Latest / The Other 22 Hours / Butch Walker on accidental careers, the ego-driven climb, and 'shut up and sing'.

Transcript

Butch Walker on accidental careers, the ego-driven climb, and 'shut up and sing'. · The Other 22 Hours

0:00
[SPEAKER_03]: To get to a level of they reached the top of the mountain and I don't know every mountain's different height Man's not very high, but like my little mountain that I reached the top of and saw everything around me And saw this big sky and saw this big valley below and all these things happening.
0:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Then you go oh shit Man, I was so busy climbing that hill and not looking around me and then I get to the top and I see there's a lot of problems
0:28
[SPEAKER_02]: We often define artists by their output, their records, books, movies, and the times they're on stage.
0:35
[SPEAKER_01]: But the art is made in the quiet, the struggle, and the mundane, the hours that no one sees.
0:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm McKinna Ann.
0:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm Aaron Kray for his.
0:44
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the other 22 hours.
0:45
[SPEAKER_02]: The exploration of the creative life lived in between.
1:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Today we're featuring our conversation with songwriter, producer, and guitar player, butch walker.
1:07
[SPEAKER_02]: After having success in the 90s with some of his own bands, including Marvelous 3, butch parlayed that career into producing for the likes of Avril Lavigne, Pink, Wizard, Green Day, Katy Perry, and writing songs with the likes of
1:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Taylor Swift, he continues to do all that, releases own records and now as he says has taken his hands off the driving wheel to just shut up and play the guitar with a little band called Train, who he has produced three records for.
1:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is our first episode back for season four.
1:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So exciting to start off with Butch.
1:40
[SPEAKER_00]: It was such an engaging conversation.
1:42
[SPEAKER_00]: We start off strong with talking about the state of the country and the world and how it impacts your everyday life as a creative artist.
1:50
[SPEAKER_00]: as well as a lifelong career staying open to all the different ways that this career will present itself and continuing to learn.
2:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And here's our conversation with Boge Walker.
2:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So we always like to start with just a very general how are you today and where are you physically
2:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, I'll start with how am I rhetorically.
2:18
[SPEAKER_03]: I am good.
2:19
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sitting at my studio, which is out in the country about 40 minutes outside of Nashville, realistically doing okay, considering the state of everything, that's unavoidable, all the elephants in the room that are coming crashing down on everybody's heads while they're trying to avoid it.
2:37
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm doing the best I can with a family that cares a lot about the state of things.
2:43
[SPEAKER_03]: At the risk of not getting too charged on this podcast about that, unless you ask where they're with you.
2:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
2:50
[SPEAKER_00]: We welcome all of it because that stuff has varying levels of impact on us, depending on how it directly impacts us, and depending on how in tune with things we are.
3:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And we definitely are and see how it impacts our daily life as well, especially raising kids.
3:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So we welcome anything that is kind of on your mind and impacting.
3:10
[SPEAKER_00]: your life right now because also it impacts our ability and what we want to be creating.
3:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no very much so.
3:19
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, obviously right now, I feel like there's a lot of people probably shifting gears with their art.
3:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe just to focus on things that are kind of important right now instead of being all just a vapidist gapism, which is what we do for
3:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I've personally noticed like both ends of the spectrum with the every day 247 avalanche of revelations and unprecedentedness where sometimes I just can't squeeze a creative thought out of my brain at all.
3:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And other days, it's just like I'm gonna enter this cocoon and now I'm gonna go deep in this and just have a deep sense of inspiration and gratitude to have that outlet and a deep sense of purpose of like, no, the world needs this right now.
4:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And I need this.
4:06
[SPEAKER_02]: right now.
4:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, of course.
4:08
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I think that's just essential every time we get into some sort of pickle as a country.
4:14
[SPEAKER_03]: There is always there's always amazing art that we grasp for a year and for and also on on the giving and receiving end of being artists and also needing it to condition us and inspire us.
4:28
[SPEAKER_03]: right now obviously there's so many artists out there right now that are already being very vocal and through their art and through their song and through their imagery and I really appreciate that and I think that's helping us cope.
4:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm always perplexed by the conversation though of the like shut up and sing thing and don't talk about politics maybe because like the way that I operate as a
4:50
[SPEAKER_00]: human.
4:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how to really tune it out.
4:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do see that there are people who may be maybe they're tuning it out, maybe they live a life that's not connected to it, and maybe they have like, I don't know, financial different motivations that they're able to just produce
5:11
[SPEAKER_00]: say, but as an artist, any time I share things and I get the kind of random, like, hey, keep your politics out of this type of stuff, I'm just kind of like, the word politics to me doesn't even make sense because politics informs how we move through this world.
5:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So it informs our access to a good life, to health, to education.
5:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So how is it not informing everything that we do?
5:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And the idea that we shouldn't talk about it, because it might be uncomfortable, feels like a top-down manipulation.
5:46
[SPEAKER_03]: I wholeheartedly agree, I think I saw John Legend back in the Twitter days say the early days of Twitter.
5:53
[SPEAKER_03]: The unpolitical days of Twitter.
5:55
[SPEAKER_03]: But you know, somebody was telling me to stay in his lane and he goes, I'm an American tax paying citizen, you know.
6:01
[SPEAKER_03]: This is my lane, and I think that kind of is a big part of it, too, is like it's not all about taxes, but that's a big part of it.
6:07
[SPEAKER_03]: If you're a tax paying American already politics affect you in a huge way, if anything, the billionaires need to shut the fuck up because they don't have any right to say anything because they don't pay a dime in taxes and they're obviously making moves that are to benefit their own personal gain.
6:23
[SPEAKER_03]: So I mean, it's a conflict of interest all the way around, but the cliche and the statement
6:30
[SPEAKER_03]: It is.
