Latest / NO FILTER / Joe Rogan Experience _2340 - Charley Crockett
Transcript
- 0:04Speaker 1: The Joe Rogan Experience.
- 0:06Speaker 2: Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. Yeah,
- 0:13Speaker 2: doing something at the Viper Room and then trying to
- 0:16Speaker 2: come here the next day. The Viper Room is just notorious. Like,
- 0:24Speaker 2: even when you're in the building, it just feels like.
- 0:27Speaker 1: It is notorious. Yeah. And it's funny because I... the
- 0:29Speaker 1: only way I'd ever been in there was through that,
- 0:31Speaker 1: you know, the door on the side street there, you know, and, uh,
- 0:35Speaker 1: but they, you know, they had all the cameras out
- 0:38Speaker 1: and took me around the, I'd never come in through
- 0:40Speaker 1: the door on sunset before even recognize the place.
- 0:43Speaker 2: No, I've never been through that door either.
- 0:44Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 0:44Speaker 2: I've only, like I said, I've only been there once.
- 0:46Speaker 2: I was there for a comedy show. It just feels weird.
- 0:49Speaker 2: It's a, there's certain buildings that just have bizarre history.
- 0:52Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, shooter was telling me last night, man, uh,
- 0:55Speaker 1: River Phoenix died on the sidewalk right out that door.
- 0:58Speaker 1: I didn't know that. I thought it was in front
- 1:01Speaker 1: of the whiskey for some reason.
- 1:02Speaker 2: No, no. It was the Viper Room.
- 1:04Speaker 1: I never realized that. No.
- 1:06Speaker 2: It's a fucked up place.
- 1:07Speaker 1: Hey, man.
- 1:08Speaker 2: Nice to meet you.
- 1:09Speaker 1: Pleasure's all mine, Joe. Thanks for having me.
- 1:10Speaker 2: I love your music.
- 1:11Speaker 1: Really? Yeah, yeah.
- 1:13Speaker 2: Yeah, when my friend Jake turned me on to you.
- 1:15Speaker 2: Your music is like, you've lived a life. You can't
- 1:18Speaker 2: fake that. You know what I mean? There's something about
- 1:22Speaker 2: certain dudes' voices and songs are like, all right, that
- 1:25Speaker 2: guy's done some living. You know? You can't create that
- 1:28Speaker 2: with AI.
- 1:28Speaker 1: Right? They're going to try. Everybody, I mean, it's crazy.
- 1:35Speaker 1: I mean, we're kind of reaching singularity, you know? Yeah.
- 1:41Speaker 1: Where nobody can tell the difference.
- 1:42Speaker 2: I know. I think we're right about there. There was
- 1:44Speaker 2: a new one that just got released today. Did you
- 1:46Speaker 2: hear the new one today? It's even better than the
- 1:49Speaker 2: Google one that was insane that was released last week. Yeah,
- 1:53Speaker 2: it's weird.
- 1:54Speaker 1: What are you talking about?
- 1:55Speaker 2: Some new AI engine that does video. I'll send it
- 1:58Speaker 2: to you, Jamie. It's pretty incredible. The way they're able
- 2:03Speaker 2: to make stuff now where it looks exactly like real
- 2:08Speaker 2: human beings. It doesn't look fake even a little bit.
- 2:13Speaker 2: I'll send it to you, Jamie. It's called ByteDance. So
- 2:22Speaker 2: is that the China one?
- 2:23Speaker 1: That's the company. Oh, okay.
- 2:25Speaker 2: ByteDance is the company that owns like TikTok and stuff. Oh, yeah, China.
- 2:29Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
- 2:32Speaker 2: This is their new AI. So this is all fake.
- 2:35Speaker 2: All fake people. All done by computers. Indistinguishable. You know,
- 2:40Speaker 2: it's like very strange. You got it? Yeah.
- 2:44Speaker 1: Throw that up.
- 2:45Speaker 2: Give me some sound. You gotta click on it. This
- 2:55Speaker 2: is all fake. I mean, what the fuck, man? We
- 3:30Speaker 2: are living in the weirdest time ever, Charlie Crockett.
- 3:33Speaker 1: Oh, man, you're right.
- 3:33Speaker 2: This is the weirdest time ever to be alive because
- 3:37Speaker 2: we're so close to not being able to tell what's
- 3:40Speaker 2: real and what's fake. We're so close. I mean, we're
- 3:44Speaker 2: essentially right there with video. And then eventually it's going
- 3:49Speaker 2: to move into some sort of perception. It's going to
- 3:52Speaker 2: be feel. You're going to be able to put a
- 3:55Speaker 2: helmet on and go into some bizarre world.
- 4:00Speaker 1: And you can't stop it.
- 4:01Speaker 2: You can't stop it.
- 4:02Speaker 1: It's coming.
- 4:03Speaker 2: It's coming. And the people that are working on it
- 4:06Speaker 2: in America, like, we have to because China's working on it.
- 4:08Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, I guess that's just what we're doing.
- 4:12Speaker 1: Space race, even if it's just a show.
- 4:14Speaker 2: Yeah, it's essentially the Manhattan Project for artificial intelligence. There's
- 4:19Speaker 2: a race around the world.
- 4:20Speaker 1: Joe, did we go to the moon?
- 4:21Speaker 2: I don't think so.
- 4:23Speaker 1: You know, I don't think so either.
- 4:24Speaker 2: I don't think so. It makes you sound fucking completely
- 4:27Speaker 2: insane to say.
- 4:28Speaker 1: It, but... I lost a lot of friends when I
- 4:29Speaker 1: was younger when I started talking like that.
- 4:32Speaker 2: I did too. I gained a lot of friends too, though.
- 4:35Speaker 2: I gained a lot of... Listen, man, I've talked to
- 4:37Speaker 2: scientists that don't want to talk about it publicly.
- 4:40Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 4:41Speaker 2: Scientists.
- 4:42Speaker 1: Well, see, you know what I figured? I figured that
- 4:44Speaker 1: would be the one time in the history of civilization
- 4:48Speaker 1: that human beings got to a new place and said, nah...
- 4:53Speaker 1: I'm good and turned around.
- 4:55Speaker 2: Exactly.
- 4:55Speaker 1: I don't want to look around there anymore.
- 4:56Speaker 2: Well, Bart Sabrell, he's this researcher that's been doing these
- 5:01Speaker 2: documentaries on the moon landing. And he's been saying it's
- 5:04Speaker 2: fake since, like, I met him sometime in the early 2000s,
- 5:07Speaker 2: I believe. And he put out this documentary called A
- 5:11Speaker 2: Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon. And
- 5:12Speaker 2: he's got a great quote. And he says there's not
- 5:14Speaker 2: a single thing that's not easier, faster, and cheaper to
- 5:18Speaker 2: reproduce today from 1969 except the moon landing. It's the
- 5:22Speaker 2: one thing. And everybody would go, oh, but they spent
- 5:25Speaker 2: so much money. Why would they spend the money on
- 5:26Speaker 2: that again? Why would they spend money on all the
- 5:28Speaker 2: things they spend money on? What are you talking about?
- 5:30Speaker 2: It doesn't make any sense. The moon has trillions of
- 5:34Speaker 2: dollars in rare minerals on it. There's all sorts of
- 5:37Speaker 2: shit on the moon that would be very beneficial to society.
- 5:40Speaker 2: And it was always going to be that we're going
- 5:41Speaker 2: to have a base on the moon and we're going
- 5:42Speaker 2: to use that to go to other places. I don't
- 5:45Speaker 2: think so. I mean, if you look at just the
- 5:49Speaker 2: way they filmed it, like when you watched it on television,
- 5:53Speaker 2: the people that watched it on television, it was the
- 5:54Speaker 2: first time ever where there was a news thing where
- 5:58Speaker 2: the news stations, the networks didn't have a direct feed.
- 6:02Speaker 2: What they had was they filmed the moon landing, they
- 6:07Speaker 2: showed it on a projection screen, and then the networks
- 6:10Speaker 2: pointed their camera at the projection screen. That's why it
- 6:13Speaker 2: looks so shitty.
- 6:16Speaker 1: Wow. Do you remember there was a, a movie that
- 6:19Speaker 1: came out, it wasn't that far back, and it's all
- 6:21Speaker 1: about this, like a legit movie. And I should remember
- 6:25Speaker 1: this actor's name because he's getting better and better known.
- 6:28Speaker 1: He's a really great actor. He played the lawman in
- 6:33Speaker 1: Killers of the Flower Moon that shows up there near
- 6:37Speaker 1: the end and finally kind of takes them down. But
- 6:39Speaker 1: he's been on a lot of other stuff, and it's
- 6:40Speaker 1: this really great movie about faking the moon landing and
- 6:45Speaker 1: all that stuff for American... Kind of cultural and economic
- 6:50Speaker 1: dominance over Russia and all that.
- 6:52Speaker 2: Oh, so it's like.
- 6:53Speaker 1: It's recent.
- 6:54Speaker 2: Oh, okay. Hey, Jamie, can you tell Jeff to bring
- 6:56Speaker 2: in some coffee? Oh, yeah. So it's a drama.
- 7:02Speaker 1: It's a drama, yeah. It's a Hollywood movie.
- 7:05Speaker 2: Oh, Jamie will find out what it is when he
- 7:07Speaker 2: gets back.
- 7:08Speaker 1: I only saw it once, but it was good. And
- 7:09Speaker 1: you know this actor because he's been everywhere, man. He's
- 7:11Speaker 1: been in everything. I should know his name. I need
- 7:13Speaker 1: to call him out. I think I saw him at
- 7:14Speaker 1: the airport in Burbank a few months ago, actually.
- 7:18Speaker 2: It seems like a stupid thing to say, but I
- 7:20Speaker 2: don't think it is. And then after COVID, realizing how
- 7:24Speaker 2: much stuff they can lie about, how much stuff the
- 7:26Speaker 2: government can hide, how much stuff that people will just
- 7:29Speaker 2: accept as being true despite all the evidence to the contrary,
- 7:33Speaker 2: how much experts will go along with things, how easy
- 7:35Speaker 2: it is to keep a secret. It's not that hard
- 7:37Speaker 2: to keep a secret, especially a secret that is essentially
- 7:42Speaker 2: set up to let us think, sir.
- 7:44Speaker 1: Dang, that's how I know my wife stopped by.
- 7:46Speaker 2: Yerba Mate?
- 7:46Speaker 1: Is that what you're into? I love them, man.
- 7:48Speaker 2: Yeah, they're good.
- 7:49Speaker 1: You know why I like it, really? Why? I didn't
- 7:51Speaker 1: realize it for like a year or two, and now
- 7:52Speaker 1: I realize it because it tastes just like Coca-Cola. Does
- 7:56Speaker 1: it really? It does. It's close. I think that's the secret.
- 7:59Speaker 1: It tastes like Coca-Cola.
- 8:01Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 8:01Speaker 1: You know?
- 8:02Speaker 2: I would like to try the original Coca-Cola with cocaine
- 8:05Speaker 2: in it.
- 8:05Speaker 1: Oh, shit.
- 8:06Speaker 2: I wonder what that was like.
- 8:07Speaker 1: Non-habit forming.
- 8:08Speaker 2: Yeah, allegedly.
- 8:10Speaker 1: Right.
- 8:10Speaker 2: Yeah, another lie.
- 8:11Speaker 1: Yeah. Was it true, right, that Bayer at first had
- 8:16Speaker 1: heroin in it or opium? Real? The original version of it? Yeah. Really?
- 8:22Speaker 1: The original product.
- 8:23Speaker 2: We'll find that out.
- 8:24Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it did.
- 8:25Speaker 2: That makes sense.
- 8:26Speaker 1: I'm sure.
- 8:27Speaker 2: That's real great for headaches. I mean, more lies, right?
- 8:33Speaker 2: How many times have we been lied to?
- 8:35Speaker 1: But you know what it is? It's, you know, I
- 8:38Speaker 1: think it's, I'm preaching to the choir here, but I
- 8:40Speaker 1: think it's a perception. thing right with uh you know
- 8:44Speaker 1: it's like planning that flag on the moon was a
- 8:49Speaker 1: cultural thing yeah you know a uh an american pop
- 8:54Speaker 1: culture thing sure right.
- 8:55Speaker 2: Well they wanted us to be dominant militarily over russia
- 8:59Speaker 2: shit worked yeah i mean sort of kind of kind
- 9:02Speaker 2: of i guess yeah i mean we definitely are dominant
- 9:06Speaker 2: over you know militarily we definitely were back then essentially
- 9:10Speaker 2: here it is heroin Woo.
- 9:13Speaker 1: Wow.
- 9:14Speaker 2: Barehead heroin.
- 9:16Speaker 1: Non-habit forming. Right. You got to get the non-habit forming kind.
- 9:21Speaker 2: But I mean, like, what is the difference between that
- 9:23Speaker 2: and doctors prescribing Oxycontin? It's not that much. Sears Roebuck
- 9:27Speaker 2: once sold heroin. Jesus Christ. Must have been a wild
- 9:31Speaker 2: time back then.
- 9:32Speaker 1: Man, that's a great illustration there.
- 9:35Speaker 2: Yeah, look at that. Two needles, two vitals of heroin,
- 9:38Speaker 2: only $ 1. 50. Less than $ 50 adjusted for inflation.
- 9:43Speaker 1: Wow.
- 9:44Speaker 2: This is the 19th century. So the 1800 Sears catalog
- 9:48Speaker 2: used to offer a heroin kit. I think the actor
- 9:50Speaker 2: you're talking about was Jesse Plemons, but I don't know what.
- 9:52Speaker 1: That's him bro see if you can find.
- 9:55Speaker 2: Jesse Plemons just moon yeah moon moon yeah well flowers
- 9:59Speaker 2: the summer moon keeps popping.
- 10:01Speaker 1: Up but do but do do space.
- 10:04Speaker 2: Hmm discovery that's 2015 no 2017 try Jesse Plemons moon
- 10:09Speaker 2: conspiracy or space conspiracy Huh. Are you sure it wasn't AI?
- 10:26Speaker 2: Because there's a lot of those. I thought Keanu Reeves
- 10:29Speaker 2: really wasn't a new Dracula movie.
- 10:33Speaker 1: Fake? I don't know.
- 10:35Speaker 2: I'm just going to look. Possibly fake? What was the
- 10:38Speaker 2: other question we had? Oh, bear heroin.
- 10:40Speaker 1: Yeah, man.
- 10:41Speaker 2: They've been tricking people for a long fucking time. If
- 10:45Speaker 2: they can make money, they'll trick you. Back then, they
- 10:48Speaker 2: were probably being tricked themselves. People didn't really understand What
- 10:51Speaker 2: was addictive and what wasn't. Doctors used to recommend cigarettes
- 10:55Speaker 2: for people with emphysema. You got asthma?
- 10:58Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 10:58Speaker 2: You need cigarettes.
- 10:59Speaker 1: Yeah, they were drinking, athletes were drinking Coca-Cola on the court.
- 11:04Speaker 2: Well, you know who drinks Coca-Cola? Floyd Mayweather. Floyd Mayweather,
- 11:07Speaker 2: after training, would drink Coca-Cola. And there's actually some science
- 11:11Speaker 2: to that. Like having sugar, like right after a really
- 11:14Speaker 2: hard workout, actually replenishes you. replenishes glucose in the body.
- 11:19Speaker 1: Like Gatorade.
- 11:20Speaker 2: Yeah. It's probably not a bad idea.
- 11:22Speaker 1: My wife's got me drinking Gatorade again.
- 11:25Speaker 2: That shit's not good for you. There's better versions of electrolytes.
- 11:30Speaker 2: You know?
- 11:31Speaker 1: Yeah. You're right.
- 11:32Speaker 2: Electrolytes are good for you. Gatorade's okay. It's just, it's
- 11:35Speaker 2: got a lot of shit in it.
- 11:36Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 11:36Speaker 2: Corn syrup and.
- 11:37Speaker 1: There you go.
- 11:38Speaker 2: Here it is. Fly me to the moon.
- 11:40Speaker 1: Channing Tatum.
- 11:41Speaker 2: Oh, Channing Tatum.
- 11:42Speaker 1: Harry Harrelson.
- 11:43Speaker 2: Is that it?
- 11:43Speaker 1: Oh, that's the one.
- 11:44Speaker 2: That's it.
- 11:45Speaker 1: 2024. 2024. Oh, that's the one. Yeah, he's not in it. No,
- 11:52Speaker 1: he is in it, I think.
- 11:53Speaker 2: Historical romantic comedy drama. Huh. Tasked with creating a false
- 12:00Speaker 2: moon landing.
- 12:01Speaker 1: Apple TV. Didn't see it.
- 12:02Speaker 2: Interesting.
- 12:03Speaker 1: What year was it?
- 12:04Speaker 2: Came out last year, like a year ago. I never
- 12:06Speaker 2: even heard of it.
- 12:07Speaker 1: Oh, I think it's still.
- 12:08Speaker 2: How do you have a movie with Channing Tatum and
- 12:10Speaker 2: Scarlett Johansson and you never heard of it? Isn't that crazy?
- 12:13Speaker 2: There's too many goddamn movies. Bro, you know what I
- 12:15Speaker 2: saw last night?
- 12:16Speaker 1: I think I'm still thinking of a different one, but
- 12:19Speaker 1: there's another one.
- 12:20Speaker 2: There's another one?
- 12:20Speaker 1: Really? I think so. I saw it, man. It was
- 12:23Speaker 1: a wild movie, and they realized that the whole landing
- 12:29Speaker 1: is being faked, and then they, and then, I mean,
- 12:34Speaker 1: I don't want to spoil it, but then they get
- 12:36Speaker 1: taken out.
- 12:37Speaker 2: Oh. Apparently.
- 12:41Speaker 1: Moon landing, JFK, I mean, what's the damn difference?
- 12:44Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of those. There's a lot of,
- 12:46Speaker 2: I mean, there's almost nothing, Vietnam, Gulf of Tonkin, there's
- 12:49Speaker 2: almost nothing from history that's exactly as we're being told.
- 12:53Speaker 2: Almost nothing.
- 12:54Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 12:55Speaker 2: It's all a crock of shit.
- 12:56Speaker 1: It's Coke and Pepsi, you know, because I was thinking, like,
- 13:01Speaker 1: you know, that's the one thing that they did that
- 13:05Speaker 1: everybody liked, and then they've kept that, as long as
- 13:08Speaker 1: they keep that flavor. Right. Right? They can muscle everybody out,
- 13:12Speaker 1: you know, it's like.
- 13:14Speaker 2: RC Cola, shit like that.
- 13:16Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 13:16Speaker 2: Nobody's into that.
- 13:17Speaker 1: Yeah. Only if you couldn't afford the Coca-Cola price. Right.
- 13:22Speaker 1: And the Coke machines.
- 13:23Speaker 2: Excuse me.
- 13:24Speaker 1: Bless you.
- 13:25Speaker 2: Thank you.
- 13:25Speaker 1: When I was a kid, that was the only reason
- 13:27Speaker 1: we drank RC Cola is because it was 25 cents. Right.
- 13:30Speaker 2: Because it was cheap. That's it. And you drank it
- 13:32Speaker 2: and you knew it wasn't Coke. Yeah.
- 13:34Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 13:34Speaker 2: They tried new Coke. Do you remember that? When I
- 13:37Speaker 2: was a kid, God, I think I was in high school.
- 13:39Speaker 2: They came up with a new formula of Coca-Cola somewhere
- 13:42Speaker 2: around the 80s, I think. It was terrible. They tried
- 13:46Speaker 2: a new Coke and everybody's like, what the fuck are
- 13:48Speaker 2: you doing? Why would you get rid of Coke? It's perfect.
- 13:50Speaker 1: Yeah. Don't change that. They can change and try everything
- 13:54Speaker 1: else and buy everybody out as long as they keep
- 13:56Speaker 1: Coca-Cola flowing. Yeah.
- 13:58Speaker 2: And then Pepsi is always like for weirdos. People who
- 14:00Speaker 2: prefer Pepsi.
- 14:01Speaker 1: I never liked it. Yeah.
- 14:02Speaker 2: It's weird.
- 14:03Speaker 1: I like Dr. Pepper.
- 14:04Speaker 2: Well, you know, Coca-Cola is to this day flavored with cocaine.
- 14:08Speaker 2: Do you know that?
- 14:10Speaker 1: You mean like?
- 14:11Speaker 2: The coca leaves. That's the secret to the flavor of Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola,
- 14:16Speaker 2: the company that makes Coca-Cola, they are the biggest producers
- 14:21Speaker 2: of medical grade cocaine. For real.
- 14:25Speaker 1: Wow.
- 14:25Speaker 2: So they take the coca leaves, they extract the flavonoids
- 14:28Speaker 2: out of the coca leaves and they extract the cocaine.
- 14:31Speaker 2: So there's no cocaine in Coca-Cola. But then they take
- 14:34Speaker 2: those coca leaves and the flavor goes into Coca-Cola and
- 14:38Speaker 2: then the cocaine goes into medical cocaine.
- 14:41Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah.
- 14:43Speaker 2: To this day. I think they're the only company that's
- 14:45Speaker 2: allowed to use coca leaves. I think they're grandfathered in.
- 14:50Speaker 2: I think that's exactly... Is that how it works? I
- 14:53Speaker 2: believe they're grandfathered in, but to this day, that's what
- 14:57Speaker 2: they use. As I sniff. As I sniffle. But these
- 15:00Speaker 2: are real sniffles, folks. These are allergy sniffles. I watched
- 15:04Speaker 2: the fucking craziest movie last night. The Substance. Have you
- 15:07Speaker 2: heard of that movie?
- 15:08Speaker 1: I've heard of it.
- 15:09Speaker 2: That's that new Demi Moore movie?
- 15:10Speaker 1: Yeah, I was a afraid to watch it.
- 15:12Speaker 2: Holy shit, man.
- 15:13Speaker 1: It was intense.
- 15:14Speaker 2: Oh my God. One of the most insane movies I've
- 15:17Speaker 2: ever seen in my life. It's about this lady who's
- 15:19Speaker 2: getting older and someone approaches her with this new experimental
- 15:23Speaker 2: drug that allows you to live as a young person
- 15:27Speaker 2: for seven days and then you have to switch back
- 15:29Speaker 2: to the old person for seven days. I don't want
- 15:31Speaker 2: to spoil it for anybody, but it was fucking insane.
- 15:35Speaker 2: Like I left, I was like, I got to watch
- 15:37Speaker 2: something stupid on YouTube for a couple hours before I
- 15:39Speaker 2: go to bed because I'm weirded out by this movie.
- 15:42Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the reason I haven't watched it yet. I'm
- 15:45Speaker 1: just saying. I never liked the sensory overload horror movies. Oh, yeah.
- 15:54Speaker 1: I like classic horror movies.
- 15:56Speaker 2: This is a sensory overload times 10. I mean, it's
- 15:59Speaker 2: fucking insane. It's an insane movie. It's really good. I mean,
- 16:02Speaker 2: it really grips you. It's very entertaining. But just, good Lord.
- 16:06Speaker 1: Have you seen Uncut Gems? Yes.
- 16:11Speaker 2: Loved that movie.
- 16:12Speaker 1: Isn't that a good movie?
- 16:13Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
- 16:13Speaker 1: It was, like, a little much for me, but it
- 16:15Speaker 1: was so good, and it wasn't so crazy, you know? Yeah.
- 16:18Speaker 2: Well, I grew up with a lot of gambling addicts,
- 16:21Speaker 2: so for that movie, that movie, like, really hit home
- 16:24Speaker 2: for me. I was like, oh, God, gee, like, got anxiety.
- 16:27Speaker 1: Howard, is that his name, Howie Howard? You know, Sandler's character.
- 16:31Speaker 2: Is that what his name is, Howie?
- 16:32Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's selling diamonds on 42nd Street or whatever.
- 16:37Speaker 1: That's every manager in the music business is that guy. Oh, really?
- 16:40Speaker 1: A lot of them.
- 16:41Speaker 2: A bunch of gambling addicts?
- 16:42Speaker 1: That guy right there, you know. They're juggling all these
- 16:46Speaker 1: balls in front of you, which is fine. I don't
- 16:48Speaker 1: mind guys juggling. What I don't like is when somebody's
- 16:51Speaker 1: got all these balls in the air, they're juggling in
- 16:52Speaker 1: front of me, and they're like, Charlie, I'm not juggling.
- 16:55Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, the music business. Yeah, well, there he is.
- 16:59Speaker 2: He's great in that movie, too.
- 17:01Speaker 1: Yeah, he's incredible.
- 17:02Speaker 2: Yeah, I never knew he could act dramatically. I mean,
- 17:05Speaker 2: he's always been great in comedies, but he's incredible in
- 17:08Speaker 2: that movie.
- 17:08Speaker 1: Incredible. He had another one he did that was like
- 17:11Speaker 1: a serious flick way back. You remember Punch Drunk Love?
- 17:13Speaker 1: Did you ever see that one?
- 17:14Speaker 2: No, I never saw that.
- 17:15Speaker 1: That's a masterpiece. Yeah?
- 17:16Speaker 2: I never saw it. But Uncut Gems, the gambling aspect
- 17:20Speaker 2: of it, like that sickness. The gambling sickness is a
- 17:24Speaker 2: wild sickness.
- 17:25Speaker 1: I grew up around gamblers, too. Yeah? Yeah, my uncle
- 17:27Speaker 1: was always a big gambler, and my cousin and I
- 17:30Speaker 1: spent a lot of time in casinos with him down
- 17:33Speaker 1: in New Orleans on the Mississippi coast and all that.
- 17:35Speaker 2: Oh, River Bowl gamblers.
- 17:37Speaker 1: Man, yep, exactly. Those are the craziest. Man, I didn't mind,
- 17:41Speaker 1: you know. He let me and my cousin run all
- 17:44Speaker 1: over the place. So we were stoked.
- 17:47Speaker 2: So you liked the fact that he was a degenerate. Yeah.
- 17:50Speaker 1: Oh, and any time he won, like if he won big,
- 17:52Speaker 1: we used to play his bingo. He used to run
- 17:54Speaker 1: this bingo hall in New Orleans. And me and my cousin,
- 17:59Speaker 1: we could, both of us with those bingo daubers, We
- 18:02Speaker 1: could play nine card pages for him. We got that
- 18:06Speaker 1: good that we could keep up with it. And because
- 18:08Speaker 1: he was running the place, nobody in there ever said
- 18:10Speaker 1: shit about me and my cousin being like, you know,
- 18:13Speaker 1: 8 and 11 or whatever. And if we hit, though,
- 18:17Speaker 1: it was always a good time. It was Toys R
- 18:19Speaker 1: Us and fried shrimp.
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- 19:43Speaker 2: that's their juice, man. That's what keeps them going in life.
- 19:47Speaker 2: Just that next bet, I grew up around a lot
- 19:50Speaker 2: of pool halls when I was in my early 20s.
- 19:54Speaker 2: And I was just around so many people that just
- 19:57Speaker 2: lived for gambling. They would go straight from off-track betting
- 20:01Speaker 2: right to the pool hall. And they'd bet on anything.
- 20:03Speaker 2: They'd bet on two raindrops coming down a window pane.
- 20:06Speaker 2: They'd bet on roaches. They'd bet on anything. You name it.
- 20:10Speaker 2: They'd flip a coin. I saw dudes flip a coin
- 20:12Speaker 2: for thousands of dollars. A guy would win a tournament.
- 20:15Speaker 2: This is like a famous thing in pool. Guys would
- 20:18Speaker 2: win a tournament, win $ 10, 000, flip a coin, lose the
- 20:20Speaker 2: whole thing. And you had to have heart. That was
- 20:25Speaker 2: part of the culture. You had to be willing to bet.
- 20:27Speaker 2: And take the loss. Yeah, the only way it's fun
- 20:32Speaker 2: is if money's constantly flowing. So if someone's trying to
- 20:34Speaker 2: be conservative, someone's trying to save the money, they called
- 20:36Speaker 2: them a nit. Like, you're a nit. They didn't like you.
- 20:39Speaker 2: Nobody likes a nit. Those are the guys that get
- 20:42Speaker 2: shunned by the pool hall. They're bad action.
- 20:45Speaker 1: Where'd you grow up? Well, all over the place, really.
- 20:48Speaker 1: Where were those pool halls?
- 20:50Speaker 2: New York. I moved to New York when I was
- 20:52Speaker 2: in my 20s, my early 20s, like 23. And that's
- 20:56Speaker 2: when I got indoctrinated into pool culture.
- 20:59Speaker 1: Wow.
- 21:00Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just the most fun group of degenerates
- 21:03Speaker 2: and weirdos and outcasts and... You know, as a comedian,
- 21:07Speaker 2: I never felt like I fit in in normal society.
