Latest / Classic Metal Show / Is Texas Hippie Coalition Bigger Than Ever After 25 Years? Big Dad Ritch Talks THC, New Albums, More

Transcript

Is Texas Hippie Coalition Bigger Than Ever After 25 Years? Big Dad Ritch Talks THC, New Albums, More · Classic Metal Show

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, everybody, this is Big Dad Rich, and I do this under complete duress and at gunpoint.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're watching CMS TV.
• 0:11
  [music]
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: It is Chris Aiken Presents, and I, of course, am Chris Aiken.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: And today on the show,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: one of my favorite guys ever to meet in the world,
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: the only guy that's ever been able to pick my big ass up by his neck.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: That is,
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: he's got a brand new release,
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: two brand new releases,
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Stone Cowboys and Band of Outlaws doing very different things.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: The band is, of course, the Texas Hippie Coalition.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: And here is the main man himself, Big Daddy Rich.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Big Daddy, how are you, man?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Good, brother.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Howdy, howdy.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Good to see you, man.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it is great to have these two releases.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: They are so very,
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: there's a different vibe to each one,
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: a very different vibe to each one,
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: which I think is you telling more of the story of Texas Hippie Coalition than it is
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: of you necessarily trying to do different things.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: So why don't we start there?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, for people that don't know, there's a metal, I'll call it a metal album.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a country metal album, I guess.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to call it country because it's, you know, it ain't Johnny Cash.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: When I sent the albums out to my PR person, he called me up.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, hey, Band of Outlaws, heavy metal, right?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: I said, yeah.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, and Stone Cowboys is country?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, it's got a lot of
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: heavy stuff in it.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, you know,
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: whenever you go to list stuff for sale,
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: they only give you a certain amount of choices.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can't even choose country rock.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know how country rock cannot be a category.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: That should be a category.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: But country metal, they're definitely not a category for that.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, Stone Cowboys is our ninth album.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we wanted to release both of these simultaneously.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: We had a lot of these songs that are on Stone Cowboys.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: We had them for a couple of years.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Me and one of my co-songwriters,
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Nevada Romo, my guitar player, we write a lot of country songs just for fun.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: We just do them for fun.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then we started getting interest from record labels that,
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: were like,
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: like we would hand some of them out or whatever,
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: you know, and then They would get around and I can't remember who it was.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think Luke Combs was in the recording studio and he was like,
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: if a song could have some kind of tone in this area and it was one
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: of those country songs, you know, that was just a little bit heavier.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was pretty cool.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so we just decided to go ahead and do it ourselves,
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: you know, make it ourselves, put it out ourselves.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: We had record labels offering us money this year, but we turned it down.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, I started my own record label.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And of course,
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: being the egotistical person that I am,
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: I named it after myself, just like I named my dog after myself, Little Big Dad.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we named it Big Dad Records and released both these albums ourselves.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people are freaking out.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I can't get it on Spotify.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: I can't find it on Apple Music.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: I can't find it on Amazon.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't because you can only get it at THCofficial.com.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: You can download it worldwide right now, actually.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And on vinyl, we released both the albums together.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And on CD, of course, you can get whichever one you want or you can get both if you like.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: But definitely the Stone Cowboys is the white of the yin and yang and Band
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: of Outlaws is the black of the yin and yang.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we're just kind of showing you the two worlds of THC.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we are what they call genre benders.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let me ask you about the label itself before we dig into the records a little bit.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to try and do the best apples to apples comparison I can,
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: just because I know for a fact that you guys are road dogs.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: You guys live on the road.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to point to another band that used to live on the road
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: until they started their own thing,
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: which is Jarvis Leatherby of the band Night Demon,
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: who you may or may not know, but...
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they were always on the street, always for the first 10 years of existence.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: They formed a label and now Jarvis is working his band sometimes
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: and he's working other bands sometimes and other projects.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: Do you worry that you're just not going to have enough time to do both a label
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: and THC, you know, competently?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, For us at the moment and everything, I am confident.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when I first came up with the idea,
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: even Nevada was like, I don't know if this is a great idea.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: We got like $60,000, $75,000 over here from a label.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: We can go make albums and have money left over.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, man, I'm going to make these albums myself and spend the money myself.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we are like,
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: We are a month into selling it ourselves
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: and we're already near total recoup already.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And like when it comes to, um,
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: want to knock any record labels cause
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: we wouldn't be where we were
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: if we didn't have carved records in our life.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Carved records really helped us out a great deal when we didn't have any money
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: and they signed us to a three album contract and we fulfilled that with them.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And, uh, Great rapport with them.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Still love Tim Porter, the head of that company, who is now heading Carved Management.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then with E1,
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: which became Monarch,
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: you know, a lot of great bands on there, Jesus Priest, Black Label Society.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: They really,
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: just really just kind of released the album and made the money and That's good
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: for them, but it's not so good for us.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: We want to get in people's faces.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: We are a secondary market band, first of all.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: We are a 500 to 1,000-seater band, and we can pack them.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: We sell out,
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: just like a lot of bands will step down in Flint,
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Michigan to the world-famous machine shop and play that 600-seater,
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: and we sell it out just like the big boys do.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: But when it comes to those 2,000-seater arenas,
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: For some reason, you know, we just, we can't get there.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we play a lot of rallies, a lot of festivals, a lot of casinos, and they're packed houses.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're talking a thousand plus, and it's freaking awesome.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Some 60,000, shoot.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're at Louder Than Life this year.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: We are on the bourbon stage.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know...
