Latest / Tigs Bits Podcast / How McKenzie Claire Knapps Is Betting on Herself and Her Music

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How McKenzie Claire Knapps Is Betting on Herself and Her Music · Tigs Bits Podcast

• 0:00
  People in New Orleans. Could probably eat the people.
• 0:02
  'S in Nashville's lunch and dinner or whenever it comes to
• 0:06
  music. I'm a little country girl.
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  That's where I got my start was in storytelling.
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  And I think that I tried to run from that at different points in
• 0:14
  my life, but I just always end up right back where I started.
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  Because God's going to put you where he wants you, you know?
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  So it would be an honor if you would play whatever your little
• 0:22
  heart desires. I'll give you a verse course of
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  Devil's Dead. How does that sound?
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  Oh, that sounds like fun have. You ever been to the Devil's
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  Stand where your sea is washed down in the water?
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  You'll never find Peace of Mind Dashing away in dollars.
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  Don't get to go. Every now and then you meet
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  somebody who's just got it, that spark that you cannot fake.
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  And I have had the good fortune and pleasure of meeting Miss
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  Mackenzie Naps. I got to visit with her
• 1:01
  backstage at a Justin Moore concert.
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  She's exactly that. A lot of spark, an amazing,
• 1:09
  amazing young lady. And y'all are going to get to
• 1:12
  know her in this episode. She is so down to earth.
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  She's one of the best singers that I know for sure in the
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  state of Louisiana, if not maybe the world.
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  Just being honest. You.
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  Know she's got it, and she has it in droves.
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  She's funny, she's easy to talk to, and man, she can sing.
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  You can just keep. Going.
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  With this intro, I'm. Eating.
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  That's right. That's right.
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  Well, here she is. Without any further ado, ladies
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  and gentlemen, Miss Mackenzie naps welcome.
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  So. Sweet.
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  I genuinely, it's so nice to come across somebody who not
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  only am I like supporting what you're doing, but like you as a
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  person. The fact I was explaining to my
• 1:57
  managers, they were like, who is this guy?
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  I said I know his whole. Family.
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  I know his whole family and I was like, I met him with his
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  whole family, his wife, his children.
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  They all follow me on Instagram. They comment frequently.
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  Yes, yes, we're fans. Look, I know you guys.
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  And at this point, they know you guys because they see you on my
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  media so frequently. Oh wow, awesome.
• 2:18
  I love it. Y'all are the.
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  Sweetest. That is fantastic.
• 2:22
  Well, hello everybody. With Mackenzie's media package
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  and all of that behind the scenes, I'm glad that we got
• 2:29
  approved to be able to have this interview.
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  Yes. That is so good.
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  Well, yeah, that was, I guess about a year ago or a little
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  over a year ago whenever you and I first met.
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  And it was. So that was, what a night.
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  Joe Nichols. Justin.
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  Moore. Actually.
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  Fun fact, the band that was playing with Joe.
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  So this is kind of like my my start into recording country
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  music, that kind of ish. I was probably I was 18 and I
• 3:07
  had snuck in the back of a Joe Nichols concert at the Texas
• 3:10
  Club, all right, so years before.
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  And I was just like trying to network, trying to meet
• 3:15
  somebody, you know, like trying to play the game like I'm 18.
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  I didn't know what I was doing. So I walked back there and I was
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  like, can I speak to the the like the tour manager?
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  And this guy comes from around the bus and he looks at me and
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  he's like, sure, maybe I'm him. How can I help you?
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  And it was actually. One of the one.
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  Yeah, I think he was playing. I know he was on guitar that
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  night, but he plays like everything.
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  Incredible musician. And his name was Brent Raider,
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  whom is now a decade later, nearly recording my album.
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  He is producing the whole thing. So.
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  But he was Joe's finger leader at the time and he.
• 3:56
  Is incredible but gave me a. Shot at a young age when I was
• 4:00
  just figuring myself out and let me experiment in his studio and
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  we it's just been a really great friendship and that is now
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  becoming very fruitful in a lot of ways, so it's great.
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  Yeah, that would see, there we go right off the bat, just
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  dropping some nice little Nuggets and that I mean, it kind
• 4:19
  of that that leads us into this first segment of the show, which
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  is getting to know you, getting to know Mackenzie and kind of
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  how you got your start, your background and and all of that
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  stuff. So first of all, ladies and
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  gentlemen, if you didn't know, she is a fantastic artist,
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  singer-songwriter. She can do it all.
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  She's beautiful as well. So that doesn't hurt anything
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  either whatsoever. But for those people who are
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  just there's, and there's a lot of people who will be
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  discovering you very, very soon. If they don't know you yet, they
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  will know you. We're going to come back.
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  I need a promise right now at the top of this show.
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  You'll come back on Tigs Bits a year from now after the success
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  from this album, Don't forget. Us little people, you got to.
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  Secure it, folks. You got to secure it early, OK.
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  That's a business move right there, but I respect it because
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  I'd do the same thing. Exactly.
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  I love, I love that, I love that.
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  So for people that are just discovering you, how would you
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  describe yourself and your sound?
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  OK, myself, my sound, we're going country.
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  I've been told that I kind of have A and I love all kinds of
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  music. Let's just get that straight.
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  Oh yeah, that's that's apparent on your Tik Toks and Instagram.
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  I love that you can. This girl can sing the phone
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  book though, that's a fact. Here's the thing though.
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  I grew up and I, I tell this to people all the time, I grew up
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  in Louisiana. Like, do you realize we have the
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  best of the best of damn near every genre.
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  You know, like we have Laney Wilson, we have Lauren Daigle,
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  we have Lil Wayne, we have Kevin Gates.
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  Like we have all of this incredible music in this melting
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  pot of a state. Like genuinely, I even say this,
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  the difference between New Orleans musicians versus the
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  musicians that you find in Nashville is discipline.
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  And it's the need for a paycheck.
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  People who go to Nashville don't play around, all right?
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  People in New Orleans could probably.
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  Eat the people's in. Nashville's lunch and dinner or
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  whenever it comes to music. But they just care about getting
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  the check on the weekends. That's all they care about.
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  They just. Want to go play?
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  At the bars, do the thing and then call it a day, go home.
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  So, you know, it's like they don't have that crazy need for
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  for the hustle and to play for the big guys.
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  But man, they are just the best people, like best musicians
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  you're ever going to come across and say so, you know, it's like,
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  I think growing up there, I think I'll always experiment
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  with a little bit of everything. But at the end of the day, I'm a
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  little country girl. That's where I got my start was
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  in storytelling. And I think that I tried to run
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  from that at different points in my life, but I just always end
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  up right back where I started. Because God's going to put you
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  where he wants you, you know? That's right.
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  That's exactly right. Put you back in your roots and
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  yeah, totally makes sense. When did you first when you
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  first realize you could sing? Who?
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  I don't ever. I remember not saying to be
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  honest. Really.
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  I don't I I was singing with a live band by the time I was 8
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  years old. Won a national TV show.
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  I don't know if you know that about me.
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  I do know I did the a little birdie as I like to say, and a
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  little research has told me that.
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  And that's my next question actually to you because I had a
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  feeling that was going to come into play.
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  Yeah, that was a. Big so you.
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  You I would say so you definitely you started, you
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  started young and and for for what it what we're talking
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  about. She was on VHVH ones.
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  I know my kids a star. And how old were you when when
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  that happened? I was nine years old and I was
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  the second to youngest on the show.
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  It was 9 to. 13. And the the girl that was
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  younger than me was like 3 months younger than me,
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  something like that. And so we were like the two
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  babies and everybody else is like 1213.
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  It was nuts. So, but that was oh man, I will
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  say this. If I don't do anything else
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  other than like release records in my career, I want a reality
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  show of some sort back in my life.
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  I live for reality. Don't get me wrong, I like, I
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  love the idea of like acting and things like that, but I'm, I'm
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  so used to just having a camera in my face.
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  I could care less. I like you get used to it
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  whenever once the cameras are around for like a week, like you
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  just completely turn them off, if not even before that, to be
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  honest. So like beings, I kind of grew
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  up in that setting. I know I'm like, OK, that's
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  where my home is at. I don't care.
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  I have nothing to hide. I've never had anything to hide
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  because I couldn't hide anything since I was not.
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  You know so. It just works out for me.
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  I'm like, let's just put it on a little reality show, see what
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  happens. At the end of the day, I I think
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  my family and my friends are just out there enough that it
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  can make us a lot of money. I think I, I agree and I
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  understand. I wish I could go back in time.
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  There's some scenarios that I used to would do that.
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  God, if we had cameras up in these some of these workplaces
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  that I've worked, it would have just been hilarious.
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  It was like the Office on steroids.
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  Oh. I have 50.
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  The The Office people are yearning for an office revival
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  right now and I. Oh, they are for sure.
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  Like like a reality version of it.
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  Like that's what I need. Absolutely.
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  Did you see the we look, we'll go off the rails on this show.
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  Did you see what? I can't remember the name of it,
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  but it's the new Office in a sense.
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  It's on Peacock. It's not that good.
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  I don't think it's that good. Anyhow.
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  I gave it like 3 episodes. Let's be real, whenever you are
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  going to, and I think the same thing whenever it comes to
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  music, I hate whenever I see people do covers and you can't
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  show up the cover or completely make it your own.
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  It's the same like it's like that that was already a hit.
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  So if you're not going to make it like undeniably better, don't
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  do it. Just don't do it, you know?
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  By the way, your cover of Wasn't For the Win by Ella Langley is
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  just freaking phenomenal. Thank you actually for.
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  Real. I love that song.
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  Old friend of mine actually wrote that which is crazy.
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  Really. Yeah, I met her name is Joy
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  Beth. We like hung out a few times in
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  Nashville, wrote like a little bit of a song together.
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  You know, you have to kind of get in that writers chemistry.
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  But I think we both really knew, which is why we scheduled the
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  write with each other. I was doing a different kind of
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  music than she was kind of writing at the time.
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  But I was like, I know she's a good writer.
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  She knew I was a good writer. And at least just being in the
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  same room, we were like, we'll just see kind of what happens.
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  And you know, so we were still. In the process of getting to
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  know each other and then COVID had.
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  Hit which is. Great.
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  But here you go. Here we are five years later,
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  and here she has weren't with the Wind and she is a regular
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  writer with Ella, which is so crazy, and she's married and
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  living her best life. But yeah, sweet.
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  Sweet, sweet. Girl, great writer, always knew
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  that she would end up with a number one hit for sure.
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  That is really, really cool. See another, another story.
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  I, I love, I just love. I don't, I don't know if we'll
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  get to all of the layers that I don't know if we'll peel them
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  all back tonight. There's no way we will not in an
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  hour time. Not a chance.
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  But we're going to try. We're going to try.
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  Let's go back though, to the VH1 deal, because that's really the,
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  the question is, where'd you start singing?
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  You obviously you must have been singing before then a little.
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  Bit how did? That yeah.
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  How did that all come about though?
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  Like how did how did you go for being a little girl singing to
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  being on VH1? It's so weird that we're talking
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  about this right now because I literally just two weeks ago
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  talked with the girl who casted me on.
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  I know my kids a star like we've, you know, stayed in touch
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  all these years and I had no idea really how I got on the
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  show just because like, you know, I was a kid and I never
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  really asked. I was.
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  Told I was. Going to audition for this thing
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  and said OK, cool, this is actually how it came about after
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  talking with her. So she reached out to Britney
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  Spears's vocal coach, whom it was also because she's from
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  Kentwood, LA, right? Right.
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  Sure. So she reached out to this
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  person who she knew had trained her like long time before and
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  from there was like, do you have any suggestions on like people?
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  She he said. Well.
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  There's this little girl. She could, really.
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  Sing like her name's Mackenzie and you know her.
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  Her mom is my mom was Miss Louisiana in 1990.
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  Yeah, she. Was.
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  I mean, I believe that I've seen your mom.
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  I believe it. She's.