- 21:11Speaker 2: You know, and then I'm around those dudes. I'm like, oh, okay,
- 21:13Speaker 2: you guys are just like me. You don't fit in either. Like,
- 21:17Speaker 2: you're a bunch of fucking weirdos.
- 21:18Speaker 1: Man, you know, what I just thought about, Joe, when
- 21:20Speaker 1: I was on the street in New York, you know,
- 21:23Speaker 1: I played up there, and I'm sure you know, but
- 21:27Speaker 1: I'd play on the street all day, and at first
- 21:30Speaker 1: I was playing in the parks. And then I moved downtown.
- 21:34Speaker 1: I was trying to play on street corners in the
- 21:35Speaker 1: villages and all that. And you're dealing with traffic and cops.
- 21:41Speaker 1: And that's what drove me down into the subway platforms.
- 21:44Speaker 1: And those were really competitive too. So even there I
- 21:47Speaker 1: started playing at the stations that nobody wanted or weren't desirable.
- 21:54Speaker 1: Nobody's really competing for the spots or whatever. And I
- 21:57Speaker 1: would do that all day and then I would hit
- 21:59Speaker 1: open mics all over the five boroughs every night everywhere
- 22:04Speaker 1: um and the comedy the comedy guys were always the
- 22:08Speaker 1: coolest because all of them because we weren't in competition
- 22:13Speaker 1: you know like I know comedians can be really competitive
- 22:16Speaker 1: on the circuit and obviously same thing on the music
- 22:19Speaker 1: side but I ended up like playing a lot of
- 22:22Speaker 1: I would open up for a lot of guys like
- 22:23Speaker 1: I'm like at the red door and like in the
- 22:25Speaker 1: circuit there in the city and shit oh cool open
- 22:28Speaker 1: guys up with two or three songs or play their
- 22:30Speaker 1: breaks or whatever and You know, all the comedy folks
- 22:33Speaker 1: like me, I think, because, you know, I wasn't one
- 22:35Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, no. We were cousins or something.
- 22:38Speaker 2: Right, right. There's always been a relationship like that. Like,
- 22:40Speaker 2: Oliver Anthony was at the Mothership this weekend. And it
- 22:43Speaker 2: was the first music act we've ever had performed there.
- 22:46Speaker 1: That's cool.
- 22:47Speaker 2: Yeah, you could perform there, too, if you ever want to, man.
- 22:49Speaker 1: I know where it's at.
- 22:49Speaker 2: Yeah, it'd be fun.
- 22:50Speaker 1: I like that you've got it down there, man.
- 22:52Speaker 2: It's a great spot. 6th Street is just such a
- 22:55Speaker 2: fucking wild place.
- 22:56Speaker 1: It is.
- 22:56Speaker 2: To have it right there is perfect. And to have
- 22:59Speaker 2: it at the old Ritz... Yeah, it's amazing. So, you know,
- 23:02Speaker 2: it was great.
- 23:03Speaker 1: Is that what it is in the old Ritz? Yeah.
- 23:06Speaker 2: Yeah, we bought the old Ritz.
- 23:07Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 23:08Speaker 2: We have to keep the Ritz sign because it's, you know,
- 23:11Speaker 2: one of those historical buildings.
- 23:12Speaker 1: Oh, it's a great sign.
- 23:13Speaker 2: It's a great sign. It's got so much history. In
- 23:16Speaker 2: the tunnel on the way to the stage, there's a
- 23:19Speaker 2: big picture of Stevie Ray Vaughan on the stage in 1983. Yeah.
- 23:24Speaker 1: You like SRV?
- 23:25Speaker 2: Fuck yeah.
- 23:25Speaker 1: Come on.
- 23:26Speaker 2: Come on, man. Come on. He's the only dude who
- 23:29Speaker 2: can play Voodoo Child. Doesn't make me sick.
- 23:30Speaker 1: Man.
- 23:31Speaker 2: You know, other than Hendrix?
- 23:32Speaker 1: That's right. There's two dudes. Yeah, you're right.
- 23:34Speaker 2: Hendrix and him. I mean, I'm sure other people could
- 23:36Speaker 2: do it. I've never heard it.
- 23:37Speaker 1: No, fuck that. Just don't. Oh, yeah, man.
- 23:43Speaker 2: There's certain songs. There's certain songs that you can't fuck with.
- 23:47Speaker 2: Although I did see, one time I saw Honey Honey
- 23:49Speaker 2: and Gary Clark Jr. play Midnight Rider. And I didn't
- 23:52Speaker 2: think anybody else could play Midnight Rider.
- 23:54Speaker 1: Hmm.
- 23:54Speaker 2: And to hear Gary's song with Midnight Rider with that,
- 23:58Speaker 2: you know, like Gary's signature sound.
- 24:00Speaker 1: Oh, man. Yeah, that signature guitar sound. You've seen Gary live? Oh, yeah.
- 24:04Speaker 2: I'm friends with Gary.
- 24:05Speaker 1: Man.
- 24:05Speaker 2: I've seen him a bunch of times.
- 24:06Speaker 1: Yeah, I love Gary, too.
- 24:07Speaker 2: I love that dude.
- 24:09Speaker 1: That guy.
- 24:09Speaker 2: He's so good.
- 24:10Speaker 1: Man, I remember.
- 24:11Speaker 2: Oh, I gave something to him, and I got it
- 24:12Speaker 2: for you, too.
- 24:13Speaker 1: What is it?
- 24:14Speaker 2: This is a real, genuine Wooly Mammoth guitar pick that
- 24:20Speaker 2: is made out of Wooly Mammoth tusk.
- 24:23Speaker 1: Damn, that is something fierce, bud.
- 24:25Speaker 2: That is 10,000 plus years old. And then that's a
- 24:29Speaker 2: shout out to my friend John Reeves from the Boneyard
- 24:31Speaker 2: in Alaska. I got a buddy of mine who has
- 24:33Speaker 2: this spot in Alaska where they just pull all kinds
- 24:36Speaker 2: of crazy mastodon, woolly mammoth, fucking cave bear, all kinds
- 24:41Speaker 2: of skulls, all kinds of wild shit out of this
- 24:43Speaker 2: one piece of property where a lot of animals died.
- 24:46Speaker 2: And he's taken a lot of the woolly mammoth. That's
- 24:48Speaker 2: where I got this too. This is a tooth. This
- 24:51Speaker 2: is a tooth that was carved.
- 24:53Speaker 1: Wow.
- 24:54Speaker 2: Into a piece of art with a mammoth in it.
- 24:57Speaker 1: That's a big old goddamn tooth, son.
- 24:59Speaker 2: Imagine.
- 24:59Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 25:00Speaker 2: How heavy that is.
- 25:01Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy?
- 25:02Speaker 2: It's crazy, right?
- 25:03Speaker 1: It's beautiful, too, man. Yeah.
- 25:04Speaker 2: So that guitar pick is yours, brother.
- 25:07Speaker 1: Man, thanks, Joe. Yeah.
- 25:08Speaker 2: Any cool guys who play guitar, give them one of
- 25:10Speaker 2: them picks.
- 25:11Speaker 1: You know, I've never been good at holding a pick.
- 25:15Speaker 1: So I learned how to play with my hands because
- 25:17Speaker 1: I could never hold a pick well. But a lot
- 25:20Speaker 1: of guys I know that are really great, pickers they
- 25:22Speaker 1: play these really hard picks you know and can real
- 25:26Speaker 1: precise with them and i just i still.
- 25:28Speaker 2: Can't hold them you learned with your fingers.
- 25:31Speaker 1: Yeah yeah i never never held i just couldn't hold
- 25:34Speaker 1: the pick i would try to hold it and it
- 25:35Speaker 1: get sideways and i never like all this you know
- 25:39Speaker 1: like the straight cowboy chords you know cfg whatever i
- 25:46Speaker 1: couldn't hold any of those chords like when i was
- 25:48Speaker 1: teaching myself the positioning was weird for me, you know?
- 25:51Speaker 1: And so like, I kind of threw away the book
- 25:54Speaker 1: and I did what you call choking the chicken on the,
- 25:57Speaker 1: on the fret, you know, kind of hold it like
- 25:59Speaker 1: you're choking the chicken. And that's kind of where I
- 26:02Speaker 1: developed my style. And then I learned all the regular
- 26:04Speaker 1: chords many years later, you know?
- 26:07Speaker 2: Did you, are you totally self-taught?
- 26:09Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
- 26:10Speaker 2: Wow. When did you start?
- 26:12Speaker 1: Um, uh, I was 17. My mama got me a
- 26:16Speaker 1: guitar out of a pawn shop in South Irving. Wow.
- 26:20Speaker 1: It was a Hohner guitar.
- 26:22Speaker 2: And you just started messing around with it?
- 26:24Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, you know, my mama tried to get me
- 26:26Speaker 1: on the piano when I was younger, and I just
- 26:28Speaker 1: couldn't focus. Yeah, I don't know. Seventeen was like the
- 26:35Speaker 1: right age. I needed it, you know. Started banging around
- 26:39Speaker 1: on that guitar, and I mean, it must have sounded terrible.
- 26:44Speaker 1: And my mama lived in this little-ass place, this tiny
- 26:47Speaker 1: place in I was, like, scared to play in front
- 26:50Speaker 1: of her, you know. But I was at first, and
- 26:53Speaker 1: I would say, Mama, am I any good? You know,
- 26:56Speaker 1: and she wasn't going to lie to me. And she said, Well, son,
- 27:00Speaker 1: when you play, people will believe you. She wasn't going
- 27:03Speaker 1: to lie to me and tell me I was good.
- 27:05Speaker 1: But she was trying to say, you know, just be
- 27:07Speaker 1: honest with your music, and the rest will take care
- 27:09Speaker 1: of it.
- 27:10Speaker 2: That's great advice.
- 27:11Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 27:12Speaker 2: When you play, people will believe you.
- 27:13Speaker 1: That's what she said. Yeah. Yeah. And then the next
- 27:17Speaker 1: time anybody believed in me wasn't until I started hitchhiking.
- 27:21Speaker 1: And I remember because I've been out in California a
- 27:23Speaker 1: bunch recently. And it was, I had caught a ride
- 27:27Speaker 1: with this guy. We were playing at this place called
- 27:30Speaker 1: the Shanty up in Farmer's Branch, Dallas-Fort Worth area years ago.
- 27:36Speaker 1: And there was this witch lady that, I mean, they
- 27:39Speaker 1: called her a witch. This kind of magic woman. who
- 27:45Speaker 1: had a barn out behind her house and they called
- 27:48Speaker 1: it the shanty. And she would have people over on
- 27:51Speaker 1: the weekends and just kind of any random night, travelers, misfits, whatever,
- 27:56Speaker 1: back there in the barn and everybody would be telling
- 27:59Speaker 1: stories and trading songs and, you know, taking potions. Stuff
- 28:06Speaker 1: like that. Long story short, this guy I met one night,
- 28:10Speaker 1: his parents had like worked, they worked for like Texas Instruments.
- 28:14Speaker 1: And he had disowned them, you know, because his parents
- 28:17Speaker 1: were like scientists. And he woke up one day as
- 28:19Speaker 1: a young man and realized they were like, his parents
- 28:22Speaker 1: were manufacturing like weapons, you know? And I never saw
- 28:25Speaker 1: this guy again, but that was his whole deal why
- 28:27Speaker 1: he left Texas. Oh, wow. And he was just back
- 28:29Speaker 1: visiting this gal that had this shanty deal. And I
- 28:35Speaker 1: talked that guy that he promised he would, he was
- 28:38Speaker 1: describing this town of Boonville, which is this community in
- 28:42Speaker 1: Mendocino County, Northern California. And the way he was describing
- 28:47Speaker 1: it to me in this barn or whatever, it sounded
- 28:51Speaker 1: like Garden of Eden or something. You know what I mean? Yeah.
- 28:56Speaker 1: And I wanted so badly to go with him. And
- 28:58Speaker 1: he promised me and this other guy that was playing
- 29:00Speaker 1: guitar too that he would take us. And we passed
- 29:02Speaker 1: out at the lady's house. And we woke up that
- 29:05Speaker 1: next morning. He was still there. And I was like, man,
- 29:07Speaker 1: you ready to go to California? And he was like,
- 29:09Speaker 1: what are you talking about? No. what are you talking about?
- 29:13Speaker 1: Like when I pressed him, he's like, man, I was
- 29:14Speaker 1: on acid. I was on acid. I don't remember any
- 29:20Speaker 1: of that. I don't have any room for you. And
- 29:23Speaker 1: I begged him like my life depended on it. And
- 29:25Speaker 1: he took me and this old boy who was playing guitar,
- 29:28Speaker 1: actually taught me a lot of songs back then. He
- 29:29Speaker 1: took us to California. But as we got closer to
- 29:33Speaker 1: Boonville and we were talking to naive young Texas boys
- 29:38Speaker 1: who had never been anywhere, he realized he, you know,
- 29:41Speaker 1: didn't want us going anywhere near those hippies he was
- 29:43Speaker 1: living with there in Boonville. So he left us like
- 29:47Speaker 1: he pulled into like a grocery store and left us
- 29:50Speaker 1: in this parking lot in Vacaville. And that's when I
- 29:54Speaker 1: really started hitchhiking in my life is like when we
- 29:56Speaker 1: kind of got abandoned in a parking lot. Wow. Kind
- 29:58Speaker 1: of along the five, right? How old were you? 21,
- 30:03Speaker 1: probably 22, something like that. And I had done a
- 30:06Speaker 1: little bit of hitching before, like around the south, Texas
- 30:08Speaker 1: and like Louisiana, but I'd never really been way out there.
- 30:13Speaker 1: And anyway, I started hitchhiking around because I had to.
- 30:18Speaker 1: But I remember it was in California the first time
- 30:22Speaker 1: by anybody besides my mama that ever looked at me
- 30:26Speaker 1: playing guitar as it having any kind of value. Like
- 30:31Speaker 1: any economic value or like, it was a trade of recognition.
- 30:39Speaker 1: It was the first time I was out there.
- 30:42Speaker 2: So you'd been playing about four or five years back then?
- 30:45Speaker 1: Yeah. I was playing outside because our place was so small.
- 30:50Speaker 1: I wasn't playing outside to like make money or anything
- 30:54Speaker 1: like that. I would go to this park, had like
- 30:56Speaker 1: a baseball diamond on it, sit on these bleachers or whatever.
- 31:00Speaker 1: And I'll never forget the first time anybody threw like
- 31:02Speaker 1: just a pocket full of change in my case. I'm
- 31:06Speaker 1: sure it's because they, you know, were worried about me
- 31:10Speaker 1: and felt bad for me or whatever, you know? And
- 31:13Speaker 1: it wasn't like that. It wasn't like that money hit
- 31:15Speaker 1: the case and not like a light went off or anything,
- 31:19Speaker 1: you know, it was a slow, it was a slow
- 31:22Speaker 1: gradual deal. Like I was playing outside because there was,
- 31:27Speaker 1: you know, there wasn't enough room to play in the
- 31:30Speaker 1: house or whatever, you know? And then, you know, I
- 31:33Speaker 1: got in a lot of trouble with the law, um,
- 31:37Speaker 1: which kind of put me on the run, put me
- 31:39Speaker 1: on the road. And what was the trouble with the law? Um,
- 31:47Speaker 1: You know, I've said it a lot, and it's funny,
- 31:49Speaker 1: I'm a lot better known than I used to be,
- 31:50Speaker 1: so it's like you say stuff about your family and
- 31:53Speaker 1: they hear about it.
- 31:54Speaker 2: They get mad.
- 31:55Speaker 1: They get mad. But it's so funny because it's all
- 31:59Speaker 1: over the Internet, and they're the ones that had the
- 32:02Speaker 1: government on their ass, not me. But anyways, yeah, we
- 32:05Speaker 1: just kind of, you know, shit hit the fan, got
- 32:07Speaker 1: up in the newspapers. My brother didn't go to high school.
- 32:09Speaker 1: You know, neither did my sister. Neither of them went
- 32:10Speaker 1: to high school. They both dropped out, you know, because
- 32:14Speaker 1: I'm from South Texas. I was born in the Rio
- 32:15Speaker 1: Grande Valley. They were born up in Dallas. But my
- 32:17Speaker 1: mama had moved down there to South Padre Island area, McAllen,
- 32:22Speaker 1: Harlingen area there. And anyway, it's poor and pretty hard
- 32:27Speaker 1: living down there. And, you know, hell, I didn't wear
- 32:30Speaker 1: shoes until I was probably nine or ten years old,
- 32:33Speaker 1: you know, playing outside. And my brother and sister, they're
- 32:36Speaker 1: ten years older than me, half-brother and sister, and we
- 32:39Speaker 1: have different daddies. And they really lived wild, you know.
- 32:44Speaker 1: Things were pretty tough back then or whatever. I'm telling
- 32:48Speaker 1: you that background because my brother became a hustler, you know,
- 32:54Speaker 1: because he had to because of a lack of education,
- 32:57Speaker 1: lack of access, you know, because of poverty. And I've
- 33:01Speaker 1: honestly always respected him for that. You know, he took
- 33:05Speaker 1: he used to take me around door to door selling
- 33:07Speaker 1: newspapers when I was 11. Right. And you want to
- 33:09Speaker 1: know why? Because I had broken my arm. And he
- 33:13Speaker 1: realized if you carted that young boy out in front
- 33:15Speaker 1: of those apartments when that lady answered the door and
- 33:19Speaker 1: it's these two brothers and one of them's got a
- 33:21Speaker 1: broken arm, she's going to go ahead and subscribe.
- 33:24Speaker 2: Yeah, she was bad.
- 33:26Speaker 1: Yeah, and in a nutshell, man, he, you know, through
- 33:30Speaker 1: all that stuff, you know, he started out as a
- 33:33Speaker 1: door-to-door salesman, you know, hustling newspaper subscriptions, right? Then he started, like, selling...
- 33:41Speaker 1: neckties and like men's clothing door to door and downtown
- 33:45Speaker 1: Dallas office buildings, you know, and as a very young
- 33:49Speaker 1: man and eventually he graduated, uh, you know, hard knock
- 33:54Speaker 1: boiler room type of guys, you know, you keep knocking
- 33:57Speaker 1: on those doors and that wild West business scene of
- 34:01Speaker 1: towns like Dallas, you know, or Houston, you know, eventually
- 34:05Speaker 1: you're going to find what you're looking for. And he
- 34:07Speaker 1: got in with some big old wolves, you know, and
- 34:09Speaker 1: eventually it, it knocked everybody out and a lot of
- 34:12Speaker 1: people died. A lot of people went to prison and, um,
- 34:17Speaker 1: you know, we were in the paper and, uh, I couldn't,
- 34:21Speaker 1: I found myself not being able to get a bank
- 34:23Speaker 1: account and nobody I knew would go near me, you know? And, um,
- 34:28Speaker 1: so it ended up being like a Bob Marley type
- 34:30Speaker 1: of thing, you know, like, you know, he said, uh,
- 34:31Speaker 1: if you're not living good travel wide, right. And I
- 34:35Speaker 1: literally just walked out of town because, you know, we
- 34:38Speaker 1: had scarlet letters on our, That's when I really started
- 34:43Speaker 1: learning how to stand behind that guitar and write songs
- 34:46Speaker 1: and slowly but surely start. I learned how to play
- 34:50Speaker 1: basically in front of people and people just were giving
- 34:52Speaker 1: me money kind of over time. That and, you know,
- 34:56Speaker 1: food and shelter in exchange for My story at their
- 34:59Speaker 1: back door.
- 35:01Speaker 2: This episode is brought to you by Netflix. You think
- 35:03Speaker 2: your family's got drama? Wait till you meet the Buckleys.
- 35:07Speaker 2: I'm talking about the new Netflix drama, The Waterfront. Set
- 35:12Speaker 2: in a coastal town in North Carolina, it follows the
- 35:15Speaker 2: powerful Buckley family who've ruled Havenport for decades. But now
- 35:19Speaker 2: their fishing empire is falling apart fast. and their legacy
- 35:23Speaker 2: is on the line. There's power grabs, addiction, legacy, love.
- 35:27Speaker 2: From the creator of Scream and Dawson's Creek, The Waterfront
- 35:31Speaker 2: is messy, twisty, and totally binge-worthy. Watch The Waterfront now,
- 35:36Speaker 2: only on Netflix. Do you ever wonder how things could
- 35:41Speaker 2: have gone? Because things turned out great. Like, look, you're
- 35:45Speaker 2: a popular music artist now.
- 35:47Speaker 1: Worldwide.
- 35:49Speaker 2: You're famous.
- 35:50Speaker 1: I'm surprised. I'm, you know what I'm surprised by? I'm
- 35:52Speaker 1: surprised I never got heavily addicted to drugs. Yeah, I am.
- 35:56Speaker 1: You know, it was my, my sister passed away 10
- 35:58Speaker 1: years ago from substances and hard living and all that
- 36:01Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And hell, my whole family's in AA,
- 36:05Speaker 1: everybody top to bottom, left to right, turn them inside out.
- 36:09Speaker 1: I think about it a lot, but I really do,
- 36:11Speaker 1: you know, and I remember I was living with that
- 36:14Speaker 1: guy who, uh, was at the shanty that was playing guitar.
- 36:17Speaker 1: He's on the football team. I knew him from sports.
- 36:19Speaker 1: His name was Daniel Harmon. And he went out there
- 36:22Speaker 1: to California with me that first time. And we were
- 36:25Speaker 1: living on farms, and I was working for ganja farmers,
- 36:29Speaker 1: working on horse farms, working for winemakers, all kind of people,
- 36:35Speaker 1: you know, just doing grunt work for them, doing the
- 36:37Speaker 1: fence work they didn't want to do, moving soil for people,
- 36:41Speaker 1: you know what I mean, digging ditches, you know. laying
- 36:44Speaker 1: pipe across really hard rocky roads. Anything anybody can do,
- 36:50Speaker 1: you just need broad back to be young. But before
- 36:57Speaker 1: I ever left Texas, I moved in with his sister.
- 37:03Speaker 1: And I remember, and she was just my friend. I
- 37:06Speaker 1: was never in a relationship with her or anything. But
- 37:08Speaker 1: she was working at Silver City in West Dallas, the
- 37:11Speaker 1: Gentleman's Club at 18. and making more money than anybody
- 37:16Speaker 1: I'd ever seen. The girl was 18, you know, and
- 37:19Speaker 1: just making crazy, crazy money. And I was living, she
- 37:23Speaker 1: let me rent a room from her and kind of
- 37:26Speaker 1: gave me a deal and all that. And, uh, I
- 37:30Speaker 1: ended up writing a song kind of about it more
- 37:32Speaker 1: recently called easy money that I did with shooter on the,
- 37:34Speaker 1: on the lonesome drifter record. And that's kind of a thing,
- 37:37Speaker 1: you know, if you're poor kid from Texas, there's no
- 37:40Speaker 1: such thing, you know, as easy money. But, um, I
- 37:45Speaker 1: can't remember why I was telling you that, but... It
- 37:50Speaker 1: was hard on... I just remember, like, seeing... You'd see, like,
- 37:53Speaker 1: young women working in strip clubs, making big money. And
- 38:01Speaker 1: the ones that I was around and have been around, very,
- 38:05Speaker 1: very hard for that line of work, my line of work,
- 38:09Speaker 1: your line of work, not to become addicted. Yeah. You know?
- 38:12Speaker 1: And I don't have a problem with, you know, a
- 38:14Speaker 1: lot of the best... Most of the best artists I
- 38:16Speaker 1: ever saw struggled with addiction. But in that way, I
- 38:21Speaker 1: have been very fortunate. Very, very fortunate.
- 38:23Speaker 2: How did you avoid it?
- 38:26Speaker 1: I don't know. You know what it is, man? I
- 38:27Speaker 1: never had no kind of tolerance. I've always been like,
- 38:33Speaker 1: I just get drunk off of one drink. And it's
- 38:37Speaker 1: never changed. I just felt it all really strong.
- 38:41Speaker 2: That's probably good.
- 38:42Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 38:43Speaker 2: Maybe it's a survival instinct, too.
- 38:45Speaker 1: I've never really thought about why, you know, but I
- 38:48Speaker 1: have considered it because my brother's been through, you know,
- 38:51Speaker 1: he did a lot of time in prison. And, you know,
- 38:54Speaker 1: my sister had, and my mama, you know what I mean?
- 38:58Speaker 1: They both had their first kid, you know, when they
- 39:01Speaker 1: were teenagers, you know. A lot of it I do
- 39:06Speaker 1: credit to my mama, you know. It's like, you know,
- 39:08Speaker 1: she told me something I remember that stuck with me.
- 39:11Speaker 1: I've been saying this all the time, Joe. And like
- 39:14Speaker 1: we had a lot of trouble in our family and
- 39:16Speaker 1: a lot of people that we knew, a lot of dysfunction,
- 39:18Speaker 1: a lot of trauma. But when my mama kind of
- 39:25Speaker 1: got out of that, she kind of is the person
- 39:28Speaker 1: in the family that saved me. I'm going to change
- 39:31Speaker 1: the trajectory of this line now in my generation. You know,
- 39:36Speaker 1: and she didn't have an education. You know, she took
- 39:41Speaker 1: herself back to school after I was born. You know,
- 39:45Speaker 1: and cleaned up her act and got out of it
- 39:49Speaker 1: and and isolated me from a lot of that shit. And, um,
- 39:54Speaker 1: which I think is a big part of the reason
- 39:56Speaker 1: that I maybe didn't.
- 39:57Speaker 2: Right. You had a role model.
- 39:59Speaker 1: Yeah. I had a role model, you know, I didn't,
- 40:01Speaker 1: there was no male role models, at least not at home.
- 40:03Speaker 1: They were only, they were only pro athletes and coaches
- 40:06Speaker 1: at school. You know, I mean, it's increasingly difficult for
- 40:10Speaker 1: young men to find strong men of courage and vision
- 40:16Speaker 1: that can help them grow into good men too. I mean,
- 40:19Speaker 1: it's in, It seems almost impossible these days. It's unbelievable.
- 40:22Speaker 2: It's very difficult to find in your personal life.
- 40:24Speaker 1: It's hard, man.
- 40:25Speaker 2: You have to find it in other ways. You have
- 40:27Speaker 2: to find it people online.
- 40:29Speaker 1: Or people in the world. I found it in athletes,
- 40:39Speaker 1: in excellence in athletics.
- 40:42Speaker 2: Right. Where the only way you can get there is
- 40:45Speaker 2: hard work.
- 40:46Speaker 1: Yeah. and the odds are stacked against you and it
- 40:50Speaker 1: requires incredible focus. I mean, I just, I think that's
- 40:53Speaker 1: why I'm always so, so, you know, in such awe of,
- 40:57Speaker 1: of those people when they're able to, um, succeed like that.
- 41:01Speaker 1: But what I wanted to say to you that my
- 41:02Speaker 1: mama said, she said, what happened to you when you
- 41:06Speaker 1: were young, it's not your fault, but now you're a
- 41:10Speaker 1: man and it's your responsibility. And, um, I've been living
- 41:17Speaker 1: off of that, you know, for a long time, you know,
- 41:19Speaker 1: because it's like if you don't take responsibility at some point, man,
- 41:23Speaker 1: it'll never leave you alone. Right.
- 41:25Speaker 2: You can't think that you're a victim. Yeah. You can't
- 41:30Speaker 2: think that it's not your fault. You got to take responsibility.
- 41:34Speaker 2: That's hard for people to accept when they know they've
- 41:35Speaker 2: been victimized, when they know they've been dealt a shitty
- 41:38Speaker 2: hand of cards. You can just kind of wallow in it.
- 41:42Speaker 2: But that's a trap. that's a trap that'll fuck you up.
- 41:47Speaker 2: It'll fuck up everybody around you too.
- 41:48Speaker 1: Damn right.
- 41:49Speaker 2: Yeah. But it's a mindset thing. It's like you can
- 41:52Speaker 2: think your way out of that. You have to have
- 41:54Speaker 2: an example though. Either you have to be your own
- 41:56Speaker 2: example or you have to find an example of someone
- 41:59Speaker 2: else who thought their way out of it.
