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Songwriter & Recording Artist Wes King on the Creative Life · The Daily Writer

0:06
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
0:14
SPEAKER_02: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider starter kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
0:22
SPEAKER_02: So this is one of those podcast conversations that's still a little bit baffling to me because I'm shocked that it actually happened.
0:29
SPEAKER_02: Let me explain.
0:31
SPEAKER_02: When I was a student in college way back in the Dark Ages, and by Dark Ages I mean the early 1990s, I was introduced to the music of Christian recording artist Wes King.
0:41
SPEAKER_02: My good friend Jeff Hogan was a guitar player and a worship leader, and we were great friends.
0:46
SPEAKER_02: And one day I was in his apartment on campus and he said, You've got to listen to this guy named Wes King.
0:52
SPEAKER_02: He's a really incredible musician.
0:54
SPEAKER_02: I love his music.
0:55
SPEAKER_02: And the first song that Jeff played for me was Wes King's song Life on the Vine from his album Sticks and Stones.
1:02
SPEAKER_02: And from that moment I was immediately hooked.
1:05
SPEAKER_02: I was a massive Wes King fan, and I have remained so literally for decades.
1:11
SPEAKER_02: In the 1990s and early 2000s, Wes released a number of incredible albums, including the ultimate underlying, no-denying motivation, the aforementioned Sticks and Stones, The Robe, Common Creed, A Room Full of Stories, What Matters Most, and also Invention, which was a collaborative album with fellow guitar virtuosos Scott Dente and Phil Cagey.
1:36
SPEAKER_02: Now Wes has also written songs with and collaborated with many, many other Christian artists over the years, such as Michael W.
1:43
SPEAKER_02: Smith, Amy Grant, Kim Hill, Gordon Kennedy, and most recently Point of Grace on their album that just came out a few months ago when he collaborated with them on a cover of his song, I believe.
1:57
SPEAKER_02: Wes is known as an insightful, lyrical, and theologically minded writer, not to mention an amazing world-class level guitarist.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: And I couldn't begin to tell you how many hours that I have devoted over the years to figuring out how to play some of his songs and the crazy tunings that a lot of those songs are in.
2:17
SPEAKER_02: So you can imagine my surprise when a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit Wes in his home in Franklin, Tennessee to meet him in person and record this interview.
2:27
SPEAKER_02: This conversation drifted to a range of issues, including his music career, songwriting, the creative life, theology, and a lot more.
2:36
SPEAKER_02: I absolutely enjoy this conversation as much as you can possibly humanly enjoy any conversation and was really just shocked that I had the opportunity to do this.
2:47
SPEAKER_02: And I just want to express my thanks to Wes for allowing me to come into his home and take up a couple of hours of uh of a Friday morning and and get to talk about so many interesting topics.
2:58
SPEAKER_02: Now, one quick note before I shared this interview with you.
3:01
SPEAKER_02: We were not in the studio for this conversation.
3:04
SPEAKER_02: Instead, I used a small digital recorder, so this has kind of a different sound than my typical Zoom interviews.
3:10
SPEAKER_02: But I hope you enjoy it and much more importantly, I hope that you check out Wes's music if you're not already familiar with it.
3:16
SPEAKER_02: You can also connect with him on Facebook, and there are links to Wes' music on Spotify as well as his Facebook page in the show notes, so make sure and check that out.
3:25
SPEAKER_02: Alright, I hope you enjoy my conversation with the talented, amazing, and incredibly generous Wes King.
3:32
SPEAKER_02: So, Wes, uh it's good to have you on the Daily Writer Podcast.
3:35
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of different.
3:36
SPEAKER_02: Number one, because we're sitting literally in your kitchen.
3:38
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
3:39
SPEAKER_02: Uh, number two, because I've been a fan of your music for literally decades.
3:43
SPEAKER_02: And it's just really cool to meet you in person.
3:45
SPEAKER_02: It's almost kind of surreal.
3:47
SPEAKER_02: You know, not that I'm trying to have a fanboy moment, but literally when you've listened to somebody's music for hundreds of hours over your life, and it's like, oh, like I'm actually getting to meet themselves.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, it's it I I think that music is such a um it's such it's it's such a bonding agent.
4:06
SPEAKER_02: Right.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: Right.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, because you you you share an experience.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: You you know, you shared the same experience at different times with the emotion of the song.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: And so I I get it.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean I'm I'm that way with uh with with people that I've met and music and writers, same thing.
4:27
SPEAKER_02: It's funny that you mentioned music is so emotional because I literally remember I was a freshman in college, this would have been 1992, the fall of 1992.
4:36
SPEAKER_02: My good friend Jeff Hogan, he was married, um went to a small Christian college in North St.
4:42
SPEAKER_02: Louis, and I was in his apartment, and he talked about this newer artist named Wes King.
4:47
SPEAKER_02: True story.
4:48
SPEAKER_02: What year would his this was 92, and so he played uh Your Sticks and Stones album.
4:55
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
4:55
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh my gosh, this is so cool.
4:58
SPEAKER_02: And then it was so funny because he was a role, he was kind of a rock and roller.
5:01
SPEAKER_02: Uh he listened to you know a lot of rock music and stuff, and I felt so dumb when when he played um what is what's the first Life on the Vine?
5:11
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
5:12
SPEAKER_02: Um how did you know I was gonna say that?
5:13
SPEAKER_02: Because Led Zeppelin.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and he that was just the coolest thing in the world to him.
5:21
SPEAKER_02: And just like, oh, this is so amazing.
5:22
SPEAKER_02: So that's how I get introduced to your music.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: That's that's awesome.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh, so yeah, for me, you know, I I my older brother and older sisters listen to uh Jackson Brown, Neil Young, Dan Fogelberg.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: All the good 70s stuff.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: All the good stuff, which is still the best music, I think.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, my my musical um vocabulary was shaped by you know the stuff that was on the radio, blaring in our house or in the car.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, those those things just come out of you, you know, when you're when you're writing something.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't I never sat down to go, I want to write something where I could do this.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: It just kind of happens, you know.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: And uh, but I think that's I think that's very I think that's a very um effective thing to do in music is to is to do not, you know.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: It's like when somebody, you know, you meet somebody almost like sampling.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like a lot of artists.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was probably one of the first forms of because it Christian music especially didn't do that.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: Right.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, so I was a little bit of a reference.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: I was a little bit of a rebel, always have been.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, so yeah, that 92 would have been about the time when I was sort of, you know, it was a make or break for me.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: Sticks and stones uh was critically acclaimed.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: The first record motivation was critically acclaimed, but they didn't have any radio success, and they said, You gotta you've gotta have radio success if you're gonna have a career.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: And so that's when the robe came out, and uh and is that so your your records?
