Matt Hillyer

Full episode transcript, auto-generated from the audio and lightly formatted (verbatim, not edited).

Purple in [singing] the canyon. [music] That's where I hide to [singing] be with [music] my three companions. Do you Where do you live? Dallas.

You do? Oh, yes. It would be even better over there. Uh-huh.

Yeah. Well, my oldest daughter, she's like my ambassador of woke and like I don't say it like it's a bad thing. like a like a lot of the people that I know, of course, in our world that they're not into that at all, you know, [laughter] but uh well, she just reminds you of the things you can and can't say. She's coming back for the holidays from college or something.

Yeah. And so it's just it's kind of a trip because like uh she'll come back and then start not really lecturing everybody a little bit though cuz she's been to college now and she knows how she feels about a lot of things. At least she feels something. You know, that's my whole thing is if she can make sort of a semi-intelligent argument for her point, at least she's thinking.

That's right. Apathy is the one I can't do. Yeah. I don't care.

Yeah. That's weird. Yeah, there's a lot of that going around. I can disagree with somebody, but as long I mean, I can at least like identify with caring.

Well, I also have to wonder too. It's just as we, you know, you get to a certain age, you start to realize it's like so many of the things that like uh are sort of like a badge of who you are. It's sort of they don't fall by the wayside, but once you start having to pay your own bills and actually navigate your way through life, your thoughts can tend to change a little bit about how it is just to get through the day for yourself or for anybody else. You think that comes by way of maybe being humbled enough, too?

Yeah. Life is to kick you in the dirt no matter who you are. You know what I mean? somebody it's like the people if you talk about ticket sales being down for guys like us or whatever you got to think about some of the people who are up there and they're going man [clears throat] we only sold 2500 tickets tonight it's real but it is real I mean for the scale it just slides you know what I mean so I was when you came up I was on the phone with somebody that is like about as big as you can get and he was like so how are things going you know and I was like man, we're just we're just grinding, you know.

I'm figuring out what I need to do in the new year, you know? We're just like trying to sell tickets, you know. I think everybody's kind of struggling right now. And uh and he goes, "Oh, yeah, I know, man.

God, it's just always looming, huh?" And I'm like, [laughter] "I'll tell you the name when we get off." And you'll be like, "Oh my Yeah, my I'm I don't think my uh ticket sales are even logged in anywhere in Polestar." No.

Anywhere. You know what I had a um a buddy [clears throat] of mine uh I guess it would have been like about a year ago. He went through like a crazy divorce. Bunch of crazy stuff happened to him and like was having a really tough time and uh he was like kind of getting screwed financially in the divorce and everything too.

And uh I was I was I thought I was in a similar financial position. I was struggling as well. And so we were like having lunch one day and he's talking about he's like just I don't know what I'm going to do, man. You know, like I'm really struggling financially and stuff.

So, like the ticket comes around. I was like, "I'll get it, man." And he was like, "Oh, okay. Thanks."

And uh and it was like that week, that next week, he like bought a house or something and like invited me over and it's like this super nice place. It's got a pool and like he's got a brand new truck, but like in relation to where he was, right? He's like struggling now. And I was laughing with him because I was like, "Dude, when you said you were struggling financially, that did something in my brain where I'm like, I got to buy my buddy lunch or something, right?"

Like that's what that meant to me. Sure. Yeah. [laughter] Yeah.

We were not talking about the same thing. Well, it's a matter of degrees, man. Well, yeah. It exists for everybody.

It's like gambling, you know? Like that's why I don't gamble because I don't really have that kind of expendable income. It's like what they say in casino like the when the Japanese whale guy leaves the casino and then they make it seem like his plane is broke and he's like he comes back and he's betting small for a minute and but they're like he they doesn't look at it like he made 50 grand. He lost 250 cuz he didn't bet right.

You know what I mean? Like so it's like it's just a matter of you know degrees for folks I guess. How do you end up because you've been doing it long enough like how do you end up in the times of struggle like finding it's so hard to find the joy and the actual essence of like the process and like the whole reason why you even started picking up a guitar and trying to put some words together with a melody. It does at some degree when it becomes you got to make a living doing it and it does start to suck some of the joy out of it.

Yeah. And it comes in waves it feels like. And like how do you how do you get your mind back into the actual essence of like why you're doing it? Well, if I figure out I'll let you know.

But um no, I mean I mean you know I still enjoy the actual process of singing and playing and that part. I still I still just love the way that it feels to do it when you know you're doing it doing it well. And also I just try to remember that like no matter what you do there's just like this feel like there's a circle of things that are within your control you know that there's a whole bunch of stuff that happens [snorts] outside of that circle you know if you if you can focus on what you're able to control whether you show up on time whether you show up sober uh whether you are practiced and ready for the show and all of that stuff. If you've promoted it the way you're supposed to promote it, if you if you feel like you've done everything you can do, then outside of that, it's not necessarily that's beyond you, you know?

So, I still really enjoy the actual aspect of the way that it feels to play guitar, the way that it feels to sing a song, the way it feels to write a song. the idea that, you know, it was nothing one second and then, you know, a couple hours later it's something and it could be something that people really relate to and enjoy forever and ever. And then, you know, not to sound too super cliche, but I feel like no matter what you do in life, relationships are really at the crux of it because you can make all the money you want to make, you could sell all the tickets you want to sell, and that would be great. Uh, but I still really enjoy like [clears throat] making connections with actual people, you know?

Not all of them. Some of them are weird, man. And that's me saying it, [laughter] you know, like some of them are just weird. But you just don't know how people are going to come through for you when you need it.

And it's all because you picked up guitar and went and went out and did it. And that just keeps, you know, going like a snowball down the hill, you know, just keeps going and going and going. My wife and kids sometimes, especially my kids, cuz they have a hard time wrapping their head around it. If they come to a show or something, they're like, "Dad, you know a lot of people.

" It's like, "Yeah, I know a lot more people than this." Like, be cool to people. You see the same people on the way up as you do on the way down. So, like, just try to be cool.

It doesn't always work [laughter] because I know there are some people out there that are just like, "That guy's a jerk, man. " You know, I don't think I am. But, you know, everybody's got their moments. I guess it's interesting to meet some people at the pinnacle of the industry.

Um, and see actually how cool a lot of them are and how respectful a lot of them are. Yeah. Because it's easy to think you had to do something kind of nefarious or I don't know, maybe it's natural for people to think like to get to that point you had to like kind of screw some people or be like super self-centered and like a huge narcissist. Um, and that probably does exist a little bit, but on the whole I find more of those types of people kind of in the middle area.

Yeah. They're just like they want it so bad and they'll do anything to get it. Yeah. And like some of the people at the very top, you can't It's hard to get there treating everybody like trash.

Yeah. You know. Oh, 100%. And that's been eye opening to me.

Like, oh, these people are actually kind of cooler than some of the Joe Schmoes that I hang out with at wherever, you know. Yeah. Well, and you know, I just don't feel like that's I've never ever seen and, you know, unlike a lot of people like you have that, you know, um, they go up, man. They get it get all the way up there.

And [snorts] the ones that I've seen that kind of get it in their heads that somehow it behooves them to kind of be standoffish or be a jerk about anything. I've never seen that really work. Doesn't work for me. Long term it work.

Yeah. I mean like I'm not a huge G Brooks fan. Yeah. But one thing that I've heard about that guy and sometimes I think it's this false modesty thing just because I G is just he's we [laughter] it's always that it's always this sort of a shucks kind of thing and you're like are you for real man?

Um, but the one thing I've heard about him is that from the very beginning, he was somebody who remembered like everybody's name at every place that he played. And then even years later when he became the biggest star in the world, still that guy. I don't have the brain bandwidth to make that happen. It's tough to do.

I'm trying, man. I can't remember. I can't [laughter] remember. What's my name?

[gasps] Jason. Gerard. Gerard. Yeah.

[laughter] Uh, no. Your name's Jared Morris. We sat on the on the on the beach together. I wasn't sure when [laughter] they when we booked this, too.

I was like, man, I don't think he'll I don't know if he'll remember. We met like once, you know. It was fun, man. We had a blast.

It was a lot of fun. You were like one of the funniest cuz that was Dude, I had just kind of started in all this at that point. And uh I got hooked in with Larry Joe and so yeah, we went to Islam Harris. Uhhuh.

So, you were like kind of one of the first dudes in, you know, whatever songwriter kind of guys I was around. And I'm uh I like to have a good time and cut up and be sarcastic and joke around. You were one of the And a lot of guys in our world are pretty reserved. Yeah.

And uh and so I can be a bit much for some of them. And then Me too. Yeah. Well, so I just sat back and watched you do your thing and I was just dying laughing.

It was a fun day. We were So, didn't we mess with somebody? I did. Yes.

Very. This is funny. like this. I'll refresh your memory as to how this whole afternoon played out.

Number one, my wife and I were on another trip uh with some of our other friends and we had a day off. We didn't have to play and then I heard that y'all were over at Isla and we were just going to sit around the resort and drink free cocktails. Nothing wrong with that. We're like, "Hey man, you know, Larry, Joe, Dave, and Jared, they're all over at Isla.

we could jump out of here and go say what's up to those guys. So, we did. And I don't think everybody in our crew really appreciated us just being like, "Okay, see you. Bye.

[laughter] We're going to hang." It's not like we're like, "Hey, let's all go surprise them. " We're like, "No, we're good. It's going to be us."

Yeah. So, we went over there. We hooked up with uh Dave and everybody and wound up on the beach with you guys and uh and then Yeah. You and I sat for I don't know about an hour or something like that.

Yeah. Hours. Yeah. sitting there drinking beer and having a good time.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then Yeah.

Okay. Then we got into took our beers and we got into the water, which is uncharacteristic for me because I don't really get into the ocean if I can help it. I have a whole thing about it. I don't think we belong there.

We can get into that in a minute if you want. Clear. Crystal clear blue water. Oh yeah.

I mean beautiful. It's Louis Harris. Yeah. Yeah.

No, it was good. And so we all got up in there. were just bsing and drinking beers in the water and stuff. And then we noticed that like maybe 20 feet away there's this really goodlooking girl in a bikini and she's You noticed I didn't Well, she kept I mean she was spending the whole time doing this number like from different angles and stuff like that like for an unusually long amount of time just by herself in the water doing this thing trying to get the perfect selfie or whatever.

