#1987 - Jelly Roll

If you're talking to a legit musician, I would imagine as a musician, it's fascinating just to have those kind of conversations too. But for me, if I have a choice, I wanna talk to comics. My favorite pods of yours are when you're with the homies. Mine too. Yeah. I feel like that's when I get real insight and I feel like I'm watching y'alls green room. When I watch you and a couple comedians. You really are. Do a pod, I'm like, yo, I bet this is what's happening in the fucking green room. Oh, 100%. Well, you can go to the green room tonight. I'll show you. Yeah, I'll do it. It's essentially the same thing. It's exactly the same. Joe, went to Mitzi's finally. It's beautiful, right? God, dude. And what an ode to her, man. How fucking gangster. Just cool. You know what I mean? And the bar, it was like, I told Tony this last night, drunk 10 times. It was this thing that was like, I wish musicians would, I took a page from y'all. So I bought 200 yonder bags, right? And now on tour, my deal is, if you come back before the show, we'll take pictures, we'll do whatever you wanna do. If you come hang out after the show, we're locking everybody's phone up. Nice. Yep, cause I just wanna fucking be present. I wanna be able to fucking smoke a joint. You know what I mean? I just wanna be able to be us. And that's all I seen in there last night was just a bunch of dudes being dudes. Yeah. But about what they do, you know? Well, you know, the thing is about everybody that hangs out in Mitzi's, they don't even, their phones are in their hands and they don't use them. They were so used to just putting them down. The hang is so fun. And there's a sort of a philosophy through the whole room that gets enhanced by the fact that the audience has their phones in the back. Like you don't see phones everywhere. You don't see people just constantly on their phones, so people can just hang. And then you're also talking to interesting people, which is more interesting than the shit you're looking at on TikTok. It's fun. And we're all present here. Yeah, we're all present. No, it was awesome. It's just weird that we have, one of the things that I've realized about podcasts is I've spent so many times, so many hours talking to people, just having a conversation. And the only way is because I never look at my phone because it's locked up. Like it's off, it's off to the side. You're right there. We're sitting here with headphones on. So we're hearing each other's voices. It's like, you gotta almost like put yourself in that sort of an environment to have conversations like this, to really be able to hang out and really be present. Exactly. I love this too, because your podcast has done wonders for, especially artists, because we don't have platforms to really do this, to really come sit down. Like the first time I got to hear Stapleton talk for more than three minutes was on your podcast. I'd only heard radio sound bites from Stapleton ever. You know what I mean? So it was cool to like actually dig into who Stapleton was, you know what I mean? So that like shit like that is like everybody you've had on this podcast music wise, as a musician, we only get these little sound bite excerpts that are fucking publicists kind of rehearsed them and said, this is what we're looking for in this interview, you know? Yeah, no, I, I, I told you. Is this the Joey Diaz? Yeah, it's the Joey Diaz. Are we smoking the cocoa? That's the cocoa. That's laughing gas. I love you, Uncle Joey. God damn. You gotta meet Uncle Joey. You and Uncle Joey together would be like two black holes colliding to bring me a problem. He brought me on his podcast earlier this year, and it was the fucking best. Oh, that's awesome. Listen, he called me one day out of the blue Joe just to hype me up. Really? Just to be like, yo, fucking jelly, I just called to tell you, just listen to your shit, and you're the fucking God damn it, you fucking jelly man, hello, you just fucking squeezed them ass cheeks together, baby, and you keep fucking singing, and God damn it, you're taking over, you'll be in arenas in six months jelly, yo, six months jelly. Jesus Christ. And I was just like, dude, I'm sitting in a parking lot, like I can't believe Uncle Joey's on the phone right now, and I'm just gas, dude. I called the label afterwards, like, God damn it, we're fuck, I mean, I was fucking, I should have recorded it. He's the ultimate hype man. Yeah. The ultimate hype man. Yeah, he don't want nothing but to lift you up. He wants to lift everybody. Oh, fucking. That's why we, in the green room, we have this quote in neon, it says, get it together, bitch. As a Joey would tell everybody, right before you go on stage, get it together, bitch, let's go. Right. Fuck these motherfuckers up, let's go, let's go, Joe Rope. He'd get fired up, and you'd get fired up too. And it was cool, last night in the green room, so I went to Kill Tony. Yeah. First of all, what a fuck, I've seen it on YouTube a thousand times, but in person, unfucking real. It's such a great show. You know it's really not scripted, but it feels like it, because it gets so fucking out of hand at times. You're like, there's no way this wasn't rehearsed. I'm telling you, I'm watching it unfold. Every week it happens like that. Tony's the master. He is so sharp. He's so sharp. He's so good at being a host to one of those shows. I mean, that's a hard gig. Oh, and the best part was, they had a couple dudes come up, just eat absolute shit, and that was the funniest part. Oh, dude, because the banter that came from that was like fucking insane. And then him and David, Lucas, I watched the show down there just for that, since it came to Austin. When him and David Lucas go after each other, I laugh harder than at any other time in life. They're so quick. No, it's like, you think they grew up together. Yeah, well, they basically did, doing comedy together, but they're so mean to each other and they both laugh. Like when David gets Tony, Tony laughs, when Tony gets David, David laughs. No, it's so genuine. And then afterwards, they'll do a play by play in the fucking green room and talk about it. When you said this to me, like, ahh! That was the best. Yeah. And I thought you were gonna say this, but that was the good, it was everything. We did that last night. I went in last night and told Tony what I thought his best part was. I was just drunk enough to act like a coach. I was like, this was the five best parts. This was my like, drunk enough to give Tony a review of his fucking show. What a douchebag. He likes it, he likes it. Bro, he loves you and he's very happy that you were there. I was on the phone with him on the way over here. Oh, dope. And he was telling me how cool you are. I was joking with him. I was like three drinks away from being like, Tony, the biggest podcast of my life is in like 13 hours, dog. You're just sitting in here, he's like, you should give me something to talk about. I was like, motherfucker, I'm three shots away from making you come too. Yeah! I was like fucking shit. He would come. Yeah, I thought I was gonna walk in and sneak in and like sneak out and just see the show. And then Dave was like, come to the green room, let's have a shot. And that's where it all went sour. It all goes south with those guys. It goes south all the time. I have to have nights where I'm only drinking water. I have to like, otherwise, you know, you're gonna prematurely die. No, dude, it was, it's wild. Listen, and Carrie, is that her name? Yeah. Oh, my Carrie and Diamond? Dog, you talking about heavy hands. I'm talking about the poor. Yeah, they give you a healthy poor. I call that the poor of the Lord. It was a, I'm talking, every time she, I was like, goddamn Carrie, sweet please, man. I got shit to do. She's a veteran. No, she is ouchy. She knows how to dose you up properly. No, for sure. And they know how to hydrate you. It always came with the water. I was like, look at this. And it was so nostalgic. People were just in there smoking cigarettes like an old speakeasy. You know what the move is? After you do a night like that, get yourself a vitamin IV drip. I did, I got two this morning. That's why I'm over here sweating out. Sweating like a Hebrew. That's the move. Just pouring out of it. But God, it was so much fun, dude. Yeah, it's a great place. It's a lot of fun. It's beautiful. It really is. It's like, we were talking, that's what we were talking about on the phones today. Tony and I talk about it like three times a week. I can't even believe it's real. Oh, dude, y'all, the culture. It's a culture. Yeah. It's a real scene. Tony said this, and I didn't realize it until he said it afterwards when we were leaving. He was like, nobody was in that room talking about bitches. Nobody was in that room talking about money. They were in there talking about comedy. They were all in there just like, kinda ragging on the show and reliving it. It was just cool, man. It is cool. The only other time I ever seen that that was cool was Josh Wolf used to do this weekly thing at Zany's in Nashville. And I would swing by all the time. That's a great club. Dude, first of all, I love Dorfman to death. He's a great guy. Dude, he's- The Dorfman's are awesome. Yeah, they're great. Shout out to the Dorfman's. Yeah, shout out to the Dorfman's, baby. I worked for those guys for like fucking 25 years or something crazy. God, dude, they're fucking salt of the earth. That club is so good. It's such a fun club. It's perfect. It's like a perfect size club. Perfect club, dude. It really is. Can't get better. The way the side door to the little green room straight up the steps, it's just- And all those head shots? Those old head shots. Old, old, old ones that are all signed to Zany's. Richard Genny? Yes. I saw the Richard Genny one. God damn, look at that one. It's like fucking 85 or some shit. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't watch Josh up there, right? Josh Wolf would have, that weed is fucking fire, Joey. That's real shit, Joey. And I brought some weed and that's a word. Joey's not playing games. Yeah, I'm like, Jesus Christ. If Joey Diaz is gonna put his name on it, it's gonna put you in orbit. He kept telling me, he's like, Joe, I gotta get you some of this. I was just like, yo, I mean, man. Joey showed up with duffel bags. Jesus Christ. He did, right? I'm not exaggerating. They were duffel bags. Yes. It's an animal. I gotta go see him. We missed each other in Jersey last time, but I'll be up there again this year. He was here, it was the most glorious 24 hours. God, that's awesome. Just being around him again, he's the best. I never left, there's not a single human being he's ever done stand up that made me laugh hard in that guy. Well, y'all wrote him into moving down here yet as he called the book. Not yet, he loves New Jersey. He's the king of New Jersey. We went to New Jersey and we went to this beautiful Italian restaurant and everybody's, all the people that work there yelling his name out and all the bar staff and people are talking Spanish to him. I'm like, he's never moving. He's the king of New Jersey. It's like, if that guy moves into your neighborhood, you know how happy he'd be? Jesus Christ. So he's basically, and his daughter loves it there and he's got a great community. But we wanna just fly him out here anytime he wants. I'm like, Joey, just tell me. Tell me on Wednesday you wanna come here on Thursday. We'll set that shit up, we'll do whatever the fuck you want. You can call me, you get picked up at the airport, take care of you. Anytime you get a fucking wild hair across your ass, I'll have someone pick you up at your house in a truck, drive you to the airport, I will take care of you every step of the way. Just wanna make it easy. You make a phone call, I'll take care of the rest. I keep saying, man, I need to quit hitting this weed. They're gonna start getting goofier here. Then we'll bust out the fungus. Let's go! Yeah, let's go, where's that? Yeah, oh shit. Uh oh. Oh danger, what do you got? Is it tequila? What is that? Oh no, okay. Was it a chocolate bar? I don't fuck with chocolate bars because I don't know the dude who made them. I'm worried about that too, just get it straight. I've done the edibles before and they are inconsistent. You know, the edibles that we used to get in California in the early days when it was medical, they'd be some hippie making it in his bathtub. Oh, for sure. You have no idea how strong these things are. It's just a guess, 50 milligrams, 500 milligrams. Oh dude, that's the same problem we had with dabs initially. When I first started dabbing, we didn't understand the propane game or the butane or any of that shit. And I think about, when I first started dabbing, I didn't realize you had to let the nail cool down. So I was just, the rhetoric was, I was like, it's ready. I was scorching myself. I was just throwing dabs on a fucking scorching red. Joe, you know what I'm saying? This is a shit. You smoking a forest, Joe. You know what I'm saying? You smoking a forest fire. Yeah, fucking it was horrible for me, dude. You smoking fucking pine cones and shit. We didn't fucking know. We were all the way in Tennessee. Nobody hipped us and had shit. But the dab thing is too much. The in the pill thing is too much. These fucking kids on the THC pills, there was a dude that I used to be friends with that was a jiu-jitsu guy. He was fucking too smart for his own good. And he figured out how to convert THC into a pill form. I don't know how he was, what he was doing off the weed, whether it's keef or whatever it was. And he gave me some, I'm like, how many should I take? And I forget what the number was, but I took whatever he said. And I was so high that people became two dimensional, like you became a billboard. And I could see their soul hiding behind the back. I could see their persona as like a shield that they carried around to the world. It freaked me out. I was so high. And you have no clue how many milligrams I was. No, I did. He doesn't know either. This is the bathroom special. It was probably a thousand plus. It was very high. I heard, and you would know this to the real number, but I heard anything over 500 is where it starts getting. Again, very weird. You can hallucinate. 100%. Well, here's the thing about- Because I took like six, 700, and I felt like I might as well have been on shrooms. Marijuana in a isolation tank is as heavy as any drug that's out there short of DMT. Marijuana in an isolation tank, once you get into that 500 milligram realm where you're just like, Mike, go schizophrenic. You get in that water and it, and you just float and you're in total darkness. And you just see things. You see the fabric of the universe. You see intertwined galaxies that look like, like a ball of yarn all spinning together. Dude, you get, there's something, and I was watching once a month, I used to love to do edibles and get on airplanes. My favorite thing, because if I'm going to get on an airplane, my thought was always like, let's get obliterated. Me and Joey would take stars of death and then get on airplanes. It was so scary. That's a different kind of de-gaff though, Joe. Yeah, but that- I'm with that wild shit, but I'm not taking no edibles for I get on a plane. That's the way to go because you're not going anywhere. You're not going anywhere. You got to deal with it. You got to sit in that seat. I like getting drunk on planes. I like getting drunk on planes too. Because you never really get drunk on planes. You're not going anywhere. You're not going anywhere. Because you never realize, you know you're getting bubbly, but when you land, you're like, oh no, I done got fucked up up here. Yeah, with comics, when we get drunk on planes, just sitting next to each other, just drinking and talking shit. It's so fun. It's basically like being at Mitzi's bar, but we're in the sky. We've done a bunch of podcasts like that. We did podcasts on a plane. Really? Yeah, we take an edible before the podcast and then get on the plane, and then we'd be on the plane and just bust out an iPhone. And just, iPhone's really good, man. Or any Android phone, if you get recording. The fucking microphones are pretty good. Good enough. And then it's kind of fun that people know you're actually doing this on a plane. Like the stewardess would come over and talk to us. We'd say, hey, we're doing a podcast. This is back before the podcast was big. Nobody, you know, it wasn't that entertaining to people. Nobody was like staring at us. So we really got away with it. We really just hung out. No one gave a shit. They thought we were just having a conversation. Because it seems like it. Because you are. It is. I've always watched them, because so I was telling Tony last night, I don't listen to music that came out like after 1980. Really? Very much. I'll listen to know what's happening, but not enough to be influenced. Really? You know, does that make sense? What is your main go-to shit? Like if you're in your car. Um, so I'm a mood guy. It's kind of how I write music too. It's like, I'm a big James Taylor guy, Jim Croci. That's singer songwriter movement of the 70s. In like late 60s, early 70s, that's my shit. Like Seager's probably my favorite rock artist of all time. Oh man. You know, so Jim Croci though, man. I mean, his story, just everything he did in such a limited amount of time. He still has one of my favorite quotes. If you dig it, do it. If you really dig it, do it twice. He just had like these, he just had this too cool for school, didn't give a fuck kind of thing. You know, you're familiar with Croci, I'm sure. Don't mess around with Jim. Oh my God. You're a pool player. You don't tug on Superman's cage. Fuck yeah, you know that, right? You don't spit into the wind. You don't pull the mask off the old Ranger, man. You don't mess around with Jim. Do, do, do, do, do, do. Bro, that song is the shit. I don't need to hear some of that right now. Let me hear some of that. Pull up some Jim Croci. Pull up that song. Yes, sir. That is a great fucking song. Dude, he had, you know what I loved about his writing style, Joe? Woo. Watch. Come on, baby. Who's writing about shit like this still? Up, down, got it, hustled. Just want to start. The boundaries got it, bomb. 42nd Street got it. Big Jim O'Walker. He a pool shooting son of a gun. Yeah, he began. I'm dumb as a man. Just look at him, dude. You're talking about a dude who just looked like he didn't give a fuck. You know what I'm saying? I'm in a bad mood. It's all get together. He looks like he's as high as me and you right now. Oh my God. Look at him. Come on, what a song. You don't tug on Superman's cape. You don't spit into the wind. You don't pull the mask off the old Ranger, and you don't mess around with Jim. Do, do, do, do. God damn, that's a gem. Oh, because that reminded me of like, he wrote a song, this is what I've loved about him. He wrote a song about the roller derby queen. Did you ever hear this? Oh, no, no, no. Pull up roller derby queen right quick. Oh, wow. This is going to blow your fucking mind, Joe. I'm sure. He wrote songs about the weirdest situations, like getting beat up in his guitar stolen from him in box number 10 or about a pool shark or a bad drug dealer named Leroy Brown. He wrote these just crazy fucking, like where do you even come up with this shit? But he had this one, it's a visit. I fell in love. Yeah, watch it. Now watch how he describes this bitch. I'm gonna tell you a story that you won't believe, but I fell in love last Friday evening with the girl I saw on the bar room, TV screen. Ha ha ha ha. But I was just getting ready to get my hat. And she caught my eye and I put it back. And I order myself a couple of more shots and beers. The night that I fit in the wheel of the roller derby queen. Around and around, all around and around. The penis or the woman that anybody ever seen. Down in New York, she's a 5 foot 6, 215. She's not a 5 foot 6, 215. She knew how to knuckle and she knew how to scuffle and fight. Could you imagine 5 foot 6, 215? He said she was built like a refrigerator. That's the shit he was writing songs about in the 70s, dude. How fucking dope, how much dope are you smoking to be like, yo, nobody's ever wrote a song about the bitch that does roller derby. Well, a whole lot of rosy. Whole lot of rosy's about a big girl too. Come on, give me some of that. Give me some whole lot of rosy. That is the fucking jam. That is crazy. You know these records. Most people I bring up, Jim Croce, we named my dog one of our dogs after Jim Croce. His name's Croce, my wife calls him Chachi. But that's how much of a crochee dude I've been. I was such a pool fanatic that any song would pool in it. Yeah, I don't know why. That's why you see me light up and I was like, yeah, you fucking pool player. He was a pool shooting son of a gun. But also, that song was like, man, I remember that song from my childhood. That was a great fucking song. There's just some certain songs. It's just like, there's just the way the person put it together and the way it just reminds you of a time. You think about that song, that song brings me to that time when he was writing it. This is it, a whole lot of rosy. This is the best big girl song of all time. Come on, man. Because this motherfucker could sing. Who the fuck has a voice like that? It's all in his tongue. I mean, he's talking. He's just talking. This is like, whack. Oh, yeah. This is third 956. You can see she got it all. Come on, baby. That's how we should have started this fucking podcast, Joe. Yeah, baby. Cure my hangover. Never had a woman, never had a woman like you. Doing all the things, doing all the things you do. Ain't no fear, it's not it. Ain't no scare to boast. But you can see all you got, we're in the 19 stone. 19 stone, that's 13 pounds times 19. Whole lot of woman. Whole lot of rosy. Whole lot of rosy. I loved how sloppy it was back then. Fuck yeah. Raw, raw. Music just had like a slop to it. Just the way he talked, you know? Oh yeah, that's all tone, man. That's what I love. Don't tell your story. It's just exactly what's right, don't tell your story. Not a woman, not a woman, not a man, not a woman. You know, just right there. When it comes to loving. That's probably how loud he really sang. Yeah, man. What a motherfucker that guy was. God damn, he was a motherfucker. That is a powerful, what is 19 stone? Is that 260 pounds? She was bigger. Yeah, she was bigger than the roller derby queen. I want to see her and the roller derby queen have a celebrity death fight. 266, she was 266, bro. He said she was four nine though, didn't he? I don't know what the fuck he said. He was just yelling out numbers. He was yelling out dimensions. 