Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast - Old Crow Medicine Show's Ketch Secor Gets Honest About Country Music | Andy Frasco

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

Old Crow Medicine Show frontman Ketch Secor joins Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast for a candid conversation about country music, the American dream, and what musicians owe their audiences. This episode is brought to you by JamCut.IO (https://jamcut.io/). If you're a musician and you're tired of making clips all the time, check these guys out! Ketch traces his path from teenage busking and riding freight-free on Amtrak to building a life in Old Crow Medicine Show. He shares how Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, and Woody Guthrie shaped his songwriting, discusses making peace with Willie Watson, and explains why playing the old songs never gets old. Along the way, Andy and Ketch talk Molly Tuttle, Colonel Bruce Hampton, the realities of touring, and why a musician's job starts with giving people a good time. #OldCrowMedicineShow #KetchSecor #AndyFrasco

All right. Next up on the interview hour, we have Catch from Old Crow Medicine Show. Yes. I love this interview so much. Not only is he a genius, but they are one of my favorite bands of all time. I saw them play about 14 years ago at Hangout Fest, and I was hooked ever since. The energy, the songwriting, the whole nine. It's just perfect. So, ladies and gentlemen, hey, Chris, play some Old Crowe Madison show while we're pimping out catch. He's brilliant, brilliant. songwriter, great front man. He's got it all, and I can't wait for you to hear this interview. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, next up on the interview hour, Old Crow Medicine Show. I've been looking forward to this one for a while, and I'm thankful that someone reached out to make this happen.

Catch, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing great. I'm glad someone reached out to make it happen, too, because I got to meet you. Yeah, I've heard, you know, you're one of the first reasons. why I play music, just FYI. I've heard... Really? 100% man.

Your live show and how you... I saw you play maybe at Hangout Fest seven years ago, 10 years ago. Oh, sure. Down in Alabama, right? Down in Alabama, you're doing this side show and I was working for Spin Magazine and I saw you perform

and you were one of the greatest front men I've ever seen and inspired me to do what I'm doing now. So I just want to say thank you. Well, man, I'm glad to do it. I watched some great frontman in my life and heard him on radio and watched them on film and on stage, but mostly on television. And modeled my whole schick after what I saw. And so I'm glad to pay it forward.

And now you get to go up there and break a sweat and hopefully not an elbow. You know, let's talk about that first before I heard you don't have a smartphone or a laptop. Well, that's how I was when you saw me at the, what's it called? And up until about, oh, I guess the pan, I got a smartphone right before the pandemic. And it was the best choice ever. It's kind of like I had just started smoking in my 40s. You know that feeling of like, God, where have you been all my life? Yeah, exactly.

This is great. But I'm so glad I didn't start when I was 12. instead it's the other way around. I did start smoking when I was 12, but I didn't engage in screen time, social media dysfunction until I was 40-something. And I think that's smarter because I feel like we get way more addicted

to the social media than we would of smoking cigarettes. No, I disagree. Yeah? I mean, for me, it wasn't smoking cigarettes, it was chewing tobacco, which I also started doing when I was. was 12. And once I started chewing tobacco, God, it's like, just, I never wanted to quit that.

I would have died doing that. But I've since stopped. And I've since started doing social media, but I could take it or leave it. Moderation is one of those things. It's like an elusive dance partner. You're always trying to make sure that she is top of your dance card. Yeah. And how hard is it to have moderation in your life, catch? Well, I work in bars for a living. I go to, bed about four o'clock into morning and that's normal. But, you know, there's other aspects of my life that keep me, you know, straight and narrow, like I have children. And I'm a community activist in Nashville, Tennessee, and I'm involved with all kinds of things.

And so I have like a professional hat that I put on sometimes. But even when I'm wearing my professional hat, I'm still doing it like a tobacco spitting frontman with a violin tucked under my elbow. It's true. And you know, let's talk about that. You know, 12 years old, getting all these things thrown your way, like cigarettes and chewing tobacco. Tell me about your childhood a little bit. Where are you from? And I thought, aren't you from Canada? No, but I'm so touched that you say that.

My resources are too exhausted to even bear mention how glad I am. You said that. But no, I'm sorry about that. I digress. I lived in a whole bunch of different states by the time I was a fifth grader. I lived in five states. And that's when I had moved to Virginia. And that's where I think of myself as being raised, even though there was a real kaleidoscope of other places when I was a smaller kid,

including Louisiana, St. Louis and New Jersey and Missouri. But once I got to Virginia, things really kind of stabilized. and my family quit moving. And that's where I learned a passion for music, but really it started in community theater and in plays in school. I just wanted to be up on a stage and memorize my lines,

and I really wanted to kiss the girl at the big end of the show. Well, that's perfect. I mean, in that sense, maybe you got adjusted to traveling so much because growing up you were traveling so much. Yeah, and as soon as I was of age to, or even before, when I was about 14 or 15, I would just ride the train everywhere.

