Race Ricketts

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

[Music] okay have you ever heard of that I know I know what it is I don't think I quite know how to say it what do you think it is but it's got an r in there Tu there's an r in there turmeric but I heard if you take too much of it makes you like orange yeah look like you got scurvy

tonight I don't think it does it all well if you like that's what scurvy is right you start to like turn yellow orange like I don't think so I thought that's what Like Pirates got where's my phone I'm gonna have to double check and see if do we have do you have my phone over there toss me my phone that might be

jaundice I think that's right jaundice for sure jaundice is yeah for sure I want to say scurvy is like orange no dude scurvy is a uh vitamin C deficiency and it gets in like I think your gums maybe that's what it is I'm thinking of orange vitamin C deficiencies you were thinking of an orange yes and orange so yeah scurvy that's what

like because those dudes would be on the ships for so long and then they wouldn't have vitamin C that's also why they would drink uh rum or no that's actually not white which boy we're throwing out a lot of like yeah inaccurate which it's I find it odd how do you get scurvy with a lack of vitamin C when you're in the

sun all the time on a ship whoa so that I mean maybe I'm just a bad historian and maybe that was potentially the dumbest thing I've ever heard anybody ever say laughs [Laughter] vitamin you get vitamin D oh dude oh man wow that was so fun for me I thought you were messing with me no yeah I was oh my God honey

so yeah they were yeah they don't get it from this gosh dang it man that one got me oh so yeah they got to be eating I'd like I would love to believe that I did that on purpose but so I was waiting like I was just like I'm joking yeah I was looking you dead enough never came never happened the confidence

like you're just shoulders back just yeah what's up bro okay so yeah so to clarify in case anybody's struggling with a bout of scurvy that is because you don't have enough vitamin C it's not because you don't get in the sun enough yeah what Jared said so uh but so how we originally gone on this is I'm taking turmeric right we were

trying to figure out what turmeric after he actually is it's a spice I think from India but I put in my coffee because it's supposed to help with inflammation gotcha yeah I don't the verdict is still out I think it might help but if you have too much of it makes you Orange right which is not the same thing as Kirby yeah

now I know I was doing my best right there just don't say anything else just factually untrue I'm proud of you just that was so fun thank you thank you that was a gift that was an absolute gift so uh where are you living right now uh I'm living in Olney Texas right now o-l-n-e-y just uh south of Wichita Falls down there

in Young County but you're not from there I am from there yeah oh where I grew up is that a 940 area code I didn't know that you know it goes that far out there yeah it goes about as far west is like Stonewall County and Stonewall County it's where it gets split up into like in the 940 and then you get

into like Lubbock's area code I can't I forget what they are uh but it gets that far west yeah huh I thought you were from like Gainesville no that's inaccurate that's getting pretty East in terms of where I'm at still 9-40 yeah yes I mean it's a it's a big place I realized after writing that song I was like wow we're a

pretty big portion of Texas but uh but yeah totally man so you like born and raised there yeah I was born in Graham Texas and then grew up first 18 years in Olney yeah went to school and everything grew up in Graham though uh born and Grand grew up in Albany yeah heck yeah what's it like up there it's probably about the

exact same as here uh it looks very similar things start to flatten out a good deal getting closer and closer to all night it's weird the town is like a go it's like a Midway point between you start getting to like east of Albany with like Jacksboro you start getting into this area you start to see a little bit more like Hills

start to get see some planes action and then everything East take that back west of Olney is nothing but flat dry it starts to look more and more like Lubbock the farther you go west how far south of Wichita Falls is only 40 minutes maybe 40 40 45 miles oh okay yeah it's right there pretty good way south of it I guess

it's a good way South when you grow up there and that's like the nearest city and you grow up making that drive all the time it feels like 10 15 minutes yeah for sure yeah same thing with like going to Fort Worth Wichita Falls is kind of an interesting place yeah it's an it's an odd duck of a town uh it's very

odd did it feel that way growing up around there honestly it like as a kid it was I guess you don't really know going to the city Wichita Falls was a big city yeah go get it yeah vitamin C it's where everyone did all like Christmas shopping you know if you wanted to go get something to eat that's where you went you

drive the 45 minutes to Wichita is there a lot of drugs yeah really you think like more than most places I mean I was like I don't know why I have something in my head about it's kind of methy I don't I mean I think you can say that I mean that's fair assumption uh I don't know uh I just I don't

know if that's like a I feel like they have I feel like that's a pretty good like North Texas stereotype though for little towns like that no doubt it's like all over North Texas yeah it's a it's a it's a uh an epidemic some might say right but uh huh was that laughs I was gonna just be like you ever done it

no thankfully then I edited myself no I joke around with people all the time though they're like yeah now that methyl that'll get after you I'm always like you know what I think I could do it one time not get addicted like just try it I could do it that was always my go-to if you know like if you're like at a

party or something with some people you don't really know yet and you're trying to just pretty quickly like figure out I did it when I was younger a lot and I there was one time that I joked about it so we were like all standing outside or something and I can't remember exactly what we were all talking about I think like the

drug thing came up or something and then I just was being super sarcastic and I was like man I got I got a bunch of meth in the trunk of my car if you guys want to go do something and there was like one guy I didn't know who he was and he was like kind of standing in our group and he

was like bro I'm so down I was like oh my gosh so I pretty quickly it was like I don't know if I really want to hang around that yeah you know go out to the truck I'll go get you something just leave yeah it's like good Heavens bro just that quick I'm down life-altering yeah it's like changing the course of your

life oh my gosh he's like I've never done it but I'm never oh so he had never done it yeah he was down no like he had just made it was weird it's a weird thing to see somebody just to make that decision I'm going to alter the course of my life WoW tonight because this guy I don't know just offered me

meth in the trunk of his car you ever had that meth in the chunk of a car no not actual meth in the trunk of your car like that urge to like really just shake things up like the animal like animal brain turns on like yeah it's like uh well I guess what do you mean shake things up I don't know like

I'm not saying go do meth or something but like you know find something to get into like there's all those jokes about like the don't let the intrusive thoughts win it's just doing like some I'm about to sound crazy here but sometimes like you'll see things or you'll see like a can on a counter and like animal brain will kick in and

just be like I want to punch that off the counter right now or something or just oh just you know but you can't sure you know civilized you gotta so is it sort of like having those quick thoughts of like wanting to like sabotage a moment yeah exactly you ever had that I actually have yeah I get it sometimes when I'm playing

on stage oh okay I've never had I've talked to age before but it's fleeting it's like it feels almost like a millisecond thought but it's like you're playing and you're like what if I just took off my guitar and smashed it on the ground and walked off there you go like that's a weird thought though yeah I've actually never heard anybody else

uh bring that up yeah I get that sometimes talking about doing wild stuff on stage like that have you ever there's this rapper named Jaleel he's like this rapper that's like blown up in the last like six months or so and he like does backflips off of sound towers and like lands on his feet and will just running full Sprint stage dives

into crowds and it I mean doing acrobatics on stage pretty much is that like why you got well I guess you would have to already I think he had like one of those like viral Tech talk songs and just really took off from there what was it uh I couldn't tell you the name of the song it's one of those I know

how it goes but couldn't tell you the name sure yeah but so he's just a wild man yeah just crazy dude jumping around jumping into crowds and no one catching him so it looks like from the videos but I've only seen you are you pretty wild on stage I've only seen you do like the acoustic thing not really uh I guess I

get my feet get to moving a good bit and I kind of I kind of get lost in the music sometimes and just kind of just get after it uh but no I don't do any like antics you know I'm not doing backflips no I can't do backflips now are you did you play sports growing up I played I guess I did

like football baseball basketball when I was likely young little league age getting into junior high yeah and then I played football my freshman year high school it was like JV but uh we always had like coaches coming in and out like never like hung around too long and so there was never like a culture of winning it was really set so I

