Latest / Inside Country with Wayne D / Paul Cauthen is Headed to Vegas

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Paul Cauthen is Headed to Vegas · Inside Country with Wayne D

• 0:02
  It's Wayne D hanging out in our gorgeous studio here downtown Nashville. And I
• 0:06
  gotta tell you, this guy's name came across my email the other day,
• 0:09
  and as soon as I started looking more into his music, I'm like,
• 0:11
  my man's getting on the playlist. I'm my official playlist, which sounds like
• 0:15
  it's fancy. It's just what I listened to. Hey, I'm a lucky
• 0:18
  man. I'm a lucky man. Paul Coton, Welcome to our studio on
• 0:23
  Nashville. Brother, how are you? Thanks for having me Wayne D.
• 0:26
  N It feels good to be back home Broadway. Have you had time on
• 0:29
  Broadway? I think I have. Well, let me ask you this as
• 0:34
  a performer or as a patron both, Okay, all right, I'll tell
• 0:39
  you. I came down here in an old nineteen ninety five G twenty van,
• 0:43
  brown van with the blue stripe. A couple of my buddies. We
• 0:46
  went to Memphis and had a night there. We're like eighteen nineteen fake id's
• 0:51
  bad, bad, law breaking kids. Yeah, and we just said,
• 0:55
  man, let's just go up to Nashville. We came up here and I
• 0:57
  was just talking to h Tay. Sorry, I just met her and Tay
• 1:03
  was talking to tell you know, I had enough yeager on this street to
• 1:07
  give me a headache. Ever since, you know, so Broadway has whipped
• 1:11
  me up, spat me out, and brought me back again all different ways.
• 1:15
  It's weird to be out here during the day, right, yeah,
• 1:19
  it is. It's kind of like going to like one of your favorite like
• 1:22
  you know, venues or something in the day with the lights on and like,
• 1:25
  you know, the floors are kind of sticky. Oh yeah, that
• 1:27
  kind of it's a sticky floor vibe. But you know that means there's been
• 1:32
  a hell of a party going on. So your name came across our email
• 1:37
  box because you're a part of a big party, which we're gonna get to
• 1:38
  in a minute. But if somebody's hearing this and they're hearing your name for
• 1:42
  the first time, I'd like to ask, I don't like the word new
• 1:46
  artist, because just because you're new to me doesn't mean that you just picked
• 1:51
  up a guitar this morning, right, Actually, did I got really this
• 1:53
  morning? It actually sounds like it. No kidding, I'm totally kidding.
• 2:00
  But for for somebody that might be hearing your name for the first time,
• 2:04
  everybody takes a little takes something from you know, their favorites, their inspirations
• 2:08
  and kind of builds who they want to be. Right, It's like a
• 2:10
  melting pot. So who are some of the artists, regardless of genre,
• 2:15
  that helped you be who you are? It might even be a familiar sound
• 2:19
  to somebody that that plays I just like. I mean, you know,
• 2:23
  you can go back to the old trail blazers, like you know, Cash
• 2:25
  and George Jones, Loretta Lynn and that kind of country kind of vibe.
• 2:31
  But then you know, I grew up in the church and my granddad taught
• 2:36
  me a lot of you know, big vocal acapella stuff, and then you
• 2:40
  know, I really fell in love with hip hop and R and B.
• 2:45
  And you know when I was young because my sister was, you know,
• 2:49
  getting ready for school, sitting down on the ground in front of the mirror,
• 2:52
  putting on tons of makeup. Jam and Mariah Carey and stuff like that.
• 2:55
  You know, I was listening to that when I was a kid.
• 2:58
  And then move into like run DMC and uh from there, Biggie. Uh.
• 3:04
  You know, it was one of my favorite still my favorite hip hop
• 3:07
  star all time. And I love classical music. I love piano, you
• 3:14
  know, I just it's just kind of like old Schmoger's board of different artists.
• 3:19
  And you know, I like Kenny G. If it's the right timing.
