Latest / The Stephan Hogan Podcast / Bear Rinehart: “I Was a Shadow for Half My Career”

Transcript

Bear Rinehart: “I Was a Shadow for Half My Career” · The Stephan Hogan Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like that's why you see these like Zach Bryan characters and stuff like that working the way they do.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's an element to like, well, those rec recordings don't sound very good, but that's not what people are looking for.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they're looking for like a real heart on your sleeve kind of thing.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: I I think but I have kids, you know, it's like when that a teenage emotion of love is more powerful than anything we'll ever feel.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: We call it puppy love or whatever it is.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's like something we like degrade it in a way.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: But the feeling in your body of that is like one will never match again, right?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like that.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: But then as you get older, those some of those feelings come up in regret or guilt, mistakes, or shame, or all the like it comes in different ways, it seems like.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that that is a real, those are real heavy, you know.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I try to take that the that feeling and then put words that would describe the feeling more than the actual situation, if that makes sense.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so yeah, that's that's the way I look at it.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes it might be this is exactly what my mind is thinking right now.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like in a counseling session, you might write down some people ask you to write down like what are the voices in your head saying?
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'll try to like give a voice to that um before I'm like rationalizing all the things I know, how to fix it, you know, like, oh I know that's not true, and this is not true.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but these sort of core beliefs or those kind of things, like I feel like they sneak their way in.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that song's like that.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it's a mix of like, I got friends that I should call, but I don't, you know, I don't make the time for them.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's like that's true.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the worst.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Can I can I guess your negative core belief that you're not good enough?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, man.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I have that, you know, I have a unique, it's not unique, but a a couple of driving factors.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: The fact like I I grew up um very conservative Christian preacher, fundamentalist, kind of I grew up in the 80s, you know, which was a time like their hype time for that.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and so then, so then you don't all the things you're not supposed to do.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you do those things, you're bad.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're like a church kid and everything's about sin man.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Everything's yeah, right, right.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Don't want to be like I grew up about somewhere.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like, well, like I did it, now am I gonna go to hell now?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, all that was like was really baked in.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Not that there's completely everything wrong with that to me, but it also makes it a little more exciting when you're sinning.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: It does.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then you know, I have I have abuse in my early, you know, pre-10.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so that you like that stuff, you put the combinations of those, those core beliefs are pretty strong.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, and it got to where I didn't express that to many people.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's like what probably the thing that breaks my heart the most about about being a parent is the idea that they wouldn't tell you when they're struggling.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And and you're constantly trying to tell them that they can, and you can see them battling with being able to do it.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's just like and so I think for me I didn't have that.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't do that well, and I didn't have that for whatever, you know, the three so music to me, um, the lyric thing probably is therapeutic in that way.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's like these are all the things I wanted to say then.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: These are the feelings I had.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: If I would have been open, this was what I would have said, you know.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I draw on that, I think, a lot with songs.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I've heard you talk about therapy in the past, and I'm a big proponent of it, and I've done a a lot of it.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um do you feel like like going back, you had to kind of like readdress all that childhood trauma and then like rework through it and then kind of rediscover your self-identity and and stuff like that?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think I yes, I do.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the thing, you know, at least the way it's been for me, is that it's like even after I probably was probably 15 years ago the first time I like actually did that, went through.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then this is last, I don't know, three or four months ago, I went again and did sort of like a uh timeline thing again of like every year of my life and like wrote down all these, and so and it's incredibly helpful.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see I drew out like on this wall, drew like you know, the timeline of your life and then the things that you struggled with, you know, for me, whatever, alcohol, all that stuff, like you know, depression and all that anxiety is like you make these like graphs and you realize like, oh, obviously they're all dipping in the same place.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's like when you can see it out there, you go, whoa, this is and I'll just say, like, you know, I'm 45 and that that um it was as if I was learning it for the first time, even though I have a lot of tools to deal with that stuff, you know.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I I think that's we name the new record the long surrender.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea of that is um, I think it's something continuous.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think we've always in the in like my sort of faith idea of that has always been like this daily laying down your life thing.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: If there's there's like context for that.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think in terms of therapy, sometimes it's like, oh, I'll just get better, you know, what I'll do.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, not that's I wish they'd tell you at the beginning, like, hey, nobody else is gonna change.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: They should just tell you that the very like first minute, you know, like, hey, the world's gonna look pretty much the same.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's how you look at it, you know, is what is what we're working at here.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I do think that's like a lifelong um thing, at least has been for me.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:36