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  A. Pretty Woman inside and out, but
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  I'll tell you this much, she is the most tomboy Miss Louisiana
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  you'll ever meet in your life. Well, I also have seen y'all,
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  y'all, I've seen y'all on the side by side in the woods,
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  having fun, date nights, all that stuff.
• 13:25
  Yeah, yeah, for sure. I love that she's a Louisiana
• 13:28
  girl. Look, she is a our actually our
• 13:34
  team name on the show was the Bayou.
• 13:36
  Beauties. So, so we went after so, but
• 13:40
  she, so basically the lady Miss Rita, she had ended up reaching
• 13:47
  out to Bob Westbrook and Bob had suggested me and before you know
• 13:52
  it, we submitted a video that went from 10,000 videos
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  submitted to now we're in the top 5000 to the top 1000 to the
• 14:00
  top 100 and then flown out to LA in the top 20.
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  Terrible, terrible situation. By the way, whenever you are in
• 14:10
  like, and this is with a lot of reality shows, whenever you were
• 14:15
  in like, the top, let's say the top ten goes on the TV show.
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  This is what happened with us. They flew the top 20 out there.
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  See us in person, then decide from there if it's going to work
• 14:25
  or not. And then ten of those people go
• 14:27
  home before the show even starts.
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  However, in that time period of them selecting, which is
• 14:32
  normally about a week to two weeks, you are completely
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  confined to a hotel and not allowed to leave.
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  We now stay in really nice hotels.
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  We go. Anywhere but specifically my mom
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  because she has like major claustrophobia from it.
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  Now she's like I will not stay in no tiny little hotel.
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  We were hanging out the window waving at strangers because we
• 14:55
  were going so crazy. It was insane.
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  So, but from there it's just windle down.
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  And then we ended up on the TV show.
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  No experience with anything. That was another thing we didn't
• 15:05
  even know. We thought it was just a music
• 15:07
  show for me. My mom didn't know she had to be
• 15:09
  in it. And then it turns into a music
• 15:12
  manager show and then it turns into actually, you're just
• 15:15
  managing your child. It's about the brand, it's about
• 15:17
  acting, it's about music, it's about everything.
• 15:20
  And I, we had no idea what we were doing and we won.
• 15:23
  So that's good. Yeah, that's very good.
• 15:27
  That's very good. And then from what I've read,
• 15:30
  you had the opportunity to continue to live out in LA or go
• 15:34
  go that, go that route. But you, you, you made the
• 15:38
  decision to come back home at a young age too.
• 15:43
  Like that was a big, big decision.
• 15:45
  Because I know if I would have been in that position like you
• 15:48
  as a kid, I would have been like, we're going to rock'n'roll
• 15:51
  and keep going. I want to live in LA now, you
• 15:53
  know, Like, So what? How'd you do?
• 15:55
  How'd you make that decision? So many people say that like
• 15:59
  you're not the first and I I don't will say this, I think I
• 16:03
  was more mature as a preteen teenager than I was in my early
• 16:08
  20s. To be.
• 16:09
  Making some decisions that I was versus did you know, but I was
• 16:15
  very virtually connected ever since I was a little girl.
• 16:20
  And I'd like to think that I still am.
• 16:22
  But you know, that child like faith that that people talk
• 16:25
  about. And I remember being like I, I
• 16:29
  was, I grew up Catholic. So I wish I'm still Catholic,
• 16:33
  but like as a child, it was for me.
• 16:39
  I was, I remember very, very specifically I was at church and
• 16:44
  I don't know if you guys know how this works, but like the
• 16:45
  Eucharist and all that. When you bless the Eucharist,
• 16:48
  that's like the most important part of mess.
• 16:50
  All right, for like Southerners. All right.
• 16:54
  With that said, as this is going on.
• 16:56
  You don't talk, you will get flapped.
• 17:01
  I got a feeling Mackenzie had a little problem not talking as
• 17:05
  someone who can relate. Yeah, I, I just, here's the
• 17:10
  thing. And I'm cool with talking.
• 17:12
  We can talk about Jesus. That sounds great, but we go and
• 17:14
  talk about it. That's just for me.
• 17:18
  My mom, man. I'll still remember this day
• 17:20
  though. I was kneeling down.
• 17:22
  It's middle of you, Chris. And I'm like.
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  Mom, mom like. Trying to get her attention and
• 17:29
  she looked at me with like daggers and was like what?
• 17:32
  Yeah. What?
• 17:33
  And I said God doesn't want me in LA anymore and then just spit
• 17:37
  that out in church. And.
• 17:41
  I was. 12 years old. And I just knew because I had an
• 17:45
  opportunity to audition for basically to go straight to the
• 17:48
  execs and audition for Austin and Ally, which is a pretty big
• 17:54
  Disney show. And I knew because it was music
• 17:57
  oriented, I had already kind of had a little bit of a following.
• 18:01
  And I just had this gut feeling like, look, if you audition for
• 18:05
  this, you're going to get it and that's going to be your life.
• 18:10
  And I remember thinking, because my brother plays travel baseball
• 18:14
  at the time, or he played travel baseball at the time.
• 18:17
  My daddy works at a plant, you know, And my parents were very
• 18:21
  big on like, even though I was such this busy kid and go and go
• 18:24
  and go. And they were never going to
• 18:26
  choose children. But the one thing I saw that
• 18:29
  they would put before their marriage would be their kids
• 18:33
  unintentionally. And I just remember that just
• 18:36
  not being fair in, in my opinion.
• 18:38
  I knew my dad was going to be back here with my brother.
• 18:40
  I would be in LA and that just wasn't for me.
• 18:43
  Not to mention, I wanted music more than I wanted acting and I
• 18:47
  wanted the the TV thing in that way.
• 18:50
  I wanted to be a songwriter. And from there, after I turned
• 18:55
  that down, decided to kind of take the normal kid route,
• 18:57
  switch to public school. Lord knows that taught me what
• 19:01
  the world was like. Yeah.
• 19:04
  Yeah. So, you know, I, I think around
• 19:07
  that time is whenever I started really digging into writing
• 19:10
  music and it all started to kind of make sense where I was like,
• 19:13
  this is the path that God wants me on.
• 19:15
  And I'm not going to sit here and say, I haven't questioned,
• 19:17
  oh, did you do the right thing or whatever?
• 19:20
  Because it's at the same time, there's this pressure on women
• 19:23
  to make it when they're young and to be hot and to be sexy and
• 19:27
  to be marketable. And you can't age.
• 19:30
  So I've definitely, like, gotten to the point where it's like,
• 19:33
  should I have just done it whenever I was a child and had
• 19:35
  the opportunity to? And it's like, yeah.
• 19:36
  And what? Be exploited and be like told
• 19:39
  who to be? And I always go back to that.
• 19:41
  And I'm like, nobody's telling me who to be now.
• 19:43
  I'm a grown woman. That's.
• 19:45
  Right. So it's just.
• 19:46
  Different, I think whenever you shift your perspective on it,
• 19:50
  but I've asked myself those questions occasionally of just
• 19:52
  like, should I have done it? And then I think back and I'm
• 19:55
  like, you did not sell out. And that is one thing that I
• 19:58
  will always be able to say and. Oh yeah.
• 20:00
  That means the world to me. I think it'll be the world to
• 20:02
  other people eventually. Oh, 100% it will.
• 20:05
  I mean that that's where your authenticity comes from.
• 20:09
  It wasn't a parent that made that decision for you.
• 20:12
  You made that decision. You know what I mean?
• 20:14
  And that and you may I wouldn't you can't question it.
• 20:19
  I wouldn't question it at this point because I mean, I
• 20:21
  understand why you would. I would too every.
• 20:23
  That's just human nature. You're going to be you're always
• 20:26
  going to think, well, what if? But have you done that?
• 20:29
  You and I wouldn't be sitting here talking, I guarantee it.
• 20:33
  It would not happen. I would not have met you at
• 20:35
  Justin Moore. I.
• 20:36
  Would not have met. You, you know.
• 20:39
  Whenever I tell you, and I think people don't get this, I have an
• 20:44
  incredible group of family and friends, but now also a team
• 20:49
  around me. You don't want to bunk with
• 20:53
  someone you don't like on a bus. Period.
• 20:57
  I guess not. Yeah, period.
• 21:00
  I'm so happy to be in a position where I'm like, me and my
• 21:02
  friends are chasing my dreams. We're chasing our dreams, you
• 21:05
  know, and it's. Like.
• 21:06
  Moving up is a party. It's not this constant hassle of
• 21:11
  like, I don't even like this person.
• 21:13
  I you know, and you often end up with that with our industry,
• 21:18
  unfortunately, it's very lonely. Right.
• 21:21
  It's very like. You were on.
• 21:23
  Stage in front of all these people who are just constantly,
• 21:26
  you know, screaming at you and they think that you're the
• 21:29
  world. Then you go sit on a bus in
• 21:30
  complete silence and no one's there.
• 21:34
  Everybody wants something from you.
• 21:35
  That's that's the reality of making it unfortunately.
• 21:38
  And you takes being a really strong person to make it.
• 21:41
  I really think that this industry, it's so glamorized and
• 21:45
  it is not all that glamorous, I promise, you know.
• 21:49
  No. Well, and I, I just, you know,
• 21:53
  having Jr. Co host a show with with me and
• 21:57
  and him with being being Justin Moore's tour manager.
• 22:01
  I'm no longer just over the years of knowing that I no
• 22:05
  longer have. I don't see it the same way I
• 22:07
  did 5 or 10 years ago where I thought everybody just rocked
• 22:12
  out. It was just a crazy party
• 22:13
  backstage and all of that. I realized especially that night
• 22:17
  because I haven't been backstage that much, but it was that night
• 22:20
  that I realized like a lot of it was because of talking to you.
• 22:23
  But I'm just like, there's just norm.
• 22:26
  These are just normal people. They're no different than you
• 22:30
  and me. They just, they just made it
• 22:32
  something had a hit song or, or whatever it was or.
• 22:36
  It was take them off the same. Way as everybody else.
• 22:40
  Same exactly. Zip our pants the same.
• 22:42
  I, I just, that's right. And, you know, there is a
• 22:47
  certain level of, I think, contentment that you can see in
• 22:53
  people who are industry plants versus people who really,
• 22:57
  really, really made it. Because whenever it's people who
• 23:01
  have really put in the work and really made it, whenever I tell
• 23:04
  you they've got nothing to prove to anyone in a room, they come
• 23:08
  across like the most normal individual.
• 23:10
  It's the same concept of just like seeing somebody who is low
• 23:16
  class versus medium class versus upper class, The guy with like
• 23:20
  the who's the richest of the rich?
• 23:21
  He's wearing like Walmart flip flops.
• 23:24
  You know, but. He's like that.
• 23:25
  In a personality that you can kind of see, it's just these
• 23:28
  people who they're like, you know what, I was doing this and
• 23:31
  I was either going to make it or I was going to die doing it, but
• 23:34
  didn't make it and it was going to be what it was.
• 23:37
  That's exactly right. Like that's the kind of and
• 23:39
  that's the kind of people that we were around that day too, was
• 23:42
  just people who just digging into the art of it and being
• 23:47
  happy where they were and happened to just be a really
• 23:49
  successful knight and a lot of. Successful people there, which
• 23:52
  was great. Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:54
  It totally was. Were you when, when did you,
• 23:57
  when did you first start writing songs?
• 24:00
  And I'll let me ask a second question.
• 24:04
  What was your first song? Because I know you know.
• 24:07
  OK. So started writing songs when I
• 24:13
  was like 9. I remember my first like full
• 24:19
  completed song that like I could cut was the song called That's
• 24:23
  My Man. But there actually is a song I
• 24:29
  wrote when I was 12 that's going to be on my album.
• 24:32
  And no. Really.
• 24:34
  Yes. No changes.
• 24:35
  No changes. My managers are like, you know,
• 24:38
  they were talking to me. They were like, just make sure
• 24:39
  you reassess the lyricism. And I literally told them I was
• 24:42
  like, I'm content with it. Just as it is just to be able to
• 24:44
  say that. This is who I was at this time
• 24:46
  of my life, you know, and. Really.