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Looking forward to that big time, especially because I'm a bourbon guy.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: I have a bar here at the house.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's a bourbon only bar.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: My brother brags about it all the time.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's tequila and there's vodka and rum, but it's underneath the bar.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: But all the bourbon is out there.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, the Pappy Van Winkle, all that good stuff up there.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, whenever...
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: I look at us being able to do this,
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: or actually a lot of me being able to do this, totally capable.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Totally capable.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I was scared.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was fearful, but I'm not afraid to walk through the dark woods at night.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not afraid to be on foot on an old back dirt road during the witching hour.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Just not scared.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Right on.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: For us, yes.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of other bands are saying, hey, are you going to be taking on bands?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Will you be?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I am not yet.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: It may be in three years and five years,
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: but I need to get some proven ground before I take on any other bands.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the money that's coming in,
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: we probably already made more than we made off of all of
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: the last three albums combined.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right on.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll probably make a lot more, too, as you get on the road.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely what we're hoping.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right on.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's dig into these a little bit, Rich.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about,
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: I got to start with my favorite song,
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: which was usually, especially with this much music, it's a hard choice.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: This was such an easy choice for me.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: I love Put the Gun Down.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: That, I must have listened to it a hundred times.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: My main question, real story or an observational story?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is a literal,
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: real story to where women are always like men argue,
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: we debate, you know, I guess when I say men, I'm speaking about myself.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm more of a debater, want to solve the problem, get to the end of it.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: The women that I've had the experience of being with in my life,
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: they're not interested in solving the problems.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: They want to vent the anger that the problem gave us,
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: so it's just kind of me like,
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: there's no reason to point the gun at me,
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: first of all,
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: and if you could just put the gun down,
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: we'll try to resolve this,
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: but in that song,
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: these crazy women that I've had in my life,
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: especially the one I have right now for 15 years,
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: I No matter what, I love you anyway.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: The guns stay locked up at Big Dad's house.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Especially when she's home, right?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right on.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, metalheads.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: Tired of waiting for new episodes?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: Crave the real raw classic metal show?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: For just $4.99 a month, you can become a CMS VIP.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: You get every episode a full week early, completely uncensored, and 100% commercial free.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's the only place to interact directly with the show,
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: plus you score the fast pass so your song requests get bumped straight to the head
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: of the line on every live version.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: So what are you waiting for?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Subscribe right now at classicmetalshow.locals.com and become a CMS VIP today.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: The other one that I think a lot of people are gravitating to and are going
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: to continue to gravitate to is just like Johnny Cash.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, that is a very big problem.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Picture of what you are and what THC is.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Talk a little bit about that and talk a little bit specifically about the artists
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: that you chose to kind of tributize or memorialize in the song.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because I don't think they were random because they fit a rhyming scheme.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think they were very... And if I'm wrong, tell me I'm wrong.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I think you very...
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Keenly picked bands that meant, or artists, that meant something deeply to you.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: On just like Johnny Cash, Johnny Cash has been my inspiration.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: When I was a little kid,
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking four years old,
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think, four or five, we did not have a TV in our home with my dad and my mother.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: They were straight up hippies.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, we had a We had a blast in stereo with a vinyl record player, and I was their DJ.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Go put this on, Richard.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Go put this on, Richard.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I was always the DJ for them.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: I even have pictures of me holding vinyl as a young, young child.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: I would take care of that for them.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: But on Thursday,
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember what night it was,
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: but I think it was Thursday night when I go back in my memory,
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: a show came on called The Johnny Cash Show.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And my grandma and grandpa, my grandma and papa, they lived about a block from me.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I would walk down there and watch that with them every night that it came on.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And one night my grandma was like,
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: you're going to grow up and be a musician,
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think, or What are you going to be when you grow up?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, when I grow up, I'm going to be Johnny Cash.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, Johnny Cash is Johnny Cash.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can't be Johnny Cash.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I know this story so well because she's told it so many times.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: But she said that I turned and I looked at her and I said,
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: well, then I'm going to wear all black all the time, just like Johnny Cash.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess when you start putting that stuff out into the universe, the universe hears you.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because look at me now.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying I'm Johnny Cash's equal, but I can stand in his shadow, I think.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty awesome.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Another song that is on the other albums, Stone Cowboys, it's called No Relations.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: It talks about being an outlaw.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Even though that...