6:31
[SPEAKER_03]: It's very true.
6:32
[SPEAKER_03]: We've been on our soap boxes and complaining for years about everything as artists in everyday life.
6:38
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not just, you know, oh baby baby, I love you and this worked out great in this relationship, end of song.
6:46
[SPEAKER_03]: that's not my reality, that's not a lot of people's reality, but I think the people that say shut up and move on and don't talk about politics or the people that grew up a not informed and had their head in the sand and it and it makes them feel uncomfortable when they are told something that maybe challenges their beliefs or challenges what they grew up indoctrinated from their families.
7:07
[SPEAKER_03]: We all were products of our childhood, our parents.
7:10
[SPEAKER_03]: They said Santa Claus is real and this is your
7:14
[SPEAKER_03]: and this is the guy you need to get behind.
7:16
[SPEAKER_03]: They made us believe all this stuff, same within the church, whether you choose to believe it or not.
7:21
[SPEAKER_03]: I used to, I don't need more because I had too many questions and they didn't like the questions.
7:25
[SPEAKER_03]: They didn't like all the questions I was asking.
7:27
[SPEAKER_03]: They were just basic common sense questions.
7:31
[SPEAKER_03]: that didn't add up with the storyline because I think they just thought that there would never be science in the internet eventually so a lot of the things that all these outdated ideologies talked about to want to carry that forward in twenty twenty six is also fucking insane.
7:46
[SPEAKER_03]: I have a problem, of course, with anybody saying that, but I think that's just an easy thing that they like to do to make you mad.
7:52
[SPEAKER_03]: They know it's going to piss you off, because it immediately demeans and belittles your position as you're just a little, lowly artist.
8:00
[SPEAKER_03]: It's, you know, the fact that anybody is going to tell an artist that just they do it out of, I don't have any comeback.
8:08
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't have an intelligent argument here, so I'm just going to tell you to shut up and sink, because I know it really pisses you off.
8:14
[SPEAKER_03]: that's it.
8:14
[SPEAKER_03]: But like, you know, I look at where I am in the spectrum of career in life at 2026 and me being 56 years old and all that I've done and all that I've accomplished.
8:23
[SPEAKER_03]: And I look at what this troll that might not even be a real human saying that on online and go, I won.
8:31
[SPEAKER_03]: It's okay.
8:32
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm winning.
8:32
[SPEAKER_03]: It's fun.
8:33
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and even if Carol is real or Chad is real and said that on my comment section and they have 10 followers and all they do is post a Bible verse in their bio that literally contradicts everything that they go against then I am already out.
8:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't take you seriously and I'll see you get a private account.
8:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, what are you hiding behind that fucking thing?
8:56
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm just always like immediately I'm like, oh bless your little heart.
8:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm curious for you, in your 50s, all that you've accomplished, like you also haven't shied away from putting relax with better term political or social commentary, opinions, feelings into your actual artistic work, and you also have had great success in the bigger mainstream commercial pop world, but as I'm looking at like, there's a screen behind the video of, you know, the different albums that you've produced for people like Green Day and Pink.
9:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, people that in the pop realm have not shied away from speaking out on things.
9:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm curious if at this point in your life have you found ways to kind of expend less energy on it or kind of grapple with things as we are yet again in a time in our country that feels pretty pretty dark, but it's not like we haven't been in really dark correct places before or ever, but it's all kind of coming through.
9:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm wondering if you have any coping strategies, I guess, is what I would ask.
10:01
[SPEAKER_03]: You mean, do I spend any more or less time worrying about the state of things?
10:06
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, no, I'm more wrapped up than I've ever because I think I spent most of my 20s, 30s, and 40s being a narcissistic prick who only thought about itself and his career and his art.
10:15
[SPEAKER_03]: And by the way, that's okay.
10:17
[SPEAKER_03]: because I feel like most artists go through those stages.
10:21
[SPEAKER_03]: I think they have to to get theirs.
10:22
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, you know, I'm gonna get mine.
10:23
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm gonna get mine.
10:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Fuck everybody else.
10:25
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going for it.
10:26
[SPEAKER_03]: This is, you know, what are you talking about politics?
10:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't have time for that.
10:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Social issues.
10:29
[SPEAKER_03]: What are you talking about?
10:31
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, like and subscribe, motherfucker.
10:33
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, like that's what a lot of people to me have done to get to a level of they reach the top of the mountain.
10:40
[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't know, every mountain's different height.
10:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Mine's not very high, but like my little mountain
10:47
[SPEAKER_03]: everything around me and saw this big sky and saw this big valley below and all these things happening then you go oh shit man I was so busy climbing that hill and not looking around me and then I get to the top and I see there's a lot of problems and there's a lot of things that's affecting every like people that are my fans to my enemies to family members my immediate family there's things that are affecting everybody especially I think a lot of it's gone while we weren't
11:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Where we are right now is because a lot of this shit has been going on, and we weren't paying attention.
11:21
[SPEAKER_03]: And especially as artists, when you're in that fire flight mode of your career for the first half of it, you're just not thinking about it at all.
11:29
[SPEAKER_03]: And then you get to the top and realize, oh, well, they've been pitting us against each other left and right when it's literally up and down.
11:35
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's where the real problems are.
11:38
[SPEAKER_03]: So I like to be vocal about it.
11:40
[SPEAKER_03]: as much as I can.
11:41
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I know it boars a lot of fans.
11:43
[SPEAKER_03]: I think as people that enjoyed your historically enjoyed your music if you're a musician or your art if you're a painter and not a social media influencer or whatever, it can be jarring for those people that followed you strictly for one thing that you do and it isn't talking.