mean just you lose for so long and you see people like getting hurt and seeing no like reward come out of it I think a lot of us were just like let's do something else yeah and so that's when I really I just said I'm gonna play Golf the rest of high school and pick a round on guitar and you played golf

yeah really yeah I didn't know that yeah I played golf through high school and I guess I still do but yeah uh you still do some yeah pretty regularly yeah there'll be times I'll get off of work and uh oh after work some days just got to the golf course walked nine holes just after work uh just like where are you working

at uh I work in Graham for like a like a Manufacturing Company yeah heck yeah man yeah you got to in a lot of ways yeah I just put the speaker in the bag and get to walking that was the smart I you know I think probably one of the smart smarter things that I ended up doing was uh hopefully that didn't

sound egotistical sound like that um but just keeping on like because I was chewing horses and I could make a pretty good living doing that and doing that while I was chasing the music thing it gave me the ability to make decisions based off of if it was like actually right for me as opposed to just for like money right which that's

you know there's a difference there for sure and so like I was able to take opportunities that maybe didn't pay anything uh but they were just better and then vice versa so is that kind of what you're thinking are you more in the mind frame of like I got to do music full-time or whatever that happens it's one of those where I

know I'll get there eventually it's just taking it one step at a time yeah I'm very impatient and I always like things to happen quicker than they actually do and so I'm always ready like now let's go let's do it and it just doesn't always move it's things don't always move as quick as I want to go but it takes time yeah

so it's just kind of part of that Biden time pay induced type of deal just I know we'll get there eventually it's just kind of waiting for the right chance to jump yeah there for sure just scary thing though making that the full-time gig and that being the sole like source of income like I think about that a lot and I like

the freedom that presents but uh I guess where I'm at right now just uh you never know if you're gonna have a slow month and you'll be busy for the next one or two and then come a month with not a whole lot going on and I guess just the consistency that security I guess if you will but uh it's common though

I feel it we'll get there yeah because you got a girlfriend right yeah uh that's the other big thing is like if you're a single dude and you know you can get by just making pretty minimal money yep like that's one thing but then you start throwing well for sure if there's like a family involved or different things like that priorities change

a little bit the biggest thing for me was always songwriting too though it wasn't necessarily performing okay like I didn't I still don't just like my favorite thing isn't getting up and playing for people and I don't and I never really loved playing just like a cover gig at a bar for a few hours never really liked that very much so I

actually found that I was more creative a little bit more like you know fertile in my mind uh when I was doing something kind of other than music yeah I know exactly what you're talking about you know how a lot of guys who write really great stuff early on in their career and then once they blow up and get really big they

start to lose you know maybe if they're if they're a little bit more that Americana Blue Collar like playing for that demographic they get a little bit bigger and they kind of lose that edge to him because I think they just start living this life that isn't even common to a regular person so their music starts to feel a little detached yeah

start getting too comfortable yeah you know like if you're not waking up at 5am to go to work and getting in an argument with somebody in line at the convenience store and you know what I mean it's like those things somehow I think subconsciously start to CR you know bring out some ideas in your mind if that's the type of music that

you're wanting to make right you know uh so that's been a focus of mine is to try to do something like just keep some normalcy do you have any other creative Outlets outside of music that you do to kind of keep the I guess keep the creative mind rolling that you know there's some days where I don't want to write us like

I just don't feel like picking up the guitar or want to write a song and I know I should but I also want to still be productive and creative but yeah I definitely I definitely do I'd be curious to hear some of yours like what are some ways that you get your juices flowing or lack of better I write uh I guess

a little bit of poetry I write scripts like for like screenplays and like plays yeah for the stage I do that a lot I was an actor for a long time and uh went to school for that and so that was another way that I was able to channel the writing creative side when I wasn't writing a song into doing other things

like that yeah and so that's also that's kind of a fun thing that I kind of have to myself that I sit down and do so shaping and molding a big longer storyline and plot line yeah narrative because that's all that these little songs are yeah you just take that whole thing and you crunch it into three minutes absolutely I've got some

songs where they're like seven eight minute I've heard it yeah there's more there's others too yeah what's the Martian one Cosmic country yeah it's a very much like a McMurtry Ray Wiley Hubbard type of song kind of long form story but uh and you were so precise with like certain words that you used and then like tying them you know you could

uh I love the idea of a song existing and you could I don't know what it's called but like you could draw a line over the top to another part of the song and you could do that throughout the whole thing so by the end of it there's just this huge arching thing of lines going between it and that's the way that

song I love I guess I describe it as like an aha moment like there's a lot of those in that song kind of starting from the beginning and you get to the end and things come full circle make you go the light bulb goes off oh I like it I see I see what he did there I see what how that came

about but I love creating like moments like that how do you remove your how do you remove yourself from the song to be able to like observe objectively the AHA moments man that's a tough one so in other words like if you're writing a song and you're going for the hook where it finally goes oh like it finally lands delivers right the

whole song is verse and chorus is summed up in like one little phrase or two little words feels like to me you have to be able to like somehow step back and like become the audience for a second to be able to see how it would hit you and then stick yourself back in it because obviously you have to edit it and

do it so I don't know is that a feeling that yeah absolutely um kind of like you said that editing and not just writing the song from a Songwriter's perspective but also saying like if I'm just a listener do I follow what's going on and do I have that would I be caught did this song Get me if I didn't write it

and I think you've got to be kind of honest with yourself a lot of times and that's something I think every songwriter has to learn to be good at it's kind of being honest with yourself when it hits and when it doesn't and having the wherewithal to go back and work more on it and do that editing it took me a while

to figure out just going back and editing songs after the first right first rough right was finished but uh I guess that's something I'm still working on but uh but I know exactly what you're talking about having to take that step back and analyze it from a listener's perspective is necessary you have to I think do you think that's something people intuitively

have or something that can be developed or maybe both I'm sure some people do have it's definitely something I had to work on especially when I started writing I didn't have that listener's ear when I was riding it was just more or less here's three four chords here's your words to it just getting the words out because I think that's where it

started for me was just came from a need to say something and not knowing exactly how to say it but it would just come out in the form of lyrics whether they were very good or not you know who knows but words nonetheless just getting him on a page well at least you could just get him on the page I feel like

a lot of people that's the biggest battle yeah you know it was for me for a long time uh you know I played I'd been playing guitar since I was in like seventh eighth grade and played nothing but like covers played in like churches and things like that and never really sat down to write my own stuff until much later I'd maybe

get a line or two and then immediately shut it down because I hated it because I think everyone's like their biggest critic in a lot of ways and I think I was just super hard on myself starting out and would just never let it get started before I just chopped its head off so and it took me until like my freshman year

of college to really just let things happen and it happened on accident the first song that I finished that I was like I don't absolutely hate this was kind of on accident it just kind of not Road itself but whatever you want to call it just kind of happened but so you're describing it as you at that moment you finally just didn't

shut it down you just let it happen whereas before earlier on you would you would stop it before the process even really got started but is it possible that when you finally allowed it to happen it was just better so you did allow it to happen like maybe the other ones just weren't very I think so it could be something to that

uh but I mean even a lot of the earlier stuff that I wrote that I look back now like I'm certainly I think better now that I was when I started I think I think everybody can say that but uh I don't think so oh yeah I was saying there was a there's some stinkers in my notes in my phone and like

voice memos from when I was just getting going that like they're pretty good no dude oh they're bad dude yeah awful oh yeah it should never see the light of day so that's what I'm saying like in some ways you know maybe they just weren't that good and I couldn't shut them down and then when you did find some stuff that really

hit you right that's a tough one yeah did you save it you say you saved a lot of that stuff from early on yeah I think I've still got it yeah I mean have you used much of it [Music] um not the Super like experimental like just getting started songwriting stuff no uh there I definitely still I think I've released and still

play songs live that are from that really early period of like three four years ago when I really started and are still holed up that are still you know pretty decent songs that people seem to enjoy so yeah um that's kind of fun for me too you know knowing that people still appreciate those older maybe not as I don't know what the

word for it is I guess that feeling of I know a lot more now than I did then in terms of writing and just I don't know do you ever feel like that like the audience can sense that I think so I know I can but uh like they know you got better yeah how polished it's become though it almost pulls away

from some sincerity at times maybe I'm not talking about you yeah I know what people in general are talking about though for sure uh when it's kind of going back to what you said earlier about you get to a certain level or success and that Detachment you can kind of get detached in a lot of ways depending on how things go because

