Are You Garbage? Comedy Podcast - Marcus King!
Episode Date: October 9, 2025Are You Garbage presents world class musician Marcus King! You know Marcus King from live music, Bertcast w/ Bert Kreischer, Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast, Your Mom's House, First Date, God's Countr...y, Unlocked with Savannah Chrisley, Norman's Rare Guitars and so much more! Thanks for watching AYG Comedy Podcast. Love youse guys. Come to a live show! AYG 2025 Live Shows: https://punchup.live/areyougarbage/tickets Watch Route 66: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSkJS1gCDR4 Live Shows: https://punchup.live/areyougarbage/tickets PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/AreYouGarbage MERCH: https://areyougarbage.com/ Sponsored By: Ethos: Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/AYG. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. Ridge Wallet: One thing to pack, five ways to power! Get 10% Off @Ridge with code AYG at https://ridge.com/AYG Rocket Money: Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to https://RocketMoney.com/garbage today. Comedians H. Foley and Kevin Ryan are self proclaimed GARBAGE. Each week a new stand up comedian gets put to the test. Steal shampoo from hotels? Own a George Foreman Grill? Ever worn JNCO Jeans? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Welcome to another exciting edition of Are You Garbage, the show where you find out if your favorite comedians are classy individuals or absolute trash.
Now, here are your hosts, Kevin Ryan and H. Foley.
Hey, everybody out there, and welcome back to everybody's favorite podcast.
This is R.U. Garbage.
Oh, yeah.
It's that little show we sit down with your favorite comedians and we find out of the group to be classy.
See?
Yeah.
I'm just a big old piece of trash.
Trash, trash, trash.
I'm a host day, totally coming at you on a beautiful day.
We're out back here with Todi's in a new addition.
She's upstairs.
She got squirrels in her room.
Okay, you caught me with a sip, but that was not bad.
I'll give it to you.
My co-os is coming here from right next to me.
He is the CEO of RU Garbage.
He's an international businessman of my best pal and a whole wide world, and I love him.
Give it up for KJ.
Kevin James Ryan, everybody.
What up, gang.
Shout out to you, as always.
Thanks for tuning in.
Please make sure you rate view, subscribe on iTunes, full video available on YouTube.
Also, full video available.
over there on a freaking Spotify and the charts over there climbing a chart not the top of the
charts but the nice part of the charts where we where we belong behind not showing off
obviously the greatest website of all time www. www. patreon.com and we're climbing it we're top 10 charts
over there check that out boys are cooking that's a chart that's a chart I'm proud of
and gang we couldn't be more excited to have our incredibly and I mean incredibly special guest
here with us today for the first time he is hot off the release of his brand new LP
Darling Blue.
He is Grammy
nominated,
world-renowned
legend in the making.
Give it up for
Mr. Marcus King,
everybody.
There he is.
And cool as the day is long.
You sound like you musician.
The way you talk.
It's crazy.
He's got it, man.
I'm happy to be here.
Even that was cool.
Sure, good to be here
with you fellas.
I look over he's tuning a guitar.
You're like,
what the fuck?
This next one goes out to a fat guy,
I know.
I'll throw my underwear at you.
I love it.
Musically, we got a million questions.
We got to get to the backstory, find out how you grew up.
Give us the origin story.
South Carolina.
Greenville.
South Carolina, yeah, Greenville.
So upstate South Carolina, not a great student.
Let's get that on the record.
Get that out there.
Got to get out in front of these charges.
Your honor.
This is a job interview.
You're good.
Don't worry.
Man, I mean, I just came up playing music.
My grandfather did it for a living and my dad did.
So it was in the household.
That was it.
That was, there was no really other route for you to take it.
It was either that or like ministry, you know.
It was like family profession.
You should have been born in 1922.
It's crazy.
I was going to ask you about the crossroads.
What was the town?
like neighborhood-wise small town rural is it suburban what was it it was suburban what was it was a
nice neighborhood in the 50s okay i got you sure sure exactly what you're talking about it was like
a mill village but the mill had been closed down they shut the mill down man say no more exactly
so it was a nice neighborhood in the 50s everybody in that neighborhood was like 70 plus okay
My dad was 43 when I was born
And his parents kind of watched me
While he was at work
Okay
Was he touring or was he local
Was he?
Yes, so when I was born
And was he doing well?
Was he doing well as a musician?
He always did well as a musician
But he was really working class
He had like from the 70s to the 90s
He had worked with multiple bands
Who had good record deals
But they always kind of fell apart
Or he got screwed out of it somehow or another
Because he was always just a guitar player
Okay
Was he a studio guy?
Would he be a studio guy?
He did some studio stuff as well.
But after that last deal fell apart in the 90s in Nashville, he came back to Greenville.
And my sister was born in 93.
And that's when he, like, went back to church, rededicated his life.
And he decided to get an office job and, like, tried to be like straight lace.
He fucking hated it.
Yeah, you can't tie that guy down.
No.
Yeah.
Marvin.
Guys, multiple record deals all the next thing, you know, he's selling, like,
Ink donor or something like that?
He was working for a contract in place.
So he'd be the guy that's like, he'd send people out.
Uh-huh.
Dispatch or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he hated it.
Okay.
So when I was younger, he started playing music again.
Okay.
So he'd be out playing and I'd stay with my grandparents.
But they were from the greatest generation.
So I think, you know, I came up watching TV with them, and it was like Sanford and son.
Sure.
Jenny Griffith's show, all in the family, that kind of thing.
Damn, the guy's an old soul.
He's 29.
I know.
It's crazy.
That's what I watched when I was.
So when did you start playing guitar?
Man, I was like two or three years old.
That's crazy.
It was always around.
Were you one of those kids, too?
Like, did it, do you feel like it come, like, it came naturally to?
Like, were you obviously world-renowned?
But, like, was it very much like it just worked, or did you work very hard at it?
Or a combination of both, probably?
I think a combination of both.
I remember, like, you know, I got a first full-scale guitar when I was seven years old.
And before that, I had a miniature last part.
and I just spent
That's crazy
I didn't know
he made them
All my hours I spent
just in the back room
and just cranking it
cranking it out
and I don't know
man I didn't have any friends
I was just kind of a loner kid
you know
probably undiagnosed
some type of autism
It's the best kind now
Spent hours watching
Just unregulated autism
to really get into a mini less ball
dude
Real good musicians
A real red flag
When it comes to that too
No friends, but he's melting faces in the back room.
He just got him a new whammy bar.
Man, I can never figure out that way.
I've tried playing guitar.
And that guy introduced that to me like two months in.
I was like, buddy, you're crazy.
I could never get past tuning the guitar from the strings.
See how it sounds the same?
I know I can you tune it by ear?
What?
I don't know.
He'll tune you by ear.
Are you kidding me?
I mean kind of a D flat it was kind of you know because a lot of guys do like alternate tunings like open tunings and shit just like they'll tune down from D yeah like I could do like I can do that I do like an open G tuning sometimes but like a lot of people ask me like why I don't ever do use like open E tuning or something like Derek Trucks would use and I remember distinctly like being in the back room and like trying to learn how to you know tune it down tune it to Open E and my grandfather being in the back room and like trying to learn how to you know tune it down tune it to OpenE and my grandfather being in the back room.
the front room watching TV
and he heard me like
he don't know now now now now he's like
you don't break that goddamn string
you're going to break it and then I did
I popped it and like he wouldn't change the string
for me and he was just he was really
belligerent about it and I never really
fooled with open tunings after that
no kidding but it's just
it's tune most times when you play the songs
you write it's tuned in E
just standard yeah no shit
damn I always thought that was a cheat code
to tune it down you could you could find
some interesting ways to play out.
Yeah. It makes it easier.
Yeah. Sometimes.
Okay. I didn't realize I was sitting next to Les Paul.
It's, he sold your guitar like 15 years ago for drugs. What are you talking about?
Luke, look at my hibernates.
Look at my squire.
I had a squire. I had a P-base. It was a little package you would buy. I stunk.
I tried everything. I was so bad.
So how far away did your grandparents live from your parents?
And what did your mom do?
Where was your mom in all this?
My mom, she kind of split out when I was like four.
Okay.
Okay.
My parents got divorced.
Damn, you are a musician.
Holy shit.
He also said split out.
Split out.
Yeah.
Was she and was there, did you see her at all or that was just kind of it?
I saw her later on.
Okay.