12:01
[SPEAKER_03]: then all of a sudden you've got shit to say because your voice does matter because you're an American and you have traveled the world and you have paid a lot of taxes every year and you have like seen other cultures and other religions and other health care systems and other things in other countries that go, wait, what is wrong with us here?
12:18
[SPEAKER_03]: And then the minute you say that it's broken, all the fucking freedom vehicles come out of the comments and everywhere else and they're like, you know, well, you can leave if you don't like it.
12:27
[SPEAKER_03]: and then I understand that too because maybe they haven't been to other places to get that perspective.
12:32
[SPEAKER_03]: It's pretty bizarre, you know, my son when he grew up in Los Angeles.
12:36
[SPEAKER_03]: And he was lucky enough to go through middle school in one of the greatest schools.
12:42
[SPEAKER_03]: These teachers at his last school encouraged debate.
12:45
[SPEAKER_03]: literally on the live on the floor in front of the whole class if they didn't believe in something the teacher was teaching they encouraged them to take a stand stand up and start speaking and a lot of times they would learn shit from these kids and that's the thing now.
12:59
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean the shift has happened where it used to be like oh the parents are always right about everything and now I look on social media and see these kids are teaching these like dinosaur parents a thing or two they've got all these out of date philosophies and ideals
13:14
[SPEAKER_03]: They have to do the work, I think, or else what they become are the people that go in comments sections and say shut up and say, having the free thought to not ask questions, to question what you're told, to see like, oh, there is a different possibility.
13:27
[SPEAKER_02]: To me, is like the seed of creative thinking.
13:30
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, when you're told like, this is what it is.
13:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you're like, I'd automatically shut down any kind of creative thought, any kind of open thoughts, just like, well, that's the way it is.
13:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
13:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Next, I'll look over here, you know, it sounds like you had that just innately as a kid.
13:42
[SPEAKER_03]: It was mostly the outside world.
13:44
[SPEAKER_03]: It was mostly
13:45
[SPEAKER_03]: walking down the street with long hair as a late teen early 20s kid and getting called devil worshiper by random idiots in in my small town and then I'm going like oh wait but oh so you have the high and tight version of Jesus picture above your mantle not the one with a long hair like mine.
14:04
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, yeah.
14:06
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I just got really sick of all the hypocrisy of it.
14:09
[SPEAKER_02]: This is more interesting to me than what this window chain was on your guitar.
14:14
[SPEAKER_02]: This is to me where the music is coming from.
14:17
[SPEAKER_02]: This is where the creativity is coming from.
14:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, just a quick pause from this conversation.
14:25
[SPEAKER_02]: The other 22 hours is an independent production built entirely on the idea that he's quiet on his conversation's matter.
14:31
[SPEAKER_02]: The best way to support our work is simply to share it, so if you can think of one person who would appreciate this show, please pass it along.
14:37
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14:43
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a small action that makes a massive difference for us.
14:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for being here.
14:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's get back to our conversation.
14:50
[SPEAKER_02]: What are your days like when you're in your studio?
14:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I know your studio's like in your house it's out in the country.
14:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you like a routine guy?
14:57
[SPEAKER_03]: I get into a routine when I'm home, but that's because I'm not home much.
15:00
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I enjoy the comforts and the creature comforts.
15:04
[SPEAKER_03]: I have to have a schedule for certain things or else.
15:07
[SPEAKER_03]: I will be a disheveled mess.
15:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Because literally I don't want there's months and months that'll go by where I don't unpack my suitcase or my toiletry bag.
15:14
[SPEAKER_03]: because I know I gotta leave again in two days.
15:17
[SPEAKER_03]: And so when I'm home, the one thing I do love to do is I'm an early riser and my brain starts working early in the morning.
15:24
[SPEAKER_03]: I get up and I caffeinate and that's a little process.
15:27
[SPEAKER_03]: And then my dogs need to be let out of their kennel.
15:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And so they come running, it's feeding time for them.
15:34
[SPEAKER_03]: And then my kid gets up, he comes downstairs.
15:37
[SPEAKER_03]: He's already on his own drive into school, which is awesome.
15:40
[SPEAKER_03]: We hang out for a bit in the morning and then he goes off to school and then I begrudgingly go down to the little gym and our basement and do my Henry Fondo workout, which is just a pathetic old man on a treadmill or my Peloton just trying to like break a little bit of a sweat because it might be the only time I'm going to do it all day because I'm going to be sitting in this chair for eight hours, but you know getting up a lot and moving around too, but like still.
16:10
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's my little morning routine every day that I think for the most part it's a very abnormal life that we live as traveling musicians, right?
16:19
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's not a lot of normalcy there.
16:21
[SPEAKER_03]: I love spending time at home with the fam at night early.
16:24
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't go out that much, you know.
16:27
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's kind of nice just to chill out and we all kind of brains off and watch some bad TVs and good TV.
16:32
[SPEAKER_03]: We talk a little bit about the day and
16:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's about it.
16:34
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the routine I get.
16:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Everything else is completely scheduled and off the cuff and dictated by a my work.
16:41
[SPEAKER_00]: correct me if I'm wrong.
16:42
[SPEAKER_00]: You've been in different projects as well as solo stuff.
16:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm curious about your touring life and now you're in train.
16:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that correct?
16:51
[SPEAKER_00]: It has every year of your life, has tour and travel been a heavy part or has that kind of bed and flowed with your work as a producer and also having a family.
17:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm curious about kind of the arc of that through a full career.
17:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, so I've definitely spent the first half of my life on the road from the time I was 18, 19 years old, really till my producing career took off, which would have been in my 30s and up until then I was doing like 200 shows a year and playing all the time.
17:22
[SPEAKER_03]: And I did that for a solid decade and that was really, really good college for me.
17:29
[SPEAKER_03]: really good experience, life experience, you know, nobody can back up a trailer with a van into parallel parking spaces like I can.
