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Episode: #2212 - Jelly Roll

#2212 - Jelly Roll

Author: Joe Rogan
Duration: 02:24:21

Episode Shownotes

Jelly Roll is a singer, rapper, and songwriter. His latest album is "Beautifully Broken" is out now.

 

www.jellyroll615.com https://jellyroll.lnk.to/beautifullybroken https://x.com/JellyRoll615 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Full Transcript

00:00:03 Speaker_05
The Joe Rogan Experience.

00:00:14 Speaker_02
My man, I haven't seen you since Master Square Garden, that was crazy.

00:00:18 Speaker_04
What a great experience, dude.

00:00:20 Speaker_01
What an experience, man.

00:00:22 Speaker_04
Dude, it was so, I was thinking about it pulling up here is that I think y'all just got out of Vulcan and the club had just opened. And I came that night to see Ron White. And I went back that Monday to see Kill Tony.

00:00:32 Speaker_04
And I could feel the Kill Tony thing happening over COVID at Vulcan. So I had to go see it in person. Yeah. And I could remember sitting in there and you know how like, You can feel an energy shift? Yeah.

00:00:45 Speaker_04
I felt an energy shift in life in that room that night. I was like... this is fixing to explode. Like everything associated with this club, everything associated with Tony, everything associated with Joe, is fixing to fucking rocket ship.

00:01:01 Speaker_04
And it felt like, almost like, I'm getting goosebumps, Joe, I'm not even bullshitting, I'm getting goosebumps. It's almost like, I swear, dude, it was like feeling the grunge movement in the 90s.

00:01:12 Speaker_04
Like when you first heard a little something, you were like, this is different. Yeah, and you were like this could be something and then it just turned out to be the explosion It's like I felt that happening.

00:01:21 Speaker_04
So to see Tony at Fucking Madison Square Garden and then to see how y'all showed up for Tony at Madison Square Garden Every fucking comedian on earth came to see that dude the fucking two nights kiss him on his fucking cheek I had to be there.

00:01:36 Speaker_02
I was there in the beginning. I was there when there was like 18 comedians in the crowd and Is that not crazy? It was crazy. They were doing it in the belly room of the comedy store. It was just like an afterthought.

00:01:45 Speaker_02
They couldn't do any of the other rooms because they didn't have an audience. And they would, and Tony just had this weird idea that he just like, like a little pit bull just stuck with it.

00:01:55 Speaker_02
One minute of comedy and he like honed it over time and figured out and then he became the best host in all of entertainment. There's no one better at hosting a comedy show than him.

00:02:06 Speaker_02
The way he does that show, the speed of his comebacks, the speed of his like the roast lines.

00:02:12 Speaker_04
I tell Tony all the time, I say, Tony, I love you. And that panel is the coolest thing I've ever seen. But you are the show brother.

00:02:19 Speaker_04
We would all tune in if you were sitting up there by yourself like you were just so sharp I relate to it to Joe I Compare art forms. It's just something I like to do.

00:02:29 Speaker_04
I know some people don't but Watching Tony I feel a kinship to Tony and Andrew Schultz in a certain way because I feel like we all kind of met each other Right before it happened for all of us, right? Oh

00:02:41 Speaker_04
Like I remember me and Schultz doing the opener up song at the 540, you know, he was doing two nights at Zany's, two shows, one show, you know, one show a night, you know what I mean?

00:02:50 Speaker_04
And I was doing a thousand seat club in the South, you know what I mean? And Tony was still kill Tony and you know what I mean? And we're all fucking old. Like the fact that it happened for all of us in our late 30s is even cooler.

00:03:03 Speaker_04
So it's this double kinship. Like when I was nominated for New Artist of the Year at almost 40, that's the first time that had ever happened in CMA history in country music. But like this year, most of those kids are 27 and under.

00:03:15 Speaker_02
Here I was a 40 year old fucking man of your beauty beautiful example that there's no rules. Yes. There's no rules It's all bullshit. Just be yourself. Just be yourself.

00:03:24 Speaker_02
Do your best find find whatever it is inside you that you can express There's no rules. There's no rules for age like Ron white used to worry about that all the time. I think I'm too old I'm what do you to your Ron motherfucking white?

00:03:36 Speaker_02
You're a legend period

00:03:37 Speaker_02
But it's like that humility that he has even though he's got great confidence in his ability like Ron is a very humble guy as successful as he is but that humility that he is is also that Constantly has him writing constantly has him working.

00:03:52 Speaker_02
He's 40 years in the game. He never stops he and he's better now than he's ever been before now that he's sober and Like he's a monster, a monster on stage.

00:04:04 Speaker_04
So to me, Ron White is on Mount Rushmore of comedy. For me personally, I know it's subjective, some people are going to, you know, whatever. But for me, because I judge comedy as a fan of like, I look at skits like, I mean, I look at specials like,

00:04:16 Speaker_04
What song stood out to me the most in the whole special? Like, your special was your album. How many songs do you have that I tell my friends about like it's my song?

00:04:24 Speaker_00
Right, right, right. You know what I mean?

00:04:25 Speaker_04
Like, to me, Ron White has done more of that than I have more Ron White bits memorized than any other comedian.

00:04:32 Speaker_04
just by like default of how good he is at weaving these little quick two-minute stories of just complete white trashery and druggery, which is just my fucking specialty. It's like, I feel like he grew up on my street, you know what I'm saying?

00:04:44 Speaker_02
So my mama likes Ron White, you know what I mean? He was the first guy out here, you know, he was the first guy that came. He moved here before the pandemic.

00:04:52 Speaker_02
Cuz he was always with us at the store and then one day I called him up by where the fuck you been man He was I moved to Austin Fuck it Texas. He just he said he just loved it. He's like, there's no traffic.

00:05:02 Speaker_02
Everyone's nice and I started thinking about it then he planted like the first seeds in like 2018 I was like, can I live in Austin? Fuck, I don't know. Because my instinct has always been to move to the mountains.

00:05:13 Speaker_02
Like, I want to live somewhere where there's no people.

00:05:15 Speaker_04
Did you ever have mountains in mind when you romanticized it? Did you ever think of what mountains you would move to if you did it? I really liked the mountains above Boulder.

00:05:25 Speaker_02
I lived there for a little while in 2009. But when I think about Montana, sometimes I think about just someplace more peaceful, Wyoming, somewhere just a little more peaceful, cold as fuck in the winter, but just like more real.

00:05:41 Speaker_02
And that was my thought when I was living in LA, but it was like a necessity to get the fuck out of there. When the COVID stuff was going on, I'm like, they're not gonna let this go. They're gonna keep us in control.

00:05:51 Speaker_02
Once they have control of you like they had during the pandemic, wear a mask, gotta get a vaccine, can't go here, can't go there, no businesses, everything's shut down, all the restaurants go under, all the comedy clubs go under.

00:06:03 Speaker_02
When they were doing that, I was like, they're not gonna let this go. I gotta get the fuck out of here. And when we came to Texas, it was wide open. Like, you know, some places made you wear a mask, but it was a joke. It was like, it was a goof.

00:06:16 Speaker_02
It was weird. It was like a completely different universe. We could go to, my kids were young, man. They were 10 and 12. And like, they wanted to go to restaurants. I'm like, we can go to a restaurant here and sit indoors.

00:06:26 Speaker_02
Like for, everyone was terrified in LA and they just weren't here. And the same results, like the same, the same thing happened to everybody. But over here it was a way more peaceful experience.

00:06:38 Speaker_02
And Ron, when we were out here, we started doing shows at the Vulcan, and one night, the first time Ron had been on stage in like eight months, he just grabbed me by my shoulders.

00:06:48 Speaker_02
He's like, whatever the fuck we have to do, we're gonna keep doing this. He's like, you gotta open up a club. And I'm like, all right, that's it, we're opening up a club. And the process began. All because of Ron. Ron led me to think about moving here.

00:07:03 Speaker_02
Ron was already out here, so I knew that if I did move to Austin, at least Ron's here. you know and then Tony moved here and then Bryan Simpson moved here and then the fucking just the train kept rolling all night long it was nuts.

00:07:17 Speaker_04
I think it was by default it was kind of a universe thing where there was a little bit of stale water that needed to be stirred yeah when you came that stale water stirred and it awakened everybody like hold on there's there's choices outside of the same routine that we've been because you know I mean I'm sure y'all's life was store store store weekends out store store

00:07:34 Speaker_02
It was improv, too. I did it in the Ice House. There was a few clubs we did, like on a regular. You know, because the more places to work out, the better. You know, and when we were, there were so many of us, too. You know, we'd have shows.

00:07:48 Speaker_02
It's like Bill Burzon, me, Tom Segura, Bert Kreischer. They're crazy shows. Crazy shows. Because everybody was in L.A. It was a beautiful thing up until they shut everything down. It's that beautiful here now, though, Bob. I know. That's what's crazy.

00:08:01 Speaker_04
Man, that's what I'm saying. The water is complete. I mean, it is.

00:08:05 Speaker_02
And, you know, the best thing is, too, there's an added element that we bring new people in every weekend. So every weekend there's these big national headliners, so they come in on Tuesday, Wednesday, and we're fucking around all week.

00:08:16 Speaker_02
We're just having a great time, hanging out.

00:08:18 Speaker_04
That's how I described your club. I was like, it's the gym for the greatest comedians in the world, Tuesday through Thursday, and then the other greatest comedians in the world come and rent it from Friday to Sunday. It's like it's crazy.

00:08:30 Speaker_04
It's like no matter what they have killed Tony.

00:08:32 Speaker_02
That's the anchor every money kill Tony is the anchor of comedy in the known universe Really? That's a grandiose statement. I know but what killed Tony shows you it's like every comic wants a reaction and

00:08:44 Speaker_02
And some comics, unfortunately, if you're in specific areas, like very liberal areas, like Silver Lake has a problem with this, like those kind of places where everyone's like super woke and they want to let everyone else know that they're super woke.

00:08:58 Speaker_02
It's like a kind of thing you have to do. So you get ideologically captured.

00:09:03 Speaker_02
You you you make material that's bullshit you get clapped er what kill Tony makes you do is you have one fucking minute You have one minute and there's obviously no rules by the time you get on stage You've seen cam go crazy.

00:09:17 Speaker_02
You've seen Hans Kim say some ridiculous shit Maybe you've seen William Montgomery or Brian Holtz, but you've seen maniacs on stage killing and so you got one minute just crack and It's time to crack. So it sets a tone for comedy.

00:09:31 Speaker_02
The comedy is just entertaining. No matter how you put it out, no matter what it is, what your style is, what you like to talk about, whether you're Nate Bargatze or whether you're Shane Gillis, there's just a different way to do it.

00:09:44 Speaker_02
Everybody's got their own way to do it. But it's just go try to find your way. Don't try any tricks.

00:09:50 Speaker_02
Don't try to sneak in some fucking ideological bullshit just because you think people are going to agree with you and like you more and clap and cheat and you're going to say something profound. Shut up. You got one minute.

00:10:00 Speaker_02
So that sets a tone for all the people coming up. It's so real. It's one of the most important things that's ever happened to Kanye.

00:10:07 Speaker_04
Nobody's trying to impose their beliefs on you real quick. They're just trying to make, they got 60 seconds to get a fucking laugh. And the Kill Tony crowd will boo you if you don't. You've got about 30 seconds with them in an arena.

00:10:19 Speaker_04
In an arena, real dangerous grounds, dude. Bro, they were, especially New Yorkers. The first show in New York. They were rough. They go hard.

00:10:29 Speaker_04
You know, when I knew the arena thing was going to be huge for Tony, I flew down here for the first one he did because we were drunk at the bar that night and he was like, I'm going to play an arena.

00:10:37 Speaker_04
I was like, I'm going to come sing the National Anthem. And it was a joke because I don't sing the National Anthem. I have a rule. I don't sing the National Anthem. But I told him I was going to do it, so I came down.

00:10:45 Speaker_04
And we're watching the first comedian this night at the HEB Center, right? The first bucket pull comes up. And you could tell this bitch did not have any idea she was gonna get called or anything to say.

00:10:59 Speaker_04
This is the first few talking about a gift from God for Tony, right? She's not up there 18 seconds, Joe, before they realize that she's just, you know, falafeling. The boo birds came. They didn't start slowly and grow like they normally do.

00:11:13 Speaker_04
It was like 13 or 12,000 people made the decision at once. Boo! What a horrible feeling.

00:11:23 Speaker_00
What a horrible feeling. And I was like, oh yeah, this is going to explode in arenas. I was like, Kill Tony's going to fuck in arenas. It's the best show for that kind of an audience. We watch it every Monday on the bus. It's chaotic.

00:11:35 Speaker_04
Full disclosure, like as a bus, imagine like, a bunch of music dudes every Monday that were like, religiously, it's something we have together, you know what I mean? It's something that the whole band can agree on.

00:11:46 Speaker_02
The other thing about Kill Tony was, in the beginning, Tony wasn't famous, no one was famous, and they were just going hard. And then as everyone got famous, they kept going hard.

00:11:57 Speaker_02
Whereas it's very hard to just jump in and do something that wild now and there was nothing like it during kovat There's nothing like it You got this live show every week in front of a live audience and everybody else is locked down when you have to wear your fucking mask Where you're walking your dog, you know, like what is going on?

00:12:13 Speaker_02
No, you're having to bring it. It was also just like this

00:12:17 Speaker_02
Rejection of norm, you know rejection of whatever is going whatever people think the comedy industry is because people think the comedy industry is like Some group of people with power that control the being give people specials that don't deserve it.

00:12:32 Speaker_02
There's all this like weird Weird thoughts about the comedy business. But when the comedy business is only comedians, it's a completely different experience. And that's what Kill Tony is. There's no business element behind it. There's no networks.

00:12:46 Speaker_02
There's no producers. There's no there's no person, no executive worrying about their fucking mortgage. You can't say that, Tony. There's none of that. So it's just wild.

00:12:55 Speaker_00
No, it's complete chaos all the time.

00:12:57 Speaker_04
It's the greatest show on the internet, period.

00:12:59 Speaker_00
That's the truth. It's how I feel about it. It fucking rules.

00:13:01 Speaker_04
But you're talking about people that do more when they get there. And me and you were talking off record, off microphone, we were walking in here about, you hang around nine long enough, you'll be the tenth. Yeah.

00:13:12 Speaker_04
And God bless me that in the last few years, in light of my success, I've had really cool friends. Like Tony and I have become really good friends. You and I have become really good friends.

00:13:20 Speaker_04
And I've been able to watch, like a student of the game, guys like y'all, Bert, Tom, and go, man, these dudes are turning the heat up. as it matters, like the content's flowing like it's only getting bigger. Last year, Joe,

00:13:34 Speaker_04
My most successful year of my career, I wrote more songs than I've ever wrote in a single year as a free man. That's amazing. Jail's a different concept, because fuck what, I wrote a song a day. You know what I mean?

00:13:44 Speaker_04
But I wrote a hundred and, I turned in a hundred and seventy songs to my publisher last year. Holy shit. I just couldn't quit writing them. I was on the bus. I just could not, I could not, at every corner. I was getting done with shows.

00:13:55 Speaker_04
You know I do five shows a week. It's just how we tour. I was getting straight on the bus and just grabbing a guitar and just pouring ideas. I'm putting out 27 songs when this podcast is out. My album Beautifully Broken is out right now.

00:14:07 Speaker_04
I had 22 on the album and I had five or six features that I was going to do for Deluxe next week. And my wife teased one of the songs that's kind of doing good, so I think I'm just going to drop them all tomorrow. Today, technically, anyway.

00:14:18 Speaker_02
Dude, you're so at home on stage, it's crazy. When you did New York, New York at Madison Square Garden, I asked you, I'm like, how often do you just do this? Just get up there and sing. How often are you doing this?

00:14:29 Speaker_02
It's a crazy thing because it's just you. You just are you up there, you know, 15,000 people, 50,000 people. It's just jelly roll. It's that's when a guy's like, you know, you're you're just so in the zone.

00:14:43 Speaker_02
So on top of your game, it's just beautiful to watch someone that's in the zone because you recognize that that feeling is a great feeling. when you're just totally in tune with what you're doing. I love when I see a comic that's in there.

00:14:55 Speaker_02
When you know it's a flow. Yeah. You know what I mean? When you know it's a flow. Last time Dave Vettel was here, it was right before he filmed his special. My God. It was magic.

00:15:04 Speaker_04
He's so different.

00:15:05 Speaker_02
Oh my God, he's so good right now. If you get a chance to see Dave Vettel live, if you're a comedy fan, you have to see him. And now I'm sure he's got a whole bunch of new stuff because his special's out, but God. Damn, he's in this fucking flow.

00:15:18 Speaker_02
He's like a like a Zen master up there.

00:15:21 Speaker_04
It's scary how comfortable he is. I've never been to the cellar. It's been a dream of mine. I had a night in New York. I'd finished TV. So I went to the cellar that night and I got David Tell's number on Bert's tour.

00:15:31 Speaker_04
I went on Bert's fully loaded tour this year for fun. Did I tell you the story?

00:15:35 Speaker_04
think so just like I think I told you but just like to fuck off I call Bert and was like yo can I just park my bus and just come fuck off for like five or six shows he was like what I was like yeah he was like will you sing I was like fuck yeah whatever I'll come sing a song or two so I just go up with a guitar every night between comedians that's amazing but me and Dave would hang out every night me Dave big Jay Oakerson Soter Morrell and we would all just Bert work there I'm just like having the cool I'm just like I'm

00:16:03 Speaker_04
Rarely quiet as I am back there cuz I'm just listening cuz these dudes are telling the greatest storytellers ever. Oh, yeah telling old stories great guys, too So there's the dude son, so I'm like Sam's fucking amazing.

00:16:15 Speaker_02
He's just such good guys, too It's such good real just different level comedians to their great comedians, but they're just great people too. They're fun to hang with There's a great crop It's a great crop of people coming up right now.

00:16:27 Speaker_02
You know, Norman and Shane and all these guys coming up right now are so good. It's so fun. It's a different level.

00:16:34 Speaker_04
Dave Attell gives me his number. He's like, call me if you're ever in New York. I know, I see he has a flip phone, right? Dave pulls the flip phone out.

00:16:40 Speaker_04
So I'm in New York and I just like randomly and I say, Dave, when I call you, I'm going to be in New York City trying to find you, okay? He said, no problem. I'll be at the cellar. That's what he tells me, right?