7:13
SPEAKER_02: I feel like I have a million questions, sorry.
7:15
SPEAKER_02: I guess that's why I do a podcast.
7:17
SPEAKER_02: So, like the robe and common creed, they they had a real different sound to them, yeah.
7:22
SPEAKER_02: You know, very a lot more radio friendly.
7:25
SPEAKER_02: How does that work whenever you're trying to have a different sound for an album?
7:30
SPEAKER_02: Is that really the producer?
7:31
SPEAKER_00: Yes, they play a really critical role in the overall kind of the sonic what it's like sonically and so Gary Chapman and Jerry McPherson produced the first two records.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: Um and both very talented.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: Um you know, and if you wanna if you look up Jerry McPherson, he's one of the most prolific guitarists um in the world, and a brilliant, brilliant uh player, brilliant musician.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, he brought uh he brought kind of a a raw rock and roll kind of vibe, which is kind of what I had with with an acoustic guitar, kind of an acoustic rock thing.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: But you can probably hear like uh I think the greatest thing Amy Grant ever did was um Leave Me On.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: Gosh, I love that album.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: And so Gare, that that was very much Gary, you know, was very involved in the uh in how that record turned out, the writing and the everything.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: So he brought that production sense, which I think worked really well for me, but it didn't work very well for the Christian radio audience.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: And um, but you know, it but what was good about it is it is that it kind of started it started increasing my fans and things like that.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: So they what they decided to do, uh reunion uh at the time decided to do is they wanted me to go with um they just wanted they wanted to change, and there was a faction that wanted me to change to something more pop, more here, and then there was somebody that then there that we just think you need to change, Wes, because you know uh sometimes the artists need that.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, that's gonna be kind of awkward because I'm friends with those guys.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: Right.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I had two choices.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: Um I really loved growing up, I don't know if you remember a guy named Mark Hurd.
9:29
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: I do.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: Loved Mark, um, loved his music.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: I didn't really know Mark, but I flew out to LA to meet with Mark and went to his house.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Well, this is where we'd be doing the record.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: And it was in his house in like this little closet, and I was like, ooh, that seems a little claustrophobic.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, and he just everybody that knew Mark loved him, but I think like a lot of creative people, he was a little hard to get to know.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: He just didn't like, we didn't hit like just hit it off right off.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, I kind of just don't know.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: I was like, uh, this seems this seems like it would have been a great idea, but the actual, you know, out, you know, the byproduct of this might be something that I don't, I just it caught, you know, made me doubt.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: The other option they wanted me to go with was Phil Nash, who had produced all of Stephen Curtis's six million hits.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: And um, so my wife and I talked about it, and uh I think uh we were like, yeah, I think we were first married, and we're like, we both felt really good about Phil.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: It's just you know a lot more kind of traditional, you know, I I you kind of know what you're gonna get.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: With Mark, it's all over the place.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: He was brilliant, but it's like, well, you just it's like it it could have been like a bluegrass record for all you know, with Mark.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, eh, you know, this is my this is this might be my last shot.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: So I went with Phil.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: And you know, Phil has a he has just a great pop sensibility, and and I feel like he was able to do he was able to maintain the little bit of that rawness that I had uh in songs like Martin Luther and I believe that real real aggressive, but he also is able to popify, you know, the rogue.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: Um things like that.
11:34
SPEAKER_02: So and somehow you you were able, you've always been able to work in some really interesting theological stuff in your songs, which to me was really, really unusual.
11:45
SPEAKER_02: And that to me, as a person who at that time in my life was very involved in church ministry and and those kinds of things, you know, studying the Bible and all that stuff.
11:54
SPEAKER_02: Um I thought that was really cool.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, growing up, I went to a little um Presbyterian church, and the pastor, I mean, it's like it's so small.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: The pastor is your youth director, you know?
12:10
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: And so he, uh, Warren Gardner, he really he made me memorize scripture, he made me read my Bible.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, all his he didn't give like little children's sermons.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: He was like, he was like loaded me down with with deep theology from a from an early age.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: And then I, when I was in middle grade school, all the way through high school, I did this thing called the 2-7 series by Navigator, by Nav Press.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: And um just sound, basic, good theology.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: And so that was ingrained in me at an you know at an early age.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: So whenever I would write something, I would, I would, I had this sense, like, am I is this right?
12:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't want but you know, this might rhyme, but it might not be right.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: It might sound good, but it might not be sound.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: And so I I would always consult, you know, my whoever my pastor would be at the time.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I I always tried to make sure that I had um, you know, that kind of accountability.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: And then also something that happened um a lot of my shows, like I said, I'm I I you know I grew up Presbyterian, and um, so I but I like I had this song of first record called Power in the Name, and um, and it almost sounds charismatic, you know.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: Like I oh, this guy must be charismatic or something.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: So I got invited to all these charismatic churches, and I'm not charismatic.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: So love Jesus, believe in the resurrection, you know, life after that, also um apostles' creed, but you know, I just, you know, that wasn't my thing, you know.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: And they would get me to want me to do this and do that, and I and I was like, uh I don't, and so I try to like, oh, I forgot or something, but you know, because I don't want to offend anybody.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: So this friend of mine, um, and you know, they'd want me to like be like a pastor and like not baptized, but all but baptized.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, look, I'm just a singer.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, I I don't, you know, I didn't go to seminary, you know, I'm not ordained.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, I was that's what I was gonna do.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: I was I thought I'll just be a pastor because I, you know, wasn't good at anything else, not very smart.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: And um, not that pastors aren't smart, but skill-wise.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: Um and so I was like, yeah, man, it there this is so awkward, and I feel bad, and blah blah blah.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, you know what?
