Episode 706 - Sturgill Simpson / John C. Reilly
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters what the fuckadelics it's mark maron this is wtf this is my podcast welcome to it today on the show uh the the amazing sturgill simpson is here
Marc:country music singer-songwriter Sturgill Simpson.
Marc:And I got a few minutes that I'm going to share with you from a talk I had with John C. Reilly, who dropped by.
Marc:Not the full thing, but I want to give you a little taste because he's got a thing opening and I'm a good sport.
Marc:You know what I'm saying?
Marc:Quid pro quo, you dig?
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Here's some upcoming dates I'm doing before I go on tour officially.
Marc:The Spokane Comedy Club in Spokane, Washington, July 7th through 9th.
Marc:I'll be at Wise Guys again, a favorite club of mine in Salt Lake City, Utah, July 14th through 16th.
Marc:And I'll be at the Comedy Club in Rochester, New York, September 9th and 10th.
Marc:You can go to WTFPod.com slash tour for links to get tickets.
Marc:Tickets will go on sale soon for my dates in Bloomington, Indiana and Phoenix, Arizona.
Marc:Also, before I forget some personal business here, we want to say thanks to Mike Moon.
Marc:Mike Moon from Just Coffee.
Marc:He's the guy who reached out to us way back in the day and started working with us when we were broadcasting out of an office kitchen with Sam Seder on a show called Break Room Live.
Marc:He's leaving Just Coffee for another company.
Marc:So we just wanted to say thanks to Mike for the support and for all the beans over the years and good luck on your new venture there, Mike.
Marc:mikey boy mike moon roasting the coffee up there in uh wisconsin i'm actually honestly uh drinking a cup of just coffee.com and this for you mike is for you mike moon from just coffee now moving on to other things this is the thing that we weren't so sure about i was pretty sure about it but you weren't so sure about it at the beginning mikey but here i'm doing this for you this is a classic classic
Marc:Pow!
Marc:Look out, it just shit my pants.
Marc:JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:Available at WTFPod.com.
Marc:Yeah, that's for you.
Marc:I don't know how long you've been listening or where you've come in on this thing, but the story on that...
Marc:On just coffee specifically was that when Sam Seder and myself hosted a streaming video show that very few people watched called Break Room Live out of the actual break room at what was left of Air America, we could not get sponsors.
Marc:Nobody, nobody.
Marc:There was like maybe at a peak, you know, a thousand people, 1500 people watching the damn show.
Marc:We'd go live from the break room.
Marc:And Mike Moon said Just Coffee would be willing to sponsor it.
Marc:So if you go dig up videos of Break Room Live with me and Sam, what the agreement for the actual deal for the sponsorship was that they would send us boxes of coffee.
Marc:They'd send us a shit ton of coffee, and we put all kinds of Just Coffee stickers and branding all over the Break Room, like up on a bulletin board behind us.
Marc:They were the first guys, man, the first company to believe in us and me.
Marc:And we've carried them all this time joyfully.
Marc:And I made the ad up that I just shit my pants.
Marc:Pow, I just shit my pants, which was not the imaging they wanted.
Marc:But sometimes you got to trust the guy.
Marc:You got to trust the guy in the mic.
Marc:Yeah, pow, I just shit my pants is not not something makes you want to do necessarily buy coffee, but kind of does.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Kind of does.
Marc:Right.
Marc:A lot of people drink that first cup to get that thing going.
Marc:I was told that I believe that Just Coffee, that the WTF Pod Blend is still the best-selling coffee on their online sales.
Marc:And we were happy to work with them.
Marc:It was really one of the first times, to be honest with you, that me and myself and Brendan, my business partner and producer, where...
Marc:We actually saw that the show could have an impact on the business.
Marc:I mean, they were with us at the beginning, and we just started doing that thing.
Marc:It was the first time that we actually saw the power of believing in a product that I enjoyed, that I liked doing ads for, and that I liked getting for free.
Marc:Who doesn't like that?
Marc:And it was a big boost for their business, like tremendous.
Marc:And it was one of those strange moments where you're like, I guess we're kind of entrepreneurs now.
Marc:We're doing a thing.
Marc:Got a little business going here.
Marc:Yeah, so that was kind of fun.
Marc:Let's do this now, because John C. Reilly stopped by the garage a few days ago.
Marc:You're going to hear the full conversation with him next month, but we usually like to line things up with projects that people are working on, and we weren't able to do that with John's new movie, The Lobster, which opens in theaters tomorrow, May 13th.
Marc:So here's a clip of me and John C. Reilly talking about The Lobster, and consider this a little teaser for the full conversation that is...
Marc:forthcoming and pretty great, actually.
Marc:Tell me about the movie you've come here to promote, because I'll be honest with you, and I'm not always honest in this particular area.
Marc:I tried to watch it, but the link wouldn't work.
Marc:That's better than I fell asleep and I never got back to it.
Marc:Sometimes when they send screeners online with a password, it's a fucking nightmare.
Guest:Link does not work.
Marc:Yeah, just send me something.
Marc:Send me a fucking thing.
Guest:Someone was trying to convince me to go on a TV show the other day, and they sent me a link.
Guest:To say, like, TV shows like this, you know, it'll be fun.
Guest:And here's a link to give you an idea of what it's like.
Guest:So I hit the link.
Guest:Immediately says, you have to have an app for this.
Guest:I know, right.
Guest:Fuck you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I don't have enough apps.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't want an app.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I just wrote back, it doesn't work.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And then what'd they do?
Marc:They gave you a screener of some kind?
Guest:I didn't do the show.
Guest:I just...
Guest:Fuck that.
Marc:But it's a sci-fi movie, right?
Guest:It's a movie called The Lobster.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's directed and written by this great Greek director named Yorgos Lanthimos, who did a really great movie called Dogtooth.
Guest:If you get a chance, see Dogtooth.
Guest:I wonder if I saw it.
Guest:It's one of the best movies of my lifetime, I think.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And so this is his first English language movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's called The Lobster.
Guest:It stars Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, myself, Lea Seydoux, all kinds of great actors.
Marc:I like her, Rachel Weisz.
Marc:I like seeing her.
Guest:Well, you should get that link working, buddy, because she's in this movie.
Marc:I'm going to try.
Marc:Did you see that movie Youth?
Marc:Is that what it was called?
Marc:That one last year, Youth?
Guest:I didn't see it.
Guest:It's an Italian movie, right?
Marc:It's pretty good, man.
Marc:And I'm not the big foreign movie guy, but it's not a foreign movie, obviously, but it's definitely an art movie with a lot of poetry to it.
Marc:But it works, and it's really compelling.
Marc:And Michael Caine is great.
Guest:I'll have to see that.
Marc:But, okay, so what happens?
Guest:The lobster.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It takes place in a not-so-distant future where it is illegal to be single.
Guest:And the government, there's this sort of authoritarian, oppressive government...
Guest:And if you lose your partner or your wife, they die or they leave you or you cheat on them or whatever, then you're sent to this prison that looks like a very fancy hotel.
Guest:It's like a four-star hotel.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and you're sent to this hotel to find a new companion and you have 45 days in which to do it wow and if you don't find someone in 45 days yeah you are turned into an animal of your choice in this transformation room now that's the only science fiction part of the movie that's a pretty big one i know
Guest:But just jump over it.
Guest:It's like the frogs in Magnolia.
Guest:Just jump over it.
Guest:It happened.
Guest:Whatever.
Guest:So everyone at this prison is desperate to find something.
Guest:We all have to wear these same uniforms and blue blazers.
Guest:And there's all these bizarre rituals where you're trying to meet these other single people.
Guest:And so you have these 45 days.
Guest:So the way you can buy more time to find a partner at this prison is...
Guest:is you go out on these hunts with guns, tranquilizer guns, and in the forest are people that have run away from society called loners who don't want to be in couples.
Guest:But they're allowed to live out in the woods or what?
Guest:No, they're not allowed.
Guest:The government's hunting for them, but they're out there on their own.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:They have their whole own strict set of rules about only being...
Guest:Single.
Guest:No one can be romantic.
Guest:No dancing, no looking at each other, no kissing.
Guest:And so the people from the prison go out periodically on these surprise hunts.
Guest:And then for every loner that you tranquilize and bring back to the prison, you are given another day to find a partner at the prison.
Marc:So there's an incentive program.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So as long as you keep capturing loners, you can indefinitely keep looking for a partner at this prison.
Guest:But if you run out of time in 45 days, you get turned into... So Colin Farrell's character decides... You get turned into what if you run out of time?
Guest:He wants to be a lobster.
Guest:If he runs out of time, he says in the movie, I'm going to be a lobster.
Guest:What a weird choice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So anyway, but it's a really, really amazing movie.
Guest:And a lot of younger people, especially people in their 20s and 30s, when it showed at Cannes, it was a big hit among those people because people struggling with relationships.
Guest:Should I get married?
Guest:What is married?
Guest:What is love?
Guest:I think we're in this...
Guest:moment in time where like gender roles are getting more fluid and at the same time as people are doubling down on traditional roles like ISIS and whoever the fuck are doubling down on women's roles and men's roles and exerting this control to keep things like they were 2000 years ago or something and
Guest:There's this other thing that's happening.
Guest:I think even all that orthodox kind of stuff and extremist stuff is happening in reaction to what's actually going on in the world, which is this slowly evolving gender fluidity thing that's happening.
Marc:And he found those kids enjoyed the movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So people who are dealing with all that stuff right now love this movie because it's all about, you know, what is this pressure to be with somebody?
Guest:Like, why can't I, you know, why can't I just, you know, be alone and figure it out?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then also people who have been in relationships for a long time also really like it because, like, I don't know if you're married or with someone, but you get to be around the age that we are and you start wondering, like, wait, did I just randomly choose this person or...
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:What am I doing?
Guest:Could I have just as easily picked someone else?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And then I'd be married to them for 25 years, just out of habit or whatever.
Guest:Or I'd find a way to love that person that I randomly picked.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or is there really a thing called love, and that's what I have with my partner, and that's... Right.
Guest:So for people that are struggling with, like, what is love?
Guest:We say, I love you, I love you, I love you.
Guest:We say it so much, but what does it really mean?
Marc:That's an interesting question.
Guest:I just had that conversation today with a psychiatrist or a psychologist.
Guest:As you get older, I think it starts to get more relative.
Guest:You just start to go like, what?
Guest:What have I been saying?
Marc:What do I even mean?
Guest:What does it mean?
Guest:Is love commitment?
Guest:Is love acceptance of another person's differences from you?
Guest:What is it?
Guest:So the movie really traffics in all that stuff, and it's very funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's got this really dark, dark comedy.
Guest:And I'm going to give this guy some praise that's going to sound like over the top, but I'll explain why.
Guest:This director, Yorgos Lanthimos, I think is the closest thing I've seen to Stanley Kubrick.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Because he has a strict formality about the way that he shoots.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He has a sick, sick, cruel sense of humor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And at the same time, he has this kind of optimistic acceptance of the way human beings are with all their fucked up qualities.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:So...