00:16:50 Speaker_04
I call this dude, me and Ian Financer sitting at the bar, and I say, I'm gonna call Dave and see what time he's coming. I call, third ring, Dave answers and go, you here? I go, I am. He goes, you need help getting in? I was like, I'm in.

00:17:02 Speaker_04
He said, see you in a few. Flips the phone down.

00:17:06 Speaker_01
It was the most David Dale thing ever.

00:17:09 Speaker_02
He's one of the only guys I know that stopped partying, got completely sober, and got way better. Way better. A lot of guys, there's like this thing that they have when they're, you know, doing drugs especially, where they're just wild.

00:17:25 Speaker_02
And sometimes that wildness is like a magical energy on stage. Like I couldn't imagine a sober Kinison. That would have been really weird.

00:17:34 Speaker_02
Like Kennison's whole thing was like, yeah, I'm here at a fucking party Yes, like he was partying dude hard and that's why we didn't get much out of him We only got like really a couple of good albums out of Kennison because he's just going too hard his family came to my show in El Paso Polly sent him and They brought me

00:17:54 Speaker_04
Sam Kennison's original gospel discs. Oh wow. They gave me like five of them Joe. It's one of my most prized possessions now. How is it? How's the music? Oh it's crazy. Well it's a lot of preaching on there too. Is it preaching and singing?

00:18:08 Speaker_04
Yeah it was a lot of preaching on the first one. I didn't even get to the second one yet. I hadn't had a disc player. They brought all five of them, and I was so scared to fuck them up, I immediately put them in a pelican crate and sent them home.

00:18:17 Speaker_04
I was like, this is crazy. You know what I mean? The whole Kennison family, there's like 10 of them in there, sharing all these cool stories. Polly said, the Kennison family wants to come see your show.

00:18:27 Speaker_04
I said, I want them to see my show because so much of my show is derivative from Sam Kennison. You know what I mean? I'm a southern gospel man anyways. I went to a southern church, so I just understood Kennison's inflections and that kind of thing.

00:18:41 Speaker_04
It just spoke to me from where I'm from. I tell people I'm somewhere between Billy Graham and Sam Kennison. You know what I mean? As far as like how, you know, when you got to come see, I'll be, I do the Moody Center in November. Okay.

00:18:54 Speaker_04
It's a middle of the week too, you should be able to make it. Let's go. It'll be fun. I'm trying to talk Kerry into putting a closed on Mitzi's door sign that says closed, gone to the Jelly Roll Show. Speaking of Mitzi's, can I tell you something?

00:19:05 Speaker_04
I want to, I've been waiting to talk to you about this in person.

00:19:10 Speaker_04
I was so inspired by the time I spent with you down here and more importantly the time I spent at your club even without you just they treat me I don't know if you hear the stories but I've become a fixture of furniture there when I'm in town and I am opening I'm announcing this now right here that I am opening my bar on Broadway

00:19:28 Speaker_04
in Nashville, Tennessee, which is a real big deal, you've been to Broadway, it's all after country music stars. I'm the first Nashville native to get a bar. So like the first kid from the city to get a bar.

00:19:39 Speaker_04
But I was so inspired by the way the mothership has Mitzi's, and it's like an honor to Mitzi's, and what y'all do that I have put, my bar's gonna be called Jelly Roll's Goodnight Nashville, but I have a back bar.

00:19:51 Speaker_04
called Buddies, named after my late father. And it was completely inspired from what you have done at Mitzi's.

00:19:58 Speaker_02
Oh, that's great.

00:19:59 Speaker_04
All the way down to the, we're going to set his chair there for him. You know what I mean? Like, it's just so inspiring. And it's going to be just like y'all. Our rule is it's open to the public. When it's open to the public. And when it's not, it's not.

00:20:10 Speaker_00
Right.

00:20:10 Speaker_04
You know what I mean?

00:20:11 Speaker_00
Yeah, like Mincey's.

00:20:12 Speaker_04
Yeah, it's like, because that place has created such a safe place for me to party. This is what me and Post Malone talk about when we're drunk by ourselves. We're like, we need to go back to Jost and let's just go hang out.

00:20:21 Speaker_04
It's like the safest bar in the world. You know what I'm saying? It's like, I can say anything here.

00:20:26 Speaker_02
I know I'm okay. Everybody's cool. The whole staff's cool. The staff's mostly comedians.

00:20:31 Speaker_04
You know, but my question was can I send my buddy's bartender to hang out with Carrie for a week and shadow her?

00:20:37 Speaker_02
100% Carrie said she's into it. She just said yeah, whatever you need. Yeah.

00:20:42 Speaker_04
Yeah, that's a great. I think I'm gonna send her down in November around my show here I'm gonna bring her with me so she can meet Carrie that night cuz Carrie runs the ultimate celebrity bar to me. Yeah.

00:20:51 Speaker_04
Like she deals with complete chaos down there with them comedians. I've watched it. It is wild.

00:20:56 Speaker_02
Well, Carrie learned how to do it at the store. That's why I hired her. She was one of the first hires because I told her I go, you know, she was like one of the first people I contacted. I'm like, I'm going to open up a club. She's awesome.

00:21:08 Speaker_02
Had to get her out here because she was like the mother of the back bar That's how I feel the back bar at the store was it was completely removed is now no general public at all It's a very small. You've ever been in the back bar store. Oh, yeah.

00:21:20 Speaker_02
Yeah, so Carrie ran that place So she kept everybody in line punky was there too before punky was on SNL. It's hilarious. She used to run that back bar, too and And we used to all hang out there, like anybody, you know, you could be safe there.

00:21:33 Speaker_02
All these celebrities, people from out of town, they'd all just find their way to that weird little private bar. So I kind of knew, and originally, Mitzi's was not going to be open to the public at all. It was just going to be a private bar.

00:21:46 Speaker_02
But then along the way we said, you know what?

00:21:48 Speaker_02
It doesn't hurt to like have it open to the general public like up into a certain time and then from that time out Have it everybody after the shows are over because that's when everybody really wants to hang and that was like the best Blending of both worlds, you know, but it was that old bar in Hollywood was it had her bar from her home that they had moved and put there So the actual bar that you put drinks on was from her home Yeah

00:22:14 Speaker_02
So it's like, there was like a piece of her there with us all the time. So when we decided to do this place, I'm like, we gotta have a bar just for Mitzi. Just the same kind of vibe, you know?

00:22:26 Speaker_04
No, I mean, it touched my soul in such a way that I wanted to do it for my father. That's awesome. You know what I mean?

00:22:31 Speaker_04
So I just want you to know that the Mitzi legacy has went even further and that what y'all have created there is spreading on to, it almost got me emotional talking about a woman I never even met, I just know she did so much for you.

00:22:42 Speaker_02
She did so much for everybody. She's the most important person in the history of comedy that's not a comedian.

00:22:48 Speaker_04
Polly's shared some really cool stories with me about her, and it's just, man, it's just unreal. I got to spend a little time with Polly because I went to that back bar there.

00:22:57 Speaker_04
The cool thing is because of y'all, I've now found y'all's community embraces me everywhere now, so I'm safe. If I'm in a city now, if I'm in L.A., I'm like, where's the comedy club? I bet they got a back bar. Call Adam Ray.

00:23:08 Speaker_02
Yeah, it's a fun group of people contrary to popular belief yeah popular belief is the comedians are all like miserable no, dude It's actually the funnest the greatest

00:23:25 Speaker_04
Storytellers ever I could I could listen to guys like Burt talk all night. Yeah, I could listen to Joey Diaz talk all night I've known Joey for 30 years. He still tells me new stories. Yeah, it's crazy. No, dude.

00:23:36 Speaker_04
It's crazy, man It's crazy dude, cuz what Joey could go to the store today and have a story Oh, yeah, you know what? I mean? It just be fucking one of the one of the best stories ever I think we're all in the storytelling business, right?

00:23:47 Speaker_04
That's what I do, too I'm telling stories. I'm not doing it in a comedic way, but I'm still telling a story. You know what I mean? It's all that kind of story. I am attracted to storytellers. I think we all are. I mean, that's why you love a good movie.

00:24:01 Speaker_04
That's why you love a good book.

00:24:03 Speaker_02
Especially one that's somebody that can tell a story that can capture you in a certain way. I think it was probably the oldest form of entertainment, right?

00:24:10 Speaker_02
Once people, when they first started learning language, I bet the oldest form of entertainment was probably recreating a thing they saw.

00:24:17 Speaker_00
Right.

00:24:18 Speaker_02
Yeah. Had to be, right?

00:24:19 Speaker_04
Yeah, for sure. But think about the old, let's sit around the campfire, read stories.

00:24:24 Speaker_02
Sure, sure.

00:24:25 Speaker_04
I'm sure they were telling tales. Tall tales is what they used to call them. Think about how long we've been hearing these kind of stories of people just telling stories.

00:24:30 Speaker_02
Also, back then, that was the only time in your day that you got to relax. When you're sitting around the campfire, that was the only time. It was dark out. There was nothing to do.

00:24:41 Speaker_02
You found all the food you're going to find, and you're going to get up in the morning and go right back at it all day long again, and then eventually find your way back to the campfire.

00:24:48 Speaker_02
So the campfire was like the time where people would sit around and entertain each other.

00:24:53 Speaker_02
In prehistory yeah, you know because you're thinking about it like from a hunting perspective to they had to go out all day and find the food Yeah, you only do that when the Sun was out you can only do it when the Sun was out in the nighttime It's fucking dangerous because there's predators out there So the fire is the best thing to keep off the predators you know fire and everybody gathers around the fire because the predators don't want to come to the fire

00:25:13 Speaker_02
Fuck, man. And that's where people learn how to tell stories. That's why we're so attracted to it. And they were doing fucking drugs back then, too, I'm sure.

00:25:21 Speaker_04
They were smoking pot and doing all kind of... They were doing all kinds of drugs. Somebody had already figured out that cow shit mushrooms could make you feel great.

00:25:27 Speaker_02
Yeah, 100%. They tried everything. They were starving. They tried a little bit of eating everything, and they figured out what you can eat and what kills you.

00:25:35 Speaker_02
Imagine going through mushrooms and trying to figure out which ones kill you and which ones get you to see God. Yeah. They had to figure that out trial and error.

00:25:42 Speaker_04
How many times they had to go through it and go back and go, listen, y'all, I've done this a few times and I'm pretty confident that there is this thing that goes in a pile of shit that makes me feel fucking like God. You know what I'm saying?

00:25:53 Speaker_04
It's crazy, dude. Somebody had to be that guy.

00:25:54 Speaker_02
Did you ever hear about John Marco Allegro in the book The Sacred Mushroom and the Scrolls? It's a sacred mushroom and what it was no it's a sacred mushroom in the christian myth and What was there's two different?

00:26:08 Speaker_02
Sacred mushroom in the dead sea scrolls. I think is one of them. What is uh, what are the titles of his book?

00:26:14 Speaker_02
Sacred mushroom in the cross and then there is another one There's another one that he released after the catholic church allegedly bought out all the copies of the first one to get rid of it Wow and the something in the christian myth

00:26:27 Speaker_02
The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian myth. I read the Dead Sea Scrolls. So this guy thinks that all of religion is stories about mushrooms. He thinks that the entire Christian religion was about psychedelic mushrooms and fertility rituals.

00:26:40 Speaker_02
He thinks that what they were doing was they would have these stories, especially when they're conquered by the Romans, they'd have these stories so they would hide the truth in stories. And in, you know, allegories and all these different tales.

00:26:53 Speaker_02
But he thinks that the entire Christian religion was based on the consumption of psychedelic mushrooms.

00:26:59 Speaker_04
I can tell you this on brand. I mean, I'm a man of faith, but on brand with that is Jesus told stories and he taught in stories. Jesus never gave a direct direction.

00:27:10 Speaker_04
He always was just like, well, and then he'd tell a story and you would have to figure out, you know what I mean? It was like, okay, the story would show the, it was always in story form too.

00:27:19 Speaker_02
Maybe they knew that was the best way to ensure that people would tell it the same way every time.

00:27:26 Speaker_02
You know, because if you have a story and the story, Noah has an ark and he brings the animals in the ark and God tells him he's going to do this and he's going to do that and he does it.

00:27:33 Speaker_02
And then, you know, if you have a story, then that information keeps getting told essentially the same way over and over and over again. Like we can read the epic of Gilgamesh today. That's a 6,000 year old story. Something like that. 5,000.

00:27:50 Speaker_02
We can read that today. That's nuts. That's right. That's because it's a story but if it was just people talking about what what you should do or what happened and you know, like when it's history, man We can't trust history from the 60s.

00:28:05 Speaker_02
Yeah history from the 60s. We're finding out new shit every day about the Kennedy assassination. Yeah, I That was fucking 63, man.

00:28:14 Speaker_00
That's 51 fucking years ago.

00:28:15 Speaker_02
That's insane. And we're still trying to figure out what the fuck happened. And this is like with modern, like they had television, they had printing press, they had all these different things.

00:28:25 Speaker_02
They had accountability, they had elected officials, they had democracy. Still can't figure out what the fuck happened. And that's 63. So imagine trying to figure out what the fuck happened 5,000 years ago.

00:28:38 Speaker_02
You know it's like who knows who's telling the truth who knows that you've got it like sort through the rubble and figure out what the fucking the facts show But if you have a story even if it's like there's something hidden in that story right and he thinks that that's what the The Apple was in the Garden of Eden.

00:28:55 Speaker_02
That's deep.

00:28:56 Speaker_04
That's yeah all that all that was in story you think about stories too is they said I've never been in the pyramids, but they said that All that stuff on the inside of it is just a story, right? It's all telling a story to a degree.

00:29:06 Speaker_04
The hieroglyphics, some of them, sure. Yeah, the hieroglyphics are like telling stories, or when they have the guys chasing these things with the spears, they're like trying to show a story. It's all trying to tell a story, man.

00:29:15 Speaker_02
And a lot of mushrooms, too. Yeah. There's a lot of images then with mushrooms. A lot.

00:29:18 Speaker_04
I might do mushrooms today.

00:29:20 Speaker_00
It's my album release today.

00:29:20 Speaker_04
Today? I'm thinking about it.

00:29:22 Speaker_02
I don't know if I want to do my god they should be legal I know right they should be legal and regulated and people should figure out what the fuck they do yeah should do a lot of research figure out what this says this might be the thing that gets us out of there just some micro dosing nation and connects together I know every time I've went deep it was life-changing for me like I'll do a lot of mushrooms every now and then just like you know whoo let's get but anytime I was like let's go

00:29:48 Speaker_04
It was a life-changing experience.

00:29:50 Speaker_02
It's funny that people want to reject that as not being important That's what's really important is to keep people from like losing their mind and losing their ambition And becoming like the hippies were in the 1960s following Timothy Leary.

00:30:02 Speaker_02
That's what everybody's worried about Everybody's worried about like this collapse of society because people they give up on capitalism they tune in and drop out You know that whole thing I don't think that's real.

00:30:17 Speaker_02
I don't think we should be worried about that. I think those people are always going to want to drop out. The people that are They want to fuck off or always going to want to fuck off. And if you give them an excuse, yeah, they're going to do it.

00:30:27 Speaker_02
But that's just a style of person. That's not going to affect most people. Most people would benefit, especially if they're not crazy. They don't have like mental health problems. You'll probably get something out of it.

00:30:39 Speaker_05
Yeah.

00:30:40 Speaker_04
I mean, it's helped me in some of my most depressed moments. If I'm really in a dark, dark spot and can't get out of it, my wife will encourage me to go trip.

00:30:47 Speaker_04
She'll be like, why don't you go, we got this, it's called the Buffalo River back in Tennessee. It's outside of a little town called Hornwall, Tennessee. Little country river, man. I mean, little country creek river.

00:30:57 Speaker_04
I mean, it's a river, but it's kind of shallow. You can see the bottom of it. It's called Floating the Buffalo. We'll go out there and just float the buffalo.

00:31:05 Speaker_04
And every now and about twice a year, me and the buddies will go out there and we'll just take six or seven and just float the buffalo. So if I haven't got to do it in a year because of the schedule, my wife will feel that on me and be like,

00:31:16 Speaker_04
No, you might need to go to the Buffalo. You know what I'm saying? She'll say it really cool. She'll be like, when's the last time you floated the Buffalo? And I'll be like, man, it's been a year, hasn't it?

00:31:24 Speaker_04
She'll be like, I think you and Scary Larry's one of my best friends. We met each other in juvenile hall. He's a wild character. She goes, you and Scary should go float the Buffalo. She'll just encourage me.

00:31:35 Speaker_04
She knows I'm going to come back a way better husband, way better father.

00:31:39 Speaker_02
You know what the wildest theory I've ever heard about psilocybin is? Is that it came from outer space. That's an organism from another planet. And the reason for this is that they know that spores can survive in the vacuum of space.

00:31:56 Speaker_02
And there's a thing called panspermia. Panspermia is the idea that an asteroid slams into a planet.

00:32:03 Speaker_02
And it takes amino acids and biological organisms that can survive in space and a bunch of different elements from that planet and then introduces those new elements to another planet by way of an asteroid.

00:32:16 Speaker_02
And that's a real thing that we know for sure happens, right? And they know that that's how we get iridium. There's a lot of iridium on Earth, like in places where there's been an impact, because it's really rare on Earth but really common in space.

00:32:29 Speaker_02
So we know that some shit gets to us.

00:32:31 Speaker_02
And apparently, I'm too stupid to understand this, but the way botanists describe it, and see if you can find any information on this, there's something very unusual about the compound psilocybin and psilocybin mushrooms, psilocybin cubensis mushrooms.

00:32:45 Speaker_02
They're very weird, and they're not really connected to a lot of the other fungus that's here in some strange way. The way they work is also very tied into human neurochemistry.

00:32:57 Speaker_02
It's really close to dimethyltryptamine, which is a part of human neurochemistry. And so the craziest theory is that it's come from space. Living spores have been found and collected in every level of Earth's atmosphere.

00:33:08 Speaker_02
Mushroom spores are electron dense and can survive in the vacuum of space. Additionally, their outer layer is actually metallic and of a purple hue, which naturally allows the spore to deflect ultraviolet light.

00:33:21 Speaker_02
And as if all this wasn't unique enough, the outer shell of the spore is the hardest organic compound to exist in nature. So this is one of the weirder theories. So this was this Terrence McKenna's theory are mushrooms from outer space is the.

00:33:36 Speaker_03
I don't know if it's officially his theory but.