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• 6:19
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• 6:24
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• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now my focus is a lot less on uh what the audience thinks.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, not that I don't want to put on the best show I can or those kind of things, you know what I mean, or that I don't want it to be meaningful because I do.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I've just found like I can only my experience is really all I have as a writer and performer.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then and so I think growing up as a preacher's kid, you already have that of like, well, you better behave because you're representing this whole thing, and it also is all gonna crumble.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: If I would say we had some feeling of that.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and as and as like crazy as that is to think you're some representative of that, you know, um, we definitely had it.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we fought it in every way because it was like, well, we want to be, you know, good guys and good people, and you know, we want to talk about God, but we don't want to be in this category of this.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like we don't want to that to be the reason that we're selling things, or we don't want it to be the like pure motivation was that.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want to be the Christian band.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, just the truth is like, you know, any any um any sort of specific genre that's really limited like that, like if even if country music gets to where like it's gotta have this or this, like it starts to suck.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: It just that's and and and I I think I've always been aware of that.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Of like, oh, if I feel like everybody, you know, commercialism really with music is really scary because it everyone's making music now, it seems like not everyone, but a lot of people make music for the marketing arm that's going to help sell it.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say it's like, oh, it's just TikTok music, or it's radio music, or it's whatever, you know, like it's gotta be viral this way, or it's gotta be, it's gotta be Americana, it's gotta be hip enough to get on this race, it's gotta be, can't be this, it can't, you know, it's like everything is sort of through a filter of that.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I I just have never liked that part.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that I think that's probably the rebellious part in me was always like, I don't want to be classified as that.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: But then I think I think less about that now.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's much more about like what's meaningful to me, you know.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, this new record we're working on is probably like the most gospel record, you know, just because I've I feel like I've gone through I'm at midlife in a lot of ways, and I had a crazy last four or five months where just like a lot of personal things are really tough, and it just makes you look at your priorities in a different way.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: I just I was like, I had to write a list for myself.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: These are things that are true.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking at it every morning, you know.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And at the top of my list is like, God loves you, therefore you're valuable.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's A, right?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's fighting that thing you're saying, I'm bad or I'm not good enough, or whatever those core beliefs are.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: So to me, like it I didn't set out to do it, but I re I wrote a record that was really a reminder of that, what it takes for me to remember that.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like what idols kind of I need in my life that what what drivers for marketing are all those things that need to be out of the way.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so it's kind of a sweet record also, not intentionally, just like um I I I mean, just so much life change happened in the last four or five months.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um do you think that it's grown you?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, huge.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think um and at the at the same time, like the goal is weakness, you know.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so there's an element to that where I'm like, oh, you know, how does this look?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's I'm I've grown in weakness.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think that understanding of like, man, I just can't do this um, you know, by myself.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And how I've been trying to do it and is killing me and it still isn't working.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like so you so I think there's a something really I think there's like a I think that's I love that about AA as an example.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: I just think like the idea of like, I can't do this by myself.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's just let's just admit this, we got problems, you know.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's like that's the beginning of whatever growth there's gonna be, you know.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been really I'm very happy right now, very like uh on the road to somewhere that feels really good.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's impossible, I guess to go about your question, it's like impossible for me right now to to like think about where I'm aiming it.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Cause like I'm not I don't feel in charge of it.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good place to be.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're not.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's right.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of you know, you spend a lot of time trying to trying to meld your career and how you want it to go.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's it's when I look back at that, most of that's been a waste.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's the tendency I think that we all face is uh any person of faith, it's like the holding on and then the surrendering, and they juxtapose you.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's this big duality.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, all right, I want to surrender to God and like trust you.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's like this other side where you're like taking control again.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're like, oh shoot.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I mean it happens 37 times a day.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah for me.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And meeting.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like I met a guy a long time ago, a counselor guy, he's like, he's like, when I meet with bands, they're always they're they're one of two.