14:59
SPEAKER_00: He goes, you ought to read uh Charles Spurgeon because it'll help you as a writer.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: He was a great writer, he was a very um sort of poetic preacher.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: And he said it at the end of his sermons, he always kind of did a um uh an invitation.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: So he said, You should you should read that, you should read him.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, it would be great for you.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, because I was complaining about it with him, he's my roommate, Kevin Twipp.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: And uh, so I go to the bookstore and I think I ordered it from the bookstore because I didn't have it.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: And I got it, and I started reading this book.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: I was like, man, this is amazing.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: This is great stuff.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: It's sound, but it's beautiful.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Like my my old pastor, a lot of times great theologians are terrible sermonizers, right?
15:51
SPEAKER_00: You know, and um Jonathan Edwards, they say, um, who was a big spark in the in the uh the the Great Awakening in the 1700s, would read his sermons by candlelight.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: That would not fly today, it wouldn't fly today, but man, it it's it's set it set um America on fire.
16:12
SPEAKER_02: It's not very tick tock friendly.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: Not very tick tock friendly.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: But but he was a great he was a great theologian and a great sermonizer, and um and I was like, wow, this is great.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: And then I I read this whole book.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: And the book is called Spurgeon's Sovereign Grace Sermons.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: And uh I think it's one of the last sermons in there uh where it's it's it's I forget what the topic was on, but he goes, Center, you know, you say you have no faith, you're right, you have no faith.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: Come as you are, and he'll give you the faith that you need.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: Um that's what sparked your idea.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: That's what sparked that that that whole song.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: So um I had uh if I don't know if you this is interesting to your listening audience here, but um really the these really serendipitous funny things that happen in your life when you do this, and you're just I'm I'm 57 now.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: But I had this song that I was writing for my sister who was in a kind of a horrible marriage.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: Um and and this the song is an F sharp minor.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: And uh and it's this cool little part, dunno, it's and it's it's very piano-like.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, you know how I play.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: It's it's I don't just sometimes just strum, but it's like so it's this dunno da da da da da da da da.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: So if I played it for you, you'd go, it reminds me of something.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, it was either that or the road.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: And all I had, I had my sister's song, well, I know there are differences between you and me.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: I know there's pain we can't see.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: Anyways, she and her husband were not communicating.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: So I was writing the song and I had that, and I can't remember, I had a chorus, I had two verses in a chorus, and that was it.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Everybody loved it.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: It's like that's so beautiful.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: That's that's it was like everybody said, that's unlike anything you've done.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: And but when I decided to work with Phil, I played Phil that, and I've never talked to him about this.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if he took that and like rearranged it, or if that sparked him, or if the robe was just just something he came up with.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: I can't, you know, I've never asked him this story, but it was very similar, and everybody's like, gosh.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: And I and the the AR guy was like, yeah, I really I like your your thing better than that robe music.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: That's Phil's music.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: And um and so we decided so that's when I wrote the the lyrics to the rope on there.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: And we still I think some people are like, Wow, which because we you know we gotta do this one, gotta do this one.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: But we were wondering about that one.
19:04
SPEAKER_02: How does that?
19:05
SPEAKER_02: I'm curious how how does that actually work whenever you're putting together an album of I assume usually 10 to 12 songs typically or something like that.
19:13
SPEAKER_02: So you know you're gonna do an album with this producer, I assume you have some kind of a release date.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: How does how does that process work?
19:21
SPEAKER_02: Like, do you just set up writing a bunch of songs around a certain theme or a certain style?
19:27
SPEAKER_02: Or how does all that come together?
19:29
SPEAKER_00: I think it's different for everybody, but I know what I did was I was just always writing, you know, and I was always reading and I was always writing, so I was always pursuing like um I loved um you know, writers like C.S.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: Lewis and G.K.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: Chesterton and Frederick Beatner.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, I love him.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: You know, just guys like that that have that creative, poetic um approach to everything.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: Right.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: Theology, love, um, doubt, hope, despair.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Um so I was just always pursuing that because I love that.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: I I still still to this day, I love I love reading great great books, which I can't wait to read yours.
20:18
SPEAKER_02: Oh, thanks.
20:19
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of their books were short, by the way.
20:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:21
SPEAKER_02: If you think of Frederick Biegner's books, there's these little short books like this.
20:25
SPEAKER_02: And uh I I think there's something to that.
20:27
SPEAKER_02: I think they're onto something.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean, because you probably know this, doing what you do.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: Um it seems like, I mean, I've I now I it's like now I can write a song.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: I can write a song pretty quick now.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: It might not be that great, it might be, it might be okay.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: But I know how to do it now.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: Right, you've got something to work with.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: Um I've there's just elements of what makes a song work, and and I and I feel like um, you know, like what we were talking about earlier, uh there's really this this it's good to have a script.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's good to have themes and things like that, but you can really play with things now.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: But I think a lot of times what happens in novels with you know with these publishers is they go, no, we need 220 pages.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: Oh, totally.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: And so and so you end up putting in these stor, like these side stories or things that you're like, okay, just get to the point.
21:28
SPEAKER_02: You know.
21:29
SPEAKER_02: Happens all the time in nonfiction books.
21:31
SPEAKER_02: I mean, whenever I contract for somebody to do a book, I mean, we always start out with a page count.
21:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:36
SPEAKER_02: Like always.
21:37
SPEAKER_02: It's because you have to kind of know up front, here's how much space you have to fill.
21:41
SPEAKER_02: Right.
21:42
SPEAKER_02: The downside of that is, well, what if you don't really have that much to say?
21:47
SPEAKER_02: Right.
21:47
SPEAKER_02: Then as a as a writer, you sort of feel like you have to concoct stuff sometimes.
21:52
SPEAKER_02: Or stretch it out or pat it a little bit.
21:54
SPEAKER_02: This is kind of the dirty little secrets of ghostwriting, I guess, but it is what it is.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that I mean Didn't um didn't books used to be released on in the papers, like in the newspapers for um or like or like they're how how the like the You mean like a serial?
22:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:12
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, yeah.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, back in the day.
22:15
SPEAKER_02: And that's it's funny how that has come back around.
22:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:17
SPEAKER_02: Because like the uh like the serial form of storytelling is really popular in podcasts.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: It's hugely popular.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, I was telling you about the uh the guy that I grew up with, his father, and all that.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh there's there's a podcast about about that very theme.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: It's called In the Red Clay.
