Latest / The Elsa Kurt Show / Behind the Music: Mason Douglas on Navigating the Country Music Industry and the Power of Unity

Transcript

Behind the Music: Mason Douglas on Navigating the Country Music Industry and the Power of Unity · The Elsa Kurt Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well, hello my friends, welcome to the show.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad you're here and no offense to you, I'm actually more excited that my guest is here.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I get to interview a Nashville recording artist.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I'm cool enough for that.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I'm not really cool enough.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Mason Douglas, how are you?
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm doing wonderful.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for letting me be on here and hang out and talk about the new project going on here.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Really, really appreciate you.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Let me come to you for a while.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: This is awesome.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited to talk with you and hear about that and just get into all the new degree.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: You got a lot of things I want to hear about, so we are going to get into it in just a moment.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Music, All right, I'm so excited that that just actually worked and happened.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I already told Mason off the air that we're using new recording.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: We're using big girl, big boy software recording.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: I'm very excited when things go right.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: But back to you, Mason.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: You're kind of a big deal.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: You have this crazy huge.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say pedigree we're talking about pedigrees with dogs but you have this really cool history of your experiences.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Let's walk through this a little bit before we get to the music.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: You're from Tucson, Arizona, Is that right?
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, air Force Brad Group in Tucson.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: My dad was a fighter pilot so I got to be just surrounded by military all my life.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: So Davis Month in Air Force Base.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: We moved a lot from between Benton Waters and England.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: We were in Hampton over at Langley.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: My dad was involved with the special projects out there.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: We were out in Hawaii for a bunch.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: He was the PACAF commander out there, operations Commander.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: So got to be part of military a lot and it led me around the world.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: And then I found music back in.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: You know, the guy named Garth Brooks came along for me and that's the one who did it again.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Obviously Garth is still making waves, but he was a huge deal back when he came around and when I was discovering music and when songwriting and performing just started to just started, country became cool again, I guess is the way to put it.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: And so when country became cool I said man, that's what I want to do, move to Nashville and been here ever since Rock and Rolling.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Wow, how old are you when you when you moved to Nashville?
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: I was just graduated college my mom said you can do anything you want to do with your life, and I will support you 1000% as long as you go to school.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: And so that was the deal.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: So I went and got a marketing degree along with the computer science degree and finished that up to get a dual major.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: And so I was yeah, just, I guess I was 22 at the time and and I could have gone to LA.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: La, if you've ever been, traffic is just horrendous.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: So, as that little two congested, and New York obviously to theatrical.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: So Nashville was the place for me, especially for the country.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Music is just the no brainer.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you knew all along, country music was your your lane, musically, like you felt, like that was your heart.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: That's a good question.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: I grew up on deaf leopard motley crew.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: My sister, michelle, was listening to guns and roses and all the cool stuff.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: She was four years older than me so she was telling me all the cool stuff to listen to.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Pearl Jam came into my life even more mainstream pop, like gin blossoms and toe the wet sprocket.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: I was into that and it wasn't it.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Country was never, it was.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: It was always being played in my house.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: My mom always had Ricky van Shelton on George, straight Chris Ladoux.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: She was playing Chris Ladoux tapes before anybody knew Chris Ladoux was.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: I just wasn't absorbing it.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: And then one day I went to, went to see Alan Jackson at TCC in Tucson and all of a sudden I just realized that man, this is, this is kind of speaking me, this is talking to me.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: And then that's about the time that Garth was just blowing up and country made a lot of sense.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: And then I'm like, thank you, mom, you've been playing all this music that I didn't know I was absorbing this whole time and now it's in my veins and in my soul.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: I just didn't know it was hanging out down there and it was really easy to To.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just to let that come out and say, oh well, I can, I can try to sing this stuff, I can try to write this stuff and and yeah, try, try to go out and pound the pavement and put my head down on it.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: That's so cool.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: What a great, great story.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: You know, I love the initiative to just be like you know what?