• 24:50
  Oh. That was weird.
• 24:56
  Oh OK, that must be my dad taking out the trash.
• 24:59
  That scared me. What happened?
• 25:02
  A noise. Yeah, I heard like a bang and I
• 25:05
  was like, what's going on? Like I'm in our little storage
• 25:08
  room. So that freaked me out.
• 25:10
  Anyway. Sorry about that.
• 25:12
  No, you're fine. But yes, whenever I was 12, that
• 25:16
  was, I wrote Boots, which that'll be on the record.
• 25:20
  And whenever I was 10, that was my first song that I can like
• 25:22
  remember finishing all the way through.
• 25:24
  But like, really started digging into lyrics and I was like 8 or
• 25:26
  9 and I got with the band and realized like, Oh well, if he
• 25:29
  can write a guitar line, I guess I could put something to it, you
• 25:32
  know? That's unbelievable because
• 25:33
  that's just that's a God-given ability.
• 25:35
  That isn't like I wish I could write songs, you know, I but I
• 25:40
  can't and I love, I'm AI love music.
• 25:42
  I'm a music nut. I just absolutely love it and I
• 25:46
  have just a massive appreciation for singer songwriters like you
• 25:51
  don't even know. I just think it's the coolest
• 25:53
  thing in the world. Just like you said, a plant,
• 25:59
  especially in country music. They can find a good looking guy
• 26:02
  or good looking girl and they can give that person the song.
• 26:05
  But when it comes like a Laney Wilson, you know when it comes
• 26:10
  from the heart. And I'm sure she has some songs
• 26:13
  written for her, too. You get to a point where that
• 26:15
  happens. But like, her passion shines
• 26:19
  through and it has for a long time.
• 26:22
  You can't fake that. She earned it.
• 26:24
  She earned where she has gone. I love that woman too.
• 26:28
  I love that woman. Actually.
• 26:30
  There is a line from a recent interview of hers.
• 26:32
  And I was like, I'm never related to this woman more.
• 26:35
  Somebody asked her. I think it was.
• 26:37
  I think it was Jimmy Fallon had asked her, So what did you write
• 26:41
  about when you were 10? And she's like, oh, tequila,
• 26:43
  cigarettes. Like, jeez, that's so good.
• 26:49
  That's so good. That's hilarious.
• 26:51
  I have another song that I wrote whenever I was 14 that's also
• 26:53
  going to be on the record and it's called Virgin Budweiser.
• 26:58
  That's fantastic. Like.
• 27:00
  Genuinely I can't wait to figure out how to hang out with that
• 27:02
  girl. I really can't because I looked.
• 27:04
  I literally look up to her like an older sister.
• 27:07
  Like I just think that she is just pure class but like also
• 27:11
  like that Lady runs her crap and I just know it.
• 27:15
  Oh, yeah. Oh, there's no doubt, no doubt
• 27:17
  about it. But.
• 27:18
  But she seems very approachable. And what you see is what you
• 27:21
  get, Jr. has said. Jr. knows her and has said that,
• 27:25
  yeah, she's amazing. Like what?
• 27:28
  You see is what what you get? She's funny and.
• 27:30
  She's Yep. Can sing, she can do it and
• 27:33
  anything she can't do. She's the kind of person who I
• 27:36
  really think whenever really comes down to the nitty gritty,
• 27:40
  and This is why I think she runs her stuff.
• 27:42
  She carries herself with an element of class and like she is
• 27:46
  approachable and fun and funky and spunky.
• 27:50
  I just the end of the day, Can you imagine Laney Wilson being
• 27:54
  mad at you? Holy crap I wouldn't get.
• 27:59
  Mad at me, I she'd whip your butt.
• 28:02
  Yes, you would. Yes, you would.
• 28:04
  I know without a fat and like without a doubt in my mind.
• 28:07
  I know that that woman, I'm like if you stuck on her toes, she's
• 28:12
  look, there's just an element to her that I'm like that she's
• 28:15
  Louisiana. You could tell.
• 28:17
  Oh yeah, 100%. She could turn it if she needed
• 28:21
  to. She absolutely could guarantee
• 28:23
  it. I really like, you know, you
• 28:26
  never pushed for this with people because people have
• 28:28
  different lifestyles and dreams and whatever it might be.
• 28:32
  But I really would love to see her become a mom at some point
• 28:37
  because. She just, she's such a.
• 28:39
  She's kind of like a Dolly in the way of I feel like she's
• 28:42
  such a mother to people in country music.
• 28:44
  She's like the big sis, you know, And it's like one day,
• 28:47
  whenever she is, she so chooses to enter that part of her life.
• 28:51
  I just, I think that that'll be such a just awesome thing to
• 28:56
  witness because I feel like family is a big thing.
• 28:59
  That was once. Promoted so heavily.
• 29:03
  In country music and like now not so much anymore, kind of
• 29:07
  just like our generation has just put it off and I'll, I'll
• 29:09
  be honest, I'm one of them. I'm I'm terrified to have
• 29:12
  children. So, you know, it's like I get
• 29:13
  where that comes from. I get where it comes from.
• 29:16
  You're just. Not there yet.
• 29:18
  I just no and I'm I'm not and I think I will be 1 day but like
• 29:21
  seeing Laney Wilson I'm just like I just want her to excel at
• 29:25
  everything in life like if. She wants.
• 29:27
  To. Tour for 10 years and then take
• 29:30
  the next 10 off so she can like raise children, homeschool them
• 29:33
  and make bread. I'd support it. 100% Oh, yeah.
• 29:40
  Well, I mean, she's obviously a current influence for you
• 29:44
  growing up here in Louisiana. Who are some others?
• 29:47
  You mentioned some folks, but like who, who, who were your
• 29:50
  biggest influences when you were nine years old, eight or nine
• 29:54
  years old? Like, what was it you were
• 29:56
  jamming back then? That like I want to be like her
• 30:00
  or him. Elvis Presley through and
• 30:03
  through, baby. That was my obsession.
• 30:05
  All right, his. Face.
• 30:07
  Was my bedspread so when I was 9 I told people I slept with him
• 30:11
  every night. That's great.
• 30:15
  I loved him. I actually look and if I was
• 30:18
  inside I'd go grab it and pull it out.
• 30:20
  I have a custom made Elvis costume that I wore on stage
• 30:26
  when I was 8 years old. That's amazing.
• 30:31
  I love how he did all his dance moves and all that on stage like
• 30:35
  he. Did this come from your mom or
• 30:36
  dad? Were they, were they like super
• 30:38
  fans of Elvis or you just found Elvis when you were young and
• 30:42
  that just became your guy? Yeah, that was a.
• 30:46
  Total me thing. Honestly, I I just found, I
• 30:48
  don't know. I don't even know how I found
• 30:50
  Elvis. I know, I have no idea.
• 30:54
  I know my uncle really likes him, but like that I no, I have
• 30:59
  no idea. That's so interesting.
• 31:03
  Amazing. My brother-in-law, huge, huge
• 31:06
  Elvis guy. I love Elvis too.
• 31:09
  Elvis has been a part of my entire life, you know, I mean as
• 31:12
  it as he has been yours too. But I mean, I've been listening
• 31:16
  to Elvis since I can remember hearing music.
• 31:20
  He's just. A big reason I loved him is
• 31:23
  because like aside from country music, where my voice sits best
• 31:30
  is rock'n'roll and soul. That is just where and look at
• 31:37
  Elvis like that is what he did. Came up country music known for
• 31:42
  the King of rock'n'roll and he was known for his soul because
• 31:45
  of the kind of music and artist he surrounded himself with.
• 31:49
  You know, he was just incredible and I just, I loved him.
• 31:52
  I, I absolutely I love what he did for his time.
• 31:56
  Just he was that first person who we really saw who was just
• 31:59
  like doing everything. He did all kinds of music and he
• 32:04
  definitely said F the patriarchy and you know, with his dancing
• 32:09
  and everything that he did and he just changed the industry and
• 32:12
  there's not really a lot of people who you can say them and
• 32:17
  them alone change the music industry, you know.
• 32:21
  Very true. I mean, you've got Elvis and
• 32:25
  then Led Zeppelin in a, in a sense, if I mean not just if
• 32:28
  we're just talking individuals, you have Elvis, then you don't
• 32:31
  have anybody really until Michael Jackson it.
• 32:34
  Was you know. Michael Jackson, Whitney.
• 32:36
  Whitney Houston changed. Whitney Houston.
• 32:39
  Yep. You know, and it's, it is sad
• 32:41
  that it's, I feel like that's always the common denominator.
• 32:46
  And that would be something that like, you know, God willing, I
• 32:49
  would love to be able to obviously get to a place where I
• 32:51
  change the music industry. I think I have songs that could
• 32:54
  do that. They're just, you have to be
• 32:56
  tactful with them because people you have to, you can't just get
• 32:59
  them to digest everything at once.
• 33:00
  You know, there is a handful of songs that I have and it would
• 33:04
  probably be like 3 records in. I would decide to throw it on
• 33:07
  then I'm like, that could change the industry.
• 33:09
  The thing about it that really breaks my heart is I feel like
• 33:13
  not all of them you got your dollies every now and then, but
• 33:17
  a lot of those people who them and them alone have stood the
• 33:22
  test of time to change the music industry.
• 33:25
  But also not like die is slim to none is slim to none because
• 33:34
  like mental health is. And I, I think that people don't
• 33:37
  understand this. Mental health obviously
• 33:40
  coincides a lot with your physical health.
• 33:43
  But people always say, oh, mental health and music
• 33:45
  industry, mental health, mental health, mental health.
• 33:47
  Let's talk about the lack of physical health in the music
• 33:51
  world. People are on the pills, trying
• 33:54
  to stay awake, trying to go to sleep, whatever it might be.
• 33:56
  So they're doing all this stuff, 9 times out of 10, they're
• 33:59
  drinking. They will never get a normal
• 34:01
  night's sleep. You know, it's just a lot.
• 34:05
  And that's that would be my biggest thing is like because
• 34:08
  I'm low key. A little hippie the way.
• 34:10
  That I live my life trying to take care of myself.
• 34:12
  Like, you know, I just go into vocal therapy in a sauna
• 34:15
  regularly. Like, really trying to take care
• 34:18
  of myself. I really hope that I could be in
• 34:21
  an art, be an artist that could change everything, but also,
• 34:24
  like, be prepared to endure. Like.
• 34:27
  And I'm just going to leave with that to endure, period,
• 34:30
  anything. Yeah.
• 34:31
  So because it's a lot. It's like, you know, you see
• 34:33
  those artists and you, it's like you really wonder where they
• 34:36
  were at now. I wonder if they even got the
• 34:38
  chance to know that they changed the world, you know?
• 34:41
  Exactly, exactly. Yeah, I heard.
• 34:45
  I don't. I have.
• 34:46
  I've been listening to the audiobook Last Rites.
• 34:50
  It's Ozzy's Ozzy Osbourne's last book and one of the It's a wild
• 34:55
  story, but I think you'll relate to this and you haven't done
• 34:58
  this and I'm not labeling you with Ozzy, but.
• 35:02
  No, no one was talking. About him?
• 35:04
  So we'll just keep going. Yeah, yeah.
• 35:07
  I mean, I figured you did, but I do.
• 35:10
  He, he was talking about, I think this was like in 2013 or
• 35:14
  somewhere in there. You know, he's getting older at
• 35:17
  this point and still doing his deal.
• 35:21
  But every night they have some kind of a there's drops for
• 35:24
  singers. You may know what I'm talking
• 35:25
  about that it'll help with swelling in the throat or
• 35:29
  whatever. He named it a bunch of times in
• 35:31
  this thing, but I can't remember the name.
• 35:33
  I've never heard of it. But bottom line is you're
• 35:36
  supposed to like maybe have one or two drops a week or
• 35:40
  something. Well, you know, Ozzy is, Oh
• 35:46
  yeah, an addict and anything that he would do in these things
• 35:50
  don't get you high or anything. They just, they're a, it's a
• 35:54
  steroid that will help inflammation in your throat.
