Latest / The Scene Projects / Randy C. Moore: Songwriting, Nashville Insights, and the Journey Through Music

Transcript

Randy C. Moore: Songwriting, Nashville Insights, and the Journey Through Music · The Scene Projects

• 0:03
  This program is part of the Scene Projects podcast network.
• 0:07
  Scene Project features interviews with independent musicians, comedians, and artists
• 0:12
  from across the Midwest.
• 0:15
  Become part of our community and support local art wherever you are.
• 0:28
  Welcome in to another exciting episode of the scene.
• 0:31
  I'm your host Bubba Starts, and with me today is recording artist Randy Seymour.
• 0:35
  Randy, welcome to the show.
• 0:37
  Howdy.
• 0:37
  How are doing, man?
• 0:38
  I'm doing well.
• 0:39
  Just getting my first sip of coffee today as well.
• 0:42
  So, ready to have a great convo and, obviously, you know, a long illustrious career for you to
• 0:49
  cover, but a lot of really big things happening for you currently.
• 0:52
  So before we get into all that, we'd love to just give you the floor and get a little bit of
• 0:56
  your backstory.
• 0:58
  Well, let's see.
• 0:59
  If anybody is interested, I started out in my little hometown of Humble, Texas just playing
• 1:07
  music as a kid, not really caring that much about it because I'm a painter.
• 1:12
  I'm a guy who paints pictures and stuff.
• 1:14
  So I wanted to be I wanted to be an artist.
• 1:16
  I wanted to go to art college and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:18
  But I got derailed by a guitar and a bunch of girls that like a guy who plays guitar, so that
• 1:25
  sort of led me into starting to play more music.
• 1:29
  I was writing songs early on, I don't know, in my teens, and I started writing these these
• 1:36
  country songs.
• 1:37
  And I guess they must have been, you know, pretty good because my folks were like, you
• 1:42
  know, we need to we need to get you to play these for some other people.
• 1:45
  And my dad had a friend who was a drive time, a disc jockey there in Houston.
• 1:49
  His name was Archie Yancey.
• 1:51
  And they played some stuff for Arch, and he was like, I I wanna help him out.
• 1:55
  I think I think he's got something going on here.
• 1:57
  So so Arch kind of started getting me set up to go into recording studios and things like that,
• 2:05
  and he also invited me to be on his show that he had every Thursday night at Gilly's
• 2:10
  Nightclub in Pasadena, Texas.
• 2:12
  And so here I am, like, 15, 16 years old, and I'm headed out to Gilly's every Thursday night
• 2:19
  with my folks to sing a few songs on the stage of Gilly's.
• 2:23
  So that was a really good experience for me, but I still didn't still wasn't completely
• 2:28
  convinced that I wanted to be a musician.
• 2:32
  So I've stayed with my art and stayed with my my music a little bit here and there, and then
• 2:39
  I ended up starting to work for a an an amusement park in the Houston area called
• 2:45
  Astroworld, and that was like a regular show that I did, like, four times a day.
• 2:50
  It was hard work.
• 2:51
  But all of a sudden, I'm in front of a really big audience now, and I'm starting to feel
• 2:57
  like, okay.
• 2:58
  This is this is really fun, and they're paying me for this.
• 3:02
  So so then I headed off to Nashville when I when I graduated, and I worked at their
• 3:07
  amusement park, and that led me to be on my first performance of the Grand Old Opry with
• 3:14
  Roy Acuff back in 1978.
• 3:17
  So that's how I got started making records in Nashville here and there and starting out in
• 3:24
  the Houston area.
• 3:27
  That's this sort of a thumbnail sketch that gets people up to speed of of where where I got
• 3:32
  going.
• 3:34
  Well and and I've been doing it ever since.
• 3:37
  Now I see some paintings in the back.
• 3:38
  Are those some of yours?
• 3:41
  Well, I took I took my wife's records that she had.
• 3:46
  She had a bunch of singles and she's like, well, I don't have a record player anymore.
• 3:49
  She says, I don't know what to do with these.
• 3:51
  I said, well, you want me to make them into something for you?
• 3:53
  She goes, sure.
• 3:54
  So I just did some I don't know.
• 3:57
  That's that's just like some crude design work there with just, you know, paint paint
• 4:01
  smattering and all kinds of stuff.
• 4:03
  It's a little bit of abstract over basically, you know, actual those are actual, you know,
• 4:09
  record singles.
• 4:10
  Here, let me let me grab a piece of artwork just so you know.
