Bear Grease - Ep. 359: Making the Common Things Noble with Evan Felker of Turnpike Troubadours

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

On this episode Clay interviews Evan Felker, the frontman of the Turnpike Troubadours. Join Clay and Evan on a horse ride near Evan’s ranch and then to the legendary Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa to hear Evan play live. We’ll learn about Evan’s songwriting, his horse training, and his personal recovery from alcohol. If you have comments on the show, send us a note to [e-mail] Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights field wear collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days in real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season.

Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. And I remember riding it and playing it acoustic for people, and nobody knew what to think about it, because it was just this sort of long thing that was hard to grasp onto.

And I remember thinking, like, I know it's good. You know, I think that we released it as a single, the first single off that record, just as like a sort of punk rock idea, like nobody tells us what to do, so we're going to release a five-minute waltz about bird hunting at the country radio. on this episode we're riding horses with Evan Felker

the front man of the turnpike troubadours then we'll go to a live show at the legendary Kane's ballroom in Tulsa I'm trying to understand what connects us to the music that we love specifically the lyrics and I'm trying to figure out why I like so dang much the turnpike troubadours music but really my questions are around

Evan's songwriting, his connection to rural America, and I'm hoping to get a peek into the authenticity that exudes from his music. In the end, Evan opens up about some of his personal trials. And we'll see that when he talks about the price of admission, he's talking about pain. This is a unique episode of Bear Grease. I really doubt that you're going to want to miss this one. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is the Bear Grease podcast. where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant.

Search for insight in unlikely places and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. Presented by FHF Gear, American-made, purpose-built, hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. I'm on a sandy backroad in central Oklahoma with a canopy of post oak limbs arching above the horse.

horse trailer like the ceiling of a cathedral. Oh, you got the side door over there. She'll get out of it. Come on, baby. Tell me about that horse, Evan. She's a metallic malice-owned daughter. She's got about 30 rides on her. So who trains them for you?

I put all the rides on this horse. Oh, really? So you train that one from the ground up? Yeah. That's all. I didn't know you were. Yeah, that's why I was. I like riding them, right?

Some have said that Evan Felker is one of the best songwriters of his generation. That's the reason that I know his name. He talks about Browning Auto Fives, Old Bird Dogs, and Elk. But more than that, he's really good at pinpointing peculiar, familiar moments in normal life. But his songwriting isn't the main thing that I'm interested in. I'm on my paint mule, Izzy, and Evan on his bay-roan Philly, he calls Out. We're going to make a big loop through some leased cattle land. It's funny you ride this you ride this Philly by herself and she boogers at everything.

You put one horse around her and she's fine. When you break them, Evan, do you... We all go real slow with them and... So you don't really ever expect them to buck or do anything. You do it right, they don't. You do it right, they don't. Some of them will, but you want to keep them from it. Yeah.

Well that was kind of the old method of just kind of like cowboy breaking them out. Like cowboy breaking them, you know? Yeah. Not many people do that anymore because it's not as good, I guess. Horsemanship has come a long way in the last generation. People aren't as likely to just jump on an untrained horse and ride out their buck. It's because there's a better way. It's slower, more methodical, and you just can't gain the trust of a horse by extracting it by force.

And in a way, this is kind of how Evan writes music. He writes it the old-fashioned way. and that has separated him in a crowded haze of musicians. He doesn't write mainstream stuff like the creative song think tanks of Nashville. His songs are allegories from his life, uniquely connected to this place that he lives, rural Oklahoma. We've opened a barbed wire gate, limp from the summer heat. There aren't many country music stars that train their own quarter horses. Evan tell me about your horse training.

You know, try to get them where you can ride them around two-year-olds. And then, man, we just kind of start them, start them in the round pin a little bit. Have you been doing that a lot of your life? Kind of. I really got serious about it in my mid-third, about six years ago, five years ago. I got really, really into learning a lot more about it. What do you love about it? What do you love about it? I like it because it's one way.

it's one way to not worry about anything else other than what you're doing. And I mean it being horseback is just, and it's just good exercise, it's good for your patience, you know, because you can't rush them, you can't push on them. You can push on the, even training those dogs, you can push them too hard, but I mean I can't, I'm not gonna push a horse too hard. Number one, it's too, it's kind of dangerous. Number two, it's too much work to fix. So why is that therapeutic?

I don't know. It just relaxes a part of your mind that's, is active all the time. And then, you know, obviously, a lot of the time you might be like on that first ride and doing stuff like that. You might be a little bit nervous there, but it's a healthy kind of being over-aware. You don't have any anxiety about your electric bill, you know, or whatever it happens to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you really have to be present. Yeah.

