunch of stuff, either books or some dopey songs, and you go for me, you know, working with you, I go, I don't know if I want to pitch this idea, but I haven't poison ivying your genitals. And I'm like, I don't even know really know this guy already. Yeah, sorry, And it's like that one specifically, I was like, I got this idea and it's about you're with a girl, and it's like, hey, don't run Awa, it just got it's just poison ivy And here you are would drink a beer and parachute and and I can, but I don't know that right. But I guess my question is is there ever that awkward feeling from you when you have this idea? And maybe it's not you know, as dopey as as that one, because now we have a rhythm and we have ideas it or to dope and we're like, maybe not that one. There's the comfortability after about the third rite? Do you ever go? Man, I don't want to go, and you have to go to maybe the warm Brothers are Chris Stables and be like, I have this idea that you know, a sausage factory. Yeah, and then the sadness after it closes. Yeah, it is sad. If you love sausage, it's really sad and it's the only one around. So um yeah. I mean I think you learned really quickly for doing this every day. If you're not willing to be vulnerable then and and to look, you know, we all you've heard it. We say, dare to suck and you'll usually you'll prefer I'm all right, I'm gonna dare to suck and then you'll you're just letting them know you're about to say the stupidest thing. And usually it's half baked. You don't even know what it means, but you think there's something in there. And then sometimes somebody's like, oh, what if you bump, and they'll twist it to be like, that's exactly why I had to say it out loud, and it will make perfect sense. So but with with you, and I like trying to write like funny songs and stuff. I knew, I knew I had to come in here and be willing to look stupid. I didn't know you very well. I really didn't know you at all. I didn't know your sense of humor, your personality. But you know, we found each other and and and now, like you said, we're comfortable and I can play you something. You can go, yeah, they doesn't really work, and I don't. That's fine with me. It's like, oh, because I know other things will work. You know it's funny too. Actually I trust your instincts, you know, because I very much trust your instincts. So whenever we were sitting in a hotel room and maybe Amarillo, and it was like four and just plus were wet, we were well, I was laying down in the bed, you were sitting and we were and I'm not sure who actually, maybe it was me. I hate to say it was me. If it wasn't, maybe it was me. Who goes we should do a song about a Fannie pack. I'm not sure was it you? Was it? But I turned into a no, no, it doesn't matter to me either. But it was like, why don't we do it as a rap song? Because that's where it came in with me, because I told my wife about your show? Is that what it was? He's got this funny song where he puts these georgs on stage, and she said, did you have a Fannie pack? I said, nobody should, because that would be like the next gag, you know, And then I just that literally just happened. Maybe that morning I was tell my wife about watching the Raging Idiots. Maybe I shouldn't know who has ideas, because then I was like, I don't know who had this idea. Yeah it doesn't matter, but it does not matter to songwriters when you're some people get butt hurt over it. Yeah, okay, it shouldn't um because I mean the way I look at it is it's it's if you brought the idea and even if you wrote ninety percent of the song that I look at it like that song would not have existed if you had not given birth to it the way it was given birth to. You know, Now, unless you've got to fully realized song, you just kind of come in and too an R this or somebody and being like, hey, maybe we could change the third line. You know, that's a different thing, and that always feels very schevy to me. But um, and I also believe if you're serious about doing this for a living, it's gonna work itself out. There's gonna be other times where you're the dummy in the room and you just caught it like your break and somebody was on fire, you know. And and that's just part of the process. If if you if you run around worry about credit or who did the line, whose whose idea was this? Who came up with that, you'll drive yourself nights man and and people humans want to do that, but you gotta fight that, I think if you want to be healthy. Well, so I had this idea by a fanny pack, right, really interesting because I've already written it. So but I remember where it came from. You where and probably you know what? It probably came from my wife? See, so should I? Should I be sitting there taking credit for her? She's the one who said that she should get the writing credit. You see it, not writing credit, but credit. But but let's back it up if you want. If I hadn't told her about George, she wouldn't have said Fanny Pack. So so I get the credit, So back to me. But honestly, you can follow that thread all the way. It's like, well, then where do you stop? So this song, Fannie Pack? You pitched the idea and I was like, great, I do remember. Going ahead, let's make it like a rap song. And I don't know if you've ever written a rap song before? Have you? Of course? Which one? You can't tell by looking at