• 4:13
  I I would love that.
• 4:14
  I just I appreciate that you're just your need for expression from an early age, whether it
• 4:20
  was through visual art or then eventually songwriting and performing that you it's always
• 4:27
  been a need deep inside of you.
• 4:28
  And I think that's something that gets overlooked a lot with people who are outside of
• 4:33
  artist worlds.
• 4:34
  Right?
• 4:34
  Like, that are not musicians themselves.
• 4:36
  They don't realize the deep internal desire that it takes to create, especially when there
• 4:42
  is no money involved and you're not doing it necessarily for a living.
• 4:46
  You just you can't help but express yourself in that way, and I love that you've kinda had that
• 4:51
  from a very early age.
• 4:53
  Well, you know, and I'll just go I'll I'll go one step further.
• 4:57
  I think you said people who are outside of sort of the artistic, realm of of thinking or or
• 5:03
  however it is that that makes whatever makes you tick.
• 5:08
  I think a lot of times, people who are outside of the realm of artistic creativity, whether
• 5:14
  it's music or whether it's visual art or or anything, I think a lot of people think of that
• 5:20
  as a they think of it as a as a developed skill and a craft.
• 5:26
  And really when you start doing it from the inside, yeah, you're developing your skills and
• 5:30
  you're developing your craft.
• 5:32
  But there's a whole another kinda level to that of, like, you know, I just really love this
• 5:38
  more than anything.
• 5:39
  I I did I rendered this thing here.
• 5:43
  This is called this is from a song I actually wrote called Elvis and Jesus, and it's sort of
• 5:49
  this is sort of like a a Salvador Dali sort of rendition of Elvis and Jesus that I've I
• 5:55
  rendered in watercolor.
• 5:57
  So but that's, you know, that that's the tip of of different things that I've done over the
• 6:02
  years.
• 6:04
  That's that's that's kinda where I was at when I was a kid, and and I think it kinda keeps me
• 6:10
  being a kid, you know, still doing that kinda stuff too.
• 6:14
  Actually, you know, playing guitar and all this kind of stuff keeps you being a kid in a way
• 6:20
  because you started out doing that as a younger guy, and a lot of a lot of things, you know,
• 6:25
  when you're younger, you kinda have to give them up at a certain point, but I never gave up
• 6:31
  those two things.
• 6:32
  So I still got a lot of kid in me, I guess.
• 6:35
  Well, and you're always learning.
• 6:36
  Right?
• 6:36
  That's kind of the childlike quality that you talk about.
• 6:39
  And even the guitar masters, I guess, you would say, they're always striving to learn more or
• 6:44
  you hear something that someone else plays, and it's really something that you never perfect.
• 6:49
  Right?
• 6:49
  Like, there there's no, that's just not I don't I don't know that it's attainable.
• 6:54
  You can be the most proficient guitar player in the world, but somebody's going to play that
• 6:58
  instrument differently.
• 6:59
  And and that may inspire you to change a little bit of what you do.
• 7:03
  So it's ever evolving, I guess, is maybe a better term.
• 7:06
  And so which always leaves something more to learn.
• 7:08
  I mean, you forty years ago, there wasn't people playing necessarily like some of these
• 7:14
  people that I've seen, you know, viral clips where they're, you know, kind of hammering on
• 7:19
  the strings and they're creating the drum parts on the guitar with it, and I'm watching them
• 7:23
  play and the hammer ons that they're doing.
• 7:25
  And it's like, that's like, I I don't even feel like I play a guitar compared to that.
• 7:31
  But it it's all just different forms of expression and using this lovely instrument to
• 7:36
  be able to do it.
• 7:37
  A guitar player player myself, a songwriter as well.
• 7:40
  I say there's something there's a special relationship between the six strings of a
• 7:44
  guitar and a human voice.
• 7:46
  Talk about your songwriting a little bit and kind of the evolution of that being someone
• 7:52
  who, not necessarily I I mean, like, you didn't set out, like, I'm gonna be a Nashville
• 7:57
  songwriter.
• 7:58
  It more or less just happened.
• 7:59
  You started writing songs, and then they the songs carried you and and your life kinda
• 8:04
  carried you in that direction.
• 8:06
  Yeah.
• 8:06
  I think the songwriting thing was sort of a natural thing coming out of of playing an
• 8:15
  instrument and all that kind of stuff since I did have this whole creative thing going on in
• 8:20
  me.
• 8:21
  I will say I did I don't think I grew up with some, you know, burning desire to express
• 8:29
  myself or anything like that.