I mean, you have to really be present. 100% you have to be present. And once you're there, you don't have to worry about, you don't have any anxiety about anything else because you are actually in the moment that you're in. I guess there's different, I use the word fear. Oh, I use the word fear. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You've got to overcome a lot of fear. Fear and respect are pretty close cousins, you know. Fear and respect are pretty close cousins. And when you're on the back of a young horse, it takes all of you. There's none of you left to worry. We're in open pasture, and at the edge of the woodline, I heard of white-spotted Corriente cattle spook into the timber,

acting like they've never seen a man on horseback. Evan has been through some hard times in his life. I wonder if he's going to open up to me about that. Sometimes cowboys don't trust mule guys. It's too soon to tell. The next question is kind of a gamble for this early in the ride. I want to ask him about his dad. And if you've listened to the song On the Red River,

you know that his father passed away. Your dad was a, the way he made living was cowboying. Is that right? Oh, he worked here for a little while. He worked for some ranches and stuff, but he's a, he's a welder and a, he's still pipeline weld and stuff. So your dad's still alive?

Yeah, my dad's, I had a sandwich with him yesterday. It's a miracle, yeah. It's like he's been raised for, for the last three months listening to that album. I thought van was dead. He felt real bad. for me, huh? I was like, man, poor Evan. No, he's just in fair view. Yeah. That's all kind of a, that story's pretty well fiction. I mean, it's like a composite, composite story, yeah. But he did some

day working. Yeah, day working and, I mean, he was a, he was a ranch hand for a guy that had a bunch of land up here. What I just did would be equivalent to meeting an actor and being surprised to learn what you thought was a documentary about them was actually a fictional drive. I'm slightly embarrassed, but it's a compliment to how good the writing is. But then we have another awkward moment. We're riding with a couple of Evan's buddies, and I ask one of them how old he is. Evan kind of thinks that's a funny question. Now, how old are you?

It's just a weird thing to ask your buddies. Yeah, I can ask you on your birthday. But I flip the script on him. Now, how old are you, Evan? 41. 41. 41. Okay.

I've had more fun so far in my 40s than I have, I think, than I had probably in my 30s combined. I don't know. My late 30s were pretty cool. What are you been doing that's been fun? Oh, I don't know. I mean, I've been, had kids, been sober, got to go do more shit. I mean, I've been overseas once and rode some good horses, drug some cabs, you know. Yeah.

Wrote this for my kiddos, for my lovely wife, and for my mother. I grew up in a little sawmill town down in southeast Oklahoma called Wright City, Oklahoma. The entire town of Wright City, Oklahoma's here, I think. And the sawmill lights have shone so bright you could barely see the stars. But we caught a cup, will fall now on a blanket in the yard. You're winding down from a late shift down at the nursing home. And it feels so good to be of a late pretending. Some stuff happened in Evans' life that made it better.

Well, he made some hard choices and has done a bunch of work that has made it better. More on that later. I'm backstage at Kane's Ballroom in Tulsa. I've got some questions for somebody that I know will have some answers. Tell me your name of what you do. Yeah, so my name is Patty Skace and I am Turnpike's manager. I've been managing them since they came back. So I think kind of summer 2021 was when we started.

Yeah. Patty's wearing a flat bill hat and a pearl snap shirt with a saguaro cactus on the chest. He's unpretentious, the kind of guy that makes you feel comfortable. You may have noticed him saying since the band came back, Something happened around 2019. The Turnpike Tribadors are a country band, but they sure are different. I ask Patty why. I mean, I think that it's the way that the lyrics interact with the music, which sounds crazy, but like, you know, I think that the way that the band really helps feature Evans' lyrics and the lyrics R.C. and the other writers that they work with.

but like it's the songs have a surface level kind of like bop. They're like easy songs to listen to that have really kind of deep, complicated meanings when you start to listen, when you start to really dig into the lyrics. And I think the way that those two things work is what makes Turnpike Great. Yeah. So I think that the way that he writes paints a picture and it feels very like literary. So it's it's he's able to, in a couple of.

words, like paint an entire picture and create a whole scene. Like, like, you know, like in before the devil knows your dad, it's square hay on the meadows, second cutting of the year. So just, that just sounds good. But you're like, okay, so I know that the, that the hay's been cut twice, the work's done. And it tells you so much while saying, like, with so few words, it tells you so much. And so I just think that the way that Evan is able to do that in his writing really paints the pictures for, you know, for for the music. So, but how do you how does someone get that? Like how do you write like that? You pretty much have to be there. You have to know, you have to you have to actually be what you are singing about. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, you can't, you can't. You can't.