00:33:40 Speaker_02
The late ethnobotanist Terence McKenna suggests that mushrooms are responsible for human intelligence. Yeah, he had a theory. It's called the stoned ape theory. Yeah, I heard about that.

00:33:49 Speaker_02
His theory hypothesized that mushroom spores possess all the necessary requirements to travel on space currents.

00:33:55 Speaker_02
Furthermore, they could have settled in the brain matter of primitive hominoids and following the lines of modern day hallucinogenic mushrooms directly contributed to our modern day intelligence and self-awareness. Yeah, it's fucking wild.

00:34:11 Speaker_02
Yeah, his theories. That's why I mean, if you can see it there, click on that back again, you can see where it was talking about his theory. So his his theory is very, very bizarre.

00:34:24 Speaker_04
So we went on to theorize that mushrooms are the reason there's human life on Earth.

00:34:27 Speaker_02
Yeah, so while it may seem like material from space, from a science fiction novel rather, there is no avoiding the fact that mushrooms possess many traits that are unique to their kingdom alone.

00:34:35 Speaker_02
Fungi build cell walls of, I don't know how to say that word, chitin? Chitin? Chitin? The same material that makes up the hard outer shell of insects and other arthropods. I'm so country.

00:34:46 Speaker_02
I said shittin chitin could be chitin chitin like chitlins These cell walls contain similar chemicals found in butterfly and beetle wings as well as the plumage of some colorful birds such as peacocks living spores Okay, so we've read that but what is it there was something about his theory where he's explaining his theory of how it would have worked.

00:35:06 Speaker_02
Oh That's it. Well, his is essentially his theory was that they experimented with mushrooms and it made him better hunters and made him more creative and it made him figure out language.

00:35:18 Speaker_02
And it's he thinks it's responsible for this like this weird mystery of the human brain size. It doubled over a period of two million years and there's no real solid explanation. It's a very strange thing.

00:35:30 Speaker_02
And apparently the biggest mystery in all the fossil record when it comes to animals and evolution. Yeah, how did the human brain double over two million years? Oh, dude, it had to have been psilocybin. Probably had a part of it, or aliens.

00:35:44 Speaker_00
Right. Maybe aliens. Yeah.

00:35:46 Speaker_02
Maybe both. Maybe they are aliens. Maybe they are aliens. Maybe we're just looking the wrong way. Maybe we're fucking aliens, right? I think we probably are. I think we probably are. It doesn't seem like we belong here.

00:35:59 Speaker_04
You know what I tell somebody all the time? My new theory is, because my life turned out in such a way I never dreamed, that this is a simulation. And that there is an overweight, nerdy alien that plays me.

00:36:09 Speaker_04
And that during my... I think about this all the time when I'm high. And that my sleeping hours are, like, when he's doing his normal stuff, and my waking hours are his two hours a day.

00:36:19 Speaker_04
And I just imagine this, like, kid that's looking back like, Mom, you won't believe what I've done with that fat dude the last nine months. It's fuckin' crazy!

00:36:28 Speaker_01
He's one of the most famous artists in the world! And she's like, you gotta get off! He's like, but he's going to the Grammys!

00:36:34 Speaker_02
Yeah, it's like a super hype version of Red Dead Redemption.

00:36:40 Speaker_04
My dudes telling people like y'all remember that dude we thought wasn't gonna do it.

00:36:43 Speaker_02
He did it If it's a simulation, it's a really good one. We're in a good timeline brother. Oh, it couldn't we're in a we're in a really good episode We got a good group of writers.

00:36:53 Speaker_02
It couldn't get any Show and you got writers like this fuck these writers are amazing. This fucking show is always entertaining every day. There's drama. Yeah, I Especially right now. We're in the middle of the drama. Oh my goodness.

00:37:08 Speaker_02
There's so much There's so much you can get overwhelmed just looking at the fucking news every day It's a great time for me to be in the middle of a tour.

00:37:16 Speaker_04
Yeah, I've missed it all I'm doing five shows a week and I'm so in the vortex of touring. Yeah good We do that old-school rock and roll shit. So we really do play five shows a week for 12 13 weeks, you know, that's amazing It's awesome, dude.

00:37:29 Speaker_04
But again, that's why you're so comfortable up there. You're so just yeah, I It reeks of a man that's done a thousand shows.

00:37:35 Speaker_00
You know what I mean?

00:37:35 Speaker_04
It's like when you see a comedian up there really comfortable. It's like when I watched the tell at the Comedy Cellar, when he leaned back on the wall, I was like, oh, he's fitting to kill. But he just walked straight up and leaned back.

00:37:47 Speaker_04
And then he calls Ian up, and Ian's just throwing, you know, just shit at him. And he's just lighting Ian on fire. It was just so good, man.

00:37:53 Speaker_02
Yeah, that's a good hammer and nail, the two of those guys together, too. He did that at the club here, too.

00:37:58 Speaker_04
I feel like it reminds me of the early phases of a Bumping Mike's thing, like a new version of that.

00:38:06 Speaker_02
Right.

00:38:06 Speaker_04
Because when him and Jeff Ross are together, it's like when David Lucas and Tony are firing on each other. I feel the exact same way when Jeff Ross and Dave Attell are near each other.

00:38:15 Speaker_04
I get that same excited feeling of like, ooh, some shit's finna pop off.

00:38:18 Speaker_02
You know what I'm saying? Yeah, when David and Tony go after each other, there's hours on the internet of just David and Tony shitting on each other. There's 100,000 ways David can call Tony gay. Yeah, and he's called David 100,000 ways to be fat.

00:38:35 Speaker_02
It's also the way they laugh at each other doing it. If this is a simulation, man, we picked a really good one. Yeah, it's getting cooler and cooler. Elon believes it's a simulation. He's a lot smarter than me. Yeah.

00:38:46 Speaker_02
He thinks the odds that it's not a simulation are in the billions. Really? Yeah, in the billions, he said. Wow.

00:38:54 Speaker_04
I'm telling you, dude, there's a little dude that nobody believes and he's going to school every day like, my Minecraft dude is killing it. Do you get that imposter syndrome thing ever? Oh man, so much.

00:39:06 Speaker_04
I'm somewhere between feeling extremely uncomfortable where I'm at in my career right now, or overly comfortable where I'm at in my career. So I'm either having to catch myself and go, whoa, big fella. Right. Come on now, dog.

00:39:19 Speaker_04
You were just in jail ten years ago. People that knew you six years ago hate you still. You know what I'm saying? And then I have situations where I'm like, I don't belong here. I'm having that moment right now.

00:39:32 Speaker_04
This is my first album, Joe, that is going to be in a fight for the number one album in the world. Never dreamed. Now this is like, what the fuck am I doing here? You know what I mean? That's a different world.

00:39:48 Speaker_02
Do you think that's maybe something that you shouldn't even think about? Because your music's amazing, you're amazing. Maybe all that, just let it just exist.

00:39:58 Speaker_02
No, that's what I've been, and that's how I- Because it's so big now, it's almost like if you pay attention to it, you're going to go blind.

00:40:04 Speaker_02
Yeah, you're kind of staring at the Sun like it used to be you had a little campfire and you're warming your hands because it's cold outside But now you're kind of staring at the Sun and maybe just be jelly roll.

00:40:17 Speaker_04
That's what I yeah But what's get being jelly roll got me to the point that they're now saying I might have a number one album You probably know what I'm saying?

00:40:24 Speaker_04
And then you're a place where you're like, holy fuck and that's where the imposter syndrome comes in because you're like yo, I wasn't even That's where friends are important.

00:40:32 Speaker_01
Yeah.

00:40:33 Speaker_04
Yeah. I didn't have a Billboard Hot 100 song. Right. Until 24, 36 months ago.

00:40:40 Speaker_02
You know what I mean? You exploded. Yeah. But you handle it beautifully. You really do. Because you feel like genuine gratitude. Genuine gratitude comes off of you. Man, thank you.

00:40:51 Speaker_04
It's real. I am true. You feel it. I mean, you know me. I can't believe this is happening.

00:40:56 Speaker_02
I know you can't believe it, but it is.

00:40:58 Speaker_04
It's the fucking wildest thing ever, dude.

00:41:00 Speaker_00
Every corner.

00:41:00 Speaker_04
It is, and we deserve it. I was just with our boy Brigham doing some blood work and getting some, getting some, some, some shit to make my feel better, broke my broke my heel. And we were talking about that of like,

00:41:15 Speaker_04
living in the gratitude of it and realizing, even you saying that we're such a special simulation.

00:41:24 Speaker_04
The time of this, I know I keep going back to the same point, but it's where my heart is right now, is watching me and a bunch of guys that were all at this kind of same thing at the same time three or four years ago, that you could feel the teapot bubbling.

00:41:38 Speaker_04
And all of us being like a little left of center, you know what I mean?

00:41:42 Speaker_04
Like I wasn't supposed to be in country music the way that they've embraced me outside looking in you to never guess right outside looking in you could have never said that kill Tony would be the number one live podcast on the internet, you know what I mean, or that Schultz's podcast would be or that

00:41:58 Speaker_04
me and Zach Bryan would have this similar, of course, he wound up being way bigger than me, but just like similar kind of, we're writing songs our whole life that nobody really heard. And then all of a sudden they got just,

00:42:13 Speaker_04
It's probably the craziest synergies that could have ever happened in any scenario for me in any way. And it's inspired me to get healthy. It's like gave me purpose and I've never felt more loved. I've never felt more warmed or welcomed.

00:42:29 Speaker_04
I spent so much time feeling the opposite of love, you know. Even walking in here and playing with Carl. There was a time in my life where I would have walked in here and that dog would have let y'all know I was not a good person.

00:42:40 Speaker_04
You know what I'm saying? You would have just looked and been like, why is Carl acting weird with this big guy? You know what I mean? Yeah, just what's up with kids were the same way, dude. Kids would look at me and squall. You know what I mean?

00:42:51 Speaker_04
And it's really inspired me to start focusing on my health, too. Dude, I'm down 100 pounds now. Officially down 100 fucking pounds. That's amazing. Congratulations. That's really huge. That's a massive accomplishment. Thank you, brother. It's been all food.

00:43:05 Speaker_04
I'm working out, I'm walking, but what I've learned is as I'm losing the weight, it's inspiring me to just keep going. By nature, I wanna go walk and do more stuff, because I fucking, I'm lighter. I feel better.

00:43:14 Speaker_04
So when the homie's like, you wanna go play basketball? We're playing basketball three days a week now. You wanna hear the coolest act of love, Joe? I'll try not to get emotional talking about this, but my whole band has watched me fight.

00:43:32 Speaker_04
cocaine addiction, they watched me get off coke, they watched me get off lean. They watched me figure my life out slowly. And they knew that the last mountain for me was food.

00:43:45 Speaker_04
So we started putting a real structure around, I hired a real nutritionist, he's out here with me now, I mean like I'm only eating his food, I'm just like super with it, we're getting anything that could, you know, out of the green room.

00:43:55 Speaker_04
So I'm working out every day, walking around the arenas. And one day they have a basketball court, cause we're fucking playing in a, this is insane by the way, that I'm playing fucking NBA arenas.

00:44:03 Speaker_04
And like, I'm playing, we're in the fucking Orlando, I'm on an Orlando Magic court. Like what the fuck, I feel like a fucking fat Shaq. But, so the first day it's just like me and like three or four dudes. The crew heard, dude, the next day, 30.

00:44:17 Speaker_04
The whole crew showed up for me. And they don't, you know, these dudes are just, they're just there cause they know it's helping me kinda. So now three days a week we're in basketball courts and having full blown fucking tournaments.

00:44:28 Speaker_04
And it's been so good for me cause it's like, reconnecting to my childhood in this really weird way of like, I grew up in a community where there were basketball courts and we would all go play. You know what I mean? It's like, it's been really like,

00:44:40 Speaker_04
It's been the best experience ever, and I'm getting to do it in like, back to that weird shit.

00:44:44 Speaker_04
Not only are you experiencing this with your friends and people you love, and then you're doing it at the San Antonio Spurs court, and the San Antonio Spurs coach is out there giving you pointers and fucking being the referee.

00:44:53 Speaker_02
That's amazing.

00:44:54 Speaker_04
And you're the Sacramento Kings coach is fucking shooting with you, you know what I mean?

00:44:57 Speaker_02
Yeah, Elon's right.

00:44:59 Speaker_04
This ain't real life. It can't be. It's unreal, dude, leaving Nationwide Arena. But I was also telling Brigham, talking about the humility, too, is that I'm still nervous walking in here. We're friends.

00:45:13 Speaker_04
And you know, what you tell us all the time, you know what he's going to tell you, we're just two friends talking.

00:45:17 Speaker_01
I was like, I know what 20 million motherfuckers listening, dog. I'm not falling for that. We're just two buddies talking shit.

00:45:22 Speaker_04
Don't look at the sun. That's it. You're right. You know how much I needed to hear that? Yeah.

00:45:28 Speaker_04
Especially like, because I don't get in my head about stuff, but just this week was the first time the label called and said, hey, we don't want to, we want to put this on your radar because it might make you want to promote the record.

00:45:38 Speaker_04
You might have a number one album. And I was like, whoa, dude, this shit wasn't even in my mind. When I had a number five album last year, you couldn't have told me I didn't have a number one album. You know what I'm saying? I was like, fuck you.

00:45:50 Speaker_02
Crazy. You know what I'm saying? What's in that? Water. This is coffee. That's water. Yeah, it's a wild experience, man. And if it's not real, boy, we picked a really good simulation. It's been great, though, man.

00:46:02 Speaker_02
It's great to hear that you're on this positive track, because it's all now just about momentum. It's just about staying on the course. That's what's hard for people, is getting the good momentum.

00:46:11 Speaker_04
Yeah, I'm building the momentum. I had a moment the other day, I was telling Schultz this. It was a really small win, but for a lifelong food addict, Joe, I was up to 550-something pounds. I was having to weigh myself at meat places.

00:46:27 Speaker_04
And I was telling him that I used to walk in, and like a drug addict, I would scan the room and make a count of everything I could eat. You know what I mean?

00:46:35 Speaker_04
Like, if you had the little baby Snickers and a little thing, or da-da-das, and like, the other day I was in my green room, and somebody was in the green room, and they picked up a piece of candy and said, you want one of these?

00:46:46 Speaker_04
Because we just got hit in a dab or something. And I didn't even know the candy was in there, Josh. Because normally they don't put shit like that in my room. And that was the first time I was like, oh I'm on to something.

00:46:56 Speaker_04
Like I'm fucking winning right now. Like I didn't even notice. I could have been eating them for five hours. I didn't know. I would have ate them all. I didn't even scan for candy. It's not even a thought now when I walk into places.

00:47:09 Speaker_04
Is there a candy dish here? You know what I mean? That used to be literally one of the first things I would look for. You know, is there a candy dish here?

00:47:15 Speaker_04
I've had to make so many different small habit changes, but it's been the fucking, I was just telling Bubba out there, and I was telling Bruce on the way in here, I feel this good just losing 100 pounds, Joe, and I'm still, I've never told my weight, but I'm gonna tell it here, because I want some accountability from people.

00:47:32 Speaker_04
I'm 420 something now, 420, and Imagine I'm talking I'm walking around different talking different shoulders are setting different. I'm fucking my wife different I'm just kind of you know, I'm moving different, right?

00:47:46 Speaker_04
You probably have crazy powerful legs, dude. It's crazy But you have massive I've been going to the gym now I'd listen dude what as much as you can fit on that thing. I'm throwing of course throwing You've been carrying around 500 pounds.

00:47:58 Speaker_02
Yeah 500 plus. Oh Your legs must be sturdy as fuck. And if you could lose weight now, you could have, like, super legs. Should they keep going?

00:48:08 Speaker_04
Joe, man, my goal is when I come back and do this next year, it's going to be fucking insane. Like, I've never been more dialed in. I've never cared more about it. I've never been happier. What are you eating? Like, what has he got you eating?

00:48:21 Speaker_04
Oh, dude, man, he's here. He's actually been really killing it for me. So, from eating bad for so many years, my gut has just been fucked. So we've just been focusing on slowing down the gut. I'm only eating twice a day.

00:48:35 Speaker_04
I'm eating a fruit snack in between. Do you ever do any fasting? Yeah. I'm trying to fast one day a week now just to work on like the autophagy. So some of these skin cells. So I won't be as full. I don't want to be saggy. You know what I mean?

00:48:46 Speaker_02
You know that story about that one dude that went on nothing but a vitamin IV drip for a year and lost 200-something pounds. I think he lost 300 pounds. Didn't he lose like 300 pounds? Something crazy like that. This dude had no food.

00:49:01 Speaker_02
And his fat shrunk, but his skin shrunk too.

00:49:04 Speaker_04
Yeah, that's what happens. Somebody told me, and I could have the name wrong here, y'all, but it's called autophagy. Have you heard of this?

00:49:10 Speaker_02
I think autophagy is where the skin cells, I think your body gets rid of all bad cells. This is like something that comes with fasting. Bad cells is definitely a scientific version of it.

00:49:21 Speaker_04
But I think I think the way they explained it to me is that has something to do with the Alexa, Alexis, Alexis, how do you say elasticity, elasticity of the skin? And that is what helps.

00:49:31 Speaker_04
So that's why we're one day a week, at least every other week, I'm just taking a full 24 hours.

00:49:36 Speaker_02
But I'm only eating probably eight or nine hours a day now anyway, so I'm kind of intermittent That's the real bummer when people lose a lot of weight is he got all this extra skin like Ethan Suplee He had to have all that shit cut and stitched up.

00:49:48 Speaker_04
I've listened to that podcast with him twice in the last 90 days real full three-hour podcast is first here. Just just to kind of I love the way he thinks yeah, it's just you know I love for me. I'm I'm always looking for like inspiration as

00:50:05 Speaker_04
As a songwriter, we're always writing a song. You know, as a comedian, you're always looking for a joke. You know what I mean? So that kind of, I'm always looking for that. So when I found that pot, I was like, oh, this dude.

00:50:16 Speaker_04
And he kind of did what I would, how he looks now is a dream scenario for me. He didn't get like crazy big, but he doesn't look like saggy sick. Because sometimes when you go from,

00:50:27 Speaker_04
Being as big as we've gotten, you get down to 300 pounds and people start looking at you like, are you okay? And you're like, I'm fucking better than I've ever been, you know what I mean? They're worried.