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're either looking forward or looking backwards.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Which one are you?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so that feels really nice to kind of feel like, you know what, let's take there's so much pressure being in a band for 20-something years, and we're talking about the Eagles or whatever.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you you cannot, it's really hard to think about the new music without thinking about, well, is this better than that song we did 15 years ago?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Is it is this like that record that everybody likes, you know?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like it's poisonous to me.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's really like toxic to think that way because you can't do anything new unless you blow up all that stuff, you know.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that can't be your metric.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Those are all just chapters in the book.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And for better or worse.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I, you know, it just you just can't, you can't be that age and that going through those experiences now 15.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can't even I'll tell people all the time, like, I I can love that stuff from afar the same way other people love it.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I can't like relate to that person hardly at all.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like it it most of us can look back 20 years and go, like, is it what did it what was I thinking?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Not in not even a negative judgmental way, just more like I just I'm so different now.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Life has changed so much.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I couldn't possibly have penned that, you know, an again.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I think when you start to do that, it does feel a little bit like you're covering yourself in some way.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a maturity though to the to the lyric, like mama loves me.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's just such a maturity in in that.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Alex Heyke, the founder of Sound Royalties and a friend of mine gave me a piece of advice that I'm never gonna forget.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: He said, first decide what is the right move for your career and then figure out how to fund it.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sound royalties helped artists, they help writers, they helped producers, they help YouTubers and other people that earn royalties figure out how to access capital without having to sell their catalogs, give up ownership, or their copyrights.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: Their funding is completely based on your royalty income, not your credit score.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's no personal guarantees.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: Go to soundroyalties.com slash Stefan Hogan Podcast, S-T-E-P-H-A-N Hogan Podcast for a complimentary royalty analysis and free income forecasting.
• 13:52
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• 13:58
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• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: So first decide what the right move is for your career, then figure out how to fund it.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: I heard you say that you wouldn't be doing it if you didn't love it because it's so hard.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's definitely true.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: And what's the so hard part?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think I think one, it's you know, it's a it's a business without a scoreboard.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: That is a very difficult thing to do for most people.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean by that?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Just, you know, you can arbitrarily pick one.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can say, oh, how many records we sell or whatever it is, but how many tickets we sold or whatever.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: But all of us know the best music, the most meaningful music is not necessarily the most successful.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not that, and that's always never been a part of my thing.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, you know, success is world domination.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the third house or whatever.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like none of that has ever taken any weight from me.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I think having it be a career when it really feels like something soulful at the core is tough because you do have they have to interact, you know, at some point it's like I just can't tour for free forever, you know.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's one of the hard things is is trying to find some balance there that you feel okay about, you know, that you feel um, you know, convicted about.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other thing now I think is uh, you know, I quit drinking.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: The re there's a reason people do that when they're on tour.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's like it's it's a distraction from the boredom, you know.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like at this point, I'm missing my kids' football game, you know, because I'm in wherever.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing against, I mean, I'm in Des Moines on a Saturday and I don't play until eight o'clock tonight, but I'm just there on the bus.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: And there's only so many, I mean, people want to make it like sort of magic, but the truth is, like, I don't even drink coffee really.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's like people go to a coffee shop or they go vinyl shopping or they go, it's like I like to play golf, so that's a good kind of you know, distraction for me.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: I get outside and stuff, but there's just a lot of time.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime my wife comes out, she's like, this is crazy, you know.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I wake up early, so I'm first guy up on the bus most of the time.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm walking around the venue at seven, nothing's loaded in.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just and it's an amphitheater outside of town, you know.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there's a battle with that, you know, at this, at my age, where it's like, man, I really want to be around my kids and my wife more.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that's another thing.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: You got to balance that.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, this is a job for one.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: I still love playing the shows.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's nothing about it.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: I would do that, honestly, I would do the show part for free.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and what what I'm getting paid for is being there, being away from home and all the travel and all the craziness, you know, that that um so that to me is the hard part.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if and if you don't love the music you're making enough, like I just don't relate to the idea.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like it, it, it's I don't care what kind of money it is or what kind of status it is or whatever, it's not enough.