I remember my first the first I guess album record whatever you want to call it I mean it was super like low budget recorded in a closet type of setup uh with a friend of mine who had never recorded like live I would say he didn't record he recorded live guitar before but he was very much a an indie like bedroom pop

kind of synth mixed with guitar or I mean yeah he we best friends but never um made the same kind of music yeah but um and so he helped me record that first uh record in his bedroom in like middle of summer in Oklahoma had to turn like the refrigerator and the AC off because you could hear the humming over this little

just condenser microphone and we lived right he lived right next to a train track so anytime we'd get a good take that's a good one we'd get a good take the train would roll by like in the middle of like a vocal take or something so we're sweating like nobody's business and finally I just told him I said just run the cables

to your closet I'm gonna sit in your closet floor and we're gonna get it just done it's you know basic sound proofing with the clothes and all the shoes in there and just finished recording a lot of those songs in a closet floor and so I think at the time it was one of those things where I was very I'm still very

proud of it but looking back and listening to it again over time it's like you can tell at times where it's like at least I can hear it more than a listener could because I hear every flat note every speeding up slowing down of a guitar like I hear all of that in that kind of early project but uh I don't know

some people would be probably inclined to like delete stuff like that off of streaming services but I think I'll always keep that one around just because I like to see the growth yeah where we where we started versus where we're going so but I still kind of play a lot of those songs that are off that first project today so it's when

did you record that summer of 2020 I think oh okay middle of the pandemic yeah pretty recent a couple years ago yeah and then you entered the song the ljt songwriter deal I guess that would have been in 21 yes okay yeah late 21 because that's how we met yeah I think I was in 18 I think 2018 I won it okay

and then uh a couple people in between yeah and then I just met you I guess would have been last year right yeah it uh I remember I was still living in Oklahoma when a friend of mine told me that Larry Joe did the showcase yeah and I was like oh let me look into that and I looked up all the like

entry rules for it and I just like it had already happened I'd missed it by like a month or so I was like oh okay I guess we'll see what we'll enter next year and see what happens and uh so I kept that tab open and my phone for like a year just never closed out of it because I know I was

like I don't miss this make sure you get everything sent in as early as you can and I think I sent in my video like the first day that submissions opened and I think Martha or Sherry Taylor was like yeah we you were one of the first that got in I was like okay I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss

it so but uh yeah you didn't miss it yeah didn't miss it so you didn't miss it but yeah they loved you yeah it was a I love I loved it too yeah it was a wild deal it wasn't just it was a met a lot of good folks from that I think it was one of the biggest takeaways just the shows

I've played with folks that I've met from the songwriter Showcase from then to now has been a really fun thing just meet a lot of really other good musicians from that and a lot of good friendships have been made from that so they try to cultivate a lot of camaraderie and a lot of like healthy competition because it's always Larry Joe and

I and I have talked about it numerous times where it's a little frustrating to make it a competition but like you have to like somebody has to win because it's kind of the nature of the Beast but at the end of the day like it's all subjective and there's people that have rolled in there that have won it that just kind of

didn't really do anything they didn't release any music after it didn't pursue anything disappeared there's other people that have won it that ended up making something of it uh and then there's other you know people that you know didn't even get into it that ended up having a lot of success or they lost in the first round had a lot of success

but you know it may just be a difference in genres and things like that but it's just music and like it's just people's opinion there's some basic things that adhere to like kind of all genres in terms of writing songs but it's uh so yeah it's Larry Jonah I have talked about that before because it's a little frustrating but we want everybody

to like stay in touch you know just because you know you were in the same round as somebody and lost like you guys might be able to write some tunes together and make some things happen yeah man and that's happened so I mean it's I feel like it's they're doing it the right way you know if that's the goal then I think

it's Larry and them are succeeding so yeah for sure yeah they've gotten uh some uh I don't know people talking poorly about it too because of the female thing like and I hear that a lot now Within the Music stuff in Texas scene where it's like women don't get as much of a chance or females don't get as much notice and like

it should be pretty evident now with the internet like if people like it they like it like there's really not any Gatekeepers anymore right like I don't have I mean who do I have just doing stuff I mean I make music and put it out to people if people don't like it they won't listen to it and so like and then even

within that songwriter competition like there's a lot of females that are in it and like there's a lot of the judges that are females in that competition and like the conversations that are had about the music it's just a little frustrating because like the tailors are you know really good friends of mine and I just know how much they care and uh

and they're just focused on like good music and good songwriting and if it's good it's good like regardless of your gender and I thought that was the whole point you know uh so that's always kind of frustrated me a little bit because like I've heard the conversations about you know like what they say about people's songs and it has nothing to do

with whether or not they're a female I got you know I don't know that was my little Soap Box oh for sure because I mean that's the side the whole I mean I still don't know a lot about how the judging of that goes on and what gets said yeah it's pretty uh like it's pretty specific like yeah like they're going like

verse by verse so people have pages of notes and you know like they're listening and uh and then at the end of the day like he doesn't have to do it yeah I like he doesn't make any money doing that it's not any selfish he's like literally trying to give somebody who doesn't have a platform yeah the chance to play for some

people and like get a little bit of exposure like a little bit of confidence so it's weird to knock somebody for like not giving people an opportunity when that's literally the point of why he's doing it there's always good of people that are yeah regardless yeah you know have something to say about it but I mean I can't tell you how much

of a of a blessing how lucky I am and or was to have even just been a part of it to just be in the room with uh with some of those writers and dude and you had you had a tough one yeah like I want to say I was there for your first round pretty sure I was and it was salty

like dude they were good yeah and Larry Joe leaned over to me and he was like hey you're lucky you weren't in it this year kidding oh man I was like you know it was it was good dude so congrats thank you that's incredible it's been a quick year yeah it's been equally the fastest one of the fastest and like slowest years

of my life there's been a lot happening dude you're probably recording a lot too I know I hear your song 940 on 95.9 The Ranch plays it a bunch uh Hollinger yeah he loves it yeah Shane was asking about that since the final round of the songwriter deal he was he was antsy for it then and ready to get his hands on

it so and Larry Joe and I made sure that when it got mastered and we got it back that he was the first one that it went to so yeah big thanks to Shane and Folks at the ranch for spinning that I know it's kind of gone to the I know the morning show start started to play it now and Malone plays

it you know every now and then too so it's been a it's been a wild thing to see it play like that I remember the first time that uh do you have people videoing it come on coming on the radio yeah I'll see it like on Instagram like friends or you know like friends I haven't seen since like high school will be

like listening to it and they'll like put post it on Instagram and things like that so oh there you go yeah it's a it's been a neat then you can get the messages like when you open for somebody yeah big and they're like hey man I think I can get some tickets man who knows dude but oh but it's been a neat

deal I remember the first time I heard it I heard Shane play it I was on the way to I just gotten off of work I was on the way to Stephenville and I've been listening to it all day on my computer and just waiting and uh heard it come on and I bawled like a baby oh you did it like the

grayford Texas intersection I was it was it was a pretty surreal deal is that is that one of the only moments you've had that ah I think that and after Larry after ljt was done yeah like after the week was done because I did all seven days yeah you did uh I mean Sunday is Sunday made the marathon run of it and

it wasn't until I was on the ride home afterwards that just kind of got the blues from it all just oh got the blues yeah but with the one in grayford listening to it on the radio that wasn't that was like no that was happy well and the Blues from Like Larry Joe that was happy too it was just a you know