17:38
[SPEAKER_03]: It is a under-appreciated skills, but even still all the years of being in buses too and being just shut up around being able to get to a level where of comfortability where I can be shuffled around everywhere and not have to do any of the driving.
17:52
[SPEAKER_03]: That's also something that no matter what, it still is a lifestyle and lifestyles can get tedious
17:59
[SPEAKER_03]: And also I spent a lot of time away from my family and my son for the first 10 years of his life.
18:04
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't love that, but I feel like now I'm at a place where when my career started to take off as a producer, just when I started getting burned out on all that heavy excessive road where something kept me home.
18:19
[SPEAKER_03]: And that was producing records.
18:21
[SPEAKER_03]: And I loved it.
18:21
[SPEAKER_03]: I first I was apprehensive because I was like,
18:28
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, all that shit.
18:29
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was just like, that's going to be my life.
18:31
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I'm not going to sit behind a desk and have tracksuit and tell younger bands that they don't know in a minor seven from a ball, blah, blah.
18:40
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, I'm not going to do that.
18:42
[SPEAKER_03]: But it ended up just opportunity presented itself.
18:44
[SPEAKER_03]: in a very happenstance way and obviously two is a direct result of my band having its own little one hit wonder hit on the radio called the marvellous three in the late nineties and record company start calling and asking like hey who wrote that song i did who produced it i actually did it at home you know did you engineer it yeah
19:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And that ended up all the centers like, would you like to do that for this artist we just signed and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
19:08
[SPEAKER_03]: And that just started presenting itself because of my own thing that I was trying so hard to break through and become famous or successful or both that it was cut dead in the water by fate.
19:20
[SPEAKER_03]: But at the same time, afforded me a career that has lasted me all the way to now.
19:26
[SPEAKER_03]: of being able to still do this, make records for people and write songs with other people.
19:33
[SPEAKER_03]: That was why I kind of had that epiphany of like, okay, well, if I'm going to only be in a band and only try that, sometimes you only get one shot for that.
19:41
[SPEAKER_03]: And then it's over.
19:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Then you have to start all over again and I already started over 10 times by that point that my band had a breakthrough song on the radio.
19:49
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it afforded me the luxury of being able to get a new
19:54
[SPEAKER_03]: as a producer and as a writer or whatever.
19:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Every day was a new career for me.
20:00
[SPEAKER_03]: I would just, you know, go from one artist to the other, helping them achieve their art and their product at the end of the day that they loved, you hope anyway.
20:09
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the goal.
20:10
[SPEAKER_03]: I always wanted everyone to always be completely satisfied and happy with it and proud of what they did or I didn't do my job.
20:17
[SPEAKER_03]: I never stopped making my own solo records.
20:19
[SPEAKER_03]: So
20:19
[SPEAKER_03]: whatever.
20:20
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I've been doing this since 2001.
20:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Careful what you wish for.
20:23
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I wanted to be the guy who wrote it and produced it and played most of it and controlled it and got up and sang it and had a band behind me playing every night on tour.
20:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And I did that for fucking ever.
20:36
[SPEAKER_03]: And I got really burned out on it.
20:38
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, last year, there came a time in spring.
20:41
[SPEAKER_03]: I was just like, I don't know if I want to do this for a while.
20:44
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to do something different because I always need to do something different to be inspired or rolling stone gathers.
20:49
[SPEAKER_03]: No moss, that whole trope, you know, it's like, you need to definitely keep inspired by doing something new all the time.
20:56
[SPEAKER_03]: And I wasn't
20:57
[SPEAKER_03]: feeling that.
20:58
[SPEAKER_03]: I was feeling like I was just getting stuck in having of the cycle.
21:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I always made a different record that exercised all of my childhood influences every time I put a new solo record out.
21:08
[SPEAKER_03]: But the beauty of it is, as a producer, I can be anyone I want.
21:12
[SPEAKER_03]: And I can produce an alt country record.
21:15
[SPEAKER_03]: I can produce a metal record.
21:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I can produce a pop punk artist.
21:18
[SPEAKER_03]: I can produce an indie bedroom pop record.
21:20
[SPEAKER_03]: I can do any of these things.
21:21
[SPEAKER_03]: And I know how to do them.
21:23
[SPEAKER_03]: But it allows me to put on a different face every day to go to work and be inspired by absorbing that every day.
21:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Instead of going like, oh, no, no, no, no, I can't touch that.
21:32
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm the guy that only makes Ramon's records.
21:34
[SPEAKER_02]: people do really grab onto a record that they love and they're like, well, why are you not doing anymore?
21:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the same thing as the shut up and saying, I'll be the first one to say, like, there are bands where I fall in love with a record, especially if it's like my intro point to that band.
21:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And I might not like any other records.
21:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm Bob.
21:50
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
21:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, man, I'm bummed, but like I also understand like they're called a record for a reason.
21:55
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a record of where you were as an artist at that point in time.
21:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I stand up in time, time stand up, you know?
22:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.
22:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, like you said a rolling stone, got there's no moss like art and creativity is a living breathing thing.
22:06
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, when I was in high school and first getting into Frank's app, I read his, you know, I don't know because it is authorized to kick, you know, but he uses the term death by nostalgia.
22:15
[SPEAKER_02]: That's stuck with me.
22:15
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, yeah, exactly that.
22:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I also grew up kind of, we met in jazz school, we studied jazz and all that.
22:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I see a research and creativity in jazz and new things, but especially like when we were in jazz school early 2000s, it was death by nostalgia.
22:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody was trying to be like, it was trying to make jazz from the late 60s and it's like that was done and I'm never going to be Miles Davis.
22:33
[SPEAKER_02]: No, those records are made, they're not going to sound that, they're going to feel that.
22:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Let that be that.
22:37
[SPEAKER_02]: What are we doing now?
22:38
[SPEAKER_00]: There's kind of two lanes, right?
22:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's many lanes, but this idea of like, you have been led by your creativity, your interest.
22:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you've mentioned, oh, I got a little burned out.
22:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I switched gears.
22:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, rather than crafting or intentionally being like following what your initial idea was, I'm gonna be a rock star and that's what I have to do my whole life by any means, even if I get burned out or I get tired of it, I think that's the trap that a lot of people
23:06
[SPEAKER_00]: stick in and think, well, no, this is what I set out to do.
23:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is what I'm going to do, rather than letting themselves follow their creative inspiration and muse.
23:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm currently studying depth psychology of creativity.
23:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in grad school.
23:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm learning all about the ego and our soul.
23:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And really, it's giving me a lot of language of, oh, when we're on our ego driven path.
23:29
[SPEAKER_00]: It's when we have these things like, I'm going to grow up and I'm going to be a rock star.
23:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to play the rhyme and I'm going to play Bridgestone and I'm going to do this in this and I'm going to check all these things off the box and then realizing, you've mentioned fate multiple times, fate pulls you in these other directions, letting life leads you like in depth psychology terms, then when you get knocked off your ego driven path and your soul driven path comes in and letting yourself be open to it.
23:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I think,
23:56
[SPEAKER_00]: is an art form in itself of you talk about, wait, no, I didn't want to be a producer, but then look at what being open to that path, provided you all this different artistic creative freedom and inspiration and exploration as well as time with your family.
24:11
[SPEAKER_00]: All these other needs as a human.
24:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we forget that being on tour endlessly and just make a record, release record tour record,
24:24
[SPEAKER_00]: person.
24:25
[SPEAKER_03]: We get a broadened aperture on the road of certain things, but then we also, at the same time, it's very myopic.
24:35
[SPEAKER_03]: And to be home and experience things that I can't experience on the road in vice versa, I think it's important balance to have.
24:41
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I try to have that balance with my career the whole time, which is why I never stopped making my own records, while also producing records, they're like, how do you have time to do both?
24:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm like, well, it's kind of joling, I guess, but like I have to figure out when I can be home to make records and then when I can be gone to tour behind my own music or whatever.
25:00
[SPEAKER_03]: That being said, if you don't condition both, then your heart gets lopsided.
25:05
[SPEAKER_03]: and I didn't want that because of unfortunately being a hopeless romantic for all things music, it's really hard to fill up the heart with it if I don't balance out both.
25:17
[SPEAKER_03]: And when I felt that burnout, teens for your question, I didn't answer about, you know, joining train was I was just really tired of being a solo artist.
25:26
[SPEAKER_03]: I said, you know, maybe
25:27
[SPEAKER_03]: And I just think I'm gonna go join a band and play guitar.
25:29
[SPEAKER_03]: I really miss playing electric guitar.
25:31
[SPEAKER_03]: I miss playing what I started out my first love, which was I was a shredder in little bands when I was a teenager.
25:37
[SPEAKER_03]: And I got tired of like being the leader in the boss for a minute and having all of this, it's taxing to organize, you do your record.
25:45
[SPEAKER_03]: And then you gotta put it out.
25:47
[SPEAKER_03]: And then you gotta go tour on it.
25:49
[SPEAKER_03]: You gotta put a band together and you're worried about, you know, attendance is in merch counts and all the unsexy shit the audience doesn't hear about.
25:56
[SPEAKER_03]: every day in order to make the thing work.
25:59
[SPEAKER_03]: I just got fatigued by it.
26:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't say I wanted to stop doing it, but I just was like, I need to feed myself with something else and really sit around and play guitar by myself and shredding the records and that's the thing that got me started playing in rock music early on was being a guitar player in bands before I even knew I could
26:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Right around that time, my buddy Pat from Train, who I've known since the beginning of the ban, we've been friends and mutual fans since literally their first album, because my ban Marvelous 3 was breaking through at the time that Train's first album was breaking through, and they had a song called Beef Virginia on the radio, and so we were playing festivals all the time.
26:38
[SPEAKER_03]: And we would talk to each other backstage and go, God, man, I just hope this works out.
26:41
[SPEAKER_03]: If it doesn't work out, if the song doesn't take, you know, I'm gonna have to go get a job.
26:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Our been fizzled after one song, his just kept destroying it.
26:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And like 12 hits later.
26:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And after all this time, still selling out huge amphitheaters everywhere they go.
26:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Everywhere they play around the world, it's just packed for the fans that are singing along every word of a dozen hit songs.
27:04
[SPEAKER_03]: and it couldn't have happened to a better human.
27:07
[SPEAKER_03]: That guy has always been one of my favorite humans on the planet pat.
27:10
[SPEAKER_03]: So when he called me, literally right after to myself, I said, I'm done.
27:14
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not going to make any more solar records.
27:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to join a band or something.
27:18
[SPEAKER_03]: He called and he goes, hey, he won't join a band or something.
27:21
[SPEAKER_03]: And he was like, our guitar players got to go on paternity leave.
27:25
[SPEAKER_03]: They were having their second child and wasn't going to go do the European UK tour.
27:30
[SPEAKER_03]: They had booked for a month.
27:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, first of all, get me the fuck out of this country.
27:34
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, I learned 25 songs, you know, if that's going to, I've also produced three of their albums in the past.
27:43
[SPEAKER_03]: So like, we're all really tight.
27:45
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm tight with the band.
27:46
[SPEAKER_03]: We are all good buddies.
27:49
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I was like, well, this will just be fun.
27:51
[SPEAKER_03]: This will be like a summer camp that I need right now.
27:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't have to worry about merch counts.
27:56
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't have to worry about to get sales.
27:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
27:58
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't have to do anything.
27:59
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like show up and shut up and play.
28:02
[SPEAKER_03]: And so
28:03
[SPEAKER_03]: they gave me carte blanche they're like take out as much you know guitars and shit as you want because they got the room it's like all the touring is like great accommodations playing big venues so it's like we got a room to stretch out and obviously too they let me off my leash live I get to like just be an idiot guitar player shredder and let's see
28:21
[SPEAKER_03]: take long so lows and all that and it's so fun and I'm singing all these backups and having a blast and I'm singing hit songs and watching all these people with so much joy on their faces every night instead of a room full of cynical jaded musicians which that can get tiring as much as you love that they come to your shows it's nice when your audience isn't 100% made up of those oh yeah and by the way that's not my audience but like I could
28:48
[SPEAKER_03]: So joining a band where it's just unbridled joy of fans that are not there to go like, you know, I don't like the song with a ukulele.
28:57
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, they love the song with a ukulele and they love all the hits and it's like this guy's written like two diamond singles out of all these hits.
29:06
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, he just had his second diamond single with drops of Jupiter, which to me is one of the greatest pop songs ever written and it's beautiful.
29:15
[SPEAKER_03]: And I get to play it every night and I walk over to him and I whisper in his ear, fuck you for writing this song, you know, any laughs, but it's beautiful, you know, it's beautiful to be a part of that.
29:25
[SPEAKER_03]: And so when I got to do that tour, I had the best time.
29:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And I even saw people like fans of mine, you know, they were
29:31
[SPEAKER_03]: mad about me journeying a band especially you know maybe a band they don't listen to or something because they only listen to like three things and I appreciate that that I'm one of those three but at the same time you know I was outfeeding my soul so it was nice to see support from a lot of them going like you know he's just going on doing something to make him happy you know we should be stoked for him
29:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And honestly, it's been the most mental conditioning I could get right now in this insane, you know, country right now and when Pat was like, look, you know, do you want to stay on and be in the band and come out all next year.
30:00
[SPEAKER_03]: We've got a huge 25th anniversary of the drops of Jupiter album tour, you know, we're going to be playing all big amphitheaters and it's going to be a blast and I was like, yes.
30:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
30:11
[SPEAKER_03]: I will stay doing something that makes me smile and makes me happy and doesn't make me worry about bottom line, you know, and treating everything like an Excel spreadsheet, you know, my guys.
30:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, when you're like running the business of your own band and then also.
30:26
[SPEAKER_00]: producing things, just living in Nashville, living in a music city, even if you don't go out that much.
30:31
[SPEAKER_00]: We've only ever lived in New York City and Nashville, and we've just always been surrounded by other musicians.
30:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes it can feel a little oppressive of everybody with critical minds and it's not always just like,
30:46
[SPEAKER_00]: unbridled joy for music.
30:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I think sometimes we can forget that when we make this art craft in our career.
30:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's really refreshing.
30:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Our daughter loves Taylor Swift.
30:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I we watch the Taylor Swift.
30:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's awesome.
30:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just like, man, this is joyful.
31:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, bring that joy to people in a very unjoyous time too, so it's like she's looking out for empowering the future women up tomorrow to be their own boss and take their careers by the hand and do it themselves.
31:18
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's admirable and beautiful and the way it should be and you shouldn't even have to even be talked about.
31:23
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's 2026 and we still haven't gotten there.
31:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Think about the statistic that it would be so much lower.
31:29
[SPEAKER_03]: She's bigger than any male artist ever.
31:31
[SPEAKER_03]: That's fucking cool man.
31:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
31:33
[SPEAKER_02]: That's really cool.
31:34
[SPEAKER_02]: There it is.
31:35
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't even bad bunny.
31:36
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like we're just going to go.
31:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
31:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
31:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Say the same daughter wanted to watch the bad bunny halftime performance three times in a row last night.
31:44
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll go there.
31:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I loved how great and how joyous it was.
31:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
31:49
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, joy and that was, I felt it.
31:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, man, I needed that.
31:52
[SPEAKER_00]: We cried.
31:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, it was so good.
31:55
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's like, at of all the people that should be so pissed off and use their platform to rage against the machine.
32:03
[SPEAKER_03]: So to speak.
32:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, for being marginalized, especially right now with how insanely inhumane the Latino community or being treated in everything in America to go out there and go like, no, I'm going to have a couple of fans get married on stage.
32:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to pull all kinds of moments that are going to be the happiest moments ever while the other guys are over there grovelling and mad about it.
32:26
[SPEAKER_03]: That makes me even more excited.
32:30
[SPEAKER_03]: When living well as the best for a binge, when being that happy, makes assholes so mad.
32:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
32:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I was texting with a bunch of girlfriends last night from college because we all used to go dancing He like played a bunch of kind of reggae tone music as a clip in the middle of the performance Don't know Mar and Daddy Yankee, and that was like the soundtrack of our lives back then And we were just like all these crazy people that are hating on it.
32:57
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like they're just jealous like you wish you could be so sexy
33:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, you're so threatened by this.
33:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, oh yeah.
33:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Complaining that it was too sexually suggestive and all this and then look at what the other... Oh God, yeah.
33:12
[SPEAKER_03]: The team was doing it.
33:14
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, it doesn't even make sense, but at the same time it makes perfect sense.
33:18
[SPEAKER_03]: And I am the first person to say, I am an older, white, heterosexual male that grew up on rock and roll.
33:25
[SPEAKER_03]: I couldn't be more trad-dude, you know?
33:29
[SPEAKER_03]: I am like the most boring, you know, unappealing micro genre here of dudes that just loved it.
33:39
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, are you kidding me?
33:40
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't need to understand a single word to understand every word, like it was so blatant and obvious.