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: If a kid realizes their parent doesn't enjoy life, it they're not gonna listen to them, right?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh that's just the way so to me, there's an element of like you gotta keep living your life.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: You can't just live it for the kid, you know, and their experiences.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think, I think to be trustworthy, um, you need to show that you're doing it well.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because you're setting that example for the boys.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, dad's dad's going after her.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: What do you believe?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what he likes, and and and they come out.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's the best.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like they obviously my studio's at the house, but it's separated, so they don't come out much, which is nice, but but they do occasionally.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: The uh five-year-olds out there playing drums with my demo this morning, you know, just like it's um yeah, they see that.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: They kind of see what oh, that's that's dad's way of expressing himself and and really getting into the weeds with stuff, and like maybe I can do that with other things, you know.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Essentially, as a musician, you're an entrepreneur because you have to kind of like get your butt out of bed and decide I'm gonna go walk over to this studio and work, and there's gonna be times when you don't want to do it.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like how to do you just always want to do it?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Almost.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Ah.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the music, the making of the music, I do.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, if it's not go if I don't get anything those first couple hours, like then I can walk away.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like that, but I do but it's probably the thing I enjoy most, you know, as a hobby, is that part.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I do look at it like that.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like I get in there, I'm just dreaming stuff.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to think about it's gotta make a record, it's gotta be, you know, I've got to stand up something.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's like this is just fun.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that part's easy for me.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: The hard part is uh, you know, all the business side of the thing, you know, it's just like I've gotten to where I'm better, but I used to kind of like every time the manager called, I answered, you know, and it just and it would just, and then there's 30 minutes.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm out now, uh my mind is in a totally different place, and coming back is just so hard.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think doing that, like being a little bit more reasonable also, like we've been doing this long enough, like we've made huge mistakes even when we were working hard.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you look back, it's like that didn't really that felt like the end of the world, and it really wasn't.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so having some perspective on that's helped me, I think, just take this stuff less seriously.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was just meant to happen, it's supposed to happen.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I played uh college football, so like coming when I got into music, I was bringing that sort of energy, which is too not the right kind of energy, it's too much, you know.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I think I've like over the years tried to like try to back away from that a little bit.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: I can drive the guys in the band crazy in terms of the work ethic part.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um but you gotta know why it is you're working, what you're working at, you know, what what it is you want.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think I'm that's a that's a place I'm in now.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like trying to figure that out on a daily basis, you know.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Cause you're really the leader.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, at this point for sure.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that um that had to probably be something that was developed over time too.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Cause I can't I've never been in a band.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: I never wanted to be in a band because I'm a control freak.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of have like this alpha like I I'm like competitive and I don't want people telling me what to do.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel like you've had that was in you?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually it was like, yo, someone's got to drive a ship.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: I watched the Beatles thing with Paul McCartney and all those guys sitting around, and without their manager, no one was really like taking charge.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and obviously you're the one that's the the driver behind the machine now.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think I always was, you know, like uh like people don't know this, but it's like I started the band, like my brother wasn't in the band at the beginning.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: I started it with a drummer on a like in college.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: The word country politan comes from a real era in country music.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: When Nashville took country music and made it elegant, strings, background vocals, orchestra.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was country music with polish.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Think Patsy Klein, Glenn Campbell, Tammy Wynette, George Jones, Charlie Pride, songs that still had the ache and honesty of country, but dressed up with style.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that is exactly what this hotel feels like.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: The kind of place where every detail's been thought through.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: The scent when you walk in, the music, the clothes they carry, the textures, the rooms, the coffee cups, the way everything feels curated without feeling fake.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: So you feel the history immediately, but unlike staying right in the middle of Broadway, it feels tucked away, it feels calm, it feels like you found something.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that's honestly why I love it.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's where I go when I want to get away, think, slow down, have a restful time without technology.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're ready, the Ryman and Broadway are about a four minute walk.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: The CountryPolitan Hotel.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: Stay in the story.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: I spent all of college like you know, researching like the right PA to get to put in our trailer so we could play shows by ourselves.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like that.