I have I've since learned that like to different differentiate like being happy because something happened not sad because it's over type of deal they didn't say it again uh been happy because it happened but not being sad because it's over that's hard yeah because I'm a real sentimental guy I like to hang on just happy because it happened and not but not

sad because it's over is that a song is it really it could be yeah I mean I remember I heard it somewhere and I just really I think it's definitely and I just butchered I thought we were on to butchered it songwriting gold we were about to write that song yeah but it turns out it's Dr Seuss uh happy because it happened

I don't know you sounded pretty he sounded really confident it is smile because it happened okay right promise sad because it's over look at you trying to sneak that stuff in there you know yep this sucks it's Dr Seuss don't cry because it's over smile because it happened okay yeah I told you I think I butchered it but uh yeah shout out

doctor I like yours too uh dang it man how often does that happen where you like you think you have a great hook I Google it every time because I don't want to go down that road early on I did it where I'd like write the whole song and then I Google it or one of my friends is like bro yeah that

was in Castaway yeah I'm like what same thing early on it was that but it happened a lot more with the music itself for me and like the way it sounded like I can't tell you how many times starting out I would write a song be done with it listen back to it like in my voice memos and thinking this is a

Tyler Childers song what am I doing yeah that's even weirder than somebody that you're like really not that into you know yeah you're like really yeah Rascal Flats yeah so I mean that happened a lot early on I was like what is so I think it took me a second to like find my voice like figure out how I wrote and how

I made songs or sang songs but yeah because the mind is you know I try to write in my head a lot oh like Melodies and stuff I try to just not even pick up my instrument um in terms of writing but your mind will just it's kind of regurgitates a lot of stuff that you've already heard and it's hard to sift

through it and figure out like man where is this from it sounds so familiar how does that work for you riding without picking up your instrument because I find a lot of times for me the two go hand in hand but I can maybe get a line or two just in my head okay and maybe put a Melody together but I how

does that work for you it seems like either I have a very interesting Melody or I have a very interesting chordal sort of thing on my instrument I got you uh and one of those is going to drive kind of like what actually ends up happening in that song it's like if I have the interesting Melody you know I can put the

musical kind of landscape underneath it with my instrument but I can do that kind of at any time so I actually don't want to get in the way of where the Melody wants to go because I'm limited on the instrument like there's just muscle memory right I'm very rarely going to play something so like let's say I'm going through a progression and

I need to move to the bridge and I want to make this big beautiful change it's like very rarely am I going to just pull some crazy cord out that I've never really played before make this movement I've never really played before because it's just so mechanical right and it's just muscle memory but your mind will just like right you know so

or if like I get stuck at a part of the song like let's say I do have the music and I have the melody and I'm moving to that bridge section and I don't know where to go melodically or rhythmically it's like put the instrument down and just start singing okay and you'll find like this it'll be like and you're not because

you're not worried about supporting it because you don't know how to play it right and then just go with the melody and then record it and then try to figure out and you can go by one note you know try to figure out what the chord would be to support that Melody and then you'll find yourself um go moving into some chords

that you're like whoa I never would have done that yeah but your mind is what like took you there okay I'll have to try that out yeah exercise that yeah because it's like you like you know you hear a lot of music and it's like kind of the same for things and then rhythmically a lot of stuff gets similar right because it's

like you only have so many little picking patterns and strumming techniques and stuff that you've learned up to that point uh but your mind will start seeing singing in like cadences and rhythms and things that you wouldn't normally play so then it actually takes like practicing it because you're like well I need to play while I sing this but this is kind

of weird I've never really done this before and then you like and then that for me is where it's like okay this is starting to become quite unique uh because it's different I got you now I'll have to mess with that because I find myself falling into that you play the same things over and over and all of a sudden it's like

I'm trying to say put different songs to just what I've done and written so many times already and it's yeah no doubt I feel like that'd be a good that's a good way to shake things up I'm gonna have to take a note take like one note or one chord like and it just doesn't even matter like sing in the key of

G like just sit there and sing or sing in the key of E right and you'll just start singing Melody and then something will start taking shape and you kind of Chase that down right and then you'll naturally start moving into like a pre-chorus and then a chorus and then once you like have that little idea something that you like uh then

just start playing underneath it and figure out what the chords go with it and you'll be like whoa I never would have played that it's so fun yeah sounds fun yeah it's like the most fun I love writing songs like my favorite thing other than my wife it's my favorite thing there you go my wife in the Bible two favorite things there

you go writing songs oh man I love it dude but I don't hear a ton of people talk about it that way I just think everybody's got a little bit different way of doing it you know well that's the thing I like I like hearing how other people kind of go about their writing process because maybe there's something that someone else does

that could maybe push me out of my comfort zone to like kind of like you said find something that you wouldn't normally do and find something kind of unique out of that kind of pushes you uh to just do something different so I always enjoy hearing other people's process how they get to that point yeah it just depends on what you're going

for I mean because there are those moments where somebody's like man how about a you know we got like a mid tempo mid-tempo driving kind of rock thing and it's like okay yeah I got that like and then we do that right uh but you know if you are it's a double-edged sword because sometimes if you're doing stuff a little bit different

a little bit unique um just really just different yeah people don't know where to place it what to do with you they can't easily describe you because you know naturally we just want to like associate it with something else oh he sounds like this um and when you don't have that it can actually kind of be a double-edged sword at times yeah

so I don't know it's like kind of just all what you want to do for me it's just about doing something a little bit a little bit different yeah and you strike me as similar yeah I try to be I don't even know if my goal is necessarily to do something different but I always try to write something that I as a

listener would enjoy like can I see myself like when I Jam my own song like could I turn this on like willingly when I plug my phone in which is kind of an odd yeah thing like and then and then on the other hand it's like are you cool with being able to have to play this song every night for like the

rest of your life that's another thing that I've recently had to be like all right you cool with that though and then if the answer is like I'd do something here or there to change it or it's like okay well you know go back to the drawing board figure out what you're hung up on because there's probably some low-hanging fruit that you

know might hit now and then live with a crowd like they would just really like it but the second that you're 55 and you've got two kids and your wife standing side stage it's not cute anymore no it's gonna be weird like no longevity there you know what I mean yeah absolutely they're just like that's an odd one yeah like I can

sing this at 23 but yeah totally this is weird for a 60 year old to be singing you know yeah but then there's stuff that's just like weird uh but like creatively weird yeah like you could still be like the weirdo 70 year old singing it right yeah you know I mean that's what Ray Wylie Hubbard does for sure he's I think

he's one of the Masters of that but he's a he's a funny one too like I don't think he actually got most of his big notoriety until like quite a bit later in life yeah wasn't it I mean I could be wrong yeah I mean it's kind of the same thing I don't know if age-wise when it happened but it was kind

of the same thing with like Chris Knight he spent his younger years riding for a lot of Nashville guys and I did not know he didn't release his first record his first solo uh project until he was like 39 39 40 years old he put out his self-titled uh I think it's a self-titled I could be wrong but yeah he was that

probably would have like nothing on me it ain't easy being me it ain't uh it ain't easy being me loving a 45 uh jeez I just listened to it the other day uh down uh that's pretty good guy uh yeah framed is on that record yeah dude what a freaking stud that guy is he's uh he's in have you met him no

never met him yeah but me and my brother saw him in Albany Texas like times running wild on me like July I think mid July and it was just him acoustic with a lead guitar player yeah talk about stoic dude good God I mean that was one of those like glued to him the whole time and then an hour and a half

goes by and you're like oh it's he's done yeah but uh that was a wild thing to see him just him and a guitar player real stripped down that was a neat thing he don't say much no he doesn't it was fun because like people were like drinking it was like a small theater but like uh they had like a bar off

in one of these little side rooms and you could tell like people were drinking having a good time and in the little bar uh like they would bring like these drinks out into the theater okay and uh in between songs you could hear some of the drunk people go and uh like you're the man Chris or like you're cool you're the coolest