And I was like, "Hey y'all watch this." And uh which is never it's never a good thing when you when you hear me say the hey watch this. So I drifted off from our group and I strategically placed myself behind her for all of the pictures she was trying to take. She kept changing angles and I'd move over the other way.

Well, cuz we started to notice her notice you [laughter] and so she would kind of like get a little frustrated and move the camera and then you would like be laying in the scene [laughter] behind her just doing something, you know, and you could see her gradually starting to move the camera like trying to get you out of it. Nothing is worse for me than an audience of my buddies who are just laughing at some stupid thing that I'm doing. It's a it's been the bane of my existence since I was a kid. Well, but I don't know if she knew that you were with us.

So I think she thought we were just laughing at her. So it was a whole concoction of like probably a bit of both, [laughter] you know, but I kept doing it and I kept doing it and finally she's just like, "Okay, screw it. I'm going back to the my towel on the beach." But me being me, I couldn't I didn't stop there.

You know what I mean? So she's going to go get like some more pictures over there. So, I went all the way around and snuck up like behind kind of where she was like and hid behind a sign and stuff and like it's a miracle that her boyfriend like didn't just like really but he has to live with that. Imagine everywhere they go that's her deal, you know, like she's constantly trying to get the right picture and he's just like, "Oh my gosh, can we just hang out on the and that was six years ago?"

Well, at least. Yeah, at least. At least. So that was like right that was before now somebody taking a selfie is socially more normal.

I didn't it was long enough ago that I didn't really understand exactly why she was doing [laughter] that. You know what I mean? Like now it's just all you see on any you know feed is some attractive girl on the beach living my best life. you know, but I hid behind this sign and then finally I was like, "All right, really I'm gonna really I'm gonna ask her boyfriend to take a picture of me, you know.

" So [laughter] I finally did. Like I was like I was trying to take it as far as I could take it. And that I felt was like maybe that would be the pinnacle. So I was like, "Hey, can you take a picture of me on the beach?"

[laughter] And he's like, "Do you want your friends in it, too?" Because like he was knew he was to it cuz he saw us just like he saw everybody in the water just watching this whole thing go down and losing their freaking minds laughing. Larry Joe and Dave and you and everybody just laughing their asses off and he's like he's like you want your pictures in the your friend in the picture back there. I was like no I'm good.

[laughter] I don't know who they are. I don't know. What are you doing? Whatever.

That's fun though. Did you take a picture with her? Oh she did not want any part of [laughter] me whatsoever. See, that's the part I didn't I didn't remember that you asked him you asked them to take a picture of you, so you just stood there by yourself, [laughter] right?

Yes. Oh my god, this is ridiculous. Yeah. No, but that's, you know, that's the kind of behavior that got me thrown out of every class I was ever in school.

You know, I partied so hard on that trip. That's easy to do with that crew. Oh my gosh. I got a I got a tummy ache.

Mhm. I got a sick tummy ache on that trip. Yeah. Well, that was a fun day.

So, I [laughter] I don't know. I think that actually might have been the night that I turned it up a little too hard. Me and my wife turned it up too hard. I feel like I turned on the trip that we were on.

I think I turned it up too hard most times. Yeah. Do you still drink? Oh, yeah.

[laughter] Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm not right. Not at this moment.

Oh, yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's fun, you know. Oh, dude. Some of my best times. I got I need to I need to pull back on the throttle a little bit.

Probably throttle down. Yeah, a little bit, you know. But I have a good time. So I swear I like to party that.

Well, yeah. I just like I just I do have that wild streak that trying to do my best to bugger it out of myself. I know, man. Yeah.

It's getting to that it's getting to that sort of crossroads where I'm kind of like, "All right, dude. You're a little on you're a little old to be rolling the way that you do, you know, but I have a good time. I don't know. I know.

I just old Boo's brain makes some uh pretty horrific mistakes. Yeah. You know, he's just not he's just not terribly an awesome person. Yeah.

Let's go down that road. [laughter] Let's compare notes. That never happened. No.

Yeah. No, no, no, no. Yeah, it is. Uh, yeah, that's something.

I was I never actually really did it. Um, I actually don't think I have a story of drinking too much like on stage or anything and like acting a fool. I've got a couple. I've got a couple.

And nothing feels worse to me than that. You know what I mean? When you get out over your skis that way because I don't know. I that's the thing that I like the most, you know, is to be up on stage and play and to do a good job and really to have a good show.

Uh and you know, I know lots of people who've got lots of stories far more than just me doing what I whatever I've done a couple of times uh to feel bad enough about it to never really want to do that again. Um, but it only, you know, how many times does that have to happen before you just like, oh my god, no, that's not cool. You know, cuz people paid to see the show, you know, like, and there's one thing about having a good time and hanging out with your friends and it's just it's, you know, it's all around it's pretty loose atmosphere most of the time, but um, you know, if I if I felt like I ever did a lackluster performance because of that. No, it's that's a bummer.

I hate that. Yeah, that's a also like being sober and playing I feel the most connected. Mhm. I get a little more nervy like getting on stage.

Uh but once I'm in it, like just stone cold sober, I'm just dialed in. Well, that freaks me out. You know what I mean? Like I feel like I need to have like maybe one or two before a show just to sort of okay, let get a little loose or whatever.

Not loose, but I mean just, you know, just to ease the nerves or whatever. Yeah. Um, and that's just years and years of being that way. Um, but no, man, to be outside of yourself, that's not good.

Sucks. Sucks. Yeah. Sucks.

I would have these like four song, five songs in these almost like they weren't like they weren't panic attacks, but I could feel kind of out of control. Mhm. And then all it would take is like weird eye contact with one person and then I would just be like, "Oh god." Start having this internal.

Well, that's the weird thing about like uh what we do that like over time that messes with me more than anything. It's just eye contact. Well, not just eye contact, but having that internal monologue that goes on because, you know, we've done it so many times, it comes second nature to us. But still, the more that I do it, the more I sometimes ask myself, it's like, how long do you do this, you know?

What was it about making music that um made you think, "Okay, well, I need to do this on a stage like I you know, cuz we like playing when you're a kid. You like playing you could like playing guitar and singing songs in your bedroom and that's just it's just fun. It feels good. It's fun to learn.

It's cool to learn a new song. You can do that for yourself." [snorts] The point where you go, "Okay, now I want to do this in front of people. I want to get up on the stage and do it.

When you're young, again, it makes sense. It was a great sense source of like positive reinforcement at a time because I started real young like when I wasn't necessarily getting positive reinforcement in school, you know, I wasn't good at it and was always in trouble. Uh, so you know, having an outlet where I could take whatever that energy is, it made it to where I couldn't sit still and then get, you know, people to enjoy it and feeling like you were doing something good. That part I get.

But once you get to a certain point where you're like you're in your head about, okay, well, I hope I know what I'm doing, but the act of just getting up onto the stage, it seems weirder to me as I get older. And it shouldn't because and it I mean it doesn't. I still love doing it and I you know, you know what you're doing. That's I take comfort in that because I've done it so many times.

Well, does this make sense? Does it feel like you're [clears throat] losing the kind of communal aspect of the music maybe a little bit? No, I don't think I mean I think oddly enough, I'm in a point now where it's like I found a new sort of outlet for that whole communal thing. It's just it's just the aspect of just like uh secondguessing yourself or being insecure about performing in front of people.

Like that's what you said. Like when you look at somebody and like they, you know, give you a weird look or something like that, they're probably not even thinking about it whatsoever, but you're up there in your head about the whole thing, just going, I feel like this should be working. I feel like it's going okay. You know what I mean?

That part of it starts to seem more strange to me. I second guess myself a little bit more that way. You know what I mean? when you're young and you have all that bravado and you're just like going to get up there and just sort of kick ass and this is we're going to, you know, it's just like we're going to do this and no, not that I don't they don't like it.

Yeah, I don't care, you know. Um but, you know, and I still have that, but at the same time, it's like I do have that thing where it's just like you kind of get in your I do get in my head a little bit about some of that stuff. Yeah, that's honest of you. I don't It almost seems like you have to be a sociopath to not be that way.

Yeah. Like I just don't get it when I hear people tell me like, "Dude, I just don't care." Like I don't care what happens. I don't identify with that.

Yeah. Well, the whole reason I started music was buddies sitting around playing together. So there was that there was that communal part of music that I loved. That's the part that I have a disconnect with.

Like I've always found getting up. I always found performing to be like a little weird in the sense that I don't like the feeling of people just watching and being like, "Oh, wow. He's so good. I like the idea of I just want them to feel what I'm feeling."

Yeah. If that sounds pretty artsy fartsy and like No, but I mean look, you gota like I want to play something or like we're grooving in a way that they just they feel it in the way that I'm feeling it. Yeah. Not necessarily just like a novelty thing where it's like, "Oh, wow.

I could never do that." Or, "Oh, wow. What a great singer. " Yeah.

That part of it feels like there's and that's an element of it, but I don't particularly love that part of it. I just because it goes back to sitting around the campfire with your buddies. Yeah. And everybody was singing together and that was they weren't watching you like oh wow he's incredible.

It was they were just feeling what you were feeling. That's the part of it that felt great to me. Right. Same way with being in the studio.

You like come up with a cool idea and all y'all are in there and high five and that sounds so good. That's doesn't feel performative to me. Yeah. It's the insecurity that kind of get that gets me sometimes.

And it's I still feel more comfortable [clears throat] talking on a microphone or singing on a microphone or doing being up on stage and doing that than I necessarily do um talking to the audience one on- one after the show, you know, which I'm not uncomfortable about that either. I like talking to people. I like meeting people. Most people are cool.

There are some weird ones out there, but you know, um, but that's where I get in my head. It's just that it's that sort of thing. It's just like I don't want to say something stupid. You know what I mean?

And, you know, I have no idea what's going to come out of my mouth half the time. Sometimes it works, sometimes not so much, but I don't know. That part kind of that's the thing that weirds me out. But I'm still I still feel more comfortable about um like actually doing the show and interacting that way because I know what I'm doing.