You know, she kind of got mixed up with some bad folks here and there.
So I would see her occasionally.
Uh-huh.
You know, she remarried to my stepdad who was, he was a really good guy when he wasn't drinking, but he was always drinking.
I had one of those two.
You know, just like.
Stayed in the same.
Was she in the same town?
Was she in Greenville as well?
She was, I don't know where she was for a while there.
Gotcha.
And then she was kind of in the backwoods out in this place called Belton, South Carolina.
Okay.
But my sister and I were mostly at my dad's place.
Right.
And it was your dad's parents that you were.
And they live next door.
No kidding.
All right.
My dad got the house next to them in 1977 for like $20,000.
Damn.
And, yeah, I just spent all my hours just with my grandparents playing guitar.
Damn.
Okay.
That's wild.
And how old were your grandparents at the time?
They were older, so I guess they must have been like 75.
And your dad was gone for like a week at a time and overnight?
Mostly just overnight.
Okay.
At that time, he was playing with, like, wedding bands, like just good money.
Got you and money, what kind of local gigs?
Yeah.
Gotcha.
Gotcha.
Damn.
Huh.
What was the grocery store that you guys were going to as a kid?
We went to Bailo.
Bailo.
It's a food line now.
Okay.
Okay.
Bilo.
I don't hate a Bilo.
And what was, at one point, you dropped out of school, correct?
I did.
At what age was that?
Really?
I was 17.
17.
So senior, junior, senior year?
Junior, it's my wife's favorite thing to tell people that I dropped out of high school.
She thinks it's great.
It is, dude, it is, I don't know why, but for dirt bags, it's such a badge of honor.
I'm like, he didn't drink.
I dropped out at 17.
So no friends, no hanging out, no traditional, like, growing up high school thing.
Did you play, like, Little League and stuff like that?
Nah, like, I don't know, man.
So you were in that room playing the guitar?
Yeah.
That's how you get.
I wanted to be in the country.
to be in the Cubs Couts, and it's like around the time that I was of age to do like Cubs Couts
and stuff, there was a lot of stories coming out.
That's a great way.
This guy's been media trained.
A lot of stories coming out.
He ain't talking about ghost stories, either.
Oh, I mean, maybe you were.
I don't know.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, right, because you're younger.
So that kind of all popped at that point.
Yeah.
Okay.
My dad never wanted me to, like, hurt myself or anything because I was playing guitar so much.
Yeah, I think if you're that good at a young age and your dad, your dad's musician, your grandfather's musician, it's like, yeah, let's not go play football.
Could they see it?
They could see it from an early age and just like my passion about it.
Uh-huh.
The hours I spent doing it, you know.
What are we talking about?
Okay, let's say you're 12 years old, your dad's got a gig, you and your sister are over at your grandparents.
You get home from school?
Three o'clock.
Yeah.
You write on it.
Yeah, right on.
Yeah, right on.
Martoon's getting something to eat.
What's that?
Yeah, dude.
My grandmother, she was from Munich, Germany.
No shit.
And she had this really intense, like, German and southern cuisine.
All right.
She was always cooking, like, something amazing.
My wife's German, so, yeah, I get it, yeah.
A little schnitzel.
She'll make a schnitzel?
Oh, dude, yeah.
I had some last night.
Did you?
Yeah, it's great.
It's the best.
I didn't know.
I've heard schnitzel my whole life, and then when I married, I'm like, oh, it's just a cutlet.
It's a fried pork chicken, yeah.
Exactly.
It's great.
It's the best.
All right, so it's three o'clock.
You get home, she's got something to eat.
Got something to eat for me.
You know, I was definitely a bigger kid because I was just, you know, sitting still, playing guitar, eating, watching cartoons.
So I'd just have, like, wrestling or cartoons on and just.
In the living room?
Now in my back room.
I had this little blue chair, TV set, and my guitar.
I was just sit and play for hours.
What was the wrestler of the time?
Wrestler of the time for me was Stone Cold.
Shout out to Stone.
Stone Cold, baby.
A man after my own heart.
I've got Stone Cold poster in my gym.
Yeah.
You just don't want to let him down.
Dude.
Yeah.
What a way to put that.
Yeah, man.
Stone Cold hit like a Sunnah.
He was something else.
Just the cool.
Also, then, you know, Southern.
I didn't even have that, but you're like, that guy was the cool.
We tried to get him on the show, but to no avail.
Did you play in a band in high school or anything like that?
Did you play in, like, jazz band or anything in school?
Yeah.
It's funny.
You bring that up, like, uh,
Somebody just reached out the other day and let me know that my jazz band teacher died.
Sorry to hear.
Mr. Caldwell.
And he was really cool, but there was like this weird thing in the jazz band
because all the other kids were, like, upset because, like, I played bass, I played drums,
I played guitar, and I was just, like, I was excelling in the program, you know,
and they were all upset about it, and Bruce was like, look, you know,
I'll just give you a free period, like, you don't have to do anything.
thing because they're all getting upset you know
getting upset i don't understand and he was like
going in there and shredding always stealing everybody's job
like he was about to retire and he was just like i just don't want to
deal with it uh-huh he was always really cool and i was just like skip
class during that but could he obviously he could see it too yeah
and he at that point you're really at seven in like high school you're probably
really good like 15 and 16 i was i was working as a musician you know i had a band
full of like 40-year-old men uh with like wife and kids at home and i was
working us like four or five nights a week where like around greenville the upstate area you're flat
randy pick it up yelling at some guy yeah dude that's sick yeah my drummer was like 45 his name was
tracy little john what what is with these other names they're perfect he had a he had a pistol
in his stick bag he was just one of the coolest motherfuckers ever um he kept an eye out for
me out there um yeah i just had a band full of just grown men and how do you find them well
through working with my dad working with your dad yeah and how do you like i know you're good but like
how do you get did they just hear you play and they're like oh yeah we'll sit behind this kid
right you right it's as simple as that well and then there was kind of like the uh you know um
like who sit your head behind that slide guitar the kids leading this one right
But it was kind of like...
And were you writing songs and singing and all that stuff?
Yeah, I started writing around the time I was like 13, 14.
Man.
Were you playing originals doing these shows around the area?
For the most part there, I was doing a lot of covers.
Who were you covering?
We were covering like Little Feet, Allman Brothers Band.
We would do like old like beach classics.
Because like in South Carolina, North Carolina,
beach music is like a thing.
It's like...
And I was really...
It was crazy to me.
I found out...
Like surfing bird and stuff like that?
No, it's like old soul music.
Okay.
Like the Temptations or like...
We had bands like the sham or the Tams.
And there was like these...
This really niche brand of like...
Huh.
We call it beach music.
Okay.
It's called Shagging music.
South Carolina.
So we did that kind of thing.
Okay.
Give me a couple other songs that would be considered that.
Because Temptations, that's Motown us.
Right.
So, like, Motown, all the Motown stuff fits into, like, the Shag category.
Shag?
Yeah, S-H-A-G.
There was a guy named Willie T.
Was a big Shag artist.
Carolina Beach and Shag.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Beach Music, also known as Carolina Beach Music, and to lesser extent, beach pop is regional
genre of music in the United States.
Developed from rock, R&B, pop music in the 1950s and 60s.
Okay.
So when you start playing these things, you start making some money.
Start making good money doing this?
Start making a little bread.
The crowds are getting big?
Yeah.
Crowds are getting big.
You know, it was, there was kind of a shift where people were coming to watch the ballgame at the bar and then they'd start listening to us.
Sure.
And we were catching a lot of runoff from, like, the widespread panic fans.
Okay.
Gotcha.
You know.
Okay.
That was kind of our bread and butter was like the 45-year-old, like widespread panic, deadhead type of individual.
No kidding.
Okay.
You know.
Huh.
With a 14-15-year-old kid leading it.
Yeah.
Damn.
That's sick.
And then I guess the decision to drop out of school was that like money-wise or just attention span-wise, like time-wise?
How bad were the grades?
Man, they were terrible.
And you weren't going to parties and stuff like that?
Man, I went to a couple parties and I just was never really welcomed.
And the people at school, they hated me.
But they didn't really know what I did.
They thought it was just a dropout, you know.
They thought I was.
Misunderstood.
Yeah.
Were they preppy kids?
Were they?
Yeah.
It was a pretty conservative area of the country, and, you know, long hair.
I'd smell a pot when I'd show up in the morning.