And that's when I first played on the street corner. It was on a, I went out to work on this, you know, this commune type of place where they lived in TPs and grew a lot of different things, including vegetables, which we sold at the farmer's market. This was out in Washington State. So I took the train out there. And the summer I turned 15 or 16. And that was when I first played on the street corner, it was, I had about 12 hours to kill in Chicago before the, before they put the double-decker trains on.

Because, you know, when you go west, you got to stop a Chicago first. Yeah. What did you like about being on the train? Well, I've been on the train since I was a kid. We always chose Amtrak. And we happened to live in a bunch of Amtrak. when we were kids. So none of my peers ever rode Amtrak.

But to me, it was the most normal thing in the world to go out of your way to drive to a train station at 2 o'clock in the morning to catch a train with your mom and dad and your sisters. Fucking cool, man. What did what your parents do growing up? They were teachers. They are teachers. They're retired. They're both alive. Happy, healthy, 70-somethings.

They're born and raised in Toledo, Ohio. and dad was always pretty and nostalgic dude. You know, he's always talking about the past. He always talked about it's like German Omar, you know, who lived at the Plaza Hotel in Toledo, which was basically federal housing. But he made it sound like it was a turkey dinner every night, you know, even though she was probably eating out of cans

and smoking generic cigarettes. Do you think that's who taught you how to be a storyteller? I think my dad, my dad always said he wanted to go into radio. I mean, my dad is an elementary school principal. So, you know, my dad is very like girls and boys. You know, he's very articulate and has a voice that has, that draws you in and makes you feel. Because when you're in the school business, it's kind of like country music. Your demographic is mothers.

And not older mothers. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, you know, 29 to 49 year old white women. That's who country music has decided. is the demo they need to serve. That's who everyone is serving. Ask Darius, it's true. So it's actually, you're a spot on about that.

What is it about country music that older women become so intrigued with? Well, it's a highly commercial format. And it's, you know, that's nothing new. It was that way when I was a kid, but it had much more of a connection to its older, honky ton twang self.

And nowadays, you might hear an artist occasionally who has a throwback, but oftentimes the throwback is really put on because throwback is kind of like a major on-brand thing for country music to do and has been, you know, since the whole genre got started. I'm convinced that that suburban white housewives tend to be the demographic of country music because country music is a really safe bet and country music prize itself on this quote unquote accessibility but it's this kind of american this outdated sense of accessibility who who is who has the privilege to access this suburbanites yeah middle clats and then who else would like to access this but can't you know and then you start exploring the sociology of you know the white south and also white

world places and you see that the interplay between Trumpism and the fans of country music are, you know, bedroom buddies. Right. Everyone wants to be successful. And if you don't have a hand on the cultural ladder, if your closest rung is a super Walmart, 25 miles away from your mobile home, you want to hold on to that real tight and you want to listen to the kind of music that makes you feel several rungs above that, if you know what I mean. So why are we so fascinated with this illusion still?

Oh, man, I think it's just age-old Americana, not in the genre sense, not at all, but in the ways that we like to tell ourselves the story to feel better about the harsh reality that it costs the price of this freedom, the price of becoming the leader of the free world and whatnot. You know, it didn't come easy. And the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness was not available to everybody. Right. So now that it is kind of available, is the American dream dead, the old idea of American dream? Or is it kind of brought on something else? Well, that's a great question for us all to be thinking about in times like these. I think my answer would be that, no, the American dream is very much alive.

but it's possible that it's being dreamed somewhere outside of America more successfully and with more passion and drive. Right. So why are we still believing? Why are we still believing in the adlusion? Disney and Leia Coker and Donald Trump and all those made-up stories about grandeur and rags to riches, man. We just love that tale. I know.

I think of that in the music industry, too. when you think about when you first started music and stuff and like the idea the dream was to like maybe I don't know actually you should tell me this before me you know analyzing something that you what you're about to say what was the American dream for music for you catch um I think it was a really informed by um Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan probably the most influential people in in terms of my developing the kind of, you know, I can't remember if it's the id or the ego. Do you remember which one of these we're talking about? Yeah, exactly.

The ego. Okay, so, you know, in my egotistical construction of myself and the mirror of life, I wanted to be like Pete Seeger because I wanted to, because I wanted to be a proletariat. I wanted to speak for the people and to the people. with the language that the people had created. But I also wanted to be like Bob Dylan, which was to say whatever you wanted and be more of an, of a, you know, an iconoclast,

a, you know, like John Milton, like, you know, go, go wayward and be T.S. Eliot one day and P.T. Barnum the next. And, you know, Jimmy Swaggered, you know, three weeks after that. Bob got to shape, shipped and do a whole lot of things. Pete is an incredibly consistent performer. Yeah. It's fascinating because, like, you know, you look at, you know, is that a push and pull inside yourself of who you want to be

between the two egos, let's say? Oh, maybe. I think that it all probably happened when I was about 12 and I just settled on the path that was unfolding. I'm not really wrestling with a should I, shouldn't I kind of thing. I've been in a band for 23 years. So I think that's, you know, an indicator of my confidence that I picked the right path. But I, you know, I'm here in my middle age years now and I'm like, hell, I can do whatever the hell I want to.