• 3:23
  I know, when the eggnog is out and it's Christmas time, bust
• 3:27
  on some Kenny G and see if you don't feel good. If you don't,
• 3:30
  I'm leaving. I mean too, I'm out. We'll go throw our
• 3:32
  party. It's like there's two times people in this world. People that can
• 3:35
  handle Kenny G in the holidays and people that can't. And if you can't,
• 3:38
  you're not welcome to my house. Listen. And if we're going to
• 3:39
  look at Christmas lights or whatever, Kenny G hit me, dude, I'm
• 3:44
  oh, come on, man, we gotta have a little Christmas party.
• 3:46
  Should throw Christmas? You tell me when I'm in. I don't know.
• 3:50
  I think Christmas would be fine. Christmas Day, I'm in. Do you
• 3:53
  got plans? Nah, I'll bring a hand. Perfect. When it comes
• 3:59
  to music, why is that the career of choice? And at what point
• 4:01
  we're like, I'm making a run for this man. You know, I
• 4:06
  knew that I could sing and play and write when I was a kid because
• 4:11
  I kind of picked it up at a young age. My granddad taught me
• 4:13
  how to play guitar about six or seven years old, but we weren't allowed
• 4:15
  to bring it to the church, you know, because we're not allowed to
• 4:18
  have instruments in the church back then. Okay, they may be more progressive
• 4:24
  now, but I haven't been in a minute. But uh, you know,
• 4:29
  I just uh, you know, started playing and you know, hanging
• 4:33
  out with different players, and you know, it just it's been a wild
• 4:38
  upbringing with this whole choosing to be in music. You know, I had
• 4:44
  gotten some trouble and I wasn't going to do the college thing. Got in
• 4:47
  some troubles, some setbacks where I couldn't even get into any colleges, so
• 4:51
  can't take courses from jail, you know, So got out, had a
• 4:56
  bad record, so I was like, forget about it. I'm just gonna
• 4:59
  move up to colorad Auto and kind of hippy around in a van and play
• 5:02
  some guitar and rip some blue grass. And started doing that and running into
• 5:06
  big blue grass hippie bands up in the Colorado area, and I was like,
• 5:11
  man, I'm gonna make a run for it. And I was like
• 5:13
  two thousand and seven. Started a started a band called Sons of Fathers in
• 5:17
  about two thousand and ten, and I lasted four or five years. We
• 5:20
  had some American of stuff, and I moved in twenty fourteen down to New
• 5:27
  Bronfels, Texas, and uh lived in a little cabin down by the river,
• 5:30
  and just wrote a ship or a ton of songs. That's what the
• 5:34
  beat buttons for. Yeah, beep, son of up beep. I can't
• 5:41
  believe we're gonna take your beep and add it as the official beat. But
• 5:46
  uh, yeah, you know when people ask me, you know, I
• 5:53
  did I choose this? It was like, I'm I'm called to do this.
• 5:56
  Yeah, And I believe that everybody in this world's a vessel, and
• 5:59
  so I'm short, and it takes a lot of people a long time to
• 6:01
  figure out what they are. What they're lane is what I call like a
• 6:04
  bird dog tray. You know, I'm telling a bird dog to jump in
• 6:06
  the water rent retrieve a duck for you. You know, it just has
• 6:11
  it in him. So like this was just in me. And I feel
• 6:14
  like I'm in the lane. You know, when I'm on stage, I
• 6:15
  feel more comfortable than even sitting right here, you know, so even though
• 6:20
  I'm very comfortable, but it's just I'm blessed to be able to do this.
• 6:26
  So we will get to the festival and how you got in the festival
• 6:30
  in a minute. But what are what are cool moments as far as like
• 6:33
  you look. Obviously, social media is a big deal, bigger than ever.