Were you, like, wearing this, like, when you were, like, 14?
Yeah.
And my sandals.
Yeah, I mean, like, you know, my burking stuff.
He's showing up, like, a goddamn rock.
What about the glasses?
You weren't wearing the red glasses back then, were you?
I, yeah.
I mean, I had a different kind, but, yeah.
Man, that's awesome.
Because the lights always bugged my eyes.
But, you know, they just, they thought I had, like, no ambition.
But I just
Little did they know
Like I was really working on something
Have the most ambition
You never had the moment
When you got to get up
And shred it
In front of the talent show
Or something like that
In fifth grade I did that
In fifth grade
And I had a set of Healy's
And I healy
No shit!
Let's go
I mean talk about
The coolest kid in town
He had a Leonard Skinner
backing him up
It still wasn't enough
Still wasn't enough
What was the song
Do you play?
Do you remember?
Oh man. That's a good question
I don't remember
I remember.
It wasn't a m-bop, I'm sure.
Wasn't um-bub.
Which is a good song, by the way.
Those guys came and saw us play in, uh, it wasn't Albany, New York.
It was somewhere upstate New York.
Okay.
They were playing and they, uh, they came over and hung out with us after our show, which was funny.
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Love you.
But the reason I drive you.
dropped out of high school was because you guys are familiar with truancy, I'm sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm sure.
I'm trying to rope me into your delinquent ass.
No way.
You guys are dirtbags.
100%.
You're in good company.
I mean, my sister was really the one that was truant.
Really?
She skipped school every day.
My dad dropped her off.
She'd go out the back door and go off, do whatever she was doing.
And when we finally, we went to court about it, and Anderson School District made it clear
like any child in the home that's also in Anderson school districts has to sign this like pledge
that's like it hangs over your entire you know time through school so I had this thing hanging
over me and of course like three months later my sister turned 17 and dropped out and I was in 8th
grade or 9th grade at this time so 9th and 10th grade everything was cool but in 11th grade
that show up late or like you're getting off the road or something like that yeah yeah I'd show up
late, and they really started, you know, busting my chops about it, and they were going to send
me to, like, a reformatory school down at Columbia.
Did they know what you were doing?
No.
And they wanted to, like, shave my head.
What?
Yeah.
Sounds like it was in the 50s.
This was 15 years ago.
I know.
And they were, like, telling me I was going to end up in prison and all this shit.
They were just really, they were very cruel to me.
That's brutal, man.
I'm sorry to hear that.
Yeah, that sucks.
The only saving grace was, like, in the afternoons, I went to, it's like a vocational school.
But they had, like, dancing, and they had a jazz department there,
and I studied jazz theory, which was different from high school jazz band.
It was, like, a collegiate-level, like, theory program.
Yeah, like, a deep dive into it.
And I would have stayed in high school to stay there another year.
But I just, I couldn't put up with my high school anymore.
So I just decided to drop out.
I got my GED.
At that same time?
Yeah.
You started, like, working into it.
Smart.
I just went straight into it.
Smart move.
Now, okay.
Let's say you're dropped out.
What's the cash situation?
Are you like piecing together money from gigs?
Are you like sitting kind of pretty?
Are you saving?
What's the car?
Right.
So I had a Chrysler Town and Country, 2001.
Man, that was a great year for the Town and Country.
We're a big minivan team over here.
Same.
There's nothing better.
They got more space than anything.
Low profile.
They got a little giddy up in them.
All of that.
I mean, I had the best.
deal for anybody that was working with me
because I carried the bass rig, I carried
the PA, I carried the lights
all in my minivan. I was
14 and 15, so I
can only drive with a licensed driver in the car.
So I would
hire the band on the basis of like
you do whatever you want.
Little John's riding shotgun. Yeah, little John's riding shotgun.
We're going down to Augusta, Georgia.
We're going to play this gig. Come on.
Just get in the van. I got everything else
that there. Just get in. Who was booking the
gigs? I was booking them. You were booking them.
Yeah, I was calling these clubs.
I was using a fake name, sending emails, pretending like I was representing.
Yeah.
Wow.
I love this.
Did they know you were 14 and 15 when you were doing that?
No.
What would they say when you would show up?
It was mixed.
Until you started playing, I assume.
Yeah.
But, I mean, it was never really too much an issue because I'd run into issues because, like, when I started trying to drink, you know.
But, I mean, that wasn't until later until I was like 8, 7.
17, 18. And even then I would keep it underwraps. But, um, you know, I have a baby face now.
So when I'm 14, like, it was really like, we got this kid that plays the guitar well,
and the bandmates would be my chaperones. Right. You know, so I'd kind of set it up like that,
and they'd let me come in, and it was kind of, uh, it was kind of a gimmick. They're all fucked up.
Sure. Yeah. And they were looking after me, and it was, the gimmick was like, you come see
this kid play. Yeah. And it's like, nobody's going to give me alcohol.
You know, if you saw me at 14, you know, the chops, did you back then?
No, I couldn't grow anything.
I'd be sick if you did.
It's just great.
Coming out in the wheelies.
That's crazy.
Holy shit, that's this is nuts.
I mean, what a life, man.
Unbelievable.
It's so, it's like such a unique story that we've never had.
And then how long does this go on?
I have one.
Have you ever worked a straight job?
Like what was like your fur or you know
Do you work at like the Burger King or something?
So I worked at the mellow mushroom.
What's that?
You guys don't have mellow mushroom up here.
I don't think so.
Melo mushroom?
Mellow mushroom?
Mellow mushroom.
And it's a pizza joint.
I thought I've seen the pizza joint.
Mellow mushrooms.
It's really good.
I don't think we have them north of like Virginia, I want to say.
So it's kind of a regional pizza joint.
But it's like a hippie themed pizza joint.
So I fit in really great there.
Right.
I started off as a dishwasher.
I worked my way up to the line chef.
Damn.
There you go.
That's a pretty big jump.
You know, I was doing that, and then I got fired.
Then I came back, and I was a host.
Okay.
And I would seat people, bring them drinks.
How old are you doing this?
I was like 16.
So this is why you're doing the shows and stuff?
Yeah.
So you still needed a little extra income.
Yeah, like that summer I was doing summer school.
and I was doing the pizza joint
and I was playing guitar in the evenings.
The hustler, I was hustling.
That's sick.
And what, like, I mean, we've done, you know,
we kind of came up the same way
through the stand-up comedy world
of these horrible gigs,
just getting in a car, trying to get there.
Right.
To go pick up a horrible check, lose money.
I was doing a hotel.
I was doing a hot 40s.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, we did.
Steve did it a little later in life.
What's a gig like that?
You're 15.
You got the van.
You got the team.
You get to the show in Atlanta or whatever.
What's that pay?
Like $1,500, $1,000 for everybody, less?
$500.
$500.
I remember, like, we would show up, and the deal would be, like, $75 a man, and then we'd show up, so it's $300 for a four-piece band.
And we showed up our keyboard player couldn't make it one night.
And, you know, the dude gave us $75 each.
And I was like, no, no, the deal was $300.
And he's like, no, it's $75 a man.
And I was like, what the hell?
So we would work the high out of the tip jar, you know.
I got really good at, like, working that tip jar.
That was kind of my schick for a while.
Did you have any good?
What was, like, their best, did you have, like, a good line?
I would try to do the tip jar games, you know?
What's that?
If you can try to make it into this bucket and, like, get them really going.
And then some drunk guy would come up, be like, it's got to be a 20.
Nothing lower than a 20.
If you can make it in the bucket, then you get the whole bag, you know, that whole thing.
And then I would move the bucket.
And it would be funny.
And then everybody laughed, but, like, one guy tried to fight me about it.
Sure.
That's like when you were a kid?
Yeah, I gave him just 20.
back 20's 20 dude i was like here you go don't worry about it it's supposed to be a joke because
we want you to tip the band we're having to fight it's a good time we're not here to fight each other
the end of the day you should tip the band anyway but i understand i'm sorry but um i mean there were
multiple like just close calls like that just gigs where they didn't want to pay us and my grandfather's
advice to me was well if they do that man you just got to start taking their shit and i was like
what do you mean okay so
Like salt and pepper shakers?
Take their fucking PA system or whatever.
He said, take anything that ain't bolted down.
And when they ask you why you're doing it,
so we got to get paid them.
I'm going to sell this shit.