00:50:36 Speaker_04
Yeah, they're worried, you know, but they just couldn't imagine, you know what I mean? Even when I just told, I always forget his name, but your guy out there, the Archer guy, worked at the archery store, great guy, but I was just telling him that I,

00:50:50 Speaker_04
Yeah, same thing, same concept.

00:50:53 Speaker_02
Yeah, if you just keep going, you know, it'll become normal for you to not eat candy, normal for you to eat healthy food, it'll be what you crave.

00:51:02 Speaker_04
Lots of protein, lots of bone broth kind of potatoes. Anything that we're doing, whether it's rice or bone broth, we're not doing a lot of it.

00:51:10 Speaker_04
But when we do it, we're soaking it in bone broth, keeping it really clean protein style, kind of going low on fats to kind of let my liver kind of reset from just years of me eating. Foods fatty foods and shitty greases, you know what I mean?

00:51:24 Speaker_04
So just been kind of taking it slow, man I'm enjoying it though. The cool thing is he did Bilal Muhammad's weight cut. He's worked with DC. I found him from that world So he really gets it and that's a complicated science.

00:51:37 Speaker_02
Yeah. Yeah, you get those guys like Bilal's way over 170 I don't know what he weighs, but I gotta guess he's close to 200 pounds. Yeah, and he cuts down to 170 perfectly. Yeah

00:51:46 Speaker_04
Yeah, Ian does it every time. Said it's pretty effortless, man. Ian says that out of everybody that Bilal is just insanely disciplined. You know what I mean? Like when he goes into camp, he's like a different dude.

00:51:58 Speaker_02
Well, that dude does, he's done camp in Ramadan. And you know, you can't eat or drink anything during the daylight hours of Ramadan.

00:52:07 Speaker_02
So he would have to get up in the morning while it was dark out, have a morning breakfast, go to training, not eat anything. And do it to it. And no water. You're training. And then at the end of the day, then you get to eat. No, he's he's a machine.

00:52:21 Speaker_04
That dude is completely.

00:52:23 Speaker_02
That Leon Edwards fight was crazy. I get to see him tomorrow. He's a great guy, man. He's a great guy. He really is. And, you know, the fact that he's that devout a Muslim, that he, you know, prays five times a day, like he doesn't fuck around.

00:52:34 Speaker_02
Like he's really by the book. He doesn't even swear.

00:52:36 Speaker_04
He says fudge.

00:52:37 Speaker_02
Yeah.

00:52:38 Speaker_04
What's the fudge? Jelly, jelly, jelly. What the fudge are you doing? Yeah.

00:52:40 Speaker_00
When are you coming to fudge in Chicago?

00:52:44 Speaker_02
It's ridiculous.

00:52:45 Speaker_04
He's like this assassin and he, you know, I'm gonna get to see the two champs tomorrow or I'll get to see him and I'll get to see the Venezuelan vixen. They're both coming. So him and Juliana are coming out to the show.

00:52:56 Speaker_00
Chicago? Yeah, I'm super excited, man.

00:52:59 Speaker_04
Album release night, Chicago, United Center, first time at the United Center.

00:53:03 Speaker_00
Nice. Big deal for me. Chicago is always a great fucking town. What's the comedy club down there?

00:53:08 Speaker_02
Well, they have a few. They have, what do they have? Zanies in Chicago. They have another one in Rosemont.

00:53:14 Speaker_04
The Dorfman Brothers don't have nothing to do with that one, though, do they?

00:53:17 Speaker_02
I don't know. I don't know. That doesn't make sense if they don't.

00:53:23 Speaker_04
Did you hear what they did to the Nashville Zanies?

00:53:25 Speaker_04
So, you know, Brian and them own that building, and through the back bar, the Zanies doors here, the front door, not the door we go through, the front door, whatever that place was right here, he's turned that into a place called the lab now.

00:53:40 Speaker_04
And it's like a 50-person small, it would be like the little boy. You know what I'm saying? It would be like the little boy. So he calls it The Lab at Zany's now. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, it's super, it's really, really cool.

00:53:52 Speaker_02
They used to have a really good room at the Improv in Hollywood they called The Lab, and that's where Ari started This Is Not Happening, which became that Comedy Central show. You know, the storyteller show? That all started in that lab.

00:54:04 Speaker_02
That was Ari's little baby that he created. The old way the improv used to be set up was amazing. You have the big room, and then you have this tucked away small room in the back with a very small bar.

00:54:17 Speaker_02
But then they expanded it and made the bar bigger and made the stage by the door. They fucked the whole thing up. The whole thing's fucked now. It used to be the stage was in the back. There wasn't a lot of noise in the room.

00:54:30 Speaker_02
And then they turned it into a bar and fucked it up. But at that time, that was what it was called. It was called The Lab. Yeah. No, this place, they call it The Lab.

00:54:37 Speaker_04
It's beautiful. Speaking of that show, God, I'd love to see that show back. That show was so good.

00:54:44 Speaker_02
Yeah, you know what happened with that? You know how it all went down? Ari got an offer from Netflix to do a special. You know, he actually filmed his special. And Comedy Central wanted it because he was on Comedy Central. But Netflix was better for him.

00:55:01 Speaker_02
And they were pissed that he was going to do the special on Netflix. So they fired him.

00:55:06 Speaker_02
And he's like stuck to his guns and then Roy Wood took over and he did it for a while And that was the end of it, but that's why it was because Ari wouldn't listen to that They were trying to force him into doing his special on Comedy Central.

00:55:18 Speaker_02
Wow Yeah, and he's like no like I don't have a contract that I have to do it on Comedy Central This is crazy. They try to use the show. They did use the show. They fired fucking they fired him Oh

00:55:32 Speaker_02
And not to say Roy Woods didn't do great with the show, but... Roy Woods was great.

00:55:36 Speaker_02
I mean, Ari was happy that Roy Woods took over, because first of all, Roy's hilarious, great comic, but also that meant all the people that were working on the show got to work.

00:55:45 Speaker_02
Ari was going to take out a loan, and he was going to pay all the people, all the camera people, all the crew, he was going to pay everybody their salary.

00:55:54 Speaker_04
Just because he felt bad.

00:55:55 Speaker_02
He felt bad. And it was like, this is not what I want. This is not my fault. But they're forcing me into it. And by principle, I can't just give in and say, OK, I'm going to do this at Comedy Central.

00:56:06 Speaker_04
But just for just us having fun today purposes, imagine if that show came back right now. It could. It could come back. In the explosion that's happening right now.

00:56:16 Speaker_02
Well, Ari should do the show on Netflix. It's his show. He called it, and now he calls it, Ari Shafir's Renamed Storyteller Show. I think that's what he calls it. He still does it. It's on Netflix now? No, no, no. I said he should do it on Netflix.

00:56:32 Speaker_02
But he'll still do live ones every now and then. He does live storyteller shows.

00:56:36 Speaker_04
No, he should do it, man. I think about guys like Brian. I would cry laughing to hear whatever his story was. I think about the Joey Diaz, the Mother Mary story. You know, like, there are stories on there that... Yeah, everybody's got good stories, too.

00:56:50 Speaker_02
People have stories of some fucking nutty thing that happened on the road or what have you.

00:56:55 Speaker_04
No, it's crazy. I'd love to start seeing people in my genre try stuff like that more. If they ever did it, just try to, like, I'd love to hear, you know, Jason Aldean tell a story. You know what I mean?

00:57:05 Speaker_04
If he really, if he got with somebody backstage, like one of the homies, you know what I'm saying? Like if Rosebud was back there with him and was like, all right, tell me your best story and I'll punch it up.

00:57:15 Speaker_02
You know what I mean?

00:57:16 Speaker_04
I think Jason Daldin would at least kill a six minute story. You know what I'm saying? Everybody's got at least one good story.

00:57:22 Speaker_02
One that you could concoct. Yeah, one that you could figure out. Yeah, I think that's probably, really is probably the oldest form of human entertainment.

00:57:30 Speaker_04
It's funny how, I love when anything you talk about has a theme, and this one has been storytelling. And that's, it's all I ever wanted to do.

00:57:41 Speaker_04
Before I was writing songs, because I knew that music could be written that way, I would just write these kind of stories for my mother. You know what I mean?

00:57:50 Speaker_04
I would just try to, you know the story, we've talked about it a lot, but it was a way to connect with her, even before music. And then when I found out music was her shit, I was like, oh, this is the double connection. Like, oh, this is...

00:58:00 Speaker_04
I'm doubling down on this and I still to this day think I'm writing for my mama.

00:58:04 Speaker_04
Like to this day I'm still like when I'm really finishing a song I'm thinking to myself I wonder what my mama would think about this you know in this really weird way like first thought like I wonder mama like this you know does this represent and then the second thought is why does this song exist that's always my second following thought is first of all I was like will my mama dig it

00:58:26 Speaker_04
And then the second is, you know what I mean? And the second is like, why does this exist though? You know what I mean? What could it do? What purpose could it actually serve?

00:58:35 Speaker_04
And if it's a, it could be anything as much as it's just, you know, it just makes me happy or it could make people happy or it could make people move is enough of a reason.

00:58:43 Speaker_02
Out of these 100 plus songs that you've written recently, how many of them you think you'll ever record?

00:58:49 Speaker_04
I recorded probably 30 something of them. Wow. I'm going to put out probably 28. And I think four or five will probably end up circulating next year through other artists. That'll just cut some of the songs.

00:59:02 Speaker_04
Because sometimes I'll write a song, Joe, but I'm just not the vessel. And I know it when I'm writing it. You know what I mean?

00:59:10 Speaker_02
Do you hear it in a different voice?

00:59:12 Speaker_04
Sometimes. Sometimes. But sometimes you just know that it's like, I couldn't sing this with a certain amount of conviction. You know, like for me personally. You know, it's not that I couldn't, you know, It's I don't know.

00:59:25 Speaker_04
I don't know if this is a good comparison, but it'd be like I could write a song about hating my wife But I could never sing it because I don't really hate my wife, right?

00:59:34 Speaker_04
I could never sing it with conviction now as an as a songwriter Do I have the skill set to write a song about hating my wife for sure?

00:59:42 Speaker_04
But would I ever sing one and represent myself that way and it's just not just I couldn't sing it with conviction but there might be a guy in Nashville who just got his heart broke and Well, you know Coulter Walls, Kate McKinnon.

00:59:53 Speaker_02
That's the mother of all I hate my wife songs. Oh yeah. Insane. That's a crazy song. When the fact that dude was 21 when he sang that, you're like, what? It sounds like he's 58. I believe in reincarnation. I'm telling you, man. There's no other way.

01:00:09 Speaker_02
That doesn't make sense.

01:00:10 Speaker_04
And if his story couldn't get any cooler, it's that he just doesn't give a fuck.

01:00:14 Speaker_00
Doesn't give a fuck. Won't do podcasts.

01:00:15 Speaker_04
For sure. I tried so hard. He told Post Malone. Post Malone hit him up and Post was like, hey man, I'd love to work. And pretty much he was like, yeah, if you ever want to come to the ranch, we can maybe write a song or something.

01:00:29 Speaker_04
Post was like, if you want to fly out of the middle of Canada, we can write a song. But if you think I'm getting off this ranch to write with you, fuck no. Yeah, he really works on a ranch. Yeah.

01:00:37 Speaker_04
That's how that's how cody johnson is too though cody johnson flies out on the he's a it's a joke with him all the time I'm like you're a cowboy that plays a country music singer on the weekends You like because you know, I mean he plays music for real, but it's he literally goes home and ranches monday through thursday You'll facetime this dude and he'll be out just in his ranch somewhere tagging cattle.

01:00:57 Speaker_04
That's amazing You know what I mean? And then Friday night, he'll fly and go sell out, you know, two nights at the Staples Center Friday and Saturday.

01:01:03 Speaker_02
I have not experienced any of that, but I swear to God, it resonates with you when you watch it on Yellowstone. Yeah, right?

01:01:11 Speaker_07
Like, I want to live like that! So bad!

01:01:14 Speaker_02
I want to hang out with the horses. Seems like a good time.

01:01:16 Speaker_04
Seems like everybody's all peaceful and shit. We'll stay up and watch the rodeo late at night because PBR plays on, you know, TV or whatever. Dude, I watch that stuff. I don't know much about it, but I just can't quit watching.

01:01:27 Speaker_04
I think it's the wildest shit ever.

01:01:28 Speaker_02
Yeah, I watch it for bursts, but then my knowledge of orthopedic surgeries that these people are going to be receiving and injuries and concussions, they're just like, I gotta stop watching this.

01:01:39 Speaker_04
I love watching stuff that doesn't seem real though, right? Have you seen the J.B. Mooney? Is that how you say his name? Is it Mooney? Mooney, right? I think it's Mooney.

01:01:47 Speaker_02
Is it Mooney or Mooney? You got me thinking now. Yeah, me too. But that dude, he owns the cow that retired him.

01:01:53 Speaker_04
It's crazy. How cool is that? Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, but we're talking about a dude that, you know, with no helmet, cigarette lit, in his mouth. Animal.

01:02:02 Speaker_02
Like, oh, just when you look at... Animal. Those dudes riding bulls with no helmet on is the craziest fucking American thing that anyone's ever done. That is so dumb and so amazing at the same time.

01:02:14 Speaker_04
What the fuck are you doing? It is so American, dude. Especially when you had the cigarette, you're just like this. It almost looked like it was out of a movie, like somebody overcooked it.

01:02:23 Speaker_02
And at the end, those guys are always broken. Everything's broken. We had a dude on Fear Factor that was a bull rider and one of his arms, his shoulder had like just giant scars all over the place. Said he had like five or six shoulder reconstructions.

01:02:37 Speaker_02
It pops out sometimes, he has to pop it back in. That is sick. It's crazy. All from riding a giant 2,000 pound animal that doesn't want you riding it.

01:02:47 Speaker_04
With horns. Yeah.

01:02:49 Speaker_02
And when it gets you off of it, it wants to hurt you afterwards.

01:02:52 Speaker_04
It wants to stomp you. Yeah, it's pissed off. Yeah, man. Fuck all that noise. I can't quit watching them, though. I don't know why. I'm just so attracted. I've always been attracted. I loved songs about rodeos, though, is what did it.

01:03:02 Speaker_04
We talked about this before, too. There was 90s music, had all these old school, really cool rodeo records.

01:03:08 Speaker_04
And I feel like somewhere, it's kind of like everything goes in themes and then country music went through like, you know, the hunting and fishing era.

01:03:16 Speaker_04
But in the 70s, it was more of the storytelling era, like the poncho and lefty style stuff, you know what I mean? But to me, the 90s cowboy music was like, still some of the best country music ever made.

01:03:27 Speaker_02
Bro, you know who's got the best rodeo song for my money? Zach Brown. Open the gate.

01:03:32 Speaker_04
It's one of the best rodeo songs ever written.

01:03:34 Speaker_02
Oh my god. Oh my god. Meanwhile, I'm listening to him going, get off that bull! Don't go ride that bull! Don't do it! Your dad's dead! Don't ride the same goddamn bull that killed your dad! Jesus Christ!

01:03:49 Speaker_04
You want to hear a cool rodeo story? Reba McIntyre got discovered at one. You want to talk about a real cowgirl?

01:03:55 Speaker_04
Reba McEntire was like Oklahoma or somewhere and she would sing the national anthem at all the local rodeos because they knew she was a local singer, but she was a real cowboy.

01:04:04 Speaker_04
So one night she was singing, and this is back in the day when it was old school, like a record exec discovered you.

01:04:09 Speaker_00
Wow.

01:04:10 Speaker_04
You know what I mean? And flew you to Nashville and signed you to a record deal. That's a true story, though. Reba was just like, did it because she loved it.

01:04:16 Speaker_04
Like if you were singing in church, just every weekend they'd have the rodeo in town and she'd go sing the National Anthem for them.

01:04:22 Speaker_02
Wow. How many people are like that out there? When you think about yourself becoming Artist of the Year at 39, how many people are like that out there? That are just super talented, they just never get that crack?

01:04:33 Speaker_02
It's man, there's a thing that's inside some people.

01:04:36 Speaker_02
There's a thing that's inside some people and It's different in everybody like you're different is different than Coulter walls difference different than Reba's different different Johnny Cash is different Everybody's got that thing, but there's so many people out there that we never get to see that thing I wonder how much of it is the ones that just jump ship early to the

01:04:55 Speaker_04
They quit.

01:04:55 Speaker_02
Yeah, a lot of people quit.

01:04:57 Speaker_04
It's hard I think about I think about you doing something for ten years to no avail, right? It's really really hard man.

01:05:03 Speaker_04
You've all this what I tell people I was a desperate delusional dreamer job and Everything I regret I did out of desperation, but I don't regret one thing I did as a delusional dreamer You know what? I mean?

01:05:14 Speaker_04
Cuz there was moments We were we were I did this I went to the juvenile yesterday and I

01:05:23 Speaker_04
Columbus, Ohio, I went to go play cards with the kids in their units before my show I try to do stuff like that all the time and we were all talking about You know time energy stuff into this and songs and I talked about writing 170 songs last year And I was like do y'all know that there was so many moments in my life where I in hindsight I'm glad nobody sat me down really that I had to have looked fucking crazy and

01:05:49 Speaker_04
You know, that kid asked me, he said, when did you feel like you made it? I was like, I think that's why God kept blessing me is that me and DJ Highlight, that's my DJ, he's from Columbus, Ohio, he was there with me.

01:05:58 Speaker_04
We did the one o'clock slot at Rock on the Range 12 years ago, right? The festival, you know Rock on the Range, Jamie. This is a big deal of where Jamie's from. We played the fifth stage of five stages.

01:06:10 Speaker_04
So we played the smallest stage there, 30 minutes after they opened the gates. Joe, we started drinking at 10 o'clock that morning because we were rock stars in our minds. We had made it. We were that delusional.

01:06:22 Speaker_04
We were backstage full-blown shooting shots and celebrating. There was 40 people there. There was thousands of people just walking right past our stage to the stage they were going to. We didn't care. We had made it. You know what I mean?

01:06:34 Speaker_04
Like, we'd made it. You're telling me we got $1,500 to do this? This is insane. We have arrived. And I'd go home, my old beat-up band and my whole neighborhood probably had to look at me like I was fucking nuts. You know what I'm saying?

01:06:46 Speaker_04
But nobody said nothing to me. I had to look like the crazy person kind of, right? At this point, I'm in my early 30s, mid-30s even, and they're like, All right, big guy, but you're at rock on the range. Yeah, you actually are performing there.