• 6:36
  Now, has there been a cool moment for you? Again, outside
• 6:40
  of the Dave story, We'll get to that in a second, but has
• 6:42
  there been a cool moment for you that kind of validates that, like,
• 6:45
  yeah, I'm I'm where I'm supposed to be. Like maybe a big name
• 6:47
  reads out and it's like, hey, I'm a fan, or you know,
• 6:49
  somebody saw you at a show and you know what I mean, like
• 6:53
  like somebody who's been doing it and kind of reached out and it's like,
• 6:56
  hey, you're you're on the right path. Man. You know, I
• 7:02
  was coming up with sons of fathers and and you know, we were just
• 7:08
  struggling. Gas was four dollars and twenty cents a gallon, and you know
• 7:12
  we were making three hundred bucks a show with some cheeseburgers, you know,
• 7:15
  pretty much, and just in the just dead minus negative bank accounts everywhere,
• 7:25
  and all of a sudden, my manager calls me out of the blue and
• 7:28
  says, hey, it's Marty. This is Marty. I got some crazy
• 7:32
  herecot then I got some crazy and I'm like, yeah, what's say.
• 7:34
  He's like, oh, You're never gonna believe it. He said, You're
• 7:38
  gonna play the grand ol Opry And I said what what. I'm like,
• 7:42
  yeah, oh, yeah was July twenty four. You're gonna play the Grandel
• 7:45
  Up. I was like, wait, you like twenty first. I was
• 7:46
  like, that's my grandfather's birthday. He said, oh great, he said,
• 7:50
  there'll be the un spirit and I kind of like that. So we
• 7:53
  show up and we get up there to the opry and Sonny Curtis from Buddy
• 8:01
  Holly into Crickets is there, and you know, my whole family's there,
• 8:07
  and he basically comes up and he's like, you know, you're a granddad
• 8:11
  back in the fifties, was out in Lubbock with all of us, and
• 8:15
  he chose the church and your grandmother over rock and roll back in the fifties,
• 8:20
  and just know that he's the one who got you this gig. So
• 8:24
  he knew my granddad and Sonny Curtis was the one from the Crickets to hook
• 8:28
  it up. And it happened to be your granddad's birthday. Wow. Yeah,
• 8:35
  so that was the most amazing thing that they were happened to me,
• 8:39
  dude, I'm telling you. There was twelve fifteen, almost fifteen years after
• 8:43
  his death, and he was at my granddad's funeral and I was nine or
• 8:48
  ten years old, and he asked me, like, what I wanted to
• 8:50
  do when I grew up? You know, so he said, maybe seeing
• 8:56
  like my granddad. But just there's what a great dude, what a sixth
• 9:01
  story man. Thank you for sharing that. I appresive very much. You
• 9:05
  know, it was, it's came, it's it's been in phases, and
• 9:07
  I'm you know, God has a strong presence in my life and I just
• 9:11
  kind of followed the spirit and like I said, try to be a vessel.
• 9:15
  And you know, I've taken along against the grain road and not too
• 9:18
  many some people in the mainstream don't know me, but when you come to
• 9:22
  my show, you feel like you're my brother or my sister. You know
• 9:24
  when you're done. So that's kind of what I want to do. I
• 9:26
  do get that just by talking to you. I'm like, this is my
• 9:30
  guy right here. Yeah, listen. If you think I didn't put that
• 9:33
  Christmas party on my calendar, you're you just give me the date. Let
• 9:39
  me see what Christmas falls. Yeah, we're gonna jump into the iHeartRadio Music
• 9:43
  Festival in a minute here. But let me let me hear about this song
• 9:48
  that's coming out on the fifteenth, uh, twenty five Tequilas. Give me
• 9:54
  the story behind it, and it's it's a feel good song, and it's
• 9:56
  I feel like we've all been there at some point. Your twenty five tequelas
• 10:01
  is twenty five whiskeys or twenty five bourbons or whatever it is, right,
• 10:05
  but give us a story behind the song. And this is it's kind of
• 10:09
  a big handshake to to meeting a whole new audience when you put out a
• 10:11
  song at your level. Right. Yeah. You know, uh what I
• 10:16
  called my buddies, you know, Jay, some of my buddies like Randy
• 10:20
  Howser and Jamie Johnson, those kind of crazy guys like, man, you
• 10:24
  just should figure out and throw you a fastball down country radio. You know,
• 10:28
  throw you a fastball, man, It don't hurt nutting. So I
• 10:31
  was thinking about that for a minute, and I was like, you know,
• 10:35
  I've got all these songs with cuss words in it and stuff that the
• 10:37
  radio is not gonna take. But everybody's singing every word live. But you
• 10:41
  know, I'm just kind of against the grain and this whole thing. And
• 10:45
  then this song came across my desk, which I don't have a desk,
• 10:50
  uh so that's just a total It came. It came across the golf course
• 10:56
  and just was there and landed right there by the golf cart. And I
• 11:00
  looked at it, and John Deshus and Aaron ray Tier and mikey Reeves had
• 11:07
  this song called twenty five Tequilas and they're pitching it around and I think Morgan
• 11:13
  Wall and a bunch of other people heard it. And people were all about
• 11:16
  this song, and Sam Hunt and I named a lot of the top guys
• 11:22
  kind of wanted it, held it, passed on it kind of thing.