- 42:02Speaker 1: And for my brother, for all the trouble that he's
- 42:04Speaker 1: been in, in a way, I think he was trying to,
- 42:12Speaker 1: he also was trying to help me You know, and so,
- 42:15Speaker 1: you know, his hustle and his work ethic in another sense,
- 42:18Speaker 1: you know, was, that's been helpful to me too, you know,
- 42:22Speaker 1: because I remember he used to hand out flyers and
- 42:24Speaker 1: shit all over the place. And when I'd be like
- 42:25Speaker 1: a teenager, he'd be like, he'd be like, listen to
- 42:28Speaker 1: me now. If you go, if you leave an event
- 42:31Speaker 1: at the other day that you're handing out flyers and
- 42:33Speaker 1: you're flooding it with promotion, if you can even see
- 42:35Speaker 1: that pavement underneath the, you know, pamphlets that you're handing out,
- 42:40Speaker 1: you didn't promote it. So what he used to tell me,
- 42:43Speaker 1: I was like, 15, 16. And that all has come,
- 42:46Speaker 1: that mentality came in handy for me because, you know,
- 42:50Speaker 1: I was just a street performer, just an itinerant performer. And,
- 42:56Speaker 1: you know, I did have to learn how to market myself,
- 43:00Speaker 1: you know, and part of the reason that I was, man,
- 43:04Speaker 1: sometimes being underestimated is like the best thing that could
- 43:07Speaker 1: happen to you, you know, because I think one of
- 43:10Speaker 1: the biggest challenges for like in the music industry at
- 43:14Speaker 1: least is that the way the business works now is
- 43:19Speaker 1: they're almost exclusively, you know, you ever seen Moneyball? Brad
- 43:25Speaker 1: Pitt flick Moneyball? Yeah. Right? Yeah. How they, you know,
- 43:28Speaker 1: they introduced that concept of looking at the data to
- 43:32Speaker 1: like maximize the potential of the athletes and all that
- 43:35Speaker 1: kind of stuff, which has totally changed the game, you know,
- 43:37Speaker 1: all the games. I kind of call it money guitar, right?
- 43:42Speaker 1: Which is like, you know, the business is seeding the
- 43:45Speaker 1: young amateur and for the way that they spend and
- 43:50Speaker 1: invest and can move on if it doesn't work out,
- 43:54Speaker 1: it's like kind of a, you know, it's kind of
- 43:58Speaker 1: a pumping dump, you know? And the thing about that,
- 44:02Speaker 1: it works. Like if somebody has a, you know, if somebody...
- 44:06Speaker 1: Like some of these guys, you mentioned Oliver Anthony and
- 44:08Speaker 1: some of these guys, they have a viral hit out
- 44:11Speaker 1: of nowhere. They've never played a venue or anything in
- 44:15Speaker 1: their life. It can happen really fast. And then obviously
- 44:21Speaker 1: there's tremendous challenges down the line trying to keep that
- 44:27Speaker 1: astronomical quick rise up there. But back in the day,
- 44:33Speaker 1: The business deals weren't any good. You know that. They
- 44:36Speaker 1: were terrible. What they were good about, though, in a
- 44:39Speaker 1: lot of cases, was developing these artists on these rosters,
- 44:42Speaker 1: even if they were taking advantage of these poor farm boys,
- 44:45Speaker 1: taking advantage of poor black artists from the South or
- 44:51Speaker 1: women or whatever. Nobody was getting a good deal, basically.
- 44:54Speaker 1: But guys like Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, those guys
- 45:01Speaker 1: were making two, three records a year. You know, and
- 45:05Speaker 1: you think about when Waylon breaks through, right, in the mid-70s,
- 45:09Speaker 1: you know, and, like, as he's doing, you know, coming
- 45:13Speaker 1: into his own in 1974, 1975. I mean, how many
- 45:19Speaker 1: records in is he at that point, you know? Wow. Yeah.
- 45:23Speaker 1: I mean, you know, Willie's Red-Headed Stranger, which revolutionized country music, or, like,
- 45:29Speaker 1: the Outlaws compilation record that the two of them were
- 45:32Speaker 1: on together. which was basically a compilation and kind of
- 45:35Speaker 1: marketed as the outlaw subgenre. You know, those guys were 15,
- 45:41Speaker 1: those guys were 15, 16, 17 records in, you know,
- 45:46Speaker 1: Aretha Franklin popped off on her ninth or 10th record. Wow.
- 45:51Speaker 1: You know, and these, most of these artists, the way
- 45:54Speaker 1: the business works, they won't make nine or 10 records
- 45:57Speaker 1: in their career. Right. That's crazy to me.
- 45:59Speaker 2: That is crazy. And what better way to develop? than
- 46:01Speaker 2: to just keep constantly producing new music and learn along
- 46:04Speaker 2: the way.
- 46:05Speaker 1: And being neglected or misunderstood by the business when I
- 46:11Speaker 1: was first dealing with it, it was really a blessing
- 46:16Speaker 1: because I ended up making so many records, you know?
- 46:20Speaker 2: Yeah. The music business has always been so predatory. But
- 46:26Speaker 2: it's like, It's the way I describe a lot of things.
- 46:30Speaker 2: It's like when you get something that's good combined with
- 46:33Speaker 2: a bunch of people that want to make money off
- 46:34Speaker 2: that something that's good. Whether it's medicine or whether it's
- 46:40Speaker 2: music or even in comedy, you get the same thing.
- 46:42Speaker 2: You get a bunch of people that just think they
- 46:44Speaker 2: can make money off you.
- 46:46Speaker 1: Man, I always thought comedy was the hardest. I always
- 46:48Speaker 1: figured it was the hardest, right? Because you mean like
- 46:51Speaker 1: you got to make them laugh or they're going to
- 46:53Speaker 1: fucking kill you.
- 46:53Speaker 2: And you have new shit all the time.
- 46:56Speaker 1: There's nothing behind you. There's not even a guitar covering
- 46:59Speaker 1: you up. Right. It's crazy to me just to watch
- 47:01Speaker 1: all those guys do their bit and shit. I was
- 47:04Speaker 1: always amazed by even people going up at the open
- 47:09Speaker 1: mics and trying out their routine. That always terrified me.
- 47:13Speaker 2: It terrifies me still when I watch open mics. I
- 47:16Speaker 2: watch open mics and I watch someone bombing. I got
- 47:18Speaker 2: to leave the room because I fear that it's contagious.
- 47:22Speaker 2: Like if I was on the road and I didn't
- 47:26Speaker 2: get to pick my opening acts, like if I was
- 47:28Speaker 2: working at a club and they had some local act
- 47:31Speaker 2: in Florida or something like that and the guy was
- 47:32Speaker 2: fucking terrible, I would literally have to like not listen.
- 47:36Speaker 2: I'd have to leave the room and just sort of
- 47:38Speaker 2: time when I was going to go on stage so
- 47:40Speaker 2: I could go on stage with a fresh mindset. I
- 47:43Speaker 2: couldn't think. That this audience had been poisoned by this
- 47:46Speaker 2: guy's shitty comedy.
- 47:47Speaker 1: I get that.
- 47:48Speaker 2: You know what I mean? It's terrible, and it's like
- 47:52Speaker 2: you think that nothing could be funny. He's hypnotized them
- 47:58Speaker 2: into this mediocre state of mind. Like, I can't listen.
- 48:02Speaker 2: I've got to hide.
- 48:03Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's crazy that they could have that. that
- 48:07Speaker 1: strong an effect on the audience like that, that quick.
- 48:09Speaker 1: I mean, somebody can be up there fucking it up
- 48:11Speaker 1: like crazy musically and you kind of get a pass,
- 48:14Speaker 1: you know, you know, poetic license or whatever.
- 48:18Speaker 2: Well, you know, people, it's tolerable if the guy's into it,
- 48:21Speaker 2: you know, he could be into his own music and
- 48:23Speaker 2: you're like, I'm not into it, but he's into it.
- 48:26Speaker 2: At least he's like doing his song. If you're not into,
- 48:29Speaker 2: if you're doing comedy and the audience is not into it,
- 48:31Speaker 2: you're fucked. You're like really fucked. You have to engage
- 48:34Speaker 2: those people.
- 48:35Speaker 1: Yeah, I see that. It's unbelievable.
- 48:36Speaker 2: You got to be connected to those people and you
- 48:38Speaker 2: can't fake it. Like you can't even be saying the
- 48:41Speaker 2: words perfectly and not be thinking about it. You have
- 48:43Speaker 2: to be thinking about what you're saying. They know. They're
- 48:46Speaker 2: little animals. They smell you. They know. They know if
- 48:50Speaker 2: you're faking it. And you just got to lock in, man.
- 48:54Speaker 2: And you got to learn how to lock in. It
- 48:55Speaker 2: takes about 10 years. It takes 10 years of eating shit.
- 49:00Speaker 2: Just fucking bombing and traveling around and opening up for
- 49:04Speaker 2: people and barely getting by.
- 49:07Speaker 1: That's the same thing with music, though, about the 10-year deal,
- 49:09Speaker 1: you know, the 10,000-hour thing. There's no doubt about it.
- 49:13Speaker 2: I think it's probably almost everything.
- 49:15Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 49:16Speaker 2: Almost everything.
- 49:16Speaker 1: Anything you dedicate yourself to. You know... uh, you like
- 49:20Speaker 1: Noam Chomsky? Yeah, sure.
- 49:22Speaker 2: You ever see old Noam Chomsky?
- 49:24Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 49:24Speaker 2: I listened to him today. I'm like, Jesus, stop talking.
- 49:27Speaker 1: Yeah. He's popping off in there.
- 49:28Speaker 2: Well, he just went the COVID vaccine stuff. He was
- 49:31Speaker 2: out of his fucking mind. He wanted people to be
- 49:33Speaker 2: isolated and quarantined and taken away from society if they
- 49:37Speaker 2: weren't willing to, take this fucking experimental.
- 49:39Speaker 1: Shit that turned out to be not even worth it.
- 49:40Speaker 1: I haven't kept up with him in recent years.
- 49:42Speaker 2: Well, he's old, right? And old people... Unfortunately, also, he's
- 49:46Speaker 2: an academic, so academics tend to trust experts in whatever
- 49:50Speaker 2: field they're in. And if he doesn't have an understanding... Like,
- 49:53Speaker 2: he has a deep understanding of how compromised people are
- 49:57Speaker 2: politically by money, you know? And he's written some brilliant
- 50:00Speaker 2: work on, essentially, the way the media is compromised and
- 50:06Speaker 2: the way, you know... politics are compromised. I don't think
- 50:11Speaker 2: he applied that same skepticism towards the pharmaceutical industrial complex.
- 50:15Speaker 1: Which is strange.
- 50:16Speaker 2: Well, people have their blind spots.
- 50:18Speaker 1: Yeah, we all do.
- 50:20Speaker 2: And they trust experts. And if he, you know, he's
- 50:22Speaker 2: got experts that are academics and you trust them. And
- 50:26Speaker 2: also he's old. And old people get real scared of diseases.
- 50:29Speaker 2: They get real scared because they know how fucking vulnerable
- 50:31Speaker 2: they are. All the people that I knew that were
- 50:33Speaker 2: old had the craziest reaction to COVID.
- 50:36Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. Terrified.
- 50:37Speaker 2: Even my own parents tried to talk them through some
- 50:41Speaker 2: of this stuff. They didn't want to hear it. They
- 50:42Speaker 2: only wanted to listen to doctors. I'm like, I don't
- 50:45Speaker 2: think this is what they're telling you.
- 50:47Speaker 1: Yeah. Doctors are crazy. They got a cabinet full of
- 50:53Speaker 1: pills that they've been sold to sell you.
- 50:58Speaker 2: And they're incentivized. That's what's really crazy. When I found
- 51:01Speaker 2: that out. I learned so much during the pandemic about
- 51:05Speaker 2: the medical industry where I just thought they were there.
- 51:09Speaker 2: I'm so naive. I didn't even realize that hospitals are
- 51:13Speaker 2: privately owned. I thought these were things set up by
- 51:16Speaker 2: the government to make sure that people can get healed.
- 51:19Speaker 1: Right.
- 51:20Speaker 2: I thought it was all about making people better.
- 51:22Speaker 1: They're not public. The closest thing to public is if
- 51:25Speaker 1: they're owned by like a. You know, religious organization. Right.
- 51:29Speaker 1: A church. Yeah. Isn't that crazy?
- 51:30Speaker 2: It's crazy.
- 51:31Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 51:31Speaker 2: It's crazy. And they're just fucking shuffling people in and out,
- 51:35Speaker 2: trying to prescribe them as many things. And they're financially
- 51:37Speaker 2: incentivized to prescribe things. And then they have extreme overhead
- 51:43Speaker 2: because they have liability insurance. They have student loan debt.
- 51:46Speaker 2: And they have, you know, a high overhead to keep
- 51:48Speaker 2: their practice running.
- 51:51Speaker 1: Where's Bernie Sanders when you need him? Yeah.
- 51:53Speaker 2: Well.
- 51:54Speaker 1: Well, no, see, so I had open-heart surgery right here
- 51:56Speaker 1: in Austin to fix it.
- 52:00Speaker 2: What was wrong with your heart?
- 52:01Speaker 1: Valve here. Well, I was born with Wolfe-Parkinson's white disease.
- 52:05Speaker 1: It's an electrical issue in your heart. Basically, like, your
- 52:10Speaker 1: heart misfires. All this electricity is moving through it all
- 52:15Speaker 1: the time, you know, like a semiconductor or whatever. And
- 52:19Speaker 1: there was, like, a section of it that was, like,
- 52:22Speaker 1: And it would cause an arrhythmia with me. Wow. And
- 52:26Speaker 1: when I was a kid in South Texas, we were
- 52:28Speaker 1: told that was all I knew about. And we were
- 52:30Speaker 1: told that it was an annoyance because I almost died
- 52:33Speaker 1: a couple of times and I was really, really young
- 52:35Speaker 1: from it. And, you know, my mama noticed and saved
- 52:39Speaker 1: my life a couple of times by getting driving in,
- 52:41Speaker 1: you know, into the city there in the San Benito
- 52:44Speaker 1: and them hooking me up to all the wires and
- 52:47Speaker 1: saving me. Anyways, they told me as I got older
- 52:51Speaker 1: that it would just, I could get, you know, an
- 52:56Speaker 1: ablation for it where they apply heat basically and close
- 52:59Speaker 1: this electrical channel that's stuck in a loop or whatever.
- 53:04Speaker 1: But it wasn't life-threatening. And then I got out here,
- 53:08Speaker 1: you know, I was on the street for years. And
- 53:12Speaker 1: then when I was coming off the street through kind
- 53:15Speaker 1: of blues jams and I had been, you know, I
- 53:16Speaker 1: was working on ganja farms and it started, selling you
- 53:19Speaker 1: know weed in the mail and all that to kind
- 53:22Speaker 1: of get off street buy myself some better clothes get
- 53:25Speaker 1: myself a good guitar and an amp and all that
- 53:27Speaker 1: started showing up at blues jams and then I could
- 53:29Speaker 1: like you know cause everything takes money you know like
- 53:33Speaker 1: problem with being a street player was you can go
- 53:35Speaker 1: play the open mics that have a two damn drink
- 53:37Speaker 1: minimum and they'd see my crazy ass come in and
- 53:40Speaker 1: knew that I was you know pretty wild and I
- 53:43Speaker 1: didn't have any money and it didn't smell and I
- 53:45Speaker 1: didn't smell good so they really didn't like me for
- 53:48Speaker 1: the you know for the longest time or whatever but
- 53:51Speaker 1: i threw blues jams i started leading bands and bars
- 53:55Speaker 1: deep ellum first gig i ever got and austin was
- 53:58Speaker 1: uh right there at darwin's pub you know on sixth
- 54:01Speaker 1: street playing kind of solo in the afternoon it was
- 54:03Speaker 1: the only guy cj was the only guy that gave
- 54:05Speaker 1: me a gig even on sixth street i always owed
- 54:08Speaker 1: him for that and i think he was giving me
- 54:09Speaker 1: 50 bucks you know he wanted me to get paid
- 54:12Speaker 1: out of the uh well whiskey and those those uh
- 54:17Speaker 1: What does he sell over there? Those gyros or whatever
- 54:21Speaker 1: the hell he's got over there. Um, anyway, I get
- 54:23Speaker 1: on the road, I get an agent. I had, I was,
- 54:26Speaker 1: I was standing out of green hall handing CDs out
- 54:28Speaker 1: on a street corner cause I couldn't get into the show.
- 54:31Speaker 1: Handed a guy a CD. His name's Evan Felker. I
- 54:34Speaker 1: didn't know who he was at the time, but he's
- 54:35Speaker 1: front man for Turnpike Troubadours. Um, I gave him a
- 54:40Speaker 1: CD and, uh, he, uh, Well, he took it home
- 54:44Speaker 1: and he listened to it with his then girlfriend and
- 54:46Speaker 1: now wife. And lo and behold, his agent, John Folk,
- 54:49Speaker 1: called me up and started booking me. And then that's
- 54:52Speaker 1: when I started playing the old red dirt. I like
- 54:56Speaker 1: to call it the Hank Williams circuit, you know, the
- 54:58Speaker 1: kind of old country chitlin circuit. John Folk had kind
- 55:01Speaker 1: of inherited it from like Buddy Lee attractions from an
- 55:06Speaker 1: earlier generation. It goes all the way back to Lucky
- 55:09Speaker 1: Moeller and that old South circuit that all the R
- 55:13Speaker 1: & B and the, and the hillbilly country boys were
- 55:15Speaker 1: on and folk kind of inherited it and rebuilt it.
- 55:20Speaker 1: And then they, you know, then Coke and Pepsi came in,
- 55:22Speaker 1: you know, CAA and William Morris and Wasserman and bought
- 55:28Speaker 1: it all off, you know, bought it all out and
- 55:30Speaker 1: you had no choice. I mean, they were going to
- 55:31Speaker 1: part it out no matter what. And that's the way
- 55:33Speaker 1: that it works, right? When you get Coca-Cola's attention, right?
- 55:37Speaker 1: And they show up and they're like, good job. You're
- 55:40Speaker 1: taking some of our money away from us. We're going
- 55:41Speaker 1: to buy you out, son. Right? I think you can
- 55:44Speaker 1: refuse them once or twice and they'll come back with
- 55:47Speaker 1: a better deal, right? After that, if you keep turning
- 55:50Speaker 1: them down, then they put all their energy into knocking
- 55:53Speaker 1: you out, you know? Yeah. That's what I mean. As
- 55:55Speaker 1: long as Coke doesn't change the flavor of Coca-Cola, right?
- 56:00Speaker 1: They can, you know, that gangster shit, all the other
- 56:03Speaker 1: gangster shit they do works really well as long as
- 56:05Speaker 1: they don't fuck up the original flavor, right?
- 56:07Speaker 2: Right.
- 56:07Speaker 1: So I'm on that circuit working my ass off. 200 and,
- 56:12Speaker 1: whatever shows a year for a bunch of years in
- 56:14Speaker 1: a row, playing all over the place. It seems like
- 56:16Speaker 1: sometimes we play 21 nights in a row out there,
- 56:18Speaker 1: you know, for shit kickers at Bonita Creek Hall and
- 56:22Speaker 1: punk rock clubs in New Jersey and shit, you know,
- 56:24Speaker 1: playing at the fucking, you know, Saint, that little club,
- 56:27Speaker 1: the Saint in Asbury Park. It's like a 40 cap, man,
- 56:30Speaker 1: it's a badass place. Anyway, I was like blacking out.
- 56:36Speaker 1: I moved up to a bus and shit, and I
- 56:37Speaker 1: was like, I was getting really lightheaded. And I'd be
- 56:41Speaker 1: sitting in the back of the bus, and I would
- 56:42Speaker 1: be so lightheaded. I'd be blacking out a lot, right?
- 56:46Speaker 1: Just sitting there, short of breath. But I just thought,
- 56:50Speaker 1: you know, I'm grinding. I'm playing all these shows. I'm
- 56:53Speaker 1: going as hard as you can go, taking potions, you know?
- 56:58Speaker 1: Just doing all this dumb shit, working hard. And I
- 57:03Speaker 1: was playing at the old Shady Grove here in town
- 57:06Speaker 1: that's now closed down. It was the KGSR radio station.
- 57:11Speaker 1: Marsha Millam put it on or whatever and then it
- 57:13Speaker 1: turned into you know ACL radio and then Shady Grove
- 57:15Speaker 1: closed down there on Barton Springs wherever but I played
- 57:19Speaker 1: it a handful of times first time I played it
- 57:20Speaker 1: there was nobody there second time I played it it
- 57:23Speaker 1: was packed and I had I had Willie's old tour
- 57:26Speaker 1: bus the redheaded stranger it was one of the ones
- 57:28Speaker 1: he lost in the IRS era that he never got
- 57:31Speaker 1: back oh wow and this fucking shyster Chuck Ligon I
- 57:36Speaker 1: remember he some motherfucker was selling this thing on the
- 57:39Speaker 1: side of the highway up in Oklahoma and The red-headed
- 57:41Speaker 1: stranger with the murals on it and shit. It's a
- 57:43Speaker 1: beautiful bus. Somehow this guy gets it. I shouldn't call
- 57:47Speaker 1: him a shyster, but he definitely shyster than me.
- 57:49Speaker 2: That's a shyster then.
- 57:51Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. You know, the music business is crazy because
- 57:54Speaker 1: it's so.
- 57:55Speaker 2: Here it is.
- 57:56Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow. That's the one, man. Yeah, that's the one.
- 58:01Speaker 1: On the other side it says... driven only by the
- 58:04Speaker 1: finest bass players. Wow. Because somebody in the band always
- 58:08Speaker 1: drove those old buses. I had that bus. I used
- 58:10Speaker 1: that bus exclusively for about a year or whatever. And
- 58:14Speaker 1: we get off the stage at Shady Grove, and my
- 58:19Speaker 1: heart had gone out of rhythm. I'm going to just
- 58:22Speaker 1: say this. I almost died in the back of that bus.
- 58:24Speaker 1: I end up finding, because it won't go. Here I am,
- 58:27Speaker 1: 30-something years old, or in my early 30s. My arrhythmia
- 58:31Speaker 1: is out. It's going out and it's getting harder and
- 58:34Speaker 1: harder to get back in, to shock it back into
- 58:37Speaker 1: normal rhythm. And I just kept ignoring it because somebody
- 58:42Speaker 1: told me in South Texas in the 80s not to
- 58:45Speaker 1: worry about it. Anyway, you know, it turned out that
- 58:49Speaker 1: my heart didn't enlarge and all this shit was going on.
- 58:52Speaker 1: And I had to get surgery. The point, long roundabout
- 58:56Speaker 1: point that I'm making to you about medical industry that
- 58:58Speaker 1: I learned the hard way, man, is like no one's
- 59:01Speaker 1: advocating for you. Only you. You have to be your
- 59:04Speaker 1: own advocate. They don't give a fuck. you know they
- 59:07Speaker 1: don't like they were just gonna automatically put a mechanical
- 59:10Speaker 1: valve in my heart right automatically didn't present any other
- 59:15Speaker 1: options anything right um and I get there on the
- 59:19Speaker 1: American Heart Association webpage or whatever because I have insurance
- 59:23Speaker 1: at the time or anything nothing you know um the
- 59:27Speaker 1: only reason that they covered me at the time was
- 59:29Speaker 1: the Affordable Care Act, and I had the right window
- 59:31Speaker 1: where they could not deny me, right? Otherwise, I don't
- 59:35Speaker 1: know what I would have done, and that is absolutely
- 59:38Speaker 1: an imperfect system, right? I just didn't have health insurance.
- 59:41Speaker 1: So here they are covering me, and probably because I
- 59:44Speaker 1: don't have money and they're dealing with, you know, how
- 59:46Speaker 1: it is, you know, American business practices or whatever, they're like,
- 59:51Speaker 1: here's this mechanical valve. And I go and look it up, Joe,
- 59:54Speaker 1: and it's like, You know, if you have a mechanical valve,
- 1:00:01Speaker 1: you automatically are on blood thinner the rest of your life. Automatically.
- 1:00:04Speaker 1: No matter what. And that's just how it's going to be.
- 1:00:09Speaker 1: It lasts twice as long as a prosthetic valve, which
- 1:00:13Speaker 1: I had not heard of at that point. But that
- 1:00:16Speaker 1: was the whole thing. This can last up to 20 years.
- 1:00:18Speaker 1: But guess what? You have like 300% higher risk of
- 1:00:21Speaker 1: a stroke with a mechanical valve than as a bioprosthetic
- 1:00:27Speaker 1: cow valve. And then the third thing was that you
- 1:00:33Speaker 1: can hear that thing clicking. You can hear the valve ticking.
- 1:00:38Speaker 2: My buddy Everlast has one of those.
- 1:00:39Speaker 1: Really?
- 1:00:40Speaker 2: Yeah, he can go like this.
- 1:00:42Speaker 1: You can hear it? Yeah, you hear it. And I
- 1:00:45Speaker 1: was reading about that, and, man, I'm, like, neurotic like
- 1:00:48Speaker 1: I knew. I'm like, I'll never get over it. So
- 1:00:51Speaker 1: that's when I found out about the bovine— Cow valve.
- 1:00:55Speaker 2: So it's made out of a cow?
- 1:00:57Speaker 1: Yeah. Edwards Scientific makes it. I carry a little card
- 1:01:00Speaker 1: around in my wallet with the tag of that product
- 1:01:05Speaker 1: number in case somebody finds me on the sidewalk.
- 1:01:08Speaker 2: Wow.
- 1:01:09Speaker 1: How long does that last? They're supposed to last around
- 1:01:13Speaker 1: 10 years. And I had mine done right there at
- 1:01:16Speaker 1: Seton Medical there on 38th. in January 2019. So we're
- 1:01:26Speaker 1: coming back around to it.
- 1:01:28Speaker 2: So you have to get another operation?
- 1:01:30Speaker 1: Yeah, but what they did is they put a, they
- 1:01:32Speaker 1: put a, the way they did it, and here's the
- 1:01:35Speaker 1: thing about, right, medical and anything, right? The medical industry is,
- 1:01:39Speaker 1: I think, really fucked up and really predatory, totally profit-driven
- 1:01:44Speaker 1: and like, you know, people's health and preventative well-being and
- 1:01:49Speaker 1: all that, I mean, we don't give a fuck about that. Right.
- 1:01:52Speaker 1: In this country, you know what I mean? There's no
- 1:01:53Speaker 1: money to be made off of people taking care of
- 1:01:57Speaker 1: themselves and eating right and being preventative. There's nothing in that.
- 1:02:02Speaker 1: The part about it that is amazing, though, even in
- 1:02:06Speaker 1: the kind of insanity of all the land of cheap traders,
- 1:02:11Speaker 1: is the technological advancements. The technological advancements in the medical field,
- 1:02:16Speaker 1: though not really available to the common person, They are
- 1:02:23Speaker 1: incredible advancements, right? So it's like they're moving so quickly
- 1:02:28Speaker 1: that by the time I need to get another one,
- 1:02:30Speaker 1: I don't think they'll ever have to cut me open
- 1:02:33Speaker 1: again because they can go in through a scope now. Wow.
- 1:02:35Speaker 1: They could do it at that time. It was just
- 1:02:37Speaker 1: more experimental, and they didn't want to do it. They
- 1:02:40Speaker 1: were only doing it on really high-risk older patients, but
- 1:02:43Speaker 1: I think it's already kind of gone more mainstream from
- 1:02:46Speaker 1: where when they cut me open to if I did
- 1:02:49Speaker 1: it right now, I could probably get around cutting it.
- 1:02:52Speaker 2: So they're going through an artery.
- 1:02:54Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:02:55Speaker 2: And then what do they have to do to it?
- 1:02:57Speaker 1: Well, so with me, what was happening was, so I
- 1:03:00Speaker 1: had the Wolff-Parkinson's white. I had to get the ablation
- 1:03:02Speaker 1: first before I could deal with what aortic valve disease
- 1:03:07Speaker 1: is what it's called. And what it basically is, is
- 1:03:10Speaker 1: that over your aorta, there's these three valves that sit
- 1:03:15Speaker 1: on it. over the top of your aorta that they
- 1:03:18Speaker 1: look like a Mercedes symbol is what they look like.
- 1:03:20Speaker 1: It's like the best example. It really looks like a
- 1:03:21Speaker 1: Mercedes symbol. And some people, it's a bicuspid or whatever.
- 1:03:27Speaker 1: Some people are born with two of the three fused
- 1:03:30Speaker 1: together or just one missing altogether. And it turned out
- 1:03:33Speaker 1: that I was missing one. It's like a leaky carburetor,
- 1:03:37Speaker 1: you know? So like as the time goes, that old
- 1:03:39Speaker 1: carburetor in that truck over time, just leaking more and
- 1:03:42Speaker 1: more and more. Wow. You know? And I mean- I
- 1:03:47Speaker 1: just got lucky, man, because I was in the back
- 1:03:48Speaker 1: of that fucking bus, and there was this lady driving
- 1:03:51Speaker 1: us back then that was holding seances and burning sage
- 1:03:56Speaker 1: over the top of me while I was laying in
- 1:03:58Speaker 1: the back of that bus. That was going to heal me.
- 1:04:01Speaker 1: That shit didn't work. And she doesn't drive me anymore.
