Latest / The Erica Show / Brantley Gilbert in studio with Erica DeLong

Transcript

Brantley Gilbert in studio with Erica DeLong · The Erica Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Y'all.
• 0:00
  Speaker 2: Brandley Gilbert in studio. So cool to have you here.
• 0:03
  Speaker 3: Of course, you're gonna be on the stage in just
• 0:04
  Speaker 3: a little bit at Coastal Credit Union Music Park, six
• 0:07
  Speaker 3: thirties when the show starts. So we're glad to have
• 0:09
  Speaker 3: you right before. But it's the Freedom to fifty tour.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: I know that's really big for kid. But how did
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: this all happen? Like who called who to say, Hey,
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: let's do this together.
• 0:17
  Speaker 4: Hey, anytime we get a chance to play with Bob,
• 0:20
  Speaker 4: we're all over it. Man. I love that dude to death,
• 0:22
  Speaker 4: and he puts on a hell of a show, and
• 0:25
  Speaker 4: we wanted to put together something that was an experience
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: more so than a concert. So if you show up tonight,
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: we're gonna blow you socks off. Let's go, And then of.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: Course, good damn is Your new single was released in
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: a March for the upcoming album that's gonna be out
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: in July. That's about your wife, you know, the beginning
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: stages of like, hey, can't.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Let this one go.
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: That's right, and her, you know, kind of coming back
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: full circle. We got a really cool love story spanned
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: some years and when she came back in the picture,
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: you know it's also about taking, you know, shooting your shot. Man.
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: You know, got got to give it all you got,
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: you know, to me.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: Any tips for anybody out there that let one go,
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: that you'd say you might want to do this to
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: try to winer back, well.
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: You know, I think it depends on the situation. God
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: may have led you in a different direction for reasons,
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: so some of it may be better left alone. But
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: for me it was it was his plan for sure
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: and what I needed to be who I am in
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: life right now, and that's that's a dad and the.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Husband, two beautiful babies, kids.
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: Three of them three three yes three.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Sorry one three and so you got a new baby too.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: But do they ever look at you and think you're
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: not cool? I don't care that you're Brintley Gilbert like
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: kids can humble.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: You real quick.
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: Oh absolutely, But I love that man, you know. At home,
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: I'm just dad. Yeah, and uh, I'm actually coaching Little
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: league baseball right now. It's just pretty wild. I told
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: them I wouldn't coach till the kids are old enough
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: to cause that, but they got me a little early.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: So do people come up and ask for autographs when
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: you're out there coaching or you're kind of like, its
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: hands off, like, how does that work for you?
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: They do, but you know, most of them are pretty
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: cool what I tell them, like, Hey, I'm out here,
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: I'm just dad, right, I'm just coach, I'm just dad,
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: and h most people are cool with that. You know.
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: We want our kids to come up as normal as
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: humanly possible. And I still live at home. I was
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: born and raised in Jefferson, Georgia. My wife's born and
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: raised in Commerce, Georgia. They're basically the same town. It's
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: just a river in between them. So it's it's, uh,
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: we wanted that for our kids to kind of come
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: up like we did. And uh so it's important to
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: us that we kind of maintained a little bit of
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: insulation for them and let them have a childhood and
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: just have their daddy. Yeah.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Now, you did move to Nashville early on, So what
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: made you say, you know what?
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: I got to get back home?
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, homes home and a lot of my
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: friends or fifty sixty year old whickers that don't think
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: twice about hold me accountable and keeping me you know, grounded,
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: but too I take care of my family and at
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: the end, of the day. I'm also a workolics. When
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: I was in Nashville, there wasn't really a lot of
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: time other than being in somebody's office or a writing rumor,
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: and you know, I kind of wanted to unplug from
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: the machine. We've always been the outside of the box guy,
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: and I think a lot of that has to do
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: with the fact that we're not. I don't live in
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: that machine every day, you know. I live at home.
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: I live around the people in places that I grew
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: up writing about. And you know, for us, my music's
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: always been my story. So I'm still the guy that
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: grew up and born and raised in Jefferson, Georgia, still
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: living there today and still telling the same story.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: Now. As far as inspiring your music, I know, you know,
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: Christian faith has that ever where you've steered away from
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: that because of what the world may think or No,
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: you're more forefront.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: For it now.