• 11:26
  And I listened to it and I was like, dude, this is like
• 11:28
  an anthem, Like how the hell is this thing fallen through the cracks?
• 11:33
  And so I went into the studio and muscle shoals with my band, and
• 11:39
  I was like guys. I know this is against what we're recording right now,
• 11:43
  and I think that this is a little bit off from center and what
• 11:46
  we're used to. But just bear with me. Let's cut this song,
• 11:50
  you know, and you know I'm gonna ride a little bit on it and
• 11:54
  finish it up. So twenty five Tequilas was cutting muscle Shoals it fames videos
• 12:01
  and we bring it back, we mix it up a little bit, and
• 12:03
  my manager John Pets is like, man, I like it, but I
• 12:07
  feel like we can bring it home a little bit more. Why don't I
• 12:11
  throw it over to my buddy Jay Joyce and let him throw a mix and
• 12:15
  a little little some sauce on it. And so Jay got the song and
• 12:18
  it just turned into a like a monster yeah. And so I was like,
• 12:22
  well, we're gonna roll with this, you know, I mean,
• 12:26
  might as well. We're just gonna follow the spirit here twenty five Tequila as
• 12:28
  it is, and I believe the song. You know, I don't just
• 12:33
  sing anything like I like I'm thinking about the crowd. I'm not thinking about
• 12:37
  radio much, you know. You know, I don't think about what I'm
• 12:39
  trying to get on the radio at all times. I'm thinking about what's gonna
• 12:43
  make that crowd shake their tail, you know, and enjoy their evening and
• 12:48
  drink more beer and buy shirts and enjoy themselves, you know what I mean,
• 12:52
  make them forget about the real world for a minute. And this song
• 12:56
  just as like, man, this is a this is gonna be blasting,
• 13:00
  you know, like if people are gonna sing it, it's infectious. And
• 13:03
  it was just kind of one of those you know, it's pretty pretty easy
• 13:05
  decision to just put it out. What do you do your own thing?
• 13:09
  Right, Like you're you don't like to stray from from your sound or maybe
• 13:15
  what you believe or a song that connects with you. This one connected.
• 13:18
  But let me ask you, knowing that guys like Sam Hunt and Morgan Wallen
• 13:22
  maybe held it, passed on it, you know, said I'll come back
• 13:24
  to it later, whatever it was, is any part of you like,
• 13:28
  did it pique your attention more because those names were attached to it? No?
• 13:33
  Uh, Well, the fact that I mean, you know, uh,
• 13:39
  the fact that those guys on that caliber passed on it, you know,
• 13:43
  it was just like, you know, it kind of made me double
• 13:48
  listen to it, maybe listen a little bit more attentively because why did they
• 13:54
  pass on it? You know, it was kind of my question, not
• 13:56
  like they passed on it. If they passed on it, I shouldn't do
• 14:00
  it. Like I wasn't gonna be like that and just be like maybe they
• 14:03
  were kind of kind of tone deaf to this one, you know. But
• 14:07
  they I'm glad they did. Glad they passed on it. Oh, it's
• 14:11
  awesome, we love it. But then I got mad at the songer.