Chris and you could see him kind of he'd work up like a small smirk and then he'd immediately just go into the next song but just tune a little bit and go into the next song uh because you could tell he was just he'd give a little smile and not look up at anybody but not gonna show teeth no just a little

yeah a little kind of cringe smile kind of curl a smile yeah sure grunted at me one time did he really hey Chris it's really a big fan really great to meet you he looked up at me and just huh [Laughter] oh man it's like all right just to grunt just cigarette but yeah what a stud there's a guy named Austin conning

I think it's Austin Cunningham we heard him and the name's familiar Ricky co-wrote with Chris a lot okay I mean I say a lot I don't know but I think he's oh yeah actually it's one of my favorite songs of all time is uh and it's on Chris Knight's newest album It's called send it on down yes what a song but look

uh Leanne Womack cut it first yeah and like obviously if I had to choose between Chris Knight singing it and Leanne Womack singing it I'm gonna take Leah the way that she uh enunciates send it on down is just the coolest thing ever but I Chris I think wrote co-wrote that with Austin okay I could be wrong but that's one of my

favorite songs of all time wow where it pulls in um such like simple I don't even know how to describe it like observational very like almost uh the minutia of life like very Simplicity but then has this just incredibly profound thing like at the end of the chorus where those two like pushed together it's just fascinating to listen and then the melody

is unreal I freaking love that song dude I give you chills just thinking about it dad used to own the hardware store now it and him ain't around no more now in him like yeah I don't know uh sitting on the bleachers at the football field got a pretty good buzz from a court I just killed yeah I'm just nice for sure

I love that song and then Leanne Womack singing it is just unreal send it on down that's how she does it send it on yeah you know send it on does that little run in it yeah so good sorry I just had to get that out oh dude absolutely unbelievable song uh but you never met him right is that what you said

never met him no well my plan was at ljt because he was supposed to play there but I think I think something with his voice he was sick or something and didn't make it uh I don't I don't know if I would have had the gum Shin to go up and say hello or shake his hand because I know he's not that

kind of kind of guy my grunt but my plan was to get my brother because we are huge fans yeah and my plan was to get my brother back in kind of that uh backstage area behind the awesome stage just to be in the room yeah just to kind of see him but he did he ended up you know missing the festival

so yeah but it is okay we got to see coup to draw play the awesome stage so that was pretty neat yeah totally so that was another one we were looking forward to but yeah for sure man who are some of the people you met out there man now that you ask me like who is a really cool one where you're sitting

there like I've had it where I'm like how am I talking to you right now yeah Parker was pretty cool yeah oh did you well I guess you were just there every day yeah met him briefly what a nice dude that guy is super humble uh yeah good dude it's like engaged too yeah he's yeah makes good eye contact he really is

yeah you meet some people and they're just distant yeah I mean good to meet you he's an intentional listener yeah which is cool he's probably had to work on it you know tough spot to be in so Parker was cool uh Niles uh of Shaker hymns I still can't pronounce his last name yeah man it's a it's a mouthful but uh he

knows too yeah but we I hung out with him uh the night after he played hanging out with Niles he's a he's a good dude too he's a lot of fun yeah he's a real good time uh [Laughter] only imagine yeah I think we it was like 3 A.M and we ended up on the awesome stage just singing Jason Isbell Songs like

oh late at night yeah um yeah that's cool was everybody already asleep oh yeah did you go do the fire pit or like kind of bounce around from people's campgrounds yeah play for them yeah just haul around the guitar and check different fires out see what was going on that's kind of where the fun starts you know no doubt yeah no doubt

and you just see where it takes yeah I haven't done a ton of that like ever since I was involved like in the LGT stuff I've been married so you could you know probably get in some squirrely situations yeah bouncing around yeah you see I guess ljt is one of those things you can make it whatever experience you want it to be

yeah like if you want to if you want to really get into the wild side of it you can certainly seek that out uh yeah I guess kind of like anywhere yeah so but no it was a I never got just too off on the off the deep end there yeah which you know you can get yourself into some hairy situations out

there getting to off the deep end but now is a good time yeah it hit me all seven days hit me as soon as Josh Abbott stopped playing on Saturday night I felt my legs just crashed yeah especially because I mean we went to the pit every single night of the big stage and you know we were doing fine I was like

we got to Friday Saturday I'm like you know what I'm feeling actually great things are doing awesome right now and then as soon as the last note got played at the end of Abbott's set just felt the it's like golfing with a hangover you're like four holes in and you're like I feel I feel oddly good and then you get to like

10. yeah you just it's right after the turn it's like hole 12. had a hot dog you're like I need a Pedialyte yeah uh it starts but it doesn't become about golf anymore it's just make it get to the end oh no doubt dude just get done with it how good of a golfer are you uh like do you have a handicap

right now I don't even know what all that stuff is I'm a fairly like slightly better than a bogey golfer I can scratch out some about half and half pars and bogeys yeah okay so you're like probably an eight or something I'll take one but um I do okay I get by you know but you played a lot in high school yeah

we need golf sometime yeah man also have you played at Red River Station up in St Joe I have not I've heard I've seen a bunch of so yeah good folks play the owner of that place like we're pretty good Buds and they're well it's him and his wife um and they're about as cool as they come yeah and uh we play

up there at Turtle Hill like in Munster okay sometimes yeah so sometime I go up there and play we need to you can go up there and meet him yeah he would like you to he'd like your music too like he's a big Ray Wiley huge Robert Earl Keen fan right uh he just had Robert Earl play up there too oh wow

yeah really yeah private type of dealer like they did a ticket to deal oh wow yeah it was a big deal because I coveted for them was a game changer I bet because of most all your big venues in the cities couldn't have anything but I mean they're in St Joe Texas they just kept it rolling I mean that's kind of like

what Buck talked about when he did family Christmas in 2020 yeah he was like the like some like one of the largest music festivals happening in the country at that time and for like Stephenville Texas the week before Christmas and that's a hearing him tell that story is a pretty neat they do that outside don't they 'll I can't speak for years

past but this past year it was the Saturday night the last night was done outside okay every other night was done indoors yeah I should he texted me every year about that but there's usually something that happens where we can't do it or something like that I'm out of town a lot like during December are you doing it this year have you

I think so yeah I should I should go do it I'll probably go do it yeah it'd be super fun yeah it's a good time I Buck described it the best as like offices have their like Christmas party at the end of every year and like musicians don't really get to have their office Christmas party so it's a nice little kind of

get-together Christmas party for everyone yeah something tells me the musician office Christmas party is a little different oh yeah actually I don't know man I've heard some like company Christmas parties can get pretty wild yeah I bet I'm sure they need it you know I've played it some of them yeah it was a little private like Christmas you're like dadgum these people

are letting some stuff loose right now uh have you done a bunch of private gigs yet ah I guess a fair amount yeah like the house parties and stuff like that my favorite things to play are like when I was in college when I was just starting out uh was like playing garage parties or like basement House shows heck yeah those were

my favorite because Norman Oklahoma it was yeah I always thought for Oklahoma it would be a pretty good Red Dirt like she'd go to OU yeah oh I didn't know that yeah I graduated uh last year really 21. so uh but it's very much like a all of the like jazz and classical musicians from the University find places to play around Norman

and like there's it's a big like indie scene kind of yeah what all the fraternities and sororities do ugh because I can't imagine that they're problematic thing Jazz uh it was no I never played at the Frat or sorority houses you weren't in a fraternity no just kidding it's not a thing you look like a scene kind of look like a fried

guy do I really man yeah I've never been told that before I'm just kidding you look at me I look like the freaking frat guy yeah I know but you do have like the chain oh yeah I've got hemp there you go I'm an artist yeah you're the Frat guy okay we'll take it but uh now I always played it like just

random House Parties wherever I could find a place to play and I would always play before like these indie rock bands and I could tell the people who were there to listen to music were not didn't know what was coming okay and you play a song like Cosmic country or oh God or like a two-stepping song to a bunch of like hipster