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I think I can do this, I'm gonna do this.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: I love that is.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I find everything you just said is is so relatable, with the exception of I have zero musical talent.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: I sing all the time but I can't sing, you know one of those Default in there.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Somewhere it must be.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: But I love that and I love that you have such an eclectic Musical background and I grew up the same it's funny.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I have an older brother, four years older and same thing, so I was absorbing his music.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: My mother loved Motown so I was listening to Motown.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: So I think that is you know.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: To have such a wide variety of musical influences.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I think it probably makes your, your own work richer, like deeper, more, more, I Don't know, evolved, I don't know.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: That's probably the right word, but but I think that's really cool that you have such a wide variety of influences.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: I Get to expand on it every day in songwriting, because music these days is so influenced by so many different genres.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: So if you're just doing country, you just grew up listening to one.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: You know, in these days, just listen to Florida Georgia line, all your songs are gonna sound like Florida Georgia line.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: I'm sure I'm going to a Motown background, a little bit of Pearl Jam and they're a little bit of, I don't know, kings of Leon, and you just mix it all together in a big soup, you're gonna have a whole wider, wider well to draw from when you're, when you're ready to create.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: So it helps a lot for sure.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I would imagine so, and I just you know it's funny when you're saying Garth Brooks, for me it was, it was a Tim McGraw, don't take the girl.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Now I'm an East Coast girl with we're just no country going on here, and so and I, up until I heard that song, I was like ew country.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, because I was too busy listening to wham or something you know 80s girl, if you couldn't figure that out.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: But yeah, and I heard don't take the girl and this story, you know, I cried the whole darn song.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I made me cry and I loved that because I was a teenage girl and you know, crying is just our nature and yeah, so from then on, it was that.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: But it's, it's funny how that happens, right, you hear one thing and you're like wait a minute, that's what I've been looking for, it's so cool.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: How do you feel about?
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: You know a lot of people who are diehard country music fans, like lifelong, going back to you know, I don't know Conway Twitty and, and when it was country and Western.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Those people will say now, like the crap they're playing now, that's not country.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: How do you feel about that?
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: It's.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: It's all generational.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Everybody grows up on what they're listening to and what they appreciate and what they love.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: And Music's very cyclic.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: It's the cyclical.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: I don't know what the proper usages on that, if an ale or not, but it's all a giant circle right now what is deemed cool and country and progressive, it's just retro, it's just 60 stuff, 70s coming back in that 80s country with all the Texas guys, all the Cody Jinxes and the Cody John sins and all those they're they're bringing back in that that 80s, 90 country.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: And then you have, you know, morgan Wade's recent release, which sounds just kind of definitely got that 60s backbone hanging in there, and so it's Everything's gonna progress.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: I think it's okay.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: I think it's every generation shown its new, its new ear for it.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: I do laugh that people are, you know when, when people say, oh, this is a fresh new sound, I'm thinking, man, I was around when that was the original sound, so I don't know what that says about me, but Age, but I remember when this was a lot cooler back when it first came out, so I Can appreciate it.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: So I answered my question.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: I can appreciate it.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: I understand why it happens.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: I still love what I grew up on and what, what's in my veins, and but I understand why.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Why are those new sounds come along for sure, everything yeah.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you hear it with a completely different ear than an average like myself.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Like an average listener.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: We don't hear those nuances or those I don't know riffs or beats like see, I don't even know, I don't know the right terminology.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: It sounded so stupid saying but you know, you know what I mean.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, thank goodness.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: It's what?
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Is that saying everything old is new again, right, like you know, I mean, my feeling on it is like there's isn't there room for everybody.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Like you know, if you love that, that's your thing, that's great.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: If you love a different thing, like don't, you don't have to knock what somebody else is doing, right, I mean, there's room for everybody, yeah, but I do think you have an off button.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: You can turn off or skip it and find something else you do like, but let that person do the thing.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Let's let them make their music.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: And that's also the cool part about country music these days is that it Meshes, it's, it's meshing so many, so many different genres.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Now you have your pop your country rat, your country rock, your country metal.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: You have just all these little subgenres of country that never used to be in there.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: The Old school, old school guys are gonna probably poop who it thumbs down it, but it's.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: It's there and I think it's a great evolution, for for what you can do, what you can bring to country, is your own thing, your own voice.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: I.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Love that.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Now you've worked with a variety of artists, very big names, chris Stapleton, to just adjust a name one, and I'm gonna name my personal favorite, which apparently is also your personal favorite, john Schneider.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: What, yeah, I mean?