- 1:04:07Speaker 1: Get yourself a good bus driver. You have to get
- 1:04:09Speaker 1: a good bus driver or you'll never get a good sleep.
- 1:04:12Speaker 2: Yeah, because you'll be freaking out. You'd be thinking, what
- 1:04:15Speaker 2: if this person falls asleep? Yeah, there's a lot of them.
- 1:04:18Speaker 2: Especially the late-night drives.
- 1:04:19Speaker 1: Oh, man.
- 1:04:20Speaker 2: Ooh, late-night drives are scary. That highway starts hypnotizing you.
- 1:04:23Speaker 1: There was this guy, there was a video going around,
- 1:04:25Speaker 1: he drove us around for a little bit, and there
- 1:04:27Speaker 1: was this video passing around the industry, this guy they
- 1:04:29Speaker 1: called Jimbo. And it was this bus driver that was like,
- 1:04:33Speaker 1: you know, just a speed freak. And it was like
- 1:04:35Speaker 1: this video of him where he was like on whatever
- 1:04:37Speaker 1: he was on, and Somebody had recorded him and like
- 1:04:41Speaker 1: they'd put a phone up or something cause they knew
- 1:04:42Speaker 1: his nuts. And he was like having one of those
- 1:04:45Speaker 1: fucking like, you know, methamphetamine freak outs, like, you know,
- 1:04:50Speaker 1: driving the bus down the road and it was getting
- 1:04:52Speaker 1: all passed around the industry. And I saw it because
- 1:04:55Speaker 1: like he was driving us at the time. I remember
- 1:04:57Speaker 1: we woke up and I remember we woke up somewhere
- 1:05:01Speaker 1: in New Mexico one morning cause we're going on this
- 1:05:02Speaker 1: road all of a sudden and we get up and
- 1:05:05Speaker 1: I go to the front of the bus and he's,
- 1:05:08Speaker 1: we're like on some, Fucking two-track, you know, caliche fucking
- 1:05:15Speaker 1: dirt road that was, like, behind a gate in a bus,
- 1:05:19Speaker 1: that bus, right? And I get up there, and he's
- 1:05:22Speaker 1: looking all crazy in the door handle. The inside door
- 1:05:25Speaker 1: handle of the bus had been pulled off and shit.
- 1:05:26Speaker 1: It was crazy, man. When we got back down here
- 1:05:31Speaker 1: in Texas, man, I never saw a fool again. Jesus Christ, man.
- 1:05:35Speaker 2: Well, you've got to think, if you're driving buses all
- 1:05:38Speaker 2: through the night, there's a high likelihood you're on amphetamines.
- 1:05:41Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. High likelihood.
- 1:05:43Speaker 2: For the business, it's probably the best way to stay awake.
- 1:05:46Speaker 1: Oh, no doubt about it. Yeah.
- 1:05:48Speaker 2: And then, obviously, that shit's very addictive. And you need it.
- 1:05:53Speaker 2: This band has to get to Cincinnati. You've got to
- 1:05:56Speaker 2: get to Cincinnati. It's an eight-hour drive. There's only one
- 1:05:58Speaker 2: way to do it. You've got to drive through the night.
- 1:06:00Speaker 1: And that's why all the old performers were all on pills,
- 1:06:03Speaker 1: you know, and they were getting prescribed. I mean, you know,
- 1:06:05Speaker 1: and they were getting prescribed that shit by the doctor. Yeah.
- 1:06:07Speaker 1: You know? Oh yeah.
- 1:06:09Speaker 2: Does this give you a, a greater appreciation for life?
- 1:06:13Speaker 2: The value of life? Like knowing you almost lost it.
- 1:06:17Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I hadn't thought
- 1:06:22Speaker 1: about immediately after that. I just started thinking, I just
- 1:06:26Speaker 1: started thinking about my mortality and, You know, I hadn't
- 1:06:30Speaker 1: really thought about it before, you know.
- 1:06:31Speaker 2: Of course. Everybody feels invulnerable when you're young.
- 1:06:34Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:06:35Speaker 2: Especially if you're young and you live in that wild,
- 1:06:38Speaker 2: you know, transient.
- 1:06:39Speaker 1: Moving around, no roots. When I was in my 20s,
- 1:06:42Speaker 1: I guess I really, looking back now, I was like, man,
- 1:06:46Speaker 1: I was young. Like, I thought I could live like
- 1:06:48Speaker 1: that forever. I thought I could live hand in mouth and,
- 1:06:53Speaker 1: you know, sleep in people's pastures and, you know. do
- 1:07:00Speaker 1: the gentleman hobo thing forever. But, you know, I was 26.
- 1:07:04Speaker 2: There's something romantic about that too, right?
- 1:07:07Speaker 1: Yeah. I loved it. I wouldn't take it back, man.
- 1:07:10Speaker 1: I mean, like, you know, I believe that, you know,
- 1:07:17Speaker 1: you know, I think mental slavery is something that is real.
- 1:07:25Speaker 1: But so much of it is us. We do it
- 1:07:29Speaker 1: to ourselves. Mm-hmm. you know? Yeah. And so that's what
- 1:07:33Speaker 1: I was going to say about Chomsky. I haven't kept
- 1:07:35Speaker 1: up with him in years, but I remember something he
- 1:07:37Speaker 1: said a long time ago that stuck with me where
- 1:07:40Speaker 1: he was talking about like American, you know, consumerism over
- 1:07:46Speaker 1: the last hundred years. It really kind of illuminated my,
- 1:07:51Speaker 1: my kind of mind was, he was saying, he was like,
- 1:07:56Speaker 1: there are people working really, really, really hard, to eliminate
- 1:08:02Speaker 1: your sense of purpose for the explicit goal of making
- 1:08:07Speaker 1: you a more efficient consumer, right? All human beings live
- 1:08:15Speaker 1: for and desire a life of purpose. Purpose. It doesn't
- 1:08:23Speaker 1: matter what it is, something that you can dedicate yourself to,
- 1:08:27Speaker 1: the 10,000 hours, the 10 years. It can be you know, anything, uh,
- 1:08:32Speaker 1: woodmaking or, or your buddy with the, this ancient tooth
- 1:08:36Speaker 1: that he's carving into this beautiful piece of art or
- 1:08:39Speaker 1: whatever it is, you know? Yeah. Um, I don't know,
- 1:08:45Speaker 1: I guess it's like a heavy thing, but I kind
- 1:08:48Speaker 1: of realized when I became a transient that a lot
- 1:08:52Speaker 1: of who I was was like this amalgamation of a
- 1:08:57Speaker 1: bunch of people just trying to fucking sell me products.
- 1:09:00Speaker 1: you know? 90s radio just blasting my brain as a kid, right? Like,
- 1:09:09Speaker 1: programming that, like... It's like so much programming is so
- 1:09:15Speaker 1: hard for me to watch because you know that it's only...
- 1:09:20Speaker 1: a vehicle for the commercials. Right. Right? Right. So whenever
- 1:09:24Speaker 1: I'm watching something and as soon as I think that
- 1:09:28Speaker 1: it's not that good, I can't stop thinking about, like, well,
- 1:09:33Speaker 1: this is just a vehicle for me to fucking, you know,
- 1:09:37Speaker 1: think I need whatever the fuck they're selling. Yeah. You know?
- 1:09:41Speaker 1: So I feel like I killed, like, a lot of
- 1:09:45Speaker 1: the false... version of me that I was becoming that
- 1:09:52Speaker 1: I only realized when I walked, when I like walked
- 1:09:58Speaker 1: away from Crystal City. You know what I mean? And
- 1:10:04Speaker 1: then I could, and then I really started becoming, you know, me.
- 1:10:09Speaker 1: That's when I really started becoming me.
- 1:10:11Speaker 2: A lot of people are prisoners to that their whole
- 1:10:12Speaker 2: life because the only value they place is in how
- 1:10:16Speaker 2: much stuff they're able to acquire. That's the only value
- 1:10:20Speaker 2: that they see in life. They look at numbers on
- 1:10:23Speaker 2: a ledger, so they look at numbers in their bank account,
- 1:10:26Speaker 2: and they look at the stuff they're willing to acquire
- 1:10:28Speaker 2: or that they're able to acquire.
- 1:10:30Speaker 1: Right.
- 1:10:30Speaker 2: And that's their only measure of success in this life.
- 1:10:33Speaker 1: Yeah, the very definition of the word rich has changed
- 1:10:38Speaker 1: so much over the last 100 years. It's kind of
- 1:10:41Speaker 1: moved entirely. Really, richness wasn't a material idea. What did
- 1:10:47Speaker 1: it used to be? you know, richness of life, fullness
- 1:10:53Speaker 1: of life. Right. You know? Fulfillment. Fulfillment. Purpose. Health. Health, yeah.
- 1:11:00Speaker 1: You know, community.
- 1:11:01Speaker 2: Community, family.
- 1:11:03Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:11:03Speaker 2: Yeah, friends. Yeah, real life. But so many people, they
- 1:11:10Speaker 2: forego all that. They'll throw everything out the window just
- 1:11:13Speaker 2: for the numbers. For numbers, and they think they're successful.
- 1:11:18Speaker 1: I mean, it's the way that it's being run, you know, like,
- 1:11:21Speaker 1: I mean, there's no such thing as a free lunch,
- 1:11:24Speaker 1: you know? All this free social media, that shit ain't free. No.
- 1:11:27Speaker 1: You know?
- 1:11:28Speaker 2: No, you give up your attention.
- 1:11:29Speaker 1: Your attention's very, very valuable.
- 1:11:31Speaker 2: Your data and your attention. Yeah, your privacy.
- 1:11:34Speaker 1: The transparent society. Yeah. But, man, like, you know, y'all
- 1:11:37Speaker 1: pulled up that AI stuff. I remember, I won't tell
- 1:11:41Speaker 1: you the whole thing, but I was playing on the
- 1:11:44Speaker 1: street in Europe when I was younger. I had met
- 1:11:47Speaker 1: a guy down on the Lower East Side. He's a
- 1:11:49Speaker 1: Danish jazz singer. And he would show up over in
- 1:11:52Speaker 1: the States a couple times a year. And he was
- 1:11:55Speaker 1: doing really well there in Denmark. And the state really
- 1:11:59Speaker 1: sponsors the arts there in a big way. And it's
- 1:12:02Speaker 1: a small country, high quality of life. Like, he really
- 1:12:05Speaker 1: had it made over there. And when he was coming
- 1:12:07Speaker 1: over to the States to play music, it was almost
- 1:12:09Speaker 1: more of a leisure thing for him. Benjamin Agerbach is
- 1:12:12Speaker 1: his name. Great singer. Great jazz singer. And he'd show
- 1:12:16Speaker 1: up at the open mics and all this shit. And
- 1:12:18Speaker 1: I think he really... liked me because he saw the
- 1:12:21Speaker 1: way that I was living this American gypsy lifestyle and
- 1:12:26Speaker 1: he eventually helped me get over to Europe and I
- 1:12:29Speaker 1: played the club circuit in Copenhagen for like six weeks
- 1:12:32Speaker 1: or whatever and I was really rough around the edges
- 1:12:36Speaker 1: and like the American novelty in the folk in like
- 1:12:40Speaker 1: blues clubs around Copenhagen wore off really quick and I
- 1:12:43Speaker 1: wound up back on the street but this time in
- 1:12:45Speaker 1: Europe and as soon as I started playing on the
- 1:12:48Speaker 1: street in Copenhagen Man, then being a real Texan in
- 1:12:54Speaker 1: Europe in front of tourists on the street, man, that's
- 1:12:57Speaker 1: when I started making money. It was crazy. My money
- 1:13:00Speaker 1: like quadrupled because all of a sudden I was like
- 1:13:03Speaker 1: a truly exotic. Texas is exotic. And everywhere you go
- 1:13:07Speaker 1: in the world, it means something, right? They either want
- 1:13:10Speaker 1: to shake your hand or they step back. And it
- 1:13:12Speaker 1: doesn't matter where you go in the world. There's not
- 1:13:15Speaker 1: an inch of the world that hasn't heard of Texas,
- 1:13:17Speaker 1: you know? And- And that's, and so musically, you know, it,
- 1:13:22Speaker 1: and I think culturally it means something no matter what,
- 1:13:26Speaker 1: you know, and to play music and be a Texan
- 1:13:30Speaker 1: is worth a lot on its own. You know what
- 1:13:32Speaker 1: I mean? It's a big part of it is just
- 1:13:33Speaker 1: being a Texan. Gary Clark Jr. learning how to hold
- 1:13:38Speaker 1: his own under the tradition of Austin blues players in Texas,
- 1:13:44Speaker 1: guitar slingers. I mean, that's it's second to none in
- 1:13:47Speaker 1: the world, you know? And so if you've seen them live,
- 1:13:50Speaker 1: you know what it is. And, uh, but I remember
- 1:13:54Speaker 1: seeing like, there were no self checkouts at grocery stores
- 1:13:59Speaker 1: and shit in the United States back then, not one.
- 1:14:03Speaker 1: And then I was like, I ended up down in
- 1:14:05Speaker 1: France cause it was getting cold in Copenhagen. And I
- 1:14:07Speaker 1: had like, I had like two or 300 Kroner left
- 1:14:11Speaker 1: and I put it all on a bus ticket to Paris.
- 1:14:12Speaker 1: Cause it was my mama's favorite city. And I grew
- 1:14:15Speaker 1: up a, quite a bit in Louisiana, having some of
- 1:14:18Speaker 1: that French heritage. And I went down there. I'm glad
- 1:14:22Speaker 1: I didn't think about it, man, because the language barrier
- 1:14:24Speaker 1: was really difficult. And I didn't really realize it until
- 1:14:27Speaker 1: I was pulling into the city, you know. And actually
- 1:14:29Speaker 1: there was an Algerian guy who spoke English that was like, man,
- 1:14:33Speaker 1: go to Montmartre, go to Les Sacré-Cœur, go to Les Sacré-Cœur,
- 1:14:35Speaker 1: that's where the tourists are, whatever. And I kind of
- 1:14:38Speaker 1: learned how to hustle tourists with gypsies, kind of, that
- 1:14:42Speaker 1: were using me kind of as a decoy on the steps,
- 1:14:46Speaker 1: and I thought, this is great, these gypsies love me.
- 1:14:50Speaker 1: And I'm sitting there playing, and while I'm playing, I
- 1:14:52Speaker 1: realize that I'm just a distraction while they're pickpocketing these tourists.
- 1:14:56Speaker 1: It was a good trick. Of course, I didn't say anything. Also,
- 1:14:58Speaker 1: I didn't stick with them too much. But the automation thing,
- 1:15:05Speaker 1: Europe is way ahead of us on all of that,
- 1:15:08Speaker 1: because in a lot of ways, America, when you try
- 1:15:12Speaker 1: to analyze America, against Europe and these countries over there.
- 1:15:19Speaker 1: Like in some ways it's similar, but we're more similar
- 1:15:23Speaker 1: to Latin or South America in a lot of ways
- 1:15:26Speaker 1: with just how big the country is, you know, and
- 1:15:29Speaker 1: you know, the, the ag, the, you know, um, because
- 1:15:38Speaker 1: the country is so big, we got the States that
- 1:15:39Speaker 1: are divided up on that type of shit. Those kinds
- 1:15:41Speaker 1: of technologies to like, hit the people and become mainstream,
- 1:15:45Speaker 1: it's a slower process here, right? And one of the things,
- 1:15:50Speaker 1: you know, about the pandemic that is obvious to me
- 1:15:53Speaker 1: now is, you know, a lot of people realize that
- 1:15:56Speaker 1: they could speed that up, you know? And, you know,
- 1:16:00Speaker 1: I mean, I think they'd been trying to eliminate, you know,
- 1:16:05Speaker 1: the risks and what's the word? What are they like?
- 1:16:09Speaker 1: You know, externalizing costs, right? How do we get these
- 1:16:15Speaker 1: machines in here and these people out? And we've probably
- 1:16:20Speaker 1: jumped ahead in that process in America a decade or
- 1:16:23Speaker 1: more in just a couple of years. And I just
- 1:16:26Speaker 1: remember this was probably 2010. You go into a grocery
- 1:16:31Speaker 1: store in Paris and there was only one person working
- 1:16:36Speaker 1: there and everything else was self-checkout. And that was years
- 1:16:39Speaker 1: before I saw it here. And then you think about
- 1:16:42Speaker 1: the way that that's hitting in every single industry in America.
- 1:16:45Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:16:46Speaker 1: Right?
- 1:16:46Speaker 2: Well, it's so easy for people to be completely disconnected
- 1:16:49Speaker 2: from other people now. You know, you don't have to interact.
- 1:16:55Speaker 2: You know, and that's part of it. And if they
- 1:16:57Speaker 2: don't have to pay people, they can maximize their profits.
- 1:17:00Speaker 2: And then it becomes a very impersonal experience.
- 1:17:03Speaker 1: Soylent Green is coming, baby.
- 1:17:05Speaker 2: It's coming.
- 1:17:05Speaker 1: You seen that movie? Yeah. It's a good movie, man.
- 1:17:07Speaker 2: It's a good movie. It's a scary fucking movie. Well,
- 1:17:11Speaker 2: I think all the dystopian movies about the future, they
- 1:17:13Speaker 2: undersold it. It's going to get real weird real soon.
- 1:17:17Speaker 2: And because automation is not just going to apply to self-checkout.
- 1:17:21Speaker 2: It's going to apply to everything. All that truck driving shit,
- 1:17:24Speaker 2: that's all gone. That's going to be gone.
- 1:17:26Speaker 1: Right.
- 1:17:26Speaker 2: It's all going to be self-driving trucks. And they're going
- 1:17:29Speaker 2: to be more efficient, less accidents, safer.
- 1:17:33Speaker 1: Just remember those big business people. Just remember those people.
- 1:17:37Speaker 1: I know a whole lot of people who have relied
- 1:17:41Speaker 1: on undocumented workers in this state for decades voting against
- 1:17:46Speaker 1: the very thing that they were using themselves this entire time. Yep.
- 1:17:51Speaker 1: How are you going to rely on undocumented workers? Right. Yourself. Right.
- 1:17:56Speaker 1: You ain't paying taxes on it. You're not, you know,
- 1:17:58Speaker 1: those people got no safety net or anything.
- 1:18:01Speaker 2: Right.
- 1:18:01Speaker 1: And then, you know, here comes the. that's where it's
- 1:18:05Speaker 1: going to happen. And, you know, I'm not saying just
- 1:18:07Speaker 1: as a negative thing, like I think you can already
- 1:18:11Speaker 1: see in social media. I do think there's this, um,
- 1:18:17Speaker 1: this exhaustion, even in the youth with this, with this monolith,
- 1:18:22Speaker 1: you know, with this thing, the phones. Yeah. You know,
- 1:18:25Speaker 1: and I've been saying that in the music business, like
- 1:18:29Speaker 1: in country music, you know, like Mark Twain said, history doesn't, um,
- 1:18:35Speaker 1: it doesn't repeat, it rhymes. And so it's like, it's
- 1:18:40Speaker 1: 25 now, but I was thinking of it last year
- 1:18:42Speaker 1: in 2024, because like 1974 in music was this crazy year,
- 1:18:47Speaker 1: you know, and like thinking about the Nashville system. The
- 1:18:51Speaker 1: reason that Waylon Jennings is different than anybody else is
- 1:18:54Speaker 1: because Waylon's the specific guy who breaks the stranglehold that
- 1:19:01Speaker 1: the Nashville system has on its artists. That you can't
- 1:19:04Speaker 1: use your band. You can't choose your studio, right? Like
- 1:19:08Speaker 1: any of that. Like Waylon, you have to think how
- 1:19:12Speaker 1: crazy that is. You couldn't use your band, and you
- 1:19:14Speaker 1: couldn't even pick the studio. You couldn't produce. You didn't
- 1:19:17Speaker 1: have creative control at all. Waylon's the guy that breaks
- 1:19:22Speaker 1: through that wall.
- 1:19:23Speaker 2: How did he do it?
- 1:19:25Speaker 1: I think a couple of ways. It's the yin and
- 1:19:29Speaker 1: yang of Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. They were both
- 1:19:33Speaker 1: on RCA. Willie was... you know, at first, you know,
- 1:19:37Speaker 1: it's like Stapleton. Stapleton made his career as a songwriter
- 1:19:41Speaker 1: early on, you know, and that's what catapulted really for everything,
- 1:19:47Speaker 1: you know, that he's got going on now. There's a
- 1:19:48Speaker 1: really great foundation there of a guy that's spent his
- 1:19:51Speaker 1: whole life writing songs. And that's what Willie did, you know.
- 1:19:54Speaker 1: So Willie actually had success pretty early when he got
- 1:19:57Speaker 1: to Nashville with, you know, songs like Nightlife and crazy
- 1:20:03Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff and baron young and
- 1:20:05Speaker 1: patsy cline and these kinds of really big artists were
- 1:20:08Speaker 1: cutting his songs pretty early on right but he was
- 1:20:11Speaker 1: so weird to the establishment at the time and so
- 1:20:16Speaker 1: um you know kind of had this like philosophical thing
- 1:20:22Speaker 1: into his writing that was going over the heads of
- 1:20:25Speaker 1: the hillbilly deal so he was really neglected as a
- 1:20:29Speaker 1: you know, Willie Nelson records with him singing them. Waylon
- 1:20:32Speaker 1: was more favored, actually, by, like, Chet Atkins and them. But, like,
- 1:20:37Speaker 1: you'd be number one on the country charts in Nashville
- 1:20:40Speaker 1: in the mid-60s and be in debt. Wow. You know,
- 1:20:44Speaker 1: that's what Waylon said. Waylon was like, man, I'd be
- 1:20:45Speaker 1: number one all the time and I was fucking dead broke.
- 1:20:48Speaker 1: You know, he's like, man, they got you out there
- 1:20:51Speaker 1: seven nights a week and you're coming back and Lucky
- 1:20:53Speaker 1: Moeller's telling them that you owe him fucking 10 grand.
- 1:20:57Speaker 1: You know, that was... It was a crazy system. Willie
- 1:21:00Speaker 1: ends up leaving RCA. They're over him. He leaves RCA
- 1:21:05Speaker 1: because Jerry Wexler is coming down in A & R
- 1:21:09Speaker 1: and Texans out of this progressive Central Texas scene of
- 1:21:12Speaker 1: that era that was so unique. And it happened then
- 1:21:15Speaker 1: and just totally unique. The whole scene, everything here, the movement,
- 1:21:20Speaker 1: the hippies and the cowboys, where everybody could like here
- 1:21:24Speaker 1: in the capital of Texas, you know, it was weird,
- 1:21:29Speaker 1: but they were in the same rooms. We're still doing
- 1:21:31Speaker 1: that here, you know, which is what I'm, what I'm
- 1:21:33Speaker 1: really proud of, you know, and glad that this town
- 1:21:37Speaker 1: never turned into Nashville or LA or any of those towns.
- 1:21:40Speaker 1: The best thing that ever happened to us is that
- 1:21:42Speaker 1: the business didn't grow up like that. Right. I really
- 1:21:44Speaker 1: do believe that because it's allowed our unique culture to
- 1:21:47Speaker 1: continue to grow. Um, even if it's like I said,
- 1:21:51Speaker 1: and sometimes it's, it's, it's good to be neglected by
- 1:21:54Speaker 1: that machine for sure. But so Willie leaves because Jerry
- 1:21:57Speaker 1: Wexler pulls him out of there because RCA doesn't give
- 1:21:59Speaker 1: a fuck about him anyway. Right. He goes to Atlantic,
- 1:22:03Speaker 1: sells 400,000 records. The boys up in New York don't
- 1:22:06Speaker 1: even realize there's a country division after Willie sells 400,000 records,
- 1:22:10Speaker 1: which is a lot. Right. They closed the division. And
- 1:22:15Speaker 1: that's when Willie lands at Columbia and he's having success. Well,
- 1:22:23Speaker 1: They were starting to think that Whalen was past his prime, too.
- 1:22:26Speaker 1: But then Willie's blowing up on the other label, and
- 1:22:29Speaker 1: Willie and Whalen got the same manager at the time,
- 1:22:31Speaker 1: Neil Reshin. And what's Reshin doing? Reshin's leveraging it all.
- 1:22:35Speaker 1: And so Whalen was about to leave RCA, and they
- 1:22:41Speaker 1: doubled down and matched kind of Willie's deal because they
- 1:22:47Speaker 1: didn't want to lose Whalen. And Whalen was like, I'm only,
- 1:22:53Speaker 1: I'm only Stan, you know, if I like, I gotta
- 1:22:57Speaker 1: be producing my own records. I gotta, gotta be my
- 1:22:59Speaker 1: band and I gotta pick the place that I'm playing,
- 1:23:02Speaker 1: you know? And he, he manages to do that. So
- 1:23:05Speaker 1: it's not just Waylon. I mean, it's Willie and Waylon together.
- 1:23:07Speaker 1: That's why they're so tied together, you know, is these
- 1:23:10Speaker 1: two guys that their careers just kept, you know, they
- 1:23:16Speaker 1: just kept chasing each other kind of through the record books.
- 1:23:19Speaker 1: You know what I mean? And, uh, You know, because
- 1:23:24Speaker 1: you'd be in Nashville. It's still like this now, right?
- 1:23:27Speaker 1: Like when I got signed to Nashville by 30 Tigers,
- 1:23:30Speaker 1: it was purely because John Folk was my agent. And
- 1:23:34Speaker 1: those guys, they'd tell you this themselves. They didn't understand
- 1:23:38Speaker 1: what I was doing. They didn't get it. I was
- 1:23:40Speaker 1: only put on the roster as a favor to my
- 1:23:43Speaker 1: agent because they were having success with some other artists.
- 1:23:47Speaker 1: Openly saying, I don't understand this. Right? Which at least
- 1:23:51Speaker 1: they're being honest about, you know? But then what they
- 1:23:56Speaker 1: would do that was so weird is like, they'd give you,
- 1:24:01Speaker 1: like if a major label would give you, you know,
- 1:24:04Speaker 1: half a million dollars on your deal, these guys would
- 1:24:08Speaker 1: give you 50 grand, right? Like a 10th of that,
- 1:24:11Speaker 1: you know, kind of on the independent alt country Americana circuit.
- 1:24:17Speaker 1: But they would, what frustrated me about it, Joe, was
- 1:24:20Speaker 1: that they're only giving you a 10th of money but
- 1:24:24Speaker 1: they're behaving like major labels with these two-year record cycles.
- 1:24:30Speaker 1: That just kills an artist that hasn't broken through. It
- 1:24:35Speaker 1: just kills you. That's a 100% industry model because they
- 1:24:42Speaker 1: can always get another horse. You know what I mean?
- 1:24:44Speaker 1: They can always get another horse, and they can always,
- 1:24:48Speaker 1: you know, they bet on 10 young guys and one
- 1:24:51Speaker 1: of those kind of amateur realists blows up, you know,
- 1:24:55Speaker 1: they're good. Right. But you're never going to get a
- 1:24:57Speaker 1: Waylon Jennings out of that model.
- 1:25:00Speaker 2: Right.
- 1:25:00Speaker 1: It's not going to, you know what I mean? It's not,
- 1:25:02Speaker 1: it's not going to happen, you know?
- 1:25:05Speaker 2: And so how did, but how did Waylon get it
- 1:25:09Speaker 2: so that he could do whatever he wanted?
- 1:25:13Speaker 1: Because Willie left, right? And they, because Willie left and
- 1:25:19Speaker 1: all of a sudden Waylon was really going to leave.
- 1:25:22Speaker 1: That's all of a sudden.
- 1:25:24Speaker 2: That was his leverage.
- 1:25:25Speaker 1: They gave him everything. They gave him everything. And everything
- 1:25:28Speaker 1: was changing. Everything was changing in Nashville. We're talking about
- 1:25:32Speaker 1: when I say like 1974 here, you got to think
- 1:25:34Speaker 1: about it. You know, this is America in Vietnam. You know,
- 1:25:41Speaker 1: this is America coming out of the 60s. You know,
- 1:25:46Speaker 1: it's coming. Everything was you could say. I feel like
- 1:25:51Speaker 1: in a lot of ways what was happening is the
- 1:25:53Speaker 1: commercial culture was really starting to take off. You know
- 1:25:59Speaker 1: what I mean? And then by the time we get
- 1:26:00Speaker 1: to the 80s, it's like this level of pop culture
- 1:26:07Speaker 1: and American pop culture as a global export. I guess
- 1:26:15Speaker 1: maybe it's finally truly realized by the time Michael Jordan...
- 1:26:20Speaker 1: becomes the most visible person on the planet, kinda in
- 1:26:25Speaker 1: the 80s and 90s. Nashville was such an old system.