Jazz Majors uh it's a trip uh but I didn't know that about Norman at all it's I call Norman the Austin of Oklahoma really yeah it's kind of got that odd so weird vibe to it how weird because like if you go to Tech like Texas Tech even out at UT I mean they're still into kind of like country music and stuff

or TC of course still water is still very much a red dirt you know Texas country normally it's just not into it not really I mean it's not the that's not the focal point we should change that I guess shout out to Norman yeah shout out to Norman bring up some uh some acts up there I don't why so there's no real

shows there or is it just bigger the closest shows for that for this kind of scene that you really get would be they have the Oklahoma City Zoo Amphitheater and people like Co has played there oh okay so like bigger acts like that will roll through Oklahoma City if you're gonna go see anyone anywhere it's usually still water or OKC yeah uh

yeah I guess okay so he's just so close to normal yeah it's like 20 minutes up I-35 so there's a lot of stuff in OKC yeah so I guess that takes care of that but yeah it does seem odd that there's not like college bar hangout kind of things there is those I mean it's like any other college town they've got that

kind of like College Station dude they got stuff going all the time like even the tap where it's like a smaller venue but right they still pack that place out yeah there's a one place kind of just off campus in Norman called the deli they do music just about every night of the week and it's one of those you never know what

you're gonna get that night it could be like a three-piece Honky Tonk like steel guitar fiddle guitar country act it could be uh hosty who's a one-man band who wrote Oklahoma Breakdown what's his name a hosty uh that's his like what are you his artist's name what he goes by I think it's his last name his name is hosty he wrote Oklahoma

Breakdown and Stoney covered it yeah some years later and then he's just a Norman guy uh and he still plays pretty local around like the Oklahoma City more Norman area but and things like that there could be like a jazz Trio roll through from the school that plays there on night so it's kind of a neglectic pick when it comes to music

there but uh which is cool yeah like I liked it absolutely I always felt kind of like the odd man out though in a lot of situations though how funny yeah but uh especially if I roll through looking like this and everyone's got like skinny jeans on frecka yeah or like coffee shop Vibes hardcore like beanies and like thick Rim glasses and

like skinny jeans it is awesome yeah it's yeah the Austin of Oklahoma which I don't mind some of that no definitely very cool people there's definitely elements of it that I do not like yeah I saw a video I think of it was like on Twitter the other day of just it was like a high speed like time lapse of Austin warning

traffic from like 5 a.m to noon oh no and just how like it looks worse than Dallas yeah it's terrible I think just because Dallas was built for that kind of traffic and Austin was never Built For This influx yeah I don't know man have you know that William Clark Green song they're turning Austin into La yeah uh it's on uh what

the heck is the name of that song old-fashioned I love that tune um yeah that's pretty much what's going on which is a little it was a bummer I don't I like people from other parts of the country in the world I don't got any problem with them it's my only confusion is when you move to a place and you just want

to bring all of the stuff that you left it's like there's a reason you're moving here right like why don't you Embrace some of the things that you're moving towards because there's a reason you're leaving all of that other stuff but then they just turn Austin into la like you just turn it into what you left which is a little disappointing I

don't hate all of that yeah but there's parts of it that I'm like well haven't you made the connection that there's a reason you're leaving yeah it's happening in Dallas happening in Fort Worth dude everywhere Dallas for sure I remember I opened up for a band in Plano and I was just going it was maybe like a 30 45 minute opening set

you know play your best songs call it a night type of deal and played kind of my stuff that I knew would that usually gets kind of the crowd into it they kind of you know get their feet tapping and it was very much like the white collar crowd like I was like oh they are not that's perfect they are not vibing

with this they didn't get it yeah they did not like you just power through yeah I played I've got a song called uh I'm a pacifist it's like a fighting song uh and it's a good like you learn the words super quick and not it's kind of a good sing-along like the crowd can get into it and people were just not about

it oh especially because like there's a good story that goes with the song and I was like I was like we're gonna win them over this is the one that does it didn't happen no it was just like golf clubs do you ever you hear do you follow like stand-up comedy much at all yeah dude you just yeah like you hear guys

talking about bombing like yeah that was a that was a bombing I know I got a dude I've had it too oh gosh just some brutal ones or just bad gigs you get there and you know it's gonna be bad and I just I don't I wonder what is worse bombing as a comedian or bombing as a musician I've always wondered because

they are it's a different type of bombing I almost want to say comedy because like I've always wondered how like musicians can like just ditch the guitar and just go straight microphone like kind of what Parker does he there's just songs where it's just him in the microphone and doing crowd work yeah and it's like I feel naked without the guitar in

my hands and part of me thinks like those comedians it's just you're not you can't even hide behind a song oh okay yeah like yeah but they have their own little ways of hiding they hide behind little quick like things that they just try to say and just get a quick laugh it's not really a joke uh I would agree with you

I think it's more raw yeah because especially if you have a band you can totally hide behind a band yeah and you just jam and you have other people to interact with now acoustic by yourself could get pretty yeah but then again you do have the song to hide behind like at least at least you're doing something for like three or four

minutes and you just have that few seconds after that you bomb you just go into another song yep you're bombing telling jokes that's a long night I want to do it at some point I want to do stand up yeah I mean just purely for the experience yeah uh I because I used to have like horrible stage fright playing uh and I

still get pretty anxious but like telling jokes and doing that is a whole other here's your like who's like some of your favorite comedians well there's a new guy named Nate bargatzi Nate bargatzi is so funny it feels like comedy went through like what I guess in like the 90s or something when you had a lot of this like really flamboyant like

extreme humor or uh what do they call it like physical humor it's like they're gonna throw like throw themselves down very animated like Jim Carrey kind of stuff uh and some of it just got like and then they like kind of pulled back maybe uh and you got like way more of the reserved like super smart comedy uh and then it moved

into this thing maybe with our generation or a little bit older than us where it was all about just like how like crude and nasty like sexual or mean you could be where it's like a lot of those still weren't even really jokes it was just like you're just you're just going for shock value right that's not really actually comedy which what

whatever to each their own but I just wasn't into it that much and now there's some guys that like they're totally clean and like they don't curse so they don't take the low-hanging fruit right uh and they like set up actual like stories and jokes that are just funny yeah and it's like and I like that you know because it's all it's

it feels um it feels harder to do that you know like some of these other guys you just like drop an F-bomb somewhere and people are gonna go oh it's like well that wasn't a joke you're just going for you know shock value yeah so Nate bargatzi there's another kid named Dusty slay Dusty sleigh is great too yes dude we saw him

in uh like over by Plano oh okay probably a couple years ago now it was like right on the front end of covet and he just ripped because we have a good time yeah we're having a good time I stole that for a little bit did you really live like playing at shows how are we doing well we're having a good time