• 8:31
  You know?
• 8:31
  And a lot of great artists actually did grow up that way.
• 8:35
  Me, I had a fairly normal childhood and fairly normal fairly normal life.
• 8:41
  Actually, I've I've lived a very charmed life compared to most people who are successful in
• 8:47
  the music industry and do this kind of thing all the time.
• 8:50
  I told my wife the other day, I said, know, it's funny.
• 8:52
  I said, I'm I'm satisfied.
• 8:55
  I'm really happy.
• 8:56
  I love what I do.
• 8:56
  I said, it's kinda hard to make that interesting, but, you know, I guess I'll talk
• 9:01
  about it.
• 9:02
  But when I started out songwriting, it it became something where, you know, you're you're
• 9:10
  playing all these different songs that you're learning that you know.
• 9:13
  You're learning how to play guitar through other types of music and stuff like that.
• 9:17
  And then, you know, at one point in time, those progressions and those things start to they
• 9:24
  start to kinda, like, rearrange themselves a little bit because you start hearing these
• 9:28
  these melodies in your head.
• 9:31
  So you start messing around with that kind of things, which is kinda what I did.
• 9:34
  But mostly, it was the lyrical, and it's still today, it's still the the the lyrical content
• 9:41
  and and the approach to lyrics that is really, really, really it's almost like a magic trick
• 9:50
  because there's so many ways to go.
• 9:53
  And the more that you hear or the more that you've heard, the more options you feel like
• 9:58
  you have.
• 10:00
  So in a in a in a strange sort of way, my songwriting sort of I don't I don't know.
• 10:05
  It kinda built itself.
• 10:06
  I didn't go to any, you know, songwriting schools or clinics or stuff like that.
• 10:11
  Although I wish I had because it might have been a shortcut to where I was where I was
• 10:16
  eventually gonna get, but, that wasn't the case for me.
• 10:20
  I'm I'm a I'm a slow learner, and usually I learn by trial and error.
• 10:25
  So, when I started writing those songs and, Arch and Yancey had heard what I was writing,
• 10:31
  he was like, you know, he he needs to stay with this and encourage my folks to to keep me after
• 10:39
  that particular muse.
• 10:41
  I wrote a I would write songs, you know I mean, heck, I was headed to Nashville with my mom to
• 10:48
  go have a meeting, and we were on an airplane.
• 10:51
  It was one of those things where your brain's not working.
• 10:54
  Your brain might be working on one thing, but your other parts part of your brain says, oh,
• 10:58
  hey.
• 10:59
  Guess what?
• 10:59
  I don't have anything to do over here.
• 11:00
  Let's let's write a song.
• 11:02
  Let's make something up.
• 11:03
  So a lot of times, that's my songwriting process is I have to be in a particular space
• 11:11
  where either my brain is occupied driving a car or a lawnmower or some sort of task that's
• 11:19
  almost automatic.
• 11:20
  And then the other part of my brain, the the the creative guy says, oh, okay.
• 11:24
  Well, we don't have to think about what we're doing now.
• 11:26
  So let's let's let's have some playtime over here, and let's let's see what's happening.
• 11:34
  I mostly would write songs early on that were kinda like personal expressions, but I didn't
• 11:40
  really understand that that was really the way to go.
• 11:42
  So when you live in Nashville for many years like I did, you immerse yourself in the craft
• 11:48
  of songwriting, which I did.
• 11:50
  And I had a publishing deal and and all those different things.
• 11:53
  So, you know, I mean, I'm going into a place, you know, every day, and I'm sitting down in a
• 11:57
  room and I'm writing songs with people and, you know, doing the recording process and all these
• 12:03
  kind of things.
• 12:03
  They all sort of they all sort of lead from one thing to another, which was my experience in
• 12:11
  learning how to get to where I'm at today, which I'm I'm self sufficient, I'm proficient,
• 12:19
  I don't know it all, I never will, and I keep looking for that next thing that is gonna turn
• 12:26
  into a song.
• 12:29
  The one thing that I did learn through the whole process of listening to all these other
• 12:33
  folks and doing all the crafting, everything, you know, I got outside of myself quite a lot
• 12:39
  in order to, you know, fit into this or fit into that to make this song work or make this
• 12:44
  song work or that song work.
• 12:46
  But, eventually, it all brought me back to what am I feeling?
• 12:51
  What what story do I wanna tell?