I've done it a hundred times. You've got your bits that work, you know, your funny stories that you've sort of hashed out a little bit. You need to change them every now and again, but I kind of know where I'm going with all that. [clears throat] But it's still that insecurity of just like going, "God, I hope I hope I don't trip this up."

Even after doing it thousands upon thousands of times. But I think that if you don't have that energy, like I still get nervous about shows, and it doesn't matter if it's like a show that's completely sold out or packed or whatever, or if it's five people or whatever, I still sort of get in this territory like 15 minutes before a show where I'm just, you know, a little bit uncomfortable. I think that's the way it's supposed to be. I think that like if you if you get to a point I mean like if you're doing a run of shows and you're you know you really get used to it and you're in the groove and all that stuff then there's something to be said for just like really kind of getting in the groove of stuff.

But I still think that like on some level if you're not you don't feel outside of yourself before you step up to do what you're supposed to be doing then you're maybe not thinking about it enough. M you know maybe it feels I would be more scared of that because if I was complacent enough to think that I oh I got this. It's like I don't know that freaks me out. I don't identify with that at all.

Yeah. Or I mean in the sense of being detached from it and just going to get up there I can't imagine not having a little bit of I guess the nerves change. Yeah. I'm like more anxious now.

Well, because the first time I ever played up in front of people was an open mic and I threw up in the parking lot. [laughter] Threw up. I used to do that a lot. I got into a run where I was throwing up before every show and it confused the hell out of me because I had done so many shows and so I wasn't new to the game.

I just got I hit I hit a point where it's just like before a lot of the shows I just I would get just anxious enough to where I was sick and then once I got it done then I go up and do the show and it's not any big deal. You know what I mean? But um again, I think that's that there's a level of nerves that I think is a good thing. It's a weird thing to maybe one of the things that's different now as opposed to years past is that a lot of the shows that I'm doing now are just myself, just me by myself, my acoustic guitar.

So if something goes wrong, I only have myself to blame. You know, it's probably not. I've done it so many times that it's just there's a degree of it. It's muscle memory.

And then there's still some of it that's sort of the high-rise act more so than if you, you know, if you're in a touring band and you're doing shows and runs and on the road and everything like that on the level you're in your own little bubble. You still got your guys, you know what I mean? Like everybody's got to come together. You still have that little support group of like, okay, let's go do a good show together.

Let's You can feed off each other's energy. You kind of lift each other up hopefully. Um, and you can lean on that when you're by yourself. It's a weird deal, but I like it, you know?

I like I don't know. I like that accountability. I like the idea that I can pick when I'm doing an acoustic show by myself, I can pick whatever song I think I can remember that I ever wrote or something that I haven't done before and mix it up without having to turn to the guys and go, "Okay, this is more of a whailing groove. We're going to try something different.

Da d." And then if it tanks, then they're all just going to be looking like, "Why'd you do that?" Yeah. So, you can be like way more real time, just flowing.

Yeah. With whatever's going to happen. Yeah. Like when I do a band show, like everybody gets a set list far in advance.

I'm very particular about making sure everybody on stage has the proper time to prep for anything that may happen because you call audles, you change things up, you skip songs, leave add songs on the fly, but like for the most part, make sure everybody is as prepared as they possibly can be because that's I think part of the most important to me anyways, part of the most one of the most important things about being a band leader is just being able to make sure everybody feels comfortable and ready to do their gig, you know. But with when I'm by myself, I rarely make a set list, you know, just read the room. I know it works. I kind of I need to get better about that cuz I can be my own worst enemy when it comes to that stuff, too.

Oh, a little too. Yeah. I just don't like what, you know, like I don't want to be like in the middle of one song spending half the song thinking about what I'm going to do next, you know? Like there's a there's good and bad to all that, you know?

I love it and I hate it. You know what I mean? It's such a weird thing. But this is I mean just going around and around with all of these things I hope hopefully would tell people like the well you talked about the sort of inner dialogue that's happening all the time when you're up there because what people see hopefully is somebody who's up there having a good time is in the moment trying to connect with you trying to bring you into that moment and bringing all for everybody.

What they don't know is that you could be just mentally tearing yourself down like, "Oh man, I shouldn't have done that. Why'd you try to kick like that? It looks stupid. You look like an idiot."

[laughter] You know, nobody kicks in stage anymore. Dude, I have to especially those acoustic ones. I have to like come out and just immediately make some sort of connection with the people in the front like Yeah. very quickly.

I don't I think it goes back to that idea of oh whoa we're here to watch you. I just have always and it might be my upbringing too cuz like within my family I was always so ready for like if you were feeling a little too good about yourself like somebody is going to take you down. Yeah. Yeah.

So I think that's part of it where like I want to be like hey I [laughter] don't right I don't I don't take myself that serious. How many brothers and sisters do you have? I had two older sisters and it didn't come from them. It was like cousins uncles that kind of thing.

Yeah. So, my older sisters were great. Like, they weren't, you know. Well, I'm the youngest.

I have an older brother and we were all pretty cool to each other, but I get it, you know. I get where that's coming from. I tell you, you know, Todd Snyder just recently passed and that's a huge bummer for anybody who number one was his fan or just a fan of good song songwriting, storytelling, or music in general. But like I knew his music and I knew his songs.

uh prior to ever seeing them, but one of the first time I saw him uh was the Gypsy Tea Room in Dallas. And the T-room was a pretty big spot where they had a really big ballroom and then they had on the other side this bar that was sort of just, you know, one of those sort of railroad car style bars, kind of long and a little bit skinny, but big enough to, you know, maybe two talking about a bar, right? Yeah. Two, 300 people.

So, we went and saw Todd Snyder and I'd never seen him before and it was just him as his acoustic guitarist. And back then, I didn't really see a lot of shows like that. I mean, I'd seen a bunch, but I didn't really I hadn't really gone like dove into any number of people who were doing just that for years and years and years. And the first one I really saw was Todd.

And I remember just being blown away. Not just because his songs are so good, but his stories are brilliant and he's funny, engaging, and he would have people right in the palm of his hand. And me being a guy who is the frontman for a fivepiece honky tonk band, trying to figure out how to make that work. Um, and watching and a songwriter too, like watching him do his thing and then looking around the room, it's like this is a packed out room.

It's not a huge room, but these people all paid at least 20 bucks to get in here. This is back in 2000 or whatever. 20 bucks a pretty It's a great energy, too. It's a great energy.

And he played it so well. You know, he was the master of that. and uh but you know economically thinking about it going okay so at the end of the night they're gonna give him all the money and he's going to take his acoustic guitar and he's going to put it in his case and close it and put it in a hatchback for all we care and drive to the next show and do the same thing. It just seemed like man that's a magic trick.

That is something. It's you. The real magic trick is trying to be that good at it, you know, cuz all of those stories that seem like they're coming off the cuff, you know, he worked all that stuff out and he wrote it all down and all of this stuff. That's why it's good.

But that really opened my head up to the idea that's like cuz I love standup comedy and I love comedy in general. I love any kind of any of that. and to watch somebody just seamlessly sort of weave a lot of the two of those things together. It's like, man, I'd like to get to do that.

So, whenever 1100 Springs kind of stopped traveling as much as we did before, we didn't break up at that time. We just stopped traveling as much. I started doing more acoustic shows. Yeah, it was pretty freaky to begin with because you're just up there by yourself doing your thing.

But then if you lean into it and you start to break down whatever they call that fourth wall between you and the audience or whatever and like you say you pick somebody in the front row and try to engage with them and just sort of make it more of a an open dialogue that they, you know, that they can be part of it. We're all here together, right? For all anybody cares. this could be just somebody's living room and sometimes it is, you know, uh then it becomes a whole different kind of fun.

It's a whole different relationship you have with the audience. And once I started to lean into it and get comfortable with it and start really thinking about, okay, well, you need some stories, man. Like something, you know, that leads into the story of the song or whatever. More so than this is a song me and my buddy.

How you feeling? You guys doing all right? Shoot me. Yeah.

[laughter] Yeah. Tell you what, tip your bartenders, waitresses, you know, you can't bog down too much with, you know, with the band doing that stuff. But that's the what I've loved the most about just sort of transitioning from playing a honk band show which I still love to do but then playing the songwriter shows is just like you really have a different relationship alto together with the audience you know and trying to think about because I like to tell stories and hopefully have a punchline that can make somebody laugh that's music to my ears you know if you can do that it's just a lot of fun and they're in it with you in a different way than they are. Yeah.

When I first started there, I had people kind of poke fun at me some because of my set list. Like when I would do those acoustic type things and what or even like full band shows, I would put notes in there like for the stories I want to tell and like my little beats that I wanted to take like in between songs, I'd have it on my set list, you know, and I'd have people like make fun of me. Not make fun of me, but they'd be like what are you really? Yeah.

And I'm like, "No, this is like preparation. Hopefully I don't have to look at it." But also putting in the reps to like now some of those things come off the cuff a little bit more. They seem like they do, but like doing them enough times and I watched some guys like you.

There was um Larry Joe was always really great at it, too. Uh and then um Ingram Jack Jack's really good. And um you know like the Keith Sykes and then there was um there was a guy named Richard Lee. Oh yeah, Richard Lee that had a huge impact on me.

Yeah. Such a great songwriter. Oh well yeah it's crazy. Wrote Don't Make My Brown Eyes Blue and Greatest Man I Never Knew and just massive hits and stuff.

his stuff gets pretty heavy and serious, but yeah, there was there was like a professionalism, but yet they could still have a good time and we could have some laughs and I just always en I always enjoyed that. But it does seem like at some point there is that next, you know, you can't you can't get up in a giant venue and do some of that as much. And especially as an opener, it starts to get a little tough. if you can do a little bit of it to connect, but it's hard.

Yeah, it's hard. Like I mean, and that's, you know, that's why I get almost more excited about like a 50 seat listening room these days than I do about anything else just because, you know, if you're John Prryan and you've you're known for being a brilliant songwriter, then people are going to shut up and listen to what you have to say. You know, Todd probably the same way. And look, you know, you'll get you'll get lucky, but it is tough.