I don't got to get on that bus and go to fill in that damn radio convention. Yeah, it's true. So tell me about the path when it wasn't when you were 12 years old. What was that path like when you first picked it? Well, I went upstairs to my attic because I don't know why. I went upstairs to my attic. Oh, because my uncle had moved to the Philippines to be a teacher. And then he brought all of his crap to our house.

And upstairs in the attic suddenly was all this new stuff. And anyway, there were all these records, all these records. and these records were so cool, man. There was like Stevie Wonder at age 14. It was called Stevie Wonder's greatest hits. The kid's greatest hits came out when he was 14. It's insane. There's nothing on it that you've ever heard.

None of those songs are hits at all. But they were on Motown. They were on that label and they were in that marketing conversation that they must have had up there at the Motown building when they were like, let's call it as greatest hits. All right. I hope you're enjoying the interview, but a quick message from our buds. Hey, musicians, are you playing shows but have no clips to show for it?

Our new sponsor Jam Cut is changing the content game for bands and artists all over. I'm telling you, we really need this, actually, because I edit all my videos when I'm on the bus, and it's a pain in the fucking ass. Just upload whatever video and audio you have, whether that's phone clips, camera footage, or board audio, and Jam Cut automatically sinks it all over together so you can start. cutting clips from the best parts of your shows or jam shesh. Dude, I'm telling you, how many times I waste fucking just editing

my own video on Instagram real? I could be finding a girl friend. I don't know. And guys, this isn't another AI slot video app. This startup was made by three musicians out of Denver and they built it with love for the craft. You know, and we're supporting Denver.

We're supporting Denver businesses, which is important to me in this scene. So Jam Cuts online editor lets you and your entire band put your own creative spin on it. It tracks each musicians for tight vertical crops, adds smooth pans and zoom plus transitions, separates your audio into stems and has sick effects that react to the music you're playing. Jam cut turns one show into a week's content. This is huge. Actually, honestly, no bullshit. This is huge because sometimes we only get these like shitty one video, iPhone videos, and Jamka can actually cut it into something

worth posting. So take it from me. It's fun as hell to use. Your first month is free. Just tell them I sent you. Use the code Frasco and experience the future of live show video editing.

So get yourself out. Go to fucking Jamcutt. All right. Hey boys, what about Jamcutta? We love it. They fucking love it. Right. That's so true.

It's like, so those are the guys that are inspiring you. I mean, it seems like your parents were, you know, really deep into education. I mean, as I look, you know, later on your life, you're alumni at Philip Exeter Academy. It's insane. Yeah, it was a really good high school experience.

So by the time I went away to school, I already had found the records. I already had found an old guitar. And then the other important thing that happened is that I'd already had a paper route, which meant that I had to get an alarm clock. And I happened to get the alarm clock that had an AM radio. Yeah. And just like my dad grew up. in a kind of illusion that the past was somehow saintly and beautiful.

I did too. And so for me, listening to AM radio when everybody else was listening to Nirvana's nevermind, not that I didn't listen to that also, but I also listened to a lot of like seed and grain reports from the great planes. You know, at one o'clock in the morning on the AM dial, you could hear the whole country. And I was about 10 or 11 listening, tuning in. it just, I felt so connected with the traffic in Cincinnati and Toronto. Everything was, I could listen to the radio in New Orleans and St. Louis. It was all there.

Anyway, so I got to high school and that's when I started to learn to play the banjo. So going to this prestigious school and you telling your teachers and your, you know, your friends and stuff that you wanted to play music, was that Sean upon or did they want you to, like, do something else? No, I mean, I think they, I was a scholarship student. I think being a southerner, it was actually a kind of diversity for them. It was an extremely diverse community. You know, there were kids from all over the world.

I mean, lots of international kids, lots of kids from Asia, lots of kids from the Middle East, lots of European kids. There were kids from Africa. And then kids from all over the United States. I went from, I went from the poultry processing. capital of the world where I was in middle school to this elite boarding school lineup on the sea coast of New Hampshire. So it was a hell of a tradeoff from like the polarized, you know, everything is black and white. You work at the plants. You don't work at the plants. Latinos come and work in the plants or they don't work at the plants or your middle class or your

upper middle class, whatever. So it was, it was, I didn't find right immediately that I fit in to high school, but music and it's sort of becoming a southerner while I was in New England. Kind of helped me sort of foment these insecurities and turn them into strengths.

I was different than everybody. And it never occurred to me to like have a twang or like wear overalls, but I did as soon as I was 14. And then I had dreadlocks and, you know, I learned a lot when I was up north. I went to fish shows and I saw the Grateful Dead and I went to

these Dillon concerts and all that stuff. But in my heart, I was always going to be a fiddler. Tell me about those years between 18 and 21 when you started developing your craft, were you busking then? Yeah, I was playing on a lot of street corners. And in the beginning, I had a couple of different bands, some from my hometown. I moved to Greensboro, North Carolina to get close to the music right out of high school.