We can't fake it, that's for sure. We're an hour out from Showtime and Evans picking his Gibson guitar. I'm pretty sure that he's wearing the exact same Blue Rangler buttoned up shirt that he wore when we went riding. He mentions that he brought dressier clothes, but figures he'll just wear his work clothes tonight. That's pretty turnpikey. I doubt it. Probably not. He got like 10 songs there?

Yeah, it might be 10 or 12, 13. He's got a piece of cardboard in front of him, and he's writing a bunch of songs down, the playlist for the night in Black Sharpie. I want to talk to Evan about his music and life. I don't really hang out with a ton of musicians, and I start this interview off all wrong, but I just can't help it. I go straight in with a cliche question about my favorite song that he's written. Probably similar to the same thing a fan might say if they met him in an airport. I felt like I had no choice. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls

and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. if you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right?

That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers

who just want to start making good. turkey noises and getting action. I think the greatest song ever written for sportsmen, and I would have said this before I knew you, is the bird hunters. I think that that song, connected with me because of my grandfather was a bird hunter, but what I've found about my grandfather's story that surprised me is that a lot of people, if not one generation, two generations back in the southeast and in the Midwest and this part of the country have somebody that was a bird hunter. Yep.

When did you write that? Probably 2014 or something, whenever we were getting ready for the self-titled record. 2014. Yeah, I was here in Okina when I finished it. And I remember riding it and playing it acoustic for people, and nobody knew what to think about it because it was just this sort of long thing that was hard to grasp onto at that point in time. and I remember thinking like, I know it's good.

Like, I know it's got potential. You know, I think that we released it as a single, the first single off that record, just as like a sort of punk rock idea, like nobody tells us what to do, so we're going to release a five-minute waltz about bird hunting

into country radio, you know? Did it immediately take off? Pretty much. Yeah, that song resonated pretty quickly. Now, in 2014,

you were pretty established. Or were you? You know, it's been a long gradual trip, but yeah, we were able to play a lot of places. We weren't big, you know. I mean, we had some big shows in Texas and stuff, but we weren't. We were just a club band.

Was that a song that set you off, or am I, are we fixated on that song because we're hunters? You know, it's not like it was a commercial success. And in that era of sort of before COVID, I mean, most of us were all just, playing bars or like thousand-seaters, maybe playing, you know,

we felt like we were pretty lucky playing theaters. We weren't really getting any radio play. You know, like we played... It was a single in Texas. You know, we're an independent band, so it wasn't as though it was, like, going to get national airplay. Not that it would have mattered either.

Maybe it's probably not that kind of song anyway. Is that one of your most popular songs? Yeah, I played every night. Played every night. Do you get tired of people talking to you about it? No, I'm surprised anybody. I'm surprised that it got to have as much life as it has. It's one of my favorite things.

Is it one of your favorites? Oh, yeah, for sure. Maybe my favorite one of done. Now, is it your favorite because it was a success, or is it your favorite just because it was your favorite? It's my favorite because it was sort of exploring new territory for me, and it resonated. You know what I mean?

It was like an experiment that resonated, and that's always a really good feeling. I still sort of live that through that song every time I play it, even though it's not necessarily about like, not totally about my life per se, but all the characters in it are based on people, you know, like me or my buddies or,

you know, these things that happened. That's allegory for, you know, like the love story is not necessarily a love story, but it's allegory for some stuff. And it's personal to me in its way, you know.

The cubby took wing and looked back. I fumbled around and tried to read. In the song, westward singing this place. With my heads around a belt. My mind on the lines of her face. In the song, two buddies go quail hunting, and the narrator recounts about when he left their small town

for a girl in the city. Now he's back, broken-hearted, thinking about how things might have been different. Danny, the narrator's friend, has gotten older, their bird dog gym is now much older, but the land they've hunted since they were kids hasn't changed. The story and the characters develop quickly, but I'll tell you what stood out most of me. The narrator, who in my head is Evan Felker. Sure.

It's you. It's not far off, yeah. You left your bird dog, though, to go to the town with this girl. Yeah. And that, anybody from... from rural America. They may not have had a bird dog. They may not have actually left town and left their dogs.