I can't really ask can't risk it yeah so funny man uh so him and then I have always been like a huge Bill Burr fan okay yeah I mean it's just the rage like it does it does it's pretty funny and he makes some really funny observations as well uh what about you a big Theo Von guy oh yeah just a lot

of times he's not even trying to make a joke but just the stuff he's set the stuff that is just him that he says just how he thinks of half the stuff that comes out of his mouth is what he describes things yes he's like the king of similes yes it's like yeah exactly it's like and then you're just like what how

did you think of that and like that's the thing like his stand-up is like is completely different than like what he does on podcasts and stuff and I like him more in like a podcast setting just because he it's not super rehearsed and he's already just naturally funny on his own agreed unscripted and he's one of my favorites to watch well so

Chris Delia was the same way yeah like I mean he had that he had a couple bits in like his actual stand-up yeah that I liked but other than that him off the cuff like his crowd working stuff he's just better off the cuff yeah I don't know that's like a whole other that's a very weird world the comedy world that's a

different Beast yeah dude very different than music I haven't really been around it much but I haven't either the way that they describe it's very odd uh but they do all seem to they probably actually have more of like a community than the music thing I imagine just because there's less people okay probably doing it yeah you know yeah probably right I

can imagine there's just a lot less people trying to do stand-up right now than there is everyone trying to make it in music boy it's just so much less saturated and so I think you almost have to have that Community being that small that's because you can't afford not to yeah you need everyone needs to be helping each other in a industry

that concentrated and small and Niche that like it's a necessity I think uh once again just a double-edged sword like with the music thing like Spotify has done more for me than most stuff right and um I mean it's gotten my music out to millions and millions of people and you know they put your little monthly listeners right there on the front

page and like when you're booking a show or whatever you know you could say I have X amount of monthly listeners so cool it's like a great easy way of representing this how many people here but then it starts getting into that territory of like everybody's looking at each other's monthly listeners you're looking at your own monthly listeners and everybody starts gauging

you start it starts being treated like a competition yeah and it's just like that's not and I guess it's not that much different than when you had a number one hit on radio right but we're so it's so real time that like I don't know pre-internet you could all be at a show together and you didn't know that one of you was

gonna have the number one you didn't know somebody's song went viral that day on Tick Tock and like now it's so real time I think it's starting to cultivate it an unhealthy competition yeah because you start everybody's comparing each other absolutely I don't know really how to get away from that I don't really think you can no well it's part of the

game that's not fun it's not a fun part of the game that you have to play but it's just I try myself I mean I feel like everyone wants to not be that guy that looks at the listeners or looks at streams but you know it's hard not to no you know it a lot of times that's how we're gauging how our

work is doing you know after it's been published that's kind of a standard now is checking numbers like that and you know I guess I try to do my best not to give too much into that you know just take things as they come and surround yourself with other musicians that you can be good friends with but also create good art with

as well you know I think everyone finds those circles that try to build each other up and it's kind of like with the whole comedy deal is as much as a saturated business as this is we still I feel like we still can't afford to not be building each other up or trying to help each other out when we can because everyone's

taken this risk to do music anyways to try and enter this industry it's a hard thing it's a it's a monster but and so you need positive I don't know what the word quite is but reinforcement I guess you could say between peers between your other musicians that it's so much nicer when you have that camaraderie and kind of going back to

the whole Larry Joe deal that's a good place where that gets cultivated and that I guess that's from for me what I try to keep around just keep that good positive people around you that you can help they can help you and you're also still really good friends at the same time doing it being able to have that healthy balance of what

we consider work and life together and making it work is a super important thing I feel but this might be too pointed of a question I don't know do you ever fall into like the comparison game or like get sucked a little bit into where you like see somebody else having some success and you're just like man really how is that guy

truthfully yeah I think I have fallen into that trap before I at the same time I have to remind myself that doesn't do me any good comparing I mean I might spend a second or two on that but ultimately it's like I worry about yourself what you're doing I feel like if I try and put my mind into what I can control

and just put my stock into what is in my hands and just because everyone's path is different in this game there's no one way to do this especially in the streaming age there's no one way to make it anymore you know no one's having to cut I don't even know what making it is yeah that's the thing I think everyone's definition is

different of what that is it used to be like you got a gold record yeah and then you could hold it up I got another one they're like I made it and so everyone's gauge of what making it is or what success is just so different and can be different for different people but uh yeah I feel like the whole comparison it's

a natural thing I think it just happens you can't help but get that from time to time but uh you also can't fault yourself for having that feeling too how do you uh well like how do you get out of it because I observed some people that like they get consumed by it yeah I don't know I guess a lot of it

that's a great question how do you get out of it I guess I maybe just be better about letting things roll off my shoulders you know just if it's not that important then just don't give it the time of day I know that's easier said and done but I guess in my head it just makes sense like that's out of your control

you're not them I guess it's just telling yourself the realities of things like you're not them you're not doing what they're doing you are you doing what you're doing making your songs on your path doing this kind of going back to do what you can control you know I mean do you think that's something that like were your parents kind of like

that or people around you or where do you think that you developed that's a great question too um I know my folks for sure they've been very supportive uh especially when I was when I was in school and doing the whole acting thing for a while I mean I know for a lot of parents that's a scary thing to you know I

haven't chosen the most you know uh money making of businesses you know or career Endeavors starting out so um but they've been nothing but supportive and backed me a hundred percent and I think there's a there's a peace of mind in that knowing that regardless of what you think about where you're at whether it's my folks or really good friends or other

artists that you know that you're close to I think just knowing that other people have your back and want to see you do well allows me to get out of my head too knowing that you're not at this alone you've got people that you can lean on I think having those people to lean on when you're having those thoughts and you may

need that reassurance there uh I think helps me a lot getting out of it you know so I guess in short a lot of it doesn't come from me it comes from other sources other people I think yeah but when I can't do it on my own I guess I should say yeah so yeah is that like how are you raised like

what did your parents do for a living so my mother is an elementary school teacher she teaches really whatever the district tells her to teach that year but all right she taught kindergarten and third grade primarily all through when I was in school growing up and my dad all needs a big I say pig it's not big it's maybe 3 000 people

at its biggest but it's a it's an industry factory town like at the at noon when everyone comes into town to work you maybe see a population jump of maybe a thousand more people 1500 more people coming into town to work there's a big aluminum extruder and then there's the uh air tractor plant where they build the crop dusters outside of Olney

so it's a I guess you get out this direction and kind of the Weatherford area it's more of like a cowboy Ranch kind of culture and lifestyle whereas where we're at it's more of a farming and Industrial type of place and so my dad worked in that aluminum like extruding plant so I mean it's you know not easy work by any means

but it was just one of those deals of I was very lucky to have two parents that they I guess they were very much the embodiment of whatever your wanting to do whatever you want to do when you get to that stage go for it chase after whatever that is that's cool yeah I mean very lucky like I said to have that

kind of backing like that but that's not like a super stereotypical small town type of vibe yeah uh I think too it was one of those deals where they wanted me to chase after what I wanted to do but also I was learning how to do the whole acting thing the business of IT music and The Business of it at the same

time that they're doing it like they didn't know anything about that stuff I also didn't so we were kind of learning the same things of what I was interested in and what I wanted to do at the same time I think my dad still is to an extent uh my uh my dad is like my de facto like merch guy like he's

always wheeling and dealing like sending me texts hey I found these folks out of so and so that have hats at this price this that or the other or hey we can get shirts from these people like he's pretty cool man yeah it's and it's very easy for me like in the moment to be like oh my gosh dad what do we

do hey just let's get it done but at the same time knowing that he's that like about it and invested in like trying to find the best thing for us is it's a yeah it's a blessing so uh don't ever let anybody yeah like make you feel bad about that yeah no absolutely it'll happen yeah seriously like oh well if I had

you know somebody helping me yeah if I you'll hear it yeah and it's not even like and I could see how people could be that way it's like well don't get it twisted I mean we didn't come from money no I get by any means it's just that people will find every little thing they'll try and pick it apart and every little

thing that they can find whatever hole they can get into because they just want to find a reason that they're not having the success that they feel like they deserve right so the only I mean it's like Elementary School type stuff that's what my mom used to tell me like they you know they want to drag you down you know because they're

jealous of you right granted every mom tells their kid that right and it's not that you're so much greater than anybody else but like typically there's it's rare to find people around you that can just genuinely be happy for you regardless of like what's going on with them uh and that's the way you strike me like a very genuine happy person like

you're happy for people uh I could tell when you're in the songwriter competition like I observed some of the different people the way they act I watch everybody when like the uh on every round like when they win or when they announce the winners and the losers I don't even I just watch like all the contestants you know and I see like