Guest:Yeah, so this guy, you know, he's not working on the scale that Kubrick worked on.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But if he got a little more money or he got a little more support, I bet he would start moving in that direction.
Marc:So this was a great experience for you.
Guest:He's got a real interesting, very unique style.
Guest:That's cool.
Guest:And the acting in his movies is also very unique.
Guest:But I really recommend you see.
Guest:Yeah, I was forced to work in a way that's different than I've worked before.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:Well, you see, there's like people give less.
Guest:The actors give less in his movies, which makes you kind of fill in the blanks more as a viewer.
Guest:There's kind of a deadpan affect.
Marc:And that was a direction?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, knowing his previous work, you know the way he works.
Guest:All of us were trying to channel that kind of way.
Guest:But anyway, it's a really, really interesting movie, and I think people are going to love it.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:That's some junket talk right there.
Marc:That's my job.
Marc:Yeah, no, you did good with that.
Guest:That's my job.
Guest:That's my job.
Marc:me and john c reilly full conversation well you know we had a good talk and he's not he's not a guy that loves to talk about himself but we found a way to do it and it's pretty amazing very surprising conversation about some of the things that you know john likes and some of his acting stuff and and music i it was really good and i'll be running that next month today though soon moments away sturgill simpson country music
Marc:I'd like to say I grew up with it, and I did, but just adjacent to it.
Marc:I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and they had the state fair, and every year the state fair, they'd have different country acts, Roy Clark and Buck Owens maybe, maybe a George Jones here and there, maybe a Willie, a Waylon.
Marc:I remember when the outlaws came through.
Marc:I remember that record around.
Marc:I remember pickup trucks.
Marc:I remember cowboy hats.
Marc:I went to a camp.
Marc:We had to have a cowboy hat and cowboy boots in order to go to that camp because we were going to be assigned a horse.
Marc:And yeah, that's part of my life.
Marc:We were assigned a horse.
Marc:We had to bring a fly fishing rod where we'd fly fish in the stocked pond.
Marc:We made our own flies.
Marc:I've done that.
Marc:I had a cowboy hat, Stetson, the straw kind.
Marc:We learned how to bend it up, so it was cool where it bends in the back and bends in the front at a point because there was a guy there, a counselor named Gil, who was a little weird, a little weird.
Marc:Gil was a little weird, but he was a real cowboy, so he taught us how to fold our hats, and we wore our cowboy boots, and we had to have our pants, and my horse was named Mom.
Marc:Mom was the name of my horse, and Mom would not let me saddle her, you know,
Marc:Kind of whipped around, bit me in the side.
Marc:I cried like a fucking baby in my boots and hat.
Marc:And since that day, I've been paralyzed with a fear of horses.
Marc:But that aside, I do enjoy country music.
Marc:And I grew to appreciate it longer, more as I got older.
Marc:So I'm very happy to have Sturgill on the show today.
Marc:But I would like to discuss, if I could, the mystery blood on my porch.
Marc:I do.
Marc:I want to discuss the mystery blood.
Marc:Blood on the porch.
Marc:maybe that's my country song blood on the tracks it's a dylan record blood on the porch that's my okay so maybe maybe as i unfold this story to you that we'll find a country song in it okay so i went out on my porch the other morning and there were drops of blood on the porch and
Marc:And I followed them down the driveway and they stopped.
Marc:And then a little while later, I noticed that up on the wall on my porch is a brick wall.
Marc:There was two little puddles of blood with some blood drips.
Marc:Not a little blood, not so much blood where I thought I was going to find a dead animal or a dead person in my driveway.
Marc:But there was blood.
Marc:And I automatically assumed it was my guy, my wild guy, Scaredy Cat, who I've been feeding for a decade, who I've seen through some shit, who has been bloodied before and has disappeared for months at a time.
Marc:I thought this was it.
Marc:This was the end of Scaredy Cat.
Marc:This was the end of the monster, the beast that is that cat.
Marc:That cat who I have a love-hate relationship, though I enjoy seeing, was actually the cat that pushed Boomer out.
Marc:That pushed Boomer out beyond the parameter into the jaws of a coyote or into hopefully a nice Mexican home down the street.
Marc:Don't know.
Marc:We don't know.
Marc:That mystery remains unsolved.
Marc:But I know this fucker, who I assumed was dead, is one of the reasons that Boomer split.
Marc:So I got an issue with him, but I like seeing him.
Marc:You know, I can't get involved with cat politics.
Marc:I don't know how their shit rolls.
Marc:So...
Marc:So I don't know what the fuck is happening.
Marc:I don't know whose blood it is.
Marc:And then I realized, hey, how about that security camera you installed for stalkers?
Marc:Maybe that would help you with wounded animals.
Marc:So I'm going through the security footage and got to be honest with you.
Marc:No one looks good on security footage.
Marc:Everybody looks like a fucking criminal.
Marc:But I saw no animals except for scaredy a couple of times and a night shot of two massive fucking raccoons who did look suspect.
Marc:okay here's the point here's what happens so i grieve as i do when one of these dumb shits disappears and uh two days later he shows up nothing wrong with him nothing not a goddamn thing wrong with that cat
Marc:Not that I was disappointed, but I'm like, I said to him, I said, what'd you do, man?
Marc:What'd you do?
Marc:You know, was it like Kevin Bacon said to Sean Penn at the end of Mystic River?
Marc:What'd you do?
Marc:Who'd you kill?
Marc:What did you do?
Marc:He just looked at me with his dumb face and I fed him some food.
Marc:So it's a mystery, man.
Marc:I don't know why my camera did not pick up a bleeding animal that looked like spent some time on my fucking porch.
Marc:Or maybe it was just a wandering person who had a bloody face and then rested his bloody face on the wall of my porch for a moment and then wandered off.
Marc:We'll never know because the camera fucking failed me.
Marc:Is there a country song in that?
Marc:Is there?
Marc:Something there, man.
Marc:So Sturgill Simpson.
Marc:As I said, there's something beautiful about his records, his songwriting, and the production.
Marc:He produced this record himself.
Marc:His first two records, I believe, were produced by Dave Cobb, who's got a great sense of classic country production, of what country music is supposed to sound like and used to sound like, but with a little tweak.
Marc:And I think Sturgill learned a lot from working with...
Marc:With Dave, I also would like to say that Sturgill and I talked a bit about the late Merle Haggard.
Marc:He was not dead when we talked about him, and we miss Merle.
Marc:I do miss Merle.
Marc:I love Merle.
Marc:I love George.
Marc:I love Waylon, like Willie.
Marc:I like Buck and Roy.
Marc:I like Tammy.
Marc:You know what I'm saying, man.
Marc:His new album, Sturgill's A Sailor's Guide to Earth, is available now, and it's a beautiful record.
Marc:It's a very personal record, and we talk about that record.
Marc:So enjoy me and Sturgill Simpson.
Marc:He picked up that J-45 in my living room, and that was, you're a goddamn string wizard.
Guest:Uh, no, man.
Guest:I've lived in Nashville long enough to know that I am not a guitar player.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah, trust me, bro.
Marc:But was there a moment there where you're like, God damn it, I thought I was pretty good.
Guest:Yeah, oh, for sure.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:It's like, well, fuck, I'll never be able to do what that guy just did, so I guess I better focus on this whole writing thing, you know?
Marc:But you got it in the, like, is it to the point where, like, if you're doing a record and they go like, come on, Sturgeon, why don't you just kick a lead on this one?
Marc:You're like, no, man, just...
Guest:Yeah, because I, and I guess that's sad because for, you know, when I was a teenager, all I cared about was playing guitar.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, but then I just really, you know, I found, I guess what I'd say is my real voice.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Where I can say more with this than just this giant expression of anger and ego.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That sounds great coming through a 50 watt plexi, but you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:And there's guys in town that just floored me.
Guest:So I was so impressed by it.
Guest:I was like, I got to find a way to play music with these guys, you know, just to.
Marc:So what were you playing like in high school and stuff?
Marc:I mean, what was it?
Guest:Oh, man, across the gamut.
Marc:Were you like long hair?
Marc:Yeah, what was it?
Guest:Yeah, I was a stringy, greasy pothead.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What car were you driving?
Guest:Well, unfortunately, I had a 1988 Toyota Corolla because I had to work at McDonald's.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:But no, I mean, I had an older cousin who showed me all the wrong records way too young.
Marc:Like what?
Marc:What were they?
Guest:All the Zeppelin box set and Jimi Hendrix.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And I had the next door neighbor, like the choking bad kid with the Chevy Nova who was in high school.
Guest:Nova.
Guest:When Appetite for Destruction came out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'll never forget this.
Guest:I was standing in front of my house, like, shooting basketball one day, and he was, like, just so badass.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, he's like, have you ever seen that show on Netflix, The F is for Family?
Guest:He's the blonde neighbor guy.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But he pulls up one day and just blasting this...
Guest:primal sound and i was like what is that he just looked at me i'll never forget it because it crushed me he goes he's like where the fuck you been kid in a cave that's guns and roses man i just had to go out my mom ended up throwing away three copies because she kept finding it and seeing the inner artwork right now they stash it
Marc:I've interviewed that guy, Robert Williams, the guy who did that artwork.
Marc:Oh, the painting?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:She kept throwing it away?
Marc:It's probably worth some money now, man.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I don't know, because I think there was flack about it, and I think they pulled some of them back.
Guest:She threw away my Steppenwolf.
Guest:She heard the pusher one time.
Guest:Steppenwolf?
Guest:She threw away the pusher?
Guest:She threw away the pusher, man.
Guest:Actually threw it out the window of the car, now that I remember it, because I played it, and the pusher came on.
Guest:She's like, no.
Marc:No, not my boy.
Guest:Not my boy.
Marc:He doesn't need to hear this.
Marc:Oh, I'm poorly.
Marc:Well, where'd you grow up?
Guest:In Kentucky.
Guest:Which part?
Guest:Originally, I'm from a little town in southeast Kentucky called Jackson.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is like Appalachia coal mining area.
Guest:For real?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I'm like the first male in my mom's side of the family that wasn't a coal miner.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I'm sorry, I hear about this stuff, but I think you might be the first person I've talked to that it's something about life in that part of the country that you hear about, but I would never have experienced it, and I always thought it would be a hard life and it'd be insane.
Marc:So if I sound surprised and shocked, it's only because I'm like, that sounds fucking brutal.
Guest:Oh, well, yeah.
Guest:I saw my great-grandfather when he was alive.
Guest:He definitely worked in deep mines his whole life.
Guest:I saw the toll that that took on his body.
Guest:My mom's dad and her brother, they worked on strip mines.
Guest:Pat Paul was actually a foreman.
Marc:So you're not in the hole.
Marc:They're just blowing shit up.
Guest:They weren't down in the hole.