425, 156, what are you saying? He wasn't there shooting at anything. Is that like dirty? You know what, what was that like? There was a thing back in the day, it was like 34, 22, 36 or something like that. It was like the perfect. Oh yeah, Nilly said it in a song, but I don't ever remember. What is that? He says four two, three nine 56. She's just making up numbers. What is he saying? He was freestyling. He was freestyling. He was feeling it. He was doing some fucking black key shit. He was working a bit out. He was just jazzing it. He was working a bit out of kiltona. I figure it out. Dude, I love a good song story. Jamie turned me on the culture wall. Jamie said, you gotta hear this song. He goes, this is like you gotta hear the song. This is like your kind of song. Kate Mccannan, he played Kate Mccannan. That fucking guy is so oddly talented. The fact that he was 21 when he wrote that song, played that fucking song. The fact that this cat is 21 years old and he's got this kind of, how many lives did you live before this one? Because this is not 21 years of earth that gives, now give me the real one. Don't give me the, because he does it differently in the acoustic. I really like the version that's on the album. It's one of those, the album version is better than the acoustic. Yeah, well, the acoustic's great, but the album one is perfect. It's got a darker tone. I would love to hear it acoustically, but this is the shit. 21 years old. Raven is a wicked bird. His wings are black as sin. And he floats outside my prison window, marking those with them. And he sings to me real low, he's held to where you go. For you did murder Kate McAnish. Come on, man. It's Johnny Cash vibes. Yeah, for sure. It's like Johnny Cash Western. It's like he absorbed it all. I mean, I want to know like what he doesn't do podcasts, but I would love to sit down with that dude and go, where'd you get all that? Like where's all that coming from? Are you just, is this life? Is this, are you just a fucking freak for that old shit where you just absorbed it all? Did you listen to every Whelan Jennings record that's ever been made? Did you, you know, did you listen to Merle Haggard from the time you were two? Where the fuck are you getting this? And the crazy thing is it's so, it's so nice to hear that, but with this obvious like Western Texas twist to it, like I love that like distinct Texas sound of that like old, like Western music, you know? I think that's what makes Zach Bryan so polarizing. His music is so incredible, but it's so raw. It's so Western. It's so fucking just, you know, it's like just so, it just sits right in front of you. Is he polarizing? Like what way? Well, I think he's polarizing the fact of like, he just, he's just like, he's just like, he's just like, I think he's polarizing the fact of like, he just did his first award show and he was the second biggest streamed artist in country music the last two years. He's kind of like culture, like a dude, you know what I mean? Like this dude's literally doing whatever the fuck he wants. He was selling out amphitheaters, Joe, pulling up in a 12 passenger van with his homies and putting up a backdrop and just playing. He didn't bring a light. You know what I'm saying? He just showed up like, he didn't know. He's just like him and his boys were just out fucking making music. He tried to, I don't remember what, I think, I don't know if it was a Marine or whatever, branch of the military he was in. He was doing, had like 700 million streams, Joe, and was still in the military. Like they had to come sit him down and go, hey man, this is a conflict. You know what I mean? Like you're fucking like, you're like one of the biggest artists on earth. You've got to fucking, you got to go. You know what I'm saying? It was like he's fucking, you know, I've never talked to the guy, but I'm fucking a huge fan of his. He's super genuine. He's a really nice guy. I talked to him on the phone and then I went to see him. Oh no, I see you on stage with him. Yeah, he played up there. He tried to keep me to sing. Yeah, no, my favorite clip, he walked over and said, you want to sing? And you were like, fuck. I love that song too. His, his, his concert was amazing. No, it's incredible. He's so genuine. It's like, there's something about people that are genuine that it just comes out in their music and you can't fake that. And you have that. Yeah, thank you. You have that. Thank you, brother. I say it's real music for real people with real problems. The first song I ever heard of yours was Need a Favor. And I was like, holy shit. God, thank you. Holy shit, dude. That's a fucking song, man. That's a song. It was funny, man. When we were, when we were working on the record, I saw the album, I'm fixing the drops called Whits at Chapel. And I think it comes out June 2nd, shameless plug on the biggest podcast on earth. But the record Need a Favor, I was like, so can I tell you this story? It's a bit of a story. It's a bit of a story. Please. But it's fun to tell. So I had wrote like 100 songs last year. And I didn't feel great about any of them, to be honest. The label liked a few and was trying to pick radio singles, but I just didn't have no conviction about it, Joe. And my daughter at the same time had found her way into this little back road church in the middle of nowhere about a country where we live. She kept asking me to come and, you know, I have a tumulous relationship with the Lord. So I wasn't, you know, sure how I'd show up. But I was like, you know what? I'll go. And I went there. There's 100 people, a little back road church, you know, 20 of them were kids that went to high school with her. And around the same time, I caught this little motherfucker smoking pot. Right. She's 15. She's doing 15 year old kid stuff. And I was like, baby, you won't believe it. About your age, I started making these same decisions. And I was going to this little bitty church in Antioch. I tell her the story of this church. She don't believe it. So I take her to this old church. It's still there. It's called Whits at Chapel Baptist Church. And that night riding home with her, I didn't tell nobody. I was like, I'm in my mind. I thought that's the album I'm writing. Like fuck every song I wrote, I'm writing this album. I called Zach Crowell. He produced every Sam Hunt song ever. You know, one of the biggest producers in town I've known him my whole life. He's here with me right now. And I said, dude, I want to write an album called Going to Church. And I just kind of want to write this kind of journey and just kind of A to Z it and write a real project. And Zach was like, I'm in. He's like, well, why don't you just call it Whits at Chapel? So that's how we ended up doing Whits at Chapel. So when Need a Favor came into the fold, I was like, what's worship music for center sound like? Like, what does a motherfucker like me? You know, because, you know, when you're a church, it's holy holy. You are great. I was like, I don't necessarily feel that way. So how do I feel? You know what I mean? And then there was like, only talk to God when I need a favor. You know, and I was like, we got to build it with a choir and big production. I want that old stop clap. You know, that old church feel. And I want to bring like that vibe of that church, you know, into the, into the, and the whole thing is the whole album is built on that vibe of like, there's fire and brimstone. There's everything you go through in a Sunday morning worship service. Have you ever been to a Sunday in the south worship service? They're going to, you're going to convince you you're a horrible human at some point, you're going to hell. And then at the end, they'll hit a major key instead of a minor one finally and go, but there's hope. You know what I'm saying? So I was like, how do I write that? You know, man, I, well, I've always been a fan of those preachers. I love the way they, they captivate audience. Even if they're crazy, even if they're talking nonsense, there's something exciting about watching some dude preach the word and just yell it out on fire. So I got a, I got, I'm going to send you a link to the album, but I got a preacher throughout the whole album doing that. Joe tied the record together. So you read like the album starts with this dude like in by the grace of God, we were saved and it just drops the first song. It's cool, man. That's a man. I got nerdy dude. I went like old school dude. I went like back to the nineties job was in the studio. Like we were just getting high and coming up with shit. Beautiful. Yeah. It was so much fun. It's probably the most fun I've ever had writing an album because it's the first time I've sat down a long time and wrote an album instead of just writing a bunch of songs and then picking an album. You know what I mean? I was like, no, I'm right. Like we're going to sit down and write an album. So that just came out of the blue inspirationally. Yeah. Just I just wasn't just felt like something to do and I'm going to get like all the way real. I didn't understand what was I had commercial success for the first time in my life and I didn't know how to deal with that. So you do what everybody does in that moment. I'm sure you may or may not have been there in your career early where you like you chase it then you're like, oh my God, hold on. I can be. Yeah. And I realized that the songs wouldn't sound like Jelly Roll no more. Oh, you know. And I was like, no, I'm doing the thing that people do where they fuck their career up. I was like, I'm not doing that, man. So you think that that's just a normal trap that happens to everybody that gets success and they don't want to fuck up that success. So they try to make a formula for what they think the people liked about their early shit. Yes. Yes. One hundred percent or they chase whatever the poppy record was or whatever the record that did the most. So it's like, how do I write another song like that? So I was coming off of a hit that I, when I gave you the plaque for Son of a Center was my first radio hit like hit hit. And I was like, I didn't know how to come out of it because I didn't write the song for radio. I wrote the song like I wrote every other song. But then you start thinking, oh, I can write songs for radio. And I had fucking 70 radio songs like fuck. I'm not it. You know, it's like, no, man, I just need to, I need to do what got me to radio. They do what Jelly Roll does. And I was like, I know what it is. I'm gonna get back in my Fox on and write me a fucking album. You know what I'm saying? That's beautiful. I took it off music row. We went back to some little old back ass studio in the backwoods and we wrote it kind of like, you know, like we wrote all my early shit. I feel like it's like every level of success that you get, you're presented with a unique problem that you haven't seen before. And it's up to you to just figure it out. Just figure it out. What are you doing this for? And I think that applies to everything. I know it applies to comedy. It definitely seems to apply to music. I think it probably applies to everything. Figure out what you're doing it for. Like, why do you like to do? I know you have to make a living, but once all that's taken care of, like, what are you doing it for? You should be doing it for the love of this thing. Whatever this thing is that you do, you are a love spreading machine as a human being. Right. Whether it's your love of carpentry, whether it's your love of electronics. What is it? What's your thing, man? Right. Everybody's got a thing, but not everybody finds their fucking thing. That's the problem with this world. So people get trapped in something that's not their thing, and that's what they are now. And they don't ever get to express themselves in a way that would make them feel good. Well, for me, I always call it the why. And it's like what you said, even with the music. And that's what happened with those 70 songs. When the why comes down to, oh, this is catchy or this is a good song, I'm past the point of, like, if this... I want to help people, Joe. Like, my music has always been therapeutic. My music has always been for people. What got me into music was my mother. So my mother was a woman who struggled with extreme mental health issues and drug addiction, and she would never come out of her room, Joe. And she would... She would come downstairs. And she'd throw a record on. And she'd light a cigarette at the table. And dude, I would watch the house change. Like, brothers, sisters, cousins coming from across the street. We didn't have a little tight neighborhood, poor people, you know? Neighbors coming over. Her friends start flooding the house, and she held court. Joe, I would watch our kitchen turn into a nightclub. And she'd start telling stories. And listen, we didn't have Google. We had to believe the bitch back then. Right? You know what I'm saying? Like, we're rich. You know what I'm saying? So she would be like, James Taylor wrote this about his drug-addicted mother. You know what I'm saying? Or something to play Fire and Rain. Or she'd be like, Bette Miller wrote The Rose about, and we're just like, all captivated. And then she'd play The Rose, and we're all crying in the kitchen together. And it's like... And I didn't understand, because I'm a kid, right? But something changed in her when the record went on, is how I looked at it. I didn't know anything about drug addiction, anything about schizophrenia or bipolar or any of this stuff she was dealing with or manic depression back then, what they called it. I didn't know any of this. I just knew that this lady never fucking leaves that room. And when she does, it seems like the music does it. So I spent my whole life writing songs for her. Right? I was like... I kind of indirectly was like writing these songs for the addicted and the broken. You know what I mean? Because that's what I was seeing. Yeah. So it's like, I found purpose in the music. And like I tell people, if I was going to do it for money, like any sane fucking comedian or musician, I'd have quit 10 years ago. Because fuck, I didn't make any for 15 years. If I was doing it for money, I'd have quit forever ago and went and got a job. I just knew that it was always helping people. You know what I mean? It's like the music was all... Because I seen how it helped my mother. And I knew the power of music. And to this day, when you first bring up music, I'm like, I'm a mood guy. It's like, you know how I feel about what I got to go listen to. Yeah. To this day, if I'm going through something in life, I'll grab a joint and go hop in the pickup truck and tell my wife, I'll be back. And she knows what I'm doing. I'm just going to go listen to music for an hour and smoke a joint, and I'm going to come back and sort through this shit. But it was something about that that made me want to write songs for purpose. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's like real music to just try to get... I understood the power of it. You know, funerals, like how many... I probably lost my first friend when I was like 11. I remember every song they played at the funeral that day. You know, does that make sense? It does. One of the moments in my life that stuck out to me was like the impact of music. And then I went on to write Save Me, which I've been told by multiple funeral homes since their most requested song of the last decade. Wow. You know what I mean? Which is really sad. It hurts me, but it makes me feel so good that that's there to help somebody in that moment. Yeah. So for me, if I'm listening to a record, Joe, back to your why, is how to start it, right? It's like if I'm listening to a song or I wrote a song and the why is like, it's just cool. Fuck that song, man. Like who is this exists for? You know what I mean? Like what am I doing? Now, sometimes the answer is just as simple as like, yo, we just need a party record. That's cool too. But just make sure you have a why. And if the why is money, you got the wrong why. And this song will never fucking work anyways. You know what I mean? And that's how it's always worked for me, which is like I was telling you out there, I wanted to tell you the story about how my music changed. I was doing DMT. We were up in Iowa and I had done... We were in Nebraska. We were at a KOA truck stop. I'm in a camper. We're driving one of them big campers, right? We just toured with ICP. I've been on like... Oh, boy. Oh, dude, I did three tours with ICP there. Oh, boy. Fucking awesome. It was the white dude. Listen, I played at the gatherer of the Juggalos one time, Joe. Listen, and from stage, I seen a girl getting her back blown out on the fence, getting fucked. I'm in the middle of a set. There are people to this day, I'm on Good Morning America. And they're like, what's the wildest talker to the people from Good Morning America on the phone? They're like, what's the wildest thing you've ever seen in a show? I was like a girl getting fucked at the gatherer of the Juggalos out on stage. She was just getting her brains beat out. They were over there filming it, whooping and cheering it on to the music. It was fucking incredible. So I'm doing DMT up in fucking this camper, and I start tripping mushrooms, and I'm coming out of my DMT thing, and I'm in that after glow state. And in that moment, I went... The music's being packaged wrong. And I'm in this weird moment where I was like, I'm writing these super dark songs, but then I'm putting a cartoon picture of myself on the cover, and I'm shooting... You know what I mean? It just hit me. I was like, I'm writing the right songs. I'm just writing them over the wrong chord progressions, and I'm dressing it up the wrong way. Changed my whole life, Joe. Wow. So what was it about the trip that made that apparent to you? I wish I... Dude, I don't know what it was. I wasn't even listening to music. I was just sitting at that KOA, staring up at the stars. I'm getting 60 bucks a night or something, or 100 bucks a night. I mean, I'm playing... It's 10 of us. I mean, it's... You know the story. We've all been there. So we were like struggle-bussing. And I was just having one of them vulnerable moments in life where I was like, am I fucking doing the right thing here? Like, am I tripping? How much longer am I going to try to push this square through this circle? And I looked up and I was like, God, what am I doing wrong? I know my heart's right. I know that my only other choice in life is criminal. That's all I've ever done, Joe, is music and crime. That's the only two things I've ever known. So I'm like, I don't have any qualifications to do anything. I was like, what am I doing wrong here? I know the music's right. And it was almost like it was that easy. From years of trying to figure it out, it was like, you're just writing over the wrong chord progressions. You're writing the right songs. You're just writing them wrong. Wow. What do you think that is? What is happening? I wish I had. Dude, I was hoping you were going to give me the answers. I've been wanting to talk about this for years. I think if I had the answer, you should walk out and never trust me again. Yeah. Well, because I learned about DMT on this show. Whoops. Right. Well, if that changed my fucking life. You know what I'm saying? They're doing legitimate studies now in the UK where they're doing a drip. So they're doing an IV drip with a long release of DMT. And we've seen that with the same person who is reporting the same process. But it never stays in your bloodstream for hours. And these people are having these experiences that are repeatable. They're going to similar places. They're going to the same place. They're reporting these contacts with entities. They're reporting these experiences error. It's odd. It's very odd because no one does it in than. you get a chance to relax. It's so hard to relax in the middle of all of it and just accept it and just be empty and let them show you things. It's so hard that a lot of people wind up with this like tense conflict where you're in conflict with the overwhelming nature of the experience. So you're trying to control it in some sort of a way or you're trying to deal with it and you just got to be able to, you just got to be able to do that. And if you can't do that, it's going to be a fucked up ride. But these people are going through all that and then they're getting to, and they're staying there for hours and hours. What is that? I mean, I don't know if that's a hallucination and that's the simplistic reductionist view. If I was a person who was a cynical academic who's never fucked around with drugs, I would look at that and I go, well, this is really simple. It's interacting with your visual cortex. It's some sort of a hallucination. Your imagination is producing these results. But man, it doesn't feel like that. And I really wish people would have more of an open mind about what this is because I have a feeling it's the root of humanity. I have a feeling it's the root of all religious experiences. I have a feeling that it's the root of compassion and love and I think it separates us from the more primal aspects of our beings and it does it in a very tangible way. It did it with me and I'm sure it did it with you and it does it with a lot of people that go and have either ayahuasca experiences or DMT experiences. These things that you should probably call ceremonies, even though it sounds, ceremony is a ridiculous word, but it is kind of like you're in a religious experience and that might be what God is. That experience when you, there might be layers and layers to that until you eventually get to God. I don't know what these people are doing. They're doing this long-term IV drip thing, but I mean, you literally might be opening up some sort of a wormhole to heaven as bonkers as that sounds. I know you're going to be one of the first people that'll figure it out. When you do, please let me tag them on. I will not figure it out, but I will talk to whoever figures it out. That's what I'll do. Yeah, but would you find the drips? Let me know. Save me a seat for the drips. A hundred percent, bro. We're going to travel together. Yeah, we did it. We did a bunch of that on that tour and to this day, if I'm really dealing with something I can't figure out my own, I'll take some shrooms and go to the lake. To this day, I just kind of count on that stuff to recalibrate me and set me back where I, especially artistically sometimes or when life's getting overwhelming. There's such a humility and humbling that comes with that. You just realize how much you don't fucking matter and how much, it's not even that you realize shit don't matter. You realize you don't matter. It's also when your ego gets squashed, you realize your ego is the source of almost all the fear and anxiety, almost all of it. Once your ego gets squashed, which is what the trip does initially, especially, it's like you don't even exist anymore. You're just like, oh, and then you can see things, what they really are. Like, oh my God, we're a part of this insane soup of molecules that literally goes on forever and no one understands it. No one understands that even the parameters of it, it's all guesswork. It's all these legal pads where these psycho smart dudes are writing down computations and they're looking at these images that are billions of light years away. Even what our limited ability to observe the known universe, with just the capacity of knowledge that had to be moved altogether in synchronicity to create these fucking telescopes, all this shit is insane and that is just scratching the surface. There's so much out there. I've went through so many of those wormholes. Recently I finally got to watch on the bus the other night that Graham Hancock, the Netflix doc. Oh, it's amazing. It was insane. I never really scratched it and I just knew his name. I'd seen clips and I was like, fuck it, we're sitting on a bus stone. That's the coolest thing about the bus. We'll sit there and catch up on all that shit. Graham Hancock is the man. He was one of the first real guests I ever had on the podcast. Yeah, he flew in. We ate pizza and then we did a podcast. He had just flown in. He came right to my house. This is one of the suits in my house. When I had it in one of my spare bedrooms, it was me and Duncan and Graham Hancock. I read his first book, Fingerprints of the Gods in the 90s sometimes and everybody was like, that's nonsense. You're into that pseudo history shit. I was like, this guy's got really good points. I think he might be onto something. His whole journey from being this guy who is maligned to being a guy who has a Netflix series and all these archaeologists are complaining, but hey, look what he's doing. He's showing you archaeological evidence, you psychos. There's something to this. It's like the news that comes in and crushes it and looks and because he crushes it so much you realize how much other people weren't doing their job. When you hire a new TorTech or something and he comes in and kills you, you're like, damn, that other dude sucks. I didn't know that he almost said it. That's why they're mad at him. They're like, oh fuck, we've been blowing it. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, they're all kind of humiliated by this guy who's not an archaeologist who's discovered this very clear and distinct pattern. This pattern seems to indicate that civilization is far older than we think it is and there's likely been some interruptions. We were knocked into the Stone Age and then when he got together with Randall Carlson and all of the archaeological evidence lines up with all the evidence of the impacts. Because Randall, the guy that was with him that has the beard, always has the laptop. Randall's amazing. He's the best, dude. He's the best. I met that dude in Georgia. I was in Atlanta and I was doing, was it the Funny Bone or the Punch Line? The Punch Line Atlanta, right? Yeah, it was the Punch Line. So I was doing the Punch Line and after the show, this dude came up to me and he was talking to me about asteroid impacts and sacred geometry. I'm like, what the fuck do you do? Me and him had this conversation and he started talking to me about asteroid impacts and he was telling me that he thinks that that's what resets civilization. I was like, what? How long ago was this? A long time ago. This was a long time ago. I love the idea of just being in a bar after a show and a guy's just ranting at you about fucking asteroids. 2005 or some shit. Yeah, it was a long ass time ago. I think I'm pretty sure it was pre-podcast when I first met him. That's me and him. What is that? Oh, that's like 2007 then. It says nine. It says nine? 2009, yeah. Is that the first time I met him? I don't. God, am I off by that many years? Well you also, you know how this shit works though. They might have uploaded this. No, I think that's correct though. It looks right because of my beard, because I grew a beard when Evan Tanner died. 2008, so it was a little bit after. That's right. Okay. Yeah. Evan Tanner, he was a UFC champion and he was a very interesting guy. Very interesting guy and he would do these things that he would go on a walkabout, you know, to try to find himself. Just to go alone in the woods and he did one in Death Valley. Heat stroke apparently affects your ability to, literally you can't think straight. So he couldn't figure out where the water was. He just couldn't figure out where it was. I don't know, I've never had heat stroke, but the way it's described, it doesn't matter how tough you are. Your brain doesn't work right. Your memories aren't good. You can't walk right. You're about to die. And then he died. And Death Valley is, I think it's the hottest spot on earth, right? Yeah. What does it get to? It's right outside of Vegas, right? Yeah, yeah. The hottest recorder I think we hit was like 130 something. So Evan, you know, just a very interesting guy, a very, very tough guy too and a great fighter and we all loved him. So that was like right around that time. That's how you remember us from the beard. Yeah, man. He was an interesting dude. When an interesting dude winds up dying in a way that's unfortunate and preventable like that, it's like fuck, man. He would have been cool to have around. He had like a very different take on why he was a fighter and like he was like trying to find himself through this. You know, there's certain guys, it's like there's authenticity that comes through in music and it fucking comes through in everything, man. It comes through in fighting too. It comes through the certain humans that are just so authentic that when they're out there, you just want the best for them. You want to see them fight, you know? When you see people like that in life, that's one of the beautiful things about today is that you get exposed to so many more inspirational and fast-standing people. To be a young person right now and to have all these different stories. You got your culture walls out there. You got you. You got Zach Bryan. You got all these different human beings. You got all this music from the 60s and the 70s and the 80s and there's so much to influence you. It's at the tap of a ... It's in our hand. Anytime you want. Why go to sleep? Your parents aren't paying attention. Stay on YouTube. You'll be on YouTube till four o'clock in the morning. You got to get up at six. These kids don't give a fuck. At all. The thing about it is it changed our business on its head. On our head. Everybody was so against it at first. Napster. Yeah. They were so ... I never forget having a conversation with a distributor that said ... Well, let me say this first of all. I would like to say though, I don't want to breeze over. I'd like to take a moment because I know it means a lot to his family. I'm sure to say, rest in peace, Evan Tanner. I'm sure you bringing that up means so much to that family alone and that's awesome. Then that alone, his story will live forever because of this and that's also what's cool about the era we're in. You know what I mean? Is that forever we'll have that clip of Joe Rogan getting emotional talking about his friend Evan Tanner because you've seen a picture of you with a beard. That makes me want to cry with you, Joe, because that's that fucking awesome. I don't want to breeze past that because that's cool as fuck. There's something about like commentating on fighters where you have this crazy connection with them where you want them to do good in life. You want them to ... You've seen their soul. When you see two dudes going to war inside the Arkland, they're exposing every fiber of their being, especially if it's a tough fight. All the quitting you shows up, all the excuses show up, everything shows up. The will, the courage, everything, whoever you are, it shows up and you get to know these people and you get to know them as a fan too. I think it's one of the things that people love about fighters. You see the actual whole human being. There's no place to hide. Yeah. I think we relate to things. We connect with things that we either relate to or things that are so around us that we could never understand it. For me, for a fighter, it's like I respect the fact that I could never imagine getting down into a diaper, getting into a ring with a pair of oven mitts, a pair of oven mitts, Joe, and fucking trying to kill another man for north of 15 minutes at times. That just concept to me is fucking insane. It's like I just could never wrap my head around that. I was talking to Tony last night about I feel about comedians. Me and the musicians were in the green room shooting the shit with Tony and I was like, we got something you don't Tony. We can bail each other out or we're going to bomb together. I bombed before and looked back at the band and just smiled like, well, we're bombing. It's happening. You know what I'm saying? It fucking sucks. You know what I mean? But when y'all bomb, oh, you could hear a fucking mosquito fart. I could have heard a mouse piss on cotton last night. A couple of times after a dude just threw up an egg. Well, those are hard sets, those kill Tony sets, because those guys are going up. They have one minute and you got one minute and you didn't even know you were about to go up until like 10 seconds ago. They pull your name out of the hat like Mike Wilson. Oh shit, that's me. Oh my God. And then you're up there. You're like, you're talking too fast. Your heart's beating too quick. You thought it was 60 seconds, but it was 20. Yeah. And then your joke, you forget one of the punch lines like fuck. Yeah. Yeah. But Tony's so good at making fun of those moments. And I've seen people bomb and then come back and do well. Oh, for sure. I have seen that. I've seen a guy last night, I'm sure Tony said I could talk about it. I've seen a guy last night bomb and then Tony punched his shit up in real time. And it was the funniest thing I've ever seen in human power. I pissed myself a little bit. I tinkled myself. I was sitting, I was the obnoxious dude on the balcony laughing so hard that the balcony kept laughing because I was still laughing. Everybody had moved on in the club but me and I just couldn't get over fucking him going up and just being like, listen, and he would tap on the, I don't want to blow his whole shit. I want to watch that one. I want to watch that one. But this one's worth watching. It's fucking great. They're all worth watching man. It's the best show. I fucking love that show. We watch them on the bus. I come in on Monday nights when I'm free. I come in and check it out, watch. It's just to sit down and watch. So fun. No dude, it's a hang. It's such a weirdo extravaganza too. The weird energy from all those open micres on the stage. They had a kid with Down syndrome get up last night, Joe, and kill. And then the guy that came behind him did not. And it was the funniest thing I've ever seen. It was Jared Cleaver? I don't remember his name. Jared Nathan rather. Who's Jared Cleaver? Jared Nathan. Yeah, but he- Jared Nathan is the guy that's always on Asan's thing. Him and Asan always do those Instagram clips together. Yeah. Jared Nathan's hilarious. We're huge comedy people on the bus, man. We watch all the specials, all the pods. It's like, well, because I don't listen to music. When I'm in album cycle mode, Joe, unless it's like 70s music because I'm already drawing so much from that shit anyways. You know what I mean? Do you have a playlist that you listen to before you perform? Do you ever like listen to- I got that from Kat Williams. He said that once. He was doing this interview. He said, I have a playlist of music that I listen to before I go on stage. I was like, ooh, that's a good idea. Anthony Smith told me he's got one for his pre-fight too. He's got the same playlist. He said he puts his headphones on. It's the same playlist. Because I had a song in it that was the correlation how we met. Oh, that's cool. Which was super cool. And he explained, he's like, yeah, I listened to the same playlist for the last four or five fights. I create new playlists every- whenever there's a new energy shift and it's what I listened to a full playlist and that's crazy. We'll listen to like, outlaw country music. I love them. You know, I was a kid. My mama played this for me and this is when I knew I'd end up doing country music. The first time I heard, looking for trouble and then I found a son right down a barrel of a law man's gun. And I was like, this is a fucking country song? I was like, they ain't living long like this. Ain't living long like this. Oh my baby. And I was like, holy shit, this is gangsta. Outlaw country was the original gangsta rap. Oh, for sure. For sure. 100%. Well listen, hot take. Subterranean Blues by Bob Dylan was the first rap song ever. Oh, I'm not- You ready for that argument? Listen to this. What's Subterranean Blues? Which one is that? You pull it up right quick. I'm in the basement mixing up the better man. I'm on the pavement thinking about the government. Oh yeah. Tell me to say rap. Oh that's the one with the signs. Yeah. Yeah. John is in the basement mixing up the medicine. I'm on the pavement thinking about the government. Yeah. Now I'm sure there's something that dates back before this that can be as a tip to hip-hop. But to me it was one of the first songs I heard that I was like, yo, this was like early rap. Like Dylan was rapping on me. Did you ever see, what is the oldest rap music? We played that on the podcast before. It's these dudes from like, is it the 50s? No, it's from 4 That. 40s? 40s and 50s. It says the Jub- Jubilliers? Jubilliers. Jubilliers. Yes, these guys. Have you ever seen this? Look at these dudes. Oh shit. Come on, man. God, dude. 1940 what? Crazy. What year was this, Jamie? I don't know this specific. It says active in the 40s and the 50s. Wow. Yeah, never knew. I knew, like I said, I knew it came from, you know. This is incredible. Yeah. Because a lot of the melodies and stuff in music came from this era. Oh, it really came out. A lot of the melodies still to this day, the real soulful melodies came from the slave spiritual songs. What is the other one? Would they put it through a color filter? Yeah, they just colorized the filter. How dare they do that? How dare they do that? And added a beat. Oh. Oh, that's an 808 though. Oh. Hey. Shout out to Facebook on YouTube. Oh, this is good. Here it is. Excellent. Keep it going. Keep it going. Oh, this is good. There it is. Excellent. Keep it going. Keep it going. I like it. Yeah. VASSIC. Basic on YouTube. Yeah, basic on YouTube. Yeah. I think it's a different one. I think it's a different one. I like it. That's it. Yeah. That's it. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. That's it? Yeah, that's it. That's it. Yeah. That's it. That's it. That's it. See basic on YouTube. Fuck. Yeah, I like that. So that must be the earliest right? Yeah, that was that Oh, yeah for sure. That's coming straight out of like I Bet they probably had some stuff that felt real rap is back in them old churches to man When them preachers would get to going over the music, you know over the organ I bet a lot of that stuff was just start of the early rhythm of that shit, right sure Yeah, a lot of people's introduction to music. I'm sure was the church sure You know when you go back to old music It's there's similarities like an old music old literature old comedy old movies there you you're in a time machine Like it's hard to put yourself in that time to appreciate what it was like But like Robert Johnson, like if you can listen to some Robert Johnson Like what year we talking? With the Robert Johnson recordings because I think there's only a few but this motherfucker was so good at the time That the rumor was that he sold his soul to the devil That was the one they did the Netflix doc on then right Robert Johnson, dude. Yeah, he was there That was it was that not the one that the devil or something. I don't know if they do That was always like the mean that was how people talked about it Yeah, because if he's the one I remember the story was he disappeared for like a year They said and came back like the best guitar player ever Right Wow Yeah I swear there was this story of this guy that was like he disappeared and that's when they said he met the devil and made A deal and three days over 19 1936. He recorded 29 songs Wow God dude, it's like 36 of working Jesus Christ back when they were singing Antonio. Oh shit. He did in San Antonio Um, he did a little bit in 31 also, but the main thing that everybody knows I believe is this album though complete recording Yeah, dude play some of that for me Give me some of that So the thing about listening to this dude is you got to kind of put yourself in 1936 You know even the idea of an electric guitar The all these things are alien. All right amplifiers are alien. These are all new things What are these things and you got this dude that everybody's like how? like how what do you and it's these people that come out of These situations and and emerge and everybody sort of like learns from them and now It's kids of today. They get you they get him. They get Johnny Cash. They get fucking Casey in the sunshine band They get a soup of influences this guy. What did he have? He had to fit. Yeah Listen to some of this so that you got no influences other than other musicians He's singing about meeting the devil I went to the crossroad You Know what you can hear distinctly is the pain of that Yeah, you say you put yourself in that era I'm not much of a historian, but I can hear the pain. Yeah in that text that soul So this is the 1930s. So this is post depression And this is also the south and it's not even a hundred years since slavery was abolished so you're dealing with Jim Crow and Just the stains of hundreds of years of oppression Just in the culture and everything I'm just here so clear Oh This was a horrible thing about Horrible things. Yeah. Oh boy dark gonna get me here. Mmm dark gonna catch me here Wow, oh, this is awesome. I'll be listening to this for the rest of the month now See, this is the shit. I want to be inspired by working on the album. Oh Boy dark gonna get me here Damn God Yeah, we're so fortunate that we have the access to those to all these different things like instantly and you get to think about it like I don't even think we can imagine Living at that time. I don't if you took a person from 2023 and you put him in that time just it would feel like torture. You'd be like, what is this? You guys don't even have any medicine. Yeah, what the fuck is going on? What's going on? Yeah idea you have no internet you've nothing you're about to go into World War two You don't even know even getting records when they stopped selling CDs. Yeah, I was just how long I've been doing this. So a Buddy of mine calls me and goes we had an indistribute distributor We use out a Memphis called select Oh heads by the Phillips family and put out records for 50 60 70 years He said you need to hurry up and get you a tray card at Best Buy Because they're they're fixing to disappear And I'll never forget this phone call Joe. I said Hell it sounds to me like we need to be figuring out what's next if we're fitting to fucking disappear Don't sound like I need to be rushing to get on a shelf. That's fixing to go right, you know, and I Felt like the guy screaming the sky was falling Right. I was like I'm telling y'all like as soon as they called me with Spotify and everybody was like early early iTunes was cool because you still got the same dollar Per download you would for a CD sale in the store But when Spotify and I'm coming remember how many people held out initially all these major artists held out like we're not letting Spotify play it and I just had a feeling that once this thing converted to here and you could listen to Music anywhere because when I was growing up It was even worse when you were growing up probably when I was growing up You had two choices to listen to music in the car or in the house Or you could bring a boombox outside But wherever you took music you had to carry a physical thing to play it, you know what I mean? It was it was like a chore Yeah, you'd even had to buy two CDs or one for the house, you know, or you'd scratch the shit out of them We'd have the cases going down the road and that's the only time we could consume music Dude, my daughter listens to music All all day. That's all I hear. Yeah, she cleans her room. I hear music. She's downstairs cooking scrambled eggs I got a 15 year old she's downstairs cooking scrambled eggs, Joe She's fucking got her little cell phone sitting right there playing and it's so cool to listen to it go from Ariana Grande to co-wetzel You know what I mean? And then I watch it go from co-wetzel to cardi B and then it swings into like a print song You know what I mean? I'm just like fuck. Yeah Oh Cuz when I was a kid if you showed up to school in a Metallica shirt You better not show up in the M&M shirt Friday motherfucker, you know how that was you were tribal by music You know, it's like no you were music identified you Her generation she got Ariana Grande shirts Taylor Swift shirts fucking Cody Johnson shirt beautiful Yeah, she's all over the place. Well, it's like you'd be stupid to deny There's all sorts of cool shit out there. I've only be a Metallica fan Get the fuck out of there only be a heavy man and that's how it was Oh, no, you're a metal guy You can't you know for sure like when I first started listening to country a lot of my friends like what are you listening to? Why you listen to that? Like what are you talking about? This is great music. It sounds great. I enjoy it Yes, you know, I'm not gonna pretend I don't enjoy something so I fit into a tribe That's just seems so stupid. Yeah, and you're missing half of what life is all about God, dude It's I appreciate all music. That's kind of where I lined up in the music world. Anyways, I was the youngest of four Right. So by default I never control the fucking radio I never one time in my childhood got to determine what was getting played in any room of the house So I just learned to deal with whatever I was listening to, you know And because of you know, how brothers and sisters are none of them wanted to be alike So I had a sister