And that those rooms exist, but they're they can be hard to find, but not impossible, you know. And the other thing that I like I had to had to remind myself when getting into all that stuff was that I when I started, I thought of myself as a guitar player first. you know, when I when I was a kid and I wanted to be a good guitar player slash singer, but I've definitely thought about playing guitar first. So then getting into like that and then you have all these songs that you wrote and you recorded with the fivepiece band, there were just like a lot of the tunes that would come to it, you're like, "Well, that's more of a band song.

I don't really know if I can do that really." But the truth of the matter is he's like, "Yeah, but you wrote it by yourself, you know, like in a room by yourself. There's got to be some way you can pull it off." So, as a result, I've been having a whole lot of fun over the years just like challenging myself to say, "Okay, no, man.

You can play that song. You can do it." and then really leaning into the guitar playing part of it and trying to make whatever I'm doing acoustically. Um, not just a guy that's up there strumming and singing hopefully good songs.

Nothing wrong with that, you know, but also just being able to go, okay, get a little bit of that in there, you know? You can do that. You can do you can do that here. You don't it doesn't have to that's one of the things that people know about me is that I play guitar, you know.

That's I like that challenge of sort of taking myself to the edge and going, "Okay, see if I can pull this off." You know, I did a tour I did a couple of tours with Dale Watson a couple years ago and there's a lot to tell about that. I love Dale Watson. I've been a fan forever.

And then [clears throat] because he was doing his tour and I'd never seen him do it before was just him and his acoustic guitar cuz he'd released a record that was sort of semi acoustic. And uh of course everybody thinks of Dale just as like the honky tonk king and he is. Um but you don't get to you hardly ever think of him doing that. Boy, he was so good at it.

How did how did the audience they love it. Of course, Dale is just funny, you know what I mean? Like he's Dale Watson 24 hours a day, you know, and you're when you're in the van with him for a month every single day and you know, he's Dale from the morning, like you're not going to see him, you know, walk out of the hotel in his sweatpants and his, you know, Nikes and just like his street clothes. He's just Dale, you know, he's like 247.

That's Dale Watson. And so like on when he's on stage, it's his whole shtick. He's going to do it whether it's with a band or acoustic. But boy, he you know, like you talk about a guy who's good at playing guitar and singing and making people laugh and all of that stuff.

Like uh I wasn't sure how the transition for him would be. I mean, I knew he'd be great, but just I'd never seen him do that acoustic thing. It's like, man, see that's See, but what you're describing, you're referencing making people laugh pretty often. Yeah.

That's like only that's been my push back on some of that sometimes is where it can it uh the brooding songwriter storyteller thing can at times get like the whole time they're just these serious stories and there's never a break. It's like come on, dude. Oh, it drives me nuts. Yeah.

like I it drives it drives me nuts because uh there's a time and a place for that and I've done a lot of song swaps just the same as you and you be I know exactly what you're talking about being in that situation where it's like [gasps] it becomes a thing where like it control starts to control what I'm going to do on the show. Then I feel like I have to be the goofy fun guy. Yeah. And then they get to be like super serious artsy fartsy guy.

But at the truth is hopefully it works. You know what I mean? Like you get a bit of both. But in my mind Yeah.

But it pigeon holes what you because you're because you're paying attention to like oh gosh cuz I'm waiting for my turn to sing my brooding slow song and if there's enough of them if there's three of us and just waterboard the audience. Yeah. Right. And this is another thing that you know note to songwriters out there anywhere who doing this.

We do this on especially if there's three songwriters. We feed off each other like one person will play a sad depressing song so the next like okay here's my here's mine. It's like you know it create it creates a dip. I typically am like the one who feels obligated.

It's like all right let's lift it up a little bit. You know what I mean? Let's pick up the beat just a little bit. But uh or they tell their story and they're like this is a song I wrote with my buddy.

Oh, you know Josh Zingleberg, right? You know him. And I'm like, this isn't Stop. Don't do this.

Yeah. Talk to them. Right. They don't know Josh Sing Zingleberg.

I barely know him. You know, good old Josh Singleber. Is that your whole story? Oh, man.

Yeah. No, I it does drive me nuts sometimes with that just because I don't know. Oh, I like it's like um I have a joke that's saying, you know, everybody should have a murder song, right? [clears throat] Should have one.

Okay. But like it doesn't have to be doesn't have to sound sad. You could write a murder song. It sounds happy.

Johnny Cash did it all the time. You know what I mean? It sounds early one morning while making the rounds. He shot people and did cocaine in that song.

you know, like I don't know. You can you can pick it up a little bit. I don't know. I It does drive me nuts sometimes when I get in a situation where it's too much slow, but there again, that's just my ADD probably kicking in.

I want to keep moving. Whoa. And or years and years of being in a dance band trying to make people dance on a regular basis because you man, when you're in a country dance, you have to fight for a slow song, you know? You got to keep people moving.

You can't have enough shuffles. And then if you want to have like a slow waltz, it has its place, but it's dicey. Oh, but you really have to specifically place it in the right spot. But I mean, I don't know.

There are people who are much better at the whole singer songwriter thing that know more about it than I do, but that's just what I get into my head about is just trying to pick it up. Do you think uh at an early age you had a knack for um people's um I guess could you sense uh the feeling of a room or people's emotions at like a pretty early age probably. I'm the youngest in my family and I think that a lot of the uh from my experience a lot of the youngest sibling winds up sort of just you know you know like if there's a conflict in the family the little one tries to break it and I felt that some in my family we were always good but at the same times I think that probably served me when time to get on stage just trying to pick up on where people's heads are at and what you do. And of course, I started playing shows pretty young and I had a fair amount of guidance from people who back, you know, mentors who actually kind of actually told me some of the things that you wish, you know, that most people wish somebody would have told you.

How young were you when you started? I had my first band when I was 12. Oh my gosh. And then it wasn't long thereafter when I had like a manager and all of this, you know, sort of stuff and was playing real gigs.

Was that cuz you were How did you Were you at like a school that No, I did go to a performing arts high school. Um, but that was later. like I just I just need I honestly just needed an outlet. And when I first started playing guitar, it just kind of made sense to me and I kind of took off running with it and put a little band together and I was my mother was taking me to shows all the time.

She would take me to see Reverend Horton Heat a lot. And of course, he lived in Dallas. And um there is something to be said about like being that young and showing up at shows. Could wear them and I dressed up all rockabilly and stuff like I made my own outfits and stuff.

It looked pretty cool, but you know, it was one of those things. And I'd walk in, you know, this little kid with, you know, all these duds on and stuff and they're like, "What's up with you?" you know, and uh then they found out I play guitar. I didn't all the way suck.

There was something to work with there. So, they kind of pushed me along. They kind of took me under their wings. Reverend Horton Heat and the Wagon Ears and [snorts] um you know the Austin scene at that time because I got a manager down in Austin who kind of took me on in a developmental role and just kind of and then all of a sudden I was surrounded by like all of these people who were Texas music royalty.

I didn't really know that much about it, you know, but my drummer at the time was uh Marsha Ball's stepson and then Jason Crow's or uh Jason Crow, Alvin Crow's son played bass. So we would play shows with them, you know, at Green Hall or Lona Rosa or where wherever they needed it. And then with the Rev and the Wagon Ears and bands like Two Hoots and they were all um they were all, you know, stalwarts of the Austin scene at the time and they thought I was, you know, talented and kind of it was cute cuz they recognized, you know, as a rockabilly kid. They'd seen that before.

Some that somebody saw them doing it and brought them along. So it was pretty cool. But so I got to kind of learn by doing. There's a funny picture at um the check stop.

Uh if you go there in West. Oh, okay. Yeah. [clears throat] And uh it's got my band called Matt the Cat and the Gutter Rats.

We're so pretty. Matt the Cat. So pretty. I mean they were pretty.

You were cute. Oh man. You got to you can you the day I had a We had a makeup girl and a hair stylist and all of this stuff. You were getting it.

Oh yeah. Yeah. And then that fell apart and then I became just a an average high school, you know, dirt bag type. Okay.

So there had to be I mean you're a super self-aware guy and you're probably into a lot of different types of music I would think. Mhm. Was there a point in your career that you realized I mean obviously like rockabilly and some of that style of music is not necessarily like a popular genre? Yeah.

So, was there a phase that you went through where you're like, "Well, maybe I need to do some stuff." That's Every time I've ever tried to do that, it's never really worked that well because I just don't I don't know. Like, um I It's got to speak to me, you know? It really because whatever it is that made me want to play music in the first place had to be something that just like, you know, hits you like the lightning bolt or something said that's what I want to do.

And it didn't ever really matter to me whether or not it was going to be something that uh that was going to sell a million records because uh you know the Stray Cats were on the cover of the Rolling Stone and to me I thought they were the coolest thing ever and then I saw the Reverend Horton Heat and he was just playing at local bars and stuff and they started touring and started getting bigger and stuff like that. he wasn't maybe technically ever supposed to get as successful as he's been, you know, just cuz it doesn't there aren't there's no nothing to compare it to, you know. Um, so I don't know. Like I just it really has to it's always been one of those things where it's got to be something that just makes sense to me.

And I never I've never been very good about calculated moves, [laughter] you know, cuz if I if it's not real to me, if I'm not if I don't feel it and if I don't if I feel like I'm bullshitting people, I'm a good bullshitter, but I'm not that good a bullshitter when it comes when it comes to that. You know, it's always kind of cuz there was a time in the '9s whenever um we had a rockabilly band and people labels were sort of taking a wait and see attitude to us and we're doing pretty good. And um we're like, we don't have time to wait and see. You know, this is happening right now.

I want, you know, we had all these friends were getting signed to major deals like, you know, punk rock bands or rock bands or whatever. There were a lot of them in Dallas for a while. Who were some of the dudes you were? Well, okay.

So, it was like the school of like Tripping Daisy or Hagfish especially got signed to London. That was a big deal. But and then the Toadies, they were big buddies of ours. And um and you know, there were a lot of those bands that were getting signed left and right to something when that meant something.

And we felt like, well, man, you know, we're doing good shows. I mean, it makes sense. We look cool. I think the band's pretty good, but everybody's kind of like same as what you're thinking.