So that was kind of, I did that one night.
You got a pizza oven in the town and country?
What would you take?
Deals a deal, Randy.
I mean, it was a total bluff because I can't fit all this in the town of country.
I was going to have to leave it.
I'm going to have to leave the bases here.
Two waitresses in there?
We've been playing all night.
And, like, the agreement was for us to play until 12.
And they said, no, you play until 1.
I was like, there's nobody here.
And the agreement, our email says 12.
So we're getting out of here.
And they said, well, we're not fucking paying you.
And I said, well, we're going to have to take all your shit.
So we started loading their stuff out.
And out of nowhere, these big, burly guys showed up.
And it was at the back entrance of the club is where you load in and load out.
And on the other side of the fence was like a police dispatch unit.
So everybody just standing outside of the dispatch unit smoking cigarettes.
So I had to know where like six cops pulled up.
It was like this brawl happening in the street.
My drummer at the time, some guy jumped on his back and broke his ankle.
Oh, no.
It was the whole thing.
How old are you when this is going on?
This is crazy.
16.
I caused a bar brawl, but they paid us.
I mean, got your money.
What would you, what would the most, like, you'd make your, well, what would be a good night from the bucket, the tip bucket?
Good night from the tip bucket would be like 200 bucks.
That's pretty, yeah.
I mean, that's good.
Two or three hundred bucks.
And when we play this bar in Asheville, North Carolina,
the deal with every band was like, you get a case of PBR.
And I knew that.
And I'd tell them, you know, hey, I understand the circumstances,
but I still want that case of PBR.
So they'd give it to me on the back steps, like a cat,
like a straight cat.
I would leave and then come back and then just have a case of beer on the bottom step for me.
It's like you're dropping a brief.
full of fucking secret documents yeah i think it has to switch it out with chocolate milk or something
like that i want my code red now well i i definitely started drinking at that point so
nice pbrs what are you gonna do you please yeah it's tough i mean that's nuts we i mean i it's tough
for us not to drink you know we're in you know similar thing at night you're in clubs and everything
and it's just like it's tough it's tough as an adult not to drink let alone like a kid with no
experience you think you're going to get into it when you were a kid and you were at home and
say your dad had an off night would you guys sit down and have dinner together
and would your grandparents usually be involved in that usually at my grandparents house
right my grandmother would cook um grandfather head of the table my dad me and my sister and my grandma
so for the most part like groceries and stuff like that your grandmother was doing that
yeah i'd say until like i was 11 or so what would normally be in the fridge as a kid
Your dad is a musician, single dad as a musician.
What are we talking about?
So, I mean, my grandmother was really good at, like, making a grocery list last.
Okay.
You know, get ground beef, and she would make spaghetti, but it was more like a skyline chili kind of thing.
Okay.
So she would make the chili for that, and then the next day it would be hot dogs, same chili.
I don't hate that.
I'm all about it.
And the next day, like, leftover, chopped up hot dogs with just buttered noodles, that kind of thing.
All right.
I speak of my language, dude.
Yeah.
I like it.
Okay.
And what would, like, a family vacation look like growing up?
Would you do anything?
Or just travel for work, or what was the...
Once a year, we would make the pilgrimage down to Charleston, South Carolina.
Okay.
Occasionally change it up with Myrtle Beach, throw a little flare.
Big fan of Myrtle Beach myself.
Big fan of Charleston.
Yeah, great.
We'd go down.
We'd get one motel room.
Grandparents in one bed.
It's the only time they would share a bed.
Otherwise, they had separate rooms.
No kidding.
That's such an old school thing.
My grandparents said the same thing.
They had different rooms.
I couldn't get my head around that.
I'm like, wait, you sleep, beer, you sleep beer?
How'd have fucked everybody get here?
Right, exactly.
I couldn't figure it out either.
But they were the same way.
So once a year, we'd go down to Charleston for a weekend.
One motel room, we'd go to one nice dinner.
Standard American vacation.
So financially growing up, things weren't great.
I mean, they were tight, but, like, we didn't want for a lot, you know.
We did okay.
Yeah, the hot dogs and noodles.
That's the guy like jelly going.
But I look back and I think about, like, I don't think there were that many roaming blackouts.
I think the bills just didn't get paid that month.
We'd have another blackout.
We'd have our campouts and my dad be like, this is crazy.
God damn Enron pulling the plug on the eastern seaboard.
I didn't think there was that many roll.
blackout the neighbor's lights are on screaming about Obama they're on a different grid
that's rolling blackouts the whole neighborhood's went up this is a target this is this is targeted
bullshit what about Christmas what were holidays like oh man they were so good would you do a tree
yeah we do a tree fake or real grandma had a fake tree colored lights white lights white lights at
grandma's house colored lights at my house would your dad get a fake tree to you dad had a fake tree too my dad
would do a real tree up until the time i was 11 and that's when we moved down to my stepmom's house
and she was very fake tree white lights no bullshit so your dad got remarried my dad got remarried all right
cool okay did she have any kids she did um it's actually one of their birthday today and they were a lot
older than me okay i was 11 and her youngest son was 17 wow the oldest was 21 so not super close it was
It wasn't a great situation, and they both were pretty troubled youths, and she had a real hard time with them.
It kind of made it difficult for her to, you know, focus on me and my sister.
A hundred percent.
And we really kind of needed that at the time.
So it was kind of a rough situation for a while, but now we're very close.
That's great.
And they've been married now 20 years.
Man, it's crazy.
It's awesome.
What a story and what a guy to tell them.
story he is fucking good i'm i forget we're doing his show i'm just like what else and what i'm
picturing it i got the house i got his grandparents out i got the two trees going that skyline
chili i can't get off my brain what what toys did you play with when you were a kid
last ball what are you talking i know well yeah really when it wasn't a less paul it was wrestlers
okay g i jo's g i jo's all right yeah but i would have my g i jo's set up and they had like
they're backing them up these little guitar figurines yeah i would set them up to
play like in a band
I'm like
you got Destro back there
I have so many
so many questions
Cobra Commander
on the keys
He's giving you that thing
He's doing it
What was the first
You know
When did you start making
Like pretty good cash
And was there
A kind of a dumb purchase
Where you're like
I didn't need that pontoon
The first big check
You know
Oh wow
I mean I think the first big check is when I was always pretty rational with my spinning I think I got that from my my grandpa and when you sit like when you were like 14 15 and 16 doing these gigs would you have to go home and give the money to your dad or like would you keep it all to yourself I was I remember I would help my my mother out a little bit gotcha she was back in my life at that point and I'd go down 14 15 yeah I'd go down and try to help out a little bit damn and then I'd come back and like the
lights would be out and she'd have like a carton of cigarettes and like which i've had to make that
decision before myself and she told me later she was like yeah you know what you were bringing in
wasn't really going to make a difference i was fair enough fair enough hey what was what was her
brand of smokes she was marlborough lights nice marlborough lights i mean a mom smoking marvell
lights in the car with the windows up that is just that's my sure that's my stepmom but yeah we were in a
purple dodge and trepid yeah cooking as we were an old jeep wagon here i remember it was freezing outside
the windows were up the heat was on and i'm like this i was like six this can't be good this can't be
good it smells great though you got a little bit aquanette you know you got the radio on
fun memories but probably not good for the esophagus oh all right okay what was uh one
The first big purchase, I guess.
And, like, what did that look like?
Well, did you get to, you got discovered online, right?
Sort of kind of, yeah.
Right?
We were really just kind of out there beating the streets, man.
We were playing 200 nights a year.
We'd go anywhere that somebody would have us.
Still with the same guys, kind of.
Yeah, me and my drummer.
Yeah, I met him when I was 17, and we've been together ever since.
How old was he?
I think he was 19 or 20.
Okay, so a little bit younger.
So you're not still with the 40s?
50-year-old guys.
No, they all, you know, they didn't want to leave down per se.
They can't, yeah, they can't go on the road.
Gotcha.
And they couldn't go on the road for what I was able to pay.
And we were sharing a motel room, which I was accustomed to.
And that all falls on you, what you're able to pay.
Yeah.
Huh.
You know, you go out and whatever the club's willing to pay you.
Right.
So we would drive, like, straight to Paragold, Arkansas, and play for like 500 bucks and some pork steaks.
You and the drummer?
Yeah, me and the drummer, bass player, a keyboard player.
Okay.
500 bucks plus maybe passing the bucket around.