• 14:13
  I was like, why do I have to be the fifth son of a
• 14:16
  gun to hear this? And so I got it. Now I'm just writing
• 14:20
  with them direct. Now. I was like, boys, unt and where
• 14:24
  you tell me when you pass this thing? To reab A mcintar, all
• 14:30
  right, tell you want to set up we'll talk about the festival real quick.
• 14:31
  Here, should have talking the same voice? Yeah, okay, ah,
• 14:39
  Rod just called me. Now while we're sitting here talking to you,
• 14:43
  let me make sure I didn't miss anything like Rob from Robin Big No,
• 14:46
  I wish your dick ah the middle of the interviews. I'll never not see
• 14:56
  it if you watch that show that I used to watch the hell out of
• 15:01
  that show likes. I'm sorry, man, got it I mean it's bad.
• 15:11
  Same, that's it takes us all day to do something that should take
• 15:15
  twenty minutes. She's usually like, hey, can we Hey? Can we
• 15:18
  Hey? I'm like, hang on, I'm watching the video. I gotta
• 15:22
  tell you. We heard this story about how Paul Coughin was invited to the
• 15:26
  iHeart Radio Music Festival. We're excited to have him. Night one, Friday,
• 15:30
  Night two. Saturday is the night that you're a part of. I
• 15:33
  almost forgot to say Saturday. Yeah, Saturday, we were just talking about
• 15:37
  that seven pm Saturday. But the cool thing is, uh, the iHeart
• 15:41
  Radio Music Festival is iconic. Some of the biggest names in every music genre
• 15:45
  have played this thing. Some of the most insane collaborations have happened at this
• 15:48
  festival. You are a part of it this year. So before we ask
• 15:52
  how that happened, what does it mean to you, especially where you're at
• 15:56
  in your career. Really like kind of stepping into mainstream. I don't want
• 15:58
  to say for the first time, but you're very much introducing yourself to people.
• 16:03
  This is gonna be a building full of people that are probably seeing you
• 16:04
  for the first time. Yeah, So what does that mean for you to
• 16:07
  be a part of this festival. Man. Uh, it's just all I'm
• 16:11
  very lucky. You know, there's so many people that want to want to
• 16:14
  do this. It's a shot in the dark to have an opportunity like this,
• 16:18
  especially the circumstance that I'm in and how it went down. You know,
• 16:23
  my team gets a gets a call from uh, you know, Dave
• 16:29
  Grohls team and they're like, Dave. Girls like, I'm a fan,
• 16:33
  let's put him on. And I guess what Dave Grohl says goes, so
• 16:37
  thank you, Dave. I've never met you. I love your work,
• 16:41
  you know, I'm I'm obsessed with everything they've done. You know, Chris
• 16:47
  Shifflet and I his guitar player from the Food Fighters, have have cross pads
• 16:51
  a lot. We used to share the same management and we became friends.
• 16:56
  I did his podcast and so I'm assuming maybe he showed him the music.
• 17:02
  But I don't know how this all went down. Man, I'm just kind
• 17:03
  of following what's laid before me. But being an iHeart this festival. I
• 17:08
  mean, I know it's just a you know, you get a huge,
• 17:12
  huge fan base and like you said, new listeners, and that's all I
• 17:17
  ever want to do is put turn new people onto this music. Dave Grol
• 17:21
  better be careful because if this goes well for you, he might get a
• 17:23
  side hustle as someone whose book and show us for us moving forward. Yeah,
• 17:27
  you know, he might just be He just might be turning the actual
• 17:30
  key in this business. We just don't know that's true. If we're figuring
• 17:33
  out when did your career change, well, Dave Grohl made a call.
• 17:38
  So Dave Grol, lead singer of the Foo Fighters food Fighters a part of
• 17:42
  the iHeart Radio Music Festival as well coming up in Vegas September twenty second.
• 17:47
  It's twenty three. What does it mean for you knowing that? Like,
• 17:49
  you had no clue that Dave Grol as a fan, right, no clue.