Guest:They were just blowing shit up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And on the weekends, he had this big, giant Ford Bronco.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a work truck through the coal company, and then he'd take us up, me and my younger cousin up there on the strip mine on the weekends in this big monster truck.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was, like, to me, you know, as a kid, it's beautiful because you could see everything.
Guest:But now the devastation that that industry sort of left on the area and everything that came along with that, it's not the same place that I –
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:It's that tangible?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A lot of the environmental issues, obviously, that needed to be addressed put some pressure on the industry.
Guest:It's pulled back a lot.
Guest:And so the big coal left.
Guest:Walmart and Oxycontin came in, and that pretty much...
Marc:Yeah, that just destroyed everybody.
Guest:Yeah, that used to be a really... Jackson was a really great... It still is a really great small town, but the community in the sense that I remember being a child there, you know, Main Street and all the mom-and-pop businesses and everybody knew each other.
Guest:It just doesn't feel so much the same anymore.
Guest:It's like a shell.
Yeah.
Guest:You hate to say that, but I mean... It's happening in a lot of places.
Guest:It's not just Jackson.
Guest:So then we moved to a town called, incorrectly pronounced, Versailles.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did they pronounce it like that?
Marc:They sure do.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:They've committed to that.
Marc:They've committed.
Marc:No Versailles.
Marc:No Versailles.
Marc:Doesn't add up.
Guest:No, we're not playing that.
Guest:So we moved up there towards some grade school.
Guest:My dad got transferred.
Guest:What was he doing?
Guest:He was a state trooper.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you grew up with a cop in the house?
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:How many siblings you got?
Marc:None.
Marc:Just you and the cop and the mom who throws away Steppenwolf records?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:It must have been hard to rebel.
Marc:I found a way.
Yeah.
Marc:But I mean, was there, when you were a young kid, I mean, there must have been some excitement about riding in the car.
Guest:Oh, yeah, I had a weird childhood.
Guest:All my babysitters were state troopers.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:He had a really interesting career, actually.
Guest:He kind of ran the gamut.
Guest:I think he's the only state trooper in the history of Kentucky that went in as a highway patrolman and retired as commissioner.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:He went all the way up the chain?
Guest:Yeah, he worked homicide for a while.
Guest:He worked narcotics for a while.
Guest:He was a bodyguard for two or three Kentucky governors.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:So he was like sort of a lifer, but he had a goal in mind, huh?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He's very good at his job.
Marc:Is he still around?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and he's still... Probably my biggest supporter, man.
Guest:Is he?
Guest:Yeah, totally.
Guest:He could never hardly turn on a radio.
Guest:So the fact that, you know, when I was a kid and showed interest in music, his father was a big bluegrass guy.
Marc:A player or a fan?
Marc:Both.
Marc:Oh, yeah, what do you play?
Marc:Mandolin.
Marc:Bluegrass Mandolin's the best.
Marc:It's...
Marc:It's like, you know, it's one of those things that every time you hear it when it's done well, you're like, how is he doing that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, I'm not, you know, full on, you know, country.
Marc:I mean, I grew up with a little bit.
Marc:Not either.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you are now.
Marc:You kind of have to be.
Guest:You know, well, I'm not so sure.
Marc:But not in a bad way.
Marc:Let me try to qualify that.
Marc:I think that the three records you've done, and this new record is definitely different.
Guest:Would you call it a country record?
Marc:I would.
Marc:The new record?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Definitely.
Marc:Okay, good.
Marc:But the first two, it's sort of like, I'm not even a country music person in terms of whatever country music means now, but my sources for country...
Marc:Waylon and Willie and George and Merle and some other, even Buck Owens.
Marc:I mean, I grew up with these guys in my head.
Marc:So just the production and the sound and the cleanness of the whole thing and the presentation was really what country music was built on and should be because you listen to country now, which I don't, but I can't tell what it is.
Marc:So I think you're doing some of the most authentic country around.
Marc:Thanks, man.
Yeah.
Marc:And I thought this new record, the thing that was amazing about it is right from the beginning, I'm like, oh, we got strings.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, we got orchestration.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We got like, you know, this is like a big country presentation.
Marc:It never once crossed my mind that this was any other form of music.
Marc:It was almost like those Elvis records in a way.
Guest:That's kind of where my head was at.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, in terms of sonics.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Because, you know, he was like, he's a huge hero, man.
Guest:Like in the ghetto.
Marc:Totally.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:All that.
Guest:Especially the stack stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:When James Burton and those guys were playing, they had the horns.
Guest:But it was like a hybrid.
Guest:It was just a hillbilly singing blues and rock and roll and country and gospel.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, just throwing it all together.
Guest:And I really... I mean, I'm a country singer.
Guest:I will never deny that.
Guest:As soon as I open my mouth, it's what's going to come out.
Guest:But musically, man, I've just... My whole life, I've been in love with so many different types of music that I finally wanted to...
Guest:Honor it.
Guest:Honor it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And get it out.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Well, I thought that the R&B element of it throughout the record was really, was perfectly done.
Marc:You know, because there is a, you know, there is sort of a groove to it that is definitely R&B, right?
Marc:A lot of funk.
Marc:Old R&B.
Guest:Old R&B, funk.
Guest:I mean, Marvin Gaye's probably my favorite musician of all time.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I've probably listened to more Marvin Gaye than anybody.
Guest:But, you know, I'm not going to be able to sing.
Guest:Nobody can sing like Marvin Gaye.
Marc:Well, you mean like some of it is reminiscent of old Marvin Gaye a little bit.
Guest:Old Marvin Gaye, especially the 70s, like the darker period.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:But just in terms of his fearlessness as an artist, and it was so cathartic coming from such a...
Guest:unfiltered place and he was just kind of like yeah they might not buy this but this is this is where my head my heart is so like they're finally guys like bowie you know i got a little more inspiration from guys like that than i ever did a lot of the country songwriters that i love sure because these guys like you know someone like marvin gay was a made guy a made r&b star and then he's like well i gotta go deeper yeah and i gotta do uh what's going on i gotta use this for something bigger than myself yeah yeah yeah yeah and you were aware of that
Guest:I think so.
Marc:Is it more of a songwriter?
Marc:Because I would think that when you were a guitar player that what it meant to sort of push the envelope guitar-wise was pretty specific.
Marc:But I think when you're talking about vulnerability and showing your feelings and stuff, it's a different thing.
Guest:It is a different thing.
Guest:Well, I mean, you say that, but Roy Buchanan, the guy with the Telecaster, can say a lot more than a lot of singers could ever say.
Guest:I can barely listen to him.
Guest:You can feel... It's heartbreaking.
Guest:You feel the torture that that guy was.
Guest:I mean, I was kind of bored with guitar for a few years.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then I discovered him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I totally fell in love with it all over again.
Marc:Even his cover of Hey Joe, there's a stiffness to what he did, but because of that...
Marc:The way he fucking pushed the envelope, you're like, oh my God, he's going to lose it.
Marc:He's going to lose it.
Marc:You always felt that Jimi Hendrix could just fly into any territory mentally or emotionally that was out there.
Marc:But Roy looked like he was wrestling with that.
Guest:Man, I love Jimi Hendrix.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:But I got to say, I think, and I'll probably catch heat on this, but Roy played that song in a way that captured...
Guest:what that song was really about the meanness and the yeah this underlying tension yeah you know you feel you feel the menace i guess sure sure where are you going joe it's not a good idea oh shit let's rethink just a minute yeah well those kind of themes
Marc:Like, I'm not usually a word guy, you know, and I've listened to, you know, the first, you know, your first couple of records not as intensely as maybe I should have word-wise because I was sort of caught up with it.
Guest:If you could even understand what I'm saying, I'd be impressed.
Marc:What country affords you that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I get that more from...
Guest:Like Joe Cockner and Van Morrison, all these guys were a lot of my favorite singers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or Kurt Cobain, you know, I was a huge Nirvana fan, but like you can't understand anything they're saying.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I started wondering, well, is it about expression and mood or should I just be going for perfect denunciation and sacrificing energy and soul for the sake of somebody in the audience feeling like... Yeah.
Guest:That guy's actually speaking English.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And a lot of people can't understand what I'm saying.
Guest:Really?
Guest:It's...
Guest:It's just how I sing, man.
Marc:No, but I think you can hear it.
Marc:I have to pay attention to words because I'm a mood guy in general.
Guest:You like to feel the pain.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:I like to feel like I like to be moved by the music.
Marc:If there's a word or two in there that I can latch on to in a chorus, I'm good.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:The music, I think, should enhance and accentuate and prop up what's there lyrically.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I think that's the job.
Marc:So this is something you've come to.
Guest:Yeah, I've come to this.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:It's like, I'm a songwriter.
Marc:Maybe they should hear one.
Guest:I'm a songwriter, but more than that, I think I just want to make records.
Guest:So like a group of songs that serve a greater sum.
Guest:And then musically, for lack of a better term, the sonics have to sort of, there's no way around it, but it's manipulation.
Guest:You're lifting up what you're trying to say in a motive way.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And you're completely aware of that.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, that's good.
Marc:Because like, you know, to be that like, I don't know what the relationship between an artist and a producer is all the time.
Marc:But it seems to me a lot of times that, you know, if the artist is not irresponsible, but either completely trusting or not as in tuned that a producer can have a great deal of input on a record.
Yeah.
Guest:they can't yeah they certainly can't because they're going to have ideas and uh anybody that's worth their salt as a producer certainly should have ideas or you wouldn't want to be in the room with them right but you can go because you're aware of this this relationship you can be like how do we get it to to do that well yeah uh the first two records i worked with with dave cobb and i learned more from him than i could probably than i'm even aware of at this point i think but in terms of
Guest:He does a great job of not imposing... I mean, he has ideas, and 80% of the time they're right.
Guest:He'll be like, well, that's good, but what if you did this?
Guest:And any artist gets tied to something, you're going to initially be like, well, actually, that sounds pretty cool.
Right.
Guest:and then but i think more than it dave knows how to stay out of the way but looking back on it i realized he the first record we did was us kind of getting to know each other right and i can be really pretty volatile in the studio if i'm set on something oh really like he you know to navigate that and then i realized some days he was actually manipulating me to get me angry to get a certain emotion or energy out of it he's a real good producer pt barnum man
Marc:Where did he come from, though?
Marc:Because the one thing I noticed about those first two records and just putting on the first record was right away.
Marc:You know, this guy, you know, knows exactly where country music comes from.
Marc:You know, especially, you know, that era in the 60s and 70s where, you know, they had a little more control over the production.
Marc:There was a balance between the steel and the drums.
Marc:Everything sounded like, you know, not not nostalgic, but well referenced.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You dig?
Marc:Well, everything has its place.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And he knows what the place is.
Guest:He does.
Guest:Honestly, we listened to the same records as kids.
Guest:It was weird how much musically we had in common.
Marc:Well, like Zeppelin and stuff?
Guest:All that.
Guest:Yeah, Zeppelin, The Meters.