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah. You know what I found out early on in
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: life that being the what you see is what you
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: get got worked for me. You know, I have to
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: keep up with a narrative or a brand or a
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: facade or you know, it's just it's always been easier
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: for me to tell my story as transparently as humanly possible.
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: You know, as long as I don't incriminate for somebody
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: else I used to run with, I try to tell
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: the truth. Yeah, it's just you know, to me, that
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: was it was always easier to be upfront and honest
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: and kind of share my story unfiltered. You don't feel
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: like you're hiding anything from anybody, right, you know what
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: I mean? I mean, if you if you don't like
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: me for one reason or another, I can I can
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: understand that. You know that I've given plenty given people
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: plenty of reasons to feel that way. But if you
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: listen to my music, you have a really good idea
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: who I am. And you listen to interviews, you have
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: an even better idea who I am. And at the
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: end of the day, you know, the hope is that
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: that's something you can get on board with. Now.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Is there anybody that inspired you early on, that said, hey,
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: stay true to yourself, or gave you any insight that
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: really stuck with you.
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of people that told me to do
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: something different. I don't know if you is good for business,
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: but I'll say Toby Keith was one of the ones.
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: Man that was just you know, he was unapologetically him
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: every time you met him. And you know, especially this
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: day and age and where we live in, it's worth
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: its weight and go when you meet somebody that's the
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: same person every time, right, you know, good batter, indifferent.
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: I've learned a value and respect that and so that's
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: become something that's important for me to live out on
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: a daily basis.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Now, you've toured with Toby Keith and some really big legends,
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: some big names. Is there somebody else? Obviously you're gonna
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: be on stage with ked Rock tonight. You know who
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: else do you want to work with or do you
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: aspire to do a collab with?
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Because you've done a lot.
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, I mean, that's it's funny being asked
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: that question. Always supposed to be in a spot because
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: if my goal in a music business was to sell
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: out to Georgia theater is twenty minutes from my house
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: our farm now and that happened really early on. So
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: if I had a bucket list, I would have checked
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: everything off of it twice. To God's blessed us, way
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: beyond you know what I've deserved and way beyond measure
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: and given us a whole lot more platform and a
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: whole lot more spotlight than we ever new to ask for.
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: So at this point my career, it's been fun to
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: figure out who deserves that shared spotlight and whether that's
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: you know, veterans, active duty guys and girls, first responders,
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: really trying to get our hands in and make a
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: difference in those communities and and uh and leave leave
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: a legacy that is important for my.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: Kids right now, Jason Aldan, you're the anthem song. You've
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: done a lot of songs for him.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: How does that work?
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: Because y'all both are Georgia boys. Do you say, hey,
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: you're gonna write this for me? Or is that one
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: that you're like, man, I'll pass the song?
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: How does that process work?
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: But you know when that happened, you know I had
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: to get on social media and for dirt rod Athem,
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: Colt and I both had to do it. Just tell
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: people that hey, Jason Aldan did not dress up in
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: this black ski mask and come to our house and
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: still his songs. Not how it works. Honestly, him doing
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: that open doors for our career that we never would
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: have seen. You know, that was a massive shift, and
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: not just my career but my life. And I was
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: able to tell him that the other night they did
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: a show at Sanford Stadium Home and the Dogs, which is, yeah,
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: it was awesome. It was you know, that's fifteen minutes
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: from my house now, and you know, being able to
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: tell him like, hey, dude, after all these years, like
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: this means the world to me that you invited me
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: to do this with you. But man, you cutting those
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: songs really changed my life and really gave me a
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: shot in this business that I wouldn't have had any
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: other way. So it was it was a huge booze
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: for us. I like to think it. You know, he
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: says it helped him in a big way, but I
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: you know, it's hard for me to see my career
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: or Colt's career taking off the way they did if
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: that didn't happen. And you know, those songs still live,
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: our versions, they still exist, you know. So it's not
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: like he cut them and we weren't allowed to play
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: him anymore, or that those you know, recordings or versions
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: had to go away so people could still find those
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: and listen to them anytime they won't, but him cutting
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: them putting his spin on him and with the kind
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: of platform he has and you know, due to a superstar,
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: so it took it to a whole new level.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: You do a lot, You've done a USO Tour Warriors
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: Wooded Warriors project. Is there anything coming up? I know
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: you do a lot for Toyster Tide. It's a lot
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: of community work. Is there some coming up that people
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: can get on board with you to help you, you know,
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: push towards the community or help our veterans?