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: I mean we have you and I probably have a different kind of love for him.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I might my teenage heart Loves him.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Duke's a hazard if if somebody you know Just is come out from underneath a rock and doesn't know who John Schneider is, duke's a hazard.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so you've worked with with so many artists.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about that experience.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: It's it's it's a kind of a byproduct of just being a Nashville for so long.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: You hang out long enough and you eat lunch next event skill one day and you're having dinner next to Dirk's Bentley the next day, and it's just everybody's around everywhere and and the weird part about working with artists is that you're around before they ever blow up.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: I was in the studio multiple times with Stapleton doing demos and then years and years later actually just back in 2019 got to open for him at a a veteran suicide prevention conference at Opryland, and so it's just weird watching him blow up and I'm like, hey, we were in the studio, you know all these years ago, man, what's up.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: And so we just you cross paths with people.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: John was a.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: John Schneider was a huge you talk about full circle.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: He was my first concert in the bush gardens at Williamsburg, virginia, and I was kind of how low I was must been four or five, but we go out there.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: I knew all the words to all his songs and again, because he was bowed Duke, so that was the big deal.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: All these years later, my publisher at the time said Judy Harris, legend in the industry.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: She says, hey, john Schneider is looking for material and he wants to cut a couple of your songs.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Is that okay?
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, oh my god, the the John Schneider, and got to go in the studio, got to hang out and since then Become buddies and and talked to him every, every now and then and we're actually texting right now trying to figure out a lunch date, if I can pin him down.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: So he's a he's a good dude, but it was just one of my huge, huge honors to have him record record a couple songs.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: He did buy you a beer.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: If you guys have ever seen live, you play by your beer.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: He's got a t-shirt with the phrase on it and then I'll go to song called kid from somewhere, that that I co-wrote with a couple buddies.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Wow, that is so cool.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's really a testament to your talent.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't I don't want to Understate the, the actual talent that you have to be able to do that.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: I mean to be able to work with so many artists.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: You're you're a sought after, you know songwriter, so that in itself is so cool.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Now you're also a publisher, you're also an author.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: You I'm gonna take a wild guess here that you don't spend a moment of your time being bored, do you?
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Never bored.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I do decompress just a while.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Last time I feel guilty watching the Cowboys game.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, should I feel guilty?
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Should I be working?
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: But I'm like, no, you gotta just chill out.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: But there's always something to do.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: I was just looking at my Computer upstairs thinking, oh my god, I gotta finish that, gotta finish that, gotta finish that, gotta finish that.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: But they're all the cool part about War.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: I'm fortunate.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: I guess I'll be.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: I'll be honest here I've worked a lot of jobs that driving a hotel van and doing logistics for an inmate transport company, selling computers.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: I've done all that stuff and I was lucky enough to now be able to do music and so I'm filling up with all the stuff with writing books again.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: I had them here just in case it came up at Nashville, pop culture stuff.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Now you know Nashville, secret, nashville, all stuff I love.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: I'm not writing a book that I about something that I'm not Not passionate about.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: I get to sit down and and do this stuff.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: I get to write these songs, produce these tracks, and a lot Of hard work went into it, so I'm not gonna discount that.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: I bust my butt to get there and I'm just lucky enough to fill up, fill up that these little, these projects with the what stuff that I love to do.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: So sure I love that.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about so you go from from songwriting for other people and watching them perform songs that you've written or co-written and then also doing your own songs, your own thing, being the guy centers as you opened up for huge acts I mean, you have been, you've got number ones out there, the whole works.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Tell me about what it feels like being the guy, being the one not being the behind the scenes guy, but being the guy right in front.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Do you love it?