01:06:57 Speaker_00
That's how I think you're correct Yeah, I think you should be celebrating.

01:07:01 Speaker_04
Yeah, you're supposed to be yeah And when I told that kid that it was cool to see his face kind of light up He was like man, that's perspective. You know what? I mean? I was like dude I was

01:07:10 Speaker_04
I would celebrate whenever I would get a clap in here when I was in juvenile, when we would have Freestyle Fridays in juvenile. And if I spit one line that got an ooh, man, I went to my cell, did pushups, and started looking in the mirror different.

01:07:25 Speaker_04
You know what I'm saying? I was like, it's fucking fixing to happen. You know what I'm saying? That kind of delusional, just celebrate every moment I had, I made a moment.

01:07:35 Speaker_03
What is this? This is the day. Look at you up there.

01:07:38 Speaker_04
Yeah, this is us. This is a true story.

01:07:45 Speaker_02
Rock on a Range.

01:07:45 Speaker_04
This is Rock on a Range, dude. This is 2017, probably. Wow. Yeah, this was our second time. I think we made it to the second stage by then. Yeah, this is 16, yep, this is the second time.

01:07:58 Speaker_02
It's weird doing shows when it's bright out.

01:07:59 Speaker_04
Yeah, it's crazy. I'm just getting used to doing shows when it's dark. I know, shows when it's bright out are kind of crazy. Dude, it is unforgiving. Especially when you're trying to, you're working, you're trying to build something.

01:08:16 Speaker_04
You're looking out and there's a lot of people that are coming to give you a chance. But they don't know anything about you.

01:08:21 Speaker_02
Well, the thing is, if you could figure it out, right? People figure out everything. They figure out how to write books. They figure out how to play baseball. People figure it out. But not everybody figures it out. That's why it's so exciting when you do.

01:08:35 Speaker_02
That's why it's so exciting when you make it. Because you know it's not just that a bunch of lucky things had to happen to you, because they all do with all of us. There's a lot of good circumstances to happen your way just to keep you alive, right?

01:08:47 Speaker_02
You have to get lucky. But then you also have to have that thing. Like, what is that thing inside you that you gotta get out? And you can figure out a way to get the best version of it and display it for people, or you quit. A lot of people quit.

01:09:01 Speaker_04
Man, I tell you, there's a line in the song, Joe, that, it's an old song, it's called Just Breathe. And she goes, at the end of the song, she ends the song by going, 2 a.m. and I'm still awake writing this song.

01:09:13 Speaker_04
Because if I get it all out on paper, it's no longer inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to.

01:09:21 Speaker_04
Almost get emotional when I tell people that because to me that is the greatest line ever written as to how I feel yeah, you know what I mean like This idea that I have to get this out of me. It's like I don't I'm when I write it's not like I

01:09:38 Speaker_04
I have to, it's like a thing in me that's burning in me. It's like I have to get this out of me. Brother, I wake up, I wrote Somebody Saved Me on a sheet of paper out of a dead sleep. Really? Notebook, side of the bed, somebody.

01:09:52 Speaker_04
Just like I wrote notes here with you when you'd say something that would inspire me. One of these is a song title right here, right now. You said it earlier. What'd I say? Tell you off camera. Okay. In case we gotta negotiate a publishing thing.

01:10:05 Speaker_04
I wrote a song on that it didn't make the album, but Burt one night said something He was like yeah, man.

01:10:08 Speaker_04
This is where dreams go to die And he was talking about a bar He used to go to everybody would talk about what they would do but never did so we quit talking about what he's gonna do But what he don't know is I just quietly grabbed my phone and wrote dreams die here You know saying I went wrote the song it sucked.

01:10:23 Speaker_04
I'm gonna send it to him, but I tried Maybe revisit it a year or two. Yeah, but I connect with that in a way that's writing is a It's an outlet for me. It always was. It was always a way to express and to tell stories around me.

01:10:39 Speaker_02
It's also a connection to some strange realm where ideas come from. Ideas that come to you, they just come to you out of nowhere. They just feel like gifts. They really do.

01:10:50 Speaker_02
Like when you're sitting in front of the computer and an idea just comes to you and you start writing it down or when you wake up in the middle of the night, take a leak and you can't get this idea out of your head and you got to grab a notebook.

01:10:59 Speaker_02
Man, those things are gifts. They're gifts from the universe. You've had that happen, too, where you find yourself at the kitchen table at 3 a.m.? The worst one is I try to convince myself that I'll remember it.

01:11:09 Speaker_02
Oh, and you'll go back to sleep and you'll blow it. Yeah, because I'm lazy.

01:11:12 Speaker_00
I'm like, you're going to remember. Don't worry about it. You'll definitely remember that.

01:11:16 Speaker_02
You don't remember it. I remember like one of them ever. But I write them down now.

01:11:23 Speaker_04
I do, too. I got a small legal pad beside my bed, like the little one, and I got one, this is a crazy place, but I have one on top of my commode. That's a good place for it. So in case I'm going in there to pee or something and on the way there just...

01:11:35 Speaker_04
Sometimes, too, I'll have to grab my phone and do melodies in the middle of the night, because I have dreamed of melodies before. Like, you hear it? Like, stone-cold melodies in my dreams. Like, the Somebody Save Me melody was in my dream.

01:11:47 Speaker_04
The first words... The problem was, me and D. Ray joke about it, it took us two hours to write the song that would have took us 20 minutes to write, because I was convinced, ♪ Somebody save me ♪ was supposed to be the chorus. Oh. Interesting.

01:12:02 Speaker_04
I know I'm weird when I talk about stuff like this, Joe, but this is how the universe works. I don't think I was wrong. Because when Eminem ended up taking that song, you know Eminem redid that song? Yeah, you gotta hear it, it's crazy.

01:12:14 Speaker_04
Eminem redid the song, and he took the verse from Somebody Save Me, the first verse, and made it the chorus. So his version of it is, he's rapping, and then my first verse is the chorus. And then he raps again, and my first verse is the chorus again.

01:12:29 Speaker_04
So maybe I was kinda right. And the groom, I kept going back to like, you sure we should start this way?

01:12:35 Speaker_01
Did you ever tell him that before you did that?

01:12:37 Speaker_04
Never even told him the story.

01:12:38 Speaker_01
Wow.

01:12:38 Speaker_04
It gets, Joe, I'm fucking flipping, it gets even deeper, dawg. Jon Manili, my manager, calls me and goes, he says, Paul Rosenberg just called me, that's Em's manager, he says, I think Eminem wants to do something to save me. I didn't...

01:12:50 Speaker_04
I asked John McNeely, right then, Joe, I said, man, I hope he takes the first verse and samples it. That's all I said. And John said, whatever, I don't know what he wants to do with it. We just send it over. Because you know, Eminem's the greatest ever.

01:13:01 Speaker_04
You don't send him instructions or notes or ideas. You know what I'm saying? You're just like, yo. And we didn't talk about that until we met. And he was just as whipped out, too. Because the funny part about him was,

01:13:13 Speaker_04
He was struggling with whether or not he was going to keep the original course and do Somebody Saved Me at the end or do Somebody Saved Me as the course and put the original course at the end.

01:13:20 Speaker_04
And he ended up doing Somebody Saved Me in the original course at the end. So he fought the battle the opposite of the way I fought it. It's crazy, right, how art works that way? It is crazy.

01:13:30 Speaker_02
It's crazy where those things come from. The muse, you know? And you gotta respect the muse. And I think when you're writing a lot like you are, that muse is ready to go. You're tuned into whatever that is that gives you those ideas for songs.

01:13:46 Speaker_02
You're in the mode of searching for it.

01:13:50 Speaker_04
No, I'm always, it's like the, yeah, you're right, I'm in that space. I'm in my stride. I'm in my quest of, I'm looking for it at every angle right now. I'm like, I wrote a song, I wrote so many, it's talking about storytelling again.

01:14:02 Speaker_04
Sorry, I keep going here. It's my fucking storytelling podcast. I probably have four songs on this podcast that I wrote just very old school storytelling.

01:14:11 Speaker_04
Like the music I grew up loving, like how Willie Nelson would tell these stories and these characters. And it has been so, talking about muses, I wasn't sure if I was gonna tell this story, but I will.

01:14:29 Speaker_04
As a part of my journey of my mental health and with things I struggle with, I will pop into when I'm home, NA or AA meetings, even though I still drink and smoke pot.

01:14:40 Speaker_04
I don't claim to be a part of the program because I have so much respect for those who are sober, like can really live the clean, sober life by the program. But it's helped me so much not to go back to some of my demons.

01:14:49 Speaker_04
It's taught me about gratitude lists. It's just helped me a lot. And I go to, you know, a few a year, never say nothing, just sitting back quietly. I'm just in there trying to learn, you know. Never went in there thinking like an artist.

01:15:01 Speaker_04
Just kind of going in there thinking like an addict. So I just want to be an addict in here. That's why I don't talk. And I watched a man having a breakdown in there. And this happens, you know what I mean? People are coming in here.

01:15:14 Speaker_04
I mean, it's an AA meeting, right? And he's shaking. And at the end, they go, does anybody want to get a 24-hour chip or a desire to change? And the guy said, I drank this morning, but I do have a desire.

01:15:24 Speaker_04
And he was already shaking where he had been drinking five, six hours. The guy goes, old head walks over, most gangster shit I've ever seen, puts his arm around him and says, it's all right, baby. None of us came in here on a winning streak.

01:15:39 Speaker_04
Dude, I was like, I had no intention of going to this meeting. The only reason I even went, believe it or not, wasn't because I was having a craving even. I had an hour to kill on the way to a writing session. And I was like, well, fuck it.

01:15:50 Speaker_04
I could either spend this hour scrolling on fucking TikTok and thinking about how fucking Ukraine's going to kill us or You know what I mean?

01:15:59 Speaker_04
Yeah, and I went into the meeting and I left and I walked in the writers room and it was like You know, it's fun when we write together because everybody's got an idea.

01:16:07 Speaker_04
I Said boys, I don't know if this is the idea, but I want to tell you what just happened to me I just seen one of the most beautiful acts of humanity I've ever seen just the money because this guy's shaking he's crying and And this dude's walking.

01:16:21 Speaker_04
I'm getting emotional because I'm watching it. The whole room's getting emotional. This dude just super cool just kind of walks over to look like a almost like I've seen this before. He was he was the only one that all of us were sad.

01:16:32 Speaker_04
This dude was happy. He walked over to smile like he'd seen it. He was like, Oh, don't worry, baby. Nobody comes in here on a winning streak. And so I did some, I went back to the meeting a week later while we started the song.

01:16:43 Speaker_04
The guy ended up being like 25, 30 years clean that came in to help the other guy.

01:16:47 Speaker_00
Wow.

01:16:47 Speaker_04
So we wrote the song. It's called Winning Streak. It's fucking, I've sung it on Saturday Night Live. Wow. It was cool, it's not even out yet, it'll be out on the album today.

01:16:55 Speaker_02
Imagine if you didn't walk into that place?

01:16:57 Speaker_04
Imagine if you didn't walk into that place, right.

01:16:59 Speaker_02
Just old church basement. How much time have you lost on your phone where you could have been walking into a place, talking to people?

01:17:05 Speaker_04
And getting winning streak, you know what I mean?

01:17:09 Speaker_02
Especially as an artist that deals in you know to say it again stories and just You know you find things out about people when you see them interact with each other and sometimes it just light us lights a spark Yeah, it's just man you Yeah, anytime I see anything that makes me feel something I feel the need to try to write it and

01:17:31 Speaker_04
Whether it makes me happy or sad or, you know what I mean?

01:17:34 Speaker_02
If you really think about like old school rock and roll, like think of like classic rock, there's great songs, but then there's these story songs, you know? Like Shooting Star, that Bad Company song.

01:17:47 Speaker_02
You know, Johnny was a schoolboy when he heard his first Beatles song. That's one of those songs that like, everybody listens to the words. You know, you just get caught up in the story. There's a difference between that and, you know, just fun songs.

01:18:04 Speaker_02
There's fun songs, back in black, you know, fun. It's not like a story, like an emotional story that gets you. There's some of those songs, you know, American pie American pie. Oh my god. Oh my god.

01:18:18 Speaker_04
I Listened to it once a week in the cold plunge because the original versions like seven minutes. Yeah, so if I start it while I'm getting into my skibbies Songs over I get out of cold punch.

01:18:29 Speaker_00
Yeah, but it's a that song.

01:18:32 Speaker_04
Um, I

01:18:34 Speaker_00
Talk about, dude. How about James Taylor?

01:18:35 Speaker_04
I've seen fire and I've seen rain. The greatest song ever written, Joe. The greatest song ever written. Don't listen to that song when you're sad. Dog. I'll cry if I'm happy, bubba.

01:18:46 Speaker_02
Bro, that song will get you.

01:18:48 Speaker_00
Every time. That's all.

01:18:49 Speaker_02
Get you.

01:18:50 Speaker_00
And that's a story, too. And that motherfucker had a voice. Man, he had a voice. What a special voice. And it was so effortless, Joe.

01:18:56 Speaker_04
Yeah. When he opened his mouth, it was almost like he was just talking to you like me and you, but he would sing like an angel. And you know he was self-taught guitar, so he plays like shapes and chords that don't really technically exist. Really? Yeah.

01:19:11 Speaker_04
He literally, because he self-taught himself, they'd be like, well, that's kind of a Looks like a G, but you're doing this not that it's like it was crazy.

01:19:20 Speaker_04
He's authentic my father Who I named buddies after in my bar was uh we were driving down to Gulf Shores, Alabama one time and I was a kid and we start listening to fire and rain and he starts my family would tell these stories and

01:19:41 Speaker_04
music I don't know what it was but before they would play a song it was like they would take and I'm like this to this day I would take great pride in being like oh I'm fixing to show you something so I'd give you the setup you know so my dad goes I'm not gonna set this song up I'm gonna tell you about it afterwards listen to it again there he goes give me it from the beginning Jimmy mmm this motherfucker mmm so

01:20:10 Speaker_04
Look at them all, it's long hair. That was before he went bald.

01:20:13 Speaker_02
When he went bald, he said, fuck it.

01:20:14 Speaker_04
Yeah, that was, hey, Mr. Jukebox James.

01:20:24 Speaker_02
Bro, that guy could not have a fly swatter big enough to swat those panties that were flying at him.

01:20:30 Speaker_01
What? He could not. Just whack at every corner, dude.

01:20:36 Speaker_02
Oh my God. And listen. Voice like an angel.

01:20:38 Speaker_04
All sensitive. In Hot Take, he was married to a woman that is arguably a better songwriter than him.

01:20:44 Speaker_02
Carly Simon. Carly Simon was so beautiful. God, when she was young, she was one of the most beautiful women that's ever lived.

01:20:56 Speaker_04
I love that none of that mattered to him, though. Watch this. So my dad tells me this story, Joe. And we are riding down I-65. I've only seen my father cry three times. Give me some more of this, Jamie. Yeah. And we are going down I-65.

01:21:16 Speaker_04
And we are squalling. I mean, like two children, Joe.

01:21:28 Speaker_02
Just authentic, you know what I mean? There's no bullshit in this song.

01:21:33 Speaker_04
The third verse when he goes, uh, yeah, you got to let this rip then. It's a core memory I'll have forever though.

01:21:41 Speaker_06
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end.

01:21:57 Speaker_04
when I watch this. To me, this is some of the best, the whole song, but right here. ♪ I've been walking my mind to an easy time ♪ ♪ With my back turned towards the sun ♪ So simple, but real.

01:22:11 Speaker_06
♪ Lord knows when the cold wind blows ♪ ♪ It'll turn your head around me ♪ ♪ There's hours of time on the telephone line ♪ ♪ To talk about things to come ♪ Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.

01:22:30 Speaker_06
Well now I've seen fire and I've seen rain. I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end.

01:22:40 Speaker_04
Now watch him take it up right here.

01:22:41 Speaker_06
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend. Oh.

01:23:24 Speaker_01
Damn. So good.

01:23:26 Speaker_02
It's crazy. What a team, him and Carly Simon. Think about that. What was- Bro, You're So Vain. Oh my goodness. Pull that shit up. Give me a You're So- and seeing her sing it with that bass. Oh my God. God. Oh my God. What a great song too.

01:23:45 Speaker_04
He toured with Carole King forever, right? Do they ever have a relationship? Hopefully. Right? She's talking about another great songwriter. God, dude. Here we go.

01:24:02 Speaker_01
While she's playing the piano, son. With her hair blowing, so 80s! In the wind. Yes.

01:24:17 Speaker_07
You watch yourself walk by and all the girls seem to think they'd be your partner and you're so vain. I'd rather think this song is about you. You're so vain.

01:24:42 Speaker_02
But hold on, hold on, because if the song was about him, he's right. Yeah, right. For sure. You know, Warren Beatty was listening to that song going, I think this song is about me.

01:24:51 Speaker_04
Yeah, I knew I was him. And that's live back when they were like, you know, that was live live that might be one of the first diss songs, right? I think that's the first disc. Oh, when was the song put out?

01:25:07 Speaker_03
Is it officially about Warren Beatty? I thought rumors that it was about James Taylor too. Oh, really? I thought it's unconfirmed who it's written about.

01:25:15 Speaker_02
You know what man it wouldn't shock you right if you found out that the guy was like the Sweetheart super nice guy was actually a fucking psycho, dude

01:25:25 Speaker_04
I've had, talking about James Taylor, I've had fans come up to me and they would be crying. And they go, I'm so sorry, I'm crying. And every time I tell them the same thing, I say, don't worry, if I ever meet James Taylor, I'm gonna cry.

01:25:34 Speaker_02
For sure, I know it.

01:25:35 Speaker_04
So I'm like 100%, I'm gonna cry.

01:25:38 Speaker_02
Ever since the singer released her accusatory track in 1972, the identity of you has remained one of the greatest mysteries in music history. But she did date Warren Beatty, right? It came out in 72?

01:25:48 Speaker_04
When did Sweet Home Alabama come out?

01:25:55 Speaker_02
Warren Beatty, Michael Crichton, Jack Nicholson, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, or John Travolta even rumored flings with Sean Connery. Marvin Gaye. Marvin Gaye? Mick Jagger? Possibility of Mick Jagger. I bet Marvin Gaye did something different with that.

01:26:11 Speaker_02
That lady got around, she got around with all the talented motherfuckers. She got around.