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: I like the sort of like problem solving in that way.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I Always like, I mean, I was I was tour managing the band essentially for the first, you know, five to ten years.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Where like I mean, doing the budgets for the lighting and all this stuff, and like trying to find like little, I just got into that pretty heavily.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that I think that came naturally, almost the opposite to me of like what real leadership is, is finding out like everybody needs to want to be there.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: What's their driver?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what's their why?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And trying to like encourage and sort of hold them to that.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Try to in in the way that like because each guy's different.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like that with three kids too, you have that sort of like, well, what motivates the three is like completely different.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Either we're living in the same house, but like one, whatever it's candy, one of its discipline, one of it's like, you know, some.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I think, I think um that's the thing I've tried to learn and gotten better at over the years, but I'm still, I'm still I find myself in that hot-headed place a little bit still.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: But 15 years ago, I was a complete, like, do not get in my way, basically.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and I look back at that really like embarrassed about how I acted a lot because I just I looked at everybody as like, this is the reason my dream's not coming true.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's you, because you didn't turn this mic on and you didn't get this guitar in tune, you didn't like, which is just a really horrible place to be, you know.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as far as like, you know what I mean?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe in the military that works.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, but it doesn't work.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work in music.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: It works when it's all hired guns, maybe.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Need to wreath had this this like history of make these albums coming out at certain times in your career where like things are happening or you kind of have this anticipation.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: The outsiders was our first like record that really like connected with people.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember that was after kind of a failure of a record, at least that we saw as a failure.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: And and the only conversation was hope, hopefully people pass this record around.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: That was like, we have to make something that's word of mouth because we just don't know where this goes or how it fits, you know.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like hesitant even now where the label calls is like, oh, we should do this kind of press or this kind of.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I don't know, like this thing needs to have traction to me.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like people have to find this in a in a lot of ways organically.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, I feel like having conversations like this help, but just but in terms of like the little soundbite of, you know, it's like it's not gonna really tell the story of a record like this, you know.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so and I still trust that like really great stuff finds a way out there.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: So in terms of the country thing, like I think I think in the last several records we've been much more open to that.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, country is also opened up to people like us.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, yeah.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: Did you work with him for the whole record?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was at working with him, man.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because he's like for people listening that don't know, like he's done what all the Jason Iswell, the Stapleton, Dirk Virgil, yeah.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: All these great records of artists that we all love and kind of look up to that are kind of like off a uh left or center, I'll say.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think you know, he's an old school producer in that way.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like he really wants a live take, he wants it immediate, you know, he works very fast.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think, you know, my takeaway, he's great at what he does, obviously, for a reason.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like he can hear a song and immediately go, uh, this rhythm, that sounds that sounds like other things that want to do this.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Let's not do that.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he's got great references for old school records that you're like, oh, you know, this live record from whenever from the 70s, like what this way they did this drum in this one spot, you know, stuff like that.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it is fun and inspired.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh to me, the thing that was like the most um there's obviously a list of things.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not boiling it down to this, but uh, but to me, um, he had a lot of confidence in me.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I don't know if I'm really used to that.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: And and that was like, I think of that.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've never worked with Rick Rubin, but I think of that as that kind of process, you know, of like he just I I wrote three or four songs the morning that we were working in the studio, and we only had enough days to do the songs we're doing.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I would play him a little bit, and he'd like, dude, we're doing that today.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Finish look right now, right now.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it just that gives you this feeling like, yeah, I was feeling this too.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like I woke up this morning, this thing just was a gift to me.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact that he's not scared of it, and he's more like, let's pour into those things, things that feel right now.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think that that will play the most probably as I look back on the record.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's yeah, it's part of the sounds and this and that, you know.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: But like kind of gives me goosebumps, man.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: It gives me goosebumps.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's because we're so first off, you said he believed in you.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: So like knowing your negative core belief is that you're not good enough.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: When you have someone that gives you words of affirmation and that believes in you and you feel like because this is I struggle with the same thing.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like my mind is that I'm a failure and I'm not good enough.