• 12:53
  And that's when things really landed for me, quite frankly, where they are and where they'll
• 12:59
  stay right now, which is everything that I do, I try to make sure that it's an honest,
• 13:05
  personal, and even first person expression of what I'm either observing, feeling, or doing.
• 13:14
  You know?
• 13:14
  So most of the songs that that anybody hears from me, I don't know, in the last ten years or
• 13:20
  so are gonna be songs that were like, okay.
• 13:22
  They came straight out of me.
• 13:24
  I live this.
• 13:25
  I may have embellished a few things here and there, but, you know, 90% of it is is the
• 13:31
  honest truth.
• 13:34
  And that's the only way that I've really ever been a songwriter.
• 13:38
  It's been a a a need for me.
• 13:40
  Like, I gotta get this emotion, this feeling out of me, and the way that I do that is
• 13:44
  through song.
• 13:46
  It just that's the way it's always kinda happened for me in that.
• 13:50
  So I don't know any other way, but I'm friends with a lot of people now who live in Nashville
• 13:55
  or in those writers' rooms and are, you know, trying to write the next hit.
• 13:59
  And it's not that you can't infuse your, you know, personal experiences into those, you
• 14:05
  know, situations, but I I feel like it's different.
• 14:08
  I feel like it's a different thing when you're trying to, like, write a song that maybe for
• 14:12
  someone else's voice even.
• 14:14
  You know, I know there's songwriters out there that aren't necessarily writing for themselves
• 14:17
  to perform it and doing, like, you know, you have you said for the last ten years, what what
• 14:22
  I've done for my entire life, which is very personal, Song Ray.
• 14:25
  Like, the songs are for me more than anything, they're just my way of expressing myself.
• 14:30
  If other people enjoy them and and it rings a bell, you know, in their soul as well because
• 14:35
  they've been through something similar, I think that's what attracts us to the larger artists,
• 14:40
  you know, to comes to mind a guy like Jelly Roll who kinda spoke to the broken people, and
• 14:46
  the reason that it runs true for them is because they feel that.
• 14:49
  And because they know his backstory and know that it is true for him, that, I think it it
• 14:55
  just hits a little bit differently.
• 14:56
  It hits a little bit harder, and and I think that that's been fairly, you know, common
• 15:01
  throughout time when you have some of these big artists and and big songs.
• 15:05
  It's because they ring true and and were from maybe a personal experience.
• 15:09
  Well, if they weren't and a great artist, a great recording artist will make you he can
• 15:16
  make you believe that he lived that song.
• 15:20
  That's why Garth Brooks is so good with what he does.
• 15:25
  And I got a friend who wrote some songs over there at his house with his daughter, And he
• 15:32
  said, yeah.
• 15:32
  He said he said, I was we were there writing, and he said, we took a break, and we were in
• 15:38
  the kitchen.
• 15:39
  And he said, I could hear somebody singing upstairs, and he kept the person kept singing
• 15:43
  the same two or three lines over and over and over again.
• 15:48
  And I looked at I looked at I looked at Garth's daughter.
• 15:52
  He said I looked at Garth's daughter and said, what what's going on?
• 15:54
  She goes, oh, well, that's dad.
• 15:56
  He goes, what's he doing?
• 15:57
  He says, well, he's thinking about recording this song.
• 16:01
  And whenever he does that, he will go he'll take a whole day or something, and he'll just
• 16:06
  do every phrase.
• 16:07
  And he'll just go over it and over it until it feels like it's natural and feels like it's
• 16:12
  coming from him.
• 16:14
  And that's why the songs that he does, when people hear him, they go, man, you must have
• 16:20
  lived that or that did you make that up?
• 16:22
  And it's like, well, no.
• 16:24
  No.
• 16:24
  I didn't make it up, but, you know, I'll I'm I'm the person who who lived it.
• 16:30
  I'm I'm showing you that that this is this is something that that that I'm delivering it on
• 16:37
  the basis of this is this is a this feels like something personal to me and I need to deliver
• 16:43
  it the right way.
• 16:43
  So and everything that you said about what you were talking about in your songwriting process,
• 16:50
  I can just go ahead and mirror all that stuff that you said.
• 16:53
  So you you kind of, like, answered a lot of what I've already been told and what I've
• 16:58
  learned, which is if it's a personal expression, then it's and if it feels right to
• 17:04
  you, honestly, then it's probably it's probably gonna work right outside your door.
• 17:11
  It's probably gonna hit the right places with other people, and that's really important.