me? Nothing? Nothing you've heard? Um? And it turned into this, did this ever work for? You? Want to? Texted you? I got the second one worked, work worked, and I'll play a little bit of it. It turned out like a funk white boy. It's great to do, but my pants didn't have enough pocket root, I got my keys, my bones potastic to good thing. I got a pop like a kangaro if you need to band or got a lifestyle. I remember Brandon Rea, if you need an EPI pen to bring your granny back? And I thought that's the funniest line. It's really funny. You know that means granny was gone and you're needed an EPI pen. And so you know, and and we're like, that would have happened if if we for not written exactly where we wrote it. Agree, you know it's just and so you've got to let the process. To me, you're doing it right if you just if you say the song is a star, the song is a star, and all that matters is the song. If you when you walk in that room, that's what happened, checker. You go at the door and it's all about the song, and you walk out and you don't smack talk or anything about Well I did. And you know that's not in service of the song. You know that's my theory. Well, then for now I want to talk about that song. I'm gonna say, Well, so I had I wrote a song called George, and somebody got it came back all the way around. So then I wrote Fannie Pack whatever. But this is your your domain. This this stuff is your domain. Yeah, I'm totally playing um, but I think I think we're gonna cut because you're coming on the road this weekend and you're actually gonna play and we're gonna make the live record. So very excited. There's two shows in Little Rock, right, so no pressure. Yeah, I know your home. There's your home. There's only one show on the rock, so we gotta make it work or it doesn't count. All right, I'll do my best. We got got all the songs charted out, I really do. Is it weird? Is it cool? Maybe? Both? That when we write a song and I take it and I record and I played immediately and we record it and I send you the video. I mean, is is that different than what it's I've told you? It's the most refreshing, crazy thing for everybody listening. Like Bobby that literally the day of the show might write a song and he fairlessly will get up there and do it that night, and I'm like, how are you even going to know for the words? But he'll do it And sometimes I don't, But it doesn't matter. But immediate and immediate feedback and the way I way I work and I say oh, we should have done this, we can do this. It just tweaks tweaks, and I'll send them and go, okay, look at this. What do you think didn't work? What did work? Question? We've been changing songs we wrote four weeks ago. I mean, if Stein felt at his level can grind on timing and what I mean, then I wish songwriter to do it more. They don't. I I like to rewrite songs. I'm always like songs not done until it's cut. And you know, sometimes I'll completely rewrite a song and then realize the first way with the right way, and I'll spend I just did that recently with a song I wrote with my brother. I said, hey, man, I think we missed it would be this, and then I played it for him. He was like, yeah, I like the other one better. I said, I think I do too now, but I've spent hours, you know. But the immediate feedback of you playing a song live and knowing when people laugh, and me moving from country songwriter to you know, raging idiot writer um has been such a refreshing, uh mind mind thing for me because the lyrics are so important. You can't cram too many and because your audience has to hear every single word. It's like a joke. Like a joke if you don't have set up and the punch line doesn't matter. And of course you know vocally you stapled it. I mean, I can't even tell the difference. Why I don't cut songs, can't cut I get it. It's been so nice just to know guy he can do anything with this song. So uh no, it's been a dude, this is no bs. It's been the most fun I've had in such a long time. You can you can ask my wife. She's like, you're a new man. I was like, I know, it's been I was kind of born to end up probably getting to help somebody like you. So it's been great. Well, let me ask you a few questions here. They have nothing to do with your your career. You have any Grammys? No, I just want to grandmother say Granny's no grammy. I had two grannies. Do you have any Academy awards? My favorite thing he got my favorite thing to do the jim is. But if Timocraws song comes on the radio, Eddie and I do it every time, and then if as long as not the one he wrote, We're like, hey, do you write this one for the one? You write this one? We know he didn't knowingly. No, No, Grammy, I don't don't really have any any awards, No, except for all your number ones, your nine, number one. Yeah, except for I've never won like a CMA or a CM like one. What's the most number ones you've had in a year. Have you had two in a year before? I've had two in a year. I think I almost had three in a year one time, but it may have been thirteen months or somebody who's counting? Yeah, not you? Whose the year? Was it a certain year charts? You're the Aztec calendar? Maybe you got three in a year. Why not use that calendar? I'd love to use the Okay, let me ask you a few of these. What's the last movie you saw in theaters? Uh? My wife and I went once once upon a time in Hollywood. I haven't