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: Always for sure. There's there's actually a guy that I
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: met years ago on a Harley ride for veterans that
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: he first kind of gave me a purple heart. SAME's
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: Justin Patterson And actually it's it's it's kind of a
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: live shift. We're in the process of trying to get
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: he and his wife to move down to the house
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: and have him kind of run operations for me on
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: that front and make sure we're engaged with things that
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: truly do help veterans on a daily basis. He is,
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: he lives and breeze that every day. He's got a
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: major TBI and when you have a conversation with him,
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: like it's it's immediately evident that he has a really
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: bad stutter. But He's one of the best communicators I've
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: ever met in my life. He's never met a stranger.
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: He has a heart for service. You know, his new
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: mission in life is to help veterans and help first
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: responders and give them experiences they wouldn't have any other
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: way in life. And you know, he's been an asset
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: to my license to day I met him. So we're
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: we're actively trying to move him to Georgia to where
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: we can literally sit on a nightly basis when I'm
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: at home, Hey, what can we do? And we've taken
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: a lot of a little bit of flack of the
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: last few years is I think people thought that I
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: kind of pulled the reins back on supporting the veteran community.
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: You're active due to guys and girls because they didn't
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: see us all over the camera all over the time.
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: But to be completely honest, we've found over the years
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: that you know, it's a lot more helpful to those
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: guys and they have a lot more fun with you
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: and open up a lot more when there aren't cameras.
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: There haven't been. Our lack of involvement has been the
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: lack of you know, attention seeking from it. I found
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: out what a spotlighter was a few years ago by
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: way of justin and as people that help and and
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: want to be connected and helpful to something when there's
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: a camera and we're in the spotlights on and just
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: for the show. Yeah, And I want to be the
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: opposite of that. So a lot of times we'll go
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: hang out with these guys, you know, we don't I
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: don't even tell management I'm going, and we go into
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: their environment. They teach us how to be better to
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: gunfight and run shoot houses and do stuff that they
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: enjoy doing on their terms and and on their their
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: in on their turfs. So we have had a lot
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: more fun doing things that way. You know, a lot
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: of times we try to do things that we think
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: are helpful and and a lot of times they are.
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: But for a lot of these guys, the last thing
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: they want to do is go to a loud show
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: around a large crowd of people, you know, or the
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: last thing they want to do is show up somewhere,
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: leave their their place where they're comfortable, and go somewhere
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: strange where there's a bunch of cameras and cameras flashing
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: all around and and you know, people showing them a
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: lot of attention when they're really trying to hold it
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: together and find out what their mission is and what
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: their next steps are. And so we've kind of tried
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: to meet them where they are, and uh, it's been
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: a lot more life changing for us and it seems
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: to be more beneficial for them.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: Mother's Day is this weekend. So your wife, you've known
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: her since y'all were kids, and so how do you
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: provide for a woman, you know, the mother of your
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: children when you've known each other so long, Like, what's
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: the big surprise that you have planned, if anything?
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Or she's very low key.
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: She's low key, and we've had a lot going on
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: in life. Recently she started a school. It was like
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: a homeschool school about three years ago and three days
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: a week preschool through graduation. And she is consumed with
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: that right now, which I have a deep respect for.
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: It's her baby. She doesn't let me take the reins
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: on anything. You know, I try to stay out of
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: the way. So she's been really focused on that, and
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: you know, we've when she does let me help them,
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: it's like just consider it, you know, part of Mother's Day,
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: or we'll do something special obviously, but I have to
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: find excuses for her to let me help. Yeah, she's
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: really independent and she's really driven on this. So yeah,
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: it's it's been. Uh, we'll probably spend Mother's Day doing
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: doing some work. They're gonna this will be their first
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: year in the new building. We just purchased a church
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: really close to our farm and the school's gonna move there,
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: so we got a lot of work to do. So
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: I think what would mean more to her than anything
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: on Mother's Day is me getting my ass home and
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: back to work.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: Does she ever check you on things? Like you know,
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: sometimes being in the celebrity world, you can.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Get how does she check you? Because she hasn't known
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: you for a long time.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: God man, it's like at that. Oh no, I feel
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: like my existence is a check to her sometime. So
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: I mean, you got a member like this. I wasn't
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: planning on being anybody's dad or anybody's husband. You know.
