Parker McCollum

Full episode transcript, auto-generated and lightly edited for readability (punctuation, paragraphs, and obvious spelling fixes). Wording is kept faithful to the conversation; bleeped words are marked [expletive].

The episode opens with Parker and Jarrod riffing a mock "postgame press conference":

… It's like, I know we've met each other multiple times, and I'll just say, "Hey man, what's up?" and they're like, "Man, just out here, doing the thing." It's like I'm getting a postgame press conference from him. And I'm like, yeah dude — I've always wanted to do one of those. I feel like I could do really well in a postgame press conference.

"What would be your go-to?"

"Hey, coming down the stretch there in the fourth quarter, being able to get the right guys the ball on the floor — shout out to our coach for preparing us for that. We've been talking about it all season. Early in the season we made a lot of mistakes, just turnovers, nobody really locked in or with a high basketball IQ. The coaches slowed it down, and you could tell — in the fourth tonight, our basketball IQ was high. We moved the ball around, made smart passes, smart plays, and the guys were able to get buckets and come out with a W. That's a big deal on a night like tonight."

So then I'd say, "Dude, that was pretty epic. I do have to say, the dodgy eye contact there at the end was freaking Primo." But then I'd ask a question that would kind of [expletive] you off a little bit: "I heard there was a little conflict in practice — Draymond and Steph getting into it?" And you'd go, "We like to keep that stuff in-house, and it's not a reflection of who we are as a team. It's been a long season, and like I said, we're lucky to get a win tonight. We'll come back out tomorrow and try to get another one."

And I'd push you: "I'm really going to have to press you — I heard it was a little more than friendly disagreements." "No, man, we get physical. It's a physical game. We've known that since we were kids. It was physical in high school, physical in college for those of us who played college ball, and even more so in this league. It carries over into practice sometimes, but it's all good. We keep it in-house." "Dude, absolutely unbelievable. What a performance. I think that's where we end it." I've been preparing a long time for that right there.

On meeting people in the music business:

There are guys I meet where I'm just like, "Hey man, good to see you again," and that's basically all I get back. And that's not cool. I just don't understand how you get there as a person. I don't know — I probably think about it more than I'm willing to admit. The way you interact in this business, you meet so many different kinds of people. And it's any business, really, not necessarily just the music business — there are good folks and fake people, good-hearted people and people who weren't raised right or who don't have manners.

But in the music business especially, you live such a privileged life. You've got it pretty good; you're very well taken care of. So when somebody's getting to live out their dream and they're not respectful or real or down-to-earth when you interact with them, you're like, "Well, that's not cool." If a guy just worked an 18-hour shift at a car dealership and wasn't giving you his real self on the street, you'd be more understanding — "He just had a miserable day." But people who do what I do still have bad days too. There's almost a golden-cage thing to it. My mindset is always to tell myself in the back of my head: "Dude, shut up. You've got it so good. You could be pouring concrete, and you're not."

I think when you're really coming up in this business, you've got to go through a lot of BS, and a lot of it doesn't seem worth it at the time. But I've always been super adamant about the long game. You don't want to be a flash in the pan; you want to be around a long time. There's a very big respect I have for country music. As a kid, I thought of my idols and heroes, and I was always hoping that if they ever knew who I was, they'd think what I was doing was cool and good for country music. So I was always trying to play the long game and have some longevity, to be legit. I never wanted to phone it in. But there are definitely times when you're grinding that it's easy to get a bitter taste in your mouth about some things — you've just got to nut up and go do it.

On building it as an independent Texas artist before the major-label deal:

Most people think, "You're signed to a major record label." A lot of times in the Nashville thing, it seems like a lot of guys don't really have any real foundation — they move to Nashville, get a major record deal, and then have a lot of success, or perceived success, after that. What I don't think a lot of people understand about the Texas market is that I was rolling with buses as an indie artist. That was the goal. I told my dad from the very beginning: I wanted to sign a major record deal, like all of my heroes. A lot of them had been on Universal — where I was fortunate enough to sign. George Strait was on MCA/Universal, which is where I signed, for his entire career. Stapleton's on there, Eric Church — the big dogs. When I was a kid, all the old-school country my mom listened to, when country music was really pure, a lot of those guys were on Universal. I'd researched them, read about them — I was so knowledgeable about who inspired me, and I wanted to go be like them.