It's like, how do how are we going to sell a rockabilly band, you know? Um if we'd have stuck with it, maybe they'd have caugh caught up to But then we saw that and we decided we were so loud at that point, we were going to try and just play rock music, you know what I mean? It seemed to be working for some of our friends. And the rockability we were playing was so loud.

was just like, well, let's be kind of like a Zezy Top sort of thing. And uh so, and of course, everybody loves Easy Top, but at the same time, it's like, name one band besides them who's really been able to pull that off, you know? That's a great And then it didn't wind up, we didn't wind up, you know, whatever it is we were trying to get go after that we thought maybe people might be more commercial. Not that was really our driving force for doing that, but like uh it didn't wind up being that way.

It wound up being something completely different anyways, you know? I don't know. I'm just not able to sort of calculated like write songs specifically for some successful genre. I mean, I could maybe for somebody else, but if like in the presentation of doing it myself, like [snorts] I don't I don't know, you know, it's always going to wind up looking and sounding something like this, you know?

So, for better or worse, what would be a weird genre or uh type of music that people would be surprised that you're into? Guilty pleasure. Um I don't know. Like, um I'm I was always a big fan of hip-hop and especi when it first came around, I really loved that a whole lot.

Punk rock music really kind of brought me to the dance for a lot of things. Um, I don't know if I could really shock anybody with it. Jazz I like a lot. Yeah, hip-hop's pretty So this is like 90s hip-hop.

90s and earlier. Yeah. Like when YoMTV Raps was on, I used to, you know, set my VHS player with the timer to if I wasn't around to record YoMTV Raps, you know, cuz I it was so new. Like you hadn't heard anything like that before.

But I mean, and I remember the first like mixtape I ever got with Easy E and NWA on it and before the records came out, somebody had a hold of it and gave it to me and I saw them in concert too, like an 88. It was awesome. So cool. Um, but yeah, I don't know if that's a shocker to anybody, but um, well, the punk thing is interesting, too.

I would be I would be curious when you say you got into punk because a lot of my new music is definitely um inspired by punk but a lot of the punk that I grew up on. So I'd be curious what what are bands that come to mind when you say punk rock? For us it started with the British bands, the Sex Pistols and Okay. GBH and um you know all of the that ilk that you know even the Buzzcocks or the you know like there's was a just a long list of bands like the exploited we love the exploited and then we started getting into like more of the American hardcore stuff that was going on at the time like Youth Brigade or 7 Seconds Minor Threat and you know like that kind of stuff we were really into.

But it wasn't until like my brother went to he went to England and you know he was hanging out with some punks friends over there but they were also they also had friends who were into this psychabilly music and that was a whole different psychabilly. Psychabilly. Wow. Try to explain that to me.

Okay. So, it's heavily influenced by rockabilly music, but with this crazy sort of punk, and I'm talking like, you know, the punks from the 80s with the Liberty Spikes and the Mohawks and all that stuff. These guys would do their hair and they probably still do. And these what was supposed to be like a pompador, but it would be shaved all around here and it would come to a point like out to here, hairsprayed up and multicolored, and it was a whole punk energy.

and the way that they did it, but they had upright bass and they had, you know, it was definitely leaning towards the old 50s rock thing, but just like completely twisted like it can't crawl out of a cemetery. And he brought back some records and he's like, "Man, check this out." And there's this band called The Meteors and this band called Demented Our Go. And uh I just it just blew my mind.

I was like, "I never heard anything like this." And my mom being super cool the way she is, she was like, "Hey, that's cool. You like the Psychabilly stuff, but if you like Psychability, you should check out Rockabilly." Like, "What's Rockabilly?"

And he's like, "Well, we got some 45s from your dad and I. You want to There's some Jean Vincent, some Eddie Cochran and all." Then I was just all in. And then I took Rockabbilly and kind of made sense that it was country and blues and then I went all off into that.

It was a cool time to be into music for me because it was just all of this really cool stuff I'd never ever heard before. One after the next and I just bought every record I could save my money to buy, you know. I still have every single one of them. All my records.

All of them? All of them. Yeah. Do you have a record collection?

No, sir. Yeah. So, I have a pretty extensive one. And then I inherited my mom and dad's records, which is crazy, too.

So, how many you think you have? I haven't counted, but it's probably I don't know. It's a lot, but it's probably not as much as a lot of people have. It's probably about 500, something like that.

You know, that seems like a lot. It's a lot, but I mean, it's not there again, you know, it's like a waffle, is it? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a lot. And then a lot of them I inherited one way or the next, but do you do you still go back through and Mhm. What do you just listen to the whole record?

I mean, that's the thing about it, you know, like that's the whole format. That's one of the reasons I love it as much as I do is just because you got to make a commitment to at least listen to one side. Yeah. You know, or I guess you could get bored with it and put So, is that like you'll still just pick a random record off the wall and pop it in and just sit there and listen?

Yeah. Whatever mood you're in, you know, and there's a lot of them that I really have never even listened to, which is still cool. I love this whole vinyl thing. It's sort of coming back.

Me, too. You know, it's gonna get heavier, too. feels better, you know, like it artwork just it's a work of art, dude. Like, you know, Gen Z, I've just seen the thing about like a lot of them are really starting to think pretty heavily about all the social media and the cell phones and all that and a lot of them are like withdrawing from it.

I hope so because it's just exhausting. Yeah. It's starting to get to a fever pitch where it's uh shoot like we're just not even in reality anymore. Yeah.

Which I mean I don't know. I would love to be optimistic about it and uh and say that I like to believe that you're right that people are kind of stepping back from it and sort of getting tired [sighs and gasps] just I mean probably actually physically tired and exhausted from just what it's doing to your brain just going by the end of the day scrolling right all day long. Yeah. Uh I hope that you're right because I it exhausts me or at least for a segment I think a segment of societies and if for guys like us like we you know it's one thing for you to do it and find your interest and let people know what you're up to in the world if that's what gives you joy that's cool.

I get it. Um, but for guys like you and me where it's becomes this big part of the barometer of our worth professionally. Clubs are looking at your numbers. Um, you know, booking agents looking at everybody's looking to see all of this stuff.

Uh whereas we came up in a time where it's like that was just sort of warming up and getting started and then you're supposed to you're supposed to constantly be feeding this algorithm that wants more and more and more all the time to where it's just like man can we just do the show [laughter] you guys just like trust me it's going to be good. You know what I mean? Like um they just don't have built-in crowds anymore. Yeah.

That's the problem is like the discovery of music and finding out where somebody's going to play if everybody is on social media and like right now most people are. Yeah. It's like where else do you Well, let me tell you this is why I feel like it's a double-edged sword and I can see the good and the bad of it from my perspective as somebody who came up at the time when I came up like uh I can still it's better than some of like walking around all day with a staple gun and your flyers [snorts] that you cut and paste together and made a bunch of them at Kinko. those and stapling them to the pole, hoping that they would last through the week so people would actually see them.

And there was another thing that people would do where you would take your poster and you would take a can of pasteurized milk with a paintbrush and paint them onto wood surfaces cuz you wouldn't be able to get them off. The milk would stick. They would stick. Of course, it's really sticky and gross to do that all day.

And I think I only really had the wherewithal to do it maybe once or twice. And I'm like, this is not worth it. But that from that time or doing a mailing address, mailing list card that you made every single month, again, spending your time and money at Kinko's to try and build that up and doing postcards and stamps and all of that stuff. Uh to now you don't have to do it.

It's you have you have all the whole world can see what you're doing if you're playing it right. And so I don't want to always sound like I'm very weary of sounding like one of those guys that like get off my porch. Yeah. Or the guy who's like we grew up drinking from the garden hose and we're still here a no seat belt or nothing.

You high fallutin youngsters, you know. You do that well though. Well, I mean it's in there. [laughter] It's in there.

But I don't know. I absolutely get it cuz I it was a d the only reason I have anything going on is not the only reason like I focused on making what I thought was cool music that I liked. But like it started with doing live things on Facebook and then getting an audience on Instagram and that was the only way when I released music there was people to know about it. Yeah.

That's the only reason why. Well, but it's same it's double-edged sword, you Well, bringing it full circle to that sort of insecurity that you even sometimes get as many times as you've done it and that whole sort of sense of self-doubt standing at a microphone on a stage going, I hope I'm I hope I don't screw this up. Even after you've done it so many times, you know what you're doing. Even after that, the where I've really felt it like the most was when the pandemic hit and then everybody all of us got to sit in a room with our phone on some stand that we bought off of Amazon with a freaking ring light or some crap like that trying to figure out how to do that and just like you're alone in your room by yourself with nobody to respond to you whatsoever.

That is the weirdest, oddest, most awkward feeling ever of performing that I ever I hated it. I still don't like it. But but you can't you can't live in that space if you're going to if you're going to navigate through all of this stuff. You've got to get past it and just you can't beat it.

You got to join it somehow and embrace it because it's not a bad thing. It's a cool thing to be able to have instant access to whoever it is that's interested in your stuff. It's just a weird to me. It's just where I get insecure about it.

It's just because it feels odd to me because it is odd. Yeah, it's odd. But the more that you do it, like you're good at it. You've, you know, you've leaned into it and turned.

We're sitting here right now, you know. So it's one thing for me as like uh somebody of a certain age to talk about how weird it is and feel that on a different level, but like you got to lean into that then people are going to have to figure and they are figuring it out right now with the way it's going to go the next big turn that it's making with AI because you know I'm sure you've had this conversation with any number of our songwriter friends who are talking to you about the glories of Sunno or whatever that is as the songwriter buddies who are who are out there in that whole Nashville songwriting world and they're telling me all about it. They're like, "Look, this is kind of the publishing houses are accepting these demos done by Sunno, you know, which blew my mind altogether." And that was like two months ago when I was having this conversation with people I won't mention or friends of ours.

Um they're like, "Yeah, you know, they're taking those demos and accepting them to pitch." Which when you think about that, what makes sense to me. is like, you know, Nashville's always had that industry of like the demos and recording all these demos and musicians that get they make their living recording the demos to pitch to bigger artist and all that stuff. That's somebody's livelihood and now it's happening.

the robots are replacing Brent Mason for maybe not necessarily Brent Mason, but like you know for a very specific style of music though which I'm actually recently I'm looking forward to it now because it's like AI is really great at duplicating something that's already been done. Yeah. So it has to be hyper formulaic, relatively generic. Yeah.

and then it can spit it out. Like there's no it's no accident that AI seems to do the best at like pop country music. It turns those things out and it sounds exactly like something on the radio on my end of it. I never liked that music to begin with.