that listened up a rock music I had a brother that listened nothing but rap music another brother that listened like singer-songwriter shit like our father You know what I mean? Like we had all these different my mother Listened to this kind of music daddy listened this kind of music. So every car I'm baby Jason I'm just sitting in the backseat, you know pimping and whatever we're pimping to, you know, and that's I think Why my music ended up going from hip-hop in the rock and in the cut I now I've had a hit that I've had a billboard chart on all three genres Right because I was so influenced by this shit for so long anyways, like I just fucking love the concept of music I love the idea of I went to Lollapalooza 97 at Starwood Appa theater. Mmm Joe Dude, let me remind you it was Snoop Dogg prodigy tool corn, right and I'll never forget watching Snoop Dogg go on and then Prodigy and then corn and I remember thinking this is the coolest shit I've ever seen and this is 1997 so keep in mind Snoop Dogg is Snooping this is like prime time. So right. Oh, yeah, not was fucking insane, dude I remember watching Julian and Damien Marley on the second stage Right and a slide down the hill in the rain and I just remember going man if you can go from Snoop Dogg to tool You know what I mean at a corn and All these fans were the same people the same people that are acting all tribal at school We're all here singing everywhere to Snoop Dogg and everywhere to corn and right then I knew those lines We're just gonna get more blurry and then the phones came out. You know what I mean? It's not Weird now like I love the genre influences. I love hearing an 808 and a Morgan Wallen song You know me like it's just a moment. I just fucking love that had it I love that tip when Zach Crowell first started producing them old Sam Hunt records in the first time I heard break up in a small town and she would get down and you just hear that fucking Pounding 808 and you're like this is not country music. This is awesome Mmm, they have officially brought hip-hop into country music, you know what I mean? Yeah, I just think I love anytime people can tastefully Bring shit together. I mean that was one of the cool things about early hip-hop to a samples You know It's it fucked them up when it came to licensing and a lot of people had to pay a lot of money because of that because They had hits that sampled other people's music vanilla ice is famously right? I mean that was under pressure and they tried to dispute it We all heard there's no way if my mom could figure it out you're fucked yeah You know to say that my mom was like that sounds like the same songs You're not winning, you know, but there was there was some great uses of Sampling there's like sand and songs and rhythms and and and different beats. It was really interesting it was an interesting thing that happened that sort of emerged from the hip-hop world of Combining music to make a totally unique product. That's arguably as good if not better than the original Yeah, they made some amazing songs with sampling that the sampling made the song better Oh 100% It was fun. Yeah, it was fun, too It was also an homage to all these other things they were sampling I mean how many movies and do they say how many times do people use say hello to my little friend in a hip-hop song? You know, I was telling Stan Hope I tell my sampling for about three years. I opened my show to a Stan Hope bit So the stage would go completely black and you would hear his bit about Um, yeah, a lot of people here tonight are counting on me for a good time. That's why I drink booze I don't count on you for a good time. I'm gonna have fun. No matter what what if I get up here and I'm too drunk And I fucking blow it and I don't tell one funny fucking joke and everybody hates me. It wasn't my fault You should have drank cocksucker. Whatever that bit was, you know, yeah, I'm butchering it But it was the bit and we literally played that every night I got a Joey I don't want to spoil it But I got a Joey bit on the new tour that we're opening with this night Which yeah, I love it imagine it goes stacking of you here fucking staying hoping the best part is Stan Hope was like I'd fucking Why didn't I know this and I was like, I think that's what makes it so cool I wanted to reach out but I was afraid you'd want money or something Cuz it was one of the old albums, you know That's hilarious. Yeah, maybe somebody else owns it right? Yeah. Yeah, that's always it might be one of those things Yeah, it's always the sketchy part. I'm gonna have to find out about the journey. Yes, because I'm gonna put on the next record Yeah, well, you know Joe. Yeah. Yeah, I'll hit him. I'm gonna send it to him Be like, yeah, I want to I want to tell tell you which one off-camera cuz I want to still be a surprise at the Show. Okay, so but it's cool. Yeah idea. Yeah it's uh The the whole way of you're doing it of just doing what you want to do it didn't and It's having a good time. It comes through in your music man with your expression. It comes through. It's awesome Thank you, man. You know Josh Adam Myers, right? Sure I got to tell you my Josh Adam Meyer story. I Went I played Fremont Street the day of the weekend of skank fest last year So skank fest is on just coincidentally coincidentally. Oh boy skank fest is on this part of Fremont and I'm on the middle of Fremont doing the stage, right and We have literally and I'm proud of this by the way We have the biggest crowd they've ever had at a Fremont rocks ever like literally the mayor Comes and meets us now keep in mind Now keep in mind that my wife Joe and I don't know what you know about her But I want to tell you a piece for a story too. My wife grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada My wife was a high-end escort her whole life. That's what she did when I met her. I was broke I was living in a 1996 van literally didn't have a house and this woman has like two condos and a few sports cars Right. She's like fucking bawling. It's so funny now the internet when I won these awards are like this bitch is a gold digger I was like I was the gold digger, you know, like this woman had so much money So the irony that we're sitting here meeting the mayor on Fremont Street and she's like, holy shit We fucking did it because she's got a podcast and a huge patreon and she's just crushing on her own regard Love you mama bear. Shout out to the dumb blonde podcast But um, thank you for firing up that that cocoa one more time that of that laughing gas But uh, and I'm leaving and I know skank fest is there so I'm ready to go. I'm like we're going to skank fest I'm fucking almost blackout drunk Joe. I May or may not have been fucking with my nose I mean, I'm having a Las Vegas night, right and I haven't done this in a long time I'm like off my shit and they're doing the goddamn comedy jam at skank fest So it's where Josh Adam Meyer does this music medley of funny like and he's Shane Gillis is up singing like mega death Yeah, comedian sings. Oh, bro, and I'm crying though. It's so fucking funny Sam Chipotle brought me up and fucking I didn't know the song we were singing I'm just fucking drunk drunk and when Josh Adam Meyer gets off stage, I look at him Joe and I go I Want you to open up my tour next year? I'm doing my first full arena amphitheater tour and I want you to be my opening act And I offered him money right then on the spot. I made the deal right there drunk Joe Wow I didn't talk to this guy for 10 months. I'm sitting in CAAs office, right? And they're like, hey, did you look over the list of the one of threes? You know, that's the first you know how it works So like did you look over your list of one of threes? I said, no, I've already got that figured out I'm taking this comedian that does music and they were like what I was like, yeah Yeah, I'm taking this comedian that does music. I cold-column Joe Remember that sitting in CAA and I'm like Hey, Josh is jelly rollies like what's up bub? I was like, did you block that month two months off? I told you to block off. He said I did and everybody thinks I'm crazy. I said you're not motherfucker. You're coming He was like you're shitting me. So right now Josh Adam Myers is gonna open up the NT He's actually hosting it so between each act he'll come out and do 10 minutes of like comedy music shit Right the band and it's fucking that's my favorite story to tell because Josh said he called Steve Byrne He's a buddy of mine and burn said listen, man I don't care how drunk jelly was if jelly looked you in the eye and told you you're doing it leave those two months open Yeah, Josh was like everybody thought I was a fucking nutbag. I've been turning down shows Wow, and I gave him what I offered him that night Can't believe you can remember it. No, I remember the number vividly because when live nation told me what they'd give him I was like, I'm just gonna cost me some money fuck and I was a man of my word though I was like, you know, I'm gonna eat it. Let's do it beautiful Yeah, it's one of them old-school deals where the contract says something but what we worked out is different But that's my guy man. I told him I was gonna do it and that's my fucking and we're still gonna do skank fest This year we're gonna fly in on that last Sunday and do it together Cuz that night I got drunk and told Jay I'll place skank fest for free whenever you know I hit Jay this year. I was like, you know, I didn't forget. I'm coming motherfucker. Gang fest is a wild experience It's the gathering of the juggalos for comedian. It is it really is awesome. It seems so insane They're singing Rob Zombie My favorite thing was fans all day called our group ghillie roll Gilly roll, yeah best night It was so it was it was it was really cool and I'm excited to have Josh out to man I think he'll bring a whole different Element to the tour because we're taking a Ashley McBride's doing six or seven dates the Grammy Award winning Chase Rice when I come to Texas, we're here. Do you remember the date Jamie? I told you September 21st, I'll be here of Yarn town. I'd love for y'all to come out I got three six mafia doing all the Texas dates the original group DJ Paul and Juicy J from the legendary rap group So this is this is big. They were one of the first people that gave me my chance. What an interesting combination You know that that's that's such a fun thing Like you were saying about kids today and about you know your taste and everybody says they're like you can mix up shit together And it works just somehow another works fun Josh and my best friend struggle Jennings will be doing the whole tour So me him Josh Adam Myers It's gonna be fun to it's gonna be it's gonna be really big and I thought it was a cool way me and Him we're talking about it's cool way to bring comedy While keeping a music crowd entertain. Yeah, it's it's funny that Musicians like to listen to comedy and comedians like to listen to music because we all fucking think we're funny You know what? I mean? It's I haven't met a musician that doesn't at least have a couple of minutes of jokes that we can say on stage if we get In a cramp. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like we got a couple of go-to get a quick cheap laughs cheap claps Yeah, I mean, but just enough of it that we all think we're fucking hilarious He will everybody could do comedy It's just you know if you could talk to people like you talk to me right now You could do comedy you just have to figure it out, but it's the figuring it out part. That's it's weirder than it looks It's like it's very easy to judge too because you're on the outside and you could talk to the idea that you work your stuff Out in front of people is crazy to me That's what I admire the most from comedians is like as musicians. We got a little cheat code We get to go sit in a room and get really weird and like fuck up a Thousand times before and nobody will ever know it because by the time we put the song out, you know what I mean? Yeah, we wrote 70 songs and picked seven and reproduced them ten times and it's like where y'all motherfuckers are like You're just up there like yeah, I thought this was funny in the car on the way here Let's see how it works in front of 500 strangers. I'm staring at me I think it's like everything you get accustomed to stuff Like you know the problem with like going back to 1936 is that we're accustomed to 2023 If you lived in 1936, you'd be fine with it. If you were a fighter, you'd be fine with being a fighter It would be a normal thing for you. You've been always been doing martial arts who used to being in pain He used to get punched and kicked and strangled you do it Like just like if I had if I was a musician I would do music You would do would figure out you'd be a chess player. You would be a fucking whatever it is, man There's like things that people do where they figure something out and then they become that thing whether it's a soldier or a fighter And there definitely are people whose personalities are more aligned to certain types of occupations But I can't much of that is chance how much of that is your personality sort of evolved along with your obsession With whatever it is, whether it's music or comedy or martial arts or sports People become like a sort of a conglomeration of all the other people that are around them, too There's a lot of that so there's like this giant influence from all over the place Well, like I tell with my music because it's changed over the years The man changed I just drug the music along Right. Like right as my heart and my spirit changed and my views about life and people and my spirit changed So the music changed, you know what I mean? Yeah, so, you know Joe, I don't know if you know this but I spent most of my from 14 to 25 in jail. Yeah, do you know that I spent like a ton of time at 16 I was charged as an adult for a charge and What did you do? It was a really the first time I've ever actually talked about the charge Um, I just say it was a heinous crime Admittedly, it was horrible. We robbed a couple of guys for some weed But they called the police because we took some money and some stuff and it was it was an armed robbery I mean we went in there with a gun. I regret it every day of my life Joe, you know I mean I was a kid now I'm not making an excuse but I would like to paint the picture that I literally did not have pubic hairs I'm a 15 year old kid when it happens, you know and I still feel horrible about it But because the state of Tennessee has a zero forgiveness policy for violent offenders. I've carried that unexpungible felony for 20 something years It prohibits me from getting houses. It's prohibitive. It's it's it's put me in I mean it life insurance homeowner insurance is higher if I can get it at all I can't get life insurance at all just because they just they have a most of them won't give you a decent policy as a felon I can't dude. I can't volunteer at the YMCA the young men's a Christian Academy Won't let me you know, just me and my wife just got turned down for a house I'm in a place in life where I go to buy my dream home guard gated community golf course, man I'm crying Joe. They accept my offer. Everything's going cray. I'm like it's gonna be real They turn me around so you know, the golf course won't let a felon be a part of the community You know, I'm I'm a fucking dude. I'm a 15 16 year dude The idea that there's just this one definition this one solid yes or no This is a thing you you have the mark on you, right? It's not an individual with individual circumstances That's so ridiculous and that's not what a human being is supposed to be about we're not supposed to be about that We're supposed to be about Understanding situations and when there's a child that does something really fucking stupid and knows it forever You don't think you could have done that This is what I would tell the people if you were in that same community you were with those same influences This was the reality that you were born into You don't think you could have gone with those other kids that were gonna rob someone with a gun you could have don't lie to yourself You could have they're not unsavable human beings, right and then That's why I focus all of my philanthropy Philanthropic efforts with the juvenile at home, you know, we sunk a quarter million dollars into there from my last hometown show I sold out my arena big craziest night ever, you know fucking the hometown arena How big is the home town? It just hits different. Yeah, you know what I'm saying when you're like, oh no, this is home You know say like oh they like me at home. Yeah, you know for me. It's Boston. Yeah. Yeah when you play the garden, right? Yeah, God crazy, dude I just couldn't imagine the emotions are just like dude. I fucking ate shit at this comedy club here I fucking fucking talk fucking kickboxing and shit out here for fucking 20 bucks a session And here I am standing in the fucking garden. That's it. Did I was like I was sitting Two blocks away from the juvenile I was in George I mean a Joe and I'm sitting there Joe and they and I went and talked to the kids before I went metal mall Spent Thanksgiving with them before the show fed them and sat down with them and said look Yeah, I know a couple of y'all been here for a year or two. Just like I was Building a studio in here and I'm building trade programs and I got y'alls back man We helped out with a lot of lawyers We put it we worked with the state now They're building a new juvenile that we're gonna sink millions of dollars into and have an aftercare program. I'm gonna do So much for at-risk youth in Nashville because my whole life changed in that it was the most I Look back at it, and I talk about it so much that sometimes I desensitized myself for how traumatic it really was I spent my 15th 16th 17th 18th 19th and 20th birthday incarcerated Straight like most kids like my daughter will inevitably by the grace of God get a car on her 16th birthday You know like the dream shit, you know with the rib and shit. It's gonna be a big moment You know, it's gonna be fucking crazy, you know, but I got you know They didn't even give me an extra piece of cake for dinner Mmm, you know what I mean? Like, you know, I didn't have a guard. Tell me happy 15th or 16th birthday You know what I mean? You don't get a family visit like I Missed high school completely. I have I have I think I was in high school for like I think we actually pulled the records like six weeks You know what I mean? And then the only thing that turned that shit around for me was Bailey I was in the revolving door of the judicial system in and out. I knew I'd got a woman pregnant. I'm back in jail. She's pregnant She hates me. We're not talking. I'm a bad human. She's right. I was a horrible human and I was sitting in there and That guard knocks on my door made 22nd 2008 Joe D Ford it's count time. I say what's up? He goes you had a kid today And he walked away. Whoa, dude. It just I still get emotional. It was like it was I don't know what Kind of it was like a Damascus Road experience in the Bible Like I immediately Joe was like I've got to do something to change I've got to quit this shit. Like I gotta figure it out. Now. I'm in the violent offender gang unit of this jail There's a sign on the door that you can sign up for an education unit, right? But nobody ever signed up for it cuz it's like checking in You know what I mean? Like in jail It would be like you your boy told the jail stories that was in here with Bobby So you understand the lingo is like they put you on the door You'd sign up for the sheet of paper so they get you out of the unit or if you were scared You would sign up to get out of the unit. I've been in there for fucking a year I mean a fucking a seven eight months six months seven months playing poker every day Chilling and immediately Joe went sign up for that education unit got my GED I didn't know what I was gonna do but I knew that I was I was dead set on not selling drugs ever again Cuz once I caught that adult felony and went back home. I'm a felon. I couldn't get no decent job I just went straight back to the streets. I knew better than to rob people then I didn't see no integrity in that and at the Time I was foolish enough to think that drug dealing was a victimless crime Right, so I was like, oh fuck. I'll sell dope and I got caught on a crack cocaine case So when Bailey's born, I'm in there for a crack case And I now see the victim side of that cuz fast-forward Bailey's mother ended up with a heroin addiction And me and my wife ended up getting full custody of Bailey seven years ago Right. So now I see the victims of these crimes now cuz it's my daughter, you know I thought it was an equal exchange of goods. You give me money for a drug. I give you a drug All that started changing in my mind right then went straight got the GED came home started selling mixtapes out of the trunk Joe I'm selling tea. I started a YouTube channel my homeboy chatty Bobby chat arms. I love you forever Started me a Facebook and a YouTube channel while I was in jail because I call him from the education unit now Like look we got to figure it out. I got a kid. I was like cuz I had a really good dad He was a hustler. My father was a great man, but he um, he booked bets You know what I'm saying? He was kind of an old-school gangster, you know old Marine He ran his family's meat business that he took over from his father booked bets on the side I just kind of got early, you know, I was just that's just why I'm from just what it is So I was like I want to be a good father, you know and to this day of everything I'm proud of every achievement every accomplishment. I am the most proud of her This kid kicks fucking ass Joe. That's all she's fucking hellish. She watches a comedy nerd She is a fucking she watches the most she's like She's in like dark dark comedy to like she is just a little funny motherfucker, dude You know what I mean? Like she's just she's been my best friend me and my wife had custody ever seven years Her mother sobered up. I fucking kept selling these mixtapes out of the trunk. You know what I'm saying? I'm fucking I'm hustling. I'm building the YouTube channel. I put up a thing called a 10-minute freestyle It gets taken down because I called my PO out. What a wild journey Jesus Christ like what a fucking movie, you know It's like the opposite of the Elvis movie I'm gonna give chat GPT. Yeah, I'm gonna get skinny later in my career Like you Went from the worst situation possible Other than being in jail for life to being selling out in arenas. It's wild unreal Overwhelming where you just can't believe it's