Randy Rogers was signed to Universal too. When he was managing me, he was the one who said, "Hey, you can do this thing if you really want to do it." I'd tell him what my goals were, and he'd say, "If you really want to do that, let's go to Nashville and get you your record deal." I was selling tickets. When he said, "If you really want to do that," I meant: go do it on a big level. I was kind of a dork about it — I wanted a bunch of tour buses and eighteen-wheelers. I remember watching GAC's Top 20 Country Countdown over and over as a kid. I wanted to make big-budget music videos like that, be on a label, record in big fancy studios. That's what the big dogs did. I didn't want to go play bars for 40 years. There was a point where I was like, "If I could just play Billy Bob's — holy [expletive]." And when we were doing it, I couldn't believe it. We were actually playing Billy Bob's. And we'd already done that as an indie artist.

On recalibrating goals, and treating it like a business:

If you try to explain to somebody that you're content and happy — nowadays contentment almost comes off like a dirty word, like you're lazy. But being content and still pushing and being hardworking aren't mutually exclusive. You can have both. It's just moderation; you've got to moderate everything in life. My goals when I was younger — I still have the emails. Randy would make me write down and type out my goals. I think I put a tour bus on my ten-year goal, and about 18 months later we had one, with no record deal, no nothing. He was really instrumental in getting me to think about the long game.

In music, being a good businessman kind of gets a bad rap — "Oh, he treats it like a business." Well, it is a business. These guys' lives depend on me — their salaries, their health insurance. Whether I'm successful and we're still growing and I'm still having hit songs, that's whether they can make a living out here on our crew, in our band, our production team. I've always wanted to be smart about that. It can get real messy real quick when you're not aware of everything going on. It's a lot of moving parts — manager, publicist, agent, record label, publishing company. And that's not even on the road. We've got 50 guys out here who run cameras, guitar techs, tour manager, production manager, two TM assistants, six band members, a merch team, a merchandise company. (No golf coach — I need one of those, bad.) It is a business, and I've always tried to be aware of that without letting it get in the way of the creative process. So when we were selling tickets and then signed a record deal, I was able to say, "Look, all I want is to do what I want. I want to be on Universal, but I don't want anybody running this thing."

The record-deal thing is interesting because it's partially about money — you get a nice payday — but you don't really, though. A lot of indie cats present it like you're selling yourself. But the ultimate "why" — why do we even make music? We want it to connect with people; we want people to listen. Sometimes some of the indie guys stay independent for the money under the guise of "it's all about the art," when they'd probably go play for free. I think that's kind of [expletive] to be honest — everybody likes making money. The record labels are just going to help you get out to more people, and let you work with really dope producers. That's where I'm at right now — the people I want to work with, I can't get their attention.

On art being subjective:

None of it matters, Jarrod. You focus on what you do — you write your songs, you market them how you want. If you want to go sign a record label and cut songs about trucks and beers and dirt roads, do it, and do it great. And if you don't have people putting out those songs, you're not going to appreciate the people making handmade records — if you don't have rain, you're not going to appreciate the sunshine. When I was a kid, my brother was super hard on me: "We don't listen to that kind of music. We listen to Rodney Crowell and Steve Earle — that's who you want to be." And then Turnpike came along: "These are the guys." Early on it was Pat Green, Randy Rogers, Stoney LaRue, and Cross Canadian Ragweed. My older brother was like, "We don't listen to mainstream country. That's not who we are." Then the older I got, I was like, "Man, a lot of these guys are really good." You listen to Kenny Chesney's early hits — some banger songs in there, no doubt — and 30 years later he's playing Gillette Stadium every year.