Marc:Well, I think you guys were gifted in the region you were in.
Guest:But for me, country music, I've always... Mom's dad, my grandfather, was big Marty Robbins, Merle Haggard guy.
Guest:I didn't know anybody else even made records until I was about seven years old because that's all he listened to.
Guest:And this was early 80s, so country was kind of having a heyday back then.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Like Key Hall, and Merle was playing stadiums.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So it was everywhere, and we'd go to Gatlinburg and all this stuff.
Guest:So those images, those impressions were kind of burned in.
Marc:Well, that's the benefit of growing up where you grew up.
Marc:Like, you know, that's where country music lives.
Marc:And like alongside of just the regular rock that we all got, I mean, country was integrated into the fabric of life.
Marc:You know, like I didn't really have that.
Marc:I mean, it was around.
Marc:It was New Mexico, but it wasn't Texas.
Marc:And it certainly wasn't Kentucky.
Marc:So I imagine there was two or three generations of people listening to bluegrass and country records.
Marc:And that was everywhere.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, literally.
Marc:And Merle Haggard did that record with George Jones.
Marc:That's a good record.
Guest:Those guys had a lot of fun.
Marc:Oh, man, didn't they?
Guest:That's been the most fortunate aspect of everything that's happened for me is getting to meet the heroes of mine that are still around.
Guest:Merle?
Guest:Merle, and we've played shows with Chris Christopherson and Willie Nelson now.
Guest:My grandparents lived long enough to see me play the Opry in person.
Guest:They did?
Guest:That's stuff that I'll always...
Guest:cherish and like it for me the trophies and and accolades and fame and money like that's all fine and dandy and it's it's but to know that i finally got to let them see me do something that wasn't a disappointment it was you know and they understood they totally oh my god like they grew up in coal camps in eastern kentucky listening to it on a radio right you know so it was it's heavier than um and i'm just grateful that's all
Marc:And they came down and they saw you play at the Opry?
Guest:Yeah, my mom brought them down in Nashville.
Marc:Both of them?
Guest:Both of them.
Guest:They're in their mid-80s.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:You know, for my grandfather, that was it.
Guest:He's like, no matter what happens or what you think you're chasing, you've done it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You're at the Opry.
Guest:You're at the Opry.
Guest:what did they what did he say after not much yeah a whole lot yeah yeah it's been really cool man because he was a big merle fan so you know that's a that's a beautiful moment that you know we're we're there's been a lot of beautiful moments yeah in the last couple years
Marc:I bet that you're getting the respect from the old-timers that you respect.
Marc:The ones that matter, yeah.
Marc:And like Chris Christopherson, he's heavy.
Guest:Dude, we played Willie's Picnic last July in Texas, and I'll never, ever forget this as long as I live.
Guest:In the middle of our set, I look over, and on the side of the stage behind one of the side monitors, there's Chris Christopherson's back there literally with his hands in the air, like...
Guest:Just fucking... Cheering you on?
Guest:Just booting down.
Guest:I was like, what is happening?
Guest:And we come off the stage, and we're in the dressing room, and he walks in and literally... I mean, it looked like he had... I mean, I'm not shitting you, man.
Guest:The guy had a tear in his eye.
Guest:He was just like, I feel like I'm... You know, he's like, you made me a really happy guy today.
Guest:And they're like, that dude, to stay in there... It was all I could do not to choke up like a little bitch.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right there in front of probably the coolest guy in history.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Guest:And just...
Guest:Things like that, I'm glad that all this is happening at 36, 37, 38 years old as opposed to... 25?
Guest:Yeah, when I would have been lost in the haze of it and not appreciated all of it.
Marc:Well, let's go back.
Marc:I mean, the journey was what?
Marc:Did you grow up with your mom?
Marc:Was it like a heavy Christian thing with her?
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:It was just a protective thing thrown away?
Guest:My parents married really young, had me really young.
Guest:Did they grow up in coal camps?
Guest:Yeah, my dad was from eastern Kentucky, further down the road.
Guest:Mom was from eastern Kentucky.
Guest:Not in coal camps, no.
Guest:That's another generation back.
Marc:That's your grandparents.
Marc:Grandparents.
Marc:But in coal communities?
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:So that was just the way life went, that eventually you'd be a coal miner and it was a legacy thing.
Marc:Or a state cop.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Whatever.
Marc:But the fact is that early on, when did you start finding guitar?
Yeah.
Guest:my grandfather had an old gibson that sat on a stand that was off limits for a long time acoustic acoustic and real old no it was like a 71 72 j55 my grandmother bought but uh by the time i was around it was old enough but he played it he had a really pretty boy he has has i say he's like he's gone he's still here he's still here yeah in his 80s 80s that's great um cole didn't get him
Guest:no he he had a really beautiful singing voice and would play and strum you know it's like magic now i even see my son reacting the same way and he's obsessed with drums but uh it's a different story uh-huh so then he hall we'd watch he hall every weekend and papaw would tell me you know which guys were actually playing and which ones were just holding the guitar like a prop and roy could play roy could play roy clark was
Guest:a huge inspiration too as a kid yeah um my uncle yeah he always played uh he was played organ and harmonica and stuff he had a bunch of friends when i was a kid that they'd all go he had these two friends that were twin brothers and neither one of them never married and they lived together so they turned the living room of their house into a stage they had a pa set up and like a light showed on the weekends they lived down on the river in jackson
Guest:The whole friend posse would come over and these guys would just play every night.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So my uncle would take me there once I started showing a little proficiency on guitar.
Guest:And before I really learned how to play guitar or music, I think as a result of that, I learned how to play in a band.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And listen.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Because I was so afraid I might fuck up that I was just trying to stay out of the way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And listen to what all these older guys were doing.
Guest:And it was really influential.
Marc:So you'd get on stage when you were like, what?
Marc:What are we talking?
Marc:11 or 12?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:eight oh really yeah nine they'd throw you up on the stage and you'd play yeah that's my first gig was at a family reunion actually man and my cousin was up there singing with me and he wasn't taking it serious i remember getting so pissed off so it's like you know if you're not gonna do how old were you oh god we were young at that point uh he was just fucking off and he was just like eating the mic i was like fuck off this is my you know what song do you remember the song
Guest:Swinging by John Anderson.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you're already sort of like, come on, man.
Marc:Dude.
Marc:You're not appreciating the Sonics.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Pretty much.
Guest:Don't ruin the song.
Guest:This is my Dewey Cox moment.
Guest:Fuck off.
Marc:So, all right, so that's real young when you're starting to at least get the sense of what it's like to play with people.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And your dad, I think it seems kind of sweet to me that he was so kind of supportive and in awe of your focus on that, on music.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, now.
Guest:I wasn't always focused on it.
Marc:No, but he was always sort of into it or no?
Guest:Yeah, when I showed interest, he got me my first guitar.
Guest:It was a little electric Silvertone.
Guest:A Silvertone?
Guest:Where did he find that used?
Guest:It was actually his when he was a kid.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:I think he got it out of Sears catalog.
Marc:With the built-in amp?
Guest:With the amp in the case.
Guest:In the case?
Guest:A little red sparkle deal with the lipstick, too.
Guest:Yeah, I still got it.
Guest:It's in my mom's house in storage.
Yeah.
Guest:So that was the first one.
Guest:And then, man, it's just the rabbit hole.
Guest:I got real heavy into Zeppelin.
Guest:On the Silvertone.
Guest:On the Silvertone.
Guest:Nice.
Guest:Cream and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Guest:So you cranked that little amp in the case way up.
Guest:Well, actually, the case was long gone, but it's the guitar you're talking about.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Yeah, I never, the case.
Marc:You never used the amp in the case.
Guest:I never saw the case.
Marc:But it was one of those ones that came with the amp in the case?
Guest:Yeah, it was that red sparkle with, like, the ugly-ass white pickguard.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:So you put it, you got an amp, too, then.
Guest:Yeah, I had a little Crate practice amp for a while.
Marc:Crate, yeah.
Guest:By high school, I'd save some money and I had a Fender amp and I started buying Telecasters and had a Strat for a while.
Marc:That was my first, too, Telecaster.
Guest:I never could afford a Les Paul.
Guest:I was too young, but I got really heavy into that Clapton Beano record that he did with John Mayle and the Blues Breakers.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Just obsessed, man.
Guest:Like 15, 16 years old and I went way down this deep, dark blues hole for about three years.
Marc:Did you ever do the Peter Green blues?
Guest:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Guest:He's the best, dude.
Guest:Dude, that guy.
Marc:I talk about Peter Green constantly.
Marc:he made bb king cry with his guitar playing and that like that says a lot to me but i think the pressure just got him and i think the drugs i think he might have been a little bipolar to begin with and i think it just sent him over the edge and he just never i think it was a confidence problem too well it's a pretty common theme you know no no doubt but this the true like marvin same thing oh yeah guy was scared to death to walk out on stage yeah greatest singer ever and he was afraid to perform in front of people and
Marc:It's horrible.
Marc:The possibility for rejection that you've already created in your mind.
Marc:They're going to hate me.
Marc:Do you have that?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:That's why people think I'm pissed off all the time on stage.
Guest:It's not.
Guest:I'm just scared shitless.
Guest:I'm trying to fight through it.
Marc:Pretend like you got it together.
Guest:The entertaining aspect is something I've really...
Guest:personally kind of had to come to grips with because you know back then like marvin could put out let's get it on and sell five million copies and he didn't tour because he didn't have to tour right he sold records but now you have to tour only i'm going to support my family is to tour and the touring is the i love playing yeah don't get me wrong i mean that 90 minutes or two hours every night that's free we get paid to travel right um but every night i have to
Guest:sort of get locked in and go out there and like okay you know there's thousands of people that really don't want to be disappointed because they have a lot of expectations no crying yeah dance monkey um but what what's going through your mind in that like what what is the exact fear is it is it that they're not going to respond or that you're going to fuck up or
Marc:All of it.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Are you just going to get out there and freeze and not know how to play, get tangled up?
Marc:Well, I don't know, man.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:If I knew, it probably wouldn't be an issue.
Marc:Let's figure it out.
Marc:It's got to be something tangible.
Marc:It's like, ladies and gentlemen, coming to the stage right now, what's going through your mind?
Marc:Wow.
Marc:You waited to see him.
Marc:He's here.
Marc:Like, oh, fuck.
Guest:I'm going to...
Guest:Well, one, it's just so surreal that it's even happening.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And you can see, you write a song or put a record out, and people, even if it's in character, they have these ideas or preconceived notions and expectations.
Marc:Of who you are.
Guest:And you have to live up to that.
Guest:They just knew that I was just like this dork.
Guest:I'm like a well-read Kenny Powers, really, at the end of the day.
Marc:It's not even... You're afraid you're going to be found out.
Guest:Well, I mean, not necessarily found out, but just, I'm like, oh.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Marc:He's not country.
Marc:He's not hard.
