I.

Want to let you know that I have some new tour dates to announce Charlottesville VA on February 1, Raleigh, North Carolina, February 2, Colombia, South Carolina, February 3, and Knoxville, Tennessee, Go Big Orange, on February 4 at the Knoxville Coliseum, as well as state college PA on February seventh. Syracuse, New York, February eighth, and Amherst, Massachusetts, on February ninth. All tickets available at theauvon. Com/tauur. Don't buy through secondary sites if the prices are jacked up. Just wait, we'll come on back through town. But looking forward to bringing the tour near you. Thank you for the support. Today's guests are two hitmakers in the country music universe. One of them is just named the new artist at the CMAs. One of them is one of the most talented songwriters that there is. They're Nashville guys, and they are friends of mine, and they bring a lot of joy to a lot of people. I'm grateful to have them both return to the podcast. Today's guests are Jellie Roll and Ernest.

I'm going to.

Sing.

A song. I'm going to sing a song. I'm going to sing. I'm going to sing. I don't know why it's just more like... Yeah, it would be simple. I put those on and I think I'm supposed to sing. Oh, really? Does that make sense? It's like as soon as they go on, it's likecheck, check, check, check. Can I get a little reverb?

Yeah, yeah. When I put them on, I feel like I was supposed to do cold weather, dude, because we had... In our neighborhood, you'd have a dude out there wearing... Yeah, sometimes you see like a- The ear muffs. Yeah, you'd have this dude wearing knees that at Christmas or something.

Yeah. That was the, You're going to shoot your eye out. Fuck, why I come so high camera at the movie store. They always wore those, too.

Now, how high can you guys get?

Well, first of all, this is well. We were just talking about the highest we've ever been, ish. We did it with the same person, but separately. But I was sitting with you. You gave us just enough time to get stoned. You were like, 10 minutes, boys and me and Ernest were like, to.

The car. I was going to be five minutes early. To the batmobile. I was going to be five minutes early, but then we pushed it.

Sorry. So we might have showed up sober for that second.

Hey, if somebody's like, Hey, man, we're going to need five extra minutes in here. That's when the weed sneaks in. 100 %. Sitting here with Jellie Rollin' Ernest, man. Thank you guys, bro. Thank you. First of all, thank you guys.

If you don't mind while you're thanking us, I just want to start, and I'm sure Ernest wants to do this too, is that as guys that have been friends with you for a while, and my first podcast I ever did was with you on Thanksgiving week, by the way. We sit here on Thanksgiving week. I want to thank you for everything you've done for me, being early, being a believer, a supporter. Every time you've ever said something nice about me, but more motherfucking importantly, TheoVon, we want to give you your flowers. You're on fucking fire. I don't know if you even see it because you're such a humble in your own head, dude. I know that is you as your friend, but you are fucking scorching. It has been so fun to watch, dude. I mean, it is. Look at them, blushing. It was fucking beautiful, Doug. Thanks, sir. So happy for you, man. I was so glad to get the call, one, just to get to hang out, but two, to tell you in front of you and your audience that, man, I have never laughed as hard. I could just bore you with how happy I am in every podcast I've watched and just fucking how genius and brilliant you are.

But the Dana White one most recently, dude, I've watched every Dana White Scrum my whole career. I get to where I don't even watch the fights sometimes. I just go Google Dana White and see what the posts are. What did he say about the fights? Are they fucking worth watching?

He'll tell you the truth. There's a Chinese live feed you can get of just him watching the fights, too.

Really? Yeah. But dude, I never heard him like that. It was really cool. But I'm sorry. I wanted to start this.

To let you.

Know what we're having for you.

We're here with the writer of flower shops anyway, so I think it's the guy to do it around. Dude, what if you did a show where people got their flowers from somebody as a get, like as a thank you, bro.

That's really sweet of you. Retweet everything he just said.

Yeah, thank you, bro.

Well, thank you guys for making me laugh, dude, for making me feel welcome in a new city. I will say that. You guys have been very... You showed up for the first time that we had a show in Nashville at Zaney's, man, you came out. Ernest, you've been somebody that just always checks in or cheers me up or keeps me in the know of what's going on with a lot of these guys because so many artists are on the road now and stuff out of here. But thank you, bro. A very sweet of you, man. And happy holidays, boys. Happy holiday, Bob.

Praise God. I was throwing nuts your way for a.

Second there. You got me high, man. I got you high.

And you guys wrote... Tell me this, because I didn't know this. I was at Writers Round, Ir. I think you were performing that. Yeah. And you wrote Son of a Center together. Yes, sir.

Wow. Yeah.

That's crazy, bro.

It is crazy.

It's really crazy. Because him, I believe Son of a Center.

But then I get over here and I'm like, Hold on. My birth father was definitely a sinner. I was adopted into a less of a sinning.

Man's heart. Oh, yeah. You're like an aftermarket sinner.

I was actually son of a deacon. I was like, son of a deacon in the Church of Christ.

We actually have a song on his new album that talks all about that, actually.

Oh, my goodness, dude. Can I tell the story? Yeah, please. Dude, so me and Luke Bryan were playing golf out at Trubidore, and we're listening to some rap, and we started talking about Jellyroll. He was like, You all known each other for a while. I was like, Yeah, we.

Go back. Don't act like you're not fighting your best not to do your Luke Bryan impression right now. I thought.

So much.

We got to hear it, man. I was like, You've been knowing Jellyroll, ain't you? I said, Well, that's a bad one. But I got a good one coming up here because I was like, Yeah. I used to go by his house and acquire some things, and we'd free style rap. This is back in 2010. I was like, then I went to college and he went to jail. Then we came back around all these years later, and Luke was like, Hold up, Motherfucker. You better write that fucking song right now. I start freestyling in the golf cards. It's like, I went to college. He went to jail. One was a dorm room. One was a cell. Who came out on top? Hell, it's hard to tell. I went to college. He went to jail. So we're going to.

Trade it off. Better checks in college.

That's the only thing I'll say. Imagine this. I'm getting a FaceTime or a phone call every 16 minutes from a drunk Ernest and a drunk Luke Bryan, and they drunk, too. Sunbeat and all them, they're sweating. They're just like, Check this one out. I'm giving a little input here and there. By about the fourth FaceTime, I was like, These cock suckers are writing a song on the golf.

Course right now. For sure. Over FaceTime with no guitars.

That's.

Crazy, man. I guess inspiration can just roll up whenever. Is it as easy to just go in a place and do inspiration like that and get inspiration if you're sitting in a room with people? Or is that a lot easier to find a way to write a song? Or is it easier just if you're milling around with your boys?

It can come both ways, for sure. In the right room, inspiration is going to be there. And just because you're out having fun and living doesn't mean that the inspiration is going to hit you in that moment. But I think living breeds inspiration no matter.

Where you're at. I'd like your perspective from a comedian because as a songwriter, we're always writing songs, right? Whether we know it or not subconsciously, you might say something here today that one of us will grab and hit the other one within a text later. You're like, Yo, when Baba said, Da da da, there's a song there. Yeah, put that in the notes. Throw that in the notes. You know what I mean? It's like, is it like that for you all as well? Just in day to day life, you're always writing a joke, whether you know it or not?

Yeah, I think if you're around your buddy, sometimes you get them to laugh. You'll write that down, you know? Rodney Dangerfield was pretty famous. If he was on a shoot or something, in his off moments, he would get in a robe and just hang out when he wasn't shooting, literally in a robe and slipper, I think, because he felt real free in it, like his body felt free. He would hang out by people. If something was funny, he would write it down on a notepad and just keeping it in his pocket. That's a famous story that I heard. I find if I'm like, say, the funniest times I ever am, as if, say, if I was hanging out with a girl, and she stayed over in the morning, and I think it's the same thing if you drank all night and you wake up in the morning, you're laughing with your spouse or something or with your spouse, and you're having just that funny time right there. I think that's when I feel.

Like-that's your golden hour of comedy.

It really is, yeah. Because if it's a lady, you're trying to impress, there's part of you that's always limbically trying to impress a lady. I don't know if it's limbic or whatever, but just damn, like Mediterranean or whatever that Mediterranean part of your head is. And you're always just trying to impress a lady. Mediterranean part of your head. Whatever it is.

You don't-I don't have six extra seconds for that to hit me. But it landed. It landed.

Just moving. But yeah, I think that's when I feel like I'm maybe my most engaging or whatever it is. Because I think a lot of comedians are just trying to get a girl to laugh. You don't have any way to impress a woman. That's when you realize you're young. So you're like, I got to make somebody laugh or one of these dudes is probably going to fuck me.

I.

Got to get funny quick. I relate. As a fat person, I always said that you got to be a little humorous and smell good. You can't be fat, stinky, and an asshole. You can't be fat, an asshole and a stinky. Pick two. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? I just got to be fat. That's it. I got to at least smell decent when I can, and I better at least make sure I chuckle every now and then. Yes.

So good. Dude, and I'll say to that, too, not even just girl, but an audience, like freestyling. When we're freestyling, bro, if it's a car full of people or a studio full of people and the energy is room, that's when I'm going to black out and be able to Freestyle, think and just basically be channeling something because I can see in real time what it's pulling out of people.

What do you mean? Oh, so if you're doing it just in front.

Of a group or something? Yeah, you can get a real read on site about whether this is cool or not. Whereas if it's just me by myself with music or me and one other guy who's so locked into his thing at the time, then you can get and you can get in your head and get in your own way, I feel like.

I know it sounds weird, but if I had a choice to do it every time, I'd treat it like a party. And us three would be writing a song, but we'd have the homies over there chilling. You know what I'm saying? Some of our buddies, because you can feel from that. You just the energy of a room. But yeah, it's always like it's also what you're getting into a room. Writing is so fun because I'm sure it's like this for you all, but there's so many ways to do it. I've done it so many different ways. Now, the most crazy way I've ever seen it done, and I'm sure you don't mind me saying this, I had a session with Wiz Khalif for the other night.

Did you really?

Listen, man. Wiz, don't get mad at me. I don't know what I was supposed to tell this, but you fucking did it in front of me, so it's a fair game, I think. He recorded his verse in reverse. I'm trying to figure out what's happening because I know it's going to be hard to even explain. To keep in mind, I've been smoking whiz for four hours at this point. I'm cooked. I'm like, What the fuck am I even doing? I feel like I'm taking troom or something. My skin's crawling. The room you can't see through it.

I'm fucking like, yo.

We're just like- When your own skin turns into a maze.

I'm like, what the.

Fuck is happening?

You can't even call the cops. You literally need to call whoever-.

Poison control. Calling Poison control, for sure. I'll let you finish, then I have a Poison control story.

But he would take the last bar and go backwards. So he would be like, And I'm already gone. And then he would go back- Do the line before that. -and loop the beat, a measure into that, and then figure out what the line going into that was. It was the wildest shit I've ever seen. I'm not bullshit, in honest. He did four bars before I looked up and publicly said loud, Is he recording this backwards? I had He missed a hole. He done it for 15 minutes.

And it was a great shot. He might be dyslexic. There's not a...

He's verse Lexic.

I mean, you just described dyslexia, and we're all like, I wonder what he's doing. Itry to look at him. Hey, that's funny. Bro, you don't see a lot of black dyslexia either.

Black dyslexia? Yeah, you don't see it every day, that's for sure. Hey, that's funny.

That's great. Tell us about your poison.

Control, baby. Let's go take a ride and get some cubie bar. You know what I'm saying? I don't want cubie bar. You don't see a lot of.

Black dyslexia. I'm down there at the way sub right now, baby. I'll be home in a minute.

That's hilarious. We need more black dyslexia out there, huh? Biden.

Dude's rapping like Yoda.

It's insane, dude. I've never seen nothing like that. And it was sick.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Dude, if aliens show up, they better show up with some fucking bars of the hoods. It's going to be like, Fuck these motherfuckers.

You know what I'm saying, dude? Yes. Tough day to be a square alien, dude.

Yeah. Because a lot of black people have issues with aliens anyway, bro. A lot of my dudes have told me that.

Have you been hearing that a lot? Oh, I've heard it on the street. I've heard it on the street.

Not recently, but I'm sure it hasn't changed since when I heard it.

Yeah, probably not. If anything's probably getting worse.

Yeah, I don't think it was a meeting. Oh, my God.

Poison control.

Okay, poison control. Are drugs involved in this?

Not bad ones. Okay. Honestly, just caffeine. It's insane. Right. So before one of these shows, I think we were at Marathon two years ago.

And Marathon is a.

Music venue. Marathon is a music venue, okay? I probably weighed 50 pounds more than I do right now. No judgment. Just keep that in mind for context. I was tired as hell. I wasn't drinking at the time. So I went to the gas station and got some caffeine pills, and it's like four pills and a thing. And I get back to the green room, I take the four pills, and then read the package. It was like, you're supposed to just take one of these. You got.

Four deals. That's a recommendation.

Yeah. So this is like 10 minutes later, I finally read the package. I go back in the bathroom, make myself throw up and one empty capsule came out in my puke. And I was like, Oh, boy. And I'm starting to get antsy and obviously anxious about the whole scenario. I don't have the coolest heart on Earth. And then I called Poison Control. I was like, No brain. I must see what they got to say. The guy was... I was like, Hey, man, I took four of these caffeine pills. I feel pretty uncomfortable right now. I'm sweating. It hurts. And he's like, Oh, man. He's like, Yeah, that's a lot of caffeine. He goes, But he was like, If you're in pretty good shape, you should be all right. And I was like, All right, thank you. I hung up and I was like, Fuck, I'm not that good of shape.

Now he's fucking passive-aggressively. If you're in pretty.