It doesn't matter if you want to write your own music — write your own music. If you don't, don't. If you want to write half of it, write half of it. If you want to only play bars and never sniff a record deal or the radio or social media, be that — just go hard and do it with 100% conviction. Be genuine, be authentic. The longer I'm in this business, the less I care. If you work hard and you're a nice person and have good manners — who am I to say your song isn't good? My songs aren't good; there are people who think they're good, doesn't mean they are. It's music. It's insanely subjective — 100% subjective.

On cutting records and not trusting his studio instincts:

A lot of producers and engineers act like cutting records is super objective — "This is the way a snare needs to sound." But it's just like the artist thing: everybody's going to have a different opinion. The record thing is weird for me. I don't have a ton of knowledge in the studio. I know how to play my guitar and sing the songs I wrote, but I don't really have an ear to say "that snare." The majority of the time, what I think is good in the studio ends up being bad. I'm wrong a lot in the studio with general ideas — "No man, this song needs this groove," or "put steel on this song." That's usually a bad idea, and it usually ends up being one. I don't trust my gut instinct in the studio at all; I usually default to the producer. A lot of the time I'm putting my foot down — "No, this is what it needs to be" — and then I'm like, "You're right, I don't like this at all." But at least I explored it. I'm always down to go get weird with it, because again, it doesn't matter — cut the song how you want and live with it. A lot of times when I do that, I end up going back: "No, the idea I had was much cooler; it sounds way better this way."

I'm still such a fan of music. I've gotten lucky to see the other side of it and be an artist and tour, but I've never felt like one. I still feel like a fan who got to go backstage and stay. Maybe that's a little imposter syndrome — I don't think I know enough about what imposter syndrome is. I've always kind of felt like I didn't belong, like I'm still really trying to earn my stripes. I feel like my best records are ahead of me. The more time goes by, the better grip I get on this whole thing.

On never quite sounding like classic country:

I always wanted to be a country singer, but my music's never really sounded like country music. I wanted to sound like George Strait, like Brooks & Dunn. Rodney Crowell is one of my all-time favorites, and none of my stuff has ever really sounded like Rodney Crowell, or like the classic country I listened to as a kid that I'm still obsessed with. That's what does it for me — the thing in here that craves that music, that needs that melody and that song to give me three minutes of my day where I'm good. You're unique — I don't know anybody else who sounds like you. I've always been aware of that. I've always asked the people I produce with, or the band: "Who do I sound like?" And isn't it kind of lonely? Yeah, it's kind of scary in a way, because these guys out here depend on what I do. My family depends on it, or my soon-to-be family. When you don't sound like something else … I don't really care, but I think about it. The longer it goes on, the more I'm like, "I don't care. I'm just going to write the songs, go into the studio, record them, and release it — and whatever it sounds like is what it's going to be."

I care what some people think — my brother, the band, the real fans. When my record comes out, maybe it's not what they wanted it to sound like; I know it doesn't sound like The Limestone Kid — I'm not that kid anymore. That's why you make records: to freeze-frame that time into a few songs, and it's there forever. You're going to change; you're not that person anymore. Ryan Bingham's not Roadhouse Sun anymore, he's not Mescalito anymore, and he'll probably never be that again — but we have those records. Some people wear "I'm never going to change" as a badge of honor, and that's weird to me. I get the most joy and feel the most fulfilled creatively when I just write the song, record it, and quit thinking about it. The fans who are there for the long run get it: "Okay, maybe this record wasn't my favorite." I'm very aware — I made the records, I wrote all the songs except for two — so I know which ones were good and which ones weren't. As time goes by, I feel like I'm getting better at being a country singer and a singer-songwriter, and I don't feel like I've ever really been that good at it. I want to be better, desperately — better records, better songs, a better performer, a better businessman — but it feels like a slow process.