real all the time. They're doing a how do you deal with it, man? So I'm D. I'm learning now to deal with Like I'm learning to do I finally got an I've really taken therapy serious and it's kind of helped me with my weight I've been losing weight recently I've been taking my health more serious because I've always had a mental thing like this just blockage of like Just this overwhelming this cloud of sadness, you know, but I find purpose in this So it's like as this starts to work and as me and my daughters were late I always felt like I wasn't gonna be a good father, you know Now that you become a good father like man, I'm actually figuring this out all of a sudden dude I told my wife recently. I don't think I really wanted to live until the last probably 20 months You know as my life came together as me and my wife have just become my best fucking friend, dude You know you talking about a story dude. We're talking about a crack deal in a prostitute dog You know saying it fucking figured it out Joe It's like me and her joke the night I won those awards at the CMT I grabbed her and I whispered in her ear I said bitch. This is the greatest trick ever pulled Like like this is crazy. Like I can't believe I'm afraid I'm gonna get arrested walking up there Like that's how I was thinking You know what I mean? Cuz I was like there's no way that this happens to people like us when I won the third award that night You see the camera me and her talking. I'm like, I'm definitely not winning this award There's no way I'm winning because it was a big big one, you know And when I wanted I just Paul crying of course, but it's just to come from where we came from dog to sit here with you I love you, man. I know we just met but I fucking love you, dude You've helped me so much you say like we laugh at you Unfucking controllably dog you and all your homies, but I I have so many friends That have become friends of mine that are just because I was fans and they were great that I met through this circuit of people Give shop is the homie forever. You know what I'm saying? Like I'll always love shop Schultz me and Schultz found each other cuz my you know We did the song in the middle of the pandemic and I had a public I got fired my first publicist Joe and they fired me because I did a song with Andrew Schultz. I have What yeah, I had a publicist for 17 seconds one time I came in fucking hung out with souls and did a song get dry. What was the song? It was called open her up Now this is the middle of the pandemic Joe Oh Okay, so you had this was perceived as being anti-covid lockdown I guess yes It's funny. I Said I hope grandma maxine gets her vaccine. I can grab two bad blondes and tag team It's hilarious they've dropped you they drop me dude Luckily, I got one now that fucking lets me be me good That covid fucking fever that everybody was in the fever mental fever Like anything like that where you couldn't even joke around about it, but you can't even joke around about something like that Yeah, that's funny. It was hilarious. Oh, dude. My verse said uh, I hope grandma maxine gets her vaccine So I can bag two bad blondes and tag team. I run fast as an athlete at a track meet Yeah, that shit was so good. No, we just had so much fun dude That's I got dropped I call souls and said I just want you to know I Was my first publicist ever to Joe. I Didn't get another one until I got the one I got now. I was scared of them. I was like, yeah, holy that's hilarious And I'm so much with the comedian. That was the best part. It's like it's not like Me and fucking earnest or hardy or Morgan Walling cut the song together It was like me and I wrote a song with a comedian. That was a comedic song, you know Yeah, I just fucking whatever but yeah me and souls always laugh about this shit. That's funny It's a funny song. It's just that was a weird time You know what just happened and it's almost like everybody wants to forget Like we weren't that crazy. Yeah, I wasn't that way. I mean we all understood the science You guys just got a magic trick pulled on you. It's sad man. My knees got covered I found out this morning. She's with my wife. My wife said uh, Kayla's got covered. I said shit I don't know we're still here You know what? I mean? Like it just seemed like it's kind of disappeared off my feet at least You know, it's very mild for a lot of people that already have the antibodies Yeah, I didn't have a problem with it Joe and listen I was Covid dream if you could write down a tree scenario for Covid a fucking active drinker Obese Everything that comes with how I look is there You know what I'm saying? It's like only thing I wasn't was old and man my wife can't talk sick She works out three times a day. My kid got dog sick My knees got dog sick and I was walking around the house like hello everybody I was running and dropping off soup Swear dude, that's great times Normally, I get some sign of shit every now and then but well you gotta think if you're going to get Real stimulation of your immune system. I would imagine jail is a very good way to do that Oh, yeah, cuz you're around the tour bus is the same thing. It's a summer Same thing. Yeah, like same thing. Oh, yeah for sure We're all hanging around with so many people in such close proximity So often that your immune system gets tested all the time Like you're always this like call colds go around and like when comedians get the flu They use the same microphone and give it to other people it happens all the time Yeah, we were laughing about that last night too though that y'all show up just by yourself You just trust the sound man at the venue and everything Yeah, me and Tony were talking about some shows and I got offered my biggest guarantee ever just yesterday and I was like no fucking way and Tony was like I was like the difference is you'll fly and go pick up that money completely by yourself And I'm gonna take seven buses ten trucks three managers. Yeah, two fucking booking agents You know what I mean? Like it's gonna fucking you know, cuz when you when we got to put on an arena show Um, I love the way y'all did the arenas with Dave though I thought it was a really cool way to put on a show but keep the production minimal, but just make it a party Yeah, those were very fun. Those are always fun. Yeah, that shit was dope with the DJ to me was like, that's the move You know what I mean? Yeah for Dave loves that. He just loves a cigarette brings DJ to it's dope. It's a party Yeah, yeah, it's a it's like that's kind of back to why I bring in Josh on tour I was like, how do we bring that? Because I thought about Lollapalooza again, right? I'm like, what do we what how can we like let's bring the circus to town Dude, like I'm a fucking I'm a sad clown Like that's what I do. I sing sad clown songs. Let's bring a fucking circus to town Like what's the wild drink three six mafia? Let's bring a fucking comedian. Yeah, I'm wailing. Jenin's grandson You know, let's do that fucking shit Yeah, let's go out here and have a fucking party every night, you know, yeah, I love it Yeah, it's kind of the fucking the The dream you talk about dealing with the pressure to and about this story being crazy ABC News followed me for my Red Rocks show last June to my Bridgestone sellout in Nashville in December Thousands of hours of footage raw full-length documentary coming out next week on the Hulu 95 minute film I haven't seen a piece of it. I seen the two-minute trailer and I cried like a baby But you talking about in the middle of this all happening like when we first cuz dude we came the 22 my first show of the year was a makeup show from 21 late 21 but it was in March of 22 and it was at a thousand clap thousand capacity Club in Buffalo and By the end of the year we had sold out Red Rocks the Bridgestone arena Every hockey arena in the south, you know what I mean and Hulu caught all this shit Joe It's and I'm nervous because it's a it's an ABC News thing. So I don't get to like make a note You know what I'm saying? They're not gonna send it to me and go. What do you think? You know what I mean? Like I'm gonna be watching it with everybody fucking May 30th, but I'm excited to see They were there for those moments. They were just like the first time at Red Rocks You know what I mean? Like the fucking the Bridgestone the juvenile the kids like this whole culmination of This shit kind of going away. It went man. It's the last Seven months have been the wildest I could have ever imagined How could you even imagine it right? It's past what I dreamed of Joe It's past what I dreamed of man. I'm having to make new dreams My dreams were so small when I saw with so I kept it independent And I still am proud of this that I own a hundred percent of my masters. That's all right Have complete creative control of my deal my eye. We're you know, we got I got the best deal in Nashville history to this point But because I built it I had a billion views on YouTube before I signed the deal. Mmm You know what I mean? So I'm coming with an already built business, you know what I mean? Right and and and I come into this deal in that while it's crazy It is it's back to the internet changed our lives dude It's a very fucking guys like me and you could just do what we love and hit upload and fucking it worked out Yeah, you know what I mean? It's like I'm dropping June 2nd. We're calling it my debut country album I dropped 39 projects and I'm dropping a debut album. That's how this game works. You know what I mean? But I'm the way the deal structured out and the way I come to them and I'm like, yo Just just let me like it's different than every other artist in town I just give them a record and go this is a record, you know, like we're not I'm not playing no games. You know what I mean? Like and it's the best thing and these these people have changed my fucking life They found me a publicist that was not afraid of me fucking Talking about doing TMT with Joe Rokin Country radio gave me my first hit, you know what I mean? My first actual big hit was son of a sinner And this all happened when I dropped save me did you ever get to hear save me? Yeah Can I do a Jamie pull that up moment? Yeah, just cuz this song is like the first 12 seconds was like when I found my voice This how I got the shine down to her Brent Smith called me from shine down And he said I was I'm still a nervous singer and he was like it's one of the best vocal performances I've ever heard and he's fucking you know, Brent Smith to me is like top six front men and rock and roll period I Just remixed this to with Laney Wilson So the album version will have be fully produced this is acoustic and I have Laney Wilson on it This is June 2020 Joe I Saw you got dude, Jamie But that's the one that did it every label on earth called me and not none of them knew what none of them Understood what I wanted to do except for broken bow records and BMG Wow. Yep, John Loba got it He didn't hesitate we do I wrote this shot that recording it and uploaded it that day I Need something inside of me's broken. I hold on to anything that sets me free I'm a lost cause Baby don't waste your time on me I'm so damaged beyond repair Life is shattered my hopes and my dreams I'm a lost Baby don't waste your time on me I'm so damaged beyond repair Life is shattered my hopes and my dreams So at this time Joe all these labels are calling me from LA and they're trying to pitch me like as a pop artist And I'm like, yo, I want to play the Grand Ole Opry You know what? I mean? I was like we got a different thing going on here. I'm not who y'all think I am He was a saying like I fucking I want to play the Grand Ole Opry what is you know pop is short for popular, right? The thing is authentic is pop. It's popular People love it. They love it They just don't get enough of it because they were kind of spoon-fed nonsense for so long and it's you know Machine-created boy bands and there was this like so much nonsense going on Nashville did it too. I called it the Nashville Build-A-Bears And it's like In these record labels would find the guy didn't even care if he could sing they'd be like he looks the part They'd get him somebody that would dress him up. Somebody would write him a hit song. They put the bear on the hat They'd give the bear the bear guitar. They put the bear in front of a big country star and you know Then the bear sings it's amazing. Nobody has figured out how to do that with comedians Just find some needy actor and teach you how to do stand-up and write all the jokes for him and take half the money Because because it's like there's a thing where we got to connect to you personally from there We got to feel like you believe what you're telling us Yeah, right And I think we're going back to that in music because that listen, let's talk about the 70s and mean you love so much They wasn't the greatest singers. No like hot take but they sunk Oh, yeah, and you felt like it was their story. Yeah, you know So it's like then we went through an era where you just like the song always matters more than anything It's got to be a good song. Yeah, but we went through an era where you just kind of it was just song You didn't really there was an artist. That's once again. Well, I think Zach Brian Hardy Morgan Wall and these guys in the country space that are really connecting big you know what I mean is because these dudes are writing their own songs and Singing their own pain and their own struggling like you connect to the artist and their emotion like dude If I meet James when I meet James Taylor, I'm gonna cry like a like uncontrollably sob like a baby Because his music has done so much for me You know what I mean like because I connect these songs to him in such a way and they've meant so much to me And they've done like fire and rain has pulled me out of the darkest moments of my life Whoo, when I watched my father die our favorite songs firing rain. I watched him pass away a CLL I'm in the room with him the last 90 days of his life the greatest experience ever To sit down with him every day when he's knowing he's dying I'm knowing he's dying and we're just sitting there fucking having cocktails and talking at the hospital 90 days and Fire and rain just was like it helped me as recently as then I can tell you times that helped me when I was 16 Times it helped me in jail when I was 22 time you know what I mean like this song somehow always finds me when I really need it like I can go to it like a You know like a like an old old neighbor that gives you some good wisdom you go knock on the door They'll tell you something like I can get alone with James Taylor and have that moment I connect with him so personally in that way And I think we went through an era where the artist and the music didn't connect like that And now we're kind of sliding back into that era. You know what I mean? Like yeah, it's just something about when Zach goes You know it's like just something you just look at him and go I fucking believe you man. Yeah, I believe him You know it's like when you hear me belt out save me mm-hmm. You just immediately go I don't know this guy, but fuck I believe him. Yeah, you know what? No, you're authentic as fuck and so Zach and it's it's a it's a great time for that People that is a mainstream thing now It's not just some weird niche thing that gets second Looks at after the popular stuff right? It's the most popular stuff for a lot of people and for me. It's it's just more nourishing Now to the streams are like We're seeing it happen like Zach Brian was top two biggest country artists on earth last year Yeah, I mean wise you know it's like and the radio didn't the single didn't go to radio until after you know what I mean? it was just so Morgan's what Morgan's doing is just unheard of I mean he's king of country radio right now the king of country music period I mean that kid is just on fire fire, and I don't know when this comes out But I know you're listening Morgan, and I hope your voice is feeling better, and I love you Yeah, do you how to get some operation? I think they're just putting them on a real vocal rest before they try to that's right That's they'll try to cut on you. They were worried that yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they'll cut on you dead last That's the the singers rule is Don't let them cut on you unless you just have no other choice because that's so risky How many people have ever had their? The operation I think Jacoby my boy from Papa Roach did I need to talk to him about it He had one and man that dude. He's a screamer. You remember Papa Roach I mean he really goes for it And I think since he whatever he went through with his voice he got through it for that was a surgery or not He's on the other side of it and sounds Incredible every night and still can do five shows in a row and belt that's great Yeah, that would be the scariest thing I was telling you for the pod started that of all the unhealthy habits I have I take the voice about as serious as I can you know what I mean like I? Hydrate the shit out of it. I get IVs every week. I do everything I got I My green rooms really relaxed. You'll see it's a party. I believe the green rooms a party You know what I mean, and it should be and I don't leave the green room or get weird before shows Except for 12 minutes before I go on stage. I'll sneak to a corner and run a scale, but just little things You know what I mean yeah, but um Morgan's also just you know he's working really hard man doing four or five shows a week He's the biggest artist on earth. I couldn't I know what my schedule is like right now And I'm fucking like a gnat on a bull's-ass compared to where matters that in history for a guy like that It's kind of a balancing act. I guess it's like you want to make hay while the Sun shining but also You know maybe maybe it's just too many shows Yeah, maybe just maybe you just have to say for health's sake you can only do X amount of shows And he might be figuring that out now He might have just finally pushed his limit and been like oh man I hate that the internet wasn't gentle with him like what happened with Miley Cyrus Didn't she she had a serious voice issue as well, right? 19 such a tonsillitis oh Oh, she still had her time I also had something with that But yeah, I was like there's like a list of people that have had vocal surgery and like Adele had it yeah Adele Did now you know what I remember the Adele story cuz she debuted back at the Grammys She sung at the Grammys that time and everybody stood up and cried because there was a moment where like the world was worried That Adele wasn't gonna be able to sing again, right? It's a scary thing man I my heart is with Morgan not just cuz we're homies, but because Dude if I wake up in the morning Joe and my voice just sounds something off I panic a little bit like I have a small anxiety attack Even if it's just cuz I haven't drank enough water cleared the cobwebs or fucking ended up at the mothership with Tony Hinchcliffe We got black-out drunk whatever Yeah, you know it's like I still have a moment. I'm like hello hello You know I just know I don't sound right so I can only imagine man that dude's probably petrified right now Yeah, I can only imagine You guys have a very specific instrument. Yeah, you know that's part of your body It's fucking beautiful. It's tiny It's fucking I mean it's small You know say when I see it on video because I go get scoped every three months I go get scoped every three months Have you seen that it's it's gonna say it's just so interesting the different kind of sounds that people are capable of making With their mouths and their body and the way that the variation and there's some young boy who sung at this Frequency that's like this in insane frequency. That's very difficult to reach This young boy has this insane voice. He was on one of those talent shows See can you show us the video there watch this young boy. I mean how old you think he is Gotta be eight 13 God Yeah, he's saying it makes me so happy This guy's crying it's just trying And his eyes So young so young but just so good you just see it that's incredible right oh Dude, I get to What what show is that on? Do you know Jamie? I think that's America's Got Talent, right? Yeah I'm doing the season finale of American Idol this Sunday. I'm getting to sing on it me and Lainey Wilson and There's a kid this year on American Idol Joe. His name is Ian tonguey to NGI He did this James Blunt cover the for I lost my father and He lost his recently his father gave him a guitar and said just whatever you do It's just like one of those stories, you know 18 year old kid, but he looks like the most Hawaiian kid ever He's like the most gentle face big dude Hawaiian shirt flip-flops little and he's playing a parlor guitar So it's not a ukulele, but it's not a big guitar. It's a parlor guitar and he's my size You know and I'm watching and I'm hearing his story and he's got like the deep Hawaiian voice, too He's like, oh, thank you. You know, like like I have a Samoan security guard named Maui That talks like that. He's like, oh, thank you. And then he starts singing and it's Angelic you got it by chance Jamie. I Definitely remember doing this at the very first when he did or the one you just did the very first one He did was called I think was James Blunt. He did the Yeah, but I just want you to see this first thing this is been so I feel like we're just hanging out showing each other Podcasts of people like you you just hang out. Yeah, just hang it fucking chitchat. So yeah, yo, let me show you this other kid Yeah, so he was just crying watch Oh I'll tell you good night close the door. Look at them chill lost you I'll tell you I love you once more Time is gone Here it is I'm not your son You're not my father Wedges to grown men saying goodbye No need to forget No need to forget I know your mistakes and you know Oh god, holy crazy, right? Oh Here every time I can only watch it once oh my god Is I'm not your son You're not my father Wedges to grown men saying goodbye No need to forget No need to forget I know your mistakes and you know While you're sleeping I try to make you proud So daddy, won't you just close your eyes? Don't be afraid It's my time to chase the monsters Choked up the whole time. Holy shit. How crazy is that? Holy shit. I'm sorry. I did that to us, man Oh, no, please Holy fuck good, man. That's so good. I'm like he's 18. He's 18 Dude, i'm fitting to meet this kid this weekend and i'm literally to the moon about it. Holy shit. Is he good? I'm, that's crazy I've already publicly put the word out to whoever has the contract rights to him. I want in it's what we were talking about, man