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: The only way love happened was gonna happen for me,
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: or that kids are gonna happen for me. It was
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: through her. She was always that one, And you know
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: I didn't see that coming back in the picture. You know,
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: I really wasn't living a life that was supposed to
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: be sustained for more than thirty Like I'm eleven years
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: into bar time. When people say that, a lot of
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: times it's for shock value, and I say it, I
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: mean it, like I wasn't playing on being anybody's dad
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: or anybody's husband. I want to be a dang biker
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: and play music and uh, and God's all different and
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: brought her back in the picture. And she knows that,
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: and she knows she carries a lot of weight for me,
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: and she's not scared to push it around. She hadn't
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: missed a Sunday since today she was born. Like my
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: wife barely causes, barely ever drinks, and you know, I
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: don't drink anymore, but I do cause I mean I'm rough. Man. Yeah,
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to work on the F word right now,
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: just some coaching Little league ball and that's like my
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: cod too. And apparently kids don't take to that one
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: real well, so I but yeah, she doesn't pull punches
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: with me, man, And that's that's one of the reasons
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: she was the one and continues to be on a
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: daily basis. I choose her every day because she is
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: part of what makes me me, and she's a lot
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: of the good in me. Yeah, just to be completely honest, And.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: Your tattoos all have a story. So what next tattoo
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: is lined up? Do you have any that you're hoping
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: to get soon when you got time or.
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: You know, we're kind of in a holding pattern right
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: now as we're running out of room. But yeah, it's
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: actually something I do every year. My tattoo artist and
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: his wife are really close friends of mine, and they
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: come down and really and truly as crazy as life
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: is right now, between the school and some other companies
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: and investments that I'm involved in, we're getting involved in
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: healthcare space as well right now with some partners and
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: trying to do some work in the addiction space and
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: also in the veteran community at a more granular level.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: So time is not something I have a lot of
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: right now. And when I get tattoo, that's the one
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: time where I actually have to take my mind off
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: everything else. It hurts just enough to where you know
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: that it gives my brain a break. So we usually
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: try to do a big project. It takes a couple
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: of days, two or three. So I got a couple
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: of black spots on my leg. Think about doing one
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: dedicated to my wife on the left side of probably
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: be the next one.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: So okay, yeah, and we've got mega fans, so there
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: are grand winners to get to come in and meet.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: We didn't want to overwhelling you with a bunch of people.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: So y'all have watched PBS specials and everything, so ask away,
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: what questions do you have?
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: My first question is what when did you know this
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: is what you wanted to do? When did did it
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: light bulb go off and say I want to pursue
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: this as my career and sing and write music. How
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: old were you and what made that?
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: Well? I just came up playing in church. My mom
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: said I was putting on a show for an audience
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: one very early in life, and it was really bad,
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: you know. But around the age of fifteen fourteen fifteen,
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: I started sneaking out of the house telling them I
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: was playing churches or praising worship deals and going to
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: play bars. And then around the time I was sixteen,
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: I met a guy named Corey Smith. He'll always be
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: one of my main influences as a songwriter. Just an
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: incredible freaking dude, an incredible artist. We're from the same
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: small town. I ended up hooking up with him and
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: he was playing college markets and doing really well. And
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: that's that's how we got our start. It was, you know,
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: him and a guitar and me and a guitar and
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: travel around in the Ford, explore to college towns in
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: the southeast. And as he grew his brand, we grew ours.
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: And I'll never forget him saying that his goal was
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: to sell out to Georgia Theater and when he did that,
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: he was going to quit his job teaching and do
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: music full time. And I didn't know that was an option,
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: you know, I didn't know that existed. I thought you
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: had to go to Nashville and sell your soul, you know,
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: to succeed in music. And when I watched him do that,
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: that became my goal. And that happened that I think
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: I was twenty one maybe when when that happened and
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: went full time. And to be honest with you, it
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: wasn't ever one of those things where I wanted to
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: be famous or wanted to be, you know, extremely successful.
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: It was it was more like we kept our head down.