On confidence vs. humility, and the one time he snapped at his band:

How do you stay confident while still being humble? I've struggled with it big time — with band members and people working for you, it can feel like you get boxed into a corner where you have to be an [expletive] more than you want to be. And you're the front guy, so people are kind of ready for you to act egotistical. People have a preconceived notion of who you are before they ever meet you. When I was very young, I'd see guys I opened for belittle their band and crew, and I'd think, "You'll never catch me doing that." I've yelled at my band one time — I was very heavily under the influence and I apologized shortly thereafter. It was 100% my fault. It was in Beaumont, Texas. I passed out in the middle of the day while they were soundchecking, woke up still a little messed up, and got mad at them for not waking me up for soundcheck — and they were like, "We tried to wake you up; you didn't want to soundcheck." That was the one time. I'm just not that way. These boys are out here grinding just as much as I am. It's the greatest job in the world — better than pouring concrete, better than working cows all day — but it's a grind a lot of the time, so I've always tried to be thoughtful and considerate and make sure they feel taken care of. That's why so many guys have been with me for so long.

When I was younger it was a lot wilder — I was not dialed at all. We're a lot more dialed now, and I like that. It's easier on my brain, my songwriting, every other part of my life when this is well run. Now we only play about 80 shows a year; we used to do about 150. It's a much better life out here, and you have a chance of doing it a lot longer if all that stuff's taken care of. We talk about the "van days" and our first bus days — how in the world did we make it through those? Nobody knew what they were doing, and we were playing big shows. A lot of the guys still with me have been there a long time. This is Jason's tenth year touring, but he's probably played with me for 11 or 12 years. That's pretty rare at this level. A lot of touring acts, you're a number — the truck driver doesn't know anybody, you're out there for the dates, you don't do your job and you're cut immediately. We're very family-oriented out here, and everybody recognizes and appreciates that.

On writing songs alone:

When I very first graduated high school I moved to Austin, and my brother and my cousin and I lived in a house with a music room with like 50 guitars — we jammed all the time. Then my brother moved out and I lived by myself for several years, and I'd just sit in my house all day, every day, and write songs by myself. I still do, though I co-write more now, simply to finish things. More than any other way to create, I'd rather sit in my house by myself — preferably on a 20-milligram Adderall — and just let it out. There's no downer with it; it gets the mind racing. I'm terrible at focusing, so when I can, all this stuff that's bottled up — I just sit down, hit record, and start singing, making stuff up until something sounds cool. Like the song "Stoned" — I was sitting at my house, it was raining outside, and I said, "cry when it's raining, cry when it's dark," which isn't true. I don't cry when it rains or when it's dark, but it sounded really cool. We all have to be pretty full of it at different points — pretty delusional at times. But it's art. Think about painting a picture — you might paint a couple things that weren't actually what you were looking at, and it's all right. I take it seriously to a point, and then at some point I'm like, "Bro, we're writing songs in America. We already hit the lottery." A song can brighten somebody's day and maybe alter their mood, but I'm not changing the world with this.

There's only one song I've ever recorded that does it for me, that I actually listen to when I'm driving. Only one — it's true. I don't even want to listen to the others. When I listen to The Limestone Kid I'm like, "Dude, I sound terrible." It drives me crazy. But it was a record at a point in time; it captured what happened. I wrote that record when I was 20. It's still so good, though — and I made it for like six grand.

On meeting Corby Schaaf and making the first records:

Corby had just quit Ryan Bingham and the Dead Horses when I met him. I was at the Saxon Pub trying to get a gig — I was 20, I had a fake ID, they didn't know I was 20. There was a girl, Ashley Monical, a really good singer, who was playing Poodie's and the Saxon Pub. She was a friend of mine, and one night she said, "Hey, we're going over to my house — Corby Schaaf is going to come record some songs of mine in my living room. Why don't you come over and have Corby record you on a couple songs?" I knew who he was — I introduced myself: "Dude, don't you play guitar for Ryan Bingham?" He said, "No, I just quit the band." This was right after Junky Star. I'd just written "Who's Laughing Now," and I think "Happy New Year" or "Highway" — just two songs that ended up on those records. We recorded them, and that night he said, "Can I produce a record for you?" I didn't even know what that meant. I didn't have any money or a way to pay to record, so he said, "Why don't we cut four songs, and when you have more money we'll cut four or five more, and that'll be a whole album." So I borrowed like two grand from my dad — I think it was $500 a song — and cut four songs. That was the Hollywood Gospel-era EP I put out before The Limestone Kid: "Permanent Headphones," "Highway," "Who's Laughing Now." I wrote "Permanent Headphones" a long time ago; I'm thinking about cutting it on this new record too.