That's authentic. I mean that is you just can't fake that there's no fake in that. No, it's just real man Just raw you feel every piece of it. It takes you to a place. Oh my god. It tells a story It takes you to a place. Yeah Nah, man, that's the power of music. The voice too like oh my god, and you know, it's coming from him Oh, yeah, and you could hear the little times where you could hear the tears in his throat Like that distinct sound of fucking them tears and that throwing dude losing my father was probably the hardest thing I ever went through as an adult So hearing this Man Music will meet you where you are man. Yeah Music will meet you where you are dude. That's what so shows you another person in a way That's like how are you gonna see that guy in three minutes like you see him and that's all yeah ever, you know There's like you see a person With a beautiful voice and a beauty like I don't care how crazy they are At what if they're capable of that We know there's some there's some good in you There's like whatever you are and like if you can make a song that makes everyone happy they will look past so much They'll look past so much They'll look past so much to look back they think about all the people still listen to michael jack. I still listen to r kelly Heart take hot take and you know what? I told somebody one day. I'll argue with him I said listen man, and I might recut. I wish i'm thinking about doing it. That's way. I just because I'm not gonna quit listening to the song if it doesn't exist like That song did so much for me Like I know he's a horrible human. I watched all I got all in r kelly t. I watched every documentary twice Yes, I couldn't quit watching it but I just that song i've just I remember pulling out of funerals of friends who overdosed and died or were shot and killed chisel One of my best friends died in 2020 right at the beginning of the pandemic. He was shot and killed And I remember leaving that funeral listened. I wish You know and just like that moment. I remember that car ride forever You know what I mean like the rest of my life I remember that car riding what that song did for me in that car ride. So it's like I don't give a fuck be pissed on a girl or not. You know what i'm saying? Like i'm listening to the song Until somebody cuts it, you know, and fuck it. Maybe i'll just what are you supposed to do though? Is it there's this is there a like there's a lot of people like the cosby show try finding that yeah You can't even find it anymore Which is crazy for all the other people that were on the cosby show but also crazy for us Because I think you kind of maybe should be able to see that stuff Yeah, I think kind of like just removing it Because you know the head guy is a crazy rapist. Yeah it's like I mean should we I mean I I get a hard decision I get the idea behind it, but it is real and it is history like oj simpson He's always what about those football games? We're supposed to ignore those. Yeah, like can you watch those tapes? So you want to watch the tapes of the guy who? Probably maybe fucking We watch his twitter I don't know Dude, I r kelly's the one I struggle with the most because of that one song And it's like i'm just like look y'all you just don't know how much this song has done for me personally When you're a you know A 16 year old kid carrying a casket of a friend that got shot and killed And this song hits you in that moment of your life. You just look at it different. You know what I mean? You're just like yo, this song is done Insane things and there's many awful things that he's obviously done Are does that negate the great things that he's done? That's the question like you're allowed to Listen to the great songs Or or or we just boycotting it because it came from that I get it I get both sides Yeah, I do too, but that one song man. I'm hanging on to for me. It's real talk. Yeah real talks. That's the song Real talk, you know, that's oh, yeah Oh, yeah, you talk about michael. I think I got enough bullshit on my mind Real talk that's like for me with michael jackson. It's human nature Uh, you listen to human nature forever. You know what I mean? Like I just I just can't god It's just god. That's a beautiful song. But maybe we'll get here So think about michael jackson here that boy that you saw that was saying this insane voice that very young boy That is going to change That instrument's going to change and the sound's going to be different, right? Now what michael jackson's doctor said was they had chemically castrated him And they kept him like a castrato they kept him with that voice I don't know if that's true, right, but that's what his doc the guy who killed him the guy went to jail for like anesthetizing him every night Jesus man. I mean he wasn't even sleeping. He was just getting sedated. It's the the nuttiest thing of all time Yeah, but I think he was gone. I say I was singers all the time too, though. We had a My daughter writes songs and her best friend's name is presley. This girl's just turned 16 and can sing It's unbelievable. I mean, it's like one of those just natural. I don't have the natural thing I had to work really hard to learn how to sing She's just like naturally got it and when I was talking to her dad, I said if she was a 15 year old boy I'd be worried Because his nuts hadn't dropped yet So anything you're hearing from him I don't know how that's really going to translate when he really goes through a testosterone style puberty, right? You know what I mean? That voice is changing for sure where she's going to be pretty you're you're getting a tone from her now That'll be very close to her real tone where like that first kid we seen at 13 Now he can train his voice to always be able to sing like that Oh really? I would think that there's a muscle there. He can work. He should be able to work up I'm learning about it though. I never took a singing lesson until Uh, probably two months ago really right before I sang on tv At the cmts. I went and met with a guy took one two lessons because I was just nervous I'd never you know, this is the cmts was like my night It's the night I met you two nights the night that I came up to the club. Yeah, you came to see ron white Yeah, I came to see kadi killed brian simpson killed by the way Uh, but brian simpson that one of the jokes he told that night. I still think is one of the best bits I've heard in a long time brian simpson. He's an unstoppable force right now Oh, dude. He's very funny. No, no the wop bit. Yeah It's one of my favorite all-time bits. The uh, what is it? I don't want to don't mess it up Yeah, yeah, we can't but you know what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, but that shit it was I dude I cried Yeah, we talked about it You know how you talk about stuff when you lead a comedy club like that's all we talked about but I go to the cmts that sunday night big time singing on, you know cbs Performance i'm up for three awards. I think I have a chance at one I don't think the other two are possible, but we're just fucking we're still just we're still in the place of like you remember Ron white's old skit. We're not supposed to be here. That's like our whole thing in life right now Like everywhere we go. It's like how the fuck did we end up here? Yeah, you know last night. I was naive enough to think I was going to go to the comedy club and just leave And nobody would know me or want to hang out. You know what i'm saying? It's like fucking you know, and i'm looking at kill tony like I fucking hate you 145 in the fucking morning. Well people were happy that you came in when ron was here too. Yeah. No, they were yeah We bought every mothership lighter you had I did dude. I did we fought like a hundred We've just been passing them out. My bus is full of other ship lighters. That's hilarious But I took a vocal lesson before that performance because I wanted to make sure just one I took two right before I took how do you wow? So but he was teaching me about the scale and working up and getting my range and stuff You think you're going to continue to do that? Yeah. Yeah, man. Yeah for sure. I've been playing a little guitar I've always played a little guitar now. I'm playing a little piano. I just want to get better man I love this stuff. Joe. You can't I love it. It comes out man. Like, you know, that's what we've been talking about authenticity is very It's what we want. We all want it I don't know if i'll put songs out for the rest of my life, but I can promise you i'll write them until I die You know what? I mean? Does that make sense? There will come a moment where I'll feel like maybe my time to sing them's over But i'll never quit writing songs like I will write songs Fucking as long as my mind, you know how old people play tic-tac-toe to keep their minds sharp? Yeah, i'll just be strumming a g Just fucking writing a melody. You know what I mean? Like that's just I don't know man. It tickles me I know what it can do for people Dude, i've watched me and you sit here And laugh at the fucking roller derby queen and rosie and then cry to em tongi together in the same fucking couple hours You know what? I mean? Like that's what's so cool about fucking music, you know That is what's so fucking cool about music. I have a spot Playlist that I um, yeah, do you have a pre-show playlist ever since cat put you on that? I gotta put it out on spotify I haven't I haven't released it yet. Let me sneak in but uh, It starts out with uh, i'm your boogeyman. Is this is this other half a joint the laughing gas too? This is how When we get into the green room, yeah, baby soon as we get in the green room It's like it's time to go. That's it baby. Who's got a lighter? Ice cubes Showtime 30 minutes This is how we started off It's just it's just lips it's time to party yes time to party I like to listen to lately i've been listening to zach bronze of um Which one is open the gates Open to get the one on the bull rider. Yeah, dude. Oh, yeah, I like to listen to that one right before I go up. Ooh, dude This one's this isn't all of his shit is authentic but this one is like It's deeply Engrained and the rodeo riders fucking widows and just god you ever listen to cody johnson No, cody johnson is a cowboy cowboy roebuls. Um, keep it going. Yeah, play that pimp and pimping. I want to hear this Just turn it down I Know Son of a cowboy can't claim his daddy's right And my baby she's been crying at the thought of me dying She knows there's no stopping a man and his foolish cry Open the gate Tell me Where he came from He's riding the bull that killed his father, uh, It's like that jim croce shit like who's writing that song besides zach brian Christ he's riding a bull named to hell I go. Oh, he's riding a bull that killed his dad. Fuck Oh my god I love them old fucking rodeo records, man Zach and cody johnson are the two that I think have done it. I gotta get into cody johnson I got two man. He's a texas guy too. I'm gonna write this on my phone right now He's one of the sweetest humans on earth, man. Give me some cody johnson. He's got a song called deer rodeo Is this deer rodeo? I don't know. Let's tell you canes is big smash Oh, we play deer rodeo right quick because I think joe because this will touch joe So let me just give you a little backstory because I love stories with songs Cody johnson has a documentary on amazon prime that is about his he tried to go be a professional bull rider And he fell short right and uh And he wrote this song as a grieving to the rodeo What's the name of this song deer rodeo? Dear rodeo I'd be lying if I tried to tell you I don't think about you After all the miles and the wild nights that we've been through Lord knows we had a few Deer rodeo I'd like to say that I took the reins and rolled away fucking heartbreaking. Wow No regrets. No left unsaids. Just turn the page Oh, but you know better, baby Oh Between the almost atoms and broken bones the dream of a buckle i'll never put on i'm traded Whoa, I hate it But somehow the lives outweigh the rules and I do it all again even though We both know I'd still have to let you go So dear rodeo Wow, it's got this crazy bill. I love he did a remix with reba mack It's a wild culture man Whenever we were in vegas There was like a bunch of ufc's and other things that I did in vegas where the rodeos in town How did you see these bull riding motherfuckers? They got a different kind of swagger different kind of swagger different kind of swagger fighter swagger Yeah, a hundred you know what I mean that kind of just like what who fucking wants it? You just see it in their eye. Yeah, they're riding bulls. Yeah, it's not a regular person They're riding giant 2000 pound angry animals with huge dicks and big balls that don't want you riding them Don't want you out. What the fuck are you doing? You're on my back. Why are you fucking with me? Imagine you can't believe it. So a human would stand in front of you Right, you're a 2000 pound wrecking machine and this dumb motherfucker wants to ride your back Yeah Yeah, and the best part is when you fall off and try to hit him. There's another dumb motherfucker in clown paint Just imagine how stressed crazy humans are before I like my weed. I will admit publicly that your weed was better I wish you have you got some more of that because I didn't get to bring the actual I'm doing a cannabis company in michigan right now called bad apple But I couldn't figure out a way to get it because the bus was already here from dallas Because we was in dallas for the acm two days ago When you're traveling that much man, the bus has to be like comfortable, right? You have to like make it your own you guys gotta like it all set up for like satellite and all that shit I can't wait for you to come hang out on it I got that elon must satellite. Oh, whatever that Elon mushing is I hooked it up straight to the back of that bitch So you can get internet. Oh, yes high speed. I play video games on there Yes, and we I got the triple pop out so it gets fucking living room size in there It's that you can play video games. Yes, dude. I spend I spend 150 days a year on that bus This is the least shows I will have ever done because i'm playing the biggest venues i've ever played You know what I mean? But it's like i'm normally like a road warrior and even then i'm just never at home I'm just we're just always something. I think i'm gonna sleep in my bed three nights in the month of may Mm, god, the two of them were just two nights ago Yeah That but that wild ride that you're on Like you could stay on it as long as you want and do it as crazy as you want, right? Right? Yeah And with you owning all your masters and you're in a great position No, dude, it's so excited. Yeah, I can't wait to hear about the business of it off camera. It's been great No, i'm sure I mean it's been it's just been Like I said, my dreams were too small when I met with that record label joe they said what do you want? I said, well i'd like to be written about in my hometown newspaper It's just like my require. I got a billion youtube views and i'm like and uh I was like and i'd like to play the grand old opry And the reason I signed with that label is because the first label I met with when I said the grand old opry They didn't laugh at me Mm, like the people in l.a was like but we could get you a you know I won't say the artist name we could get you this artist feature instead I was like I want to play the grand old opry man Y'all think because they kept thinking I wanted money I had a fucking billion youtube views joe I didn't need money I was fucking we were okay, you know, the wyce podcast was bubbling like we were cool Oh, I didn't want your money. Can you get me to the grand old opry? And can you get my local paper to write about me? Because i'm trying to do some things in the community here, but i'm fighting a lot of struggles, you know And they were like no problem Debuted the grand old opry that year six months after I signed the deal. I stood on that opry stage boy cried You know, you got all the mug shots out here. Yeah, I wore Uh, my opry debut I wore a denim That said music city outlaw on it And on the back was jerry garcia's mug shot when he caught caught with that hair went down in new orleans And he's just all jerry garcia it out just smiling just fucking you know, just jerry and out, you know And I put that mug shot on the back for my grand old life for debut, dude Fuck yeah, i'm bringing fucking I am bringing him with me Bringing the dead baby. Do you think that like I think now People like a redemption story now more than ever Yeah, I think people more aware of all the factors that lead to someone getting incarcerated now than ever right and I think they're more Understanding of the hopelessness of the system now than ever right? So when a guy like you breaks through becomes a giant star after this crazy past Like that that I mean that opens up the door for a lot of people It opens up a door for a lot of people to realize like it's not a death sentence You can get your life together and even though at this stage of your career as crazy as it sounds You're still getting turned down for living in the community. Yeah. No, i'm still I got a meeting with our governor Coming up shortly. Yeah, that's it. I wish it would show the back of it, but Look at me. Ask me up there. Just boy. I mean that's the holy grounds. Joe I'm standing in the circle of the grand old lopry right there, man. First time ever A rapper from Antioch due to the story. I said that night was I uh, I grew up 15 minutes away from there But it took me 37 years to get there You know what i'm saying? You know That's funny. Yeah, wow Just just just and that right there and that ever since then I told my label Jonathan Loba Joe Jamie Adrian Michaels at the label I'll never i'll never leave y'all man. I'm with y'all forever. You were man of your word to me You know what I mean? And the deal's already fucking incredible. The deal can't get no better You know what i'm saying? I I squeezed the booger out of that quarter. It's over You know what i'm saying? I can't all they're gonna give You know, so it's like I don't know man. I think the redemption too is just people Like the relatability like drugs are different like we now know how Pain pills have led To heroin addictions. Yeah, right and that 11 people an hour overdose and die in the united states of america, joe They think that number will be closer to 14 or 15 by the end of this year an hour overdose and die I'm not trying to stand on ohio horse hair start a war But I promise you if 11 chipmunks an hour were dying in wisconsin It would only last a few days before people were out there picking it and protesting and trying to figure out how to keep the chipmunks alive for sure You know, but we look at drug addiction or used to as a personal problem. I'll just quit doing them, right? You know and we just were so we didn't have no compassion For you know, and now we're starting to see that when I write these songs about drug addiction and the pain and suffering It's a real thing now now people are like yo, I feel that Like I feel that I relate to that like I know I had a song on my new album. It's called she And if she was the life of the party, uh, um could see the sunrise in her eyes before the cold november rain And if you only knew her smile, you never notice she's in pain And it's uh about a woman My thing is everybody knows a she everybody knows a he now when you hear that song you're like, oh no I actually know her you like relate to it in that way and it used to not be that way So I think that's another thing that redemption's coming around is that it's gotten so out of hand That plus fuck who doesn't want to see a guy win every now and then jesus Fuck this is a loser winning dog. Like i'm a loser fucking winning You know what i'm saying? Like they let a fucking loser win like that's fucking awesome You know what i'm saying? I'm fucking smoking weed on the joe rogan show hungover. It's an american success story Yeah, yeah, this is american as fuck. Yeah, that's american as fuck. That's what america is supposed to be about for everybody For everybody, but it's like that's the real problem, right? How do we make it? Way fairer, right? Hopefully I meet with the governor and I could figure out my my felonies and hopefully I get a pardon from him Well, that would be beautiful But more important than the pardon to me is I want to try to see a policy change in tennessee about juveniles. That's my big goal Is that I think that as a juvenile offender you should the felonies should only stick with you the length of the sentence So like even if you if you committed a murder Which is a heinous crime and you get 30 years and you go do your 30 years in prison because at 15 You can still come home at 42 You know what? I mean? The kids should be able to have a path to figuring that out when he gets home You know what? I mean besides just being stuck with this felony forever Like you said this can't be an end-all be-all this has to be a case by case basis 100 You know what? I mean like and I just want to do like selfishly Yeah, I want to get my felonies expunged because I hate that. I can only go bow hunting You know what i'm saying? You know, I can't I little things that are just like fuck that sucks that I can't do thousands of things But more important than me ever not I had a felony for so long But can we do something to help these future kids man where they don't have to go through this like Can we start making some decisions now? Can we can we start instituting rehabilitation instead of disciplining the juvenile system? Yeah, like that's what the conversations. I really want to have you know, that's the shit I really want to talk about because when I was in there, we didn't have a mentor Nobody cool like me ever showed up and gave us nothing. You know what I mean? Like it was discipline It was like jail. I'm a 15 year old kid getting treated like a real prisoner. I know what I did was wrong Man, I was 15. Joe. I needed a hug I didn't need to sell I needed somebody to love me I needed somebody to explain to me what a fucking pill addiction was I needed somebody to you know what I mean? I this is what I needed. You know what I mean? I didn't need that other shit Sorry to go back on that fucking rant, but there I am. I think about that. That's important because you're the only person that could tell that story Right, you know, that's your story and it's an important story That it's also a story where you realize like as you see yourself now a successful artist Like you were always this person you could always achieve this thing that you've achieved Why'd