22:38
unknown: Wow.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:39
SPEAKER_02: That's crazy.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:41
SPEAKER_02: It's wild.
22:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was right there where I grew up.
22:44
SPEAKER_02: I always wonder what it is about, especially right now, like on Netflix and other things, there's so many series and podcasts devoted to like true crime and murder mysteries.
22:53
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, what is it about that that attracts people so much?
22:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, I I've I have a family member who loves all like the like they really are intrigued by that.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm not so much, but I think one of the things that fascinates me is, you know, for example, you know, um when you when you look at why why is the world the way it is?
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Why at this time, you know, like I remember when I was first married, I'm not Catholic.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: I remember the Catholic Church, you know, saying uh that you can't be a good standing as a Catholic and be on birth control.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: And I remember kind of going, what's why?
23:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't understand that, you know.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: But as I've gotten older, it's like the thing, because because they said when when you separate sex with children, you're gonna have a lot of problems.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be a lot of unintended things, and we can see that today playing out.
23:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's been part of human history.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: But I I was all I I've I I love history, and so to me, it's like you know, you you you you get you think of something about NASCAR and like why do I mean why do people go to a ring and you know, big stadium, watch people go round and round and round?
24:17
SPEAKER_00: And and then what does that have to do with World War I?
24:20
SPEAKER_00: And then what does that have to do with organized crime?
24:22
SPEAKER_00: Yes, because it's all connected, it's all connected, you know, and uh it so you know World War I, you had shell shock, you had the the young men coming home, the fathers coming home, and the wives and the and and the uh and the mothers were like, what do I do with this person who is completely obliterated emotionally and they wouldn't work and they didn't go to church?
24:47
SPEAKER_00: So the so while they're away, the women all started you know running the church.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: So that hasn't that has an influence on how on Christianity, on you know, and and so so the men medicate themselves, get drunk, and they're they turn into you know alcoholics.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: So then the women push the temperance movement and the prohibition, and well then that gives us uh uh moonshine, and and the guys, and so the guys would uh soup their cars up so they could outrun the law with their moonshine.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: And that so that that that gives us uh uh you know I think that gave us the FBI.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't be surprised.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: But but so it's like I think all these things, like you know, the crime, this crime, this crime, the organized crime started happening because of something, but maybe a good intention and maybe an unnecessary war, which you know it seems like we're plagued with for eternity.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: These unnecessary wars.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: We send our we send our young men to fight these wars, and they come back, you know, either blown apart or have their face missing.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: And uh all for what?
25:59
SPEAKER_00: All for what, you know.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: Um if if we're fighting for something good and we're fighting evil, I'm all for it.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's in me.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: But you know, it it just seems like this is to me, this podcast like this.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'll listen to podcasts, and you know, when P it's like when I was young, you know, you you you were told this is this is the deal.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: We're the good guys and they're the bad guys.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, you know, okay, that sounds good.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden you you start hearing a little bit, well, did you know this?
26:32
SPEAKER_00: And did you know this?
26:33
SPEAKER_00: It's like, whoa, wait a second, and that's a horse of a different color, you know, and I that's what I love about what, you know, I think some of the some of the things that are getting out are just unhealthy and destructive, but there are other things that I think are are causing people to stand up and go, wait just a second.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: Wait, before I sign this, yeah, I want to know a little bit more.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: Whereas used to, I think we just signed off on everything.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: Well, because the guy on TV said it.
27:01
SPEAKER_02: Well, there's there seems like it seems like we have a lot more mistrust in any kind of institution than there was even like when we were kids, you know.
27:09
SPEAKER_02: You have church, the government, uh, even like the Supreme Court, which when I was a kid, that nobody would ever have doubted that.
27:16
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
27:17
SPEAKER_02: But but there is like a loss of trust in any kind of institutions.
27:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:21
SPEAKER_02: I suppose that's healthy.
27:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:23
SPEAKER_02: Because something has to kind of rise up from the ashes of that at some point, which is how the way the civilization works.
27:28
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, you know, things rise and fall, and yeah.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's like Rome, you know, basically.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, and so many other civilizations that that we probably don't even know about.
27:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, it's yeah, it's it's fat.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: It I think it's a very, it's a we are at the tipping point in the in the world right now.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: Um I think everybody senses it too.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:54
SPEAKER_02: We're kind of on the verge of something.
27:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:57
SPEAKER_02: Nobody really knows quite sure what it is.
27:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:00
SPEAKER_02: But that there's something that's kind of fundamentally different than it has been in our lifetimes.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: And I and I and I think it's more than just information.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: Um it's it's um, yeah, and I I have no idea what it is, but the world is changing.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: And you know, my my sons, their uh twins are 25 and George is 20.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: And I never thought I would be that parent that doesn't kind of understand what's going on, man.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but you know, they they have like them telling me the the dating landscape is just mind-boggling.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: The the I I don't know.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: I'd probably I'd probably just become a monk or something uh with with the stuff that they tell me about how drastically, you know, different it is.
28:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't know how you would function.
28:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:52
SPEAKER_02: I mean, being being like a Gen Xer, I'm like, okay, you know, we were sort of the last generation to grow up.
28:58
SPEAKER_02: You could go outside and play all day, or you could go ride your bike all day.
29:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:01
SPEAKER_02: There was no phone, no internet.
29:02
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there was phone, no cell phones, right?
29:04
SPEAKER_02: No internet.
29:05
SPEAKER_02: And I kind of miss that.
29:06
SPEAKER_02: God's gonna sound old.
29:08
SPEAKER_02: But it's kind of hard.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: It really wasn't that long ago.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: I know.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when you start doing when you start breaking this down, like, yeah, 1990, whatever.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: Like, I didn't have like I didn't have a phone.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: No.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: But look, 2000, really.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: The year 2000.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it where it's like a big phone?
29:25
SPEAKER_00: It was like a big phone.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: You gotta carry on your belt.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it's just, and I think what, you know, it's kind of hard to know, like, uh, because you got the you got the the uh fossil fuel people fighting fighting the electric people, you know, the and it's like, okay, who's who's right in all this?
29:49
SPEAKER_00: Are they both a little right?
29:50
SPEAKER_00: Are they both wrong?
