Latest / The Scene Projects / Rudy Gunn on Music, Social Commentary, and Adventures on the Road

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Rudy Gunn on Music, Social Commentary, and Adventures on the Road · The Scene Projects

• 0:00
  Ready to rock?
• 0:01
  Yeah.
• 0:01
  Welcome in to another exciting episode of the scene.
• 0:04
  We are here on the bus with Rudy Gunn.
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  Rudy, welcome to the show, brother.
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  Man, it's good to see you, buddy.
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  Yeah.
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  It's good to see you.
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  Yeah.
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  Well, it's good to see you again.
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  Right?
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  What a crazy week, man.
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  What a crazy week.
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  Absolutely insane.
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  So you're nominated for a couple of Josie's this this week.
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  I know you accepted one on behalf of another friend of yours, but you also won one.
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  We did.
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  We we won expressive verse video of the year, which was for our music video, Make Canada
• 0:30
  Great Again, about the cost of living in Canada.
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  And basically, the video shows all the homeless encampments around Canada, following a homeless
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  guy around throughout the scene of of what's happening in Canada right now.
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  Cost of living is absolutely crazy to the point where people are coming to Canada for a better
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  life.
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  They wanna live the the Canadian or the American dream so to speak and they end up
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  either moving back to the country that they came from as a refugee because it's better
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  there than the cost of living in Canada.
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  They end up in the street and they don't know what to do and it's just we've got encampments
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  you know near my house 80 tents or more in multiple areas.
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  That's crazy and you're in Suburban Toronto.
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  Mean
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  Yeah.
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  I'm like an hour an hour from Toronto right now.
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  I'm back and forth between Ontario and Alberta, but we're we're based out of Ontario now
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  because the the scene there.
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  We just got so many places that we can play and and and grow as an Alberta's
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  a lot like the Midwest US.
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  Everything's really really far in between and not a lot in between those areas.
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  Like if you want to go play a show in Alberta and I used to do it all the time, I'd have to
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  drive often six seven hours to get to the next gig.
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  So when you're you're rolling in in the afternoon, you're setting up doing your sound
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  check, then you play your show, you get done your concert at one or two, now you gotta tear
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  down, you you get out of there with your crew at like four in the morning, and then you gotta
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  drive six, seven, eight, nine, ten hours to the next gig to do it all again, and all you're
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  doing is you're you're living off of junk food and rock stars or energy drinks.
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  And
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  Or Tim Hortons coffee.
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  Shout out
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  to Tim Hortons.
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  Tim Hortons coffee.
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  I I brought Bubba coffee just to get the Man,
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  I appreciate it.
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  The Canadian experience right here on on the bus.
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  Well, after the night I had last night, getting woken up by security to have to move the bus, I
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  appreciate it.
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  We had to spend some nighttime on the bus after the Josie's, though, and I wanted to make sure
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  to mention the memory.
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  We had your guitar player, Will, on here.
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  You guys played a song sitting right here on this couch, and we got to film that.
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  I thought that was really cool.
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  But we found some pretty cool stuff out about the bus that night while we were tinkering
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  around.
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  Yeah.
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  Will's like, hey, man.
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  This this thing says the ultimate horn.
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  What does this button do?
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  And he hits it, and the bus starts blaring on the road again on the outside of the bus
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  through speakers while we're in a parking lot.
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  But leading up to, like, meeting you at the Josie's, and we're doing a little interview
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  thingy there.
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  And then later at night, we're at a bar, and we run into you, and we run into your sidekick boo
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  boo there.
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  And
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  we're chatting, and you go, yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  We're on
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  on George Jones' old bus.
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  And I was like, oh, that's cool.
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  And so I said, hey, man.
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  Like, can we check that out?
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  That'd be kinda cool cool thing to check out.
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  And you know, like, yeah.
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  No problem.
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  Follow me.
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  So we start following you out of the parking lot, across the road, into the Gaylord Opryland
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  parking lot, but it's fenced off.
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  It's blocked off.
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  There's nothing there and it's foggy as hell like Yeah.