But I'm just a data point in America, okay? Yeah. And listen, when I turned 18, went to college. I left my coon dogs at home and ended up selling them my first year of college. Yeah. I think that's a common thing. You know, you grow up doing this stuff and then life happens and you have to figure out how to make a living and whether you're going to be the guy that hangs around town

or whether you're going to be the guy that is going to go try something that nobody's, you know, that nobody he knows has done. And, yeah, that period, I think a lot of bird dogs get, stay in the hometown, you know. Yeah, yeah. Coon dogs too. Well, it's so cool, the thing that attracted me to your music, and like when I heard that song,

there were so many connection points. and that's really what makes a cool song. And I guess is what made that song kind of a gamble for you because it's like how many guys are making good country music about bird dogs? Yeah. Like not very many.

And so the specificity of it was just right to connect. Specificity is a gamble and can be limiting. The lyrics of some of the most popular mainstream songs of all time are usually generic in the details, but that gives them the possibility of wide appeal to a lot of people. Being specific in songwriting is a gamble,

narrowing the options of who might connect with it. But if you get it right, specificity can produce authenticity. But this song doesn't just connect with a rural audience that left behind their hunting dogs. It has a lot more. Yeah, it was real enough. and like the observations were valid enough

that they have somewhat of a universal quality to them, right? I mean, those things happen. And even if they didn't happen in just that exact way, there's something comparable in a lot of our lives. This song has two things that are themes in Turnpike music, specificity describing rural America, but also the universal appeal of a human story, in this case a loss of relationship

and a rekindling of something nostalgic that reminds us of home. When you type into Google, why is Evan Felker's songwriting good? It says, vivid storytelling, autobiographical depth, and connection to his Oklahoma roots.

I'd say that's pretty accurate, but there's more. The other thing that's in that song is the Browning Auto 5. Yeah. That's what I hear most about from hunters because you've got to be pretty deep in the weeds to know what a Browning No5 is.

Yeah, it's very much like, it's funny because there are so many people that that was sort of this bourgeois status symbol of like, you know, you didn't have a whole lot, but you had this really nice shotgun, right? So that was my first shotgun that was my grandpa's who was also a birdhunter, by the way. Oh, I was afraid to ask you had one. That's real. If you told me you didn't, I was going to be like, uh-oh. Yeah, that's legit.

legitimate and i still have that one and that was the gun that i learned how to shoot quail in the hills with too you know so it's laying around here somewhere but yeah my my mom's dad kept kept some bird dogs and he he passed away when she was younger but they she wound up with that and and i got i got that when i gave it to me when i turned whatever 14 so you got your grandfather's brownie out of five yeah yeah i have my grandfather's browning out of five still yet still shoot it that's real so that that's me just sort of put my own sentimental thing in there that I think is neat. I made a huge mistake in not asking Evan to see his Browning Auto 5, but I didn't want to be intrusive.

But I'm trying to understand something about pop music, radio, and songwriters like Evan. I asked Patty, Turnpike's manager, what the difference is between their music and much of the mainstream stuff on the radio. Yeah, so in the difference I would say is is in Nashville A lot of the music not all of it but a lot of the music that comes out for radio is is built is purpose driven for radio It's built to be verse chorus verse chorus verse chorus first chorus first chorus Why does that have to be for radio like why why when you're driving down the road listening do people want that and not something more a little Little just different than that? Yeah, I mean, I think it's why it's, it's, it's, the format was developed to feature music that's written in a really specific way.

So it's like, it's like, you know, ultimately what these radio stations want is just people who will continue to listen, like throughout the day and almost have it as a background music. So when they want you to like stuff, but they more than anything, they don't want people to not like stuff, they don't want people to dislike the music that's playing on the radio. That's the whole goal of the radio. So people aren't making... There's nowhere, they don't want them taking a chance on doing something wild that may not work. But maybe the greatest thing ever written. Totally.

They would rather have something safe and have something that is down the line that keeps people from turning the radio off. A song like the bird hunters was a gamble. Most people who write songs like that, you'll never know their name because their music never makes it mainstream. I asked Evan what he learned from the success of the bird hunters.

It just reaffirmed that like if you're making the right, you know, if you're making the right observations for the right reasons and if it's captivating to you, then it's probably valuable enough to do, you know, and to, it's worth taking a shot, putting it out there to see if it really is. When you say making the right observations, do you mean like in life, like literally? Yeah, what's interesting. What's captivating. Yeah, that's what I mean.