Marc:The fuck is he talking about?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There is something that you, you do it, you think that songs are written specifically about the songwriter's life.
Marc:You know, like, you're living that.
Marc:Like, Nick Lowe sat right where you're sitting and played The Beast and Me, you know, which he wrote for Johnny Cash.
Marc:But I'd always assumed, like, Nick's been through it.
Marc:He's like, no, dude, it's,
Marc:It's a song.
Marc:It's a song.
Marc:You write through characters.
Marc:You write through different voices.
Marc:It's not my life, necessarily.
Guest:Some of it's your life.
Marc:Of course.
Guest:Also, a lot of it is other people that you've knew or encountered whose lives were maybe more interesting than yours, and you try to incorporate.
Guest:Right.
Guest:observation i guess right you know like isbel's like that too when i talk to him yeah you guys don't even get me started oh yeah yeah he's a he's a hero for me oh yeah he's probably in a lot of ways uh
Guest:He's just a good human being.
Marc:Oh, he's a sweet guy.
Guest:He doesn't believe me.
Guest:Oh, actually, I don't know if he does or not.
Guest:He never said, but I could tell he was skeptical.
Guest:I've never actually heard Southeastern in its entirety, and I haven't heard the new one at all.
Guest:I remember Dave and I had finished High Top, and Jason had made the record, and Dave was like, man, you want to hear some of this?
Guest:I was like, absolutely, because I was a Truckers fan.
Guest:I think we got about four songs in.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I was just like, man, you got to turn it off.
Guest:I can't listen to this.
Guest:It's too heavy.
Guest:It's too good.
Guest:Too good.
Guest:It's too stylistically realized.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm like, if I get into something like this now at a point in my life, everything I write for six months is going to sound like that.
Marc:Well, that's better than saying like, I'm fucking quitting.
Marc:But I know what you mean.
Marc:I have that same issue.
Guest:At some point, I think you have to, if you want to make...
Guest:you know, a statement.
Guest:You kind of have to shut off everything.
Marc:Yeah, and you gotta stop trying to stop comparing yourself to other people.
Guest:Or letting other people do it for you.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, I mean, because even when I asked you if you'd listened to that, when was the last time you listened to that George Jones record?
Marc:That one from, I guess, was the late 70s.
Marc:I had to stop.
Guest:I think about around the time my first country record came out, I pretty much had stopped listening to country, all the old country, because I felt like I'd absorbed in traditional bluegrass, like World War II all the way up to the mid-'70s.
Guest:I had a big year-long OCD obsession with all the old... Before High Top Mountain?
Guest:Before High Top.
Guest:In the country, from like 27 up until 32, that was all I listened to.
Marc:Because you were enjoying it?
Guest:Because you were like studying.
Guest:Studying it without realizing.
Guest:For me, it's always been more about I'll just obsess about things and draw everything I can from it.
Guest:And then at a certain point, I just get bored.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And put it down and find something else to obsess about.
Marc:And you got a little flack, right?
Marc:For the sound of the, like, I don't know, maybe I'm making it up.
Marc:That people thought you were too reminiscent of Waylon, maybe, or too reminiscent of the time.
Yeah.
Guest:You know, Waylon, I've talked about this so fucking much.
Guest:We don't have to talk about it.
Marc:No, I'd love to, actually.
Marc:I didn't even hear it.
Marc:I was into it.
Marc:I'm like, it all sounds good to me.
Marc:That's the thing.
Marc:Like, who the fuck is... Here's what I don't get.
Marc:You make this amazing country record, the sound of which has not been heard in decades, and what kind of nerdy motherfucker is going to be like, I don't know, it's a little too much like Waylon.
Marc:I'm like, you, one guy who's not even a country guy.
Guest:It's not really one guy, but no...
Guest:Look, everybody's heard Waylon Jennings, you know, and I'm 100% not bullshitting.
Guest:He's probably the guy that I listen to the least and discovered the latest.
Guest:But you know what, man?
Guest:As a country singer, there are much fucking worse things to be told, and you sound kind of like Waylon Jennings.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:It's always a compliment.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But yeah, as an artist...
Guest:especially on that first record and a lot of that i think was dave really wanted to make a waylon jennings record oh he did and uh because i kind of reminded him of waylon he's an excitable guy and how old is dave he's a couple years older than me so he's a young guy young guy he's like he's a he's a fan like actually i think he just turned 40. okay yeah he's a fan and him and shooter were great buddies and had worked together and yeah
Guest:because the shooter is the only reason that first record got made he's one that told Dave about me we were all down at third and Lindsley one night my manager and I gone a Billy Joe Shaver concert and shooter and Dave and Jamie Johnson were there sitting upstairs at a table and mark my manager used to manager man shooters we have to say hi I was so shy you know there's like in Jamie's a hero and he said I just got really nervous but I
Guest:I have like resting bitch face most of the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I'm usually internalized and thinking heavy about something and get all hang dog.
Guest:But people just think I'm an asshole.
Guest:And Dave even said like, I was scared to death of you, man.
Guest:I thought you were a fucking asshole.
Guest:But Shooter, we ended up leaving and Shooter, I think, so he says, told Dave, that guy's the best country singer in Nashville.
Guest:And Dave apparently looked up some videos that night online and emailed my manager.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So the next morning and we went and had lunch and made a record and we made another record.
Marc:What were the videos online?
Marc:What was existing before the first record?
Marc:I don't know what he saw that made him want to work with me.
Marc:Well, you know, you do look like kind of a badass sometimes.
Marc:And you make associations, dude.
Marc:Like on the second album, on the Metamodern Sounds and Country Music, the fucking picture on the cover, you look like a Civil War veteran.
Marc:That was me being a smartass.
Guest:okay so that's sort of a joke like you look like general custer for christ's sake my buddy jason sealer it's actually a painting wow photograph he's an amazing artist um wow i wanted to do something just make the tackiest album cover of all time really and kind of juxtapose it with like oh there was a very hip trend with like the tin type photo going on right so i wanted to do something like the civil war photo
Guest:Yeah, but an even more ancient version of something that they're already trying to capture nostalgia with.
Guest:A painting of a black and white photo on a space.
Marc:So that was a joke to you?
Guest:It's all a joke.
Guest:The title's Metamodern Sounds and Country Music.
Marc:Right, but I thought that was like, I mean, I get it's a joke.
Guest:I'm paying homage to Ray, but it was also like, maybe we should, I needed to take myself a little less seriously at the time, I think, more than anything.
Marc:After High Top?
Marc:After High Top.
Guest:because it was such a heavy record earnest earnest yeah yeah you know so and then i wasn't you know i've said it before but i didn't want to write a bunch of drinking songs i mean that shit's like let bun hoffman do that god let's hope so
Guest:Did you like that record?
Guest:I introduced Ben to Dave because I was like, this kind of has to happen.
Guest:But I told him, I was like, if you're going to do this, you can't turn puss cake halfway through, man.
Guest:You can't tiptoe up there.
Guest:It's got to be full fucking Kaufman or I don't want to ever see you again.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:But yeah, him and Dave went and used Chris Powell and Leroy and Freedom Eagle Bear and some other great players.
Marc:It charted.
Marc:Wheeler Walker charted.
Guest:Dude, he's like, it was on the Billboard country chart.
Guest:which I think is fucking brilliant I loved his argument it's like who's gonna tell me I'm not real country well he it needs to be made fun of right and I don't mean like it as in the mainstream or all of it I mean it all needs to be made fun of people get so hung up on this ain't real country or this is real country and it's like fuck who cares man
Guest:If it's making you happy or if it's making some part of you thinks a dipshit happy, at the end of the day, it's putting a lot of food on a lot of tables.
Guest:It's making a lot of jobs.
Guest:And nobody's forcing people to go buy this.
Guest:So there's obviously this huge demographic that really love all the stuff that people make fun of.
Guest:But it doesn't, I don't think, a lot of journalists last year wanted me to get sucked into that conversation and just talk shit and bash it all day long.
Marc:About a mainstream country?
Guest:Mainstream country.
Guest:And I don't have anything to offer there because I just don't,
Marc:i don't even think about it you know what i mean i don't uh well there was a time where guys like um there was a fight to be had i guess so i don't know who started it but you know back when alt country you know steve earl maybe lucinda a little bit uh they weren't fighting but some people were drawing lines
Marc:You know, like when Guitar Town and stuff came out, that there was this movement of younger country artists.
Guest:Are you going to be like Wilco and Uncle Tupelo or Steve Earle?
Marc:How far are we going back?
Marc:Yeah, Steve Earle.
Marc:Well, Uncle Tupelo, I mean, you know, some sort of standard was set by the Flying Burrito Brothers and Emmylou and those people.
Marc:writers of the purple stage right right well yeah but then there was that country rock when i was a kid i mean shit i saw writers new writers of the purple stage i don't even know why i saw them but i remember they had a giant stage coach up on behind them when they were playing at the end of the day it all led to the eagles it do yeah what do you think of that i think that it it's inevitable it happens you know it's like you want to hate him but jesus christ i know all those fucking songs
Marc:Well, there's a reason.
Marc:They're good songs.
Marc:They're good songs.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Take it to the limit.
Guest:Earworms.
Guest:I was like...
Marc:They're beautiful, but I still can't.
Marc:It's sort of like the Beatles.
Marc:I love the Beatles, but am I going to throw on Lady Madonna again anytime soon?
Marc:I don't think so.
Marc:I mean, when I hear it, I'm like, okay.
Guest:Now I have a two-year-old son, so I've gotten back into the Beatles.
Guest:Got to.
Guest:You got to program him.
Guest:He's all about, man, it's crazy.
Guest:That's why the strings made the record, honestly, because the whole record was based on...
Guest:Revolver?
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, wouldn't that be something?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, the first year and a half of his life, I was on the road pretty much the entirety because the record came out a month before he was born.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:Metamodern.
Guest:So my career sort of took off around the same time that my family formed.
Guest:But my wife, you know, she's very supportive and understands.
Guest:She's like, we spent five years to get right here, and you have to do this.
Guest:Because if you're going to do this, this is it.
Guest:Here's your window.
Guest:Okay, so we're going to bump it down and get through this.
Guest:And I was on the road a lot, probably slept in my bed maybe 50 times in that year and a half.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:so i was watching him grow up in pictures really and then so when i was home with him it was you know every moment seemed hyper aware yeah like i just wanted to be so there right and a lot of that was me observing his reactions to a lot of the music that i listened to which kind of influenced the album in a way and i'd come out from coming home with the roughs and the masters this album this out i produced this one because it was so personal yeah um i just wanted to be
Guest:More than anything, I think the idea of it came from the fact that, all right, well, after Metamodern there's all these
Guest:unnecessary and unfounded expectations and they put all these titles and things on you and i knew it was never going to pan out like as an outsider in self-release i knew there was no hope of me changing anything and what change in what in terms of what well people were fed up and frustrated they wanted to see recognition from the mainstream for for what they called authentic music right it's that that world is they're not going to let a self-release independent record on stage at award shows and i mean it wasn't even in the country category at the grammys for which one metamodern sounds
Marc:Right.