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  Was crazy fog Sunday night.
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  The craziest fog that Tennessee has ever seen probably in a long long time.
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  So we see nothing but a fence that's barricaded off and we're walking into this parking lot
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  that's just misty.
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  And my guitar player Will goes, man, are these guys gonna murder us?
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  Like, who are these dudes that you found?
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  I'm like, I don't I don't know.
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  Like, maybe.
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  So Nobody said how I won the content creator of the year award.
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  The the women love the love the crazy shit.
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  Like, murder stories.
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  You you didn't dress as Dexter for Halloween, I hope, man.
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  But dude, so we're walking through this parking lot and then the bus kind of appears through
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  the fog and we're like, that's the coolest the coolest visual and experience, know, of life to
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  see George Jones' bus appear through the fog like
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  Just emerge through the mist.
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  Just such an epic I
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  I wish I would have the neons when we came walking up too.
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  It would have been awesome.
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  But Yeah.
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  Well, I got look.
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  I do have a video of walking up to the bus and and we'll we'll snip that in.
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  I'll send it over to you well.
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  But it was it was cool.
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  And then we got on the bus and we ended up playing a song on the bus, Will and I, a song
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  that that we rode called shoulda known better.
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  And, you know, we started realizing how many people have sat on this seat, not just George
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  Jones maybe writing a song and talking to people and all that stuff, but how many people
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  have sat on the seat in the exact position while George Jones is sitting in the chair
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  right there listening and going, man, let me hear what you got or what song you got
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  Yeah.
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  Can we play a song for you?
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  That happened on this exact couch.
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  Probably a lot of things happen on this couch I don't wanna know about.
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  But that's one thing that's cool.
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  I'm like, maybe some of those guys became legends at one point and, you know, who are who
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  are they?
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  What's the nineties country stars at that time.
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  This is a '95 bus, so we kinda know roundabout what time that it made, and he's the only owner
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  of this bus at that time.
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  Right?
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  So you think about some of these nineties countries people that were coming up that, you
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  know, jumped at the opportunity to come and spend a few minutes with George on the bus.
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  Absolutely.
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  So we're not necessarily doing anything new here.
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  We're just capturing it, and it's us telling our stories now instead of them telling theirs.
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  And I think that's just it's so cool what we've been able to do here.
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  Shout out to angelcarsusa.org for for letting us I mean, bring this down here.
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  This has been a wild experience from top to bottom.
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  Red carpet at the Josie's was insane.
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  I mean, you got to step up there on the stage not once, but twice.
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  Granted, there was only once for yourself, but you still got to stand in that circle and
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  deliver a speech.
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  And it just was something we'll never forget.
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  It was wild.
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  And big big congratulations to Ranchmas in Calgary for winning the live music venue of the
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  year as well.
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  You know, all the nominations were all American bars, and that was the only Canadian bar that
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  got nominated.
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  But they've been around fifty two years
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  Right.
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  As a massive it's it's basically doubles as a museum.
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  It's massive this bar and I used to work for them.
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  So when they found out they were nominated, they messaged me and said, hey Rudy, if we win
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  can you accept this award for us?
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  I'm only one.
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  I was like, man, I'm part of that history, you know.
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  I was part of that bar at one point.
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  So it was really, really cool to be able to accept that for them as well.
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  But first walking onto the Opry stage for my own award, just walking on that stage, I'm
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  pretty sure I said, holy shhh.
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  You know, like, to the lady on the stage, and it was wild just walking on to the Opry stage
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  and then standing in a circle, you know, the unbroken circle, and just looking at all those
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  seats, how many thousands or millions of people have sat in those those seats and how many
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  legends have stood on that stage on that exact circle both at Howled Ground.
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  Both at the Ryman and at the Grand Ole Opry.
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  You know, it's it's just it was incredible to stand there.
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  I got that that look I think that everybody's talking about.
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  And I was just trying not to shit my pants really, man.
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  That's that's what that's what it all came down to.
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  No.