So much of songwriting and being creative is trusting yourself to pursue an idea because it's so easy to have an idea go through your head and just let it go. The more that you go out on a limb and any of these songs that work that reaffirm that that's a valid idea or that's a, you know, go for it,

is good for me. You know, it makes me more productive. And I keep talking about this birdhunter song as if that's the only song you've ever written. But am I hearing you say that that was a pinnacle moment? Yes, because it is sort of out on a limb. It is like not safe. It's not necessarily safe territory, right? Yeah, yeah.

And not that it's like outlandish, but it's not necessarily pedestrian either, you know. It's sort of weird. What do you mean about pedestrian? Well, I mean, like commonplace. it's like a love story set in the middle of quail hunting. Did other stuff that you have written, did you take cues off of what worked there? Yeah, using concrete imagery and setting a scene

and then telling a very broad strokes story with breadcrumbs. Yeah, I like doing that. I mean, because even though that sounds formulaic, it's not necessarily easy enough that they all come out the same necessarily. So it's like nice to have that approach in your back pocket when you go sit down somewhere. Now tell me about your actual experience with bird dogs. Yeah, I've had a kind of a love affair with pointer dogs since I was 17 or 18.

When I got my first dog, I went hunting in kind of the pine timber and stuff down in southeast Oklahoma with some friends. and I remember I was just talking to a friend of mine about this because he took me and I realized at that point in time that I couldn't shoot. I was not nearly fast enough to shoot a ball white in the timber because the first cover of your eyes went up and I never shot. They were gone before I even like had the wherewithal

they even think about it. And I was like, oh, this is hard. It's really challenging to get to that point where you can really get up and shoot them and be effective. And on top of that, you know, train these dogs. and I've always liked messing with dogs. But yeah, it's just, it seemed like magic or something.

I don't know. It still does every once in a while. And you have bird dogs today. Yeah, we have bird dogs today. What about the song, your housefire song? Is your house burned down? No. No, I'm a fraud.

I've told you, I'm a fraud. That is based on one of our neighbors' account. of their house burning. I think their house burnt twice, oddly enough. But he just talked about waking up and it was happening and they got outside and then by the time he got back in, they couldn't get anything, you know,

and how quickly it happened. What inspired you to write that song? And I think that's a great example. That song is a great example of you picking out something that's interesting that we wouldn't think was. Exactly. If you just looked in my head,

there's no place that I would think about a house fire. But when that song makes us all think what it would be like to lose everything. Well, you know, so the person that was telling me about it when I was

and I was a kid too and maybe they weren't even telling me, maybe they were just talking to somebody and I overheard it. And it seemed, it's just like this huge event in someone's life on top of like I don't know how to say what I'm what I mean necessarily like it has so many layers like there's loss of possessions there's

you know danger there's action and there's like the sentimentality of of this stuff and the uncertainty of knowing what you got to do and and so to put yourself in that spot seemed interesting and so you but you were able just to like pick that kind of out of the air yeah because it was interesting housefire probably was the first turnpike troubadour song that I consciously remember listening to and I'll tell you the verse that hooked me it was when Lori takes the baby outside and wraps the child in a car heart coat that she found in my ride yeah and man again that was one of those connector moments yeah it was as if I was the only person in America that had a car heart coat in their truck.

And I remember just being like, who are these guys? But I think that's the detail in any good song, but to me it stands out in your work is finding specificity that's kind of obscure that really stands out.

Yeah. And you probably handpick your audience in a way by what you talk about because now, now, Carhart of all things today is like a hipster gear. It's so funny. I was like,

me and you were like pre-hypster carhart guys but you probably kind of select for the kind of people that would identify yeah that's what my dad would have in his truck like that's what guys in this area and tax bracket war in the winter time yeah right and yeah carhart did all the heavy lifting by the brand the brand name that had been around for 80 years yeah they love it for that man yeah they ought to get you know what they they should behind you. I think they should. I don't think they need me anymore with the hipster.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you probably helped make them hipster. Oh, no. How did growing up where you did affect the way that you write and play music? You know, I don't know. I know that it did, but it's something that, like, now looking back on it, and I think a lot of people feel this way, probably, especially if you're kind of from a rural environment, you grew up in a pretty, special place.

And, you know, we were far enough from cities and stuff that I feel like the people were particularly interesting because they grew up a different way. Or they, you know, I feel like, you know, everything was like a generation behind, you know. So, you know, I grew up like the same as like reading a field and stream article about some kid in the 70s or something like that. You know what I mean? Like I don't feel like my life was my, my experience. experience with childhood was that much different than that stuff.