Marc:You self-released that?
Marc:Yeah, I self-released it.
Marc:And that's insane because that's politics.
Guest:Well, yeah, but it's all necessary.
Guest:I mean... So, yeah, when Meta Modern came out, there was all this press and people just... I got this savior country music title, which to me was always like a curse because I knew they were going to be let down.
Marc:Right.
Marc:There's no way to live up to this.
Guest:There's no way to live up to that.
Guest:They're just waterboarding themselves with Kool-Aid.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Thinking that that...
Guest:The industry propagates things that it stands to profit and benefit from.
Guest:And I knew the change always had to come from the inside.
Guest:Like a guy like me or a guy like Jason, we can kick down doors all day long, but we're not going to walk through them.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, he's too nice.
Guest:We've got to say this.
Guest:I'll say it for him.
Guest:He had a number one country record last year.
Guest:And I know they submitted for recognition from the ACMs and got rejected.
Guest:And Dave wrote him a letter.
Guest:So, I mean, to me, I'm a little skeptical still.
Marc:that's fucking crazy i don't know how much things have really moved forward but but but the weird thing is it's like it's it's what we were talking about earlier this weird paradigm is that what are they protecting they're protecting like you know these known quantities who make them millions of dollars and they're not welcoming in you know creative new artists oh they are no no no they are they i mean uh chris staples is a friend of mine that guy's a phenomenal yeah oh good phenomenal talent so why'd they ice jason uh
Guest:I don't know, honestly.
Guest:I mean, Chris has written songs for a lot of people in that world, but I don't... The dude's just such an incredible artist.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But because he's on the inside, I think he's in a better position to really orchestrate change more so than anybody like Jason or myself or a lot of others could.
Guest:And I think that's a great thing because it has to move forward.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know if Metamodern had anything to do with that.
Guest:I know Chris has said he heard the record and wanted to work with Dave.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So maybe that's the biggest compliment anybody could pay me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If I in any way influenced that guy to go against the grain and make a record that he wanted to make in that world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's pretty selfless.
Guest:Look at the results, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think also as a result of that, both fortunately and maybe unfortunately for the next two or three years, you're going to see Music Row pumping out versions 1 through 37 of their authentic country singers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because they know right now they kind of look like assholes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Right.
Right.
Marc:So they're going to go back to brass.
Guest:And I'm an asshole.
Guest:So for me to say somebody looks like an asshole, that's like... Right.
Marc:So now they're just going to reconfigure the face of country music a little bit.
Guest:It's all cyclical.
Guest:Every 25, 30 years, it rolls over, and it's time to roll over.
Marc:Well, let's get back to you having this profound time with your son and moving into this new record.
Marc:How did you...
Marc:come up with how does it work for you as a songwriter that you know you kind of move through this metaphor for a good chunk of the record you know the ocean sailor business there's two or three songs at least on there where'd the concept come from yeah i mean like you you said you had this experience with your kid yeah just being away from him and even though i mean i have the greatest job on the planet man yeah
Guest:There's no question about it, even though it brings me a lot of emotional turmoil and insecurities I have to fight to go out and do it.
Guest:It's still the greatest job on the planet.
Guest:So it's like my whole life, whether I knew it or not, even when I wasn't ambitiously moving towards it, it was all I ever cared about.
Guest:Music.
Guest:Music.
Guest:And people might think I'm pretentious or whatever, but I take it very seriously.
Guest:Clearly.
Guest:It's the only thing I've ever taken seriously.
Guest:And I feel like you have this responsibility.
Guest:These records are going to be around forever.
Guest:So anything I leave behind has to be...
Guest:Solid.
Guest:Solid.
Guest:But I wanted also realizing sort of my place in it all and the road I would have ahead of me.
Guest:I came to peace with that and realized that no matter what happens going forward, it's a very fickle business and it could all be over tomorrow for me.
Guest:So I wanted to do something as a thank you to my wife and my family.
Guest:Their support and believing in me got me to right here.
Guest:So I'm going to be very self-absorbed and selfish for a moment and produce this bombastic orchestral journey for my kid that someday if I grow up and I'm dead and gone, he can listen back and know exactly who his dad was and have all those things that meant so much to me in this sonic capsule.
Guest:so so the difference is like in the first record you were saying i'm going to write an earnest country record yeah in the second record you're going to turn country in on itself a little bit well i want to incorporate elements of psychedelia and rock and roll i always listen to and then really make a social consciousness album about the human experience and like coming to terms with the little dark corners we all don't want to go around in our heads you know which is not common for country
Guest:really not anymore it used to be what it was all about it used to be about the celebration of the struggle of life like the blues and the blues yeah now it's like it is what it is let's dance but people like it so what do you what can you say who are you gonna be mad at people want happy music people want to be happy
Marc:yeah there were some like even like well yeah I mean if you look at even Hank Williams and you know and his progeny like that the the legacy of of being as dark and out there as he was and writing those songs like it all feeds all that stuff and when even when you hear the personal mythology of of George Jones you're like holy shit genius
Guest:Okay, so that was the exploration record, but this record... But they were taking heavy, overwhelmingly depressing, sad themes and putting them to uplifting sonic backgrounds.
Guest:That's what makes it good.
Guest:You're taking happy music and expressing these thoughtful, emotive ideas as opposed to now where any kind of modern music...
Guest:Seems to be rapid and over top of these bombastic, like a cheesy version of 80s hair metal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And really shallow, empty lyrical content.
Guest:There's a really interesting piece in the Washington Post last week about how a lot of modern country singers are coming out.
Guest:and expressing uh not apologies but just like yeah we know there's not much in what we're doing and to me that tells me that somewhere right now around eight thousand dollar oak tables meetings are taking place and they're saying we look like assholes right and we need to come up with a better alternative because people are fed up
Marc:Well, they let the money kill it.
Marc:The artists are fed up is what you're saying.
Guest:The artists are also fed up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:A lot of people from that world reached out to me, man.
Guest:Keith Urban wrote me one of the nicest notes of encouragement I'll probably ever get in my entire life.
Guest:Zach Brown extended, took us out and put us in front of bigger audiences than we ever would have thought to play for last year.
Guest:So, I mean, yeah, the artists are fed up.
Guest:And the people that work in the industry are fed up.
Marc:That's beautiful because that's one of those stories where, you know, it's like one of those sort of, almost like a star is born.
Marc:Where, you know, you get these dudes that have made fortunes and have really figured out how to make fortunes doing what they do by making certain compromises to maybe what they originally set out to do.
Marc:And then a guy comes along that just rings true and they're gracious enough.
Marc:That's got to be worth everything.
Marc:And again, returning back to this time capsule for your kid.
Marc:So to me, it sounds like this was a grown-up record.
Marc:Where like, you know, you... Big boy pants?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:right because like you know in metamodern you know you had an agenda to to explore certain things that you grew up with and psychedelic things in the first record you wanted to to sort of like you know you know have your ground like you had to be reckoned with or finding it right and then this record it seems like well i'm going to draw from what i love and use like there's something that you just said about the sonic landscape you know having the power to elevate pain enough to where that pain is is manageable within the person listening
Marc:Do you know what I'm saying?
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:I've never really heard it put that way, and I think that's right on because a lot of times with the blues, that's pretty standard shit in terms of one, four, five, and then the chorus is usually good, and somebody, there's a, I'm fucked, but I'm okay.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But to do something like Golden Ring, which is a cyclical, sort of heartbreaking story,
Marc:And to have it be like something you can listen to over and over again just means that that pain you're experiencing with that sad story, it's manageable.
Guest:And it's something everybody can relate to.
Guest:We all have the same basic emotions.
Marc:And so is that what you found yourself entering this record?
Marc:What was the thing you said, well, I don't give a fuck.
Marc:I'm not going to honor which voice.
Marc:Do you know what I'm saying?
Marc:Or honor all of them.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Really, it was like, okay, well, I'm on a major label now.
Guest:This is my first album.
Guest:I've got this metaphor I like to use as a toolbox.
Guest:You have all these means available now that I didn't have.
Guest:Metamodern, we made that literally, me and three other guys, my road band that I'd spent a year on the road.
Guest:A lot of the songs were tested, arranged, carved out of wood.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we came in and hit record with four microphones and we didn't touch anything after day one.
Guest:And it was a very short conversation.
Guest:Dave knew exactly what I wanted.
Guest:And it went very fast.
Guest:I didn't think I was ready to make a record.
Guest:Whereas opposed with this album...
Guest:All of those learning experiences stack up into more confidence.
Guest:Right.
Guest:In terms of what you... And if you spend a year or a year and a half on the road, inevitably you become a better musician.
Guest:Inevitably you hear things you didn't hear a year and a half ago.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And...
Guest:after some reflection and I, and I, I knew that I'd learned a lot about the process.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I guess I had some confidence.
Guest:So I told Dave, I'm going to do this one by myself just cause it's so personal.
Guest:What'd he say?
Guest:I thought he understood.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, and then the label, they were kind of like, okay.
Guest:So, um, so I just told her, but I'm going to go make some demos and see where my head's at.
Guest:But I knew I had the record and we came out about four or five days later and everybody's concerns were alleviated hopefully.
Guest:But,
Guest:And it was a lot of fun.
Guest:Again, it was a learning experience because I already heard it in my head and all the guys in the room had to deal with that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That fact that... You had it fully realized.
Guest:So patience was something that I came to understand is very important in a process where...
Guest:You know, let's try that.
Guest:But we can't try it right now because to set up certain equipment, especially in the analog world, it takes time.
Guest:And then you've got to place the mics right.
Guest:And the engineer, David Ferguson, who's a genius, worked with Cowboy Jack and Rick Rubin and did all the Johnny Cash records.
Guest:I learned probably even more from him in that week.
Marc:it it's it's really interesting i don't know the records for me is is the reward that's what i love more anything well it's sort of kind of cool that one of the more country-ish sounding songs is the nirvana cover right like you know like you had to you know like i understand doing a cover and i understand you know loving nirvana but you know what was it about was which one in bloom is that what it was
Marc:What was it about that song that you were like, well, we can make this sing in a different way?
Guest:Well, if you're going to cover anything, you should probably try to make it in a different way.
Marc:No, of course.
Marc:But I mean, like you knew.
Guest:I can't take credit for it.
Guest:It's my wife's idea.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I did this other 80s New Wave song on the last record.
Guest:That was her idea because she... Anyway, so the record conceptually as a letter to your son or as a new parent to their child, whatever...
Guest:from far away i wanted i knew i had this hole in the narrative the record was sort of arranged before a lot of the songs were finished even being written because i knew it had to form a right a narrative and yeah i came to that point was like okay well he's going to hit this this stage in his life where he's like this post pubescent adolescent angsty awkward little kid that we all go through and i'm not in that headspace anymore so i didn't know how to
Guest:and a lot of, to be honest, a lot of my life during that time, I just kind of blocked out and went and just learned to play guitar and smoke pot and try to be numb through it all.