• 17:53
  It was a surprise. You know, Angela calls and she's freaking out
• 17:59
  on the phone. It's a huge and she's like, you don't know how
• 18:02
  big this is. You really don't understand how big this is. I was
• 18:06
  like, is this Christmas or something? Because she, you know, Angela's
• 18:10
  freaking out and she don't freak out unless something's big is gone down. So
• 18:12
  I was like, okay, so tell me how it goes down. You
• 18:17
  know, and she's like, well, Dave Grohls, the one who did
• 18:18
  this, Like I mean, you're like wanting a gazillion people that want to
• 18:22
  play this, and so I'm like, heck, yeah, let's go.
• 18:25
  You know, I've been on the road since two thousand and seven, so
• 18:27
  no gig really's just like whoa, you know, I'm like, I'm ready
• 18:30
  to go, set stage up, I'm gonna burn it down, like I
• 18:33
  don't care. That's so I'm so excited for you. And the cool thing
• 18:37
  is what I love most is Dave Growls massive name. Oh yeah, I
• 18:41
  heart Radio Music Festival, one of the biggest stages in live music. And
• 18:45
  like I feel like you're not that You're like cool, but you're like,
• 18:48
  all right, I'm ready, let's go, d But you're not like when
• 18:52
  you're freaking out right. No, no, not at all. It's the
• 18:53
  last thing I'm worried. I'm worried about everything else other than on stage.
• 18:57
  He's the only thing I worry about. Stage and playing and songs is the
• 19:03
  gift, you know, and giving it to the people and them singing it
• 19:07
  back is the most awesome gift given from God that I've ever received, you
• 19:14
  know, and I just want to be in that cycle all the time.
• 19:17
  So when I get the opportunity, whether it's five people at Bucky's Bar and
• 19:21
  Grill in Springfield or it's you know, however, many thousand people will probably
• 19:27
  seventeen thousand people at this arena or eighteen thousand if we ignore fire code,
• 19:32
  which we might eighteen. Well, now that I'm now that I'm there and
• 19:34
  there's got it, I mean I'm good for at least five thousand tickets.
• 19:37
  Maybe we're gonna Paul Cotin is coming to Vegas part of the iHeart Radio Music
• 19:42
  Festival. Hey, we're glad to have you. Congrat Thank you so much.
• 19:47
  Man, I'm stoked about it. Well, we'll have us some adult
• 19:49
  beverages there in Vegas and maybe pull some slot machines penny slots only though.
• 19:55
  Okay, I'm taking ten dollars bills from grandma, and I'm my grandmother.
• 20:00
  I took her to Vegas Thanksgiving a few years ago and took her my mom.
• 20:04
  We went to Vegas for Thanksgiving, and my grandmother gave her three hundred
• 20:08
  bucks and I said, all right, Grandma, it's time to go win
• 20:11
  some money. You go over there to slot machines. I'm gonna go over
• 20:12
  here and play roulette, and my mom is gonna go play poker, and
• 20:15
  we're gonna come back here in about thirty minutes, forty five minutes. See
• 20:18
  where we're at. Yeah, grandmother comes back in about five minutes, tapping
• 20:22
  on my shoulder at the roulette table. I'm like, what is going on?
• 20:26
  She's sitting honey. This machine over here took all of that money,
• 20:30
  and I said what, So I went over there. She was doing max
• 20:34
  bet on penny slots and throwing in one hundred dollars Crisp bills on each bet,
• 20:41
  so three bets, three bills, Bye bye. I was like,
• 20:45
  this ain't the Golden nugget and sixty four soup Paul, what are you doing?
• 20:52
  So we put her back in the room and said you do not leave
• 20:53
  here at do We're gone. I'm just kidding. She gave her some more
• 20:56
  money. It was just a hell of losing money, but by god,
• 21:00
  we're gonna win this time. This. iHeartRadio, the vibes here, Dave
• 21:03
  Grohl, the whole thing. It's all perfect circular vibes, and I think
• 21:07
  I might be going home with the big jackpot. Listen and I'm gonna sit
• 21:11
  right next to you to make sure I win. Someone. Let's go.
• 21:14
  We'll spill drinks.