Yeah, pass the bucket.
Say you're 600 bucks, four guys, plus the stakes.
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Do it out back to the show.
Back to the show.
Now, is this the nexus of the Marcus King band kind of like this is a squad.
Yeah.
And we had this guy, this guy Robbie, who was tight with like a lot of reggae bands.
And he knew this guy who was the brother of a bass player from this reggae man called The Movement.
And Larry, his mother, had this crazy payout from this insurance claim because she took.
There's always a payout involved in every dirt bag.
Every dirtbag origin story.
Someone got hit by a bus, someone they left his sponge in or something.
The ones were that air conditioner.
Yeah, I mean, golly.
She took a vaccine or something.
And she ended up, like, paralyzed or something.
God bless her.
But, I mean, I never knew her.
But they had this crazy big mansion outside of San Diego.
And they had all the G-love and special sauces road gear.
And they were recording in there.
So this fellow that we knew in Greenville named Bill Hahn,
who's just the best, just Bud Light all day kind of guy.
And he's so fucking hilarious.
Shout out, Bill.
He was like, I'll fly you guys out there, man.
You guys make a record.
It would be great.
I was like, okay.
So we flew out.
G. Love's gear.
Yeah.
So we flew out to San Diego.
We made a record, and the engineer on that record was this girl.
And, like, her and I ended up just really kind of following for each other.
I was 18.
She was 28.
We started dating.
We dated for, like, four years.
So I'd go out there and see her as much as I could, and her sister lived in L.A.
So she took me up to L.A., and we went out to Tarzana one day to Norman's rare guitars.
And she was like, this is how L.A. works.
you got to just play and they'll discover you and I was like I don't know so I played and they
liked what I was doing and they said can we film you for our YouTube channel I'd never heard of
such a thing you know so they did and then that's a YouTube channel yeah really well I mean I'd never
heard of like a guitar store filming somebody yeah gotcha I was like sure why not so I did that and
it went like viral you know I'd say what was like the first thing I did that was viral and then
that just kind of made the rounds that was kind of the first thing that was kind of the first
thing that really picked up steam.
Damn.
How cool is that, man?
It's sick,
the whole thing.
It's so funny because, like, every comedian
wanted to be a rock star at some point in our lives.
And we're like, I can't do that, but I can, you know, I can call this guy Dome or whatever.
And the girl you fell for was 10 years older and she was the engineer.
Yeah.
Man, that's hot.
She was rad.
It's awesome.
And then they had it unfold from there.
Oh, I'm sorry.
What was the purchase?
Did we ever get to the purchase?
Oh, the purchase was probably my Cadillac.
it was like what was the check for uh i think it might have been from my label or something like
an advance check oh that's how to get you yes that advanced oh that's i don't know much about
the record issue but that advance will come back to you said you were always pretty good with
the money the first thing you do with the cat-oac is you'll get a caddy there's a 1980
el dorado let me get the horns on it in the front oh yeah really yeah oh my god what color
Was it?
It was black.
Black of the Red Pins.
That is it.
If anybody's meant to drive that car, it is 100% yield.
And where would that be parked?
Where were you based out of?
Man, I was in Nashville.
Okay.
So you moved to Nashville at this point.
Moved to Nashville.
Drummer goes with you.
Drummer stayed in Greenville.
State in Greenville.
Which I'm still trying to get him to move to Nashville.
But he's with you.
Yeah, he's still with me.
But he's just based out of there.
He's not his home.
He just commutes.
He just likes living in Greville.
His wife and her family.
family are there and they just had a little baby so he's he's got deep roots in
Greenville so he just commutes he doesn't mind doing it I mean it'd be easier
on everybody if he was in Nashville but you know maybe someday it is what it is
yeah all good but yeah the the caddy would be parked outside I was rent
a house for fifteen hundred bucks a month me and my girlfriend at the time and you
know that was that was the biggest thing was like my grandfather kind of
taught me about these pneumatic devices you know to make people really remember you
make them stick, you know, like big cowboy hat, you know, big belt buckle, shiny boots,
whatever it was.
And the Cadillac was part of that.
I was like, if I'm somewhere, if I'm recording at a studio, if I'm working on somebody's record,
they're going to know I'm in there because this car is parked out front, you know.
I was the only guy driving around in the El Dorado.
How old are you?
At this time, I was probably like 21, 22.
Now, was this, that's so sick, dude.
Was this like
Was it like completely fully restored or was it beat up?
Like what was the condition of?
Did you buy it like fully redone or in mid-condition?
It was in Middletown, Pennsylvania.
No shit.
And I found it online.
It was $3,000.
All right.
And it had like, I think, 30,000 miles on it.
What was the advance?
Can we ask you that?
The advance, I can't, I can't remember.
It wasn't anything too special.
Under 10 grand?
No, I think it might have been more than that.
All right.
But, again, that's how I get you.
That's how they get you.
Damn.
That's how Kippy got me.
It's still paying it off.
Dance.
I got a show in Greenville tonight.
Matter of fact.
Paste pork steaks, and I get 10%.
Yeah, what's a pork steak?
I would write over that.
What's a pork steak?
What's a pork steak?
It was just this big cut of meat, dude.
I'm with you.
You had my interest.
Now you have my attention.
Oh, man, he's got a great laugh, too.
Oh, it was great.
Jesus.
Yeah, we had a good time.
Those pork steaks, they sent us home with some, and they made this huge stain in our van that just never went away.
Massive.
So you're at that point, you're still in the town and country?
This was our, we had a 40 conal on.
We got a great deal on 2014.
The rows in it, right?
It's like the church van kind of.
Exactly.
Do we have a manager at this point?
Someone handling all this stuff?
I think at this point
we did have a manager
My first manager was
A lady named Steph
And it was Warren Haynes' wife
So Warren Haynes from the Elman Brothers band
Government Mule
And uh
No kidding
Yeah he kind of took a
Took a chance on us
And was producing a record for us
And um
You know
Steph and myself
We ended up having a falling out
It just wasn't really working
And uh
You know
That relationship really never got
mended back together but you know i still love them very much but uh man how cool is this it's like
we're we're watching the biopic right in front of it's insane crazy dude i'm so enamored by it
oh oh all right so you you go through that with the manager when do you get the check where
you're like oh shit why don't you kind of like not set but you're like all right i'm i'm
you got some wiggle room right
I'd say like pre-pandemic, like 2020.
2020.
Because your album was like your first album was when?
2018?
Yeah, well, first album was 2014.
2014.
And the Grammy was 2020.
Yeah.
Right?
So around then.
That's when really.
Yeah, I had a little juice and had enough saved up.
I was able to buy a house.
Great.
You know.
Bought a house in Nashville.
I have a down payment.
I was in Mount Juliet.
Okay.
So right outside of Nashville.
and you know and then the shit hit the fan with the pandemic but we were still able to you know
keep everybody on for like nine months it's great man you know we got a little bit of that
government cheese we were just scraping by man for sure we're doing the same thing dude
huh okay now you're killing it things are good any kind of cheese I want now
I mean, you know, hell, like even, like I said, that's how they get you, you know, and I've, I've been through a number of those.
A number of those situations.
And just had to claw my way out of them, you know.
Fuck.
I love that.
Only one way through it is to do it.
How many, you know, okay, typically, you know, you're such a man of cool.
Pretty cool, dude.
This is how dorky I am.
You're a man of cool.
He's got me slipping out of my seat over here.
about to take a run at the guy
I'm trying to
this is how much of a dork I am
I'm trying to read the label in that shirt
so I can buy it when he leaves
and I can't make it out
I'm like that doesn't look like Levi's
and I'm like I'm literally going
Can I sell that to my wife or is that too Western?
Carhart
I'm a Carhart man everybody
I'm a Dickies and Carhart man everybody knows that
You got to get the vintage Carhart though
Because it's worn in right
Damn
Okay
How many guitars do you own?
Way too many, man.
It's got to be like 70 plus.
No kidding.
You play them all?
I do.
Yeah, I mean, like my studio, I've got a lot of guitars there.
I've got a lot that were gifts, guitars that, you know, they're kind of, you know, I'm really OCD, so I've got them, like, in different places.
Like, the ones really special to me are, you know, kept very close, and the other ones, a lot of them are, like, in storage.
or, you know, I have, like,
flight eight guitars,
guitars that I'll check under the plane
and guitars that I'll leave overseas, you know?