Then my granddad co-signed on a loan for me — I took out a loan from Woodforest Bank in Conroe — and about a year later went and cut like six or seven more songs. That was The Limestone Kid, which Corby produced. After that, Lloyd Maines did my first album, Probably Wrong, and he did not hear a single song until the night before we went into the studio. We hadn't even talked about what the record was going to be. I didn't know to do that — I didn't know pre-production was a thing.

On the new record with Frank Liddell, and on listening to music:

I met with Frank Liddell, who's going to produce this new record in a few weeks. We hung out for about 10 minutes and he said, "You want to go record some stuff?" We went to his buddy's studio, and I sang like 10 songs — just me, my guitar, and a microphone — while he recorded. He said, "Yeah, that's what I needed to hear." I'd never done that in a studio setting, and I hadn't even realized I'd never done it. It was awesome — I didn't want to stop. I've always just written songs for months at a time, put them in the can, thought about them in six months when I go cut the record. I'd never just sat down and sung into a microphone like that.

I don't really listen to much music — I know that's weird. I don't passively listen to it; I don't have it on as background music. If it's on, it's getting my full undivided attention; I'm in it. So I listen to it, but it's more of an activity. It controls me — melodies even more than lyrics, which I think is the most important thing. If you don't have melody, your lyrics don't matter; they may be great, but I need melody. George Strait talked about how he decides whether to cut a song: he listens to the melody first, and if he digs it and sings along, then he goes back and listens to the lyrics. Some of my favorite songs were my favorite songs for years before I ever really listened to the lyrics. When I'm by myself, I'm deep in it. I'll get on a song and wear it out — like "Old School" by John Conlee. I'd heard it my whole life, but in March of this year I listened to it again and was like, "Holy [expletive] — why now?" And I listened to it 10 times a day for two weeks, no exaggeration, and then maybe never again.

There's a tune of yours I'm going to cheese you up about — "What Might Have Been" by Little Texas. (I wanted to say Diamond Rio, but I knew that was wrong.) You listen to that melody — I need the full three and a half, four minutes. I'm driving to the ranch, the sun's going down, windows cracked, maybe a little something rolling out the window — I get it. I need it. That's why I know I'll never be the best songwriter ever — it's because I have to have the best songs from somebody else to survive. If they're my songs, they won't do it for me. I think that's necessary and normal — to not think you have the dopest stuff ever — but I have to have those songs; it's so crucial to me being a happy human.

On a generational, visual connection to music — and melody vs. lyrics:

Here's a theory: growing up with so much TV and internet and video, I feel like our generation is maybe more visually attached to music than previous generations. Previous generations had only their own memories attached to music; now, when I hear music, I see different things — not even necessarily from my own memory, but from visuals, music videos. That's kind of the way I write too — I have to be able to put somebody somewhere, for good and for bad. My theory is it's because we were so visually stimulated as kids. But even at six years old I was obsessed with melodies — "Why do these songs make me feel like this?" I still feel that exact same way today.

In high school, lyrics didn't seem to matter as much in popular music. I was always into lyrics — I was a weird kid about it; my buddies would make fun of me because I'd be like, "You don't know who Townes Van Zandt is?" Now it's flipped — now it's hip to be into lyrics, and melodies kind of don't matter as much. They need to both matter. Why can't we just have both? That's what makes great artists, but everybody's just regurgitating the same melodies right now. I can go from "Time After Time" to "Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning" by Willie Nelson in one second, and they make me feel the same. Nobody makes music like that right now — they all just have to be in this perfect little box. And everybody who grew up listening to that stuff is a great singer. You really didn't make it if you weren't a great singer. You don't have to be a great singer anymore — they can just fix it, though you can hear it. Milli Vanilli would've thrived in 2024 — they were just ahead of their time.