- 1:26:30Speaker 1: It's kinda like in country music today, one of the
- 1:26:34Speaker 1: reasons everybody's sprinting into it is because it's one of
- 1:26:39Speaker 1: the only places left where there's loyalty, long-term loyalty in
- 1:26:48Speaker 1: the fan base Compared to like, you know, what happened
- 1:26:50Speaker 1: with pop music in the last 20 years with pop
- 1:26:53Speaker 1: and hip hop and all that. I mean, every one
- 1:26:57Speaker 1: of those guys called me at one point and were like,
- 1:26:58Speaker 1: I want to get into country music because you got
- 1:27:00Speaker 1: loyal fans. Wow. All hip hop industry guys. Wow. All
- 1:27:04Speaker 1: of them. Every last one of them. And they've had
- 1:27:06Speaker 1: success with a whole bunch of guys since then. I
- 1:27:08Speaker 1: just didn't do it.
- 1:27:09Speaker 2: Well, country music has always been connected to authenticity.
- 1:27:12Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
- 1:27:12Speaker 2: And that's the reason why you keep the loyal fans.
- 1:27:15Speaker 1: That's right.
- 1:27:15Speaker 2: Because people know that it's real.
- 1:27:17Speaker 1: That's right.
- 1:27:18Speaker 2: Whether it's Coulter Wall or whoever it is, it's authentic.
- 1:27:21Speaker 2: You hear it and you go, this is not mass produced.
- 1:27:24Speaker 2: This is not a bunch of executives sitting around looking
- 1:27:28Speaker 2: at a focus group trying to figure out what's going
- 1:27:30Speaker 2: to hit.
- 1:27:30Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah. Man, you mentioned Coulter. I wanted to
- 1:27:33Speaker 1: say this. This is something I wanted to bring up
- 1:27:37Speaker 1: with the Willie and Waylon thing. And I've been meaning
- 1:27:38Speaker 1: to tell Coulter this. I'll just tell him on your show.
- 1:27:41Speaker 1: We were both on the 30 Tigers roster for years.
- 1:27:45Speaker 1: I met Coulter out at Willie's Ranch 10 years ago.
- 1:27:50Speaker 1: He's one of my favorites. I've always loved his songwriting.
- 1:27:53Speaker 1: Everything he puts out is great. Don't you agree?
- 1:27:55Speaker 2: Yeah, I love him.
- 1:27:56Speaker 1: Special you know really special some.
- 1:27:58Speaker 2: People jamie turned me on to him when i heard
- 1:28:00Speaker 2: kate mccannon the first.
- 1:28:01Speaker 1: Time jamie johnson no jamie this oh this jamie.
- 1:28:04Speaker 2: Yeah he texted me and he's like you're gonna love
- 1:28:07Speaker 2: this guy yeah he sent me that song i was
- 1:28:09Speaker 2: like holy shit when i found out he was 21
- 1:28:11Speaker 2: when he made that song like you gotta be kidding
- 1:28:13Speaker 2: me that sounds like a 60 year old chain smoker.
- 1:28:16Speaker 1: Man it bowled us all over and you know what's
- 1:28:18Speaker 1: funny man he's just getting better yeah you know he
- 1:28:20Speaker 1: is and he's incredible here's something about that uh i
- 1:28:23Speaker 1: told him i need to i'm gonna i'm I wanted
- 1:28:25Speaker 1: to buy him a pickup truck as a gift for this.
- 1:28:27Speaker 1: This is why. So he was on the roster. I
- 1:28:30Speaker 1: was on the roster and I started way down at
- 1:28:33Speaker 1: the back of the line. Right. And made a lot
- 1:28:37Speaker 1: of records. And. more and more of the labels are
- 1:28:41Speaker 1: calling and each record I'm putting out is doing better
- 1:28:44Speaker 1: than the previous one. And, um, there's more money and
- 1:28:48Speaker 1: promotion going into each album, but all, a lot of
- 1:28:52Speaker 1: outside guys are calling, you know, all the coastal labels
- 1:28:55Speaker 1: are calling New York and LA are all over me.
- 1:28:59Speaker 1: Culture ends up, pulling up stakes and going to RCA.
- 1:29:04Speaker 1: And he didn't just go to RCA, he took everything
- 1:29:06Speaker 1: with him. He took the whole catalog over there. And
- 1:29:10Speaker 1: I wasn't really aware of that. I didn't know what
- 1:29:11Speaker 1: was going on. And RCA, they had hollered at me
- 1:29:18Speaker 1: through one of their A & R guys or whatever,
- 1:29:19Speaker 1: but their big guys were never really interested in me
- 1:29:22Speaker 1: out there, right? So they weren't one of the ones
- 1:29:25Speaker 1: that was really hot on me. But David Macias... At
- 1:29:31Speaker 1: 30 Tigers. Very similar to, what I'm saying is, Colter
- 1:29:35Speaker 1: to me is kind of like Willie left RCA back
- 1:29:38Speaker 1: in the day. And when he left, all of a sudden,
- 1:29:40Speaker 1: those guys, because he took everything with him, were about
- 1:29:44Speaker 1: to lose me, and they fucking handed the keys over
- 1:29:49Speaker 1: to me. You know what I mean? Because, and I
- 1:29:52Speaker 1: think a lot of it had to do with the
- 1:29:53Speaker 1: fact that Colter had left and just took everything. And
- 1:29:57Speaker 1: so that ended up happening on a record cycle for
- 1:30:00Speaker 1: me for an album called $ 10 Cowboy. And I was
- 1:30:04Speaker 1: this close to going to, you know, the New York boys.
- 1:30:10Speaker 1: And Macias comes in last minute and beats them all
- 1:30:13Speaker 1: on the royalty rate, on the money, on everything. Right.
- 1:30:16Speaker 1: So I guess what I'm saying is culture is kind
- 1:30:20Speaker 1: of my Willie Nelson. Appreciate you, bud. You're doing good. Yeah.
- 1:30:25Speaker 2: He won't do podcasts. I tried to get him in.
- 1:30:27Speaker 1: Yeah, I know.
- 1:30:28Speaker 2: Sent me a bunch of records, sent me some cool shit,
- 1:30:30Speaker 2: said sorry, but no.
- 1:30:31Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:30:32Speaker 2: But, I mean, that's probably better.
- 1:30:34Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:30:34Speaker 2: I mean, he wants to just be as authentic as possible.
- 1:30:37Speaker 2: The dude spends time actually working on a ranch.
- 1:30:40Speaker 1: Well, that's what he loves to do. Yeah. You ever
- 1:30:42Speaker 1: been up there to Saskatchewan?
- 1:30:43Speaker 2: No.
- 1:30:43Speaker 1: Man, it's in their blood. Yeah. That's what that land is.
- 1:30:47Speaker 1: That's what they do up there.
- 1:30:49Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:30:50Speaker 1: I've been right through Saskatoon, even that big town there,
- 1:30:52Speaker 1: you know, and I guess he's not too far down
- 1:30:54Speaker 1: south from there, but like. Those are ranching folks. Yeah.
- 1:31:01Speaker 2: Well, it's in his music, clearly. You know, I mean,
- 1:31:04Speaker 2: that guy screams authenticity.
- 1:31:06Speaker 1: Yeah, he does. And he grew up on, you know,
- 1:31:09Speaker 1: Waylon and all that stuff, you know, and all the cowboy,
- 1:31:12Speaker 1: and all the, you know, he knows that cowboy music
- 1:31:14Speaker 1: probably better than anybody. Yeah.
- 1:31:16Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that's the thing that when you're talking about
- 1:31:19Speaker 2: these hip-hop artists and pop artists, that that's what they feel.
- 1:31:23Speaker 2: You know, all artists, I mean, even someone in the pop, artist,
- 1:31:26Speaker 2: what do they want to be? They want something that
- 1:31:28Speaker 2: resonates with people. They want something that really connects with people.
- 1:31:31Speaker 2: And if they think the vehicle to doing that is
- 1:31:34Speaker 2: a hit pop song, they'll take that route. But then
- 1:31:38Speaker 2: they'll hear something like Kate McKinnon and they'll be like,
- 1:31:40Speaker 2: God damn.
- 1:31:42Speaker 1: That's what I really want to do. You can't duplicate that.
- 1:31:46Speaker 1: The only way to do that is to live it.
- 1:31:48Speaker 2: Yeah, it's got to be real. It's got to be.
- 1:31:52Speaker 2: There's something... Just like I was talking about with comedy,
- 1:31:55Speaker 2: like they have to know that you're really thinking that
- 1:31:58Speaker 2: it's something in music, too. They have to know that
- 1:32:00Speaker 2: this is and they like when you write your own shit, too.
- 1:32:03Speaker 2: You know, you know that it's coming from someone's someone's
- 1:32:07Speaker 2: mind and their soul. It's coming from their life experience.
- 1:32:10Speaker 2: It's who they are as a human being. This is
- 1:32:12Speaker 2: their art. This is a true expression of their their
- 1:32:15Speaker 2: their being. And that's what makes people loyal.
- 1:32:19Speaker 1: That's what connects with people. Those pop artists just want
- 1:32:21Speaker 1: to take a picture standing next to authenticity. Yeah, they do.
- 1:32:24Speaker 2: Well, they want to be it, but they don't know
- 1:32:26Speaker 2: how to get there, and they don't know how to
- 1:32:28Speaker 2: do it, and they've never lived it, and they've been
- 1:32:30Speaker 2: paying attention to all the polls and the focus groups,
- 1:32:33Speaker 2: and they've been listening to the executives, and they've been
- 1:32:35Speaker 2: taking the advances and driving the Mercedes. They're doing all
- 1:32:39Speaker 2: the shit that leads you down the wrong path. And
- 1:32:42Speaker 2: then one day you realize, like, fuck, that's not what
- 1:32:45Speaker 2: I want, you know? It's interesting because it's like, you know,
- 1:32:51Speaker 2: there's always going to be these examples of something that
- 1:32:54Speaker 2: pops through that's real, that people gravitate towards. And then
- 1:32:57Speaker 2: there's always going to be these people trying to capitalize
- 1:32:59Speaker 2: on it and make money off of it and trying
- 1:33:01Speaker 2: to figure out how to recreate it in an inauthentic way.
- 1:33:04Speaker 2: It's not possible. That's the one thing that might save
- 1:33:07Speaker 2: us from this AI shit.
- 1:33:09Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
- 1:33:10Speaker 2: Because AI is going to create a bunch of really
- 1:33:12Speaker 2: catchy songs, you know. but it's never going to create
- 1:33:15Speaker 2: an Oliver Anthony song. It's never going to create hard times.
- 1:33:19Speaker 2: It's never going to create some of your shit. It's
- 1:33:21Speaker 2: not going to. It's got to come from a real
- 1:33:23Speaker 2: human being. And there's a thing that people are always
- 1:33:26Speaker 2: going to want. You're always going to want something that
- 1:33:29Speaker 2: you know a real human being made, that there's something
- 1:33:32Speaker 2: in it. That's why this building's filled with art. I
- 1:33:36Speaker 2: love looking at something that somebody made. It came from
- 1:33:40Speaker 2: their soul. It came from whoever they are as a human.
- 1:33:43Speaker 2: they laid it down whether it's music or whether it's
- 1:33:46Speaker 2: art comedy whatever it is it's like that that's coming
- 1:33:49Speaker 2: from a human being you know and that's we're always
- 1:33:53Speaker 2: going to want to be connected to that.
- 1:33:56Speaker 1: Yeah i was looking at you saying that with your
- 1:33:58Speaker 1: joe rogan experience sign and you telling me in the
- 1:34:00Speaker 1: hallway that it's named for hendrix.
- 1:34:02Speaker 2: Yeah yeah i stole it from jimmy oh look When
- 1:34:06Speaker 2: we first started doing it.
- 1:34:08Speaker 1: The greats never reveal their sources. Wow.
- 1:34:11Speaker 2: I couldn't help it.
- 1:34:11Speaker 1: I'm just kidding.
- 1:34:12Speaker 2: I had to. Well, it's obvious. I had to give
- 1:34:14Speaker 2: it up.
- 1:34:14Speaker 1: It wasn't obvious to me, man. That's what I'm saying.
- 1:34:16Speaker 1: I'm kind of slow.
- 1:34:17Speaker 2: Well, I had to give it up. It's like, but,
- 1:34:20Speaker 2: you know.
- 1:34:20Speaker 1: Austin, Texas, robust, it says right there.
- 1:34:22Speaker 2: I used to listen to Jimmy all the time on
- 1:34:25Speaker 2: the way to the comedy store. It was like Jimmy
- 1:34:27Speaker 2: and Led Zeppelin. I'd listen to A Whole Lotta Love
- 1:34:30Speaker 2: and If Six Was Nine. I'd listen to that all
- 1:34:33Speaker 2: the time on the way down Laurel Canyon.
- 1:34:39Speaker 1: Can you imagine how crazy that must have sounded coming
- 1:34:43Speaker 1: through the radio or coming through people's sound systems in
- 1:34:47Speaker 1: America in the late 60s?
- 1:34:50Speaker 2: Well, my friend Phil Hartman, when he was a kid,
- 1:34:53Speaker 2: he used to work at the Whiskey. He was like
- 1:34:56Speaker 2: a grip, and it was his job. The speakers were
- 1:35:01Speaker 2: precariously placed on the edge of the stage. And Jimmy
- 1:35:05Speaker 2: performed there. And it was his job to stand there
- 1:35:09Speaker 2: and make sure that Jimmy didn't kick over the speaker
- 1:35:12Speaker 2: into the audience. So he stood right there while Hendrix
- 1:35:16Speaker 2: played right above him. And the way he talked about it, man,
- 1:35:21Speaker 2: it was just, to him, it was like this magical moment.
- 1:35:24Speaker 2: Because I think he was a teenager at the time.
- 1:35:27Speaker 2: And it was.
- 1:35:28Speaker 1: Was he like in somebody else's band or something?
- 1:35:31Speaker 2: No, he was just working for the club. You know,
- 1:35:33Speaker 2: he was just a guy that was hired to work there.
- 1:35:36Speaker 2: You know, just a kid. And he was basically literally
- 1:35:39Speaker 2: just there to make sure the speaker doesn't fall into
- 1:35:41Speaker 2: the ground. And, you know, Jimmy was playing right above him,
- 1:35:46Speaker 2: just right there. He said it was incredible. It was insane.
- 1:35:49Speaker 2: He said it was just like this magical moment because
- 1:35:52Speaker 2: Jimmy live. You know, there's something about seeing someone live.
- 1:35:57Speaker 2: You know, like I was talking about when I saw
- 1:35:58Speaker 2: Gary play Midnight Rider. There's something live. And I was
- 1:36:02Speaker 2: with my oldest daughter and we were at this downtown L.A. club.
- 1:36:05Speaker 2: And it was like a Monday or Tuesday night. It
- 1:36:09Speaker 2: was a weeknight and it was a midnight show. It
- 1:36:11Speaker 2: was like a real late night show. And it was
- 1:36:14Speaker 2: sponsored by an alcohol company. I wish I could remember
- 1:36:17Speaker 2: the company. But they put together this very small show.
- 1:36:20Speaker 2: And it was just a total impromptu session. And Suzanne,
- 1:36:26Speaker 2: my friend Suzanne Santo, who's the lead singer of Honey
- 1:36:29Speaker 2: Honey at the time, she's incredibly talented. She was singing it,
- 1:36:32Speaker 2: and she didn't know the exact words. So she had
- 1:36:36Speaker 2: to get the words off of her phone. So she's
- 1:36:39Speaker 2: singing Midnight Rider off her phone, and Gary's in the background.
- 1:36:44Speaker 2: And I recorded it on my phone. See if you
- 1:36:48Speaker 2: can find it, Jamie.
- 1:36:49Speaker 1: I have your version, but I have somebody else's version. Oh, shit.
- 1:36:55Speaker 1: That's what I'm talking about right there. Go ahead, Gary.
- 1:36:59Speaker 1: It was Jameson.
- 1:37:09Speaker 2: Come on.
- 1:37:10Speaker 1: I just love when he gets into it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
- 1:38:13Speaker 1: The blues will never go out of style. Woo! Thank you.
- 1:39:08Speaker 1: Come on, Gary. Let's go.
- 1:39:10Speaker 2: Come on.
- 1:39:40Speaker 1: That's a nice jacket, G.
- 1:39:42Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:39:46Speaker 1: Oh, that's the....
- 1:39:49Speaker 2: Jamie, see if you can find Midnight Rider on my Instagram.
- 1:39:52Speaker 2: I know it's on there. I want to play that
- 1:39:55Speaker 2: part because it was fucking insane. It was just one
- 1:39:58Speaker 2: of those magical moments where you see someone perform live.
- 1:40:02Speaker 2: There's just something about... You get a lot of it.
- 1:40:05Speaker 2: There it is.
- 1:40:11Speaker 1: This is it.
- 1:40:14Speaker 2: This is it. See how she's looking at her phone?
- 1:41:06Speaker 2: She had to read the lyrics off her phone.
- 1:41:09Speaker 1: They're all doing that now. It's crazy.
- 1:41:10Speaker 2: She had to because she didn't know exactly the lyrics.
- 1:41:13Speaker 1: What if you didn't have this fucking thing, though? Then
- 1:41:16Speaker 1: you might have to remember them.
- 1:41:18Speaker 2: Well, she would have had to get a piece of paper.
- 1:41:21Speaker 1: Or make some shit up.
- 1:41:22Speaker 2: Yeah, make some shit up.
- 1:41:24Speaker 1: Man, you know, listening to Gary do that and you
- 1:41:26Speaker 1: talking about how much you love Stevie Ray Vaughan, it
- 1:41:28Speaker 1: just reminds me, it's like, you know, to me it's like,
- 1:41:33Speaker 1: you know, It's like country is everything and country is nothing,
- 1:41:38Speaker 1: you know, because if you're in Texas, all that shit
- 1:41:43Speaker 1: over there on the other side of Mississippi, it goes
- 1:41:45Speaker 1: away for us. You know, there's a brashness, there's a
- 1:41:50Speaker 1: boldness in any sound, whether it's coming out of honky
- 1:41:55Speaker 1: tonk or coming out of a blues joint. In Texas,
- 1:41:58Speaker 1: it's a totally different sound. You know, it's like Billy
- 1:42:01Speaker 1: Gibbons talked about this a lot. You know, like when
- 1:42:04Speaker 1: those guys were trying to break through on the national scene,
- 1:42:06Speaker 1: the idea of Texas is just a total stigma. Right.
- 1:42:11Speaker 1: It's all hillbillies. It's all provincial.
- 1:42:13Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:42:14Speaker 1: You know, and all this shit, you know. And so
- 1:42:17Speaker 1: it's like you go to Nashville or whatever and it's
- 1:42:20Speaker 1: all Appalachia. It's all you know what I mean? It's
- 1:42:24Speaker 1: because it's and that's the thing. It's like I give
- 1:42:26Speaker 1: a fuck about some genres, you know, because you get classified.
- 1:42:29Speaker 1: But one thing you can't explain away is place, right?
- 1:42:35Speaker 1: You can't explain away region, right? Like you are from
- 1:42:39Speaker 1: where you're from. Gary Clark Jr. is from right here.
- 1:42:43Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:42:43Speaker 1: And he fucking sounds like it. You know what I mean? Yeah.
- 1:42:46Speaker 1: He sounds like it. And it's like it's not that
- 1:42:49Speaker 1: it's rock, blues, soul, country, whatever. It's Texas. And what
- 1:42:55Speaker 1: happens with Texans of any background, right? They discount you
- 1:43:00Speaker 1: for sure. Look at us as provincial, right? I mean,
- 1:43:04Speaker 1: people got some ideas about what Texas is who have
- 1:43:07Speaker 1: never stepped foot in the state. That's not any different than,
- 1:43:10Speaker 1: you know, people who've never been to California claiming to
- 1:43:14Speaker 1: be an expert on it, right? And so it's like
- 1:43:16Speaker 1: there's two roads for a Texas artist. You either let
- 1:43:20Speaker 1: somebody in Nashville or New York or L.A. convince you
- 1:43:24Speaker 1: to lose your accent, you know, stop. Wash the Texas off.
- 1:43:30Speaker 1: Do it our way. Or, which is the only way,
- 1:43:33Speaker 1: is to take your brand of Texas to the world.
- 1:43:36Speaker 1: Whatever it is, whether it's Gary or Selena or anybody.
- 1:43:41Speaker 2: Steve or Yvonne.
- 1:43:42Speaker 1: Steve or Yvonne, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
- 1:43:45Speaker 2: That's with comedy, too, man. I mean, Bill Hicks, who's
- 1:43:48Speaker 2: one of the greatest of all time.
- 1:43:49Speaker 1: He's my favorite.
- 1:43:50Speaker 2: Right from here.
- 1:43:50Speaker 1: That's right. The scene was hot, man. The scene was hot.
- 1:43:53Speaker 2: It was hot because of him. It was hot because
- 1:43:55Speaker 2: of him and Kennison. It was Texas. Did you know Hicks? No,
- 1:43:59Speaker 2: met him once. Met him once real briefly. Didn't even
- 1:44:02Speaker 2: get a chance to talk to him. But I saw
- 1:44:04Speaker 2: him perform live a few times before he died.
- 1:44:07Speaker 1: You did see him live?
- 1:44:07Speaker 2: Yeah, saw Kennison a few times live. I saw Kennison
- 1:44:11Speaker 2: live before he died too, but he had already passed
- 1:44:13Speaker 2: his prime. Kennison passed his prime real quick because he's
- 1:44:17Speaker 2: a cautionary tale because of the partying, you know. Like,
- 1:44:22Speaker 2: he was the fucking man.
- 1:44:24Speaker 1: Y'all got a party scene. You comedians got a party scene.
- 1:44:28Speaker 2: Well, that party scene in L.A. at the time was
- 1:44:30Speaker 2: the cocaine party scene. It was a different party scene,
- 1:44:33Speaker 2: you know. Mark Maron said that he hung out with
- 1:44:35Speaker 2: Kennison and they did so much coke that he had
- 1:44:37Speaker 2: voices in his head for a fucking year afterwards. A year. Like, literally. Like, schizophrenic.
- 1:44:43Speaker 2: You know, like, hearing voices in his fucking head for
- 1:44:46Speaker 2: a year before they stopped talking to him.
- 1:44:48Speaker 1: Wow.
- 1:44:49Speaker 2: Yeah, they were doing cocaine, man.
- 1:44:52Speaker 1: At the Viber Room. Everywhere.
- 1:44:54Speaker 2: Yeah, he was doing it everywhere. But Kenneson became almost
- 1:44:57Speaker 2: like a caricature of himself. He became sort of captured
- 1:44:59Speaker 2: by this, the perception by this character that they had created.
- 1:45:05Speaker 2: And Kenneson is what birthed Hicks. You know, Hicks was
- 1:45:09Speaker 2: a great comic, but he was one of the outlaws.
- 1:45:12Speaker 2: It was Kenneson and Hicks that sort of defined the
- 1:45:15Speaker 2: Texas style. And when we were living in... At the time,
- 1:45:19Speaker 2: I was living in New York, and there was really
- 1:45:22Speaker 2: two places in the country. There was L.A., where you
- 1:45:25Speaker 2: wanted to go to get on TV. Everybody wanted to
- 1:45:27Speaker 2: go get a fucking sitcom. They all wanted to be
- 1:45:29Speaker 2: Jerry Seinfeld. And New York, which was like the club comics.
- 1:45:32Speaker 2: That was like the David Tells and these guys that
- 1:45:35Speaker 2: would like, you know, the guys would do the clubs.
- 1:45:39Speaker 2: And they were thought of as like the real pure comics.
- 1:45:42Speaker 2: And then there was this new scene, this new scene
- 1:45:44Speaker 2: out of Houston, this new scene out of the Laugh
- 1:45:47Speaker 2: Stop in River Oaks. And I remember the first time
- 1:45:50Speaker 2: I ever worked there, man, you could feel it in
- 1:45:53Speaker 2: the building. You could feel that they had been there.
- 1:45:55Speaker 2: You know, they were both gone. By the time I
- 1:45:57Speaker 2: had worked there, they were both dead. But you could
- 1:46:00Speaker 2: feel it in the building, man. You could feel it
- 1:46:01Speaker 2: in the comics, the open mic scene. You could feel
- 1:46:04Speaker 2: they were pure. You know, there was a Texas quality
- 1:46:08Speaker 2: to the way they were doing comedy. It was a
- 1:46:10Speaker 2: fuck you.
- 1:46:10Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:46:11Speaker 2: Fuck you.
- 1:46:12Speaker 1: That's what I like.
- 1:46:13Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:46:14Speaker 1: Hicks would fuck with both sides of the room.
- 1:46:16Speaker 2: Absolutely.
- 1:46:17Speaker 1: And then... Just fuck him up and cross him over
- 1:46:21Speaker 1: and put him in his pocket.
- 1:46:23Speaker 2: And no one knew what he was. They didn't know
- 1:46:25Speaker 2: what he was.
- 1:46:26Speaker 1: That's right.
- 1:46:26Speaker 2: The first time I ever saw him, he bombed. He
- 1:46:29Speaker 2: bombed except for the comedians. We were dying laughing.
- 1:46:32Speaker 1: Because, you know, there's quite a bit of video of
- 1:46:34Speaker 1: him from these clubs here and in Houston when he
- 1:46:37Speaker 1: was younger because even in the 90s they were filming. Yeah.
- 1:46:40Speaker 1: And I've seen some of those clips where he's like,
- 1:46:43Speaker 1: Like you're talking about, he just couldn't fucking, the whole
- 1:46:46Speaker 1: room's afraid of him. Like no one's laughing. Everyone's afraid.
- 1:46:50Speaker 1: And he's like super fucked up.
- 1:46:52Speaker 2: Well, he was the first comic really that had a message.
- 1:46:55Speaker 1: Right.
- 1:46:55Speaker 2: You know, he had like a, there was a social
- 1:46:58Speaker 2: commentary to his, like a dark poetry to his comedy.
- 1:47:02Speaker 2: And so many people tried to emulate it that at
- 1:47:04Speaker 2: the Green Room, the punchline in Atlanta, there was a,
- 1:47:08Speaker 2: like people wrote a bunch of shit on the walls
- 1:47:09Speaker 2: in the Green Room. But one of the big ones
- 1:47:11Speaker 2: that said, quit trying to be Hicks.
- 1:47:13Speaker 1: Wow.
- 1:47:14Speaker 2: I remember seeing that going, yes. Everybody did. We all did.
- 1:47:18Speaker 2: Everybody wanted to be Hicks.
- 1:47:19Speaker 1: Dude, you'd come. So after Stevie Ray Vaughan passed, right,
- 1:47:24Speaker 1: I remember we were up in Dallas-Fort Worth, and you'd
- 1:47:27Speaker 1: come down here. We'd come down here in high school
- 1:47:30Speaker 1: and shit and go up and down 6th Street. I
- 1:47:35Speaker 1: will never forget this. Every single guitar player in every
- 1:47:40Speaker 1: little bar on 6th Street, every single one of them
- 1:47:43Speaker 1: was playing like Stevie Ray Vaughan. Yeah. Every single one
- 1:47:47Speaker 1: of them. And there were 30 of them. Like, there
- 1:47:49Speaker 1: were 30 different ones coming in and out of bars,
- 1:47:52Speaker 1: doing all the shit. It was unbelievable.
- 1:47:54Speaker 2: Yeah, there's always going to be someone like that that, like,
- 1:47:56Speaker 2: sets the standard.
- 1:47:57Speaker 1: Quit trying to be Hicks.
- 1:47:58Speaker 2: Yeah, quit trying to be Hicks. But it was like
- 1:48:00Speaker 2: that was.
- 1:48:01Speaker 1: A— My daddy died for that flag. Oh, really? How
- 1:48:05Speaker 1: about mine at Kmart?
- 1:48:06Speaker 2: It's made in China.
- 1:48:11Speaker 1: But he could do it because he was a Texan.
- 1:48:14Speaker 1: The vernacular is real. And then he'd turn around and,
- 1:48:18Speaker 1: fuck up the other side.
- 1:48:19Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it was genius. Well, when I first saw him,
- 1:48:23Speaker 2: he went on in Boston, and it was at Nick's
- 1:48:25Speaker 2: Comedy Stop. And the guy who went on before him
- 1:48:27Speaker 2: was this, he was a nice guy, but he was
- 1:48:29Speaker 2: a hack. You know, he was just like cops and donuts,
- 1:48:32Speaker 2: normal shit, stupid jokes. But the stupid jokes were working.
- 1:48:35Speaker 2: It was a cartoon character smoking pot. You know, what
- 1:48:38Speaker 2: would happen if Daffy Duck smoked a joint with Donald Duck.
- 1:48:41Speaker 2: It was dumb.