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  And talk about how carrying that energy now and carrying this momentum into the rest of, you
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  know, not just 2025, but into '26 and having this now Josie music award winner title with
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  you, what that's gonna mean for your career now moving forward?
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  I think it's definitely, like, some leverage.
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  You know, we launched our own our own publishing company for music that I'm writing
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  with my co writers as a catalog and showcase to other artists if they wanna listen to it, but
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  just to be able to put on there like a award winning writer.
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  Because I wrote that song as well.
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  It was just not not just a music video.
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  I wrote the song.
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  And Will played every instrument on that on that song except for drums, Rick Carrero played
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  the drums on it.
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  A big shout out to Rick as well for making that come alive.
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  And, yeah, man.
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  It it it was How cool
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  for Will to be here with to to be there for whole, you know, the whole experience and to
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  get to see, you know, his song and the music video, you know, win and being able to take
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  that back.
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  And Will's a little more soft spoken guy than you are.
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  Right?
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  So I don't know if he'll necessarily be going around telling everybody about it, but it's
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  gotta be a cool even though you're not up there, you know, giving the speech and
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  accepting the award, it's gotta be a really cool feeling to be part
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  of it.
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  He was definitely part of it, and I appreciate him coming down.
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  He actually flew in to be here with me for the award show, and he's driving back with me
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  today.
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  But, man, this guy's on the road with me all the time.
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  One of my best friends.
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  Just an awesome, awesome dude, and I'm so happy that he's part of my team.
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  And, you know, we got a a great team of writers, a great a great band.
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  You know, big shout out to all the guys in the band as well and that are on the road with me
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  every night and and then hashing it out.
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  And, man, what a wild experience just from the the Opry walking on the stage to walking
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  through the mist to George Jones bus and not getting murdered.
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  And then where do we end up after dude?
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  Waffle House.
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  We we end
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  up Where else would you end up in Tennessee after the gig?
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  There's nothing open in the middle of the night except for a friggin' Waffle House.
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  So we're sitting there and I've seen things on the internet about Waffle House.
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  I've never been to a Waffle House.
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  The American what is it?
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  The American breakfast, the American dream, whatever they call it.
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  The American experience for sure.
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  The lady behind the counter, one
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  of the waitresses started yelling, hey, we're we're down to one roll of toilet paper.
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  So if y'all gotta go to the shitter, you gotta go to the man shitter because we're down to one
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  roll of toilet paper.
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  Y'all gotta share.
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  And I was like, is this like a skid?
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  Like, is this part of like, you know, Chuck E.
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  Cheese?
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  They got the dancing mouse.
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  This the thing they do at Waffle House?
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  Like, what
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  is this?
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  And she's I'm like, not joking.
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  And I got the second part of it on video.
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  The first part, we're dying laughing.
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  The waffles, like, covered in I don't know what it was covered in.
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  Some kind of syrup.
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  No.
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  It was Probably imported from Canada.
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  Well,
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  let's see.
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  Me what they are.
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  We'll probably get our syrup made here in America.
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  Give me a waffle on a dirty plate, baby.
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  Let's No.
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  And and honestly, if we didn't record it all, nobody believe us.
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  Nobody would believe this story.
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  I mean, you know, sound like an insane person.
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  Right?
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  When I'm like, yeah.
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  Drove from South Dakota to Wisconsin to get on George Jones' old tour bus to go work the red
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  carpet at the Grand Ole Opry and to meet all of these artists and to to talk with them and
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  interview them on the bus and to capture these moments and to end up at Waffle House with them
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  and run out of shit tickets.
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  What a thrill that would be though, man.
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  You wouldn't it was pretty I slept most of way, to be honest.
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  I mean, I had driven ten hours from South Dakota, unloaded my stuff into the bus, got on
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  the bus, and we had a professional driver drive the bus down for us.
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  So I jumped in the back and crashed out, woke up when he stopped to pee, and just kept
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  moving, man.
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  Just kept moving.
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  So we had, like, a twenty four hour journey to get down here to land on the I mean, I've
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  pretty much been on the Opry, you know, Opryland property here this entire time, and
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  I've gotten away and gone and checked out Broadway.