And then eventually I started Old Crow in Ithaca. But ahead of that, I was playing basically anywhere. I really enjoyed working in agriculture, you know, and I was really into the kind of confluence of music and ag. To me, it was like the same thing to, you know, like put in a really beautiful row of beans and watch them come up as it was to learn a song. Right.

You know, and like I worked at a lot of farmer's markets, so like I would always play at the market. And I write little jingles about, you know, what I grew or, You know, if the lady that was selling sweet rolls across the way was real cute, you know, and I'd have my saw horses up there, and I'd lean against them with my overalls on and my silly, like, 18-year-old awkwardness, newborn cult kind of attitude of, you know, smoking merit cigarettes and singing my songs. You know, when you talk about this mission, I feel like, you know, you say that, you know, Woody Guthrie was talking to you internally and stuff.

What was Woody telling you during those years, beginning years of being? Oh, just like, just everything I read, you know, I would read these books of his and or study up on his songs or read, you know, Steinbeck or whatever he was reading. And I just feel like I wanted to be where those things were happening. I really wanted to be at the, at the site of an uprising. and I wanted to be at the site of a of hard scrabble people scratching out a living. I wanted to explore traditional life pathways and see what was left because I knew that,

you know, I read a lot of books that were from the 70s in which the Back to the Land Movement had really inspired a lot of literature and, you know, lifestyle changes. So like I was super into communes when I was 18. I wanted to live on one. I had lived on one. I wanted to go to. more. Intentional living was something that was, you know, attracted to me. And when you look at

where those ideas came from, they're really from the 1970s, late 60s as a kind of result of the counterculture movement. And I always felt like a 60s kind of kid. So did you ever feel like you never wanted to be a sleepwalker? When you talk about living, you talk about living and like having a full purpose in life. So you're basing it on, maybe. people who just live life without having passion, without having drive, you know, sleepwalking a little bit. Yeah, I definitely was never at risk of that. Like, I can barely rest.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm the same way. You know, what's so important about living to you? You know, one thing is coming clear is that it doesn't last forever. Yeah. And it's all you get. Right. So you might as well, really live it up.

Yeah. You know, try and take your life and give as much to other people as you can, enrich others and be, you know, generous and kind as much as you can because you only get this one crack at it. So, you know, I just have a, you know, I'm not a, I'm a person that's often like stopping to talk to children. Right. Sometimes the dads, like yesterday, I did this gig and then I was, I was out of, I was out of, you know, I was out on this mall, his pedestrian mall,

I was looking at this kid, and I just was like, what a beautiful kid. And then I saw the dad looking at me like I'm some sort of freak. Like putting on this real protective skin, like puffed up as he like held his daughter's hand closer. And like that,

you know, I get that. But, you know, I was just looking at that kid and thinking, God, isn't life beautiful? Right.

Look, we start this whole thing out with all this wonder about, what is this amazing world that we're living in where it rains? and the wind just feels so cooling. Oh my God. Right. No, it's totally true. Do you ever in your career with your band, you know,

like with that philosophy, sometimes we forget to do that to the people surrounding us. Does that make sense? We ever regret any of the times not doing that with some of your band members? I mean, no. I mean, I was, I wish, if I got any regrets about how it all

went down. It's a personal one that in my 20s, particularly in early 30s, I was just really, really stressed out about this, this lifestyle and gig. And, you know, I was so worried. I just could barely enjoy any part of what I was building very successfully for, you know, somebody that was going to play the fiddle for a living. I was Charlie Chaplin. You know, like, this is, I don't know how you get better off than, you know, when you can play the violin in cross-tuning and be a self-taught player and turn your journal entry songs into, you know, hits or anthems or whatever and travel to the world. I mean, I don't, you know, like, yeah, maybe I could get like a second bus or like a, I could, you know, I could fill an arena or something, but I'm cool with where

things are at. I just wish that I could have enjoyed the ride a little bit more, especially when it was so dicey. Yeah, talk about those years when it was dicey. What was making you not appreciate the life? It was a really dysfunctional collection of human beings. You know, it turned out that the people that I had assembled to help me do this mission, you know, who are all in different parts of their own lives and journey were not overwhelmingly a cast of characters who were going to be able to

pull off the mission forever. Now they might have for some time or an intermittent, you know, in and out, in and out kind of thing. Like, I'm in the band for a little while, now I'm going to go sober up or now I'm going to go work on this stuff and then I'll come back. And so there was

that or there was just you know, I mean from the minute we started the band there was somebody new in and somebody old out. Yeah. So that part of it was just part of the evolution of it. But yeah, you know, interpersonal conflicts, I think were probably, if anything, it was going to sink us.

It wasn't that we sucked or that we, you know, weren't going to get a big break. It was that we were going to self-destruct. Self-destruction was pretty epidemic in the old crow in the early 2000s. Yeah, did it put pressure on you? Like, because this is your baby. this is your dream child and to feel like it's hard to find a group of guys to envision the same thing you envision, it must have been overwhelming at times. Yeah, I always kept a lot of pots on the stove at the same time.