• 35:58
  So he could keep singing. Well, he's just dropping them
• 36:01
  and dropping them and dropping them.
• 36:03
  And finally he got some kind of a, he's a, he said that he would
• 36:08
  bite his fingernails a lot and he got some kind of a bacterial
• 36:11
  infection. And then it got worse and worse
• 36:13
  and he basically got staph infection and almost died
• 36:18
  because those drops, they make your they that you have no
• 36:22
  immune system whenever you take them, apparently so.
• 36:26
  He was just. Killing himself with these,
• 36:29
  whatever they are. I knew he.
• 36:31
  I don't know why I just brought that.
• 36:32
  Up it's crazy documentary. I I haven't quite finished it
• 36:36
  actually I started it a few days ago but watched this documentary
• 36:41
  and they had talked about how his like health rapidly declined
• 36:44
  after that. Yeah, it's a crazy book.
• 36:48
  You can listen to the audio book on Spotify, Which the guy who
• 36:53
  narrates it is just amazing. It's like a, it's like listening
• 36:58
  to what I think Ozzy probably sounded like in 1962 before
• 37:03
  drugs and everything else when you know what I mean.
• 37:08
  But it sounds exactly like, like the guy speaking.
• 37:11
  He'll he sounds like Ozzy and then he'll be like, you know,
• 37:15
  man, I mean, it's just the way it was, man.
• 37:19
  He even says that as he's right now.
• 37:20
  I'm like, holy cow, this is Ozzy.
• 37:22
  This is Ozzy. It's obviously his words.
• 37:25
  The sentences are Ozzy. It's just great.
• 37:28
  I don't know. That's a random randomness for
• 37:30
  this show. I.
• 37:31
  Know I absolutely like OK, so my favorite thing it's like, I
• 37:38
  don't know if you've watched have you watched this
• 37:39
  documentary that's on, I think it's on.
• 37:42
  Hulu. I haven't.
• 37:44
  I have not. I haven't seen it yet, but I
• 37:45
  know what I'm going to do when we get done with this.
• 37:48
  Yeah, the beginning is Sharon talking to the cameraman.
• 37:53
  They started it years ago and it's him, her talking to the
• 37:56
  cameraman, just roasting her husband, Poor Ozzy who is like
• 38:01
  passed out on the couch behind her.
• 38:03
  And she's like. He just does.
• 38:05
  This every day and and he's just, I mean, what a mess, you
• 38:08
  know? You sound just like her, good
• 38:11
  job. Oh my God it's hilarious.
• 38:13
  I I loved. It I was.
• 38:15
  Like that's how you open his documentary.
• 38:16
  Is his wife just roasting him like and that was always.
• 38:19
  Sharon and Aussie. Everyone loved them for it.
• 38:21
  You know. Absolutely.
• 38:23
  I mean that it fits them. And if you if you listen to this
• 38:26
  audio book, well, she has the right to do that.
• 38:30
  He deserves it. Oh.
• 38:32
  Yeah, we all. He's a Rascal.
• 38:34
  We. All know Sharon put up with SO.
• 38:38
  Much. Good Lord, did she?
• 38:41
  You know. So I want to hear you do a cover
• 38:48
  song of an Aussie cover song at some point in time.
• 38:51
  I mean, I definitely know Mama. I'm coming home.
• 38:54
  Oh you, you do crazy train. We were talking about just
• 38:57
  throwing it in my set recently because it's something that
• 38:59
  like, even if I'm at a country show, people are going to know
• 39:01
  that song, you know? Everybody knows it, especially
• 39:04
  now I have. You need to do that.
• 39:07
  Yeah. Absolutely need to do that.
• 39:08
  And I'm so oh, that's I love rock.
• 39:11
  I love rock. OK, so it's you.
• 39:14
  Have a boy, you have a voice that I could 1,000,000% hear you
• 39:18
  doing rock. You remember that you remember.
• 39:21
  That. I will.
• 39:23
  And I can't wait. Yeah, as I'll just say, look, I
• 39:26
  be I be testing the waters with everything that I do.
• 39:29
  It just is what it is. I.
• 39:30
  Never. Want to feel the second?
• 39:32
  Here's the thing. I will always say I'm a little
• 39:34
  country girl, but the second that I feel like in a box or I'm
• 39:37
  like put in a box, I'm going to be like no, I'm not, No, I'm
• 39:40
  not. Don't put me in like.
• 39:41
  I'm out of here, bye. Yeah, it's and look, I'm all
• 39:45
  forgive the people what they want.
• 39:46
  Be authentic and doing what you're going to do.
• 39:49
  I am making a country record right now, So what am I doing?
• 39:51
  I'm hiring Nashville musicians who play at the Grand Ole Opry.
• 39:56
  I'm going OG. We're doing it the right way,
• 39:58
  right? As you should.
• 40:00
  Yeah, yes. I'm like, I'm not going in LA.
• 40:03
  Sit. Actually, I was in LA starting
• 40:05
  to work on a country record, and I said, scratch that.
• 40:08
  I need to be in Nashville because this ain't right, you
• 40:11
  know? So when I'm making the kind of
• 40:13
  music I'm going to make, I'm going to be true to it and I'm
• 40:15
  going to do it right. I will find the right people.
• 40:17
  Somebody else who actually I highly, highly respect, because
• 40:21
  everything that they've done from an etiquette standpoint,
• 40:25
  they have done it incredibly, is Post Malone.
• 40:28
  Post Malone, he started in rap, he hit the kind of like rock
• 40:33
  scene, got Ozzy Osbourne on a record, which by the way, when
• 40:35
  they asked him to do that record, Ozzy was not doing well.
• 40:39
  That was. A.
• 40:41
  An olive branch, in my opinion. I think that was such a great
• 40:44
  thing that God's timing. But also just like blessed Post
• 40:48
  Malone for just being that artist.
• 40:49
  And Sweet and Sharon, Sharon was a lot behind that.
• 40:53
  He talks about that in in that book.
• 40:56
  Yeah, you're right. I'm pretty sure his kids were
• 40:58
  too. That they were.
• 40:59
  All they were all worried about him.
• 41:01
  They wanted to. He needed to get out of the
• 41:03
  house and get back to being Ozzy as best he could.
• 41:08
  It was kind of like it their last, I think.
• 41:10
  It's a. Push.
• 41:11
  Music's the ultimate drug and if you're somebody who is an
• 41:14
  addict, I can imagine that you he had to have that because I
• 41:17
  feel that way and I'm not, I don't have an addictive
• 41:20
  personality. So right.
• 41:22
  You know, it's like. Seeing what he went through,
• 41:23
  it's like I cannot imagine. He must have just felt
• 41:26
  completely out of his skin to be honest.
• 41:29
  So. I think jumping.
• 41:30
  Back into that, though, it's like you see Post Malone, who
• 41:33
  went from rap to doing a little bit in the rock world and
• 41:35
  experimenting with those people too, when he decided to go
• 41:38
  country and become a dad. All right, which genius?
• 41:41
  Not like genius. You become a dad and you're in
• 41:43
  country music. So it goes right into that.
• 41:47
  But he's hiring real Nashville musicians.
• 41:50
  He's not playing around and that no he's.
• 41:53
  Not. I just, I love him and that's
• 41:55
  why he's respected in that town right now.
• 41:56
  Even if you don't think his music and country is like, you
• 41:59
  know, your exact taste, I don't care what you think of it.
• 42:03
  At the end of the day, people in Nashville respect him because
• 42:05
  he's playing the game the right way.
• 42:07
  He's smart. Oh, he's super smart and he's
• 42:09
  just so freaking talented. My my favorite.
• 42:13
  He's just unbelievable. My favorite thing that I I've
• 42:16
  seen him do yet, and I love the I love the Country album, but
• 42:21
  whenever COVID happened and he just did that whole Nirvana set,
• 42:26
  he just did a whole Zoom thing of Nirvana.
• 42:28
  It was unfreaking believable. Like, Oh my, is this cool?
• 42:32
  What can he do? Do we OK, Have you seen I I have
• 42:38
  to send you this if you haven't. Have you seen the Post Malone
• 42:42
  song like before he made it and it?
• 42:45
  Used to have. Really crappy music.
• 42:47
  It's terrible. For me, I look at that and it
• 42:51
  was like, and he has a personality.
• 42:53
  What a king. What a king.
• 42:55
  Exactly. Yes, exactly.
• 42:58
  Look, he came from mad. Never been afraid to.
• 43:00
  Where he's at now. Yeah.
• 43:03
  Like you don't, he's the man, that kind of stuff.
• 43:05
  I think the same thing about like Doja Cat.
• 43:07
  I'm like she released her stupid song that was like moo moo
• 43:10
  whatever she released. This.
• 43:12
  Really dumb song. And then she's like obviously
• 43:15
  super famous now, super talented.
• 43:17
  You want to know why she was OK with releasing that?
• 43:19
  Because she was never scared she wasn't going to make it.
• 43:22
  Right. You know, it's like the same.
• 43:25
  Thing with post. Malone, he's like, I can do this
• 43:27
  because I'm awesome. Pretty much exactly.
• 43:32
  You got to have that confidence. You got to have that confidence
• 43:35
  built into you. You have it.
• 43:37
  It resonates. I know you've got it.
• 43:39
  I know you've got it. You believe in yourself as you
• 43:41
  should. I definitely look and I have my
• 43:44
  days as a woman where I'm like, OK, like this has got to hurry
• 43:49
  up for me ticking time bomb. And then I realized like it's
• 43:51
  not my plan, it's God's plan. You know, so it's like even in
• 43:55
  those moments, though, I've I have always said this and I
• 43:58
  don't mean it in a way to toot my own horn.
• 44:00
  I mean it in a way to say I know I have a God-given gift and I
• 44:04
  know I work my ass off. So let's put those two together
• 44:08
  when I say this and realize I have said if I don't make it,
• 44:13
  well, I should have. And I say that all the time.
• 44:17
  And so, you know, and that's just at the end of the day.
• 44:20
  I mean, that's what you have to tell yourself.
• 44:22
  If you don't believe in yourself, then nobody.
• 44:23
  Else will. That's right.
• 44:25
  And I think the same thing whenever it comes to your money.
• 44:27
  I don't know if you know this. You know, I'm funding my own
• 44:29
  record right now. I did not, I did not know I
• 44:32
  wanted to let's talk about this record.
• 44:34
  This is a good time to to start to talk about it said no, I did
• 44:38
  not know You're so you're you're the bank.
• 44:41
  Right now you believe it in. Yourself, girl, that's what I'm
• 44:43
  talking about. We have a little.
• 44:44
  Proposal that we're putting together for a few people, you
• 44:47
  know, to try to get some financial backing and but at the
• 44:50
  end of the day, it was more important for me to own my, my
• 44:53
  masters and my publisher to get things rolling.
• 44:56
  And I recognized like talking to investors or labels or whatever
• 45:00
  it may be, if you don't have a product, then you don't have
• 45:04
  anything to talk about, right? So I was like, well, sounds like
• 45:08
  we need to put together a product in a package and do the
• 45:10
  whole thing. And with that said, you know,
• 45:13
  and this is for any artist that would be watching this or it
• 45:16
  were just entrepreneur period, putting money where your mouth
• 45:20
  is. It's so important because I can
• 45:21
  say I believe in myself, but I can show I believe in myself
• 45:25
  whenever I can say, yeah, I've worked as a bartender and like
• 45:29
  worked for years making margaritas.
• 45:32
  All right. Humbling, humbling place to be,
• 45:36
  but. Doing all of that, all to put
• 45:38
  thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars of my own
• 45:41
  behind a record because I believe in it that much.
• 45:44
  So it would be nothing for me. That's all my money hard earned,
• 45:49
  right? So it's like it's nothing to
• 45:51
  some billionaire investor who it's a penny in the bank for,
• 45:54
  but they just wanted to see that I believe that much in myself
• 45:56
  because they're still not bad investors.