On "Hold Me Back," writing with Tony Lane, and uptempo songs being hard:

The song I'm thinking of is "Hold Me Back" — it's got this verbed-out, almost baritone-guitar thing at the beginning, kind of a Gary Allan vibe. It's one of my favorites. Everybody's always loved that song, but we've never played it live one time. Me and Tony Lane wrote it the first time we ever hung out. A lot of times people don't hear me sing that low, and I just thought it hit. That's my one compliment for the day — other than that I'm going to be a total [expletive].

We never play it live; it's just kind of boring. I have so many slow ballads — "Stoned," "Hell of a Year." I've always struggled finding tempo songs. "Young Man's Blues" was a big win in my mind — I thought it was a really well-written song that feels good in the show. But it's hard to write meaningful songs that aren't "Hell of a Year" or "Hold Me Back." At some point on stage I'm like, "Dude, I want to stomp my foot a little bit." Being the brooding songwriter in the corner has always annoyed me. Steve Earle's got "Copperhead Road"; that song's taken on a whole other life. That's a boot-stomper, like "Cotton-Eye Joe." I think those are harder to write, personally — the upbeat anthem type. I've got so many upbeat tempo songs that are just trash that'll never see the light of day. I'm like, "God, that feels great — somebody needs to cut this." I'm not going to; somebody else needs to.

I've always been super hard on myself. I've never really been able to be the country singer I wanted to be, but I felt like I've always kept the songs from a real place. Even the ones that are super polished and produced and clean — I've always tried to make sure the songwriting wasn't cheap. I couldn't not do that. I don't even want to sing it if it's not something that feels real.

On having a kid, and not wanting to write "dad songs":

Will it change with having a kid? I don't think so — it'll certainly be different. That's what I was trying to do on this record at the beginning of this year: I'll never be this way again. I've been doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, for so long, free of any real responsibilities — humping it on the road for 10 years. Once he's here, I'll always have a kid. I used to go do some rowdy stuff to write songs; I probably won't do that anymore, and honestly I don't like to do it anymore. It worked for a while, and then it doesn't. I was always a "closet wild," kept it under the radar, and I'd do it to fuel the songwriting. When I'd hear Todd Snider talk about living your songs, I was like, "I've got to do that — go live hard and live the songs I'm writing." I'm married, about to have a kid, so I'm not out there heartbroken anymore — but I can still go there very easily; those are my favorite songs. Your heart could break a thousand times in one day just looking around — there's plenty to write about, and I love sad songs.

Long story long, I probably won't write any dad songs — maybe one, if I could write something like "There Goes My Life," but it's got to be epic; it can't be a cheap trick. A lot of my favorite artists, when they had kids and started writing dad songs, I'm just not a big fan of it. I don't like using my kids or my wife for any sort of song. If anything, mine have gone the other direction — if people listen to my music, they're going to know pretty much where I've been in my marriage at different points. I wrote a whole song with my wife's name before we were even dating — well, while we were going through the process to start dating. I just loved her name. The first time she heard it was live at Cain's Ballroom — sold out — and then we hung out till like 6 in the morning. She ran into the band backstage and said, "I'm the girl he wrote the song about," and they were like, "Yeah, right — let's see some ID." She's the GOAT, the most wonderful human being in the entire world. But that song starts out okay and then it all goes to [expletive] in the end — that's what I like. She's always like, "Can you write one that's happy?" and I'm like, "I don't think so. Not possible."

On epic songs, Tony Lane, and George Strait's "Run":

Like "I Need You," which Tony Lane wrote for Tim and Faith — epic song. I'd love to write something like that. It's not sad, it just sounds serious. Maybe that's it — I'm just serious. I think that's necessary, especially in country music; there's an epicness to it. Have some integrity in your songwriting. But a lot of that comes down to melody — it always comes back to melody. One of my favorite George Strait songs is "Run." He wrote that too — lyrically it's kind of lame, "baby, run," come on — but melodically and in the chord progression it's insane, so good. It's also got a Police, Sting kind of thing to it — think about the intro to "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic." If I nailed that, that would be pretty awesome.