- 1:48:43Speaker 1: Watered down Dangerfield.
- 1:48:44Speaker 2: But it was getting people to laugh and then Hicks
- 1:48:47Speaker 2: went on stage and immediately started bombing. Immediately he opened
- 1:48:54Speaker 2: up with saying that he's tired of performing and tired
- 1:48:58Speaker 2: of going up and telling people a bunch of shit
- 1:49:01Speaker 2: you couldn't possibly think up on your own. Laughter But
- 1:49:08Speaker 2: the comics were dying, and there was like 300 people
- 1:49:10Speaker 2: in the room. By the time he was done performing.
- 1:49:13Speaker 1: There was 50.
- 1:49:14Speaker 2: There was 50, and there was maybe me and my
- 1:49:17Speaker 2: friend Greg Fitzsimmons were in the back of the room
- 1:49:19Speaker 2: just dying laughing and maybe 10 comics. We had all
- 1:49:22Speaker 2: come to see Hicks because we had heard about him.
- 1:49:24Speaker 2: And then I saw him a month later at the
- 1:49:26Speaker 2: Comedy Connection, and he fucking murdered. The Comedy Connection was
- 1:49:29Speaker 2: this little tiny club. It was like 150 seats, real
- 1:49:32Speaker 2: low ceilings.
- 1:49:33Speaker 1: Where? Boston. Boston.
- 1:49:35Speaker 2: This is when I was first starting. So this is
- 1:49:36Speaker 2: like 1988. And it was before he had really popped.
- 1:49:40Speaker 2: I had heard about him from the Rodney Dangerfield HBO special.
- 1:49:44Speaker 2: So Rodney Dangerfield had these young comedian specials. Rodney was
- 1:49:47Speaker 2: the best at introducing the world to talented comedians. And
- 1:49:51Speaker 2: he had these Rodney Dangerfield young comedian specials where he'd
- 1:49:55Speaker 2: have on Robert Schimmel and Lenny Clark and Andrew Dice Clay.
- 1:50:00Speaker 2: And that's where Kinison emerged. And Hicks. Hicks was one
- 1:50:03Speaker 2: of them, too. And I remember I'd seen Hicks on that,
- 1:50:06Speaker 2: so I went to see him live. And like I said,
- 1:50:08Speaker 2: the first time he bombed, the second time he fucking murdered.
- 1:50:10Speaker 2: It was Tiffany meeting Jimi Hendrix at the mall. He
- 1:50:13Speaker 2: was doing this bit about Jimi Hendrix, like Tiffany playing
- 1:50:18Speaker 2: at the mall and Jimi Hendrix shows up. It was
- 1:50:20Speaker 2: this fucking just genius bit. It was so funny, man.
- 1:50:25Speaker 1: Is that something that's out there? Can you see that?
- 1:50:27Speaker 2: I wonder, man. I wonder. Because I don't think he
- 1:50:29Speaker 2: ever put that on anything. It might be on an
- 1:50:31Speaker 2: album somewhere. But it was back when there was all
- 1:50:33Speaker 2: this like pop mall comedy or pop mall music. And
- 1:50:37Speaker 2: he fucking hated it, you know, and it was and
- 1:50:40Speaker 2: he was just rallying.
- 1:50:42Speaker 1: There's a genre for you right there.
- 1:50:44Speaker 2: Yeah. Rallying against corporatism.
- 1:50:46Speaker 1: It's going to make a comeback, that little subgenre. Yeah.
- 1:50:49Speaker 1: I mean, it would do something new with it.
- 1:50:51Speaker 2: It kind of has. Austin has a great comedy scene
- 1:50:54Speaker 2: right now. It really does. And it's really just emerged
- 1:50:57Speaker 2: from the pandemic.
- 1:50:58Speaker 1: Was that like the main thing that drew you here?
- 1:51:00Speaker 2: Well, we all moved here to start it. We didn't
- 1:51:02Speaker 2: even move here to start it. We moved here to
- 1:51:04Speaker 2: just keep doing what we were doing in L.A.
- 1:51:06Speaker 1: But L.A.
- 1:51:07Speaker 2: Had shut down. And in 2020, we were all like
- 1:51:12Speaker 2: we were all without a country. You know, we were
- 1:51:14Speaker 2: living in L.A. and the comedy store was shut down
- 1:51:16Speaker 2: for a fucking year and a half.
- 1:51:18Speaker 1: Y'all were wild, man. It was so. so shut down
- 1:51:20Speaker 1: out there.
- 1:51:21Speaker 2: It was so shut down. And I knew I'm, I'm
- 1:51:24Speaker 2: one of those dudes. It's just like, I've never had
- 1:51:26Speaker 2: faith in systems and government. And I'm like, these motherfuckers
- 1:51:30Speaker 2: are going to keep us shut down. They're going to keep.
- 1:51:32Speaker 2: And I came to Texas and Ron White was already here.
- 1:51:34Speaker 2: So Ron White, who's a very good friend of mine
- 1:51:36Speaker 2: and Gary, I knew, I knew Gary from LA. He
- 1:51:40Speaker 2: used to hang out at the comedy store too. And
- 1:51:42Speaker 2: that's why I became friends with him. And he moved
- 1:51:43Speaker 2: here I think 2017 or 2018. And I talked to
- 1:51:47Speaker 2: him on the phone. I'm like, why, why'd you go
- 1:51:49Speaker 2: back to Austin? He's like, man, I can't fuck with
- 1:51:50Speaker 2: those people in LA. It's just like, I'm tired of it, man.
- 1:51:53Speaker 2: He goes, I love Texas. I just, this is real.
- 1:51:56Speaker 2: And it's like, I need to go back home. And
- 1:51:58Speaker 2: I was like, wow, that sounds right. That sounds right.
- 1:52:01Speaker 2: And then when I talked to Ron and Ron's the
- 1:52:02Speaker 2: same way, Ron's a Texas boy too. And he was like,
- 1:52:05Speaker 2: I can't, I just don't want to do this anymore.
- 1:52:07Speaker 2: I'll stay here. It's great.
- 1:52:09Speaker 1: He goes, it's great.
- 1:52:10Speaker 2: It's the middle of the fucking country. I can fly anywhere.
- 1:52:13Speaker 2: Fucking food's good. People are nice. And so I knew
- 1:52:17Speaker 2: when I came here.
- 1:52:17Speaker 1: That's all you needed to know.
- 1:52:18Speaker 2: I was like, at the very least, Ron's here. And
- 1:52:21Speaker 2: Ron's a good friend. And then when we came here,
- 1:52:24Speaker 2: we could perform live. I first started doing shows outside.
- 1:52:27Speaker 2: Me and Dave Chappelle started doing shows at Stubbs. And
- 1:52:30Speaker 2: we were doing outside shows where we had to test
- 1:52:32Speaker 2: the whole crowd. Everybody had to get tested. So everybody
- 1:52:34Speaker 2: had to show up like two hours in advance.
- 1:52:36Speaker 1: Right.
- 1:52:37Speaker 2: We tested everybody for COVID. They had to wear a
- 1:52:38Speaker 2: mask outside. It was so fucking stupid. The whole thing
- 1:52:41Speaker 2: was so ridiculous, but we were hanging out in the back,
- 1:52:44Speaker 2: getting drunk, smoking weed. And it was like, it was
- 1:52:46Speaker 2: like normal. It was like normal times. And it was
- 1:52:49Speaker 2: like this cultural thing. Like we were the only ones
- 1:52:51Speaker 2: doing comedy and you know, everybody just started coming here, man.
- 1:52:55Speaker 2: They all just started coming here. And then we started
- 1:52:57Speaker 2: doing shows inside at the Vulcan, the Vulcan gas company,
- 1:53:00Speaker 2: which is a music club that's on sixth street. So
- 1:53:03Speaker 2: we started performing there and, You know, Nick, the guy
- 1:53:06Speaker 2: who's the owner, is just a wild dude. He's like,
- 1:53:08Speaker 2: fuck it, let's just do shows. And we started doing
- 1:53:10Speaker 2: shows in November of 2020. And it just felt like
- 1:53:13Speaker 2: we were baby killers. We were killing grandma. You know,
- 1:53:15Speaker 2: we were out there just spreading diseases. We were super spreaders.
- 1:53:19Speaker 1: If you spend enough time on 6th Street, Anyway, it'll
- 1:53:21Speaker 1: make you immune.
- 1:53:22Speaker 2: Yeah, we had developed some strong antibodies. I never got
- 1:53:27Speaker 2: sick off of 6th Street. I got sick in Florida.
- 1:53:29Speaker 1: That's what I mean, though. 6th Street will make you
- 1:53:31Speaker 1: bulletproof to that show. Well, except the bullets.
- 1:53:33Speaker 2: Yeah, except the bullets, and there's a lot of that
- 1:53:35Speaker 2: going on there, too. So we started doing shows there live,
- 1:53:39Speaker 2: and then comics started moving. Man, they started moving in droves.
- 1:53:43Speaker 2: They started all moving to Texas because they could do
- 1:53:45Speaker 2: shows here. We were just lost.
- 1:53:46Speaker 1: I didn't know that.
- 1:53:47Speaker 2: Without doing shows, we just all felt lost. And then
- 1:53:50Speaker 2: by the time... 2021 rolled around. There was like 15,
- 1:53:54Speaker 2: 16 world-class comics living in Austin. And then I was like,
- 1:53:59Speaker 2: fuck it. I'm buying a club. And Ron talked me
- 1:54:01Speaker 2: into it. He's like, you got to get a fucking club.
- 1:54:02Speaker 2: We got to do this. Cause you know, he knew
- 1:54:04Speaker 2: I got a bunch of money from the Spotify deal.
- 1:54:06Speaker 2: So I was like, all right, let's fucking do it.
- 1:54:08Speaker 2: And so then in 2022 or three, I guess we
- 1:54:12Speaker 2: opened up and it's just been gangbusters ever since. And
- 1:54:16Speaker 2: now it's like, this is the hub of comedy in
- 1:54:18Speaker 2: the country, which makes it the hub of comedy in
- 1:54:20Speaker 2: the known universe. It's all here in Texas. It's all
- 1:54:24Speaker 2: at that club.
- 1:54:25Speaker 1: I like that. Well, that's really cool, man. Props to
- 1:54:27Speaker 1: you for pulling that off.
- 1:54:29Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think I pulled it off, but
- 1:54:31Speaker 2: I think everybody pulled it off.
- 1:54:33Speaker 1: People are proud of the comedy history in this town.
- 1:54:37Speaker 2: Yes. And it's a great place, and it's all walks
- 1:54:41Speaker 2: of life, man. Everybody likes to use that term, inclusive
- 1:54:45Speaker 2: and diversity. Well, our scene is diverse and inclusive, but
- 1:54:49Speaker 2: everybody's great. It's only diverse because they just happen to be.
- 1:54:53Speaker 2: Everybody's fucking diverse. You get artists. They're all different, weird people.
- 1:54:59Speaker 2: And we didn't seek that out. It was just what happened.
- 1:55:04Speaker 2: It was just who's good, who's good, and who's really
- 1:55:07Speaker 2: all about this, who really wants to live this life,
- 1:55:09Speaker 2: who really wants to just do comedy. And we set
- 1:55:12Speaker 2: it up where we have. Two nights of open mic nights. And,
- 1:55:15Speaker 2: you know, we've got Kill Tony on Monday nights. All
- 1:55:18Speaker 2: the amateurs get a chance to be seen in front
- 1:55:20Speaker 2: of the whole world and the biggest live comedy show
- 1:55:22Speaker 2: in the world on YouTube. And it just became this hub, man.
- 1:55:26Speaker 2: And now it's just fucking every night it's sold out.
- 1:55:28Speaker 2: It's crazy. It's just it's a vibrant, wild scene. And
- 1:55:32Speaker 2: now on Sixth Street, there's five full time clubs within
- 1:55:37Speaker 2: two blocks of my club.
- 1:55:39Speaker 1: Comedy clubs?
- 1:55:40Speaker 2: Comedy clubs.
- 1:55:41Speaker 1: Oh, shit.
- 1:55:41Speaker 2: Yeah. The scene is insane. I mean, it's the best
- 1:55:44Speaker 2: scene in the country. It's like there's never been a
- 1:55:45Speaker 2: scene like this before that just emerged. And we had
- 1:55:50Speaker 2: to hit every green light. Like the comedy store had
- 1:55:52Speaker 2: to be closed down. So I hired everybody that was
- 1:55:55Speaker 2: working at the comedy store before we even had a club.
- 1:55:57Speaker 2: I said, I'm going to pay you full time. You
- 1:56:00Speaker 2: get benefits. You get all insurance, all that shit. Just
- 1:56:02Speaker 2: come move to Austin. We'll call on you in like
- 1:56:05Speaker 2: a year. It's going to take like a year to
- 1:56:07Speaker 2: build this place. But meanwhile, you'll get paid. You'll be
- 1:56:11Speaker 2: able to just like live here, set your roots, get established.
- 1:56:15Speaker 2: It's a beautiful place to live. Everybody fucking loved it.
- 1:56:18Speaker 2: And then when we opened, we hit the ground running.
- 1:56:21Speaker 2: We opened up one night. We did a couple of
- 1:56:23Speaker 2: test shows. Like let's try the venues, make sure everything
- 1:56:26Speaker 2: works good. And then we'll say, fuck it, let's stay open.
- 1:56:29Speaker 2: And we just stayed open. Before you know it, it
- 1:56:30Speaker 2: was seven nights a week. And then it was just,
- 1:56:32Speaker 2: it's been almost three years now.
- 1:56:35Speaker 1: You going to keep it rolling?
- 1:56:35Speaker 2: Fuck yeah.
- 1:56:36Speaker 1: Hell yeah.
- 1:56:37Speaker 2: Fuck yeah. We're talking about doing it in other places now.
- 1:56:39Speaker 1: That's cool.
- 1:56:39Speaker 2: We just don't want to water it down. We've talked
- 1:56:42Speaker 2: about doing it in some other city and trying to
- 1:56:43Speaker 2: figure out what the next one would be. But it
- 1:56:45Speaker 2: would have to be a city that has a real
- 1:56:47Speaker 2: group of talent. You have to have talent. Every comedy community,
- 1:56:52Speaker 2: the only way it works is you have to have
- 1:56:54Speaker 2: a lot of great comics that live in that town.
- 1:56:56Speaker 2: It's the only way it works. And then we feed
- 1:56:58Speaker 2: off of each other. There's no lone wolves in comedy.
- 1:57:02Speaker 2: You know, comedy only, it's only iron sharpens iron. You know,
- 1:57:07Speaker 2: there's no, like, the best comic in the world living
- 1:57:09Speaker 2: in Pittsburgh. It doesn't exist. Like, they all live where
- 1:57:12Speaker 2: they all, they're not in competition, but in cooperation with
- 1:57:17Speaker 2: each other. Like, we're all inspired by each other. You
- 1:57:20Speaker 2: have to have that. And so we had to have, like,
- 1:57:23Speaker 2: every green light. The Comedy Store had to be shut
- 1:57:26Speaker 2: down for a solid year and a half. All those
- 1:57:27Speaker 2: people had to be unemployed. I had to have all
- 1:57:29Speaker 2: this money from Spotify. I had to be in a
- 1:57:32Speaker 2: place like Texas that allows you to open up and
- 1:57:34Speaker 2: have a show indoors when everything in California was closed.
- 1:57:38Speaker 2: They wouldn't even let you do outdoor shows. We weren't
- 1:57:40Speaker 2: even allowed to do shows. We tried to do shows
- 1:57:42Speaker 2: in the parking lot at the Comedy Store, and they
- 1:57:44Speaker 2: wouldn't allow us. It was crazy.
- 1:57:46Speaker 1: No, I remember how shut down it was.
- 1:57:49Speaker 2: 70% of all the restaurants went under. I mean, it
- 1:57:51Speaker 2: was fucking madness.
- 1:57:52Speaker 1: Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. A lot has changed.
- 1:57:56Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:57:57Speaker 1: Really fast.
- 1:57:58Speaker 2: Yeah, real fast. Real fast.
- 1:57:59Speaker 1: Really fast, you know.
- 1:58:00Speaker 2: So we had to hit every green light. And we
- 1:58:02Speaker 2: had to have all these people that were willing to
- 1:58:04Speaker 2: take a chance. All the Tom Segura's and Tim Dillon's
- 1:58:07Speaker 2: and Tony Hinchcliffe's and Duncan Trussell's all these great comics
- 1:58:10Speaker 2: it just was like fuck it we'll move there Brian
- 1:58:13Speaker 2: Simpson and Tony Hinchcliffe and so all these guys just
- 1:58:16Speaker 2: said fuck it let's let's take a chance like I
- 1:58:19Speaker 2: don't want to live like this I don't want I
- 1:58:21Speaker 2: want to live where I can't do comedy it's like
- 1:58:23Speaker 2: we were just like junkies with no no fix you know.
- 1:58:27Speaker 1: Yeah I was still working the red dirt circuit when
- 1:58:32Speaker 1: the pandemic hit. So to be honest with you, those
- 1:58:34Speaker 1: boys was like, it never closed. Wow. It didn't. Not
- 1:58:39Speaker 1: all those old dance halls and beer joints.
- 1:58:44Speaker 2: Thank God.
- 1:58:45Speaker 1: None of those places closed.
- 1:58:47Speaker 2: Thank fucking God. Thank God they were right.
- 1:58:50Speaker 1: It kept us working, man. That was the thing. And
- 1:58:52Speaker 1: I was just working so hard. I never really thought
- 1:58:55Speaker 1: about anything else. But something about... the California shutdown that
- 1:58:59Speaker 1: that's funny when you, we talk not funny, but, but, um,
- 1:59:04Speaker 1: like the pandemic hit and I was unknown, but I
- 1:59:07Speaker 1: had just finished that record. Welcome to hard times. And
- 1:59:10Speaker 1: it didn't have anything to do with anything. I had
- 1:59:14Speaker 1: had the two surgeries. I'd like gone through a relationship
- 1:59:19Speaker 1: that was that crashed and burn and a tailspin, you know, I'd,
- 1:59:24Speaker 1: I'd got, I'd gotten rid of a, management relationship that
- 1:59:28Speaker 1: was going nowhere and I wrote Welcome to Hard Times
- 1:59:32Speaker 1: just kind of out of my own personal kind of
- 1:59:36Speaker 1: dark feelings about where I was going through and just
- 1:59:40Speaker 1: the whole like rigged casino you know America is a
- 1:59:46Speaker 1: casino you know and I thought that since I was
- 1:59:48Speaker 1: a kid because I kind of lived in them you
- 1:59:49Speaker 1: know you're talking about being in pool halls and then
- 1:59:54Speaker 1: I cut the record in Georgia, South Georgia. It was
- 1:59:57Speaker 1: with Mark Neal. The whole thing, I cut it. I
- 2:00:01Speaker 1: wrote the record in November, cut it in December, got
- 2:00:05Speaker 1: the Masters back. And like a week or two later,
- 2:00:09Speaker 1: I remember me and Taylor Grace, my now wife, we
- 2:00:12Speaker 1: were dating and we were at a diner in Cloudcroft,
- 2:00:17Speaker 1: New Mexico. And my manager at the time called me
- 2:00:19Speaker 1: and said that South by Southwest was canceled. And that
- 2:00:23Speaker 1: for us here at that time, that's when we knew
- 2:00:26Speaker 1: the shit was real. Nothing could stop that machine that
- 2:00:30Speaker 1: was South by Southwest at the time. And strangely for me,
- 2:00:34Speaker 1: I'm not, I knew a lot of people that have
- 2:00:38Speaker 1: known a lot of people that have passed away or anything.
- 2:00:40Speaker 1: So I'm not saying that all the stuff that happened
- 2:00:43Speaker 1: is a good thing at all. But for me, my
- 2:00:46Speaker 1: career trajectory totally changed early on the pandemic because I
- 2:00:52Speaker 1: No one was putting out records. No one had any
- 2:00:55Speaker 1: interest in putting out records. And for that reason, David Macias,
- 2:01:01Speaker 1: because I was riding his ass, actually thanks to John
- 2:01:04Speaker 1: Folk at the time, was like, don't let him shelve
- 2:01:06Speaker 1: your record. Put that record out right now. We're talking
- 2:01:10Speaker 1: about July 2020. Wow. And I demanded more money. No
- 2:01:17Speaker 1: one had ever put a dollar into marketing my records.
- 2:01:19Speaker 1: I'm talking about nothing. Before... The shit hit the fan.
- 2:01:24Speaker 1: These guys were talking about spending like 10, 15 grand
- 2:01:28Speaker 1: total marketing Welcome to Hard Times.
- 2:01:31Speaker 2: Total.
- 2:01:32Speaker 1: I mean, shit, I spent twice that or more making it.
- 2:01:36Speaker 1: And that's still a cheap record. But I mean, I
- 2:01:38Speaker 1: remember a publicist told me once, like, you should spend
- 2:01:41Speaker 1: at least double the money marketing your record that it
- 2:01:44Speaker 1: costs you to make it and at least match it.
- 2:01:47Speaker 1: You know, and here I was like, that's what I mean.
- 2:01:49Speaker 1: I was like caught on this like broke dick Americana scene.
- 2:01:52Speaker 1: you know, on these two-year record cycles, you know, with
- 2:01:55Speaker 1: no money, you know. I was on a broke dick
- 2:01:58Speaker 1: deal just like Waylon was talking about, you know. I'm
- 2:02:03Speaker 1: not bagging on Americana or anything, you know. I mean,
- 2:02:06Speaker 1: I'm glad I showed up on the map somewhere. But
- 2:02:09Speaker 1: we went ahead and put it out in July of 2020.
- 2:02:13Speaker 1: And I had been wanting to buy billboards, and it
- 2:02:15Speaker 1: just so happened, especially in California, but even in New York,
- 2:02:19Speaker 1: I mean, everything was shut down. I mean, totally shut down.
- 2:02:22Speaker 1: So I remember we bought a billboard in Silver Lake
- 2:02:26Speaker 1: and in Times Square. Right. Static, traditional static billboards for
- 2:02:31Speaker 1: like 80 percent off because nobody was buying shit. Not
- 2:02:34Speaker 1: a single other billboard over the course of like nine
- 2:02:37Speaker 1: months or a year. And those neighborhoods changed. Right. And
- 2:02:41Speaker 1: I bought a one. All those billboards, I bought like
- 2:02:43Speaker 1: one month billboards. And some of those motherfuckers stayed up
- 2:02:46Speaker 1: over six months. Wow. You know what I mean? At
- 2:02:48Speaker 1: like 75 percent off, you know, and. You know, sometimes
- 2:02:54Speaker 1: you write a song that you get lucky. I was
- 2:02:58Speaker 1: writing about personal experience, and it spoke for me. It
- 2:03:03Speaker 1: wasn't a big record, but it changed my trajectory because
- 2:03:08Speaker 1: Welcome to Hard Times, the song, really spoke to what
- 2:03:13Speaker 1: was happening in America. Yeah. And that's when my train
- 2:03:17Speaker 1: really started rolling. That's when it really started rolling. You
- 2:03:21Speaker 1: know what I mean? It's like. and then I did
- 2:03:23Speaker 1: all those records and welcome to hard times and music
- 2:03:26Speaker 1: city USA coming like kind of right for the right
- 2:03:29Speaker 1: for the Nashville machine. And then the man from Waco
- 2:03:33Speaker 1: that I made down in Lockhart with Bruce Robison, which
- 2:03:35Speaker 1: was like the first time really that I'd made a
- 2:03:38Speaker 1: studio record with my guys, you know, with more money
- 2:03:43Speaker 1: and Bruce Robison, a songwriting friend that was not stopping
- 2:03:47Speaker 1: me from being me, you know, and, and, And then
- 2:03:50Speaker 1: that one was my first one to hit the, like,
- 2:03:52Speaker 1: Billboard 200. And then $ 10 Cowboy really took off another
- 2:03:58Speaker 1: big step from there. And then I got hooked back
- 2:04:01Speaker 1: up with Shooter. See, I used to open up for
- 2:04:03Speaker 1: Shooter because Shooter was getting booked by John Folk too, right?
- 2:04:06Speaker 1: And the two guys that took a liking to me
- 2:04:09Speaker 1: early on, like pretty much nobody else did, was Evan
- 2:04:12Speaker 1: Felker and the Turnpike Tribudors and Shooter Jennings. You know,
- 2:04:16Speaker 1: Shooter would take me out and, like, He didn't have
- 2:04:18Speaker 1: to be cool to me. I mean, he's fucking Waylon's son.
- 2:04:20Speaker 1: But he was always so cool.
- 2:04:21Speaker 2: Oh, he's just cool.
- 2:04:22Speaker 1: And so thoughtful, you know?
- 2:04:24Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a great guy.
- 2:04:25Speaker 1: And he would give me little things to live by. Like,
- 2:04:27Speaker 1: when he saw how hard I was working out there,
- 2:04:28Speaker 1: he's like, it says you can't park behind the Nashville Palace,
- 2:04:32Speaker 1: but between me and you, you fucking camp there and
- 2:04:34Speaker 1: nobody's going to say shit. And I lived in that
- 2:04:36Speaker 1: fucking parking lot. That's the kind of shit you get
- 2:04:39Speaker 1: by on, you know what I mean? And I've got
- 2:04:43Speaker 1: this movie that I funded, you know, How Slow the
- 2:04:45Speaker 1: Movie Business Is. that I was going to be called
- 2:04:48Speaker 1: $ 10 Cowboy, and it's this thing I put together. I
- 2:04:52Speaker 1: finished my touring season at the rodeo finals in Vegas,
- 2:04:56Speaker 1: and then I get back to Texas, and all the
- 2:04:58Speaker 1: pressure of the business is mounting on me, and I'm
- 2:05:01Speaker 1: just trying to get away from my manager and the
- 2:05:04Speaker 1: machine and my phone and all that shit, and I
- 2:05:07Speaker 1: decide to leave the phone at the house, and I
- 2:05:10Speaker 1: had heard from a journalist about this secret shrine in
- 2:05:15Speaker 1: a liquor store dedicated to Waylon Jennings in his hometown
- 2:05:18Speaker 1: of Littlefield, Texas, there on 84. I'd known about it,
- 2:05:21Speaker 1: but we, in the movie, I'm playing like I've never
- 2:05:24Speaker 1: heard of it, and I'm going on this pilgrimage, you know,
- 2:05:27Speaker 1: to find out if this little museum really exists, which
- 2:05:31Speaker 1: it does. It's run by his youngest brother, James D.,
- 2:05:33Speaker 1: Waylon's youngest brother. Oh, wow. And so to get the
- 2:05:36Speaker 1: movie going, I needed to get on the phone with Shooter,
- 2:05:39Speaker 1: you know, to get hooked up with James D. and them,
- 2:05:41Speaker 1: and we got the idea to get his mama, Jessie Coulter, involved.
- 2:05:44Speaker 1: and all that, and I wanted to use some of
- 2:05:46Speaker 1: Waylon's music for the film, and I was scared to
- 2:05:49Speaker 1: death to ask for it. But Shooter had always been
- 2:05:53Speaker 1: good to me, and so we ended up having the conversation.
- 2:05:57Speaker 1: We caught up on a lot of stuff, because see,
- 2:05:58Speaker 1: I'd been hearing that he was producing, right? But I
- 2:06:01Speaker 1: couldn't make heads or tails of it, where he was
- 2:06:03Speaker 1: going with it, and truthfully, I was avoiding producers altogether,
- 2:06:07Speaker 1: because a lot of these guys, it's like, they're such
- 2:06:11Speaker 1: big names, it overshadows the artist. You know what I mean?
- 2:06:15Speaker 1: And then they have the deal. Like, they have the
- 2:06:18Speaker 1: artist deal. Right. Then the artist just kind of, in
- 2:06:21Speaker 1: a lot of ways, gets limited to, like, acting talent,
- 2:06:26Speaker 1: you know, showing up at the fucking, you know, movie
- 2:06:29Speaker 1: lot or whatever. Yeah. And, but I kept hearing records
- 2:06:36Speaker 1: that he was making by people I knew, like Jamie Wyatt.
- 2:06:38Speaker 1: And I said, man, this is the best thing she's
- 2:06:40Speaker 1: ever done. Shooter Jennings. Vincent Neil Emerson. This is the
- 2:06:43Speaker 1: best thing he's ever done. Shooter Jennings. Like, over and over.
- 2:06:47Speaker 1: And I had been noticing that. And so we're on
- 2:06:49Speaker 1: the phone, and he's all about the movie. Yeah, I'm
- 2:06:52Speaker 1: going to help you license the songs. We'd love that.
- 2:06:55Speaker 1: You know, my mama loves your music and all that.