• 45:58
  They're going to be smart. They want to know that whatever
• 46:00
  they're going to invest in is going to work.
• 46:02
  That's correct, yeah. So it's just part of it.
• 46:04
  It's like you got to put your money where your mouth is and.
• 46:07
  Is what it is so. I love that.
• 46:09
  I love that. So you, you you've recorded this
• 46:13
  album. Let's talk a little bit about
• 46:15
  it. So I know you've spent and you,
• 46:17
  I know that you've spent some time in Nashville.
• 46:20
  Let's talk about that first. So what took you up to Nashville
• 46:25
  originally? Well, so I wrote.
• 46:30
  Devil's Den, which is the song that's coming out, by the way,
• 46:33
  on the 31st. And it was about just like
• 46:36
  getting out and leaving and traveling and going.
• 46:39
  And at that point, I was like 16 and I was like, I just knew.
• 46:45
  I'd been travelling back and forth to Nashville since I was
• 46:47
  14. And I just knew I wasn't going
• 46:49
  to be able to stay here or at least not be confined to here.
• 46:53
  And from there, I was 18 whenever I graduated.
• 46:58
  And I was like, I'm going to save money and I'm getting out
• 47:00
  of here. And I had no plan other than I
• 47:03
  was like, I'm just going to go to Nashville and I'm going to be
• 47:05
  a record person. And I would be saying this.
• 47:09
  Right. You know that's not how it
• 47:11
  works. But.
• 47:12
  I was going to figure that out for myself because I'm hard
• 47:16
  headed. So understood.
• 47:19
  Oh yeah, So basically. Decided I was going to start
• 47:22
  saving money. Got out there by the time I was
• 47:23
  20. Spent 2 1/2 years there.
• 47:26
  Started working with some people in Los Angeles after I had spent
• 47:28
  all that time in Nashville and realized I couldn't afford rent
• 47:33
  in Nashville and also flights to LA so I moved back home and was
• 47:38
  going to just be traveling to LA back and forth and COVID hit a
• 47:42
  month after I moved back home. With that said, there are people
• 47:46
  who still think I live there dude.
• 47:50
  That live in Nashville or live in LA?
• 47:52
  That I live in Nashville. They are still people that think
• 47:55
  I live in Nashville and I this is kind of what I want people to
• 47:59
  take from that. I will.
• 48:00
  I love that city. I will always be traveling up
• 48:03
  there from work if I need to be there, I can be there tomorrow
• 48:06
  if I need to at the drop of a hat.
• 48:08
  I am willing to play the game. I spend a lot of time there.
• 48:11
  But. From a creative standpoint, it
• 48:15
  makes more sense for me to be here.
• 48:17
  I realized that everybody is such in a hustle culture in
• 48:20
  Nashville, they don't really notice what you're doing unless
• 48:23
  you're in their face and you're successful, you know?
• 48:27
  It just is what it is. So if you.
• 48:28
  Can play the game the same way that everybody else can, but you
• 48:31
  can come home, be creative, actually be making some sort of
• 48:34
  an income, building a fan base. That's what you need to do.
• 48:38
  People say all the time they're like, go network in Nashville,
• 48:40
  but build your fan base from your home base out, you know,
• 48:43
  because nobody's building your fans in Nashville.
• 48:45
  People are networking. People are your fans. 100%,
• 48:48
  yeah, totally. You know, so it's just
• 48:50
  different. You get your support from here,
• 48:52
  and that's just is. What it is you get your support
• 48:54
  from home. So that's right, but I'm still
• 48:57
  back and forth. I mean, I still play the game
• 48:59
  and I would probably like to have some sort of a space up
• 49:02
  there at some point. But right now, like I got
• 49:05
  friends, I'll crash if I got a crash. 100% yeah, I'm wouldn't
• 49:09
  you totally and I know that they love it when you come up there
• 49:13
  it's like. Most of the time, most of the
• 49:15
  time, unless I'm like, you know, on my late night out because I'm
• 49:19
  playing schedule, then I'm like, well, can't do the.
• 49:21
  Ones I can't. I get it, I get it.
• 49:27
  So let's talk about this album, Mackenzie.
• 49:30
  Wait, when? When can people expect it?
• 49:33
  Are you going to just slow slow drop?
• 49:36
  Songs we are we're going to it's going to be a good amount of
• 49:40
  singles and then so right now say I think we're going to have
• 49:47
  5 or 6 singles and they'll all be out over the course of every
• 49:51
  like. 6 to 8 weeks. So we'll have Devils didn't come
• 49:54
  out and then I know we have another song coming out around
• 49:57
  Christmas ish and then we'll have another song after that
• 50:02
  around the next 6 to 8 weeks. So probably the whole record at
• 50:05
  this point will probably be out at like around Spring, give or
• 50:08
  take. OK.
• 50:10
  Yeah, that's kind of what we're thinking, but we're that.
• 50:12
  Gives everybody stuff to look forward to.
• 50:15
  Yeah. It's crazy.
• 50:17
  I find it interesting that that is the way it's, it's not just
• 50:21
  you. That's the way a lot of artists
• 50:23
  are dropping things these days. You know, they're just, they
• 50:28
  slow roll. They'll drop a single or two and
• 50:31
  then and then all of a sudden and it's like, here's the whole
• 50:35
  album. Wait, wait, what?
• 50:37
  OK, awesome. Yeah.
• 50:40
  It's always. It's a slow burn now cuz.
• 50:43
  At the end of the day. You don't want to waste what you
• 50:44
  have, especially whenever you're putting your music, you know,
• 50:48
  together alone like it's just funding this.
• 50:51
  I'm not going to waste a good song.
• 50:53
  There are billions of people on the Internet that have not seen
• 50:56
  my music right. So whenever you ask me while I'm
• 50:58
  posting it five times a day, it's because I know that there
• 51:02
  are billions of people on the Internet who've yet to hear it,
• 51:04
  even if you've heard it 100 times, you know, And that's kind
• 51:07
  of how you have to treat it. So that's why people are kind of
• 51:09
  just beating a dead horse whenever it comes to their
• 51:12
  music. But at the end of the day, it's
• 51:16
  what works. It is what works.
• 51:18
  Unless you're a major artist, you can't drop a whole record in
• 51:21
  it, not not get lost in everything.
• 51:22
  You know, back in the day, you used to have the Nirvana that
• 51:28
  wouldn't release a song for, I don't know, like two or three
• 51:31
  years. And then whenever they would
• 51:33
  finally drop an album, it sells out as an artist now, you can't
• 51:37
  do that. Like I think an example of
• 51:38
  somebody who I think that's coming up that do you know who
• 51:42
  Olivia Dean is? I've heard the name, I'm not
• 51:45
  real familiar. You would love her music.
• 51:47
  You love her music. Already gave you the time.
• 51:52
  She's so good. But she's one whom everybody is.
• 51:57
  She's like everybody loves her right now.
• 51:59
  She just did her show ACL like she's killing it but.
• 52:04
  If. She.
• 52:06
  Were to have this record come out and not release songs for
• 52:10
  another three years, that fan base would be cut in half
• 52:14
  because people are just so ADHD and just like we are constantly
• 52:22
  consuming is what we are. So it's like you can't expect
• 52:27
  music to hang on as long as it used to.
• 52:29
  It's just not the same, which kind of breaks my heart.
• 52:32
  But at the same time, it really does put the pressure on your
• 52:35
  creatives to be like, hey man, like let's be sustainable here.
• 52:38
  If you're going to be a good artist, then you know, it's like
• 52:41
  we have people who are a single here and a single there.
• 52:44
  I'll put it this way. I think we had a lot of.
• 52:48
  The. Like I'd say we had more really
• 52:51
  great artists, but now those artists that make it and
• 52:55
  actually are sustainable, they are absolutely incredible
• 52:59
  writers who are also very human. We have a different version of
• 53:03
  what we view as success now and it kind of comes in between
• 53:08
  rather than this mystery that you used to kind of have around
• 53:11
  artists like Michael Jackson and Dolly Parton.
• 53:13
  There's no mystery anymore. There's no mystery.
• 53:17
  People know what your bedroom looks like because you posted on
• 53:19
  TikTok now. You're right, you know, so it's
• 53:22
  a different thing that people want.
• 53:25
  So I don't know. It's I think with a strategy of
• 53:28
  trying to release and having. Such an old soul.
• 53:30
  We'll see how it plays out. It's definitely been very
• 53:34
  strategic and how we're trying to release this record because
• 53:37
  of the how quickly the music industry has changed and is
• 53:40
  changing, you know? Are you, are you, do you, Have
• 53:45
  you written any songs for any other artists yet or have?
• 53:49
  Or would you are you going to hold on to those puppies for
• 53:53
  yourself for now? I will.
• 53:58
  I will only pitch those songs when my name makes me the money
• 54:04
  it deserves. Let's put it that way, I think.
• 54:07
  That's smart. Yeah, like at the end of the
• 54:10
  day, I'm not giving you a number one song that I know is the
• 54:12
  number one song until I I just, I know that I'm going to get
• 54:18
  right now. I think somebody would either
• 54:19
  try to pay me out or put me in a stupid publishing deal where I'm
• 54:24
  making $3000 a month and you're owning everything.
• 54:28
  That I right? I think not.
• 54:30
  Where you could, where you could have been a millionaire if you
• 54:32
  would have just held on to it, kind of.
• 54:34
  Deal. Yeah.
• 54:35
  So like some people. Are like, I want that name, but
• 54:37
  I want that song because McKenzie wrote it then.
• 54:40
  I'll be. Like, oh, OK, you know, sure.
• 54:42
  But until then, that's all in my catalog to say I have all these
• 54:46
  songs. We can pick any of them for any
• 54:49
  record. I have enough music right now
• 54:52
  for like 6 albums just for myself.
• 54:54
  And. Outside of the songs that I
• 54:56
  would pitch to other people, you know, it's.
• 54:58
  Amazing. So I'm, I'm really at a place
• 55:01
  where I'm like, well, I'm just going to hold on, have this
• 55:05
  massive. List of songs.
• 55:07
  And, you know, hopefully one day I'll just dangle it in front of
• 55:10
  a label's face. That's right.
• 55:13
  You have a catalog, literally you have a catalog.
• 55:15
  You can should go in like with a coach O like binder into
• 55:19
  Nashville and be like look, but you can't.
• 55:22
  You can't open it, but they're in here.
• 55:25
  I have. That's funny because my managers
• 55:27
  and I, we had a little mini series we did for like just a
• 55:30
  little bit on TikTok. Wasn't anything special, but
• 55:33
  they're like you need a series just called the binders because
• 55:37
  I have binders that are, I have like.
• 55:40
  Didn't I Didn't know. That it's insane.
• 55:43
  It's insane. But yes, that is truly me.
• 55:45
  I would honestly, I think if I were to do anything and to walk
• 55:48
  into a label in Nashville, if I, I'd have to see if I really had
• 55:53
  the guts to do it. But like, I would really like to
• 55:56
  just put my own songs on a Dead Sea Scroll.
• 56:02
  Of. Course, of course.
• 56:04
  You know, well tell. You tell it.
• 56:06
  Right here. You know, that's it right here
• 56:08
  on the Dead Sea Scrolls. The other half of it that that
• 56:11
  hasn't been lost. Yeah.
• 56:13
  You can find it across the room. That's right.
• 56:17
  Tell it, tell everybody about your new single anyways, because
• 56:21
  it is fantastic. I, I was, I played it.
• 56:24
  My son Riley, who you met, he hadn't heard it yet.
• 56:27
  Haley loves it. Tammy loves it.
• 56:29
  I love it. I've listened to it a million
• 56:31
  times. And then I Riley was like, who
• 56:35
  you having on? I was explaining.
• 56:37
  I said, you don't remember meeting her backstage.
• 56:39
  We talked to her like the whole night.
• 56:41
  And he's like, no, OK, he's a 13 year old boy.