Leave overseas.
Yeah.
So, like, when you're going,
you don't have to travel with them.
Where do you leave that?
That's, like, what assassins do with guns.
Yeah. That's what...
That's what John Wick does.
He goes and checks in at the Citadel or whatever.
Wait.
I'm an idiot.
I don't know if you've picked up on that.
The Continental.
Continental.
The Citadel is the one in Europe.
The Citadel was a big part of our origin, really,
because Bill Hahn, who I told you about, Bud Light all day, the man.
Bill went to the Citadel with a writer, Jameson Clark.
And Jameson Clark was in Nashville,
and he gave our demo to our agent, Braden Roundtree,
who's still my agent today.
So, like, had that not happen, you know,
because you've got to really get an end.
This was a William Morris agency.
And we went, shout out to William Morris.
And my great-grandfather's name was William Morris King, or my grandfather's name, yeah.
Oh, shit.
So we went up there and got, like, ripped, like, we got shit hammered, and then went into that meeting, like, the next morning.
This is when I'm, like, 18.
Rock stars.
And they didn't give us a meeting upstairs, but he met with us in the lobby.
And we just had that.
We were just also not letting the main premises.
First gig, Braden every book for us, was at SeaWorld.
No way.
In Orlando.
Was it like you guys were just playing and people were walking by type thing?
Like you were just like, just the band, cover band.
In between Shamu, like, weird play.
It was the worst.
How was the check on that?
Check wasn't bad.
It was worth driving to Orlando for.
Sure.
Yeah.
So you get your own studio now.
Is this at the house?
No, it's actually, it's my old place.
And it's, you know.
You mean the old house that you bought would you put the down payment on?
Yeah.
Turn that into a studio.
Now you got the new place.
Now I got a new place, me and my wife.
Good spot?
It's a good spot.
We're in the good part of town now.
No kidding.
You got a pool?
No.
The old place has a pool, though, like this in indoor pool.
An indoor pool.
Yeah.
It's like this.
What was this down payment?
You made it sound like you were scraping like $1,500 bucks together.
I got a great deal on the place.
No kidding.
And this was in 2020.
And this is before we...
Got a handkerchief.
It's coolest, dude, I've never met.
He was he talking about it.
No way you're 20.
I know.
It's got to be like 300.
Dude, I literally remember walking into that
when we were trying to go to that pop-up show.
I walked in and he was saying something super cool
on the mic, like between songs.
Burgess!
And some guy leaned over next to me, went,
oh, what's up? I love, are you garbage?
I'm like, this is the coolest night of my life.
And then the bouncer's like, you got to go.
I'm like, I'm like, I'll see.
Oh, man
I was so close
I'm like I'm in
I'm like
I'm seeing the coolest
fucking guy
I'm getting recognized
and then the guy's like
Yeah your buddies
aren't allowed in
I was like the big one
Can't big one big guy
Can't come in
He ain't a fit
I hate it so much
That that happened
No we're joking
And it wasn't you
It was it was Gilles
Gillis was like
Yeah I get come on by
He had two passes
And he invited like 35 people
We'll get you next time
For sure
That's funny
Sick
Okay, huh.
So you got the studio.
You got the house.
Okay, what's like a day, right?
You're not, just say you're like in between.
Are you, so you're like heavy tour and you mentioned.
Yeah, we tour a lot.
What's like, I guess you're like, that's just the musicians.
You're just, are you guys are like forever on the road, right?
Yeah.
Is there a break coming up in 2026 you're looking at or?
I mean, you know, like, so like this last year I had like a, had a manager, you know, screw me over pretty bad, business manager.
It was just kind of this perfect storm.
business manager not saying no enough manager being inept everything just kind of creating this perfect storm of fuck that just like really slammed at my front door so the way that I was raised is like we got to get through this you know so I was like say yes to everything I'm doing every private gig I'm going to be on the road you know and me and my wife both agreed like we don't have kids or anything yet so I
I've just been hustling my ass off, just trying to...
Work through it.
Yeah, and also trying to be creative and put out a record
and trying to have some catharsis.
So, like, in that time, like, you know,
I sold a guitar and I bought a Carmen Gia.
So when I'm home, that's kind of what I do,
zip around on my car, Magna Gia.
What's a carmigia?
It's a car.
Volkswagen made it, but it was...
How do you spell it?
You sold a guitar?
Yeah.
That was worth as much as a car.
Yeah, but, like, you'll see the car, it's like...
How do you spell Carmigia?
K-A-R-R-M-A-N.
I was way off.
Carmin Gia.
I thought it was Carma-Gia.
Okay.
A little old-school guy.
So they call it the poor man's Porsche.
Yeah.
So you sold a guitar and bought that.
Was that like a one-for-one?
Yeah, pretty much.
Seems like an expensive guitar for being honest with me.
I'm going to call them balls and strikes here.
I got a good deal, you know.
It was just kind of something I did off the radar, off the books, because I needed a toy.
Do you need something to some place to put your focus?
Because I needed something to tinker with because I've just been driving myself crazy.
And like my Cadillac's been with my uncle down in South Carolina, he's been doing a number on it.
Driving it around.
No, no.
Fixing it.
He's been fixing her up.
How many cars do you?
He's just driving around.
This is Marcus King's car.
He's a half you.
He's got the glist.
He's trying to pretend he's you.
He's got the graces on.
Yeah, he's been fixing it up.
But, like, you know, he's busy.
And I'm, like, I'm touring, so, like, don't worry about it, you know, no rush.
But, um.
What's, uh, okay.
So you say this isn't, this is in Nashville, this car.
You wake up.
What's like an off day in Nashville looking like for you?
So me and my wife just like to sit on the porch.
I got to have a cigarette in the morning.
Yeah, you do.
What kind of heaters are you on?
American spirits.
Okay, I paid them for an American spirit guy.
What color?
Yellow?
Yeah, these, which are like light blue.
Okay.
But, you know, anytime I tell somebody blue American spirits,
they always bring back the wrong ones.
But whatever color blue you would say this is.
They're the only one American spirits that I like.
The yellow ones, I have something about them.
I don't know.
I don't like them either.
Yeah.
They take forever.
Yeah, you guys both quit smoking, right?
I'm back on it.
He's back on.
Back on.
I'm not eating
I'm trying to lose weights
I'm nine months off the years
One for one
Nine months, God bless you
Maybe a miss step out in L.A.
Two weeks ago
Don't tell my wife
Okay
All right so you wake up
heater on the porch
A cup of coffee
Oh yeah
heater and a cup of coffee
Taking the day
You're setting an alarm
Or you just getting up
When you get up
When I'm home
Honestly man
Like me and my wife
We're like old folks
Man we go to bed
Like eight o'clock
Yeah
Kind of nice sometimes
We'll get up like six or seven.
My wife's got pigeons.
She goes out and feeds them.
No kidding.
That's not clear.
Anything monogram?
Anything monogram?
Like is your, is your, is your, like, your bedspread monogram?
Um.
Does it sell like MK on it?
I, I recently bought some monogram pajamas.
And that was me doing something nice for myself.
That's good.
Treat yourself.
But when I got them back, like, you know, they monogrammed them, but like they stitched it and it, like, they
stitch the pocket shut.
Hey, put the heaters in there.
Yeah, I can't put the heaters in my pocket.
Yeah.
So. Okay.
And what's on, you know, what's on the rider?
On the rider in my dresser?
Yeah.
So it depends on whether my wife's coming or not.
When my wife is there, she likes a still rosé.
She likes black cherry white claws.
God man, talk about the duality.
Yeah.
I want a still rosé.
And give me some black cherry white claws in case I want to fight tonight.
Something French or 42 and a couple of four locoes.
What?
The old stuff.
I want it with the energy juice still in it.
A switchblade comb.
What?
Yeah.
New old stock.
Four locos.
I like that.
So in me, I do the N.A. Heinikins.
You're sober, right?
Yeah, I'm sober.
Good for you, man.
I smoke my pot, though.
Keeps me saying.
That was very Greenville.
I know.
I smoke my pot.
Smoke a pot, as you know.