- 2:06:57Speaker 1: You know, she's in the movie. He just was helpful
- 2:07:01Speaker 1: with everything. And I had almost made a record at
- 2:07:06Speaker 1: Sunset Sound there in old downtown Hollywood, the old Sunset
- 2:07:10Speaker 1: Sound studio. I'd wanted to go in there because... Mark
- 2:07:13Speaker 1: Neal had told me about it and I was tired
- 2:07:16Speaker 1: of making records in Georgia and didn't want to go
- 2:07:18Speaker 1: over to the wrong side of Mississippi. I wanted to
- 2:07:21Speaker 1: make a record in California and I told Shooter in
- 2:07:24Speaker 1: passing on the phone that it had fallen through and,
- 2:07:27Speaker 1: you know, did he know such a sound? And he
- 2:07:29Speaker 1: was like, man, Charlie's crazy. I'm signing the lease on
- 2:07:32Speaker 1: Studio 3, the print studio tomorrow.
- 2:07:34Speaker 2: Wow.
- 2:07:35Speaker 1: Just in passing, you know? And I'm like, man, well
- 2:07:39Speaker 1: then let's make a record. And We're right in the
- 2:07:41Speaker 1: middle of a trilogy now. I did Lonesome Drifter with him.
- 2:07:45Speaker 1: And then the next one that's coming out is Dollar
- 2:07:47Speaker 1: a Day on 8.8, which I think is a lucky number.
- 2:07:51Speaker 1: And then I've got a third one coming after that
- 2:07:52Speaker 1: that we're calling the Sagebrush Trilogy. And Shooter is the
- 2:07:56Speaker 1: first guy I've ever been in a studio with where
- 2:07:58Speaker 1: I truly... don't feel judged you know what I mean
- 2:08:02Speaker 1: and now I can and because I've got all these
- 2:08:04Speaker 1: it's just a perfect timing it's like wild that like
- 2:08:07Speaker 1: have been out on the road with him 10 plus
- 2:08:08Speaker 1: years ago and then you know like think about what
- 2:08:13Speaker 1: he's been through in the business right I mean he
- 2:08:14Speaker 1: started cutting records 20 years ago I mean He's a
- 2:08:18Speaker 1: crucified son automatically. You know what I mean? Walking in
- 2:08:24Speaker 1: that shadow. Man, he said a crazy line to me
- 2:08:29Speaker 1: the other day. He said in regards to some other
- 2:08:33Speaker 1: situation he was in, he said, I went from one
- 2:08:38Speaker 1: shadow to another. Just a beautiful line. I think he
- 2:08:40Speaker 1: was talking about an old relationship he was in or something.
- 2:08:43Speaker 1: But he's overcome that. Because, you know what I mean? Like,
- 2:08:47Speaker 1: he stepped into, like, if you listen to his records,
- 2:08:52Speaker 1: you know, when he's starting out and you compare it
- 2:08:55Speaker 1: to the field, you know, in country music in Nashville
- 2:08:58Speaker 1: at the time, like, he's totally, like, he's totally swimming upstream.
- 2:09:04Speaker 1: He's totally going against the grain. Nobody's sounding like that.
- 2:09:07Speaker 1: They're not sounding traditional and pushing the boundaries. Like, he
- 2:09:10Speaker 1: just was. you know, and I can tell you constitutionally, he's,
- 2:09:14Speaker 1: he's just like his daddy. I mean, he drank me
- 2:09:16Speaker 1: and smoked me under the table. I'm like, you are
- 2:09:18Speaker 1: Waylon son. And for some reason you like get smarter,
- 2:09:23Speaker 1: the more weed you smoke. And my brain is like,
- 2:09:27Speaker 1: my brain is just like pulverizing, you know, but, but I'm,
- 2:09:31Speaker 1: I'm really proud of and excited about everything that I'm
- 2:09:34Speaker 1: doing with him because I just taken me so long
- 2:09:39Speaker 1: to get where I'm at. And here, I've got a partner,
- 2:09:44Speaker 1: you know, in making records that isn't judging me, but
- 2:09:48Speaker 1: also is pushing me to take it higher, you know,
- 2:09:52Speaker 1: because I'm trying to figure out how to transcend it too.
- 2:09:54Speaker 1: You know, everybody's always, there's a lot of, you know,
- 2:09:58Speaker 1: I've always been a pretty polarizing figure for some reason
- 2:10:03Speaker 1: with audiences. It's either, it's a love-hate thing. And I've
- 2:10:08Speaker 1: done a lot of styles, you know, and they've called
- 2:10:10Speaker 1: me a stylistic chameleon. Um, here in Austin, even the
- 2:10:14Speaker 1: first time they put me on the Chronicle, you know,
- 2:10:16Speaker 1: they call me a stylistic chameleon and I had a
- 2:10:18Speaker 1: hard time with that, you know, because I didn't, wasn't
- 2:10:22Speaker 1: taking it as a compliment. Right. Right.
- 2:10:24Speaker 2: It's not a compliment.
- 2:10:25Speaker 1: No. Yeah. But, um, it's that whole thing where it's like, okay,
- 2:10:31Speaker 1: I can play the blues. I can play country music.
- 2:10:34Speaker 1: I can play folk music, learn how to play all
- 2:10:35Speaker 1: that shit on the street. Matter of fact, right. Um,
- 2:10:39Speaker 1: it's surprising to me that people would question my authenticity
- 2:10:42Speaker 1: and point to me playing in subway cars as this
- 2:10:47Speaker 1: aha moment that I'm not who I said I was.
- 2:10:49Speaker 1: I'm like.
- 2:10:50Speaker 2: Isn't that hilarious?
- 2:10:51Speaker 1: Why don't you go try to play in those New
- 2:10:52Speaker 1: York City train cars?
- 2:10:53Speaker 2: Well, that's people that are just talking.
- 2:10:55Speaker 1: Brother, I'd rather get on a fucking bull. You know? Yeah. Yeah.
- 2:11:02Speaker 2: Do you think, man, that synchronicity, that fate is a
- 2:11:06Speaker 2: real thing? Because just think about how all that lined up.
- 2:11:09Speaker 2: I feel like sometimes... I mean, it's a very egocentric
- 2:11:13Speaker 2: thing to think. You know, the things are meant to be. Like,
- 2:11:16Speaker 2: there's a plan for you. It's silly, but it also isn't.
- 2:11:21Speaker 2: You know, fate seems to somehow or another be a
- 2:11:25Speaker 2: real thing. And sometimes the way things synchronize and the
- 2:11:29Speaker 2: way things line up, you're like, man, this seems like
- 2:11:31Speaker 2: it's meant to be. There's certain things that just seem
- 2:11:36Speaker 2: like they're meant to be. And I feel like If
- 2:11:39Speaker 2: you're on the right frequency and you're following the right path,
- 2:11:44Speaker 2: those doors open and these things do happen. And they
- 2:11:48Speaker 2: happen when they're supposed to happen. They happen at the
- 2:11:50Speaker 2: right time for the right reasons.
- 2:11:53Speaker 1: I believe completely in fate. Yeah. I don't really believe
- 2:11:57Speaker 1: in faith. I think there's a surrender and a helplessness
- 2:12:03Speaker 1: in a lot of ways to a lot of people's
- 2:12:05Speaker 1: idea of faith. Mm-hmm. Right? When people are like, love
- 2:12:10Speaker 1: your struggle, I never liked that saying. It's like, no,
- 2:12:14Speaker 1: love the strength that your creator gave you to overcome
- 2:12:20Speaker 1: the struggle. Don't love the struggle. Nobody fucking loves the struggle, right? Right, right.
- 2:12:26Speaker 1: It's the strength.
- 2:12:27Speaker 2: Especially real struggle.
- 2:12:28Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:12:29Speaker 2: Like, real struggle is not knowing if it's going to
- 2:12:31Speaker 2: work out. You're not going to love that.
- 2:12:32Speaker 1: That's what I mean. I never understood that. I mean,
- 2:12:34Speaker 1: I guess I get it, but, like, but fate.
- 2:12:35Speaker 2: You get it after it's successful.
- 2:12:37Speaker 1: Fate is a thing that's, like, that's destiny.
- 2:12:40Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 2:12:41Speaker 1: You know? Like, Waylon, like, Shooter and, like, the Waylon
- 2:12:46Speaker 1: Jennings thing for me, you know, is, like, you know,
- 2:12:49Speaker 1: I was out there, you know, we were, I did my,
- 2:12:52Speaker 1: I debuted at the Houston Rodeo back in the spring,
- 2:12:55Speaker 1: and for me that was, like, My career goal, you know,
- 2:12:58Speaker 1: because of Selena and George Strait and everybody. Hell, Elvis
- 2:13:04Speaker 1: played there twice. I mean, it doesn't matter what your
- 2:13:06Speaker 1: background is as a Texan, any background. The Houston Rodeo,
- 2:13:10Speaker 1: that's the top. Culturally, I think, as like a stage
- 2:13:14Speaker 1: for an artist to perform, I think it's the Houston Rodeo,
- 2:13:16Speaker 1: you know, and it was the Astrodome and not the
- 2:13:18Speaker 1: NRG Stadium.
- 2:13:20Speaker 2: I would have never known that.
- 2:13:22Speaker 1: It's the truth. And it crosses, you know... Everything, economic, racial, everything.
- 2:13:27Speaker 1: It's the Houston rodeo. And it's the biggest rodeo on earth.
- 2:13:34Speaker 1: Which is why you got everybody from, like I said, Waylon, Jennings, Merle,
- 2:13:39Speaker 1: George Strait. Nowadays you got Post Malone and Beyonce both
- 2:13:42Speaker 1: playing it. I mean, it doesn't matter who it is.
- 2:13:46Speaker 1: That's the platform. Anyway, I played there and we were
- 2:13:51Speaker 1: putting a live record out on it and me and
- 2:13:53Speaker 1: Shooter were mixing it there at Sunset Sound And then
- 2:13:56Speaker 1: I stayed the extra night because he had the party
- 2:13:58Speaker 1: at the Viper room for the announcement of these three
- 2:14:00Speaker 1: unreleased Waylon Jennings records. And they're legit unreleased. It's not
- 2:14:04Speaker 1: AI bullshit. It's not remixes. This is truly legitimately unreleased
- 2:14:11Speaker 1: music by arguably, you know, the King, certainly the King
- 2:14:16Speaker 1: of all the outlaws. Yeah. But in my opinion, when
- 2:14:19Speaker 1: it comes to like Nashville country music, whatever you want
- 2:14:22Speaker 1: to call it, man, like, uh, A buddy of mine,
- 2:14:26Speaker 1: John Spong, a journalist here in town, a Texan, we
- 2:14:30Speaker 1: were at the Sagebrush doing an interview a couple years back,
- 2:14:35Speaker 1: and he was saying that if Willie Nelson to country
- 2:14:39Speaker 1: music is like Che Guevara, right? Waylon Jennings was the
- 2:14:43Speaker 1: long-haired Prince of Darkness, right? And he's the guy that,
- 2:14:50Speaker 1: he's from West Texas, right? The guy learned, he learned
- 2:14:53Speaker 1: how to play bass stage he learned how to play
- 2:14:57Speaker 1: bass on fucking stage backing up Buddy Holly right who
- 2:15:02Speaker 1: at the time was bigger than Elvis man you know
- 2:15:06Speaker 1: I mean that style of rock and roll right it's
- 2:15:10Speaker 1: coming from everywhere I mean nobody's just making their nowadays
- 2:15:14Speaker 1: they're kind of strangely making music in a vacuum in
- 2:15:16Speaker 1: a bedroom but like in some ways right but these
- 2:15:19Speaker 1: guys It's like whether it's Robert Johnson or BB King
- 2:15:22Speaker 1: in the Delta or whatever, or Buddy Holly out in
- 2:15:25Speaker 1: West Texas, you're influenced by the radio and all that.
- 2:15:28Speaker 1: But there's something to be said for like what's out,
- 2:15:31Speaker 1: how hard that earth is out there in West Texas.
- 2:15:34Speaker 1: And like people talk a lot of shit about Lubbock, right?
- 2:15:36Speaker 1: Smells like shit because it's cows everywhere. So fucking flat,
- 2:15:39Speaker 1: you know, the thing you can stand on a fucking
- 2:15:42Speaker 1: tin can and like, you know, see a hundred miles
- 2:15:45Speaker 1: or whatever they say out there. Right. But like, The
- 2:15:48Speaker 1: best people to play a show for, probably anywhere in
- 2:15:51Speaker 1: America in many ways, in my opinion, is a show
- 2:15:54Speaker 1: in Lubbock. There's something about the people in that town
- 2:15:57Speaker 1: where it's just the best place to play. Willie Nelson
- 2:16:01Speaker 1: is now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
- 2:16:03Speaker 1: and he deserves it. Dolly Parton now, too. But Waylon
- 2:16:06Speaker 1: Jennings was always rock and roll. He was never traditional country.
- 2:16:11Speaker 1: There's nothing about him. If you know what you're listening to,
- 2:16:14Speaker 1: even on his very first record, like Country Folk, Folk Country, Right?
- 2:16:18Speaker 1: There's nothing straight ahead. Listen to anything coming out of
- 2:16:21Speaker 1: Nashville in like 1965. Anything. Next to Waylon Jennings. He's
- 2:16:27Speaker 1: the long-haired prince of darkness. You know? He is going
- 2:16:32Speaker 1: to be their undoing. Because what they did is they
- 2:16:36Speaker 1: built a wall around Nashville because the coast had all
- 2:16:40Speaker 1: the money and all the zeitgeist power. And in response,
- 2:16:43Speaker 1: Nashville walled themselves off. Right? Mm-hmm. You know what I mean?
- 2:16:47Speaker 1: That's really what they did. And then Waylon busted through,
- 2:16:53Speaker 1: and I know I'm going back on that a lot,
- 2:16:55Speaker 1: but my path that led to making records with Shooter
- 2:16:59Speaker 1: was that when I started figuring out the map is
- 2:17:04Speaker 1: when I cracked the code and realized what Waylon was
- 2:17:08Speaker 1: doing musically. I finally fell in love with him musically,
- 2:17:13Speaker 1: and it was on this specific record from 1968 called
- 2:17:15Speaker 1: Hanging On, right? And like every swinging dick in this
- 2:17:20Speaker 1: business that I ever knew coming up in Texas, that
- 2:17:22Speaker 1: ain't anything to do with Texas songwriters or country. Every
- 2:17:25Speaker 1: one of them wanted to be Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson,
- 2:17:29Speaker 1: Townes Van Zandt, and Billy Joe Shaver. Every single one.
- 2:17:34Speaker 1: And I naturally stepped wide of that because everybody I
- 2:17:38Speaker 1: knew was trying to do it. And like imitating an artist,
- 2:17:43Speaker 1: like for the advanced part of their movement, in and
- 2:17:47Speaker 1: of itself, that's worthless. It's not that it's worthless. It's
- 2:17:51Speaker 1: that you will never touch it if you don't go
- 2:17:56Speaker 1: walk your own path. So a lot of guys I knew,
- 2:17:58Speaker 1: when I started playing all the shows with Willie, Willie
- 2:18:00Speaker 1: called me up and got me on with his agent
- 2:18:03Speaker 1: and shit and put me on, like, 50 shows. And
- 2:18:05Speaker 1: a lot of guys I knew were, like, looking at
- 2:18:07Speaker 1: me like, man, why are you going to play with Willie?
- 2:18:10Speaker 1: You know? And at first, I didn't even, I didn't know. Right?
- 2:18:13Speaker 1: Because I was realizing guys that I knew, like, they
- 2:18:16Speaker 1: knew Willie Nelson's shit in and out. We're literally trying
- 2:18:19Speaker 1: to sing like him. So they're like, fuck you, I
- 2:18:21Speaker 1: should have that spot. And like, you know, I'm nobody
- 2:18:24Speaker 1: at the end of the day, right? I'm the best
- 2:18:27Speaker 1: at being me. Right. You know? When, sometimes. Right? But like,
- 2:18:33Speaker 1: how I think I've landed with Shooter and his family
- 2:18:37Speaker 1: and and playing all those shows with Willie and getting
- 2:18:42Speaker 1: married on his ranch and all that stuff is because,
- 2:18:44Speaker 1: not because I worship Willie Nelson, but because I think
- 2:18:48Speaker 1: Willie looked at me and was like, I like what
- 2:18:52Speaker 1: you're doing. I like how you got where you're at.
- 2:18:55Speaker 1: You can play with me. You don't ask to take
- 2:18:57Speaker 1: your picture with Willie. He fucking lets you know when
- 2:19:00Speaker 1: you're going to take your picture with him. You know
- 2:19:02Speaker 1: what I mean? Yeah. You're going to let you know.
- 2:19:06Speaker 1: It's time to get your picture taken with Willie. That's
- 2:19:07Speaker 1: how they did it. Wow. And we're standing. There's like
- 2:19:11Speaker 1: 100 nitrous cans behind us and shit. It was like
- 2:19:14Speaker 1: the greatest photo of my life. You know?
- 2:19:19Speaker 2: Yeah. It's a natural inclination that people have when they
- 2:19:22Speaker 2: want to be authentic to imitate authenticity. That's the thing.
- 2:19:27Speaker 2: You've got to find your own path.
- 2:19:29Speaker 1: You have to put yourself out there. you know, like
- 2:19:36Speaker 1: when I was playing on the street, people knew I
- 2:19:38Speaker 1: was different and artists, the hipsters, like in the Brooklyn
- 2:19:42Speaker 1: scene and in Bushwick and Williamsburg and all over the
- 2:19:48Speaker 1: boroughs and shit, like to be on the street playing
- 2:19:51Speaker 1: like there's, there's credibility to that. Right. But, and like,
- 2:19:55Speaker 1: I didn't want to play in subway cars. Actually, what
- 2:19:58Speaker 1: it was is young rapper, Jadon, Jadon Woodward is his name. And, uh,
- 2:20:04Speaker 1: He kept seeing me at the Metropolitan Avenue stop, playing
- 2:20:11Speaker 1: there at the platform, you know, for the cars coming
- 2:20:13Speaker 1: by on the L train or whatever. G train down
- 2:20:16Speaker 1: there on Metropolitan. G train sucks to ride on. It's
- 2:20:19Speaker 1: great for subway performers because there's like, it's the slowest
- 2:20:23Speaker 1: train in the world, right? So you get huge audience
- 2:20:27Speaker 1: between every fucking, you know, train. So it's a goldmine
- 2:20:31Speaker 1: for a street performer and a terrible drag for the
- 2:20:36Speaker 1: New Yorkers waiting on it. Anyways, this kid kept trying
- 2:20:39Speaker 1: to get me. He would always show up with a
- 2:20:41Speaker 1: different guitar player and shit with an amp on his shoulder,
- 2:20:45Speaker 1: which I copied. I got an amp, ran off a
- 2:20:47Speaker 1: 9-volt battery. You get about seven, eight hours of it
- 2:20:50Speaker 1: in this Telecaster. And I learned it from this guy, Ghost,
- 2:20:54Speaker 1: who was already doing it, that was playing with Jadon,
- 2:20:56Speaker 1: who was kind of part of Citizen Coat, Clarence Greenwood's
- 2:20:59Speaker 1: street team. He kept trying to get me to go
- 2:21:01Speaker 1: on the subway cars. I was like, man, this kid's crazy.
- 2:21:05Speaker 1: He's rapping and shit. Man, the subway cars? I'm all right. Eventually,
- 2:21:12Speaker 1: he kind of cornered me. Actually, what it was, I
- 2:21:16Speaker 1: kept dodging him. Then I was finished one day, and
- 2:21:19Speaker 1: I get in the car. It's on the L train.
- 2:21:22Speaker 1: I'm riding in the car, and I'm just sitting there
- 2:21:24Speaker 1: looking down the train. All of a sudden, I see
- 2:21:27Speaker 1: that skinny motherfucker in a white tee walking crazy. toward
- 2:21:31Speaker 1: me and he's moving but he can't really you know
- 2:21:33Speaker 1: how the trains can be loud and I'm looking at
- 2:21:35Speaker 1: him trying to put it together and when he gets
- 2:21:37Speaker 1: closer I realize he's rapping and he's got that guitar
- 2:21:40Speaker 1: player with him with the amp behind him that's playing
- 2:21:41Speaker 1: this like really badass bluesy hip hop beat and he's
- 2:21:45Speaker 1: freestyling like you know the hat you're wearing he's rhyming
- 2:21:49Speaker 1: to it the next stop he's putting it in the
- 2:21:50Speaker 1: verse and shit and he's got all these mixtapes in
- 2:21:52Speaker 1: his hand and he's handing them out and shit and
- 2:21:54Speaker 1: he sees me and he hands me one and that's
- 2:21:57Speaker 1: how he got me cause I saw like it working
- 2:22:00Speaker 1: And he was making money and, like, dropping product. You know?
- 2:22:03Speaker 1: I thought, holy shit. Right? Because so, like, comedy scene,
- 2:22:07Speaker 1: music scene, whatever. Say you got a place on 6th Street, holds, right,
- 2:22:11Speaker 1: 100 people. And you play there, you get a residency,
- 2:22:15Speaker 1: you play there 30 nights a month. Right? And you
- 2:22:17Speaker 1: get 100 different people show up there every night. What
- 2:22:21Speaker 1: is that, 3,000 people? It's like, dude, you could hit 3,000
- 2:22:25Speaker 1: people in, like, half a day on the train cars
- 2:22:28Speaker 1: once we started working it. And so it was like,
- 2:22:30Speaker 1: it was his, it was his, and he was a
- 2:22:33Speaker 1: spoken word poet. This kid, this kid started fucking rapping
- 2:22:36Speaker 1: on trains like 15 in like Philly, which is fuck man.
- 2:22:41Speaker 1: Philly's tough. I don't have to tell you. Philly's tough.
- 2:22:44Speaker 1: Like train cars in Philly. That's mind blowing, you know?
- 2:22:48Speaker 1: And then he comes to New York with that and
- 2:22:51Speaker 1: like takes that spoken word improvisational thing and like re,
- 2:22:56Speaker 1: all the best rappers I saw in that town, they
- 2:22:58Speaker 1: were all like spoken word poets because, you know, they
- 2:23:00Speaker 1: just were smart and quick, you know? And like, we,
- 2:23:04Speaker 1: then we got together and like mashed it up. And again,
- 2:23:08Speaker 1: like I went from making where I would make $ 30,
- 2:23:11Speaker 1: you know, all of a sudden, like we would make
- 2:23:13Speaker 1: $ 300 and split it, you know, 50, 50. And we
- 2:23:17Speaker 1: turned that into a whole, like a really fine, pretty
- 2:23:21Speaker 1: well-oiled machine where there started being five or six of us.
- 2:23:24Speaker 1: And we were bringing guys up and down from new
- 2:23:25Speaker 1: Orleans and shit. That's where you see the trumpet players,
- 2:23:28Speaker 1: different spoken word rappers. We were squatting in warehouses, you know,
- 2:23:33Speaker 1: owned by Hasids that were, like, renting out space that
- 2:23:35Speaker 1: was supposed to be for rehearsal, but really everybody was
- 2:23:37Speaker 1: living there and selling drugs and shit, whiling out. And,
- 2:23:41Speaker 1: you know, I cranked that up. We cranked that up
- 2:23:45Speaker 1: and did get discovered by, like, the heart of the
- 2:23:49Speaker 1: pop machine right there on the R train. Wow. And, like,
- 2:23:53Speaker 1: just what you would think. You can see video of
- 2:23:55Speaker 1: this stuff, but it's like, They saw that we were believable.
- 2:24:00Speaker 1: And we're just trying to figure out. And that's one
- 2:24:02Speaker 1: of the spoken word dudes right there was Eric. He's
- 2:24:04Speaker 1: from Jacksonville, Florida. And that hippie right there, that was
- 2:24:07Speaker 1: my friend of mine's younger brother from high school down
- 2:24:11Speaker 1: here in Texas.
- 2:24:14Speaker 2: There's something about street performing that is there's no net.
- 2:24:20Speaker 2: You're performing for people that are involuntary.
- 2:24:23Speaker 1: Oh, man, they don't want you in there, and you're
- 2:24:25Speaker 1: breaking like 10 laws. You're breaking 10 laws, and they
- 2:24:27Speaker 1: don't want you in there.
- 2:24:29Speaker 2: Right, but if you're good, if you're good, it means
- 2:24:31Speaker 2: a lot. You ever see the video of Biggie when
- 2:24:33Speaker 2: he's performing? He's 17 on a street corner in Brooklyn.
- 2:24:36Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
- 2:24:37Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
- 2:24:37Speaker 1: You pull that one up. You want to see it
- 2:24:38Speaker 1: just for fun? Yeah, pull that up.
- 2:24:40Speaker 2: That fucking video is like you watching this kid, this
- 2:24:43Speaker 2: kid with this.
- 2:24:44Speaker 1: Talk about it. Even though he, I mean, I know
- 2:24:46Speaker 1: he's the king, but he's still underrated. You know what
- 2:24:49Speaker 1: I mean? Yeah. He's crazy underrated for that. How smart
- 2:24:51Speaker 1: he was.
- 2:24:52Speaker 2: Oh, he was so good. He was so good.
- 2:24:54Speaker 1: Yeah, standing on a street corner. Yeah, that's the one.
- 2:24:56Speaker 1: Let me hear this.
- 2:25:19Speaker 2: Man so much.
- 2:25:56Speaker 1: The blues never goes out of style. Never. What do
- 2:26:04Speaker 1: you say? Like ice cream, I'll scoop you? Yeah. It's
- 2:26:10Speaker 1: so clever and like.
- 2:26:11Speaker 2: Oh, he was so clever. It was so clever. There
- 2:26:14Speaker 2: was comedy in his lyrics.
- 2:26:16Speaker 1: You know, it was just, it was power. I met
- 2:26:18Speaker 1: his aunt on the train. Really? Yeah, we did. And, like,
- 2:26:21Speaker 1: J-Don knew who she was because he was running the
- 2:26:24Speaker 1: trains before I was. And, like, he knew all those
- 2:26:26Speaker 1: people because he'd been working it so hard. And it was, like,
- 2:26:29Speaker 1: it was crazy. Some of the people that we'd come
- 2:26:31Speaker 1: in contact, like, who you come in contact with on
- 2:26:33Speaker 1: those subway cars. You know what I mean? It's like
- 2:26:35Speaker 1: I saw Jake Gyllenhaal on the train. one day and
- 2:26:38Speaker 1: then some other day on the, you know, six train,
- 2:26:40Speaker 1: it'd be like the NBA commissioner and shit gave us
- 2:26:42Speaker 1: a hundred dollar bill.
- 2:26:42Speaker 2: Wow.
- 2:26:43Speaker 1: You know, it's like, to me, that's like, that's all, that's,
- 2:26:48Speaker 1: that's all it is. You know, it's like, whatever the
- 2:26:51Speaker 1: circuit is, it's like putting yourself out there. And when
- 2:26:55Speaker 1: you go out in public, man, and when you go
- 2:26:56Speaker 1: out in public and you put yourself out there and
- 2:27:00Speaker 1: you really do that, that's, That's a transformation. That's a
- 2:27:03Speaker 1: metamorphosis for anybody.
- 2:27:06Speaker 2: For anybody. It's just undeniable. It's the most authentic form
- 2:27:11Speaker 2: of performance ever. That's not your audience. They don't know you.
- 2:27:16Speaker 2: You have to earn it. You have to break through.
- 2:27:20Speaker 2: You have to break through it. It has to hit.
- 2:27:22Speaker 2: It has to be real.
- 2:27:24Speaker 1: That's all I've been doing is swinging on them the
- 2:27:26Speaker 1: whole time, Joe. Yeah, man.
- 2:27:27Speaker 2: Well, you're killing it.
- 2:27:29Speaker 1: Sometimes they call me the Muhammad Ali of country music.
- 2:27:33Speaker 1: That's too good a compliment, but I like it.
- 2:27:36Speaker 2: But that's the only way you make Charlie Crockett. Your
- 2:27:42Speaker 2: story is important for people to hear because it's the
- 2:27:45Speaker 2: only way you make someone like you. You don't make
- 2:27:48Speaker 2: someone like you in a mall. You don't make someone
- 2:27:50Speaker 2: like you with a bunch of executives making these decisions
- 2:27:54Speaker 2: based on what they think is going to be popular.
- 2:27:56Speaker 1: Man, it was crazy. They were doing that shit you'd
- 2:27:58Speaker 1: think they would do. So this woman, Nell Muldary, saw
- 2:28:02Speaker 1: us in the R train. And she was in the
- 2:28:04Speaker 1: Sony system and managing artists and kind of the star maker,
- 2:28:09Speaker 1: that pop machine of 2010, 2011. So they bring us
- 2:28:14Speaker 1: up into the offices in Koreatown, right? And on the
- 2:28:19Speaker 1: edge of Hell's Kitchen there. And her office was off
- 2:28:21Speaker 1: the side of this Sony Legacy kind of catalog room.