• 56:45
  You know how that goes to. Say.
• 56:46
  That's a boy, that is. A boy that's a 13 year old boy,
• 56:50
  he's more worried about 6-7 and all of that shit.
• 56:53
  But anyhow, he's all into that. But can you tell him?
• 56:58
  But he loved. It he'll know this, but just
• 57:01
  like, tell him Mckenzie's in Group 7.
• 57:05
  OK, I I don't know what that means, but I'll tell him right
• 57:09
  when. We're And if he doesn't, that's
• 57:10
  even better, even better. Perfect.
• 57:14
  That's funny. But but he heard it today when
• 57:17
  we were when we were coming home, we were jamming it and he
• 57:20
  loved it. He was like, she's going to be
• 57:22
  on your show. I mean, yeah.
• 57:24
  Well, she is. She's awesome.
• 57:27
  So tell us about tell us about that song.
• 57:30
  How did that come about? When did you write?
• 57:32
  And now, knowing what all we've talked about, when did you write
• 57:35
  that song originally? Yeah.
• 57:37
  I actually wrote that one like 3 years ago.
• 57:41
  I was watching the Dolly Parton documentary.
• 57:43
  And so I don't know if you know this.
• 57:46
  Whenever she got married, she was 19 and lied to her label for
• 57:49
  a year because they did not want her to be married.
• 57:52
  They thought a man, yeah, I thought a man was gonna hold her
• 57:55
  back. So she got married and was
• 57:59
  successful, traveled, did her thing, was with the label for a
• 58:03
  year and basically whipped that guy out like a giant middle
• 58:06
  finger and said we've been married for a year, you can kiss
• 58:08
  my butt. I love that so.
• 58:11
  She's always just like done what she's wanted to do, you know, I
• 58:14
  mean, the big hair, the boobs, the.
• 58:17
  And she's proud of who she is. And she.
• 58:19
  Should. Be actually she actually.
• 58:22
  Told her Mama. That there was this lady who she
• 58:24
  just thought was beautiful, absolutely beautiful.
• 58:28
  And she was kind of like the town tramp, all right.
• 58:30
  And her mom would say, oh, she's just trash.
• 58:33
  She's just trash. And Dolly Parton and basically
• 58:36
  said, well, I thought I might just want to look like trash,
• 58:38
  You know, she's just, and I absolutely she's just a golden
• 58:45
  person. Like I just an anomaly of a
• 58:47
  human being as well. But I remember watching her
• 58:51
  documentary and saying, you know, cuz I've obviously made a
• 58:56
  lot of against the grain decisions, whether it was
• 59:00
  something that you think you can really get behind or not.
• 59:03
  You know, just tough decisions in my life from walking away
• 59:07
  from LA whenever everybody thought it was crazy, from, you
• 59:10
  know, dabbling in certain kinds of music or even in my personal
• 59:14
  life, dating and friends and all of those things.
• 59:17
  I've always kind of done things my own way and had to learn a
• 59:20
  lot for myself, unfortunately. But it's so my fans don't have
• 59:24
  to, right? I can just.
• 59:25
  That's right, it was all the groundwork you were just laying
• 59:28
  groundwork for now. Laying.
• 59:30
  The groundwork, that's exactly what I was doing.
• 59:33
  And I wrote anyways because I was like, man, you know what
• 59:35
  Dolly's always wanted to or done what she's wanted to do without
• 59:39
  any, you know, just. Much.
• 59:42
  Thought into it at all. She's just kind of done it and
• 59:44
  it's worked for her. And that's kind of how it's been
• 59:47
  for me as well is I'm like, you know, I do things anyways and it
• 59:51
  doesn't always work out, but sometimes it does.
• 59:53
  And it's pretty awesome whenever it does, you know, And it's a
• 59:56
  unique way to be. Now that you say that, I mean,
• 1:00:00
  like, I can hear the Dolly influence in that song.
• 1:00:03
  I'd never put that together, but it kind of has that, I guess.
• 1:00:08
  Bright and happy, but a little bit heavy, but bright and happy
• 1:00:12
  like you're doing it with a smile, if that makes sense.
• 1:00:16
  Yes, it always that, well, that was my biggest just the way that
• 1:00:21
  Dolly is, is she can take something that is so deep and so
• 1:00:26
  poetic and bring a certain amount of relatability and joy
• 1:00:30
  to it, you know, and she's just a lyricist.
• 1:00:33
  That is how I relate to Dolly the most, is her storytelling
• 1:00:37
  through and through. Yeah.
• 1:00:38
  So she's just. Incredible, but that's where
• 1:00:40
  that came from. That's really cool.
• 1:00:43
  See that you just, you never know.
• 1:00:46
  You never know. We're going to turn away from
• 1:00:50
  music for just a second in a sense, not really.
• 1:00:53
  We're still going to, we're going to stay on the theme, but
• 1:00:56
  we're Louisiana people and on this show we talk a lot about
• 1:01:01
  food and culture and all of that stuff.
• 1:01:05
  Yeah, yes, yes, yes, Me either, me either.
• 1:01:10
  So our goal is here whenever we wrap this up, when it will go
• 1:01:13
  for as long as we want. But I'm eating dinner after this
• 1:01:16
  and we're going to both be hungry when we're done.
• 1:01:19
  So when you're not on stage, what is your favorite hometown
• 1:01:25
  spot to eat? Oh, hometown spot.
• 1:01:35
  You know what's bad is it's not. My mom normally brings it home
• 1:01:39
  and I need to ask her. I will not butcher this.
• 1:01:42
  It's a place that she gets our boudin from because boudin is my
• 1:01:46
  favorite food of all time. Is it really?
• 1:01:50
  Yes I love that and fried squirrel.
• 1:01:53
  Those are my 2 favorites. Yeah, it is.
• 1:01:57
  With biscuits. And gravy.
• 1:02:00
  I like my biscuits and gravy, but I'm I'm a big like I'm, I'm
• 1:02:04
  a big carnivore girl like. Really.
• 1:02:06
  Are you OK? Good yes, I like even like the
• 1:02:09
  Buddha and stuff like just give me some good old venison with
• 1:02:12
  the Peppers and all the spices and a little bit of rice in
• 1:02:15
  there. Oh perfect, perfect.
• 1:02:18
  But yes, that's a, those are probably my 2 like favorite
• 1:02:22
  things, but I'm trying to think of a favorite spot that I like
• 1:02:24
  to go whenever I go out. OK, I will say this, this is
• 1:02:29
  going to be a little surprising. I don't go to southern Louisiana
• 1:02:34
  places because my mom is going to cook that for me.
• 1:02:37
  Correct. No, I get that.
• 1:02:39
  I totally get that. Yeah.
• 1:02:40
  Yeah, I did not have sushi until I was like 18 because my parents
• 1:02:44
  only cook Southern food. So I didn't like I never really
• 1:02:50
  got to experiment really with like Asian food or we're big
• 1:02:53
  home cookers. You never really ate out a ton,
• 1:02:55
  you know? So with that said, like my
• 1:02:59
  favorite spot is I, I really like Tsunami.
• 1:03:03
  I love geisha and denim. That is some high class sushi
• 1:03:08
  for no reason. It's in Livingston.
• 1:03:10
  Paris. But it's good.
• 1:03:13
  It is. So good and it also too, it's
• 1:03:17
  great because my boyfriend, he hates sushi but he just gets the
• 1:03:20
  steak filet mignon roll and we're settled.
• 1:03:23
  We're there. You go.
• 1:03:24
  That's. Not even a roll.
• 1:03:25
  But we won't tell him that. No, we don't.
• 1:03:27
  Don't let him know. I my daughter, she just, she
• 1:03:31
  just turned 22 and we, she, that's what that's where she
• 1:03:35
  wanted to go for. This was sushi Yama.
• 1:03:38
  Like sushi is her jam, her and her little boyfriend.
• 1:03:41
  They, they, that is they go that's like 2999 or whatever,
• 1:03:46
  all you can eat. And so that's what we that's
• 1:03:50
  what we did. So I get it.
• 1:03:51
  I didn't have sushi. I don't think I ever had sushi
• 1:03:54
  until, man, I think I was. I was like 27 or 28 before I
• 1:04:00
  ever had. Like I've only had sushi in the
• 1:04:02
  last 20 years of my life basically.
• 1:04:05
  Yeah. And I'm like, what have I miss?
• 1:04:08
  How did I miss this? Because we're in the South,
• 1:04:11
  that's. Why?
• 1:04:13
  We're in the South. It's like, look, everybody talks
• 1:04:16
  so highly about our food down here.
• 1:04:19
  And don't get me wrong, it's jamming.
• 1:04:22
  It's great food. What people don't?
• 1:04:24
  Talk about is how it makes you. Feel.
• 1:04:27
  And that answer is like. But.
• 1:04:31
  That is correct, yes. Awful, awful.
• 1:04:35
  I do eat our food down here like I'm not kidding.
• 1:04:39
  I will go to Los Angeles and I'm like 3 days later.
• 1:04:42
  I'm like my. Gut.
• 1:04:43
  Is healing, my skin is clearing. This is crazy and you can be
• 1:04:47
  eating the same. Things.
• 1:04:49
  Like it, you know, just they don't fry their food in the same
• 1:04:52
  kind of oils that we do and all that kind of stuff, you know?
• 1:04:57
  Yeah, I'm like, I probably really weird my family out, to
• 1:05:00
  be honest, because it's like, I do like the boudini.
• 1:05:02
  I like the fried squirrel. I like that kind of stuff.
• 1:05:04
  But like a lot of the A2 phase can be a little bit too much for
• 1:05:07
  me. And like, you know, they joke.
• 1:05:11
  My parents tell me all the time, or my whole family really.
• 1:05:13
  My, my brother, my boyfriend. They're like, you're such an
• 1:05:16
  avocado girl, Such an avocado girl.
• 1:05:19
  Like, yeah, I do be liking my my, my green.
• 1:05:23
  Foods you like you like your good healthy fats I.
• 1:05:27
  Like my look? I like my.
• 1:05:28
  City Girl. Food.
• 1:05:30
  I like my city girl food. Like please give me a matcha.
• 1:05:33
  I want a matcha. I want some avocado toast and
• 1:05:36
  maybe some sourdough bread because that's good for your gut
• 1:05:38
  too. Yeah.
• 1:05:40
  That's true. That's true.
• 1:05:42
  So and honey on everything. Do you cook?
• 1:05:46
  Do you like? Oh my God, yeah, yes, I cook
• 1:05:49
  actually a lot of Italian dishes.
• 1:05:53
  Yeah, I got to stay away from the pasta a little bit more
• 1:05:57
  often. I.
• 1:05:58
  Understand. But with like the the way that
• 1:06:01
  my family eats and whenever I'm cooking for them, I normally
• 1:06:05
  take the Italian route because I feel like I can make that food
• 1:06:07
  that tastes really fresh for me that I can really get into, but
• 1:06:10
  also like that's just good unique food for them.
• 1:06:14
  Yeah, right, right. You know.
• 1:06:16
  So like literally it was, I think this was like a month ago,
• 1:06:20
  I had made an orzo bake and my dad.
• 1:06:22
  Was like this is some weird. Rice.
• 1:06:25
  I'm like, yeah, Dad, it's like tiny pasta.
• 1:06:31
  Oh, Dad, Yeah, my daughter, she'll she's living at home
• 1:06:36
  right now for a little bit and she's a junior in college and
• 1:06:40
  she whips up some, like, Capri salads and just stuff that she
• 1:06:46
  she works at. Crap, I can't remember the name.
• 1:06:50
  Heather VS. It's about Jubans.
• 1:06:53
  You know what I'm talking about. Yeah.
• 1:06:55
  She she works there some. She's not there now, but she
• 1:06:58
  works there some during the summer.
• 1:06:59
  She learned how to whip up a lot of cool stuff from paninis and
• 1:07:04
  all kinds of stuff that like. A Capri salad sounds so good
• 1:07:08
  right now, actually. Doesn't it?