He's simple.
man as you do how long you've been off to sauce um this time going like since February okay and
before that it was like a year good for you man I mean it's it's been kind of stop and go but here
like this last time I just I don't have any desire to do it again you know it's good to hear
that's uh as someone who also struggles with it I just wasn't good at it I'm horrible at it
I just I was really into like benders you know yeah I would go off for a weekend
of time yeah what was the what was your poison yeah what was the shot in a beer type guy
shot in a beer that's a good time but on the road i would make we called him mk altras
and it was uh okay you know this guy plays for keeps because you forget everything you know
i picked up on that so it was a tobo chico gray goose vodka and grapefruit juice
so it's like a gray helmet with some fizz yeah and they go down easy yeah and mk ultra
two solo cups and just mix it yourself
I would just pound those
and I mean
I could drink a beer in like a second flat
you know so I would just pound beers
and drink those
it was pretty great but I got into
I got into the other stuff you know
when I was like 18
I remember being at a festival called the Get Down
in Pumpkin Town
okay playing
and you know I had a set to do and I was just
too fucked up to do it so that's when
you know the booger sugar came in to play
Straighten you up.
Yeah, straightened me out.
Played a great set, I think.
And I kind of had to dance with that for like seven or eight years, you know.
And just got pretty, I thought that I could do cocaine in a classy way, you know?
You and me both, brother.
I'd seen it done.
I'd seen, like, the classy parties, like, people would drink and wine, and they'd have, like, one little tray and they would just go around.
I was like, this is nice.
I remember Stevie Nick saying that she's talking.
to have a gram of cocaine
in her boot at all times
and just would do little whatever's.
I wish you could just do that.
You guys know guys.
You can't.
All right.
I have a well documented.
You can't.
Do you all know people?
Because I have bandmates that are like this
that can do sober cocaine
like without even having to drink first.
I've never met anybody there.
I can do that.
That's insane to me.
I can do that.
You know, like I know people that can just.
It's not a down show.
But I know I know people that could do it
and then put it away for, like,
I'm going to save the rest of this for tomorrow.
Can you do that?
No.
That's insane.
Most people that have to stop doing it can't do, like, you know.
Most people that don't do that anymore.
I've done that before,
but because I had a meeting the next morning,
and I had to carry the buzz the next morning.
If I was going to sleep at all,
and I have a little headstash,
wake up, take one down,
and then get me to the meeting.
Tutskarutski.
Toot-Roods.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
All right, man.
We just took a deviation in the fucking.
We'll deviate.
So front porch cup of coffee and a smoke.
Okay.
Living at so good life, though.
So the rider, so your wife will have some rosé and the black cherry white claws for you.
What's it looking like?
Any snacks that you like?
What are we, what have we been doing lately?
We like a.
What's your sweet tooth?
Me, man, we love peanut M&Ms.
Oh, man.
There's always.
about dancing with the devil anything fruity are your nerds clusters guy have you gotten into them
never got into those stay away from them you got a problem with the boogers you're gonna have a problem
with them dude they're so good i'm like a rock has shoes guy rock has shoes all right dark chocolate
okay little sea salt you like a little sea salt on the chocolate gentleman touch a seasaw okay
blow your hair back yeah it's all right stuff's good okay and then so like now that you're you know you're not
party and you do the you do the gig you're back you know your tour bus that night to the next town right
yeah cigarettes are on the rider actually how well how many i just get a pack so you know there's a pack
there you got a pack in the holster no kidding that's pretty smart thing so not nothing too extravagant
nothing too crazy do you like a nice dinner you like going out and having a nice dinner love a good steak
dinner good steak dinner yeah you bake potato man baked potato man like a twice baked um you know we love like a
St. Elmo's in Indianapolis, that kind of.
Well, we're big fans of that.
Well, you do the shrimp cocktail? You like the shrimp cocktail?
All right. Spicer or the better.
Yeah.
Oh, that'll open you up.
Yeah, it's the best.
Talk about booger sugar.
Yeah, right.
It's so funny.
Talk about three fat dirt bags.
I like St. Elmo.
Oh, I love St. Elmo.
Man, three fat dirtbags.
We'll find the...
It's not the Playboy Man's family.
I know that shrimp cocktail.
Oh, man.
Oh, God.
It's just like that's so classy
I like going to get a nice steak down in town
We'd like put our best shirts on
And we're like we're yelling at each other
To act right when we're in there
I like that it's already in the sauce
I don't got a dip
It's just sitting in there
Those are big boys too
Yeah
I don't know where they get it
We're in the landlocked steak
You pee in the shower?
Hell yeah
Hold on back to that
How do you get your steak cooked
And what's the cut of steak?
You sit down what's the cut of steak?
New York strip medium rare
No kidding New York strip
Sautied onions
sauteed onions
A little bit of flares
Guy, that's one of those fucking stick out pieces
Who's got the salted onions
It's Marcus King
You don't fucking forget
There's salted onions on a table
You know Marcus King's around here somewhere
Ah, damn, okay
Very nice
So you're peeing to share
You brush your teeth in there
Yeah
You got your toothbrush in there
Toothbrush is in there
Ooh
That's always the power move
Oh
That's not great though
Leaving it in there is not great
Although they've done studies that any, doesn't matter where in the bathroom it is,
it's open to the same bacteria.
Something's going to happen.
There's just something weird to me of like, I get in the shower.
My sister used to do it, so I'd get in the shower, and then, like, I would get it wet.
And then, like, she would, you?
I'm like, that's fucking grody to me.
That's nasty.
But if it's just you and your wife, I get it's different.
Well, see, at our house, I kind of have the downstairs.
Love that.
So it's just you.
You got your own little domicile.
Yeah.
So nobody else is really in there.
Is this still, wait, to shower, you mean?
Yeah.
How's that broken up?
The bedroom's upstairs.
Master bedroom.
So, like, the main floor.
Okay.
She's, I mean, my wife's, she's messy.
Really?
Drives me crazy.
Yeah, a lot of these broads are.
These broads, let me tell you.
I'm the messy ones.
Messy worlds.
And I'm really meticulous.
I like my space really neat.
No kidding.
So all my stuff's downstairs and my sauna, I work out.
out and I saw it and then the shower's right there.
You got the sauna at the house.
Is it like build in or do you buy like one and it's like...
I bought a cheapo one.
It was like $1,500 on Amazon.
Yeah, I got one too.
But it's an infrared and I sit in there.
It's great.
I got a cold plunge.
Bert Crasher gave me a cold plunge.
There you go.
Shout out, Bert.
Shout out Bert.
Shout out to Bert with the cold plugs.
He's done more for coal plunging.
Yes, he has.
The man.
He's on a bit of a tear at the moment.
I don't know if you've seen pictures.
Oh, is he?
These guys going after it.
He's drinking.
When I was talking to the bonfire guys, we were talking about my last time off the wagon,
and Jay says, with Bert Chrysher, I'm sure, and it was.
It was actually with Bert.
Yeah.
It was like a couple years ago.
And there's just, I mean, he's the machine that's the story, but like, it's just fun drinking.
Oh, he's the best.
It's just, we're going out on the road with him, and it's just like, it's a good time.
God bless you.
We were in Tennessee with him.
We ended up in a frat party, and that was awesome.
It was the cool, it was the coolest night of our lives.
Oh, I'm sure.
And, man, the last night we were with him, the porosis hadn't just come out, but that was our first time drinking it.
Man, that was going down too smooth, and I was hammered.
Man, he's...
Falling through a hotel in West Virginia.
Oh, man.
God, he's the best.
Like, I remember the first time I met him, I was, like, hungover, and I showed up at his house just in rough shape, you know.
And I told him, I'm in rough shape, buddy.
He was like, I'll set you up.
Yeah.
He took good care of me.
He's the best.
He had, like, a cute.
Bureig machine, but for, like, uh, cocktails.
Of course he can.
Which I'd never seen anything like that.
And then me and him just went.
An Ivy of Greyhound?
Yeah, we went beer for beer on the podcast, and we talked for like three hours.
Yeah.
I've watched that, a very, uh, very, very good episode, yeah.
You can see me getting more and more drunk.
There's like a line where you like start straightening out and then you teeter the other way.
Yeah.
You're like, you know, for sure.
And you know what I had to do the next day, uh, I had to speak at a, like a sober nation event.
So the first thing I had to do when I walked in there was like, hey, I'm on over.
Stay away from Bert Kreisher.
The thing about the wagon is you fall off, you get back on.
You know, I had to do that whole speech.
But, yeah, that was a dark day.
In his defense, he didn't know I had to speak at us.
Of course.
Yeah, it hurts the best.