• 17:17
  And, then you said something about when you're trying to write a song, you know, to fit
• 17:22
  another voice or fit another artist or something, that's a real real that's like a rut
• 17:28
  or almost like a that's almost like an anti songwriting phrase when you say trying to write
• 17:36
  a song because once you start trying, then all of a sudden it seems like that the the the the
• 17:42
  fluid motion and the actual forward motion of things coming out of you, you know, now you're
• 17:50
  it it's almost like you're forcing things out because you feel like, oh, well, this will fit
• 17:54
  or that'll fit and everything.
• 17:55
  And like I said, trial and error is a great teacher, but, ultimately, you gotta stick with
• 18:01
  what's right there.
• 18:04
  So so that's that's a that's a pretty these are all broad observations that I'm making, and and
• 18:11
  you and I are kind of almost, like, shaking hands and agreeing that we we we have no idea
• 18:17
  what's happening next, but we're gonna see if we could come up with something that that fits
• 18:23
  it, that that and and helps us fit into that that next thing.
• 18:27
  So, that's that's great.
• 18:29
  That's a wonderful thing that you said, though.
• 18:31
  That's cool.
• 18:32
  Oh, thank you.
• 18:33
  Well and I I've I've said a lot that, I'm merely a conduit for the song.
• 18:37
  Right?
• 18:38
  That that this moment has struck me for some reason, and then the song kinda starts flowing,
• 18:43
  and I'm trying my best to stay out of its way, really, which I'm sure, with some of the best
• 18:49
  songs in the world that's been, you know, exactly what it is.
• 18:52
  I had a good friend of mine who was a producer, worked with Tom Petty on his first couple of
• 18:57
  records with Shelter Records out in Los Angeles, and he talked about serving the song.
• 19:03
  And and I think that that, you know, for the last, you know, fifteen, twenty years of my
• 19:07
  life now, that that's really carried me in my songwriting.
• 19:10
  Now I don't write as much as I used to in my twenties.
• 19:13
  I don't necessarily haven't done this professionally for a while.
• 19:16
  And now that I've kinda slid myself into this media role, this takes up a lot more of my
• 19:22
  time.
• 19:22
  But I think I approach songwriting, in the same way that I did when I was 16 years old is that
• 19:29
  just let things flow and you can always change it and it and and you're going to be changed by
• 19:34
  it.
• 19:35
  And, it's been gratifying.
• 19:37
  Not that I've written any hits or anything that, you know, people are clamoring to hear
• 19:41
  more of.
• 19:41
  There's so much more to to a hit song than just the writing and and performing of it or even
• 19:48
  the recording process.
• 19:50
  There there's a lot that goes into the backside of that with, you know, the marketing and all
• 19:54
  the business and to make a song, achieve that, you know, super stardom, that, you know, we
• 20:00
  we've seen out there in the world.
• 20:02
  Well, the record business has has sort of brought us from, great songs that that reach
• 20:11
  out and and touch people.
• 20:13
  They brought us all the way from there to to artists or people who do these things are now
• 20:21
  products and brands, and so they build more.
• 20:24
  They seem to wanna build more on that than just say, let's just do great songs.
• 20:29
  You know?
• 20:30
  And it's It's more like what are you not going to turn off than what are you going to seek out
• 20:36
  and turn on.
• 20:37
  Yeah.
• 20:38
  Yeah.
• 20:39
  So it's it's a it's a different sort of thing that's going on.
• 20:43
  And it's it's it's it's not just the music business or even the entertainment business.
• 20:48
  It it's in everything.
• 20:49
  Every everything that is monetized is a product.
• 20:56
  Everything that is a product is a brand.
• 20:58
  Everything that is a brand is something that is sort of, like, created so you can go, oh, well,
• 21:04
  that when you know the brand because it has some unique, you know, look or some unique
• 21:10
  sound or some unique taste or some unique color or or some combination of all of that stuff.
• 21:17
  So it's it's changed, and it it hasn't changed songwriting that much, I don't think.
• 21:24
  Now writing songs in Nashville and other places, for instance, Nashville songwriters
• 21:32
  younger Nashville songwriters, and even the older ones too, they if if you don't adapt to a
• 21:37
  system, then you just need to probably just do something else.
• 21:41
  So anybody who's still writing songs in Nashville and getting songs recorded, they've
• 21:46
  learned to adapt.
• 21:47
  They've learned to go, okay.
• 21:48
  Or they've learned where their niche is and that that particular niche is still has a need
• 21:55
  and still has a a market.
• 21:57
  But what I'm alluding to now is the modern technique of writing songs, which I don't even
• 22:04
  know if I'd even be doing it these days in Nashville with any competence or anything else
• 22:11
  because a lot of times, it's more than one writer.