Guest:Um, so my wife said, well, you know, what were you listening to at that point in your life?
Guest:Nirvana, you know, that shit hit in like eighth grade, seventh or eighth grade.
Guest:And, uh, my parents had, had divorced.
Guest:So I was like the latchkey kid from a broken home, you know, and that record just sort of exploded.
Guest:How old were you when they divorced?
Guest:Uh, 13, uh,
Guest:Was that rough?
Guest:Or were you just too out of it?
Guest:At that point, everything that had led up to it, I think I was already just kind of out of it.
Guest:Were they fighting?
Guest:Yeah, it was pretty tumultuous.
Guest:But they loved each other, man.
Guest:They were young, trying to do the best they could.
Guest:But yeah, that broke.
Guest:And then I was just sort of... Wayward.
Guest:Wild.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:For the lack of...
Marc:But speaking about the life and about these drifting years before you sort of kind of landed in whatever got you to the first record, I mean, how fucked up did it get for you?
Marc:I mean, were you just a guitar player and just a weed smoker?
Marc:What kind of jobs were you doing?
Marc:What kind of trouble were you getting into?
Marc:High school.
Marc:Was there a moment where you're like, I got to change course?
Guest:Oh, for sure.
Guest:And a few of those, really.
Guest:I worked for the railroad for a while out west.
Guest:why um well i'd moved to nashville the first time in 2000 in 2004 2005 and i was there for a while trying to be a singer songwriter well i didn't know what i was trying to do i just went down there very naively and uninformed and thought well but you know everything that's going on in that city now yeah wasn't really happening yet right you know there wasn't uh jack white wasn't
Guest:there back while east nashville wasn't east nashville then it was uh just a different world and i didn't know anyone or where to start and i've never been a very ambitious person so uh rather than well i guess i'll go down to the open mic at the music row best western and slog it out i figured well i'll just probably sit home and and drink and listen to bluegrass instead so i did that for about nine months yeah and then realized well this isn't going anywhere so i should probably get a job
Guest:And a buddy of mine with some connections got me on a gig at a railroad switching terminal out in Salt Lake City.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was abstract.
Guest:Yeah, it happened.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sold all my guitars except for Martin.
Guest:Just went out there and threw myself into the job for a while.
Guest:And then I took a management position.
Guest:At the railroad.
Guest:At the railroad.
Guest:Now my wife moved out.
Guest:She was with me there.
Guest:Was that dark time?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, it was a good job, man.
Guest:It really is.
Guest:It's a lot of hours.
Guest:What was the job?
Guest:I started out as a conductor.
Guest:I was switching trains on the yard that would pull in.
Guest:We'd break them apart.
Marc:So you weren't on the train.
Guest:Well, I was on the train.
Guest:We'd operate them.
Guest:We'd engineer the locomotives within the yard.
Guest:Driving mile and a half long trains.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:uh it's a very outdoor physical job old school old school as it gets man it's like it's appropriate you know to the point where i'm like did you plan that and to be honest with you man if i hadn't taken that management job i'd probably still be there yeah i screwed up and got into office and on the conference calls getting screamed at i wasn't out there on the yard anymore and i just got really depressed were you writing music
Guest:Up until that point, no.
Guest:But once it got to that point, yeah, the guitar came out of the closet for the first time.
Marc:When you were getting yelled at by upper management?
Guest:Yeah, I was just like, what am I doing with my wife, man?
Guest:This is not me.
Guest:And my wife has always been very encouraging about my music.
Guest:She went and bought me a little 12-track recorder so I could start putting ideas down at home.
Guest:And then I started writing more.
Guest:And then finally she just kind of told me, you know, you don't suck at this.
Guest:And it's obviously what...
Guest:you enjoy right so maybe you ought to try to do that before you wake up you know and i'm stuck with your miserable ass forever yeah so that's what happened we quit our jobs we sold everything and drove back to nashville for bronco to nashville and that was about six years ago and then you just sort of you figured out how to to to what how did you begin to get recognized
Marc:for what you were doing?
Marc:How did you get to the first record from Salt Lake City and quitting a railroad job?
Guest:The first year, I dicked off back and forth with a local band I used to play in and realized that that was kind of over before we started it again.
Guest:And I didn't have much...
Guest:musically or personally to offer there anymore.
Guest:And I realized I was kind of using it as a hiding place in a crutch.
Guest:What kind of music was it?
Guest:It was like punked out bluegrass.
Guest:It was a lot of fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Until it wasn't.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I just, you know, it wasn't gratifying.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Um, so I made a break from those guys, uh,
Guest:And then just decided I'm going to write country songs because that's ultimately, even in playing in that band, that's what I was doing was writing country songs.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so, yeah, Shooter hooked up with Dave.
Guest:This was all like a year later.
Guest:My manager was blind chance.
Guest:Again, knowing what I knew from living there the first time, I was like, well, obviously you need help or at least somebody to point you in the right direction.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I just blind copied in about 375 email addresses and wrote this very short...
Guest:try to make it as humble as possible basically just say I need somebody to go sit down with have a cup of coffee and just tell me like where to start and the guy who's my manager now he doesn't believe me but out of all of those he was the only person that wrote me back really and he said he heard something on the thing on my voice and he was like there's something here so for the first two years
Guest:more as a friend than a manager he just kind of gave me advice on what not to do and would put up walls whenever things would present themselves that what were some of those things you know just the token stories where guys like me get chewed up and spit out by that town right you know running interference and say you don't want to do that you think you want to do that right
Guest:and you think that what they're telling you is great but you know that's not worth what you're giving away so don't do that yeah and so it's a lot of times kind of scary um and then he basically said like i'll help you i'll get you in the right direction if it turns in something i want the gig and we shook hands on it and oh yeah two years later it turned into a gig and there you go he's my little sicilian jewish pitbull you know
Marc:A Sicilian Jew?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's been there a long time?
Guest:He's been there a long time, and he's worked in just about every facet of the industry and seen what it does.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So he knows all the tricks, and he knows, you know, I don't think, for lack of, you know, there might be bigger, more connected guys, but there's nobody that's got my best interest in mind in that town.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:like he does that's good man it's good to have loyalty and a good relationship like that and it's good that you above all else yeah and it's good that you didn't get all fucked up i mean there's still time but uh no i got all that out of my system i'm i'm good yeah when you were hitting the bottle was it bad
Guest:No, it wasn't like handshaking.
Guest:It was just kind of like self-medicating depression and not knowing anybody.
Guest:That was easier to find than all the other things that might have been more fun.
Marc:But your wife seems to have sort of been there the whole time.
Marc:Did she say like, dude, what are you doing?
Guest:Really, man, all of this is happening because of her.
Guest:That's the truth.
Guest:I wouldn't have done any of this.
Guest:um what did she do she she used to work in marketing and now she's she's taking care of the kid i finally got to the point where she can stay home yeah which was very important to me for her to be able to raise our child children hopefully yeah well she's she's very independent very supportive uh calls me on all my bullshit or you know tells me you take it when i could try i have to i gotta take it from somebody right
Guest:um but no this is all literally if not for her i really don't think any of this thing would be would be going down so like the the actual arc of the record is welcome to earth is birth birth yeah breaker's roar is sort of a warning um just a more of a full disclosure yeah this is what you're in for uh-huh it ain't all flowers
Marc:Right.
Marc:Keep it between the lines.
Guest:That was a collection of metaphorical sayings.
Guest:My grandfather used to say that even to this day, half of them, I'm still not certain I know what they mean, but it's more like worldly advice that I tried to put in the song.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And also in the form of a quasi dare commercial so that my kid doesn't feel the need to go down some of the roads I did, even though.
Guest:As idealistically and romantically Rimbaugh-esque I might have been in my exploration, there wasn't much learned from that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Had a good time.
Marc:Had a good time.
Guest:And even didn't have a good time.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah, Rimbaugh didn't end well.
Marc:No.
Guest:uh and then uh sea stories is sea stories is more of a collection both autobiographical and some fantasial and made up kind of like my life in the navy and some of the characters and weirdos that i met and how long were you in the navy about three years was that after is before the trains way before yeah i i got in trouble selling drugs and senior year high school like three months in what were you selling just pot mm-hmm
Guest:um i had a job at mcdonald's yeah my mom when i turned 16 my mom i got a job at mcdonald's which was literally like two miles from our house and she's like if you whatever you save up the first six months i'll match you on buying a car uh-huh so and then like you know you're back there frying nuggets and people from school are coming in and just ridiculing the shit out of you and it's absolutely humiliating i said this is fucking bullshit wearing the hat cds and strings man yeah so my buddy um a good friend of mine had an older sister dating this dude who had a
Guest:Had a line on the commercial A-grade crew, man.
Guest:And I was like, all the kids in school are getting the dirty brown press.
Guest:I can kill this.
Guest:And there was nobody there to say maybe you shouldn't do that.
Guest:So that was a wake-up call.
Guest:And then I realized...
Marc:Where was your dad?
Marc:Your dad was out of the house?
Guest:Yeah, he was gone.
Guest:He had moved out at that point.
Marc:Did you talk to him still?
Guest:Yeah, I went and stayed with him.
Guest:Honestly, looking back, it wasn't rebellion.
Guest:It was opportunism and business.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:There was demand.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:And nobody else had the supply.
Guest:But that was a really stupid, foolish thing.
Guest:So I was about three months into my senior year and just sort of had this epiphany.
Guest:Like, I'm going nowhere.
Guest:You know, my grades weren't good.
Marc:Again, this is the first epiphany.
Guest:So I was like, well, I know if I join the military, I know no matter what I'll get out of this town.
Guest:And nothing was scarier to me than two years later still being in that town.
Guest:So I enlisted, and I thought the Navy would take me farther away than anything else.
Marc:You didn't get busted, though?
Guest:No.
Guest:The guy that I was getting it from, I don't remember.
Guest:He came home late and his old lady called the cops on him.
Guest:So he freaked out in the middle of the night.
Guest:And me being the closest person to his house, he calls me, this 16, 17-year-old kid in the middle of the night.
Guest:And my mother had picked the phone up before I did.
Guest:So she heard this fucktard just like...
Guest:going on the whole gamut and the gig was up and i said my man god bless her she did what it was one of those calls right dude the cops are coming and like i don't know how much shit you have but i you know i got you gotta get me out of here man i was like oh yeah yeah yeah who is this yeah yeah yeah wrong number um but she she scared her to death but she was the best mother anybody could hope for and i put her through hell i'll always regret that but she couldn't have done any better
Guest:so you know it's like merle said yeah mama tried yeah um and the grateful did and the grateful did yeah so you go into the navy and you you have a life for how long long enough to know it wasn't for me were you at sea oh yeah i was on a little little frigate we uh would i was stationed over in japan yeah biggest part of that all over asia and we would like
Guest:escort the battle group or the uh the main thing was patrolling international waters and checking like cargo and freighter ships and containers and manifest and we have these little vbss teams that would board and we just fucking dick off and it was peace time there wasn't anything going on yeah so the the hardest part of it was remembering you were in the navy a lot of the times right i mean like we hit these ports and i have buddies that went to college and they talk about frat parties i'm just like you guys have no idea what
Guest:What Navy parties are like.