But the normalcy of it, I mean, that's kind of the beauty of it, is that for this part of the world, you probably did have a normal childhood. Yeah. But somebody that can turn that into art that paints a picture of a culture, that's really powerful. Yeah. And so oftentimes you think that somebody that's making art might have some, like, super unique insights into something, but maybe they don't. Maybe they're like really good at just

observing the common things and making them noble or maybe not even noble, but just interesting. It's wild how tickled people get when they connect with the song, even at the most base level. Like me saying, you singing about a carhart jacket watered up in your truck, told me a lot about who this guy was whose house burned down. And I like that. That could be one of my buddies or that could have been me or that could have been my dad or whatever. And why does that make me like the song? Because I see Carhart coats watered up in the back of trucks all the time. It's like not even that special.

But there's something about making it into art that's... I think that we're all looking for some kind of connection with that stuff, you know? And it's nice when you get to feel that. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps Game Calls and building each of our own favorite. favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest.

It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut

and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. Turnpike started in 2006 in obscurity

like thousands of other bands, maybe millions, but by 2014, even before the release of the bird hunters, the band was in a category that few musicians ever find themselves in. They were popular and successful by anyone's metric. But in 2019, things came to an abrupt stop when something happened to the turnpike troubadours. This is a clip from the YouTube channel Countrycast, published about six years ago. The Turnpike Trubadors have recently canceled several shows abruptly again over this past Memorial Day weekend. And according to an article by Whiskey Riff earlier in May, there were rumors circulating that Turnpike Trubidor's frontman, Evan Felker, appeared to be under the influence and has had a hard time performing.

And after a benefit concert in Guthrie, Oklahoma, fans of the band turned to social media to share their thoughts and prayers. During that show, Felker appeared to have a very hard time throughout the performance. And now a post was made to Turnpike Trubador's official Instagram page where it read, This weekend shows are unfortunately not going to happen for Turnpike Trubadors. On behalf of the band, we apologize for all the cancellations previously and this weekend. We are saddened by the situation and want you all to know we tried our best to stay positive during this stressful time. However, we have been standing at the crossroads, optimistically in hopes of healing,

but it was not meant to be. We ask for your prayers and support, as it is our hope that our brother receives the encouragement and the help he needs. Thank you for all the sold-out shows, the memories, and support. Fans have since gone to social media. I remember when this happened. I didn't know Evan at the time,

but I've got to admit that my response was quite self-interested. I thought, that's a shame. I really like those guys' music. And there was this assumption that they wouldn't be making any more of it. I was disconnected and my empathy or thought about Evan and his family were non-existent. Evan was living out his own words. He was paying the price of admission, which was pain, something every human can relate to. Evan was an alcoholic and for the first time in his life, he knew he had to change.

when the band broke up in 2019 when you stopped playing what was that like how did you how did you know you had a problem how did you know how to fix it well i didn't i knew that there was a problem i wasn't 100% sure it was me turns out it was um but uh but i just i just did some deductive reasoning came to the conclusion that I was a part of the problem no the the whole problem the problem so I it was one of those things I just been in the bars so long and like all this stuff was going on I said to be it all with everything to do with the public like I just wanted to go live off the grid somewhere not maybe not off the grid but like hide out somewhere you know and so I did and things were pretty good for a while you know where did you go I went down to to southeast Texas to to to my

buddy's place down there and I just lived down there and we duck on it. I mean, life was great. But then eventually, you know, it caught back up with me, you know, and I just still just drink it too much and everything. So you thought you could just a shift in geographic location? Yeah, which is like the textbook first thing anybody with a drug or alcohol problem does is they change where they are. Okay. Yeah. And you know, like we, I lived in this situation where, you know, I was like hanging out somewhere every two or three months and it was a party every time I went there. So it didn't matter for a long time. And then finally it caught up with me where I was just not really able to play very well or I couldn't keep my act together well enough to keep from getting like too drunk before I played, you know. And so then it started to cause problems there.

Not that it wasn't causing problems everywhere else. It just caused problems on the stage too, and it was just turning into too much. And we played so much over and over, just never ending. And, like, it really did feel like I was never going to, we weren't ever going to take a breath. Were your bandmates trying to talk to you? Did you have people around you that are like, Evan, you drink too much? They all drink way too much, too. I mean, you know what I mean?

Like, it wasn't like I wasn't the only. I mean, I might have been the main problem, but I wasn't the only person. It was a good place for a person with a drinking problem. We were pretty rowdy. Yeah, just the job description. We were a drinking band. Like, we were a drinking bar band, drinking whiskey on stage, you know. Just like, it was just life.