I'll tell you, he has like this fatherly just feel good around him.
You know what I mean?
Just the best.
I mean, Lee, I mean, listen.
where are we at
the most interesting man in the world for sure
a couple of questions you open your eyes
underwater in the pool
hmm
I gotta say no
no to that one how do you feel about the rotissory chicken
love it
big fan my wife too
yeah I knew I knew I was going to marry
my wife she was
on Molly in a field at a festival
it's like our third date and she ate a whole
rotissory chicken with her bare hands
Yeah.
Good for her.
Yeah.
This is it.
Will you be the rotisserie chicken in my life?
Will you dance at a wedding?
If I'm drinking, which I'm not anymore.
Gotcha.
Do you do karaoke, and if so, do you have a go-to song?
Last time we did it, I did The Rooster by Allison Jains.
Wow.
My wife hosted a afterbash thing where they did karaoke at this bar in Charleston,
and I got up and I sang the rooster.
with my trumpet player.
That's awesome.
It's a good time.
Do you have a favorite cover?
Favorite cover.
Rambling, man, almond brothers.
You're an almond brother's guy.
I am.
Yeah, throwing through, right?
Big time.
Can't beat that.
What do you call, like, a gentleman's club, you know, if you were going.
Where people dance.
What were you saying, like, let's go to the?
I'd say strip club.
Strip club.
Okay.
That's the middle.
Gentleman's Club, strip club, titty bar.
Titty bar is a bad luck.
Titty bar, yeah.
Titty bars.
You've been to the strip club too much when you start calling it a titty bar.
You said it before, but how would you naturally said?
Is it ground beef or is it hamburger meat?
Ground beef.
Okay.
Gentlemen?
You got name brand luggage?
You got good luggage?
I've got vintage luggage.
You're a vintage guy.
Yeah.
How much was that shirt?
This was probably like 20 bucks.
I heard him say new old stock.
Yeah.
Which is it, which is, that is a very specific thing to know in vintage, correct?
Yeah.
Yeah. New old stock is it was made at the time, but it's never been used.
Right.
Yeah.
Oh, no kidding.
So it was made in the 70s or 80s, 90s.
How does that happen?
I don't know.
Sitting in a warehouse?
Yeah, stores, whatever.
Do you have like the old luggage, like the handle thing?
Yeah, there's one of my suitcase.
I got a duffel bag.
I've got this great leather duffel bag and the bottom zips and I can put my boots.
in there and my big luggage is like a it's like a wardrobe or like a I got you like it folds
down and it opens up and then you unzip it and when you close it up it looks like a suitcase
it was made by American Tourister in the 70s 60s and 70s and how many pairs of boots do you have
man I love cowboy boots so you have a bunch that's he's prefacing to be a lot when you go out
when you go out on the road do you just bring one pair so me and the band have
a wardrobe closet on the road so everything's just there nice it's like a little you know house
so you just going to grab it and is that who's choosing that and when is that chosen like what
you're wearing that night or is it the same every night is it just like hey I have five shirts I pick
from it's kind of a variation like we went out like we've been on the road a long time with
chris stapleton sure and he wears the same thing every day and there's a lot of piece in that
and I have kind of a variation of the same thing
but it's just you'd be surprised just that one thing you don't have to think about
I'm right there with you know I have the I have three things and it's a very it's like a black
dicky's jacket it's a you know a car heart shirt it's all the same
jack white did that emphasis for yeah for a long time
well you put your hand on the wall when you're peeing at a urinal I will
really I one time I was in the Bahamas because my manager has a house now
there. Okay. I noticed that every urinal I went to, they had like a pad, like a cushy pad on the
top of every urinal. And I finally asked somebody that's like, that's just for anybody that,
you know, needs to rest their head. Rest their head. I said, well, now, this is living.
That's a motion I can get behind it. These guys are leaning their head against this pad on top
of the urinal. It's crazy to me. Are you a cologne guy? There's one cologne I like, and there's
John Varvado's, and it was given to me
because I've known John a long time.
Do you know John Varvadoes?
I do.
What?
Yeah.
How?
I met him through a friend of mine who, uh, he actually, one of the...
This is not stupid I am.
I thought he was, I thought he was, like, Louis Vuitton or whatever.
I thought it was just like an old famous guy.
I knew you were a vampire.
I get him.
I met him through a mutual friend, and, uh, he, uh, I think we were doing like Fallon or something,
and he got me in the band, you know, looking right.
No kidding.
And he had this cologne, and I was never really a cologne guy.
I used to do, like, petulia oil.
Really?
And I smelled it and I really liked it.
You were a patruly guy.
I was in high school.
It was rough.
Oh, the wonder why he didn't have any friends.
What are you doing with that?
Smelling like wood chips.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, no good.
Okay.
I mean, how many suits do you own?
Suits, that's another thing.
Because you have, like, I've seen you in, like, the vintage suits and stuff.
When he was going into Kill Tony last year, they looked real sharp.
Yeah.
We were an elevator behind you.
Oh, yeah.
We saw you.
I was looking, I'm like, yeah, we were sitting in the window.
I fucking is, Marcus, yeah.
I love my Western suits.
Yeah.
How many of those do you think you have?
Yeah, a closet full.
Closet full.
Yeah.
Yeah, good for you.
Walk in closet at the house?
The wife does.
Uh-huh.
My stuff's kind of dispersed.
Gotcha.
You know?
Gotcha.
You know?
Got to the boots. How many do you think you have?
50?
50's high.
50's high.
I'd say probably like 10 or 12.
10 or 12.
Oh, that's...
Can you wear them freshly?
Can you get a pair?
Like, say you got a show tonight.
Right.
You go see a new pair of boots you like.
Can you throw them on and go play or do you got to break them in a little bit?
Yeah, my dogs are really fussy.
Okay.
Man, what a way to put that.
I got a guy...
Short the encore, huh?
My dogs are barking.
My dogs are barking.
I got a guy in Nashville who makes a lot of my boots now.
He just...
Makes them?
Yeah.
This guy named Wes.
His company is called Music City Leather, and he makes him in his basement.
No kidding.
And he's just, you know.
Can they break them in for you or no?
That's something you have to do on your own.
See, like, the more you're willing to spend on a pair of boots,
the less the break-in period is going to be.
Gotcha.
And whenever I talk to people about buying cowboy boots, like, I've got every rung.
And, like, you know, I don't want to name any names, but, like, the cheaper ones,
like, I can't go buy them off the shelf and go play a gig where my feet will be heard.
But no names aren't.
cheaper one like a hundred bucks 200 bucks yeah i mean like 500 bucks you don't really want to
spend less than that on cowboy boots what's the most you've ever spent four thousand dollars
yeah that's what i'm talking about that's what we're looking for get a call from the accountant
what the hell did you do what are you doing and i was like i said look this is a ride-off
and they said no you can't do this as a ride off you know it's really only something like this is
Literally the example they gave me was just like Lady Gaga's meat dress would be a ride-off
because she can't wear that out in public.
And I was like, no, no, no, these boots.
I ain't wasting a good New York strip.
Yeah.
So these boots are blue, they're suede.
You cannot, I can not wear these boots outside.
So they're only worn for work.
Just for performing.
And I said, you ride them off.
There you go.
And they said, well, we better not catch you wearing them at the grocery store or something.
That's also a tough one you get caught in a fucking blue suede boots.
These ain't the ones I was talking about.
It's another pair
I mean
Listen I got to call it
This guy's walking
I mean I love
He's something
He's all class
You know
What are you thinking
He's trash baby
He's 100% garbage
And we love it
Thank God
Are you kidding me?
Man so good
Mr. Marcus King
What a home run
Absolutely fantastic
Do I one last question
Are you a fast food guy
Oh yeah
What do you like
Mean you
Just me and you
I mean
We'll cut this.
I mean, McDonald's.
You're a McKinsey's guy.
Classic.
McDonald's, double quarter-pounder,
fillet fish.
The fillet fish kicker.
There was any question if he's trash or not.
There was any question.
There it is.
There it is.
The fillet of fish kick.
Marcus King, the brand new LP.
Darling Blue is out right now.
Buddy, congratulations.
Unbelievable tale.
We love you so much.
Thanks for having me.
Anything else you want the folks aren't there to know?
Just thanks for having me, man.
That's it.
Love it about it.
Appreciate you, man.
Gang, we love you.
We'll see you next week.
Peace.