29:51
SPEAKER_00: Is it all just because you know, when you find out, when you find out uh what what we were sold and how it was sold to us, it's like, okay, well, you did that back here, now we know that.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: How are we supposed to trust you now?
30:07
SPEAKER_00: And like what you're saying about the institutions is like um this guy, Antonio Gramsci, have you ever heard of him?
30:14
SPEAKER_00: No.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: So um there was uh in the just just before um right after World War I, there was something called the Frankfurt School in Germany, and um it was basically a Marxist kind of outfit, and they were kind of taking over powerful places in Germany.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, they tended to be Jewish, so Hitler came to power, they ran them out.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: A lot of them came here and uh they went to Columbia University, and basically they're very smart, so they took over Columbia University.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: And so what what Antonio Gramsky who was no no, that's somebody else.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: But what Gramsky said is we you know the only way we're going to overthrow the American kind of uh Christian patriarchal kind of thing is if we do the slow march through the institutions.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: We we need to take over education, we need to take over entertainment, we need to take over government, and we need to take we need to take over their religion.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: And they've done it.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, it's like you know, some of the denomin denominations I've been involved with, they're they're going, they're they're they're going away from a biblical-based thing.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: It's like we we need to change this because this doesn't what?
31:43
SPEAKER_00: You know, the last I checked, Christianity was supposed to change me.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: Right.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: Right?
31:48
SPEAKER_00: Right.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm not supposed to change Christianity to make it fit me, but that's what a lot of these churches are doing.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, so the so the institutions uh have been taken over, and you're like, okay, there's either going to be like a a reformation, a revolution, or a combination, because I think there, you know, there are people that are just kind of in in the dark on it.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: There are people that are waking up to it, and of those people there are the you know, the angry, and then there are the there's the the people that are going, how do we how do we reform this?
32:22
SPEAKER_00: The angry is the revolution.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: That's when you see that's when you see buildings burn, you know, you see violence.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: So what you know, what I hope happens is a reformation.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: But that's a that's a loaded word to some people, you know, because so many so so so much of what people want to do is is is revolutionist.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: Like destroy, tear these statues down.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's revolution.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: That's revolt, you know.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: And reformation is, hey, why don't we keep this one up and remember what was good about it and remember what was bad about it, right?
32:59
SPEAKER_00: And put this one right next to it, you know, that's that symbolizes, you know, whatever it is that you know we want to remember now.
33:08
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes we throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, you know.
33:11
SPEAKER_02: Like we sometimes in our in our rush to throw out older traditions and bring in change, we we don't stop and think about well, what's actually good about what we're doing.
33:20
SPEAKER_02: Right.
33:20
SPEAKER_02: Maybe we can keep that.
33:22
SPEAKER_02: And but I guess that's just human nature.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, it is.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: But it but it's it's reformation versus um rev revolution.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: You can talk about that.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: That's really good.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: GK Chesterton says if you ever come upon a fence before you tear it down, you might want to figure out why it was put up to begin with.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: That's really good.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you maybe you do want to tear it down, but but you might want to find out why you tore it, why it was there to begin with.
33:48
SPEAKER_02: We'll get back to the conversation with Wes King here in just a minute, but I want to take a short break to give a shout out to today's sponsor, Vellum Book Formatting Software.
33:58
SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you a super quick story.
33:59
SPEAKER_02: So earlier this week, actually not this week, because this episode comes out a couple weeks later than what I'm actually recording it.
34:06
SPEAKER_02: But a couple weeks ago, I was talking with a newish writer.
34:09
SPEAKER_02: This is a gentleman who's into self-publishing.
34:12
SPEAKER_02: He's written a book or two, but he's was looking for some better solutions for self-publishing.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: And I mentioned my experience with Vellum book formatting software.
34:21
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34:29
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34:34
SPEAKER_02: Now, the cool thing was we were on a Zoom call, and so I did a screen share of a book that I had recently formatted, one of my books in Vellum, and it was so much fun just to see to see this uh this new friend of mine just ooh and ah over how fun and easy and cool it was to use Vellum.
34:51
SPEAKER_02: And that's the experience that pretty much everybody has whenever they use Vellum.
34:55
SPEAKER_02: They ooh and ah over it because it's kind of like getting into, you know, if you've ever like had a friend or family member who has a really nice car and you sit in it and you get to take it for a drive, and it's like, oh my gosh, I never knew that riding in a car could be so much fun, or that you could have such a cool experience in a car that made the journey really, really enjoyable.
35:15
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35:38
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35:42
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35:44
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35:47
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35:57
SPEAKER_02: I'm not necessarily saying to do that, but you know, I've heard of people doing that, and my goodness, I think Vellum is important enough to my workflow that if I were a hardcore PC user, I'd probably buy a used Mac just to have Vellum on it.
36:12
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36:15
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36:17
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36:21
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36:23
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36:24
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36:25
SPEAKER_02: It's gonna make your life a lot easier, I promise.
36:28
SPEAKER_02: All right, back to the conversation with Wes King.
36:31
SPEAKER_02: Well, I want to respect your time.
36:32
SPEAKER_02: I do have a couple more questions.
36:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, hit me.
36:34
SPEAKER_02: Um just something that I'm really, really curious about uh and how it works as a recording artist.
36:40
SPEAKER_02: So you've recorded with a lot of people, you've written with a lot of people.
36:44
SPEAKER_02: How does it work?
36:45
SPEAKER_02: Let's say if you and Michael W.
36:47
SPEAKER_02: Smith get together and you write a song or two, what actually happens with that song?
36:53
SPEAKER_02: When you sit down to write, do you, based on what you've created, do you have sort of a pathway for that song to go on?
37:01
SPEAKER_02: This record or that record, or maybe so-and-so would be interested in recording this, or let's just hang on to it and let's just see what happens to it.
37:08
SPEAKER_02: How does that process typically work?
37:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, with Michael, Michael and I, uh, we haven't written anything in a while, but we usually write a good a good amount.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: Um Usually Michael's that Michael's, he's like me, he's just always writing.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: It's just there's always something he's working on.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: And then he'll I think what he'll do sometimes is he'll throw it, throw the music to me, throw it to Cindy, you know, and he'll pick you know his favorite.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he has something specifically he wants me to write.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Wes, I just know you're supposed to write this.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: And so I will I'll I'll send I'll write something and he'll go, I love it, or yeah, it's not quite there.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: Um or he'll like it and forget about it.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: We've got like we've got to be a we probably have a whole project together of songs that we've both forgotten about.