Good shape, I think you should be all right. And I'm like, What is pretty good shape? I'm definitely obese to an extent.

Let me draw a picture of myself. I'll text it over.

To you. I'm going to take you. I ended up being totally uncomfortable and stayed up all night in sweat, but I survived poison control.

Dude, any time you're just casually calling poison control, too, that's so.

Fucking weird. Yeah, I'm standing outside the venue kicking it. Somebody probably just assumed I'm talking to my mom or something. I'm over there, Am I going to die here in a minute?

Your PC was good on me.

That's how I.

Know you went to college because I'd have never even thought to call Poison Control in that moment. I didn't realize. I thought that's something you call when you had rats at the house.

Yeah, you would just take two.

Valiumss and be like, We'll take a Xanax.

We'll take a Xanax.

We'll fight.

Fire with fire.

Dude, me and my buddy went on a date. We were going to pick some girls up for a date one time, and we had just taken these no-dose pills. Remember those? Those are the first drugs for kids that came out at a gas station.

Was that like an over-the-counter amphetamine, basically?

Yeah, it was like no-dose. It said you could be a trucker. That's what it said on it, right? I was like, Fuck.

I took a five-hour energy drink one time in my life.

And you've still.

Been up?

I got off a plane. This was 10 years ago in Vegas, and I rented a car in Vegas to drive to LA because I was so broke it was cheaper to fly into Vegas or rent a car from there than to fly in LA. I took in, I stopped at one of them truck stops in the desert. Yeah, for sure. One of them figure it out. One of them, we've all done those in our criminal figure it out. I'm going.

To save 70 bucks, dude. I'll get there 11 hours later, and I'll be on somebody's shoulders.

I took it, dude, and I'm driving down the side of that old desert. It's all desert from Vegas to L. A. Man, it hit me, dude. I took the most squalling shit on the side of the road. It was the most brutal, painful thing I've ever dealt with. For that five hour interview? I didn't sleep for a day. Yeah, I'll never take one again. I should have called Poison Control. I should have called Poison Control.

We can't help you.

What is it called? Poison Control right now? What's up, Poison Control? We just want to check in with you guys, let you know.

We're doing good. Yeah, hey, how are you doing? Nobody's ever called to check on you all. Are you all good over there? They have overdoses probably all the time.

Definitely. If you have to work at a call center dude in Indy, you're definitely using a lot of pills probably to.

Stay up. Oh, yeah.

Indian dudes, well, they got a lot in their system, though, man, a lot of Indian dudes. We had an Indian dude. A lot of Indian, they have a lot more spices.

They're.

Fucking-that's the bet. A lot of Indian dudes, you'll smell. If they was by the house, you'll know they were by the house.

Yeah, hell yeah.

The dog will come right up on them.

Honey, do you hear that? No, but I smell that. I think the Indians just.

Got it. Because Indian people eat a lot of spicy food and it just comes out their pores. It's like being around an alcoholic, but it's like a lot of Indian dudes, their arteries are just like a halfway house for a spice rat. A lot of motherfuckers got that coriander in them. Yes, yeah, dude.

Steph Curry.

Dude, Steph Curry. What if he made a restaurant called Steph Curry? It would.

Do well. I'm sure it would do well. They had 30 different things on the menu. Yeah.

It's a great idea.

You know what? Now we open it, though, San Francisco?

Molly. Steph's Curry.

Steph's Curry? I don't know. That sounds like a-Or.

Steph Curry's.

Steph Curry's.

Steph Currys sound good. Steph Currys.

Sounds good. Steph Curry sounds like a steakhouse a little bit.

Steph's Currys sounds like a a... Kind of.

A-like a girl's STD.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It sounds like almost like vaginal witchcraft.

Vaginal witchcraft, yes.

You got to get ahead of Steph's Curry. You're like.

I'm.

Good. Nicole. It sounds like a dude in prison that tries to pretend like his butt is a vagina. Oh, come get some of this.

Steph's Curry. So back to me throwing out that Steph's Curry all afternoon.

They serve him one Steph's Curry over there. And that Buducey.

Did you get high with us before we got it?

I.

Live vicariously through high people. I wish I had smoked in here, dude. What would have? Because I can't smoke, but I can do... But I can't do anything that says you can do anything. You can smell it. You can think of anything that says you.

Can second-hand smoke. Yeah, you can smell it.

Dude, I wanted to open up a shoe store by Joachim Phoenix called, These Boots were made for Joachim, like Maree.

His only shoes that he could fit in to, he was like, If you fit in these, we got the boot for you.

He'd have to stop. If you're driving out of your house and you see the shop near you're like, Fuck.

I got to go. These boots are made for Walkine. I got to stop.

How was the CMAs, man? You guys got to go, dude. Congratulations too, man. Congratulations, man.

Thank you all.

Best new artist was it, huh?

Yes, sir. Was crazy, man. It was really interesting because I didn't think I had a chance to win it. Really? Yeah, man.

I mean, first-Is that true? You didn't think at all?

I did not at all. Who were you up against? I was up against Zach, Bryan, and Parker McClellan. Right. I felt like, no pun intended to my boy, I felt like Parker had a hell of a year. I feel like Zach Bryan is the second most streamed artist in country music right now behind Morgan. To me, it was a no-brainer. I'm such a Zach Bryan fan. The fact that I got to sit next to him the whole night, it's so funny.

I'm glad you were able to, too.

Yeah, that was cool for me and him to get that moment because he was awesome, dude. There was a moment where I literally felt like me and him were tailgating and watching a concert outside of an arena. He's over there drinking. I'm ripping a weed pen. You know what I'm saying? He's cracking beers. There's empty shot glasses. It's a fun way to see him, man. There's empty shot glasses under my seat. He's got four or five half drinks under his desk. He's bringing him drinks. And we're just there talking about the music all night. I just thought for sure he would win. The last thing right before they announced the name was I think I tapped him on the shoulder and said, Say something nice about me or something funny. Oh, it's cool. And then whenever I hugged him going up there, I was like, Man, you deserve this.

You know what I mean? And then you looked at him like, Don't worry, I'll say.

Something nice. Don't worry. I'll say something nice. I can do it now. Don't worry.

But it was really cool. Wow, that's so cool. You've had this a lot in your career, but I was blessed for the first time in my career to have a real viral moment. I thought I'd went viral before, but it was like just building to a real viral moment for whatever reason. I didn't touch my phone for like 36 hours after the award show because it was just such a big moment. I was just letting it sit. I didn't want to have my phone on me that night. Everybody kept telling me, Man, you're going viral. I'm like, Oh, cool. I'm thinking.

Like a couple of million views. Fuck, you're checking your whoop, to see if your doctor is letting.

You know it's going to be- I'm more concerned. Fucking hell. That ain't a whoop.

What is that?

That ain't a whoop on that boy.

I wore this whole tour, believe it or not. Did you really? That's how I lost those 50 pounds on tour, yeah. Incredible. I marked my sleep every night. I checked my show. My show.

Was like a work job. You have been living well, dude.

Hell, yes. I'm telling you. I've never lived. Dude, it was awesome. But I did, I wore my whoop forever.

You got to be careful. You don't want to have to get... Yeah, because I guess also if you're a bigger guy, you just have to be careful. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, like Stavros Howkias was just in here.

I love Stavvy. Oh, yeah. He's so.

Fucking funny. He is so funny, dude. But he was talking about what it's like being bigger. It's like it's fun to be big. You just have to also manage it. You can't get over big. You just have to enjoy your big, but you can't fucking... You can't be like, I'm going to get just extra big because I can.

Yeah, for sure. There's a point where it starts fucking, yeah. I had that recently. I was like, Let me pull the reins back on.

This thing. Let me.

Dial this back. Get a surgery. The best new.

Artery you.

Can get.

That's too much, dude. It's your best new artery.

Sorry. But so that was so wild. And then was it really like you were just shocked?

I was really shocked. I didn't have a plan walking up there. I was just walking up there like, Man, I was getting more excited as I was getting up there. Adrenaline is pumping. I'm in the fucking Bridestone arena. I'm on national television. Dude, I'm still a white trash kid from Antioch. All this is like, What the fuck is going on? You know what I'm saying? I'm not jaded to this. I'm not used to this at this point in my career. I'm still like, This is wild.

I'm standing up there and I'm like- How many steps is it up there? How high is that? How is the stage?

It's like a dude of a- I didn't walk it, but I bet it's like.

10 steps. I tell you, I didn't feel them. Wow. I was on the cloud, bubble. At that moment, you're just like, Man, this is crazy.

That would be the scariest steps because then once you get there, you have to turn around and say something. That would be what was.

So scary. No, I was just more like- You.

Murdered that speech.

Yeah, I was just walking up there thinking of my... I don't know what I was thinking. I was thinking like... I tell you when I started thinking was when I looked up and this is inside baseball. I have the award, I raise it up, and I look straight up and there's a teleprompter that's going, I'm not shitting you, Theo. 59, 58, 57. I think to myself, I got a lot to say and a little time to do it. I didn't realize that I watched the speech afterwards that I actually said that out loud in that moment. I was like, I got a lot of things to say, and I'm going to say it really quick. But that was me thinking out loud because I remember thinking that. That's the first time I remember really thinking in that moment was like, Oh, shit, this is real. I've got 58 seconds where they're going to start playing the music on me, and they're going to send a sand man from Apollo and pull me. I was like, I better make this count. I knew in that moment, too, I was like, I'm definitely not winning another award.

Tonight, for sure. I'm going to say it all.

Right now. I definitely didn't think I was going to win this one. I just fucking fired, dude. It was the.

Coolest thing ever. That's so cool.

You're on a rocket ship, bro.

Dude, it.

Was-it's.

Funny. I wouldn't think of any of you all as new artists, though, in a weird way, but that doesn't matter. It's just an accolade to do. It doesn't really matter what it is. It's like saying, Hey, man, people recognize you and they see you.

That's exactly right. For sure. It doesn't matter how long people have been winning that award that have been around for a while. But it is like, You're on the map. We recognize you. See you. It's your time. And it is, though. I was giving you flowers out there, but it is true. I mean, everybody sees it that it's just the lights are turned on for you right now. All the lights are on for you right now. I'm so stoked because you do, and I've told you this before, you do such a good job with your podium that you're on and giving back to the city and the things that built you. And it's just I love knowing you. As a fellow Nashvilleian, it's just, Nashville is very well represented.

For sure. Thank you, brother. It means a lot to me, coming from you all, especially.

You guys are really some of the roots. I know there's a lot of guys around this area, but you guys are people that if I mention to people I'm at the gym with or something, there's always somebody that knows one of you guys. Some of the guys that knew you aren't usually doing too well, I'll say that. But they're good guys. They're good guys.

Hey, dude. Hey, that's funny.

Fucking methadone. I saw your cousin. Let's go, boy. You came out with a fucking suboxone or a methadone.

That would be so... Jelly doughnut-flavoured suboxone.

For sure. A fourth will get you a buy.

Yeah. Subway, eat Suboxone.

Suboxone.

Yeah, just the subway branding, but suboxone. Somebody make that shirt.

That is got to be a body shirt.

At least a painting to put in this room.

I walked in here thinking I'm having the biggest week of my career and they're going to get me in trouble. And I was right. Dude, I knew it.

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That's S-H-I-P-S-T-A-T-I-O-N. Com code ThEO. Is it weird? Because thinking about that stuff, you start to feel more like you have to be... Wait, did you get any songwriting awards this year? Did you win any CMAs or no?

No CMAs, no.

Okay. Is that a weird to say? I know you want a ton of.

Other awards. Hell, no. It was a date night, and I got to sit and cheer my friends on.

Ernest got drunk. Let me tell you what happened. Every time Ernest walked by me at the CMAs, he was-.

I was bringing Zach a drink each time I came back, too.

Who was the other three for, Ernest?

Me, me and me, and Delaney.

He would look like a bartender. He would have two drinks in.

Each hand. They ought to have somebody doing that.

For us. Parker McCullough was like, every time I see them one, he'd have him and his wife one, and every time.

He's just walking. It's for safety measures, though, because you don't know how long you're going to have to sit. It might be the last chance you ever get to get a drug.

You're waiting for a commercial break like a drug addict. Really? I swear, bro. You're waiting for it like chow in prison. You're sitting there and.

You're just waiting. I don't know what that's like. Huh?

I went to college. Chow is a new.

Chinese inmate.

Who's getting this cutie?

You're just sitting there and they're like, commercial break. You just watch everybody stand up and just immediately start shuffling.

Really? Yeah, it's cool. It's like recess at school.

It's like when the bell rings and you got five minutes to get between classes. It's funny how I went to a jail reference before I thought of school. Fuck.

Well, you went to jail, I went to college.

Oh, it's the song again, huh?

It's exactly the song.

That's so funny, man.

Back to the Nashville thing, Theo, I think that's what made it so beautiful that my first number one was written with Ernest. Keep in mind that we're already like, Ernest is on his seventh or eighth number one at that point in his career. I'm calling him now. We're looking at a decade plus of real friendship. I'm calling Ernest, and I'm saying it. You know how I talk? How you all see me on here is how I am. My friends are testing me. I'm a very straightforward like, Hey, I need help. I call Ernest. The first time I got on Theo and Brennan's podcast, I hit him like, I really need this. This is a good look for me. They were like, Come on. But the same thing with busting with the boys. But I call Ernest. I'm like, Boba, I'm treading new water here. Come over here and drop some of that sauce off. You know what I was saying? I was like, Fuck with your boy, man. You know what I mean? I'm like, It's just me and my dude. Me and my dude that wrote Save Me. We're friends of 20 something years.