And I'll often sort of keep things compartmentalized as the way my brain works. And so maybe I wasn't really sharing. that with anybody, which is sort of taking it, you know? Yeah, maybe it's a shield because the thing that you have so precious that you cared about forever, you didn't want it to be fucked up from someone who didn't care as much as you did. Yeah, but I also didn't want to punish anybody for not feeling what I felt. Right. And so some of the relationships, they just went on too long because I didn't know how to say,

hey, I think you might do better off doing your thing. Were you scared to say that? Oh yeah, terrified. Why? Well, it didn't seem like, you know, it took me about, I guess about 35 years to say no to anything or anyone. I mean, I said yes to some pretty untoward advances.

Like what? What's the worst one do you still think about? You know when you have that dream about, you know, you have a dream in which you find yourself like going to a really dark or inappropriate place and you're like, oh man, I'm so glad this is a dream. I would never have made this choice in reality. Right. You know, I felt that I did make that choice in reality and, you know, sometimes found myself. in a, you know, really compromised state, you know, whether it was sleeping out of doors with, you know, in a sketchy situation with drug addicts, you know, down, I remember one time being in

Buffalo, you know, it was a snowstorm and I ended up with, you know, in this, you know, needily kind of part of town and I was, I slept there and it was really, really sketchy. Yeah. And the only reason that I allowed it to happen is because I made some friends. Yeah. You know, because I rode Greyhound. And, you know, I mean, I was 26 and people came up to you. And I had a nice or good enough backpack.

Yeah. So, you know, I just felt like I, sometimes there were parts about my personality that had a little bit of a target. And yet I put it up there. You feel like you get taken advantage of a lot? Yeah. No, no. It's not like that. It's just that I didn't know how to say no until I was 35. Yeah. It's crazy, man. Were you getting into, like, drugs heavily in your 20s?

No, I mean, not really. I mean, I was always around it. Yeah. You know, had my own little bouts with with it, but it wasn't ever something that I didn't have control of. But, you know, I did have a drinking problem. Yeah. What, um, do you think that's self-constructed? self-destructed, not constructed, self-destructed the band a little bit because everyone had their own addictions?

Well, self-destruction was the issue with the early days of Old Crow, and everybody had their own way of making that manifest. For some, it was to escape, for others,

for some of it was, like me, it was to escape the band, and for others it was to escape the demons and, you know, that they were hearing. Yeah. But everybody was looking to self-medicate and, you know, figure out how to cope with pain. Yeah.

Discomfort. Yeah. And, you know, it breaks my heart to think that you were discomfort. You weren't comfortable in your own band. Why were you just, why weren't you comfortable with those guys? I mean, you kind of talked about it a little bit, but maybe we could talk about a little more if you don't mind. well you know i i i um i guess i didn't i mean it's really hard to go into it all and not be like

you know super explicit about it and i've sort of saved some stories i've just kind of saved for myself to tell when i feel like let me tell you one time i was working on this thing with ken burns called country music and and i said ken why does the movie stop in 1999 i mean it's 2017. He said, oh, because I think it takes about 25 years to understand what happened. And I don't like to tell a story until I know it. Yeah. And, you know, the news is in and the, you know, the, you know, this is called literary criticism.

The lit-crit types. So, you know, I'll be ready to tell those stories, you know, but they're still even hard for me now. One thing that's really changed my life of how I control anxiety and how I control, going through my day-to-day of partying and playing really hard every night and going into back to being a normal person during the day. I've been doing this thing called contrast therapy where basically I go in a sauna for 45 minutes. I do 15-minute intervals three times and then I'll do a cold plunge between two to three minutes. every other time. And through that, I've seen my dopamine level dramatically grow. I have been

the happiest I've been for a long time. And it's all because of OTHERSHIP. Othership is a New York and Toronto-based company that gave me a safe space to find myself again with their amazing sonnas or amazing cold plunges and amazing community. I started journaling again. They gave me the opportunity to journal in the saunas. They gave me the opportunity to get deeper into my mind and get more comfort in the idea of being okay with myself. What I love about it, the community that other ship has brought me has really opened my mind that I don't need to go to the bars every night anymore.

I could go and talk to people outside of a social community that required alcohol or party. and I could go in there and feel healthy and talk to people and communicate. And that's one thing that othership has brought to my life that has changed my life. So if you're in the New York area, you should definitely try out othership. They got a great app, great community, and Toronto too. I know a lot of people listen to this podcast in Toronto too. But I go every day and it has changed the way I perceived life.

It's changed the way I find happiness in. the mundane parts of the day. So go check out other ship. I guarantee you you will not regret it. All right, back to the interview. Yeah. Yeah, I get, I, it's like a brotherhood, man. Have you ever, like, had any public fights?

Like on stage, you ever used to beat the shit of each other? Um, no, I think we kept things pretty much within, you know, the sphere of, of ourselves and our, you know, our, you know, our band community, which was troubling because it was so internalized. I don't think anybody knew, like, I don't think my mother knew how unhappy I was. Yeah. Did you have a girlfriend back then or like a wife or anything that knew? Uh-huh.