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  I mean, I saw Broadway on Halloween night of all nights.
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  Right?
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  To kinda walk down and to capture that moment.
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  If I didn't have all the video, you would not believe me.
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  No.
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  It was crazy.
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  I was dressed up as the cow from Chick fil A with the the sign that said
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  I saw you.
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  Eat more chicken.
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  You saw me?
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  I probably got you on tape, man.
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  Oh, man.
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  I didn't I couldn't even stop.
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  It was so much data to take in just as, like, as a human being that it was like, no.
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  I can't even do this.
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  And I wasn't necessarily trying to hang out in the bars.
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  I was there to work.
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  I was there to capture the moment and see as much as I could.
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  And, you know, after doing a lap, like, had to go take a lap around Bridgestone just to, like,
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  woah.
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  That was a lot of energy in a short amount
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  of time.
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  I've been traveling all day.
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  We landed here at 6AM on Friday morning.
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  Right?
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  So I it's like, I needed a minute to get away from the hustle and bustle and then came back
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  and shoot some more.
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  Yeah, incredible energy in Nashville this weekend.
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  And they said it was kind of a slow weekend.
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  I think a few weeks ago, they told me when Posties opened and Post what was that?
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  They had 80,000 people on the streets.
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  That is crazy.
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  I was at Posty's last night, and man, the sound system in there was incredible.
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  Yeah.
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  Just Sounded good.
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  I stopped
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  in yesterday afternoon.
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  The LED wall in there in the back of the stage goes to the top of the ceiling.
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  It must be like a $34,000,000 LED wall just just on the stage and just got
• 12:30
  the money.
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  It's all good.
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  Man, it's as an entertainer, Mike, I want that, man.
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  Like, get me one of these stages.
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  That'd be that'd be cool.
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  Yeah.
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  Let me on this one for sure at the very least.
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  Right?
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  Absolutely.
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  Absolutely.
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  Well, hopefully, can use that that win at the Joe season.
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  Fact The that you've been on the Grand Ole Opry stage now, and you're familiar with this.
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  You're an award winning songwriter.
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  You know, you're an award winning music video producer as well because I think that's what I
• 12:54
  would call you.
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  Maybe you weren't behind the camera.
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  I don't know if you were or not, Yeah.
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  I shot every shot.
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  I edited every shot.
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  Incredible, man.
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  Everything's incredible.
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  Yeah.
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  I always forget you're an AV guy.
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  So You would.
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  I wanted to make sure the vision that I had in my mind was getting through on tape, and the
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  only way that I could get that out of my head onto tape was by filming and editing that
• 13:17
  myself exactly the way I envisioned it.
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  Incredible.
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  And
• 13:19
  you can find it on YouTube, Make Canada Great Again.
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  This is a music video.
• 13:23
  Yeah.
• 13:23
  And it's not it's not a political thing left right.
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  It's literally the cost of living just so insane
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  Right.
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  To the point that that North American dream is is is kinda disappeared.
• 13:32
  You know?
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  Yeah.
• 13:33
  Well, and it's been a long time coming that that it's kinda been on that track, and now
• 13:37
  we're all acutely aware of it.
• 13:39
  Right?
• 13:39
  And but more people could be more aware of it that it's not just tough for you at home.
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  It's tough for everybody right now.
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  And the only way that we're gonna pull ourselves out of it is together.
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  And I think that's really what your music video and what your song's all about is that, like,
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  hey.
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  We have to do this.
• 13:54
  Nobody's coming to save us and do this for us.
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  Here's the problems right out in front of your face.
• 13:59
  Yeah.
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  How are we gonna fix it now?
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  And and that's really the time in in our lives that we're coming to and the time in our
• 14:07
  country, man.
• 14:08
  We gotta save both of our countries.
• 14:09
  The United States and Canada should be a lot closer than we are now.
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  I know, you know, politics being what it is and the the political head figures in both of our
• 14:19
  countries being what they are, that it's the people.