01:26:18 Speaker_04
I bet Marvin Gaye was a monster. Oh my god. When did Sweet Home Alabama come out? So you know Sweet Home Alabama was a clapback track. Yeah. So it was in the diss world too. So I think it was right around that early 70s era too. So it was after that.

01:26:34 Speaker_04
Year So Vain came out before it. Yeah.

01:26:37 Speaker_00
But when did Southern Man come out?

01:26:38 Speaker_04
Probably the same time, right? It was just a year before. So that was 1970? Yeah. Oh no, so it was a few years before.

01:26:47 Speaker_02
So they wrote it about Southern Man? Is that what they wrote it about?

01:26:50 Speaker_04
Yeah, the idea was, and Neil Young was speaking a lot about what was happening down there in the South at the time, and Ronnie's position was just simply like, hey man, We stay the fuck out of your business, stay out of ours.

01:27:03 Speaker_04
You know, a southern man don't need them around anyhow. You know, that's kind of how he came back up.

01:27:07 Speaker_02
What a banger of a song, too. What a banger. What a diss.

01:27:12 Speaker_07
That is a sweet home.

01:27:15 Speaker_02
Give me some of that. Yeah, please. God damn, that's a good song. I mean, all respect to Neil Young. That's better than anything he's ever done in his life.

01:27:22 Speaker_04
No, no. Neil Young apologized later. It was really cool. He owned it. He publicly said Ronnie was right.

01:27:28 Speaker_02
Yeah, name, you know young is name-checked And dissed.

01:27:33 Speaker_02
Yeah, I don't think they thought about it that way back then it reached number eight the Billboard Hot 100 Give me some sweet home, Alabama That's a song that you hear in the bar and the first couple of chords play and you go.

01:27:42 Speaker_04
Oh, yeah, you just immediately I hate to be this guy, but I immediately look around I'm like everybody in here who doesn't know this song and I don't know that we can be friends.

01:27:55 Speaker_04
If you can't at least sing the chorus or if you don't go... This might be one of the most recognizable songs ever. Is it gonna be a live video too?

01:28:08 Speaker_03
You just have to go for the live one, especially this one.

01:28:16 Speaker_02
Once again, look at these bad motherfuckers.

01:28:24 Speaker_04
Oh, they were so funny. You want to talk about people that couldn't get the pussy away from them.

01:28:27 Speaker_01
And they're from Florida.

01:28:29 Speaker_04
Yeah. Wild motherfuckers. That's 77, so that's Ronnie. Or no, that's Johnny. Once again, how great Gary Rossington was. To me, he's the greatest guitarist that ever lived. Up there with Hendrix and them. He's on Mount Rushmore Guitars.

01:29:02 Speaker_04
Because I can't name another guitarist, Clapton, of course, that has more riffs that you want to go, you want to hum. Right. Right? Because like... Yo, the Freebird solo. You know what I'm saying? Dude, think about it. Give Me Three Steps.

01:29:33 Speaker_04
There has not been that since, if you ask me. You know what I mean? Helm, Clapton, Hendrix, they had those kind of guitars, but this was different because it was riffs. It wasn't like a solo. They were singing over these riffs.

01:29:46 Speaker_04
And the riffs were bigger than the melody sometimes. They captured you. If you tell somebody right now, have you ever heard the song Sweet Home Alabama, and they go, how's it go? You wouldn't go sweet, you'd go.

01:29:56 Speaker_04
It's crazy, that's how good Gary was, man. That solo in Free Bird is insane.

01:30:04 Speaker_02
Oh, it's the best solo ever. Ever. It's hard to say because of Hendrix and Steve Ray Vaughan and a bunch of other people, Eddie Van Halen, but that solo was the same every time they did it.

01:30:16 Speaker_04
Oh, the story about Sweet Home Alabama.

01:30:19 Speaker_04
um they're sitting at a sound check and it's just Ronnie and Gary and Gary's holding electric and he goes man I got this I just don't know what to do with it it's and Ronnie goes well hell just keep playing it let me fuck with it so they just looped that and that's how they wrote the song just them yeah dude I'm so I'm such a I have like

01:30:41 Speaker_04
Skinner to me is like Jesus.

01:30:43 Speaker_02
You know what I'm saying? I'm a giant Skinner fan. And you know what I love about Skinner too? They came out of Florida. Who would have saw that? Who would have saw that? Straight out of Jacksonville, Florida. What?

01:30:52 Speaker_02
Jacksonville's not going to make any amazing bands. Dude. How's this band come out of Jacksonville? And every song is about running away from girls. I gotta go, ladies. I gotta be free. Give me two steps.

01:31:02 Speaker_00
I love you, but I gotta go. It's crazy. You know what I'm saying?

01:31:05 Speaker_04
I gotta go. I gotta go. Dude, they were the best man when Gary when Gary's family gave me that guitar after he passed away It still is up there with like my top Probably ten possessions that I've ever been gifted You know what?

01:31:18 Speaker_04
I mean of I have it in my studio now and I hung it in a case with the note that his family wrote me with the picture that we took the night he played the guitar and I put a lock on the case instead of just casing it forever.

01:31:29 Speaker_04
I put a lock on it so I can still play it and So when we do the album, there's a couple of tracks that we played a Gary Rossington guitar on.

01:31:37 Speaker_02
Oh, wow. You know what I mean?

01:31:38 Speaker_04
Because it was a Gary Rossington played guitar. Wow. And his family, the estate gave it to me right after he passed. Does it sound different? Well, it's an old Les Paul, and it's older, so it's got a different pickup on it.

01:31:49 Speaker_04
So it's got some different tunes and textures to it. What's the difference between like the older pickups and the newer ones? I don't know. I'm not as educated in it as most like real guitarists.

01:31:57 Speaker_04
I'm a, I'm a campfire guitarist, but it's, you know, over the years they always found different ways to make them. So they were, as they were improving them, but the sounds and textures were getting different. So, but I forgot exactly what he does.

01:32:08 Speaker_04
Cause he takes a pickup from another guitar and puts it into, I think in a most of his guitars. Cause there's a lot of real guitarists that'll like, they'll want to play this guitar, but they'll want to put this from this guitar on this guitar.

01:32:19 Speaker_04
Cause that's their shit. Yeah, because they like the way, well, I like to pick up on this, or I like this and this, or I like the way this, you know, whatever. Makes sense. And then they'll have a kind of hodgepodge like that.

01:32:28 Speaker_04
But you know something else? When Gary survived that plane crash, let's think about him playing guitar. He had a rod that went from right here, Joe, to his elbow. Oh my God. And still played the guitar that way.

01:32:42 Speaker_04
So if you ever watched Gary play the guitar, he always kind of played it high like Charlie Crockett. But it was, or down here like this, because he couldn't full-blown get full extension on the wrist.

01:32:53 Speaker_04
So he was playing all those from 70, whatever the 70, when was the plane crash? Jamie, you know? I figured you might know off the top of your head. How many people died in the crash? I know Ronnie did for sure. I think it was two or three.

01:33:07 Speaker_04
Wasn't Ronnie standing up?

01:33:08 Speaker_03
He was in 77.

01:33:11 Speaker_00
So that video you just showed might have been one of Ronnie's last performances. He was standing up when the plane crashed, right? He wouldn't sit down, he was drinking.

01:33:18 Speaker_02
Yeah, they were just partying. They were just Leonard Skinner, dude. You know what I'm saying? If he sat down and put his seatbelt on, he might still be here.

01:33:24 Speaker_04
It's crazy, dude. It is crazy, man. God damn. You said it was 77?

01:33:31 Speaker_03
Three days after their fifth album was released, Street Survivors.

01:33:36 Speaker_04
Wow. Just totally different, man. I've gotten so far into their... We've been covering Skinner on the road for years and years anyway. That's probably not a Skinner song I can't play.

01:33:47 Speaker_04
You know, if we were to go to a bar tonight, you could probably just randomly pick a Skinner song and I'd go up there and be able to just kill. I just love Skinner, dude. You know what I mean?

01:33:57 Speaker_02
They were awesome, man. They were gone too quick. And I know they toured after he died, but it wasn't the same.

01:34:04 Speaker_04
You know, the reason they still torn one thing I don't as a diehard fan, I don't object to it a lot. Now that Gary's gone, it's a little rougher, because he was the last living one.

01:34:13 Speaker_04
But Johnny Van Zandt, which how are him and Ronnie can always confuse it. They're cousins, right? Are they brothers? Because remember the three Van Zandt's don't want to talk about a family Joe.

01:34:22 Speaker_04
Johnny Ronnie Van Zandt created Leonard Skinner was the first lead singer. Johnny Van Zandt took his plot when he died and the other Van Zandt brothers, the lead singer 38 special crazy. Yeah, it's the younger brother.

01:34:35 Speaker_04
So his younger brother took right over. And like I tell people is there's the average Lynyrd Skynyrd fan. That's not like me and you like obsessed with him to a degree. They don't know anybody other than him to be their singer.

01:34:48 Speaker_04
Because he's been their singer 44 years longer than Ronnie was that band was only been out for four years when Ronnie died.

01:34:57 Speaker_02
Right. You know what I mean? So it's like an ACDC type thing.

01:34:59 Speaker_04
Exactly. You know what I mean? And the fact that it's a true Van Zant. And Johnny's still the lead man to this day. So when I go see him, I still feel like I'm watching Ronnie a little bit. Looks just like him. Still got the same long hair.

01:35:11 Speaker_04
It's Johnny Van Zant, dude. You know what I mean?

01:35:14 Speaker_00
Ronnie was a fucking psycho though.

01:35:16 Speaker_04
Nah, that's the difference. Johnny's like a really, really calm, cool man. He's also older now. You know, these dudes are all... Ricky Medlock and them, he was with the original group too, pretty much. He's still there. Them dudes are all in their 70s.

01:35:28 Speaker_02
Yeah, and they're nuts too, because when we were kids, we never thought that rock stars would be touring in their 70s.

01:35:33 Speaker_04
They're going to come out for my Jacksonville show. They came and sung with me last time.

01:35:36 Speaker_02
Really? That's amazing.

01:35:36 Speaker_04
Johnny and Ricky always come out and sing, man. They're fun. That's awesome. Yeah, dude. It never gets any better. Dude, look at you. You're living the life. It's fucking weird, dude.

01:35:43 Speaker_02
You're living the life.

01:35:44 Speaker_01
It's the shit we grew up listening to.

01:35:46 Speaker_02
You know what I'm saying? It's like... I don't know, man. It's weird when you meet people that were real famous when you were a kid. That to me is always going to be the weirdest one. It's the one. Steven Tyler, meeting that dude.

01:35:57 Speaker_02
Meeting people like that, it's just like, you just feel weirded out. I met Tarantino, I was like, oh dude. This is weird.

01:36:04 Speaker_04
Yeah. This is weird. Especially people you watched back in your childhood. Yeah.

01:36:09 Speaker_04
Out of all the comedians I met, the only one I've probably ever been made an ass of myself to is Ron White because I literally have watched him since I was a teenager because he was such a voice for

01:36:21 Speaker_04
I don't want this to come off disrespectful, but being from the South in my household, we thought Jeff Foxworthy was incredibly funny.

01:36:29 Speaker_04
We liked his books more than his comedy, though, because we felt like his comedy almost felt a little forced to us as Southern people. It just didn't sit right, you know, in my household. In what way? In this way of like,

01:36:40 Speaker_02
There's might be a redneck.

01:36:42 Speaker_04
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you know what I mean?

01:36:44 Speaker_04
If your family tree does not fork, it was hilarious, but we know all the books we religiously, but when we're watching the blue collar special as a family, and I know this wasn't the way to watch it in hindsight, we're all waiting.

01:36:57 Speaker_04
You know what I mean? He's the voice of our household. But I'm also in a household full of drunks, by the way. My father's a raging alcoholic. My mother does drugs. All my brothers do drugs. But it was like, you know, we loved we'd love Jeff.

01:37:09 Speaker_04
We love we love Bill Larry, the cable guy. But man, when we just Ron was our you know, he just spoke to. what our household was doing, you know what I mean? So when I met him, it was kind of like, man, I got to tell my fucking mama.

01:37:21 Speaker_02
Well, when he first started hanging out at the store about like, I guess it was about 10 years ago. He never had like a club like that before where it was like a home base. You know, he was always a successful touring comedian.

01:37:34 Speaker_02
So he'd bring guys to open up for him on the road, but it was basically the Ron White show. And then he started hanging out with us at the store. And he was like, man, this is what I've been missing.

01:37:42 Speaker_02
Been missing a real camaraderie, like the base, the home base, where everybody goes and just hangs out. Makes all the difference in the world. It is. Well, iron sharpens iron, too. Yeah.

01:37:57 Speaker_02
When you're in Nashville, too, I mean, think about how many different amazing artists there are that you go see live in Nashville just fucking around on a regular night. For sure.

01:38:06 Speaker_04
Dierks Bentley goes and plays this, like, with his bluegrass band, like a 200-person bar every week.

01:38:14 Speaker_02
That's amazing.

01:38:15 Speaker_04
You know, like his little subversion of a bluegrass band. That's how I feel about our songwriting community, too. I've wrote in LA and I've had big songs come out of LA, but Nashville is just, man, it's the killers. You know what I mean?

01:38:29 Speaker_04
It's the dudes that are just, the dudes and girls down there that are in those rooms every day are snipers. They've been doing it forever.

01:38:35 Speaker_02
The same thing like you doing all those shows, it's the same thing like them, right? You just get real good at your fucking job. For sure.

01:38:40 Speaker_04
And you get to know how to pivot. You know what I mean? That's something else that comes with being on that stage a bunch. The more you do it, the more circumstances you've been up against, nothing starts to scare you no more.

01:38:53 Speaker_04
Even if I walk out to a crowd, if I'm opening for somebody still and I walk out and I'm like, I'm going to have to really work for this one, I'm not panicked. I've done it enough now. I'll even watch some guys in my band get a little panicked.

01:39:03 Speaker_04
We'll be on the second song and you'll see them going like, why are they not just so excited we're here? I'm like, just relax. It's okay. We're gonna get there.

01:39:10 Speaker_01
You know what I'm saying? Let's just have fun.

01:39:12 Speaker_02
The hardest spot is opening on a comedy show. It's brutal. I tell every comedian that opens for me, this is like running with weights on. Talk about like the one of three, not the feature slot, the number one. First guy, first guy on stage.

01:39:23 Speaker_02
That's the hardest gig. And it's the gig for the guys that are the youngest, that are the learners. They're learning it. They don't really know how to do it yet.

01:39:31 Speaker_04
And you're kind of responsible for getting the first laugh of the night. You are 100% responsible for it. That's a... Man, you gotta break the room.

01:39:37 Speaker_02
Yeah, that's why Hans Kim was, like, our best opener, because Hans Kim has structure. All his jokes have structure. So he puts you in this mode of laughing at ridiculous shit, and he puts you in this, like... It's, like, a very structured set.

01:39:51 Speaker_02
So he gets people into, like, the hypnosis of comedy.

01:39:54 Speaker_00
Right.

01:39:55 Speaker_02
You get locked into laughing, and then, boom, next comedian goes up, and the bar's already set. Yeah. You're already loose and everybody's running. But that first spot, man, you gotta like... Yeah, same with us.

01:40:06 Speaker_04
If you're one of three, Alexandra Kay's doing it on this tour and she's killing it. But it is a rough one because you've got your fans that knew you were one of three and they showed up early. So that's the only thing you have to advantage.

01:40:18 Speaker_04
The rest of it is people literally walking in with popcorn and beer in their hand, wondering why the show's already started. You know what I mean?

01:40:25 Speaker_01
Right, exactly.

01:40:26 Speaker_04
You know, I tell people all the time, you're not going to be a good performer until you performed in a place where people looked at you like you were interrupting them. Right. You know what I mean?

01:40:35 Speaker_04
You ever been in a place where you're like, hey, I'm sorry I'm bothering y'all by playing loud music up here. You fucking knew you were coming to a bar, bitch. You know what I'm saying? It's just, you know. But those are the funnest, too, though.

01:40:45 Speaker_04
I got to open up for Morgan Wallen this year a few times, and it was really fun because in the last few years, we've just been headlining.

01:40:51 Speaker_04
We haven't got to really go out and do something that was so much dramatically bigger than us that it made sense for us to do it. And I love Morgan, so I was like, I'm in. And we went out there, and it was cool because you feel it immediately.

01:41:03 Speaker_04
You're like, even with the hits I have, there's 70,000 people here that bought a ticket to see Morgan Wallen, for they knew my name was on the bill.

01:41:11 Speaker_04
You know, so there's a lot of people here that are with me, but I'm still having to tell you, I'm still up here like, oh, okay, tonight, you know, I say there's three scenarios in my business, and I don't know if this is probably different for y'alls, but in mine, my three scenarios are this.

01:41:25 Speaker_04
One is the you're welcome, we're here, right? Which is the simple like, thank y'all. We thank each other, you came to see me, I'm gonna give you a great show, thank you. It's the easy one, right? The other one is the, thank you for listening.

01:41:38 Speaker_04
I appreciate that you gave me enough respect that you sat here and listened to me. And the third one is the one that makes men. It's the, hey motherfucker, I'm singing. And you have to go through a couple hundred of those before you get good.

01:41:53 Speaker_04
You know what I mean? Like, I don't care.

01:41:54 Speaker_04
And that's what's been so about, like, the TikTok explosion, is you have these kids that'll have this big hit joke, and they'll have five or six hits in a row, and they can start selling 2,000 seats at a theater overnight.

01:42:05 Speaker_04
It's kind of like the podcasters that have a quick, quick flip, and they go to the comedy clubs on a Friday, but can't make nobody laugh or stay.

01:42:12 Speaker_04
These kids go straight into 2,000-seat rooms and then stand up there like, I've never done a fucking show. I've never stood in front of anybody. Imagine getting a big TikTok hit joke, never doing a show in your life, and showing up.

01:42:24 Speaker_04
You know what I mean? Or imagine it's even worse. They put you on an opening tour for somebody. They're like, we got an amphitheater act that'll let you be two of four. This will be great. And you're going out there looking at 6,000 people.

01:42:34 Speaker_04
You've never stood up in a bar.

01:42:35 Speaker_04
I'm watching it happen to people all the time I'm having to grab these kids and kind of mentor them now And it's the flip side of it where like booking agents are dragging them to the slaughter of course cuz you don't want to make money They don't give a fuck and and here's the problem imagine your kid.