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: You have mixed, mixed feelings about it.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, I love it again since seeing Alan Jackson that first time I wanted to be the guy standing on stage and then seeing garth fly across texas stadium, I wanted to be the guy flying across texas stadium.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: I really pursue that.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: I was signed to a label about twelve years ago and guess now couple record deals and and got to make albums that I wanted to make and make some great music Never broke artistically that was the strange parts.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: Never had that mainstream major label breakthrough with that that you're looking for as an artist.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: So I went to songwriting, which is great, and I've been behind the scenes for all these years now and till this last project of I miss america popped up and Wrote a song with my buddy, clarence j, and we produced it up.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Things started just unfold with this with this song and we had a great message behind of the great, great team that believe in what it's saying, and so I said you know what?
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: Let's, let's just off the cobwebs and a little bit and the artist, get the guitar back on, see if it still fits and get out from behind the studio because I've been the wizard behind the studio curtain for so long and just the songwriting rooms, and so it's super fun to explore this again because, I'll admit, there's no question, I've just been.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: I haven't updated social media lot.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: I post pictures of my kid and a little bit of traveling and that's it.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: There's no pictures of me out there hustling and doing the clubs and festivals and I'm like that's for the young kids.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: But now, with that, I miss america.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: That were, that were bringing out here.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: I'm super excited and proud and excited to be the the voice behind it.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: So we'll see, see how this goes.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: That's so awesome, what fun, what a great adventure in life.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Awesome, so many adventures.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: What's going on.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: And all of a sudden random phone call, random email and everything just shifts not always left turn you don't like this left turn ones but sometimes the shifts are really, really cool, where you get that Unexpected thing that you, I guess you've been preparing, preparing for and working for be just don't know when they're gonna happen.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Then all of a sudden they do like okay, let's, let's chase it, let's, let's see what happens.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: It's always when you least expect it.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Like you know, you're so focused on a plan, like, okay, I'm gonna do this, this is what's gonna happen with it, and then it doesn't happen.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Like, okay, whatever, I'll move on to the next thing, and then that other thing blows up.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: It's very crazy how things happen.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: So it takes a lot of faith and a lot of trust in it.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Just the process and of timing, right like timing, timing is what it is and we usually don't have any control over it, which is, you know, I, I, for me, I think it makes it more of an adventure, like you just never know.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you especially music, you cannot guarantee the outcome, but you have to.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: You don't know if you're gonna get the number one or the big hit, but you have to.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: So I'm not safe.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: But so you have to love the process.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: You have to love being there and that journey, the unexpected twist around every corner, the ups downs, hills, valleys, all that stuff you have to be prepared for.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, you better love where you're going.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Just a funny thing on timing I wanted.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: One of the songs I got to be part of was kid rocks little controversial number.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: We, the people I don't know if and if your listeners, viewers, know that one, but I'm I co wrote that with, with kid rockin, my buddy, jason Wyatt, and we started at pre covid back in 2019.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: And kid rock is always saying we'll call him Bob, isn't he?
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: But he's calling Bob, so we'll say Bob.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Bob is saying you know what?
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: I don't know when I'm gonna put this out, because it just has to be the right timing.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: And so we did what we could on the track and we wrote big courses, very unity, unity type of song out there and then also said I'm gonna put my own little spin on it when it's ready.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Well, comes around and we don't hear much.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Can ever touring stops.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: We just on the song here and there when we need to.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: But it wasn't until January of last year when everything got super charged up and he did that.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Bob came back and said alright, guys, now's the time, I'm gonna release it again.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: We're just sitting there, no, I'm watching tv when I get the call he says I'm gonna release this Tuesday and then just by one.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: One week I was sitting there at number one writer and the next week, what even looking for, had no clue what's gonna happen.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Bob released it all of a sudden, number one writer thinking that just, I mean, he had the timing just down.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: He knew exactly when to put that song out, what it was supposed to say and how to do those verses, so it created controversy right at the right time, right right, with perfect timing.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: And then again, for me, I'm just sitting there going.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: This is weird, this is insane.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: I've had no clue, this is gonna happen.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: And here we are.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it probably having been a while to do your public, I remember those lines.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: And there are definitely a few new ones that we had not heard yet that he decided to put in there based on based on the status of the world at the time.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, it's been some interesting times, hasn't it?