Tony Lane wrote "Run," and we wrote "Hold Me Back" together. He's a really good friend of mine, one of my favorites — incredible. He's much older than I am. The first time we sat down, we'd known each other for five minutes and he hit me with "from going too far, from going too fast," and I was like, spinning downhill, hit it downhill like a heart attack — that's good. After that day he was like, "We're bros." He writes like he's 150 — his voice, the whole thing. He's on Spotify; he's cut all those songs. His version of "I Need You" is unbelievable — "ride across West Virginia, back seat of a Cadillac." Some cowboys like me go out like that. You dream about riding off into something like that. It's epic, but it doesn't come off as cheesy — and I don't understand how you do that. I think that's what makes the great ones great. I want to do that.

I don't have any interest in writing songs — "Burn It Down" was even kind of on the line for me. I just thought it was well written; I never thought it would be the single or that it would be that successful. It went platinum — I didn't think that was going to happen. When we wrote it, it was slow.

On not caring about haters:

You could go save a kid with cancer from a burning house that was about to get eaten by an alligator, and you did something wrong — somebody on the internet is going to say, "Well, you should have done it quicker. Why didn't you take your shoes off before you got in the water? Now you tainted the water." So you just tune it out. That goes back to what we were talking about earlier — just not caring. Somebody's going to have something to say regardless of what you do, so say "[expletive] it" and do it. Be the realest you can possibly be, and if it's good, cool; if it's not, go do it again. If you're doing anything relatively special, there are going to be some people that hate it. I'd hate me too. If I weren't me and I was listening to me, I'd be like, "This kid's never going to make it." So it's very impressive that he made it — probably shouldn't have imposter syndrome, still trying to make it. Chris Stapleton selling out stadiums doesn't impress me — I expect that; he's one of the greatest of all time.

On what "making it" actually means:

What is making it? That's the ultimate existential question. I think about it every day, for years. For a long time it was: playing these kinds of venues, buses and trucks, number-one hits. "When will I feel like I've made it?" It's so cliché, but the journey really is the pudding. Once you have the big house, the dream car, the ranch — "Okay, got this. What now?" So my goals now are like my dad being proud. Truly and genuinely — I could cry thinking about it, I do cry thinking about it. I hope that some night he goes to bed and he's like, "Well done, son. You carried yourself well. You represented our family well. You married a good woman. You're still doing it, pretty successfully. Never been arrested, no scandals, nothing." I just really hope my family is proud — that's the big one — and I hope that in 10 years they're still proud. That's my goal. It's bigger than just things and stuff. This new song we're going to play tonight is called "Big Old Fancy House," but that's really what it's about — that's where the idea comes from.

I was able to do quite a bit very young; I reached a lot of my goals very quickly. And I was like, "This is it — this is what I worked so hard for. It's cool, it's dope, but it's not …" That's why the last album was called Never Enough — "When is enough?" My family being proud is enough. My wife being happy is enough.

I've always thought it was peculiar how uncommon it is for people to answer "What are your goals?" the way I just did — people typically think financial or professional goals. One of my goals is to raise this kid to have impeccable manners. That was such a big thing when I was a kid — it was serious business. "Yes sir, no sir, yes ma'am, no ma'am," blessing before the meal, take your hat off when you meet a lady. When I was a kid I thought it was goofy; now I'm so grateful I was raised like that. I tell my wife, this kid may be the dumbest son of a gun, just like his dad, but he will have impeccable manners. If I were to write a song about my kid, it'd probably be about that.