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: We've had short term goals and we've kind of just
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: been grinding from the start and we're still doing it
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: this day, and I think that's one of the reasons
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: we're still around. It took us twenty years to build
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: a team and the family that we got it truly
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: is a family on the road. Like if you have
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: a nine to five, you can ask guys to leave
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: home at home, but when we live at each other,
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: you know, sometimes for months at a time. You know,
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: it's important to me in life that I surround myself
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: with men that make me better and that hold me
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: accountable and keep me grounded, and you know, to let
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: iron sharp and iron we got to kind of get
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: all our stuff out on the TA and you know,
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: I found that's one of the things that makes our
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: group special is it is a family out there. So
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: you know, over the years, you know, we've developed relationship
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: with guys that have completely given theirselves and dedicated their
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: time and and trom plenty a lot of times into
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: building what it's taken us twenty years to build. But again,
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: I think that's part of what makes it special. Is
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: it in a me thing. You don't hear me say
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: a lot or me a lot for a reason. And
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: we've really been blessed with people coming into the picture
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: at the right times. Uh, and this is this is
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: my career. You look at our career and say, this
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: is a God thing. It doesn't happen without him, you know,
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: if you look at the time and everything, it just
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: you know, it's one more thing in life that cements
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: my faith. It's like this wasn't supposed to happen, shouldn't
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: you know, up until twenty eleven, you know, a drunk
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: idiot just just wanted to play music and ride motorcycles,
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean. And and he had a
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: different plan, and he put the right men and women
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: in my life at the right times to to get
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: us to this conversation today.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Give credit for that. I had a question to about your.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: And just curious if you have a favorite song or
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: something special on that album that's more special.
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: To you for sure that you know what there's it's
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: loaded with them. You know this is this song or
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: this album was a lot different for us. We it's
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: it's designed like a playlist, so we're really outside of
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: the box. You're gonna hear a little bit of everything
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: on that album. You're gonna hear songs that don't belong
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: on the same album, like you'll hear something that's dang
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: near heavy met well it is. There's there's some metal
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: stuff on it, and it's back right up. Those two
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: were funny because it's one of the biggest ballads on
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: the album, followed by the heaviest thing I've ever cut,
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: followed by the most country song on the entire album.
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: But one of the things that's really important, to be honest,
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: it's called Sins of the Father, and the reason it's
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: called that is, you know, I've got a checkered past.
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: I think to say that the least who kind of
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: touched on that a little bit. But being a dad
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: of eight six and a one year old, somebody asked
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: me the other day, you know what I wanted to
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: be remembered for, what I wanted my legacy and music
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: to be, and it was I went blank, and I
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: sat there. It's really awkward silence for several seconds that
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: felt like ours, and I came back and said, you
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: know what, no offense to you, And when I say this,
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: it's no offense to anybody in this room either. But
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: it doesn't really matter what y'all think. At the end
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: of the day. If my If my wife doesn't think
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: I was a good husband and my kids don't think
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: I was a good dad, then none of it mattered anyway.
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: I completely failed at life and music and every everything
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: else was all for nothing. So you know, that's that's
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: my goal in life right now. And man, everything you know,
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: do you know? It is you? Guys? I'm sure have kids,
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: are you know? We're close to those When those at
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: the ground, you realize that life's not about you at
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: all anymore. Uh, It's about them. So this is a
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: collection of songs that that mean the world to me,
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: and it's another chapter of my life. But the title track,
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: Sins of the Father, was a very fitting title because
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: considering my past and considering it, being a good dad
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: is my goal in life right now above all else.
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: Uh those times where I went and I had some
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: questions about some things because I lived rugh, and I
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: was like, man, how's this going to affect my kids?
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: And Sins of the Father's reference twice h and about
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: multiple times, but in those exact words twice ones in
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: they're both New Testament, ones in Exodus, ones in Ezekiel,
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: and uh so we those times where you go to
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: the Bible for clarity and didn't get it. It was
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: raised as Christians were the Bible is not supposed to
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: contradict itself, and you know, when I when this happened,
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: I was like, well, that's pretty dang close to contradictory,
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: you know, and I think it's Exodus. It says that
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: the sense of the follow be carried out upon children
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: to the third and four generation. Scared the hell out
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: of me. It was like, that's bad news, you know.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: And then later as says that, you know, God will
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: not hold children directly responsible for the sins of their followers.