David Ray. Yeah, he's from a trailer park in East in Asfield, grew up piss-poor. Neither one of us dreamed of being songwriters. We just dreamed of not be in drug dealers. We're just in there piddling around and we're like, We.

Can't even read.

I'm like, We're not qualified to.

Try to write- No offense, David. I don't know the.

Guy that's.

Like that. Exactly.

We're not.

Qualified.

To write a middleman.

I'm like, We're not qualified to write a radio song by ourselves. I was like, I only know one person. How are we going to write this song? We can't even write it. There's only one hit writer in town that'll take my call. Let me call him. Let me call him. Yo, Ernest, do me a favor, pull up. He's like, I got you. Are you there all week? I'm like, I'm here all week. We've told the story, but he was going to get ribs and next door at the barbecue pit. He really just came to sit.

That's so Ernest, too. That's so classic. That's so earnest. That's so good. He's like, You know what? I got to pick up some ribs in about an hour, but I'm not buying.

Right a hit. He did while they were smoking. He came in, he was like, I got like 30 minutes to kill or something.

That's exactly.

What happened. He wrote a piece of the song. He just like poured out an idea. I was like, Love you all. Let me know how it goes. I looked at our text thread after it went number one, because that night I texted Ernest at 4:00 in the morning because I was.

At party. You sent.

Back a demo. Yeah, a demo at 4:00 in the morning. I was like, we might actually have something here. I remember.

It felt so good when I left because we had the long head songfront of a Senate. That shit was just tattooed in my brain from the second I left until now.

And then I had to double back with the favorite, Theo, because then when we get the song done, I'm like, well, fuck, we don't know nobody to produce a radio song neither. Right? So I called Ernest. I'm like, You got to produce that. He called him that.

Hey, I'm one for one on producing country songs and then going to the top, baby.

That's your first.

Produced one? Yeah, it's the.

Only thing I produce. The best part was I had to gas them up, though. He was like- You're.

Like-i'm pretty rude.

To girl.

Literally. One play, one sec. That's me. I had.

To gas them up, bro. I had to be like, Yo, man, you can do this. He was like, I've never done it. I was like, I definitely can't do it. If we have to pick right now who's the most qualified to do it, it's fucking you, man. You got to figure it out. He was like, All right, man. Fuck, I'll figure it out. I was like, All right, cool.

That is crazy hearing it out loud again, though. I almost.

Had to bully him into it, though. I was like, You.

Got this. I felt imposter syndrome being around the producer all the time. But singing that song, it's in my set every night. I love it like one of mine. I say every night, I give a brief overcap of knowing him and then how special it is. That's all the time when people ask me what my favorite number one is, it's that one. Because of that reason, because it's homegrown, 100 % homegrown.

Three Nashville dudes that 10 years before you could have never told us we would be hit songwriters, any of us, you know what I mean?

We put real, real, real stuff in a song, vulnerable that country radio accepted. That's cool. Like pills and addiction and just weird lingo that most country songs.

Don't have. Well, yeah, well, nowadays that's your dog in your truck, dude, if you don't know. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, if you don't have.

To get pills-The dog is a dog. They have a truck's.

On blocks. We're moving on to opiate.

The genre has evolved. Now, man, I remember because I went to the Opry and I saw you performing, and then you played that song. I was like, I just didn't know. I didn't.

Know that you were playing. That's where it was. That was when it was.

I was like, Wow, because I just love listening to that song.

You know what? You did me a solid, Theo, The Holler. It's a big country themed YouTube, social media site. They did one of them 30-second things with you, and they said, What's a country song you can listen to non-stop? You said, Son of a Center by Jelly Roll. You said, no, never mind. Save me about Jelly Roll.

Oh, nice. Thank you.

I got both the titles in there. That gave me the two for one. You threw me a big alley open there because that motherfucker, because you did it at Winsor. Everybody said that, too.

I love C. Yeah.

Where are you at right now? Where are you at with Laney on that?

We're number two. We're number two. We should be pushing next week. Save Me should be the number one song on country radio whenever this comes. By the time this comes out, I should be able to say.

This is the number one song. I'm a Jesse Murph fan, too. I've been a Jessie Murph fan for- She's so good. I feel scary even saying it because she's like a young girl, but it's like- You can be a fan. I know all of her songs, dude, which is really alarming to say. I don't want to hear this. I'm glad I'm not. I can't hear that good.

If it makes you feel better, if you were like me, I heard the voice before I seen her, and nothing about her voice says she's a 19-year-old girl. Right. Like her voice says she's a 37-year-old woman that's been through a lifetime of pain and anger. You know what I'm saying? It's like when you hear just the voice, because I just heard the music, and then I found out who it was. And then I was like, Oh, this is dope. But you love her, man. She's like a little sister, man. She's like.

Immediately- I got to meet up with her one night. Her and this guy, Shay, he's like a light skin dude. He writes music. Shay? Shay. Shay Carter. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, Shay Carter. Yeah, dude, it was awesome. I got to meet up with them in Los Angeles. I was a huge fan of hers. And then her manager, I think, Ben, knew about it. And he's like, Oh, Jessie's in town if you want to stop by and get to say hey. I got to stop by and meet them. Sick. That's awesome. She's played some of her new music and stuff. It's so good, man. She don't miss me. Baby while you're at it. Why don't you rap that song?

I need to tap in. I only know two songs.

You get on it, though, dude. Her TikTok shit is so vile. Once you get on it, it'll be weird because you'll just be at the CVS or something, and you're just standing there by yourself singing and these kids start looking at you like, This guy is a pervert.

Let's get this guy out of here.

But he's a pervert that listens to.

Good music, isn't he? Pervert, true. Good taste, absolutely.

That was the funny part. When they sent me Wild Ones, I was like, Somebody suggested you should do a verse on Wilde ones. I was like, Yeah, yeah. I'm going to sing about my wife, though. I'm not getting on any song with a young woman and not talk about the most important woman in my life. They were like, Cool. I was like, Whatever, as long as the label don't trip on my verse. Because I sent a verse in just like not thinking. I thought they were rejected because I'm talking like shit a little bit, right? You know what I'm saying? I was like, They're not going to let me fly. They were like, This is it. I was like, Fucking let's go.

So far. Yeah, it was.

So good. Bunny is my, what's that line?

Bunny is my holly queen. You know what I'm saying?

Back to getting to the freedom of getting a rap verse.

Oh, dude. I've been in a situation lately where I've got to go write a bunch of stuff by myself in two ways again, like Save Me or you know what I mean? That style. And it's been.

A ball. Which we.

Should do. I've pulled up to a lot of places and just been thrown into a feature category again when they're just like, Well, just write something for this. And I'm just like, Hell, yeah. Good stuff. It's normally like we write in twos or threes because it's easier to bounce ideas off each other that way. And But when you go do a feature for somebody, especially in the hip hop world, you just got a beat, and you're just writing something. You're by yourself again. It's the coolest, most dangerous thing ever because you go back to what you think is cool. You know what I mean? It's like, I don't give a fuck what nobody thinks. I'm wigging out about this. I think this is sick. I'm on my kitchen table. I still write at the kitchen table when I was a kid. I got my headphones on, my wife's out there. And then finally I'd be like, come check this out.

You're pinned to pad, too, right?

Yeah, I'm still pinned to pad. I'm still old school. I love that. Because fuck, I also don't know how to play the musics and I can go to my notes at the same.

Time on my phone. My hand don't work fast enough. When I try writing, A, it's either illegible because... Is that how you pronounce that? Or something. Elegible? Yeah. My handwriting is so bad because I'm trying to write so fast because my thoughts and I'm afraid I'll forget it by the time I.

Get done. I've never seen you write anyways, though. I rarely do. I've never seen you be the scribe in the room.

Nobody believes you write anything, and people just believe you to show up.

Somebody pat.

You on the back and a hit falls out at you, dude.

I've never written a song. I've never written a song. I've never been one time you've been the guy with the laptop typing the fucking.

Lyrics, Ernest. Never the guy with the laptop. But sometimes I do write complete ideas in my notes on my phone and then bring it with and put a guitar to it. But often it is just like music, somebody get a voice note going, blah.

Somebody type that out.

Yeah, I need scribes.

What's that line I remember seeing you get so excited about? It's like, map.

Dot-oh, Hardie said that, ain't that a map dot shame? He's in more than my hometown. Ain't that a map dot shame? I think that.

I.

Added nothing to that song that night other than the room we wrote it in. And then when he said that, I about ran through a glass wall.

I remember you saying one time, I was so... Tired up. I'm so excited you worry about.

That lyrics. I don't know. I mean, it caught me off guard.

Ain't that a Map Dot?

Ain't that a Map Dot?

Ain't that a Map Dot? That's so good.

That's such.

A cool way to sing. And I like that that lyric. Well, I took some pills.

She took the dogs. Oh, it's all gone to hell.

That's a hell of a one-time-long tale.

She's gone to her mom.

Oh, that.

God, dude. That is- And I took up drinking since she took the time to tell me I took the best years of her life.

God.

It is sad.

It is sad, man.

Sad songs make me happy.

Yeah. I wonder if people relate more now to sad. Do you think overall that music is sad or different than it was when we were growing up? You and I are probably more closer to age in earnest, but I just wonder sometimes.

I think so. I think- Is.

There more sad or music now? I think there's.

More real off there.

I think there's more vulnerability.

Okay, there.

You go. It was so curated. Music used to be curated. The labels were in the power, and they would curate songwriters. They would pick the songs. They would make the artists record the songs. It was a big deal when artists got to start picking their own songs in this town. There was a time where the labels were like, This is your song. I get in trouble every time I do this, by the way, but fuck it. I call it the Build a Bear system. Like, Nashville was like Build a Bear. They would find a bear. They would put cowboy hat on bear, cowboy boots on bear. They would give Bear a song, give bear a guitar, make bear have a band of bears behind bear, put Bear on tour, put Bear on radio. It was completely like these dudes were like fucking robots. They were Muppets, right? You know what I mean? For the system and the power and what we've seen in light of the internet, and I always compare stuff to other things for connectivity. In comedy, we've seen it as well, in podcasting and the ability to you all to go direct to consumer.

The idea that a guy like Zach Bryant can be writing songs in the military and sets up his phone and just sweating, just singing his ass off and can connect with people with no in-between, right? Yeah. That's why sometimes the establishment don't like him because they had absolutely nothing to do with his success. But we've gotten to a place where we're back. The last time this really happened, and somebody's going to argue with me, but fuck them, was in the '60s and the '70s, the singer-songwriter movement, where you would see guys that were writing their own songs and sing their own songs. Willy Nelson. Willy Nelson, Wailen, Dylan, James Taylor, they're outlaws. But I mean, it went over like, I was playing Jackson Free. Have you wrote with him yet? Oh, yeah. I love that kid. Jackson's badass. I think he's going to be... He's 23. In the next 10, 15 years, remember we said this name thing, this kid's going to have 30, 40.

Number one. Jackson Free?

Jackson Free. Jackson Free. Speels it with an X. But he didn't realize how deep Dylan's catalog was. I don't know. Do you ever get into Dylan, Bob Dylan?

Bob Dylan? Yeah, I know.

So was it the nasal thing that threw you off?

I don't remember. I just don't remember him that good.

But it's like you've heard some of his songs without knowing it, right?

I came for a heart of gold. Is that him?

It sounds like Tom Pettie. Yeah, for sure.

Oh, yeah, I like Tom Petty.

He was a famous tombone. He was a famous tombone. He was a famous tombone. He was a famous tombone. He was a famous tombone. He was a famous tombarina. He was a famous tombarina. He was a famous tombarina. I don't know if that did...

He wouldn't have a song or something. John is in the basement mixing up to Medicine. I'm on a plane. He was rapid. I'm thinking about the government. Yeah, I think.

Basically- Oh, wow. Bob Dylan was rapid.

But he also wrote Along the Watchtower, right? Jackson didn't realize this, and I'm playing them all these big records. I'm like, You know 10 Bob Dylan songs. I could do a few right now where you're like, not. I play them. You're like, Oh, fuck. I do know 10 Bob Dylan songs. I just didn't know Bob Dylan wrote them. But it was a different era. These guys were writing their own songs and singing them. Then we went through the 20, 30-year curated space. And now it's like there's a lot of guys that are singing their own stories again. And that's why I think the connectivity is different. I think the vulnerability shows because it's just me and being honest in their music. So it might seem a little sadder, but I think it's just more authentic.

That's a great answer.

Yeah, I agree with that.

For sure. Jesus Christ, that's a good answer.

Thank you, bro. Same as the same with the music, too. Not even just the lyrics. I don't know, pop was so synthesized, it feels like synthetic would be the word. But now real instruments and not being so on the grid, when I say on the grid, like a pro tool session literally locked in on the grid, guys like Zach playing how it feels more so than just everything's got to be perfect. And that just opens up a yard for people that are willing to do it, break the mold and go play in that yard. And that's like, yeah, sad songs are going to happen in there. I love steel guitar. Steel guitar is all over my record, and there's not a sadder sounding instrument than steel guitar. So I consciously write a lot of times to cater to steel guitar or what.

I- I think that to give you your flowers, though, outside of the genius you are as a songwriter, as the artist, Ernest, that's what makes you special, though, Bob. You focus not only on the top line and the lyric, there's a sound that you want. You're years ahead of your time with bringing that sound back around, just like Harvey was years ahead of his time with bringing in the really rock, heavy metal country. Guys like guys like that is when you think about the guys who really went on to win, it's because their sound was so different as well, not just the shit they were singing about. When I see an Ernest show, it's like nostalgic, but with new concepts written over the top of this super old, nostalgic sound. You know what I mean? It's just really sick to me. The same thing I hear when I hear, Hardie, like, Listen, I bang truck bed like me and Bunny are beefing. Me and her, we don't argue at all. That's my best friend. You know what I mean? I love my wife. We don't have any problems. But I still wake up and bang truck bed like I'm fucking ready to get divorced.