Yeah. So I'm like, okay, well now it's just replacing the people that make that music. But I was never really inspired by I thought that stuff was incredibly formulaic and sort of just soulless to begin with, right? Like it just there wasn't a lot there.

I've been in the rooms where that stuff's being written and I wasn't really moved by it. I know how the sauce is made and I'm like, "Oh, this is kind of lame." So for a robot to do it, I'm like, "Oh, yeah." But there's stuff that I hear guys like you do that I just don't hear AI duplicating.

And I also don't think there's enough money in it for like a lot of the music that I make and that you make for it to duplicate it. And so I think there's a segment of society that the people that like that type of music that like you know you would be making they just want a human to make it. And I don't I if anything I think it'll actually help. It could.

Yeah. I hope that you're right and I've had that conversation. Thanks for the compliment. Um but um yeah, I just know that like on some level you're not going to be able to beat it.

You're going to have to figure out how to join it somehow. And look, I don't know how to use it. So, and it doesn't really join it the needle for me. observing myself create like making music.

I find myself when I'm writing something or coming up with a guitar part, I'm actively going, is this unique enough? Yeah, I've always said that, but now it's on like hyper mode. Sure. Where I'm like, this just isn't I feel like if somebody heard this, they would be like, I don't know, did AI make that, right?

And so it's like pushing me to be like and I have a I'm speculating that music is going to get a part of music is going to get really bizarre and really unorthodox and there's going to have to be a lot of elements of surprise and unexpectedness in the music. Uh because that's the only way you can compete against a formulaic algorithm creating music. That's the only way you're going to be able to show a human came up with this. It's like whoa I didn't see that coming.

I find myself gravitating towards music that five years ago I'd be like, "That's kind of weird. I don't know what they got going on there. I'm not really into that." Now I'm liking that music more.

Yeah. Well, I tell you, when I say when I say we're not going to be able to beat him, we're going to have to join. I'm going to give you an example of what I'm talking about. And I'm not I don't I don't have really very much interested in it because I don't I still I'm going to be behind the curve on this one.

I refuse to use well I haven't I've [snorts] tried to play with it just to just to see what it is how it works or whatever and I get bored and don't I'm not interested in that. But I'll give you an example of how it applies to even the folks that I'm talking about, the songwriter guys who are using it because that's what people are doing. And that's part of the can't beat them, join them thing, right? But then there was another part of the conversation which I don't really understand yet.

It sort of makes sense to me. But one of our buddies was talking about how, okay, he wants to figure out how to make a platform specifically to make sure that if AI goes to use any like if they plug it in, I don't know how this works, by the way, but if they plug it in, all right, I want a song in the style of Matt Hillier, blah. if AI were to somehow go and try to sample some of your sounds, your stuff that they have to figure out how we get paid somehow for that. I don't even know how that works.

I don't know how it works whatsoever. It doesn't make any sense to me, but I like the idea of it. Like if like if there's if there if that's going to happen anyways Yeah. If they're going to steal your ideas, Yeah.

they should compensate you. Yeah. It still doesn't take away from the idea that I think it's lame. I think it Yeah, it's in the same way that if you're sitting in a writer's room and the guy sings a melody exactly like a AC/DC song and you're like that sounds exactly like this AC/DC song and he goes, "Ah, no one will know.

" Yeah. It's like even in that moment I'll just be like, "No, that's lame." Yeah. Right.

Let's do something different. Yeah. Well, it is has all been done. But to a degree, but it does go against everything that I love about sitting in like I said earlier like when you know you're sitting in a room [gasps] and at one point it doesn't exist whatsoever.

Two hours later you do some thinking, you do a little soularching, do a little therapeutic sort of introspection as lofty and as pretentious as that could possibly sound as we're songwriters. This is what we do. uh and hopefully well enough to strike a chord with somebody else. Um and then two hours later you have something, you know, it came specifically out of here and out of here and you put it down.

Nothing feels better than that. You know, you created something out of nothing. Whether it's completely and totally original on your own, well, you can change it. You know, you can make you can take it and remold it and remake it, repaint the picture, all of that stuff.

That's all up to you. And that's what I love about it. The idea that within two seconds you can feed your acoustic demo. And this is the other like little thing that people are talking about.

I was like, well, they're not writing the song. I write the song. And I' But I just tell them like production and arrangement isn't a skill. Exactly.

Um, look, I I've had people tell me I'm a producer. Like they'll be like, I produced this. Yeah. Excuse me.

They just plugged it into their little AI thing and they said, "I produced it." Like, "What do you mean you produced it?" They're like, "Man, I had to like put in like I had to get it to turn it out like 50 different times till I got what I wanted. " I'm like, "You're Let's be clear, you're not a producer."

Yeah. Like, let's go into the studio and see how quickly you lasted. Have you done the producing thing at all? Well, I've done a lot of them on my own music.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, like, I'm cutting some records with a couple different people. It's fun.

Like I've I've done some of that myself and I always like I go I go into it feeling like the biggest poser in the world because like people do throw the word producer around a whole lot when they don't what does that even mean, you know? I know what it means to me, you know, but like unless you're actually there sort of contributing to the aspect of making it. I love that part of it. But like, you know, I got a buddy, John Pedigo, and I, he and I produced our last my last couple of records.

He did the heavy lifting on those. But, um, but we kind of co-produced those as well, but we've just recently co-produced for another friend of ours, and it's fun, you know, it's a fun deal. And I but I was going in there going like, dude, what am I bringing to the table here? Because I'm not an engineer.

because I feel like if you're gonna be a producer, you should at least be a bit of an engineer. But that's not always true, you know, and then I'll get into the mix. I'm like, man, this is fun. I'm actually contributing to this whole deal.

You know what I mean? And it's a good deal. But then, yeah, I've heard people talk about, yeah, I'm producing this or whatever. [laughter] Are you though?

Are you are you? Yeah. Well, it depends on the situation, too, because there's some dudes that seem like they're just like great kind of general contractors and they just know a bunch of badass players and they've got an awesome engineer and access to a great studio and they're able to just get a good group of people together and they're also really great at like taking their hands off the wheel too and they just get the people together and then they come up with a great record like Well, it's like Lloyd Mains, man. I've worked with him a handful, but he's like super hands-on.

He is, but he's not an engineer. You know what I mean? Oh, but he tactically knows what's going on. Oh, he knows exactly what's going on.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And u he did my first record.

He's so good. Yeah. He's a animal and he plays on a lot of stuff, too. I think like most players, if you're a great studio player, you kind of are a producer.

Yeah. I think everybody needs to produce it together, right? That's the idea for me. Yeah.

No, I love doing it. I hope to do more of it and hopefully that's a job that will still exist as we move forward. [laughter] I mean, I'm a consumer of music. I just flat out don't want to listen to something that I just think it's boring if a robot algorithm thing made it.

It's just like it is quite literally the definition of soulless, right? I'm not interested in that in that stuff. And I but I don't know. I'm very like I say, I'm very weary about just not being the guy who's just get off my lawn on all kinds of stuff.

Well, I'll carry the torch for you then. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm right in the thick of it. So, I'm just like, "Oh, yeah, that sucks.

That's lame. I just want to jam out with my boys, right? Be like there in the room and then when it once it fills up and there's enough people in there and they're all like this sucks. I'll be like then I'll be like yeah well if it makes you feel any better.

There's all sorts of young cats that are just like they think it's lame too. They just want to get a band together with their friends and play for people. Well, you know what I think would be cool bringing I think there's a shift happening honestly. Well, what would be cool is if uh and again, I'm maybe just out of touch enough not to know that it already always exists, but I feel like something historically through music, like something comes along to shake everything up when stuff starts to get stale and lame, right?

So, jazz came along to shake it up for a whole bunch of stuff. And then rock and roll came along and scared the crap out of everybody. And then the 60s happen and a different type of rock and roll protest kind of rock and people going against the everything all the norms. And then the 70s come along.

They get kind of lame for a little while. A lot of good music, but then h this is lame. Then punk rock comes along and then hip-hop comes along. Something comes along to shake everything up.

So maybe if things get lame enough, we'll get just an outpouring of angry young people. Those are the people who change things, you know, the people who angry young folks are just like, "This sucks. Your generation is screwing everything up and enough. We're done.

" So, knock on wood. Whatever. Young people always young people young people. [laughter] Hey, now boys.

Young people always are resisting what the older generation is doing. So, when you get a 19-year-old that's watching, I don't know, their mom doom scroll at night on Facebook, they're like, "That's lame." Yeah. Huh.

Well, yeah, there's plenty to there's plenty of lame stuff to rebel against. I would just love to see and again, probably it's already happening, but I'd love to see a huge movement of kids like uh putting on their own shows in some warehouse someplace cuz that was a thing. I think it's happening, dude. I think so.

I think it's like we need I was just I just don't go out that much if I don't have to, you know, like at least not to that warehouse. Where are we going to park? Yeah, the parking is [laughter] a pain, dude. What time does the show start?

10:00. Come on. Yeah, my feet hurt. Yeah, exactly.

Wear these freaking boots. Is there going to be any chairs? [laughter] But is there going to be a table in these chairs? Then freaking grandma drank too much.

Yeah, I'm hoping to age in such a way where like I can be one of those guys that sort of hangs out in those kind of rooms and has maybe just a small modicum of cred, you know? That's it. I'm never going to be cool like cool. I think you're pretty cool.

Look at you. How cool. I mean, come on. You got freaking two sleeves of tattoos.

Yeah. You got the hip glasses. Yeah. Okay, dude.

All you got to do is just wait. People aren't that unique. Like, if you This is actually sage advice. If you just do something long enough, it'll come back around.

I have I've lived this. I have lived this. Yeah. I don't think I'm telling you anything.

I bought all these shirts that uh nobody wanted. Yeah. [laughter] Now, we all I've seen them go out of style and come back into style. All I got to do is lose about 30 pounds.

