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Hitman Talks to Austin Meade · Classic Hitz with Hitman

• 0:00
  Hey, what's going on? It's hit Man with you and I've got in
• 0:02
  the studios right now. Yes, you've heard of him Austin Mead. Hey,
• 0:05
  how are you doing, dude? We are just glad to be back
• 0:08
  down in Texas for a little bit now. You guys are playing tonight at
• 0:11
  Brewster Street Ice House, right, correct. And you guys have a brand
• 0:14
  new single that's out right now and it's going to the rock radio called Blackout
• 0:19
  yep. Correct. We've been working in the studio a lot over the last
• 0:22
  couple of years, and we just shot a music video for this one last
• 0:25
  night actually up in Austin. So yeah, just another another new chapter in
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  the life, you know. So, I know a lot of people know
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  you in the Texas music scene, but you've You've also been doing one of
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  the things that I can't get over right now. I think that's so cool.
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  It's a great experience. You opened up for Gaunt Smack. Yeah,
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  we did that tour, just got off of it about a month ago.
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  It was a month long, really cool. It was us and I prevail
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  opening that and I don't know, man, it was it was cool to
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  play with some some legends as I would consider them. You know, they
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  were huge whenever I was growing up, so it was a pretty surreal experience.
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  So have you seen a difference in the audience from the people from the
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  Texas music scene to the rock scene. I mean there's more you know,
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  purple hair rocker chicks, which I'm a huge fan of. But you know,
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  what we love is just the fact that we have you know, we
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  see cowboy hats headbanging in the crowd just like we do crazy mohawks and shit.
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  So that's a really interesting, you know, mesh of the two worlds.
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  You know, we walked in by some of these looke columns records that
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  you have on the wall, and like, I feel like we have a
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  lot of fans that listen to that kind of stuff. And then obviously standing
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  in this room there's all kinds of you know, Breaking Benjamin and Metallica and
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  three eleven stuff, and we have the same type of fan basic listens to
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  that too. So it makes for a lot of fun because you are kind
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  of able to unite people who might not might not always find themselves in the
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  same room as each other. Oh yeah, yeah, it's it's it's interesting,
• 2:01
  how you know, uh, you know, bands like co Wet Soul
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  and uh Hardy and Jelly Roll and a lot of other great artists that are
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  doing well on country are now starting to blow up on rock radio. In
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  fact, was a Jelly Roll actually just made a brand new record. I
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  mean, I would say a record because he's got a top five on the
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  country chart at the same time a top five song on the rock chart.
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  So I mean it's crazy, right, Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Actually,
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  the guy that produced that record for him and wrote some of those songs,
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  his name's Andrew Bayless, and that's who we did black Out with.
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  Wow. So that was just a writing session that we we did one time
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  when we were in Nashville and m kind of a small world that you brought
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  him up, you know, because he's he's been a big part of that.
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  He's kind of one of those silent guys in the background that you don't
• 2:52
  really hear about unless you're on the musician songwriter side of things. So tell
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  me about the song Blackout. Where Where did this song come from? Where?
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  I mean, was it just a you know, one night you just
• 3:00
  decide to have a great song. Yeah, I mean, what's your writing
• 3:06
  thoughts on do that? I guess, um, let me edit that.
• 3:08
  I'm gonna edit that. Uh, what do you tell me a little bit
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  about blackout? And tell me the songwriting process to this song. So any
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  song just can come kind of in the flash of a pan, either a
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  melody'll stick in my head, or possibly just a couple of words that I
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  think could be a powerful, you know, set of words. And I
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  don't know I was we had gone to I literally said Small World, that
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  you brought him up. But we had just seen jellyear Oll do a performance
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  in Nashville. Said hey to those guys, I think it was last year
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  something after CMA Fest or ACM or something something, you know, and we'll
• 3:49
  go see him at this place called the Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville. And h
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  yeah, there was free drinks at the VIP bar, and I had a
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  VIP ticket as a gift, so I went. I went hard on the
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  on the vodka sodas, and uh had a really great time that night.
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  And the next morning I just hung over in the shower like, oh shit,
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  straight back to blackout. Huh, Like just when you think you're gonna
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  come out of it. So I thought that was an interesting thought. I
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  thought, just I wanted to make another song where I feel like every line
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  could possibly be the title of it. Yeah, so that's why we talk
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  about, you know, the talk of my hometown role model, rain Cloud,
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  straight Jacket, drop Out. I like finding those interesting pairings of words.