You know what I'm saying? That song just fucks in every way. It's because it breaks every rule in Nashville. Not just Nashville, but every rule. Like he said, There's a system in music, Theo, that's like, okay, and he knows the number system better than me. He'll explain this like- I don't know the numbers. 1, 4, 5. Okay, here's the one. I got to go to the four because that's what's supposed to happen next. Can't you go to the five? It's like, Nope, got to go to the four. Fuck you. Go into the five. You know what I'm saying?

I think there's an overall system in the world like that. The powers that be feel like they've got everything down to an algorithm. But I think it's, again, proof that originality and that there's something inside of us that wants to be original, not just individually, but even as a species where it's like we don't confine everything into that space. You can't lock us into an algorithm as humans. We're going to find a way out of it. I think that's one thing that's great about a lot of the music right now. You say, even some of the artists, when you're saying, Who is even up for best new artists? I don't even know if I would say half those people are country music. I wouldn't put them just as a country music. It's good. That's a great term. But it's like, Zach Bryant, to me, he's a... Some people could say, He's their Bob Dylan.

Yeah. Yeah, genres are totally scared right now.

Yeah, like Jessie Murphys. She's in seven genres. Yeah, for sure. It's like, Jelly. It's like most people if you said, 10 years, is he a country? It's like he's a country motherfucker in the sense that-he.

Definitely-but all things are true for him when he's rapping, when he's singing country songs or rock songs, the story never... The story is the same. It's just a matter of what furniture you're dressing in.

The room with. And the.

Story needed-Stop it, Ernest. Yeah.

Click that for me, somebody.

I got bars now, too.

Hey, what did you say again?

I was saying the story stays the same no matter the genre, the furniture changes in which.

You're decorating. Damn, bro, that's fucking hard.

I needed that. Thank you, brother. I needed that. But I'm country. I want out, first of all, I love country music as a fan. I'm obsessed with country music. I have been my whole life. Because being from this town, I was always fascinated with it. When I was a kid, there was no other job in this town. You were either a layman or a bartender. Or you worked in country music somehow, right? Yeah, for sure. One hundred %. My mother was a bartender, so she took great pride in the country music scene being in this town and coming to the bars. I remember CMA Week would come, fan fair is what they called it back then. It would be like an economic shift. Our families would plan vacations around it. All right, well, we can't go to July because fan fair is in June. We're going to have the money then. They put back Christmas money because this town only had 300,000 people in it then. You got to think, we're bringing an extra 50,000 people to town for fan fair. It was like a sixth of our population, a fifth of our population was just showing up to spend money in one week.

Wow. The bartenders, they called it Hell Week. They were like, This is going to suck. But we're all going to get paid for all. We're eating steak on Friday, baby.

We're going to afford that.

Divorce next Monday.

That's got to be the worst you can't get a divorce because you can't afford it.

You're not just waking up every day like, I would leave you if I.

Financially could. If I had $640, I'd leave.

You.

Ass. I'd file right now. I have a.

Dollar for every time I've heard you say.

It, I'd leave you. I'm surprised I haven't seen more GoFundMes about divorces, like just looking for a thousand dollars to file.

That's hilarious. That'd be a.

Great reality show.

They want three grand to get a new apartment.

That's so good. The crazy thing about touring is you meet people like, Oh, we're from Dippendaw, Alabama. You're like, Where the fuck is that? Where is that? I'm from a mixed-breed Arkansas. You're like, What?

Yeah.

Did you see that video about the most racist town in America being in Arkansas and the guy from... I can't remember. I'm too high to talk.

About this. It might have been Eric André maybe who.

Went to. No, it's a famous YouTuber. I follow his channel. I'm just fucking can't remember his name right now.

The black dude went into it. He was trying.

To interview the guy.

Did you.

Think he was- He wasn't Martin?

No, it.

Was somebody else. I can't remember dude's name, but I've seen a video.

You can't remember his name. He's got Dreads and he went to Alaska. He always goes to weird places, but it was fucking- Super cool, too. Super cool. He wore of a Trump shirt or something, and he went to the most racist town. You would feel like you would piss yourself. I know your.

Personality- When you watch this, you would cry. For the most part, people were trying to be pretty nice and be like, Hey, do you know where you're at? He'd be knocking on the door or something. An older white couple would come out and be like, Oh, hey, you probably shouldn't be in this town. Like a fair warning, not like we're going to do anything, but I can't speak for my neighbors.

They're like, Oh, you shouldn't be out after dark. I mean, you shouldn't be out dark.

Yeah, either both. But no, dude handled it like a champ, and he obviously knew he was going into the fire, but it's good content.

Yeah. He talked to one old toothless man, boy, and I cried. I pissed myself. It was so funny. One of my favorite videos I've ever seen in my life.

I think if you want to be racist, I think you should at least have all your teeth. Because otherwise, you're not even taking care of your end of the deal. You should at least have to fix yourself up.

Who are you?

There should be a criteria for race.

For a guy who doesn't like blacks, you have a black space in your.

Smile, which.

Is really interesting that you'd let a nice white tooth expire.

Kind of.

Hypocritical talking. You and your interracial grind over there.

Oh, my God.

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They hit me and they ran off, both of them, a couple of thoughts. But don't matter, boy, that's life. Morgan & Morgan is America's largest injury law firm. They have over 100 offices nationwide and more than 800 lawyers they can help you. Submitting an injury claim with Morgan & Morgan is so easy. It's more like using an app than hiring a lawyer. In eight clicks or less, you can submit a claim to Morgan & Morgan. If you've ever been injured, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. Their fee is free. Unless they win. For more information, go to forthepeople. Com/thispastweekend, or dial pound law, which is pound 529 from your cell phone. That's forthepeople. Com/thispastweekend, or dial pound law, pound 529 from your cell. This is a paid advertisement. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. That's right. I've struggled mentally. Hell, you know it. I mean, look at the first... Well, look at most of this podcast. Betterhelp was there for me when I needed it. I needed some help. I tried BetterHelp. That's it. Betterhelp can match you with a licensed clinical professional therapist. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try.

It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. I recommend if you don't think the therapist you're with is helping you, you may like going to them. It may be fun, it may be easy. If it's not helping you, then I recommend that you switch. That's something I had to learn from myself. In the season of giving, give yourself what you need with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp. Com/theo today to get 10 % off your first month. That's better, H-E-L-P, betterhelp. Com/theo. But yeah, I think what's happening with guys, there's always guys that come along and evolve the thing. I think it also is an evolution of what man, it's not just the dog and the truck, some of those old, what are those.

Things called? -euthanisms?

-euth- No, that's killing it all.

-euthanizationisms? -yeah. -analogies, metaphor.

-yeah, tropes, something like that. But I think those are even evolving. It's like what a man is. It's like now a guy is sitting on horseback, but he's playing Nintendo Switch.

Yeah, the furniture's changed. The furniture's changed. But it is cool. Like I was saying about there being a fresh yard to play in as a writer, it is way more freeing to write songs now than it was when I first started writing songs. I think part of that is with some success comes more freedom to get to do it. But the options of guys that will cut songs now is different. You got Hes willing to say way more shit than So and so is willing to say. If Post is coming and wants to make country songs, there's an option for you really got some more freedom to say stuff that So and so over here would never say or never even be able to say that has a little more swag or a little more sauce on it. Right. And for guys like me, I love that because then I really get to exercise the fun muscle in my brain.

That's true. When artists start to collab and stuff, that it's like... Anything could be happy. It could happen. It opens the doors. And then you still have guys like John Party that's like Funtree.

Yeah, and writing for a guy like that is so much fun, too, because then you get to step into a honky-tonk world. Yeah, it's fun. And you know, Oh, this sounds like a party thing.

It's so cool. That's the greatest compliment you can pay an artist in life. When you're thinking of something and you're thinking of a song in your head and you're like, Man, that's more of a party record. That shows how much of a brand he's built with the specificis like, how do you say? Specific? Don't hurt yourself. Sorry, fuck. I'm blowing it. Specific. Yeah, he's so specific and what happened. Why did it take me that long to.

Get it? Dude, just, I.

Hate you, Theo.

You need some Narcan over here, dude.

Only if they had jelly with some Narcan to get a word out of them. We're going to be crazy. Imagine if, and this is set for you just trying to get a word out. But what it was... For some of the years down, they were so illiterate that if they couldn't get a word out, you fucking hit them with some Narcan.

A little popper. Yeah, we say-Extracurricular. Extracurricular. Okay, just put them wide away.

But he's so specific. I think about it. When we were kids, we were going on... What was it? What was it called? Was it called SoundClick?

Soundcloud.

Not all the beats. Soundclick, I think.

I don't know.

What was it? There was a website called soundclick. Com, and it would have beats. It would have beats, and it would be like producers would make these beats and they would lease them to you. But they would title the beats like... I dreamed of the day this would happen for me, Drake type beat, Eminem type beat. That spoke so... That goes back to the sound we were talking about earlier in the pod. It's like great artists build sounds, not just great songs as well. They build great sounds behind them. The greatest dreams to be like, Oh, that's a John party sounding song. That's a kid rock sounding song. That's a Jelly Rolls sounding song. That is the greatest compliment, because there's a lot of artists in music on pop and country that's like, there's four artists that could cut the same song because their sound is just that sound. You know what I mean? It's just a big like, yeah, it's just like down the middle sound. It's going to work. People are going to like it, but it's not polarizing. Yeah, people are going to like it, but it's not polarizing. You know what I'm talking about?

And then you have the other artists that's like, oh, that sounds like should be rapping on that. That sounds like Jellie Roll would be singing a song like that. That's what you go for as an artist. And any young artist watching this, that's what I challenge you to do. I challenge you to write a thousand songs, and I challenge you to make production around it in a way that it's your thing.

Yeah. So what he's saying is you're going to need to go to prison, right?

You're.

Going to.

Go to college?

Yeah, you're going to want to go to college just for long enough to drop out of it or prison.

Yeah, because otherwise nobody will buy you music, at least if you're not a college, if you're not a drop out. You got to have a.

Story with it. Yeah, you can't be singing about pills and dogs and have a degree in business. Pick your life. Pick your life. Yeah. And also, dude, shout out the producers. Like, Joey, specifically, Joey Moi, just one producer of the year. I mean, he's been-He's the goat. He's been crushing.

Since-let me see, Petraevin, can we bring a picture of him up, please, Alex?

So Joey is our producer, me, Morgan and Harvey. I've met him before. Yeah, you've met Joey. So he's like...

Joey.

Moi. No, dude. Delaney took that picture.

He's the goat, though.

He has done such a good job of for years, even since Nicleback. He's been able to build several different brands within the same genre and make each of them unique. Like, how different me, Morgan, and Hardie are within the same exact format is all to-.

He also did Florida, Georgia Line.

He did? Yeah, Florida, Georgia Line, Chris.

Lane, Jameson. I like to tell her how to make the big stuff.

Yeah, it's like, Tyler is awesome. Yeah, Joey built all of this. And I'll give Harvey credit too, and he's very hands on on his sound and what he wants to sound like. They're very, what's the word? Collaborative. Harvey and Joey are.

Yeah, kudos to him. That's amazing to have to be able to have that ability to be able to organize, not only put something together, but then find different places for things that are really great that can be close to each other and stuff.

Yeah, it's insane. Is it true that on the Nickelback record that what the hell is on Joey's head?

That's Joey. Is it about Joey? That's Joey. I think he had a fake Stanley cup on his head in this photo, and they were stoned. I think Joey is on the cover of High Times or something like that with Chad at one point. But yeah, look at this photograph every time I hear, and what the hell is on Joey's head.

That was it.

That.

Was him. But think about this while we're giving him his flowers is, Joey, think about this, Joey did Nicolbeck and created the sound that made Nicolbeck the icons they are. Then went on to do it with Florida Georgia Line, Harvey, Ernest, and then Morgan. So it's like his spectrum of decades worth of just reinvent. That's a genius, dude. It's outside of inventing artist sounds. He's reinventing himself. There's something different happening with that dude, man.

You know what I mean? Yeah, to be able to change... It's hard enough for somebody to do something well once.

Yeah, for sure. To produce a song like Animals or something in your mouth by Nicleback and then also have seven summers and how.

Different they are. I think about last night, just Exactly.

But I feel like the.

Liquor- But I thought of Charlie Handsom, too. Yeah, crazy. Yeah, Charlie Hansom.

Charlie. He's so.

Fucking good. I got to have a talk.

With Charlie. Charlie is a cool cat. Yeah, what are you going to tell him, man? Let's get it out.

Just how much I love him.

Okay, damn. I thought it was going to be about his use.

Or something. Man, I love-Dude.

I was like, Is this where we're going?

When I met Charlie, it was 2018. We were at the Universal Studios. The at the recording studios, not the Disney World.

And he's a songwriter. Just so people who know Charlie Handsome.

Producer, songwriter. Let me bring a picture of.

Him up. And truly one of the greatest.

Yeah, truly. He started out like a hip hop producer, but he's one of the greatest musicians. He plays all instruments. He was the first producer to do that acoustic trap stuff, like the early on Post Malone stuff, GoFlex, stuff like that. That's his gutstring guitar. He does all these crazy vocal effects. So anyways, I met Charlie in 2018 when I was like, Kind of rap. That's one guy.