33:48
[SPEAKER_03]: I saw a clip.
33:49
[SPEAKER_03]: of somebody turning the channel back and forth from the turning point one to just this joyous badass like party going on on stage at the NFL getting 140 million views and then this one getting barely 4 million views on the other side and they kept going back and forth and it was like some do go and I love my tractor yeah it was it was
34:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.
34:14
[SPEAKER_03]: I just want to cut my grass.
34:15
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, are the lawnmower police coming for you?
34:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, how is how are you marginalized here?
34:21
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, like people are running out of things to feel tread on about.
34:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, I wish the other program was not in English because that was hard to listen to.
34:32
[SPEAKER_03]: That, you know, it was just so cliche and corny, you know, and then I flip it back over and I don't understand a word But I know what this guy is saying and is beautiful and I know what he's publicly, you know, visually Representing is what America is supposed to be which is a melting pot and I hate that we're here where we're having to defend that in 2026, but here we are
34:55
[SPEAKER_02]: To me, it's like, you know, obviously the Super Bowl, the halftime show is such like a micro-performance, but like there's parallels with Taylor Swift in the production of her Airstore where it's like they understand that the art of a live show goes beyond each individual song.
35:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, there's each individual son that is an artistic statement of their creativity, but when you put it as a whole, you can see the whole as one piece that is a statement that is this whole creative outlet, this whole world, this whole vibe that can be created, that you can feel and then when you flip to that other channel, it's like, you can watch both of them muted and you're like,
35:29
[SPEAKER_02]: No, exactly.
35:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's political in, like, same with the era's tour of, like, without explaining what it is.
35:36
[SPEAKER_00]: If you watch the documentary, the dancers that she has on the stage, like, playing with gender, like, the representation that she includes, it's political without, uh, for, like, explaining it.
35:48
[SPEAKER_02]: She doesn't need a slight chamber.
35:49
[SPEAKER_02]: She just have, like, a little.
35:50
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
35:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
35:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, the NFL is like they're impressing me every year.
35:54
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like when you got Kendrick Lamar's subliminal performance last year that was just layers and layers and layers of amazing, that we as a whole in the country didn't even get on first watch.
36:04
[SPEAKER_03]: And then all of a sudden you're getting explained it, you know, and told to you and you're like, oh my god, that was.
36:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Genius even if you don't listen to hip hop even if you don't like his music fucking genius Yeah, that was pretty much me because like I said I'm trad rock guy I like and appreciate hip hop, but I don't sit and listen to it every day I don't identify necessarily with it, but
36:26
[SPEAKER_03]: because I didn't grow up that way, you know, and it's okay that I like that it crosses over and that a lot of white people listen to it, but at the same time, I appreciate that music so much.
36:36
[SPEAKER_03]: And I also don't know how to do it and don't do it.
36:39
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's always fun to be an outside spectator on it and to get it with that much thought and that much just beautiful messaging.
36:47
[SPEAKER_03]: And then they do it again this year, but with the Latino artists, you're just like,
36:51
[SPEAKER_00]: and the storytelling, yeah, real deep.
36:53
[SPEAKER_03]: And then so, you know, you've got all these angry white men that are mad at the NFL for it.
36:57
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's like, bro, you're at every game cheering on a black or Latino football player.
37:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Mm-hmm.
37:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you didn't have any of those guys on the team, you'd be left with like three white dudes on the field.
37:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
37:08
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, like.
37:09
[SPEAKER_03]: This hypocrisy is astounding.
37:12
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the NFL was just like this is our audience You know, the think about all the proud African-American and Latinos that are out there watching their favorite sports players You know on the field that are killing it and representing their community Why shouldn't that be parlade into the fucking half-time show?
37:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway
37:35
[SPEAKER_00]: really enjoyable and enlightening and surprising conversation.
37:40
[SPEAKER_00]: We do want to make sure we're conscious of time.
37:42
[SPEAKER_00]: We like to close with one last question that I always throw to Aaron.
37:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Does I don't even know where you at?
37:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Ask one.
37:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry.
37:48
[SPEAKER_02]: No, it's not.
37:49
[SPEAKER_02]: We have fallen into being interviewers, I guess, because we've done so many of these, but they say these are conversations.
37:56
[SPEAKER_02]: They're conversations.
37:57
[SPEAKER_02]: We kind of just like, stereotyped for me, thank you.
38:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, like- Like- like, you know, it's kind of like, making a record.
38:03
[SPEAKER_02]: We point the ship in the right direction, and then see what happens.
38:06
[SPEAKER_02]: But with that, we end with kind of a choose your own adventure, question being either something that somebody has said to you along your journey through making a career on your creativity that continues to resonate with you and fill your cup or conversely, something that you would tell 16, 17 year old view those first stepping into doing this for a living.
38:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I would say, don't get any tattoos until you're 30.
38:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, no, I mean, I would say that because starting at 18, I ran out of real estate with bad choices that I thought were the greatest choices in the world at 18 because you don't want this forever.
38:45
[SPEAKER_03]: This is perfect.
38:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.
38:46
[SPEAKER_03]: And then you get a picture of Elvis Costello's album cover and then you're going to run into him eventually in an elevator.
38:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And maybe you're drunk and maybe it's midnight and maybe it's just the two of you on the elevator Maybe you're gonna go like oh my god.
39:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god.
39:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god.
39:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god.
39:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god.
39:03
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm trying to punch buttons to get off the elevator
39:06
[SPEAKER_03]: that actually happened.
39:07
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, the lot of bad choices when you're young, you're going to make, and I think that's what I would say is you're going to make a lot of bad choices.
39:15
[SPEAKER_03]: You're going to fuck up and you're going to think you're doing the right thing and you're going to think that your way is the right way every time because you're proud, you're an artist, you care deeply about what you're doing, but you haven't figured life out yet.