• 1:07:10
  I would I would destroy it right now totally, totally, but
• 1:07:15
  instead I'll I'll destroy the rotisserie chicken that I bought
• 1:07:18
  before we did this it. Do you have a rotisserie
• 1:07:22
  chicken? I'm having pot pies.
• 1:07:24
  My mom just came. I am.
• 1:07:27
  Oh yeah. So it's a chicken kind of night.
• 1:07:30
  It is kind of night. Quick choices, and I know the
• 1:07:34
  answer for this, but I'm going to ask it anyhow.
• 1:07:37
  Gumbo, jambalaya, a crawfish boil, BBQ, boudant or cracklins.
• 1:07:45
  OK, here's the thing. I, I, I do have some honorable
• 1:07:49
  mentions. I would say Buddha first.
• 1:07:54
  After that tit for tat for me because they both kind of
• 1:08:00
  actually know. Second place is going to be my
• 1:08:03
  dad's and it has to be my father's jambalaya.
• 1:08:06
  You don't have to have like the jambalaya like contests.
• 1:08:10
  Oh yeah, I go to them, Yeah. OK, so my dad is he was friends
• 1:08:16
  with several of the judges and he's never like wanted to cook
• 1:08:20
  or do anything for a competition.
• 1:08:22
  But he ended up making some jambalaya and bringing it to his
• 1:08:26
  job. And I don't remember if one of
• 1:08:29
  them was working there, how it ended up working.
• 1:08:31
  But I know two of the judges that ended up trying his
• 1:08:34
  jambalaya whenever he was there. And they were like, oh man, like
• 1:08:38
  this would have won. And whenever I tell you it is
• 1:08:41
  that good. Oh, it's incredible.
• 1:08:43
  And whenever, and this is the thing, and This is why the
• 1:08:46
  crawfish is third, because for me, the crawfish I have to be in
• 1:08:49
  the mood for, but I always love a crawfish boil atmosphere,
• 1:08:52
  right? Imagine the jambalaya.
• 1:08:56
  It's as rich as it can be, but it's like if people are coming
• 1:09:00
  over for a jambalaya, it's because my dad's meeting like
• 1:09:02
  some some new, like let's say my cousin's got a new boyfriend.
• 1:09:06
  Like it's kind of vibes and it's the same crawfish boil kind of
• 1:09:11
  fun, but it's just a little bit more like my family, like us,
• 1:09:16
  you know, because it's my dad's jambalaya.
• 1:09:18
  Like he's not bringing that out for anybody.
• 1:09:20
  Yeah, no, I got to have some of your dad's jambalaya.
• 1:09:22
  That sounds amazing. It's.
• 1:09:24
  So great. We actually he that was probably
• 1:09:26
  one of my favorite memories with my managers is we had shot a
• 1:09:30
  little video up at my camp at Old River and my dad made us all
• 1:09:34
  jambalaya that evening up the camp.
• 1:09:36
  Oh, nice. Yeah, I know.
• 1:09:37
  They loved it. I know.
• 1:09:39
  Oh yes. Indeed, yes, indeed.
• 1:09:42
  It's like, not right now. I'm hungry.
• 1:09:45
  This. Yeah.
• 1:09:45
  I knew this wouldn't take us long.
• 1:09:48
  I think you'd get hungry if If your music were a Louisiana
• 1:09:53
  dish. What would it be and why?
• 1:10:05
  It would be gumbo. It would still be gumbo.
• 1:10:09
  Because I literally, we said this earlier, my music's
• 1:10:12
  everything. I'm like, throw it all in the
• 1:10:14
  pot. And also, let's be real, Gumbo
• 1:10:17
  was initially called a poor man's pot and I have been broke
• 1:10:19
  making this record right. Yeah.
• 1:10:25
  You're living off. You're living off gumbo, not
• 1:10:28
  ramen noodles at the moment. Popeyes and Popeyes and gumbo,
• 1:10:32
  baby. That's what I'm talking about.
• 1:10:37
  Popeyes is like we're living the life right now.
• 1:10:41
  For sure. Look, hey, you can't go wrong
• 1:10:44
  there at all. Never.
• 1:10:46
  Popeyes now though I do love blue store chicken.
• 1:10:50
  Blue store chicken is so OK. They are so.
• 1:10:53
  Good. My mom and I were talking about
• 1:10:54
  that. I was talking about that cuz she
• 1:10:55
  went and picked us up some not too long ago and it was a little
• 1:10:58
  bit spicier than usual and I was like what's?
• 1:11:00
  Going on like what's going on cuz?
• 1:11:02
  They do have such great chicken, like they've got it.
• 1:11:06
  I can't believe you brought that up.
• 1:11:07
  I'm like, man, it's like you've been at our house for the past
• 1:11:10
  week, like all these. Little things are saying I'm
• 1:11:12
  like, we're so. We're we're, yes, we are
• 1:11:15
  connecting. We are vibing.
• 1:11:17
  It doesn't surprise me we we hit it off the night we met.
• 1:11:21
  So. Yeah, and.
• 1:11:22
  I we did and I feel like I feel like I've known you my whole
• 1:11:27
  life, which is a weird thing to say, but just from that night
• 1:11:31
  and I don't know you're good people.
• 1:11:34
  That's. That's real.
• 1:11:36
  You were like one of the few people I like, walked away.
• 1:11:38
  There was a handful of people that I had met that weekend, and
• 1:11:41
  I was like, this is really cool, you know?
• 1:11:43
  But like, you were the one person who I feel like I
• 1:11:45
  remembered the most about our conversation, like months after
• 1:11:49
  we had left. I was like, oh, I know this
• 1:11:50
  person. Right.
• 1:11:52
  You. Know what you see is what you
• 1:11:53
  get. 100% that's got to be what it was.
• 1:11:56
  I mean, obviously whenever you're in that kind of
• 1:11:58
  environment, it's a lot of tit for tat on like who's putting on
• 1:12:01
  a face You're not and. Here's the thing.
• 1:12:04
  I don't really have one to put on but my own so.
• 1:12:09
  I'm. Just not a good liar, man.
• 1:12:11
  Me either. I'm really not.
• 1:12:13
  I'm just. It is what it is.
• 1:12:15
  It is what? It is.
• 1:12:16
  Look, people ask they'll. Be like, what are you doing
• 1:12:18
  here? Are you like friends with so and
• 1:12:19
  so? And it's like I'm here to
• 1:12:20
  network because I was told I'm supposed to.
• 1:12:25
  And then, oh, I see that guy. I'll talk to them for the rest
• 1:12:28
  of the night. They look like a lot cooler than
• 1:12:30
  everybody else here. They don't know what they're
• 1:12:33
  doing. They haven't figured it out yet.
• 1:12:35
  And we didn't. That's the first time I've ever
• 1:12:37
  been on stage for a performance, you know, just on side stage and
• 1:12:43
  all. It's.
• 1:12:44
  Fun, I will say this, you'll never in my opinion, watching
• 1:12:47
  shows unless you're going to go watch like a stadium show or
• 1:12:50
  something that's like just very like you like you have to
• 1:12:57
  visual. Let's put it that way.
• 1:12:58
  Unless you're going to go watch a very visual show that's just
• 1:13:01
  like got the props and all sorts of stuff, you're going to want
• 1:13:05
  to be side stage for the rest of your life.
• 1:13:07
  And after you have that experience, it's just so
• 1:13:09
  pleasurable to be like, oh, I like this song.
• 1:13:11
  I'm going to go to listen to this song now.
• 1:13:12
  I'm going to go get a drink with my friend backstage and it's not
• 1:13:14
  going to blow my ears out. Right.
• 1:13:17
  Exactly. Yeah, it's amazing.
• 1:13:18
  It's not nearly as loud on the stage as you would think it
• 1:13:22
  would be. The only bad thing is you can't
• 1:13:24
  hear the singer very well, like Justin Moore, because, I mean,
• 1:13:28
  it makes sense. He doesn't have a monitor coming
• 1:13:30
  back. He's got in ear monitors, but in
• 1:13:33
  the his speakers are pumping out to the crowd.
• 1:13:36
  So that's what you're hearing is that?
• 1:13:39
  Actually, I will say that's probably the best.
• 1:13:41
  That particular show, that's probably the best.
• 1:13:44
  You're going to hear their their voice side stage, to be honest.
• 1:13:48
  Yeah, but you could. Feel the band.
• 1:13:51
  Yeah, true. Yeah.
• 1:13:53
  But it's still really cool to just just be there.
• 1:13:57
  It just Oh yeah, be like, Oh yeah, see people waving it's.
• 1:14:01
  Cool to watch people like on the edge of their element, if that
• 1:14:04
  makes any sense. It's like totally when they're
• 1:14:06
  on stage, they're in their element.
• 1:14:08
  But like, yes, that's where I think you really also see like a
• 1:14:12
  lot of true character is on the edge of someone's element
• 1:14:16
  because it's like all of their emotions are super, super
• 1:14:19
  heightened and they're about to go into the most intense,
• 1:14:22
  passionate part of their life, but they're on the edge of that.
• 1:14:25
  So it's like they're very, very most, most artists.
• 1:14:28
  And I know I can even be myself. I can be very, very touchy.
• 1:14:32
  I can be very, very focused. I can be.
• 1:14:33
  But at the same time, I am in a professional setting and I am
• 1:14:38
  about to do something I love and I have to be appreciative.
• 1:14:41
  And it's like, there's so much going on at once for that
• 1:14:44
  person. That's where you really can test
• 1:14:46
  somebody's character. It's like see how they are on an
• 1:14:49
  hour before a show, Just check on that, you know, so it's.
• 1:14:53
  True. Part of it, it's cool to watch
• 1:14:56
  behind the scenes. It is, it's totally cool.
• 1:14:59
  And Speaking of behind the scenes, I understand that there
• 1:15:03
  is a guitar in front of you and and if you would love to, you
• 1:15:10
  would be the first person to ever play a song on Tigs Bits.
• 1:15:14
  Taylor Hicks, the great Taylor Hicks, American Idols Taylor
• 1:15:19
  Hicks. We had him on the show and he
• 1:15:22
  did harmonica us in and out, but he didn't play a full song.
• 1:15:28
  So it would be an honor if you would play whatever your little
• 1:15:32
  heart desires. I'll tell you what, I'll give
• 1:15:35
  you a verse course of Devil's Day.
• 1:15:37
  How does that sound? Oh, that sounds like fun.
• 1:15:54
  I'm on the verge of us to regret it.
• 1:15:57
  I. Got a lot of I.
• 1:15:58
  Ain't been there yet, It's too busy turns and too waste of
• 1:16:03
  time. But we want to live like that,
• 1:16:10
  never knowing where the good scuffs at.
• 1:16:12
  So I trailed it in my penny for that band.
• 1:16:18
  Or have you ever been to the devil stand where your sea is
• 1:16:22
  washed down in the water? You'll never find Peace of Mind
• 1:16:28
  dashing away your Dallas. Go get a go.
• 1:16:32
  Hit the road. Grab some fringate on me booze.
• 1:16:37
  I've got good news. There's no such thing in the
• 1:16:42
  trailers. No, no, no, no, no, no.
• 1:17:00
  Wow. Damn, I cannot wait to hear this
• 1:17:05
  song. That was freaking incredible.
• 1:17:09
  Incredible. And I've.
• 1:17:10
  Been seeing I. Can't.
• 1:17:12
  Wait, side note. The vocals were recorded in New
• 1:17:15
  Orleans. Why are they really?
• 1:17:17
  Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, the song has got so much
• 1:17:19
  soul in it as it is. So.
• 1:17:21
  You know, we're just going to go record this and, you know, do it
• 1:17:25
  the right way. So I did all the music in
• 1:17:27
  Nashville and then I recorded the vocals in NOLA and they.
• 1:17:30
  Are the. Best vocals I've ever laid down
• 1:17:33
  on a track. I worked my butt off for those
• 1:17:35
  harmonies, the leads. I actually, I impressed myself
• 1:17:38
  with it to be honest. I'm very proud of it.