How do you feel about alcohol now? Like, even with your kids, with other people's kids, like, your influential guys. like you're an influential guy, how would you want the message that you would send about alcohol? What would that be? In general, I don't think that there's any problem with alcohol other than I can't have any. That's the only problem with alcohol. Like, I don't care. I mean, people do do what they want, but it's not for me, you know?

And the message that I would send is that that's not a big deal. There are going to be some people that hear this that should probably assess their drinking. And there is like a really good life on the other side of not drinking anymore. So the not big deal is you don't need this to have a great life. Yeah, you remove one little thing from your life and it solves 97% of your problems. That's not a bad tradeoff. Yeah. I mean, life is kind of amazing.

And it doesn't seem normal. You see stuff on TV about, like, you know, everything to do with the recovery community and, like, everything to do with post-addiction people that you see is, like, these sort of sad zombies that are sort of drifting through life and, like, don't have happiness. And, you know, my life is extremely full. And, like, I get to go, we got to have this morning today, you know, like, I get to, I got to go to Alaska with Steve. this, you know, if I was drinking at all, that would have not happened. Like, every opportunity that I get now is directly correlated with the fact that I don't drink anymore, you know? How do you, how would you describe sobriety?

Like, as I understand, just hearing you, I mean, like, you were drinking a lot. And just the clarity inside of life that comes when you're not, when you're not using this thing to cope with the difficulties of life. I don't know. Yeah. so there's one thing that happens so like I drink a lot and number one I didn't do a whole lot of anything

and it was still fun like alcohol makes doing nothing fun so the only answer to that is like do something that's actually fun so actually be actually go ride a cold go like actually be productive yeah and I mean isn't that the the lie of any kind of addiction is

yeah I had a guy one time that I worked with yeah that was kind of an old drug And I had never used drugs. And he told me something I'll never forget. He said drugs, and it was just like the simple thing. He said, drugs take a normal day and make it the most incredible day you've ever had in your life. And that's obviously the biggest deception like of all time. Exactly.

Because you're sitting on your couch having like a trip. Yeah. I mean, I guess that's the fallacy of the whole addiction world. It might make it seem interesting or lend the illusion of a, interest, but you see it, listen back to a conversation that you have. Like, do, I know that nobody that drinks wants to hear themselves talk while they're drunk, ever. Come on. You know, like, it's fine.

But like, now you're, you're going out and actually doing interesting things. Yeah. I do my best, you know, I try to. And productive. Mm-hmm. Can be. Some days I'm productive too, yeah. But on my, on my worst day now, like, I'm still 10 times more people.

productive than I ever was. But what's the difference between somebody that can handle it and somebody that can't? Oh, yeah. So there's like a part of addiction is physiology, and there are those of us who are going to be more prone to that. You know, part of it's maybe just overexposure too. That happens too. But the question was, what's the difference in people that can handle it and people that can't? Well, if it's causing you problems, or let's say,

This is a very, very simple way to do it. If when you start drinking, you can't control how much you drink after you've had one or two, then you have a drinking problem. So you're saying just that loss of control is the signal. That's the signal. And that's probably where people get screwed up because it's so hard for somebody to admit they have a problem. Any part of life. It's the worst, yeah. I mean, not even with alcohol, but like just a human problem is a condition where we have,

difficulty assessing our own issues to say, okay, I have a problem, whether it's a anger problem or a problem with your finances or a problem with your relationship or a problem. Like we have a hard time saying, okay, this is a problem because it's out of control. Yeah, it's not necessarily admitting that there is a problem. It's admitting that you need help solving it. Hence the whole help thing. What brought you to being able to do that? I tried everything on my own, and my life was just becoming.

and more and more unmanageable. Just sloppy. Were you really like miserable? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And mine was a pretty cut and dried case of it, which I'm very grateful for.

It's something that I don't want to go back to. Yeah. Not, you know, I would never, ever want to. Evan's life is a lot different than it used to be. In April of 2022, the band reunited and played their first show since the breakup. I think we were all surprised. It was like the ultimate comeback.

Even fellow Oklahoman Zach Bryan was surprised. And in his song, East Side of Sorrow, he mentions the band's comeback. And it became the stuff of legend. When guys like Zach Bryan start writing songs about your band's comeback, you're beyond the tipping point of influence on the culture. I want to talk to Evan about this.

new chapter in his life. Too much risk of being normal friends. So this is Kansas is where y'all came back to. First show back, yeah. We played here. It's only like three years ago, right? Yeah.