• 22:14
  It's a combination of maybe three or four people.
• 22:17
  Some of them might be signed a publishing deal.
• 22:19
  Some of them might not.
• 22:20
  They're all friends.
• 22:22
  It's sort of a it's almost like goes back to sort of the hippie days of everybody just kinda
• 22:26
  hanging out and contributing to a a piece of work.
• 22:30
  They use drum loops.
• 22:31
  They do all this kind of stuff.
• 22:32
  There's a whole different idea about what songs are what what is a song supposed to do and what
• 22:41
  is it supposed to be.
• 22:42
  So when I listen to the radio now and people say to me, they go, well, you know, that
• 22:47
  country music, it just it just don't sound country to me anymore.
• 22:51
  I said, well, you have to understand, when you were listening to country music or when you
• 22:56
  started liking country music, yeah, it sounded different than what it sounds like now.
• 23:00
  But you have to understand the people who are making this music and people who are making
• 23:04
  this music up, they didn't grow up with the same thing that you grew up with.
• 23:09
  You you just you know, take for instance, if somebody is in their thirties and they're a
• 23:14
  successful songwriter, then take their calendar and move it back fifteen or twenty years.
• 23:20
  And whatever they were listening to in high school or junior high is gonna basically get
• 23:26
  into their creative process.
• 23:28
  So in other words, Nashville Records, they may sound more like something from, you know, the
• 23:33
  the cadences and everything may sound something more like off of an Eminem record, or it may
• 23:39
  sound like a Pearl Jam record, or any any number of influences that came from that
• 23:46
  timeline, you know, before then.
• 23:48
  You know, I was listening to country music when it was a big singer songwriter folk influence
• 23:54
  thing.
• 23:54
  I listened to a lot of Johnny Cash, a lot of John Denver, Jim Croce, Charlie Rich, people
• 24:03
  like that.
• 24:04
  I wasn't influenced by Hank Williams.
• 24:06
  You know?
• 24:06
  I love Hank Williams' music, and his his songs are still all of his lyric and everything are
• 24:11
  still so relevant today because, you know, Hank Williams was basically just like a like a blues
• 24:17
  he was like the first rock and roll star if you if you think about it.
• 24:21
  But those influences that I named, that's kinda what, you know, sorta keeps guiding me, you
• 24:28
  know, from a little distance all over my shoulders.
• 24:30
  Like, oh, yeah.
• 24:31
  Okay.
• 24:31
  You know, that's this is why I like the way this sounds.
• 24:34
  This is why I like the way this flows.
• 24:38
  Nothing wrong with that, you know, as far as, like, if it works, go with it.
• 24:43
  You know?
• 24:44
  Adapt if you can and if you want to, but don't do it for the sake of, okay.
• 24:50
  Well, I I can get a paycheck out of this, you know, next week.
• 24:53
  It's like it doesn't really work that way.
• 24:56
  You know, some people think it should, but you you you can't really buy creativity.
• 25:02
  It's either there or it's not there, but you can sell it.
• 25:09
  So, Randy, where's where's your career now?
• 25:12
  I know that you're fairly stable in what you do and, you know, maybe not the most exciting of
• 25:18
  careers still, but you're still out.
• 25:20
  I know you're touring and you're playing with some really big names and still getting to do,
• 25:25
  you know, what you love to do.
• 25:27
  Is it different now than it ever was, or is it pretty much just the same?
• 25:34
  Parts of it are the same, parts of it are different.
• 25:36
  The parts that are the same is I hate traveling.
• 25:38
  I always have.
• 25:39
  I pick the wrong thing to do for a living, but I'm here, and then I'm there, and then I'm back
• 25:45
  here, and then I'm over there, and then I'm back here.
• 25:47
  So, in that sense, that's kind of always been a constant.
• 25:52
  I've just never liked crawling into a vehicle or an airplane or whatever it was that I had to
• 25:58
  get the gear and get the band to the gig and do it and then and then undo it.
• 26:07
  So the the that that's never really been something I look forward to.
• 26:12
  I still don't, but it's okay.
• 26:14
  I just say, well, you know, it's it comes with the territory.
• 26:17
  What's changed for me is and a game changer for me was moving back to Texas close to where I
• 26:26
  grew up.
• 26:26
  I live in a place called Lufkin, Texas now, which is about an hour and a half away from
• 26:30
  where I grew up down North Of Houston.