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not kin to those guys.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not kin to Johnny Cash.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not kin to Waylon Jennings.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not kin to Willie Nelson.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm still an outlaw like all those outlaw men, you know.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just me, you know, that's just me being a loud mouth, you know.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Trying to get myself off over in the,
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: represent over in the outlaw world.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I really feel like that when you look out there,
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: there just isn't anybody out there in this time and age and then,
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: The world of today that is willing to be like, hey, man,
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm red-blooded,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: true American, outlaw, Johnny Cash, Waylon and Willie are my heroes.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: You don't hear people just spouting it off and then really just truly living it.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Just recently busted up in Tennessee not too long ago.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: I won't go into details to save some of your listeners that might be underage.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I had been smoking, and I didn't go to jail, but they gave me a ticket.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: They were so nice to me there in Tennessee.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: You officers in Tennessee, you're some of the nicest people I ever met.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for treating me like a human being and not a criminal.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that, because we all know that outlaw don't mean criminal.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: You got to remember,
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus was called outlaw, and outlaw is the word that outlaw was derived from.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Just remember, I mean,
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: I want to get closer to Jesus,
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: but I am more over in that realm of the whiskey drinking.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, smoking connoisseur people, you know what I mean?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, trying to live a good life, but still want to be able to live life.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want to be a slave to somebody else's idea of life.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, do you think, and I mean, you live it, so you know it probably better than most.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: I live it in a way, in a different way, because I don't follow anybody's rules about anything.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: You see the long hair and stuff, and I do not follow the rules that are given either.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that being said,
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: when you do that,
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: and when you're independent,
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: and I am an independent person myself,
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: owning businesses and stuff,
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: you run into, there's that line of where that could cost you Pieces of your living.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Not all of it in most cases, but pieces.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Do you run into that where it's,
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: maybe THC would be that 2,000 or 3,000 seat venue band if you would just be like,
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: well, you know what?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to shut up and play my songs.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like we've had radio stations turn...
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Just decide not to play us because we were cuts.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And they'll just straight up say, we're not into any biker stuff at all.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: We won't play them because they're bikers.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they'll call it gang stuff.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: We wear those cuts to be recognized as a band.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you go back to
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: the Beach Boys, the Beach Boys would wear...
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Satin silk jackets that had their names embroidered on them with
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: the band logo embroidered on them so that when people would see them,
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: they would know, hey, that's the Beach Boys.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's not one of the other thousand bands that are out there that look similar.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when we went to play Rocklahoma for the first time, I'll never forget this.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Chips Enough from Enough's Enough comes walking up to me and he says, let me look at you.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Let me look at you.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let me look at this band.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then he points over at a group of guys over here that are riggers and people
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: that are working the festival.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then he points over the other way to people who are actual bands
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: that are playing on the festival.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I don't know that's a band.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: They could be working the festival.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know who they are,
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: but as soon as I seen y'all,
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, that right there, that's a band right there.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, man, you guys got a great look.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I even had,
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: back in the day,
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: the guitar player that played with Zach Wilde,
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think he called him Twin or something like that.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: I can't even remember.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Nick Cantonese.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's absolutely right.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And Nick, we had played with Black Label for six shows.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the first show was in Oklahoma City.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: We were main support for them.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the crowd chanted THC trying to draw us back out for 15 minutes after we walked off stage.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to go out there, but I would never do that to Zach Wild or Black Ravel.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not my night.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's their night.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just a part of it.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the crowd was chanting THC, THC.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he came over and told me like four or five days later when we were in Kentucky
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: or Tennessee or somewhere,
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: he's like, hey, man,
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to come over and say I need to meet you because what a crazy show we had
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: in Oklahoma.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, yeah, it was great.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: He said,
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: We were supposed to take the stage at a certain time,
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: and the big boss man said, until they quit chanting THC, we ain't going
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: nowhere.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And when it finally died down, he said he wanted to wait 10, 15 minutes for it to die down.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: So they went on like 15, 20 minutes late.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, man, that right there just says that that is...