And I don't think she knew about it either. When did you guys start getting success as a band? How old were you? Well, success always felt immediate because we were bussed. So, you know, we were starting without even a gig. So we would go into a town, like say we'd play Ottawa. We'd go into Ottawa, 1998. We'd go set up downtown, wherever there was like some tourists or something going on.

And by the time it was over, we'd have, you know, a case full of money. We'd all be about two, three beers in, and we'd have a gig the next night because that's what somebody would have tipped us with was, hey, you guys should be on the stage. Yeah. And so the success felt immediate. And it was, you know, addictive isn't the word because it was just so beautiful. It was miraculous is what it was.

Yeah. Yeah, it's beautiful. So do you feel like those are the best times of your life when you're busking with your band versus playing theaters and having a hit? No, I like it better. now, man. Yeah. It's so much richer.

There's so much happening in so many ways to shine my light and to be the recipient of the lights of other people around me and that of the world. I mean, I love that it happens when it did. And I have wonderful memories of being a street corner performer. And, you know, I do it every night. It's the same act. It's where I learned how to do everything. thing. I'm a self-taught musician and entertainer, and I learned how to do it by traveling real

hard and living real hard and sleeping in all those crazy places and homeless shelters and meeting all them crazy people and turning them into songs. I just feel like my access points to that part of me is will be with me my whole life. I'll never not be able to write a song because there's so many songworthy things I've already seen and done. Many of them I did before I was 23. Yeah. And it's probably the harder part is to

just remember all the fucking stories. Yeah, I actually have a really acute memory. So they all against me, you know, I wish I written stuff down because what I don't have is a very good spatial memory of like when it or

chronology. But like I can remember like dressing rooms like you did in 20 years ago. So crazy. The color of the walls and stuff. Like we're. Is it a blessing and a curse to remember everything?

No, I think it's just a blessing. I mean, I don't really cringe about things in the past anymore. I did for a long time. I think if you'd ask me that 10 years ago, I'd say blessing and a curse. But now I'm, I feel good about all the things that I used to get squeamish about. I mean, too, yeah, I could still get. a little squeamish. Yeah.

Yeah. What about your relationship with like Willie? Are you guys on good terms? Or how'd that follow up? Oh yeah. Yeah, Willie Watson and I, you know,

we didn't talk for a while and we parted ways and that was unpleasant and everything. But it's not really like that anymore. And we've really found peace and harmony. We've sung together and corresponded

and talked on the phone. And, you know, we text each other now. I was in touch with him at Morrill Fest this weekend. He was the day before us. I'm trying to book a show with him right now. So, yeah, I mean, we're pretty good there. Do you hold grudges?

Are you a guy who lets things go eventually? I think that I'm a person who has a hard time moving on, you know, stubbornness. So it's not so much like I'm holding resentment. It's just that I You know, I'm so used to the I mean, the bus just rolls You just get on board It doesn't even matter if you're happy or sad

Or if your kid just learned to walk or crawl Or you just got into a fight with somebody you love Or you're worried about something, money or something You just get on board And then you just ride And then you go play a bunch of shows And then people all react like, you know, Like you're a great dude

So Yeah, it's true. It just keeps on happening again and again. And so as long as they keep reacting that way, you can sort of live in a bubble of, well, everything's pretty placid on the road at least. Yeah, it's fascinating to me because do you know Vince Herman from Leftover Salmon? Sure, yeah. You know, he's a road dog too, and he's been like that his whole life. And that's one of my mentors.

And, you know, I talk about, he talks about, like, intention and what, you know, do you know, do you know, Colonel Bruce Hampton too? Do you familiar? Yeah. I saw Colonel Bruce and I was 14. I wanted to be just like him. Yeah, tell me about that. What did you see in him? Because I've never got, I was unfortunate enough to never meet him before he passed, but all my mentors was a big, he was a big inspiration for him.

Yeah, I loved him. You know, I, I saw him just one time because I, you know, I was in high school and he was on the Horde tour, 94, you know. Yeah. Horde tour. was great that year. Yeah, it was panic. It was like panic, Bruce. Who else was on that?

Oh, Blue's Traveler. Yeah, Blues Traveler was the headliner. All the ones that you mentioned, plus All Good was the other one. Oh, yeah, all good. Yeah, it's so funny. I mean, that was the original festival, traveling festival, it felt like.

I know for me, it felt like I was bearing witness to whatever remained of the 1960s was Ford Tour 94. I thought it was so great. Dude, it's badass. What do you think of the music industry in 2022? What's your take on it?

Well, we just put a new record out, and it's been our most fun and seemingly successful launch. You know, nobody buys records anymore. So it's hard to calculate it in terms of, you know, Like, did you make a bunch of money? Did you sell a bunch of records? It doesn't have the same kind of quotient any longer. Yeah.

But if you look at it just in terms of, you know, like the joy quotient, I never had so much fun putting out a record. I love my lineup. I was on a major label last couple album cycles, and they were cool, but it wasn't a great fit. And so now I've gone back to ATO, and that's been a great and welcome return. I love ATO.