• 26:33
  And so it feels first of all, it feels like I'm home.
• 26:36
  And that's a good thing for me because I'm a homebody anyway.
• 26:40
  So second of all, that kind of helps me with being able to create things because now I don't
• 26:46
  have any other voices or any other things saying, you know, kind of almost like
• 26:52
  disturbing what would be considered my comfort zone.
• 26:56
  So I've been a lot more creative song wise, music wise, and even career wise, to tell you
• 27:05
  the truth, since I moved back here than I ever was in Nashville because it was always it was
• 27:10
  always a a side of living in Nashville that was a bit of fight, a bit of a struggle, and I hate
• 27:15
  fighting.
• 27:16
  I hate struggles.
• 27:17
  I don't like challenges.
• 27:19
  I'm I'm not ambitious.
• 27:21
  I I don't care about any of that kind of stuff.
• 27:23
  I really wanna enjoy life, and I wanna be happy.
• 27:26
  And and in order to do that for me, I have to have this space that just works.
• 27:32
  It's a zone.
• 27:33
  And when I get out of that zone, I do what I have to do, but it I don't necessarily enjoy
• 27:39
  it.
• 27:40
  So right now, I'm in the best place that I've ever been in my whole life when it comes to
• 27:47
  writing songs and when it comes to doing shows because I play about a dozen different
• 27:52
  listening rooms around the area, around the state of Texas.
• 27:55
  I'll venture out every now and then.
• 27:57
  The last time I went somewhere, was in New Jersey at Asbury Park doing a benefit show at
• 28:03
  the Stone Pony, and the artists on that show were little Steven Van Zand and Dixie Dregs and
• 28:10
  Harry Chapin's family, and I got to participate in what was called a hungerthon.
• 28:15
  This all came out of me recording a cover of the Harry Chapin song Cats in the Cradle.
• 28:20
  So in that sense, once again, traveling was like, ugh, rent a car, you know, plane
• 28:27
  reservations, hotels, or directions, you know, this, that, you know.
• 28:32
  Okay.
• 28:33
  Eat here.
• 28:33
  Go there.
• 28:34
  Get your luggage.
• 28:35
  Unpack.
• 28:35
  Pack.
• 28:36
  You know?
• 28:36
  It's just like oh, I go in here.
• 28:39
  Now I know what it is that I don't like about this stuff.
• 28:41
  But then walk on stage, deliver a piece of material, do something that makes people happy.
• 28:47
  All of sudden, it's like, okay.
• 28:49
  Well, this is the part that I did all for.
• 28:53
  So so that's that's my life right now and probably what it's gonna be for the next, I
• 28:58
  don't know, foreseeable future, which is great.
• 29:01
  Yeah.
• 29:03
  I I can't help but but relate to that.
• 29:06
  I I live in rural South Dakota.
• 29:08
  This is where in a town where my wife grew up, where her parents grew up.
• 29:12
  I have no desire to move to Nashville.
• 29:14
  I have no desire to move to New York or Los Angeles.
• 29:16
  I've lived in some of these places before.
• 29:18
  My family's originally from the Chicago area.
• 29:20
  I have no desire to live in some of these cities and to put myself in competition with
• 29:26
  more artists.
• 29:26
  I just wanna create.
• 29:27
  I wanna be able to do what I do, and I'm very blessed, to have Internet, stable Internet
• 29:33
  here, in the sticks and to be able to, communicate and to build a platform for new
• 29:40
  artist discovery, whether they've been in the the game for, you know, decades such as you or
• 29:45
  they're just starting out.
• 29:47
  We've interviewed over 500 artists on our platform in less than two years.
• 29:51
  I'm reaching out to more and more award shows to do red carpet experiences at these so I can
• 29:57
  connect with artists.
• 29:57
  For me, yes, I'm passionate about my own career, but I'm mostly passionate about just
• 30:02
  independent creative people in general.
• 30:06
  No matter the medium that they work in, I just like being surrounded by what I find very
• 30:10
  interesting people.
• 30:12
  And, I'm very grateful to to be where I'm at, to do what I do.
• 30:16
  We're also talking on the eve of me leaving on a two week 5,000 mile tour.
• 30:21
  So I don't know what I'm doing.
• 30:24
  I don't know why I let someone plan this, I e me.
• 30:28
  But it's about building this platform to support the spaces in between.
• 30:33
  So really not focusing on the major markets, although I am stopping in Nashville on the
• 30:38
  tour.
• 30:38
  It's kind of the last stop just because I happen to be going through there.