Is Charlie. Yeah, the guy on the left.

Yeah, that's Charlie. Those are handsome Charlies, dude.

Yeah, for sure. I fuck with that dude with four cigarettes in his mouth, though. But that dude is.

Fucking icon. Yeah, shout out to that guy, too.

Yeah, that's Charlie.

Charlie is the man. We met doing some rap stuff, and we talked that day about, he was like, You all got to come to Nashville. He's like, I want to get into country. I was at that time, had a foot in both doors, and I was ready to go the country route.

Foot in what door? Rap in country?

Yeah, that's why I was out in L. A, just making rap beats and doing hooks and stuff. Oh, you really? I didn't know that. I was just making the rounds out there and then coming back here and doing country. I already was boys with Morgan for a couple of years at that time. And Sam Hunt and F. G. L. Charlie came into town and we started doing tag team and all these sessions together. And that's when if I know me from Oregon came heartless for Morgan, more than my hometown with that. It all started happening. And my first number one ever was a song called I Love My Country with Florida Georgia Line, me and Charlie did. We sat there and accidentally manifested the whole thing is what we talked about that day was like, I feel like we could go really organically blend these two sounds in Nashville. And it's happened. It's not like we're the first to ever put 808 with a country song because Joey was doing it with Cruz back when F. G. L. Was doing it. But I think it's happened.

I got to give my boys flowers too. Zach Crowell did it in a.

Small town. -zach Crowell did it in a small town.

-right. He might have been the first to do it.

Probably so.

Yeah, straight up.

So the way it's evolved organically, though, to where it's like, it doesn't sound like such a mess. It just sounds like one brand- It's the brand. And then it's the voice that's.

Pulling it home. When it's probably getting into people's systems, too, after it gets in their system a little bit, they're used to hearing it without even.

Realizing it. Putting the frog in warm.

Water, so to speak. Charlie is really one of those.

Special ones.

Equally-i'm going to shout out to Ernest, by the way. It's funny how Ernest always finds himself... And he's so humble about it. He's like, This guy, this guy, and this guy, and this guy. You always be in the room, too, motherfucker. I've been in with you. You're fucking something special.

I sneak into a.

Lot for Ernest.

Yeah, Ernest is- Ernest don't sneak in. I always love Ernest that he always makes me laugh. He's one of the funniest guys to be around.

He's fucking hilarious. He's my favorite FaceTime. If I look down at my phone and it's a FaceTime and it's Ernest, every time you're like, I don't know what this is, but it's going to be fucking awesome. You know what I'm saying? It could be a hit-song idea. It could be a hit-song idea. He could be up fucking partying on his bus at 4:00 in the morning. He could just have a bit, call it a joke like, Yo, check this out. It's just like.

I know if Co. Wetzel is on with him on the same FaceTime, then I'm going to need to call my sponsor.

It's getting even better.

I'm going to merge calls with my sponsor.

The idea of Co. Wetzel makes my liver and nose hurt. He's hearing his name, I just got PTSD.

It's the problem. We got to get Co on here, man. Oh, my goodness.

Co.

Is a good.

Fucking dude. Everybody loves him.

So much. I'd probably do an afternoon one with him. He's not awake. If he's awake, he's hunting right now.

Yeah, he has been. I just seen a picture of Gary Dayle. Him and his dad have been out killing shit.

He's an after. Yeah, he.

Can hunt. I love Co, man. He's such a good dude.

His whole.

Crew is cool.

He's also man- Shout.

Out, Dre.

Dre is the dude. Dre Roca, fucking the dude, man. But I'll tell you something else about Ko that I think gets overlooked because he's so fun and the party and just who he is. It's just also, man, he's incredible, dude. If you see him with just a guitar, I've seen him blowed out of his mind, pick up a guitar and just kill. It's so second nature to what he does. He's so ingrained in the music side of it. We were in a writing room one day, and he was trying to... He was like, No, here, here. Just hand it to me. Bradley Gilbert's like that, too. Bradley will throw the guitar on it just, man. You're a great guitar player in a room. Thank you. You know what I mean? You notice the ones that are different. I think maybe Co caught me off guard because I didn't expect it, because we partied all night the night before, all night to 9:00 in the morning or or something. It was like, fucking got dark. It was fucking deep. We got to the studio at 4:00 the next afternoon. We're both shaking. We're both in really bad shape.

You've been there. I'm watching this dude just pour a song out of him. I'm like, This is crazy. I brought no value. I had to leave. I was like, Yeah, I'm out.

That's me, dude.

I'm fucking, I.

Feel so bad. I'm trying to have sex on.

Cocaine as me, buddy. I'm going to bring nothing to the table. I can't even bring the tape.

I'm getting this up the stairs.

I've already sold the table.

You.

Were talking about somebody like Joey getting to live. A few people get to do it once. We were talking about Tyler Hubbert for a second.

Yeah, Tyler. I'll tell you a great story about Tyler. I went to, I don't know if this actually isn't a great story, but it is a story. I just realized it wasn't that great. Okay. But we went to see. We saw Harvey and Morgan and Ernest at Fenway Park, right? Yes. It was beautiful, like beautiful day, great set. I'm a great place to see a show because you're inside Fenway Park, where you've seen baseball, but you've never seen a show in there. And like, Hardie's up there with the American flag and Ernest's kid runs out on the stage with him.

Oh, Ryman. Winkle twinkle. I go, Ryman.

Yeah. Second he heard a song, though, he's like, I'm out of here. He really came and got me. He's like, Dude, this guy is fucking bunk. This is dad.

Yeah, get me out of here. I was.

Like, Dude, that's your father. We have to snap. With a.

Little respect. Because I need a cigarette.

He'll be there. Yeah, I think you really like the music you just wanted some nicotine. Yeah. But anyway, afterwards, I'm leaving and I'm like, Shit, I stayed a little too late to be able to be... We had to just walk back to my hotel. And it was a way, it was probably a half a mile. So I get out there and I'm starting to argue with this cab driver a little bit. We neither one of us speak the other guy's language, right? So we're trying to figure out how far I need to go. And Tyler pulls right up, dude, with his family.

In an SUV.

You want.

To get in? Yes, dude.

I was like.

Thank you, dude.

Cruz.

Bro. Cruz.

I think he's going to be one of the few that got to live his dream twice. Wow. It looks like it with the songs he's putting out.

He's a.

Sweet guy. Yeah, the hits he's getting on country radio.

He's always been good to me.

Yeah, it's been great. I told him that one night. I was like, Man, very few men in life get to live their dream once. I think you're fixing to get to do it twice. Wow. Technically three times, because then you and BK will get back together later and go do a trip and blow out reunion thing, and it'll be fucking big again.

Yeah, what will happen with them? Can that happen that Florida Georgia Line can get back together, you think?

He knows him better than me. I just met BK the other day, who I think is the sweetest, the sweetest.

Chest pie. They have both always been so good to me. Like I said, bro, when I was still Snow, they had me come-It.

Was your rapper name?

Yeah, I was just a nickname. It was just that era. I marked that era. It was like 2011 through 2014 was the Snow Days. And those were like... Brian and Tyler, I had no business being in a room writing songs with them. And Big Loud and them took a way early chance on me years before I needed it.

Well, that's another nod to people changing genres and thinking of something different. Because who would think I'm going to get a white rapper? A lot of guys probably weren't thinking, I'm going to get a rapper in here to try with me.

Right. Yeah, it's cool. Having the rapper mentality and then having also signed a countrywriting publishing deal forced my hand to just start doing a weird hybrid where I was like, I was really rapping. I would be doing 16-bar verses like a rap would, but I was adding melodies and doing it over acoustic and stuff like that. And then that was just like I said, putting the frog in warm water, I was the frog in warm water as far as finally fully committing the brand and craft to country songwriting. And I think I shied away from it for so long because I thought you had to be Redneck to be country. And I'm not the most Redneck guy. I've done Redneck shit with my friends. I got Redneck friends for sure. But I'm country, and it took me a while to even realize that because I didn't grow up on a farm. We moved to 13 acres my senior year, which was not because of poverty. I had a pretty decentAnd so I shied away from the country things. I don't want to be fake. But some of my favorite songs ever written ain't got nothing to do with big trucks and mud.

It's like, Love or Heartbreak and pain. And it's like, oh, being a country artist can just be telling your story. And the music is my favorite music anyway. So once I wrapped my head around that and wasn't ashamed to be country and realized I am country, then I was like, Yeah, let's go. I'm not Redneck.

Well, yeah. Dude, I'll never forget the first time my momma played a looking for trouble and I found a son right down the barrel of a long man gun. Ain't living long like this. Ain't living long like this my baby. And I was like, yo.

Did.

You sing that? Did you sing country? Huh?

Who sang that?

Well.

Wailing. It sounds like you. That's what's crazy. I mean, it sounds like.

That's the shit.

That's what inspired me, though, right? That was the stuff that I was like, yo, this is awesome. You know, it's like, to me, Willy Nelson's Blue Eyes Crying in the rain. He's like, classic record.

Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground. Yeah, dude, man. Lucas doing it at the birthday party was insane, too. That's one of my favorite songs.

The whole catalog of Willy was... Willy inspired me to understand that the person out the pain. I used to think because I was like a bubbly big dude that I couldn't sing sad songs, but all I wrote was sad songs, you know what I mean? Then you look at guys like Willy, the Braids, the guitar, the headband, and then he goes, he's this famous stoneder like who Willy is outside of the music. Then he would get on stage and sing the saddest song ever. You know what I mean? That inspired me so, so much. But just high enough to come back around. I think they'll get back together, Florida Georgia Line. I think their impact was too big. I don't know if in the next five years or 10, but it's just like I'm still holding on to hope. I just listened to Andre 3,000's flute album. I was just high enough to really.

Dig it, to be honest. But I.

Was thinking to myself, There's no way, even if we don't see an Outkast album ever again, that there's not going to be a day where something's going to come along that we're going to see Outkast on a.

Stage again.

I hope so. I'm going to die on that. Unless you plan.

On dying. Yeah, you know what I mean? I just don't think. I think their cultural impact was too big.

Oh, Dirt is a song I play a lot of.

Times, man. Yeah, for sure. Dirt, confession, anything goes. Hey, I'll show Chris Tompkins demo of anything goes. It's just him and a keyboard. Really? I'll show all you.

All one day. I'm trying to think of what else is something I was going to think about asking you boys. Let me show you this new hat I got. You like this hat I got?

Yeah, tell me.

About it. This is Lane Frost. His Daddy was a... Will you bring him up, D-you mind? If you get a chance, Alex.

I'm going to make a.

Phone call really quick. No sweat. I'll talk to jelly.

I love that Ernest is so... Ernest, he's like, I got to make a phone call. He's like, I'm just high enough to remember I was supposed to call my doctor at 12.

He's like, Dude, obviously I don't need to be in here. Lane Frost right there, celebrating a bull riding legend, one of the best bull riders of all time. Can we get on his Wikipedia? At least it might help us some. Oh, he died in 1989. Why? Why did he die young? His parents lived in La Point, Utah. His father was on the rodeo circuit. Hold on.

This is crazy. He sustained severe injuries at the 1989 Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo. I played that before. It's a huge deal, dude. Me and Cole Wetzel played that. Really? Dude, I'm headlining Cheyenne Frontier Days this year at the end. Nice. If you're off that day, you should come out and see it. It is the wildest fucking shit. It's so legendary. Really? It is like, seeing that just gave me goosebumps. Think about George Trace, I can still make Cheyenne. Think about the Garthbrook's Beaches of Cheyenne.

He drew a bull in Wyoming. No man could ride. I'm getting goosebumps, bro. This is crazy. All this was about this guy then. Look at that.

Big goosebumps, bro.

Wow, that's true, huh? You must have been about him.

Look. Damn. Those are real, right?

That's some fucking buzzards you got going, baby. Damn.

That's the power of.

Music and stuff. You hatch and buzzards right there. Go back to Lane Frost real quick and go down a little bit more on them early life. On January fifth, Frost married Kelly Kyle, a barrel racer. And then how did he pass away? On July 30th at Cheyenne Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming, after completing a successful 85-point ride on a Brama Bull named Taking Care of Business, Frost dismanted and landed in the mud. The bull then turned and pressed his right horn on Frost back and pushed him against the muddy floor. He was rushed to... He fell to the ground causing his heart and lungs to be punctured by his ribs. He died on the way to the hospital. He was 25 years old. Man.

You got to come with me this year if I do it. That's crazy, dude.

I will. That's amazing, man. I appreciate you saying that. I'll have to. This sounds really cool. Oh, there's a movie, Eight Seconds, where Luke Perry, RIP, played the role of Frost. And he has a son, though. Lane Frost, I think is maybe this hatline might just be named after him. Frost Parents.

Oh, they played tribute to him with the dance video that Garth Brooks put out. This is crazy.

Wow. Country music star Zach Bryant's middle name is Lane after Frost. Wow. What are the odds, bro? What are the odds? Somebody just gave me this hat man on the other day. I see it across the room. I go put it on, and we're back down to Zach Frost. I want one now. And his 2022 song, Open the Gate, is a tribute to his name's sake.

Wow. Man, that's awesome.

Gosh, dude, there's something about storytelling, man. There's something about that people just you want people to relate to things and feel something. You know, have... What does music look like to you think moving forward for you? Do you think more about it? I mean, do you think about staying more in a certain lane? You all good, Ernest? I'm great. Okay, cool. No worries. We'll just go a little bit longer, man. Do you think about staying in a different lane or doing it? Do you have any thoughts? Or is there new stuff you're working on?