01:42:49 Speaker_04
You're 20 years old 22 years old You've got a big successful record, and you're going to meet booking agents. You're excited I've been there you know and the first one's like we're gonna put you right in 2,000 seat rooms.

01:42:58 Speaker_04
You're gonna get $22,000 a night you're like whoa what A night! And we're gonna do it three nights every weekend.

01:43:06 Speaker_00
Oh my God, I'm rich. I'm buying a Corvette.

01:43:08 Speaker_04
That's fucking it. Immediately. And then you go to the next booking agent and they're like, now hear me out. My plan is for you to go play these 200 cap rooms, like the Hi-Fi in Indianapolis, the End in Nashville. We're gonna go do that for six months.

01:43:20 Speaker_04
We're gonna get like 40 shows under your belt. You'll get like $1,300 a night, $1,200 a night. And they're like, fuck you. The other guy just said I'm getting $25,000 a night immediately. But this guy actually knows what he's doing. You know what I mean?

01:43:35 Speaker_04
This guy actually is doing it right, but they go back to the money. And then they end up having to circle back and they gotta re-figure it out anyway.

01:43:42 Speaker_04
I tell people all the time, you might be able to skip the line a little bit, but you can't cheat the game. You know what I mean? You had to put them hours in one way or the other. It's the same thing with fighters.

01:43:51 Speaker_02
You know, I see fighters that come out and they compete in the UFC and like their first fight they look fantastic and they're fast-tracked. And sometimes guys get broken because they meet top-flight competition before they're really ready.

01:44:05 Speaker_02
They're really like an up-and-coming fighter honing their skills and they run into a wily veteran who's like a top 15 guy and they get fucked up. And they're kind of never the same.

01:44:15 Speaker_02
Because they really shouldn't have been fighting that guy, whereas boxing is a lot more clever.

01:44:18 Speaker_02
If they have a guy who's like a Terrence Crawford or someone who's a really good fighter, they'll match him up correctly until they can make the big money and until their skills are at a very, very high level, and then they start challenging for a world title.

01:44:30 Speaker_02
But they prepare him. The thing about the UFC is sometimes you just get thrown right to the wolves. And if you're Jon Jones, that's fine. Jon Jones wins the title at 22. But most guys are not Jon Jones.

01:44:45 Speaker_02
And most guys could be an elite fighter, but the circumstances just derail them before they ever get there.

01:44:53 Speaker_04
It burned them too early, man.

01:44:55 Speaker_02
Yeah, they burned them too early.

01:44:56 Speaker_04
You know, and it's like, the perfect example of this in the USC to me is one guy could be Sugar Sean, who went on to be that guy, right, immediately. I know he just had his loss, but I mean, he still looks like sugar to me. You know, that kid's tough.

01:45:09 Speaker_04
And the other one could be that kid that we all love, but I always confuse it, was it Hooper or Hopper? The 19-year-old kid, he had a Sugar Sean kind of thing going. He was a Contender Series guy, too.

01:45:20 Speaker_00
Chase Hooper.

01:45:21 Speaker_04
Hooper, that was him.

01:45:22 Speaker_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:45:22 Speaker_04
And to me, that's kind of the tale of the same kid. You know what I mean? Where it's like, for Sugar, it kind of worked. But this is what I tell my people all the time.

01:45:29 Speaker_02
Chase still has a shot. He's still super talented. He just had to really get better at striking.

01:45:33 Speaker_04
Yeah, he's just young and has to circle back around.

01:45:35 Speaker_02
Yeah, but he got a lot better. He got a lot better at everything. He's really good on the ground. Yeah. No, the kid's great. He also went up to 55, which I think was big, because he was killing himself.

01:45:44 Speaker_04
Good. Yeah, no, you could tell it was a big way, especially for such a kid. His frames, they're kids. I think we still haven't seen what Sean's real man body is going to look like yet completely. He's 30. Is he 30 now? OK, so we see him.

01:45:58 Speaker_04
But what they say is 25 or 26 now before you actually see a full development.

01:46:01 Speaker_02
Well, you definitely see some of these guys that are coming in that are 22 that are still growing. They're still getting bigger. Like Raul Rosas Jr. He's 19 years old. And that kid's still growing.

01:46:10 Speaker_02
Every time you see him, he looks more muscular, more jacked, you know, he's still in his prime. I mean, not even close to his prime. He's just still growing up.

01:46:17 Speaker_04
Yeah, there's still a, that's a, yeah, that's a, that's a, there's a growing thing that's Yeah, I guess it's different too, man.

01:46:27 Speaker_04
I'm thinking about that kid like Chase, is that getting put into that national spotlight at the biggest fighting organization in the world at 19. You know what I mean? Yeah. And you're like, Tavandre Sweat is the defensive end for the Tennessee Titans.

01:46:41 Speaker_04
I'm a huge Titans fan. He was our first round pick this year, defensive end. I went to go hang out with him because I just think he's great. I think he's going to be a superstar. He's 22 years old. He's probably 6'5", 300-something pounds.

01:46:54 Speaker_04
And he can't grow a full beard yet. You know what I mean? You know what I'm saying? It's patchy. You know how it is when you're in your early 20s? It's still patchy.

01:47:04 Speaker_04
And I'm looking at Jeffrey Simmons, who's our veteran defensive end, who's 6'6", just cut like a... And I was like, Oh, that's where you're going to be at in four years, three years, you know what I mean?

01:47:18 Speaker_04
Because we picked up Jeffrey Simmons as a rookie too. It's like even at 22 years old, they haven't fully developed in yet.

01:47:24 Speaker_01
Right.

01:47:24 Speaker_04
You know, that dude, I'm looking at Devondre Sweat right now and I'm like, You still got a baby face, like you still got a, you know what I mean? Look at big baby, look at baby face sweat. You know what I mean? But you see this face of him right here?

01:47:35 Speaker_04
That's all you need to know about his personality. That's who he is as a human, he's the sweetest dude ever. But you can still tell by the look of his face, you know what I mean? That face is gonna slim down and get a little more, you know.

01:47:46 Speaker_02
That's the craziest job. Being a pro football player is the craziest job. You're literally in a car wreck every day.

01:47:52 Speaker_04
Especially guys for their position. They're in a car wreck every play.

01:47:56 Speaker_04
Yeah, I think about this offensive lineman defensive lineman Guaranteed full contact every snap 100% Every time we snap the ball because like the bride receivers, they're gonna hand fight Backfield, they're gonna there's gonna be some action but not full contact every play right every single play as soon as they say that

01:48:15 Speaker_04
These two linemen are fucking collision-coursing. And they're both hitting each other with the intention to try to knock the other one down first, right?

01:48:25 Speaker_04
The goal is like, if I could hit you and knock you down and go right past you, after that I just gotta fight my way around.

01:48:29 Speaker_02
And they're all 300 plus pounds of solid muscle. Huge.

01:48:32 Speaker_04
Full-blown athletes their whole life, been playing since they were eight. See what I'm saying? Colliding with each other.

01:48:38 Speaker_02
And that's the American sport. I mean, in full speed. Isn't it kind of crazy that that is the American sport? I mean, what other countries even play it other than Canada? Who else plays football? American-style football? They don't even play it overseas.

01:48:52 Speaker_04
They don't even touch it. That was when Nate Bargossi hosted Saturday Night Live, not this time, but last year. He did that skit joke about it coming from the UK and he was like, and we will have a sport named football.

01:49:04 Speaker_04
And they were like, oh, where you'll kick a ball, they'll go, no. And they'll go, so you never kick the ball? They go, sometimes.

01:49:14 Speaker_04
It's so funny about trying to explain football to somebody not from here It's bizarre that we didn't call it a different thing.

01:49:21 Speaker_02
Mm-hmm They were calling it football and it was soccer and we just said no we're gonna change the name of that We're gonna call it soccer. Yeah, and this is football now.

01:49:28 Speaker_04
What are you talking about? It's the American way, dude Yeah, it's like hey, we don't care how y'all do temperature everywhere else

01:49:42 Speaker_02
The metric system is so much more efficient.

01:49:43 Speaker_04
We're like, nah, I don't like it. You'll love that Nate skit, dude, because that's what he does. He just kind of goes through trash and all these ideas. The best part is Kenan looks at him at the new skit and goes, what about my people?

01:49:56 Speaker_04
Will the slaves be freed after the war? He said they will be freed after a war. But not this one.

01:50:03 Speaker_00
It was a good skit, man. It was really funny. He's a funny dude. Another Nashville guy. Love him, man.

01:50:11 Speaker_02
Have you seen Theo? Speaking of Nashville guys, have you seen Theo do his impression of you? Oh yeah, it's the fucking best. It's my favorite thing ever. I want to thank the concrete He did it with him and Joey he's like I just wanna thank

01:50:39 Speaker_07
Right now there's somebody stuck under a bridge. There's somebody out there who's got a size 11 foot and a size 8 tennis shoe. I was a maitre d at a macaroni grill. And now I'm a gremlin.

01:50:56 Speaker_04
It's a simulation yeah, I think it might be I could I just couldn't believe that I'd be in a place where Theo Vaughn would one be my buddy he came to my LA show it just made me so happy I've almost cried when I seen I was so excited but then to have him you know just fuck dude I was um I've said this a lot there's a dream for an artist and

01:51:23 Speaker_04
There's nothing more pop culture than being brought up in a comedy special. Like, if you was an artist back in the old days, and you got brought up on an HBO special, you were on fucking fire. You could not be bigger. You know what I'm saying?

01:51:38 Speaker_04
So it's like, I have those, that to me is like those unreal moments when you watch a guy like Theo with his platform impersonating me to do a T, and we're friends too, and it's just like,

01:51:48 Speaker_04
I would have never even, I never thought I'd win an award to give a speech, or more or less that the speech would be so viral that a comedian would have an impression of it. You know what I mean? It's like, I don't know, it's the greatest.

01:52:00 Speaker_04
That's the greatest compliment you can be paid in pop culture, is if a comedian will burn on you a little bit. That's hilarious. That one was perfect. I'm still like, that's my, like, the first time I get dropped in a special, I'm gonna lose my shit.

01:52:12 Speaker_04
It's gonna remind me of little me watching HBO specials, you know what I mean?

01:52:16 Speaker_00
Well, if someone's listening to this right now, some comic's probably gonna write a bit, put you in there. Don't be mean. No, just be funny. Just for fun. Yeah.

01:52:23 Speaker_02
Maybe it's Theo. Yeah, right. Maybe Theo will do that in a special.

01:52:27 Speaker_04
Theo's such a, I'm, We're trying to steal him from Nashville. God, I know. We're trying to steal him. Well, listen, for what it's worth, I think the wife and I are on the way to it.

01:52:37 Speaker_00
Really? Yeah. Beautiful.

01:52:39 Speaker_04
You know, my wife was born in Houston. Oh, okay. She's always had Texas in her heart. I went out on the river up here and it's just ... Come on. I just love the city. I love the space.

01:52:53 Speaker_04
Before I got here last night, just the few people that knew I was coming, I'd already got texts from my friends down here, from Carrie to Bruce, to people that, you know, just, just, I was just, even my wife was like, you love it there.

01:53:04 Speaker_04
I was like, she loves Texas anyway, so she's all in. We're talking about it.

01:53:08 Speaker_00
That's beautiful. Yeah.

01:53:09 Speaker_04
We'll always be back and forth because Nashville's always Nashville to me.

01:53:12 Speaker_02
Are you friends of Gary Clark?

01:53:14 Speaker_04
Yes. I love Gary Clark.

01:53:16 Speaker_02
Gary Clark's a wizard. He's a wizard.

01:53:19 Speaker_04
That's something else. I was talking to his manager, his name's Scooter. Have you ever met Scooter? Yeah. Scooter's the best.

01:53:23 Speaker_04
And I was like, I think if I came down there, we would get, you know, if I brought the culture, the way I approach songwriting in Nashville here, I think we could have a little paradigm shift down here, too.

01:53:34 Speaker_00
Why not?

01:53:35 Speaker_04
You know what I mean? Let's go. Let's fucking go, Jelly Roll. Let's go, Joe Brogan. A musical mothership. Let's go. I've told you this before, drunk, and I meant it then, and I mean it now.

01:53:46 Speaker_04
I'm going to come to you one day, and it's not going to surprise you, I hope, and I'm going to, with a concept about doing the, you just giving me the right to call it the music mothership in Nashville.

01:53:55 Speaker_04
I'll give you the right right now all right go for it I got a plan man cuz what y'all do for comedy we have singer have you ever been to a writers round No, Joe when you come to Nashville, please please come a little early.

01:54:05 Speaker_04
Let me take you to a writer's room Okay, you will have a ball So what happens is the songwriters who are writing all these big hit records in town? Coming they go to these bars, and they do writers rounds. They'll set up three or four bar stools and

01:54:18 Speaker_04
And every songwriter will have a guitar, and they'll sing a song they wrote and tell you the story about the song.

01:54:23 Speaker_04
And it's the coolest thing ever because it's a dude, not being funny, but a dude that looks like me if I wasn't me, or a dude that looks like young Jamie, and then he sings Live Like I'm Dying by Tim McGraw.

01:54:37 Speaker_04
And he tells the most heartfelt story about where he was at in his life when he wrote the song and how he came up with the concept for it.

01:54:43 Speaker_01
Oh, wow.

01:54:43 Speaker_04
And it's this beautiful thing. And there's only one place in town that's really famous for it. It's called the Blue Bird Cafe. They happen everywhere. And the first time I left the mothership, I was like, I'm doing this for music.

01:54:55 Speaker_04
I'm gonna create this same culture for our songwriters. Because what happens is, if you can create a place where people feel safe, they show up.

01:55:03 Speaker_04
So what happens is, because like, I don't go to the Bluebird Cafe a lot because it's a pain in the ass to get in and out of. So if one of my friends calls, like, hey, I'm at the Bluebird, it's a legendary spot and I love it.

01:55:13 Speaker_04
They're like, will you come sing something with me? It's like, you know what I mean? There's no structure. It was you built your club for comedy. You knew that if the comedians were happy, they would show the fuck up.

01:55:25 Speaker_04
And then if you did everything you could to cater it to the comedians first, that they would come and bring their best and the best comedians would be there, which means that people are going to come see the best art, right?

01:55:35 Speaker_04
Same concept I'm going to try to do with music. It's my next move, dude. Let me open my bar first. I'm going to circle back about this. I just want your right to call it. I don't want no money. No, do it. I just want to call it the Music Mothership.

01:55:44 Speaker_02
It's a great.

01:55:45 Speaker_04
And we'll talk about the logo because I want to kind of do a music. I want to be like a guitar version of the alien. You know what I'm saying? Do it. Do it up. Do it up. Imagine you're a little alien with a guitar. You know what I'm saying?

01:55:55 Speaker_04
And call it the Music Mothership.

01:55:56 Speaker_02
Well, the idea behind it, you could definitely apply to music.

01:56:00 Speaker_04
Same kind of idea. Take the phone so we can you know what else what happens to I thought about this if I take the phones like y'all do Then it becomes a laboratory.

01:56:09 Speaker_04
Yeah, right cuz then it goes from like not only will I sing me the hit I just wrote How about I got a song Morgan Wallin's finna put out next month that nobody's heard? You see what I'm saying? Yeah. And it's a safe place. Morgan shows up to sing it.

01:56:23 Speaker_04
Nobody's videoing, nobody's picturing.

01:56:25 Speaker_02
People know it's a laboratory too. And that's another exciting thing about it. Like when you go to the Mothership, you go to that bottom of the barrel show. That's a full laboratory show. My favorite show I've seen there.

01:56:35 Speaker_02
Nobody knows what the fuck it's going to be about. You're just reaching into a barrel and pulling out suggestions.

01:56:40 Speaker_04
Yeah, that a bunch of people that are Mothership fans wrote on paper. Yeah. It gets wild immediately. There wasn't a warm-up question. It's automatically to the... Brian Simpson is so good at it, by the way.

01:56:52 Speaker_02
Yeah, well, it's his show. But the reason why it's so good is because it's like a premise factory. You just get ignited by this thought that you didn't think of before that.

01:57:02 Speaker_02
In that moment, someone says something about firetrucks, and then you're like, you know about firetrucks? And then all of a sudden, there's a bit. Right.

01:57:10 Speaker_02
Like, all of a sudden, because of necessity, because you're forced into this situation where you're trying to, like, it's literally like you're calling on the muse on the stage. And, you know, a lot of times it's nothing.

01:57:20 Speaker_02
Like seven out of ten times, you ain't got shit for that bit. But every now and then you catch fire and that becomes like a bit.

01:57:26 Speaker_04
Oh, have you ever had one burst into a bit?

01:57:28 Speaker_02
A bunch of them. I'll tell you which one's off stage or off camera, but a bunch of them. A bunch of them. Yeah, a bunch of them. Because it's just like that little room too is like so, like you can't bullshit anybody in that little room. I like it.

01:57:42 Speaker_02
It feels like we're all sitting Indian style together. Yeah, there's only 100 people in there. 110, I think, is when it's fully packed. Dave was the first person to go on stage there. Really? Yeah. Well, actually Shane first. Shane opened for Gillis.

01:57:55 Speaker_02
Gillis opened for Chappelle. We didn't even tell the audience who was going on stage. We just said it's a special intimate show. Show sold out like that. Nobody knew who it was. And then Gillis goes on stage, does 15 minutes, and he brings up Dave.

01:58:06 Speaker_02
And Dave did like an hour and a half. And he just fully writes on stage. Like, he had just done a special. He fully writes on stage. Like, he has ideas, and he just, like, lets them breathe. Just fucks around on stage. Gets a little tipsy.

01:58:21 Speaker_04
Just fucks around on stage. Can I tell that story? You can cut this if you don't want me to tell it, but my favorite story I tell about you is my time at the comedy club with you was one of the first times I did this pod.

01:58:32 Speaker_04
I think you had shows that night, and I went to both of them. And the first one was killer. But the second one, you had gotten a little slippery, and it was fun.

01:58:42 Speaker_04
It was like, because I remember right before you walked out there, you even looked at me, and that's the word you used. You said, I felt a little slippery, just a little loose. You had your cup in your hand, and I just seen a twinkle in you.

01:58:52 Speaker_04
I was like, oh, I'm staying. Because I was going to leave. I'd already seen the show, you know? And you did two shows. I was like, oh, I've got to see this. I think this is going to be a little different.