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: My pastor explained it in context and said that, yeah, man,
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: the fallout from your sins, you know, your kids and
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: their kids may experience that God's not holding them accountable
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: for the things you did wrong. But it was I
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: felt like that was a perfect title for the album
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: because it's where I am in life, to a point where, man,
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: with these kids at eight, six and one, I have
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: more questions and answers just like they do, and it's
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: you know, kind of trying to walk a line and
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: figure it out. It Dude, being a dad is even
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: harder than I thought it was going to be because
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: it's not don't do as I did, do as I
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: say scenario. This is not how it works. Figuring out
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: that if I want them to live in a certain direction,
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: I need to live in that direction. And I need
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: to not only live in that direction, I need to
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: live a life that's worth looking up to. And buddy,
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: that's a tall order, especially doing what we do for
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: living and not being home enough. So it's, uh, well,
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: we've got some work cut out for me, man, But
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: you know, uh, it's obviously what I was called to do,
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: and I'm up for a challenge. Let's get it.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: Are they old enough to take honting with you?
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: Oh? Yeah, absolutely absolutely. And don't think I don't do
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: that selfishly. That's one hundred percent about me sometimes just
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: taking them out, sitting in the woods with them. Man,
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: it's it's worth its waiting.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: No, what is your what is your most enjoyable song
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: you do at a concert that you never get tired
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: of doing one over.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: And over again? Oh god, I don't know if that exists.
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: You got to think some of these songs we sing
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: ten thousand times before we leave the studio with them,
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: and then over the last twenty years, you know, we've
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: played these things is a million times. Uh, But I'll
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: say every night, you know, the crowd will pick up
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: on one or two or some more than others, and
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: whatever song that is that night is my favorite from
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: the night. There's always it's more to me about moments
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: of the show now than a particular song and the
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: story stories in between, like we do a meet and
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: Greek before the show and after the show and after
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: the show. It's always awesome to see what part of
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: the show resonated with somebody you know, And that's your
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: hope every night, is that, hey, we're gonna play rock music.
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: We're gonna play songs about partying, we're gonna play songs
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: about fighting. It's gonna be wild, there's gonna be fire,
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: there's gonna be a lot of noise, there's a lot
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: of stuff going on. But there's a couple of moments
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: that that we hope resonate with with with people. And
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: you never know what that moment's gonna be, but they'll
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: always tell you. And that's the most rewarding part about
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: being a songwriter or an artist to me is is
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: knowing that you did something somewhere along the way to
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: help somebody in a good way.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: You ever forget the words?
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Wait a minute.
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: Well, when I told her Eric Church in twenty twelve,
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: it was my first sober tour, I literally checked out
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: a reab or what I call drug and alcohol college.
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: I left with my degree from there and went straight
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: on tour. And I remember telling him like, one of
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: the things I was struggling with was man, I felt
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: like I was buttoning ackd in front of twenty thousand
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: people every night. I didn't remember what it was like
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: to play show sober. I was like, I like stressing
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: about forgetting the words, and he was like, dude, didn't
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: you write all your stuff? And I was like yeah.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: He said that it doesn't matter. I was like, what
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: do you mean? He said, you're allowed to forget the words.
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: Just something you wrote, you know. It was just if
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: you're covering free Bird and you forget it, it's a sin.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: I love that anything else, ladies, because we got to
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: get you on stage, that's right.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Do you have certain outfits or you just pick whatever
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: to wear when you get up there.
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: To be honest with you, this is probably not one
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: of my brighter moments. I probably shouldn't answer this question. Honestly.
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: But a lot of times I wear the same shit
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: on stage that I've had that I wear on the farm,
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: and my wife calls me out on it. It's like
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: it used to cut off shirt and jeans most of
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: the time. A couple of weeks ago, we played and
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: it was a mud hole wherever it was, and the
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: only pants had left for these supreme like real tree
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: pants that are apparently more baggy then people used to
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: seeing me in. But I'll be honest. It was one
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: day weekend and it's all I had left. Hey, man,
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: we ran with it dog. You know, I think people
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: thought I was trying to look like a rapper that
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: night or something. I wasn't. I just didn't have no
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: more draws, you know, was it?
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Well you are what you say, right, so wear your
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: regular clothes. Well, thank you so much for hanging with
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: us before you get on stage tonight.
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. Hey, if you listening and you ain't planning them,
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: come and get your ass out of the house. We
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: having some fun tonight. Come on with it.