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  It's me and you that are bringing it back together and people like us.
• 14:26
  We're the ones that are gonna make the difference in in the sense that we're in
• 14:30
  control of our own lives.
• 14:31
  You know?
• 14:31
  It doesn't matter who is in charge of of where, who's in charge of what country.
• 14:36
  No government's ever gonna take care of you.
• 14:38
  Whether they're on the left, whether on the right, nobody's gonna take care of you.
• 14:41
  The only one that could take care of you and your family is you.
• 14:44
  So you gotta go out there every day and do the best that you can to make it happen because
• 14:49
  it's up to you, man.
• 14:50
  Like like people say, if it's not up to me, it's you know, if it if it is to be, it's up to
• 14:55
  me.
• 14:55
  I don't know if you've ever heard that saying, but it is.
• 14:58
  Like, you're the one that's gonna make the difference for your family's future.
• 15:02
  Nobody else is gonna take care of you.
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  No doubt.
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  So No
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  doubt, man.
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  Control, man.
• 15:06
  Rudy, what's coming up next for you?
• 15:07
  I I mean, I'm sure you're playing every weekend and out there on the shows.
• 15:10
  You got some new music coming.
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  I know you're doing a lot of writing, and we're doing a little writing while you were down here
• 15:14
  as well.
• 15:16
  I I know you didn't get quite as many as you wanted to.
• 15:19
  No.
• 15:19
  But we got last time when we get
• 15:21
  over quantity maybe is what the theme was.
• 15:24
  I wanted to write, you know, 15 songs while down here, but we just got so busy networking
• 15:29
  and meeting people and ending up at Waffle Houses and on tour buses and meeting guys in
• 15:34
  parking lots that were foggy.
• 15:36
  You know?
• 15:37
  I I don't know who I'm talking about here, but it just we got so we got so busy that we did
• 15:43
  write a song yesterday with with Wiley Seiler, David Sullivan, and Will wrote a song with
• 15:52
  them, and we might pitch that to somebody like Gary Allen.
• 15:55
  Very, very cool tune.
• 15:57
  But, yeah, when I get back, I've got 50 some songs to write now
• 16:02
  Yeah.
• 16:02
  That we're gonna, you know, gonna work on and produce the tracks for and get those pitch
• 16:07
  demos ready and Yeah.
• 16:08
  Think that catalog is stacked up there.
• 16:09
  Whether I record a couple of them or or whether we get other artists to record them, that's
• 16:14
  cool.
• 16:14
  We we got Nashville North Publishing to to put that entire catalog on there.
• 16:18
  So Incredible.
• 16:19
  Could check that out too.
• 16:20
  Awesome, man.
• 16:20
  Yeah.
• 16:21
  Website for your band and everything too?
• 16:23
  Rudygunn.com.
• 16:25
  R u d with two n's.
• 16:26
  R u d y g u n n.
• 16:28
  Yeah.
• 16:29
  Awesome, man.
• 16:29
  Straight shooter.
• 16:30
  Well, thanks for everything.
• 16:31
  We made some memories this weekend, brother.
• 16:33
  I appreciate you being part of the scene and for being here on the bus again and sharing
• 16:38
  this moment with us.
• 16:39
  Alright?
• 16:39
  It's it's nothing.
• 16:41
  For me to just sit on the bus by myself doesn't really mean a whole lot to me or anyone else.
• 16:45
  So it's sharing it with guys like you that appreciate the history that this bus has and
• 16:50
  appreciate the iconic nature of what we're doing in our own lives.
• 16:54
  And I think no one embodies that more than you, Rudy.
• 16:56
  So y'all get home safe to Canada today.
• 16:58
  Everyone watching at home, that's Rudy Gunn.
• 17:00
  He is an award winner here at the Josie Music Awards this year.
• 17:04
  Great guy too.
• 17:05
  We got to hang out quite a bit.
• 17:07
  So appreciate you all tapping in with us now, and, keep tuning in.
• 17:11
  More coming from On the Bus and the Scene projects real soon.