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  And uh, Willie's here with me. He's been playing lead with me
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  and writing songs with me for like the last four or five years. And
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  so, um, I don't know, man, we just we just picked
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  a riff that we felt kind of embodied. Just here we go again,
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  straight back to blackout. You know that that feeling of I'm having a good
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  time. I hate myself sometimes, but I'm having a damn good time doing
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  it anyway. So just kind of live in in that, and I think
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  through through the different verses in the song, and you kind of go through
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  the difference of emotions of realizing like, oh damn it, I did it
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  again, but then you just kind of accept the fact you're like first class,
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  you're dead last disappointment. Yeah. So, I don't know. I've
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  always had some sort of a self maybe not loathing, but like some sort
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  of that, and all my songs, I mean, my first record was
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  called Chief of the Centers. The next one was Black Sheep, and then
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  after that Abstract Art of an Unstable Mind, and we had a song on
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  there called Loser Mentality. So there's a lot of that like living in and
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  what I do and maybe I'm just preaching to myself a lot. I don't
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  know. Well, I know one of my favorite songs that I actually just
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  uh started really getting into is Rose Romance. Yeah. That's off the last
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  record, man, Yeah, yeah, tell me a little bit about that
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  song. That tune is just uh, was it a next girlfriend that really
• 5:57
  got you mad or something? Or No? On that record, I would
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  I wouldn't give her that much credit, never would, But No, on
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  that record, I really wanted to explore writing about different characters and through different
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  songs, like we talk about situations they're in, or like the rooms that
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  they're in physically, or what might be going on inside their heads. So
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  that whole record is four or five characters kind of that pop back up in
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  my mind. And man, I would honestly just have late night writing sessions
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  with Willie and I would just really enjoy like getting to just kind of go
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  crazy with the storylines, like not putting any boundaries on what you can or
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  can't say or what the character character might do or might not do. So
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  Rose Romance is just one of the female characters just always drunk dialing you,
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  you know, and you're like, I've had enough of this shit. But
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  in the music video at the end, you know, the main character actually
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  ends up back with her, and so you feel like the whole time that
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  he's not gonna he's not gonna go back to her, you know, because
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  she did him so wrong in the past, and then turns out he goes
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  right back to her, and so you kind of feel like almost betrayed by
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  the guy you were rooting for at the beginning. But I do like at
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  the end of the video, how you got rid of the Cadillac and got
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  that that what was was that a moped or so yeah, yeah, I
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  got a little moped at the end. I like putting a little you know,
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  tip of the hats some of my favorite movies, and so we figured
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  why not put a little bit of dumb and dumber in there at the end.
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  So, of course you're performing tonight Bruce the Street. Ice House tickets
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  are still on sale. You can get them also there at the door.
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  Should be a great show. What's the one song that the crowd goes nuts
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  over where every time you play it. There's a couple. Um, there's
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  there's Varsity type, there's Happier alone. I mean recently it's been Blackout,
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  so um, a lot of people really dig Dopamine drop and uh, cave
• 7:49
  In is definitely another big sing along. But I would say as far as
• 7:53
  sing along wise, probably Happier alone, Varsity type cave In. But like
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  I said, Blackout's been really people have been asking for that at shows and
• 8:01
  just screaming it to us. So it's pretty awesome because it hasn't hasn't been
• 8:05
  out for very long. Wow. Wow, Well, I'm looking forward to
• 8:07
  seeing you play tonight. Of course, the new single Blackout is out?
• 8:11
  Now was it the album? When is it? When is it gonna drop?
• 8:16
  Um? I haven't picked a date for the actual album yet, but
• 8:18
  I have. I have an album done, and I have a lot of
• 8:20
  other singles that I'm I'm still working on and ready to go with it.
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  I just I wanted to kick off this one with a Blackout so yeah,
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  well, in fact, you guys are going to perform it right now,
• 8:31
  right, let's do it. Yeah, I smell the cigarettes looks like my
• 8:43
  phone is dead. Stupid shit again, still hanging with the same crowd,
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  try to remember when two turn to six am. I hope I still got
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  some friends. Can someone take me home now? I'll promise myself that this
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  is it? Strong out the fluence, Then I go straight back to Blackhout.
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  Every morning I wake up place down gets so I'm a straight jacket trip
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  out from mytel rang out the time in my hometown, and then I go
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  straight back to Blackhout. Yeah, keep hearing on the bass had been such
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  a mess? Did last first class disappointment Sunday morning? Singing a man strung
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  out and fluence? Then I go straight back to black Hot. Every morning
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  I wake up face down, gets sim a straight jacket drip out o my
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  rain crowd, the town in my hometown. Then I go straight back to
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  blackhow waket a bitch? Straight back to blackhow the talk of my hometown.
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  Then I go straight back to Blacktown. Every morning I'm live up, face
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  down, gets sim a straight jacket trip out, my rain cloud, the
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  talk of my hometown. Then I go straight back to blackout. Hell Yeah,