01:59:00 Speaker_00
Those are the fun ones.

01:59:02 Speaker_04
Yeah it was fun man because I got to watch the same set but you fuck around a little more and kind of get lost in it sometimes just having fun with it.

01:59:08 Speaker_04
You know like you could tell you were like you did the first one like this is what I know I got and the second one you had a couple cocktails like I'm gonna riff on this point a little bit just fuck off.

01:59:17 Speaker_02
Sometimes when you do that you have the best part of the joke that's when that's when you'll find probably the shit that closes it out.

01:59:21 Speaker_02
Mm-hmm There's sometimes like taglines just come to you in the moment and you're like, wow I never even thought of that one before. Yeah, do you get straight off stage and write them down? No, I record all my sets Oh, wow.

01:59:31 Speaker_02
So then after I'm done, I'll listen to the recording then I'll write Yeah, I sit down from the laptop and just actually sit down and put them out Does it help you to see your ideas like that?

01:59:41 Speaker_02
It helps me to expand on them because it takes longer to type a thought than it does to think it, right?

01:59:47 Speaker_02
So, like, if I'm thinking a coffee cup, I'm thinking of it instantly, but it takes a couple of seconds for me to write it, and that gives me chances to, like, explore left, rights, down, up, all these different ways you can go with an idea.

01:59:59 Speaker_02
So, and then I'll usually, like, try to write it out like an essay form. So, if I have an idea and it's funny and it does really well in, like, bottom of the barrel or a riff out of nowhere, then I take that idea and I just write out like an essay.

02:00:13 Speaker_02
I'm not even trying to be funny. I just try to think about all the different angles of this idea and then I'll extract like little pieces of it and try these little pieces on stage. Wow.

02:00:24 Speaker_04
And then you go and test them and chew the meat and spit the fat.

02:00:26 Speaker_02
And then sometimes in the middle of it, you're like, this sounds wrong. This sounds disingenuous. I'll take a totally different approach. Sometimes I'll contradict myself. Like in the middle of it, I'll go, but what the fuck do I?

02:00:35 Speaker_02
Why would I think that I know the answer to that? And then that becomes the bit. Right. Then it turns into a turn. Yeah. You never know, man. And the whole thing is just numbers.

02:00:45 Speaker_02
You just got to put a lot of numbers in, a lot of numbers in front of the computer, numbers on stage. It's like this constant process of like building a mountain one layer of paint at a time.

02:00:55 Speaker_04
Yeah, just constant. Time under pressure. Yeah. Me and my daughter, she writes songs. She's already so much better than I was at 16. But she would come to me a couple years ago and she'd be like, hey, I want to put some of this stuff out.

02:01:10 Speaker_04
I've been writing all this stuff. And I was torn because I was like, well, you should have the right to put out whatever you want. That's the freedom that exists. But I know something you don't know. That you just wrote your first 30 songs.

02:01:21 Speaker_04
And they're incredible. For your first 30 songs. You know what I mean? Go write a hundred. And let's see if we can find five that are worth rewriting. Reworking. Refiguring out. You know what I mean? And I was cool.

02:01:35 Speaker_04
It taught me a lot about her personality because she was like, I get it. She got it immediately. I wouldn't have got it at 15. You know what I mean? She got it. She was like, cool, no problem.

02:01:42 Speaker_02
She probably sees what you do, you know? And that's the beautiful thing about having an example, whether it's your peers or for her, your dad, you get to see an example of how someone does a process.

02:01:55 Speaker_02
Because if you're not around anybody that's trying to get good at something, You don't really know how to do it.

02:02:00 Speaker_02
That's one of the cool things about a conversation like this, because there's people out there that are listening that don't have anybody around them that's doing cool shit, and they think it's impossible.

02:02:09 Speaker_02
And they hear about this dude that was in jail for half his fucking life, and this other dude who was a cage-fighting commentator and stand-up comedian. These fucking guys, they're not normal either. Maybe I'm not normal.

02:02:22 Speaker_02
Maybe there is something out there for me. But I don't hear it from anybody in my neighborhood. I don't hear it from my parents. I don't hear it from my teachers. I don't hear it from my boss. And I'm fucking lost, you know?

02:02:35 Speaker_02
And then they hear people talk about the love of writing songs that you have, the passion you have for creating a thing, how you piece it, how you jump up and write down the premise. You write down an idea for a lyric.

02:02:49 Speaker_02
And then in their head, they're like, I can do that with something. I can do that with something. I just have to find a thing. I said, just find a thing, man.

02:02:57 Speaker_04
Just... There was... My daddy, I sat down with him at a bar called the Tin Roof on the Monmouth Street one night, Joe, and I looked my dad in the eye and I said, I'm done. I said, I've done everything I can. I remember I was probably 29 years old.

02:03:10 Speaker_04
It was probably a decade ago. And I said, Dad, I've been out of jail five years, or four years, whatever. I've done everything I can in this business. You know how hard I've worked.

02:03:21 Speaker_04
Do you think our brother Roger will give me a job on a meat truck, because my father sold meat? So did my brother. He said, I know your brother will give you a drive on a meat truck, but I want to give you some perspective.

02:03:32 Speaker_04
I said, I'm open for a healthy dose of that. He said, you've only been out here trying this as hard as you possibly can for five years, just five, four years, four and a five years. I said, dad, that's five years.

02:03:45 Speaker_04
He said, if you went to Vanderbilt, you still wouldn't have your bachelor's degree. Joe. It's true. Right. It's so true. It covered me.

02:03:58 Speaker_04
And he said, Jason, if you're working as hard as you really know you are, if you're really writing every day, if you're doing shows every week, and I was opening up 50 bucks a night.

02:04:07 Speaker_04
I mean, you know, my story is that old school get in the van and go do a thousand shows for fucking gas money. You know what I mean? He's like, if you're really doing that,

02:04:16 Speaker_04
there's no way it's not gonna work if you're really doing it not you're faking it not you're half-assing it if you're really this is all that matters to you if you were going to Vanderbilt right now and you did it for another five years you'd finally be a brain surgeon he said if I was you I'd wait and see if I was a brain surgeon I'll never forget and I'll never forget calling him crying the first time I moved into a neighborhood with a surgeon

02:04:44 Speaker_04
You know what I mean? You know, when you call him, like, you won't fucking believe. I just met my neighbor. Guess what he does? What? He's a fucking plastic surgeon.

02:04:51 Speaker_00
You know what I'm saying? That's crazy.

02:04:56 Speaker_04
Yeah, that old man knew something, though. But he just knew that the law of work would never work against us. You know what I mean?

02:05:01 Speaker_02
Yeah, if you keep going. That's the thing we were talking about before, about people bailing out. Yeah, that's it. It gets hard. You just gotta sit, man. You just gotta sit, man. You just gotta sit.

02:05:09 Speaker_02
You also gotta recognize when you're making the right moves or the wrong moves. You know, with what you're doing. And sometimes people don't want to course correct. They don't want to course correct. Then it could be a bad relationship.

02:05:21 Speaker_02
That one's tanked more guys than anything. Yeah, I've seen it. And gals. I've seen it. The bad relationship one, that'll tank you. No, that'll do it. Yeah, become everything in your life is that thing, and then you have very little resources for your art.

02:05:33 Speaker_02
Yeah. Because your life is just a storm, just a storm of confusion and chaos and fucking emotions every day. Yeah.

02:05:40 Speaker_04
And then trying to block it out to make the art. Exactly. Yeah. If you can't allow it to be the muse for it. For me, it was a little different because it became the muse.

02:05:49 Speaker_04
The chaos that was happening around me just became I had a moment where and this is such a cool epiphany I had Joe For the longest time I thought I was special because I was from Antioch, Tennessee and I grew up in a certain kind of way around certain kind of people and that I was special because that was that I hung on to that like I'm different and

02:06:09 Speaker_04
And then I realized what was happening was I was just like everybody else. That's what the superpower really was, is that every fucking neighborhood in America is like Antioch almost. You know what I mean? So it was like a totally different thing.

02:06:22 Speaker_04
So I started realizing, oh, this isn't this is the muse. I'm speaking for every man when I'm writing just the chaos that's happening around me right now. This is the every man story.

02:06:35 Speaker_02
Isn't it crazy that everybody wants to be special? But every special person wants to be an everyman? Yeah. I like being in every man. That's what I like being. Me too. Yeah. But when you're a kid, you want to be different.

02:06:50 Speaker_02
You want to pretend that you're different than other people because that'll make success more attainable. Exactly.

02:06:55 Speaker_02
You want to pretend that you have some special quality and ability that other people don't possess, so that's why you can get to this bizarre position that everybody wants, where everybody in our business wants to be successful and famous.

02:07:08 Speaker_02
So you have to be bizarre. And then once you get there, you're like, oh, shit, everybody's just the same. Everybody's the same. I got to make sure that I keep that. Make sure that I keep we're all the same.

02:07:20 Speaker_04
It was in my songwriting, I'm going to say 2015, 16-ish, I realized that I was trying to tell special stories.

02:07:30 Speaker_04
and that God had put me in a situation, he was screaming at me to tell a story of a group of people that had never had their story told, but I was just going out of my way to try to come up with a special story. You know what I mean?

02:07:41 Speaker_04
And then when I started being like, you know what, no, I'm just gonna write about my neighbor who's struggling with drug addiction.

02:07:46 Speaker_04
I'm just gonna write a song about my baby mother because I'm infuriated that she left our daughter high and dry like this because of drugs. You know what I mean? I just started writing from that perspective.

02:07:56 Speaker_04
And then I realized that it was connecting with people because it was the every man's story. You know what I mean? I almost called this album Cinderella Man, right? And I'll tell you why I didn't.

02:08:08 Speaker_04
But I thought, I watched the movie and I was like, I had a moment in that movie where when he's walking, you've seen the movie, right? Y'all have all seen the movie.

02:08:16 Speaker_04
He's walking in a, for those who haven't, it's about an old boxer who in the depression had kind of, Was on a losing streak, kind of long in the tooth.

02:08:24 Speaker_00
James Prattock.

02:08:25 Speaker_04
James Prattock. They would call him a journeyman, is what we call him now. It looked like it was never going to work out for him. Couldn't get a job on a loading dock almost. Family Split and Bread, one of the greatest movies ever. Russell Crowe, right?

02:08:36 Speaker_04
Yep. And he comes out, and towards the end he ends up fighting his championship fight, and it's a crazy movie to watch. But when he's running, he goes by the old dock and they're all cheering for him. And I relate to this because this happened to me.

02:08:47 Speaker_04
And he didn't understand it. So he looks at his manager. You remember this scene? This is the scene that I related to the most. He looks at his manager and goes, why are they cheering for me? He goes, because you're them.

02:08:59 Speaker_04
I was like, I'm the fucking Cinderella man. That's why this worked for me at 40. You know what I mean? But I ended up calling it Beautifully Broken because as I started really writing, because that was my idea going into the project.

02:09:12 Speaker_04
I'm going to write the Cinderella man story. And all I could think about was other people. Every time I'd pick up a pen, I would think about this young lady at a show who told me that Save Me helped her because she was raped by her uncle.

02:09:29 Speaker_04
So I'm like, what do I write for her? I see Winning Streak. I watch this moment.

02:09:40 Speaker_04
I got to write that for him, you know now I might write some of them from first perspective But it changed everything and all of a sudden I was like this album ain't about me You know what? I mean?

02:09:52 Speaker_04
This album is about finding beauty and broken things You know, yeah, and instantly it was like once again how God works as soon as I took me out of it The album blossomed

02:10:06 Speaker_04
Immediately I wrote a hunk wrote 80 songs that sucked just couldn't find my way to what story I was trying to tell you know and just as soon as I was like Let's go back to where's the muse coming from what who am I writing for?

02:10:18 Speaker_04
I say I'm the voice of the voiceless when I when I had the opportunity to go Talk about fentanyl down at Capitol Hill. I didn't hesitate I knew I was going to talk for a bunch of people that couldn't talk. You know what I mean?

02:10:28 Speaker_04
It's like who am I writing this for? And dude it changed that whole writing style dog and then I got lost and wrote another 80 I But now I'm having fun. I got a direction. I feel like I've heard from God. I'm Moses. You know what I'm saying?

02:10:40 Speaker_04
The burning bushes spoke. I know what I'm supposed to be writing about, you know? It took me 16 months to get there, but that's just how it works.

02:10:46 Speaker_02
Isn't that crazy what you're saying, too, about taking yourself out of it?

02:10:49 Speaker_04
Soon as I took me out of it. You know what I mean? As soon as I took me out of it, it was that easy.

02:10:55 Speaker_02
It snapped that fast. It's almost like a trap. It's the You're So Vain song. It's like a trap. That trap of thinking about yourself. You waste so much of your resources.

02:11:08 Speaker_02
So much of your resources like thinking about how you want to come off, how you want people to react to it, how you want to like get out there and kill it in front of everybody and you miss all the beautiful magic. All the magic. It's right there.

02:11:22 Speaker_02
Yeah. You know and you're just missing, you just get lost in the art. And when you're at your best you are them. You are one of them. You're like singing for them.

02:11:31 Speaker_04
When I'm at my best, it's when I didn't know they were cheering for me. It's because I'm one of them. You know what I mean? This album was the most fun I've ever had getting to an album. I learned so much about myself.

02:11:46 Speaker_02
I think that's one of the things that people really dislike about stars, like famous people, like people that you think of as stars, that they somehow or another think they're better than everybody else.

02:11:55 Speaker_02
That's the thing that people, like, dislike the most. Like, oh, they think they're better than us. They live in Beverly Hills. They think they're better than us because they're a star. You ain't better than us.

02:12:06 Speaker_02
And it's like, when someone can do what you do and stay the same person and stay them, just a better version of who you used to be, but stay, stay normal.

02:12:15 Speaker_04
And actually getting better every day because I'm doing the work.

02:12:18 Speaker_04
Yeah, I was telling the Titans when I went to talk to him at the game I was like I focus and I don't focus on winning anything but life Like I know that everything else is gonna be good as long as I'm focused on being a good father

02:12:31 Speaker_04
Like priority number one is like, am I good husband? What I've learned is if I'm winning as a husband and I'm winning as a father, I am fucking kicking ass in business.

02:12:39 Speaker_02
Yeah, the last scene one is those home dramas. Yeah, you don't want no home drama. No, it's crazy.

02:12:44 Speaker_04
But it's also, that's something, we talk about things that distracted people. I was in so many bad relationships early, or even times in my life I was single, courting multiple women. And that's such a distraction.

02:12:55 Speaker_04
Like when I got with my wife and fell of like to the point of being like I don't want to spend time with any woman but you when I have the time I have to spend I want to spend it with you.

02:13:06 Speaker_04
And all my it's like my whole world suddenly went from feeling like it was this big to this big. And when it got that small I was like oh man this is it. We're in a foxhole. And then I just started kicking ass outside. You know what I'm saying?

02:13:19 Speaker_04
My life just starts winning.

02:13:20 Speaker_02
And I'm like, oh, dude, it's because I'm fucking winning at home. It's also what you're saying, too, about your resources. You have so much more to give. And everything's positive.

02:13:30 Speaker_02
A happy home life feeds off your happy business life and your happy performing life. That's what we all want. We all want a beautiful community of people that are enjoying life and experiencing life together.

02:13:44 Speaker_02
Your family and your friends and the people you fuck around with. You just want a beautiful community of people having a good time. And that's possible. But it's hard. And that's why it's so wonderful when you get it.

02:13:56 Speaker_02
Because you know that there's a lot of people out there that are never going to get it.

02:14:00 Speaker_04
Man, that's deep. That's probably the hardest part. It's a lot of work towards it, too, though, man.

02:14:05 Speaker_02
A lot of work.

02:14:05 Speaker_04
It's a lot of... It's a lot of work on yourself, you know? Yeah, yeah. Lots of work. But that's work and relationships, though, man.

02:14:12 Speaker_02
Just think about the arc that you've gone through from being a kid, getting arrested as a kid, spending all that time in juvenile and jail, and then getting free, and then figuring out that you're talented, and then pursuing this crazy, impossible dream, you know?

02:14:28 Speaker_02
Yeah. And to where you are now. It's nuts. Sitting on the biggest podcast in the world, my bubba. It's an amazing story. If it was in a movie, you'd have a hard time believing it. That movie's nuts.

02:14:41 Speaker_04
I'm telling you, dude, that little fat nerdy alien that's playing me on the game every day is fucking killing it. He's killing it. My brother, I appreciate you very much.

02:14:49 Speaker_02
I love you very much.

02:14:50 Speaker_04
I got to put Jamie on blast before we go, though.

02:14:52 Speaker_02
Jamie, we got a deal.

02:14:54 Speaker_04
Me and Jamie had some cocktails one night. Now look at Jamie. And we had a deal that if I ever played Ohio Stadium, Joe Rogan, that Jamie was gonna come out and play the guitar.

02:15:04 Speaker_02
Jamie, you got any video of you playing guitar?

02:15:06 Speaker_04
Yeah.

02:15:06 Speaker_03
Not recently, but yeah, I used to be in a band and played music on stage and stuff.

02:15:09 Speaker_02
Sure. He definitely knew. I heard him talking.

02:15:11 Speaker_03
Do you have any video of you playing guitar that we could sweat right now? No. It's like, you wouldn't know it was me.

02:15:17 Speaker_04
It's just a lot of heavy metal music. Will you pull up a Buckeye Country Fest then so you can show everybody the flyer of the concert you're going to be playing next year?

02:15:29 Speaker_02
Oh my god.

02:15:29 Speaker_01
There it is, baby. I see you there, Jamie.

02:15:32 Speaker_02
Jamie, June 21st, 2025, Ohio Stadium, Columbus, Ohio. Let's fucking go.

02:15:38 Speaker_04
Yeah, fuck Jelly Roll. Y'all come to see young Jamie play that guitar.

02:15:41 Speaker_02
I love that Megan Maroney chick, too.

02:15:43 Speaker_04
Listen, man, she's awesome, awesome, dude.

02:15:45 Speaker_02
Yeah, my daughter turned me on to her.

02:15:48 Speaker_04
Yeah, she's... She is badass man when she made her Opry debut. She wore a jelly roll jacket, and it tickled me So pink it made me like the cool dad for my daughter cuz my daughter loves her too, so that's amazing really cool I love you Joe man.

02:16:02 Speaker_02
I love you.

02:16:02 Speaker_04
Thank you for your time brother beautifully broken available now available now go get it