I just watch the reaction yeah shows a lot about like who they are as a person you know the ones that just Deuce out pissed off and then the ones that like are just happy for other people and it's tough but you can see it happen right before your eyes you know and that's the way you always struck me you know regardless

of what uh just like I mean you spent like seven days out there just listening to everybody and a lot of different types of music and maybe not even music that you particularly like but you could find something in it that you did like absolutely and that's cool that's a great way of living life yeah man I tried to make sure especially

for the songwriter deal I missed all but one week I think I tried to make it every week to see every round oh yeah just for the sake of getting to meet people you know never knowing who was going to be there who you might be able to shake hands with say hello to and all that good stuff but I think that

was the biggest thing for me if I had just gone for my round or the rounds that I was there I don't think I would have gotten that but just running into the people who were also there every week and meeting the people who were there my week and the weeks that were there in like the semi-final and Final Round it was

just I think that was the biggest thing it's not just having that one time to really get to know someone and meet someone but having those extra weeks to get to know folks even more and more was a lot of the fun for me no doubt but yeah so what are you recording right now or like you just you just put out

the 940 right um I know Larry and I are trying to talk about when dates make sense to get back in to the studio and get some more stuff done if I had it my way I would like to go in and just get three four five scratch vocal guitars down and just whenever we can get to working on them at whatever

Pace that is awesome uh I mean I've got I've I told Larry I said I'm sitting on like I like we got I've got stuff on Deck I'm ready to have out that I have been ready to have out for a year or two now that I've um the basically all but produced on the computer in my head I mean I've got

the whatever I've got to give to people to get the ball rolling it's like well here if you I've got the ideas it's all there it's just a matter of laying it down and getting it tracked now so okay so is there is there any other songs in the queue that are going to come out soon or um I think next of

course this is all subject to change I think about this a lot about what's next and the songs change a lot uh I think this pacifist song this like good old-fashioned like it's very much like a I always say like when I play it like the spirit of like Johnny Paycheck and Jerry Jeff Walker wrote this song for me but uh it's

kind of just like a fighting song and then also a story it's very it's very like an autobiographical song tells like talking about the family and stuff and then at some point I'd like to get cosmic country and ain't no Cowboy yeah out as well because ain't no Cowboy is a really good one I that's one of my favorites to play I

really enjoy that one it's kind of the that one actually stood out to me the most yeah because I always tell people it's not an anti-cowboy song it's just a it's just a song for the not Cowboys it's more realistic yeah everybody in a cowboy yeah because I mean you hear all the songs like I hear all these bands play songs about

being a cowboy I'm like you're in a club in Nashville right now like in a big house like you're not I mean and I'm No Authority on what's cowboy and what's not especially listening to previous episodes and listening to uh folks like it like Buster and listening to stories that Carson told about like rodeo and I'm like man all that sounds really

cool man I can't relate though dope that's that story about him going and uh cafeter open at that Rodeo he played it I know dude oh that's so fun but yeah so it's one of those it's like well I can't relate super well to those songs so right one you can relate to I know man it's more honest ironically like that your

song uh like most Cowboy people would probably dig that more than somebody's singing about freaking riding the range right whatever you know yeah it's more realistic when I when I wrote that song uh I played it for the first time in Throckmorton Texas I mean and it is a small like six-man football type of town that tiny and they got a lot

of wind farms out there and so there's people from all over the country they come and work on those windmills and I played ain't no Cowboy for the first time that night and maybe do a crowd of like six or seven people very slow night and uh these two Upstate New Yorkers that had come to work on these windmills decided they wanted

to do the whole cowboy get up for the night I mean had on them no had the Boot Barn like sick like four or five inch riding heels on shout out to Boot Barn shout out to Boot Barn uh they had just the just these ugly Pearl snaps on and of course what looked like palm leaf like hats on not even straw

just Palm wave and so I got to tell him like how I came about to write the song and they were like yeah well they were trying to like do the whole cowboy bit I was like really I was like okay and they were like yeah we're from New York all right well cool anyways here's one for the not Cowboys and played

the song and uh everyone else but those two really dug and got the jokes and loved the song and of all people these fake Cowboys From New York were offended were they didn't like the song yeah walked out like halfway through it was it yeah it talked about them yeah and uh sure enough sorry bud I was and they didn't I didn't

see them for the rest of the gig like that I played that song maybe an hour in to a three hour set and never saw him again until I was loading up the truck to go back home and they had already apparently they'd found more to drink and uh they weren't necessarily taller guys shout out to our short Kings out there but

uh are you sure no oh I don't know I don't guess so I don't know I think I always like to tell people I God knew that if he made me exactly six foot taller six foot or six foot whatever I'd have been too powerful so he cut me off at five eleven had to yeah right so uh very wise of it

yeah so we would have really had a handful yeah right so uh I mean these dudes were all maybe five foot two five foot three combined I mean just not super huge dudes but they had the confidence of like UFC fighters really walking up trying to fired up yeah you were fired up like ready to press the issue and like really wanted

to make us think about it wow welcome to Texas yeah cowgirl and I was and I was sitting down for the whole show so they never saw me stand up and so I was hunched over like putting something into the truck and they tried to like hey like hey Cowboy or whatever they called me and I turned around and stood up and

yeah like Johnny Ringo he looked like somebody walked over your grave or something like that and I think they realized pretty quick they're like oh this is I think they remembered oh we're not yeah we're not Cowboys freaking New York yeah we're not nothing against people from New York no I love New York and there's probably some super Cowboy people in New

York I guarantee not diesel not these guys no as a what was it in the first episode these were Cowboys or yeah these were not Cowboys they were not cute boys but uh they are Cowboys Z yeah uh man I don't even care if somebody like I can appreciate the effort yeah wear a cowboy hat and do all that's cool yeah they

just oh man but I mean yeah come on but I mean in a town like Throckmorton where there were real yeah dude there were real cowboys in that bar that night like yes and you could tell they were just looking at them like what are we doing what are y'all doing guys like of course they weren't gonna say nothing but it would

just you know let them be type of deal totally and but got out of there unscathed right but uh I always try and tell that story when I play Ain't No Cowboy about the upstate New Yorkers yeah heck yeah dude but well so you got a bunch of shows coming up at all or sort of kind of man you usually list them

out like on your way yeah just about every month on my socials I kind of put them out month by month but uh goodness me I guess the biggest thing is just Instagram Twitter Facebook it's all on there I lose track I always know where I'm at until someone asks me and I'm like whoa let me go to the phone real quick

it does all the remembering for me but uh I've kind of slowed down a little bit in November taking some time out to go deer hunt a little bit on the weekends so uh pick it back up yeah come like late November December get it back rolling but heck yeah we'll be around come October November I'm usually always around the north Texas

Stephenville edge of the Hill Country area wherever I'm at so yeah dude Lubbock sometimes yeah but yeah well cool well thanks for coming and doing this yeah brother thank you for having me glad I got to get to know you a little bit better it's a blast even if it was on camera there you go you know so thanks man there's no

worries bro all right we'll see y'all [Music] Melody [Music] [Music]