I can fit back into them again. Yeah. Yeah. That's all you got to do.

Yeah. It gets easier as you get older, too, by the way. Yeah, dude. Uh you're y'all did a documentary.

Mhm. Uh on the YouTube. Oh, it's on the YouTube. Yeah.

It's pretty badass. I'm glad that you think so because I didn't know if that was actually going to happen or we were going to get it done because we did crowdsourcing to make it happen. And we had all these ideas about how we wanted to make the deal go. And then the world shut down and then it became a really difficult uh prospect of actually making it happen because and the world shut down and then we started to we decided that we were not going to be a band anymore.

And uh so then we're going okay well what do we are we going to do this? Like we took people's money to make this happen. Like either we give it back to them or we follow through on it. We really wanted to make it happen because we started compiling all this footage from over the years and um it's a it's a miracle that we were able to pull something together and the gal Laura Decker who wound up you know putting it together and finishing it um for us did a great job and you watch it if you watch it on YouTube it looks like it's something one of those things that was made during the pandemic because there's lots of interviews and some of them are really just hard to hear and see.

Oh, you know, like, wait, you mean because of a mask like Z? Well, no, Zoom because you'd ask people to tape interviews and stuff and like nobody people hadn't really figured that out quite yet, right? Like not everybody had their lighting set up and their [laughter] 4K cameras happening like they did by the end of the pandemic. They were in their bathroom.

Yeah. No, it came out by pretty cool. It's a lot about That's a hard thing to put together, man. It was um because we had all these ideas about driving to all these different places and getting good-looking, good sounding audio and video interviews from a whole lot of people.

It would it would look and sound a whole lot different if the pandemic hadn't happened. But um but I don't know it's kind of an interesting story just you know it's a lot about what led to 1100 springs and not as much about what happened with 1100 springs which is kind of weird to that's why I guess we called it the road to 1100 springs. You know why is that weird to you? It's just weird because it's like we set out to make this thing that was supposed to be just kind of like okay well we've done all this um and basically saying then here's what's next for the band when before the world shut down because we had different plans and then the world shuts down we decide man I think we're done.

[gasps] Uh, and then it became just sort of just like a maybe like a little postcard love letter to the fans basically saying thanks for all the good times. Whereas when we went into it, it was supposed to be just sort of like a pivot to say, okay, we've done this, this is some of our history and here's what's coming up next, you know, that's weird to me just because the focus and the game plan of it changed from start to finish, you know. Yeah. So now your primary focus is playing those like acoustic listening room style things.

I like it a lot. I still like to do band shows. I still have a band that I play with and who knows, man. It's not impossible to say that you'll see 1100 Springs on some show again.

We did it once uh last year and um had a lot of fun. It was good to get the band together again. There's still people that would like to see that. It's funny to me though because like the guys that I use on my band shows typically all of those guys were in 1100 Springs at one time or the next.

So it's funny to me was like man I sure miss 1100 springs. It's like well you come see my band you know you right. [laughter] I'm not like leaving your favorite songs off of the set list or anything. Oh that's funny.

Don't you hate it when the marketing works. Oh yeah. Right. The branding works.

Uhhuh. Yeah. Well isn't that weird? It is weird.

It's the same thing with like Cross Canadian Ragweed. Yeah. Yeah, they freaking sell out these stadiums and then it's like you realize you could have gone and seen Cody Canada for but Cody had a different uh he had a different thought process when the band split up. He was not wanting to play any of those songs.

This is very true. But I'm talking about recently. Yeah. Where it's like, you know, you just go see him for 20 bucks somewhere.

Yeah. Uh I guess it's just funny. I guess I mean but that is marketing and branding and uh and yeah the band element is important obviously those people contribute to the songs and stuff. I just do think it's I'm just so but it's probably just because we're in it like Yeah.

and you see behind the curtain a little bit. Yeah. And uh Well, I love playing with a band and I especially love you know I love 1100 springs. I do.

It's not really, like I say, it's not that much different than anything I do on any of my band shows now, except for the fact that it's it is different cuz Steve and I put all that stuff together. And like it is a representation of like not just 1100 Springs, but what all the bands that he and I were in together before that led to 23 years of that band. And then I don't know, being a country, like I've always said, we were a country dance band. We came up in a lot of these honky tons and dance halls where if you couldn't keep them on the dance floor, you probably weren't going to get very many gigs.

So, you know, whereas it wasn't just Ray Price shuffles or Buck Owens type tunes or Merl Haggard or Whan Jennings or Western Swing, it was kind of all of it in one and then a little bit of Graham Parsons and Doug Som mixed in there to get that hippie thing going on. Um, and then really all us all at the same time. Um, I don't know. It's to try.

You talk about trying to sell something that people are kind of like, huh, that should be a no-brainer, but it's not necessarily, you know, like being a band that in Texas, it's not an original concept, but being a band in Texas that was trying to sell all of those things twisted up in one in our own way to make people dance, that's not just something you see every day. And I'm proud of what we were able to do and accomplish with trying to do that. I'm proud of the songs that we wrote and recorded and the records that we made and where we're coming from. I love it, you know?

So, I mean, I've never said I've never said that I wouldn't do it again, you know what I mean? I always joke that I'm the only guy that's never missed a show, you know? [laughter] Like, I don't know if the guys in the band appreciate that. So, do you do you have a lot of Right.

Do you have a lot of shows on the books for 26 now there? It's filling up. You know what I mean? It's filling up and try to be choosy about all that stuff, but like you know.

Uh, no. And you can book us [laughter] now. We're wide open. No, I just didn't know if there's something you wanted to plug if there was like Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I don't know when you'll put this out. Tomorrow. Um, December 19th at the Granada Theater.

Oh, yeah. In Dallas. Oh, that's right. That should be fun, too, because I'm kind of trying to build it as um sort of home for the holidays kind of thing.

So, I got a handful of u other singer songwriters that probably hop up and do a Christmas song or something like that to make a party out of it. Make it fun. We've played a lot of shows of the Granada and it's always a good time. So, yeah.

[laughter] So, so yeah, get your tickets while you can. Yeah. Yeah. Well, sick, dude.

Well, thanks for taking the time to do this. Yeah, man. I'm glad we got I could talk to you freaking all day. Let's do We'll do it again.

Yeah, absolutely. We'll do it again. It's just like sitting on the beach except with Topo Chico this time. I was going to take my shirt off, [laughter] but I wasn't.

Well, you know, this is for you, Matt. You know, wait till I turn the cameras off at least. You know, we'll all get our own private show. Just plug your ears.

Yeah. Thanks for having me, bro. Yeah, dude. Yeah.

See y'all. We have time to do two quick topics. Yeah. What do you got?

Yay. Oh, about the day he died or Yeah. Weren't you headed to Austin? I was.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I do have I do have drunk Hank would be great.

We have a guitar here if you need it. Uh I don't haven't done it in a while and it's pretty blue. Yeah. I'll talk about it, but I'm not I'm not going to try it.

Attempt it. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

We're good. We're good. Is there a So, I don't know. Just say uh I'll comment something about my shirt.

Yeah. Yeah. Just with my stupid necklaces. Mhm.

No, your necklaces are cool, man. Really? They're not as cool. They're not as cool as your tats.

Where'd you get those? I actually took you more as a ring guy. No, I've tried it. I've tried it, but I don't know.

I lose things too easy for that. Oh, really? Man, you know, Stevie Rayvon, you got the Stevie Ray shirt on. Um I It blows my mind sometimes.

you go someplace, especially in the blues world where some people they started to say it was cool to sort of hate on Stevie Rayvon just because and there was a time because he kind of wasn't like the like oh the purists would sort of hate on it because it gave way to a whole bunch of guys who just wanted to do that like white guys playing the blues who were going to be guitar slingers but you know I and I hear it I'm just like hear people say that I'm like man I just think You're off base, bro. Like, cuz Ray was he's one of our national treasures and especially here in Texas, one of the greatest ever. No question. And I feel like I know I really feel like I would have met him if he'd have lived a little bit longer.

I'm sure of it. Oh, really? Well, we had a handful of mutual friends cuz I used to I live close to Charlie's Guitar Shop, which is a legendary guitar shop. existed forever.

And Stevie Ray's road manager, Renee, came out of that shop. And it was like one of the early like buy and sell cool vintage guitar shops from way back. And the guy who owned it at the time was this guy Mark Pollock. And Mark was a legend in his own right.

And he kind of was instrumental of creating the Greater Southwest Guitar Show, which everybody goes to for come from all over the world to buy cool guitars. And uh but I would go in there every day after school because I was into playing guitar and my mom would take me in there after school and they would just sort of let me play whatever guitar I wanted to play. And uh and I started to get into Stevie Ray. And of course Mark knew Stevie like a little brother, you know, from way back from before Stevie moved to Austin or whatever before Stevie was Stevie, you know.

And um they had these famous I can remember they had these work shirts that they made for everybody who worked at Charlie's and they were this hideous bright orange but they had embroidered names on them and the logo on the pocket and on the back but you had to you had to be sort of in with the people at the shop to get one of those shirts. And I remember going to Mark's house one day and uh he had two of those orange shirts that he had just had made and one of them was mine and it said Matt the Cat and he spelled it different like he said Matt the Cat K A TT cuz he thought that was just cooler. Like okay whatever. Uh and then the other one was Stevie Rayvon's shirt and they're just both hanging there.

I was like whoa. And I was like, man, I'm going to meet this guy. I know it. I know I'm going to meet this guy.

So, it just seemed like it to me and I feel like I would have. And it was right before I was about to start high school. And um my first day of high school, I had to leave from school and get on a plane and fly to Austin um to do a showcase for Tony Brown of uh he was the president of MCA Records at the time. Didn't Tony produce like all George Strait stuff?

A lot. He played piano for Elvis and he's a he's a heavy hitter. And my manager at the time kept telling me like, "It's not a showcase. It's not a showcase."

Yeah, it's a showcase. But it was uh I mean it went the show went bad. And I don't know how it could have gone well because I was in the car on the way to the airport and my mom says, "You know, I got to tell you something. Stevie Rayvon died today."