I feel like I'm a part of a community. I've got this great management deal cooked up with my, you know, basically one of my best friends is my manager, and she's amazing. And she's in partnership with Red Light, which is part of the, you know, stakeholders of ATO.

And it's just all kind of working out. And then I got this great lineup with, this particular lineup of old crow members. It's just the best it's ever been. I mean, we just have so much fun together. It's light that we, you know, we didn't pay for it in blood, so it's a lot lighter. Well, you did, but those guys did it. We actually played with you guys last year at Hogs for the Cause.

Hogs for the Cause. Yeah. Yeah, I remember. Yeah, and Molly Tuttle. I mean, what a sensational find, man. Where did you mean, Molly? Yeah, and Molly's amazing. She's got a brand new record out called Crooked Tree on None Such Records.

And I just want to put a plug in for it because I think it's the best Bluegrass record that's been made in 10 years, maybe 20. Yeah, do you— Seriously. Yeah, I agree, man, you know, like with the guys, like, there's so many bands that you guys inspired. And now, like, I feel like there's another upswing in bluegrass music with the Billy Strings of the Worlds and the Molly Tuttles and the Green Skies who are doing. this experimental traditional music. And I really think you guys are one of the frontiers in that. How does that make you feel that these guys are getting inspired by Cheat Ketch?

Well, you know, I'm honored. The people that inspired me were just the most beautiful souls. And some of them are gone. You know, a lot of them are gone. Right. You know, they don't make them like John Hartford anymore. No. Or like little Jimmy Dickens.

Like that guy was incredible. Right. What a heroic dude. Right. Or Charlie Pride, you know, like Charlie Pride held my kid. Well, they both did. I mean, both of those men have walked my kid to the bathroom before. So anyway, I think having the good fortune of being in Nashville, I always felt like I was late to the party, you know.

Yeah. Like I wanted to be at. Woodstock in 1969. I wanted to be in Nashville when Bob made, you know, John Wesley Harding. You know, I wanted to be at the Selm. I wanted to be at the Pettit Bridge in Selma, Alabama when they marched across. I wanted to, you know, push Medgar Evers out of the way when they murdered him from behind a tree. You know, I wanted to be there for those moments.

Right. But I got this moment. This is the moment that I was brought into. And I always felt a little bit like, ah, I'm late for the party. I'm late for the, you know, the moonwalk of life. It's already happened. And yet, it turns out I was really brought into it in the right time because I've gotten to, you know, mix it up with a lot of people who aren't on the earth anymore. You know, and like, for example, going to see Jack Clement, who was the guy that was, who was like saying into the mic, have you got anything, anything a little bit, cooks a little bit more?

and that's when Jerry Lee Lewis was like, oh, I can play this. And then it starts playing great balls of fire. It's insane, man. You know, it's like you talk about like wanting to be part of an uprising, you know, and like we really haven't had a really an uprising until the last couple years, maybe. What do you think? Have you been a part of any uprisings in the last 20 years?

No, no, not at all. Yeah. I think we're living in a, we're living in a dip in a, in a cultural dip. Explain it. I think when they, well, I think when they talk about this time,

I mean, to extrapolate the Ken Burnsism of, takes 25 years to tell a story, I mean, it takes 500 years to tell a story, too. Yeah. And so look at Shakespeare,

you know, there's a 500-year-old story we're still telling. So what are they going to tell the story of in, you know, 25, I mean, I don't think it's going to be about Americana or Nashville or Bluegrass. It's very true. But, like, we'll even take that in regard of American history.

I mean, our country is so, such a new country that if you're talking about this 500-year philosophy, then we don't even know what America is. Well, I think what they'll be talking about in 500 years is the last century. I think that the 20th century was, one of the most astounding and destructive periods of time, the most volatile and shocking and beautiful and tragically flawed and ruinous times that have ever come. I don't think there's a more glorious century and a more despicable one. So I don't know why they'd bother telling any other story than what happened from about 1900 to 2000.

No, it's insane. And why are, why is it harder to be like an uprising songwriter? Why can't we talk about these things? We can. And it's beautiful because there's a whole lot of fresh ears out there. Like that little girl that I scared her father or made him feel like he had to growl at me last night. Like that little girl, she's never going to know that Bob Dylan's saying, how does it feel to be on your own with no direction home?

A complete unknown, like a rolling stone. She'll never hear that. I mean, maybe she will someday. But not feel it. Bar on her phone when she's 23. But in terms of music affecting her, that's a voice that we have the power right now to be the expression of,

to put a song in somebody's ear for the first time. For kids today to hear a song that makes some challenge authority and feel strength inside and want to rock out and feel the power that music has the ability to instill in you. I mean, those are voices like yours and mine. We have that ability now. Yeah.

Is it harder for you to see the bigger picture as you get older and more miles on your body about what is the meaning and why I'm doing this? No. No, I think it gets simpler. You do it because you're in the service industry. Yeah. You took an oath to provide a good time. Right.