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's something because that doesn't happen to us.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't happen to us.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I will tell you that we've had a lot of trouble getting bands to let us open
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: for them on tours because our show has so much energy.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: We are so driven.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: We get the crowd so into it.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Even John Reese,
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: who puts on Mayhem,
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: he said straight up, these bands, they don't want to go on after y'all.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thank God it goes to another stage,
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: but that other stage is staying empty until they can get from this stage to
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: that stage.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when we go to a festival.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: We want everybody to leave that festival thinking THC was one of the top bands.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: We want the crowd to peak while we're on stage.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: We want the crowd to peak.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I've had Leonard Skinner tell me, we used to never bow at the end of a show.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: But Van Zandt, the singer for Leonard Skinner, and I would come on stage one night.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was in Reno, Nevada, packed out show, 10,000 people probably.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, hey, you need to go take the stage.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: We just walked off stage.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, we need to go take the stage.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, what for?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, listen to that crowd.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: That pop is the pop that we get.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: That is peak pop right there.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Go up there, do a song, and take a bow.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we went back up,
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: we did another song,
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: we took a bow,
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: and after that,
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: in honor of the Van Zandt family, we bow every night at the end of every show.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you guys have always gotten that response.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: I remember seeing you at Rock on the Range in 2000-whatever, 13, 14, whatever it was.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it was the same thing.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: You guys came on.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think a lot of the people even knew who you guys were because
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: that was like a hailstorm, bullet for my Valentine type of a crowd.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: And by the end of it, everybody was chanting for you.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was crazy.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was so crazy.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was wonderful.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's music to my ears to hear the crowd and to bring everybody.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, one year we were at Rock, LaHoma.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we did the second stage and Eddie Trump came up to me and he said,
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: I have never in all of my years of doing festivals ever seen the main stage empty.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: He said everybody was at the second stage watching Texas Epic Coalition
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: and there was nobody at the main stage.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't remember who came on,
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: who came on next,
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: but Trump said,
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: man, For about the first three songs, the people were trickling over.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: So they played to less than 100 people three songs into the set.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, man, that's crazy.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, man, I'm just so happy.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Even John Reese did a one-off show in Colorado, and we played on the second stage.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the people, the area that they had set for it, it couldn't hold the whole concert.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: So the concert spilled all the way back past the...
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And there were people on top of them.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: They were out past them.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And people were even going outside the fence to be able to try to get a view.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was insane.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was crazy.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we love being that band.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: We love being the band that when people leave the festival,
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: we're the band that they're talking about.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we hope to continue that throughout the rest of our years.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right on, man.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, dude,
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: you have these two great records,
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: which is going to give people reason to go to these shows.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: Stone Cowboys and Band of Outlaws.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: You are on tour, as I told you before we started.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to see you in a couple of weeks.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: Cannot wait for that.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: And why don't you tell everybody where the best place is to go to buy
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: the two releases,
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: Stone Cowboys and Band of Outlaws, to get concert dates, all that stuff.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, right now you can go get everything at THCOfficial.com.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: We got a store on there.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's our own store.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: You can get both CDs separately and you can get the dual vinyl deluxe set both together.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm proud of it.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: So proud of it.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: They're selling like hotcakes.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can also get the downloads worldwide at THTOfficial.com.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: A lot cheaper than what you'd probably go buy a download somewhere for.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the one thing about getting the download from the musician,
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: and I tell everybody this,
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: if you get that download and if you get it from Spotify or Apple Music or somebody,
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: well, if you lose your signal, you lose your song.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, true.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have your music with you.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And let's just say that...
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're at that month and your bills are where they're at.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're making a decision.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Do I want whiskey or do I want my
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: streaming music this month?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, trying
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: to figure it out.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you choose the whiskey.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you do it this way and get it from the musician, you have it in your phone.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: You have it with you always, no matter where you go.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: As long as you're charged, you're in charge.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: As long as your phone is charged.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right on.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, one more time, everybody.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: It is Stone Cowboys and Band of Outlaws, the two great releases from Texas Hippie Coalition.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: And Big Daddy Rich, always fun chatting with you, man.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining me here on Chris Haker Presents.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Absolute pleasure, brother.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you kindly.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_03: Heavy Metal Warriors, are you ready to crank it up?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_03: The Classic Metal Show is live every Saturday night,
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_03: 9pm to 3a, and you can blast it right on your big screen TV.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_03: Just download the Rumble app on your smart TV or streaming device.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_03: Head to rumble.com slash c slash cms.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_03: Follow the channel and get ready to headbang from your couch or your bed.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_03: Monday through Friday at 8pm,
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_03: catch the daily replay, plus killer interviews on Chris Aiken Presents.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_03: No cable, no limits, pure classic metal live whenever we hit the stream.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_03: Download Rumble now, subscribe and never miss a riff again.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_03: The Classic Metal Show, louder on Rumble.