And I was just like, "Oh [sighs] man." because I really was just getting into him and I had that mental thought just like man I know because he wasn't the Mark wasn't the only mutual I had tons of mutual friends which will be proven and the next point I'll make about it was just like uh I had so many mutual friends and I was such a fan I really just discovered and was in all of his records at the time and I was like man I got to meet this guy and uh so I was pretty gutted about the whole thing but then when I got to Austin and whoever picked me up from the airport. Um Gordon Fowler who he created Wick Fowler's forearms. You can buy it at the grocery store or whatever, but he you know he was married to Marsha Ball and they picked me up at the airport and everybody I saw from the airport to the show was just gutted.

They were just decimated by what had happened with Stevie Ray. And uh so it was just all bad vibes. All just bad vibes. And not like one of those angry bad vibes.

It's just like just miserable sadness, you know. And I was right there in the middle of all that. Not sure how to really navigate through it. And uh I get up on stage and I think we were opening for a band called the Subdudes at uh Lozona Rosa.

and I get up on stage and I'm messing with my amp and stuff and I look right over if I'm on stage facing uh out like uh here's a table right by the stage and sitting at this table is Tony Brown and uh my manager and uh Bruce Robinson and uh Kelly Willis we were all friends you know they were you know they Kelly was managed by the same person um so they were there and it was just all just bad vibes, you know, like and I was up there just, you know, it's like you ever It was one of those shows where it's like there's not much you can do to fix it. Just things are going wrong. It's like trying to punch somebody in a dream, you know, just like Yeah. You literally just want to be out of it.

Oh, it was terrible. And then like uh I did the show, it wasn't great, and my manager I think called me like a week later and she just ripped me a new one. And like you played bad or I don't understand. Well, my amp wasn't working.

It was just like every It was one of those situations where everything was thrown together with underneath the cloud of sadness that existed for that. And so I was probably [clears throat] responding to just that not knowing how to sort of negotiate cuz a throwand go. Oh. You know, and so it just didn't go well, you know, and my headspace was wrong.

I couldn't there was no positivity about it. I couldn't be cute and charming and it's just like when everybody's just I'm around me, it's just miserable. Yeah. But anyways, like so the manager and I split ways and everything like that, but I feel like I would have I feel like I would have been able to meet him if Yeah.

You were tippy toeing around it, huh? Yeah. cuz I had multiple friends that knew him and some of them in that were in the program with him and he was I think in probably for the first time in his life in a good headsp space to really just like just be open to all things and you know it's just like I really wanted to meet that guy you know. Yeah dude that would have been nuts.

Yeah. That's one of my earliest musical memories is Stevie Ray Pride and Joy. Uhhuh. It's a family reunion.

My cousin showing me how to play it on the guitar. Well, and that's the thing. I didn't I hadn't really got I'd heard all about his records and his music and everything like that, but I hadn't really gotten into him until I was in that Austin scene and people started playing it for me and I was like, golly, this dude is so good. So ridiculously good.

Like there's there isn't anybody like him. That's funny people were giving him a hard time. [snorts] I don't know that anybody gave him a hard time. I just remember hearing it from some people like it's like Well, I think there was a phase though where it's like another white guy playing blues guitar.

There was. Yeah, it was. And I think that it still is for some folks because like it's coming back around. Well, no, I don't know.

I think that like there are some folks that like if you had to split the brothers in two to define what kind of blues you're into. Jimmy is definitely more sort of traditional and uh and then Stevie Ray is taking it to this whole different totally just melding you know all the great players and then putting his own voice into it and and becomes this massive star. You know, guitar is a weird one how opinionated people get and it's always people that don't really play. Uhhuh.

Just get like vitriolic about like, oh, there'll never be. I find it exhausting, especially like being in the rockabilly world. It would drive me crazy because, you know, I was just a kid who would have been happy to see and I wouldn't see to see every rockabilly show I possibly could because it didn't exist unless somebody came into town. And uh and then we went to California where there's a bigger rockabilly scene.

And boy, some of those folks, they were all really nice to us, don't get me wrong. And we liked all the stuff, but there was a clickiness to it to where it's like, well, we don't really like this or this, that's too bluesy, and this is like, man, you should be you have a show you can go see and it's good and it's cool. What difference does it make to you? Yeah.

You know, but that probably also came from the fact that we were a rockabilly band who didn't really have a just one specific stage to play on. We could play at Naomi or the Three Tear Drops Tavern, all the cool honky talk bars in Dallas, but then if you that's all you played, then you wouldn't have very many gigs. So, we played at Trees and we played at the Galaxy Club and all of these rock shows and we fit everywhere and nowhere at the same time. So that whenever people try to put stuff musically in a box any particular time in my life for any genre of music, I'm just like, man, you should be happy.

You like it, go to the show, have fun. There's something about uh there's at least 10 to 15 minutes of every band you'll see hopefully that you like. That's something that you appreciate. You don't have to get into all of it, you know?

Or don't go change the station. Don't do it. You know what I mean? the prospect of leaving your house and going to see a somebody play even if they suck, you know, like that can be just as entertaining.

Sure. Sometimes more, you know, but I don't know. I just never got that when people they treat music like some cosmic pissing contest that's got to fit within their parameters. that works for them.

God bless you. I guess it just makes me sad for them that they live their life that way. Yeah. It's genuinely like, dang, dude.

Try being the only guy who's dressed in full rockabilly gear at the Mosquite Rodeo when you're 12 [laughter] years old. That was me. And they, the Rednecks had a field day with it. They were like, "What's up with Elvis?

What's up with Elvis over there?" [laughter] Little fruit cake. Yeah. But, you know, man, just do your thing.

Like, just be happy there's someplace to go. I don't I just don't understand how people when they try to put stuff in a box like that. Doesn't work for me. Oh, well, you're preaching to the choir on that one.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Anyway, well, sick. So, now we're talking about drunk Hank.

You ask me about drunk Hank because I don't know. I'll explain it to you. The So, there Yeah, there is some sort of thing about drunk Hank. A thought, right?

Well, yeah. It's a Is it what it is? Okay, so it's uh there's a clip. It's pretty famous.

It's a board tape of Hank Jr. in the 90s and uh he's hammered. Just can't put words together. Can't speak correctly.

He's cussing all over the microphone, you know, saying all kinds of crap about people, but he really just can't speak. And we listen to it. So, so many people have listened to that tape up and down the road for years. And, uh, we listened to it enough to where I got to the point where me and Jordan, our fiddle player, had it pretty much memorized, the whole thing, and we could do it by memory at the drop of a hat.

And then uh one year at Steamboat there was a what they called a comedy night which was really just for this the artists. It wasn't for everybody but uh they did chicken [expletive] bingo that night and then they had us me and Cody Braun and uh Brook Rogers kind of put it together just a few songs. Then everybody it was funny enough that everybody got up and sang their own dirty funny songs and it became a really funny night. But part of it I was like, "Ah, man.

You know what I'll do? I will [snorts] uh I'll do drunk Hank, man. I'll do drunk Hank." And uh it was funny because we tried to m we tried to find something that would fashion like a beard and I would and some sunglasses.

So I the idea was that I would stumble into the room as Hank Williams Jr. They announced me as Hank Williams Jr. But we couldn't find anything that looked like her actual beard. So, Courtney Patton found like I don't know, it was yarn.

It was like black yarn and she strung it all over my face to where it looked. It's I have a picture someplace. I'll show it to you. But, um it looked awful so bad.

So, I stumble into the room like I'm supposed to and I make my way to the stage and I didn't plan it, but I had to like step over a monitor to get to the microphone and I kind of stumbled and that played even better, you know, cuz it's like then I really actually look like I'm really hammered, you know? And uh [laughter] and so I get up there and I just I'm doing this word for word. And the best thing about it is it was a complete Andy Kaufman sort of moment because um because half the people in the room knew what I was doing. Half the people are like, "Oh man, he's nailing it.

He's doing it. He's exactly what he says. Oh my god." And then the other half's going, "What the hell's going on right now?

This is off. This is the end of my career. Why is he Why he's is he okay?" You know, it's so great.

I remember. But the greatest thing about it, the show was over and that year they had Tom Kenny and Tom Kenny, he was there doing something with like a Doug Som tribute and uh Tom Kenny is a music freak but he's also the guy one of the creators of Spongebob. He does Spongebob's voice and I'd known him for a while from because he just loves music. I'd known him I was not ready for that before Spongebob.

That's the guy that's there. Yeah. But he I got off stage and uh I'm walking off and Tom Kenny and Joe Canrasco walk up to me and they're like, "That was brilliant. That was brilliant.

That was that was so great. You nailed it. You did it word for word. I couldn't believe it.

It was great because half the room didn't know what the hell you were doing. Did you keep the bit going?" Oh, I did two songs. No, I mean in front of them.

Oh, no. No. Oh, dude. I thought it was No, it was I thought that's where the coffee No, after I was done.

If then they leave the conversation with you and they go um now I'm not really sure. After the bit was over like I took the beard off and stuff. So it became one of these things like okay well that was weird [laughter] you know like yeah but I mean like I'll give you an example like he does country boy I'll just do a little bit. A country boy can't preacher man says live a time.

Simple man says win the time [sighs and gasps] ent down no bit old down town we're just hillbillies and it just goes and goes and goes and goes I mean it you commit to a joke like that and you actually do the whole thing the whole thing oh yeah well I did uh family tradition you what you got to hear it you'll appreciate it much more once you hear it you know what I mean did family tradition and then Country board can't survive. So that's longer. So what about the part about him? I haven't seen the video.

So or whatever. There's no Yeah. It's just audio. But he's like getting mad at people, right?

And he he Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He talks [clears throat] some So you're doing that in and out of it.

Well, that's I don't do anything. Nothing is adlibbed. It's all spec Yeah. Yeah.

That's all part of it. But he's like getting pissed at Yeah. He gets he gets he specifically names out Gar Brooks and says some stuff because that's probably when Gar was like right you know coming up and on his heels and stuff. [laughter] It's pretty great.

Anyways, one of these days I'll brush up on it. I'll do I'll do the whole bit for you. I have to listen to it first. Yeah.

Yeah. You'll appreciate it more that way. [laughter] All right. Sing [music] the sweet melody.