38:06
SPEAKER_00: Um so you know, because there was this one, there was this one that I wrote about that he gave he gave me this music, and I think it was when the when the space shuttle crack, you know, crashed.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: What year was that?
38:23
SPEAKER_02: Was it 20?
38:24
SPEAKER_02: Uh for some reason I'm thinking 2011.
38:26
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: Maybe yeah, so that sounds about right.
38:28
SPEAKER_02: But the Columbia?
38:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: Um but the the the lyric I remember we totally forgot about it because we were talking about something, because he's doing something for NASA.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: I think he's doing something for NASA.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: Something.
38:42
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, yeah, it's like, you remember that song that we wrote about the space shuttle?
38:47
SPEAKER_00: He's like, no, what?
38:48
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Above the sky, we heard it see an angel with a broken wing fly to the moon.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: You love to assume.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: I am not doing the the the melody justice, but it sounds beautiful.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: It was a beautiful song, and he's like, Oh, and he goes on, he's he's like me, he's has a bad, I think a bad memory about things.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: But uh but like uh Gordon Kennedy and I uh wrote a song and we were sitting out there on my porch and I was like, I got this little ditty, you know.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: So I started playing.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Yeah, that's cool.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: He goes, then what what if we go here?
39:36
SPEAKER_00: And then so we we came up with music, and then a week later he comes over and uh he says, Well what what's this gonna be about?
39:45
SPEAKER_00: I said I I don't know.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: So we start talking talking and um he goes well he goes, Well I have this I have this thing, like he goes, you know, because I feel like um how did he say it?
39:58
SPEAKER_00: He said something like um you know, like I feel like I'm I I aim and I miss the mark.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: And or I said that you know, I said, I feel like I just sometimes I aim and I miss the mark a lot.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, you know, Wes, he goes, I think we're just supposed to shoot the arrow, and then God paints the bullseye wherever the arrow lands.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: I was like, that's really good.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: So the song's called The Arrow, and um, and then so then we're like, all right, what's the course about?
40:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I don't know.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: And then we get off on a conversation, and I go, I I don't know, I I live in my head a lot.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: He goes, There, there it is.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: I live inside my head.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, but your heart is where I where my I live inside my head.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: It's your heart.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: It's where you but my heart is where you live instead.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: That's something like that.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: But so anyway, we're hopefully I got the files.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna put the guitar, my guitar part down on that.
40:58
SPEAKER_02: So sometimes it it's a process of you're creating something that doesn't have a home yet.
41:02
SPEAKER_02: Right.
41:03
SPEAKER_02: But sometimes if you're working on a specific project, you're writing toward that project, yes, whatever that is.
41:08
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean it it it I think some people sit down and they go, I want to write a uh I want to write a uh a record, and here's the theme.
41:19
SPEAKER_00: And so you you map it out like that.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: I never did that.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: I kind of think I'd kind of like to do that because I think that would be cool.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: Michael Carr does that all the time.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh but for me, it was just uh, you know, I started here and I I wound up here along here.
41:35
SPEAKER_00: I wrote this because this happened, this happened, and this happened.
41:38
SPEAKER_00: And you know, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of lot.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I was gonna the thing I was gonna tell you about this this kind of goes in what you're saying.
41:48
SPEAKER_00: Um remember how I told you we we were gonna go with that my sister's song of the road?
41:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, I had a demo that I made at my house, I guess on a tape recorder or something, of that song.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: And years and years and years and years later, I'm in a house concert.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: And oh gosh, what is wrong with me?
42:09
SPEAKER_00: I can't think of this guy's name.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: He's a great, he does a lot of funny songs.
42:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh oh like a Christian comedian type of a thing?
42:19
SPEAKER_00: No, he he's he's a great writer, his wife's a great singer, and they sing, do things together.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: They they tour with Andrew Peterson a lot.
42:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh the the Christmas show.
42:31
SPEAKER_00: What is his name?
42:32
SPEAKER_00: I can't I mean I've had him over my house.
42:35
SPEAKER_00: This is chemo brain, this is what I was thinking of.
42:37
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, he's a brilliant writer.
42:40
SPEAKER_00: Um if I think of it, I'll actually see his name, but um we're at a house concert, you know, right down the road here, these friends of ours with uh Jill and Andy Gillihorn.
42:56
SPEAKER_01: Yes, okay.
42:56
SPEAKER_00: Andy Gillihorn.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: Um and I don't know Andy, right?
43:01
SPEAKER_00: Um but I'm I'm there and he's like Wes King's here.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: Wes, would you do a song?
43:09
SPEAKER_00: I was like, sure, okay, you know.
43:11
SPEAKER_00: So I do a song, and then they take a break.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, hey man, thanks for being here, and blah blah blah, and everybody's getting drinks and snacks and stuff.
43:20
SPEAKER_00: And he gets his guitar and he goes, Hey man, you know this song right here?
43:23
SPEAKER_00: And he starts playing that song that I didn't cut on the road record.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going, and I am I'm going, This is I never I didn't even finish the song, so I never would have played it live.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, and he's doing he's doing like that intricate part.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, How do you know?
43:42
SPEAKER_00: And he starts singing it.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: I said, How do you know this song?
43:46
SPEAKER_00: It was like, are you some kind of a you know, you know something mystical going on here?
43:52
SPEAKER_00: Something mystical going on here.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, he goes, I was the I worked at Reunion Records, I was an intern, and they made me Catalog all their artists' writers' songs.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I always love that song.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: And he played it for me.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: But that you don't know what happens to songs sometimes.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: What happened?
44:11
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they just die.
44:12
SPEAKER_00: They just unfinished songs sitting somewhere in some, you know, warehouse that nobody knows about.
44:19
SPEAKER_00: But Andy pulled that song up.
44:21
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty wild.
44:22
SPEAKER_02: So what is the deal with?
44:24
SPEAKER_02: I feel like Jerry Seinfeld, you're like, what's the deal with?
44:27
SPEAKER_02: But you hear all the time of artists who have like all these backlog of songs.
44:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:34
SPEAKER_02: You know, like for example, Prince, who reportedly has, you know, all this massive trove of unreleased unreleased music.
44:42
SPEAKER_02: What is the gap between, let's say, artists who have all these songs, maybe even recordings of their songs, but then they're not released?
44:50
SPEAKER_02: Is it just because there's so much time and expense and all these assets involved in actually producing an album, releasing it, and kind of the monetization aspect of it sometimes?
45:00
SPEAKER_00: You mean like so for someone like Prince, why don't they, why isn't somebody?
45:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's probably because it's caught up for that matter.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, for him, I I would think that it's caught up in some kind of estate thing.
45:11
SPEAKER_00: Maybe some yeah, some legal wrangling or something.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, somebody owns it, somebody's they're they're fighting over it.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: That's and they'll be fighting over it for a while.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: And then and then and it might not ever come out.
45:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, but like with me, um, I think any songs that I've written uh, you know, while I was under this contract or that contract, um, it's just it they they have ownership in it.
45:39
SPEAKER_00: And I could probably record it, but I would have to pay them residuals and things like that.
45:43
SPEAKER_02: Really?
45:43
SPEAKER_02: So that's the way that works whenever you're under contract with a with a record label.
45:46
SPEAKER_02: Well anything that you write belongs to them?
45:48
SPEAKER_00: No, i if I if I have a if I have a writer's contract.
45:53
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
45:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:54
SPEAKER_00: So and it and and they they're different.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it might be, you know, we own this and then it all goes back to you.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: I think all my records, like all the masters of my records, I could if I could get them all back, they're mine now.
46:05
SPEAKER_00: Because after seven years, that all goes back to me.
46:07
SPEAKER_00: I think that's fascinating.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: I think that's right.
46:09
SPEAKER_00: I somebody told me that and I was like, really?
46:11
SPEAKER_00: If that's the case, man, I want to go get those things.
46:14
SPEAKER_00: Um But yeah, I mean, it's just it's you know, and the and the the person who changed a lot of that was Elvis, you know.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:23
SPEAKER_00: And it and and it was Charles Dickens, right?
46:25
SPEAKER_00: For the for the for the writers.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: He fought for because I mean in America they were printing his books and by the millions, and he was getting nothing for it.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: Which you just go, that's what that's insane.
46:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, it's that's intellectual that that's where the concept of intellectual property.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure that it it I wow, maybe I'm asking you something you you don't know, but I think that the whole intellectual property concept came from Charles Dickens.
46:51
SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize that.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:53
SPEAKER_00: That's fascinating.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because he was he was he was so taken advantage of here.
46:57
SPEAKER_00: I think he he got paid in England, but even then it was like you can't.
47:01
SPEAKER_02: That's a very American thing to do, is just to take advantage of somebody and we're just gonna print your books with copyright.
47:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're way over there and you'll never know.
47:09
SPEAKER_02: He'll never find out.
47:11
SPEAKER_02: That's crazy.
47:13
SPEAKER_02: Um, I do have one more question here.
47:15
SPEAKER_02: Um so if people would like to get in touch with you, um, like where should they go to find out more about your music or um things that you're up to, any news items, anything like that.
47:26
SPEAKER_02: I always kind of ask podcast guests that.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, um, I mean, right now it's it's gonna be Facebook.
47:32
SPEAKER_00: Um I really want to work on a website for my sons because they're uh starting to release things and um and we're trying to figure out the name.
47:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're the the King Brothers is a little weak.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: Um I I really like the name The Once in Future Kings, but nobody likes it but me.
47:51
SPEAKER_00: Um I like it.
47:52
SPEAKER_00: I think it's you're you're a literary guy, but uh so I I I'd say, you know, and forgive me if I don't, if you message me, I I'm really not that comfortable with messages because I have, you know, this is gonna sound funny.
48:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm I'm not like you know Brad Pitt or something, but I I don't feel comfortable women.
48:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm married.
48:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so weird stuff happens on the internet.
48:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, I'm like, listen, we can't have a conversation here.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm married.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: You know?
48:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh so I totally get it.
48:27
SPEAKER_00: And and then I also have like other weird things.
48:30
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I just I've been out there for a long time.
48:34
SPEAKER_00: It's been out there for a long time.
48:35
SPEAKER_00: And so I do have like a so sometimes I think we when I was with this other agent, we have a thing that thank you for contacting us.
48:43
SPEAKER_00: But you know, like uh what what you can do if if you want to get us, you know, to come and play near you or something or uh whatever.
48:53
SPEAKER_00: If you go, if you if you'll write, you know, under a comment under one of my things or something and say, hey, I'd like to I I'm doing a concert this month because somebody did that.
49:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh and then I went, I did go to message.
49:07
SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
49:08
SPEAKER_00: But I've got to be brought to message over here totally so that so that I don't because I don't I don't want to walk into some kind of like weird trap.
49:16
SPEAKER_00: It's just it's just a different world.
49:18
SPEAKER_00: I hate to I hate that I'm not it was nice back in the day when other people handled that, you know, like my schedule today when you show up and I'm in my PJs.
49:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the the world's kind of different these days.
49:31
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I wonder sometimes, you know, sometimes if it's not too much access when you really have a public image and like it's kind of a blessing in some ways, but it's also kind of a curse because if anybody can contact you at any time, that's not really helpful.
49:46
SPEAKER_00: I I I like being able to like on the page, but I don't like the messenger.
49:53
SPEAKER_00: I don't uh that's a that's too intimate to me.
49:55
SPEAKER_02: A lot of people hate messenger, yeah.
49:57
SPEAKER_00: And then I get what it's like my phone number, you know, or my personal address.
50:02
SPEAKER_00: It's like so um I I think it's I mean, I I I really get a lot of encouragement um on the page when people say things.
50:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you're really active on Facebook, which I love.
50:13
SPEAKER_00: Well, I I used to be a lot more, but I I did start getting some weird things, and so it kind of spooked me a little bit.
50:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but um but I I'll yeah, I'm gonna get back more and I'll get my boys uh a website because they're they're really writing some good stuff.
50:28
SPEAKER_00: We did a show though and I it was so much fun.
50:31
SPEAKER_00: It's just so fun being with them, you know, and they're they all have little aspects of you know, my personality and things like that, my music personality and things like that.