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Good word for it.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, right, yeah, probably anybody watching probably just yelled at the screen and said you know.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Understatement of the year Elsa, yes, so tell me a little bit about your the it's.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming it's like the first release from from the new music, from the new album.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about the background of it.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, actually I'm releasing EPs all the time, but this was intended to be just a single kind of standalone project right now and it's called I Miss America and it is a product me and my buddy, clarence J.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Clarence wrote Friday for Rebecca Black and produced it.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: So he's extremely viral multi hundreds of millions of streams and spins and views and knows the business inside and out, so he's a great dude and we're just, we're just hanging out talking and we really just had a conversation about where the world was today and everybody fighting, everybody on social media going back and forth, everybody trying to change each other's minds and that's and how futile that is.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: How much we bang our head on the wall just trying to change each other's minds that we get mad when those minds don't change.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: And we started thinking, man, I remember a time when I could just sit there and I knew my buddy wasn't thinking the same thing that I was, but we would just sit there, laugh about it and have a conversation about well, why is this?
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: I think this way and I don't see that, because I see this oh cool, and still raise our beers and have a toast to toast to each other and we started talking about that and that kind of just agree to disagree.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Unity is what we're missing.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: And so we started writing this song and I had this title sitting there, called Miss America, and it had that exact, had that exact line of man I'm, you know, out of everything, I miss man, I miss America.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: And so we started writing that and just started thinking about all things America used to be.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: What we remember, what are based on, either nostalgia before our time, during our time in the 90s and even after, and just little things.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: That was the foundation for our society and our yeah, just our generation and our ideals, essentially, yeah, and our, our big message behind it was not you're wrong, you're right, I hate you, go over there.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: It was more like where's the unity, where, where's where those flags in the front yards again that everybody's in Are?
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: For me, the visually what I see is we're getting fed all this.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Think of a Venn diagram.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: I've quit it.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: Like a Venn diagram, let's go back to math class real quick and and probably isn't a thing new to anybody, but you got your right leaners and you got your left leaners right in here.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: This big, there's a big swath that we're all kind of if we talk about it.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: If we just sit there and say what do you think?
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Well, here's what I want for the best yeah, me too, I want the best for this and actually have those discussions face to face civilly, then we will discover that vast majority of us, in the middle of that overlap, are all agreeing and want the best.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: However, what we're getting fed is the fringe stuff.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: We get the stuff on the outer edge of the fringe and that's what we're being shown.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: So we think that that other person is thinking all the fringe stuff, when they're really actually kind of having a sane thought in there or just need or don't know enough or haven't done the research and they, once they discover that, then what, what they're, what the truth of the matter really is, with the, with facts, then then we might be a whole lot more eye to eye than we think.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: So that's that's where the song came from, that just talking about that, and then again a little bit of a rambling tangent there, but that's that's actually.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: No, I love it.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: You, you know you.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Everything you said is so on point and so true.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: And, and I just simply agree with you completely, I think when we talk face to face, instead of, you know, over the internet, over social media, where it's not really, you know, nobody's really talking to each other, people are talking at each other.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: But when you get somebody face to face, and exactly like you said, and I just it's such an important point that you know, when you really sit down and talk to somebody with different views than you extremely, maybe radically different views than you when you cut right down to the core of it, it's exactly like you said, you know.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: You know what do you want for your life and your children's life?