you have to go through hell? like What right what what causes people to have to go through hell? to Before we all realize like how many people are going through hell? Why don't we figure out a way to manage this better? Why don't we figure out a way to help the people that are disenfranchised in a real way? Not just like I gotta like figure it out like there's got to be someone if you had if you had a budget Like billions of dollars if you had nothing that came out that seemed like a fake joint I think I might have tightened up up top God, it looks like it ain't ripping. It was ripping though. All right, whatever we taste. I don't I wish I wish they could taste this fucking pot I know It's ridiculous. What were we just talking about? budget I don't remember my point at all. If I had a budget to go to the juvenile kids i'd focus it all on trades I think my my idea was if you had a budget An enormous amount of money that would go to a company that could figure out how to take all of the communities That have traditionally been very poor and crime-ridden and fix that And you would get an enormous sum of money like billions and billions of dollars, right would be rewarded to someone who could engineer like a an ethical Philanthropic venture to rejuvenate all of the fucked up areas in this country You know how much crime you'd prevent? You know how much you can change the world you could change the world you change the world Yeah, for sure if someone figured out how to do that and engineered that you could try it in one city try in detroit Just moving in detroit for sure revitalize detroit in some insane way, right watch it. Boom Yeah, detroit used to be one of the richest countries richest cities in the country. Yes. Oh huge it used to thrive Well during the big time it's still it's still my top four places to play in america by the way They're fun people. Oh, dude, michigan there's in general in the weed up. There's fire That's why we did our cannabis company up there first Yeah, I wanted to go somewhere where you had the greenhouse You know what I mean? try to break the ground that way because you know Just shouldn't come off the side of a mountain anywhere left of colorado most of the time the thing about detroit as a city That's really wild does you get to drive around and see these buildings that don't have no windows? Just just shells of buildings that used to be filled with people working. Yeah, you're like, well, this is like some mad max shit Yeah, like it's very unusual in that respect like that. There's so many buildings that are like that Yeah, no, it's a it's a place warped in time. Did they cleaned any of that up? Did they yeah, I think they had a guy that whoever I don't think they should have Yeah, who is that? Gobert the guy quick and loans. Yeah quick and loans A couple other companies that moved in there like stock x is that big? Yeah shoe company? Oh, so they're like idolater. Yeah, they're bringing they're bringing downtown detroit back. Is that is that the story that's happening? So yeah, they i've seen a few tours of their where they're showing their plans for things He's definitely not the only person in nyoma put it that way but he's one of the bigger ones That's awesome. People have moved into town to making development I don't know. I haven't been there. I kind of wish they would leave the fucked up buildings though Yeah, because there's something about them character to him. There's character to him But it's also it's like this is this weird piece of history that I think destroying it I mean, it's just it's not like the pyramids don't get me wrong But there's something historic about the remnants of the boom and then the bust right there's something about this This shell of a building. Yeah, that's like man. Yeah, I never thought of it that way Yeah that it shows that because that was the boom boom, too Yeah, right. It's weird those buildings were weird when I was driving around and looking at them Is that what they used to look like for and after yeah, like? Would they turn it into a factory into like they turn it into a fucking this is a rendering of what this place looks like This is a article that says like what will Detroit look like in 2033? It'll look like a Chipotle Chipotle There's something about like didn't um the top gear guys they went to Detroit and I think they bought a house for like $5,000 or something crazy. Oh, yeah, it might have been less than that There was a definite time period you could buy one for a couple hundred dollars. God See if the top gear the top gear guys actually did it um Yeah, they like bought a house for like $5,200 It says did they really let me see you. Oh, did they really oh, is it like did snopes fact check them? This isn't snow, but it's like a Detroit blog ask. Oh Is it a lie not quite 2018? But in 2009 this bud feed buzzfeed reporter bought a house in Motown at the live county auction for just 500 I was a house which is everywhere but still fucking 500 bucks, right 500 bucks. Yeah Lee for a house you get a good old bag of laughing gas for that I mean how bad does everybody want to get out of that neighborhood? I mean, how bad does someone want to get out of the neighborhood? They'll say on top gear which that's Solid house. Yeah, not a bad house. How much was that house? Uh, that's that says 2200 bucks 2200 dollar that is insane. So let's see the pictures instead They claimed look at the house. Oh, that's probably there's some holes in it. Whatever whatever prepper rats kind of a hole. Yeah Uh, that's a lot but still yeah 500 bucks Yeah, like if you were a young single guy you could sort that house out. Yeah, you can figure that out Yeah 100 percent. It's that that's an old ass house, too Do you see the way the they have the this pre wall board? It has those slats and all that shit in between the slats. Yeah, see that It's an old ass house. So what's that era then the 20s problems? Yeah, it is 20s. Yeah Maybe that's not I had a building we've used on music row for years. It was like a 1922 building or something and it was just big and just fucking concrete That's just solid fucking concrete dog and all the rooms were kind of tiny and low ceilings But it was right on music row historic music row And it was right behind the bar losers, which is where all the songwriters in town go to drink and red door So we I was like it's perfect. It's prime time real estate, really Well, just fucking turn this into multiple studio rooms We go to the bar and get drunk and just like corral writers, you know, like everyone's all going back down the alley to the spot That's the cool part. You ever been down music row in nazville? No, really. No, it's like a little circle and every label's there every Publishers there it's like, you know, whatever and there's like a little strip of bars off side of it that we all fuck up And you just these dudes in town these songwriters. I admire them so much i'm jealous at times All day long. It's like just like fucking orgies of writing songs. They're just fucking each other They're just going room to room They'll do two hours in this room then go down the street and do another one and they're just fucking playing musical chairs and just writing Songs all fucking day long. Wow And then they go out when they write their last one like five to the bar and then they just talk about writing songs Until they get drunk enough to go write another one at midnight. You know what i'm saying? It's fucking it's crazy and these dudes are coming to town like sleeping in their car to figure it out so it's like uh How long has that been around for I don't know when it actually started to be honest now I know that I guess as long as music's been happening in nazville You know that i'm telling you being an artist in the town and writing your own songs is still rare Like it's still not a lot of artists that come out of nazville tennessee that are actually in the room writing their songs So much more of that happens, that's why I call it the build a bear so much more of that happens than you know You know and these these songwriters, dude Now i'm just like a fan of the grind So I love writing with them You know what I mean because I just think it's fucking sick that they just they these dudes eat breathe slip shit Fucking songwriting. That's it. You know what i'm saying? Wow, it's kind of like last night Like I watch dudes do comedy and then talk about comedy these dudes write songs all day to go to the bar and talk about the songs they wrote and play them for each other How many of them are there? I'd say Hundreds that actually have a publishing deal that are getting a draw every month and getting put in rooms And i'd save thousands that are just in town trying to figure it out tens of thousands even maybe But there's hundreds who are actively somehow Because it's like any other thing you'll come in as a young artist and you've never wrote a song right or you can write A song you go to a publishing company and go. Hey look this time. I wrote And they go, okay. We'll give you 23 000 by 24 000 a year. We'll give you two thousand dollars a month as a draw Recoupable and then we'll put you in writers rooms for a 50 50 split of your publishing It's a horrible deal by the way, the music business was meant to make everybody money but the artist it's fucking wild But when you're fucking 20 your two-year-old kid chasing your dream, it's an incredible deal It's fucking the it's the chance You know So you go ride out your first deal for two years and take it on the chin and write some hits Hopefully and get in the right rooms And then you can kind of negotiate the terms going into term two You know what I mean? But these kids are just coming in like just you getting picked my dude zach kraul huge comedy fan He's here with me now. He um produced my album Zach kraul got his first publishing deal and drew I think 24 grand a year And like at that time of his life He needed it like he was counting on it Like I remember a time where he was going to re-up his deal And he was nervous. He was like yo jelly. I don't know You know, it's 15 years ago 12 years ago. I don't know If they're gonna let me come back. I haven't produced nothing. They gave him one more year and he produced sam hunt's first album Anyways, he's wanting to have 30 number ones at country radio or something crazy fucking unbelievable guy But you know, he was in a place where he doesn't look back at it bitter about the deal But he's still you know, because he's like man, I needed that But he still is like, you know, like every other artist once you get out of it You're like damn this system is fucked up though, you know, the record labels are even more fucked up. You know how that works, right? They take let's say um, that's why I don't take money from labels Let's say we have a 50-50 deal joe and I give you a million bucks and then I say all right cool Now every dollar that comes in i'm gonna take 50 cents of it as a record label because that's my 50 cents And then i'm gonna put your 50 cents against a million dollars That you owe back No, I didn't go to school or nothing joe as you know from my story, but that don't sound like a good deal, man I don't know a lot about interest rates, but that sounds like a fucking 50 interest rate on money, dude Yeah, you know what I mean? It's like and that's why I stayed independent. I knew nothing joe. I was Deal. That's a listen. How about that's a good one Really? It's fucked up joe There are dudes in my town that are in 90 tens with the label getting 90 and them getting 10 right Right now millions of dollars in debt to the label and giving them 30 of their show money as well Right now and had multiple number ones at radio Holy shit It's the business is wild man But there's also guys, you know, but the amount of times that that's changed somebody's life. It's such a weird game to play Because from the label perspective now you look like how many times have they dumped money into an artist that didn't do anything that they just Lost and tried You know what? I mean that the label's already down And then this other guy how many you know, this a lot of these guys needed it That's why my deal worked out so great because I didn't really need the deal You know what? I mean? It was like it was like this thing like I want to do you know what? It's very nostalgic of you and spotify you didn't need the deal But y'all were flirting around and it made sense. You know what i'm saying? It's like I didn't need the deal You know what I mean? And it's like but we flirted around and met with everybody and I met a company that it really made sense with and it Changed my fucking life country radio Changed my life 100 the internet started to like brought attention to it and then country radio just Sent it into the cast, you know just somewhere totally different is country radio the last real influential radio I would say so because is is like Where's rock radio? Is that does that I got i've had a hit on rock radio, too It's it still moves the needle but does is that popular? Like how many people are listening to like fm rock 100 market dependent? I believe there's probably a few markets You probably definitely know this but there's a few markets where rock radio does well Yep, but a lot of people are using spotify or apple music. You have to get some of the playlists That's a whole different room. Well playlist thing's the new rally new radio. Yeah, and my my deal spotify Every streaming platform has been good to me Especially when I got with bmg because they have good relationships So once I started getting country radio and I started getting like play listing because here's another thing Not everybody understand wants to take the time to curate their music They want to find good music, but they don't have time to go find it or curate it And play listing is a way around that just like radio was that's how you found music Now tick tock is a place where people find music and the inter First of all, we're in the golden era of all this shit, joe because you can find good shit everywhere It's everywhere. Everything I touch on my phone just feeds me shit. You know what I mean at a rapid pace so that changed everything but once I started getting real play listing and real radio love and started like when cmt I swept that night Fucking the fucking load the loser one son. I won the big one i'm back there. I started drinking before the last award job So I was sitting there my wife the first two had went by and I was like, yo, I have no chance of winning this one So i'm not drinking. I'm like Drink i'm drinking like this what I tell people i've never been on tv before I was gonna act like it I'm not too prideful to come in here walk around with jamie for 30 minutes going. Holy fucking shit You know what i'm saying? It's like i'm fucking i'm i'm enjoying the fuck out of this, you know, it's beautiful It's like I look forward to coming back next time just as a homie But the first time i'm walking here like this is my fucking dude. This is crazy. I'm sitting in here, you know, but I'm in there fucking the night everything just starts changing dog and then we're fucking rolling, baby Now we're doing american idol finna drop a hulu documentary and an album. It's fucking weird All in the next like 30 days As long as you're just enjoying the ride man. I'm having a ball. That's beautiful Fuck your club will tell you they had to escort me out in a nice way in a very friendly Where it's where you don't know where you are kind of way. Yeah, they eat breakfast Yeah, well no, they said the plutonium number still there when I left Um, the funny part was the best part was they escorted me out in a way that they could just tell I was lost I love your club. It's a maze It's a I know you get it, but i'm still second time there tonight I hope i'll get the full gist of it But when I popped in the green room last night when david lucas took me there and I seen where it was I was like hidden in plain sight It was insane. You know what I mean? Everything about us just fucking the thought of that whole place is Me and zach crowell left and our first conversation was we're opening the music mothership in nas for one day Oh, that would be beautiful Just a place where like dudes like singer songwriters can come and just do their songs and kind of work crowds and fucking because it's so comic friendly Like all of the singer songwriters spots in nasville are legendary, but because they're old school and legendary They're not like comfortable. You know what i'm saying? Like when you play the legendary bluebird, you gotta hope that the Hair salon next door will let you use it for a green room. If not bluebird don't have one at all You know what i'm saying? It's great, but it's like the most legendary songwriter spot in nasville But it's been that since the you know, fucking forties or whatever. So that's like the small clubs That like comics rely on those two. Yeah rely on places that are You know like a 200 seat club. Yeah, we do exactly so We do a lot of singer songwriter nights in town where these dudes that write all these hits will go play them for the town Kind of you know what I mean? And it's like, you know, it's like this really cool thing that happens in nasville We still do like writers rounds where four dudes will set a stool up on a stage. You know what i'm saying? There we go writers rounds Yeah And you'll just sit around and like that intimate of a setting, you know And there might be one artist in there, but every one of those dudes have wrote multiple number ones Wow You know, it's so cool to see man because you'll just have a dude that doesn't look the part and he'll be like Hey, I wrote this song and you know, and then he'll play live like you're dying for tim mcgraw and you're like, holy fuck Oh, wow, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's cool It's really cool. When you come to town. We got to do it. I got to go show you the fucking love We'll go to a writers round. They're fucking chill. They're cool. That's badass. Yeah, beautiful Yeah, they're just all jamming. It's just a bunch of dudes in there with guitars and they're singing each other shit We got this thing we do tonight called bottom of the barrel with that brian simpson hosts and there's a little the the audience is right Like a topic on a little piece of paper and then we put it in a whiskey barrel And you reach in and just grab a subject and just start riffing. Oh shit. So everybody it's all off Is that what they're doing in the uh, what are they doing that little boy in the little boy tonight? Yeah, and you're in the fat man Yeah, i'll be in that one too. I'm gonna do the other one too Because that uh, that's one of my favorite shows stupid stupid question, but he gets it he gets so silly Yeah, it's just so silly some of the oh, yeah, because it's very fun Oh, yeah, because the cool thing about comedian fans is they're there for the humor So they're trying to be witty too. So they're writing topics trying to stretch wild. I bet there is but then there's some good ideas Some of them are just like good subjects. Yeah, you know, it's fun They're they're now people know what it is too. So they're comedy fans that show up and they're they're interested in coming up with a funny suggestion to put in there I I hate to be the guy that always parrots hates when I do it, but I always compare entertainment to comedy because I see so many I see so I see more resemblages in comedy than I do any other area Like i've done a little acting and I don't really see that I see the art I respect all art But like the connect like even down to like the culture that comedians create like Musicians real good musicians create culture before they create songs You know what I mean because good songs come out of good culture Like I bet good jokes come out of good culture. You know what I mean? So it's like we have a just that one of the coolest things i'll think about forever now is me getting to show you What a writer's round was you know what i'm saying? Because that's our culture like for me. It's fucking like for you It's like what I got to see last night at the club was the wildest shit i've ever seen except for a josh wolf show You know what? I mean backstage. It's like That's how but it's what y'all do every night at y'all's culture Like we just sit around and riff songs, you know That's that shows that the kill tony is a giant part of that culture because it's such a rare opportunity for people to get on stage Some of them the first time they've ever been on stage and they're on stage at kill tony They just have this wild idea that they can do it. They put their name in a hat Yeah, the whole next thing, you know, they're on stage telling jokes that they were like telling themselves in front of their mirror a couple of nights ago and in front of fucking 300 400 people or something and then Hundreds of thousands of people download. Oh, yeah, literally and and watch it on youtube So it's like what a crazy spot to be in and then you're getting roasted and david lucas is roasting tony and it's like Holy shit. It's a circus man. And will you montgomery? He's so funny. That dude is so fucking funny It's just seeing that night at the wrong white joint and uh Like I instantly got him because he's so he's so spazzy at first you have to catch it But I instantly like oh I hit it. This guy's fucking great Yeah, I don't want to say his joke, but he has one of my absolute favorite jokes. I'll tell you later. I remind myself But uh, yeah, it's we're we got a nice thing going on. It's fun It's fun and everybody seems to be getting better if it's really people are enjoying it Yeah, man iron sharpens iron you want to be a good dancer dance a lot. I think that's true I think there's no other way I mean you you need to do other stuff too. You need to write you need to think and you need to listen you need to Watch things and read things And think about stuff a lot, but you gotta get up there all the time Like there's no if fans were about it's about it It's no other way to do it and it's the only way as a comic you ever come up with new shit. Oh, yeah Same thing in songwriting will uh if I take some time off writing songs like between an album cycle I'll go back and get with the writers for a couple weeks before I even start writing songs that i'm going to consider Just because for the fact that I hadn't wrote one in just 12 weeks sometimes. I just know i'll go in the room stale But like chris stapleton sit on your pod as a songwriter. I'm always writing songs though. I put three titles on my phone a day It's my rule Bare minimum sometimes more but even if it's just like a quick song title, you know me and jaymar talking about it Sometimes I write a song from top to bottom me and ashton mcbride got to write on my album. Um, She's incredible And she writes from top to bottom sometimes which I think's gangster when you just pick up a guitar and go where are we going? Hey, who's here? You know what i'm saying? How about this? You know, it's just like like you're just fucking letting it land where it lands, you know, that's fun But more often than not i've write from the perspective of like yo, I got a concept. Here's my idea So i'm always putting them on my phone But i'm still dull when I get in the room if I hadn't done it in a while You know what? I mean if I hadn't wrote in six seven weeks, dude I'll feel it the first time I try to go write a song because one of my artists homies Hey, man, come help on the island because we do that, you know We'll try to show up for each other and i'll show up and just put on a play in the egg the first couple days You know what I mean? I'll just be in there getting stoned wasting time, you know, and then the third day I'll be like, okay. I got my time and back. We'll figure it out So is it like a like a frequency you have to latch on to? Yeah, it's just there's like, um My dude calls it the egg on the spoon so Put the egg on the spoon Right, and then i'm like I got a great idea me you and jamie are the three writers in a room, right? We all agree. It's a great idea All right, cool. The egg still on the spoon now. Now. We got to put a melody to it or start with a couple of chords Well, we know that there's only you know, 12 notes in music finding the chords is easy That's why ed sharon just won that lawsuit. You know what I mean? You just pick start fucking with the chords Okay, that chord progression is cool egg still on the spoon Now we got to come up with a melody now We got to come up with the how do we get the melody to this pre-chorus first verse intro? Altro keeping the egg on the spoon and then the scary part is even if we do our job in this room We write a fucking banger joe. We got to hand the egg and the spoon to the producer You know saying you know and now he's got to go in there and sometimes he'll drop the egg You know or sometimes the egg gets dropped somewhere early, you know but just and then after that it goes into How you're going to market and put it out and stand out at a time where you know 50,000 songs a week are getting uploaded or something crazy. You know what I mean? Egg still on the spoon It's fucking wild we call it the egg on the spoon And there's two different types of people doing it There's guys like you who write their own stuff And then there's other guys that are writing stuff for other people and then other people are just performing only stuff that people have written For them. Yeah, it's a different thing. It's a wild thing. It's a different thing, right? It's like um, they're both great. Yeah, some great songs come from the other way, right? The great like all-time classics, but I like it when I know the the person singing it wrote it, right? I like it. Yeah, that's what I like especially when it feels personal. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's like I love that. Um Yeah, I just love that anytime there's that and I but I i'm cool either I I Don't want to I used to say this word before was a hot word. I identify as a songwriter above everything You know what I mean? Like I always like when you if i'm at a grocery store and some sweet old woman goes What do you do? immediate no hesitation i'm a songwriter That's what I think i'm the best at you know what I mean? Like that's what I think like I think we strip you down to your core. You're a comedian Yeah, right the fact that all this other stuff works and you're great at it is cool But like at core, I think joe rogan is a comedian Like I look at jelly roll as a songwriter. So I was I love what these dudes are doing in town It's just not for me to not sing a song. I didn't write on now. I have no problem bringing in another writer Yeah, it's like I like the fact that all kinds of different artistic people exist and the idea of just some people that are like Little hit squad people for sure. I think it's kind of badass. It's bad. Ass day. You know, it must be fun Yeah, it's fun. The only thing is that sometimes it gets puppy millish So they're like so writing for a certain thing that I have to be the guy in the room. It's like hey, man Y'all know that we can like Every song we were talking about somebody said I wasn't country music which didn't bother me because they said that about whalen and you know They said this about everybody who was ever big in the country Of course there's certain people that are going to say that. Yeah, right, but i'm looking and i'm like You know no not one deer was skinned or uh Shot or killed or fish was caught in any moral haggard song ever Like so if you're barometer of country as i'm not talking about fishing i'm going fishing with david lucas tomorrow You understand fucking you know what i'm thinking? It's like, what are you talking about? You know, i've been fishing since I was a kid But it's like, you know, I i'm more admired the side of country. That was that outlaw shit Like when you play that zach brian song and I play that cody johnson song like I like a song that nobody else can sing Let me just put it that way No, I don't I would love to sing that zach brian song, but I could never pull it off He can only like I love that I don't think anybody could have pulled off son of a center I don't think any artist in nashville could have took son of a senator country radio And said this will work. I think only jelly roll could have took son of a senator only jelly roll could take need of favor Right, you know what i'm saying? Like who else in nashville of all my friends could cut need of favor and it would impact the way it impact Right knowing who you are exactly. Yeah knowing it comes from you too This is it's just a different thing. It's not just the connectability with burt kreischer Right is that you become so entranced with burt and his family and you get sucked into this little burt hole, right? So it's like fucking I love burt That's my dude and you get sucked into this burt hole and then his jokes are triple funny Because he's telling you a story of a character that you feel involved with over these specials Right, you know what i'm saying? Like I feel like i've watched his two daughters grow up You know what i'm saying with these wild specials like when i'm watching razzle dazzle. I'm like, holy shit That's the same daughter that Six years ago was here in her life. You know what I mean? Like that's just cool You know what I mean? It's like this follow along that kind of happens and that's that connectivity of shit That's like, you know what I mean? Yeah, but I love it when an artist does this how much I love art joe I love when an artist does the opposite the weekend is one of my favorite artists of this generation Man, that dude's probably done three interviews his whole career. Didn't he just change his name back to like his actual name? Yeah, I think he said he saw yeah. He said that he said that he's wrote all he can write as the weekend So I don't know if he comes back as able that dude did some acid dude listen, i'm tell you He had a jilly roll dmt moment. It came out. It was like i'm fucking able He probably had his john leonin moment It said uh the weekend starts using his birth name Uh, I don't want to fuck this up. Yeah, how do you say that? I think it's test fay, but i'm not sure test fay Able test fay, this is something I have to do Yeah, I followed him from the beginning I'm just a fan of his but he's the polar opposite of like nobody ever knows anything about him ever He he said that he wanted to kill the weekend. Yeah, okay. Well, we're talking about it. So he wins Yeah, for sure. That's ridiculous. And I love him so much as an artist I'm anxious to see what happens next. It's like when prince turned himself into a symbol. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's like I want to listen to come out of here now. You know what i'm saying like this could be cool bro, I remember prince With one of the first songs that uh, um, I ever heard from prince was head Which is the craziest song I couldn't believe somebody wrote a song like this. I know I had heard one other song But head was the first one where I was like, what is going on with this dude? Remember that song? Yeah dude fine head This is what 85 six who year was this? 80 1980 God is so funky god damn this is good I was I remember when we had attention spans and we would let the intro just fucking feel a vibe before the song started So Talk to me Oh my god And on the album covers words spandex I mean You're such a hunk so full of spunk i'll give you a head Dude, I mean as the kids say bars bars the bars You're such a hunk. Yes, so full of spunk i'll give you a head My favorite thing was he did that. He did the interview with the uh, I don't know dying somebody and they said jesus christ It's crazy, right and they asked him. They said why do you wear heels to make you taller? And he said I wear heels because women like heels Just fucking pimp, he came straight off the vegas strip He was special. Nah, man. He was yeah that guy was special. Yeah, he was um Very very very like Disassociated from everything too as far as like yo, he like lived in his bubble made his music and was like I love when people do that spacey shit, too I think wanna be a lover was the first song I ever heard from him. I think mine was raspberry beret Oh, that was good. That was later on. Yeah, but i'm older than you When I was a kid, I would listen to prince while I deliver newspapers Did you ever get into skynard? Oh fuck yeah, dude, dude the the This the guitar solo I maintain to this day The guitar solo in free bird at the end. Yes It might be the greatest guitar solo in the history of all music. It's so choreographed And it's it's like it was a different kind of a solo man. It was just That motherfucker was so good. He just made a sound. Oh my god If you're driving around at a 1969 camaro and this is playing And you back then you had to hear it on the radio, oh, yeah Look at that Here it is Look how happy those people are losing their shit. Look how happy they are Look sunburn is fuck middle of the day Middle of the day happy these people are Look at them jump around with their arms in there the whole crowd. Oh, yeah Holy shit This solo This solo is just fantastic And this is live And they're gonna do it for the next four minutes it's gonna be a long turn out I swear They were just jamming what a fucking song Oh Inconspicuous confederate flag. Yeah. Yeah very low key Jesus Christ Just think about how much the world has changed since then oh, yeah in that way you could never do that So Look at the sunburns. Yeah. Yeah that girl's gonna have cancer when she's over for sure. She's on fire Oh Look at this motherfucker go and people are still just flipping their shit Just lost in the rock and roll man From Florida, yeah, yeah, Jacksonville do So I got a skinner story, but I'm sure I hope I'm allowed to talk about it. I'm sure Ross won't mind They have they filmed they were filming a special for Skinner last year late last year and they called and I got the invite to sing Tuesdays Gone with them for this special and I we had heard a new from publications that Gary Rossington was Getting dealing with some hard stuff, you know So there was this kind of quietly unsaid like this might be one of his last specials, you know he's the last standing member right and I Go to do rehearsal with him And of course Johnny's there Johnny Van Zant great guys been singing with him, you know 30 years, you know However long that for 30 years forever Peter Keys is on the keys. I know a couple of guys and I go meet Gary and He is the sweetest Kindest man Joe and he just keeps thanking me for coming to do this I'm doing a fucking skinner thing a tribute. I grew up in the South Joe. This is insane for me You know, it's like where I'm from Jesus Skinner, you know what I'm saying in football somewhere you know, they would pop for primetime television right and I'm going to leave from rehearsal that day and I look behind me because I heard some some feet shuffling and Gary was chasing me To the door to turn around and go man. I just can't thank you enough for doing this man This is so awesome that you took the time out. It's just like well, I can legend and I talked to his manager and his manager said is there anything you can do for us and I was Like I kind of frankly, I don't ever ask but kind of autograph I was like but uh, he said not all don't worry He's already got something planned for y'all So when I get to the green room the night of the tape was special taping There's a guitar in the green room signed by the band and Gary and a poster signed by Gary for my mother Wow Yep, this is it You were fucking wild Jamie. It's scary to be honest This is the footage from it and I think and I'm not a hundred percent sure but I think it went on to be His last performance. Wow, and it gets the story gets even wilder they Love I'm allowed to say this part They say can you come and touch up like just come they want you to listen and see if you need to touch up a vocal Right. They just give you an option. They just they just you know what I mean And I was like, I had cool because they were gonna put it out and I just had to go approving They want you to approve in person and if you need to sing they'll allow you to sing sometimes some specials won't this maybe two inside sausage, but I Was going the day that Gary was going to finish putting licks on their new record or some new music they were working on That's the day he died. I woke up that morning to the news of Gary Rossington a dad and I was fixing to see him at the studio and six three hours and His team hit me and said we know just with Gary spirit and energy that what he'd want for you to do today Go down there if you have time and I still went and I proved the vocal load and had to make no changes or touch Oh, he doesn't want to make sure I was cool with some stuff and approve, you know, just approval shit just respectful and it was crazy man because his Gary Rossington guitar tech walks in Joe and He looks over at the engineer the producers been working with Gary for 30 years or whatever for a year However long he's been doing it these guys tight crew guitar tech looks and goes I Was tuning I was stringing his guitar when I got the call for today's session I Was like look it might be a bad time to say this but how poetic Could you imagine being that dude talking about the greatest guitar solos ever written guitar tech and you find out he passed away While you're holding his baby You know what I'm saying, you know just unreal like what a way to go. You know what I mean? Like Yeah, I mean he survived plane crashes You know what I'm saying? They went through some shit Right. Yeah, they were fucking you know, it's wild man. So that's dope but I hope hopefully that special comes out this year because that was Just a night. I'll never forget and it just he was so sweet and there I hope that shows this on stage I walked over to him at the end of Tuesday's gone Joe and he's doing a solo and As soon as he finishes I just grab him by his shoulders and I kiss him on the forehead and I just hug him and I just whispered man You have you impacted me in such a way You will never know how much you've changed how I feel about music, you know And I know that in my spirit that the last time I seen Gary Rossington, I gave that man his fucking flowers You know what I'm saying? I get teary out again, dude Just talking about it just that I just because I felt like I felt it You know what I mean? I got a show with Willie Nelson at the end of this month Wow crazy, right? I'm doing a show Willie Nelson. Yeah, and we're launching our weed brand the same day In Michigan, bro, you're doing the show with Willie. Yep. I think he's only doing like 25 this year So you almost had to win the lottery to get one What's a big deal? Where's gonna be the soaring Eagle in Michigan? What's in northern, Michigan? It's a casino outside gig right here right here at the enemy Wow Yeah, you got to see Willie before he goes folks. You got to go see Willie man Yeah, I just want I want to see trigger as much as I want to see Willie. That's what he calls his guitars trigger Yeah, the same guitar all these years really yeah, and it's got a Pull up trigger if you don't mind jam you got to see this Joe. You'll love this shit. It's wild as shit It's a where he how he picks It's got an indent where his fingers go inside the wood And when they fix it they fix it around it right there is where he sets his hand what yep Wow, yep, it's called trigger the joke. He's made it so quit torn when they can't fix trigger Wow look at that It's worn into his hand yeah worn into his hand right there Because that's how I went he'll pick that way it's crazy man. Wow Yeah, I was excited to see the guitars. I owe him I got to see him once I Haven't met him though. So this would be big. Yep. It's us My buddy are not good Taught my earnest earnest on that list was a Nashville boys a good friend of mine He wrote son of a sinner with me and earnest has had I think eight or nine number ones. He's wrote for other people Just big hit songwriter Nashville boy Imagine yourself at that low moment when they tell you just had a kid Imagine now on stage at Willie Nelson What a crazy Simulation you're in the simulations real brother Yeah, and I defied all like you'll see it in the dock, but it's like You know I had everything not going for me even in the music side of things like I had to learn how to sing I wasn't like I don't come from a family. I'm the only songwriter of my family Right does that make sense? Like there's no there's no historic music. My mother just loved music, right? You know, it's like we didn't come so I had to learn all this, you know Because nobody would sign me at first I had to learn the business, you know, I'm a kid that never I got my GED when I Was 24, you know what I'm saying? Like I didn't never Before I got my GED if you asked what my last grade completed was I would have had to technically write down I eat you know the same. I think it's the last one I passed and you just I just had to figure all this You know my daddy almost quit one time Joe my daddy looked me now and he said why would you quit son? He said if you worked this hard to be a doctor You'd be going to get your doctorate degree right now. You're two years away from being a fucking brain surgeon He's like you just had to go to a different college And man that stuck all over me Joe Of all the advice and one-liners my dad was like one of them old can't she's just had them quick one-liners You know and of all the stuff that he that that just stuck with me because it was like you can't run the time The fact that I didn't find success till I was 38 is just like, you know, it just is what it is You know what I'm saying? It's like, you know, yeah, but it's this is what always begs the question. I Would not want you to go through any of the things you went through But because of the things you went through This is what we get right and an amazing thing It's amazing when out of some horrible chaotic situation something beautiful emerges and I don't know why we need that Like what is it about people? What do we need to fuck people up? So they make amazing art? Yeah a little suffer is that I mean is there other ways can you do it through sports because Is there holding your breath? Is there some other fucking way other than torturing your kids childhood to turn them into Something talented because I don't know if it is man all of my friends that I love the most had the most fucked up childhood You know, they're the most fun to be around the most silly you know and the most appreciative and then you know, it's like the world there's a Sense of community amongst people that grew up and fucked up sort of environments But I don't want anybody to ever grow up like that I want people to grow up loved and challenged by things. I want things to be interesting to you I want you to go after them not because you're desperate but because you're fascinated. I don't think it's the mutually exclusive I don't think you have to be fucked up to be great at something. I just think oftentimes that's the case. And so I think One of the things like that young man. What was his name that sang that song on? American Idol, Iam Tongi Damn, man, whatever that dude went through. Yeah, he lost his father. Oh my god He tells the story right before he sings but it's just so man. Oh I know right just everything about it. That's all he's so good. It's so good Because that guy went through that shit to make that thing that we all can watch Yeah, no and just sings it just in the most Painful. Oh and it's just like I told you like nothing about I think he had the jelly roll factor of nothing about how he Looked made me think he was gonna sound like that. Right, you know, no idea what was coming No, and then you just hear and then you start listening to the lyrics and you're like, oh no, I'm gonna cry So good. No, I am Tongi man. I'll tell him you're a fan. I'm gonna see him this weekend, dude I'm like I've already said a message a couple times on Instagram because I'm a nerd but I'm like dude I'm a fan like I'm coming to hug that's like me and you Listen brother, this has been a fun fucking enjoyable interesting time and I appreciate you very much man No, I do not do that. You have a great story. You just giving me the platform to share it me. I'm not story is great Fuck it's such a good story. It's so important. It really is American as fuck Yeah, what you're doing right now is American is funny. You can figure it out I just I'll end it like this with two things. We don't mind Joe. Just give me some house cleaning before we go Just gotta be remiss cuz God, you know how big this is for me jelly roll 615 calm I am going on my first arena amphitheater tour later this year. There are still tickets available in slag markets I feel like the comedian not the end of the podcast. We're gonna be next week. No, it's it. Please. Please jelly roll 615 calm You can find me on socials. I'm pretty easy to get to there and I will say this that music finds a way and I thank God that music found its way to you and I found my way to this room to have this platform with your people Brother, thank you, and thank you for this and I and I and I look forward to hanging with you tonight. Fuck. Yeah, I'm coming papa Thank y'all