And you might have a good time doing it, and that's great. You know, that is so true. You know, it's like I had this talk with one of my favorite songwriters, John Craigie, and these songs aren't for us. Or maybe they are. These songs for you, or are they for them? I mean, they're coming from me, so they're for me in as much as, you know, they're a way for me to focus, experience and feeling and passion.

That's all very much of me. But I write a lot of topical songs that are about, you know, things that aren't me. Or it might be like, you know, one of my favorite songwriters when I first heard my uncle's record collection up there in the attic was a guy by the name of Phil O. Phil was always sort of like a, like a lesser Bob, you know, like, you know, like in the, in the patriarchy would be like Bob Donovan, Phil Oaks, Tom Paxton, a whole bunch of others. And anyway, I always loved Phil Oaks before I heard Bob Dylan, which is, I think, what a lot of people thought, too. So anyway, Phil Oaks been gone a long time. He wrote topical songs. He wrote songs that, you know, straight out of the newspaper. Bob wrote these to a lot of folk singers wrote these. You know, you are the news.

You're the, you know, you're a kind of, you know, memorable CNN. Right. And why is it so, you know, it's like, that talks about this too, like topical songs, topical songwriters. Do you ever get a moment where like you feel like it's a great topical song and then a year later it's just like no one cares about that topic anymore? I think the pandemic had that a little bit. Yeah, I remember you had that COVID song, which was funny.

It was great. I mean, the lyrics were awesome on it. Last year, it was like something about sneezing or something. God, I can't remember. Yeah, it was called, I'd like to kiss you, but I'm quarantined. I love that, dude. Can you still play songs like that? We did it all last year, you know.

There was still a lot of face masks at the show. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, things change and you don't, you know, the times change. And look, I got a brand new record out. And I want people to like these songs, but they all want to hear the old songs. And I don't blame them, you know, when I go see Bob Dylan, it's like the only ticket that I really buy. Yeah.

I sure as hell don't want to hear what you're just recorded. God, no. It's true. Your times of freedom. Does it bum me out? Do you have to play old songs? Did you hear that? Oh, does it bum me out that you have to play the old songs?

No, I just, she doesn't bum me out at all to play old songs. I understand why people want to hear what they've already heard. You know, they're buying a ticket because they want to hear the way they felt when they first heard it. You know, and they might have room in their brains for like something new. But I think more so, it's a feeling of, you know, give them what they want. Yeah. Service industry, remember? I know, fuck.

But what about serving us? Hey, we hold on because there's somebody at the door. Yeah, no problem. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You know, it's like we talk about always serving everyone else. And then the idea of serve, what serves your soul?

Serving others? Yeah, you know, I like that game, you know. I like to play that game. I really like social media for this reason because it's so you can feel like you. you never felt I'm new to this right so I haven't done this except during the past couple years but like when I send two flames

and two banjos above those two flames I really mean it man yeah yeah like my emoji sending is really heart filled yeah with intention like Colonel Bruce probably like Colonel Bruce God, I loved him.

He was awesome, man. Yeah. You know, I didn't buy any records that day except for Aquarium Rescue Unit. Yeah, the best. With Oteal and stuff. I mean, those guys really learned a lot from him. And I could tell with, like, even with Molly, man, like, ever since she's been playing with you guys,

I mean, you could see her attitude is completely different. And I just think you are inspiring so many more people than you probably even know. Catch you are the man, dude. Well, thanks for saying so, and thanks for giving me an opportunity to jimmer-jamer with you a little bit. Yeah, man. And get the word out there. Thanks for the press, man. Yeah, no problem.

You know, it was my bandmate said, I had to do this podcast. Oh, awesome. Because Mason Vi is a big fan of yours. So there's a big swirl of gratitude happening. Well, Mason is the shit, and I'm so thankful you have this band. They all love you, man. I'm just, I'm rude for you, bro. Always and forever.

You were one of the first guys that got me to think about music other than just playing songs, but doing them with intention and doing them with entertaining and just being yourself and being completely authentic with who you are. And, you know, I just want to say thanks, man. You really inspire me. Thanks, man. Appreciate it, bro.

I got one last question. We talk about legacy, your history buff, you know? When it's all said and done, What do you want Old Crow Medicine show and what do you want you to be remembered by? Oh, I want them to think that I sold a lot of harmonicas and a lot of fiddles and a lot of banjos and guitars. Yes. I want them to think about me as a musical instrument dealer, like the music man. Remember, he got off the train in River City and they all said, there's no music allowed here.

Mama don't allow that. but by the end of it, he had them all playing in the band. Yeah. That's what I wanted to be, the music man. Well, I hate to break it to you, but you're doing it, bud. Well, you have a great day. Thanks. Be safe out there.

Take care of the boys and the lady. And I'll catch you soon, buddy. All right, man. Peace. Peace out, bud. Thank you. Fuck, yeah. That was awesome.

Thanks, catch. Appreciate you, bud. Wow, that was awesome. God, that guy is smart as shit. That guy is very smart. I was like, God, I don't even know if I'm smart enough for this conversation. All right, we'll catch you on the tail on.