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Well, you want the best life possible for your family and your loved ones, and and you want to live in peace and you know comfort, and you want to be able to make a decent living and do all the things, and those are the.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: That's the common ground right there.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: We actually all want, you know, the same end or the same results of life.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: We just have different ways of getting to that or believing how to get to that, and you know when you have that conversation, you do look for the common ground, more so than the differences.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: And, and you know, as we well know, mainstream media and news and I should put that in quotation marks and news, it's really just tabloid stuff now designed to divide, you know, to keep us fighting with each other, because then we're not looking at what they're doing.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: If we keep fighting with each other, we don't really pay attention to what they've got going on.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: But but, yeah, you're so right and you know what.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: What a truly, truly, in every sense of the word, what a truly timely message, timely song to put out in the world.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: And we so, for those of you who don't know, I like to pre-record my show.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: So we are actually pre-recording, we're recording right now, on the 22nd anniversary of 9-11.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: So I think I'll speak for both of us, if you don't mind.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: This is a very poignant time, a day, somber, emotional, you know, especially when you know, and I'm sure you know people always, when I was a kid and you can probably relate to Growing up, people are.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Our parents and grandparents would talk about where they were the day Kennedy was shot, like that was their big thing.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Most of us remember where, in what we were doing on 9-11, when when that happened, and so it's it's a it's such a significant day to be talking about such a significant message, and I and I really thank you for putting out something that's really meant to unify instead of divide.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, well, we hope the the message resounds and and everybody's.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: The big message also is you don't have to stop thinking what you're thinking, and it's not like you're wrong or you're right, it's you.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: You are free.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: That's why we're here to think what you want, to say what you want without you know to again, to a certain degree, again, not the friend stuff, but on the edge of the diagram there, but you should be able to say the stuff and think this stuff without repercussions and without Losing friends, without losing clients, your business, your job, your life.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: And this is on.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: You know, this is on both sides of the aisle, guys.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: This is a.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: This is everybody.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Everybody should be doing this.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: So for us, it's a.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: You know, what do we want this to be?
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: We kind of want it.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: Just, it's a big message.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: It's the message it's almost a mantra too of I miss America and when you, when you hear it, okay, I miss America.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: One when we could be, when we could have that unity, and that's our tagline is we came up with this Less fighting, more unite.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: So that's what we're going for, this.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: We also have a video.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: I don't know if this video should be up right now, and this is super cool.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: We had miss Victoria Jackson play my mom, victoria nice, that's so cool live alum and she is awesome and, yes, she's a good friend now.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: So just really really cool being in certain in certain company but filming that video.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: We also had a lot of improv specialists come in and and play, play my family and appearance for my dad, my late dad, who he passed away in 1993 from ALS and he was a fighter pilot, vietnam fighter pilot again, I was teaching a 10s at Davis Monthan but I lost him when I was just a teenager and he actually makes a cameo appearance in there as well.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: So super cool, really heartfelt and special to me.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Check out the video, see what we're talking about, see what the see, the message, and that's, that's, that's all we can ask.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: We really wanted to get out there and Come, come part of everybody's every stop process.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: We're gonna be playing that at the end of this broadcast for you guys and in the just so you know, in the shows notes we're gonna have links for everything where you can find Mason and his music and his books and everything that he's got going on.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: So don't worry, it's all gonna be there.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Guys, mason, I really I can't thank you enough for for coming on.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: This has been such an enjoyable conversation.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: It's been so lovely meeting you and hearing about all the things and I feel like we've only really scratched the surface.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: I have a feeling we could go on for another three hours, but I'm sure you're very busy.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: This is a this is such a treat to be with you.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: I know who you are long before, long before we booked this, so this is a super cool to be here talking to you, getting to meet you and Letting me, letting me tell you about, about our new new song, new video I miss America comm.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: It's where.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: It's where you can find all the info, but also, thank you so much for for letting me come take your time and Absolute pleasure.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Tell us quickly Is there anywhere we're gonna be able to find you?
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: You playing out anywhere right now, or Everything on the website.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it'll be on the website.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: We're gonna see.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: See what happens where we need to be with with this song and video and but otherwise, mason Douglas music.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Comm is where you can find me for all the socials, but I miss America.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Comm is also where All the links will be as well, including all the the the news about, about the song in the video and everything else pertaining to it.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Beautiful.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: All right, my friend.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, guys.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: That was Mason Douglas and he's a Nashville recording artist, all around great guy.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: We are not kidding when I tell you we only scratched the surface here with all of the things that he's got going on and that he's done, and I need for you to go check that out and check out that song and we'll see you in the next episode.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Take care, guys.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: I man, I miss America.