• 1:17:41
  So I really hope that you love it.
• 1:17:43
  Oh right. Well I already do love it.
• 1:17:45
  I can't wait to hear the the whole thing.
• 1:17:47
  I think everybody listening is going to going to go download it
• 1:17:51
  right now it is out. When you see this show, go
• 1:17:55
  download it right now, everywhere.
• 1:17:57
  Go. Stream it, whatever.
• 1:17:59
  Oh, this will be my by the time this podcast is up, my song will
• 1:18:02
  be out, so just go. Stream Yes, yes, go and do it
• 1:18:06
  and go support her. Where?
• 1:18:09
  Where is Devil's Den? OK, so Devil's Den, and I think
• 1:18:15
  we're going to do something and I'll just announce this to you,
• 1:18:20
  but Devil's Den is in Florida. It is a cave that is like a a
• 1:18:25
  pit of water right where the sun shines through perfectly in
• 1:18:29
  morning, evening, gorgeous. It has like a stairway that goes
• 1:18:33
  down into it. And I saw a picture of it
• 1:18:35
  obviously whenever I was like 16.
• 1:18:37
  And I was like, oh. My God, I want to.
• 1:18:38
  Go. And like at the time, Instagram
• 1:18:40
  was like the the thing, right? Like back when you could only
• 1:18:44
  post one picture and everything was in chronological order.
• 1:18:47
  So, you know, it's like, you go on there and then you go to
• 1:18:49
  Pinterest and that was like the place to be for teenage girls.
• 1:18:53
  And I remember seeing it on Instagram, turned around, looked
• 1:18:56
  it up on Pinterest and I was like, I have to take pictures
• 1:18:59
  there. I gotta love that place.
• 1:19:01
  And I wanted to go so bad. So I ended up riding Devil's
• 1:19:05
  Den. And I said if I were to release
• 1:19:07
  it, I was like, I have to go well.
• 1:19:09
  The way that everything. Is kind of turned out with just
• 1:19:11
  like trying to tell a story with the record and timing and
• 1:19:15
  finances. I haven't been able to go yet,
• 1:19:17
  and I was really upset about it because I was like, I feel like
• 1:19:20
  a hypocrite. Like I haven't even been to
• 1:19:22
  Devil's Den and I'm releasing this song.
• 1:19:25
  So what I decided to do is we're going to do all these songs.
• 1:19:29
  We have a story that we're telling with every cover, every
• 1:19:32
  everything. I'm very intentional with.
• 1:19:35
  Yeah, no, I've, I've kind of caught on to that.
• 1:19:38
  Like I, I've figured out this girl's got it.
• 1:19:41
  She's she's doing this on purpose.
• 1:19:44
  And you're, you know, you, you. Yeah, it's.
• 1:19:46
  Brilliant. Yes.
• 1:19:47
  Everything is very intentional. Every, every background, every
• 1:19:50
  outfit, every everything. And I think what I decided to do
• 1:19:56
  is I was like, well, we're going to skip to the story that I'm
• 1:19:58
  telling and. I don't want to just have this
• 1:20:02
  beautiful scene of Devil's Den, which obviously it was inspired
• 1:20:05
  by, but it was like, we're not just going to go there to shoot
• 1:20:08
  a music video if it doesn't work with the story.
• 1:20:09
  I'm saying, right? But once the whole album is
• 1:20:13
  released and, you know, we've said the story, we've shown how
• 1:20:16
  it's going to go, I want to do something special to rehash
• 1:20:20
  every song on the record. So I've thought about, for one,
• 1:20:24
  doing it in the setting where one of the songs I wrote when I
• 1:20:28
  was sitting on my peer at the camp.
• 1:20:30
  So I want to do a live video of it at the camp.
• 1:20:33
  Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:20:35
  So like basically just rehashing the truth behind some of the
• 1:20:39
  songs or like, you know, maybe one have like a live version.
• 1:20:42
  Another one maybe have a cool lyric video for Devil's Den.
• 1:20:46
  I would really like to do a lyric video.
• 1:20:48
  I would like to do an updated version of a video of an old
• 1:20:52
  song that I have out, but it'd be to Devil's Den and it would
• 1:20:56
  be a home footage video of me just getting me and my friends
• 1:21:00
  and we go to Devil's Den and it would literally all be shot on a
• 1:21:02
  camcorder and it would just be a vacation.
• 1:21:04
  That sounds like fun. That's exactly.
• 1:21:07
  What you need to do get a super 8 like go real go retro and get
• 1:21:12
  like a super 8 or film it on like like a literal 90s
• 1:21:17
  camcorder like go buy one on eBay and just.
• 1:21:21
  Look, we're all about the vintage stuff, like through like
• 1:21:24
  the clothes, the like just down to everything that we can get,
• 1:21:28
  video footage, photography. We love a guitar, a good vintage
• 1:21:32
  guitar. We're all about that kind of
• 1:21:34
  stuff, right? So that's really what I'd like
• 1:21:37
  to do because I think I've put in so much work with trying to
• 1:21:42
  tell a story and being so precise with how I've cut the
• 1:21:46
  songs and when we're going to release.
• 1:21:48
  And, you know, you're focused on the business aspect of it right
• 1:21:50
  now. Once it's out, I'm just going to
• 1:21:53
  have fun. That's what I want to.
• 1:21:55
  Do I want? To I want to be back in a good
• 1:21:58
  artist space where it's like, I'm obviously I'll be at that
• 1:22:01
  point preparing album #2 So it's like, yeah, I'll be getting back
• 1:22:04
  into some work, but I want to have time to like let these
• 1:22:07
  songs breathe and be what they're supposed to be for me as
• 1:22:09
  a creative again, you know, because right now I.
• 1:22:12
  Think that's important? I think that's important as a
• 1:22:15
  creative to let it breathe. Just all right.
• 1:22:18
  You poured your heart and soul into this project.
• 1:22:23
  Let's enjoy it for a minute. Let it breathe.
• 1:22:26
  Tour, do that. Like let's talk about that real
• 1:22:29
  quick. But your tour and go go through
• 1:22:31
  all of that. But you have to somehow come
• 1:22:35
  back to who you are today sitting here in front of me.
• 1:22:41
  You have to come back to be that person so you can make that next
• 1:22:45
  album. You can't.
• 1:22:45
  Just that's exactly what I'd want to do is like, I just kind
• 1:22:49
  of want to rehash the, the purpose behind the song, you
• 1:22:52
  know, and I'm so big on. It's just whenever I, whenever I
• 1:22:58
  write a song that's like the, the height of, like, that's the
• 1:23:03
  better part of my spirit is the best way for me to put it.
• 1:23:06
  So whenever I'm like working on it and making the music sound
• 1:23:10
  perfect and figuring out the marketing, that's all business.
• 1:23:14
  That is me being strategic, working my butt off.
• 1:23:17
  So it's like, I have to get back in this, this element of like
• 1:23:20
  where, oh, wait, it's kind of like a moment where you say, oh,
• 1:23:23
  where was I? And then I can start writing
• 1:23:25
  again and putting together album #2 but I have to remember where
• 1:23:28
  was I before I can do that? Yeah.
• 1:23:31
  That's, you know, and that's what that is for me.
• 1:23:33
  It keeps you grounded and rooted in your roots. 100.
• 1:23:37
  Percent, yeah. I love that.
• 1:23:39
  Yeah. I love that.
• 1:23:40
  Look, we've been going for almost an hour and a half here.
• 1:23:44
  I love that. I knew I had a feeling this
• 1:23:47
  would happen and we could keep going another hour and a half.
• 1:23:50
  But we'll save it for that promise of a comeback on show.
• 1:23:55
  100%. I'm holding you to it, you know
• 1:23:58
  I am. Oh yeah, you got my number.
• 1:24:01
  I do, I do tell, tell everybody where they can follow you, how
• 1:24:07
  to keep up with your shows and where can they see you.
• 1:24:11
  All of my shows, all of my updates will all be on my social
• 1:24:16
  media and it's under TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, all the
• 1:24:20
  things YouTube, McKenzie Claire naps, so MCKENZ, i.e.
• 1:24:25
  KNAPPS and then Claire is Claire so McKenzie.
• 1:24:29
  Claire naps. I love it.
• 1:24:31
  I love it. It's it's awesome.
• 1:24:33
  And it'll be down in the comments or in wherever you're
• 1:24:36
  watching this video at as well. I'll have links to all of her
• 1:24:40
  stuff. I mean, can you deny it?
• 1:24:44
  I think this has been one of the best guests that we've ever had
• 1:24:46
  on the show. I'm just going to go ahead and
• 1:24:48
  say this Guest of the Year 2025 nominee right here tonight.
• 1:24:53
  Facts, facts, absolute facts and.
• 1:24:58
  I think. Everybody watching would.
• 1:24:59
  Agree. It's.
• 1:25:02
  True, that's. Going to.
• 1:25:03
  Be yeah, that's going to be my what I use in the house this
• 1:25:06
  week. You know, like you got to like
• 1:25:07
  cling to something to keep you. Like we have rankings over here.
• 1:25:10
  That'll be how I keep my ranking is top.
• 1:25:12
  Please do. Brantley Sad.
• 1:25:15
  That's exactly. The best guess?
• 1:25:18
  It is true. It is true the year.
• 1:25:21
  There's still a little bit of time left in the year, but they
• 1:25:23
  better hurry up. They better hurry up.
• 1:25:26
  Nah, don't hurry up. I don't need confidence.
• 1:25:28
  They're not coming. Don't.
• 1:25:29
  Worry you're not competition. Ain't nobody else brushed it out
• 1:25:33
  of guitar and sang like you, girl without a chance.
• 1:25:36
  But I. Know you know some cool people.
• 1:25:38
  So, you know, honestly, you should probably get your little
• 1:25:41
  13 year old boy on here and it'd be fun time too.
• 1:25:44
  It would be fun. He has been on.
• 1:25:46
  I brought him on for a little a little bit.
• 1:25:48
  I need to do that again. That's a good idea.
• 1:25:50
  We need to bring Riley on and go tit for tat and see if see if I
• 1:25:55
  can 6/7. Look a good Gen.
• 1:25:58
  Z, is he a Gen. Z or is that what he is, Gen.
• 1:26:01
  Z or alpha? I guess so.
• 1:26:03
  Is there another? Alpha is.
• 1:26:05
  Is there another generation after Z?
• 1:26:08
  Yes, there's Gen. Z and then there's Gen. alpha,
• 1:26:12
  and Gen. alpha is scary. I'm technically.
• 1:26:15
  Gen. Z.
• 1:26:16
  Oh, OK, he's. Well, no.
• 1:26:18
  And the elder can. Be though.
• 1:26:21
  Yeah. So he's.
• 1:26:23
  Probably. I don't know, I need to figure
• 1:26:24
  that out. That's a good question.
• 1:26:26
  I really. Don't, Yeah.
• 1:26:27
  I mean, regardless though, I mean, 13, he's like right on the
• 1:26:30
  cusps anyway. Like if he's saying 6-7, yeah,
• 1:26:33
  you need to get that kid on here.
• 1:26:35
  Facts. Facts because I get on here.
• 1:26:39
  Well, look everybody, y'all go follow her everywhere stream the
• 1:26:42
  new single stream anyways, listen to it over and over and
• 1:26:47
  over and over again. Help her out and I know it
• 1:26:50
  helps. I know it helps her and if she's
• 1:26:53
  playing somewhere live, go see her go see her.
• 1:26:56
  Well, Mackenzie, thank you so much for hanging out.
• 1:26:59
  That was a ton of fun. That was awesome.
• 1:27:02
  What it's all about this is what?
• 1:27:04
  It's all about you are you are welcome.
• 1:27:06
  It's a great people, good stories and a whole lot of
• 1:27:10
  Louisiana flavor. That's what we do on Tigs bits.
• 1:27:13
  Yeah, we ain't running from the spice.
• 1:27:18
  We'll see you next time there. You go
• 1:27:36
  bye.