• 27:04
  unknown: Yeah.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's also what might drive us, maybe.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no doubt.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: But to have someone in your corner, like I almost need someone to tell me I'm doing a good job, because in my own mind, I'm like, no, you're not, you're not.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: So like a producer like Dave, and you mentioned Rick Rubin, who I feel like is the same, where there's no bad idea, and he's always like, think of the audience last like what's best for this song?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Do this song, let's do it.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: And he's just organic, man, and there's just this like I think, yeah, it's it's powerful.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because it doing music for a long time, I've always said like bands most of the time get worse.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's because they learn too much.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also because they have like when you're when you know, when you're 20 and making a record, you think it has the potential to be the biggest thing in the world.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way, as dumb as that is, right?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like unlikely as that is, there's just a pure ignorance of the process of like, this could be, you know, that kind of whereas like it's even though you're trying to to like obviously you're trying to make that happen in the studio now, you have less of a feeling like that.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: This the truth is like I know this is gonna take a lot to get to this and to this, you know, it's like, and I'm hopeful hopefully this means something to some people, and hopefully I get to play this more, you know what I mean?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so but the idea, so that I think that hopefulness is a is tricky.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And and um I think somebody like that, and also like I want to be a singer, you know.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've all that's like no secret.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like, I mean, everybody wants to be a singer, but you know what I mean.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: I just I always saw myself as like, man, I really want to be in the class with like people think, um, beyond just like the chops and all that, but just like the emotional.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: I want people to feel something when I sing.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think I think that's always you don't gotta worry about that homie.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yeah.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: He's worked with some of my favorites, you know.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean Stapleton, but is in my opinion, is just like he uh I thought of you, Chris Stapleton, and Dave Grohl.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'll take that.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Anywhere in the conversation.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, they're you're all like tube amps.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: And if you drive them, they'll break up.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's true.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: He just was very, I thought, you know, like I one of the songs we cut, I went out and he was like, Don't sing too much, you're gonna wear it out, and like whatever, you know, this and we and we cut it in the first take or two.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, you know, and whether he's like building me up or whatever, it just felt amazing to me.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: If him he he's like, Barry, you don't understand that's like that's 1% stuff.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: People don't do that, they don't go out there and sing like you just sang in a whatever.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I just was like, man, it just um and to me it didn't make you, oh well I'm so great.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like it's it makes me drive of like I've this lyric has to be this, and tomorrow I gotta be better.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um so anyway, I think that I think that's a little bit of magic sauce to me of those records.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you could look at all those and go, like, man, those those guys make incredibly good records that did not have perfect genres, right?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: They found their audience because they were great, not because you know, it was like it's the next big whatever thing in this sort of world, you know.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's really undeniable.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: But most careers don't last like yours either.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm real I'm thankful for that.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously, and now we don't take it for granted either.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's like there's so many bands um that we came up with that obviously are gone now.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And there's bands that made it in the middle of our career and are gone now, you know.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I I do think like if I credit that to something, it um we always have tried to make meaningful music, you know.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think you could still have an audience where if you polled, you know, 10,000 people at our at Red Rocks or whatever, like their favorite songs would be so broad, as opposed to like, yeah, obviously you have these two or three big hits or whatever.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you were saying it's like some of the commercially, some of our like softer stuff is like what really drove on streaming.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if it's because people listen at their campfire or whatever it is, but when I talk to fans, that's not necessarily a favorite song.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: They're not waiting to hear the one that's the biggest.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they want the B-side on the third record or whatever it is, because that it meant something to them in their life at that moment.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I think that if there is like a you know, formula, which that doesn't say there is, but just I think there if there is a thing about longevity, I do think um, you know, if you're not gonna be the Eagles and have every song that's like these massive number ones, you then having a connection with the audience in like a real way where they feel like they can trust you when you put a new record out and they're having a conversation that's deeper than just like, you know, walked up to one on the street.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're having a kind of you have a relationship, I guess.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what it feels like with our audience.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say to young artists now that I mean the industry's changed dramatically since you got into it.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you've ridden all the the waves probably through change and industry and record sales and all that stuff.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I'm just curious if there's any if any, because some people don't have advice because the it's so tricky and so TikTok driven and so confusing, but then so open at the same time to like the red clay strays.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know?
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I'm not sure.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: What's your advice to like even with Brandon as a good example?