50:45
SPEAKER_00: So it was really fun.
50:46
SPEAKER_02: The one song that I heard, um one of your sons is it was it the last kiss song that you mentioned.
50:52
SPEAKER_02: And I listened to that and I was like, oh my gosh, there's such a similarity in the vocal tone and singing, and I'm gonna be able to do that.
50:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, my wife, my wife always, my wife always says, You're you're on there too much.
51:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, babe, I'm not even on there.
51:04
SPEAKER_00: It's them.
51:06
SPEAKER_02: Um it was really good.
51:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, we uh George, that's my youngest, we did that over COVID in a in a condominium, spare bedroom condominium in uh down in Vero Beach, Florida.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: And uh that's he's just he's a little he's a little pop guy, you know.
51:25
SPEAKER_00: He kind of he he's country and and pop, but he grew up loving um Crowded House.
51:32
SPEAKER_00: But uh, and then the then then man, the the other two, you know, Harrison's kind of Harrison's kind of like my he's like my rock rock and roll side.
51:41
SPEAKER_00: Mitch is like my ballad side.
51:44
SPEAKER_02: That has to be very satisfying as a parent, yeah.
51:47
SPEAKER_02: You know, to see your kids kind of carry on some things that were important to you and do them in their own way, of course, and be their own person.
51:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, I didn't want them to do it because, you know, it's with all the rewards, it's a hard life, you know.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: I mean, being gone all the time and travel and buses and hotel rooms and things like that.
52:07
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, they got bit by the bug, so I'm like, all right, well just give it a shot, you know?
52:12
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
52:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, and I think today they're gonna have to do a lot of work that I are different kind of work than I did.
52:19
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna have to know a lot of things that I didn't know and do a lot of things that I didn't do.
52:22
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's real, real doable to have a nice little following and totally, you know.
52:28
SPEAKER_00: Totally.
52:29
SPEAKER_00: And I they're good, they're good enough that that's not gonna be a problem.
52:32
SPEAKER_00: The problem is gonna be getting the getting this stuff recorded, getting it out there, you know, and then getting yourself out there.
52:41
SPEAKER_00: And it's just that's that's always the hard thing, though, is getting yourself out there.
52:45
SPEAKER_02: So the way, and I didn't say this on the recording, but the the reason that I'm actually here outside of Nashville is because I was here for some uh business meetings this week, a mastermind group and some other stuff.
52:57
SPEAKER_02: And the hotel where I stayed, they had a they just built a parking garage.
53:02
SPEAKER_02: And on Monday night, I was driving in the parking garage, there was hardly anybody there, and then I came across this couple who was filming stuff for TikTok and Instagram.
53:11
SPEAKER_02: So you're talking about kind of building your own following and everything, yeah.
53:14
SPEAKER_02: And I felt so bad because I totally photobombed.
53:17
SPEAKER_02: They were like recording some worship song or something, and I was like, I got out of my truck, I was like, Man, you guys, I'm so sorry.
53:23
SPEAKER_02: I just I didn't know you were here.
53:24
SPEAKER_02: But it's funny because you kind of have to take the bull by the horns and be your own PR agent.
53:29
SPEAKER_02: And and I was like, that's it sounded really great actually.
53:33
SPEAKER_02: You're recording in a parking garage where the acoustics are incredible.
53:36
SPEAKER_02: So so I'm sure your boys are contending with a lot of that kind of stuff.
53:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
53:41
SPEAKER_00: And and they're you know, they're like me, they're they're they have really good personalities, but they're not like push, they don't push themselves, right?
53:50
SPEAKER_00: So I I I think it's I like that aspect of uh of what you're talking about.
53:55
SPEAKER_00: Just go out there and do it yourself and just put it on your site, you know.
53:58
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, so yeah, it's fun.
54:02
SPEAKER_02: Wes, this has been a total pleasure.
54:03
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate your hospitality and letting me stop by your house.
54:07
SPEAKER_02: I never expected I'd be able to just kind of drop by and do a podcast interview, but it's been a blast.
54:11
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
54:13
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate I appreciate you coming and uh it's been I I've enjoyed talking to you too.
54:16
SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to read your books.
54:18
SPEAKER_02: Well, thanks, uh those will keep you busy for a while if you get bored.
54:21
SPEAKER_00: I'll uh yeah, I'll keep in touch with you about you know any ideas I might have for what I'm gonna write.
54:28
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
54:29
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you again.
54:30
SPEAKER_00: All right, thank you.
54:31
SPEAKER_02: Hey, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Wes.
54:34
SPEAKER_02: As I mentioned in the intro to this episode, that was a wide-ranging conversation.
54:38
SPEAKER_02: We talked about a lot of things, but I just came away from that um from that conversation and that podcast interview with a greater sense of awe for who Wes is, not just as a musician, but also as a human being.
54:52
SPEAKER_02: You know, one of the one of the cool things that I have discovered over the last few years in this journey of building a ghostwriting business and doing tons and tons of podcast interviews and and many times getting to connect with some of my my uh creative and musical heroes and and literary heroes.
55:09
SPEAKER_02: One of the things that I have discovered is that the vast majority of the time people who are highly successful are really, really nice and they're really, really generous, and they're super, super uh easygoing and down to earth.
55:23
SPEAKER_02: Now that's not true a hundred percent of the time, but it's true a super high percentage of the time.
55:28
SPEAKER_02: And of course, as you've heard in this conversation, that is absolutely true when it comes to Wes King.
55:34
SPEAKER_02: As you can tell, he's so down to earth and so generous and so thoughtful.
55:37
SPEAKER_02: And it was really, really a major pleasure getting to chat with him.
55:40
SPEAKER_02: So, Wes, thank you for making time and uh for this conversation and having me more importantly, having me in your house.
55:46
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's that's pretty cool.
55:47
SPEAKER_02: I really considered it an honor to visit with you that day and um look forward to future conversations.
55:53
SPEAKER_02: And for everybody else, I hope that again that you enjoyed this conversation and that you will go check out Wes's music if you're not familiar with it, and also connecting with him on his Facebook page.
56:03
SPEAKER_02: So there are links to that in the show notes.
56:04
SPEAKER_02: Make sure and check it out, and as always, uh thanks for listening, and I'll catch you next time.