seen it. Mike's all you like it might have a good movie. I loved it. I like anything Tarantino, and I thought it was great. I like Brett Pitt, and I thought it was good. What's the last concert you buy tickets for? Oh my gosh, dude, I honestly cannot think of one. I'm being in the business, I can't think when I bought tickets for a concert. I think I might have paid, paid for, but not attended tickets for one direction for my daughter. So she went, she went, Do your kids think it's cool that you've written songs? Um? They might have at some point, but they don't. It doesn't seem to register with them as anything weird. Are they musical? Um? They both like music and they both can sing. Neither whet him really play anything. Um, but they both My son's fifteen and he loves like classic rock and Tom Petty and my daughter loves eighties George Straight. She's been wearing me out and listened to like early George Straight on the way to school the last few weeks. Um. So they have I think a lot of kids of their generation and very eclectic tastes, you know, and so. But but their musical in a sense that they like music and they can sing. So I give you one more instead of a last meal, you're offered a last song to sing before you die that I wrote to listen to before you have singing, because you're probably dying to listen to before you die, you have to write. It can be any song in the world before I die, like I know him like, it's like, as soon as the songs over, you're dead. So it's the last songs to you know what. It's interesting you say, a friend of mine named Troy Tomlinson who has been my publisher for a long time. He's a he's a big wig here in town. Turn me onto the song by the a Vip Brothers called No Hard Feelings. Have you ever heard that song? And just a few ago he said, you gotta listen to a song and it made me. It literally made me cried. I hardly cried anything. I mean I cried no one. I had to come over here. Um, I've tried no one. I'm gonna quote with you this weekend. So that's yeah, well, um yeah, and he's crying right now, down the tears. Let me end on this question here, Um, you've written with Taylor Swift? Which version of Taylor slif? I wrote with the fourteen year old version. So what's it like to write a song with fourteen year old Taylor Swift? Well, she was not you know, quote unquote Taylor Swift yet at that point obviously, So this is before she put out her first record. Um. She was pretty new to town and was making the rounds around town looking for co writes. UM. And I'm not sure who set us up, um, but she couldn't write until three thirty because she had school. You and she and her mother would sit on the other side of the door, you know appropriately so and um, I I learned a great lesson if I told you this story before continue okay, UM, I learned a great lesson from her because you know, at that time, I was, I guess in my thirties or something, and thought I was this real songwriter or something. And I remember like, what am I doing the room with a fourteen year old girl? You know what, what what in the world can we have in common? And and uh, this is it still sounds crazy, right that that that a teenage girl became what she is and what she was. I mean, it's unbelievable. She's singular, you know. And so I remember having a bad attitude about the right like what am I doing? Why am I doing this? And then getting in the room with her, and she's very pleasant, but she knew exactly what she wanted to say. She was, you know, in a good way, pushing me around the room, like I'll go, well, um, an experienced writer like myself might say this, and she's like, no, no, it's not that's not how I would say, you know. And so what I learned from her is that from an artist perspective, she knew exactly who she was, she knew exactly what she wanted to say, she knew exactly where she was going. And to me, that is like, now, that's the number one thing I look for somebody. It's not even what their voice sound, flex, not what they look like. It's like if they have a vision and a focus of who they are, that that blows everything else away. Because then there's lots of great singers and great writers, and you know, turn on American Idol, you know you're on there. I mean, there's just great talent everywhere. But but the artists and the ones that connect, you know, no know why they're going to connect, and they connect with people. You know. And the song that you guys wrote, I don't remember the title. I don't even think we finished it. I think we wrote maybe twice and never finished it. You wrote two times. I think we wrote twice and didn't finish one song, and is that your fault? Probably she probably sense that I wouldn't find into her and probably ended the I don't want to speak for a probably ended the thing early and uh a little I'll give you a little coda to this story. We both wrote for Sony Publishing, which has tons and tons of writers, and several years later, UM Sony has this big every year they had this big annual uh Christmas brunch where they all the employees come, all the families, hundreds of people, and then they will give out awards. You know, there's always a uh Joe you know, who's worked here for twenty years award, who's worried five And then they'll have a Artist of the Year, artist Writer of the Year award, and a writer just a songwriter of the year award. And