• 30:42
  It wasn't a focal point.
• 30:43
  I was very fortunate to work at the Grand Ole Opry house with the Josie Music Awards last
• 30:49
  November.
• 30:50
  Very blessed to have taken part in that, but it's not the same Mecca to me that it is to a
• 30:55
  lot of other people in the country music.
• 30:57
  I didn't grow up a country guy.
• 30:58
  Right?
• 30:59
  So while I realized it's hollowed ground, it wasn't the end all be all to me to say, oh, I
• 31:04
  can't wait to, you know, stand in that circle.
• 31:07
  It just doesn't have the same feeling to me that maybe it does for, you know, thousands of
• 31:11
  artists that that were, you know, hundreds that were in the building that night and for many
• 31:16
  others.
• 31:17
  For me, I was more excited to stand outside in the cold that November evening and to interview
• 31:22
  a 150 new artists that I've never met before.
• 31:26
  So I I'm very blessed, and I feel the same way that I I'm only at my best when I'm in the
• 31:32
  environment that makes me happy.
• 31:35
  And for me, being surrounded by corn and soybean fields, I didn't know it was ever gonna
• 31:39
  make me as happy as it does, but the space means a lot to me.
• 31:44
  And, you know, the cost of living doesn't hurt either, Randy.
• 31:48
  Yep.
• 31:48
  I completely get it.
• 31:51
  Well, I appreciate you taking some time for me today.
• 31:53
  Go ahead and plug anything website where people can find you, listen to the music, and then I
• 31:58
  hope you can hang out for a few minutes after the show with me because I'll be coming down
• 32:02
  through Texas next week.
• 32:04
  So we'd love a chance to connect with you there too.
• 32:07
  But go ahead and share all your socials and and website if you will.
• 32:11
  Well, let's just get started by saying my my single right now is called forget me not, and
• 32:17
  it's on all the streaming services and all the downloadable things out there, iTunes and and
• 32:23
  the whole mishmash.
• 32:25
  If anybody wants to see the video, it's on YouTube, but it's also on my website.
• 32:29
  And I do have a website that has every accessible point that anybody would care to do
• 32:37
  if you know, from reading the bio to seeing my videos to seeing some live performances to
• 32:42
  seeing, where they can download, songs and things like that off my albums.
• 32:47
  The website is called randycmoore.com, randy, initialcmoore.com.
• 32:55
  And, I have a couple of Facebook pages that are dedicated to what I do.
• 33:00
  One is called randy c moore music, and that one kinda tells people where they can find me doing
• 33:08
  what you and I are doing today, or where they can find where my records are playing or who's
• 33:14
  playing the records or what the charts look like and all that kind of stuff.
• 33:18
  And then the other one that I have is called Friends of Randy C.
• 33:22
  Moore, and that really deals more with, live performances.
• 33:26
  Where am I gonna be?
• 33:27
  Where am I headed?
• 33:29
  You know, check this out.
• 33:30
  Check that out.
• 33:31
  So, but all of that stuff can can be found on the website as well, the schedule and
• 33:37
  everything like that.
• 33:38
  I've got a Instagram, and I've got an x and all that kind of stuff, but I hardly ever use any
• 33:43
  of that stuff or anything.
• 33:44
  It's just the two Facebook pages in the website are the main places to go.
• 33:48
  Randy c moore dot com or randy c moore music on Facebook or randy c moore friends of randy c
• 33:55
  moore on Facebook.
• 33:57
  So there you go.
• 33:58
  There's the there's the whole nine yards, in one particular package.
• 34:04
  Fantastic.
• 34:05
  Well, Randy, I appreciate you taking some time for me this morning, and thank you for being
• 34:09
  part of the scene.
• 34:10
  Right on, man.
• 34:11
  Well, good luck.
• 34:11
  And, listen, be safe in your travels.
• 34:14
  It's it's you're probably picking a good time to go to places right now because, you know, it
• 34:23
  seems like the spring or the early spring, everybody's all excited.
• 34:27
  It's almost like after the first of the year, everybody takes all of their frustrations and
• 34:31
  throws them away.
• 34:33
  Randy, I was in Texas last May and last August, and it was hot.
• 34:37
  So I learned my lesson from last year.
• 34:39
  I'm gonna get to Texas, February or March, and, we're doing the whole Gulf Coast and just very
• 34:45
  blessed to to do what
• 34:46
  we do.
• 34:47
  Have have
• 34:48
  a great rest of your day, and we'll chat soon.
• 34:50
  Okay, bud.