- 2:28:27Speaker 1: Because at the time, she was married to Rob Santos,
- 2:28:29Speaker 1: one of the guys at Sony Legacy. And so she
- 2:28:32Speaker 1: had this little office off the side of the library thing, whatever.
- 2:28:36Speaker 1: And she brings us in there, and they're putting us
- 2:28:40Speaker 1: in front of these computer screens and showing us gym
- 2:28:45Speaker 1: class heroes and the Gorillas and Odd Future and Janelle
- 2:28:49Speaker 1: Monae and doing these focus group training things. You know,
- 2:28:55Speaker 1: and where they're going to plug you in to the thing.
- 2:28:58Speaker 1: And it was like, what was so difficult about it
- 2:29:01Speaker 1: for me, I'm not, they didn't do anything wrong. You know,
- 2:29:04Speaker 1: we were young, desperate men playing in public transit. You know,
- 2:29:09Speaker 1: be careful what you ask for, you know. I was
- 2:29:11Speaker 1: mad for a long time, but I've been eating off
- 2:29:13Speaker 1: that plate forever because I realized, man, I was like, man,
- 2:29:17Speaker 1: if you don't know what you want, if you don't
- 2:29:19Speaker 1: know where you're going, if you don't know what you're selling,
- 2:29:22Speaker 1: they're going to sell it for you. Yes. You know
- 2:29:24Speaker 1: what I mean? Yeah. It doesn't matter who it is. Yeah.
- 2:29:26Speaker 2: It's not their fault. That's what they do.
- 2:29:28Speaker 1: No, I need, that was the best thing that could
- 2:29:30Speaker 1: have happened to me is cause like, I believe that
- 2:29:32Speaker 1: there was some deal. I wasn't on the trains for it,
- 2:29:36Speaker 1: but I knew we'd find it. I really did. I had,
- 2:29:39Speaker 1: I had, it was fate. It was fate. And like,
- 2:29:43Speaker 1: you know, it's that whole thing. Like I got there,
- 2:29:45Speaker 1: it fell apart quick. It wrecked me, man. And I got,
- 2:29:48Speaker 1: that's when I found, that's when I got off the
- 2:29:49Speaker 1: street and I went back to California, started working on
- 2:29:51Speaker 1: the ganja farms and, Because I realized, you know, like
- 2:29:54Speaker 1: Big L said or whatever, you know, I was going
- 2:29:55Speaker 1: to get street struck. You know, you can't stay out
- 2:29:58Speaker 1: there forever. You really can't. Right. And that's when, you know,
- 2:30:04Speaker 1: that's when I looked at it and it's like, man, okay,
- 2:30:11Speaker 1: what am I willing to sell? You know? Like, what
- 2:30:16Speaker 1: is Charlie Crockett willing to sell? And I think that
- 2:30:21Speaker 1: that's stronger... than playing it cool, right? And letting somebody
- 2:30:27Speaker 1: else figure it out for you. You know, that's where
- 2:30:31Speaker 1: it gets dangerous, you know? And so it's like, I
- 2:30:34Speaker 1: know a lot of these guys in the business, they're like,
- 2:30:36Speaker 1: oh man, you know, I don't pay attention to the
- 2:30:37Speaker 1: business shit and all that type of stuff. And I'm like, man,
- 2:30:39Speaker 1: you're crazy for that. Because I don't care if it
- 2:30:41Speaker 1: was Willie Nelson or James Brown, they were poorer than you,
- 2:30:44Speaker 1: they both picked cotton, and they learned the business because
- 2:30:47Speaker 1: they had to. So someone gave me that bullshit.
- 2:30:50Speaker 2: We need to understand the business if you're in the business.
- 2:30:53Speaker 2: If you don't understand it, you'll be taken over by it.
- 2:30:56Speaker 1: There's no doubt, even if they got you on top.
- 2:30:58Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you have to have autonomy. You have
- 2:31:00Speaker 2: to have this personal sense of self where you could
- 2:31:04Speaker 2: avoid the influence. You have to be able to just
- 2:31:08Speaker 2: stick to your guns, and that's the hard part, right?
- 2:31:11Speaker 2: Because then they dangle that carrot in front of you.
- 2:31:14Speaker 2: That carrot is juicy, especially if you've been out in
- 2:31:16Speaker 2: the street.
- 2:31:17Speaker 1: It's right there.
- 2:31:18Speaker 2: Oh, it's right there. It's right there, and it's so juicy.
- 2:31:21Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:31:24Speaker 2: And a lot of people bite it. A lot of
- 2:31:26Speaker 2: people bite it, and then they don't want it anymore,
- 2:31:28Speaker 2: and then they don't know how to be authentic.
- 2:31:30Speaker 1: Were you dealing with the, like, on that circuit? Because,
- 2:31:34Speaker 1: I mean, I know you're a comedian, and I know
- 2:31:36Speaker 1: you also, like, got into the, like, dealing with the network,
- 2:31:39Speaker 1: TV shows and all that kind of stuff. Did anybody
- 2:31:43Speaker 1: ever fucking get you pretty good?
- 2:31:45Speaker 2: Well, I got lucky in that. I got on television
- 2:31:48Speaker 2: so early and I didn't want to be on television.
- 2:31:52Speaker 2: It wasn't something that I wanted, but they offered me
- 2:31:56Speaker 2: so much money to be on TV. I was like, what? Okay.
- 2:31:59Speaker 2: But I kept growing and doing my comedy at the
- 2:32:02Speaker 2: comedy store. And that was the most important thing that
- 2:32:05Speaker 2: I just kept doing comedy. And then the money was
- 2:32:07Speaker 2: just like, fuck you money. So it's like, because I
- 2:32:10Speaker 2: had the fuck you money, I could kind of be myself.
- 2:32:13Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:32:13Speaker 2: And, You know, there was a lot of temptation. Like,
- 2:32:16Speaker 2: I remember the producers of Fear Factor were like, what
- 2:32:17Speaker 2: are you doing? Because some of my comedy was just
- 2:32:20Speaker 2: out there. Like, you know, this will get you in trouble.
- 2:32:23Speaker 2: This is not network television comedy. I was like, well,
- 2:32:25Speaker 2: then I won't do network television anymore. Like, once I
- 2:32:28Speaker 2: had a certain amount in the bank, I was like,
- 2:32:30Speaker 2: all right, this is more money than I ever thought
- 2:32:32Speaker 2: I'd ever have in my whole fucking life. And I
- 2:32:34Speaker 2: never thought I'd ever be wealthy. And then all of
- 2:32:37Speaker 2: a sudden I have money. So if you have fuck
- 2:32:39Speaker 2: you money and you don't say fuck you, what's the point?
- 2:32:42Speaker 1: Right?
- 2:32:43Speaker 2: Well, no one's going to say fuck you then. If
- 2:32:44Speaker 2: you're going to be a prisoner to that money, like
- 2:32:49Speaker 2: everybody says, man.
- 2:32:49Speaker 1: Have I had all that money? Or just afraid to
- 2:32:51Speaker 1: be you.
- 2:32:52Speaker 2: Afraid to be yourself. Like that's the only time you
- 2:32:54Speaker 2: can really do it is when you have, you know,
- 2:32:57Speaker 2: it's like the universe gives you this gift. The gift
- 2:33:01Speaker 2: is the gift of freedom. And you have to choose
- 2:33:02Speaker 2: to either accept it and take it and run with
- 2:33:05Speaker 2: it or be captured by it and then want more
- 2:33:09Speaker 2: and more and more forever. Forever, and there's no end.
- 2:33:13Speaker 2: You know, we were talking about my friend Brian has
- 2:33:15Speaker 2: this friend who's worth $ 3 billion, and he feels poor
- 2:33:18Speaker 2: because his friend is worth $ 80. You know how crazy
- 2:33:21Speaker 2: that is? Think how crazy that is. Like this guy
- 2:33:23Speaker 2: is just constantly chasing to keep up with his friend
- 2:33:26Speaker 2: who's worth $ 80 billion.
- 2:33:28Speaker 1: Man, that's how it works.
- 2:33:28Speaker 2: Because he's got three. Yep, that's how it works. You
- 2:33:31Speaker 2: could get trapped, and then, you know.
- 2:33:33Speaker 1: Still keeping up with the Joneses.
- 2:33:34Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to hit show. You want to hit movie.
- 2:33:36Speaker 2: You got to hit movie. I want to have a Grammy.
- 2:33:39Speaker 2: I want to start singing. You start getting crazy. You
- 2:33:44Speaker 2: chase that demon, that demon of success that just lures
- 2:33:48Speaker 2: you deeper and deeper into hell. And the next thing
- 2:33:50Speaker 2: you know, you don't even know who you are. No
- 2:33:52Speaker 2: one knows who you are. And if you don't know
- 2:33:54Speaker 2: who you are, they'll decide. They'll decide who you are.
- 2:33:57Speaker 2: They'll sell you. They'll sell you as a thing.
- 2:34:00Speaker 1: You know what's crazy about the music business? The manager is,
- 2:34:05Speaker 1: in many cases, the most powerful person and the least regulated,
- 2:34:12Speaker 1: you know, I think that's, what's wild about the music business.
- 2:34:15Speaker 1: There's basically no regulation. You know what I mean? Yeah.
- 2:34:20Speaker 1: It's like, I think that's what makes people say it's,
- 2:34:24Speaker 1: you know, the shadiest business. I don't think it's the
- 2:34:26Speaker 1: shadiest business, but a guy told me that in New York, actually,
- 2:34:30Speaker 1: when I got caught up in the Sony thing with
- 2:34:32Speaker 1: the train robbers deal, y'all were showing on the screen, uh,
- 2:34:36Speaker 1: a lot of guys were, a lot of people were
- 2:34:38Speaker 1: trying to sign us. Actually, the guys at A &
- 2:34:39Speaker 1: R and Wu-Tang, like DJ Scott Free and Matty C,
- 2:34:43Speaker 1: they were trying to get us into a deal. Citizen
- 2:34:47Speaker 1: Cope had a deal on the table and all that
- 2:34:51Speaker 1: shit and it was like, um, he was the one
- 2:34:55Speaker 1: that told me that. He was like, man, fuck what
- 2:34:57Speaker 1: you heard, this is the shadiest business. Now, I had
- 2:35:00Speaker 1: come from a background of dealing with some pretty crazy
- 2:35:02Speaker 1: shit in Texas, you know, and with everything. Um, But
- 2:35:06Speaker 1: even in that business, like people that are, if you're
- 2:35:09Speaker 1: trying to play the stock market or whatever, Wall Street,
- 2:35:12Speaker 1: it's a corrupt business and it is really fucked up,
- 2:35:15Speaker 1: but it's highly regulated. I mean, compared to the music business. Right.
- 2:35:20Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Right, right, right. And you're
- 2:35:22Speaker 1: dealing in, like you're, you know, the stock exchange there,
- 2:35:27Speaker 1: it's like, they're like dealing in culture. Cultural power. Right.
- 2:35:32Speaker 1: Cultural wars, whatever you want to call it. And there's no,
- 2:35:36Speaker 1: There's just very, very little regulation.
- 2:35:40Speaker 2: And a lot of power.
- 2:35:41Speaker 1: Man.
- 2:35:42Speaker 2: So much power and influence and the people that make
- 2:35:44Speaker 2: the most money, the people that don't even create the art.
- 2:35:46Speaker 1: Because like you're talking about, let's say you got an
- 2:35:48Speaker 1: old boy's got his buddy that's worth $ 80 billion or whatever.
- 2:35:51Speaker 1: Still doesn't make you a star. Right. It's still not fame, actually.
- 2:35:58Speaker 2: That's what's crazy. I have a friend who's a billionaire
- 2:36:00Speaker 2: who desperately wants to be famous.
- 2:36:02Speaker 1: It seems like a lot of them want to be.
- 2:36:04Speaker 2: Because that's the thing they don't have. They have everything else.
- 2:36:08Speaker 1: You can't exactly buy that. You kind of can.
- 2:36:12Speaker 2: Kind of, but then it turns on you. Yeah, it
- 2:36:15Speaker 2: turns on you. To be the rich guy.
- 2:36:18Speaker 1: I see some of that stuff playing out. I don't want.
- 2:36:22Speaker 2: Nothing to do with that.
- 2:36:23Speaker 1: Look what they did to Elon.
- 2:36:25Speaker 2: You don't want that. It's a harsh world because there's
- 2:36:29Speaker 2: no sympathy for you. You're the wealthy.
- 2:36:32Speaker 1: oligarch when you want everybody looking at you right yeah
- 2:36:35Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden they're.
- 2:36:37Speaker 2: Looking at you yeah they got you got nervous they
- 2:36:41Speaker 2: got you under that eye of sauron they're trying to
- 2:36:44Speaker 2: find all your flaws and that's what everybody's got them so.
- 2:36:47Speaker 1: I got this little bird right here it tells me
- 2:36:48Speaker 1: that tells me all the secrets what is that i
- 2:36:50Speaker 1: didn't know what this was when i bought it right
- 2:36:52Speaker 1: this is this horse right oh wow And I just,
- 2:36:56Speaker 1: I found it in this place, this found items place
- 2:36:59Speaker 1: about 10 years ago. And I just liked it. Actually,
- 2:37:02Speaker 1: I just thought, I thought it was native, right? I
- 2:37:04Speaker 1: didn't realize it was like Egyptian. And I've always liked
- 2:37:07Speaker 1: this one because it felt like it was a little
- 2:37:08Speaker 1: bit of both. And I didn't know anything about it
- 2:37:12Speaker 1: at first. But the reason I never take it off
- 2:37:15Speaker 1: anymore is like when I started reading about like what
- 2:37:19Speaker 1: it meant to the Egyptians was that it meant like
- 2:37:23Speaker 1: safe passage as you journey through this world. and get
- 2:37:30Speaker 1: ready to go on to the next one. You know
- 2:37:32Speaker 1: what I mean? And protect you against evil, protect you, um, in,
- 2:37:39Speaker 1: you know, and for health and happiness, they called it initiation.
- 2:37:44Speaker 1: So it makes a lot of people tie it to
- 2:37:46Speaker 1: stupid shit like, uh, You know, Illuminati and all that
- 2:37:49Speaker 1: kind of stuff. But, I mean, it's just a thunderbird.
- 2:37:53Speaker 2: Well, you know, the eye of Horus is essentially the
- 2:37:55Speaker 2: pineal gland where the seat of the soul, where the
- 2:38:00Speaker 2: brain produces dimethyltryptamine. That's the eye of Horus. Have you
- 2:38:03Speaker 2: ever seen the image of the eye of Horus next
- 2:38:06Speaker 2: to the pineal gland?
- 2:38:08Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Maybe I have, but I'm ignorant. I didn't.
- 2:38:11Speaker 2: The ancient Egyptians.
- 2:38:12Speaker 1: What's pineal gland?
- 2:38:12Speaker 2: The pineal gland is a gland that's in the center
- 2:38:16Speaker 2: of your brain. It's essentially the third eye. In reptiles,
- 2:38:19Speaker 2: it actually has a retina and a lens.
- 2:38:21Speaker 1: Wow.
- 2:38:22Speaker 2: Or a cornea and a lens. And it's where... Now
- 2:38:26Speaker 2: they believe that DMT is actually produced by the entire brain.
- 2:38:29Speaker 2: It's also produced by the liver and the lungs. But
- 2:38:31Speaker 2: it's like the most spiritual of all the psychedelics. And
- 2:38:34Speaker 2: they believe that the Egyptians had some sort of... You know,
- 2:38:38Speaker 2: there's so little... understood about truly ancient Egypt. But look
- 2:38:42Speaker 2: at that, look what it looks like. I mean, the,
- 2:38:47Speaker 2: the eye of Horus essentially is it's a diagram of
- 2:38:51Speaker 2: the pineal gland, which is kind of crazy. It's kind
- 2:38:56Speaker 2: of crazy when you see it that way.
- 2:38:58Speaker 1: Wow.
- 2:38:59Speaker 2: Because they, they knew things and we don't know what
- 2:39:01Speaker 2: they knew. We don't understand how they built the pyramids.
- 2:39:04Speaker 2: We don't understand how old they are. There's so much
- 2:39:06Speaker 2: speculation about the true age. of that civilization.
- 2:39:09Speaker 1: And figuring out like how they harness the energy and
- 2:39:11Speaker 1: all that stuff.
- 2:39:12Speaker 2: We have no idea. I mean, there's this group of
- 2:39:14Speaker 2: scientists that believe that there's structures under the pyramids that
- 2:39:17Speaker 2: go two kilometers deep into the earth. And there's a
- 2:39:20Speaker 2: lot of controversy about that. But these guys are, they've
- 2:39:24Speaker 2: multiple readings of these things and they're pretty sure that
- 2:39:27Speaker 2: they're accurate. And they've been accurate with other things, like
- 2:39:30Speaker 2: other temples that are underground, that are 50 feet underground.
- 2:39:33Speaker 2: They've mapped those things out with the same technology. So
- 2:39:36Speaker 2: there's a precedent to it. These people knew things and
- 2:39:39Speaker 2: we don't understand how they knew it or what they knew.
- 2:39:42Speaker 2: And we don't know if the people that lived in
- 2:39:44Speaker 2: ancient Egypt that we considered ancient Egypt, like, you know,
- 2:39:47Speaker 2: 2000 BC, we don't know if they found those structures
- 2:39:50Speaker 2: or if those people built those structures. There's so much
- 2:39:54Speaker 2: weirdness with Egypt because the construction is so beyond anything
- 2:39:59Speaker 2: else that exists anywhere on earth. And especially when you're
- 2:40:03Speaker 2: dealing with 4,500 plus years ago. 4,500 years ago is
- 2:40:07Speaker 2: the conventional estimations. But there's a lot of these heretic
- 2:40:12Speaker 2: archaeologists that think, no, this is a lot older than that.
- 2:40:16Speaker 2: I mean, there's a king's list that goes back 30,000
- 2:40:19Speaker 2: plus years. Yeah, I mean, it sounds nuts to people
- 2:40:24Speaker 2: that want to have this conventional dating of the dawn
- 2:40:28Speaker 2: of civilization being about 6,000 years ago. But there's a
- 2:40:31Speaker 2: lot of evidence that that's not accurate. There's a lot.
- 2:40:34Speaker 2: And I think the most profound evidence is just the
- 2:40:37Speaker 2: vastness of the Egyptian empire and what, what they're just
- 2:40:42Speaker 2: the vastness of the construction, the way they were able
- 2:40:45Speaker 2: to bring these stones from 500 miles away through the
- 2:40:49Speaker 2: mountains that are 80 tons. How, how did they cut
- 2:40:53Speaker 2: them perfectly? How did they put them 120 feet in
- 2:40:56Speaker 2: the air and put them in the ceiling? Like what,
- 2:40:58Speaker 2: what the fuck was going on then? What the fuck
- 2:41:01Speaker 2: was going on with people were, supposedly just getting out
- 2:41:04Speaker 2: of hunter and gathering. I mean, this is like the emergence.
- 2:41:08Speaker 2: Like a couple thousand years earlier, we're supposed to be
- 2:41:10Speaker 2: like using stone tools and throwing them at animals. And
- 2:41:14Speaker 2: now you have these people that build this immense structure
- 2:41:18Speaker 2: that's perfectly aligned. A true north, south, east, and west
- 2:41:22Speaker 2: has 2,300,000 stones in it.
- 2:41:23Speaker 1: What?
- 2:41:24Speaker 2: It's aligned with Orion stars, the stars in the Orion belt.
- 2:41:28Speaker 2: Like what?
- 2:41:29Speaker 1: Maybe what happened was... AI took them down too.
- 2:41:34Speaker 2: It might be.
- 2:41:35Speaker 1: Way, way back.
- 2:41:36Speaker 2: It might be.
- 2:41:37Speaker 1: I'm just saying, right?
- 2:41:38Speaker 2: It could be.
- 2:41:39Speaker 1: It could, stuff could be, I forget who said that,
- 2:41:42Speaker 1: but it's like, I mean, I'm all for, I'm all
- 2:41:44Speaker 1: for science, but in the end of the day, you know,
- 2:41:48Speaker 1: no matter what we think we know, it's still just
- 2:41:50Speaker 1: like a, you know, it's like a flame in a
- 2:41:52Speaker 1: dark night. You know, there's, there's so much out there beyond,
- 2:41:56Speaker 1: beyond what we can see. So I always, I always
- 2:41:59Speaker 1: kind of, I thought that myself. I mean, it's a
- 2:42:02Speaker 1: basic thing nowadays. You know, when I was like a kid,
- 2:42:05Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people have had this thought,
- 2:42:06Speaker 1: but it's like, I was like looking up here in
- 2:42:08Speaker 1: the stars and it's like, if they're saying that the
- 2:42:12Speaker 1: stars are basically infinite, then it's infinite possibility for other
- 2:42:17Speaker 1: planets with life on it, which basically is a certainty.
- 2:42:21Speaker 2: It's basically a certainty.
- 2:42:22Speaker 1: It's a certainty.
- 2:42:22Speaker 2: Yeah, it's basically a certainty. And the more we explore
- 2:42:25Speaker 2: in the known universe, the more we understand that it's
- 2:42:28Speaker 2: much more likely that this is not an anomaly, that
- 2:42:32Speaker 2: there's many, many planets out there. Who knows? Maybe an
- 2:42:35Speaker 2: infinite number that have life.
- 2:42:37Speaker 1: So who knows what's going on with those Egyptians?
- 2:42:39Speaker 2: Well, we don't know how long ago they did this.
- 2:42:42Speaker 2: There's just so much speculation.
- 2:42:44Speaker 1: Well, in the version of Egypt that we're taught about,
- 2:42:48Speaker 1: it was like just the latest stage of it.
- 2:42:50Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
- 2:42:51Speaker 1: Like I read where there was just, it went on
- 2:42:53Speaker 1: for so many thousands of years and there was this
- 2:42:56Speaker 1: whole evolution of those kingdoms. I'm talking about throughout Africa.
- 2:43:00Speaker 2: Yep. Well, all the sub-Saharan area.
- 2:43:02Speaker 1: All of that too.
- 2:43:03Speaker 2: That's where they believe that Atlantis was. I mean, there's
- 2:43:05Speaker 2: this thing called the Reshot structure that there's, again, these
- 2:43:09Speaker 2: heretic archaeologists believe was the site of Atlantis. I mean,
- 2:43:13Speaker 2: the South Saharan, the Sub-Saharan Africa was a rich rainforest
- 2:43:19Speaker 2: thousands of years ago. There's whale bones. They find whale
- 2:43:23Speaker 2: bones in the Saharan desert.
- 2:43:24Speaker 1: That's crazy.
- 2:43:25Speaker 2: It's fucking madness, man. The history of Earth is so confusing.
- 2:43:29Speaker 2: Like Graham Hancock says it best, we're a species with amnesia.
- 2:43:34Speaker 2: And that's what's wild.
- 2:43:36Speaker 1: About all this ancient shit. We don't remember anything.
- 2:43:38Speaker 2: Well, we definitely don't remember shit from 20,000 years ago.
- 2:43:42Speaker 2: It's all just speculation. And people have been in this
- 2:43:45Speaker 2: form you know, the form of homo sapiens now for
- 2:43:49Speaker 2: 300 plus thousand years, like who knows how long and
- 2:43:54Speaker 2: who knows where they learn this stuff from. I mean,
- 2:43:56Speaker 2: who knows if they learn this stuff from visitors? We
- 2:43:59Speaker 2: don't know. We don't know. I mean, if we did
- 2:44:01Speaker 2: get visited 20,000, 30,000 years ago, what evidence would be left,
- 2:44:06Speaker 2: you know, and are we being visited now? Well, we're
- 2:44:08Speaker 2: about to find out because if this shit keeps popping
- 2:44:11Speaker 2: off with Israel and Iran and they start going nuclear,
- 2:44:14Speaker 2: You know, that was only the great hope of the
- 2:44:17Speaker 2: people that really believe in aliens is that what they're
- 2:44:19Speaker 2: watching over us is to make sure we don't fuck
- 2:44:22Speaker 2: everything up. That we're so close to emerging as a
- 2:44:26Speaker 2: type one civilization. We're so close to getting out of
- 2:44:29Speaker 2: this barbaric, you know, territorial apes with thermonuclear weapons. We're
- 2:44:35Speaker 2: so close to passing this stage that we're in right now.
- 2:44:40Speaker 2: As long as we don't fuck it up. And who
- 2:44:41Speaker 2: knows how many times people might have fucked it up
- 2:44:43Speaker 2: in the past. I mean, that might be what we're
- 2:44:46Speaker 2: looking at when we're looking at ancient Egypt. There might
- 2:44:48Speaker 2: be the remnants. And there's also natural disasters.
- 2:44:50Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's all I meant by AI. Yeah. You
- 2:44:52Speaker 1: know what I mean?
- 2:44:53Speaker 2: It could be our greatest natural disaster.
- 2:44:55Speaker 1: You get there and... But I like your... There's a...
- 2:44:58Speaker 1: It's a very positive outlook, though, when you're talking about
- 2:45:01Speaker 1: getting to the next... Yeah. What'd you call it? Type...
- 2:45:04Speaker 1: What'd you say?
- 2:45:04Speaker 2: Type 1 civilization.
- 2:45:05Speaker 1: What does that mean?
- 2:45:06Speaker 2: Okay. There's type 1, type 2, and type 3 civilizations.
- 2:45:11Speaker 1: And.
- 2:45:12Speaker 2: I remember who was the one who formulated this. It
- 2:45:16Speaker 2: might have been Sagan. Jamie, pull it up so I
- 2:45:19Speaker 2: don't fuck this up.
- 2:45:19Speaker 1: Come on, Jamie.
- 2:45:21Speaker 2: It's essentially our.
- 2:45:23Speaker 1: Here it is.
- 2:45:25Speaker 2: Type 1 civilization known as a planetary civilization defined by
- 2:45:30Speaker 2: our Kardashev scale as the one that's harnessed and controls
- 2:45:33Speaker 2: all available energy on its planet. This includes utilizing all
- 2:45:37Speaker 2: forms of energy from sources like solar, wind, geothermal and
- 2:45:41Speaker 2: potentially even harnessing nuclear fusion. A type one civilization is
- 2:45:45Speaker 2: also characterized by a global technologically advanced society with a
- 2:45:48Speaker 2: high degree of interconnectedness and the ability to manage planetary
- 2:45:53Speaker 2: scale resources and weather. So we're on the way to that.
- 2:45:58Speaker 2: And AI in best case scenario helps us achieve that.
- 2:46:02Speaker 2: And we're close. We're probably a lot closer to that
- 2:46:06Speaker 2: than we think. Type two civilization is stellar. meaning we
- 2:46:11Speaker 2: populate other planets. Type 3 is galactic. We populate the
- 2:46:17Speaker 2: cosmos and we explore the cosmos.
- 2:46:21Speaker 1: Wow.
- 2:46:21Speaker 2: We're on our way to that. It's inevitable. If we
- 2:46:23Speaker 2: used to live in caves and now we fly in
- 2:46:26Speaker 2: hypersonic jets, this is what's coming. And it's whether or
- 2:46:30Speaker 2: not we fuck it up along the way.
- 2:46:31Speaker 1: That was beautiful. Beam me up, man.
- 2:46:37Speaker 2: We should probably end on that. Charlie Crockett, you're the man.
- 2:46:41Speaker 1: I appreciate you, brother.
- 2:46:42Speaker 2: Thank you very much for being here, man.
- 2:46:43Speaker 1: Pleasure is mine, man. Texas forever. It's been a lot
- 2:46:45Speaker 1: of fun. Yeah, thanks a lot. Texas forever.
- 2:46:46Speaker 2: Thank you, sir.
- 2:46:47Speaker 1: Come on, man.
- 2:46:47Speaker 2: Thank you very much, man. Thank you. Thank you. All right.
- 2:46:51Speaker 2: Tell everybody where they can find all your shit. Do
- 2:46:53Speaker 2: you have a social media?
- 2:46:54Speaker 1: Yeah, but you don't got to do all that.
- 2:46:56Speaker 2: Okay.
- 2:46:57Speaker 1: I mean, it's Charlie Crockett. Charlie with an E-Y like
- 2:47:01Speaker 1: Charlie Pride.
- 2:47:02Speaker 2: That's it.
- 2:47:02Speaker 1: Crockett with two T's just like Davey.
- 2:47:05Speaker 2: That's all I need to know.
- 2:47:06Speaker 1: That's it.
- 2:47:06Speaker 2: All right.
- 2:47:07Speaker 1: Thank you. Bye, everybody.