On his grandfather Bobby Yancy and the American dream:

This sounds real "old man," but old men are smart — they've been living a long time, they've got it pretty figured out. You can go to the corner store and get coffee in any small town at 6 a.m. My granddad used to tell me, when I was working up on the ranch, "Spend one summer up here, you don't need to go to college, boy" — which was such a lie; he was a very educated, very smart man, a great cowboy. He's not with us anymore. He passed away right in the middle of recording Probably Wrong, I think during the seven Tuesdays at Cheatham Street. I've got his initials tattooed on my arm. His name was Bobby Yancy. He was a true definition of the American dream. My dad's dad is too — he didn't cowboy. My mom's dad — my mom was a barrel racer and was good, and her uncles rode rough stock. My wife trains barrel horses. I don't think my kids will rodeo; honestly I don't want to put up with them doing it, but if they wanted to, they could. I was very fortunate to have that as a kid — it's quite a privilege.

Bobby bred quarter horses — a massive operation, big time. We still have both ranches, but the operation hasn't been the same since he passed. He was running it until the week before he was down. He was OG — he was a judge of my hometown, Montgomery County, when he was like 23 years old. His life could be a movie. Both my grandparents are the definition of the American dream — came from nothing and just did it.

He got to see a little bit of what I did — he wouldn't believe it now. He loved country music. When we played the Houston Rodeo, he would have been beside himself that one of his grandbabies was doing that. He didn't get to see the most epic part — we were still doing Cheatham Street and Brewster's Ice House — but we were selling out, so it was still pretty epic. It's all relative. I have three grandparents left, and every time I go home they're like, "Everywhere we go, somebody's got you in the paper." My family's been great, but there was a learning curve — teaching them, "Hey, you need to expect this to happen." People don't realize that when they come to my show, I'm at work. I live on a traveling bar, but I don't really drink hardly ever. I did for a while — never really had a problem with it, it was never one of the things I struggled with; I just never really liked it. But people come to the show, even family, to have a good time, and it's like, "Dude, this is the 72nd time I've done this this year."

On working the merch booth and family on the guest list:

My deal is still tough because I'm going out to the merch booth doing that whole thing — "Hey guys, I'm still for real working." We used to play Billy Bob's and I'd go do the merch table with 2,000 people waiting in line, and family members would bring whoever they wanted and cut all 2,000 people. I'd have to say, "Look, guys, y'all all got in here for free; these people paid money to see the show." (The show really wasn't very good — if we're being honest, it was pretty mediocre. Some nights I still am underwhelming.) But these people paid, they're waiting in line being respectful, they'd like a picture and to sign their shirt. My family's overall been really great. It's often not the immediate family — it's the people who came out of the peripheries. Nobody wants to hear you complain about that. My dad would be the first one to say, "Hey, shut the [expletive] up." Immediate family will buy tickets — my dad will buy tickets. Over time they kind of got it. Especially when we'd play Houston (I grew up in Conroe, about 40 miles north), we'd have 250 people on the guest list. One time it was my parents' UPS driver — he came onto the bus for the meet-and-greet. He's a 50-year-old man — "what can Brown do for you?" But like I said, it's nothing to complain about; the fact that your family's even there. I still have both my parents, my brother, my sister — my sister has four kids, my brother has a stepdaughter. A lot of times they'll bring 10 people, and I'm like, "I don't want to see all those people; I want to hang out with my family." I'll probably see those other folks when I go to your house next week. And you're working — I have a routine. I can't swing in at 9:00 and play at 9:30. I need to be on my bus for an hour just thinking about what we're about to do, sometimes in silence: "Okay, show. Playing show very soon. About to play show."

On being an introvert who performs, and respecting George Strait:

I'm not really an A-type personality. I like hanging out with people, but I get super drained very quickly — socially maxed out. And it's probably Saturday night; you played Wednesday, so you're on your fourth night of this. The perception is that to get up in front of a bunch of people you've got to be some big, boisterous A-type personality who loves the attention — not at all. I like to stay low-key. That's what I've always respected about George Strait. Great songs, an incredible career, but the most impressive part is how he carried himself — very under the radar, just as gangster and classy as one man can be. He only played the Opry one time. I went to the Opry for the first time last week and found out that little factoid. I was looking around like, "Man, this is cool," and then they ran a Ford commercial in the middle of it.

I really appreciate you coming on. That's where I long to be.