Yeah, man, I'm actually proud to say this. I've got more demos in my phone right now than I've ever had. I've wrote more this year than I've wrote in a year in a long time. I just wrote on the tour this year. I've been gone all year. I've only slept in my bed 36 days. I don't know we got that on the early part of this night, but I've been gone like that much this year. I've just been writing wherever I can and whenever I can, whenever I can. And it's really ignited a flame in me again about the writer side. I've been writing a lot of songs just by myself again.

With folks or just.

By yourself? With folks, too. But I've been doing a lot of just like- Not with me. -falling back. You've been so busy, too. I bet you ain't sleeping in your bed 90 days.

This year. No, it has been crazy, but you're touring so unorthodox.

You're on tour this week.

You got to show us in two days or something. But see, we tour different. You're doing the pop- I'm doing a rock and roll trip. I'm doing a rock and roll. I'm gone for four months and not home at all. And we go out every weekend. We're back Monday, Tuesday.

I hated that, though. Let's talk about that. You do the weekend.

Stuff, too. I'm sporadic. I'll do like four days in a week, and then I'll take off a week, or I'll do two weeks, four or four days, five days, and then take off for two weeks.

See, what they're doing that I don't like is that's cool. That's actually the way to do it probably. The way they do it, I don't like this respectfully, everybody does their own way, but it's not my way, they do probably no shit, Ernest. You're doing 47 weekends this year, if I had to guess, out of 52 weeks. Yes, that's a lot. 45 at least.

I'd say. We started the first week of March, and then pretty much every weekend until this, with the exception of when Morgan had to cancel a few shows, I got a couple extra weekends off.

You still picked up some gigs.

During that time? But yeah, we filled that up.

I played a lot of shows this year. So probably 38 weekends. It's like, for me, I would never get in the rhythm, Theo. It's like, when I'm gone that much, by the time I came home Sunday and slept, Monday, I'd get rid of the hangover. Monday, I'd be like, all right, I'm feeling better. Tuesday I'd start rotating in the world. But Wednesday night at midnight, the bus left again. You know what I mean? I prefer to rock and roll style tour where I just went out and did 11 weeks and did five shows a week and did 55 shows in 11 weeks.

I never tried that. Another option. I've never.

Tried that.

I've never.

Tried that. I don't know if I can handle it. Personally, I don't know. I think we just get too burnt out probably.

How many busses you got now? Four?

No, we did, I guess, eight oreight or nine.

Maybe 10. On your tour, busses?

Yeah. You got your own. Bunny's got her own. Yeah.

And then we did seven. So it was nine.

Jesus Christ. You have one bus.

I don't know. I think we did 10 tractor-trailers, too. You got to think we did arenas.

It was a big deal. Your production is insane.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, we did. I'm very a stickler about doing it right. If I have to take a haircut and lose a little money, but I know that the show is going to look that much better. I bought content for my show. Nobody buys content for their shows. Everybody uses stock content because it costs a million dollars. You know what I mean? I was like, I'm buying content, though. I want to create my own- It's insane. Yeah, I know it's a one of a kind show because they're so hard to do one of a kind shows, right? Nothing new is under the sun. Everybody's done it twice. You know what I'm saying? We all got the same video walls to some degree. We only got so much room to play with. You know what I mean? I was like, At least if I create content, it took nine months to build the content for the tour.

Yeah, we're building animation right now to play. We just got some screens in some of these venues. I may go back, though, to just not doing like we just started doing some arenas this week, like some smaller, I mean, the word arenas is loosely, but a lot of them are like college basketball places.

Yeah, we call them hockey arenas.

Yeah, those are big rooms, though. Yeah, and they're hockey arenas. Are you doing Arizona State?

We might, I don't know. We did Pikeville. That was actually a tough room. Some of the audio in the rooms is not... We're bringing our speakers and all that stuff, but some of it's not.

Built for-What's the word? Verizon. Is that the Verizon Center or whatever it is right there in Pikeville? It's that little arena in the middle of downtown Piqueville, Kentucky.

Yeah, and Piqueville is beautiful.

It's beautiful. I mean-It's like nestled in the mountains. It's sexy.

Unreal. It's like this perfect little place.

Did you drive up there?

We bused in, yeah.

I drove up there because the drive when we played Piqueville that day, I had to do it. It was fucking incredible. You drive to that little... Because Piqueville is up there in the corner of Kentucky and West Virginia, right? It's right there in that little mountainous area right there. Beautiful. It's fucking awesome.

I went for a nice hike before, but that audio was... I just felt like that venue, the audio was tough at it. You ever have some of those where some of you are just like, Man, this just... And you feel disappointed because you're like, It's not helping me as much.

Here's the deal, though. I knew that you were going to have to start picking up arenas when I was seeing the two or three theater shows in a day pop. And you're in a weird spot, man, where it's like, How do you feel about this? Because the problem you're going to run into, if you don't start playing big arenas is, everybody who wants to come ain't going to be able to come. There's still people not getting a ticket to see you and you're playing 8,000-cap arenas. There's still people in that market like, Damn, wish I could have went to go see Theo Friday without a ticket. Yeah, I.

Don't know. I think part of it is I'll just keep doing the tour and I'll just come back. Instead of trying to do it, that's one nice thing. It's like, Okay, we realized this area, we could... More people want to come see it, then we'll come back. Again. I'd rather do the same, not the same material, but let it evolve over time. But do that for five years. And by the end of it, it's a whole new show or it might be a new show and a half by then. But it's like, yeah, I don't think feeling like I need to hurry and then get an hour out, and then it's like, we'll come back. I tell people all the time, if tickets are too expensive, if it's aftermarket, we'll come back. Might be a year and a half. You might not be alive.

You might not even be alive. You might die before you get back here.

But I'll be back. That's your issue.

I'll be back.

How do you- Something that's on them.

If you don't mind talking about it, where are you at with your hour?

I'm good. Yeah, I'm doing an hour and 20 minutes on stage right now.

You feel like you've got a new hour? Yeah. What are you thinking about filming?

I don't know if I will. I think I'm just going to tour for a while and not hurry myself into that next space. Me and David Spade wrote a movie we might want to try to get made. We talked about maybe getting you to get you as.

A-anything you need.

I'll do something too, man. We're a package deal now.

We just hired you.

Yeah.

You're.

Hired.

Freaking frat over here. But yeah, I was going to present at the CMAs, actually, they asked, but I had a show that night in Greenville, South Carolina.

I just got back from Greenville.

It's.

Beautiful. Where did you go? Where were you?

On the Collins.

Okay, we just did the Blind Horse Salons. That place is awesome.

I love it. That place is... Did you play Coyote Joe the night before in Charlotte? No, we.

Didn't do the two or something. We didn't route it that way. We're taking from Rock and Hand.

Greenville is beautiful. There's so.

Many cool places. I played at an arena down there on this tour. We did our tour party in Greenville. I got a story. This is a story. I don't know if it's a good one, but it's a story.

You sound.

Likedown the. I love the honesty. But we played Greenville, and we had the night off before. So what they did was they let us load in the arena the day before. And then we rented this place. God, they're going to be so mad. I can't remember their name. But it was the coolest thing ever. It was an adult playground. They served booze and they had pizza. Alex and my dad. They had a put-put golf center in it. You could throw axes. They had beer, pong games. They had ping-pong. It was one of those.

Like-.

Adults, yeah. But it was like, we were all in there. We rented the whole place and get blackout drunk. And most of the crew did Whippet and blow. It was just crazy. I mean, it got really crazy, dude. It was awesome. It was all 75 people from the tour because it was like a 75 person crew. All the drivers came because we parked the day before. So the truck drivers and the bus drivers got to get drunk. It was like watching the bus drivers get drunk, nothing tickled me. You know what I'm saying? Because they live a real regimented sober. You know what I mean? It's like the one night where it's like, you don't have to drive for 40 hours. The busses were already parked at the venue. The venue had been loaded in. I hired IVs for everybody the next day. I had a 10-person nursing staff, backstage. Amazing. When everybody got to the venue, truck drivers are getting IVs. It was the night we gave away the bonuses for the tour. Oh, what a night, dude. It was special. Social attitude. No, this place is way cool. That place sucks. When you find this place, dude, you're going to be blown away.

That's like a. It's like mini putt putt golf. They got ax throwing inside of there.

They got damn baby burping in there.

Itsad. They had karaoke. We were getting drunk doing karaoke. We all karaokeed struggle songs.

It was awesome.

That's so good. It was really cool, man. It was awesome.

What else did we have in the news? What was in the news in there? Did you all think Morgan was upset about not getting that award? Do you think he cared?

I mean.

I don't know. They didn't even let him go there last year, right?

I'm not sure. I don't know if he was there.

Or not last year. I think he performed. I think I.

Remember him performing.

I think he did You-Proof, but it was really cool.

That boy's pockets are fine. Yeah, he's fine. I think he's got some of the best fans here.

Him getting 11 billboard music awards were deserved. I mean, he's the most-.

Because that one is not up to anybody.

Except-it's not just Stats? I think, billboard is Stats.

-it's just Stats. Right, so that's the truth. Yeah, him, Taylor, and Zach.

Are.

The juggernauts of streaming. It doesn't even get close. Its like, Morgan, Zach, and Luke Combs are the three biggest streamed artists in country music. Zach and Morgan and Luke to some degree in the world of all artists. But Morgan and Taylor are by far the two juggernauts of music. I mean, it don't get no bigger than Morgan Wallen on earth. He's bigger than Bad Bunny. He's like, I was Presley. He sold more records than Bad Bunny. You know what I mean? It's like all that shit you think was doing great, Morgan just came in. I was like, Hold my bear. You know what I mean? He's in such a... He's in a stratosphere of his own. I tell people this the way I tell them. You have, Luke, streaming wise, Morgan, Zach, and Luke in that order of the three biggest streamers in country music. On Spotify alone, the gap between them and the next biggest streamed artists in country music, which would probably be Bailey Cain or maybe me, weirdly enough, the gap between us three and them, us three and those three is probably a billion streams this year on Spotify alone.

It's crazy.

Does that make sense? That's how far-.

Four, five, and six are a billion lower than one, two, and three.

Yeah, it's crazy. Imagine if I do end up being the fourth most dreamed artist in country music, somebody said, How far away from the third were you? I go 1.3 million.

You know what I'm saying? Like a.

Light year. On Spotify alone. You know what I'm saying? We're never going to get there. You know what I'm saying? To some degree, these award shows have to be a little different because there'd be no sense of nobody else showing up. Youknow what I'm saying? If we were really grading it on that, it's like just give them all the fucking Morgan and Taylor. What are we doing?

That's actually a great point. You have to make it. Yeah, that's a good point. The show itself has to make things exciting. And there's other award shows. There's the billboards that it's based on the stats, so there's no rig and roll. Was there an after-party or anything you guys get to go to?

I had bus call, I had to go. That boy had.

An after-party. We partied. Me and Laney had our own party.

Shout out Laney Wilson.

We love Laney Wilson. Shout out Laney Wilson, dude. And I don't know if anybody's worked harder than we saw her. I got to take my niece to her first concert, and it was Laney. We took her to Laney and Hardie in Baton Rouge, and it was cool, man. She's great. And it was just so much fun. She got to meet her, and it was just... But, man, shes was you could tell that she was getting burnt out. She worked hard.

No, she slept in her bed last year, 17 days. 17 days of all of 2022 is how many days she slept in her bed. Wow. This is what I say. I'm willing to do the stuff nobody else in this town is willing to do as far as work, media, go spend three weeks in New York or whatever. I go do that. That's just what I do. I'm into it. She's willing to do the stuff I won't do. Laney, I've never seen nobody work genuinely harder than her. Her schedule gives me anxiety. You know what I mean? My schedule would give the average human anxiety, and her schedule gives me anxiety. She is utterly fearless. Nope, dude, I think she stood on stage 160-something times this year. Yeah, that's wild. 170 times this year. That's just, for as 45 minutes being the smallest set, 90 being the biggest all year. It's insane.

You know what I mean? Yeah, that's wild, man, because all the things radio, all the streaming things.

Oh, the Yellowstone application. She do whatever.

She is-.

Make a gumbo, babysit your cat. She'll have everything on her schedule.

Yeah, well, we talked about this the other day. I think she's obviously, and you two are going to be able to say no a lot more than you were able to in the last year or two. And saying yes is like you got to for a lot of those sayings. And obviously it's paid off and people are recognizing it, the work.

And I would be remiss not to say that, dude, when I called, thank you, when I called Laney for Save Me, I said, Laney, I'm going to be honest, man. I've said this a thousand times, but I'm hitching my trailer to your train here. I've took this song as far as it can go. This song was a double platinum song before.

That's true in an interesting way, because that song, I'd heard it, I'd listen to it a bunch. For sure. It still had its place in my heart in moments where I was by myself, and I like to listen to it. But it that was-.

You got to hear a different perspective, a different voice, a woman's perspective. As hot as she is a country radio, I was like, This is all you. Even when we got to the last course, when she did all the ad-libs and extra stuff, she's like, You want to come in here and sing back and forth? I was like, Not at all. As far as I'm concerned, this is now your song. I was a double platinum record when I gave it to her. I was like, I've done all I can do with this song. But I think this song could still help so many people if you would just be a part of it. She was like, Yeah, I'm totally in. There's no way that this was a number one in 16 weeks by myself or 20 weeks or whatever it ended up being. That's cool. You know what I mean? So she definitely came in and put her sauce on it.

Yes, she really, I mean, we got to have her come in. And she's from Louisiana. She's from Bastrip, I think. Can you look that up, please, for me?

Sounds.

Right. You're a bumfuck. That's a little.