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, they're you know, he was a big fan of Need to Breathe for a long time, which is why like we met originally when he was in a bar band, you know.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so I do feel this a little bit of like, hey man, if there's anything like I've been through a lot of this stuff you're going through.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's the first time you're selling out all these places, and you know, everybody's telling you you're great.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: And um, which and they're really like they have such a great foundation as people.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I just all I told him was like, don't listen to everybody else.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, you've gotten here by try by trying to be the the essence of yourself.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're trying to, you're trying to write things that you feel.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the second that you start you're being around people and they're telling, well, if you worked with this guy, if you did this, you know, if you had the, you know, whatever, it's the it's you not only is it probably not gonna work, it's the end of your sort of reliance on what it is that you have.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: You start trying to make it bigger than you know, you look at like, I don't know, I've always thought like the Ed Shearan thing, like, I wouldn't say I'm like the biggest Ed Shearan fan or anything, but what I am a fan of is like he he like decided he was gonna do it a certain way, he just did it.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: And no matter how big it got, it was never like, okay, now I'm gonna start playing a nice guitar.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know what I mean?
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: At some point, I think we uh just because I feel that sort of pressure of like, well, we're getting to this play, this venue, we better have this kind of production or these kind of so that's one of the things I would say.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the other thing I would say is like a life, a healthy life, um is the only way to really be inspired.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: You can you can try to be inspired by other people, you can try to be under other people's stories, you can whatever, but if you don't have um something to write about really that's your experience, your view of the world, then you don't really have it.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean don't write in the other times.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: I always think of like the I I tell kids all the time, like, write every day because you need the tools when that thing does happen to you in life to be able to express it well.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: So those all this is practice until the real like thing happens.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I don't agree with these people, just wait for the inspiration.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, then you won't know how to get it across.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like that we you gotta develop that muscle.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: But then but when it really does, and I think the only way to do that is being connection with people, you know.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think that's that's the first thing that happens when you make it.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a band like a red clay or whatever, it's like now we're gone 250 days a year.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now all this stuff is not reality.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: The way people treat us, they're telling us we're great all the time.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: No one tells us our breath stinks or whatever it's you know what I mean.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're just you've lost total connection with the world.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think you have to fight that really hard.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and like a Springsteen to me is one guy, like just having met him a little bit, it's like was somebody that did that well, probably better than at some times than others or whatever, but you just see like a just like that you can be that.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can be blue collar and a really big artist.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it it wor it can work.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's no need to be uh there's never no need to become at home what you are on stage.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do like that.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Is not a way it's it's not a good way forward.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: It will ultimately, you know, I think crush you.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's great advice.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's also something I I admire about Vince Gill, because I've got to know him.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: And um I asked him once, like, hey, like why are you so like chill and humble?
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, 'Cause my parents would have whipped my ass if all if I wasn't that way.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was interesting though.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: Cause it's r there's a rarity in finding people that can really stay grounded, I guess.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: Amidst being worshipped.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I and I can give this advice because I did not do a good job of that at certain periods in our career.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's no doubt.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just I, you know, but not that it matters, it just but to me, like in those 20-something years, there's been lots of full years where I was a total wreck, like outside of myself completely.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, I like to use the like shadow self, you know, real self kind of thing, like a true self.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: I it's like I was a shadow for you know, half of my career.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: So um What does that mean?
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: I I think I think I was playing for all those things, all the all the like what would have been the motivator, it was to make it.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was to have respect from certain people.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was to make money unlike my parents made, and I, you know what I mean?
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was all anti something I didn't want to be.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I gotta prove myself to be it, or else I'm not important, or I might don't have a gift, you know.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I think I think there was just lots of times where I gave in to those ideas, even when I didn't know I was doing it.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: I just wasn't well enough as a person to do that.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and because of there's been some like real crash into the wall moments, you know.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: I can kind of go back through my my career and life and go like, man, boom, this was a reset moment.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: This was, you know.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so and it feels like that for me, you know, four or five months ago to me was like another one of those.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um nothing happened in the same way, or maybe wasn't as bad.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't, you know, whatever.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: But it but for me per like I felt that like you are not um you're not being true.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: And like, do you want to look back and you know the second half of life and go like that's what I was?