39:27
[SPEAKER_03]: One of the most resonating things that was said to me when I was young, my band moved to LA.
39:34
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm 18, I'm dating myself here.
39:36
[SPEAKER_03]: This is like 1988, and I moved to the Sunset Strip in the fucking late 80s.
39:42
[SPEAKER_03]: It's nuts.
39:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Our band is pretty much playing the music that you could guess what we looked in sounded like at the time.
39:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Very easily.
39:49
[SPEAKER_03]: We get signed to Virgin records and within the first year being out there, we have a bidding war and a big record deal and we're going into make our first record and my goal is like at the time this guy that was shit hot who was one of the best songwriters in the world at that time, still is Desmond Child.
40:08
[SPEAKER_03]: And I said, we have to have Desmond Child.
40:11
[SPEAKER_03]: We have to have him co-write this record with us.
40:13
[SPEAKER_03]: We got him.
40:15
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're over his house every day.
40:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Me and the singer, because I was just a guitar player.
40:20
[SPEAKER_03]: And we were writing the album and writing songs.
40:23
[SPEAKER_03]: And I said something.
40:23
[SPEAKER_03]: I had an idea that had love in the title.
40:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And he was feeling extra, certainly that day.
40:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And was already a huge success.
40:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And probably had a, you know, at the time major ego from having every song on the radio was his.
40:37
[SPEAKER_03]: and he was an incredible writer and he was my hero and I respected him and he said, what do you know about love?
40:43
[SPEAKER_03]: You're not even a person yet.
40:45
[SPEAKER_03]: I got so angry and I wanted to kill him.
40:49
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I went home and I just woke up and then I was going, oh my God, I'm not a person.
40:53
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I was like, I'm not a person.
40:54
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, I'm 18, I've only had sex.
40:57
[SPEAKER_03]: I've never been in love.
40:58
[SPEAKER_03]: I've never been married.
40:59
[SPEAKER_03]: I've never had kids.
41:00
[SPEAKER_03]: I've never had my heart broken.
41:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I've never been divorced.
41:02
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what, anything is, I'm gonna write about love when all I've done has had lust.
41:06
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, and he was right.
41:09
[SPEAKER_03]: He was basically saying, you got to, you know, you don't want to just like have empty words.
41:13
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, don't write a song that you don't know what you're talking about.
41:17
[SPEAKER_03]: If all you know is sex, maybe you should only sing about that.
41:20
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, I know what love is, you know, that there's a song.
41:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I don't know what love is and I want to know what love is.
41:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I found it.
41:30
[SPEAKER_03]: I found heartbreak.
41:32
[SPEAKER_03]: I found marriage.
41:33
[SPEAKER_03]: I found divorce by 22 years old, not because of that comment it he made, but that was just happen.
41:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Stance.
41:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And then you weren't harvesting songs with that.
41:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, right.
41:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
41:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I mean, my whole career has been co-writing these lyrics.
41:48
[SPEAKER_03]: So, yeah.
41:48
[SPEAKER_03]: So, I think it's like just when you think you've experienced all your supposed to experience by the time you're 23, 40, you're lucky if it's not the last thing you experience.
41:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
41:59
[SPEAKER_03]: You're lucky if you learn more.
42:00
[SPEAKER_03]: You're lucky if like you have an epiphany every other day about something and that's just been the beauty and the joy of this ride that I've been on the beauty of it has been having my eyes opened up every single day to something new.
42:26
[SPEAKER_03]: When I stop listening to only myself, I still do this day, I feel like I'm growing.
42:31
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not ready to stop doing this or be set in my ways with how things are done at 56 years old because I just feel like I'm a sponge and being a sponge is what keeps me alive.
42:41
[SPEAKER_02]: What a tieback to the beginning of our conversation when we're talking about getting to the top of whatever mountain you're on right now and opening your eyes and looking around and taking account to what's there.
42:50
[SPEAKER_02]: What a tieback to that.
42:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
42:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, man, thank you so much for spending this time with us.
42:55
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not far from each other, so I hope some daily find ourselves in the same physical room.
43:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and then we can talk about gear.
43:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
43:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll exit that.
43:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't care about gear.
43:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, that's my wife.
43:07
[SPEAKER_03]: She goes, yeah.
43:09
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to start doing that.
43:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I have my one old Gibson acoustic, and I'm happy with that.
43:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know.
43:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's good.
43:18
[SPEAKER_02]: This has been a good therapy talk.
43:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I appreciate it very much.
43:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, thanks for taking time out of your morning to sit and share your experiences We'll appreciate it.
43:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'm going to go get my haircut.
43:26
[SPEAKER_01]: That's amazing.
43:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Have a good day.
43:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
43:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Alright, I'll see you guys.
43:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Bye.
43:31
[UNKNOWN]: Bye.
43:34
[SPEAKER_02]: We know your time is valuable and we're grateful you chose to spend this hour with us.
43:38
[SPEAKER_00]: If this conversation resonated with you, know that it is just one of many.
43:42
[SPEAKER_00]: We have an archive of over 140 conversations.
43:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're looking for a way to go to next, you can find curated playlists by topic on our YouTube channel or simply scroll back in the speed to find our conversations with Rogan Cash, New York Times bestselling author, Maggie Smith, Lucius, J.D.M.
43:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Meferson, and many others.
43:59
[SPEAKER_02]: This shows produced by me, Mary Shaveer-based with help from the Kayla Air.
44:03
[SPEAKER_02]: All the music he hears written, performed and produced by me as well.
44:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Our show is edited and mixed by Leeland Holden at Pod Punch and we are proud members of the Bluegrass situation podcast network.
44:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for being here.
44:15
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see you next time.