She's from Baskin, Robins, Louisiana. She's from, yeah. She's from Dippin' Doc, Louisiana.

Dippin'.

Doc, Louisiana. She's from this Baskin, sorry.

Baskin. Baskin. Carol Baskin.

Yeah.

Fucking bitch killed her husband.

Remember when.

For no reason.

For no reason, America, somebody wrote online, Yeah, Carol Baskin.

Killed her husband and everybody. For two.

Years.

Like that bitch killed her husband. Yeah, he killed her husband. Joe Dirt still wants her dead from prison.

And now she's.

Doing-not Joe Dirt, Joe Exotic.

Same difference, dude.

Literally the same guy. Same guy, Joe Exotic.

Joe Exotic. That dude's always DMing me all the time, man.

Joe Exotic is in your DMs. Whoever's in his Instagram account is.

Fucking ridiculous. I used to know the person that ran it.

Really? Yeah, it's fucking ridiculous. There's no way he's.

Running it. Was it a male?

It was a female.

It was, okay.

I felt this female energy ish. Yeah. He did, too.

He's probably the most gangster gay dude that ever.

Lived, though. Gangster spelled GAY. And she's the CEO. He's a gangster. Yeah, dude.

That's fucking crazy. Dude to be real scared. If you're scared somebody's going to shoot you and then make love to you and you're not into it, it's going to really.

Spook you. It gets interesting out.

What other cool things have you turned out this year.

Besides-joe Exotic.

-presenting.

At the CMAs? Yeah, and Joe Exotic. Sorry to repeat your joke, man.

I repeated it, too.

I wanted to make sure he got hurt. I don't know, that was probably about maybe one of the neatest things that came along, where they were like, Do you want to do this? But we already had a sold out show and I just felt bad. I'm glad I did the show. The show was awesome. There were some moments where I felt bad about it. It would have been fun. I know Payton Manning was there. You guys were there. All your friends.

This town loves you, dude.

I still want you to do the opera, bro. Do it one of the nights I'm doing it. Let's do the opera together.

Let's all.

Three do the opera. We got all three do.

The opera. We'll support you. I'll call Jordan about that right now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know they want you there.

You can't make your mind. I think my mom would probably like to go, so maybe if she's going to be out, I would have her maybe come in for that.

We should do the grand old opera and do a night of it for real. If you all are cool, I'll call Jordan about it.

Right now. I can just find- I can just find- You just got to keep it pretty clean.

Yeah, but I mean.

It can- They just can't cuss. They don't mind if it's risky. They just mind about it. Yeah, it can be risky. They mind about the cuss words because it's on the radio. It's still the actual. I finally asked him. I was like, Yo, what's the real story here about the cuss? And he was like, It's on the radio. He's like, The HCC. He's like, It's a live radio show still to this day.

So what's the actual.

Deal here? I was like, Well.

That's the thing. No, all those... The people that are the Opry fans would love a little risk. I mean, dude, think about it. We were talking about this then. We saw Jamie Johnson back then. We saw Jamie Johnson back then. We saw Jamie Johnson back then. You saw Jamie Johnson back then. There's a history of iffy comedy.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, he-haw, man. I went to see the Arizona Diamondbacks play a game one time, and they had the manager, his dad, LaRusso, I think his name is?

No way, Tony La-Rooza.

No, it's not him. Okay. It's a Diamondbacks manager. Yeah, Torre Lovulo. His father produced He-Haw. Really? This dude comes up to me, goes, Hey, man, we're trying to sell out of the national.

Jeff the dude that gave you the diamond bag jersey?

Yeah, he gave me a cool one that says Rat King on the back. But anyway, just an interesting piece that his father, Sam Lavulo, there you go, was a producer for He-Haw. That was a great show.

They still had the He-Haw stage there. I was a- Yeah.

Jamie Johnson.

Took us back then. I did the opera last night. Did you? Yeah. Me, Chris, Janssen, Riley, Green, and Nelly did the for the big friends given for the big 98 here.

Wow. Perfect.

You work hard, bro. You do so much stuff, Jilly.

Man, I'm just so blessed to be here, though, Theo, man.

I feel.

You there, man. It's so different when I get to hang out with you in earnest because you all remember when it wasn't like this for me, and it's like this is all I wanted it to be, though. Now that I'm in it, I just feel like I don't even want to disrespect God like that. I prayed for this for so many years and so many... Dude, I'm filming a special for a television show, CBS Sunday mornings, what they call it, big deal. They took me back to my old jail yesterday. The jail that I found out I had my daughter in, like the jail I was in when she was incarcerated, they took me back to my old cell. What was that like for you? One, I walked in there certain I wasn't going to be emotional because I walked in so happy and in such a good mood. Dude, I walked in the unit, still happy. We're chatting. I'm telling them stories. We walk upstairs. As soon as I walked in that cell, I cried like a baby, dude. I mean, I lost it completely because it was like every memory I'm getting choked up now.

It's like every memory from that jail cell, like every song I heard. I spent a year and a half in that cell, dog. The hearing I had a daughter, every song I wrote, everything I went through. You're just sitting there like, Man, this is unreal, dude. Thank you, brother.

It's just sad. It makes me sad. I mean, it makes me sad, but it makes me, yeah, it's powerful to think of somebody being caged up and then being as free as you are now.

No, it's unreal. I walk out of there, I'm getting choked up too. I'm like, I leave there and go back to my old halfway house at the Men of Valor. I go see them boys. It's such a humbling thing for me. Then I go do a show with Nelly and Riley Green, and I'm on fucking the biggest podcast on Earth the next day. I think it's you and rogen, dude. You know it. You know what I'm saying? I'm just like, man, this is just such a... I'm so blessed, dog. That's why I do all the give back stuff. How could God bless me so much of me not want to bless somebody? You know what I mean? Yeah.

I know you have a toy drive that's going on right now that people can hit.

Yeah, any Walmart in Middle Tennessee, they got a box right there that you could just drop off toys at the box. I'm going to put a couple hundred grand up myself. We're going to do over 100,000 toys. It'll be the biggest one in Nashville. I mean, just look who got behind us, dude. It's crazy. The Predators, Coca-Cola, Hasbro, the Nashville Fire Department. Walmart has been a partner in this. My dream is in the next five years for this to be a national thing that I do with Walmart, and we raise millions and millions of toys for underprivileged kids.

I love that. I go in there and buy toys and put them in a box?

Yeah, just drop them right in the box, man. I'll do it. Yeah, just drop them right in the box. And it's cool because it's convenient. We're all in and out of Walmart all season, you know what I mean? So it's like, all you got to do is just buy an extra toy.

Dude, going to Walmart, they used to be fun, dude.

I'll tell you a story if you don't mind me getting-.

Yeah, you're right.

Sometimes there's nothing else to do on.

The road but go to Walmart. My daughter wanted to do this, and she started this five, six years ago at a local bar in White House, Tennessee, with her aunt, where they would just pick them up from the bar staff and people, and she'd go give away 20, 30 toys. She was doing this at nine years old. This was her thought. I looked back at it, and when I got out of jail... Give me a second. I came home like December of 2009. I didn't have any money for toys. In the halfway house, the Men of Valor did a toy drive for the guys that just came home. I remember dropping off a truck of toys I couldn't afford for her Christmas. I didn't even get to meet her at that time. By court, I wasn't even allowed to see her. I just got home.

So.

Her heart to want to do this toy drive and then me to be able to be in a situation to amplify it is like, it's really cool.

That is amazing.

Fuck, I said I wasn't going to cry today. I was like, I'm not going to be fucking emotional. I've had an emotional week. I got nominated for a Grammy. I know. I'm just having a fucking weird couple of weeks.

Damn, dude. The only dude I know has been nominated for a Graham, and a Grammy.

I'm going to be honest.

I love you, D. Y. That's so good.

That's.

So good. And they split one of.

Them with you. Yeah, they split one of them with me. Oh, shit. Youyeah, that's incredible, bro.

But it's crazy. So it's like to see this thing come to life is like, I think that's why I'm so passionate about giving back to juveniles. And I'm so passionate about going to jails and rehabs and singing for people and investing in rehab facilities. I'm meeting with our mayor and our governor about the fentanyl epidemic and a plan. You know what I mean? Because these are the things that affect in my life. You know what I mean? Like the shit that touches you the closest to home. Yeah. You know.

What I mean? Yeah, we want to build a center. That's one of our goals next year is to try to find some land to build be a halfway house. I don't know if it'd be a halfway house or a detox. Probably a place where you could also have meetings at.

Where would you do it at?

I don't know. Somewhere close enough, somewhere here.

Let me tell you this, and I'll say this on your show publicly, whatever I can do, whatever you want to do. I don't care if maybe we do a string of fucking shows or something that I'll put together and just donate the money. I'm into that in a way you'll never understand. Thanks, man. If... Nobody else. And this is what I say in off camera, too, I'll say it to you, but not even just on some raise money shit. I'll cut a fucking check. Yeah, same. I hate people that go just raise money. You know what I mean? If you're not, that's why I tell everybody, don't worry, I'm putting money into this toy drive. I'm going to write a big check because I'm not just going to be a face of one. My face can help bring more attention to it. That's the only reason I even talk about this stuff. We did philanthropy for years. I never spoke about it. But I realized that our platform is so big that we can help bring attention and money to the cause. But still important to me. My dad, he raised me, man, shut the fuck up and cut a check.

You know what I mean? That's just something I learned from a kid.

Yeah, I appreciate that, man. We're going to do the same thing. We just want to do something in place. I can go to meetings where other guys can go. I'd be neat where people maybe we could do a songwriter night where songwriters come by and play some songs with the guys. But yeah, it's a big goal of mine, man. It's just so important. I have just so many friends of mine and myself, so many people in my own family, just so many people struggling. That's why I think I can feel when you talk about that stuff. I know what it's like to not be caged up by walls, but to be caged up by even just somebody's, their own life, caged up by their own feelings. Man, when you're just locked inside of yourself.

Can't get outside of your own head. That's the worst prison. I've been to a lot of jails, and the worst one on earth is between the ears, man.

Let's check a news thing or two, and then we'll get you guys out of here. That's the funny part, because you just never know where it's going to get you. You don't really know what's going to happen.

That's why I love them because it is just like, yeah, we have microphones on. But this is just conversation we'd be having at coffee. We might not even get this.

Deep over coffee. That's what I like about it. If we wouldn't have enough time, we'd be rushing to our next thing. That's what I think is the beauty of being friends now with homies, like having homies like Theo and you that we had crazy years where Theo's rocketing to arenas. I did my first arena tour. You came off a stadium tour into your first big theater tour totwo nights at the Ryman. You know what I mean? All these things are still right. We don't get to talk the way we want to. We get to sit down for homies for two hours with a microphone in front of us, and it's almost like catching up.

Yeah.

It's true. You know what I'm saying? It's really cool. It's deeper than just what's going on in your life. It's like the shit we do on the phone if we had time to. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I realized that one time I left out of Joe Regan's podcast, and he's a super busy guy, and he just is. It's just his life. He's build a busy life, and he has a busy life. He's not too busy for you. He just has a busy life, and he has a lot of friends. I was like, Man, I wish I had have spent more of that time when I was talking with him. Because sometimes you think, Oh, I'm on a podcast, but then sometimes you're just catching up with a buddy. I was like, I need to make sure that I spend that time catching up with a buddy because sometimes your life is busy, and that's all the time you get, especially as you also get older. You have both you guys have children. There's shit going on. So, yeah, the time you get with people just is important. And even though it is on a podcast, it's like it's still that's the time that you have.

I had Cam Haynes flew down here to the show last night. Oh, did he really? Yeah, Cam Haynes. We were talking about you last night.

Cam Haynes, not the...

Cameron Haynes. Underwear guy?

Keep hammering. Oh, Cameron Haynes. Yeah. I don't know what he meant, damn.

I don't know that he was like, the underwear guy? I'm a.

Fucking.

Fraud.

No, Cameron.

Haynes, keep hammering. Yeah, keep Cameron. Oh, that's right. He said you guys were going to see each other.

Yeah, for sure. He came out here and we spent all night together last night.

At least I'm not surprised when I'm.

An idiot anymore.

He was like, The underwear guy? I used to.

Be a real bad when I was a kid.

I got confused because I was like, Maybe Cam has an underwear deal I didn't know about it. He's on fire. He wrote a book. I was like, Fuck, maybe he did do an underwear deal. If he could write a book, he could make some writing.

I could write a book. He could make some writing. I could write a book. He could make some writing. I could make some writing. I have a goddamn pair of underwear.

He could make some drawers. Listen, I don't think there's anything on Earth campaigns can't do.

Here's a guy that'd be working on one of your... This could be working at one of your deals. Tennessee man arrested for DUI meth while driving a lawnmower, Santa's train full of kids.

So.

Was the DUI for meth, or did he get caught with meth and a DUI?

I mean, see, this is what's wrong.

With the US. Because listen, if he was drunk and had meth on him, I understand. Yeah, that's fair. That's the balance of an equation.

But if he was just on meth, I feel like he was pretty dialed at driving, dude.

Yeah, for sure.

It's like, How did he know that?

Definitely not falling asleep behind the wheel. We've done two different meths.

That's for sure. Yeah, dude, I think first of all, this is what's wrong with the US Postal System.

I want to.

Say that. This is how they're delivering mail mail. He was acting erratically. What did say? Henry Mead was driving Santa's train, a motorized lawnmower pulling carts of children, which first of all seems like a bad idea.

They found meth. First of all, seems.

Like a bad idea. Narcotics and a syringe.

I wonder what the narcotics are.

Peels? Probably peels. They took them when they got that.