Was it? So crazy. What was that like coming back here? It was amazing. I mean, and it was a big, like, because we weren't all, like, crazy sure we were going to do it again, and then, like, really get out on the road and play.

And so, like, coming back and this stuff was, packed out and everybody was crying. Really? Everybody was crying. There's grown men crying. There was girls crying. Everything. It was children crying.

Old people crying. Wow. No, it was a, it was something else. On April 8th, 2022, Turnpike played their first show back after the hiatus. Now, three and a half years later, here we are. And today, in late August, 2020, Evan is playing an acoustic show back at Keynes. This is his hometown crowd.

Misty and I walk in the back door and sit within 30 feet of Evan on stage. We feel really cool coming in that side door. The place is going wild. All right, Evan just went on the stage. Crowd's cheering. How are we doing tonight, ladies and gentlemen? And I really appreciate y'all packing the place for us. Here we go.

Let's just let him play the whole thing. The cubby took winged with shotguns singing and looked back. I fumbled around and tried to reload. The country was cold where the sun westward singing. It's good to be back in this place with my hands around. I bet my mind on the line. of her face. But now Danny's my buddy,

we grew up like family. We hunted this timber before we could drive. In the old English pointer, it won't belong to me. But I gave him out and I moved an old file. Off with a girl, up to the city. Up on a wing. Well, I thought it'd play out just like some story.

We fell in love at a road. She said, go answers. Look at old Jim. A dozen decenders for the weather. So does not help you're shooting. And look at the gray in your... That you let it all in. That girl.

Eat a family. She said, go. A dog get pointed and part of me die. Flutter of feathers, then a shotgun, a shoulder July. She'll be home on the 4th July. Says, hell of a shot. Looks like you still got it.

That's what we came here. Oh, it's loud enough still. Still at the foot of the hill You could kick up a single or two She said go to Cherokee County Won't you crawl back with nothing but a race It's hard to nail down what connects us to the music we love Everyone is so different and there is no standard for good music

It's uniquely calculated not in the head but in the heart music is measured by how it moves us, elevates us, how it reminds us of what we value. It reminds us of the hard times, the good times. It reminds us of who we love. Like riding a young cult, music momentarily extracts us from reality, demanding all of our attention, elevating us to our best self. Good music makes us feel like someone has written a soundtrack for our life. It reminds us of something familiar. It brings nobility to the mundaneness of the gift of normal life.

The fruit of good music is simple and childlike, kind of like a nice ride on a good horse through open country. I can't thank you enough for listening to this bear grease feed with old Brent's This Country Life podcast and Lakes Backwoods University. Keep the wild places wild because that's where the bears live. Tell me about your life here in Oklahoma. When I moved down to Texas, I started getting really interested in ranching, getting really interested in cattle.

My buddy let me run some cows down there on his place and help out with his. And then I started from there, we were talking about I had just gotten sober. And so I had this blessing of having this sort of free time to learn all this stuff that I had been missing out because it was stuff that I would have been too scared to do or too drunk to do or whatever. And I had this whole like sort of renaissance period of just like learning all the stuff about cowdogs, all this stuff about horses, riding, running cattle. I mean, life in general, I was back to sort of being a regular dude. Nobody gave a shit about my music.

I didn't stand out in any situation. I was very much humbled, regular guy, you know. And so it rocked on there, and I stayed obsessed with it. I kept doing stuff, kept learning stuff, and we found out we're going to have our second baby. And that's like some of the happiest I've ever been in my entire life was living down there. And I didn't ever want to leave, but I knew that my mom and dad weren't going to get to know our kids. You know, we were kind of being selfish, being that far away from everybody. You know, Stacy's parents wouldn't really get to know them either.

So this place came up for sale, and we threw everything we could together and got it together. It wasn't any stitch a fence on it hardly. And got it to where we could run some cows. I had cattle down there. We moved everything. Moved, moved it. Moved livestock.

And went from, you know, running just a few head to turn it into kind of a functioning kind of operation. I mean, it's still got a long way to go, but we do everything we can with horses and dogs. And, you know, it's something that keeps me busy all the time. You know, there's always something to do. And that, that for me is a good thing to, like, have this stuff. And I'm really, I'm really, like, really proud of it. My kids will get to spend a lot of time out here horseback if they want to.

This is a good part of the world to be a cowboy. Yeah, it's not bad. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for.

I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling. contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out prime cuts at Phelps game calls.com. I think you'll be glad you did and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy to use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.