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: Do I do I want to show that to my kids?
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: So um yeah, that's where I am right now.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: But what you said I think will resonate.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it'll resonate because I think a lot of people are driven by that.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like maybe they failed as a kid, or they never were picked for the all-star team, or they always lost golf matches, or someone said they were ugly in their freshman year of high school and they had acne.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about myself.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then I just felt like a failure and not good enough.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's the driving thing is almost to like prove like I grew up where my parents always fought about money and then they got divorced, you know?
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's like all those things you just said has has also been the thing that drove me or that might still drive me.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: Do they still drive you?
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: Or do you feel like you've done some therapy stuff where you're like, that can't be my driver?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think because I'm curious, because I feel like this is just me.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: I can cut this out of there.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: I just feel like I'm trying to prove myself to the world, and it's like if I do that and get to that mountaintop, then I'll be okay, and then I'll feel good enough.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is like the answer stinks because it uh but in another way I think it's real.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like I think if I, you know, if I saw those things, those drivers or those insecurities or shame or whatever, all those things across the board of like things that are not helpful to me, probably in like uh soundboard, you know what I mean?
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: They all got faders.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the goal to me is keeping those at two.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't think I can totally eliminate those things.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: Can't hit me.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them, yeah.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I could.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and and maybe for a period of time you can or whatever, but just like we are human, I think I think that like my view of the world, you know, may be different than whoever, but like my view of it and the way, like the reason the gospel thing to me is like good news is because we're all at baseline broken and it's not fixable on our own.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: So like the idea that we're that there's this noise that's going on and our sort of daily routine and recentering and you know, trust and our faith and and the people that we love and all those like things to me are efforts to keep that stuff here um in perspective.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, I'm not like I wouldn't say like I'm cured as a human, but I would say for sure that like right now those feel like at a low and manageable where I can sit with it enough to go, is this the kind of record we want to make?
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: Do we want to put it out in a hurry?
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: Do we want to say it's gonna be for this?
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: Do we want to go do something that doesn't feel right?
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do we want that's insincere?
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: Do we want no?
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like I would say right now that feels very clear to me when I'm and I'm thankful for that.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's just so hard.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: People, most people I have a hard time answering if you ask them who they are, not answering in some sort of codependent way about, well, I'm this because of I really want to improve these, you know, impress these people, and I want to do I'm this because of, you know, it's like, what are you like?
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like what's really in there, you know, because I think it's, you know, I like college football as an example.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like I feel like some weird shame about saying on Saturday, if I can be at home for a Saturday football game on my own couch with people not talking, that's like like you know what I mean, that's gold to me.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of those things you might go, like, ooh, he's that guy's kind of a dork or whatever.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like, but it's like, no, I just I really do love it.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: The other the guy the other guys like will watch a little, but they're not like me.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: But it's most musicians, you know.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: I we we go, you're so you're not into ball sports, I guess.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um well you grew up in that as the South, man.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I played, you know, through college and all that.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: You can't not be a fan of college football.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of into it.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, it's been really cool talking to you, man.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, man.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever heard of men's clothier?
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I never heard of it before, but it's basically a fancy way to say a men's clothing shop.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's not a lot of them.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, most of the shops I go to, especially with my wife, it's like the men's section is like 25% and it's 75% women's.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Simon says Nashville has 11 brands.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm wearing some of their stuff, and they've been um providing clothing for the podcast.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: They have 11 brands that you can't get anywhere else.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of it's made in the United States, and it's just cool clothing.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: The fits are different than anything you'll ever wear.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: And Simon says Nashville is uh run by this really cool girl, Stephanie, and she has dressed many big artists for album covers, for red carpets, Midland, Marcus King.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: The list goes on.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: And uh go see Stephanie at Simon Says Nashville, or you can go to Simon Says Nashville.com and they're also on Instagram.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: You could DM them, and um, they've got the coolest denim stuff.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like their denim collection is ridiculous.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of like salvage Japanese denim if you're into that stuff.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: I call it quiet luxury.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, go tell them Stefan sent you.