Guest:Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
Guest:Some of the best friends I'll ever have in my life.
Guest:Still have them?
Guest:Still a few of the really tight guys that come to shows, stay in touch.
Guest:One of my close friends lives out on the West Coast.
Guest:He's got a kid about the same age as me.
Guest:We'll probably talk the rest of our lives.
Guest:And then there's the guys that you were...
Guest:as good of friends as you'll ever have in the world that, you know, there's one dude, Joe, was one of those like, you know, Bob Acosta, like the attorney from Hunter Thompson novels.
Guest:He said, you know, it wasn't meant for mass production.
Marc:This was that guy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And to this day, nobody knows what happened to him.
Guest:He could be, he could be dead.
Guest:He could be in prison.
Marc:No, you don't know.
Marc:Nobody knows.
Guest:But man, he was like, you couldn't have asked for a more colorful human being.
Marc:Was he the guide?
Guest:Was he the guide?
Marc:No, no, no, no.
Guest:He was, he was, uh,
Guest:Sort of the example.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:You know, like what not to do.
Marc:Yeah, maybe not get that far out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's nice.
Marc:So you survived that and you didn't get too fucked up and you had a good time?
Guest:I had a real good time.
Marc:And you came back with... I got fucked up after.
Guest:I got out.
Guest:I was out in Everett, Washington.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, I was stationed in Everett when I got out.
Marc:That's Cobain country.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, it was long after all that was over.
Guest:It was like 99.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So I was... Yeah, I was just kind of stuck out there working at this IHOP...
Guest:away from my family and everything I ever knew and understood I was living with this 18 year old French girl so that's what you did when you got discharged you just stayed there I just stayed there and got fucked up and played guitar and went to shows and experienced this whole other side of America that I probably never would have seen before it's gorgeous it's also immensely depressing
Guest:yeah you know dark but i liked it it's a cool town man um had too much fun got to a point where i realized i was having too much fun uh missed again missed my grandfather's funeral because of that your father's father my father's father because i wasn't in a state to come home and see anybody what were you doing just booze uh yeah a lot of a lot of
Guest:i don't yeah i read all the wrong books and i don't ever want to talk about that because a lot of kids they hear shit like this and they get all you know impressionable and stupid well you didn't lose your life and you didn't stay in it yeah yeah just kind of this and that sure had a good time until it didn't uh now i have to carry the shame of not being able to come home and see that man go um
Guest:Was he dying?
Guest:No, he had Alzheimer's and he fell down and broke his hip and there was, I guess, bacterial infections.
Guest:I'm not sure exactly.
Guest:But other than that, physically, he was fine.
Guest:He'd probably still be here.
Marc:That hadn't happened.
Marc:And was that the sort of the thing that shook you straight?
Guest:That was a wake-up call, yeah.
Marc:And your dad probably was like, what the fuck are you doing?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We, and, but I couldn't, I couldn't talk to him about it, you know?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So it was a distance there for a while.
Guest:But yeah, I came home and got back in my element and around friends that I hadn't seen in a while.
Guest:And eventually I was okay.
Guest:You know, getting out of the military is always something that a lot of people don't talk about because even peace or wartime, there's some pretty serious behavioral modification.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so I had to kind of come to grips with that on my own.
Guest:I wasn't this laid back kid that my friends all knew in high school.
Guest:It was just like wound tighter than a banjo string and nothing was efficient enough anymore.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I had to throttle back.
Marc:You had to learn how to be in real life again.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And were you a fighter?
Marc:What do you mean?
Marc:Did you kick any ass?
Marc:Just get in fights?
Marc:In the Navy?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sure.
Yeah.
Guest:yeah yeah over bullshit i'm not a i don't i've seen some pretty authentic and severe violence so it's something that i try to avoid at all at all costs where do you see that just you know fights and things like out on town and then um but no i'm not i'm not a violent guy if that's what you but you'll throw down if you have to
Guest:I'm mercurial.
Marc:I'll put it that way.
Marc:I'm trying to lift up your country cred.
Marc:That's all.
Guest:I understand.
Guest:No, I mean, honestly, fighting is something that I've come to really hate as I've gotten older.
Guest:I'm one of those guys.
Guest:I'm not afraid to stop a show if I see it happening just because...
Guest:One, well, the most annoying thing is it never happens.
Guest:It's always just a couple of cockheads puffing up like roosters.
Guest:Nothing ever happens.
Guest:All they do is consume and redirect all of the energy in the room to them.
Guest:Nobody's in the show.
Guest:My band's not in the show anymore.
Guest:And that pisses me off in a way I could never fully articulate.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:that's one reason too is usually it's always people around the jackasses that end up getting hurt yeah and i would rather stop than to see that happen at a show that people that were responsible for people being there in the first place you know yeah so but you got to be careful because if i do that now it's like it's on youtube in five minutes and you're a tough guy yeah you know yeah but uh
Marc:I think it's interesting, though, because like, you know, there's a you know, this talk about authenticity and about country and about, you know, what your interests are and how you've lived your life and what you've done with your mind and the things you've accomplished.
Marc:But but I think what we're learning is that, you know, despite, you know, whatever you're telling me about intellectually who you are, there's definitely a country badass in there.
Guest:You know, get in where you fit in, man.
Marc:Is that insulting?
Marc:No, not at all.
Guest:I mean, I don't consider myself a badass, but, you know, it's...
Guest:I think there's certain things I'm kind of badass at.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I've learned to focus on just doing those things.
Marc:So In Bloom, as we discussed, was showing him what you liked and interpreting it for him.
Guest:Yeah, and paying homage to Kurt.
Guest:And I got a lot of slack from that one.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, the Nirvana fans.
Guest:Oh, fuck it.
Guest:Yeah, fuck them.
Guest:The thing is, like,
Guest:as a huge nirvana fan one of my favorite things about kurt that i always liked when i was a kid i saw on some interviews he talked about how much he loved country music i'm real haggard and yeah he covered a stanley brother song on the unplugged you know like and that was the stuff that i knew as i was like this guy's awesome yeah so i wanted to do something from my you know what i do best as to kind of pay homage and make it i try to make it as beautiful as i could um it might be weird but
Marc:No, it's great.
Marc:Even fucking Paul Anka covered Nirvana.
Guest:Yeah, I think he would have liked it just because it pissed off Nirvana fans.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah, if it pissed off anybody, I think he would have liked it.
Marc:And they can all sick my duck, so... Yeah, Embrace for Impact, that's the single?
Marc:Are you thinking?
Guest:Well... If that exists?
Guest:If that exists.
Guest:The label let me pick the first single, so I said, let's go with the six-minute deep cut.
Guest:Because I want people to hear this album from start to finish, so the whole idea of singles to me seemed...
Marc:Well, I love that.
Marc:It's a reasonably length record.
Marc:It's like a real record.
Marc:There's nine songs on it.
Guest:Yeah, 40 minutes.
Guest:20 aside, bro.
Marc:Yeah, it's a real record.
Guest:None of this sort of loading up.
Guest:We were talking about antiquated business models before you turned the tape on.
Guest:And I think now, any...
Guest:There's a lot of music fans, yourself included, or anybody hopefully that knows my first two records, they know that they're getting an album.
Guest:Even Adele said she doesn't want her album snacked on.
Guest:Just give them the record, man.
Guest:Let them dissect it and tell me what it means, as opposed to, let's roll out three tunes, sit down with 8,000 journalists, answer the same seven questions,
Guest:just give them the record right that's all they want right and then let them live with it and then three months later show up and play the thing in front of them and everybody has a great time right and let them take it in as a record right as opposed I mean you know you spend all this money setting things up that are just going to inevitably happen or not right
Marc:but still the songs my first record took off because of organic right that's the only but that's the only thing that you that's all that can happen that's it nothing else everything else is out of your control and also nothing else really works no you know you people got to be like this shit is the shit and then they get they turn it on to the other guy and yeah and people connect with it and they hopefully eases their pain or whatever they're dealing with that's right
Guest:trophies or not trophies my life is dope it's great so brace for impact was sort of like you know don't be too scared and you know live life a little yeah right facing mortality or someday yeah you're gonna die are you asking me explain my art no i'm just i'm just going through i'm just trying to sort of encapsulate the dialogue with your kid no no yeah that is great let's do it here and then i don't have to do any interviews
Marc:Yeah, we'll do it all here.
Marc:Because, like, I like the idea that it is a conversation that you want the kid to have.
Guest:And all around you is... Just knowing, no matter what, love and finding strength within yourself.
Guest:And, you know, we're mortal, but, like, you can carry memories of...
Guest:positive encouraging influential people the rest of your life and that your parents love you yeah and that there's love all around you no matter how sometimes in your life you might feel like there isn't any like it's literally always there i just wanted him to know that i need to know that thank you i'm gonna i have to go listen to that song again oh sarah is for sarah i wanted to yeah something for his mother yeah and call to arms just a concerned parent facing the world we live in
Guest:what is your concerns how old is he two it's two he's two um what are you afraid of fuck man you watch the news sure i try not to um try to keep it you know around the house i don't know i just things you can't control almost everything almost everything
Marc:Well, I'm proud of you, buddy.
Marc:Thanks, bro.
Marc:Congratulations.
Marc:You do great work, and you're a solid dude.
Guest:I get to make art for a living, man.
Marc:And he also sang the fuck out of this record.
Marc:I mean, I think you really took some chances as a singer, and you can hear it.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Did you feel that?
Marc:Yeah, I wanted to.
Marc:I mean, hopefully I'm getting better.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:You're doing great.
Marc:You're doing great.
Marc:But don't let the fear go away.
Guest:No, I like the angst.
Guest:Yeah, me too.
Guest:My buddy Bobby says I have a rocky heart, whatever that means.
Marc:Yeah, well, that's all right.
Marc:As long as you stay nice to your wife and you do a good job with your kid, fine.
Marc:Have a rocky heart.
Marc:Keeps the assholes away.
Marc:Seems to be working so far.
Marc:Thanks for talking to me, man.
Marc:That was me and Sturgill Simpson.
Marc:I enjoyed that conversation immensely, and I love the record.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all that stuff.
Marc:Look at the new site.
Marc:Look at my tour dates.
Marc:Get some merch.
Marc:Read old updates.
Marc:Look at pictures.
Marc:All kinds of shit to do over there.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Right.
Marc:What else?
Marc:A lot of good episodes of WTF coming up.
Marc:I'm going to go turn my amp on.
Marc:Hold on.
Hold on.
Marc:Boomer lives!
Marc:I know you would have rather heard Sturgill.