I hope they took the blade off that thing. That's all I'm hoping. Officials noted that Mead was not a town employee.

Okay, I.

Could guarantee. The mayor wanted to make that too definitely clear.

Taswell Police Department responded swiftly to the incident ensuring the safety of the attendees and the event. 14 police are involved as well.

Jesus. It was a parade.

There was a parade.

He went to a parade with.

A bunch of kids and met and.

Build- He was driving the kids. He was driving the kids. He met.

And build it out on crystals. He was driving.

The kids.

He needed out on crystals.

Hey, that's one way to do it, dude. Oh, my goodness. What else we got? Anything else popping? I don't know.

That's so Tennessee.

I know. I've had a couple of times of felony after public sex. It was always a dream of mine. That shouldn't be a crime.

Look, why does she look so sad if you just fulfilled a dream? I know. I'm confused. Me and Bunny would look the polar opposite right now. We'd be on.

That motherfucker, cheezing. Cheezing.

You guys do seem like a public sex type of group. I will say that.

It's getting public sex.

Listen, Bunny is a.

Wild woman, man. Man.

What are you getting money for Christmas? Do you know, Jilly?

Do you.

Know get her for.

Christmas, you know? I got something cooking for her, man. So we quit doing the gifts a couple of years ago because we realized that it was just getting stupid as far as like- Yeah, what are you getting for? Yeah, whatever. So now we do trips. We'll put our money together and be like, All right, this is what we would have bought each other. So we're going to go somewhere and just spend some time together, man. She is still my favorite human to be around.

We've been married almost eight years. I'm sure you feel like about Delaney, but it's like when I have a free moment to hang out with somebody, that's the first person I think of. I'm like, I wonder what my wife's doing. You know what I'm saying? She's like, There's nobody in life I want to be alone with more- The homie. The homie? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I just want to spend every minute I can. She's like my favorite hang. She's funny. She's goofy. She's a fucking wild bitch. She's fucking wild. She's the perfect woman, man. She's like, for me, so for short, we'll probably take a trip somewhere. I am going to get her a little something just because it's like a real personal thing. But we're going to probably just go out and do something like just me and her.

What about you and Delaney, brother?

We're going to Mexico.

Oh, damn, brother.

We're going to Mexico. I've never been to Mexico other than off the FGL crews. Delaney, as far as gifts go, she wants new forks and knives and a dope Espresso machine.

That's what we call that the house gift, because we'll do that, too. We'll be like, all right, what do we need? We have bought a fridge last year. That's how old and married we are. We need a new fridge.

I'm getting the countertops and we're getting 20, 15-foot-tall trees in the backyard. Yeah, for sure. There, Merry Christmas. Here's some trees.

Bunny doesn't want roses. She wants a rose bush. You know what I'm saying?

It's different.

What are you doing for Thanksgiving?

I'm going to go... What am I doing? I'm going down to see aDustin Porry does a fundraiser thing every year. They hand out hams on Thanksgiving. Down there in Louisiana called the Good Fight Foundation. I'm going to go down there and do that. Then we got to show the day after Thanksgiving at the Lake UNO, where I saw my first concert at UNO Lake. Really?

God, that's awesome. Are you excited.

About that one? Yeah, I am pretty. I am excited. I know that other people, I know that a lot of my friends are excited, so I think I'm almost more excited for them, I think, in a weird way, just because I know they're excited.

Is it nerve-wrecking having a bunch of people you know in the audience?

I think my fear is that they're going to yell out and stuff the whole time, which for music is fine. But with comedy, you want people just being more silent and stuff.

You think they just aren't going to know how to act?

Is that where you're at? Well, we had a show. I shot a comedy special in Louisiana one time, and people had never been to a comedy show before. They don't even have a comedy club in New Orleans. So people didn't know what to do. There were people in the crowd. I remember this one lady just yelling, Defense, the whole time. What?

Yeah, it was like... She was at a.

Football game. Yeah, like a bunch of L. S. U. Fence. Yeah, people had been like-D-Fence is like one of.

Those fence. That's the most rattling. That's got to be crazy. How do.

You crowd work with that? Unreal. And I think she had one of those fence cut out.

No way. Do you know where you are right now?

I thought my career was over after I shot that. I was like, This is... They had one of the dudes with that helmet with the two beer can't even be covered. I was.

Like, What the fuck are we.

Doing, dude?

Fuck the packers. What?

Yeah. So that was wild. What about thankful, man? What are some things maybe you guys are thankful for? Sometimes I make gratitude lists in the morning. So I'm trying to think of something to said I'm thankful for. I'm thankful that I don't give up on myself. I think if that's something that I had to be thankful for, I'm thankful that I don't give up on myself when... Or I give up on myself less than I used to.

That's a good one. Each day I'm more thankful for my son, Ryman, and Delaney being the badass she is. As much as I'm gone and not able to be there, I'm thankful that I have a peace of mind knowing that everything's good and Ryman is getting the most love and attention. I get home and he's growing and acquiring such a cool little sense of humor and personality. I owe that to Delaney because she's in there making sure that every little want and need is taken care of. And she's on her hands and he's playing trains with them and stuff and paying all kinds of attention to them. So I'm thankful for that.

Amen. And trains are damn dangerous. The name train.

Is always- A train train?

Yeah. Well, shit, I'm just boring.

I'm not playing chicken with the train. He's playing train with my mom.

And a guy just got arrested for driving a kid's train smoking meth.

It's a lot different than when we got.

A train work. I was wondering why he didn't call me back yesterday, too. He's gone. His phone died.

I'm thankful for my relationship with God and my higher power. It's really anchored me this year to be present because having such a successful year, it's really like I've never been more present in where I am. You know what I mean? Even in this conversation, I'm more relaxed and laid back now and just being more present. I thought I lost my phone yesterday, and I realized I think I lose my phone every day now because I'll just set it down and wherever I'm at in that moment is just where I am. And then I'll go look for the phone at the end of the day. You know what I mean? It's where I've been out of my life. And I'm just really thankful for that. I'm thankful for my family, my wife, of course, my children. But I'm thankful for my presence because I've been present around them, but not present. You know what I mean? I've been guilty to that.

I want to get to that point, bro. I'm so bad about being present. I live in the future and in the past in my head so much. And Delaney is so good about being in the present. I notice how bad I am at it when I'm with somebody that's so good.

At it. That's why I thank my higher power. That's why I thank God because that's my anchor. That's my meditation. It's like my prayer and my ability to just be like, Today, I'm just going to like, I just want to be wherever I'm at today. I just want to be there. You know what I mean? That's all that really matters. It's like right then. I'm just thankful that I haven't achieved it completely yet, but I'm getting fucking so close, and it's awesome, dude. It's a really cool feeling.

How do you keep that going? How do you nurture that relationship with God.

For you? Just more praying and just more trying to clear my mind, just more meditation and grounding myself.

When you pray, what's it like? What do you-.

Well, I pray an old traditional Southern Baptist prayer. It's just my praying ways. Of course, I'll always say the serenity prayer every day just because that's just so anchoring, too. But I'm an old school guy that's just like, God, I just want to thank you, and I just want to ask you for the ability to just care and love. I just want to be I want you to help me be conscious today of the way I am in this room. You know what I mean? I want to be prepared. I want to be like... Man, I heard the coolest thing the other day, Theo, that said if we think our purpose in life is to be happy, how much more narcissistic can we be? Our purpose in life is to be useful. Now it's just more like, Man, I'm a tool, dude. You know what I mean? What can I be a man? You know where I'm getting this from. You know what I mean? We'll talk. But it's like, How can I be of service? What can I do to actually be useful to somebody today? You know what I mean? In every little scenario like, Can I do something cool here?

I believe firmly that that spirit, the day of the CMA is not to get weird and hokey, but I walked out of my front yard in my boxers and a T-shirt, no shoes, no socks, boxers now, neighbors driving by waving, and I put my bare feet in my front yard grass. I just looked up at that sun, and I just said a little prayer. I just thought like, You know what, God? I won being here. I don't care if I win an award. Just help me to open the show. Let me do it right. Let it be a moment. You know what I mean? Let me enjoy tonight regardless. I said my phone down at the house. When I walked out, I didn't have my phone with me. I didn't check my phone until the next night. You know what I mean? I was present in every situation. Because of that, I think when I got on that stage and seemed 58, 57, something inside of me was like, You thank God. You thank your wife. You thank your label, and you say something that fucking matters, is what was going through my mind. You know what I mean?

Because that was that presence of like, I was just so grounded in the present of that moment. I knew then that moment I wanted to thank Parker McClellum. I knew I wanted to tell Zach, Brian, I thought he was the goat, and I knew I wanted to tell my wife I loved her, and I knew that I wanted to say something that would at least make a motherfucker go, Man, he blessed me with that. You know what I mean? I didn't think it would do what it did.

I was out of my seat. I saw a silhouette of me just like, Oh, no.

Did.

You elevate? I was.

Like, Oh, no. Fuck, no.

I had tears in my eyes, bro. I mean, the faces on the audience all around me, some were like, Oh, my God. Some were in tears. I was literally... You would have thought, Derrick Henry just took off for a 98-yard touchdown run. I was losing my mind. And you were a vessel, being a tour or whatever, being a vessel. I think when you are that present and that in tune.

Nobody's more of a vessel than I think than you, Jilly. Yeah, truly. I think you really do. I think you inspire so many of us, man. You just have a gift. I don't even know if it's a gift, but it's not a gift that you have, but it's just a gift that you are. Right. You are a gift to you. You feel like a gift, I think, to so many people.

You know what I love about you? The same dude that could say something that eloquently just thought Cameron Haynes was the underwear guy. You know what I'm saying? That's what makes the other guy.

Well, we're retarded, man.

A little bit. I've got a little bit of it. I'm thankful. I'm thankful for both of you all. Thank you for letting me come on this with you guys. I'm thankful to have both of you all. Been great getting to know you over.

The last couple of years. You too, man. Thanks for always being somebody that can make me laugh, dude. You call.

Me too. You check in on me every now and then. It's always great.

Why? Because you make me laugh. I was like, Fuck, I don't feel good. I need to call somebody to make me laugh. You were so damn good at it. I had not a choice. Perfect. Perfect. That was the truth. Don't stop. That's awesome. You did not it. You were so good at I didn't have a choice, but.

Like, God damn.

Have I let you down?

I don't know. Once or twice. And thankful for your art, Theo. Outside of our friendship, I'm thankful for your art, dude. I watched the pod. I'm a fan. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Have been. That's what drew me to you. One thing I've learned in life is never be too cool to be a fan.

You.

Know what I mean? Never be too cool to be a fan. I'm a fan. I can tell you as a brother, I think you're fucking brilliant. And my cousins, Addison, Pro, all the Pro, my Pro family side, they love you.

Oh, ain't like that. The girl and her daughter, I saw.

Them at breakfast yesterday. Yeah, you did just see on the other day at breakfast. I've just seen Ernest and Ryman and Delaney. At breakfast, yeah. I was like, That's crazy. But no, they told me they loved you. I was like, I'm going to see Ernest tomorrow. That's what he said. They were like, We can't believe you're going with Theo. My wife, we all just find a lot of... You bring a lot of smiles to people, man. It's like, man, in a world where smiles are so rare, where there's no compassion in America right now. There's no middle ground. Nobody finds any calm, and there's so much tension in so many ways. You have found a unique way to constantly break that and make people smile and feel really good. Man, that is your gift, brother. You need to know that, too. If you ain't heard it recently, I'm sure you hear it every day, but I want you to hear it from me, brother. You're special, man.

Thanks, dude. I appreciate it. Yeah, I have tough time feeling proud of myself. That's okay. Some of that's okay because you don't want your ego to get crazy. But sometimes I do have a tough time feeling proud of myself.

But we're proud for you for what it's worth.

Thank you.

I appreciate that. Anyone you lack in it, we're proud for you. We were hype. Thanks, brother. I got to get you and a wife together. It's like a must.

Yeah, I know.

I've been.

Thinking about the people who've always asking me if Bunny is going to come on or if I'm going to go on Bunny. People ask me a lot. We'll make it happen this year.

Yeah, she had a clip go viral, and the meme was the female Theo Van. Because she said, it was so funny. She said, That's garbage. She said, You know what that is? French for trash. It was such a big deal. But yeah, you all would it would be cool. I got to get you all together. I'd love for you all to do the pods together, but in the case just for you to meet.

I think it would be fun. I'll make sure that I do it with her in the new year. That we'll do.

One- Yeah, you all.

Will be a lot of fun. I think even us just sharing about some of our thoughts and stuff about each other, I think it's just like and how music is changing. I think there is some evolution in the way that men communicate and feel and need to be supportive of each other. I don't know why we're in that space as a society where it's like, I don't know if it's like that. We used to be all around the fire in the woods and we were right there for each other and in tribes and small groups. But there's an element sometimes that's missing. And so yeah, man, today was awesome, man, just to be able to sit and share and reflect on the year and say something nice about each other. It's important because people need to hear that stuff. Because sometimes there's something wrong with us that we can't say it to ourselves. Right. It just won't... The cyst, the cul-de-sac is fucking broken or something. Right. Yeah, for sure. Congratulations, man, on great years, dude, and just on creating cool stuff.

Thank you to everybody, man.

Yeah, praise you all, man. All of those big-ups. Yeah, praise you all, man.

Merry Christmas, dude. Merry Christmas.

Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Yeah, happy holidays.

You all get yourselves levels tested, huh? Yeah.

Now, I'm just floating on.

The breeze and I.

Feel I'm falling like these leaves I must be cornerstone. Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this piece of mind I found. I can feel it in my bones. But it's going to take a.