so that year I got I got the writer of the Year awards. She was going to get the artist Songwriter of the Year award. At this this is just a branch at a country club, right, and she was already Taylor Swift at this point. So we were sitting at the same table and I was going, Hey, Taylor, remember me, and she's like, oh yeah, yeah. Anyway, so they they awarded her and gave her her her award, and she she went up to say a few words, and she was just like, oh, Sony, you guys are always been my family. You believe to me. Nobody else did. I mean, I've just grown so much since I've've been associated with you guys. I mean, I remember when I first started, I was writing songs with people like and she looked over people like Jim Beavers. Um. I just always remember that. I thought it was great and I know how she met it, but I know how I took it. Like, so I was, you know, I thought that was funny. That's funny. That's about tape tape story. It's a good one. And it's also there's a lesson there, like if somebody knows who they are now I know, don't don't don't push back, and if and if they know how to connect, if they have a connection, if they know how to connect to people, even if it's not people I connect with. I pay a lot of attention to that because because that's, uh, that's an authenticity that you can't you can't make a song make somebody do that. You know. Well, in this podcast, Mike, I just caught him in a lie he did win an award. He just said he never won an award, and then three minutes later he goes, I wanted an award. I'm just saying, you just contracting the best best Jim Beavers at my own house or something. Awards? Have you won that I did? I did two times? Good for you? Yeah, Well listen, do you have anything? Um, you don't have to mention it as there are. There are songs out now that people like, Oh, I think I like this, Maybe it's on hold? Is that always a thing? It's all you're always wondering. You're always wondering. I'm wondering about the hoodie song. Will that be a single? Are they going to do a single? Will that be the one? I mean because I love the song? And um, so all you can do is sit and wait and then, you know, try not to get too depressed if it doesn't happen, you know, keep moving forward. Of all the ones that you wrote, of all the hits you had, what's the song that you want to remember for? Um? I'd probably can I say too? I sure? Well? Watching Airplane as well Aways be special because it's a wacky song and it was my first number one, and it was at number one, and then drink a beer. Um, solely because of how I've learned that people. That has affected people. Yeah, that's a thing. It's a thing that I did. I very very much underestimated the power of it. And and I don't take any kind of credit for it. Um and and yeah, so that that's even though it's kind of a sad connection, it's it's an emotional deal. Well, here's a little bit of drink of beer. We'll play it one more time, everybody. Jim Beepers Episode one. Jeff, I can't believe we've done. Now what you mean that's it? We've done over an hour? Yeah, seven o four five pm. Now come. It's easy when you're talking about yourself, right, it goes about quick. You know all the answer, you know, you know all the answer. I was nervous, man, I told my lifepisode I don't really know it. M was supposed to have stories ready or you know. I was asked that. I said, no, just having to show up. And one we already know each other. I'm not even wearing shoes. I'm nowhere in underwears. Yeah, so it works. I'm actually wearing your socks and youwhere in my underwear? So it's a whole um. All right, is there anything you want to promote? Okay, there we have an raging idiot show in Oklahoma City, Oklauma sitting on a rock. That's right. But by the time they hear this, it'll be too late. No, there'll be a couple of days. But I think they're both sold out, so you can be honest. Were you surprised when you would see the amount of people that would come to our shows? Yeah? Because why? Um, because I'm not a daily listener of yours and I haven't ever been. I have a five minute commute and so um. And I just didn't realize how big. I'm sorry, I didn't realize how big the impact was. And the way I told it to my wife was, it's like he's got a a very loyal like they're not passive Bobby Bones fans. I mean they there's like a it's a thing. I know that's not very well said, but it's a it's a I think you've you have it. When I talked about a connection like Taylor Swift having a connectional people, I think you have a very specific connection with a with a very specific pretty good sized group of people and it's beyond entertain m hmm, that's what I think, and that's what I told you to say, so thank you for so anyway. Do you still need this piece of don't? I don't. Alright, that's the episode one ninety nine with Jim Beavers. All right, and everybody you can watch. You can watch this up on YouTube. I'm playing my profile was the star here because well, no, it's not your strong And now he's doing wrap her hands to it. For some reason, he does one raps oh sorry mini rap gus that we don't know about yet. Alright, episode one night Night. Thank you very much, and don't forget to check out Velvet's Edge with Kelly Henderson and check out four Things with Amy Brown and a lot of the other podcasts here on the Nashville Podcast Network. Alright, bye, guys,